China Red Cross to provide 200,000 U.S. dollars for Iranian victims of elementary school attack: foreign ministry Xinhua) 16:18, March 13, 2026 BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- China expresses deep condolences regarding the deaths of students in the recent attack on an Iranian elementary school and extends sincere sympathies to their families, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Friday. Guo added that the Red Cross Society of China has decided to provide the Iranian Red Crescent Society with 200,000 U.S. dollars in emergency humanitarian assistance. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 BEIRUT, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli airstrikes continued to pound southern Lebanon on Friday night, killing at least 13 people and hitting the Nepalese battalion's compound of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), according to Lebanese official sources. The Lebanese Health Ministry's Emergency Operations Center said an Israeli strike directly targeted a joint emergency point operated by the Islamic Health Authority and the Islamic Risala Scouts, killing two rescuers and wounding five others. In Nabatieh, six people, including a young girl, were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the city's Al-Rahibat neighborhood, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency. Another Israeli strike on the southern border city of Bint Jbeil killed three people, while two children were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a building in the coastal town of Ghazieh. According to the National News Agency, Israeli shells also landed inside the Nepalese battalion's compound of UNIFIL in the southern Lebanese border village of Mays al-Jabal. The honorary consulate of Nepal in Beirut strongly condemned the attack in a statement, noting that no Nepali soldiers were injured but emphasizing that targeting UN peacekeeping positions is a serious violation of international law and the principles protecting UN personnel. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it carried out several retaliatory operations against Israeli targets. In separate statements, the group said it fired rocket salvos at gatherings of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in Wadi Hunin opposite the Lebanese border village of Markaba and at the newly established Blat military site in southern Lebanon. The group also announced that it targeted the Giv'a drone control base east of the Israeli city of Safed and struck a gathering of Israeli troops in the settlement of Metula for the third time during the day with rocket fire. Later on Friday night, Israel launched a new wave of airstrikes against Beirut's southern suburbs, widely known as Hezbollah's stronghold, marking a further escalation in the ongoing cross-border confrontation. Hezbollah announced the launch of rockets from Lebanon toward Israel on March 2 for the first time since a ceasefire took effect on Nov. 27, 2024. Israel subsequently launched an offensive military campaign against the group, carrying out intensive airstrikes on multiple areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut's southern suburbs. Michelin Property-Ukraine to Hold Shareholders Meeting on April 7 Michelin Property-Ukraine PJSC has announced that it will hold its annual general meeting of shareholders on April 7, 2026. According to the information provided, the companys shareholders are expected to review matters related to the companys current operations as part of the annual corporate procedure. The company discloses additional details of the meeting, including the format and agenda, in an official notice to shareholders. Michelin Property-Ukraine is part of the Ukrainian division of the French Michelin Group, one of the worlds largest tire manufacturers. Nothing introduced the Nothing Phone (4a)-series smartphones on March 5th at its London event, and the phone went on sale on March 13th online. Following the unveiling, Nothing has organized an exclusive first-drop retail event for the phone. The event will take place at the Nothing Store in Bengaluru on March 21st, 2026, at 6:00 12PM IST. This marks the first public retail availability of the device, allowing attendees the opportunity to purchase the smartphone. To remind you, the company held the retail drop for the Nothing Phone (4a) on March 7th. Event Highlights and Promotions The Bengaluru retail drop will feature specific promotional offers for early buyers. The launch-only perks include: Exclusive Bundle: The first 100 customers will receive an exclusive engraved edition of the Phone (4a) Pro, along with a complimentary pair of Nothing Ear earbuds. Venue Details Nothing Store Bengaluru 660/1, 100 Feet Road, 1st Stage Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560038. TOKYO, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A record initial state budget for fiscal 2026 was approved by Japan's lower house on Friday evening with the backing of the ruling coalition's supermajority, amid criticism that the bill was pressed ahead despite controversies surrounding its contents and unusually shortened deliberations. The total size of the draft budget exceeds 122.31 trillion yen (about 769 billion U.S. dollars), marking a record high, with the defense budget also setting a new record of over 9 trillion yen for the first time. The proposal has sparked ongoing debate in Japan since the government unveiled the draft late last year. However, local media pointed out that the deliberation time for the budget bill in the House of Representatives was significantly shortened to about 59 hours, the shortest since 2000. Opposition forces have criticized the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for pushing forward the controversial budget by leveraging its parliamentary majority. Junya Ogawa, leader of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, said the LDP's series of forceful parliamentary maneuvers were "highly abnormal" and reflected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's "arrogance." Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the Democratic Party for the People, noted that the fiscal 2026 budget has reached a record scale and should have been thoroughly debated by elected lawmakers regarding how public funds are allocated, noting that the deliberation process this time "has serious problems." Tomoko Tamura, chair of the Japanese Communist Party, described the ruling party's approach as "power politics." With the passage, the parliamentary battle moves to the House of Councillors from Monday, where the ruling bloc of the LDP and the Japan Innovation Party does not have a majority. Kyodo News said that parliamentary deliberations on the national budget should serve as an important process in which the government and both ruling and opposition parties examine fiscal spending through questioning and debate, seeking a more reasonable allocation of public funds amid differing views. It is also an important window through which the public can understand the government's policy direction, and the government has a responsibility to ensure thorough and careful deliberation, the report said. ATHENS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A Greek-flagged tanker was hit near Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk early Saturday, Greece's Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Vasilis Kikilias said. Speaking to Greek national broadcaster ERT, Kikilias said the vessel sustained limited material damage, and all 24 sailors on board, including 10 Greeks, were safe. The Greek government may raise the issue at the European level if necessary, he said, calling attacks on commercial vessels flying the Greek flag "unacceptable and extremely dangerous." The vessel had departed from the northern Greek port of Thessaloniki without cargo and was scheduled to transport oil. It had been chartered by U.S. energy company Chevron. Authorities are investigating the cause of the strike, which may have involved a drone or a small missile, Kikilias said, noting that similar incidents have occurred in the wider Black Sea region in recent months. State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Zip Code Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2024. From Shanghai to Singapore and beyond, a new generation of tea drink companies is bringing modern Chinese tea culture to international markets. Let's discover how a simple cup of tea is winning fans around the world. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Thu Thursday 65 /40 Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the mid 60s and lows in the low 40s. BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China's rollout of a series of major projects will play an important role in advancing the country's development over the next five years, an expert said on Friday. Hou Yongzhi, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, made the remarks during the latest episode of China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency. China has mapped out 109 major projects over the next five years in areas including the development of new quality productive forces, modern infrastructure, urban-rural integration, and the improvement of people's well-being. These projects span all aspects of China's modernization drive, Hou said, adding that they balance short-term and long-term priorities, combine "hard investment" with "soft development," and promote both material and cultural-ethical advancement. Hou highlighted that some projects focus on enhancing industrial foundation capabilities and competitiveness, fostering new industries and new arenas, advancing frontier technological research, and strengthening innovation capacity. These projects will help foster the new quality productive forces and enable China to gain a greater edge in increasingly fierce global industrial and technological competition, he added. Intensive work with the investigation on Sea Owl I Swedish Cost Guard 13 March 2026 17:09 The ship Sea Owl I, which was boarded by the Swedish Coast Guard and the Swedish Police on Thursday evening, is anchored south of Trelleborg, Sweden. Caffa is also anchored in the same area. The Swedish Coast Guard is working intensively with the ongoing investigations, led by the Swedish Prosecution Authority. Ships not complying with national and international legislation, choosing to violate international agreements, pose a high risk to maritime traffic, ports and the environment. Therefore, the Swedish Coast Guard has decided to intervene in two cases. The shipping business should know that the Swedish Coast Guard maintain order at sea and act to increase safety for those operating in our sea areas. Anyone who violates this order should know that we will intervene when the conditions are right, says Daniel Stenling, Acting Head of the Operations Department at the Swedish Coast Guard. EU sanction designated vessel The Swedish Coast Guard has intervened against suspected violations of maritime law, with the aim of protecting safety on our seas. The operation has taken place against vessels with suspected false flags and lack of seaworthiness. Sea Owl I is on the EU sanctions list. In the case of the Caffa, the deficiencies on board the vessel have proven so serious that the Swedish Transport Agency has decided on a ban on use - the vessel may not continue its voyage until the deficiencies have been rectified. It is not possible to say today whether the Swedish Transport Agency may also issue such a ban regarding the Sea Owl I. Extensive investigations The criminal investigations, concerning crimes of lack of seaworthiness and use of a false documentation, a serious crime, and further violations of the Maritime Act, are led by the Swedish Prosecution Authorityin Malmo. The Swedish Coast Guard carries out the investigative measures announced by the prosecutor. Due to the fact that a large part of the information relating to the suspected crimes is covered by the secrecy of preliminary investigations, the authorities are restricted in sharing information. The prosecutor will return when the investigations are at such a stage that more can be said. The Swedish Prosecution Authorityis continuously updating the information about both investigations on its website. Cooperation with the Police Special Intervention Unit since2006 The Swedish Coast Guard's National Boarding Group has a well-established and well-functioning cooperation with the Police authority and the Police Special Intervention Unitfor special operations in the maritime environment. This cooperation is used events that may become complex and risky.The Swedish Coast Guard has currently no further information about the operation and the investigation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Contracts Contracts for March 13, 2026 ARMY Anduril Industries Inc., Costa Mesa, California, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract with a cumulative total of $20,000,000,000 to consolidate current and future commercial solutionsincluding the proprietary, open-architecture, AI-enabled Lattice suite, integrated hardware, data, computer infrastructure, and technical support servicesinto a unified, mission-ready capability supporting the Army's evolving operational and business needs. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 12, 2036. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W9128Z-26-D-A001). BHDG-Stanley JV,* Marion, Illinois, (W91248-26-D-A001); CEMS Engineering Inc.,* Summerville, South Carolina, (W91248-26-D-A002); GMHill Baker JV LLC,* Jacksonville, Florida, (W91248-26-D-A003); Raymond Pond Federal Solution JV LLC,* Conyers, Georgia, (W91248-26-D-A004); and SBCC-RS&H Joint Venture LLC,* Jacksonville, Florida, (W91248-26-D-A005), were awarded a $249,500,000 order-dependent contract for architect - engineering design services for planning and design of facilities and infrastructure in the Southeast Region. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2036. U.S. Army 419th Contracting Support Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is the contracting activity. AEC Emersion JV,* Columbus, Ohio, (W91248-26-D-A010); BHDG-Stanley JV,* Marion, Illinois (W91248-26-D-A011); G.M. Hill Baker JV LLC,* Jacksonville, Florida, (W91248-26-D-A012); Kenneth Hahn Architects Inc.,* Omaha, Nebraska, (W91248-26-D-A013); Tessere Inc.,* Wichita, Kansas, (W91248-26-D-A014) will compete for each order of the $249,500,000 order-dependent contract for architect - engineering design services for planning and design of facilities and infrastructure in the Midwest Region. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2036. U.S. Army 419th Contracting Support Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is the contracting activity. AE Works Ltd,* Sewickley, Pennsylvania (W91248-26-D-A015); BBIX LLC,* Boston, Massachusetts, (W91248-26-D-A016); BKM Prime AE SB JV LLC,* Baltimore, Maryland, (W91248-26-D-A017); G.M. Hill Baker JV LLC,* Jacksonville, Florida, (W91248-26-D-A018); and MJ-FFA LLC,* Albany, New York, (W91248-26-D-A019), were awarded a $249,500,000 order-dependent contract for Army enterprise architect and engineering design services to support the planning and design of facilities and infrastructure for construction projects in the Northeast Region. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2036. U.S. Army 419th Contracting Support Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is the contracting activity. KAL Architects Inc.,* Irvine, California, (W91248-26-D-A025); OEI-AECOM JV2 LLC,* Dallas, Texas (W91248-26-D-A026); PacRim-TranSystems JV LP,* Orange, California, (W91248-26-D-A027); Raymond Pond Federal Solution JV LLC,* Conyers, Georgia, (W91248-26-D-A028); and S&B Christ Consulting LLC,* Las Vegas, Nevada, (W91248-26-D-A029), were awarded a combined $249,500,000 order-dependent contract for Army enterprise architect and engineering design services to support the planning and design of facilities and infrastructure for construction projects in the West Region. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2036. U.S. Army 419th Contracting Support Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is the contracting activity. The Boeing Co., Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $95,949,499 modification (P00016) to contract W58RGZ-24-C-0028 for performance-based logistics support for depot level repair of Apache Airframe components. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $489,697,502. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2027. Fiscal year 2026 other procurement, Army funds in the amount of $95,949,499 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. The DCODE Group Inc, Washington, D.C., was awarded a $19,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to support the Joint Innovation Outposts Team, which will accelerate decision-making, field advanced capabilities at the pace of technology, and foster innovative environments for rapid Army solution deployment. Work will be performed in Washington District of Columbia, with an estimated completion date of March 12, 2030. Fiscal year 2026 research, development, test, and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $800,000 were obligated at the time of the award. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command, - Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, (W9128Z-26-C-A007). DMZ Builders, Concord, California, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract to replace and repair rial curves. The amount of this action is $12,460,000 with a total cumulative face value of $18,996,000. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Concord, California, with an estimated completion date of April 17, 2027. Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance, defense-wide funds in the amount of $12,460,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sacramento, California, is the contracting activity (W91238-26-C-A003). Varec NV, Mechelen, Belgium, was awarded a firmed-fixed-price contract for M113 track pad shoes. The amount of this action is $9,025,754. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of March 13, 2031. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W912CH-26-D-0030). AIR FORCE Raytheon Co., Marlboro, Massachusetts, has been awarded a ceiling $2,011,063,181 modification (P00011) to a previously awarded contract FA8735-21-D-0001 for Advanced Extremely High Frequency Terminal. This modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $2,971,063,181 from $960,000,000. Work will be performed at Marlboro, Massachusetts; and Largo, Florida, and is expected to be completed by Aug. 9, 2031. There are no funds being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center Strategic Communications Division, Bedford, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity. NAVY The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a not-to-exceed $489,306,966 cost, undefinitized order (N0001926F1055) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N0001921G0006). This order is for the procurement of non-recurring engineering and associated test assets, to include four Beowulf A-Kits, four Gunbay Pallet A-Kits, 12 Beowulf B-Kits, 15 sensor control unit B-Kits, and nine power control unit B-Kits, as well as support equipment in support of the design, development, and integration of the AN/ALQ-264(V) Beowulf upgrade to the existing EA-18G platform. Work will be performed in Baltimore, Maryland (61%); St. Louis, Missouri (28%); and Bethpage, New York (11%), and is expected to be completed in February 2030. Fiscal 2026 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $33,988,353 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This order was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Huntington Ingalls Inc., Newport News, Virginia, is awarded an option exercise of $95,703,960 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-25-C-2127) for advance planning and long-lead-time material procurement to prepare and make ready for the accomplishment of the inactivation and defueling of USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by March 2027. Fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $32,695,077 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 3204(a)(1), (only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. The Boeing Co., St. Louis Missouri, is awarded a $60,103,735 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification (P00006) to an order (N0001924F0259) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N0001921G0006). This modification adds scope for the procurement of developmental and operational test support, developmental and operational test aircraft installation and capability validation activities, including avionics and airframe material, to support the Growler Block II Phase I upgrade, known as the Next Generation Electronic Attack Unit. Additionally, this modification adds non-reoccurring engineering, consisting of anti-tamper requirements, functional and physical configuration audits, systems engineering, software development and integration, human engineering, test and evaluation requirements, developmental and operational ground and flight testing, product support requirements, and additional software requirement changes. Work will be performed in Linthicum, Maryland (16.3%); Bethpage, New York (37.9%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (27.4%); and St. Louis, Missouri (18.4%), and is expected to be completed in February 2029. Fiscal 2026 research, development, test, and evaluation funds in the amount of $13,082,629 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This order was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Southwest-Environmental Planning JV, Charlottesville, Virginia, is awarded a $55,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for architect-engineer environmental support services. This contract provides for the preparation of Navy and Marine Corps environmental planning documents and tasks. Work will be performed at Navy and Marine Corps government facilities within the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Southwest area of responsibility, and is expected to be completed by March 2031. Fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance; Navy funds in the amount of $5,000 will be obligated at time of award to satisfy the minimum guarantee and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the SAM.gov website, with two offers received. NAVFAC Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-26-D-0010). Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace, Kongsberg, Norway, is awarded a $45,544,458 firm-fixed-price contract for a Naval Strike Missile Coastal Defense System for the Republic of Latvia. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $56,344,728. This contract involves Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Latvia. Work will be performed in Kongsberg, Norway (63%); Kangasala, Finland (9%); Turin, Italy (9%); Andya, Norway (3%); Billingstad, Norway (2%); Vigrestad, Norway (1%); Hvidovre, Denmark (1%); Cambridge, United Kingdom (1%); and various locations all less than 1% (11%), and is expected to be completed by July 2030. If all options are exercised, work will continue through November 2031. FMS (Latvia) funds in the amount of $45,544,458 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 3204(a)(4) (international agreement). Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-26-C-5432). The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a $38,899,972 firm-fixed-price order (N0001926F0220) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N0001921G0006). This order is for the procurement of 44 advanced capabilities mission computer units, to include 26 spares for the Naval Supply Systems Command and 18 laboratory assets for the Navy. Work will be performed in Bloomington, Minnesota (68%); St. Louis Missouri (22%); and Linthicum Heights, Maryland (10%), and is expected to be completed in June 2029. Fiscal 2026 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $168,400; fiscal 2026 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $15,844,734; and fiscal 2026 working capital (Navy) funds in the amount of $22,886,838, will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Detyens Shipyards Inc.,* North Charleston, South Carolina, is awarded a $31,378,288 firm-fixed-price contract (N3220526C1231) for the 166-calendar day shipyard availability for the regular overhaul and dry docking of Military Sealift Command's fleet ordinance and dry cargo vessel USNS Supply (T-AOE 6). This contract includes a base work package and four unexercised options for additional work and time, which if exercised, would increase the cumulative value of this contract to $31,625,677. Work will be performed in North Charleston, South Carolina, beginning May 4, 2025, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 16, 2026. Fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $31,378,288 are obligated and will expire at the end of the fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with proposals solicited via the Governmentwide Point of Entry website and two offers were received. Military Sealift Command, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity. J&J and ALMS Mission Support Solutions LLC,* Anchorage, Alaska, is awarded a $31,213,019 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity modification to previously awarded contract (N69450-22-D-0043) for base operation support services. This award brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $117,324,293. The contract modification is for the exercise of option period three for base operations support services at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Saufley Field, Corry Station, and Bronson Field. Work will be performed in Pensacola, Florida, and is expected to be completed by March 2027. Fiscal 2026 Defense Health Program; fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance, (Navy); fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance, (Marine Corps); fiscal 2026 family housing operations and maintenance ; fiscal 2026 operation and maintenance, (Air Force); fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance, (Army Reserve); and fiscal 2026 Defense working capital funds, will be obligated on individual task orders issued during the option period. No funds will be obligated at time of award. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded a $14,922,120 cost reimbursable contract modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-19-C-2210) for long lead time material for the Polar Security Cutter land-based test facility and production integration facility. Work will be performed in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and is expected to be completed by September 2027. Fiscal 2025 procurement, construction, and improvement (Coast Guard) funds in the amount of $7,494,138 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Engie Resources LLC, Houston, Texas, has been awarded an estimated $56,257,954 firm-fixed-price, requirements contract to supply and deliver retail electricity and ancillary/incidental services. This was a competitive acquisition with four responses received. This is a four-year contract with no option periods. The performance completion date is Jan. 31, 2031. Using military service is Air Force. The using customer is solely responsible for funding this contract and funds vary in appropriation type and fiscal year. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Energy, Fort Belvoir, Virginia (SPE604-26-D-8005). Colville Inc., Anchorage, Alaska (SPE605-26-D-1000, $39,026,450); Crowley Fuels LLC, Anchorage, Alaska (SPE605-26-D-1001, $36,072,482); Petro Marine 49 Inc.,* Seward, Alaska (SPE605-26-D-1004, $17,775,457); Petro Star Inc.,* Anchorage, Alaska (SPE605-26-D-1006, $14,424,665); Bades Group LLC,* Germantown, Maryland (SPE605-26-D-1010, $11,359,811); Delta Western LLC, Seattle, Washington (SPE605-26-D-1009, $9,847,874) and Shoreside Petroleum Inc.,* Anchorage, Alaska (SPE605-26-D-1007, $9,251,770) have each been awarded a fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment contract under solicitation SPE605-25-R-0208 for delivery of various types of fuel in support of the Alaska PC&S 3.9 purchase program. This was a competitive acquisition with 14 responses received. These are five-year base contracts with one six-month option period. The location of performance is Alaska, with a March 31, 2031, performance completion date. Using customers are War Department and federal civilian agencies. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2026 through 2031 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Energy, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Murdock Webbing Co. Inc.,* Central Falls, Rhode Island, has been awarded an estimated $9,007,759 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract for aircraft arresting webbing assemblies. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a three-year base contract with two one-year option periods. The performance completion date is March 12, 2029. Using military services are Air Force and Navy. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2026 through 2029 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support, Columbus, Ohio (SPE7MX-26-D-0026). DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AGENCY AT&T Corp., Columbia, Maryland, was awarded a non-competitive, firm-fixed-price contract modification to the National Security and Emergency Preparedness Priority Service contract. An in-scope modification was completed to award the optional task for Wireless Priority Services on 5G. The face value of this action is $9,161,537 funded by fiscal 2025 Procurement, Construction, and Improvements funds. The total cumulative face value of the contract has increased from $160,477,418 to $169,638,955. Performance will be in Columbia, Maryland; Atlanta, Georgia; and Middletown, New Jersey. The performance completion is February 28, 2028. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/4434754/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK convenes JEF partners to disrupt Russia's shadow fleet News story Defence Secretary and Attorney General met JEF legal representatives to address action against Russia's sanction-evading shadow fleet funding Ukraine war. From: Ministry of Defence, Attorney General's Office and The Rt Hon John Healey MP Published 11 March 2026 Deterring, disrupting and degrading the Russian shadow fleet is a priority for this government - starving Putin's war machine and putting pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Defence Secretary John Healey MP and Attorney General Richard Hermer KC today convened legal representatives from Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) nations to discuss the legal framework for military action to counter Russian shadow fleet activity - the network of vessels used to circumvent sanctions and fund Putin's illegal war in Ukraine. The meeting brought together experts from across JEF partner nations to examine legal options and work towards a shared strategic understanding of the legal basis for countering Russian shadow fleet activity in accordance with international law. It follows a meeting with JEF nations at Munich Security Conference, convened by the Defence Secretary to discuss military options. The UK is committed to stepping up action against shadow fleet activity, alongside JEF nations. Defence Secretary John Healey MP said: As we enter the fifth year of Putin's illegal war in Ukraine, we're stepping up the pressure on Putin, by choking off the funds that fuel his invasion and targeting Shadow Fleet vessels. I'm proud of the UK's leading role in JEF, as we step up together to tackle the threats we face in this new era for defence. The Attorney General Richard Hermer KC said: The Russian shadow fleet pose a significant threat to our security and prosperity, and this government will be relentless in pursuing them under the full force of international law. We will achieve this through collaboration with our closest security allies, underpinned by our strong commitment to the international rules-based order and exploring all legal options to keep Britain secure at home and strong abroad. The UK has now imposed sanctions on 544 Russian shadow fleet vessels, and that pressure is working. Russia's critical oil revenues are down 27% compared to October 2024 - the lowest level since the start of the war - demonstrating the real impact that coordinated international action is having on the Kremlin's ability to fund its aggression. This year, the UK has worked alongside US and French allies to tackle shadow fleet activity. The meeting today is part of the development of further military and enforcement cooperation to target shadow shipping that are being discussed across government and with partners, as we continue to build our effort against the shadow fleet using all levers at our disposal. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address First Stryker vehicles delivered by NSPA's Operations and Support Office NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) Mar 12 2026 LUXEMBOURG, 12 March 2026 -- The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), through its Operations and Support Office, has successfully completed the first shipment of a number of Stryker armoured vehicles to the Bulgarian Armed Forces, with delivery on 20 February 2026. Executed by US-based fourth party logistics provider, dfYOUNG, under the supervision of the Agency's Transport and Warehousing Division, the successful shipment represents the operational launch of a multi-year effort to enhance interoperability, mobility and deterrence on NATO's Eastern Flank, and to modernise Bulgaria's fleet. The operation to ship the vehicles required close coordination between multiple stakeholders, with collections in two different countries, and deliveries to four separate addresses in Bulgaria. Additionally, it required strict export control, customs compliance, secure multimodal transport arrangements, and continuous synchronisation with US, European and national defence authorities across a period of five months. The success of the project demonstrates NSPA's role as a strategic enabler of defence capability, with the ability to deliver complex international logistics solutions utilising Foreign Military Sales (FMS), that directly contribute to Alliance readiness, and long-term security. Learn more about NSPA's Transportation and Warehousing capabilities HERE. Story by NATO Support and Procurement Agency NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Suren Papikyan met with the Chairman of the EU Military Committee Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia 13 March, 2026 19:25 On March 13, the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Armenia Suren Papikyan met with the Chairman of the EU Military Committee, General Sean Clancy in Brussels. During the meeting issues related to military education, exercises, involvement in missions within the framework of cooperation between the EU and the Republic of Armenia in the field of security and defence, as well as other questions of mutual interest were discussed. The parties also discussed a number of issues related to regional and international security. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Suren Papikyan met with the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius in Brussels Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia 13 March, 2026 13:30 On March 13, the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Armenia Suren Papikyan met with the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius in Brussels. During the meeting, the possibilities and development prospects of cooperation in the defence sector, as well as a number of issues related to regional and international security were discussed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Army awards enterprise contract for IT commercial solutions By U.S. Army Public Affairs March 13, 2026 ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (March 13, 2026) -- The U.S. Army awarded Anduril a new enterprise contract to consolidate the procurement and management of the company's commercially available technologies. This strategic move will streamline operations, reduce administrative costs, and accelerate the fielding of critical capabilities to Warfighters and other stakeholders across the U.S. Government. Previously, the Department of War managed more than 120 separate procurement actions for Anduril's commercial solutions. The new enterprise contract consolidates contracts and agreements into a single contractual framework, eliminating pass-through charges on subcontracts. This streamlined approach reduces procurement timelines, ensuring Soldiers have rapid access to cutting-edge software platforms, integrated hardware, data and compute infrastructure, and a full range of ancillary support services. It also provides detailed strategic, operational, and tactical capabilities to the Army through existing data integration with hundreds of Joint and Army systems. "This enterprise contract is a critical step in establishing a common framework for counter-UAS interoperability," said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401. "It provides a foundational command and control capability. The Department of War and interagency partners now possess a clear path to a cohesive and operationally effective ecosystem that gives our warfighters the most advanced tools to defend the homeland." The 10-year contract includes a five-year base period and five-year optional ordering period which allows the Army to extend the contract beyond the base period. The contract has a total estimated value of up to $20 billion. This amount represents the maximum potential value, not an obligated amount. This approach provides significant savings through range pricing and discounts as well as additional annual spend volume discounts from every order placed. The contract also establishes pre-negotiated terms and pricing, which saves both the government and contractor teams weeks of negotiations. "The modern battlefield is increasingly defined by software. To maintain our advantage, we must be able to acquire and deploy software capabilities with speed and efficiency," said Gabe Chiulli, chief technology officer for the Office of the Chief Information Officer. "Enterprise contracts are a key part of our modernization strategy, allowing us to consolidate software agreements, eliminate redundancies, and accelerate the delivery of critical tools." To ensure ongoing innovation and optimal performance, the Army is continuously evaluating emerging technologies. The Army remains committed to fair and open competition and affirms that this enterprise contract will not substitute for competition on any future programs. Industry is encouraged to monitor SAM.gov and the Army Open Solicitation for opportunities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Army forges partnership with Pennsylvania companies to create next generation small arms gun barrel By Tyler Barth March 13, 2026 PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. -- Army armament engineers here partnered with a pair of Pennsylvania companies, one with alloy expertise and the other with forging metals, to deliver a capable barrel for the Army's next generation of small arms. Carpenter Technology developed the alloy and Geissele Automatics (also known as GWYNEDD) developed the production techniques for the barrels, while the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center provided the expertise in gun technology to deliver an innovation that is key to meeting the required capability. This novel barrel design, created as part of two separate CRADAs (Cooperative Research and Development Agreements) between the Armaments Center, Geissele and Carpenter, relies on the alloy, GNB 200, which provides Army small caliber next generation weapons with higher tensile strength and, with it, better wear resistance. This advancement came after several projects focusing specifically on barrel technology over the past decade. According to general engineer Daniel Cler, the design's principal investigator, DEVCOM had tested several "high alloy barrel materials" over the decade, seeking to help alleviate pressure buildup, corrosion and mechanical wear as next-generation weapons maintain significantly higher-pressure than their legacy counterparts, this could in turn worsen barrel wear. In the past several years, the U.S. Army has attempted to shift away from using hazardous heavy metals such as hexavalent chromium coatings, which is still renowned for its longevity, but is known to cause significant health problems in production when hexavalent chromium is in solution. Seeking to replace hexavelant chrome coatings with barrel materials that provide good wear and corrosion performance without coatings, the Army has performed research into a plethora of different metals. However, many of these materials were too hard to cold hammer forge, a method that is the current manufacturing technology for most military small arms. Because of this, the Armaments Center was refocusing on hammer forging and materials that were compatible with the process when it signed both CRADAs in 2022. GNB 200 is, per Carpenter Technology's website, a "premium remelted alloy steel specially formulated for high temperature wear resistance." According to Cler, GNB 200 is near the upper limit of what can reliably be cold-hammer forged. Carpenter Technology was already highly familiar with GNB 200, and as such provided samples for testing, along with several other materials. The Armaments Center gave guidance, processed information, provided support for analysis and result documentation and carried out accelerated wear testing for proposed alloys. Work with Geissele focused on manufacturability and feasibility. Geissele cold hammer forged the barrels themselves, provided input and direction for coating alternatives and specifications, performed testing on barrels, and processed parameters on manufacturability. In this stage, the Armaments Center gave its expertise on barrel technologies, provided ammunition for testing and performed project oversight. The parties involved tested the barrels in an M240L machine guns over the project's third and final year, which ended in spring 2025. The material showed much better performance than the standard M240L barrel and now informs future Army next generation weapons. GNB 200 continues to inform the next generation of Army small caliber weapons.Though the CRADA with Carpenter Technology has expired, DEVCOM renewed its CRADA with Geissele for another three years to continue development of barrel coatings. A CRADA is a written agreement between one or more federal laboratories and one or more non-federal parties to work together on research or development. The GNB 200 hammer forged barrel is not the only project made in collaboration with Geissele. The pair also collaborated on developing a new rifle profile which has been shown to further reduce wear and improve dispersion. This profile, classified as F41A21/18, received a patent in October 2025. Cler said he was most proud of seeing a project he worked on informed next generation systems. He also noted how important it is to have some influence upon the industry in the correct direction, though he lamented not being able to get involved earlier. "CRADA's are a good way to influence industry so that as systems are developed to meet Army requirements, industry is ready to jump in with better solutions that are more aligned with the Army," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saturday marks the 15th day of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Residents of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, have called for peace while expressing deep concern over the humanitarian and economic fallout. #GLOBALink March 13, 2026 Transcript Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine Hold a Press Briefing SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Good morning. UNKNOWN: Good morning. SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: I'll start as we often do here at the Department of War, with the bottom line up front, for the world to hear and the press to actually admit, that the United States is decimating the radical Iranian regime's military in a way the world has never seen before. Never before has a modern capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective, devastated. We said it would not be a fair fight and it has not been. As I stated during our first press conference on day two - that was 10 short days ago - the combination of the world's two most powerful air forces is unprecedented and unbeatable. Between our Air Force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck. That's well over 1,000 a day. No other combination of countries in the world can do that. So today, as we speak, we fly over the top of Iran and Tehran, fighters and bombers all day, picking targets as they choose, as our intelligence gets better and better and more refined. Looking up, the IRGC and Iranian regime sees only two things on the side of aircraft: the stars and stripes and the Star of David, the evil regime's worst nightmare. Iran has no air defenses. Iran has no air force. Iran has no Navy. Their missiles, their missile launchers and drones being destroyed or shot out of the sky. Their missile volume is down 90%. Their one-way attack drones yesterday, down 95%. And as the world is seeing, they are exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz, something we're dealing with, we have been dealing with it and don't need to worry about it. We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before. But it's not just that Iran doesn't have a functioning Air Force or that their entire Navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf or their missile force is shrinking daily. Even more importantly, they also don't have the ability to build more. That's the most important component I'd like to emphasize today. Soon, and very soon, all of Iran's defense companies will be destroyed. For example, as of two days ago, Iran's entire ballistic missile production capacity, every company that builds every component of those missiles, has been functionally defeated, destroyed. Buildings, complexes and factory lines all across Iran, destroyed. So we're shooting down and destroying what missiles they still have in stock, but more importantly, ensuring that they have no ability to make more. Their production lines, their military plants, their defense innovation centers, defeated. Iran's leadership is in no better shape, desperate and hiding, they've gone underground, cowering. That's what rats do. We know the new so-called not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. He put out a statement yesterday, a weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement. He called for unity. Apparently killing tens of thousands of protesters is his kind of unity. Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders, why a written statement? I think you know why. His father, dead. He's scared. He's injured. He's on the run and he lacks legitimacy. It's a mess for them. Who's in charge? Iran may not even know. With every passing hour, we know and we know they know, that the military capabilities of their evil regime are crumbling. They can barely communicate, let alone coordinate; they're confused and we know it. Our response? We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies. Yet some in this crew, in the press, just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline: "Mideast war intensifies," splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit, because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about, 'Iran increasingly desperate,' because they are. They know it and so do you, if it can be admitted. Or more fake news from CNN, "reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz" - patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that. It's a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday, "war widening." Here's a real headline for you, for an actual patriotic press: how about, 'Iran shrinking, going underground'? You see, Iran's leaders are hiding in bunkers and moving into civilian areas. The only thing that is widening is our advantage, not to mention our Gulf partners stepping up even more, now going on the offense, and have always been with us on the defense with collective and integrated air defenses. Our will, it is unshakable. Our options, maximized. And our capabilities still building. We're going up, they're going down. As I said from the start, President Trump holds the cards. He'll determine the pace, the tempo and the timing of this conflict, his hand firmly on the wheel as well as on the throttle setting. America first, peace through strength, in action. From day one, as our nation expects and the president demands, our warriors have fought with lethality, precision and rapid innovation. In fact, today will be yet again the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran. The number of sorties and number of bomber pulses, the highest yet, ramping up and only up. And quantity has a quality of its own as we continue to ramp up. Every tool of AI, of cyber, of space, EW, counter UAS, you name it, we're employing it, blinding, confusing and deceiving our enemy. Because we know who the good guys are here and the American people do, too. And that makes my job simple. I serve God, the troops, the country, the Constitution and the president of the United States and answer only to those, all in service of victory on the battlefield and the military objectives that we've laid out from day one: defeat the missiles, missile launchers and defense industrial base, which I laid out today; defeat the navy; and deny Iran the ability to have a nuclear weapon - clear , decisive, achievable. And Adm. Cooper knows, the CENTCOM commander who we spent a couple of hours with last night, that in pursuit of those objectives, we have his back in every way. His commanders know that and so do the troops in harm's way. Adm. Cooper gets what he needs, the assets, the authorities, the munitions, you name it. We will stop at nothing to win. War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them. And as I have with all of them, as we have, we will greet those heroes at Dover and their sacrifice will only recommit us to the resolve of this mission. But war in this context and in pursuit of peace is necessary, which is why each day on bended knee, we continue to appeal to heaven, to Almighty God's providence, to watch over and give special skill and confidence to our leaders and to our warriors. To those warriors who this nation prays for every single day, I hear from all of you out there, who pray for them every day, stay on bended knee and pray for them. I continue to say to them, Godspeed, may the Lord bless you and keep you and keep going. Mr. Chairman, over to you. GENERAL DAN CAINE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. Before I start with an update, I also want to address the tragic loss of our KC135 refueling aircraft yesterday. The incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission. And again, was not the result, as CENTCOM has said, was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. We're still treating this as an active rescue and recovery operation. As CENTCOM announced this morning, four airmen have been recovered and the Air Force and U.S. Central Command will provide updates as information becomes available. Please keep these brave airmen, their families, friends and units in your thoughts in the coming hours and days. Our service members make an incredible sacrifice to go forward and do the things that the nation asks of them. It's a reminder of the true cost of the dedication and commitment of the joint force. We're also aware of a fire on board the USS Gerald R. Ford. We're thinking about the crew there who were injured in the fire. We believe and hope that everyone will be OK and we're grateful for that, and for any further questions on that, we'd refer you to NAVCENT or to the Navy. This morning, we enter the 13th day of Operation Epic Fury and we continue to make progress towards our military objectives. As the secretary said, today will be our heaviest day of kinetic fires across the operating area. CENTCOM continues to attack ballistic missile and drone capabilities so that they are no longer a threat to U.S. forces, our bases or our partners. They're continuing to destroy the Iranian Navy to ensure freedom of navigation. And this means going after Iran's mine laying capability and destroying their ability to attack commercial vessels. And we're targeting their defense industrial base, so they cannot rebuild the capabilities that can harm America's interests or our partners in the future. As Adm. Cooper said in his update on Wednesday, Iranian combat power continues to decline as a result of the continued strikes, as the secretary talked about. We've attacked over 6,000 targets and our strike packages continue to launch every hour and we've maintained an unprecedented number of sorties up over our head of Iran. CENTCOM is now persistently over the enemy and a result, we've seen a reduction in missile in one way attack fires, as the secretary said. In less than two weeks, we've rendered the Iranian Navy combat ineffective and continue to attack naval vessels, including all of their Soleimani-class warships, which were armed with anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft weapons. We've made progress, but Iran still has the capability to harm friendly forces in commercial shipping and our work on this effort continues. But I want to make something clear: the only thing preventing commercial traffic and flow through the Straits right now, which there is some through the Straits, is is Iran. They are the belligerents here holding holding the straits closed, although there is some traffic moving through there. We've made it a priority to target Iran's mine laying enterprise. There are mine layers, the naval bases and depots in addition to the missiles that could influence the Straits, and CENTCOM continues to attack those efforts. And we continue to make progress on the industrial base to include factories, weapons, warehouses that are stored in, and we will continue to do so in the coming days, especially today. Now as I often do, I want to share a little bit about our incredible joint force. Today, I'm going to talk about our incredible artillery force, comprised of American soldiers and Marines who've been sinking ships destroying depots and launching Army tactical missile systems, or ATACMS, precision strike missiles or PrSMs, and high mobility rocket systems, or HIMARS. From outside Iran, our army and Marine artillery are hitting sites that Iran relies on to project power beyond their borders and protect our deployed. In just the first 13 days of this operation, our artillery forces have made history. They fired the first precision strike missiles ever used in combat, reaching deep into enemy territory. They've used Army ATACMS to sink multiple ships, including a submarine, and they've done all of this with the precision and determination that comes from relentless training and trust in each other and in their weapon systems. Yesterday, I had the incredible honor and privilege of speaking with some of our young soldiers from the 3rd Battalion 27th Field Artillery Regiment out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the unit and the crew that fired the first precision strike missiles. The soldiers I met came from all over this great country, New York, Texas, Delaware, California. One had been in the Army only six months and been in the unit for two months and was already deployed. He was the youngest, at 20, but you would not know it from the way that they talked about their mission. The others were 22 and 28 years old. They spoke with the sense of calm, pride, purpose and clarity that tells you clearly, they understand the weight of what they're doing and the people who depend on them. I asked him to walk me through a fire mission. I asked not just what they do, but what they feel, especially those first crew members on this particular mission. These soldiers basically live in these vehicles behind us. The cab very tight, two folks sit next to each other with the crew commander behind them. It's jammed inside there with their personal weapons and kit and they sit and wait for a fire mission. And when that fire mission comes, they close the armored doors and begin to program the systems. They then throw three simple toggle switches and 10 to 15 feet behind them, a rocket motor ignites and the round is headed downrange to do the nation's work. I asked these youngsters, these young, awesome Americans, what does that feel like? And one of them just looked at me and said, it's awesome. No drama, no hesitation, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the night, in the sun, the rain and the snow, flawless execution. The Marine counterparts are out there doing the same thing every night. Same work, same pressure, same expectations, same results. And we hand tremendous and enormous responsibility to these young Americans and they carry it with a level of maturity, grit, professionalism and tenacity that makes me incredibly proud to be a part of their joint force. Their parents and families would and should be incredibly proud and their leaders and I trust them to do the deeds that they must do in difficult circumstances every single time. I also want to touch today, a moment I want to touch for a moment today on their leadership. These young Americans are led by extraordinary young leaders out at the tactical edge. Yesterday, the battery commander and her NCO were there with this crew. On the same video screen, the two of them hardly said a word, they didn't have to. In their eyes, and in particular, the commander's eyes, you could see the quiet trust and confidence she had in these soldiers and the rest of their battery. It came through loud and clear and we appreciate their leadership. When I asked these soldiers yesterday, 'what is it that you need from the secretary and I?', they looked at each other, paused for a moment and look back at me and said, "more rounds, sir." It was awesome. So thank you to those soldiers and Marines out on the firing line supporting our mission and thank you to their families. Our joint force will continue today to deliver dynamic fires against the enemy from the land, sea and air. We remain deeply grateful for their service. And for the third time today, I'll mention that today will be our busiest day. This mission remains complex, dangerous and difficult and every service member has a family waiting for them to return home. And I want to thank all of the families today who are supporting their deployed forces and those doing the work here in the States. On a personal note today, I also want to thank the joint staff and the team that I have the pleasure of working with, some of them right here in this room. They are working 24 hours a day to deliver the options that we must to the secretary and to the president. Today, as I close, I ask that we remember our fallen and those participating in the recovery operations to bring home our lost KC135 crew, that we keep those service members and their families in their thoughts and prayers. Those are very, very, very tough days, when that knock comes on the door, for people on both sides of the door. Again, thank you to our deployed, thank you to our fallen and to their families, and to the joint force. And with that, I'll turn it back to you, sir. SECRETARY HEGSETH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Q: Alexandra Ingersoll, One America News. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Strait of Hormuz and when it might be fully operational again? And how do we ensure our objective of denying Iran a nuclear weapon if they continue to align with our adversaries? SECRETARY HEGSETH: So I'll take it, and chime in, Mr. Chairman if you'd like at all. I want to emphasize what the chairman said about that. The only thing prohibiting transit in the Straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit, should Iran not do that. Now, there's a reason why we chose as one of our primary objectives, destroy the navy. We understood the ability to interdict shipping is something Iran has done for 40 years. It's key terrain. They've used it as leverage. The world is seeing what they'll do to fight back in that context. And so we've heard them talk about taking various measures. And we're planning for all of them. So we have a plan for every option here. We're working with our interagency partners and that's - that's not a strait we're going to allow to remain contested or with a lack of flow of of commercial goods. So we're aware of that. We're laser-focused on our military objectives, but also want to make sure our partners across this government understand we're working with you to make sure that energy flows. And that's an important part. And the second question was on the nuclear capability. As we said from the beginning, their strategy shifted just from defense of their nuclear facilities to a conventional umbrella of so many missiles that no one would challenge their ability to their the opportunity to defeat their missile their nuclear capabilities. And it was growing by the day. So with Iran at its weakest moment, taking going at that ballistic missile capability, creates an opportunity to ensure at any point in time that Iran give up their nuclear capabilities, or if need be, you prevent them from doing it, as the president has done once already with Operation Midnight Hammer, obliterating those capabilities. So the conventional side is a huge part at getting at denying nuclear capabilities. If you have anything you want to add. GEN. CAINE: I appreciate the question. I'm not going to comment on what we may or may not be thinking about, any options that the joint force could be tasked to do in the future, whether it's on the nuke matter or anything else. Thank you. But we have options. Q: Are you [inaudible] the mines that are in the Strait of Hormuz and our ability to, you know, obliterate them? GEN. CAINE: We retain a range of options to solve a whole variety of problems and that is one set of options that we have, you know, that we hold on to. So thank you. SECRETARY HEGSETH: Absolutely. Q: Thank you, Secretary Hegseth. Mary Margaret with Daily Wire. Thank you both for the update. ABC news has updated its story from yesterday, clarifying that the FBI report on Iran possibly striking California was unverified. I just want to ask you, what impact did that original reporting have on the public? And does Iran even have the ability to conduct such a strike? And then just really quickly on another note, what role did Vice President Vance play in counseling the president on this conflict? Can you speak to some of the media reporting suggesting that there is a division there? SECRETARY HEGSETH: That reporting on California obviously had no impact on us. Also we're used to bad reporting. We're used to ill-informed reporting. And so it doesn't change how we operate, but we engage with it to prove that it's not true, as CENTCOM has done so well. Ultimately, I look at the reports on a daily basis of our interagency is all over it. My partners across government are all over, looking for indications and warnings, keeping the American people safe. There's a lot of things Iran has said it can do for for a long time. Thankfully including engaging their proxies and getting them involved in the fight, which they haven't been able to do. So we're watching that very closely. And as far as as far as the vice president, he's an incredible member - leader - of this team as well, alongside the president and the secretary of state. I can't say enough great stuff about this team, how it works together, how it provides options to the president, and the vice president every single day is a key voice in that, an indispensable voice in that, actually. In the middle there, red tie. Yes. Q: Yes. Michael Gordon, Wall Street Journal. Iran is thought to have 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in at least two locations and several thousand kilograms of lower purity material. Can you conclude this mission successfully without physically taking control of that material or are you counting on diplomatic negotiations to provide some measure of control leading to its removal? You've mentioned missiles, you've mentioned drones, military industry. You haven't stipulated that taking care of that material is a mission priority. SECRETARY HEGSETH: We've said from the beginning, deny Iran nuclear weapons as a core mission. We have we retain options across the spectrum to ensure that they never do. And President Trump has said that. And that's why this mission actually couldn't have been possible without Midnight Hammer, without what those B-2s did going across and obliterating those facilities. That set the condition for the opportunity to do what we're doing now. So he's kept the president's kept his eye focused on nuclear capabilities. And I will say, we have a range of options, up to and including Iran deciding that they will give those up, which of course we would welcome. They weren't willing to do in negotiations. I would not never tell this group or the world what we're willing to do or how far we're willing to go, but we have options, for sure. Right next to him. Q: Me? SECRETARY HEGSETH: No, right there. Q: Right here, sir? Q: Right here? I'll take it, for sure. SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: [Inaudible] right there. Yep. No, you. Yep. Q: OK. Thank you, sir. Can you please provide some guidance of it's been 13 days in. Can you please provide some guidance, both of you, about the strike on the girl's school? There has been reporting that indicates that preliminary inquiry, even though it's ongoing, has determined that the airstrike was carried out by the United States. Given that there is another competing narrative that this was done intentionally, can you provide us with some guidance about whether this was the case? Secondly, we are also getting we had heard yesterday from Energy Secretary Wright that said that the U.S. Navy would not be ready until the end of the month to provide escorts through the Strait of Hormuz. Is that an accurate assessment? And if so, can you tell us why? Thank you. SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, with an issue on your first topic, an issue of such seriousness, we don't we're not going to let reporting lead us or force our hand into indicating, what happened in a particular situation, because the truth matters. So I can report that CENTCOM has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation. The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident and the investigating officer is from outside CENTCOM and is a is a general officer. But I will note to this group and to the world, there's only one entity in this conflict between us and Iran that never targets civilians, literally never target civilians. I look at the process that's used on dynamic strikes or on boat strikes and others. We have a very high fidelity process in that case. So we don't target, Iran does. We will investigate and we'll get to the truth and we'll share it when we have it, absolutely. And what was the second question? Q: About the Strait of Hormuz, about the Navy, Secretary Wright GEN. CAINE: It's a tactically complex environment. And before I think we want to take anything through there at scale, we want to make sure that we do the work pursuant to our current military objectives to do - to do that safely and smartly. So we're continuing to develop options. SECRETARY HEGSETH: And we do a lot of work. GEN. CAINE: Yes. SECRETARY HEGSETH: And like I said, this is a it is dynamic, but this is, I think almost by 20%, the largest day of strikes. And as I said, our intelligence just gets better and better. That feedback loop feeds itself. And as we refine those targets, it exponentially increases what we can hit and why, to include strategic things the world's talking about and looking at. And it's our job to have a plan for it, which we do, to address it and ensure that the president has options. We've done that from the beginning in this department. He'll have options on that on that topic as well. Right here. Q: Thank you. Q: [Inaudible] that strike, sir? SECRETARY HEGSETH: An investigation is an investigation. That's what it is. It doesn't mean anything other than that. Yes. Q: Ryan Morgan with the Epoch Times. Regarding today's busy day of strikes, last week you guys discussed the progress of the air campaign to gain air superiority and to transition from these standoff weapons launched at range to more overhead strikes. Can you now say that these strikes today are going to rely entirely on stand-in over the top weapons or are standoff range weapons still in play? SECRETARY HEGSETH: It's a great question. I can say based on the report I read this morning at 0600, only 1% of the munitions we're using today are standoff munitions. The rest are over the top, the types of which we have a plethora. Which was which was our goal from the beginning. You use standoff which are more exquisite. You transition to a much larger magazine depth, ensuring that you're preserving all the capabilities you have and your options across the force, absolutely. Q: Mr. Chairman, has Iran placed any mines since the war started? SECRETARY HEGSETH: Right here. Q: Is Iran placing new mines? SECRETARY HEGSETH: We've heard them talk about it, just like you've reported recklessly and wildly about it Q: I haven't reported [inaudible] SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: but there's we have no clear evidence. We have no clear evidence of that. Right here. Q: Thank you, sir. Mr. Secretary, given everything the U.S. have accomplished in the last 24 hours, as of today, how do you define success in this military option? And has that definition changed from day one? And also regarding Iran government telling countries hosting U.S. American bases that they could face attacks, what is the Pentagon doing about that? SECRETARY HEGSETH: First question is what is the objective? Q: How do you define success as of today? SECRETARY HEGSETH: Yeah, I mean, we like, we define success, again, 13, 12 days in, 13 days in, by reaching the military objectives that we've laid out launchers, missile launchers, defense industrial base, their navy, the ability to project power on the naval sense, leading toward denying them to get a nuclear weapon. And we've got internal metrics that look at that that we represent to the president, who then can decide, how long he'd like to continue in pursuit of those military objectives. So that hasn't changed. There's a lot of things a lot of people talk about, what they want us to do or what we should do or what we should stay focused on. And again, I've addressed this before and I think it's worth saying again, mission creep or expansive missions or prolonged timelines or democracy-building or nation-building, you name it, has not been part of what President Trump wants us to be involved in. We're solving for something here, this particular mission set. But also recognizing this country's conditioned to previous leaders, whether it's George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Joe Biden, who had these expansive nebulous mission sets that kept changing all the time and so the timeline kept moving and we kept pouring more troops in and on the ground. And then pretty soon everyone wonders, like I did in Afghanistan in 2012, what's our mission here? I'm not I'm not clear what it is. We're taking the opposite approach here and saying, we've defined these objectives, we're pursuing those objectives. The president has his hand on the throttle and will decide ultimately when they've been reached, that serve the purposes of the United States of America, American interests first. Q: And regarding [Crosstalk] SECRETARY HEGSETH: Yes, right here. Q: Thank you, Secretary Hegseth. Polls show over 80% of Republicans support the president's military action in Iran, but there's some consternation in parts of the party, particularly from your fellow Fox News alum, Tucker Carlson. He called the war disgusting and evil and then said of unconditional surrender, which the president has called for, means foreign troops get to rape your wives and daughters. Have you heard these comments and what's your reaction to them? SECRETARY HEGSETH: We're busy executing on behalf of great patriotic Americans with a clear mission, that's 47 years overdue. And we're going to execute on that regardless of what people say about it. Yes, right here. Q: Mr. Secretary, you have said that the U.S. military has essentially aerial superiority, naval superiority over Iran, yet we're not escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Why? How did you not plan for this? SECRETARY HEGSETH: We planned for it. We recognize it. Because ultimately, we want to do it sequentially in a way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve and ensure that we're sending the right signals to the world when we do so. So when Chris Wright speaks or we speak, it's based on a full assessment of of what we're what we're up against, what we want to say to the world, how we want them to see and understand the conflict. It's like this whole idea of the war widening. That's what the press wants to make it look like, like it's widening and chaos is ensuing. No, we're actually closing in on, grabbing hold of and controlling what objectives we want to achieve and how we want to achieve them, shape it's called shaping operations and setting the conditions. But when you shape the environment, you don't always tell I mean, foolish political leaders and foolish military leaders of the past will hang an exact deadline on it or here's exactly when we'll do what we're going to do or here's how long it's going to take us. And then if you meet that, maybe you meet it, but if you don't, you fail. And if you're far beyond we know exactly what we're shaping and why. We're sending those signals working across the interagency. The Strait of Hormuz is something we've paid attention to from the beginning and the American people can rest assured we will ensure that our interests are advanced, no doubt. Yes, right there, green jacket. [Crosstalk] Q: Mike Brass with the Washington Examiner. How many American casualties have there been and where were the American service members when they were injured? SECRETARY HEGSETH: Um GEN. CAINE: I mean, it's a bunch have returned to duty. SECRETARY HEGSTETH: Yes GEN. CAINE: So we've had a whole the large, large majority have gone in for some medical treatment and returned to duty. We've had in Kuwait, Jordan, down across the southern flank a little bit, a variety of places. Most from one-way attack strikes. SECRETARY HEGSETH: But I want to clarify that. I think what we've tried to do here GEN. CAINE: And I'm sorry I didn't hear you [inaudible] yeah [inaudible] SECRETARY HEGSETH: is clarify those numbers. Rather than saying, KIA or WIA - wounded - be more clear about that, because the overwhelming majority, almost 90%, thank God GENERAL DAN CAINE: Yes. SECRETARY HEGSETH: are returned to duty, minor injuries, returned to duty. And so that number can look a certain way and our job is to add some fidelity to it. GEN. CAINE: Yes. [Crosstalk] SECRETARY HEGSETH: [Inaudible] Right here. Yes. Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. David [inaudible], Real America's Voice. Can you share what types of munitions have been used on the attacks on commercial shipping? Have any hit mines? And are USV's, unmanned surface vehicles, being used? And just a quick follow-up: were there any arrests in Fort Campbell with the drone thefts? GEN. CAINE: I'm not familiar with the Fort Campbell thing. The the strikes that Iran has taken on shipping up north in the vicinity of Kuwait have been, I believe, from surface-to-surface missiles up there. We've not seen any USV activity out of Iran, that we've seen in the Gulf at this point. SECRETARY HEGSETH: Nor have any ships hit mines or anything like that. It's still flowing through the strait. Absolutely. GENERAL DAN CAINE: Yes, there's been no - yes, yes, thank you. There's been no strikes that SECRETARY HEGSETH: One more time, right here. Q: Thank you so much. Heather Mullins, Lindell TV. My first question is, President Trump is set to meet with XI Jinping in a couple of weeks; how much support, if any, has China been given the Iranian regime? And then the second question, just, you know, I know President Trump calling for an unconditional surrender from Iran. Given that the U.S. is working in partnership with Israel on this whole operation, is Iran expected to meet demands of both countries or just the U.S.? And what are those demands? SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, we're - we're proud to partner with the incredible capabilities the Iranians or excuse me, the Israelis have, but our objectives are our objectives. So when those are met, as we meet those, we'll set the we'll set the tempo of when those are met. What was the first question? Q: He's meeting with Xi Jinping in a couple weeks. What's China's role in all of this? SECRETARY HEGSETH: Oh, yes. The president has a has a historic relationship with President Xi. They look forward to having a dynamic conversation, two powers. President Trump, ultimately, has established terms of that relationship, which advance the United States of America and that meeting will continue to ensure we advance that. That's all I've got. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4434484/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address March 13, 2026 By Matthew Olay, Pentagon News Hegseth Says Iran's Defense Industrial Base Nearing Complete Destruction Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters today that, in addition to the extensive damage the U.S. and Israeli militaries have been inflicting upon the Iranian terrorist regime's active combat forces, the country's defense industrial base is now nearing complete destruction as well. "Soon and very soon, all of Iran's defense companies will be destroyed," Hegseth said while providing an update on Operation Epic Fury from the Pentagon's press briefing room. "For example, as of two days ago, Iran's entire ballistic missile production capacity every company that builds every component of those missiles [has] been functionally defeated [and] destroyed," Hegseth said, also noting that assessment includes buildings, complexes and factory lines all across the country. "We're shooting down and destroying what missiles [the enemy] still have in stock; but more importantly, we're ensuring that they have no ability to make more. Their production lines, their military plants [and] their defense innovation centers [are] defeated," Hegseth said. The secretary added that today marks the highest number of strikes the U.S. has conducted against targets in Iran and its capital city, Tehran, since U.S. Central Command and Israeli forces launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28. "As we continue to ramp up every tool [of warfare], we're employing [them], blinding, confusing and deceiving our enemy; because we know who the good guys are here, and the American people do, too," Hegseth said. In the 10 days since the conflict started, Hegseth said the U.S. and Israeli air forces have struck over 15,000 enemy targets. "Looking up, the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and Iranian regime [see] only two things on the side of aircraft: the Stars and Stripes and the Star of David the evil regime's worst nightmare," Hegseth said. He also noted that both Iran's missile launch volume is down 90% and one-way drone attacks are down 95% since Day 1 of the operation. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who joined Hegseth at today's briefing, concurred with Hegseth that this is the heaviest day of anti-regime kinetic strikes in the region. Of note, Caine discussed the damage U.S. and Israeli forces have inflicted on Iran's navy. "In less than two weeks, we've rendered the Iranian navy combat ineffective, and [we] continue to attack all naval vessels, including all of their Soleimani-class warships, which were armed with anti-ship missiles and antiaircraft weapons," Caine said. He also noted that, while significant damage has been done to Iran's navy, the regime still has the capability to harm friendly forces and commercial shipping particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. "The only thing preventing commercial traffic and flow through the strait right now ... is Iran. They are the belligerents here, holding the strait closed," Caine said. To remedy that situation, Caine said Centcom has made it a priority to target Iran's mine-laying capabilities, as well as nearby naval bases and depots. Both Hegseth and Caine took time during the briefing to remember and pay tribute to the service members who were confirmed killed yesterday when a U.S. Air Force KC-135 refueling tanker crashed in western Iraq. Four of the six crew members have been confirmed deceased, with rescue efforts continuing as of this morning. "I ask that we remember our fallen and those participating in the recovery operations ... Those are very, very, very tough days when that [casualty-notification] knock comes on the door for people on both sides of the door," Caine said. "American heroes, all of them," Hegseth said of the KC-135 crew, adding that he and other members of the administration will be on hand to greet the fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, once they are returned stateside. "And their sacrifice will only recommit us to resolve this mission," Hegseth said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HRC61 - EU Statement - Interactive Dialogue with the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela European External Action Service (EEAS) 13.03.2026 Geneva Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in Geneva United Nations Human Rights Council 61st Session Interactive Dialogue with the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 12 March 2026 EU statement Mr President, The EU would like to thank the Fact-Finding Mission for its report and welcome its new members. We reiterate our full support for their work. As Venezuela enters a new phase, we renew our call on the authorities to engage with all human rights mechanisms constructively. The EU welcomes the issuance of visas to OHCHR staff as a first step towards the restoration of the full capacity of the Office in Venezuela, including its unfettered access to all regions and detention centres. The EU welcomes recent releases of detainees, including dual and foreign citizens. Yet many reportedly remain arbitrarily detained. We call for all remaining political prisoners to be immediately freed and urge the authorities to ensure all releases are full and unconditional, and to put an end to arbitrary detentions as well as politically motivated indictments. The EU welcomes the adoption of a general amnesty law, whose implementation must fully comply with international human rights law and international criminal law. In order to uphold victims' right to justice, it is essential that serious human rights violations and crimes under international law are excluded from this law. We take note of the announced closure of the Helicoide detention centre as an important step towards dismantling structures used for repression and encourage the swift, full, and actual implementation of these measures. The EU condemns any act of repression against dissenting voices, including opposition members, civil society, human rights defenders, and journalists. We urge authorities to respect, protect and fulfil human rights, including the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and to freedom of expression. We also express our full support to the Venezuelan civil society and human rights organisations. The EU continues to support, in collaboration with local, regional and international partners, a Venezuelan-led dialogue towards a peaceful and democratic solution that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people and restores democracy, the rule of law and human rights, in full respect of Venezuela's sovereignty and territorial integrity. For 2026, we have allocated 52 million in humanitarian aid for the Venezuela crisis, supporting vulnerable populations both inside the country and across host nations in Latin America. Unhindered humanitarian access must be guaranteed. Dear members of the FFM, What priority measures should the international community take to ensure that human rights are effectively respected, protected and fulfilled in Venezuela? Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Ministers see first-hand how Allies are training to defend Norway Government of Norway News story | Date: 13/03/2026 Today, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited NATO forces taking part in the Cold Response military exercise. 'We are contending with the most serious security situation since the Second World War. It is more important than ever to cooperate closely with our Allies to ensure our collective security. I am pleased to be in Bardufoss with the German Chancellor and the Canadian Prime Minister to see first-hand how soldiers from NATO countries are training to defend Norway and the Nordic region,' said Prime Minister Stre. Mr Stre emphasised that Arctic security is essential for the security of all Allies. 25 000 soldiers On Friday 13 March, the leaders of Norway, Germany and Canada visited the Cold Response exercise and met with forces from the three countries. The defence ministers of all three countries also took part in the visit. Nearly 30 000 soldiers from 14 countries are participating in the Norwegian-led military exercise. Some 25 000 soldiers are in Norway - on land, at sea and in the air - while the rest are in northern Finland. The exercise is based on NATO's plan for defending Norway and the Alliance's northern flank. In line with Norway's total defence system, the military forces are training with support from the civilian sector to receive reinforcements from other Allied countries. 'Exercises such as Cold Response are important for Norwegian security and NATO's collective security. It is vital for our emergency preparedness and defence capability that we have the opportunity to test our equipment together and train jointly in challenging winter conditions on land, at sea and in the air,' said Prime Minister Stre. Cooperation is the key The Cold Response exercise serves to strengthen both Nordic cooperation and the transatlantic community. It improves military coordination between Allied countries and helps NATO's newest member countries - Finland and Sweden - to integrate more fully into the Alliance. 'During the exercise we will put national and Allied defence capabilities to the test, and NATO will train to defend Norway. Cold Response is an opportunity to enhance Norway's defence capability and ensure that we are as well prepared as possible,' said Minister of Defence Tore O. Sandvik. Mr Sandvik took part in the visit to Troms county together with German Federal Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius and Canadian Minister of National Defence David McGuinty. Facts about Cold Response What: Norwegian-led military winter exercise held every two years. Norwegian-led military winter exercise held every two years. Where: Land and air training takes place in North Norway (Troms and northern Nordland counties) and in northern Finland. Exercises at sea take place off the coast of Norway. Land and air training takes place in North Norway (Troms and northern Nordland counties) and in northern Finland. Exercises at sea take place off the coast of Norway. When: 9-19 March 2026. Allied training activities begin in the weeks before the exercise, as forces prepare, and continue afterwards as they re-deploy to their respective bases and countries. 9-19 March 2026. Allied training activities begin in the weeks before the exercise, as forces prepare, and continue afterwards as they re-deploy to their respective bases and countries. Who: Nearly 30 000 soldiers from 14 countries are taking part in Cold Response. Of these, 25 000 are in Norway - on land, at sea and in the air - while the rest are in northern Finland. Nearly 30 000 soldiers from 14 countries are taking part in Cold Response. Of these, 25 000 are in Norway - on land, at sea and in the air - while the rest are in northern Finland. Why: To show the strength and unity of NATO, test Norwegian defence within the total defence framework and with NATO participation, and validate Norwegian and Allied planning. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Norway increases support for victims of the war in the Middle East Government of Norway Press release | Date: 13/03/2026 Norway is allocating NOK 25 million (approximately USD 2.5 million) from the humanitarian reserve to alleviate the humanitarian situation in the region. The funds will be disbursed to the Red Cross and the UN. 'The war in the Middle East has exacerbated an already grave humanitarian situation in the region. Several hundred thousand people have also been displaced. We are therefore increasing our support by NOK 25 million. This comes in addition to our contributions through established crisisresponse funds,' said Minister of International Development Asmund Aukrust. The Minister of International Development announced the NOK 25 million increase at a meeting he and State Secretary Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik held with Care, Caritas, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Norwegian Church Aid, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Norwegian People's Aid, NORWAC, Save the Children Norway and the Red Cross. 'I would like to commend and thank the organisations for the lifesaving work they carry out, often under dangerous conditions. The Norwegian funding model ensures that the UN, the Red Cross and Norwegian humanitarian organisations already have resources available to assist people in need, enabling them to start the relief efforts immediately. Given the scale of the crisis, we are adding supplementary funds to ensure that our partners can step up their efforts,' said the Minister of International Development. At the start of the year, the major humanitarian organisations receive funding from the government that they can rapidly mobilise when new or worsening crises arise. Since the war began on 28 February, the Norwegian humanitarian organisations have released NOK 26 million (approximately USD 2.6 million). The UN and Red Cross crisisresponse funds have also allocated resources to those affected by the war in the Middle East. The Norwegian share amounts to NOK 18.5 million (approximately USD 1,9 million). In total, Norway has so far contributed nearly NOK 70 million (approximately USD 7 million) to alleviate the crisis in the Middle East. In addition, the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have provided support financed by Norway. 'Our embassies in the Middle East and humanitarian organizations report enormous humanitarian needs. They also report repeated violations of international humanitarian law and civilians being caught in the crossfire. We view the Israeli attack that destroyed the Norwegian Refugee Council's premises in Tyre in Lebanon as extremely serious,' said State Secretary Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Speech by the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Baltic Sea Security Talks in Gdansk Government Offices of Sweden Speech by Maria Malmer Stenergard Published 13 March 2026 Speech by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard at the Baltic Sea Security Talks in Gdansk, 12 March 2026. Check against delivery. Your Majesties, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, For generations, Swedes have admired Poland's struggle for freedom and democracy. Gdansk has become a symbol of that struggle, as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement. It is a city whose name represents something bigger than the place itself. Gdansk has become a beacon of democracy, dignity and the defence of fundamental freedoms. This city shows that people with courage and conviction can change the course of history. Sweden stood firmly by the Polish people as you paved the way for the dissolution of the communist bloc. When martial law was imposed in Poland in December 1981, ordinary Swedes mobilised to send hundreds of thousands of relief shipments to Poland. The Swedish Postal Service even removed shipping fees for all packages to Poland. Polish history since then is a tale of immense efforts to build an independent, prosperous and democratic state, firmly anchored in NATO and the EU. It is a success story and an inspiration for the countries that followed. During this state visit, I have seen so many examples of this Polish success story. In defence, innovation and entrepreneurship - to name but a few areas. Simply put, Poland is a role model for other nations, and I see an enormous potential in the partnership between our two countries. Today, I will focus on the Swedish-Polish security partnership. I believe that Gdansk is the perfect place to do this, because you don't need to go far to see the sea that unites us: the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is our home, and we will defend it together as Allies against Russian expansionism. Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen, Two weeks ago, my colleague Radek Sikorski stated in the Sejm that the countries in the Baltic Sea region "are united by economic and social ties, threat assessment and determination to take joint action". I could have said exactly the same thing in the Swedish Riksdag. During the past few years, our countries have turned towards each other more and more. Not just because we like each other, but because we need each other. In the 2020s, Poland and Sweden are perfect partners. There are several reasons for this: Because we have the same clear-eyed view of how to handle the threat from Russia; Because of Poland's increased dependence on the Baltic Sea region for your energy needs; Because of Sweden's accession to NATO, which opened new possibilities to deepen our military cooperation; And because of the structure of our economies, industries, and labour markets. This is the reality that we have sought to capture in the Strategic Partnership which was first signed in 2011, then upgraded and expanded in 2024. Today, our interests, challenges and opportunities are more intertwined than ever. Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen, Poland has emerged as one of Europe's leading powers. Your engagement in the security of the Baltic Sea region and of Europe is vital to us. As NATO Allies, strategic partners and neighbours, Poland and Sweden are two pillars of security in the Baltic Sea region, with shared history, geography, and challenges - and a common future. As for the challenges - we are fully aware what they consist of. For the foreseeable future, Russia will continue to threaten the security in the Baltic Sea region, and test our readiness to respond - under, on, and above the sea. Overtly and covertly. They will exploit any weakness they can find. The task that lies ahead of us is clear: Deter Russia and preserve security. How will we do this? By not moving an inch. By being steadfast and relentless. And by joining forces. In February, Prime Ministers Tusk and Kristersson tasked the Foreign and Defence Ministers of our countries to further develop a vision for deeper cooperation on security and defence, to be signed before the summer. My ambition here is simple but far-reaching: that Sweden and Poland can act as one by combining our political, security and defence capabilities. We should build a Swedish-Polish defence and security vertical, stretching from Kiruna in the North to Zakopane in the South, centered around the strait between Gdansk and Karlskrona in the Baltic Sea. This collaboration should be threefold and cover defence, strategic political cooperation, and defence industry. First, defence cooperation through joint exercises and operations under water, as well as deploying military capabilities on both sides of the Baltic Sea. Second, strategic political cooperation. We are considerably likeminded in the most important issues: on Russia, Baltic Sea security and Ukraine. This is an advantage that we must make use of. Third, cooperation in the defence industry, including possibilities of production in Poland, technology transfer, and significant industry-to-industry investments in the Polish defence sector. This will benefit NATO, the EU, Poland, Sweden and all Allies around the Baltic Sea. In this regard, Poland's choice of Sweden as your partner for the ORKA programme has been crucial, as it opens up for essentially limitless underwater cooperation. Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen, I also have to say a few words about Ukraine, as Russia's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has now entered its fifth year. Sweden and Poland are working hand in hand to provide necessary military and civilian support to Ukraine. I want to commend Poland for the solidarity shown with Ukraine, and for the crucial contribution, as a neighbour, this country makes in our collective ability to help Ukrainian forces fighting on the frontlines. Ukraine has consistently shown that it is ready for peace. In contrast, we have seen how Russia has taken advantage of the extreme winter cold to intensify its brutal attacks against Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. These are not the actions of a country that seeks peace. Rather, these are the actions of a country that violates international law and has no respect for human life and dignity. Let me be clear: Russia will fail in its attempts to undermine Ukraine, just as it is failing on the battlefield. The Russian economy is struggling - its energy revenues in January were down by half compared to January last year. Russia is currently losing soldiers faster than it can recruit new ones - 1,000 casualties per day, according to some estimates. Neither has Russia been able to protect its friends in Syria, Iran or Venezuela. We must not have any illusions about Russia's intentions. Its objectives remain unchanged, and they extend far the borders of Ukraine. We are in the midst of a long-term confrontation and we must meet Russia from a position of strength - politically, economically and militarily. We cannot change the Kremlin's objectives, but we can change its calculus by increasing pressure on Russia and by continuing to strengthen Ukraine. We have the cards. Time is not on Russia's side. Your Majesties, Ladies and Gentlemen, As Prime Minister Tusk and others have put it, it is a paradox that 500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. Today, I think that a far greater number of those 500 million Europeans have understood that we must do more to take responsibility for our own security. This is promising for the future. Sweden is ready to do its part and continue increasing its efforts for security in Europe. At home, through the support to Ukraine, and shoulder-to-shoulder with its partners in NATO and the EU. And Poland is our partner of choice in this endeavour. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Nearly One Million Displaced in Lebanon, IOM Appeals for USD 19 Million International Organization for Migration News - Global 13 March 2026 Beirut/Geneva, 13 March 2026 -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is appealing for USD 19 million to scale up its emergency response in Lebanon, where the number of people forced to flee their homes has surged to nearly one million people following a sharp escalation of hostilities since 2 March. "For many families, this is not the first time they have been forced to flee. Repeated displacement has left people struggling to meet even the most basic needs," said IOM Director General Amy Pope. "As numbers rise rapidly, families urgently need safe shelter, clean water, health care and protection. IOM is appealing for immediate support to deliver lifesaving assistance and reach those hit hardest by this crisis." Evacuation orders across towns and villages in southern Lebanon, parts of the Bekaa Valley, and areas of Beirut have triggered mass displacement, pushing families to seek safety wherever possible. Over 128,000 people are currently staying in collective shelters, a number that continues to grow each day. However, the majority of those displaced have sought refuge with relatives and host communities, while others are sleeping in cars or out in the open along streets. Host communities across the country are also under immense strain. The sudden influx of displaced families is placing significant pressure on local infrastructure, housing, and public services, further stretching resources in areas already grappling with economic hardship. IOM's appeal aims to reach over one million people affected by the crisis over the next three months, providing lifesaving support including emergency shelter, clean water, protection services, and health assistance, while ensuring that migrants and other vulnerable groups are included in the response. The response will also strengthen displacement tracking systems to ensure accurate, real-time data that can guide humanitarian operations and help partners respond effectively to rapidly evolving needs. The Appeal supports the response led by the Government of Lebanon, including the Ministry of Social Affairs, and aligns with the UN-Government of Lebanon Inter-Agency Flash Appeal launched today that seeks USD 308.3 Million. IOM teams are already working on the ground, delivering emergency shelter support, core relief items, protection, health and psychosocial assistance to displaced families, but the scale of needs is rising rapidly. Without urgent funding, humanitarian operations risk being severely limited at a critical moment. As the conflict enters its second week following the latest escalation, response capacity is already overstretched, while needs are quickly outpacing available resources. IOM calls on the international community to act now, as immediate support is critical to ensure that families who have lost everything receive the protection and assistance they urgently need. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gitanas Nauseda and the Czech leader visited Rukla President of the Republic of Lithuania March 13, 2026 On Friday, Gitanas Nauseda visited the Rukla military hub together with Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic, who is on a state visit to Lithuania. During the visit, the two leaders were briefed on the activities of NATO allied forces in Lithuania and shown military equipment. The Lithuanian leader emphasized that the joint visit to Rukla, and Thursday's visit to the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, are a strong symbol of the partnership between Lithuania and Czechia and their shared commitment to strengthening NATO's deterrence and defense on the eastern flank. The President stressed that Lithuania greatly appreciates Czechia's consistent and significant contribution to regional security. Since 2018, Czech troops have been serving in NATO's multinational battlegroup in Lithuania, contributing to allied collective defense. Gitanas Nauseda noted that Russia remains the greatest threat to Euro-Atlantic security, which is why the unity and solidarity of the allies is particularly important. The Head of State also emphasized Lithuania's commitment to strengthening its defense. In 2026, Lithuania is allocating 5.38% of its GDP to defense, primarily for developing the national division's air defense capabilities, expanding training grounds, and building infrastructure to host allied forces. The President thanked Czechia for its leadership in supporting Ukraine, particularly for the highly important ammunition initiative led by Czechia, in which Lithuania has been participating since 2024. According to Gitanas Nauseda, Lithuania, together with Czechia and other NATO allies, will continue to strengthen NATO's deterrence and defense capabilities to ensure the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic area. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Amid protection crisis in Lebanon, UN experts warn bombing civilians to force displacement is unlawful Press releases Special Procedures 13 March 2026 GENEVA -- UN experts* today raised the alarm over a rapidly escalating displacement crisis in Lebanon, after intense Israeli airstrikes and evacuation warnings in southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut. "Within days, tens of thousands of civilians have once again been forced to flee their homes, many with nothing but the clothes they were wearing," the experts said. "Displacement on this scale, unfolding in a matter of hours, is a stark reminder that civilians continue to bear the brunt of hostilities." The experts said there were reports of more than 700,000 people displaced across Lebanon since the attacks began in early March, of which 200,000 are children. Thousands of displaced people are seeking refuge in public buildings, schools or overcrowded shelters. Others have spent nights in their cars or on roadsides as they flee bombardment and evacuation warnings. More than 100 villages in southern Lebanon are affected, the experts said. "Behind every number is a family terrified and forced to flee in fear," the experts said. "Collective shelters are filling rapidly, essential services are under pressure, and thousands of people remain on the move without adequate protection or assistance," they said. "Without urgent support, the situation risks deteriorating into a full-scale humanitarian emergency." "Civilians must never be treated as targets or collateral damage," the experts said. "Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects, including homes and essential infrastructure, are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law." "Ordering civilians to evacuate does not absolve parties of their legal obligations," the experts said. "Warnings must be effective, civilians must have a genuine possibility to reach safety, and those displaced must be ensured adequate protection and assistance." The experts warned that when homes are destroyed, communities shattered and return rendered impossible, displacement becomes not temporary protection but a long-term human rights crisis. "Forced displacement may also amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law," they warned. The experts said the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon is a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international humanitarian law and human rights law and must cease immediately. "The Israeli invasion violates Lebanese national sovereignty, only serves to destabilise the region further, and pushes all actors away from a political resolution, which is the only path to solve this crisis," they said. "These attacks form part of a broader pattern of assaults against civilian populations in the region. An international investigation into their causes and impacts is urgently warranted," the experts said. The experts called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law, protect civilians and ensure safe, unimpeded humanitarian access. They stressed that accountability is essential, warning that impunity continues to fuel the crisis in the Levant. *The experts: Paula Gaviria, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons George Katrougalos, the Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR. Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US assets to stay in PH, no redeployment to Mideast Philippine News Agency By Priam Nepomuceno March 13, 2026, 6:55 pm MANILA -- There are no indications that the United States is withdrawing its military assets from the Philippines despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, a senior military official said Friday. "There are no indications of the US pulling out military assets from the Philippines. The situation in South Korea involves specific air defense systems being redeployed to the Middle East, which is a separate theater arrangement and does not apply here," Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea and Inspector General, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad told the Philippine News Agency (PNA). Trinidad did not identify these particular US assets in the Philippines for security reasons. He made this response when asked if there were indications that the US was preparing to pull out similar assets from the country, like what the Americans did in South Korea, where they withdrew Patriot air defense missile batteries and parts of its THAAD anti-missile systems to redeploy in the Middle East. "The upward trajectory of the RP-US alliance is manifested in our continuing maritime activities, strengthened MDB-SEB (Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board) engagements, and the recent approval of the Philippine Enhanced Resilience Act authorizing USD2.5 billion in security assistance over the next five years," Trinidad said. He added that Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, where the US has access, are inside Philippine bases and that these facilities are dedicated to mutual defense and humanitarian assistance. The PN official said these EDCA sites are also not allowed to be used for staging areas for offensive operations. "Our alliance with the US continues to strengthen, and there has been no change in the level of support being provided," Trinidad said. (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran has the right to ensure its own security and the right not to condone attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Vasily Nebenzya told media on Friday. "The situation is really dire and we call for a diplomatic solution. And those who opposed this -- and that is effectively the position they took by not voting for our resolution -- have shown that the responsibility lies with them," Nebenzya told RT. The Russian diplomat referred to a Russian-sponsored resolution addressing the ongoing military conflicts in the Middle East, which failed to pass at the UN Security Council on Wednesday. The draft resolution urging all parties to immediately halt military actions was rejected by a vote of four in favor, two against and nine abstentions. Russia, China, Pakistan and Somalia voted in favor, while the United States and Latvia voted against it. Nebenzya also said that the U.S.-Israel "blitzkrieg" against Iran has failed. "We do not know what will happen. The blitzkrieg failed. The Iranian regime, as they call it, did not collapse. The people did not revolt against it. That looks like there is no exit strategy for the United States in this game," said Nebenzya. Hezbollah: Netanyahu should be fearful; resistance our only option Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 9:53 PM Hezbollah's secretary-general issues a strong warning to Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister threatened to assassinate him. "Your threat to assassinate me has no taste and no value. You are the one who should fear for yourself," Sheikh Naim Qassem said during an address on Friday, marking the International Quds Day. He reaffirmed Hezbollah's determination, stating, "There is no such thing as defeat or surrender in our dictionary. We will remain strong in the field, no matter the sacrifices and offerings. We will not retreat, because this concerns our existence; this is an existential battle, not a limited or simple battle." 'Enemy to be surprised on battlefield' "We have prepared ourselves for a long confrontation, they will be surprised on the battlefield, the enemy will see our might, and its threats do not frighten us," Sheikh Qassem assured. He warned of Lebanon's fate without resistance, "There is no solution except through resistance, otherwise, Lebanon is headed towards erasure." Sheikh Qassem stressed that the country faced an existential threat from Israeli aggression, calling it "a dangerous, brutal aggression." He noted, "We were not in a sound situation; rather, we were facing barbaric actions that have been ongoing for 15 months." The Hezbollah secretary-general was pointing to the regime's recurrent violations of a 2024 ceasefire deal with Hezbollah that was supposed to end Tel Aviv's deadly escalation towards Lebanon. He explained that Hezbollah had consulted at leadership levels over three meetings before deciding to confront the aggression. In addition to the violations, Hezbollah has been motivated to confront the aggression due to the regime's recent participation in joint aggression with the United States against Iran, which has resulted in the martyrdom of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei as well as many other atrocities. The Hezbollah leader, meanwhile, addressed the issue of the International Quds Day, an occasion so designated by the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini as a means of galvanizing international support for the Palestinian cause of liberation from Israeli occupation and aggression. Sheikh Qassem recalled the words of Imam Khomeini, noting that al-Quds Day "is an international day that is not specific to al-Quds alone, but a day for the oppressed to confront the oppressors." He added, "This day holds symbolism in the call for the liberation of Palestine, and it holds symbolism in extending to all the oppressed in the world so they may be freed from the yoke of slavery and injustice." He condemned the Israeli regime's continued Western-backed occupation of Palestine, saying the occupation "is the greatest injustice in the world today." Sheikh Qassem denounced the United States and other major powers for sponsoring and legitimizing the occupation in 1948, describing it as "a cancerous growth." As a case in point concerning the regime's Western-backed crimes, he cited Tel Aviv's ongoing war of genocide against the Gaza Strip that has either killed or injured around 260,000 people so far. Sheikh Qassem reaffirmed Hezbollah's support for Palestine, stating, "We, as Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance, will remain with Palestine; we support and back it for the sake of full liberation." The resistance leader emphasized collective responsibility, saying, "All Arab and Islamic peoples are responsible for standing with al-Quds and Palestine, as are all free people in the world, because by doing so, they stand with themselves against the tyrants." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address White House divided as Trump struggles to find exit strategy from Iran war: Report Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 3:18 PM A deepening internal tug-of-war is reportedly paralyzing the White House, as US President Donald Trump's advisors clash over how to define "victory" amid a global energy crisis and significant strategic miscalculations regarding the unassailable resilience of the Iranian nation. Citing a Trump adviser and sources close to the matter, Reuters reported a stark division within the administration over how to end the war with the Islamic Republic, which is now dragging into its third week. On one side, the report said, hawks like Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton are pushing for a sustained offensive against Iran. They argue that the US must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and respond forcefully to attacks on American troops and shipping in the Persian Gulf. Iran has always said it does not want to acquire nuclear weapons. On the other side, political advisorsincluding Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and media figures like Tucker Carlsonare urging an immediate de-escalation. They argue that a prolonged war in West Asia directly violates Trump's core campaign promise to end "stupid" foreign interventions. Meanwhile, the recent surge in gasoline pricestriggered by US-Israeli aggression against Iranhas concerned Trump's economic advisors, including those from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council. According to the report, they have issued dire warnings to the president, arguing that an economic shock will erode Trump's base of support faster than any military setback. Political advisors, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief James Blair, are making similar arguments, focusing on the political fallout from higher gas prices and urging Trump to define "victory" narrowly and signal that the operation is limited and "nearly finished," the sources said. Trump's rhetoric has fluctuated wildly in a single day. He claimed "we won" the war with Iran, only to pivot moments later and say "we must finish the job." Launching an unprovoked war on Iranalong with the Israeli regimeon February 28, the US president failed to offer even a shred of credible explanation to the American people. Instead, his administration has offered justifications ranging from thwarting what they claimed was an imminent attack by Iran to crippling its nuclear program to regime change. Ever since, Iranian armed forces have carried out retaliatory attacks on US military assets in regional countries and the Israeli-occupied territories. On the other hand, Iran's absolute command over the Strait of Hormuzthe world's energy arteryhas also left the Trump administration reeling, as soaring gas prices have ignited a political firestorm that threatens to topple Republican majorities in Congress and end Washington's interventionist campaign, according to the report. Facing the unshakable stability of the Iranian leadership, Trump has been forced to retreat from his delusions of regime change. Intelligence reports now show that Tehran is nowhere near collapse, shattering the White House's naive attempts to replicate the Venezuela raid. The US administration's fatal error was treating a sovereign power like Iran with the same simplistic playbook used in the January 3 kidnapping of Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro. Furthermore, experts have shattered the fabricated narrative pushed by Trump's inner circle, rejecting claims that Iran was seeking to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran has always insisted that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful goals, such as generating electricity and conducting medical research. For the Islamic Republic, its peaceful nuclear program is a matter of national pride and a legal right that it refuses to give up, despite years of international pressure. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iceland, Netherlands join South Africa's ICJ case against Israeli genocide in Gaza Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 11:29 AM Iceland and the Netherlands have filed declarations to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest court. The move by the two European countries took place on Thursday, bringing to 18 the number of countries seeking to participate in the proceedings. Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, Chile, the Maldives, Bolivia, Ireland, Cuba, Belize, Brazil, the Comoros, Belgium and Paraguay have already joined the case. South Africa lodged the case with the ICJ in December 2023, saying Israel is violating the 1948 Genocide Convention through its bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip. In January 2024, the court ordered the occupying regime to take all necessary measures to stop any genocide against Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, but Israel has kept ignoring the ruling. In its declaration, Iceland said the ICJ should consider whether actions such as deprivation of food, shelter or medical care could constitute conditions of life intended to destroy a protected group. It also emphasized the particular vulnerability of children in assessing serious bodily or mental harm. Meanwhile, the Netherlands said in its filing that forced displacement and the withholding of humanitarian aid could, depending on the circumstances, contribute to acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention. The Palestinian Hamas resistance group welcomed the move by the two European countries, describing it as an important step towards strengthening the principle of international justice. It further called on all countries to support the lawsuits brought against Israel and its officials in international tribunals. Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, but it agreed to a ceasefire two years later after failing to achieve its objectives. Since then, however, Israel has been violating the truce, killing more than 72,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, during the war and after it. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US burned through 'years' of munitions with war on Iran: Report Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 11:19 AM The administration of US President Donald Trump has burned through "years" of critical munitions since the start of its aggression on Iran, a report says, noting that the country will needs years to replenish its stockpiles. The Financial Times reported that the rapid depletion of weaponry includes advanced long-range Tomahawk missiles. It is a "massive expenditure of Tomahawks", it cited one person familiar with the US military's use of munitions as saying, noting that "The navy will be feeling this expenditure for several years." The Center for International and Strategic Studies estimated the US used 168 Tomahawks in the first 100 hours of the war of terrorism that began on February 28, with the assassination of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. "It's a lot. And it will take years to replace," said one US lawmaker of the Tomahawks, as well as US reserves of THAAD interceptors and Patriot missiles, critical air defenses against the barrage of missiles and drones that Iran has unleashed on US bases and interests. On Thursday, Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate financial services committee, noted that the US is spending "many billions" on a war that is proving deeply unpopular with Americans. The cost "goes up practically as we talk", he said, adding "It's an astronomical sum." Tomahawks, subsonic cruise missiles with a 1,000-pound warhead, are manufactured by US weapons maker RTX at a cost of $3.6 million each. In the past five years, the US military has purchased only 322 of the missiles, including the 57 the navy has earmarked for fiscal year 2026 which represents a fraction of what it has probably used in recent days. The rising cost of the unprovoked aggression will pile pressure on Trump as the war has led to the closure the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime trade corridor, and sent oil prices above $100 a barrel, ahead of the November US midterm election. The war is also increasingly unpopular with American voters who face increasing petrol prices and are questioning whether Trump has signed the country up for another prolonged conflict in West Asia. In the coming days, the Pentagon is expected to submit a formal request to the White House and Congress for as much as $50 billion in additional spending for the military, paving the way for what is likely to be a fierce funding battle on Capitol Hill. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican on the Senate appropriations committee charged with approving the federal budget, has warned lawmakers will chafe at any expectation from the White House of a blank cheque. She stressed that the Pentagon must "engage" Congress. "You've got to be able to provide us with information, as requested, justification," she said on Thursday. "Don't just take for granted that the Congress's role is basically just to write the cheque." Any supplemental bill to fund the aggression against Iran could face a battle in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democratic lawmakers, who have slammed the aggression on Iran as illegal because Trump did not seek congressional approval, are also likely to balk at allocating more money for the Pentagon. Pentagon officials earlier this week told senators that the war had cost more than $11 billion in the first six days of strikes. The costs were overwhelmingly for munitions. US officials have expressed growing concerns in recent years that the use of critical munitions could outpace their production, particularly if the US is drawn into conflicts with adversaries such as Russia or China. This could leave US stockpiles dangerously depleted and the US military less ready to confront future wars. Members of the US Congress have already expressed concern that a full-scale war will deplete US military stocks at a time when the arms manufacturing industry is already struggling to keep up with demand. Last week, Trump met with executives from seven arms contractors as the Pentagon worked desperately to replenish supplies. As significant uncertainty surrounds the US war against Iran, lawmakers are pressuring administration officials to give public testimony under oath about Trump's plans for the war - if he has any - including how long it might last. This is while senior Iranian officials have already stressed that it is Tehran, and not Washington, that determines the end of the war. According to US military figures, 11 American troops have been killed in the war, and over 150 others wounded, but Iranian officials have put the US death toll in three digits. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Friday that four out of six crew members on a US Air Force refueling aircraft, which crashed in the western Iraq, were killed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Dozens of Israeli forces injured as Hezbollah operations shake northern occupied lands Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 9:14 AM A series of Hezbollah rocket operations targeting Israeli troop concentrations along the border triggered widespread sirens across northern Israel early Friday, with Israeli media reporting at least 50 people were injured, as an Iranian missile also struck the community of Zarzir, wounding some 60 settlers. Israeli media described the incident as a major security breach after a rocket reportedly hit the Upper Galilee (al-Jalil al-A'la) in northern occupied Palestine early on Friday, injuring dozens. According to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, at least 50 people were wounded in the strike. Initial reports indicated that some of the injured were in serious condition, while emergency teams rushed to the scene to evacuate casualties to nearby hospitals. The reports emerged shortly after Hezbollah announced a wave of coordinated rocket attacks targeting Israeli military gatherings along the southern Lebanese front as part of operations marking International Quds Day. In a series of statements released early Friday, the Lebanese resistance group said its fighters struck multiple Israeli troop concentrations and newly established military positions near the border with occupied Palestine. The operations began shortly after midnight. At 1:25 a.m., Hezbollah launched a rocket barrage at an Israeli troop gathering at the Marj site opposite the border town of Markaba. Fifteen minutes later, at 1:40 a.m., another barrage targeted Israeli forces near the Khiam detention center. Minutes later, resistance fighters struck an Israeli troop concentration in the southern neighborhood of Khiam, while another rocket salvo simultaneously targeted a newly established Israeli military position on Hamamis Hill, south of the town. At 1:50 a.m., Hezbollah said it targeted a further gathering of Israeli soldiers in Khallet al-Asafir, also south of Khiam, while another strike hit the Marj site again opposite Markaba. By 2:00 a.m., the group announced an additional rocket attack against Israeli forces at the Kfar Jaladi quarry. Israeli media reported that warning sirens sounded across large parts of northern Israel, from Haifa in the west to Tiberias (Tabarayya) in the east, after rockets fell in the Upper Galilee. Hezbollah also reported several additional strikes along the border. In one statement, the group said its fighters targeted a newly established Israeli military headquarters in the Namar al-Jamal area, opposite the border settlement of Alma al-Shaab. Another operation involved heavy rocket and artillery fire against Israeli troop gatherings near the border town of Maroun al-Ras. Hezbollah further announced strikes on Israeli military positions at the al-Ajal heights and Qabl al-Qamh, north of the Israeli settlement of Kfar Yuval, targeting troop concentrations deployed in those areas. The group said the operations were carried out in response to continued Israeli attacks across Lebanon, including strikes that have hit dozens of towns and cities as well as Beirut's southern suburbs. According to Lebanon's Ministry of Health, the death toll from Israeli attacks since March 2 has risen to 687, as Israeli strikes continue across several regions of the country. Hezbollah said its operations are aimed at confronting Israeli forces along the border and targeting troop concentrations, military sites and operational positions used by Israeli forces. Meanwhile, some 60 Israeli settlers have been injured as a result of an Iranian missile hitting the village of Zarzir in the north of occupied territories early on Friday. Earlier in the day, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had announced the 44th wave of Operations True Promise 4 against US and Israeli targets in response to the ongoing US-Israeli aggression against Iran. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel's Second War: The Fight Against Iran's Proxy, Hezbollah By Ray Furlong March 13, 2026 TEL AVIV -- As the US-Israeli war with Iran continues, a second front against Hezbollah has led to the displacement of some 800,000 people fleeing deadly Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, while a succession of rocket and drone attacks has rained down on Israel. Hezbollah, regarded as a terrorist organization by both Israel and the United States, is Iran's strongest remaining proxy on Israel's borders. It attacked Israel on March 2, after Israel began air strikes on Iran on February 28. The response by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been massive -- and the conflict with Hezbollah is an integral part of Israel's wider war against Iran itself. "The campaign against Iran was meant to deal with our very existence in the region, and Hezbollah is part of that," Sarit Zehavi, head of Alma, a think tank based in northern Israel, told RFE/RL on March 13. "We are under constant attacks 24/7 here." Israel and Hezbollah have fought each other in several armed conflicts going back to the 1980s. Before the last conflict, which ended in 2024, Israel said the group had an arsenal of some 125,000-150,000 rockets - although estimates varied. "When the war ended, the IDF itself said that they degraded the amount of rockets in the hands of Hezbollah by 80 percent. So, if you calculate, you will find out that they still had back then about 25,000 rockets," said Zehavi, who worked in military intelligence during a 15-year IDF career. "Now, there was an effort in the past year or so by Hezbollah to recover, either by smuggling or manufacturing in Lebanon, of different types of weapons, from anti-tank missiles, rockets, drones. Drones was the main effort," she added. The Israeli authorities see the war with Hezbollah in similar terms to the war with Iran: a unique opportunity to deliver a strategic defeat to a decades-long foe. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on Lebanon's government to disarm the group, warning on March 12 that it is "playing with fire" if it does not. A day later, Defense Minister Israel Katz followed up, saying the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure would be the "price" of not disarming Hezbollah. A 'Disproportionate' Response The same day, the World Health Organization (WHO) said some 630 people had been killed and 1,500 injured in Lebanon since the beginning of the latest fighting. Israel says many of these are "terrorists." Israeli air strikes have caused huge explosions in Beirut and across the south of the country. It is also conducting limited ground operations and Netanyahu has hinted of a larger-scale ground incursion. "Israel is not simply responding to Hezbollah attacks, that's certain. Its military campaign appears designed to eliminate Hezbollah as a political and social force entirely, not just disarm it," Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told RFE/RL. "This means deliberate displacement of an entire community...and disproportionate firepower resulting in indiscriminate harm to the civilian population," added Sayigh, who was a negotiator in the Palestinian delegation to peace talks with Israel between 1991 and 2002. Israeli demands that the Lebanese government take action against Hezbollah are not new, but this time Beirut's response has broken new ground. On March 2, it declared the group's military activities illegal -- an unprecedented step. Israel is now demanding practical steps to follow through on this. Sayigh said this would not be easy for the Lebanese government. "It is under US pressure, in addition to constant Israeli military attacks, to take more direct action to disarm Hezbollah. But it fears that using force creates conditions for civil strife, if not civil war," he said. In a televised address on March 12, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed that he was hoping there might be scope for diplomacy. "It is a war we did not want. On the contrary, we are working day and night to bring it to an end," he said. But neither Israel nor Hezbollah have indicated any intention to stop fighting for now. What Comes Next "Hezbollah's strategy, likely in coordination with Iran, appears to be to inflict as much pain on Israel for as long as possible in the hope that a settlement is reached between the warring parties that essentially leaves the regime in Tehran in place," wrote Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based defense and security consultant, on March 11. Israeli media have been reporting for days now that a larger ground operation in Lebanon is coming soon. Analysts that RFE/RL spoke to said that it was not to be ruled out. "The IDF has attacked more than 800 times in Lebanon. 800 attacks. This is what the IDF published yesterday. I don't know about today. That's a lot of targets," said Zehavi. "And you see the damage. And they have a lot more [to target]. In order to create an impactful achievement, we will have to do a...military incursion." On March 8, Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in Lebanon in a Hezbollah attack -- the only IDF fatalities so far since February 28. Previous ground operations in Lebanon have involved many more Israeli military casualties. "At the end, Hezbollah -- Lebanese, Arabic-speaking Shi'ites, are the locals. There's always an advantage in knowing the terrain," Miri Eisin, a former deputy head of the Israeli military's Combat Intelligence Corps, told RFE/RL. "We're going into a very challenging topographical area, a very hilly area. All of these factors are going to be a challenge. That doesn't mean you don't do it," she added. Whether there is an expanded ground war or not, many observers expect Hezbollah to be further weakened by the current conflict. Beirut-based analyst Sayigh said the Lebanese government's new position on Hezbollah's activities would have a long-term impact. But the crucial factor may be the outcome of the war with Iran, which has bankrolled Hezbollah for decades and remains its paymaster. While Israel has continued to say the aim of the war is regime change in Tehran, the US position has placed greater emphasis on degrading Iran's capabilities. "Although weakened, Hezbollah's fate probably depends on how the Trump administration chooses to end its war with Iran -- some kind of deal could lead to an outcome in Lebanon that falls short of Israel's maximal aims," said Sayigh. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/israel-hezbollah-lebanon-war- second-front/33704698.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Strikes Undermine China's Diplomatic Push For Peace By Daud Khattak March 13, 2026 Fresh Pakistani jet and drone strikes targeting Kabul and the Kandahar, Paktika, and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan have cast a shadow over China's shuttle-diplomacy efforts to restore peace between Pakistan and the Taliban. There has been no official confirmation from the Pakistani government, but Taliban authorities say four civilians were killed and 15 injured in the strikes on the morning of March 13. A Taliban source told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that an oil depot was also hit in the latest air strikes. The Afghan Taliban responded with drone strikes in the northwestern Pakistani city of Kohat on March 13, injuring two civilians, sources told Radio Mashaal. The Afghan Taliban said that it hit a Pakistani military base in Kohat, a garrison town in Pakistan's northwest near the Afghan border. Chinese Peace Efforts The fresh Pakistani attacks come on the heels of China's intensive shuttle diplomacy efforts to restore normalcy along the 2,600-kilometer Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In the latest move, China's special envoy on Afghan affairs, Yue Xiaoyong, held meetings with Taliban and Pakistani officials "to promote dialogue and reconciliation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on March 12. In a post on X, Jian also said that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar urging the need to prevent further escalation and calling on the two countries to "return to negotiations as soon as possible." On March 12, Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, posted on X about a "detailed meeting" with his Chinese counterpart, Xiaoyong, who had arrived from Kabul in Islamabad that morning. Sadiq said they "discussed threats posed by terrorist groups such as TTP [Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] and ETIM [East Turkestan Islamic Movement] to Pakistan and China, respectively. Agreed on the need for collective efforts to ensure lasting peace and stability." A close neighbor of the two countries, China has invested billions of dollars in projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan to promote its presence in the region. China has invested $65 billion in Pakistan under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. China has also signed agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars to develop Afghanistan's mineral resources with both previous Afghan governments and the current Taliban authorities. Attacks On Chinese Workers However, recent attacks on Chinese workers in Tajikistan, close to the Afghan border, as well as in Pakistan's Sindh and Balochistan provinces, have heightened security risks for Chinese personnel, threatening investments in the region. Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, an author and China-Pakistan expert based in Islamabad, told RFE/RL that the expansion of the Afghan-Pakistani conflict in the region does not serve Beijing's interests. "China has concerns about the presence of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in the region, and the recent attacks on Chinese workers in Tajikistan have further heightened those concerns," he added. The latest Chinese efforts to ease tensions in the region come as previous mediators, such as Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, are dealing with the fallout from the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran. Pakistani authorities say that as long as the Taliban continues to host the TTP and other "terrorist groups" that carry out attacks inside Pakistan, then its military will continue cross-border operations. The Afghan Taliban has said it will not allow Afghan soil to be used by groups targeting other countries. Several Pakistani officials welcomed the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021. And the Pakistani military and its powerful intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have faced accusations of maintaining close ties with the Taliban during the militant group's fight against US and NATO forces in the near-two-decades war. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-afghanistan- border-strikes-china-diplomacy/33704544.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK and Ireland agree updated Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral defence cooperation Press release The UK and Ireland will be better protected against common threats as the two nations sign a refreshed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance bilateral defence cooperation. From: Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon John Healey MP Published 13 March 2026 Secretary of State for Defence and Irish Minister for Defence Helen McEntee sign refreshed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen bilateral defence cooperation. Updated MoU will focus on enhanced maritime cooperation, cyber defence, air domain information sharing, and increased joint procurement. Comes as the Prime Minister meets Taoiseach Micheal Martin in Cork for the UK-Ireland Leaders' Summit. The UK and Ireland will be better protected against common threats as the two nations sign a refreshed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance bilateral defence cooperation. The Secretary of State for Defence and Irish Minister for Defence Helen McEntee have signed an updated MoU focusing on enhanced maritime cooperation, cyber defence, air domain information sharing, and increased joint procurement. The refreshed MoU will see the UK Armed Forces and the Irish Defence Forces strengthen their maritime security cooperation to better protect critical undersea infrastructure and develop improved response mechanisms to maritime security incidents. Under the MoU, both governments will also explore opportunities for joint procurement of military equipment and new Government-to-Government sales. In the air and cyber domain, the UK and Ireland will boost their information sharing, improve joint situational awareness, and increase resilience against threats. It comes as the Prime Minister meets his Irish counterpart Taoiseach Micheal Martin in Cork for the UK-Ireland Leaders' Summit. Defence Secretary John Healey MP said: The UK and Ireland share a long history of defence cooperation from crisis management and humanitarian operations to training, military education and staff exchanges. This rebooted Memorandum of Understanding modernises our framework for cooperation on areas critical to both our nations' security, in particular to counter the growing undersea and cyber threats we share. Irish Minister for Defence Helen McEntee TD said: It is appropriate that, after ten years, we take the opportunity to refresh our Memorandum of Understanding and provide for a particular focus in such areas as maritime, cyber defence, air information sharing and joint procurement initiatives. There will also be a continued focus on the already existing Defence co-operation arrangements between Ireland and the UK on a more formal and transparent footing. In addition, the MOU emphasises continued collaboration in UN peacekeeping, crisis management, and humanitarian operations, enhanced cooperation on training and military education exchanges, and continued support for and joint opportunities in Ukraine as members of the Coalition of the Willing. This refreshed MoU replaces the previous 2015 agreement signed by then Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Minister Simon Coveney. It fulfils the commitment made by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach at the 2025 UK-Ireland Leaders' Summit to update the MoU in line with the strengthened and evolving partnership between both countries. In an era of rising threats to both nations, this modernised MoU provides a stronger, more agile foundation for cooperation, while respecting the distinct defence and security policies of both countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York 13 March 2026 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General. ** Briefings today and Monday All right, today is Friday, actually, so we can say happy Friday! As a reminder, at 1 p.m., there will be a briefing here by the President of our General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock. She will update you at the end of the first week of the seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. And at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, just to mark on your calendars, William O'Neill, the UN designated expert on Human Rights in Haiti, will be here to brief you on his recent trip to Haiti. ** Secretary-General/Travels I think that as you all saw, the Secretary-General arrived in Beirut earlier today. He arrived from Ankara and landed in Lebanon at a critical and timely moment for the country and the wider region. Upon his arrival, he said this is a visit of solidarity with the people of Lebanon who did not choose this war. They were dragged into it. The Secretary-General appealed to both parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire and stop the enormous suffering of civilians in the region. The Secretary-General just finished a round of meetings with President Joseph Aoun, with the Speaker of Parliament, and Nabih Berri, and with the Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. In all his meetings, the Secretary-General reaffirmed the UN's strong support for Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty and for the Lebanese State's exercise of a monopoly on the use of force in its own country. Discussions with Lebanese officials focused on the full implementation of Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701, including the establishment of lasting security and stability across the Blue Line and beyond. In his meetings, the Secretary-General was accompanied by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, his Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations; Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the Special Coordinator for Lebanon; Imran Riza, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon; and Major General Diodato Abagnara, the Force Commander of our peacekeeping forces in the country. In remarks to the media that have been shared with you, the Secretary-General said that he hopes that his next visit to Lebanon will be a visit of a Lebanon in peace. The Secretary-General and the Prime Minister of Lebanon just launched a Flash Humanitarian Appeal of $308.3 million to provide life-saving support to 1 million people impacted. And that will cover for the next 3 months. He also emphasized that the success of this effort will depend on swift and flexible funding, as well as ensuring that humanitarian workers can safely reach those who are most in need. He also called for the respect of the international humanitarian law, and that includes the protection of civilians. The Secretary-General is scheduled to hold a press conference tomorrow for media in Lebanon, and we expected him back in this country on Sunday. ** Lebanon Let me outline some of the reasons why we are asking for this money for Lebanon. We, along with our humanitarian partners, and together with authorities, are scaling up urgent assistance to displaced people. As of 12 March, we have distributed some 632,000 hot meals and 18,000 ready-to-eat meals. We've also provided more than 382,000 litres of bottled water and over 1,700 cubic metres of clean water through water trucking. More than 211,000 litres of fuel have been supplied to sustain water services to reach 700,000 people. Government figures indicate that many people continue to be displaced. More than 822,000 people, including nearly 300,000 children, have registered with the Government as being displaced. And around 128,000 people are sheltering in nearly 600 collective sites across the country. We, of course, imagine that the actual number of displaced is much higher. We once again reiterate the need for safe and sustained humanitarian access so that we, and our humanitarian partners, and the Government and humanitarian system can reach people who need help. ** UN Interim Force in Lebanon On the peacekeeping front, our colleagues at the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, tell us that the situation in southern Lebanon continues to deteriorate, with rockets and missiles fired at Israel and airstrikes in Lebanese territory, resulting in increasing casualties, including civilians, displacement and destruction. UN peacekeepers continue to observe artillery shelling in Sector East as well as ground incursions by the Israel Defense Forces up to seven kilometres inside Lebanese territory. We continue to urge all sides to cease hostilities and recommit themselves to the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1701. That resolution remains essential for the safety and security of civilians on both sides of that Blue Line. Peacekeepers remain on the ground in this difficult environment, assisting civilians to move to safer areas and continuing to monitor and report on the situation. The volatile security situation continues to restrict movements of the peacekeepers. UNIFIL will continue to facilitate humanitarian access and supporting missions by ourselves and international organizations, including the Lebanese Red Cross, to support delivery of essential humanitarian aid to people living in UNIFIL's area of operation. ** Occupied Palestinian Territory Turning to the Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tells us that today and yesterday, nearly all humanitarian movements to the Kerem Shalom/Kerem Abu Salem crossing were denied. Only one was allowed through. As a result, we have been able to collect fuel, but nothing else. Our colleagues from the World Health Organization report that they have offloaded at the crossing, but not allowed to collect, include nearly 50 intensive care unit beds and 170 pallets of medicines, which includes paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen. As per the weekly schedule, there will be no offloading of incoming supplies at that crossing today and tomorrow. You will recall that Kerem Abu Salem/Kerem Shalom crossing remains the only operational crossing into Gaza, as both Rafah and Zikim continue to be shut since the start of the regional escalation. Through daily engagement with authorities, we continue to call for the opening of additional crossings and for more types of critical humanitarian supplies to be allowed into Gaza. The assistance that is currently being distributed in Gaza includes dignity kits to roughly 15,000 women and girls, and what we need is predictable flow of humanitarian aid in sufficient volumes to meet all the needs. In the West Bank, meanwhile, movement restrictions tightened again yesterday in northern areas for Palestinian civilians following the killing of two Palestinians by Israeli forces, who stated that the two had tried to carry out a ramming and shooting attack against Israeli soldiers in Nablus governorate. Tightened checkpoint closures across the West Bank have undermined Palestinians' access to services and workplaces, as well as emergency operations by humanitarians. Meanwhile, our partners operating a toll-free hotline across the Occupied Palestinian Territory report a nearly 25 per cent rise in calls related to physical gender-based violence. This is alongside a rise in calls indicating suicidal thoughts. This is based on a comparison between the first two months of this year and the same period last year. ** Strait of Hormuz/Humanitarian Staying in the region, our Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, today issued an urgent call for the unhindered and safe passage of humanitarian cargo through the Strait of Hormuz. He warned that any disruption would drive up the price of food, medicine and other life-saving supplies, hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest, in the Middle East and far beyond. As Mr. Fletcher told the Security Council on Wednesday, we are already seeing the impact of this: in Gaza, the price of flour has risen by 270 per cent. Globally, shipping costs are up 16 per cent compared to this time last year, and disruptions to maritime routes could delay humanitarian shipments to crisis hotspots around the world by six months. And you have seen that there was a recent report by our friends at the UN Trade and Development, UNCTAD, who released a report with lots of interesting data that covers commercial traffic disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. Mr. Fletcher stresses that without reliable humanitarian supply routes, millions of people risk losing access to life-saving assistance. Food, medicine and other critical supplies, destined for operations in places including East Africa and other places in sub-Saharan Africa, could become harder to move and more expensive to deliver, at a time when famine threatens places like Somalia. Mr. Fletcher has raised this issue directly with key parties and is urging them to allow humanitarian cargo to move freely through the Strait so life-saving aid can continue to reach people whose lives depend on it. ** Attacks on Synagogues And turning to this country and Europe. We've seen the assaults on synagogues in recent days in Canada, in Belgium, in the United States and most recently in the Netherlands. The Secretary-General strongly condemns these antisemitic attacks in no uncertain terms. Houses of worship must be safe havens for all, and attacks on them strike at the core of our shared humanity. He calls on authorities everywhere to ensure the protection of religious sites, bring perpetrators to justice and work diligently to counter antisemitism and all forms of hatred. ** International Day to Combat Islamophobia Sunday is the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. In his message, the Secretary-General said the world's 2 billion Muslims hail from all corners of the globe, reflecting the vast diversity of humanity itself. Yet they often face institutional discrimination, socioeconomic [exclusion], biased immigration policies and unwarranted surveillance and profiling. He called on the international community to eradicate the scourge of Islamophobia from every country and community. ** Financial Contribution And Chris, we have a quiz today. This country boasts the world's [longest] continuous coastline. And interestingly, it is also home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. Brazil, exactly. It is Al Jazeera, nonetheless. Very good. This country hosts the massive Songkran water festival. Who said Thailand? Very good Naureen. And Thailand is also known as the "Land of Smiles". We thank our friends in Brasilia and in Bangkok for their full payments to the Regular Budget in full. ** Questions and Answers Spokesman : Okay, all right. So, Gabriel and then go ahead. I know the pressure is on. Otherwise, Edie is always a good standby with the question. But go ahead. Question : I don't understand how aid is not able to get into Gaza still at this point. We hear over and over, day after day, only one border crossing is open, and you just said that basically other than petrol, nothing has gotten through. How does this continue to happen day after day without any sort of accountability, any sort of action that can be taken? Spokesman : Well, we do what we can. We raise this issue on a daily basis with our Israeli counterparts. But I think that's a question for your colleagues to ask the Israelis in Israel. Question : And I know you're not part of the Board of Peace. However, there is the NCAG, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, that's under the Board of Peace. There's no interaction with them apparently. There's no working relationship with them. Is that safe to assume at this point? Spokesman : I mean, we interact with the Board of Peace within the scope of the Gaza situation, but I have nothing else to share with you at this point. Edie and then Pam. Question : Thank you, Steph. With the Secretary-General in Lebanon, can you tell us if he's coming back here or if he might be making some other stops? And who else has he been talking to since he's really in the region now? Spokesman : Yeah, I mean, right now, he landed, went straight to see the President [Joseph Aoun], then saw the Speaker of Parliament [Nabih Berri], met with the Prime Minister [Nawaf Salam], launched the humanitarian appeal, and I think he's having an Iftar dinner with the Prime Minister. So, I know for a fact he hasn't had the chance to speak to anybody else besides meeting the people he's met. We do expect him back here on Sunday. If that changes, I'll let you know. Pam and then Namo. Question : Thank you. Great Steph. You mentioned that the USG [Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs] Tom Fletcher is calling for humanitarian aid to get through the Strait of Hormuz. Two side questions on that. Is he or the SG, anyone speaking with the Iranians about the strikes? And also about, is there anyone at the UN speaking about the sea mines that have been planted? Thank you. Spokesman : On the sea mines, I'm not aware of any particular discussion. The Secretary-General did speak to the Iranian foreign minister a few days ago, and I know Mr. Fletcher has also been in touch with the Iranian authorities. Question : And has the Strait of Hormuz come up? Spokesman : Yes. I mean, in those discussions. Question : Any readout on that? Spokesman : Not that I can share beyond what I've already shared. Question : Thank you. Spokesman : Namo. Question : Thank you, Stephane. Again, on the Strait of Hormuz, CNN reports from Trump Administration officials that the Trump Administration might have underestimated the impact that Iran has on the Strait of Hormuz and that how it could remain close for a long time. I wonder what if there's an assessment in this building of the United Nations for the long-term effects on energy security and economic growth? And how bad could this get? Spokesman : Well, I mean, I think the report from UNCTAD laid out some pretty dramatic impact already. I think more than [97 per cent] in shipping. The potential huge spike in the price of fertilizer, which is often overlooked as we focus on oil. The shock in the price of oil that we're seeing. We have colleagues at UNDP [UN Development Programme] who are preparing a look at the longer-term impact, but I think the impact is pretty transparent. Huge spike in insurance costs, if ships even get insurance. The risk of life and limb to the seafarers who are on these ships. I mean the impact is pretty transparent. Okay. Sorry, Noreen. Question : So, with regards to the Secretary-General's visit, meeting with the President of Lebanon, it was said that the Lebanese President had made an offer to negotiate a possible end to, negotiations with Israel, but Israel has rebuffed this offer. And apparently, quoting to the President, he had actually discussed this with the Secretary-General. Is there anything you can share about that? Spokesman : No. I mean, our sharing of information comes from the stakeout the Secretary-General has done. I think we've shared that with you. I assume the Secretary-General will have more to say in the wrap-up press conference he will have on tomorrow in Beirut. Gabriel, and then we'll go back to Pam. Question : Thanks, Steph. Today, the President of Cuba said that they confirmed that they are in some sort of "sensitive talks with the United States about some sort of diplomatic solution to the now three-month long oil embargo that Cuba has been under". Does the SG have any reaction to these confirmation talks? Spokesman : We're aware of the announcement of the talks between the Government of Cuba and The United States. I can tell you, we very much welcome the dialogue as a means to peacefully resolve the bilateral disputes. The Secretary-General is also encouraged by the news that the Cuban Government has released 51 prisoners. You know, I think we had the resident coordinator from Cuba here a few days ago, and I can tell you that we remain very much concerned by the situation in Cuba, where the inability to import fuel has an obvious and negative impact on health systems, access to food and water, and I think we gave you an update on that earlier this week. On our end, we are also working with partners, with authorities to see how we can assist the most vulnerable people. And what we want to see are, in this context, Member States increase their humanitarian assistance and contribution to make sure that the aid gets to Cuba unhindered. Pam. Question : Thank you. Back to the Strait of Hormuz. I'm going back to Gabe's question yesterday, which is, the UN had such success with the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Is there any thought, you have Tom Fletcher, you mentioned today, is talking about trying to get humanitarian aid through. Is there any thought about the UN trying to get some kind of ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz? And I mean, I think the last maybe, I'm missing some, but the last time a major sea channel was closed was '56 with the Suez Canal, and we know how that ended up, including with the UN. Is there any attempt to try to negotiate out of that piece? Spokesman : What is clear is that we want to see the Strait of Hormuz, as an international waterway, be able to handle traffic freely without any fear of attack whatsoever, and that's part of respect of international law. You know, I think the situation around the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea are different, right? But I have nothing else to share with you at this point on the further information you asked for. Okay. Any questions online? I see Islam. Yes. Please go ahead. Question : Hi, Steph. Thank you very much. And there's a report today that the Pentagon is moving a marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East around the Strait of Hormuz, the unit that consists up to 2,500 soldiers, marines. What's your reaction to this possibility? Spokesman : Well, we've just seen reports. I'm not going to comment on it. I think as you know, what we want to see is a de-escalation of the military kinetic activities and a return to diplomacy. Thank you all. Enjoy what remains of Friday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Middle East war: Women in Lebanon forced to give birth on roadside By Daniel Johnson in Geneva 13 March 2026 - As the UN Secretary-General touched down in Beirut on Friday in solidarity with the people of Lebanon, UN agencies highlighted the dangers for civilians and particularly pregnant women and migrant workers, amid ongoing airstrikes and rocket fire between Hezbollah fighters and Israel. "There's 11,600 pregnant women who are affected, 4,000 are anticipated to give birth over the next three months," said Anandita Philipose, Lebanon Representative for the UN population fund, UNFPA. "Many of these women have been forced from their homes, cut off from essential health services and forced to give birth in dangerous conditions, some even by the side of the road." The situation across Lebanon has escalated dramatically - and notably in the south, Beirut, Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley - since war erupted across the Middle East, sparked by Israeli-U.S. strikes in Iran on 28 February, Iranian counterstrikes in many Gulf States, Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel and Israeli airstrikes in response. Health care hit According to UNFPA, 55 hospitals and clinics have been forced to close, either because they are in zones impacted by Israeli mass evacuation orders, "or because there's been direct damage to them", Ms. Philipose added. The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has recorded daily rocket, missile and drone attacks on Israel and the occupied Golan from Lebanon and artillery fire, air and drone strikes by Israeli soldiers, who have made "ground incursions up to seven kilometres (4.3 miles) into Lebanon", said Kandice Ardiel, UNIFIL spokesperson. Speaking via video from the force's headquarters in Naqoura close to the Blue Line separating Lebanon from Israel, Ms. Ardiel highlighted a significant escalation on Wednesday evening. That involved more than 100 projectiles "fired from Lebanese territory and over 100 projectiles fired right back from Israel, as well as seven airstrikes within our area of operations". Nonetheless, "things have been more quiet yesterday. We haven't seen so much activity, and I haven't seen any numbers from today, but I'll say here in Naqoura, it's been fairly quiet...nonetheless, it's a very volatile situation and anything can change at any moment." Migrant vulnerability As the violence continues, the UN migration agency, IOM, warned that more than 822,000 people have been displaced so far inside Lebanon alone, with migrants "particularly vulnerable" and with "nowhere to go", said Mathieu Luciano, IOM Chief of Mission in Lebanon. "Lebanon hosts 200,000 migrants. They come here for work and they're particularly vulnerable," he said from Beirut. "They come from Ethiopia, from Sri Lanka, from Kenya, Sudan, Bangladesh and other countries and most of them were working in agriculture, construction, also domestic workers, and the crisis has hit them hard. It left many with nowhere to go and relying on community organizations, churches, their embassies and NGOs for safety." According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 4.1 million people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Pakistan since the beginning of the escalation. Help to leave Iran Inside Iran, IOM said that it has already assisted migrants to return home from Iran. "We have requests to assist others. Right now, the barrier is resources to be able to do so," said David John, Director of Movement, Resettlement and Labour Pathways at the agency. "So far, the numbers that are being mentioned are that some 11,400 Iranians have crossed into Turkiye, while over 24,600 Afghans have returned from Iran back into Afghanistan. Both figures are remaining currently within the daily average crossings," UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch told journalists in Geneva. The UN agency has found work-arounds to counter supply chain disruption caused by the war. "Despite ongoing airspace closures and many time disruptions, UNHCR has been able to respond quickly," Mr. Baloch explained. "Essential relief items are pre-positioned across the region, including Termiz in Uzbekistan, strategically close to Iran and several country-level warehouses." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address JERUSALEM, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Representatives from Israel and Lebanon are expected to meet for a round of talks in the coming days, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Saturday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. World News in Brief: Attacks on synagogues, Syria's continuing rights violations, shocking abuse of women during childbirth 13 March 2026 - The first two weeks of March have seen a surge in violent attacks and acts of intimidation targeting synagogues and Jewish institutions across North America and Europe. In Belgium, a powerful explosion on Monday outside a historic synagogue in Liege caused significant damage. Three synagogues across Canada were attacked in separate shootings last week. In the United States, an attacker was shot dead after crashing their truck into a synagogue and its preschool in Michigan on Thursday. He had reportedly lost family members in a recent Israeli strike on his former homeland in Lebanon. Meanwhile on Friday, authorities in the Netherlands announced they were investigating an overnight arson attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam. UN chief 'strongly condemns' attacks "The Secretary-General strongly condemns these antisemitic attacks in no uncertain terms," UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, told reporters on Friday. "Houses of worship must be safe havens for all, and attacks on them strike at the core of our shared humanity," he added. The Secretary-General calls on authorities everywhere to ensure "the protection of religious sites, bring perpetrators to justice and work diligently to counter antisemitism and all forms of hatred." Rights violations persist in Syria despite the 'willingness of Syrian government' to change Independent human rights investigators on Syria alleged on Friday that serious violations - including extrajudicial killings, torture, enforced disappearances, and abductions - have continued across the country, more than one year since the overthrow of the Assad regime. Last March, Government armed forces and militia fighters killed more than 1,400 people - mostly Alawite civilians - in Latakia, Tartus, Homs and Hama. Four months later, in midJuly, more than 1,500 people, primarily Druze and Bedouin civilians, were killed in Sweida by government forces, armed groups and tribal fighters. "Syrian survivors and affected communities deserve justice, compensation and guarantees of nonrecurrence," said Fionnuala Ni Aolain, a member of the panel of rights experts who report to the Human Rights Council in an independent capacity and are not UN staff. Some optimism around transition The Commission welcomed efforts for a "broad transition" toward inclusive governance, rule of law, and accountability initiated by Syrian authorities, including the setting up of two new national justice bodies - adding that disarmament and demobilization of non-State armed forces remains essential. "We are encouraged by the willingness of the Syrian government to engage constructively with the international human rights system...and the extraordinary strength of Syrians who are working tirelessly to rebuild their institutions," said Commissioner Monia Ammar. Commission Chair Paulo Sergio Pinheiro added that "only through sustained support can Syria complete its transition toward a political environment that guarantees human rights for all." Majority surveyed in new Eastern Europe and Central Asia study experience mistreatment during childbirth Two in three women responding to a new study looking at mistreatment during childbirth reported at least one form of mistreatment, including non-consensual medical procedures, verbal and physical abuse, and significant breaches of privacy. The report released on Friday by UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, found half of women surveyed (48.1 per cent) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia underwent obstetric procedures - such as episiotomies, Caesarean section, or the administration of oxytocin - without their informed consent. Based on 2,600 who gave birth recently across 16 countries, the survey found that 24 per cent reported experiencing verbal abuse, including yelling and humiliation, while one in 10 endured physical or sexual abuse during labour or gynaecological examinations. Transformation needed Only two per cent of those mistreated officially reported their experience, often due to a lack of trust in accountability mechanisms or fear of retaliation. "Obstetric violence is not just a clinical issue; it is a human rights violation that leaves women feeling powerless and distressed, with long-term impacts on their health and well-being." said Florence Bauer, UNFPA Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The report also issued a joint Call to Action, urging governments and medical communities across the region to implement comprehensive strategies to eliminate obstetric violence including mandating human rights-centred training for all healthcare personnel. "We must work together to transform maternity care into a truly woman-centred, respectful, positive experience for all." Ms. Bauer said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Today's top news: Middle East, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territory UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Middle East UN humanitarian chief urges unhindered passage of humanitarian supplies through Strait of Hormuz Tom Fletcher, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, today issued an urgent call for the unhindered and safe passage of humanitarian cargo through the Strait of Hormuz. He warned that any disruption would drive up the price of food, medicine and other life-saving supplies, hitting the most vulnerable people - in the region and far beyond - the hardest. As Mr. Fletcher told the Security Council on Wednesday, we are already seeing the impact: In Gaza, the price of flour has risen by 270 per cent. Globally, shipping costs are up 16 per cent compared to this time last year, and disruptions to maritime routes could delay humanitarian shipments to crisis hotspots around the world by six months. A report issued this week by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) found that the Strait of Hormuz, which it calls a "vital passage for global trade," has seen ship transits through the passage come to a near halt - down from an average of 129 a day in February to just a handful daily since the start of the escalation. UNCTAD says that fuel costs are surging, which is driving up shipping costs across supply chains. Mr. Fletcher stresses that without reliable humanitarian supply routes, millions of people risk losing access to life-saving assistance. Food, medicine and other critical supplies destined for operations in places including East Africa and sub-Saharan Africa could become harder to move and more expensive to deliver, at a time when famine already threatens countries like Somalia. Mr. Fletcher has raised this issue directly with key parties and is urging them to allow humanitarian cargo to move freely through the Strait of Hormuz so life-saving aid can continue to reach people whose lives depend on it. Lebanon Secretary-General launches $308 million appeal to help 1 million people Today in Lebanon, the Secretary-General launched an urgent humanitarian appeal for our humanitarian partners to support the Government-led response and rapidly scale up principled, coordinated assistance for a three-month period - from March to May 2026. The appeal, which prioritizes people with the most severe needs, calls for $308.3 million to address critical life-saving needs resulting from the renewed hostilities. It targets up to 1 million people, including affected vulnerable Lebanese, displaced Syrians, Palestine refugees in Lebanon, Palestinian refugees from Syria, and migrants. OCHA says response activities will be concentrated in areas most affected by the displacement orders and displacement from airstrikes, military operations and hard-to-reach areas. The UN and humanitarians, together with authorities, are scaling up urgent assistance to displaced people. As of 12 March, 632,000 hot meals and 18,000 ready-to-eat kits have been distributed. Humanitarians have provided more than 382,000 litres of bottled water and over 1,700 cubic metres of clean water through water trucking. More than 211,000 litres of fuel have been supplied to sustain water services to reach nearly 700,000 people. Government figures indicate that many people continue to be displaced. More than 822,000 people, including nearly 300,000 children, have registered as being displaced. And around 128,000 people are sheltering in nearly 600 collective sites across the country. The overall number of people displaced is likely higher. The United Nations reiterates the urgent need for immediate de-escalation. All parties must respect international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and healthcare facilities. Humanitarian access must be safe and sustained so assistance can reach people in need. Occupied Palestinian Territory Humanitarian movements denied, blocking supplies from reaching Gazans in need OCHA reports that, in the last 24 hours, all humanitarian movements to the Kerem Shalom crossing were denied - only one was allowed through. As a result, the UN has been able to collect fuel, but no other supplies. The World Health Organization report that items they have offloaded at the crossing but have not been allowed to collect include nearly 50 intensive care unit beds and 170 pallets of medicines, including paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen. According to the weekly schedule, there will be no offloading of incoming supplies at Kerem Shalom today and tomorrow. Kerem Shalom remains the only operational crossing point into Gaza, as the Rafah and Zikim crossings have been shut since the start of the regional escalation. Through daily engagement with authorities, our colleagues continue to call for the opening of additional crossings and for more types of critical humanitarian and commercial supplies to be allowed to enter regularly, predictably and in sufficient volumes. In the West Bank, movement restrictions tightened again yesterday in northern areas, following the killing of two Palestinians by Israeli forces, who stated that the two had tried to carry out a ramming and shooting attack against soldiers in Nablus governorate. Tightened checkpoint closures across the West Bank have undermined people's access to services and workplaces as well as emergency operations. Meanwhile, partners operating a toll-free hotline across the Occupied Palestinian Territory report a nearly 25 per cent rise in phone calls related to physical gender-based violence. This is alongside a rise in calls indicating suicidal thoughts, based on a comparison between the first two months of 2026 and the same period last year. Partners provide counseling in all areas and, additionally, in Gaza, they are currently distributing dignity kits, which include menstrual hygiene management supplies, soap, shampoo and cleaning materials to roughly 15,000 women and girls. *Donations made to UN Crisis Relief help UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs reach people in Gaza and the West Bank with urgent support. Posted on 13 March 2026 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary-General's Press Stakeout After Meeting with Speaker of the Lebanese House of Parliament Nabih Berri United Nations Secretary-General 13 March 2026 Beirut, Lebanon Press events | Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General My visit to Lebanon in this Holy Month of Ramadan and also when the Christians are living the Lent is to say that moments like these, both Ramadan and Lent, appeal to peace, appeal to end the horrible suffering of the Lebanese people. I am a great admirer of the Lebanese people. When I was High Commissioner for Refugees, I saw the generosity of the Lebanese receiving so many Syrians, so many Palestinians and today, it really breaks my heart to see the Lebanese people suffering so much. 800,000 displaced, [many] dead and in an absolutely dramatic situation. And my message is very clear. We must stop this war. We must have an immediate ceasefire. My appeal to both parties is: Let's do an immediate ceasefire. Let's stop this enormous suffering of the Lebanese people and we will do our best to make sure that with a ceasefire there will be serious negotiations to guarantee that Lebanon will see its sovereignty, its territorial integrity respected and at the same time that the Lebanon state with the totality of its communities will be a strong state and will be able to exercise the monopoly of the force in the country. I'm sincerely convinced that the Lebanese people will be able to overcome this dramatic and challenging situation, and the Lebanese people can count on me and can count on the UN in order to do everything possible to end this nightmare. Thank you very much. **** NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary-General's remarks at the Launch of the Flash Humanitarian Appeal for Lebanon United Nations Secretary-General 13 March 2026 Beirut, Lebanon Statements | Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General Dear Prime Minister, Excellencies, colleagues, partners, I am here on a visit of solidarity with the people of Lebanon. Solidarity in words must be matched by solidarity in action. That is why I am pleased to join all of you today as we launch a Flash Humanitarian Appeal of 308.3 million US dollars to support the people of Lebanon. This aid is urgently needed. The military escalation across the region is taking a terrible toll, including in Lebanon. Hundreds of civilians here in Lebanon have been killed, including many children. Entire communities have been uprooted. Lives have been turned upside down. Evacuation orders now extend across more of the country than ever before. Access to food, water, health care, education, and basic services has been dangerously disrupted. More than 816,000 people have been displaced inside Lebanon. And more than 90,000 people - mostly Syrians, but also Lebanese - have crossed into Syria. In the face of this upheaval, we have seen exceptional courage and solidarity on the ground. Schools have opened their doors to shelter displaced families. Health workers continue to serve under immense pressure. And communities are showing resilience, even after being displaced time and again. United Nations agencies and humanitarian partners are working closely with national authorities to respond with urgency - delivering hot meals, safe drinking water, hygiene supplies, and essential relief items. These efforts are saving lives. But they need a big boost of support. The Flash Appeal we launch today will sustain and expand life saving assistance over the next three months - including food, clean water, health care, education, protection, and other vital services. Its success depends on swift, flexible funding - and on ensuring that humanitarian workers can safely reach those most in need. Allow me to close on this note. Across the country, Muslim families are observing the holy month of Ramadan, and Christian families are marking Lent. These are seasons rooted in compassion and generosity. They reflect the very spirit of the people of Lebanon. For years, Lebanon has opened the doors to those fleeing conflict. The people of Lebanon have shown the world the true meaning of hospitality, solidarity and resilience. Now, the world must show the people of Lebanon our strongest support in this hour of grave danger and profound need. These are immediate needs. But there will be a lot that Lebanon needs in solidarity from the international community. Helping to establish and immediate ceasefire that both sides must accept, creating the conditions for negotiations that will allow Lebanon to become in the shortest possible period, a country that sees its territorial integrity fully respected and where the state has the monopoly of the use of force. And the United Nations stands ready to support the government in the courageous program that you have in front of you. Thank you very much. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary-General's remarks after meeting with the President of the Republic of Lebanon Joseph Aoun United Nations Secretary-General 13 March 2026 Beirut, Lebanon Press events | Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General It's in difficult moments that friendship and solidarity are essential. And I'm here as a friend of the Lebanese people in full solidarity with the Lebanese people. I know that the Lebanese are suffering enormously. I know that Muslim Lebanese are living Ramadan. Christian Lebanese are living Lent. And these should be moments of peace, these should be moments of solidarity. Unfortunately, Lebanon was dragged into a war that is not a war that its people would be willing to have. I sincerely hope that in my next visit to Lebanon, I'll be able to visit a Lebanon in peace. I'll be able to live to visit a Lebanon where the state has the monopoly of the use of force and to visit a Lebanon whose territorial integrity is fully re-established and respected. In between, my strong appeal to both parties, to Hezbollah and to Israel, is for a ceasefire to stop war and pave the way to find a solution that would allow Lebanon to become a country independent, with sovereignty and territorial integrity respected and where its authorities have, as I said, the monopoly of use of force. This is no longer the time of armed groups. This is the time of strong states. Thank you very much. **** NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Five US Refueling Planes Damaged On Ground In Saudi Arabia: Report March 14, 2026 Five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at an air base in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing two unnamed U.S. officials. The planes were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Prince Sultan base, the report said, although the exact date of the attack was not immediately clear. No deaths were reported. The WSJ said the planes were being repaired are expected to return to service. Saudi Arabia and other US Gulf Arab allies have been the target of Iranian missiles and drones fired in retaliation for the massive US-Israeli air strikes against Iran, which began on February 28. A US service member died on March 1 after suffering injuries during an attack at the Prince Sultan base. The latest report comes a day after the US Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East, said six crew members aboard KC-135 refueling plane were killed in an apparent midair collision with another refueling tanker over western Iraq. The other plane landed safely. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-protests-live-blog- trump-khamenei/33640284.html?lbis=443628 Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Says US Forces 'Totally Obliterated' Targets On Kharg Island March 14, 2026 President Donald Trump said on social media that US forces had carried out "one of the most powerful bombing" raids in the history of the Middle East on Iran's strategic Kharg Island in the Strait of Hormuz. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," he wrote on his Truth Social platform. "Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he added. Trump separately told reporters that the US Navy would "very soon" begin to escort ships through the strait as the US administration looked to secure global oil supplies amid disruptions caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran and Tehran's retaliatory strikes. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-protests-live-blog- trump-khamenei/33640284.html?lbis=443626 Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Says US Blasts Kharg Island, Vows Navy Escorts 'Will Happen Soon' In Strait By RFE/RL March 14, 2026 US President Donald Trump said American forces have "totally obliterated" military sites on Iran's strategic Kharg Island in "one of the most powerful bombing raids" in Middle East history and he said the US Navy would soon begin escorting vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump wrote on social media. "Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he added. He warned Tehran, however, that should Iran "or anyone else" do anything to impede shipping through the strait, he would "reconsider" the decision not to destroy oil sites on the island. Iran's Kharg Island is the country's main oil export outlet, serving as the terminal for about 90 percent of its oil exports. It is located about 24 kilometers off the Iranian coast and some 480 kilometers north of the Strait of Hormuz. There was no immediate damage report from the strike. Tehran did not comment directly on Trump's comments, but the military threatened to attack US-linked oil sites in the region if any Iranian energy infrastructure is hit. The remarks come as the Pentagon began beefing up its forces in the Middle East, sending a new assault ship with a Marine expeditionary unit aboard after Trump vowed intensified attacks in the upcoming week. Senior defense officials told RFE/RL on March 13 that the Pentagon is sending a Marine contingent -- likely about 2,500 personnel -- aboard the USS Tripoli assault ship. RFE/RL reached out to the White House and was referred to US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East. CENTCOM did not immediately comment. Axios, which also reported the Marine deployment, said the Pentagon is sending the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and guided-missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta to the region along with the Tripoli. "We're going to be hitting them very hard over the next week," Trump said. The president later wrote in another social media post that Iran "is totally defeated and wants a deal -- but not a deal that I would accept." Ready And Willing To Escort Trump earlier said the United States was prepared and willing to escort ships through the crucial Strait of Hormuz to protect them from Iranian attack, a move other Western nations also have said they are contemplating. When asked later when the US Navy would begin escorting tankers, Trump told reporters, "It will happen soon," although he gave no timeframe. The US administration is scrambling to stem the surge in global oil prices following the disruptions stemming from the US-Israeli air strikes on Iran, which began on February 28, and Tehran's subsequent retaliatory missile and drone launches on US Gulf Arab allies and other countries. Paris Also Ponders Escort Duty France is also developing plans to form a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilizes, Reuters cited two unnamed French officials as saying. Amid the rise in energy prices, European powers are seeking ways to protect their ships transiting the strait. France has joined Italy in seeking a diplomatic deal with Iran to allow their vessels to safely transit the waterway, one official said. Reuters, citing sources, reported that Iran has allowed two Indian-flagged liquefied petroleum gas carriers to sail through the strait, representing a rare exception to Tehran's policy of harassing ship traffic. Iranian Leaders On The Streets Several senior Iranian officials, including President Masud Pezeshkian, took to the streets of Tehran on March 13 for the annual Al-Quds Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause despite an intense wave of air strikes by the United States and Israel. Striking a defiant tone, judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, national police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, also joined thousands of Iranians in the capital, state TV images showed, as plumes of smoke rose from sites around the city. Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei -- who succeeded his father, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli air strikes -- remained out of sight amid questions about his physical condition. US defense chief Pete Hegseth said Khamenei was likely wounded and disfigured in the air strike that killed his father, and he questioned Khamenei's ability to govern amid the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Early on March 14, large explosions were heard again in central Tehran, although details were not immediately available. US Mourns Deaths Of Plane Crew The United States is also mourning the latest deaths to US service personnel following what appeared to be a midair collision of two KC-135 refueling aircraft over western Iraq. CENCOMM on March 13 said all six crew members had died in the incident, which involved another refueling tanker and did not involve hostile or friendly fire. The incident brought the confirmed number of US deaths in the war to 13, with several dozen reported to be injured, mostly in various Iranian missile launches targeting US military bases in the Gulf region. France also mourned the death of a soldier indirectly linked to the war in Iran. President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that a drone strike killed a French soldier in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region while assisting Iraqi forces on antiterrorism missions. "The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks," he said. The 42-year-old soldier's commander initially said the projectile was an Iranian-made Shahed attack drone. But a military spokesman later said it was "premature" to identify the specific model of drone or launch site, adding that an investigation is ongoing. France is not participating directly in the US-Israeli war effort. Iranian Launches Continue Iran continued to launch strikes against Israel, with the Israeli military saying early on March 14 that "defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat." Turkey reported that an Iranian missile was intercepted by NATO defenses over its territory, the third such incident since the start of the war. Ankara said its "top priority" was to avoid being dragged into the war. "We are acting very cautiously against plots, traps and provocations that seek to drag our country into war," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, pledging an "appropriate and measured" response after the missile launch. "Keeping our country out of this fire pit is our top priority," he said. Blasts were heard, meanwhile, in Qatar early on March 14, with the Interior Ministry saying it was evacuating some key areas. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, RFE/RL correspondent Alex Raufoglu in Washington, Reuters, dpa, and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-israel-trump-hormuz- marines-war/33705605.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russo-Ukraine War - 13 March 2026 - Day 1479 Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal] The UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russia has responded to the conflict in the Middle East by promoting the idea it is a global peacemaker, heavily condemning strikes in the region, and deflecting from its own inaction as a partner of Iran. There is only a remote chance the conflict will have a direct impact on Russia's ability to conduct the war in Ukraine. Since 2024, Russia's dependence on Iranian uncrewed aerial systems has almost certainly declined as Russia has expanded its own domestic production. So far, Russia has provided Iran with political, diplomatic, and humanitarian support. It has also used its position in international forums, such as the UN Security Council, to influence decision-making and provide soft-power support to Iran. Whilst the conflict continues, Russian government oil revenues will almost certainly increase in response to the rising global prices and reduced discounts on Russian oil, as buyers have access to fewer alternative suppliers. This will almost certainly provide Russia a short-term boost and greater capacity to fund the war in Ukraine. The impact of increased oil prices will depend on how long price rises are sustained for. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that In total, since the beginning of this day, there have been 129 combat clashes. The defense forces continue to stop the Russian enemy, destroy personnel and deplete the invaders' combat potential by creating a systematic fire effect. The Russian opponent caused a rocket strike with the use of one rocket and 72 aviation strikes - dropped 194 controlled air bombs. In addition, acted to impress 6756 kamikaze drones and carried out 2757 shells of settlements and positions of Ukrainian troops. In the North Slobozhansky and Kursk directions, Russian forces carried out 122 shelling positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements, including two - with the use of the RSV. Committed two air strikes with the use of two KABs. Three collisions were recorded in the direction. In the South-Slobozhans komu direction, the Russian enemy once stormed the positions of Ukrainian units in the area of Prilipivki. In the Kupans .komu direction, the Russian enemy twice attacked in the areas of novoosinovogo and novoplatonivka. One attack is still going on. In the Lyman direction Ukrainian warriors repelled four Russian assaults in the areas of drobisevogo, Lyman and stavkiv. In the Slavic direction, the Russian opponent 11 times tried to advance towards Zakitny, Platonivka, Yampol and Riznikivka. One assault action by the aggressor is underway. In the kramators komu direction the Russian aggressor did not carry out attack actions. In the Konstantinivsky direction, the Russian occupiers today stormed the positions of Ukrainian defenders near the settlements of Konstantinovka, Pleshiyivka, Ivanopilla, Illinivka, Mykolaipilla, Novopavlivka and Sofiyivka 26 times. The Russian enemy committed 21 attacks in the Pokrovsky direction. Russian troops tried to advance in the areas of the settlements of Toretske, Zatishok, New Shahove, Rodinske, Chervony Lyman, Mirnograd, Pokrovsk, Kotline, Udacne, Novopidgorodne, Muravka and Grishine. According to preliminary calculations, today 27 Russian invaders were eliminated and 16 wounded in this direction; one enemy shelter, PMM warehouse and two units of Russian invaders' vehicles destroyed, 51 shelters, 3 BPLA control points, one artillery system and one unit of vehicles were damaged. Destroyed or suppressed 292 BPLA of different types. In the Oleksandrivsky direction, the Russian occupiers tried eight times to improve their position by attacking in the areas of settlements Oleksandrograd, Andriyivka-Klevtsove, Vyshneve, Kalinivskke, Krasnogirskke and Zlagoda. 17 Russian attacks took place in the Gulyaipil direction: in the areas of the settlements of Gulyaipole, Zaliznychne, Mirne, Olenokostyantinivka, Varvarivka and Zelene. Two attacks are underway. In the orihivs komu direction, the Russian opponent attacked in the area of stepnogirs ka. In the Pridniprovsk direction, the Russian enemy's assault actions have not been recorded. In other directions, there have been no significant changes in the environment. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that from 7 to 13 March 2026, in response to the terrorist attacks launched by Ukraine against civilian facilities in the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive and six group strikes, which hit enterprises of the Ukrainian defence industry, fuel and power facilities, transport and airfield infrastructure used for the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, production, storage, and preparation for launch sites of long-range attack unmanned aerial vehicles as well as temporary deployment areas of Ukrainian armed forces and foreign mercenaries. Over the past week, as a result of resolute actions, the Sever Group of Forces took control over Chervonaya Zarya (Sumy region). Five mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, an artillery brigade, an air assault brigade, an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, two territorial defence brigades, a national guard brigade, and a border detachment of the Ukrainian border service were hit. In total, the enemy lost more than 1,665 troops, a tank, 12 armoured fighting vehicles, 107 motor vehicles, 16 field artillery guns, 13 electronic warfare and counter-battery stations, as well as 45 ammunition, fuel, and materiel depots in the area of responsibility of the Sever Group of Forces. Over the past week, units of the Zapad Group of Forces have improved the tactical situation. Four mechanised brigades, an assault brigade, a security brigade of the General Staff of the AFU, two territorial defence brigades, and a national guard brigade were hit. The enemy losses in this direction amounted to more than 1,285 troops, two tanks, 29 armoured fighting vehicles, 114 motor vehicles, 17 field artillery guns, three electronic warfare and counter-fire radars, and 21 ammunition depots. As a result of resolute actions, the Yuzhnaya Group of Forces liberated Golubovka (Donetsk People's Republic). Russian troops engaged five mechanised brigades, a motorised infantry brigade, an airmobile brigade, an assault brigade, a mountain assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a marine brigade. Over the past week, the enemy has lost more than 1,245 troops, three tanks, and 29 armoured fighting vehicles in the Yuzhnaya Group's area of responsibility. Seventy two motor vehicles, 24 field artillery guns, five electronic warfare and counter-fire radars as well as 50 ammunition, fuel, and materiel depots were neutralised. The Tsentr Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian troops inflicted damage on manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an airmobile brigade, an air assault brigade, two assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a marine brigade, three national guard brigades, and two territorial defence brigades. In total, the enemy lost more than 2,325 troops, three tanks, 46 armoured fighting vehicles, 74 motor vehicles, 14 field artillery guns, five electronic warfare stations, and three ammunition depots. Over the past week, the Vostok Group of Forces advanced to the depths of the enemy's defence. Three mechanised brigades, two air assault brigades, two assault brigades, five assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a territorial defence brigade were hit. The AFU losses in the area of responsibility of the Vostok Group of Forces amounted to more than 2,130 troops, 27 armoured fighting vehicles, 42 motor vehicles, and 13 artillery guns. Six ammunition and materiel depots were neutralised. Over the past week, units of the Dnepr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. A mechanised brigade, a mountain assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a territorial defence brigades have been hit. In total, the AFU lost up to 495 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles, 108 motor vehicles, four field artillery guns, 27 electronic warfare stations, and 13 ammunition and materiel depots. Over the past week, strike drones, missile troops, and artillery of the Russian Group of Forces eliminated a Mi-8 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force, six multiple launch rocket systems including a U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS rocket launcher, and two Czech-made Vampire MLRSs. The Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Su-27 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force. Air defence units shot down two U.K.-made Storm Shadow air-launched missiles, 30 guided aerial bombs, 33 HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and 2,650 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles. The Black Sea Fleet destroyed an AFU uncrewed surface vehicle. In total, since the beginning of the special military operation the enemy has lost: 671 aircraft, 284 helicopters, 122,610 unmanned aerial vehicles, 651 anti-aircraft missile systems, 28,216 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,687 MLRS combat vehicles, 33,821 field artillery guns and mortars, and 56,635 units of support military vehicles. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EDA signs contract for military satellite research project European Defence Agency 13 March 2026 The European Defence Agency (EDA) signed a 15.65 million research contract on 13 March 2026 with an industry consortium to explore the Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) region in space. The research and technology project, funded by five Member States, is exploring one of the most promising and technically demanding frontiers in space. The project, called VLEO-DEF, will design the first European military satellite concept specifically for VLEO, an orbital region roughly 250 to 350 kilometres above Earth. Operating closer to the planet allows satellites to capture far more detailed images, a key advantage for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Signals also travel a shorter distance, allowing faster delivery of information to military commanders. Satellites orbiting hundreds of kilometres above Earth already underpin modern defence, but EDA now wants to bring them even closer to the planet. The project will run for 36 months. Operating in VLEO presents technical challenges. At such low altitudes, the atmosphere still creates significant drag that slows satellites down. Staying in orbit therefore requires advanced propulsion, specialised materials and new satellite designs. The project aims to prepare a future flight experiment to demonstrate key technologies in orbit, including propulsion systems designed for sustained operations in VLEO. Team Europe The initiative brings together five Member States Spain, France, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovenia alongside a consortium of 17 European industrial and research organisations. The consortium is led by the Spanish aerospace engineering company SENER. Other participants include: DEIMOS, Airbus Defence and Space, and SATLANTIS from Spain; INEGI, GEOSAT, and OMNIDEA from Portugal; INTEGRASYS, SPARC, LIST, RAFINEX, EMTRONIX, GRADEL, and GOMSPACE from Luxembourg; EXOTRAIL and Thales Alenia Space France from France; and SKYLABS from Slovenia. Home and away VLEO-DEF is not EDA's first step into this field. In 2024, the agency began the LEO2VLEO project involving Austria and the Netherlands which will build a constellation of three satellites capable of manoeuvring between traditional Low Earth Orbit and Very Low Earth Orbit. The aim of that programme is to demonstrate how satellites could temporarily descend into VLEO for specific missions before returning to higher orbit. VLEO-DEF, instead of testing orbital manoeuvres, focuses on designing a satellite specifically optimised for operating in Very Low Earth Orbit and developing the technologies needed to sustain missions in this demanding environment. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar is held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 13, 2026. The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China has injected stability into a world rife with change and turbulence, international observers said Friday during the "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum. The forum, organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, is scheduled for March 12 to 14 under the theme "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition." (Xinhua/Chen Junfeng) BAKU, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China has injected stability into a world rife with change and turbulence, international observers said Friday during a seminar held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum. Addressing the "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar, Wu Hongbo, former special representative of the Chinese government for European affairs, noted that the GGI advocates for respect for sovereign equality, adherence to international law, the promotion of multilateralism, a human-centered approach, and an action-oriented mindset. As unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, geopolitical conflicts persist and the deficit in global governance continues to grow, the GGI represents not only its firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, but also a positive response to the shared expectations of the international community, Wu pointed out. Mikayil Jabbarov, Azerbaijan's minister of economy, expressed Azerbaijan's support for the GGI. "The current international order is going through a transformative challenge," he said, adding that China has provided a solution for maintaining global stability. Borut Pahor, former president of Slovenia, said that China does not involve itself in any form of conflict and demonstrates a high degree of stability and predictability, which makes the country an important pillar of international stability. Eldor Aripov, director of the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, said that the GGI is conducive to building broad consensus. "I believe that China appeals to more shared principles rather than narrowly defined national interests," Aripov noted. Josef Mondl, former director of the China Competence Center at the University of St. Gallen, said that the GGI is a platform-based, outcome-oriented approach to governance, which encourages participation from all parties through flexible mechanisms. "This is the reason why China's initiatives have spread so fast, especially in the Global South," Mondl added. The 13th Global Baku Forum, organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, is scheduled for March 12 to 14 under the theme "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition." Wu Hongbo (3rd L), former special representative of the Chinese government for European affairs, attends the "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 13, 2026. The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China has injected stability into a world rife with change and turbulence, international observers said Friday during the "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum. The forum, organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, is scheduled for March 12 to 14 under the theme "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition." (Xinhua/Chen Junfeng) The 13th Global Baku Forum opens in Baku, Azerbaijan, March 12, 2026. The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China has injected stability into a world rife with change and turbulence, international observers said Friday during the "China and the Global Governance Initiative" seminar held as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum. The forum, organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, is scheduled for March 12 to 14 under the theme "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition." (AZERTAC news agency/Handout via Xinhua) Amphibious force storms Queensland beach By Captain Karam Louli 13 March 2026 More than 1000 soldiers, sailors and aviators aboard HMA Ships Canberra and Choules participated in Exercise Wader last month, to validate the ADF's ability to project and sustain combat power from sea to shore. Commander of the Australian Amphibious Task Group Captain Christopher Doherty said the lead-up planning activity, Exercise Sea Horizon, prepared Australia's Amphibious Force (AAF) for the execution of Wader. "The AAF provides the Government with a versatile and credible range of options to support our allies, partners and regional neighbours across a range of contingencies," he said. "Exercise Wader, conducted in the littoral environment, is essential to ensuring we are prepared to operate across the full spectrum of missions." Commanders and planners synchronised maritime manoeuvre, aviation, logistics and land combat elements to achieve a controlled, coordinated projection of force. Landing craft insertion and air-mobile operations were executed in unison, deploying combat and logistic forces with speed and precision. Each movement reflected months of preparation, collective training and joint integration. Corporal Chase Watson, of the 1st Royal Australian Regiment, reflected on the rehearsals in the lead-up to Wader, and the execution of the exercise. "Everything happens quite fast. We form up and are guided down to collect our weapons and ammo," Corporal Watson said. "Then we board the small boats and project from the ship to shore, allowing us to break out and secure the beach. "Repetitions are important in an amphibious role, because practice really does make perfect." The AAF underscored its transformation into an integrated and mission-focused force capable of operating in contested environments. "Should the Australian Government direct the ADF to provide assistance or undertake combat operations, the AAF is prepared to project power from the sea and secure key points of entry," Captain Doherty said. "We are designed for that purpose, which is to set the conditions for a larger ADF contingent to deploy after our amphibious operation and then conduct the overall mission." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun's Regular Press Conference on March 13, 2026 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China Updated: March 13, 2026 19:40 At the invitation of the Vietnamese side, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, Member of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, and Minister of National Defense Dong Jun will be in Viet Nam from March 15 to 17 for the first ministerial meeting of the China-Viet Nam "3+3" strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defense and public security. While in Viet Nam, Wang Yi will co-chair the 17th meeting of the China-Viet Nam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation with leader from the Vietnamese side. China News Service: To follow up on your announcement about the first ministerial meeting of the China-Viet Nam "3+3" strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defense and public security and the 17th meeting of the China-Viet Nam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation, can you share the arrangements about the meetings and China's expectation? How does China view the current China-Viet Nam relations? Guo Jiakun: China and Viet Nam are friendly socialist neighbors and a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. Under the personal guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, China and Viet Nam established the "3+3" strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defense and public security and set it as a mechanism at the ministerial level. This is the first "3+3" mechanism each side established with other countries, and this fully demonstrates the strategic significance and high level of the relations between the two parties and two countries. The China-Viet Nam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation, since its launch in 2006, has enabled closer coordination between the two countries and played an important role for the improvement and upgrade of the comprehensive strategic cooperation. After the convening of the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) in January this year, General Secretary and President Xi Jinping had a phone call with General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee To Lam. They agreed to make the first ministerial meeting of the "3+3" mechanism and the 17th meeting of the Steering Committee a great success. Amid transformations and turbulence in the world, closer strategic communication and deeper strategic coordination between China and Viet Nam, two major socialist countries, is needed to accelerate the building of the China-Viet Nam community with a shared future, advance both countries' modernization drive, and jointly address common challenges. During the meeting of the "3+3" mechanism, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong and Defense Minister Dong Jun will have in-depth exchanges of views with the Vietnamese side on political and security issues, cooperation on fighting crimes, defense cooperation, and the international and regional situation. After the meeting, they will have a group meeting with the leaders of the CPV and the Vietnamese government. At the 17th meeting of the Steering Committee, the two sides will, focusing on the six overarching goals of building closer bilateral relations, discuss detailed measures on deepening the building of the China-Viet Nam community with a shared future, advance political cooperation and cooperation in areas of connectivity, trade, investment, and cultural and people-to-people exchange, and provide stronger impetus for regional stability and development through consistent China-Viet Nam cooperation. China stands ready to work with Viet Nam, under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, to ensure both high-quality development and high-level security, make the two meetings successful, and deepen and enrich the comprehensive strategic cooperation, so as to bring more benefit to the two peoples and make greater contribution to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity. CCTV: As China's "two sessions" successfully concluded, a major focus of attention for international media is the 15th Five-Year Plan. Some commented that China's well-targeted policies provide stable prospects for the market and set an example as a sophisticated economy. The 15th Five-Year Plan is expected to enable the Global South with helpful experience and China will become a stable force underpinning global growth and inject certainty to the turbulent world. What's your comment? Guo Jiakun: China's annual "two sessions" received worldwide attention. They are an important window for countries hoping to learn about China and better understand its path, governance and philosophy. What drew the most attention during this year's "two sessions" is the adoption of the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which kick-starts the continuous effort to advance Chinese modernization. The formulation and implementation of five-year plans is a distinctive strength of China's governance and a practical example of China's whole-process people's democracy. China's development experience fully shows that only through unity and perseverance, can we pool strength and turn visions into reality. The 15th Five-Year Plan is the "construction design" for China's modernization drive and an "invitation letter" to countries to jointly pursue modernization. China will stay committed to high-quality development and high-standard opening up, speeding up the effort of building self-reliance and strength in science and technology, and not only tapping into our greatest potential as "the world's factory" but also working to be "the world's market." China's effort to foster new quality productive forces will provide new, stable and predictable impetus for the world economy. The more volatile and turbulent the international landscape becomes, the greater the need for countries, especially major countries, to uphold justice and shoulder responsibilities. A fast-growing and well-directed China pursuing stable progress responds to the need of the times and creates opportunities for the world. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will strive to build a community with a shared future for humanity, be the most important force for peace, stability and justice in the world, and work with the rest of the world to forge ahead through win-win cooperation and make greater contribution to human progress. Asharq News: China has approved its 15th Five-Year Development Plan. What strategies will be adopted to address the challenges posed by geopolitical conflicts under the current international situation? Guo Jiakun: The world is in a new period of turbulence and transformation and faces the compounded impact of geopolitical conflicts and hotspot issues. The number of global conflicts has reached a new high since the end of World War II. Confronted with challenges facing all countries, President Xi Jinping put forward the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, which points the way forward. China remains of the view that military force is not the solution and armed conflicts will only breed new hatred. Only by upholding sovereign equality, fairness and justice, solidarity and coordination, and an action-oriented approach, can countries jointly build a world of common security for all. China has entered the 15th Five-Year Plan period. As the world's most important force for peace, stability and justice, China stands ready to work with all peace-loving countries and people committed to development to advance the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the Global Governance Initiative to jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity and create a bright future of peace and development for the world. Bloomberg: We see a report that says a major U.S. arms package for Taiwan is ready for President Trump to approve and could be signed right after his trip to China. Would you like to comment on this? Guo Jiakun: China's firm opposition to U.S. arms sales to China's Taiwan region is consistent and clear. The U.S. needs to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, especially the August 17 Communique of 1982, stop arms sales to Taiwan, and take concrete actions to uphold the steady growth of China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. AFP: Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are scheduled to meet in Paris this weekend for trade talks. What will they discuss and what are China's expectations for this meeting? Guo Jiakun: China has made the announcement on the sixth round of China-U.S. economic and trade consultation, which you may refer to. For anything specific, I'd refer you to competent authorities. Beijing Youth Daily: The U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran on February 28. Media reports say that air strikes on Shajarah Tayyebeh primary school in Iran's Hormozgan province killed over 160 girls. Is China considering providing humanitarian assistance to Iran? Guo Jiakun: China condemns all indiscriminate attacks against civilians and non-military targets. Attacks on schools and harm to the children in particular seriously violate the international humanitarian law and breach the fundamental principles of human conscience. We deeply mourn for the students from Shajarah Tayyebeh primary school in Iran's Hormozgan province and extend sincere sympathies to their families. The Red Cross Society of China has decided to provide the Red Crescent Society of Iran with US$200,000 in emergency humanitarian assistance as special funds to support the bereaved parents. China stands ready to continue providing necessary assistance to Iran in a humanitarian spirit to help the Iranian people get through this difficult time. Xinhua News Agency: Media reports citing sources connected to the U.S. government say the U.S. side hopes that China will release Lai Chee-ying on humanitarian grounds. In return, the US is willing to consider easing some of its Hong Kong-related sanctions on China. What's your comment on this? Guo Jiakun: Lai Chee-ying is the principal mastermind and perpetrator behind the series of riots that shook Hong Kong. His moves seriously breached the principles and bottom line of One Country, Two Systems, endangered national security and hurt Hong Kong's prosperity and stability and Hong Kong residents' wellbeing. There is every reason to bring him to justice. Hong Kong upholds the rule of law. No one should harbor the illusion of engaging in unlawful and criminal activities there with impunity. The central government firmly supports the Hong Kong SAR government in punishing criminal activities that endanger national security in accordance with the law and firmly rejects external forces' interference in Hong Kong's judicial affairs and China's internal affairs. China has rejected from the very beginning the illicit unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. on officials representing the central government in Hong Kong and officials of the Hong Kong SAR government. Our position remains consistent and clear. Asharq News: Saudi Arabia says several intercepted Iranian drones (more than 70) were targeting the Shaybah oilfield, which is known as a supplier to Asian markets. What is your comment on the continued attacks on this facility? Guo Jiakun: China is gravely concerned over the continuous tensions in the Middle East. China believes that all countries' sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected and brook no infringement and condemns any indiscriminate attacks against civilians and non-military targets. All parties should immediately stop the military operations, return to dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible, avoid the ongoing escalation of the situation, and prevent the conflict from spreading and spilling over. Reuters: It was reported that India has requested that the Chinese government issue some export quotas for urea to help India make up for the supplies that were lost because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Given the recent improvement of diplomatic ties between the two countries, will China give serious consideration to this request? Guo Jiakun: I'd refer you to competent authorities. Kyodo News: The Trump administration reportedly said yesterday that it's opening new investigations into issues concerning forced labor in countries including China. What's your comment on this? Guo Jiakun: When it comes to handling economic and trade issues between China and the U.S., China's position is consistent and clear. We oppose any form of unilateral tariff measures. Tariff and trade wars serve no one's interests. The two sides need to resolve relevant issues through consultation on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit. The so-called issue of "forced labor" is U.S.-made disinformation and should not be used as a pretext for political manipulation. Bloomberg: The U.S., Japan and the European Union are set to announce plans in the coming weeks to lay the foundation for a trade agreement in critical minerals. Beijing earlier threatened to retaliate against the formation of this kind of block. Would the Ministry like to comment on the plans for this? Guo Jiakun: An open and inclusive international trade environment beneficial to all serves the common interests of all countries. All parties have the responsibility to play a constructive role in keeping global industrial and supply chains of critical minerals stable and secure. Meanwhile, we oppose countries using rules of small groupings to undermine the international economic and trade order. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Wang Yi Has a Phone Call with Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China Updated: March 12, 2026 23:19 On March 12, 2026, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a phone call with Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla upon request. Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla briefed Wang Yi on the current situation and expressed appreciation for the support China has provided to Cuba. Both sides agreed to continue advancing bilateral relations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PM Netanyahu's Remarks at his Press Conference Israel Prime Minister's Office Type: Events and Speeches Government: The 37th Government Publish Date: 12.03.2026 Updated date: 13.03.2026 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening [translated from Hebrew]: "Citizens of Israel, my brothers and sisters, We are in historic days, days that will be recorded in the annals of Israel. In Operation Roaring Lion, our roar is growing stronger. We are crushing the terrorist regime in Iran. We are striking and crushing its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Through an unprecedented partnership between Israel and the U.S., we have achieved enormous accomplishments that are changing the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. These achievements are establishing Israel's status as a power that is stronger than ever. This dramatic shift in our power relative to the power of our enemies is the key to ensuring our existence. Threats come and go - but when we become a regional power, and in certain fields a global power; we have the strength to push dangers away from us and secure our future. In 1993, I published a newspaper article and I wrote: 'The greatest danger to Israel's existence is not found in the Arab states; it is found in Iran.' Since then, for over thirty years, the murderous regime of the ayatollahs has indeed acted to harm the U.S. and the West, but first and foremost, it acted to advance its plan for the destruction of Israel. It did so on three levels: First - it built an 'Axis of Evil' with terrorist armies of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Assad regime, and others. The second level - it worked to establish an array of tens of thousands of lethal ballistic missiles. And the third level - it worked to develop nuclear bombs with the declared goal of wiping us off the face of the earth. Well, it will not do so. As Prime Minister of Israel, I led many overt and covert operations that delayed Iran and diminished its capabilities. But at the same time, we built our own military, technological and diplomatic capabilities, in order to strike Iran forcefully and push the threats away from us. All these efforts converged into the War of Redemption, Operation Rising Lion and Operation Roaring Lion. In the War of Redemption, we severely damaged the 'Axis of Evil.' It is still there, but with greatly reduced capabilities. We are committed to completing the task: Bringing security to all citizens of Israel and particularly to the residents of the North, as we are doing - and will continue to do - for the residents of the South. Hezbollah is feeling the weight of our arm, and it will feel it even more intensely. It will pay a very heavy price for its aggression. In Operation Rising Lion, we also broke ground for the first time for a comprehensive strike - both on Iran's vast missile stockpile and on the production plants for additional missiles. We did the same regarding the nuclear project - including a mortal blow to senior Iranian scientists. They were the ones who led the development of the nuclear bombs intended to destroy us. They are no longer. And by the way, we hit a few more just now. After Operation Rising Lion, President Trump and I warned the tyrant Khamenei. We told him: If you try to rebuild your industries of death - we will strike you with a force you have never known. Not only did he not listen to us; he began an accelerated action to restore the nuclear and missile programs - and this time to hide them deep, deep underground, under high mountains. If we had not acted immediately, within a few months Iran's death industry would have been immune to any strike. Therefore, we set out together on a campaign - the U.S. and Israel - to continue what we did in Rising Lion: To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and to prevent Iran from developing ballistic missiles that would threaten Israel, the U.S., and the entire world. This is our goal. Within a short time, we eliminated the enemy Khamenei and many senior officials in the terrorist regime. We eliminated the old tyrant - and the new tyrant, Mojtaba, the puppet of the Revolutionary Guards, cannot show his face in public. We are crushing the nuclear infrastructure, the missile and launcher array, the headquarters of oppression, the regime's power centers, and many more targets. And simultaneously, we are acting to promote another goal: To create the conditions for the Iranian people so they can remove the cruel regime of tyranny that has ruled them for nearly half a century. We are landing crushing blows on the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij both in the streets and at checkpoints - and we are still active. I say to the Iranian people: The moment when you can embark on a new path of freedom - that moment is approaching. We stand by you, we are helping you. But at the end of the day - it depends on you! It is in your hands! Even now, it can be said with certainty: This is no longer the same Iran, it is no longer the same Middle East, and it is also not the same Israel. We do not wait. We initiate, we attack, and we do so with a force that is unprecedented! We have created an alliance like no other with the U.S. - an alliance with our great friend, my personal friend, President Trump. We speak almost every day. We talk candidly, focusing, exchanging ideas and counsel, and deciding together. President Trump told me something that I want to share with you. A short while ago he told me this: 'The relationship between us is a hundred times stronger than any relationship that has ever existed between an American president and a prime minister in Israel.' We are not thinking only about our countries, only about this generation. We are thinking also about future generations, about the future of humanity. In these days, my staff and I are weaving additional alliances with countries in the region, alliances that until a few weeks ago would have seemed unimaginable. We are doing this thanks to the immense power we built, thanks to the mighty heroism of our commanders and fighters, and thanks to your steadfastness - citizens of Israel. I know that you are strictly following the Home Front Command instructions. You enter the protected spaces time and time again. I know it is not easy. I know it is also very difficult right now in the North. But by adhering to these things, you are both saving lives - and giving the backing and breathing room to me, the Israeli government, the IDF, and the security forces to achieve the goals of the campaign. How did President Trump ask me in amazement? 'Only in Israel are the rescue flights - reversed. In the whole world, people want to flee from combat zones - and only with you, in Israel, everyone wants to return.' 'Where does this spirit come from?' - he always asks me. And I answer him: 'This is the secret of our success. This is the resilience of our people. This is the power of our faith - the faith in the Eternity of Israel!'" NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK troops at Iraq base shot down Iranian drones, Healey says Azerbaijan State News Agency - (AZERTAC) 13.03.2026 [14:50] Baku, March 13, AZERTAC British forces based in Iraq shot down two Iranian drones overnight, Defence Secretary John Healey has said, BBC reported. But some drones in the attack hit the coalition base in the Iraqi city of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, and injured a number of US troops. There were no British casualties. Brigadier Guy Foden said the base and another in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad were struck "a number of times" on Wednesday night and British personnel are currently in Erbil helping to defend that base. Since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, US bases in Iraq have been targeted in retaliation. The Western base in Erbil is controlled by the US but often houses other forces including British troops. Foden said British forces "shot down two UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) coming out of the camp but a number of UAVs did impact the camp". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address French soldier killed during attack in Iraq's Erbil region: Macron Azerbaijan State News Agency - (AZERTAC) 13.03.2026 [13:16] Baku, March 13, AZERTAC French president announced early Friday that a French soldier was killed and several others injured during an attack in Iraq's Erbil region, Anadolu Agency reported. "Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Alpine Chasseurs Battalion from Varces died for France during an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq," Emmanuel Macron said on US social media company X. He called the attack "unacceptable," noting that French troops have been engaged in the fight against ISIS (Daesh) since 2015. "Their presence in Iraq is part of the strict framework of the fight against terrorism. The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks," he said. "To his family, to his brothers in arms, I want to express all the affection and solidarity of the Nation," he added. Earlier, Kurdish Regional Government commander Sirwan Barzani said that at least seven French soldiers were injured Thursday in a drone attack in Iraq's Erbil region while providing counter-terrorism training. The origin of the drone was not immediately clear. "The French soldiers there have no connection to war or conflict. They are simply military advisers legally present in Iraq," he said. Barzani described the attack as an "unjust act of terrorism" and called on the Iraqi government to prevent similar incidents. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HE GCCSG: Joint Ministerial Meetings with Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and the UK Achieved Positive Results in Strengthening Relations; We Laud Their Firm and Supportive Stance in Standing with the GCC Against Brutal Iranian Aggressions General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council Mar 13, 2026 General Secretariat - Riyadh His Excellency Mr Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), affirmed that the joint ministerial meetings held separately with Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and the United Kingdom have achieved positive results in enhancing bilateral relations. He praised their supportive and unwavering positions in standing with the GCC states against brutal Iranian aggressions. Joint ministerial meetings were held today, Thursday, March 12, 2026, via videoconference, between the GCC and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Kingdom of Morocco, and the United Kingdom, respectively. The sessions were chaired by His Excellency Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain and President of the current session of the Ministerial Council. Participants included His Excellency Ayman Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Jordan; His Excellency Dr Badr Abdelatty, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt; His Excellency Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates of the Kingdom of Morocco; and Her Excellency Ms Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom, alongside Their Highnesses and Excellencies the Foreign Ministers of the GCC states. "These meetings were convened amid a dangerous and unprecedented regional escalation regarding the unjust Iranian attacks. Missiles and drones have been targeting the GCC states and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan since February 28, 2026, striking civilian facilities and vital sites, resulting in casualties, loss of life, and significant material damage," His Excellency said during the meeting. He described these acts as a flagrant violation of international law and the principles of the rules-based international order, which is founded on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. His Excellency further lauded the strong solidarity expressed by these brotherly and friendly nations against the nefarious Iranian attacks, and their support for the measures taken by the GCC states to defend their sovereignty and protect the security, stability, and safety of their citizens and residents. "These joint meetings clarified that the threat of these attacks is not limited to the security of GCC states alone, but extends to the security of international navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. As one of the world's most strategic maritime corridors, the Strait facilitates a significant portion of global energy supplies," His Excellency explained, warning that targeting commercial vessels and vital sea lanes represents a direct threat to the freedom of international navigation and exposes global trade and energy security to grave risks, which could lead to severe negative consequences for the global economy and the stability of international markets. "The joint meetings welcomed the issuance of United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 2817 (2026), which was approved by 136 countries, and strongly condemned the heinous attacks carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran on the territories of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, considering them a violation of international law and a serious threat to international peace and security," His Excellency pointed out. The Resolution also condemned the Iranian attack on residential areas and the targeting of civilian facilities, which resulted in casualties among civilians and damage to civilian buildings. The Security Council affirmed the right of the GCC countries and Jordan to self-defence, individually or collectively, in accordance with Article (51) of the Charter of the United Nations, calling on Iran to comply with the Security Council resolution by immediately ceasing all attacks it is carrying out against the GCC countries and Jordan, and also demanding that it immediately and unconditionally cease any provocation or threat to neighbouring states, including those that undermine maritime rights and freedoms, particularly around vital maritime routes including the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al Mandab. His Excellency the GCC Secretary General also stated that during these joint meetings, ways to enhance relations were discussed, and His Excellency also referred to a number of achievements as well as current and future projects that have been worked on with brotherly and friendly countries in a manner that serves shared interests. His Excellency also recalled the Palestinian cause during the meetings, affirming that: "The Palestinian cause will remain at the core of our shared priorities, and we commend the intensive efforts undertaken by the GCC countries and the Arab Republic of Egypt to end the war on the Gaza Strip. We reiterate our firm support for the implementation of the tasks of the Peace Council in accordance with the comprehensive plan to end the conflict, in pursuit of a just and lasting peace that affirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, while we also praise in this regard the outcomes of the Board of Peace meeting held on February 19, 2026, and the directions it produced regarding this file." His Excellency also underlined that during the GCC-Moroccan meeting, the GCC reiterated its firm position regarding the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Morocco with respect to preserving the security and stability of the Kingdom of Morocco and the unity of its territory, and once again welcomed United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 2797, which established autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the sole basis for resolving this regional dispute, and expressed support for the efforts of the Secretary General of the United Nations and his Personal Envoy for the Western Sahara file aimed at facilitating and conducting negotiations on the basis of the Moroccan autonomy initiative in implementation of the Security Council resolution, leading to a final settlement of this dispute. His Excellency the Secretary General further explained that the joint meetings held today with brotherly and friendly countries also embodied the importance of the strategic partnership between the two sides in confronting shared security challenges, which require continued coordination and cooperation, in the belief that diplomatic solutions and constructive dialogue remain the best means to address crises, foremost among them the current crisis in the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Philippines Convenes Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the Middle East Security Crisis Republic of the Philippines - Department of Foreign Affairs 13 March 2026 MANILA 13 March 2026 -- The Philippines, in its capacity as ASEAN Chair, convened a Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting on 13 March 2026 to address the escalating security crisis in the Middle East and its far-reaching implications for regional economic stability, energy security, and the safety of ASEAN nationals in affected areas. H.E. Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Chair of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting, presided over the extraordinary session, which brought together Foreign Ministers from across the eleven Member States in a demonstration of ASEAN's collective resolve. Consistent with the Philippines' ASEAN Chairship theme, "Navigating our Future, Together," the Ministers issued a unified call for the immediate cessation of hostilities, the exercise of maximum restraint by all parties, the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure, and an urgent return to diplomatic dialogue as the only path to durable peace and stability. The Foreign Ministers held in-depth exchanges on the broader consequences of the crisis, with particular attention to its cascading effects on energy supply chains, commodity prices, macroeconomic stability, and the welfare of ASEAN nationals currently in conflict-affected areas. The Ministers reaffirmed ASEAN's collective obligation to extend emergency assistance and consular protection to nationals of Member States throughout this crisis. The Philippines, as Chair, called on Member States to move swiftly in identifying and implementing short-term mitigation measures, including the sharing of best practices, coordinated policy responses to cushion economic shocks, and concrete steps to safeguard both ASEAN nationals abroad and regional energy supply chains. The Chair underscored that solidarity and collective action remain ASEAN's most powerful instruments in navigating the present crisis. END NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Media Statement of Secretary of Foreign Affairs Ma. Theresa Lazaro Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East Republic of the Philippines - Department of Foreign Affairs 13 March 2026 Good Afternoon. At the outset, allow me to thank the members of the press for joining us today and for your continued engagement with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Your role in helping inform the public about developments in our region and beyond remains vital, particularly during times of heightened global uncertainty. Earlier today, in my capacity as Chair of ASEAN, I convened a virtual Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East to exchange views on the evolving situation in the region and to address its implications for ASEAN. The Meeting was attended by the Foreign Ministers of Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as the SOM or Senior Official Leaders of Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste. To summarize the important points of discussions: One, We expressed serious concern over the situation in the Middle East and its impacts in the region and emphasized the importance of the immediate cessation of hostilities, called on all parties to exercise utmost self-restraint and resolve differences through diplomacy and dialogue, respect international law including the Charter of the United Nations, in the interest of maintaining peace and stability in the region. Two, we also agreed to strengthen our cooperation and work more closely to respond more rapidly to the challenges impacting our region. We also agreed to continue monitoring the situation in the Middle East and to coordinate our actions to address its implications for ASEAN. On energy security, we also discussed the adverse impacts of the conflict in the Middle East on global economic activity, particularly on energy markets and maritime transport routes, and underscored the importance of maintaining stable, open, and reliable global and regional energy supply chains and maritime trade routes. We stressed the importance of utilizing available mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of the crisis, including the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Petroleum Security, ASEAN Power Grid, and Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline, in coordination with relevant sectoral bodies, ASEAN mechanisms and existing external cooperation frameworks such as ASEAN Plus Three and ASEAN-GCC and industry partners. We also stressed the importance of strengthened intra-ASEAN trade and increased utilization of renewable energy as viable alternatives to fossil fuels. We also highlighted the importance of closer cross-pillar coordination between ASEAN Foreign and Economic Ministers to promote a more synergized and timely response to crises. Regarding the protection of ASEAN nationals, we underscored the importance of timely and enhanced coordination and information sharing in accordance with the ASEAN Declaration on the Guidelines on Consular Assistance by ASEAN Member States' Missions in Third Countries to Nationals of Other ASEAN Member States, and the Guidelines for the Provision of Emergency Assistance by ASEAN Missions in Third Countries to Nationals of ASEAN Member Countries in Crisis Situations. We acknowledged the assistance and efforts made by our fellow ASEAN Member States in this regard. After this briefing, I will be issuing the ASEAN Chair's Statement on the Outcomes of the Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East, which will be uploaded in the official website of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the ASEAN 2026 Philippines Chairship website, and the official website of ASEAN. Thank you. I can now answer some of your questions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address True Promise 4: Iran and resistance axis ops. against US-Israeli assets on Mar. 13 Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 8:13 PM Press TV Website Staff Iranian armed forces and resistance groups across the region continue to carry out retaliatory military operations against the United States and the Israeli regime. On Friday, March 13, 2026, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian Army conducted multiple operations as part of Operation True Promise 4, which was launched immediately after the US-Israeli coalition carried out an unprovoked act of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28. Iranian armed forces have so far carried out 46 waves of missile and drone strikes with advanced weaponry targeting Israeli military facilities in the occupied territories, as well as US occupation bases and assets scattered across the West Asia region. The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have also joined the front against the external aggressors, inflicting heavy blows on the enemy. Hezbollah's operations have been primarily focused on Israeli military sites in the occupied territories. Its operations are both in response to the assassination of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and the relentless ceasefire violations by the Israeli regime over the past year. Iraqi resistance groups have also been carrying out daily operations, primarily against American military assets in Iraq and other Arab countries. Following is a list of operations carried out by the Iranian armed forces, as well as resistance movements in Lebanon and Iraq, against the US and the Zionist regime on Friday, March 13: Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC): In cooperation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, it downed an American military KC-135 refueling aircraft with six crew on board, targeting it with air defense systems in western Iraq near the Saudi border. The 43rd wave of Operation True Promise 4 code-named "Ya Shadid al-Iqab" (O, Severe in Punishment) was launched in honor of the martyrs of the path to Al-Quds, specifically the commander of the True Promises, Lieutenant General Martyr Hossein Salami, against the US Navy's Fifth Fleet base and other bases of the US military in the region, the heart of Tel Aviv in the north of the occupied territories, and Eilat. The operation was executed using precision-guided, heavy Khorramshahr missiles with two-ton warheads, Qadr missiles with multiple warheads, Emad missiles with one-ton warheads, Kheibar Shekan missiles with one-ton warheads, and a number of suicide drones. The US aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln" sustained significant damage after being targeted by missiles and drones. After the attack, it withdrew from the region. The 44th wave of Operation True Promise 4 was launched with the blessed code name "Ya Sadiq al-Wa'd" in commemoration of the martyrs on the path to Al-Quds, especially resistance martyrs Haj Qassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, Ismail Haniyeh, and Yahya Sinwar. The operation was carried out against the bases of the American-Israeli enemy in the north of the occupied territories, "Kiryat Shmona", "Hadera", and Haifa, the US Fifth Fleet, and other bases of the US military in the region. The operation involved a mass of precision-guided and super-heavy Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Fattah, Emad, and Qadr missiles, and precision-guided suicide drones on the night of the 23rd of the holy month of Ramadan. The 45th wave of Operation True Promise 4 was carried out with the blessed codename Ya Sahib Al-Zaman following the amazing response of the Iranian people to the new Leader of the Islamic Revolution's message and their participation in the International Al-Quds Day rallies on Friday. The operation was executed in memory of Martyr Hajizadeh and Martyr Mahmoud Bagheri against the targets of the American and Israeli regimes, using a large number of Khaibar-shekan solid-fuel precision missiles, and with the cooperation of the IRGC Navy, the drone units of the Army and the IRGC, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. An armed MQ9 drone was intercepted and destroyed in Firuzabad, Fars Province, and another aircraft was intercepted and destroyed in the skies of Tabriz by the new advanced air defense system of the IRGC, under the control of the integrated national air defense network. The total number of downed drones since the aggression started on February 28 has reached 111. The 46th wave of Operation True Promise 4 was carried out under the blessed code name "Ya Sahib al-Zaman" and in memory of the martyred IRGC Major General Mohammad Bagheri and Gholamali Rashid against targets in the occupied territories using super-heavy Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Ghadr missiles. An armed MQ9 drone was intercepted and destroyed in Bandar Abbas by the IRGC's new advanced air defense system and under the control of the country's integrated air defense network. A Hermes armed drone was intercepted and destroyed in Andimeshk by the IRGC's new advanced air defense system, under the control of the country's integrated air defense network. The total number of drones destroyed so far is 113. The IRGC air defense shot down 4 drones of various types on Friday. Iranian Army: The headquarters of the Israeli regime's military forces in Bir Al-Sabi was targeted with a barrage of suicide drones. The operation was carried out in the memory of Martyr Lieutenant General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi. Bir Al-Sabi' is the location of strategic military installations and infrastructure of the Israeli military, including bases related to ground and air forces. Targeted and destroyed five more invading enemy drones in the past 48 hours. The total number of drones destroyed since the beginning of the aggression, using the air defense systems of the Army and the IRGC, under the command of the country's Joint Air Defense Headquarters, has reached 109. Hezbollah: In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted the newly established site in Nimr Al-Jamal, opposite the border town of Alma Al-Shaab, with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli army soldiers in the border town of Maroun al-Ras with rocket barrages and artillery shells. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to the "Kiryat Shmona" settlement, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted it with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns and the southern suburb of Beirut, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli army soldiers at the Hadab al-Ajal and Qibal al-Qamh sites north of the "Kfar Yuval" settlement with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns and the southern suburb of Beirut, the Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with swarms of attack drones on the "Shraga" and "Yiftah" barracks. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, and in the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted Israeli regime soldiers at the Al-Marj site opposite the border town of Markaba with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli army soldiers near the Khiam detention center with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli regime soldiers at the newly established site on Tel Al-Hamames south of the city of Khiam, with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli regime soldiers in Khallat al-Asafir, south of the city of Khiam, with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli regime soldiers at the Al-Marj site opposite the border town of Markaba with a rocket barrage for the second time. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted a gathering of Israeli regime soldiers in "Kfar Giladi" with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Quds Day operations, and the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to the "Kiryat Shmona" settlement in northern occupied Palestine, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted it with a swarm of attack drones. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Quds Day operations, and the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to the "Nahariya" settlement in northern occupied Palestine, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted it with a swarm of attack drones. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the "Meron" base for surveillance and air operations management in northern occupied Palestine with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, and the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of the Al-Quds Day operations, and the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to a number of settlements in northern occupied Palestine, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the "Even Menachem" settlement with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, as well as the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the "Kabri" settlement in northern occupied Palestine with a rocket barrage. In response to the Israeli aggression that affected dozens of Lebanese cities and towns and the southern suburb of Beirut, and within the framework of Al-Quds Day operations, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the "Givat" drone control base east of the occupied city of Safad, with a rocket barrage. Islamic Resistance in Iraq: In cooperation with the IRGC, it downed an American military KC-135 refueling aircraft with six crew on board, targeting it with air defense systems in western Iraq near the Saudi border. Targeted a second KC-135 refueling aircraft belonging to the American military west of Iraq. Its crew managed to escape with it after it was struck, and it made an emergency landing at one of the Israeli airports. Targeted Israeli-American interests in Erbil, northern Iraq, with an attack carried out by drone aircraft. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Military targets in Iran's Kharg Island have been "totally obliterated" in U.S. bombing raids, U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday on Truth Social. Iran dismisses reports of missile launch towards Turkey Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 6:54 PM Iran's embassy in Ankara has rejected reports that claimed that the Islamic Republic has fired a missile towards Turkey. In a statement on Friday, the embassy emphasized that "no projectile has been fired from Iran towards Turkey." Referring to the recent conversation between the presidents of the two countries as well as the talks between their foreign ministers, the statement noted that the Islamic Republic has expressed its readiness to form a joint technical team to thoroughly examine this matter in order to remove any ambiguity. The statement emphasized that "The Islamic Republic of Iran fully respects the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the friendly and neighboring country, the Republic of Turkey." This comes as Turkey's defense ministry claimed that a ballistic missile from Iran had been shot down in Turkish airspace by NATO forces. "A ballistic munition launched from Iran and entering Turkish airspace was neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the eastern Mediterranean," the ministry said in a statement. Earlier, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported that sirens had sounded at Incirlik airbase, which hosts US troops, just outside the southern city of Adana. This comes as Turkey's transport minister announced that a Turkish-owned ship had crossed the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively shut since the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, with Tehran permission. In a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that Iran will refrain from any action against neighboring countries provided their airspace, territory, or waters are not used as platforms for attacks on Iranian soil and people. He categorically rejected media claims propagated by outlets aligned with Israel and the United States that Iran had launched missile strikes against Turkey. To dispel any misunderstanding, he proposed the formation of a joint Iran-Turkey technical team to investigate and refute false allegations spread by hostile regimes and media. On February 28, the United States and the Israeli regime started their unprovoked military aggression on Iran, assassinating the former Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and several top military commanders. Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the criminal aggression by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on the US bases in regional countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IRGC: 'Considerable part of Israel's airspace under our control' Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 6:04 PM The commander of Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it launched a massive retaliatory operation against Israel, effectively disrupting the regime's aerospace monitoring capabilities. Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Mousavi said in a post on X on Friday that 30 super-heavy ballistic missilescarrying warheads weighing between 1 and 2 tons have been fired "at specified targets in the occupied territories" on the "night of destiny" which was observed on Thursday night in Iran. The operation has successfully disrupted and destroyed key aerospace monitoring and surveillance systems of the regime, he said. As a result of this operation, added the commander, "a considerable part of the regime's airspace is now under our control." The US and Israel launched an unprovoked war against Iran on Feb.28. Iranian armed forces have vowed to keep the war on with the United States and Israeli regime until they regret launching the aggression against the Islamic Republic. The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said last week that Iran is in possession of advanced weapons with high precision, which are beyond the enemy's assessment of the country's military power. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IRGC launches 45th wave of Operation True Promise 4 using solid-fuel missiles Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 3:30 PM The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced the launch of the 45th wave of Operation True Promise 4 against American and Israeli targets in response to the ongoing US-Israeli terrorist aggression against Iran. In a statement on Friday afternoon, the IRGC said that solid-fuel and precision Kheybar Shekan missiles have been used in this operations. It also noted that the operation was conducted in coordination with IRGC Navy as well as drone units of the Iranian Army, IRGC, and Lebanon's Hezbollah. The destruction of the occupying Zionists' northern command infrastructure and the gathering points of American forcesfollowing the warning to leave the regionhave been the most prominent strategic objectives in the design of this operation, according to a separate statement released by IRGC. Targets in Haifa, Caesarea, the settlements of Zarit and Shlomi, as well as the Holon military-industrial complex, were struck by Hezbollah drones and IRGC aerospace missiles, it added. Meanwhile, the gathering points of the aggressor American forces including the Al-Dhafra and Erbil bases, were identified and heavily bombarded by missiles and drones of the IRGC Navy and Army, according to the statement. "The foolishness of the aggressor enemies in bombing the area adjacent to the International Quds Day rally in Tehran, and the powerful, historic response of the participants, revealed the true and historic scene of "aggression" and "resistance" to all," added the statement. "The resilient nation of Iran showed that they are ready to confront the terrorist enemies with strength, even in the streets," noted the IRGC. Photos and videos shared from occupied territories show that missiles have made impacts and hit their targets, bypassing the hyped Iron-Dome system. Earlier on Friday, Iran's Army said it has carried out a massive drone strike on the headquarters of the Israeli occupation forces in the Beersheba area. It added that since Friday morning, the Iranian Army has been targeting the headquarters of the Israeli regime's defense forces in the occupied territories in Beersheba using loitering drones launched from various parts of the country. The US and Israel started a fresh round of unlawful military aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country. Iran has carried out extensive retaliatory attacks on Israel and US with missiles and drones successfully hitting targets in the Israeli-occupied territories as well as US military assets in regional countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's Army conducts massive drone strike on Israel's military headquarters in Beersheba Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 12:33 PM Iran's Army has carried out a massive drone strike on the headquarters of the Israeli occupation forces in the Beersheba area, in response to the ongoing US-Israeli terrorist strikes against Iran. In a statement, the Iranian Army announced that its drones heavily attacked the headquarters of Israeli regime in Beersheba on Friday morning. It added that since Friday morning, the Iranian Army has been targeting the headquarters of the Israeli regime's defense forces in the occupied territories in Beersheba using destructive drones launched from various parts of the country. "Beersheba is the site of strategic military installations and infrastructures of the Zionist regime's army, including bases associated with ground and air forces," the statement said. "This extensive operation will continue in the coming hours with large-scale attacks on other significant locations of Zionist regime bases," it emphasized. The Army explained that the Israeli regime is preventing the dissemination of information about the extent of damage and casualties inflicted by missiles and destructive drones through severe censorship of war news and the effective strikes by the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). The US and Israel started a fresh round of unlawful military aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country. Iran has carried out extensive retaliatory attacks on Israel and US with missiles and drones successfully hitting targets in the Israeli-occupied territories as well as US military assets in regional countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pezeshkian tells Modi: Iran not seeking war, fighting 'savage' US-Israeli aggression Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 10:35 AM President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran does not seek war but is exercising its right to self-defense in the face of "savage" US-Israeli aggression. He made the remarks late on Thursday in a phone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi amid continued US-Israeli airstrikes in Iran which started on February 28. Tehran "did not start the war and does not seek its continuation," Pezeshkian said. "However, based on the right to self-defense, it is targeting US bases in the region that were the source of the attacks," he added. Pezeshkian thanked the Indian government and people for their expressions of sympathy with Iranians and stressed that the Islamic Republic has always held India "in special regard as a friend and economic partner." The Iranian president also praised India's "balanced and constructive positions" on the international stage and its efforts to reduce tensions. According to Pezeshkian, the "savage" US-Israeli aggression came at a time when Iran was pursuing negotiations with Washington and seeking to resolve issues through diplomacy. "While Iran was on the path of negotiations with the United States and resolving matters through diplomacy, the savage attack by the United States and the Zionist regime took place," he said, slamming the strikes as a violation of international rules and humanitarian law. Pezeshkian said the aggression resulted in the assassination of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, senior military commanders and 168 schoolchildren in an attack on a school in the southern city of Minab. He added that the martyred leader, beyond his political role, was "the spiritual leader of Muslims worldwide," stressing that seeking justice for his blood "is the legitimate right of the Islamic Ummah." Pezeshkian also strongly condemned Israel's assassination of innocent civilians, describing it as a clear example of "state terrorism." Despite the recent attacks on Iranian infrastructure, he said Tehran remains committed to expanding cooperation with India and other friendly countries, particularly within frameworks such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. He underlined the importance of BRICS playing a more active role in safeguarding regional peace, stability and security. Modi, for his part, voiced deep concern over the escalating tensions in West Asia and reaffirmed India's ties with Iran. "India is a friend of Iran," the Indian prime minister said, adding that New Delhi will make every possible effort to support diplomatic efforts. He also stressed that further escalation would benefit no party. Modi expressed regret that the war erupted during the holy month of Ramadan and voiced hope that the upcoming Persian New Year, Nowruz, would usher in peace, calm and stability in the region, with disputes resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi also held a phone conversation with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday, focusing on regional and international developments. During the call, Araghchi briefed Jaishankar on the latest consequences of the aggression and crimes committed by the United States and the Zionist regime against Iran and their impact on regional and global security. He emphasized the "firm determination of the Iranian government, people and armed forces to exercise their legitimate right of self-defense against aggressors." Araghchi also called for international and regional organizations to condemn the military aggression on Iran. Referring to the growing role of BRICS as a platform for multilateral cooperation, he said the grouping should play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability. Jaishankar, in turn, voiced India's readiness to expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation in regional and international forums. He also pointed the importance of finding pathways to strengthen lasting stability and security in the region, describing it as a "collective necessity." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran defends right to self-defense in Strait of Hormuz, slams US aggression Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 7:41 AM Iran has emphasized its commitment to the principle of freedom of navigation but stated that the ongoing tensions in the region, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz, are a direct result of as the destabilizing actions of the United States. "Iran fully respects and remains committed to the principle of freedom of navigation under the law of the sea," its ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said in a statement at the UN Security Council Stakeout Thursday. "However, the current situation in the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, is not the result of Iran's lawful exercise of its right of self-defense. Rather, it is the direct consequence of the destabilizing actions of the United States in launching aggression against Iran and undermining regional security." Following his statement, Iravani responded to questions from journalists. When asked about potential US Navy escorts through the Strait of Hormuz, he stated, "No, I have no response to that. Iran will exercise its inherent right to preserve peace and security in the Strait of Hormuz; that is our responsibility." "As I said, we are not going to close the Strait of Hormuz. However, it is our inherent right to preserve peace and security in this waterway, and that is our right," he added. In his remarks at the Stakeout, Iravani expanded on the broader context of the US and Israeli aggression against Iran, which he referred to as part of a wider illegal and illegitimate war. "What is unfolding today is, in reality, an illegal and illegitimate war launched by Israel and the United Statestwo regimes that possess nuclear weaponsagainst a responsible non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)," he said. He noted that Israel has repeatedly alleged since 2003 that Iran was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports consistently refuting those claims. Iravani criticized the US for carrying out an illegal military attack in June 2025 on Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities, which were fully under IAEA safeguards. "This illegal act constituted a clear violation of the UN Charter, the principles of international law, the IAEA Statute, the Agency's relevant resolutions, and the NPT, which the US is a depositary," Iravani stated. The ambassador then condemned the US and its European allies for attempting to invoke the "snapback" mechanism of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) despite not fulfilling their obligations under the agreement. "The claim made in today's meeting by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States that the so-called 'snapback' mechanism has been triggered is baseless and a clear fabrication," he remarked, rejecting the idea that the mechanism was valid in this case. Iravani also addressed the ongoing political maneuvering within the UN Security Council, especially the recent resolution against Iran, passed under the US pressure on Wednesday. He hit out at the United States for abusing its position as Council President to push through a politically motivated resolution. "Yesterday was a shameful day for the Security Council," he said, adding that the resolution ignored the actual cause of regional tensions, which he said is the illegal aggression by the US and Israel against Iran. He stressed that instead of condemning the aggressors, the resolution unjustly targeted Iran as the victim of the aggression. "The text does not refer to the real source of the tensions in the regionnamely, the war of aggression illegally and illegitimately launched by the United States and Israel against Iran," he said. "It does not call upon the aggressors, the United States and Israel, to halt their unlawful attacks against Iran." Iravani emphasized that instead of holding the aggressors accountable, the resolution demanded that Iran refrain from exercising its inherent right to self-defense to protect its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and vital interests. "Such a demand is unlawful and entirely contrary to the Charter and international law," Iravani said. In light of the Security Council's recent actions, Iravani emphasized Iran's legal stance on self-defense. "Iran has repeatedly and clearly informed the Secretary-General and members of the Council, through its official communications, that the Security Councildue to obstructing the United States and certain Western countrieshas been unable to fulfill its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," he explained. Iravani said, "As long as the Council fails to discharge its duties, Iran has no choice but to exercise its inherent right of self-defense under the UN Charter and international law." Iravani also reaffirmed Iran's rejection of the accusations regarding uranium enrichment, saying that the claim that Iran enriched uranium to 60 percent is a distortion of the facts. "The claim that Iran has enriched uranium to 60 percentthe level allegedly required for producing a nuclear bombis a distortion of the facts and ignores the real root of the situation," he said. "Iran's decision to increase the level of enrichment was taken solely in response to the violations of commitments by the United States and European countries and was intended as leverage to compel them to return to their obligations." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Says Russia Might Be Helping Iran 'A Little Bit' In The War March 13, 2026 US President Donald Trump said it is possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin is helping Iran in its war with the United States and Israel. "I think he might be helping them a little bit, yeah, I guess, and he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right?" Trump told Fox News in a radio interview on March 13. "Yeah, we're helping [Ukraine] also," Trump said. "And so, [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing. You know, it's like, hey, they do it and we do it. In all fairness, they do it and we do it." US media outlets have reported that the Kremlin is providing Iran with targeting information on US forces in the Middle East. CNN and The Washington Post have reported that Moscow was supplying Tehran with location details and movement data on US troops, ships, and aircraft. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, lead negotiator in trilateral talks with Moscow and Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine, has said he informed Moscow it should not support Tehran with intelligence regarding the war. He also said Russian representatives had assured Trump in a telephone conversation that they would not share such information with Iran. US defense chief Pete Hegseth has previously told reporters that Russia and China are "not really a factor" in the conflict with Iran. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-protests-live-blog- trump-khamenei/33640284.html?lbis=443552 Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Top Iranian Officials Take To The Streets In Tehran As Hegseth Warns Of Intense US-Israeli Air Attacks By RFE/RL's Radio Farda March 13, 2026 Several senior Iranian officials, including President Masud Pezeshkian, took to the streets of Tehran for the annual Al-Quds Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause despite an intense wave of air strikes by the United States and Israel. Striking a defiant tone, judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, national police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, also joined thousands of Iranians in the capital on March 13, state TV images showed, as plumes of smoke rose from sites around the city. The demonstration came on a day US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said would be the heaviest day of bombardment in a campaign that has seen over 15,000 targets hit since it began on February 28. Hegseth added that the volume of return fire from Iran has sharply decreased from earlier in the conflict because Iran's "missiles, their missile launchers and drones [are] being destroyed or shot out of the sky." "Their missile volume is down 90 percent, their one-way attack drones yesterday -- down 95 percent," Hegseth added. Earlier in the day, US Central Command said all six crew members were dead after a giant US refueling plane crashed in Iraq after an apparent midair collision, while a French soldier was killed in the country's Kurdistan region as the conflict continued to spill over regional borders. CENTCOM, which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East, on March 13 said a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, said the identities of the service members are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified. "The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire," CENTCOM said of the crash that occurred a day earlier. The second plane landed safely in Israel, CENTCOM officials said. The KC-135 is the workhorse of the US military's air-refueling missions, allowing other planes to carry out missions without having to land. On March 2, US military officials said three F-15 fighter jets crashed in Kuwait after being hit by friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defenses. All six of the crew from the three F-15s ejected and parachuted to the ground before being located by rescuers, Central Command said. First Confirmed French Fatality Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron said one soldier was killed during a drone attack in the Irbil region of Iraqi Kurdistan. "This attack against our forces engaged in the fight against Daesh since 2015 is unacceptable," Macron said, using the local name for the Islamic State extremist group. "Their [French soldiers] presence in Iraq is strictly within the framework of the fight against terrorism. The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks." It is not known where the drone came from or who fired it. The French military earlier said that at least six soldiers had been injured, with one of them later dying. It was the first confirmed death of a French soldier since the United States and Israel launched their massive air campaign against neighboring Iran. France is not participating directly in the US-Israeli war effort. Tehran has fired back with retaliatory strikes in the region, but it was not known if Iran or an allied militia in Iraq was responsible for the attack. Islamic State and Al-Qaeda extremists are also active in parts of the Middle East country. Ashab Alkahf, an Iran-linked group in Iraq, later said that French interests in the region are now considered targets. The Crucial Strait Meanwhile, as the war entered its second week, Iran continued to strike back at US Arab allies in the Gulf region and attack commercial ships transiting the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in what are purported to be his first public comments since being named to succeed his late father, said Iran must continue to keep the key Gulf shipping lane closed, hours after several vessels were targeted in strikes as Tehran looks to choke off oil supplies from leaving the Middle East. In the statement, which was read out on Iranian state TV by a female presenter on March 12, Khamenei, who has yet to be seen or heard from in public since the start of the war, said Iran will continue to seek to strike targets where "the enemy has little experience and will be severely vulnerable." Hegseth said Khamenei is wounded and likely disfigured, calling his statement "a weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video." Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the hard-line military force intends to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed to traffic, saying it was following instructions from the new supreme leader. The United States has suggested it is prepared to escort ships through the strait, a move that would likely increase tensions in the region. Iran Targets Israel Iran once again fired missiles waves of missiles toward Israel early on March 13, officials in Tel Aviv said. Emergency services reporting that two were injured in the country's north. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first news conference since the start of the war on February 28, spoke again of helping the Iranian people to bring down the regime in Tehran. "I will not detail the actions we are taking. We are creating the optimal conditions for toppling the regime, but I won't deny that I can't tell you with all certainty that the people of Iran will topple the regime -- a regime is toppled from the inside," he said. "But we can definitely help and we are helping." Hours later, Iranian media reported several explosions in the capital, Tehran. Details were not immediately available. Israel also maintained its offensive against Iran-allied Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, with the military moving further into southern Lebanon. The military told residents to "move immediately north of the Zahrani River," 40 kilometers from the Israeli border. It said Hezbollah had fired some 200 rockets toward it overnight, in what it called was the biggest barrage so far of the war. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia said it intercepted dozens of drones entering its airspace. "Twelve drones were intercepted and destroyed after entering Saudi airspace," a ministry spokesperson said after authorities reported at least 16 other drones were also shot down. Journalists reported witnessing explosions that rattled the central financial area of Dubai early on March 13. Turkish state media reported on March 13 that sirens were heard at the Incirlik Air Base, a NATO facility in southern Turkey that houses US forces. No further information was immediately available. If an Iranian missile attack is confirmed, it would be the third time since the war began that the Turkish airspace has been violated. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Reuters, and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-israel-war-iraq- lebanon-refueling-aircraft/33704273.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Spanish Government strongly condemns attacks in Iraq against France and Italy and expresses condolences for death of French soldier Spain - Ministry of Foreign Affairs PRESS STATEMENT 029 13 MAR 26 The Spanish Government strongly condemns the attacks in Iraq in which a French soldier has been killed and several wounded, and the Italian contingent has been attacked. The Government expresses its deepest condolences to the French Government and people at this difficult time and sends its best wishes for the speedy recovery of those injured. This and other unjustifiable attacks against Iraq and other countries in the region constitute a flagrant violation of their sovereignty and independence and threaten to further destabilise the region, which has been in turmoil since 28 February. The Government demands that Iran immediately cease these attacks and that all parties respect international law and resume diplomatic negotiations as the only way to resolve the crisis, restore stability and move towards peace in the region. The Government of Spain reiterates its commitment to the sovereignty, unity and stability of Iraq and urges that the contingents deployed in the fight against terrorism and Daesh be protected and respected. -NON OFFICIAL TRANSLATION- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi resistance targets two US aircraft, launches 37 operations on bases Iran Press TV Friday, 13 March 2026 8:06 AM The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for downing a US KC-135 refueling aircraft and conducting 37 attacks on US bases in the region over the past 24 hours. According to the resistance's statement, its fighters intercepted and struck a US KC-135 refueling aircraft over western Iraq, forcing it to crash. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the incident, acknowledging that a KC-135 had crashed but insisted that it was not caused by enemy or friendly fire. The statement from CENTCOM described the attack as part of a broader US operation against Iran, though it did not provide further details on the circumstances. The second aircraft, also reportedly targeted by the Islamic Resistance, sustained damage but was able to make an emergency landing at a location under US control. The crew was able to escape the scene unharmed. The group did not provide additional details about the specific weapons used or the location of the attacks, but their statements emphasized the successful execution of the operations against US military assets. The Islamic Resistance also reported carrying out 37 separate attacks against US bases in the region in the past 24 hours, 31 of which involved drone and missile strikes. The remaining six operations were described as "special and unique". The developments come amid escalating US and Israeli military aggression in the region. On Thursday, a French soldier was killed, and six others were injured in a drone strike on a joint French-Peshmerga base in northern Iraq. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the death of a warrant officer, describing the attack as part of the broader conflict in the region, where French forces have been deployed since 2015. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has strongly condemned the involvement of European countries in the US-led war of terrorism against Iran and warned that any such participation would make them targets for retaliation. The group stated that "Any country that participates in this war is considered an enemy of our nations and sanctities," and vowed to target their forces and interests in Iraq and the broader region. The statement was a direct warning to European allies of the US that their involvement would lead to increased attacks on their personnel and assets in the region. The group also issued a broader call for operations against US and Israeli forces, with Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Jawad al-Khalisi urging followers to take up arms in support of the resistance against foreign forces. Al-Khalisi, a prominent figure in Iraq's Shia community, issued the call earlier in the week, stating that those killed in such actions would be considered martyrs. The Islamic Resistance stated that 291 military operations have been carried out against US and allied forces over the past 12 days, resulting in the deaths of 13 American soldiers and the wounding of dozens more. While CENTCOM has not confirmed these figures, it has acknowledged that attacks on US forces in Iraq and surrounding areas have been escalating. The regional volatility has been exacerbated by the broader US-Israel aggression, with the Islamic Resistance warning of the wider geopolitical consequences. Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, in a recent statement, condemned the US-Israeli aggression and cautioned that Europe, particularly France, would face negative fallout, including higher gasoline prices and the potential for a new refugee crisis. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- When China unveiled its new five-year plan running from 2026 to 2030, phrases like AI, computing power and "smart economy" buzzed via news feeds. However, they tell only part of the story. Running through this plan is another important thread. China's vast frontier regions have assumed a more prominent role in the national masterplan to build a unified domestic market, strengthen energy security and expand opening up. This emphasizes that the Chinese modernization endeavor is aimed at securing prosperity for all. Analysts say by featuring in core sections on transport, energy, digital infrastructure and regional integration, these frontier regions are being closely woven into China's modernization tapestry. "The strategic importance of Xinjiang, for instance, is heightened," said Zhang Bin, a national political advisor and deputy director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "With its location, resources and industrial base, it can serve as a key hub in China's broader opening up." The plan calls for continued expansion of westbound freight train services and accelerated development of port infrastructure. In this autonomous region in northwest China, the China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the first in the country's northwest border regions, is expected to see accelerated growth over the next five years, thus further boosting westward trade flows. Xinjiang saw a nearly 20 percent year-on-year increase in the total value of its foreign trade in 2025, ranking first in terms of growth rate among all Chinese provincial-level regions, hitting 520.37 billion yuan (about 75.34 billion U.S. dollars). "Xinjiang's foreign trade rests on a solid foundation and holds vast potential, and is well positioned to maintain strong growth momentum during the 15th Five-Year Plan period," said Li Xuan, deputy director of the regional department of commerce. In the section on transport, the plan calls for stronger railways and feeder airports in western regions, better road networks in border areas, and improved cross-border transport connectivity. "When more border area road networks are incorporated into national-level planning, it signifies the integration of frontier infrastructure into the country's broader transport system," said Penpa Lhamo, deputy director of the Xizang Academy of Social Sciences. "That is important for extending the unified domestic market across the full national space." Over time, this approach could help generate more self-sustaining growth. In Xizang Autonomous Region, southwest China, new economic opportunities have already been generated. In the tourism hub of Nyingchi, improved infrastructure is giving apples and yak products access to wider markets, including through expanded highway links. Better roads are also bringing more visitors and allowing locally produced goods to reach consumers beyond the plateau. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), Xizang's regional GDP grew by 6.3 percent on average annually, reaching 303.19 billion yuan last year. The region is aiming for a GDP growth of more than 7 percent in 2026, and will expand its opening up at a higher level as a border region, according to the regional government work report. The plan's energy strategy also propels these remote regions to the forefront of China's green energy expansion. It calls for continued development of major new energy bases in Xinjiang, the upper Yellow River region and the Hexi Corridor, outlining new power transmission channels for clean energy bases in frontier regions including Xinjiang, Xizang and northwest China's Gansu Province. West-to-east electricity transmission capacity is expected to exceed 420 million kilowatts by 2030, a crucial target year by which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. Xinjiang's renewable energy sector, meanwhile, has been gathering momentum. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Xinjiang's installed new energy capacity had reached 169 million kilowatts, accounting for 64 percent of the region's total installed power capacity. "Xinjiang, no longer defined only by its role as a major energy and resource base, is becoming an important pillar in China's green transition," said He Mingxing, a senior scholar at Xinjiang University. The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) is expected to inject further momentum into the region's green power development. Beyond transportation and energy, the plan calls for expanding digital infrastructure into frontier regions, including national data networks, satellite internet and wider broadband coverage. In the southwestern inland province of Guizhou, mountain caves are now being repurposed as data storage centers. The region, previously one of China's poorest, is capitalizing on the country's "East Data, West Computing" strategy, which channels data-hungry computing tasks from eastern coastal cities to the resource-rich west. This model delivers investment and jobs to mountainous areas like Guizhou, while leveraging local natural advantages for energy-efficient cooling. In terms of public services, the plan urges more investment in education and healthcare in border areas, pointing to a shift from scattered projects toward more integrated public service systems. The benefits of such investment are already visible in places like Nujiang, formerly one of China's most impoverished regions in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Roads now extend along cliffs where only goats once passed. Bridges span deep gorges, connecting isolated mountain villages to the broader landscape. Drones navigate canyons, delivering mail and supplies, while internet connectivity and e-commerce platforms have begun linking remote communities to the national market. Observers believe that the new five-year plan is likely to produce more such opportunities. "China is not choosing between a high-tech future and frontier development," said Yang Fuqiang, head of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences. "It is bringing the two together, making the frontier an integral part of its modernization drive." Baghdad Blasts Target Iran-Allied Groups, US Embassy March 14, 2026 Explosions rocked multiple sites in Baghdad early on March 14, with an Iran-allied group being the target of two blasts while a drone attack reportedly targeted the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital. Iraq, despite not being directly involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, has increasingly seen violence spill over into its territory since the war started on February 28. Two strikes targeted the powerful Iran-allied Kataeb Hezbollah group, killing two members including a "key figure," according to security sources. At 2:15 a.m. on March 14, "a missile struck a house that was being used by Kataeb Hezbollah," a security source told AFP, adding that "a key figure was martyred," and two group members were injured. About two hours later, an air strike hit a vehicle in eastern Baghdad, killing "a member of the Hashed al-Shaabi," another security source said. A Hashed al-Shaabi official told AFP that the slain member belonged to Kataeb Hezbollah. Hashed al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), is a former paramilitary group now integrated into Iraq's regular armed forces. Kataeb Hezbollah seeks to create an Iran-aligned regime in Baghdad. The sources said it was not known who was behind the attacks, although Iran-backed fighters have blamed the United States and Israel in the past. AFP later quoted an Iraqi security official as saying a drone attack had taken place against the highly guarded US Embassy in Baghdad. "A drone hit the embassy," the official said, with a second security source confirming that an attack had targeted the site. AP cited Iraqi security officials as saying the projectile hit a helicopter pad inside the embassy compound. With reporting by AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-protests-live- blog-trump-khamenei/33640284.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HRC61 - EU Statement - Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar European External Action Service (EEAS) 13.03.2026 Geneva Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in Geneva United Nations Human Rights Council 61st Session Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar 13 March 2026 EU Statement Thank you Mr President. Special rapporteur, We warmly thank you for your work over the past six years. The deterioration of the situation in Myanmar, in particular since the 2021 coup, has made this Council ask much of you. Yet you went above and beyond, including through impactful conference room papers. We welcome your latest report. In it, you call upon the international community to deny Myanmar military access to money, weapons and legitimacy, and to support the humanitarian needs of the people of Myanmar. The EU is active on all these fronts. We call on all to do the same. We call for the end to all violence against civilians, full respect of IHL, and accountability for all human rights violations and abuses. While welcoming the recent amnesty and releases of political prisoners, the EU continues to call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint. The EU rejects the junta-sponsored elections, which were neither free nor fair and only aimed to legitimise military rule. Special Rapporteur, The EU will continue to support this mandate, as well as other UN mechanisms, including the UNSG Special Envoy and the IIMM. Where has the international community been most effective in supporting your work? NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Human Rights Council 61: UK Statement for the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Speech UK Statement for the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. Delivered by the UK's Human Rights Ambassador, Eleanor Sanders. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Eleanor Sanders Published 13 March 2026 Location: Geneva Delivered on: 13 March 2026 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) Madame Vice President, We thank the Special Rapporteur for his update and remain alarmed by the severe and escalating human rights violations and abuses in Myanmar. Civilians continue to face indiscriminate airstrikes, mass displacement, arbitrary detention, torture and sexual and genderbased violence. The military's deliberate denial of humanitarian access is endangering millions, worsening food insecurity and denying life-saving medical care. The military must urgently allow rapid, full, safe, and unimpeded humanitarian access. Madam Vice President, the recent military-run elections were neither free nor fair. The UK continues to support the ASEAN Five Point Consensus and the efforts of the ASEAN and UN Special Envoys. We urge all parties - especially the Myanmar military - to cease hostilities, protect civilians, and release all those arbitrarily detained, including children. Accountability is essential to end impunity for atrocity crimes, including those committed against Rohingya minorities. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar remains one of the most credible routes to justice. We are also proud to support the Myanmar Witness project, gathering and preserving credible evidence to support international justice efforts. As penholder at the UN Security Council, the UK is committed to spotlighting the crisis and advancing accountability for the people of Myanmar. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Transcript of the Press Briefing by the Spokesperson on Thursday 12th March 2026 Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Assalam-o-Alaikum, Welcome to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I begin by sharing with you that the Prime Minister of Pakistan H.E Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif just left for one-day visit to Saudi Arabia. He is accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar. The Prime Minister will meet His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The Prime Minister's visit to Saudi Arabia is part of the coordination between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on matters of regional peace and security and ending violence and hostilities. The Prime Minister visit should also be seen in the broader context of Pakistan's efforts to advocate and facilitate an early cessation of hostilities and violence in region, with the aim of paving the way for dialogue and diplomacy. In the same vein, the Prime Minister yesterday, held telephone conversation with the President of Iran, H.E. Masood Pezeshkian. They exchanged Ramadhan Greetings. The Prime Minister offered condolences on the martyrdom of His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. In follow-up of his letter to His Eminence Mojtaba Khamenei on 10th March, the Prime Minister congratulated the President of Iran on His Eminence Mojtaba Khamenei's assumption of this onerous responsibility. The Prime Minister expressed his hope that Iran would enjoy peace, stability, dignity, and prosperity in the years ahead. Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me now turn to Pakistan's response to the outbreak of hostilities, violence, and armed attacks in the Middle East, which are now in their third week. As you know, Pakistan had condemned the unwarranted attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran. These attacks come at a time when diplomatic efforts were underway to reach a peaceful and negotiated solution. Such a course of action will undermine the peace and stability of the entire region, with far reaching consequences. Pakistan also strongly condemned the attacks by Iran against the brotherly countries of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, and stands in solidarity with all these brotherly countries and underscores the need to exercise maximum restraint. The unprovoked attacks constitute blatant violations of the sovereignty of the brotherly Gulf States. Pakistan expresses serious concern over the recent attacks targeting the brotherly countries, Turkiye and Azerbaijan. These attacks are in clear violation of international law and the principles of inter-state relations and could push the region toward further escalation. Throughout the current wave of conflict, Pakistan has been urging three points: i. Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and a commitment to refrain from the use of force within each other's sovereign territory. ii. Upholding international law and the principles enshrined in the UN Charter. iii. Resuming diplomatic engagement to pursue a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the crisis. The conflict has seen death of two Pakistani nationals in the UAE. We offer our heartfelt condolences over these losses. Our Missions in the UAE worked with the bereaved families in repatriation of the mortal remains of the deceased citizens back to Pakistan. With respect to regular community service, on we undertook special efforts towards evacuation of Pakistani nationals, particularly from Iran and support our citizens stranded at various locations in the region. Centrally, a Crisis Management Unit (CMU) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is operating round the clock Special Facilitation Desks have been established at Pakistan's Missions abroad to assist stranded Pakistani nationals with visa facilitation, logistics, and travel arrangements. Missions have also launched dedicated applications, registration portals, and helplines to enable timely outreach and assistance. Pakistan's Missions are in close coordination with host governments to ensure the necessary consular facilitation for the Pakistani Diaspora. The Prime Minister has issued clear directives regarding these community assistance measures. We are implementing them with the full support and guidance of the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Since the onset of the current wave of hostilities on 28 February, our top leadership has remained actively engaged with their counterparts across the region. We have been regularly updating you on these high-level exchanges. Let me very briefly give you a round-up of these exchanges. 28 February, 2026 - Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a telephone conversation with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The Prime Minister strongly condemned the serious regional escalation that had taken place as a result of the Israeli attack on Iran today, followed by the regrettable attacks on other Gulf countries. While assuring the Saudi leadership of Pakistan's full solidarity and support in the current situation, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan would always stand with its Saudi brothers and sisters, at all times to come, and under all circumstances. Same day, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a telephone conversation with His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar. The Prime Minister reaffirmed Pakistan's full solidarity and support with the brotherly State of Qatar amid the current crisis and assured the Amir that Pakistan would always stand shoulder to shoulder with the brotherly people of Qatar and play a positive role for ensuring peace and stability in the region. On 1st March The Prime Minister held a telephone conversation with His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to discuss the evolving regional situation. The two leaders exchanged views on the serious regional developments following the recent escalation from the Israeli attack on Iran, that was followed by attacks on Jordan and other regional countries. Pakistan's solidarity with the Kingdom of Jordan as well as other brotherly countries of the region was reaffirmed. Same day, The Prime Minister held a telephonic conversation with His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the King of Bahrain. He assured the leadership of Bahrain that Pakistan stood firmly with Bahrain and other brotherly Gulf countries and underscored the need for maximum restraint in this difficult time. On 2 March, The Prime Minister held telephonic conversation with His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, Sultan of Oman. The Prime Minister conveyed his deep appreciation for Oman's mediatory role and constructive efforts in facilitating dialogue and building trust among regional and international stakeholders. He acknowledged that Oman's balanced and forward-looking diplomacy was a stabilizing force in the region. Same day, the Prime Minister received a telephone call from H.E. Mr. Ahmed al-Sharaa, President of the Syrian Arab Republic. The two sides emphasized the urgent need for restraint, de-escalation, and dialogue to preserve regional peace and stability. Same day, the Prime Minister spoke with His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, the Crown Prince of Kuwait He affirmed Pakistan's solidarity and support for the leadership and people of Kuwait at this critical time. On March 3, 2026, the Prime Minister held a telephone conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Republic of Turkiye. In addition to the crisis in the Gulf, the two leaders also discussed Afghanistan. On 4 March, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a telephone conversation with H.E. Nawaf Salam, Prime Minister of Lebanon. He condemned, in the strongest terms, Israel's aggression against Lebanon. He conveyed deep condolences over the loss of precious lives due to Israeli attacks and reaffirmed Pakistan's solidarity with the Lebanese people. The same day, Prime Minister spoke on telephone with Prime Minister Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia. Both leaders agreed to maintain close coordination on all issues of mutual interest. On 6 March 2026. The Prime Minister held a telephone conversation with H.E. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. During their conversation, the Prime Minister condemned, in the strongest terms, the drone attacks on Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan that targeted innocent civilians. Pakistan's complete solidarity with the brotherly people of Azerbaijan was reaffirmed. Our Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar has also remained engaged with his counterparts In the last 12 days, he has spoken three times with the Foreign Minister of Iran, Seyed Abbas Araghchi. This was on 28the of last month and the on 6th and 7th of March. The two leaders remain in close contact, exchanging important messages on ways to end the crisis and chart a peaceful path forward. At the onset of hostilities on 28 February, in a single day, the Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister spoke with the Foreign Ministers of Uzbekistan & Saudi Arabia, the Deputy Prime Minister/ Foreign Minister of the UAE and Qatar's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi. They exchanged views on the evolving regional situation and agreed to stay in close contact. The next day, March 1, Deputy Prime Minister / Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar spoke with the Foreign Minister of Oman On March 2nd, with the Foreign Minister of Bahrain and On March 3RD, with Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister March 4 Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar visited the Embassy of Iran in Islamabad to sign the condolence book on the martyrdom of His Eminence Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He conveyed heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and the Iranian nation, and reaffirmed Pakistan's solidarity with the brotherly people of Iran in this moment of immense national grief. You may recall that Pakistan had extended the sincerest condolences sent a message to people of Iran in their hour of grief and sorrow. The same day, Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister spoke with Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Turkiye. On March 5, Deputy Prime Minister / Foreign Minister Senator held telephone conversations with the Foreign Ministers of Canada and Azerbaijan. On March 7, the DPM/FM spoke with Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey. He later spoke with Foreign Minister of Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE (second call in one week), Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister of Jordan On March 10 Deputy Prime Minister / Foreign Minister Senator spoke with Bahrain's Foreign Minister Mr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani. DPM/FM reaffirmed Pakistan's solidarity with Bahrain and its people, highlighting the need for de-escalation, dialogue, and efforts for peace and stability in the region. Same day, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister held a telephonic conversation with the Foreign Minister of China, Mr. Wang Yi. They exchanged views on the evolving regional situation and broader global developments. Situation in Afghanistan also came under discussion. Same day, the DPM/FM spoke with the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Foreign Minister of of Kuwait Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. They expressed deep concern over regional developments, including attacks on Kuwait. DPM/FM conveyed Pakistan's solidarity with the leadership and people of Kuwait and emphasized the urgent need for dialogue and de-escalation to promote peace and stability in the region. Later, our DPM/FM also spoke with Dr. Khalilur Rahman, Foreign Minister of Bangladesh. They expressed concern over the evolving regional situation in the Middle East and the wider region and its implications for regional peace and stability, as well as its wider consequences. Today, Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar spoke with Oman's Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi today to exchange views on the serious and evolving situation in the Middle East and the wider region. Finally, we have issued a statement expressing our concern at the long-term uranium supply agreement concluded between Canada and India and potential cooperation on small modular reactors and advanced reactor technologies between the two sides. This arrangement represents yet another country-specific exception in the field of civil nuclear cooperation. It is particularly ironic given that India's 1974 nuclear test, conducted using plutonium produced in a reactor supplied by Canada for peaceful purposes, had led directly to the establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A state whose actions necessitated the establishment of global export controls is now being granted preferential access under selective arrangements. India has neither placed all its civilian nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards nor undertaken any binding commitment to do so under this arrangement. Several facilities remain outside international inspection. It is also unclear what concrete non-proliferation assurances, if any, accompany this agreement. The strategic consequences are equally troubling. Assured external uranium supplies effectively release India's domestic reserves for military use, enabling the expansion of its fissile material stockpiles, accelerating the growth of its nuclear arsenal, and deepening existing asymmetries in South Asia's strategic balance. In this context, the arrangement also undermines Canada's commitment to the international non-proliferation regime and its corresponding obligations under that framework. Pakistan reiterates that civil nuclear cooperation must be governed by a non-discriminatory, criteria-based approach applicable equally to states that are not parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Selective exceptions diminish the credibility of the global non-proliferation framework and risk further destabilizing regional and global peace & security. Thank you ***** (Sumera Khan, Samaa TV): Sir, I have two short questions. One is regarding Pakistan's role in if we are playing any mediatory role between Iran, Israel or America? Obviously, this time it's Israel and America both against Iran. So, are we playing any mediatory role for this conflict? And the second part is, what is the state of our situation, our engagements in Afghanistan? Have you received any formal or informal request from the Afghan side to cool the things down or anything you should go about it diplomatically. So, I need your response in that. Spokesperson: On the mediatory role, I have highlighted you the three substantive thrust lines: respect sovereignty; uphold UN Charter and non-use of force; and move towards dialogue and diplomacy. So, we would continue to urge all relevant parties to stick on these points. We have also undertaken a high-level exchange between relevant states. I have also mentioned our numerous telephone conversations and highest-level exchanges between our countries and relevant countries in the region. As regards the situation in Afghanistan, the situation remains the same. We have emphatically communicated to the Afghanistan and to our interlocutors - we need verifiable assurances from the Afghan side that their territory would not be used for terrorism against Pakistan. And since those assurances have not been received, so we will continue with our existing policy with respect to that country. (Muhammad Anas Ahsan Malik, Asia One News): Sir, two questions. Firstly, since you mentioned a range of engagements that the Deputy Prime Minister did with his counterparts, there was no mention of his engagement with the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has there been any engagement with the US side, particularly on this conflict? number one and number two, since you just also spoke out Afghanistan, we heard from the Taliban regime's defense minister. Quote, If Kabul is attacked, Islamabad will be attacked, unquote. What is Pakistan's comment on the matter? Spokesperson: First of all, on the statement coming from Afghanistan that Islamabad will be attacked - look, Islamabad was attacked. Islamabad was attacked on the 6th of February, a Mosque / Imam Barga was attacked from mastermind and executives in Afghanistan. So, we are under attack from Afghanistan. We have not received any confirmation or written assurance from Afghan side that these attacks will cease. There is very clear evidence, UN backed evidence of possible collusion between the regime in Afghanistan with the TTP and BLA/Fitna al Hind. So, we believe that the attacks from Afghanistan are continuing. In exercise of our right to self-defense, we do reserve the right to respond to these attacks. As regards our engagements with the US, yes, these engagements continue. There are various levels of engagements. You may recall that the Foreign Secretary had a telephone conversation with the US Under-Secretary of State. Various other levels of diplomatic engagements continue with the US, and we will keep you updated on these developments as and when they happen. (Mateen Haider, GTV News): Mr. Spokesman, as you are giving us briefing, a statement from Prime Minister House says that Prime Minister has left for Saudi Arabian visit to meet the Saudi Crown Prince. So, question to you, since it is mentioned that he will be directly meeting the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, what actually is Pakistan's policy? So, on this Iranian war, and subsequently, Iranian attacks on Middle Eastern countries and specific question, any specific cooperation Saudi Arabia is seeking in the domain of defense from Pakistan or any practical sport, because both countries have a defense agreement. Spokesperson: I referred to the Prime Minister's visit to Saudi Arabia in my opening remarks. We have pronounced emphatically about our position on Iran and the developments that have taken place in the region. We condemned the attacks on Iran and we also condemn the attacks conducted from Iran against the brotherly Gulf countries. So, our position is anchored in international law, in norms of diplomacy, in non-use of force to settle dispute, and in the emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy. This is the crux of our position. This is being communicated to our international interlocutors. As regards the Prime Minister's ongoing visit, yes, he will meet with his Excellency, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. We will be issuing a press release or a press statement after the visits, and that will encompass all issues to be discussed by the two sides. So, I hope you will find your answer in those updates. (Caroline Davis, BBC): Reuters have reported a source in India saying that Iran will allow Indian flag tankers to transport through the Strait of Hormuz. Are there any such ongoing discussions between Iran and Pakistan? And the other question I had you obviously mentioned a list of the conversations that the foreign minister and that the prime minister and deputy minister have had. I know that the foreign minister has talked about shuttling communications between Tehran and Riyadh to try to ease tensions there. Has that been Pakistan's role between Tehran and any other country? Have you been transmitting messages or trying to sort of communicate between Tehran and any other country? And can you give us any details about what those sorts of messages might have been? Spokesperson: First of all, on Iran - allowing passage to oil tankers, oil ships carrying crude and oil: This is a matter between Iran and respective governments. So, we do not have a particular position on this issue, part NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address S. Korea, U.S. to fast-track deals on nuclear subs, energy, and shipbuilding Azerbaijan State News Agency - (AZERTAC) 13.03.2026 [12:42] Baku, March 13, AZERTAC South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok called on U.S. Vice President JD Vance to work together to swiftly implement bilateral agreements on South Korea's push to build nuclear-powered submarines, as well as nuclear energy and shipbuilding, during talks in Washington on Thursday, his office said, Yonhap reported. He made the call during the White House meeting, hours after the National Assembly approved a special bill to facilitate Seoul's commitment to investing US$350 billion under a bilateral trade deal, paving the way for the Asian country's implementation of the commitment. "With the legislation providing momentum to further step up the implementation of a joint fact sheet, he stressed (the importance) of promptly implementing (bilateral) agreements in the security realms, including nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear energy, and shipbuilding," the office said in a press release. It was referring to the document that Seoul and Washington released in November to outline bilateral security and trade agreements, including Seoul's investment pledge in return for Washington lowering "reciprocal" tariffs to 15 percent from 25 percent. The agreements also include those related to Seoul's nuclear-powered submarine drive, its push to secure civil uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing rights, and joint efforts to revitalize America's shipbuilding industry. During the talks, Vance welcomed the passage of the bill, saying it has established legal conditions for implementing Seoul's investment pledge, while calling for close bilateral communication regarding the investment plans, the office said. The prime minister told Vance that the bill passed through the Assembly on the back of the South Korean government's efforts, which he said represents Seoul's "strong" willingness to enforce the investment agreement, according to Kim's office. "(Kim) said he hopes that South Korea's future investments will contribute to efforts to reinvigorate American manufacturing and create jobs, and serve as a foundation for broader development of South Korea-U.S. relations," it said. Kim and Vance reaffirmed the two governments' openness to dialogue with North Korea, the office said. Kim's visit to the U.S. comes amid speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump could attempt to resume dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un when he visits China, reportedly from late March to early April. During the talks, Kim noted that the issue involving e-commerce giant Coupang, Inc. has recently been managed stably, the office said, as concerns linger in the United States over South Korea's probe into a massive data leak involving the U.S.-listed firm. Vance said he respects South Korea's domestic law and system while expressing his appreciation to the Seoul government for its efforts to maintain communication over issues of concern in Washington. Kim and Vance last met in Washington on Jan. 23. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Nat'l Assembly passes special bill on USD 350B investment in US KOREA.net Mar 13, 2026 By Hong Angie The National Assembly on March 12 in a plenary session passed a bill on the Special Act on the Operation and Management of Strategic Investments between Korea and the U.S. Strategic investment projects between both sides are expected to enter the implementation stage. The bill passed with 226 votes in favor, eight against and eight abstaining among 242 attending members. As a follow-up measures to bilateral tariff negotiations, the law provides the legal backing for a memorandum of understanding signed by both sides in November last year. The law also stipulates the launch of a joint corporation for strategic investment with a government contribution of KRW 2 trillion for systematic investment execution. The body will also set up a separate bilateral fund for strategic investment to manage Korea's pledged investment of USD 350 billion. Of the amount, USD 200 billion will go toward cutting-edge sectors directly linked to the economic and security interests of both countries such as semiconductors, core minerals and artificial intelligence. The remaining USD 150 billion will be invested in Make American Shipbuilding Great Again, a joint initiative to revive U.S. shipbuilding with the expectation of helping the Korean industry enter the North American market. President Lee Jae Myung hailed the passage of the law. "This meaningful example indicates no distinction between the ruling and opposition parties in the face of national challenges," he said. "I express my deep gratitude to the National Assembly for making a magnanimous decision for our economy and security." "The passage of the special act on investment in the U.S. has set the institutional and legal basis for the effectuation of the Korea-U.S. tariff agreement." President Lee also pledged to use the law as a stepping stone to respond to global economic uncertainty and simultaneously strengthen the economy and national security by building a closer and stronger cooperative framework in strategic sectors between both countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Minister Tsahkna: increasingly decisive steps are being taken to deter the shadow fleet Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs 13.03.2026 | 12:12 Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said today, 13 March, that despite developments in the Middle East, the attention of European countries has not shifted away from Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the need to deter Russia's shadow fleet. "In recent weeks, several European countries have taken decisive steps to deter the shadow fleet. Sweden alone has blocked the movement of two vessels from Russia's shadow fleet in the Baltic Sea over the past week, and a shadow fleet vessel was recently stopped in the North Sea under the leadership of Belgium and France," Tsahkna said. "These steps demonstrate that countries are acting with increasing determination to prevent shadow fleet vessels that help fill Russia's state coffers from operating," the foreign minister said. "Russia uses the shadow fleet to circumvent sanctions, finance its aggression against Ukraine and prepare for a long-term confrontation with Europe. Therefore, active measures to deter the shadow fleet are extremely important in order to deprive Russia of the means to continue its aggressive policy," Tsahkna said. The shadow fleet also poses a threat to critical infrastructure and the environment. Although it is most active in the Baltic Sea, the routes of these vessels extend to the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Indian Ocean. "The shadow fleet is therefore a global threat and deterring it requires international cooperation. During my visit to Australia this week, I also discussed ways to counter the shadow fleet in meetings, including engaging with Indo-Pacific countries to ensure that shadow fleet vessels are not allowed to sail under their flags," Tsahkna said. The foreign minister also said that the European Union must continue to sanction the shadow fleet vessels. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Executive Secretary of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission Robert Floyd 13 March 2026 14:35 354-13-03-2026 On March 13, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), during his visit to Russia. The parties discussed collaboration with the CTBTO. The Russian Federation reaffirmed its commitment to the objective of bringing the Treaty into force, as well as to maintaining the voluntarily declared moratorium on nuclear tests. Both sides underscored their shared determination to progressively advance cooperation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks at a meeting with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, Moscow, March 13, 2026 13 March 2026 16:47 357-13-03-2026 Mr Director General, Colleagues, We are delighted to welcome you to Moscow. You traditionally participate in the events held within the framework of the biannual Moscow Nonproliferation Conference. We know that you have had substantive talks with the Russian delegation led by Director General of the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Alexey Likhachev. I listened to the statements you have made during a joint press opportunity with Mr Likhachev. I would like to talk about the details of some aspects you have mentioned. Russia was one of the countries that stood at the origin of the IAEA, and we still believe that your organisation merits broad support. In the context of the modern world, especially over the past few years, the IAEA, like any other multilateral organisation dealing with non-proliferation issues, has been put to the test due to the Western colleagues' attempts to regain domination in all spheres of global politics. In this situation, it is extremely important to comply with the statutory principles of the IAEA, such as an objective and depoliticised approach, with a focus exclusively on the implementation of the tasks that underlie the agreements on the establishment of the Agency, including access for all member states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty without exception to the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy. I regard this as an opportune moment for holding a detailed discussion on the current developments. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi 13 March 2026 17:40 358-13-03-2026 On March 13, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. Their discussion featured a constructive exchange of views on key aspects of Russia's engagement with the Agency. The significant contribution of Russia to the work of the IAEA was acknowledged. Particular attention was given to the attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, as well as to ensuring the safety of the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant. Several other topics of mutual international interest were also discussed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin to move Iran's enriched uranium to Russia as part of a deal to end the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, a U.S. news website reported Friday. Trump turned Putin down in a phone call earlier this week, sources told Axios, an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia. Putin raised several ideas, including the uranium proposal, for ending the war during the phone conversation with Trump on Monday, said the report. "This is not the first time it was offered. It hasn't been accepted. The U.S. position is we need to see the uranium secured," a U.S. official was quoted as saying. It's not clear whether Iran would accept the proposal now. In the last round of talks before the war, Iran rejected the transfer idea and proposed diluting the uranium inside its own facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the report. Some news reports said that the Trump administration is considering sending special operations forces into Iran to secure or seize the country's highly enriched uranium. When asked during a Friday Fox News interview whether there's an operation in place to recover the enriched uranium from Iran, Trump said, "We're not focused on that. But at some point we might be." HRC61 - EU Statement - Interactive Dialogue with Commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic European External Action Service (EEAS) 13.03.2026 Geneva Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in Geneva United Nations Human Rights Council 61st session Interactive Dialogue with Commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic 13 March 2026 EU statement Mr President, The European Union thanks the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) for its latest report. An independent CoI remains essential at this stage of the Syrian transition. The longstanding documentation by the CoI of violations of international human rights law constitutes a valuable resource that can support victimcentred accountability a fundamental pillar of sustainable peace and inclusive transitional justice. We reiterate our call for the renewal of its mandate and appreciate the constructive engagement and access granted by the Syrian transitional government to the CoI over the last year. The European Union welcomes the commitment by the transitional government to build a new Syria based on national reconciliation, rule of law, separation of powers, as well as human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Syrians without distinction, fully safeguarding the diversity of the country.The EU encourages the Syrian transitional government to continue its positive engagement with UN bodies, including the Commission of Inquiry (CoI), the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), the Independent Institution on Missing Persons (IIMP) and the OHCHR and to grant these mechanisms full access. The EU urges all actors to refrain from violence, to ensure the safety and protection of all civilians, and to uphold international law and universal human rights, with particular attention to women's full enjoyment of human rights and the rights of the child. Women have a fundamental role to play in the new Syria, and the EU continues to call upon the authorities to ensure their full, equal and meaningful participation in all spheres of political life and society. The rights of all Syrians without distinction of any kind, including those based on gender, ethnicity, or religion must be respected and protected. The EU remains committed to supporting a peaceful and inclusive transition, free from malign foreign interference and destabilising elements. All those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law or violations and abuses of human rights - past and present - must be held accountable and brought to justice. A comprehensive and inclusive transitional justice process is a necessity for reconciliation and lasting peace in Syria. A pluralistic civic space, including free and independent media, is key for the success of the ongoing transition. The EU is committed to support a peaceful and inclusive Syrian-led and Syrian-owned transition as well as Syria's recovery and reconstruction with a financial commitment of 620 million in 2026 and 2027 to support socio-economic recovery and reconstruction. Finally, we would appreciate the Commissioners' insights on how the international community can best support Syrian capacities to ensure comprehensive transitional justice. I thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Syria Commission calls for justice, reform, and international support as Syria's fragile transition remains undermined by ongoing violations Press releases Independent investigation 13 March 2026 GENEVA -- The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic today released its latest report, outlining both the progress and the profound challenges facing Syria as it continues its transition toward inclusive governance, rule of law, and accountability. The report's key items were discussed with Syrian government officials, human rights defenders, and civil society organizations during a visit last week by the Commissioners to Syria. The Commission noted the broad transition initiated by Syria, including by the establishment of two new national bodies on transitional justice and missing persons, and national inquiries into mass killings in Coastal, Central and Southern regions in March and July 2025. Years of violations and abuses by former government forces and nonstate armed groups have eroded public trust. Key recommendations made by the Commission in the report include accountability, security sector reform, and engagement with impacted communities. During its visit to Syria, the Commission also raised concerns regarding allegations of ongoing serious violations across the country, including in parts of Homs, Hama, Latakia, and Tartus governorates, that it is currently investigating, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive reform of the security sector and the judiciary - alongside disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. Thorough human rights screening and training of all armed and security forces personnel, particularly newly integrated commanders, is essential. "Our recent visit underscored both the depth of the challenges and the extraordinary strength of Syrians who are working tirelessly to rebuild their institutions," said Commissioner Monia Ammar. "We are encouraged by the willingness of the Syrian government to engage constructively with the international human rights system to ensure accountability for grave violations of the past and to address violations that have occurred recently." The Commission's report documents extrajudicial killings, torture and illtreatment, custodial deaths, enforced disappearances, abductions and violations of housing, land, and property rights, particularly impacting communities perceived as having supported the former government. Last March, government armed forces and private individuals operating alongside them killed more than 1,400 people, mostly Alawi civilians, in Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and Hama. The Commission found clear patterns of targeting based on religious affiliation, ethnicity, age, and gender, concluding that these violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law may amount to war crimes, and should such elements be established through further investigation, may amount to the crimes against humanity. While the government has initiated arrests and trials of 14 alleged perpetrators, the Commission notes that training, vetting and lustration mechanisms for security personnel remain insufficient while the responsibilities of senior officials and commanders remain unaddressed. Four months later, in midJuly, more than 1,500 people, primarily Druze and Bedouin civilians, were killed in Suwayda by government forces, Druze armed groups, and tribal fighters. The Commission's specific report on the violence in Suwayda will be released later this month. "Syrian survivors and affected communities deserve justice, compensation and guarantees of nonrecurrence," said Commissioner Fionnuala Ni Aolain. "Ending impunity and restoring trust between all communities and security forces is essential to breaking the cycle of violence that has plagued Syria for more than a decade." The Commission is currently investigating reports of violations in the northeast, following a recent spike in hostilities between the government and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These include alleged extrajudicial killings, including the alleged execution of individuals formerly in SDF detention, as well as arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, and violations of housing, land and property rights. The Commission also continues to investigate Israel's military operations in Syria, which have caused significant civilian harm, mass displacement and widespread destruction. In addition to airstrikes which have killed and injured civilians in violation of international humanitarian law, the Israel Defense Forces repeatedly raided villages, demolished homes and damaged public infrastructure in Quneitra without military necessity and transferred arbitrarily detained Syrian men and boys to Israel. Amid these complex security challenges, Da'esh is reportedly increasingly active and dangerous in parts of Syria, posing additional challenges for civilian protection. The transfer of more than 5,700 persons suspected of being Islamic State members to Iraq, including individuals taken to Syria as children, raises profound concern over violation of the principle of nonrefoulement. "The international community must not stand by as Syrians struggle to recover from decades of lawlessness," said Commission Chair Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, "Only through sustained support can Syria complete its transition toward a political environment that guarantees human rights for all." ENDS Read the full report here. Background: The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic was established on 22 August 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council through resolution S-17/1. The mandate of the Commission is to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in the Syrian Arab Republic. The Human Rights Council also tasked the Commission with establishing the facts and circumstances that may amount to such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and, where possible, to identify those responsible with a view of ensuring that perpetrators of violations, including those that may constitute crimes against humanity, are held accountable. The Human Rights Council has repeatedly extended the Commission's mandate since then, most recently until 31 March 2026. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Human Rights Council 61: UK Statement for the Interactive Dialogue on Syria Speech UK Statement for the Interactive Dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. Delivered by the UK's Permanent Representative to the WTO and UN, Kumar lyer. From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Kumar Iyer CMG Published 13 March 2026 Location: Geneva Delivered on: 13 March 2026 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) Thank you Chair, The UK would like to start by thanking the Commissioners for their work. Fifteen months have passed since the fall of the Assad regime. A regime defined by brutality and systematic abuse. We commend them for their ongoing work to ensure these crimes are neither hidden nor forgotten, giving voice to victims and laying bare the scale of the suffering endured. This transparency creates the preconditions for healing, stability, peace and the rebuilding of society. That is something I believe every member in this room wants. The UK believes that without your work that will not be possible. It is a necessary but, of course, not sufficient criteria. In this light, we strongly welcome the government's engagement with the Commission and steps taken to embed human rights in the foundations of the new Syria, including on transitional justice, missing persons and the opening of civic space. Syrian civil society - long the driver of accountability - must be able to operate freely, safely and without fear. The government of Syria's cooperation with the COI is to be strongly commended. We know this is not easy, but we urge it to continue. However, this period has also been marked by deeply troubling sectarian violence, in the coastal regions and in Suweyda, taking the lives of nearly 3,000 people. National investigations, and those of the Commission, are vital, as are the initiation of judicial processes to hold perpetrators to account. These must now translate into transparency, accountability, security sector reform, and engagement with affected communities. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister Koo Urges All Political Parties to Review Budget Rationally and Support Overall Defense Operational Planning ROC Ministry of National Defense 2026.03.06 Issuing AuthorityAdministration Office Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo Li-hsiung spoke to the media today regarding the "Special Act on Strengthening National Defense and Military Procurement from the United States" proposed by the Kuomintang caucus in the Legislative Yuan. Addressing the controversy over the budget amount, Minister Koo first explained, "I have reviewed the Kuomintang version of the act, and there is no concept of 'NT$380 billion plus N,' meaning the 'plus N' concept does not actually exist." Minister Koo further clarified that the act stipulated that any additional budget required a separate special act. Minister Koo gave examples to illustrate his point. He noted that items such as AH-1W helicopter spare parts and Harpoon missile repairable items overhaul had already been included in the regular public budget and were not part of the special budget. He indicated that the content of the Kuomintang version appeared to reflect that, during the drafting process, the briefing had not fully grasped the Ministry of National Defense's existing budget allocation procedures and project execution plans. This also suggested that relevant personnel might not have fully understood the policy, resulting in some items already allocated in the public budget being mistakenly duplicated, creating discrepancies with actual conditions. Regarding the Kuomintang version of the act, which set December 31, 2028, as the execution deadline, Minister Koo stated frankly that this would obstruct multiple arms procurement cases, including self-propelled howitzers, long-range precision HIMARS, TOW missiles, Javelin missiles, unmanned vehicles and their countermeasure systems. He pointed out that if the requirement was to complete all transactions by December 31, 2028, these plans would essentially be impossible to execute. Minister Koo emphasized that the NT$1.25 trillion version proposed by the Executive Yuan had undergone two years of internal evaluation, met overall operational requirements and enemy threats, and received affirmation from the U.S. side. He noted that any budget shortfall would cause significant impairment to the enhancement of joint operations capabilities. Furthermore, regarding the construction of the C5ISR command and control system, Minister Koo responded that the entire "T-Dome" consisted of complete integration from sensor to shooter, and the C5ISR command and control system had to be linked through AI. "This entire system cannot afford any gaps," he urged all political parties to unite in supporting the overall national defense strategic planning. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister Koo Attends Legislative Yuan Session and Explains MQ-9B UAV Delivery and Related Issues ROC Ministry of National Defense 2026.03.10 Issuing AuthorityAdministration Office Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo Li-hsiung gave remarks to the media before attending a legislative interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan today. He addressed issues including the delivery progress of the MQ-9B unmanned aerial vehicles, the status of the Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, and recent activities of PRC military aircraft. Regarding public concern over the delivery progress of the MQ-9B UAVs, Minister Koo stated that all related procedures had proceeded according to plan. The delivery schedule had remained normal with no delays, and it had not been affected by international developments such as the conflict between the United States and Iran. Regarding the progress of the LOA for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, Minister Koo noted that the Ministry of National Defense had received the LOA on March 6 and was required to complete the signing process before March 26 in accordance with established procedures. Four of the five LOAs had already been received. The Ministry hoped to obtain authorization as soon as possible to complete the signing and initiate the relevant operational schedule earlier, which would benefit overall force development planning, while further delays could potentially create impacts. In response to questions about whether the conflict between the United States and Iran had affected the deployment of Taiwan's weapons and equipment, Minister Koo explained that weapons systems procured from the United States were generally returned to the United States for other uses once they reached their scheduled retirement period if the United States had relevant requirements, and transportation had been handled by the U.S. side. At present, Taiwan had not received any request related to the U.S.-Iran conflict requiring the redeployment of such equipment. Regarding recent activities of PRC military aircraft, Minister Koo emphasized that the PRC's intention to annex Taiwan by force had always existed and should not have been assessed solely based on whether PRC aircraft appeared in the airspace. PRC naval vessels had continued operating in waters surrounding Taiwan, maintaining a daily presence of at least five vessels. Efforts aimed at turning the Taiwan Strait into "internal waters" through legal warfare had not ceased, and the ROC Armed Forces would continue to closely monitor developments in the surrounding situation. Regarding issues related to business charter flights at Songshan Airport, Minister Koo stated that Songshan Airport functioned as a joint civil-military airport. Civil aviation flight operations and related management had been regulated by the Civil Aviation Administration. The ROC Armed Forces and the Civil Aviation Administration had long maintained an agreement allowing both sides to use each other's aprons based on operational needs. After civil aircraft used the apron of the Air Force Songshan Base Command, takeoff, landing, and operational control had continued to be managed by the Civil Aviation Administration. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan ROC Ministry of National Defense 2026.03.14 Issuing AuthorityPolitical Warfare Bureau PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan 1.Date: 6 a.m. Mar. 13 (Fri.) to 6 a.m. Mar. 14 (Sat.) (UTC+8 2.PLA activities: 3 sorties of PLA aircraft and 5 PLAN ships operating around Taiwan were detected as of 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 3 out of 3 sorties entered Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy ships, and coastal missile systems in response to detected activities. 1150314_PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan 1150314_PLA air activities in the vicinity of Taiwan NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Taoiseach Micheal Martin in Cork: 13 March 2026 News story Shared Prosperity, Shared Seas, Shared Ties. From: Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street and The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP Published 13 March 2026 Ireland and the United Kingdom share a unique partnership, rooted in our geography, our history, and the deep and dynamic connections between our people underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement and our Common Travel Area. At our Summit in Liverpool last year, we agreed the UK-Ireland 2030 Joint Statement as the starting point for a renewed and strengthened relationship between our two countries. As we work toward our respective 2030 objectives, we recognise that our domestic priorities - from urgent delivery of critical infrastructure and clean power to investing in innovation and skills - are most effectively realised through cooperation. Our cooperation on energy security and seeking to reduce prices, our renewed Defence MoU, and our commitment to each other is more vital than ever, given current volatility. Through Shared Prosperity, Shared Seas and Shared Ties, we will nurture our vibrant economies, protect our seas, and strengthen our friendships and partnerships for the generations to come. Shared Prosperity We have deeply intertwined economies and a dynamic trade and investment partnership worth c. 2 billion a week. Today we are focused on the industries of the future - in energy, infrastructure, research and tech - ensuring our businesses and citizens are equipped for the transition to a high-skill, low-carbon economy. With over 1 GW of electricity interconnection between the UK and Ireland, interconnection helps us drive down consumer costs and secure our collective energy security. Today, we welcome the constructive engagement between MaresConnect and EirGrid, including ongoing work to identify an optimal grid connection solution in North Dublin. We commit to ensuring progress on both the MaresConnect and North-South Interconnector by the end of 2026. This collaboration will support the timely development of new transmission infrastructure to strengthen grid capacity, resilience and enhance our energy security. We will build on our Framework for Cooperation on Infrastructure to share best practice on growing construction sector capacity, skills development, and consent for major projects and critical infrastructure. We will develop complementary infrastructure project trackers to encourage and support investment and expansion of construction sector capacity across our two countries. And we will address the shared challenge of housing affordability by sharing knowledge and expertise on spatial planning, innovations in digital planning, modern methods of construction and approaches to housing regulation. To drive economic growth, our cooperation will foster innovation and research, connecting our world-class institutions and driving the next generation of technological breakthroughs to grow our economies. Through a landmark agreement between UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Taighde Eireann/Research Ireland, we are strengthening research and innovation cooperation. This capitalises on our world-class research base and provides a framework for future collaboration, starting with funding initiatives in the creative industries and building on our previous research in areas such as quantum technologies - ensuring we lead in the technologies that will define the 2030 economy. We are also strengthening our lead in telecommunications by extending the UK's JOINER testing platform to Trinity College Dublin. This state-of-the-art facility is leading research into 6G technologies and applications, ensuring our digital networks remain resilient and innovative in an increasingly connected world. And we are deepening our bioeconomy cooperation to use our biological resources to produce food materials, and energy to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels; and the circular economy to ensure our existing materials are reused to eliminate unnecessary waste. By sharing our R&D strengths and expertise in bio-innovation, we are creating new business opportunities that turn environmental challenges into economic growth and jobs. As highly integrated economies, we share a common labour market, based on the Common Travel Area, and recognise the importance of working together to ensure our citizens and businesses have the skills for the sectors of the future. We will work to enhance links in relation to the Research and Innovation agenda and to learn from each other, particularly in the areas of STEM and clean energy, to strengthen education and training systems that support innovation, competitiveness and communities to thrive, including through engagement with our respective skills advisory bodies. We will support our small and medium sized businesses to scale and to maximise commercial opportunities. A joint dialogue with UK and Irish SMEs will take place during 2026 focussed on areas of shared interest, such as access to finance, digitalisation, and adoption of AI. We must continue to protect our common economic interests. Building on our successful Economic Security Exchange, we will bolster our cooperation on investment screening. By the end of 2026, a new MoU will enhance our operational collaboration, and we will make it easier for business by providing clear guidance, recognising the importance of investment screening in safeguarding national security. Shared Seas Our maritime space, stretching across the Irish, Celtic, and North Seas, is a vital asset for our mutual security and path towards a decarbonised future. It carries critical subsea infrastructure, which powers our economies and secures our energy supplies, as well as shipping routes and naval operating spaces essential to our collective security. In a more contested environment, with increased hostile state activity, we are enhancing informationsharing, maritime domain awareness and coordinated defence planning to better detect, deter and respond to threats across the Irish Sea and NorthEast Atlantic, including updating our MoU on Defence. This will include targeted maritime security activity and closer liaison between our defence and naval organisations. This will pave the way for potential procurement initiatives, strengthen our cooperation on cyber defence, and keep our seas safe, secure, and resilient. This also underscores our commitment to strengthening wider European and Euro-Atlantic security. We have agreed a new Subsea Infrastructure Bilateral Collaboration Framework that will enable information sharing and coordinated response mechanisms for addressing major subsea communication cable incidents that may affect our countries. A series of live exercises will be carried out to test readiness, with the first in September 2026. We welcome that Ireland has applied to join the North Sea Joint Declaration. Through that information-sharing mechanism, we can work together on the protection of infrastructure in the North Seas jointly with Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. It is envisaged this will extend the reach of the Joint Declaration to additional areas of the Irish and Celtic Seas and further demonstrates our shared commitment to protecting our subsea cables. We are sharing best practice in emergency preparedness to keep citizens across these islands safe, given the shared challenges we face ranging from climate change to cyber-attacks and health emergencies. As both countries accelerate deployment of offshore energy infrastructure, we recognise the need to speed up development and remove barriers to maximise the immense growth opportunities of clean power in our shared seas and the prosperity it will bring, while protecting the marine environment. To support this, we are committed to undertaking new joint initiatives on mapping the seabed. We will explore cooperation between The Crown Estate and MARA, the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, setting out a pathway to share information and cooperate on marine data, and opportunities for engagement in areas such as common data standards in the shared marine space. We welcome today the agreement by the Ireland and UK Grid System Operators to increase knowledge-sharing and cooperation across areas, including future modelling and scenario planning; stakeholder and community engagement; sustainability; managing grid systems integrating high levels of renewables; and understanding the growth of large energy users, including ports which are in the process of significant electrification. We also welcome the recent cooperation agreement reached between Eirgrid and National Grid Ventures to enable work towards a hybrid interconnector to continue over the next two years, which would lower energy bills and further reduce barriers to growth. We will progress maritime decarbonisation in our seas, including to progress our shared ambition for the adoption of the IMO's Net Zero Framework. We welcome today the MoU signed by Port of Cork Company and the Belfast Harbour Commissioners committing to enhanced cooperation, including accelerating the delivery of offshore wind projects. We recognise that our shared seas are more than industrial or transit corridors; they are a vital part of a shared natural heritage for the people of these islands. To ensure our waters remain resilient towards 2030 and beyond, we will work towards enhancing the coherence and effectiveness of our Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks, sharing best practice from our experiences of MPA designation and management, and identifying joint research and survey needs. New collaboration on marine science research, including examination of ecological coherence of MPA networks, will help build a legacy for the future. Shared Ties Our partnership is built on deep and enduring ties between people, culture, and business across our seas. These ties also extend to shared values - our support for democracy and rule of law; and the values of trust, integrity, respect and friendship. In the context of global instability, we reaffirm our staunch support for Ukraine's defence against Russia's illegal invasion, and will work together to support peace and stability in the Middle East. We look forward to Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union later this year and to the UK's Presidency of the G20 in 2027. We will continue our cooperative efforts to share lessons from the Northern Ireland peace process. We welcome the agreement reached since our last summit on a Joint Framework on Legacy marking essential and significant progress on this most difficult of issues. We will continue implementation, including through legislation in both the UK and Ireland. We will also continue to invest in the connections between the next generation, and wider public engagement with the contemporary culture and heritage of our countries. We welcome the announcement of 12 collaborative partnerships that our leading cultural institutions will deliver together through the 2030 UK-Ireland Cultural Cooperation Programme. These projects will deliver an ambitious programme spanning exhibitions, co-productions, professional and youth exchanges, leadership initiatives, digital research and knowledge-sharing, sparking new creative connections for the future. As part of this Summit, we received the report of the first Ireland-UK Youth Forum. We will continue to support the Forum's work and consider how cooperation between our governments can deliver change on issues that matter to our young people. The next Ireland-UK Youth Forum Plenary will be hosted by the UK in 2027. Today, we are taking steps to ensure that the Common Travel Area (CTA) remains secure by working together to expand immigration data sharing arrangements particularly in preventing abuse of CTA free movement by those not entitled to its benefits. We will continue close cooperation to ensure any future digital identity solutions are developed and implemented in partnership, ensuring that the rights afforded by the CTA as well as the rights afforded to citizens under the Good Friday Agreement are protected. With UK participation in the Erasmus Programme from 2027, our National Agencies will work to ensure that Tertiary Education Institutions and schools maximise bi-lateral mobility opportunities for their students. We welcome agreement to engage on reaching a decision in principle this year on a bilateral Ireland-UK approach to address concerns arising from hybrid cross-border working and to consider other aspects of the UK-Ireland Double Taxation Convention which may require updating. We acknowledge the suffering of those who spent time in mother and baby homes during the 20th century. In recognition of the lifelong impact of this, today the UK agrees to disregard payments under Ireland's Mother and Baby Redress Scheme, ensuring that survivors in both countries are treated the same and can receive the compensation to which they are rightly entitled. We also welcome Ireland's agreement in principle to disregard means for compensation payments from UK schemes. Over the past twelve months, we have laid a solid foundation for cooperation. Today, across Shared Prosperity, Shared Seas, Shared Ties, we are setting out pathways to realise the full potential of our partnership for all the people of the UK and Ireland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Commission issues report stating that deportation of more than 1,200 Ukrainian children by russia constitutes a crime against humanity: Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity Ukraine Government Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine, posted 13 March 2026 17:02 This is stated in a report presented at the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Commission presented at least 1,205 cases involving the deportation of Ukrainian children from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv regions. "The Commission continued its investigation into the deportation or forcible transfer of children by Russian authorities to the Russian Federation or to areas of Ukraine under its occupation. The Commission verified compelling evidence of the deportation and forcible transfer of a total of 1,205 children from five regions of Ukraine, concluding that these acts constitute crimes against humanity as well as the war crimes of deportation and forcible transfer of children," the document states. According to the report, more than 80% of Ukrainian children remain under the control of the occupying authorities. Initially, they were taken to transit centers in Russia or in occupied territories, after which they were distributed to families or institutions in 21 regions of the Russian Federation, where they stayed for an indefinite period of time. The Commission also found that children were often granted Russian citizenship and entered into adoption or foster care databases. Many parents and legal guardians did not know the fate or whereabouts of their children for months or even years. In most cases, the Commission notes, Russian authorities failed to establish a mechanism for returning the children, effectively placing the burden of locating them and arranging their repatriation on their relatives. At the same time, the return of those children who were eventually repatriated was accompanied by numerous obstacles and risks. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ilona Gavronska: Over 4.3 million Ukrainians are under temporary protection in EU countries Ukraine Government Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine, posted 13 March 2026 10:53 4 million 380 thousand Ukrainians who were forced to leave the country due to the war are under temporary protection in European Union countries. This was reported by Ilona Gavronska, Deputy Minister of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine for European Integration, citing the latest data from the EU statistical service Eurostat. In particular, the largest number of Ukrainians under temporary protection are currently in Germany - 1,260,230 people, Poland - 965,990, and the Czech Republic - 397,185. The highest rates of persons under temporary protection per thousand inhabitants were recorded in the Czech Republic (36.4), Poland (26.5), and Slovakia (25.8), while the corresponding rate at the EU level is 9.7 per thousand inhabitants. According to Eurostat, during 2025, EU countries adopted 683,395 new decisions to grant temporary protection to Ukrainian citizens, which is 14% less than in 2024. At the same time, as of the end of January 2026, the number of Ukrainians with this status in the EU increased by 23,110 compared to the end of December 2025. According to the Deputy Minister, the security situation remains a key factor influencing Ukrainians' decisions to return. At the same time, the state is already preparing for possible changes in the context of the potential end of temporary protection in March 2027. "We are in constant touch with European institutions and, together with international partners, are developing a strategic framework for responding to possible changes. At the same time, it is crucial for Ukraine that our citizens in EU countries are treated with dignity. Our common task is to create conditions under which Ukrainians can realize their potential while retaining the ability to make informed decisions about returning and reintegrating into Ukraine," said Ilona Gavronska. She reported that in this context, work is ongoing to create tools to maintain contact with citizens abroad and prepare for their possible return. In particular, this involves the development of the Unity Network, the opening of Unity Centers and spaces, and the launch of a digital platform that will provide Ukrainians abroad with access to verified information. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President and other EU leaders call for action against Russian combatants President of the Republic of Lithuania March 13, 2026 President Gitanas Nauseda, together with the leaders of Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland, Germany, Romania and Sweden, signed a letter addressed to President of the European Council Antonio Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on the need to address the issue of sanctioning Russian combatants. The letter states that Russia's aggression against Ukraine continues to reshape the European security environment, with long-term consequences for the European Union, as well as for the security of our citizens and, in particular, the Schengen Area. In addition to the military threat, it is also necessary to address the internal security risks arising from this war. The leaders note that one of the most serious and persistent risks is the possible movement of former and current Russian combatants (Russian citizens) into the Schengen Area. Individuals who have participated in the war as part of the armed forces of the aggressor state pose a serious threat to internal security, including violent crimes, organized criminal networks, extremist movements, or activities of a hostile state in the broader context of Russia's hybrid actions. "Among them are a significant number of previously convicted criminals who were recruited from Russian prisons and sent to the front. With rotations and possible demobilization, it is likely that the number of individuals with recent experience of violent combat and seeking to travel abroad will increase significantly," the leaders warn. The letter points out that the number of Schengen visas issued to Russian citizens is already growing rapidly, and given the freedom of movement within the Schengen Area, the security implications do not depend on which Member State issued the visa or residence permit. "Therefore, any entry can have serious consequences for the security of a single Member State or the entire Schengen Area. Inaction would create long-term vulnerabilities that can still be avoided at this stage. Decisive and coordinated action is therefore urgently needed to prevent negative consequences," the authors of the letter urge. The leaders stress the need to strengthen cooperation at EU level in order to address this threat in a consistent and forward-looking manner. They point out that the Commission's new visa policy strategy clearly states the possibility of applying new targeted visa restrictive measures if relations with a specific third country deteriorate significantly, including a proposed category covering "identified former and current combatants of the aggressor state". This provides a clear political and policy basis for further work. "We therefore invite the Commission, in close cooperation with the European External Action Service and the relevant Council structures, to urgently examine and put forward concrete next steps that could be implemented at EU level, including targeted amendments to the Visa Code or other appropriate legal instruments, with a view to enabling a coordinated European approach. The aim should be to avoid fragmentation and ensure consistent level of security across the Schengen Area," the letter reads. "We invite Member States to join this initiative and strengthen coordinated efforts through closer cooperation at the operational level. Finally, given the seriousness of the issue, we believe that this problem requires attention at the highest political level and a coordinated European response, which should be reflected in the conclusions of the European Council meeting in March," the letter concludes. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States will not allow shipping in the Strait of Hormuz "to be contested" by Iran, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday. There is no clear evidence that Iran has placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz, he said at a news briefing. He said the United States is planning for Iran's various measures and "that's not a strait we're gonna allow to remain contested." The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that connects the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers. Hegseth also told reporters that strikes carried out by the United States and Israel have significantly weakened Iran's military capabilities. "Between our Air Force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck," he said. Iran's missile volume is down 90 percent and that of their one-way attack drones was down 95 percent as of Thursday, Hegseth further said. Hegseth threatened that "today will be yet again, the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran." Hegseth also told reporters that the U.S. Central Command has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation into a strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 160 people, mostly pupils. The Feb. 28 strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab occurred during U.S. operations targeting a nearby Iranian military base. According to reports, a preliminary finding from an ongoing military investigation indicates that the school was struck by a U.S. Tomahawk missile. Ukraine Peace Talks Appear Paused Amid Middle East Conflict. What Happens Next? By Alex Raufoglu March 13, 2026 WASHINGTON -- Efforts to negotiate an end to Russia's war against Ukraine have slowed to a crawl as the United States focuses on a widening conflict with Iran, leaving Ukrainians and their allies weighing what comes next for diplomacy -- and the battlefield. Both Kyiv and Moscow confirmed on March 12 that another round of trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine, and the United States has been postponed. The discussions -- already held three times this year to discuss territorial questions and security guarantees following a potential cease-fire -- had been expected to resume in early March, according to Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that scheduling the negotiations has become difficult because it is unclear when US officials will be able to participate. Attention Shifts To The Middle East The pause comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump directs major resources toward the conflict with Iran, including the redeployment of air-defense systems and other military assets to the Gulf region. The shift has raised concerns in Washington that Ukraine could temporarily slip down the list of strategic priorities. At a March 12 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, lawmakers questioned whether the crisis in the Middle East could indirectly strengthen Russia's hand. "The clear winner is Vladimir Putin in Russia," said Angus King, an independent senator from Maine. Military officials acknowledged the strategic trade-offs. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of US European Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told lawmakers that resources -- including air-defense capabilities -- have been redirected toward the Middle East as Iranian drones and missiles threaten US forces and regional allies. "There are always global trade-offs to the amount of security assistance that we can provide," Grynkewich said, describing the level of support for Ukraine as ultimately a policy decision for the White House and Congress. Rising oil prices linked to the crisis could also benefit Moscow, he noted, since Russia's war effort is heavily funded by energy revenues. With the price of oil above $100 per barrel, the Trump administration on March 12 loosened sanctions on the Kremlin by announcing a 30-day waiver on Russian oil stranded at sea. "This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction," according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Some analysts, however, say they expect more waivers and exceptions in the coming weeks if global oil prices remain high. A Pause Or An End? Former US diplomats who served in Ukraine under multiple Republican administrations say the shift in focus is likely just temporary. William B. Taylor Jr., who led the US Embassy in Kyiv under both George W. Bush and during Trump's first term, told RFE/RL in an interview that it is realistic to expect the US administration would prioritize the Iran conflict for now. "But when the Iran operation is over, then it will be very important for them...to make another attempt at forcing Putin to stop the killing," Taylor said. He emphasized that, for the moment, the White House's focus is unavoidable. "I think the administration is going to be focused very clearly on Iran for the next several days or week," he said. Taylor argued that the United States still holds significant leverage over Moscow. He suggested that renewed sanctions on Russia's energy exports and expanded military support to Ukraine could pressure the Kremlin to halt the fighting -- even if a formal peace agreement remains unlikely. "Putin is not going to sign a cease-fire," Taylor said. "But he could be forced to stop the killing." Russia Losing Allies? Another former ambassador says the Middle East crisis could ultimately weaken Moscow's strategic position. John E. Herbst, who served as US envoy to Ukraine during the presidency of George W. Bush, told RFE/RL that the Iran conflict is currently the dominant security issue for Washington. "It's pretty simple. The number one issue at the moment is the war on Iran," Herbst said, noting that US troops are involved and energy markets are under pressure. But Herbst also pointed to potential advantages for Ukraine. Iranian drones -- long used by Russia against Ukrainian cities -- are now posing serious challenges for US and allied defenses in the Middle East. That has drawn new attention to Ukraine's experience countering such weapons. "The world now is talking in a very serious way about how good Ukraine's drones are," Herbst said. Countries in the Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are now exploring Ukrainian drone technologies and defenses, he said. Ukraine's Drone Leverage Kyiv has already sought to highlight that advantage. Zelenskyy recently said Ukraine had previously proposed a large-scale drone production and defense partnership with the United States, but the agreement never received final approval from the White House. After Iranian drone attacks intensified in the Middle East, Zelenskyy renewed the offer -- suggesting Ukrainian experience in drone warfare could help protect US forces and allies. Western officials increasingly describe Ukraine as a global center for innovation in drone warfare, shaped by years of fighting Russia. Herbst said demonstrating those capabilities -- and assisting US partners facing Iranian drones -- is the best strategy for Kyiv while negotiations remain stalled. Ukraine's support could also carry political weight in Washington. "Ukraine actually helps the United States," Herbst said. "Ukraine helps our allies and partners in the Middle East." Meanwhile, the crisis could may also further complicate Russia's relationship with Washington. US and allied intelligence agencies have suggested Moscow may be providing Iran with information or technology used in attacks across the region -- allegations the Kremlin denies. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, said growing cooperation between Russia and Iran shows how global conflicts are increasingly interconnected. Speaking on the Senate floor on March 12, he said Moscow's access to Iranian drones has already shaped the war in Ukraine and warned that reports Russia may be assisting Iran's attacks in the Gulf highlight the alignment among US adversaries. "Iranian drones in Ukrainian skies have already made the connections between America's adversaries crystal clear," McConnell said. For now, analysts say Ukraine faces a period of uncertainty. The battlefield war continues, Russia's economy remains mobilized for long-term conflict, and US diplomatic attention is fixed on Iran. But former diplomats say the pause in negotiations may only delay the next phase of diplomacy. Taylor said that when the Middle East crisis subsides, the administration will again face the same strategic challenge: ending what remains the largest land war in Europe since World War II. Whether through negotiations, economic pressure, or expanded military support to Kyiv, he argued, Washington will eventually have to return to the question of how -- and when -- Russia's war in Ukraine might finally be brought to an end. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-peace-talks-pause- middle-east-conflict-iran-russia-us/33704547.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Warns US Easing Of Russian Oil Sanctions Will Boost Moscow's War Chest By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service March 13, 2026 Kyiv has warned that a move by the United States to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian oil to stabilize the global energy markets amid its military campaign against Iran could add around $10 billion to the Kremlin's war chest to use against Ukraine. On March 13, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products that are currently stranded at sea. The move allows Russian products loaded onto vessels by March 12 to be shipped within the next month and is aimed at boosting supply to keep market prices low amid what Bessent described as "threat and instability posed by the terrorist Iranian regime." "This single easing by the US could provide Russia with around $10 billion for the war. It certainly does not help peace," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a joint press conference on March 13 with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. As oil prices climbed above $100 per barrel amid reports of attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf -- which handles around one-fifth of global oil transport -- and the closure of key oil terminals, the Kremlin welcomed the US decision. Previously critical of US military activities in Iran, including the killing of longtime Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Kremlin now says its own interests are "situationally aligned" with Washington's. "The situation is fraught with the risk of a growing crisis in the global energy sector.... Without significant volumes of Russian oil, market stabilization is impossible," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on March 13. Washington's European partners have also criticized the move: Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany was not notified of the decision prior to its announcement; Macron said it was "in no way" justified. "There is currently a problem with prices but not with supply. And in that respect, I would like to know what other factors led the US government to take this decision," Merz said at a press conference in Norway. European Council President Antonio Costa also said the decision was "very concerning," warning it could affect European security and give Russia more resources to continue its war against Ukraine. Will It Work? A Ukrainian diplomatic source told RFE/RL that Kyiv believes the US decision will not help stabilize the market and will instead allow Russia to wage war for longer, noting that Moscow itself is helping Iran further destabilize the Middle East. US officials confirmed to RFE/RL on March 6 that Russia was providing Iran with targeting information to attack US troops and military assets in the region, after US media suggested Moscow was playing a substantial part in the widening regional conflict. The Ukrainian president's sanctions policy commissioner, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, also said that the temporary license issued by the United States may help Russia to deal with "significant pressure" on its budget but added it won't largely impact the situation. "It is important to look at the bigger picture.... The first months of the year were difficult, energy revenues are declining and the budget deficit is rapidly increasing. Therefore, the temporary relaxation is unpleasant but not critical," Vlasiuk told RFE/RL. "The key point is that the situation should not be prolonged," he added. Energy-cargo tracking company Vortexa says around 7.3 million barrels of oil coming from Russia are in floating storage, while 148.6 million barrels are in vessels in transit. "Since the start of March, Russian crude on the water has fallen by more than 20 [million barrels], equivalent to a drawdown rate of nearly 2 [million barrels per day]. That reflects stronger and faster placement of Russian barrels rather than weaker exports," Vortexa's chief economist David Wech wrote online on March 13. "With Indian buyers hit hardest by the loss of nearby Gulf supply, Russian crude from western export ports has become significantly more attractive," he added. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-iran-us-oil- sanctions-energy-crisis/33704872.html Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press Information Romania - Ministry of National Defence Press release No. 48 13.03.2026 On Friday, March 13, the MoND radar systems detected, around 10:00 am, aerial targets north of Tulcea County (Chilia Veche-Valcove area). Air defence systems were put on alert, and two F-16 aircraft from the 86th Borcea Air Base were scrambled to recon and monitor the airspace. At 10:05, a RO-ALERT message was issued to the population in the targeted area. Based on the data available to date, it is possible that drone debris may have also fallen on the Romanian territory, in the Chilia Veche area. Specialized teams are ready to intervene in the field to initiate a search operation. We will provide further details on this topic later. The Press Office NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on the summoning of the ambassadors of the United Kingdom and France to the Foreign Ministry 13 March 2026 16:13 355-13-03-2026 On March 13, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the Russian Federation Nigel Casey and Ambassador of France to the Russian Federation Nicolas de Riviere were summoned to the Foreign Ministry to be issued a strong protest in connection with the strike carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on March 10 targeting Bryansk which used cruise missiles produced by the Franco-British MBDA Concern. It was clearly stated during the demarche that the United Kingdom and France bear direct responsibility for this terrorist attack which killed seven people and injured more than 40. Clearly, the missile strike on Bryansk would have been impossible without the involvement of the British and French specialists, as well as without providing intelligence data to the neo-Nazi Kiev regime. It was emphasised that, should London and Paris continue to act as co-perpetrators in the war crimes committed by the Kiev regime, responsibility for the destructive consequences of the armed conflict and escalation of tensions will fall directly on those European capitals. It was also stated that Moscow regards the shelling of Bryansk as a deliberate provocation aimed at undermining the stepped-up efforts towards peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis. The British and French sides were urged to abandon these inhumane actions undertaken in pursuit of raising their political profile and to bring the "Ukrainian project" they sponsor back into the focus of the international agenda against the backdrop of the ongoing escalation in the Middle and Near East. The Russian side also demanded that the United Kingdom and France issue a public response with a firm and unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bryansk. The absence of such a response will be regarded as showing solidarity with the terrorist methods, which is a disgrace for permanent members of the UN Security Council. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Foreign Ministries of Ukraine and Lithuania held political consultations Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine 13 March 2026 12:46 On 12 March, political consultations took place in Kyiv between representatives of the Foreign Ministries of Ukraine and Lithuania Opening the event, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Karasevych expressed gratitude to the Lithuanian side for its consistent and principled support of Ukraine in countering Russian armed aggression, as well as for Lithuania's active stance on international platforms and solidarity with the Ukrainian people. During the consultations, the parties discussed topical issues of bilateral cooperation, as well as further coordination of actions on the international stage. The diplomats paid particular attention to cooperation within international organizations, notably the promotion of Ukrainian initiatives at the UN and human rights issues. The parties also discussed international efforts aimed at strengthening political and diplomatic pressure on the aggressor state, holding Russia to account for the war crimes it has committed, and opposing the election of the Russian Federation and its representatives to the governing and working bodies of international organizations. Separately, the issue of the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported or forcibly displaced by Russia was raised, as well as further humanitarian support for Ukraine. During the consultations, the parties reaffirmed the high level of the Ukrainian-Lithuanian partnership and their commitment to further intensify cooperation with a view to strengthening international support for Ukraine and achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on the UN Charter and international law. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Intercepting Kinzhal, Iskander, and Zircon missiles: key facts about PAC-3 missiles for the Patriot air defense system delivered to Ukraine by Germany Ministry of Defence of Ukraine 13 March, 2026, 1:30 PM EET Following a Ramstein-format meeting, Ukraine received from Germany a new batch of PAC-3 missiles for the Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. They will strengthen air defense capabilities in countering the most challenging aerial threatsballistic and hypersonic missiles. The Ministry of Defence explains why these interceptors are one of the key elements of protecting Ukraine's skies. Capabilities and advantages of PAC-3 missiles Interceptor capability against ballistic threats. The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile is the most effective interceptor against ballistic Iskander missiles and hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon missiles. The missile is approximately 5 meters long and 25 centimeters in diameter. It destroys the target through direct collision, using the hit-to-kill kinetic-intercept principle. This ensures not only damage but the complete destruction of the warhead, effectively eliminating the risk of damage to critical infrastructure. Superior maneuverability. The PAC-3 Patriot missile reaches speeds of up to 6,170 km/h, weighs just 218 kg, and is equipped with an active radar homing seeker. This allows it to make sharp maneuvers, change trajectory, and effectively intercept fast-moving targets. The missile operates independently of a ground-based target illumination radar. Large missile capacity per launcher. A single Patriot launcher accommodates 16 PAC-3 missiles, allowing one system to destroy up to 16 targets without reloading. When equipped with PAC-2 missiles, the system can engage up to four targets, as each of the four launch containers holds only one missile. Long engagement range. The PAC-3 CRI missile has a range of up to 45 km and an intercept altitude of up to 12 km. The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) variant offers even greater performance. These capabilities enable the Patriot system to provide reliable protection for any Ukrainian city against ballistic missile threats. It is important to note that protecting Ukraine's skies is the first component of Ukraine's War Plan unveiled by Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov. The goal is to identify 100% of aerial threats in real time and intercept at least 95% of missiles and drones. Earlier, the Ministry of Defence outlined five key advantages of Patriot air defense systems. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by the President of Ukraine During a Joint Press Conference with the President of France President of Ukraine 13 March 2026 - 16:28 Thank you very much personally, Emmanuel. Thank you for everything. Dear Mr. President, Distinguished journalists! I am grateful for this visit, for all of France's support for Ukraine and for Ukrainians, and for your personal support, Emmanuel. We in Ukraine know all this and value it greatly. We also value the fact that we can always coordinate with France and stand together on many issues - that is so important, especially during wartime. Today, Emmanuel, his team, and I - we are also grateful to our colleagues - focused primarily on security. Our security - that of Ukraine, of Europe, and global security, particularly in light of developments in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Yesterday in Iraq, a French serviceman was killed in an Iranian strike - please accept my personal condolences, my deepest sympathies, and those of all Ukrainians, to his family and loved ones. Soldiers were also injured, and we hope for their speedy recovery. And it is extremely important for everyone around the world that, through joint efforts, we succeed in stabilizing the situation and prevent this war from spreading further as well. Everyone sees the loss of life, everyone sees the destruction, and the threats to different countries in the region; everyone sees the destabilization of global markets due to the effective halt of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Opinions may vary regarding this U.S. campaign against the Iranian regime, but it is hard for anyone to argue with the fact that the regime in Iran is terrorist in nature, and the entire region - and Iran itself - certainly needs far greater respect for life and stronger protection of life, first and foremost from this regime in Iran. Ukraine can contribute to stabilization. More than ten countries have already approached us for support in defending against "shaheds" - Iranian attack drones. These are essentially the same attack drones that the Iranian regime supplied to Russia and taught the Russians to use them against the civilian population of Ukraine. Today, we in Ukraine have the greatest expertise in the world in countering "shaheds" - because of this war, and certainly because of all these massive attacks: this includes the development of interceptors, our new expertise, and a systemic defense against drones, primarily Iranian ones. It is not enough simply to obtain interceptors somewhere - there must also be experience in using them. Our warriors have such experience. There must also be proper systemic work with radars and with the entire air defense system. Ukraine is ready to share this experience for the security of those partners who are helping us. Naturally, we went over this with Emmanuel, and naturally, we will coordinate all our efforts. Of course, we believe that Europe must also put such defenses in place. Russia's war against Ukraine and Iran's strikes against countries in the region demonstrate what modern warfare looks like, what the threats are, and how partners must cooperate to ensure protection. The President of France and I have also discussed this in detail, and we are ready to work together with France. It is important that France takes a leading role in these joint defense projects for Europe. Of course, today and always, Emmanuel and I maintain substantive coordination on issues related to our protection in Ukraine and our defense. Emmanuel is clearly informed about all aspects of the situation on the frontline, and I am grateful to you for your support and grateful for your advice. And today we are devoting significant attention - just now, in an expanded format with our teams, and in the one-on-one conversation that will take place a little later, after the press conference - to joint defense production. We discussed both bilateral projects and the SAFE instrument. All of this represents significant potential that can strengthen both our states and all of Europe. Ukraine is grateful for France's defense support throughout all these years, and today we identified steps and specific decisions that can deliver strong results. This concerns both air defense and combat aviation. We discussed our cooperation with France at the European Union level and within the Coalition of the Willing. We remember how effective the leadership of France and Emmanuel personally was in enabling Ukraine to obtain candidate status for accession to the European Union. It was a historic step, a historic event. I am very grateful to you, Emmanuel. Now, France's leadership can also be decisive in many respects for Ukraine's future accession to the European Union. We are discussing possible formats; there must be a clear date for such accession - at least we strongly want this - so that Russia has absolutely no opportunity to block Ukraine through Russian accomplices somewhere here in Europe. It is important to continue putting pressure on Russia over this war in order to achieve genuine security and a lasting peace. We must overcome the blocking of the European Union's 20th sanctions package against Russia. Emmanuel has already spoken about this. This is all the more important in light of the U.S. decisions to partially ease sanctions on Russian oil currently on tankers at sea. This easing alone on the part of the United States could provide Russia with around ten billion dollars for the war. This certainly does not help peace. And that is why the European Union's resolve, and that of other partners around the world, must remain firm - it must work in a way that leaves Russia with no illusions. Russia must end this war. And I am grateful to everyone who is helping us in this effort. One more point. For us, support for the 90 billion package for Ukraine over the next two years is crucial - it is our financial security guarantee. And now, ahead of the European leaders' meeting in Brussels next week, we are coordinating our positions to secure the unblocking of these funds. At a time when Russia is effectively gaining additional resources due to yet another wave of destabilization, Ukraine must receive what Europe has already decided on. It is important that Europe's decisions work. France supports us in this. Thank you for this, Emmanuel! Thank you! Glory to Ukraine! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address For Ukraine, the European Union Represents a Major Geopolitical Choice of Our Nation: Not to Be with Russia, but to Be with Europe - The President, During His Meeting with Students from Sciences Po and Other French Universities President of Ukraine 13 March 2026 - 23:35 In Paris, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with students from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and other French universities that are members of the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies, implemented with the support of the First Lady Olena Zelenska. More than 500 students attended the meeting in person, including Ukrainians studying at French universities, while over 5,000 students joined online. The Head of State expressed gratitude to France, particularly to President Emmanuel Macron and, above all, to the French people, for their support of Ukraine from the very start of Russia's full-scale aggression. "The war is not over yet, but we have endured and preserved our independence. I am confident that this is already a major victory for the world. Because it is a powerful example of whether to let the Russians consume us or to stand firm - a powerful example for other democracies and other free nations. Therefore, I am grateful to everyone," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The President stressed that the war has focused Ukrainians on core values. "The meaning of the word 'freedom' is not abstract. Democracy is not abstract. Human rights are not abstract. Ukraine today stands apart from other countries because it has paid a high price for these values - unfortunately, in human lives," the Head of State said. The discussion also addressed the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. The President highlighted three of the most difficult obstacles to this: adoption, where Russians change children's citizenship and identity documents; recruitment into the Russian army of adolescents who have reached adulthood during the Russian aggression; and the impossibility of compelling the aggressor country to return children through exchanges, as is done with prisoners of war. "This issue with the children is multifaceted. And the hardest part is that when we negotiate, for example, the exchange of prisoners of war, we cannot negotiate an exchange of children. I mean, exchanging prisoners is difficult, but there is a light: you understand the path. And what do we do with the children? How do we bring them back? This is a very serious problem," Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed. The meeting also covered the creation of the necessary conditions for achieving a dignified peace. The President emphasized that the war must end in a way that ensures justice prevails and all perpetrators are held accountable. The impact of the situation in the Middle East on the war in Ukraine was also discussed. According to the President, the availability of air defense systems may decrease. Moreover, this creates challenges for global security. "The world's attention is shifting to the Middle East, which is not very good for us. Because Ukraine needs protection against drones and missiles. We require sufficient numbers of PAC-2 and PAC-3 - Patriot missiles. These missiles are limited in the world, and this limited supply will inevitably be divided among several parties," the Head of State noted. A separate focus was Ukraine's integration into the European Union. Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that even during wartime, Ukraine is making key decisions that bring us closer to the EU. "For Ukraine, the European Union has become more than just membership. During the war, it represents a major geopolitical choice of our nation: the choice not to be with Russia, but the choice to be with Europe," the President said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Met with the Exiled Crown Prince of Iran President of Ukraine 13 March 2026 - 20:19 In Paris, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with exiled Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi. The Head of State emphasized that our country supports the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom. The President noted that Ukraine condemns attacks launched from Iran against countries in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine wants to see a free and democratic Iran that will not cooperate with Russia. According to the President, this would contribute to the security not only of our country but of the whole of Europe and the Middle East region. Reza Pahlavi condemned the cooperation between the Iranian regime and the Russian Federation and reaffirmed recognition of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The parties also discussed strengthening international pressure on the Iranian regime and its allies, in particular Russia. The Crown Prince also spoke about the losses suffered by the regime's leadership, particularly representatives of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other security structures. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defense Support, European Integration, and Strengthening Sanctions Against Russia: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Met with Emmanuel Macron President of Ukraine 13 March 2026 - 17:04 In Paris, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with President of France Emmanuel Macron to discuss the situation in the Middle East, strengthening sanctions against Russia, and increasing support for Ukraine. "I am grateful for this visit, for all of France's support for Ukraine and for Ukrainians, and for your personal support, Emmanuel. We in Ukraine know all this and value it greatly. We also value the fact that we can always coordinate with France and stand together on many issues - that is so important, especially during wartime," Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized. The presidents discussed security in Ukraine, across Europe, and globally in light of the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed condolences over the death of a French serviceman in Iraq as a result of an Iranian strike the day before. "Opinions may vary regarding this U.S. campaign against the Iranian regime, but it is hard for anyone to argue with the fact that the regime in Iran is terrorist in nature, and the entire region - and Iran itself - certainly needs far greater respect for life and stronger protection of life, first and foremost from this regime in Iran," the Head of State emphasized. Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine can contribute to stabilizing the situation, and that more than ten countries have already approached Ukraine for support in defending against Iranian "shaheds." "It is not enough simply to obtain interceptors somewhere - there must also be experience in using them. Our warriors have such experience. There must also be proper systemic work with radars and with the entire air defense system. Ukraine is ready to share this experience for the security of those partners who are helping us," Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted. In addition to all these issues and coordination of actions, the leaders also discussed defense support for Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that Emmanuel Macron is fully informed about all aspects of the situation on the frontline. The presidents devoted significant attention to joint defense production, bilateral projects, and the implementation of the SAFE instrument. "Ukraine is grateful for France's defense support throughout all these years, and today we identified steps and specific decisions that can deliver strong results. This concerns both air defense and combat aviation," the Head of State added. The presidents also discussed cooperation between Ukraine and France at the European Union level and within the Coalition of the Willing. The Head of State emphasized that France's leadership can play a decisive role in Ukraine's accession to the European Union. Emmanuel Macron noted that Ukraine deserves the opening of the first negotiating clusters for accession to the European Union. Particular attention was also paid to increasing pressure on Russia and unblocking the European Union's 20th sanctions package. "We must strengthen pressure on Russia. We are determined to do so in order to force it to sit down at the negotiating table in good faith. We are currently preparing the 20th sanctions package. Much has already been done. We are also fighting sanctions circumvention. In particular, France intends to continue playing a leading role in the fight against the tanker fleet. We are already seeing concrete results," the President of France noted. The President of Ukraine emphasized that the U.S. decision to partially ease sanctions on Russian oil could provide Russia with about 10 billion dollars for the war. "The European Union's resolve, and that of other partners around the world, must remain firm - it must work in a way that leaves Russia with no illusions. Russia must end this war. And I am grateful to everyone who is helping us in this effort," Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed. Separately, the Head of State emphasized that support for the 90 billion package for Ukraine over the next two years is crucial. Emmanuel Macron assured that France would make efforts to unblock this decision. "Now, ahead of the European leaders' meeting in Brussels next week, we are coordinating our positions to secure the unblocking of these funds. At a time when Russia is effectively gaining additional resources due to yet another wave of destabilization, Ukraine must receive what Europe has already decided on," Volodymyr Zelenskyy concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address BANGKOK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's king and queen on Saturday presided over a royal ceremony to open a new parliamentary session following the February general election. In his address at the ceremony, King Maha Vajiralongkorn called upon the parliamentarians to execute their legislative duties on behalf of the entire country by upholding righteousness and public interest. The monarch emphasized that all parliamentary debates should strictly adhere to constitutional principles to truly benefit the nation and offered his blessings for the smooth operation of the National Assembly. Thailand's caretaker Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and his caretaker cabinet members attended the inauguration, along with members of parliament, senators, the president of independent agencies, and foreign diplomats. The freshly elected House of Representatives is set to convene its first session on Sunday for the oath-taking ceremony and the election of a new house speaker and deputy speakers. SSU detains enemy agent preparing missile and bomb strike on Third Army Corps Commander Security Service of Ukraine 10:20, 13 March 2026 The Military Counterintelligence of the Security Service of Ukraine, with the support of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, has thwarted a russian attempt to assassinate the commander of the 3rd Army Corps of Ukraine's Defence Forces. During a pre-emptive operation, the SSU detained an enemy agent who was preparing to coordinate a targeted missile and bomb strike on the location of the Ukrainian general in the combat zone. According to the investigation, the russian intelligence services recruited a UAV operator from another Ukrainian brigade operating in Kharkiv region to help adjust the planned air attack. The agent attempted to obtain information about the time and location of the general's visit to his unit's positions. He used his access to official information to collect this intelligence and also tried to elicit classified data from fellow servicemen. In addition, the agent was supposed to provide the occupiers with the locations of his brigade's headquarters and training centre, which russia intended to strike separately. The SSU identified the mole at an early stage of his espionage activities. The Service then documented his contacts with russian handlers while simultaneously protecting the Defence Forces locations. The agent was detained during the final phase of the special operation on the military garrison's territory. His smartphone, which he used to communicate with the russian operatives, was seized. Investigators established that russian intelligence recruited the asset through his former wife, who lives in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region and is cooperating with the aggressor state. To conceal his communication with the enemy, the traitor regularly deleted the messages. SSU investigators have notified the detainee under Article 111.2 of the CCU - high treason committed under martial law. The suspect is in custody and faces life imprisonment with confiscation of property. The operation was conducted under the procedural supervision of the Specialised Defence Prosecutor's Office. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Proposed cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Prevention and Public Health Fund and other grant programs in President Barack Obamas fiscal year 2013 budget have public health advocates concerned that the administration is undercutting communities ability to address their populations health needs.Overall, the CDCs budget would decrease by $664 million in 2013 to $5.1 billion, the largest cut for any division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Prevention and Public Health Fund, established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to fund a litany of preventive efforts, is funded at near-full capacity ($903 million) for 2013. But, the president recommended cutting the fund by $4 billion over the next 10 years.Grants dependent on Prevention and Public Health Funds could be cut. Obama's proposed budget suggests slashing Community Transformation Grants (a flexible stream for states and localities to prevent and improve the outcomes of chronic ailments) by $80 million, from $226 million to $146 million. The White House justified the cuts by saying that the $146 million would be enough to fund all continuing and new grants.Policy analysts are skeptical that enough money is available to address expensive chronic ailments at the local level. Without solid prevention, we arent going to keep costs under control, Paul Jarris, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told. We have to make the case that this is good health policy and good fiscal policy.Under Obamas proposed budget -- which is unlikely to be passed by Congress as written, but still sets a policy precedent for later discussions about spending priorities -- the $79 million Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant would be completely eliminated. The administration said the block grants goals would be addressed by other programs, including the Community Transformation Grants that are already subject to cuts.We are underinvesting in an area that can produce immense dividends, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA), in an interview. "These are cuts to local communities at a time when we're seeing programs fall like dominoes. There is real pain on the local level."The State and Local Preparedness and Response Capability fund would also take a hit, $16 million, down to $642 million, the second consecutive year of reductions. A December 2011 report by Trust for America's Health (TFAH), a non-partisan advocacy group, detailed the already-decreasing capacity of states and localities to confront health emergencies because of previous CDC cuts. That trend "scares me in terms of our ability to react to a public health emergency," Benjamin said.Taken together, health advocates say the administrations proposals would seriously hinder the ability of state and localities to handle the general growth in chronic illnesses as well as major health crises. The reductions were criticized by groups such as the APHA and TFAH in their official responses to the budget."Cutting prevention funding is foolish," Richard Hamburg, deputy director of TFAH, told. "Increased investment in prevention in the long term is going to lead to a healthier population. This budget is counterintuitive to the idea of investing in community health."While recognizing the concerns of those groups, Joy Wilson, health policy director for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), said in an interview that reductions in discretionary spending are simply a reality given the current fiscal and political environment. "Funding increases and new programs are going to be hard to come by," she said.Wilson also said the White House likely assumed that, because more people will be covered by insurance under the ACA and that coverage will be required to include preventive services, there would be a decreased need for the supplemental funding from the programs that would be cut under Obama's proposed budget. People visit the booth of Chinese car brand Geely during the International Automobile and Tuning Show in Budapest, Hungary, March 13, 2026. The International Automobile and Tuning Show kicked off on Friday, with the participation of several Chinese car brands. (Photo by David Balog/Xinhua) People watch lion dance at a product launch event of Chinese car brand Geely during the International Automobile and Tuning Show in Budapest, Hungary, March 13, 2026. The International Automobile and Tuning Show kicked off on Friday, with the participation of several Chinese car brands. (Photo by David Balog/Xinhua) This photo taken on March 13, 2026 shows a car at a booth of Chinese car brand Geely during the International Automobile and Tuning Show in Budapest, Hungary. The International Automobile and Tuning Show kicked off on Friday, with the participation of several Chinese car brands. (Photo by David Balog/Xinhua) This photo taken on March 13, 2026 shows a car at a booth of Chinese car maker BAIC during the International Automobile and Tuning Show in Budapest, Hungary. The International Automobile and Tuning Show kicked off on Friday, with the participation of several Chinese car brands. (Photo by David Balog/Xinhua) Stay away from women who disrespect your hustle Nancy Isime cautions men Previous article: Stay away from women who disrespect your hustle Nancy Isime cautions men Featured Tonto Dikeh faces N200m lawsuit over viral deliverance session - says shes made mistakes in her life Graphic Showbiz Showbiz News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 08:10 2 minutes read Nollywood actress-turned-evangelist, Tonto Dikeh, has expressed deep regret over mistakes in her past, saying God used them to shape her voice into one that now speaks truth, grace and redemption. Her confession comes as she faces a 200 million lawsuit filed by human rights lawyer Ikechukwu Obasi over a viral deliverance session involving a minor. In the suit, Obasi accused Dikeh of violating the childs rights to dignity and privacy during the deliverance ritual. The incident, which reportedly occurred on March 6, 2026, was captured in a video later shared on Dikehs Facebook page. The footage showed the child being laid on bare ground and pressed against a stony surface during the session. Reacting in a reflective post on Instagram, Dikeh admitted to past mistakes but said they had contributed to her spiritual growth. I have made many mistakes in my life. Painful ones. Costly ones. But today, I understand that God did not waste any of them. He used them to shape my voice into one that speaks truth, grace and redemption, she wrote. I do not wish I had known then what I know now, because if I had never walked through those seasons, I would not carry the message I carry today. My story would lack the depth that comes from experiencing Gods mercy firsthand, she added. The lawsuit, filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja, seeks several declarations and court orders, including 200 million in damages, the removal of the video from social media platforms and a public apology. The suit was filed on behalf of the student, a Junior Secondary School 1 pupil of Junior Secondary School, Durumi II, Abuja, who is reportedly from Rivers State. As of the time of filing this report, Dikeh had yet to formally respond to the lawsuit. Watch video of Tonto's deliverance Source: VanguardNgr 'I don't even think it was his message': Iranians on new supreme leader's first address Next article: 'I don't even think it was his message': Iranians on new supreme leader's first address Featured Cuba confirms negotiations with US as country faces effects of oil blockade BBC International News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:25 3 minutes read Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that his government is in talks with the Trump administration to find solutions to the two countries' differences, as the Caribbean country continues to face the effects of a US oil blockade. Diaz-Canel said no fuel had entered Cuba in three months. Talks between the two nations were in their initial stages, said Diaz-Canel, who is leading the Cuban side of negotiations, in a national broadcast on Friday. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Cuba was in "deep trouble" as he threatened a "friendly takeover". Cuba is experiencing several blackouts as the island struggles with fuel shortages, which have been made worse by pressure from the US. Since returning to the White House, Trump has made clear his desire to change Cuba's leadership. He has also threatened tariffs on goods imported into the US from any country that gives Cuba oil. The White House told the BBC on Friday that: "As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal, which he believes 'would be very easily made'". Havana relies heavily on imported fuel for its electricity and the US has seized a number of oil shipments bound for Cuba. Venezuela was believed to have sent around 35,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba, providing about half the island's oil needs. But Washington's Venezuela raid - and capture of President Nicolas Maduro - in early January has disrupted the arrangement. In his national broadcast, Diaz-Canel said that not having fuel enter Cuba for the past three months has led to the gradual decline of diesel and fuel oil reserves. Given this, the country's electrical grid has become increasingly "unstable", he said. To mitigate the impact Cuba had increased production of domestic crude and gas, as well as solar generation. The US and Cuba have had strained relations since communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew a US-backed government in 1959. US sanctions and trade embargoes on Cuba have been in place since the early 1960s. The island nation is just 90 miles (145 km) south of Florida. Given the proximity, many Cubans who do not identify with Havana's politics emigrate to the US, which is one of the reasons why Miami has such a large Cuban-American demographic. Regarding the current talks, Trump has said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, is involved. Speaking in February, Rubio said Cuba needed to change. "It needs to change dramatically because it is the only chance that it has to improve the quality of life for its people," he told reporters on 25 February. In 2024, Cuban-Americans in Miami held protests in support of political prisoners held in Cuban jails, while campaigning for Donald Trump's return to the White House Additionally, Cuba will release 51 prisoners in the coming days as a demonstration of "goodwill" following talks with the Vatican, Havana's government said. It comes weeks after Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met Pope Leo in the Vatican. Cuba did not specify whether those to be freed included political prisoners, but it said they had all "served a significant portion of their sentences and have maintained good conduct while in prison". Detailing the forthcoming release, Cuba's foreign ministry said that since 2010 Havana has pardoned 9,905 prisoners. Over the last three years, the ministry added, another 10,000 people who had been imprisoned were released "through various other forms of relief". The government said the decision was "sovereign" and in line with the upcoming Holy Week in the Christian calendar. Cuba confirms negotiations with US as country faces effects of oil blockade Next article: Cuba confirms negotiations with US as country faces effects of oil blockade Featured France returns sacred 'talking drum' looted during colonial rule to Ivory Coast BBC International News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:31 2 minutes read A sacred drum looted by French forces during its colonial rule in Ivory Coast has been returned to the country, more than a century after it was taken. It was seized by colonial authorities in 1916 before being taken to France in 1929, where it was put on display at the Trocadero Museum and later at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris The Djidji Ayokwe (Panther Lion), as the talking drum is called, was welcomed home by members of the Ebrie community, its original owners. It is more than three metres (10 ft) long, weighs about 430kg (68 stone), and is carved from iroko wood. The return is part of a wider French effort to repatriate African cultural artefacts, a process that began in 2017. It arrived aboard a specially chartered plane but was not removed from its large wooden crate marked "fragile". A traditional group of dancers and several local chiefs were at Abidjan International Airport to receive it. "This is a historic day with lot of emotions," Ivory Coast's Culture Minister Francoise Remarck told the BBC. "We are living through a moment of justice and remembrance that finally marks the return of the Djidji Ayokwe to its land of origin." Francis Tagro, director of the Museum of Civilizations in Abidjan, said the drum would be exhibited "in a place of honour in the heart of the national museum". "We are deeply happy and proud to receive this sacred drum. It means so much to us, it will elevate the sense of culture of the young generation," he told the BBC. Traditional dancers and several local chiefs were at Abidjan International Airport to receive the talking drum The drum will be exhibited at the Museum of Civilizations in Abidjan A central piece of Ebrie heritage, the talking drum was traditionally used to warn of danger, mobilise people for war, and summon villages to ceremonies. The ethnic group are based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's largest city. The drum was officially handed back by Paris on 20 February after the French parliament passed a special law authorising its restitution. The talking drum is the first object on a list of 148 works that Ivory Coast is seeking to have returned from France and other countries. France has already returned some of the Abomey royal treasures to Benin and a historic sabre to Senegal. As restitution requests from former colonies increase, France's Senate adopted a framework law on 29 January aimed at making it easier to remove colonial-era artefacts from French national collections. The bill is expected to be discussed shortly by the National Assembly. Global oil hovers around $100 despite US temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea Next article: Global oil hovers around $100 despite US temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea Featured 'I don't even think it was his message': Iranians on new supreme leader's first address BBC International News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:09 4 minutes read "I don't even think it was his message," an Iranian woman in her 40s told the BBC after her country's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei gave his first official address in the form of a statement read out on state TV. Having not seen him since he was named leader, some are now casting doubts on who is running the country. "I feel like control of the country is in the hands of the IRGC [Islamic Revolution Guard Corps]," the woman, from Tehran, said. Khamenei, through the conduit of a TV presenter, vowed in his statement on Thursday that Iran would keep the Strait of Hormuz closed to international shipping - choking the supply of a fifth of the world's oil. He also said that his government would "not forgo avenging the blood" of citizens killed since the war with the US and Israel began, saying retaliation so far represented only "a limited portion" of what was to come. He said had been made aware of his appointment as supreme leader via state TV. But Khamenei has yet to be seen in-person - nor filmed or photographed - since being named as his father's successor. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said, without providing evidence, that Khamenei had been "wounded and likely disfigured" in one of the first air strikes on Tehran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with his wife and other son. His lack of visibility was brought up by some of those who spoke to BBC Persian following the broadcast. "It was surprising that he did not issue even a voice memo and raised doubts about his condition," one Tehran resident, in his 30s, said. "To me this message raised more doubts than bringing any clarity about his condition," he added. Another man from Tehran, in his 20s, said: "I still haven't seen him to have an opinion about him. To be honest, we don't know much about him." A third man remarked that he was "not even convinced that he [Mojtaba Khamenei] has written the message himself". Meanwhile, a woman in her 20s from Rasht, in northern Iran, observed acerbically: "Wow, very heartwarming that he didn't even appear on state TV to issue the message." It is still very difficult to contact people inside Iran due to a government-imposed internet blackout, but some are able to connect briefly to the outside world through satellite uplinks. Many of those who do tend to be anti-regime. We have anonymised their comments for their safety. Despite dissent towards the Islamic regime that has run Iran since 1979 being writ large in mass demonstrations that engulfed the country earlier this year, it still has its fervent supporters. Crowds took to the streets of central Tehran on Friday for pro-establishment rallies to mark Quds Day - an annual event established by the Islamic regime to demonstrate support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to Israel. Many of those on the streets held photos of Mojtaba Khamenei. Iranian outlets have since published several photos and videos of officials who appeared among them, including Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani. Khamenei's message on Thursday also called on Iranians to participate in rallies to help "confront the enemy". BBC Persian and BBC Verify have verified footage showing an explosion in the Iranian capital near the crowd. The Israeli military had earlier issued an evacuation warning for an area close to where rallies were taking place in Tehran. In one video, Mohseni Ejei is seen as giving an interview to state TV when a blast happens nearby, with the crowd chanting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest"). Others who spoke to the BBC felt Khamenei's message meant very little was likely to change in the war that has seen near-constant waves of air strikes. Iran's UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, said on Tuesday that thousands of civilian sites had been destroyed by the strikes, including schools and housing. The US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) group says nearly 1,800 people have been killed in the conflict, around two-thirds of whom were civilians. "The message was very radical. I think it shows that nothing can be changed from within," a man in his 30s in Tehran said. "I think it was a message that proved in many ways that the Islamic Republic, no matter who its leader is, will always stick to its own beliefs," a man in his 30s in Karaj, a satellite city of Tehran. "So the world should know that it cannot deal with this regime." Another Karaj resident said pointedly: "He's even more worthless than his father." An African country as permanent member of the UN security council: The basis for the selection Next article: An African country as permanent member of the UN security council: The basis for the selection Featured Ken Ofori-Atta seeks US residency amid extradition push over corruption charges GraphicOnline International News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 16:32 3 minutes read Ghanas former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is seeking permanent residency in the United States while fighting immigration proceedings, as authorities in Ghana pursue his extradition to face multiple corruption charges. Mr Ofori-Atta is currently being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Virginia after he was arrested in January by US immigration officials for overstaying his visa. His lawyer, Enayat Qasimi, told US-based news website Semafor that the former minister was pursuing what he described as a pathway to residency in the United States rather than returning to Ghana, where he fears he would not receive a fair trial. According to Mr Qasimi, there are serious questions about the independence of Ghanas judiciary, arguing that his client had been subjected to a political witch hunt over alleged financial impropriety during his tenure as Finance Minister from 2017 to 2024. Ghana has formally requested Mr Ofori-Attas extradition from the United States, with American officials confirming that the request has been received. However, Ghanas Office of the Attorney General declined to comment on the development. Meanwhile, Mr Ofori-Atta is expected to reappear before the Annandale Immigration Court in Virginia on April 27 after the case concerning his immigration status was adjourned. He made his first appearance before the court in January in a virtual hearing presided over by Judge David Gardey. The proceedings focused on a bond redetermination and an initial review of the case. Mr Ofori-Atta joined the hearing from the Caroline Detention Centre, appearing in a black shirt, spectacles and a nose mask, and was seen removing his jacket before the session began. The former ministers visa had been due to expire in February, but was later revoked by US authorities. Court documents indicate that he had been given until November 29 last year to leave the United States, but failed to comply. US authorities maintain that after the revocation of his visitor visa and his failure to depart by the deadline, Mr Ofori-Atta no longer had lawful immigration status to remain in the country. During the hearing, his lawyers successfully requested that both the bond hearing and the related master calendar hearing be held behind closed doors, citing the sensitive nature of the issues expected to be discussed. Judge Gardey granted the request and ordered non-participants observing through Webex to exit the session before proceedings continued. Back in Ghana, Mr Ofori-Atta and five others are facing more than 70 criminal charges linked to several corruption investigations, including allegations that the Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) contract caused a financial loss of more than GH1.4 billion to the state. An African country as permanent member of the UN security council: The basis for the selection Previous article: An African country as permanent member of the UN security council: The basis for the selection Featured Trump threatens to hit Iran's Kharg Island oil network if shipping lanes remain blocked Reuters International News Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:41 4 minutes read U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to strike the oil infrastructure of Iran's Kharg Island hub unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a warning that could further roil markets coping with a historic supply disruption. Trump paired his Friday ultimatum with a social media post saying the U.S. had "totally obliterated" military targets on the island, the export terminal for 90% of Iran's oil shipments, which lies about 300 miles (500 km) northwest of the strait. U.S. strikes did not target Kharg's oil infrastructure, but "should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision," Trump wrote. IRAN SHOWS NO SIGN OF CAPITULATION AS STRIKES SPREAD Iran could not defend against U.S. attacks, the president said. "Irans Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save whats left of their country, which isnt much!" he posted on his Truth Social platform. He later posted: "The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" Iran, however, showed no sign of capitulating or bowing to U.S.-Israeli military pressure. Iran's armed forces responded to the Kharg attack by saying any strike on their country's oil and energy infrastructure would lead to strikes on facilities owned by oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region, Iranian media reported. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing sources, that more than 15 explosions were heard on the island during the U.S. attacks. The sources said air defenses, a naval base and airport facilities were hit, but there was no damage to oil infrastructure. Markets were watching for any sign that U.S. strikes had damaged the island's intricate network of pipelines, terminals and storage tanks. Even minor disruptions could further tighten global supply, adding pressure to a volatile market. Iran also claimed success in shooting down five drones over its airspace, bringing to 114 the total U.S. and Israeli drones it has downed during the war, Iranian state TV reported on Saturday. Oil prices have swung sharply on Trump's changing comments about the likely duration of the war, which began on February 28 with massive U.S. and Israeli bombardments of Iran and quickly spread into a regional conflict with broad consequences for worldwide energy and stock markets. The U.S. embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad was hit in a missile attack on Saturday, causing smoke to rise from the building, Iraqi security sources said. They did not have further details on the strike. In other attacks across the region, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had carried out additional attacks on Israel with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported. On Friday, the Israeli military said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air-defense systems and weapons production sites. GULF, LEBANON BECOME FLASHPOINTS After two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most in Iran but many in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf. Several million people have been displaced from their homes. U.S. forces have suffered casualties, including the deaths of all six crew members aboard a refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq. Five U.S. Air Force tankers at a base in Saudi Arabia were damaged by an Iranian missile strike and were being repaired, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials. In addition to Iran's missile and aerial drone attacks on Israel and Gulf state allies of the U.S., Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sought to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world's fossil energy supplies. Trump told reporters on Friday the U.S. Navy will "soon" start escorting tankers through the waterway. Although he has previously said the war would last only weeks, Trump on Friday declined to publicly project an end date for the conflict, telling reporters: "It'll be as long as it's necessary." Iran continued to export crude oil while other producers in the Gulf halted their shipments for fear of Iranian attacks. Multiple very large crude oil tankers were loading at Kharg on Wednesday, according to satellite imagery reviewed by TankerTrackers.com. Iran exported between 1.1 million barrels per day and 1.5 million bpd from February 28 to Wednesday. Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public comments on Thursday, vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighboring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday Iran's new leader was wounded and likely disfigured, questioning Khamenei's ability to govern. No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife. Iran says the new supreme leader was wounded, but an official said on Friday he was not "impaired." Next article: Health Ministry secures financial clearance for rotation nurses, house officers Featured Court orders deportation of Indian national after GH1.9m & US$191k fake currency conviction GNA Mar - 14 - 2026 , 15:57 2 minutes read An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced an Indian national, Shubham Sharma, to five years imprisonment for possessing forged foreign and local currencies. The court heard that Sharma, a manager, had in his possession fake GH200 notes totalling GH1,976,000 and counterfeit US$100 notes amounting to US$191,900. He was found to have dishonestly appropriated his employers money and replaced it with forged notes. The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Wisdom Alorwu, told the court that the complainant, a businessman and Chief Executive Officer of a company that manufactures air fresheners, reported that Sharma, a former manager of the firm, had replaced genuine cash with counterfeit notes. The court, presided over by Mr Joseph Yennuban Kunsong, sentenced Sharma to four years imprisonment for possessing fake local currency and five years for possessing fake foreign currency. The sentences are to run concurrently. Sharma had already spent more than nine months in custody before the sentencing. The court also ordered officials of the Ghana Police Service, the Bank of Ghana and the Registrar of the court to ensure the destruction of the forged notes. In addition, it directed that Sharma be deported after serving his prison sentence. According to the prosecution, investigations revealed that Sharma, who was responsible for receiving and keeping company cash, broke into his employers safe while the businessman was on a trip abroad and replaced unspecified amounts of genuine US dollars with counterfeit notes. Further checks at the company also showed that Sharma had substituted large sums of Ghana cedis with fake GH200 notes. The Bank of Ghana later confirmed that the seized notes were counterfeit. During investigations, Sharma admitted keeping the forged notes in the office. Ivorian Minister of Culture and Francophonie Francoise Remarck speaks at a ceremony marking the return of the talking drum Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred object of the Atchan people of Abidjan that was confiscated by French colonial authorities in 1916, in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, March 13, 2026. (Photo by Yvan Sonh/Xinhua) ABIDJAN, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The talking drum Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred object of the Atchan people of Abidjan that was confiscated by French colonial authorities in 1916, has returned to its land of origin, it was observed Friday during an official ceremony. In the presence of traditional chiefs of the Atchan community and several officials, including the French ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, Jean-Christophe Belliard, Ivorian Minister of Culture and Francophonie Francoise Remarck received at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan the crate shipped from Paris containing the Djidji Ayokwe. After an installation ritual conducted by an Atchan chief and a war dance performed by youths from the village of Anoumabo, in southern Abidjan, Francoise Remarck welcomed the return of the drum to its land of origin. "This Friday, March 13, 2026, marking the physical handover of a drum originating from Cote d'Ivoire by the French authorities to the Ivorian authorities, constitutes a historic day," she said, stressing that it represents "a moment of justice and remembrance." The return of the Atchan talking drum is part of the process of restituting African cultural property confiscated and transferred to France during the colonial period. The restitution of the talking drum, enacted by a French law in 2025, follows the signing in Paris on Feb. 20 of the deed transferring ownership and the physical handover of the heritage object between the French and Ivorian authorities. The return of Djidji Ayokwe, the first item on a list of 148 cultural objects whose restitution Abidjan has requested from France, is seen as a cultural victory for Cote d'Ivoire. "The return of this sacred drum is a message to our youth who wish to reclaim their history, as well as to the communities that are rediscovering their Djidji Ayokwe, a symbol of social cohesion, peace and dialogue," the minister added. In accordance with the protocol established between the Quai Branly Museum in Paris and the Museum of Civilizations of Cote d'Ivoire, the talking drum will first be placed in a "secure space" to allow for its "acclimatization." "At the end of this stage, we will proceed, according to modalities yet to be defined, with its official presentation before its permanent installation at the Museum of Civilizations of Cote d'Ivoire," Remarck specified. The Djidji Ayokwe, a ritual wooden instrument measuring 3.3 meters in length and weighing 430 kg, is split at its center and decorated with a leaping leopard. It once served as a tool for community communication, an alert signal and a symbol of authority for the Atchan people. Featured FDA warns public against unregistered Sukudai substance Jemima Okang Addae Mar - 14 - 2026 , 14:47 2 minutes read The Food and Drugs Authority (Ghana) (FDA) has cautioned the public against using a substance commonly known as Sukudai, warning that the unregistered product could pose serious health risks. The warning follows a viral video circulating on social media claiming that the substance, reportedly sold mainly in the Kumasi metropolis as a heart-cleansing remedy, can corrode styrofoam plates, raising concerns about its chemical composition. In a public alert issued on Friday, March 13, the FDA said laboratory analysis of samples collected in Kumasi confirmed that the product contains Chloroform. The FDA cautions the public that Sukudai is not registered by the Authority. Besides, laboratory analysis of samples collected in the Kumasi Metropolis has confirmed the presence of chloroform, the Authority said. The FDA explained that chloroform is a colourless liquid with a pleasant odour and slightly sweet taste that was previously used as an anaesthetic in surgery and in some pharmaceutical preparations. However, it is no longer used in medicine due to its toxicity and links to serious health effects, including cancer. According to the Authority, ingesting or inhaling chloroform allows the substance to rapidly enter the body and can cause adverse health effects such as drowsiness, breathing difficulties, liver and kidney damage, loss of consciousness and, in severe cases, death. The FDA said it is collaborating with stakeholders, including the Ghana Police Service and other national security agencies, to educate the public and clamp down on the distribution and sale of the product. The Authority urged the public to avoid using Sukudai and encouraged anyone who encounters the product being sold to report it through the complaint section of the FDA website or via its official hotlines and social media platforms. Utility tariffs down on April 1 - 4.81% for electricity, 3.06% for water Next article: Utility tariffs down on April 1 - 4.81% for electricity, 3.06% for water Featured Government to ban gas cylinder importation - Energy Minister tells Parliament Nana Konadu Agyeman Mar - 14 - 2026 , 12:57 4 minutes read The Minister of Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Jinapor, has told Parliament that the government intends to eventually ban the importation of gas cylinders into the country. He said once the ban was in place, the ministry would insist that all cylinders and canisters be procured locally. To achieve that, he said the ministry was working with the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and the Ghana Gas Company to revamp the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company (GCMC) Ltd. I can confirm that so far, estimates show that the company needs about $8 million to be able to revamp it, but we have been able to mobilise about $6 million for them, he said. Retooling Ghana Cylinder Contributing on the floor of Parliament to a statement by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Tano South, Charles Asiedu, on the urgent need to revitalise the GCMC last Thursday, Dr Jinapor said that with the ongoing retooling of the company, it had been able to double its production this year over what happened in 2024. I think we are on course to revamp Ghana Cylinder, and we are on course to retool it. Not only are we doing that, we are giving them off-taker agreements and setting an escrow account, he said. Recalling old cylinders As part of the Cylinder Recirculation Model, Dr Jinapor said he had issued a directive for all old and obsolete cylinders to be recalled for GCMC to retrofit them. He said the ministry had also signed an agreement with GOIL to act as an off-taker for the cylinders under the Cylinder Recirculation Model. So, Mr Speaker, let me assure this House that we are on course towards retooling Ghana Cylinder and making it a modern factory fit for purpose, Dr Jinapor said. Inject capital Proposing additional pathways for the quick recovery of the Ghana Cylinder, the MP for Tano North said the state must inject targeted capital into the operations of the GCMC to upgrade its production line, introduce modern fabrication technologies, and improve quality control processes. Mr Asiedu said the government must also engage private investors and LPG marketing companies in joint ventures to expand market access. The government and public institutions should be encouraged to sell their LPG products and accessories from the company as a matter of policy, he said. Mr Asiedu, also a member of the Energy Committee, said the company should be supported under the African Continental Free Trade Area to enter neighbouring markets by leveraging the regional demand for clean cooking solutions. Again, the public needed to be constantly sensitised to the health, economic and environmental benefits of LPG usage, he said. Mr Speaker, let us remember that a stronger demand will sustain the operations of the company. Let us strengthen performance-based accountability mechanisms within all state-owned enterprises, including the GCMC, to ensure transparency and accountability, he added. Increase LPG adoption The Tano North MP said the adoption of LPG reduced reliance on firewood charcoal in order to preserve Ghanas forest reserves, improved indoor air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. He cited the 2023 Industry report of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, which said LPG formed the primary cooking fuel for about 40 per cent of Ghanaians. Mr Asiedu said Ghana had also set an ambitious target to achieve 50 per cent of LPG penetration by 2030. In rural areas, the Tano North MP said LPG usage only formed 70 per cent of total floor usage by 2023. Despite the strategic relevance of the GCMC to boost LPG usage, he said it had struggled to fulfil its potential. The Auditor General's report revealed that the company posted a loss of GH4 million in 2021, and in 2023, it was acquired by the Ghana Gas Company Limited to enable it to continue operating. Mr Speaker, even though this acquisition signals a step in the right direction, there is an urgent need for a broader and more coordinated national recovery plan, Mr Asiedu said. In this regard, the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition had announced earlier last year the establishment of a Joint Budget Implementation Committee to oversee a revitalisation plan, he pointed out. Mr Asiedu said a revitalised GCMC would empower local industry, create jobs, expand LPG access and support Ghana's climate goals. He, therefore, called on the House to support the revitalisation efforts with the urgency and seriousness they deserve. Next article: Gaps in youth health services: Over 40% of adolescent health corners lack essentials Africa cannot afford to look away from harmful practices any longer Previous article: Africa cannot afford to look away from harmful practices any longer Featured Metro Mass confronts encroachment on Opera Square Terminal land Joyce Timbillah Awuni Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:57 3 minutes read Management of Metro Mass Transit (MMT) is facing a new challenge outside its core mandate, as the company contends with a purported encroachment on one of its main operating facilities in Accra. A private development within the operational space of the Opera Square terminal has left the company's management in shock. The management has since objected to what it describes as the private developer's attempt to construct facilities on the company's land at the Opera Square terminal without authorisation. The Traffic Operations Manager of the MMT, Ebenezer Marfo, said the development was taking place without recourse to the company and that it threatened a strategic transport facility as the government prepared to expand public transport services. Speaking at a news conference in Accra, Mr Marfo said the developer had already undertaken some estate-related construction on a section of the terminal area and had recently communicated its intention to develop further the eastern side of the terminal, where company officials were stationed. Mr Marfo said the development activities were carried out without consultation with the MMT, despite the land forming part of the companys operational infrastructure. Mr Marfo explained that the Opera Square terminal remained one of the key operational points for Metro Mass Transit within Accra. He said the terminal would become even more significant as the government prepares to introduce additional buses as part of its planned expansion of public transport services. Mr Marfo said the government had announced plans to retool the MMT with approximately 300 buses to support a proposed 24-hour public transport system, which was expected to arrive next month, making the availability of existing terminals a priority. Previous legal action Mr Marfo disclosed that the company had previously taken steps to address the matter through legal channels after observing extensive construction on the disputed land. He said MMT officials followed up with the appropriate authorities and later realised that significant structural work had been carried out, particularly during late-night and early-morning hours. The matter, he said, was subsequently taken to the High Court. However, the presiding judge at the time advised both parties to attempt an out-of-court settlement. Demolition of company office Mr Marfo further alleged that during the same period, staff of the MMT arrived at work one morning to discover that an office structure belonging to the company had been demolished. He attributed the demolition to the private developer involved in the ongoing land dispute. Mr Marfo said that management of the MMT, under its current leadership, was determined to protect all company property. He explained that the stance was consistent with the President's directives to prevent the capture of state assets and land by private individuals. As appointees, we cannot sit down unconcerned, he stated, adding that the company would pursue all legitimate means to defend its assets. Ownership Structure Mr Marfo said the Government of Ghana held about 45 per cent of the company's shares, while the remaining shares were held by institutions including the National Investment Bank (NIB), the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), the SIC Insurance Company, the Prudential Bank and GLICO. He said the combined shareholding structure meant that the government and state-related institutions held the majority stake in the company. Mr Marfo called on workers and stakeholders of the MMT to support efforts to safeguard the companys assets. He said management would continue to pursue lawful and institutional processes to resolve the dispute and ensure that the companys properties remain protected for operational use. Next article: Ramadan support must lead to community empowerment Salaam Ghana Featured UniMAC graduates 250 postgraduate students Joshua Bediako Koomson Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:57 2 minutes read Two hundred and fifty postgraduate students have received Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Master of Arts (MA) degrees from the University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC) in Accra. The colourful event yesterday saw 147 females and 103 males graduate after completing various Master of Arts programmes. The graduates were drawn from a range of specialised programmes, including a Master of Arts in Political Communication Management, Development Communication, Strategic Public Relations and Marketing, Master of Arts in Media Management and Master of Philosophy in Strategic Public Relations Management. The Overall Best Graduating Student honour went to Michelle Eyram Yorgbe, who graduated with an outstanding Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.94 in the MA in Journalism programme. Schools achievement The Vice-Chancellor of UniMAC, Prof. Eric Mensah, congratulated the new graduates on their resilience and scholarly achievements. The graduates He further highlighted significant achievements, including the successful migration of staff onto the single-spine payroll and the introduction of new academic programmes aimed at positioning the university as a research-driven institution. "We are positioning ourselves not only as a teaching university but also as a research-driven institution. The launch of our PhD programme in Communication and Media Studies signalled that intention clearly. It declared that UniMAC will not only disseminate knowledge, but we will also generate it, Prof. Mensah stated. He also used the platform to announce a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate admissions for 2026 and revealed new strategic partnerships, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Russia's Sputnik News Agency and a collaboration with YFM Ghana, to provide students with practical industry experience Appeal The Vice-Chancellor further appealed to the government and relevant authorities to enhance road safety measures around the university's South Legon Campus. This appeal followed the tragic and untimely death of a final-year student, Nelson Blay Narkotey, in a hit-and-run accident earlier in the year. Prof. Mensah called for the construction of a footbridge to safeguard the students and the wider community. Addressing the challenge of student accommodation, the Vice-Chancellor announced that construction had officially commenced on a new 400-bed capacity hostel facility at the East Legon campus, a project supported by the government. Advice In his charge to the graduating class, Prof. Mensah urged them to carry the university's values along. "Technology will evolve. Platforms will change. Artificial intelligence will become more sophisticated. But there is one asset that must remain constant: your integrity and care for humanity. Never forget that your voice can build or break, unite or divide, enlighten or inflame. Choose always to build. Choose always to enlighten, he advised. Featured GoldBod to establish district gold buying centres to boost transparency Jemima Okang Addae Mar - 14 - 2026 , 14:43 1 minute read The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has announced plans to establish District Gold Buying Centres across mining districts to strengthen transparency, oversight and accountability in gold purchasing. The Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, Sammy Gyamfi, said the centres will function as structured markets where gold transactions can be properly monitored and recorded. According to a statement posted on Facebook, the initiative will improve traceability in the gold trade while protecting both licensed buyers and the national interest. Mr Gyamfi explained that the move forms part of the Boards broader reform agenda aimed at curbing gold smuggling, reducing revenue leakages and promoting a transparent and competitive gold trading system in Ghana. He noted that the establishment of the district-level centres will also enhance regulatory oversight and ensure that gold purchasing activities are conducted within a formal and accountable framework. See the areas that will be affected by ECG's planned maintenance on Sunday, March 15, 2026 Previous article: See the areas that will be affected by ECG's planned maintenance on Sunday, March 15, 2026 Featured Police officer shot during chase of goat-stealing syndicate in Central Region GNA Mar - 14 - 2026 , 18:28 2 minutes read A police officer with the Police Intelligence Directorate (PID) of the Central North Regional Police Command has sustained a gunshot wound during an operation targeting a suspected goat-stealing syndicate in the Assin South District of the Central Region. The incident occurred around 0300 hours on Thursday when officers stationed at the Assin Besease barrier received intelligence about a robbery syndicate allegedly stealing goats from communities in the Central and Eastern regions and transporting them along the Assin FosuCape Coast Highway. According to the Central North Regional Police Commander, DCOP Abraham Acquaye, the suspects operated with vehicles fitted with sirens and official-style lighting systems to create the impression that they were on official duty, allowing them to move without attracting suspicion. Police officers on duty signalled one of the vehicles, which was using a siren, to stop. However, the driver failed to comply, leading to a high-speed chase. During the pursuit, officers fired warning shots and also targeted the tyres in an attempt to immobilise the vehicle. The suspects, however, abandoned the vehicle and fled into the bush while firing back. In the process, an officer from the PID unit sustained a gunshot wound to the knee, allegedly fired by the fleeing suspects. DCOP Acquaye said the police later arrested four out of the six suspects believed to be part of the same syndicate in two separate operations at different locations along the Assin AbeaseTomfokro and Assin MansoOchiso roads. Two other suspects managed to escape. Investigations revealed that the first vehicle, a Mitsubishi Highlander with registration number GR-1623-26, was carrying four suspected robbers and 170 goats believed to have been stolen from several communities in the Central and Eastern regions. A second vehicle, a Mitsubishi Pajero with registration number GR-9864-19, was later intercepted at Assin Manso-Okyeso with two additional suspects transporting 10 goats and one male sheep. Both the injured police officer and the suspects who sustained injuries during the exchange were rushed to the St Francis Xavier Hospital in Assin Fosu for treatment. Meanwhile, senior police officers led by the Central Regional Police Commander, DCOP Acquaye, and the Assin Fosu Divisional Police Commander, Dr Winfred Asare-Nyarko, visited the hospital to assess the condition of the injured officer and the suspects. Out of the animals recovered, 13 pregnant goats and one male sheep died due to the conditions in which they were transported. The remaining animals have been kept at the ranch of the Assin Fosu Municipal Assembly while investigations continue. The two vehicles used by the suspects have also been impounded and are currently being held at the Central North Regional Police Headquarters. Unpacking how Africans feel about military regimes John Osae-Kwapong Politics Mar - 14 - 2026 , 09:57 4 minutes read As part of a panel discussion on Ghanas Independence Day, the question of how well the countrys democracy has served its citizens came up. As the discussion unfolded and the challenges of democracy emerged in terms of delivery of the development dividends, it naturally led to the question of whether a non-democratic alternative, such as a military government, had any redeeming qualities about it. In addition, data from the Afrobarometer survey, which showed a jump from 40 per cent (Round 9, 2022) to 51 per cent (Round 10, 2024) on the question of whether the military should intervene in politics, was cited as the basis for asking if Ghanaians still harboured positive dispositions about military rule. Also, the successful military interventions in a couple of countries over the last few years have reignited conversations with respect to how citizens across the continent feel about this type of regime. In the past, I have had occasion to write about this, arguing forcefully that Ghanaians have made their peace with democracy even as they acknowledge continued challenges that must be dealt with. Also, I have asserted that the Ghanaian attitude towards military rule requires careful unpacking because it is more nuanced than the cited statistic above based on a single question in the Afrobarometer survey. Unpacking In this piece, I shift attention to the broader African continent and unpack how citizens in general feel about military rule. This is an aggregate view of thirty-six countries where Afrobarometer data is publicly available from the most recent survey (Round 10, 2024/2025). I acknowledge the fact that there are country variations on the selected questions for analysis. What Do Citizens in The Region Say About Military Regimes? First, seven out of 10 (66 per cent) disapprove/strongly disapprove of military regimes. And even among the 28 per cent who say they approve/strongly of military regimes, on the question of preferred form of government, six out of 10 (56%) still say democracy is preferable to any other form of government. Second, five out of 10 (51%) in Round 10 (2024) agreed that it is legitimate for the armed forces to take control of government when elected leaders abuse power for their own ends. It is worrying to see half of the population respond this way but keep in mind that it is not blanket approval of military intervention but rather a conditional one abuse of power. Again, even among this group who lend conditional support for military intervention, 62 per cent say democracy is preferable to any other form of government. Civilian rule Third, when asked what should happen in the unlikely event that there is a military takeover, seven out of 10 (71 per cent) want a return to civilian rule either gradually or immediately. From the second point above, among those who give conditional approval to military intervention, a majority (70 per cent) also would like a return to civilian rule gradually or immediately. Fourth, eight out of 10 (75 per cent) prefer that leaders are chosen through regular, open, and honest elections. In the first point above, the small percentage who give approval to military rule still support (68 per cent) the use of elections as the method for choosing leaders. In addition, among those indicated earlier that give conditional approval to military interventions, 72 per cent still prefer elections as the method for choosing leaders. In summary, these sentiments are not indicative of people who are interested in returning to military rule and in the unfortunate event that it happens clamour for a return to civilian rule. Pinch point Just as I argue in the case of the citizens of Ghana, I argue same that citizens across the continent have made their peace with democracy. However, there are some real pinch points that they continue to live with, which must not go unaddressed. This is because in Round 10 (2024) of the survey, only 12 per cent expressed being very satisfied with the way democracy works. An additional 29 per cent expressed being fairly satisfied. This is the biggest pinch point in citizens overall assessment of their satisfaction with the way democracy is working. The consolation here, though, is that the dissatisfaction is not with democracy itself as a system of government, but rather the practice of it. Collective appetite The selected questions and further probing of the answers to them do not point to a collective appetite for military rule by citizens across countries in the region. What it shows, rather, is an uneasy tension that the citizens strong preference for democracy and its practices such as choosing leaders through elections must continuously live with. It is a constant reminder that the journey towards democratic consolidation is far from complete and there is work that remains to be done. Whatever the drivers of this low level of satisfaction with the way democracy is working, it is very important that countries work to address them. The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project BAGHDAD, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani and French President Emmanuel Macron held phone talks Friday to discuss regional developments following an attack that killed a French soldier in northern Iraq. Al-Sudani expressed regret over the casualties among French service members in Erbil province, who are part of the international coalition to fight against the Islamic State militants, a statement by his media office said. He affirmed that an investigation will be conducted and "necessary measures will be taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents." Al-Sudani also reiterated Iraq's rejection of "blatant aggression" that violated Iraqi sovereignty, referring to strikes that resulted in the death of service members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces. He said Iraq is making every effort to achieve a ceasefire and end the war that "threatens the stability and security of the region in the long term." For his part, Macron affirmed his support for regional and international efforts aimed at stopping the war and preventing the deterioration of the security situation. Earlier on Friday, Macron confirmed in a post on X that a French soldier "died for France during an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq," noting that several others were wounded. The call came following heightened tensions after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran starting Feb. 28, to which Iran and its allied groups responded with attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East. The Nicolette Baldovino Community Foundation launched its Access to Care: Post-Treatment Cancer Medication Assistance and Pharmacy Support Program, a new initiative funded through the Guam Cancer Trust Fund. This program provides financial assistance to Guam residents who require ongoing cancer-related medications following primary treatment such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, the foundation said in a media release. Cancer care does not end when active treatment ends. Many survivors face months or even years of continued medication expenses. Through the support of the Guam Cancer Trust Fund, this program ensures that financial hardship does not interrupt medically necessary therapy, the foundation said. Addressing a critical need on Guam Cancer survivors often depend on maintenance therapy, hormonal treatment, oral chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or supportive medications to reduce recurrence risk and maintain quality of life. However, high co-pays, limited insurance coverage, and out-of-pocket costs can create significant financial barriers. Through structured collaboration with local oncology providers and participating pharmacy partners, NBCFIs Access to Care program provides: Financial assistance for eligible maintenance and supportive cancer medications Coverage of co-payment costs for insured patients Support for uninsured patients through established self-pay formulary rates Up to $2,500 per patient per year in medication assistance Pharmacy counseling and adherence support Each medication request requires certification of medical necessity from the patients treating oncologist and is reviewed under structured program guidelines. The Guam Cancer Trust Fund was created by the Healthy Futures Fund (Public Law 30-80) in 2010 to provide financial assistance to organizations for cancer-related services and the prevention of cancer. The Guam Cancer Trust Fund allows nonprofit and charitable organizations, hospitals, clinics, educational institutions, and local health departments to provide services for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, as well as other services related to treatment, education, and outreach. NBCFI said it is honored to implement the program through funding support provided under this initiative. Who may apply Eligible applicants must: Be a resident of Guam (Valid government of Guam issued ID is required) Have a documented cancer diagnosis Be prescribed post-treatment or maintenance oncology medication by an oncologist Funding is medication-specific and subject to availability. How to apply Applications are now being accepted. Interested applicants may email community@nicolettebaldovinofoundation.com. Health care providers are encouraged to share this opportunity with eligible patients. COTONOU, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Beninese government has put in place arrangements to facilitate the return of its nationals stranded or residing in the Gulf region to the West African country, according to an official statement obtained by Xinhua on Saturday. According to the statement, the Embassy of Benin in Kuwait City informed its nationals stranded or living in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that travel arrangements to Cotonou, the largest city of Benin, have been organized from airports in Saudi Arabia. "In this context, the embassy invites those wishing to return to Benin to register and provide the details of their respective passports in order to obtain emergency entry visas for Saudi Arabia, which are necessary for their departure," the statement said. The German-French joint venture European Search Perspective (EUSP) has sent open letters to the heads of government of all 27 EU member states. It proposes building national search indexes as public digital infrastructure. The initiative comes 100 days after the Digital Sovereignty Summit in Berlin, where European heads of state and government pledged to reduce critical digital dependencies. Continue after ad The organization argues that search infrastructure should be treated as strategic public infrastructure, comparable in importance to energy grids or telecommunications networks: Search results determine visibility. Visibility determines market access. Market access determines winners and losers. In digital markets, ranking is not a neutral formality it is a distribution of opportunities, writes EUSP. The company estimates the dependence at around 18 trillion euros of European economic output. However, search is currently controlled almost entirely by non-EU companies. According to EUSP, 99.5 percent of all European search queries are answered by two US companies (Google and Bing, 96 percent) and one Russian provider (Yandex, 3.5 percent) (The c't article Search engine market overview: Many services, two real centers of power examines the search engine market in detail). Dangerous Dependence According to EUSP, a failure or blocking of the dominant search index infrastructure could render governments unable to act within days and bring economies to a standstill. Such measures are not just a theoretical scenario. US policy has shown this in many cases in recent years, for example through trade tariffs or by cutting off an inconvenient judge at the International Criminal Court from digital life. European Search Perspective proposes that EU member states protect themselves against such measures with sovereign search infrastructure. It should consist of a national search index hosted under European jurisdiction, a national ranking algorithm, and infrastructure that supports both public search services and the fundamental AI web. EUSP is a joint venture of the European search services Qwant (France) and Ecosia (Germany) and has been operating its European search index under the name Staan (Search Trusted API Access Network) since August 2025, which is also available to third parties as an API. Currently, Staan is limited to French content. Continue after ad EUSP's proposal to EU heads of government: The company could expand its initiative to other EU member states. Governments could directly finance the index or alternatively use Ecosia and Qwant as the default search engine in public administration. In total, EUSP CEO Wolfgang Oels estimates the cost of a European search engine at around 50 million euros in response to a query from heise online. Search: No European success story so far There have already been several attempts to build European search infrastructure. The research program Quaero, launched by Chirac and Schroder in 2005, and its German counterpart Theseus (20072012), together consumed around 400 million euros and delivered patents and publications, but no marketable web index. Currently, in addition to EUSP, the EU research project OpenWebSearch.eu also pursues the goal of European search sovereignty: 14 research institutions, including CERN and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, are building an open web index as public infrastructure with 8.5 million euros in Horizon Europe funding. However, its funding is about to expire. (jo) Don't miss any news follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Mastodon. This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication. US medical device manufacturer Stryker, with an annual turnover of 25.1 billion US dollars and 56.000 employees in 2025, a relatively large company also active at several locations in Germany, has fallen victim to a cyberattack. On Thursday of this week, Stryker confirmed the cyberattack on its IT systems claimed by the Handala cyber gang, which is located in Iran. Continue after ad According to reports, a cyberattack on Stryker's computer systems on Wednesday of this week led to a widespread disruption of business processes, including order processing, production, and shipping, reports Reuters. The Iranian cyber gang Handala claims to be responsible for the attack. It was allegedly carried out in retaliation for an attack on a girls' school in Minab in southern Iran at the end of February. "Global disruption to Microsoft environment" Stryker stated to US media on Wednesday that it was experiencing a "global disruption to its Microsoft environment." IT journalist Brian Krebs specifies that it is a wiper attack, in which more than 200.000 systems, servers, and mobile devices of the company are said to have been deleted. An employee of the company reportedly told the Irish Examiner that all devices connected to the company network were "down" and every device with Microsoft Outlook on it was deleted. The login websites were defaced with the Handala group's logo. In a statement to Krebs, an anonymous but trusted source indicated that the cybercriminals used Microsoft's Intune service to remotely wipe all connected devices. This is a well-known and widely used cloud-based network, software, and device management software from Microsoft. However, the incident did not affect patient-related services and associated medical products, Stryker explained. The full extent and financial consequences are not yet foreseeable. Investigations are ongoing. Stryker has not yet responded to a request from heise online. It is possible that the German branches are also affected. Continue after ad (dmk) Don't miss any news follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Mastodon. This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication. The Kharg island handles about 90 percent of Irans crude exports and stands at the centre of the countrys oil trade. The US attack targeted military facilities on the island while leaving oil terminals intact, according to American officials. United States forces struck military targets on Irans Kharg Island as the illegal war of aggression of the United States and Israel against Iran entered its third week. Retaliations of Iran on US assets have resulted in attacks spreading across the Gulf, with a drone strike also hitting a major oil complex in the United Arab Emirates today. President Donald Trump said the operation destroyed Iranian military infrastructure on the island. United States forces have totally obliterated the military targets on Kharg Island, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. For reasons of decency, I chose not to wipe out the oil infrastructure. He added that the decision would change if Iran interferes with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which about one fifth of global oil supply moves. US Central Command later confirmed the scale of the strike. US forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island while preserving the oil infrastructure, the command said in a statement. Targets included naval mine storage areas, missile bunkers, and other military installations near the export terminal. Iranian officials acknowledged explosions on the island yet said the oil facilities remain intact. Ehsan Jahanian, political deputy to the governor of Bushehr province, told the Tasnim news agency that crude shipments continued. The process of exporting oil from the Kharg oil terminal is fully under way, and the activities of companies based on the island are continuing without interruption, he said. Kharg Island lies about 30 kilometres off the Iranian coast in the northern Gulf. Tankers load crude there before sailing through the Strait of Hormuz toward Asian markets. Analysts say any damage to the terminal would threaten global energy supply. Irans armed forces issued warnings after the strike. Colonel Ebrahim Zulfiqari from the Khatam headquarters said Tehran reserves the right to hit American assets in Gulf states. We declare to the leaders of the Emirates that the Islamic Republic considers it its legitimate right to strike the source of American enemy missile launches at ports, docks, and hideouts of US military personnel, the statement said, according to Irans Mehr news agency. The warning came as smoke rose from an oil facility in the Emirati port of Fujairah after a drone interception triggered a fire. Authorities in the emirate said air defences stopped the drone, and falling debris caused the blaze. The government media office reported no injuries while civil defence crews worked to control the flames. Industry sources told Reuters that some oil loading operations at the port were suspended after the incident. Fujairah stands as one of the largest oil storage centres in the Middle East and serves as a key refuelling hub for ships. The port sits on the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz, which allows tankers to bypass the narrow channel during regional crises. Images from the area showed black smoke rising above rows of storage tanks and industrial buildings near the shoreline. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps described American facilities in the UAE as legitimate targets after the Kharg strike. A statement carried by Iranian media warned residents to stay away from ports and military areas linked to the United States. Across the region, the conflict widened through a chain of strikes and counterstrikes. A missile struck a helipad inside the United States embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraqi officials told the Associated Press. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Israel also continued air operations linked to the war. Defence Minister Israel Katz said the campaign had reached a turning point. The conflict with Iran is entering a decisive phase, Katz said during a meeting with military officials, according to the Times of Israel. Since the start of the war on 28 February, attacks have hit sites across Iran, Lebanon, and Israel. Iranian authorities say more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, have died in strikes on the country. Israel and the US have bombed hospitals, banks, and other civilian infrastructure and hundreds of residential buildings. Energy markets reacted to the fighting near the Gulfs oil infrastructure. Brent crude rose above 100 dollars per barrel during the week as traders watched developments around the Strait of Hormuz. International Energy Agency members announced a coordinated release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves to stabilise supply. Kharg Island remains a focal point in the confrontation. The coral island covers about 22 square kilometres yet handles most of Irans oil exports. Tankers there load crude before heading through the Gulf toward China, India, and other importers. Any disruption to that route threatens energy flows across Asia and Europe. Iranian officials warned that attacks on the islands oil facilities would trigger strikes on energy infrastructure linked to the United States across the region. If Irans oil infrastructure is attacked, all the oil and energy infrastructure belonging to companies that cooperate with the United States will be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes, a spokesperson for Irans Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters said, according to Iranian state media. The United States increased its military presence in the region during the week. American officials told the Associated Press that 2,500 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli are moving toward the Middle East. Military planners say such units carry capacity for evacuation operations, embassy protection, and amphibious landings. HT HARARE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China's zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries will offer transformative opportunities for African exporters, a Zimbabwean expert has said. Speaking to Xinhua on Friday, Zimbabwean economic analyst and political commentator Dereck Goto said the policy represents a significant structural shift in the trade relationship between China and African economies. "For countries such as Zimbabwe, the implications are potentially transformative. It will increase the competitiveness of Zimbabwean exports such as horticultural products in the Chinese market," Goto said. China announced in February that it will fully implement zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries with diplomatic relations with China, starting from May 1. Goto said the policy also creates incentives for production expansion and diversification. Zimbabwean exporters will be able to price their goods more competitively against suppliers from other regions. According to Goto, the policy aligns with China's broader engagement framework with Africa under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. "Over the past two decades, that framework has steadily shifted toward trade, industrialization support and infrastructure development. Duty-free access complements infrastructure corridors, logistics projects and industrial parks already developed through China-Africa cooperation," he said. "Zimbabwe must ensure supply-side readiness. Exporters must meet Chinese phytosanitary standards, quality requirements and logistical demands. Without coordinated industrial policy and export support, the opportunity could remain underutilized," he added. Goto also said China's latest decision carries broader geopolitical significance. By granting zero-tariff access across the continent, China is reinforcing its position as a partner of the Global South, offering trade-based development pathways. "In short, for Zimbabwe and other African partners, the zero-tariff policy is more than a symbolic gesture. It is an invitation to deepen industrial capacity, expand exports and integrate more firmly into one of the largest markets in the global economy. The decisive factor will now be how effectively African producers organize themselves to seize the opportunity," he added. *The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) will be a crucial stage for China to consolidate foundations and make all-round efforts in advancing Chinese modernization, as the country moves toward its goal of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035. *In the next five years, the country will build on the foundation laid over the past five years to further strengthen the basis of development and enhance its resilience. It will also make coordinated efforts across various economic and social fields to achieve systemic breakthroughs and an overall improvement. *The country has mapped out major projects in areas including the development of new quality productive forces, modern infrastructure, urban-rural integration, and the improvement of people's well-being. Guests attend the latest episode of the China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo) BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) will be a crucial stage for China to consolidate foundations and make all-round efforts in advancing Chinese modernization, as the country moves toward its goal of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035, experts have said. In the latest episode of China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency, officials, economists and business representatives shared their views on China's economic and social development priorities and prospects for the next five years. CRUCIAL FIVE YEARS "Realizing Chinese modernization is a historical process that unfolds in stages and moves forward step by step," said Liu Rihong, an official with the Research Office of the State Council. Liu said that in the next five years, the country will build on the foundation laid over the past five years to further strengthen the basis of development and enhance its resilience. It will also make coordinated efforts across various economic and social fields to achieve systemic breakthroughs and an overall improvement. The country has mapped out major projects in areas including the development of new quality productive forces, modern infrastructure, urban-rural integration, and the improvement of people's well-being, according to Hou Yongzhi, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council. Those projects cover various aspects of China's modernization drive, balance short-term and long-term priorities, combine "hard investment" with "soft development," and promote both material and cultural-ethical advancement, said Hou. Some projects will focus on strengthening industrial foundations and competitiveness, fostering emerging industries and new arenas, advancing frontier technologies, and enhancing innovation capacity, said Hou. The projects will help nurture and expand new quality productive forces and enable China to gain a stronger edge in the increasingly intense global industrial and technological competition, Hou added. A drone photo shows an automated production line at the Seres Super Factory in Liangjiang New Area, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 19, 2025. (Xinhua/Wang Quanchao) ADVANCING HIGH-QUALITY DEVELOPMENT High-quality development will continue to be a key focus of social and economic development over the next five years, experts said. To advance high-quality development, efforts should be made to consolidate and strengthen the real economy and build a modern industrial system led by advanced manufacturing, said Liu. It is also important to boost sci-tech self-reliance and strength through stronger innovation and breakthroughs in core technologies, advance the construction of a Digital China, and promote greener ways of production and life, Liu added. Developing new quality productive forces is an inherent requirement for high-quality development, and strengthening innovation-driven development and fostering new quality productive forces should be prioritized, experts said. Enterprises should strengthen their basic research and intensify efforts to achieve breakthroughs in key core technologies, aiming to develop products with fully independent intellectual property rights, said Chen Zhilie, chairman of EVOC Group. Chen called for forming innovation consortia with universities and research institutes to accelerate the translation of scientific and technological advances from laboratories to production lines and promote deeper integration between frontier technologies and manufacturing applications. Leading enterprises should work with upstream and downstream firms in the industrial chain to foster an open, win-win industrial ecosystem and advance the digitalization of research and development, the intelligent transformation of manufacturing, and more resilient supply chain management, Chen said. An aerial drone photo taken on March 10, 2026 shows a view of Qingdao Port in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. (Photo by Yu Fangping/Xinhua) REFORM AND OPENING UP During the period, China will need to deepen reforms in key areas and expand high-standard opening up to inject fresh momentum into high-quality development, experts said. Huang Hanquan, head of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission, said efforts will be made to continue fostering a unified national market and to deepen market-based reform in the allocation of production factors. China will deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and state capital while implementing regulations related to private-sector development, ensuring that private firms can compete fairly in the market, said Huang. On opening up, Huang said key steps include proactively aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules, promoting trade innovation such as digital trade, expanding two-way investment cooperation, and pursuing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. For private high-tech manufacturing firms long engaged in high-end equipment manufacturing and industrial artificial intelligence, high-standard opening up represents a major opportunity to further tap global markets and connect with global innovation and industrial resources, said Chen. MEXICO CITY, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday reiterated support for Cuba in face of the U.S. blockade that has been in place for more than six decades. "Mexico will always promote peace and diplomatic dialogue, and particularly in the face of this injustice that has been inflicted on the Cuban people for many years, the blockade that has caused various problems," Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference. "It is essential that this dialogue takes place. Mexico will continue to support the Cuban people in every possible way," she added. The Mexican president stressed that her country's solidarity with Cuba reflects not only a humanitarian commitment but also the fundamental principles of the Mexican Constitution. Sheinbaum also expressed gratitude for remarks by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who publicly acknowledged the humanitarian aid Mexico has sent to Cuba in recent months. For more than two months, no fuel shipments have arrived in Cuba due to the tightening of the oil blockade imposed by the U.S. administration. SEOUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Rescue operations were underway on Saturday for a burning fishing vessel in western waters off South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju, according to Yonhap news agency. The South Korean coast guard was conducting rescue operations for two missing crew members after receiving a report at about 9:58 a.m. local time (0058 GMT) that a fire broke out on the 29-ton fishing boat. Of the 10 crew members on board, eight were rescued, including two South Koreans and six foreigners. The remaining two South Koreans were believed to be trapped inside the vessel. The coast guard dispatched helicopters, high-speed boats and a 3,000-ton patrol vessel to the scene. Despite efforts to battle the blaze using water cannons, over 80 percent of the hull was destroyed, making it difficult to enter the ill-fated fishing vessel. The coast guard planned to begin searching for the two crew members as soon as the fire is under control. CAIRO, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and U.S. senior adviser for Africa and presidential adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs Massad Boulos discussed Friday developments in Lebanon amid the ongoing regional military escalation. During a phone call, Abdelatty reiterated Egypt's condemnation of repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory, emphasizing a categorical rejection of any infringement on Lebanon's sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, or the resources of its people, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. He stressed that these attacks constitute a blatant violation of international law and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, undermining efforts to maintain security and stability in Lebanon and the region. For his part, Boulos emphasized the importance of continued coordination and consultation between the two countries regarding regional developments. Since the launch of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have sharply escalated. Hezbollah launched rockets from Lebanon toward Israel on March 2. Israel responded with an "offensive military campaign" against Hezbollah, conducting intense airstrikes on Lebanon and ground incursions along the border. Lebanon's Public Health Ministry said Friday that the death toll from the Israeli attacks since March 2 has reached 773, with 1,933 people injured. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Brunei government on Saturday proposed a national budget of 6.3 billion Brunei dollars (4.92 billion U.S. dollars) for the 2026/27 fiscal year, slightly lower than the 6.35 billion Brunei dollars allocated in the previous fiscal year. The proposal was presented during a session of the 22nd Legislative Council meeting by Mohd Amin Liew Abdullah, minister at the Prime Minister's Office and second minister of finance and economy. The minister noted that the country's economic outlook remains positive for 2026, with several global financial institutions projecting moderate growth. Despite the positive outlook, the minister highlighted that Brunei remains vulnerable to external economic factors, saying the country's government revenue continues to depend heavily on global oil prices and is also affected by sluggish global trade and geopolitical tensions. The minister stressed that the government must maintain fiscal discipline and said the government will continue to practice prudent spending, focusing on expenditures that can generate economic spin-offs and long-term benefits for the economy. GAZA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- At least one Palestinian was killed and three others injured early Saturday in an Israeli strike on the southern Gaza Strip, ambulance crews and local sources said. Sources told Xinhua that the attack involved two consecutive strikes targeting two Palestinian police checkpoints in the west of Khan Younis City. The Palestine Red Crescent Society transferred the three injured to Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis for treatment. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli side regarding the incident. Since the outbreak of the conflict in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed 72,136 Palestinians and wounded 171,839 others. The death toll since the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel took effect on Oct. 10 last year has reached 651, with 1,741 wounded, according to figures from Gaza's health authorities on Thursday. This photo taken on March 14, 2026 shows the U.S. Embassy in Iraq after an attack in Baghdad, Iraq. The U.S. embassy here was attacked on Saturday, with no immediate information on casualties, a security source said. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) BAGHDAD, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. embassy here was hit by a drone on Saturday, with no immediate information on casualties, a security source said. A booby-trapped drone struck the embassy in the Green Zone at dawn, no immediate information on casualties was available and smoke was seen rising from the site, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The attack followed a "U.S. airstrike" about an hour earlier on a residential area in the Karrada neighborhood in Baghdad, which killed a senior leader and two members of Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and wounded five civilians in neighboring houses, the ministry source said. Meanwhile, in an official statement the Iraqi Joint Operations Command's Security Media Cell (SMC) condemned the dangerous and unprecedented escalation of targeting civilians and carrying out strikes within densely populated residential areas. The SMC called it an attack on human rights and said the act should be internationally classified as a crime. On March 7, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was targeted by rockets, and explosions were heard, triggering its defense systems. Over the past few days, dozens of PMF members have been killed in attacks, for which the group blamed U.S.-Israeli operations. The attacks came amid heightened tensions following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran starting Feb. 28, to which Iran and its regional proxies responded with attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East. This photo taken on March 14, 2026 shows the U.S. Embassy in Iraq after an attack in Baghdad, Iraq. The U.S. embassy here was attacked on Saturday, with no immediate information on casualties, a security source said. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) GAZA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Two Palestinians were killed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a police checkpoint in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources. Medical sources at Nasser Hospital told Xinhua that ambulance crews transported the bodies of two people killed in the Israeli strike. Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at a police checkpoint during an operation in the al-Amal neighborhood, north of Khan Younis, killing two people and wounding several others. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident. Meanwhile, Israeli artillery continued shelling other parts of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses. In a press statement, the Gaza-based health authorities said that since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect in October 2025, 658 Palestinians have been killed and 1,754 others wounded by Israeli fire and shelling. The statement added that the total Palestinian death toll since the outbreak of the October 7, 2023, attack has risen to 72,234, with 171,852 others wounded. YAOUNDE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Central African Republic. Barrot made the announcement during a two-day trip to the country. "This is the first time in eight years that a French foreign minister is present in Bangui and my presence marks the complete restoration of relations between our two countries after a period of strain and tension," Barrot told reporters. He said France was looking forward to "reinforcing our relations in all sectors". In 2024, Faustin-Archange Touadera, president of the Central African Republic, met with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris as part of efforts to resume ties. ABIDJAN, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Ivorian Vice Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tene Birahima Ouattara on Friday reaffirmed Cote d'Ivoire's commitment to strengthening its counterterrorism measures. Ouattara made the reaffirmation in the seaside town of Grand-Bassam during an official remembrance ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack there, about 30 km southeast of Abidjan. He highlighted a significant strengthening of the operational capabilities of the country's defense and security forces, which are now better trained and better equipped. "Our forces have strengthened their operational vigilance to ensure that such tragedies never happen again," he said. The minister also stressed international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, noting that counterterrorism remains an absolute priority for Cote d'Ivoire and its partners. On March 13, 2016, three gunmen opened fire at hotels and along the beach in Grand-Bassam, killing 19 people and injuring 33 others. YANGON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- A seminar on the preservation, promotion, and management of traditional textile design for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was held in Yangon on Friday, the state-owned daily The Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday. Participants from the ASEAN countries presented papers on textile design, preservation and promotion management, the report said. The seminar provides an opportunity for participating countries to exchange best practices and jointly discuss solutions to challenges encountered in preservation efforts, Myanmar's Deputy Minister for Religious Affairs and Culture Daw Nu Mra Zan was quoted as saying by the report. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Hengyi Industries will continue its investment in phase two by expanding the petrochemical refinery in Brunei with an investment value of 5 billion U.S. dollars, a Brunei government minister said on Saturday. During a session of the 22nd Legislative Council meeting, Mohd Amin Liew Abdullah, minister at the Prime Minister's Office and second minister of finance and economy, said the project is expected to begin operations in 2029. The expansion will significantly boost the petrochemical plant's production capacity from 8 million metric tons per year to 20 million metric tons per year by utilizing the latest technology. ATHENS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Moody's has affirmed Greece's sovereign credit rating at Baa3 with a stable outlook, citing stronger-than-expected fiscal performance and solid macroeconomic fundamentals, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported Saturday. In its latest report, Moody's said Greece's credit profile reflects credible reforms, improved governance and institutions, and a healthier banking sector supporting investment and economic resilience. Greece's fiscal performance since the COVID-19 pandemic has consistently exceeded expectations, Moody's noted, saying that Greece recorded a primary budget surplus of 4.7 percent of GDP in 2024, with the surplus projected at 4.4 percent in 2025. Public debt has also declined significantly, falling to about 154 percent of GDP in 2024 and expected to drop to 148 percent by the end of 2025, the lowest level since 2010. Despite the improvement, the agency said Greece's debt burden remains high, although its favorable debt structure and large cash reserves help mitigate risks. MOSCOW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. decision to temporarily ease sanctions on Russian oil is intended to help stabilize global energy markets, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday. Peskov said Washington's move aligned with Russia's interests and could help calm energy markets as concerns grow over a worsening global energy crisis. "Without significant volumes of Russian oil, stabilizing the market would be impossible," Peskov said. He said the U.S. exemption applies only to Russian oil that was loaded onto ships before Thursday and does not signal a broader rollback of oil-related sanctions on Russia. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license Thursday, allowing Russian oil shipments loaded before Thursday to be sold, delivered or offloaded through April 11, Eastern Time. Since the United States and Israel launched large-scale military operations against Iran on Feb. 28, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted, sending international oil prices sharply higher. In response, members of the International Energy Agency agreed to release a combined 400 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves. The US Senate has failed for the fourth time this year to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ensuring the partial government shutdown will stretch beyond its one-month mark. In a procedural vote held on Thursday, 12 March 2026, the measure fell short of the 60-vote supermajority required to advance, with a final tally of 5146. The ongoing impasse has left tens of thousands of federal employees without pay and created mounting logistical challenges at airports and border crossings nationwide. Despite multiple attempts, senators remain split over how to handle immigration enforcement reforms and funding priorities. Only one Democrat, Senator John Fetterman, crossed party lines to support the bill. The rest of the chamber was mostly aligned along party lines, underscoring deep fissures over immigration policy and border security. A Standoff Rooted In Immigration Enforcement The shutdown, which began on 14 February 2026, is driven by a deep partisan divide regarding the future of federal immigration agencies. Democrats are conditioning their support for funding on the implementation of significant new oversight and reform measures. These demands follow the fatal shootings of two US citizensRenee Good and Alex Prettiby federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year. Proponents of the reform package argue that the incidents demand immediate accountability, including mandatory body cameras and stricter use-of-force protocols. Republicans, however, have labelled these demands as politically motivated obstructionism, maintaining that the DHS should be fully funded without conditions to ensure national security remains intact amidst global instability. A Fight Over Borders And Budget The debate centres on the future of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Democrats want reforms following recent controversial incidents involving federal agents. Republicans insist on maintaining strong border enforcement, opposing what they see as politically motivated restrictions. Democratic senators pushed for smaller, targeted bills to keep specific agencies operational, such as TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard, hoping to prevent a total shutdown. But Republicans blocked those measures, aiming instead for a comprehensive DHS funding package. They accused Democrats of stalling and playing politics with security. The White House remains involved but at a standstill. Negotiations between top Democrats and the administration have not yielded a breakthrough. The White House's latest offer, which includes increased oversight and additional funding for body cameras, has yet to persuade Democrats to accept or even discuss it seriously. 'Americans Face The Consequences' Behind the political theatre, ordinary Americans face the consequences. Airports see longer lines, TSA agents are missing paychecks for the first time, and staff shortages are growing. Some TSA workers have resigned, unable to wait for promised back pay. The frustration is palpable. Travellers feel the pinch while government workers worry about their finances. Stories of stranded families and airport chaos fill social media feeds. A mother recounts her anxiety, waiting hours with her children at a crowded security line. A TSA officer says she feels forgotten, unsure whether she'll get her paycheck next month. These personal accounts highlight how political stalemates ripple into everyday life. Partisan Political Blame Game The Senate's failure is fuelling accusations and finger-pointing. Democrats argue Republicans refuse to budge on immigration enforcement reforms, even as the shutdown impacts national security. They say Republicans are risking public safety for political leverage. Republicans counter that Democrats are ignoring legitimate security concerns and obstructing common-sense measures. Senator Susan Collins of Maine criticised Democrats' approach, calling it 'lacking urgency and seriousness.' She urged her colleagues to consider the White House's 'good faith' proposal, which she claims addresses key issues. Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma echoed this, listing proposals like mandatory body cameras for agents, better identification badges, and de-escalation training as common-sense reforms. He stressed that these measures are on the table but remain unaddressed. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders insist they are open to negotiations. Senator Patty Murray of Washington said ongoing talks are happening at senior levels, but Democrats refuse to sign off on proposals they believe are insufficient or lack transparency. She voiced concern over the White House's reluctance to publicly share details of its offers. A Question Of Will The deadlock underscores the broader political struggle over immigration, border security, and government funding. Both sides accuse each other of playing politics with national security. The shutdown's duration has grown painful for many, exposing fault lines that seem unbridgeable. As the deadline approaches, the risk of a prolonged closure looms. The department's doors remain shut. Thousands of federal workers face uncertainty. The nation waits, hoping for a breakthrough that seems increasingly elusive. The coming days will test whether Congress can find common ground or whether the partial shutdown will stretch beyond its current one-month mark. The stakes are high, and time is running out. Originally published on IBTimes UK WASHINGTON The U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran entered its 14th day Saturday with a significant escalation as American forces struck Iran's largest oil export hub, global energy markets surged toward crisis levels, and Iran's newly installed supreme leader issued his first public statement vowing to continue attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets. Trump Orders Kharg Island Strike President Trump confirmed that U.S. forces had struck military installations on Kharg Island, the Persian Gulf terminal through which roughly 90% of Iran's crude oil exports pass. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he chose to spare the island's oil infrastructure out of what he described as "decency," but warned he would "immediately reconsider" that decision if Iran or any other party continued to interfere with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The island had been notably untouched in the first two weeks of the conflict despite its strategic importance, with analysts having cautioned that striking it could trigger severe economic repercussions globally. Oil Markets Surge, Russian Sanctions Eased International Brent crude climbed to nearly $104 per barrel, while U.S. crude surged more than 47% since the start of the conflict pushing year-to-date gains above 70%. Prices reached their highest point since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The White House called energy market stabilization a "top priority," with Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledging elevated prices would persist in the near term. In a bid to ease the supply crunch, the Trump administration temporarily lifted oil sanctions on Russia a decision that drew immediate criticism from Ukraine and European allies. The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of global oil supplies and one-third of global fertilizers are transported, remained a flashpoint. Iran is reportedly considering allowing a limited number of tankers through the strait, but only if cargo is settled in Chinese yuan rather than U.S. dollars, according to a senior Iranian official cited by CNN. At least 16 vessels have been attacked in the waterway and surrounding Gulf waters since the conflict began, per the United Kingdom's maritime agency. Iran's New Supreme Leader Speaks Mojtaba Khamenei, who was appointed supreme leader following the death of his father Ali Khamenei in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes on February 28, delivered his first public statement Saturday. He warned that Iran's attacks on Israel and U.S. military assets in the region would continue unless all American military bases in the Middle East are shut down. He did not appear publicly in the address. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he believes the new supreme leader sustained injuries in earlier strikes, describing him as "wounded and likely disfigured." The State Department separately announced a $10 million reward for information on senior Iranian government officials, including Khamenei, with tipsters potentially eligible for resettlement assistance. Casualties and Military Losses The human toll of the conflict continued to mount. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations put the death toll inside Iran at a minimum of 1,300, while the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported at least 1,858 deaths. In Lebanon, Israeli strikes have killed at least 773 people since the campaign began, including more than 100 children. All six crew members of a U.S. Air Force aerial refueling aircraft were killed when the plane crashed in western Iraq. The military confirmed the incident was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. Separately, a French soldier was killed by an Iranian drone strike in Iraq's Kurdistan region marking the first French combat fatality of the war. Troop Buildup and Congressional Pressure Approximately 5,000 additional U.S. Marines and sailors are being deployed to the Middle East as the Pentagon scales up its regional presence. On the domestic front, more than 250 American organizations signed a letter urging Congress to cut off war funding, citing the estimated $11.3 billion spent in just the first six days of conflict. A Senate committee chairman announced plans for a public oversight hearing with senior Defense Department officials. When asked by reporters how long the war would last, Trump said he would know when it was over "when I feel it in my bones." In the mountainous region of northern Chihuahua, several clandestine graves have been discovered in recent months in the municipality of Casas Grandes, where authorities have reported a large number of victims. One of the locations where authorities have recovered the most bodies is an ejido known as "El Willy," where reports from the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office indicates that a total of 91 bodies have been found through investigations and forensic work since early 2025. Reports say the investigation at "El Willy" began after the arrest of a member of a criminal group, which led authorities to uncover multiple clandestine graves in the area. For several years, the region has faced the presence of the armed group La Linea, an armed wing of the Juarez cartel. As reported by Infobae Mexico, Adalberto Oros Salido, the district prosecutor for northern Chihuahua, said authorities determined that two of the bodies recovered at the property belonged to suspected members of organized crime who died during a previous confrontation with members of Mexico's Defense Ministry. Oros Salido also said that, so far, 62 of the bodies have been fully identified through genetic testing conducted by forensic specialists. Investigators working at the property have also collected additional evidence connected to the case. During their work at the site, authorities recovered at least 70 spent shell casings of different calibers, suggesting the location may have been the scene of violent acts linked to criminal activity. According to Mexico's National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons, more than 121,000 people have been reported missing across the country as of early 2025. Over the past five years, the state of Chihuahua has recorded a total of 2,557 disappearances that remain under investigation, according to data from the State Attorney General's Office. For years, the state of Chihuahua has been hit by violence linked to organized crime due to its location as a corridor for drug trafficking and migrant smuggling toward the United States. One of the groups with the strongest presence in Chihuahua is La Linea, which was born as an armed wing for the Juarez cartel indented to help the drug trafficking organization defend its border territories in and around Chihuahua. Since then, La Linea has evolved into a drug and human trafficking group. Federal agencies have said that La Linea also taxes other Mexican criminal groups to move their merchandise through the Juarez Valley and generates revenue by selling synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. According to Insight Crime, La Linea also has a significant presence along the border with El Paso, where it controls the local drug market in the city center. Authorities believe the group is responsible for the uptick of drug smuggling in the area in recent years. Originally published on Latin Times A U.S. district court judge in Minnesota said there is "compelling and troubling" evidence that federal immigration agents conducted race-based stops during a large enforcement operation in the state, adding weight to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the crackdown. In a 111-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud wrote that plaintiffs had shown federal agents adopted a policy allowing officers to stop individuals based on "ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion that the individuals were violating immigration laws." The case stems from Operation Metro Surge, a federal immigration sweep that brought roughly 3,000 agents to Minnesota between December and February in what the Department of Homeland Security described as its largest enforcement operation. The operation drew national attention amid broader controversy over federal enforcement tactics in Minnesota, including the fatal shootings of two residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, during confrontations with federal agents. Despite findings, Tostrud declined to issue a preliminary injunction halting the alleged practices, noting that the operation is winding down and the plaintiffs were unlikely to face immediate harm again, as Minnesota Reformer explains. The lawsuit will proceed, and the judge indicated the claims could ultimately succeed. The lawsuit was filed in January by the ACLU on behalf of several residents who said they were detained despite being U.S. citizens or legal residents. The lead plaintiff, Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, testified that agents tackled him and placed him in a chokehold in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood before detaining him for about two hours, even after he repeatedly said he could show proof of citizenship. Two other plaintiffs described similar encounters. Mahamed Eydarus, a Somali American citizen, said armed agents demanded he prove he was "not illegal" while he shoveled snow outside his home. Jonathan Aguilar Garcia, a Latino citizen, said agents tackled him at a Target store after asking about his citizenship. Tostrud wrote that Aguilar Garcia was stopped "based solely on his race or ethnicity." The judge cited testimony from dozens of witnesses describing stops without warrants or probable cause. Government attorneys argued the incidents represented a small fraction of the thousands of arrests made during the operation, but Tostrud said plaintiffs presented a "significant volume of testimony." The case is part of broader litigation over the crackdown. In February, the ACLU expanded its lawsuit with sworn declarations from more than 80 witnesses describing detentions, surveillance and the use of force against bystanders and observers documenting the operation. "This is an important vindication of the rights of Minnesota residents who have been racially profiled," said ACLU attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson of the judge's comments, though she said the group was disappointed the court declined to immediately block the practices. Originally published on Latin Times WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed after two weeks of conflict with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing a U.S. official. Ten others have been seriously wounded and about 200 injured, the report said, adding that roughly 170 of the injured have returned to duty. Among the fatalities, six were killed in a strike on Kuwait. Another service member, who was wounded in an attack at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 1, died from his injuries seven days later, the Pentagon said. Another six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq on Thursday were confirmed dead, the U.S. Central Command said Friday. The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace on Thursday during Operation Epic Fury, the command said on X. Iran's United Nations (UN) ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Wednesday that more than 1,348 civilians have been killed and over 17,000 injured since the start of the attacks carried out by Israel and the United States against his country. WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. military carried out bombing raids against military targets on Iran's Kharg Island, a key oil export hub that handles most of the country's crude shipments. Via his Truth Social account, Trump also said he had decided not to strike the island's oil infrastructure, although he would change his mind "should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz." Citing experts, CNN reported that any attempt to capture Kharg Island would require a substantial number of ground troops, something the Trump administration has so far been reluctant to commit. Kharg Island lies in the Persian Gulf about 25 km off Iran's coast and accounts for about 90 percent of the country's crude exports. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said Friday that more than 50,000 U.S. service members are supporting military operations against Iran. U.S. Central Command said Thursday that about 6,000 targets had been struck and that more than 60 ships and 30 minelayers had been damaged or destroyed, according to a post on X from the U.S. Department of War. The Pentagon is reportedly deploying the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and about 2,500 Marines to the Middle East. The forces are expected to take one to two weeks to join other U.S. military assets already in the region. Axios reported that the deployment would also include several warships and F-35 fighter jets to reinforce forces already in the area. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. State Poet Laureate to Present Musical History in Stockbridge STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. State Poet Laureate Regie Gibson, accompanied by a group of musicians, will present a historical program titled "Massachusetts: A Song of Itself" on Saturday, April 18. The performance is scheduled for 3 p.m. at the Stockbridge First Congregational Church, located at 4 Main Street. Produced by the West Stockbridge Historical Society, the program uses storytelling, poetry, and song to examine the founding of the Commonwealth. According to the organizers, the performance focuses on the perspectives of marginalized and "forgotten" individuals who influenced the region's early development. The narrative arc begins with the interactions between English settlers and Indigenous peoples, moving through the introduction of slavery and the formation of the Commonwealth, concluding with the American Revolution. General admission for the event is $20. Card for Culture discounts are available, and tickets may be purchased at the door with cash only. Advance tickets are also available through the West Stockbridge Historical Society. Governor Opens Applications for Loan Repayments Dedicated to Early Childhood Educators BOSTON The Healey-Driscoll Administration today announced the opening of applications for the Early Childhood Educator (ECE) Loan Repayment Program, the first state loan repayment program created exclusively for early education and care professionals. The program was developed through a partnership between the Departments of Higher Education (DHE) and Early Education and Care (EEC). The $15 million ECE Loan Repayment Program is designed to support workforce retention by reducing the financial burden of student loan debt for eligible educators across a variety of settings. This includes those working in Family Child Care (FCC), center-based programs, after school and out-of-school time (ASOST) programs, residential placement programs and contracted FCC systems who work directly with children, families, or other educators. The program will provide up to $7,500 per recipient per year, subject to appropriation. "If we want a strong early education system, we need to support the educators who make it possible," said Governor Maura Healey. "Early educators support children's development, help parents to participate in the workforce, and strengthening our local economies. By helping relieve the burden of student loan debt, we're making it easier for talented educators to stay in the field and continue supporting children and families across Massachusetts." To be eligible, applicants must have completed a bachelor's degree in a qualifying program of study at an eligible public or private institution of higher education in Massachusetts after July 1, 2013, and must be working in an EEC-licensed or funded early education and care program. Priority will be given to educators who have served five years or more in the field, as well as those who work in communities that predominantly serve children and families with high needs or in regions facing shortages of early education and care seats. While early educators have previously been eligible for general loan repayment opportunities throughout Massachusetts, this marks the first time the state has established a loan repayment program solely dedicated to early education and care professionals. the administration administers an master's degree. As President Trump continues to try and make higher education more expensive, Massachusetts is making it more affordable for educators to stay in the workforce. Recently, Governor Healey In addition to loan forgiveness, Governor Healey's Early Education and Child Care Task Force has been focusing on expanding career pathways through higher education opportunities andthe administration administers an Early Childhood Educators scholarship that helps students pay for an associates, bachelor's or?master's degree. As President Trump continues to try and make higher education more expensive, Massachusetts is making it more affordable for educators to stay in the workforce. Recently, Governor Healey called on the Trump Administration to reverse plans that would sharply limit access to low-cost federal student loans for graduate degrees in high-need, high-value fields, including education. additional $7.5 million through the The ECE Loan Repayment Program was developed collaboratively by DHE and EEC to ensure alignment with workforce needs and state priorities. The program received $7.5 million in the state's fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget and anadditional $7.5 million through the FY25 Fair Share supplemental budget , bringing total available funding to approximately $15 million. A portion of funding is for program development and implementation. Most Americans drastically underestimate how much they need to retire and overestimate how prepared they are. But data shows that people with one habit have more than double the savings of those who dont. Antero Midstream owns and operates an extensive network of gathering pipelines, compression stations, processing plants, and water-handling infrastructure in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays of West Virginia and Ohio. It moves roughly 3 billion cubic feet equivalent per day of natural gas and natural gas liquids for its primary customer, Antero Resources ( NYSE:AR ). Most energy stocks have ridden the 2026 rally higher amid these shocks. Yet some companies stand to benefit whether the conflict drags on for months or resolves quickly. Antero Midstream ( NYSE:AM ) is one of them. It has delivered eye-popping total returns of 271% over the last three years, and while Antero can still deliver gains, has all the easy money already been made? The war in Iran has thrust the energy sector into extreme volatility once again. Oil prices have surged to around $100 per barrel, while average U.S. gasoline prices at the pump have soared to $3.67 a gallon -- up 25% in just one month. Escalating tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for roughly 20% of global oil and LNG shipments, have disrupted operations and sent international natural gas prices spiking. A recent study identified one single habit that doubled Americans retirement savings and moved retirement from dream, to reality. Read more here . The Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruptions are creating strong tailwinds for U.S. LNG exports and domestic natural gas demand, lifting economics for Antero Resources and translating into higher gathering and processing fees for the midstream operator despite broader recession risks from elevated gasoline prices. Antero Midstream ( AM ) delivered 271% total returns over three years and completed a transformative $1.1B acquisition of Marcellus midstream assets that will boost 2026 adjusted EBITDA by roughly 8% and free cash flow after dividends by 11%, while the company currently yields 3.9% backed by take-or-pay contracts with upstream affiliate Antero Resources ( AR ). Antero Midstreams fixed-fee, take-or-pay business model shields it from commodity price volatility and allows it to benefit from geopolitical energy shocks through higher natural gas and NGL demand without bearing Middle East risks. Story Continues Antero Midstream is tied at the hip to Antero Resources -- substantially all of its revenue comes from long-term, fixed-fee contracts with its upstream affiliate. Those contracts are largely take-or-pay, meaning the midstream operator gets paid regardless of commodity price swings. That structure delivers rock-solid revenue visibility and shields the company from the wild price volatility now roiling global markets. In December, Antero Midstream announced a transformative $1.1 billion acquisition of Marcellus-focused midstream assets from HG Midstream. The deal closed in early 2026 and was partly funded by selling non-core Utica assets. The result is a sharper focus on the prolific Marcellus basin, higher throughput capacity, and meaningful cost synergies. Managements 2026 guidance reflects the boost -- adjusted EBITDA rising roughly 8% and free cash flow after dividends up 11%. With low leverage and strong coverage ratios, Antero Midstream enters this uncertain period in excellent financial shape. The Iran Wars Indirect Lift for a Domestic Pure Play Neither Antero company has operations in the Middle East. Iranian missiles, tanker attacks, and the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz cannot touch their Appalachian wells or pipelines. Yet the conflict is still a net tailwind. Global LNG buyers in Europe and Asia are scrambling for U.S. cargoes after Qatari production disruptions. That extra export pull supports higher domestic natural gas demand and modestly firmer prices. NGL prices (propane, butane) have also strengthened. For Antero Resources, stronger economics encourage more drilling and higher volumes. For Antero Midstream, that translates directly into more gathering and processing fees -- all under those ironclad contracts. In short, the pipeline operator benefits from the upward pressure on energy prices without bearing any of the geopolitical risk. Pump-Price Pain Creates Broader Economic Risks However, gasoline at $3.67 a gallon is pinching household budgets and threatening consumer spending. Economists warn that sustained high fuel costs could slow GDP growth and curb industrial energy demand. If a broader recession takes hold, natural gas consumption might soften. Here again, though, Antero Midstream's business model shines. Because its contracts are fixed-fee and take-or-pay, the company still collects its revenue even if its upstream partner's production volumes dip slightly or end-users cut back. The stability that once looked boring now looks like a fortress. Key Takeaways Yes, the easy money in Antero Midstream has largely been made. The stocks 271% three-year run and the post-acquisition re-rating have priced in much of the obvious upside. Prospects for continued share-price appreciation remain solid thanks to volume growth, integration benefits, and supportive LNG tailwinds from the Iran conflict. But the blistering pace of recent years is unlikely to repeat. That said, income investors should take notice. Antero Midstream currently yields about 3.9% and has a history of fairly reliable quarterly payouts backed by visible cash flows. In a world of geopolitical shocks and volatile energy prices, the stock offers something increasingly rare: defensive growth plus a healthy dividend. Whether you missed the 271% run or not, the stock still deserves a close look for portfolios seeking both income and resilience. Data Shows One Habit Doubles Americans Savings And Boosts Retirement Most Americans drastically underestimate how much they need to retire and overestimate how prepared they are. But data shows that people with one habit have more than double the savings of those who dont. And no, its got nothing to do with increasing your income, savings, clipping coupons, or even cutting back on your lifestyle. Its much more straightforward (and powerful) than any of that. Frankly, its shocking more people dont adopt the habit given how easy it is. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice North Korea fired a salvo of at least 10 ballistic missiles on Saturday, in what may be Pyongyangs largest single display of strength of its kind. The show of force came at a time when the United States and South Korea were conducting annual large-scale joint exercises involving thousands of troops, but analysts said it was also designed to send a message during Donald Trumps war with Iran. South Koreas military on Saturday said that it detected around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan district in Pyongyang towards the East Sea at around 1.20pm local time. They flew roughly a distance of 350km before landing in the sea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that the South Korean military was ready to "respond overwhelmingly to any provocation. Japans Coast Guard was monitoring multiple missiles that landed outside its exclusive economic zone, according to a statement from the Japanese defence ministry. It added that the missiles flew at an altitude of 80km and covered a range of 340km before splashing down in the waters. open image in gallery This picture taken on March 10, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on March 11, 2026 shows a strategic cruise missile test launch conducted on the destroyer Choe Hyon at an undisclosed location in North Korea ( KCNA/KNS/AFP/Getty ) Japanese defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi said there were no reports of damage to planes or ships. The prime minister has instructed us to make every effort to gather and analyse information and to provide the public with timely and accurate information, he said. It is over three years since North Korea undertook a comparable mass launch of missiles, with a November 2022 test involving 23 weapons in a single day. That incident involved seven short-range ballistic missiles alongside 16 other projectiles, among them six surface-to-air missiles. Analysts viewed the test in the context of a Middle East conflict where Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the other have exchanged waves of damaging ballistic missile and drone strikes. North Korea, they said, wants to show it has the capabilities to overwhelm missile defences and survive preemptive strikes. Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Kim Jong Un is likely drawing lessons from the US and Israels joint operation on Iran. open image in gallery U.S. and South Korean forces participate in river-crossing exercise as part of annual Freedom Shield military drills, in Yeoncheon ( REUTERS ) He said North Korea has been focusing resources on its navy lately, with possible support from Russia. But with America demonstrating its ability to sink most of the Iranian navy within a matter of a single week, the Kim regime is trying to show that it could inflict unacceptable harm if its naval forces come under attack with this latest test. Pyongyang will also have noted that the US has relocated some of its air defence assets from South Korea to the Middle East during the Iran conflict, and may see this as a moment that leaves Seoul vulnerable to pressure, Easley said. North Korea is unlikely to take military action when it observes US redeployment of missile defence assets from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East. Instead, Pyongyang will aim propaganda at aggravating divisions in Seoul over the strategic flexibility of US forces and the legality of Trumps military action against Iran, he said. The launches coincide with annual US-South Korea military drills from 9-19 March that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion. Washington and Seoul, meanwhile, say such exercises are only necessary because of Pyongyangs aggressive expansion of its military and nuclear capabilities. The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise is one of two annual command post exercises conducted by the two militaries. The largely computer-simulated drills are designed to test the allies' joint operational capabilities, while incorporating evolving war scenarios and security challenges. Freedom Shield will be accompanied by a field training program called Warrior Shield. Yonhap News earlier reported comments by South Korean prime minister Kim Min Seok who said that Donald Trump remains hopeful of a meeting with Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to China. The prime minister told Mr Trump that South Korean president Lee Jae Myung views the US leader as the only person capable of resolving tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the report said. Without directly referring to the Iran war, Mr Kim's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said the US-South Korea drills undermine regional stability at a time when the global security structure is collapsing rapidly and wars break out in different parts of the world due to the reckless acts of outrageous international rogues. North Koreas foreign ministry has released separate statements denouncing the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran and expressing support for Tehrans new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. On this International Womens Day, I want you to hold two facts in your mind at the same time. Fact one: the Taliban has banned women and girls in Afghanistan from education for almost five years. It is the only government on Earth to have legislated an entire gender out of the right to learn. Fact two: this week, the British home secretary did the same thing. Not in the same way. Not with the same brutality. But with the same result. The Home Offices emergency ban on study visas for Afghanistan means that a woman who wins a place at a British university cannot come. The Taliban closes the door with a gun. Mahmood closes it with a policy. Bahar, 18 years old, with a scholarship in hand and offers from York and Reading, cannot tell the difference. I am an Afghan woman. I served as special adviser to the UK minister for Afghan resettlement when Kabul fell. I was inside the machinery of the British governments response to that catastrophe, the chaos, the guilt, the pledges made in those first desperate weeks. I know how seriously those commitments were meant. I have watched the UK make promise after promise to Afghan women. Last week, those promises were quietly discarded. Let me tell you who Bahar is, because she deserves to be more than a statistic in a Home Office briefing. For four years, while the Taliban dismantled every formal route to education available to her, she kept learning anyway. English classes online. In secret. She applied to British universities. She won a scholarship. She received two offers. And then, because none of that was hard enough, she had to sit down with her father and brothers and convince them, argument by argument, that she should be permitted to travel to another country alone. She had to resist a forced marriage. She chose her education over the path her family had chosen for her, at considerable personal cost. She did all of this. Every last obstacle. And our home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, looked at that and said: not good enough. open image in gallery Afghanistan is the only country in the world where a girls gender is, by law, a bar to education ( AFP/Getty ) Bahar is my cousin. She is also one of hundreds of young women supporting the Friends of Afghan Women Network, an organisation that works with female-led civil society groups operating inside Afghanistan right now. I know what their lives look like. I know what it costs them, in safety, in family relationships, in fear every day to pursue education under Taliban rule. And I know what it means to them that a country which stood in front of cameras in 2021 and promised to stand with the women of Afghanistan has now quietly broken that promise in a press release. The home secretarys justification is that Afghan students are abusing the visa system arriving on study visas and claiming asylum. Let us be precise about this claim, because it does not survive scrutiny. If an Afghan woman comes to Britain to study and subsequently claims asylum, ask yourself why. She comes from the only country in the world where her gender is, by law, a bar to education, to employment, to appearing in public without a male guardian. Of course, she claims asylum. That is not an abuse of the system. That is the system functioning exactly as it was designed, to protect people with a well-founded fear of persecution. Mahmood is punishing Afghan women for telling the truth about their lives. open image in gallery Shabana Mahmood is effectively punishing Afghan women for telling the truth about their lives ( PA ) Now look at the data that the home secretary chose not to mention in her announcement. Pakistan accounts for the largest share of people who enter Britain on legal visas and subsequently claim asylum; approximately 10,000 people last year alone. Pakistani nationals top the table for all asylum claims. And yet, despite more than 70 per cent of those claims being rejected, just 4 per cent were actually returned. Afghanistan is not the problem Mahmood says it is. Pakistan is. But Pakistan has a government, an army, and diplomatic leverage. Afghanistan has women like Bahar. So, Afghanistan gets the ban. This is not a migration policy. This is performance. It is the targeting of the most defenceless nationality in the system because they cannot push back. I want to speak to the home secretary directly, because I think she deserves that. You are a Muslim woman. You are a woman of South Asian heritage who has spoken about what it means to break barriers, to be in rooms where people like you were not expected. I do not believe you are indifferent to Bahar. I believe you have made a political calculation that the votes you might lose to Reform UK matter more, right now, than the visa you are denying a girl who resisted a forced marriage to keep studying. I am asking you to reconsider that calculation. Not because it is politically convenient, but because it is wrong. And I think, privately, you know it is wrong. I have been here before. In August 2021, the government decided that Chevening scholars in Afghanistan young people who had won Britains most prestigious government scholarship would have their offers deferred by a year. I was not willing to accept that. I built a campaign, contacted MPs, mobilised organisations and public figures. Within days, prime minister Boris Johnson intervened personally, committing to do whatever we can to prioritise those scholars visas. We moved a prime minister. In days. Because the argument was unanswerable. open image in gallery An educated Afghan woman is a threat to everything the Taliban stand for ( AFP/Getty ) This argument is unanswerable, too. The Taliban built 22,000 madrassas after taking power, schools that teach only the Quran, because an educated Afghan woman is a threat to everything they stand for. Britain watched that happen and said it was an outrage. Britain sent aid. Britain made speeches. Britain promised. And now Britain has decided that the girl who fought the Talibans agenda, who learned English in secret, who turned down a forced marriage, who won her place, is an asylum risk. Her name is Bahar. She is 18 years old. She did everything we asked of her. Shabnam Nasimi is the co-founder and director of the Friends of Afghan Women Network (FAWN) Amanda Knox smiles as she greets me. Dressed in a multi-coloured cardigan, face bare of make-up, she seems relaxed and at ease as we speak. Knox has agreed to talk to me on a Zoom call ahead of the release of her new podcast, which examines Lucy Letbys conviction in August 2023 for the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of six others when working as a neonatal nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital. She was subsequently convicted of another attempted murder and sentenced to 15 whole-life terms. The case has dominated headlines ever since, the subject of heated debate between those who are convinced of Letbys guilt and those who question it. The 36-year-olds 10-month trial was one of the longest murder trials in UK history. Two applications for permission to appeal have been refused, and the case is now with the Criminal Cases Review Commission. But last year, an international panel of 14 medical experts who had examined medical records and witness testimony on a pro bono basis found no evidence of deliberate harm. They concluded that all of the incidents could be explained by natural causes. This is despite those who have heard the full evidence over a number of months jurors, judges and families consistently maintaining that Letby is guilty, and describing outside claims as purely speculation. Knox, who was infamously convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia before Italys highest court threw out the verdict, is now adding her own thoughts to the debate, in her new podcast investigating the nurse, Doubt: The Case of Lucy Letby. I was not looking for Lucy Letby, Amanda Knox tells me. Lucy Letby found me. Knox has a uniquely painful experience of how narrative can shape everything from how police investigate to public perception, and says that today she does a lot of work in the criminal justice space. But Im more interested typically in the institutional and legal aspects, she says. Im not just consuming true crime news. Soon after Letbys conviction, people began to reach out. Initially, Knox says statisticians contacted her with concerns about how evidence presented at trial was, they claimed, flagrantly misused. But others claimed they had also noticed patterns and similarities to Knoxs experience. In 2007, Knox was a 20-year-old American studying in Italy when her flatmate, Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, was sexually assaulted and murdered. When Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the 23-year-old man she had been seeing for just six days, found Kerchers body, it was the start of an eight-year ordeal. The pair were convicted of murder in 2009, released on appeal, then convicted again before a final appeal. A third defendant, Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the scene, opted for a fast-track trial and was found guilty in 2008 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher. Knox and Sollecito, however, had been identified as suspects by police and prosecutors intent on proving they were complicit. Finally, in 2015, Italys highest court definitively quashed their convictions. Judges said no biological traces had been found of either individual at the murder scene, key forensic evidence presented by the prosecution had been potentially contaminated, while police and prosecutors were accused of displaying stunning weakness and investigative bouts of amnesia. And yet the story around Knox lingered, a highly charged media and public fascination sparked into life in the days after Kerchers murder when headlines painted Foxy Knoxy as a sexually deviant killer. open image in gallery Knox breaks down after her conviction for murder was overturned in Perugia, Italy, in 2011 ( Getty ) The narrative around criminal cases involving women is Knoxs entry point into Letbys story. There was little to nothing the public knew up until (Letbys) conviction, says Knox. But as soon as that conviction took place, it was like the dam broke and this tidal wave of a fully formed narrative about her took hold. Knox then claimed that for some, shes a psychopathic serial killer who somehow perfectly represents this archetype of the hidden female psychopath who has no history of violence, no history of any mental illness, no motive whatsoever, and no one saw her do anything. And yet one day she just snaps or decides to put this calculated plan into play. Knox, 38, has lived with the consequences of this type of speculative narrative for years, and continues to do so. After returning to the US in 2011 after her first successful appeal, she was at the centre of intense press interest. Despite trying to keep her 2020 wedding to author and filmmaker Christopher Robinson utterly locked down and secret, for instance, paparazzi turned up. Knox is articulate about the impact of wrongful conviction and the ongoing effects that do not end when the legal process does. She has spoken in the past about feeling completely ostracised on her return home to Seattle after her first acquittal in 2011. She was convicted for a second time in absentia in January 2014 and her life continued to be subsumed by the legal process from afar. Prison was almost easier, she says. It was obvious why I was sad and frustrated. Im in prison for a crime I didnt commit. My fantasies always involved getting the life back that had been stolen from me. And the cruel reality that I faced upon coming home was that it didnt exist for me any more. I did not get to go back to being that anonymous college student. I am a public figure. I am branded with the crimes of someone else. It was incredibly debilitating, and I entered into a state of deep existential crisis trying to figure out who I was. open image in gallery The prosecution in the Lucy Letby case made much of notes she made while in prison, apparently confessing. However, their context has been hotly disputed ( Netflix ) Slowly, however, Knox carved a path through the wreckage and in the years since has built a career as a journalist, author, podcaster, campaigner and executive producer working to highlight the issues raised not just by her own story but those of other victims of miscarriages of justice. Its not lost on me that of the two of us, me and Meredith, I am the lucky one because I am alive, she says. Im trying to take a very, very bad experience that I had and make some good out of it. Ive learned a lot about how justice systems work, how media systems work, how human minds work, especially around emotionally and morally charged stories. Instead of just keeping that knowledge to myself, Im applying it and sharing it where I can. Across 10 episodes, Knox takes listeners through the deeply complex Letby case, but she admits there are aspects that resonated particularly with her. She highlights the diary entries that were key to the prosecutions argument and became one of the most contested aspects of the trial. Letbys entry I AM EVIL I DID THIS made international headlines. But it was subsequently revealed by The Guardian that the nurse had also written Why me? and I haven't done anything wrong after being encouraged to write her thoughts by a therapist as a way of coping with extreme stress after discovering that some of her colleagues suspected her. Something that I found personally troubling was just how Lucy Letbys personality was dissected through these personal, ambiguous diary writings, says Knox. You are going through an incredibly surreal, overwhelming experience, accused of a crime that you did not commit, and you are trying to make sense of. When I was in prison, I was trying to think, Why is this happening to me? And I was coming to crazy conclusions. Maybe were all supposed to suffer a certain amount in our life, and mine is all just happening all at once. Or maybe fate forgot about me, and I was supposed to have a terrible childhood, but I had a great childhood, so now Im having a horrible adulthood. The accusation and situation are so overwhelming that you find yourself trying to make sense of it. And I think its also a stereotypically woman thing to find fault in oneself to try to take the blame because we are socially sort of encouraged to do that. open image in gallery Footage of Lucy Letbys arrest was featured in a recent Netflix documentary ( Cheshire Constabulary ) So, having examined Letbys case and spoken to so many people who are questioning the evidence, does Knox believe she is innocent? I cannot personally say anything definitive about this case the way that I can definitively say things about my own case, she says. I think there is a lot of ambiguity here. There are reasonable alternative explanations for what took place. I absolutely believe the conviction is unsafe. My concern here is the insistence that the only respectful way of approaching this story is through silence at the expense of truth and justice. This is a particularly potent aspect of both Knox and Letbys stories because human tragedy lies at the heart of both cases the deaths of children whose parents grief has been made unimaginably more complex by combative legal processes. A solicitor for six of the victims families said speculation about Letbys innocence has been upsetting and harmful for relatives still grieving. Knox is keenly aware of the need to respect and value victims. But she also questions our collective tendency to see things in black and white, good and evil, and highlights the need to balance the emotional stakes these cases raise with a dispassionate appraisal of the evidence, police investigation and legal process. One of the biggest criticisms that I get to this day is basically How dare you talk about your own case when theres a grieving family? says Knox. You are a secondary victim at best. Youre probably guilty anyway, so just shut up and disappear. And I believe that is completely unfair and unjust. I think you can have compassion for the victims of the original crime and you can scrutinise the way that crime was talked about in the media and the way it was presented at trial. Knox references the institutional issues that her case and possibly Letbys raise. In her case, police procedures, incompetence, and bias, in Letbys possible NHS pressures, staffing shortages and infrastructure challenges. Thats a way more difficult problem to address than just we have a bad apple, she says. Theres this push to find fault in individuals because that also leads to easy solutions. Whats clear is that even if an individual is exonerated, the echoes of their experience are ever-present. There is no neat ending. A bomb went off in my life, says Knox. Ive just been picking up all the pieces and trying to build a monument to that tragedy that does it justice from all those pieces. She has clearly found purpose in her professional life and meticulously worked through many phases of her personal recovery. But Knox meets many fellow exonerees and says they share the sense that they will have to spend the rest of our lives proving our innocence. She says she has learned to live with the suspicion that persists. I have a lot of compassion for people who to this day still believe wrong things about me, because they were lied to, she said. People just refuse to look at it because its too painful, the idea of having your entire belief system rewritten. Knoxs world today remains inextricably bound up with her past and the retelling of her story, and she says her husband has been trying to encourage her to work on something just for joy. Its hard, says Knox. When youve lived through a catastrophe, it almost feels like unless youre picking up a piece of that catastrophe, youre being frivolous. open image in gallery Since being freed from prison, Amanda Knox has helped campaigns highlighting other potential miscarriages of justice ( Invision/AP ) To give herself permission to feel joy, she has started doing stand-up comedy in a bid to push herself into more playful territory. Knoxs face also illuminates as she speaks about becoming a mother to daughter Eureka, four, and son Echo, who was born in 2023. Im very much like all mums. But at the same time, Im aware that the only thing that really exists is whats happening right now, she says. So if imagining worst-case scenarios is going to take me away from just being with them right now, Im not going to. She does, however, admit that it will probably get harder as her children get older and closer to the age she was when her life so dramatically shifted. Knoxs story or at least the one confected around her was known worldwide, but she says she had little sense of its massive impact until she got home to the US. But she smiles as she remembers going to the local record store she used to visit as a teenager, soon after getting home, and seeing Welcome home, Amanda written on the notice board outside. That was really big, she says. And it was really comforting in a way. It gave me hope. People are concerned about the truth and getting it right, and doing the right thing. That has always been a comfort to me, and I hope thats a comfort to Lucy. Doubt: The Case of Lucy Letby, hosted by Amanda Knox, is a production of iHeartPodcasts, Knox Robinson Productions and Vespucci. It is available now on streaming platforms Last night in the middle of dinner, a guests phone went off. His Dubai-based friend had finally managed to find the last flight to London from Oman for him and his wife after several days of desperation (this included trying to hire a private jet, but all were sold out). I listened carefully: the European former non-dom on the other end of the line who ran a large private equity firm in Dubai, sounded very shaken. This is a man (I vaguely know him) whose life centres around ease and luxury. He has never experienced anything remotely scary. But now he, like everyone else in Dubai, could see the smoke rising from Burj Khalifa, the 2,723ft (830m) skyscraper. My guest kept mouthing I am sorry as he continued to speak to his friend, who said he had no imminent plans to return to Dubai, especially after waiting three terrifying days to board a flight. The phrase HMRC did come up in conversation, because what happens when the non-res move back for more than their allotted 30 days is a big worry. But the pictures of families embracing at Heathrow told us everything we needed to know about what happens when deadly drones attack your city; its your family, not a five-star resort, you seek. A tax break suddenly becomes worthless when you compare it to the cost of being trapped in a war zone. I did not push the button, a relieved British friend told me a few days ago. Having just sold his company for many millions, he had purchased two properties in low-tax countries including Dubai in anticipation of a move. Now its off the table, he says. Suddenly the prospect of living in a listed manor house in Hampshire with his family nearby rather than a cookie-cutter luxury development highrise where a drone attack is not only likely, but probable, seems a wise, if not expensive idea. Its early days, but pundits are already saying that property values will soon plummet in the UAE and insurance rates will skyrocket as they do in any unstable region (Dubai was considered the opposite just a few months ago). Analysts at Citi said they believe the escalation in the Middle East conflict could have a profound and potentially long-lasting impact on the MENA region. Wealthy influencers are now scrambling to get out of the UAE, while posting about how safe it is, allegedly being spooked by UAE laws which carry fines or imprisonment and deportation for damaging the countrys reputation. Suddenly, the all-that-glitters dream looks severely tarnished. Most at risk now are developers and investors, but anyone who bought residential or commercial property in the gold rush will live to regret it, especially if we are to believe the forever war headlines. The prospect of easy access to an airport especially one as large as Dubais has always been the promise of the non-res rich: when its threatened, ones entire view of the world changes. When the US and Israel sent missiles into Iran in June, a psychoanalyst friend was on an emergency Zoom with one of his clients in Dubai. The abrupt closing of the airspace (journeys across the desert by car are treacherous, I am told) proved too mentally traumatic for her: she has since moved back to the UK, calculating the saving she made in tax for not being here is not worth it when it cost her peace of mind so dear. At Christmas, I received a Christmas card with a picture of a European couple, previously London-based, sitting on a camel in Dubai wearing Santa hats. I WhatsApped that friend yesterday asking where he was now and what he intends to do. He is a classic case of what I dub the new homeless; those who effectively live nowhere, albeit in luxury. Somehow, in his expensive accountancy, he has managed to become stateless, his only official residence being Dubai, which is starting to look no longer viable. He chose the most punitive non-res status in the UK, meaning he can only come for a bit over two weeks without triggering tax. He cant move back to the US either, where his children live, because he gave up that passport too. Normally flippant and smug about his tax savings, I could see the dot-dot-dots form and then stop on my phone. The consequences of his decisions were becoming clear, and he didnt want to answer. A subject I have returned to many times is that of Globos or Cosmocrats, a term coined by John Micklethwait, now editor-in-chief of Bloomberg. In his book, A Future Perfect, he describes a person who could easily be the Dubai friend I describe, a so-called master of the universe seamlessly moving from international hubs such as London, New York and Hong Kong, in Business Class clutching a Tumi briefcase with a British Airways gold card hanging from a faded leather strap. The one thing that is endemic to this class, wrote Micklethwait, is the emphasis on cosmopolitan consumerism. That is why the fish displays in Manhattan restaurants groan with Chilean sea bass and loupe de mer from the Mediterranean, hamachi from New Zealand and various other specimens that once used to be Jacques Cousteaus preserve, he wrote. I am assuming it reminds them of the home they have long abandoned. open image in gallery Dubai International airports closure prompted a flood of anxious social media posts from rich Brits unable to move from a city under fire ( AP ) You could say I belong to this internationalist class. So many of my British finance friends in London have also lived in New York, Hong Kong and Japan. Many married foreigners (including my husband, obviously) and are so worldly as to own beach huts in Goa or islands off of Phuket, their kids having attended elite American colleges and Business schools. Typical dinner conversations centre around which of their children theyve recently visited on what continent (my own son had his second wedding in Hong Kong, where his wife grew up). For years, we took this life for granted. I myself used to boast about how wonderful it was to visit New Haven a few times a year to visit my own son at Yale, but then came Covid. Suddenly all the glamour of globalism went out the window as families were rudely and tragically separated. I missed the death of my own father, having been unable to get to New York where he was hospitalised with Covid. I was sick with grief and helplessness, but also acutely aware that a lifestyle I had long enjoyed was officially over. I understood perhaps for the first time why my own refugee Russian mother moved her grandmother in with us, moving wherever my American diplomat father was reassigned. It was her way of staying connected to something long lost. My five-star general great-grandfather chose to stay in Russia when the Bolsheviks took over (he was shot by a firing squad) leaving her to travel on her own to the former Yugoslavia via Shanghai with three young children. My mothers immediate family lost everything except their lives. This deeply informed my own decision of 20 years to reject my husbands offers to move to Hong Kong with his bank. I simply refused to be on the other side of the ocean from my children (who were just starting boarding school). I worked hard to build connections here, the same connections now offering me much comfort as we discuss how scary the world looks (I speak as an American who is now wary of travelling back to my own country). open image in gallery A tax break suddenly becomes worthless when you compare it to the cost of being trapped in a war zone ( APA/AFP/Getty ) I know what it feels like to have an ocean between you and your family: my mother died of cancer at 67. Though I visited New York every month to see her, it made both of us desperately sad. I bitterly envied my husband having both his ageing parents less than two miles away. (Who will visit your grave if your kids live in another country? I think about those living between three countries, none of them home). Which is to say that my British architect friend who recently moved to a remote part of Sicily where pensioners are given some new low tax deal (if they buy property) now cuts a very sad figure. Having claimed it was paradise, he later admitted he never saw his children any more (he is divorced). He is in his early eighties; how soon before those kids will be twisting in agony that it takes a full day of travel (on Ryanair) to reach him? I would wager that a good 20 per cent of my London friends have left the UK for tax reasons. It might have looked like glamorous winters in St Moritz and summers in Nantucket two years ago, but even my American friends are now reluctant to travel to the US. When the world feels dangerous and uncertain, the trappings of privilege feel hollow. Luxury to me now is the fact our granddaughter is within walking distance, that both of our children live in the neighbourhood and pop in, that the journey to the country is in a car, not an aeroplane. Having grown up with stateless Russian grandparents, I especially understand how important it is to hold the passport of your own (preferably first-world) country. When the s*** hits the fan, the non-doms, non-res, tax refugees and exiles are everybodys least concern. The wealthy folks in Dubai are just finding this out. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Londons Metropolitan Police have issued a firm warning ahead of Sundays Al Quds Day demonstration, vowing to "act decisively" against "intifada" chants and any displays of hate speech. Scotland Yard is preparing for a "difficult public order" environment, with at least 1,000 officers deployed to manage an anticipated crowd of around 12,000 people, amid the ongoing conflict in Iran. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood granted the polices request for a month-long ban on the annual march, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). This marks the first such protest restriction since 2012, though a "static protest" remains legally permissible. In its latest statement, the Met affirmed: "Officers on the ground will act decisively and be briefed on placards, flags and chanting that will cross the line into hate crime or support of a proscribed organisation." open image in gallery Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has banned the Al Quds Day march, but a static protest is allowed (James Manning/PA) ( PA Wire ) The force added: "We will also take action where we see chants calling for intifada. We know these words have consequences." Anyone marching or inciting others to march will face arrest. Intifada, an Arabic term for "uprising," commonly refers to Palestinian resistance movements. The Met previously stated in December that protesters chanting "globalise the intifada" would be arrested, noting that the "context has changed" following the Bondi Beach terror attack in Australia. Police patrols will also be deployed around places of worship, community venues, and embassies on Sunday, according to Met Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan. The annual Al Quds Day demonstration has faced criticism for apparent backing of the Iranian regime, with organisers having expressed support for the countrys late leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A counter-protest is also planned, with police utilising the River Thames as a physical barrier to prevent clashes a tactic believed to be a first for Scotland Yard in separating large-scale demonstrations. All protests and counter-protests are permitted between 1pm and 3pm, situated between Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges. Counter-protesters can assemble on the Millbank side of the Thames, while Lambeth Bridge will be closed to all but emergency vehicles. Al Quds Day, named after the Arabic term for Jerusalem, is traditionally observed on the last Friday of Ramadan. Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The King and Queen should delay their visit to the United States if the war in the Middle East continues, a former British ambassador has said. Charles and Camilla are due to visit Washington and New York next month. But Sir Peter Westmacott, who served as a UK ambassador in Washington from 2012-16, said the visit should be delayed if the Iran-US war is ongoing because it would be problematic for the King. His comments comes amid wider calls for the Kings visit to be cancelled after president Donald Trump rebuked Sir Keir Starmer over the UKs response to the war in the Middle East. Speaking on The Royals, a podcast hosted by The Times, Sir Peter said: I personally think that at the moment, while this war is continuing, it is problematic. The United States government is conducting a war, which the British government initially thought was clearly illegal. He added: Both the prime minister and I imagine the palace will be asking themselves, What does British public opinion really feel about this? How will a state visit to the United States at this time be perceived, how will it be felt? Is this indicative of the King endorsing what the president of the United States is doing? While this goes on, that must be a matter for discussion. open image in gallery Sir Peter Westmacott ( ) The former UK diplomat also referred to some of the USs actions in its conflict with Iran as war crimes, pointing to the bombing of a girls' school during the initial strikes. However, Sir Peter suggested the visit should be postponed rather than cancelled as a way to better manage the UKs relationship with the US. He said: It is too important a relationship for us to mess with and to risk antagonising a somewhat thin-skinned president. King Charles has played a vital role in easing relations between the UK and Mr Trump, with the US presidents second state visit last year having been seen as a broad success. The upcoming state visit would coincide with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US declaration of independence, a first by a British monarch since Queen Elizabeth II accepted an invitation from George W Bush in 2007. In a poll of 12,000 people in the UK, published last week by YouGov, 46 per cent said the Kings visit to the US should be cancelled, while 36 per cent said it should go ahead. In a separate poll, published on the same day, 37 per cent said they strongly oppose the military action the US has taken against Iran. open image in gallery King Charles and Donald Trump during a visit to Windsor Castle on September 17, 2025 ( Getty ) Sir Peter told The Times podcast the government had a duty to protect the monarchy in a situation like this and a duty to reflect public opinion in this country. Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has also called for the visit to be cancelled. The Liberal Democrat leader said Mr Trump should not be afforded yet another huge diplomatic coup after launching what he called an illegal war on Iran. Keir Starmer should advise the King that the state visit to the US scheduled for April should be called off, he said. At a time when Trump has launched an illegal war that is devastating the Middle East and pushing up energy bills for British families, its clear this visit should not go ahead. Labour backbenchers also joined the call to cancel the state visit with one quoted as saying: It would be good to cancel and send a message. Buckingham Palace was approached for comment. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A woman whose husband is unable to breathe in cold air has said she is worried they cannot heat their home following huge price hikes for heating oil due to the US war against Iran. Gail Thompson, 66, and her husband Steve, 71, live in rural Kent, and paid 328 for their last delivery of 500 litres of heating oil in January. On Thursday, they were quoted 717 for the same delivery following huge spikes in costs following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. Ms Thompson told The Independent her husbands chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pulmonary fibrosis (PF) make breathing in cold air incredibly difficult, and could kill him if they are left without heating. The couple has around 380 litres of heating oil left enough to last a month, or several, depending on the temperature and are trying to turn the heating on as little as possible to conserve their supply. But Ms Thompson said her husbands illnesses mean that sometimes they have no choice but to turn it on. open image in gallery Gail Thompson is worried the cost of heating oil will continue to rise, leaving her unable to afford to heat her home ( Gail Thompson ) The other day our thermostat said 14C, she said. When it gets that cold, we have to put the heating on, or it will kill him. There is nothing you can do to warm up the air other than put the heating on. So we put it on, we had to. Ms Thompson told The Independent their biggest concern is that prices will keep increasing with no end to the conflict in sight. She added that there are many elderly people in her area who she is concerned will also be struggling with health issues in the cold. My concern is the prices are going through the roof, but also, if they cant get any oil, what happens then? she asked. What happens if the suppliers run so low that people cant get it? Ms Thompson said while the couple doesnt struggle for money day to day, they budget, and cannot afford the huge jump in prices heating oil has seen over the last week. Were not struggling for money as a general rule, but were not millionaires, she told The Independent. It does make you think twice about buying oil. I cant afford to pay 700, I just cant. open image in gallery People have been urged to protect their heating oil amid reports of thefts in Suffolk ( Getty/iStock ) Unlike electricity and gas, heating oil is not subject to any regulation or price cap by Ofgem, meaning suppliers are free to price it as high as they wish. Ms Thompson accused heating oil suppliers of profiteering, saying people will eventually pay the high prices because they have to for hot water, even without heating their homes. Its unfair, she said. That sounds like a peevish word, but it doesnt seem right that electricity and gas prices can be capped but those delivering the oil can price gouge willy-nilly. Thieves have reportedly targeted heating oil tanks in Suffolk as prices soar. Police have urged those with heating oil tanks to take steps to keep them safe following reports at two properties. The government has said it will not tolerate energy companies exploiting the Middle East crisis for profit, with Sir Keir Starmer pledging to send the strong message to companies that prices must be fair, transparent and justifiable, not inflated at the expense of working people. Britains competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has also launched an investigation into troubling reports of sudden price hikes for heating oil. It said it was writing to heating oil suppliers and intermediaries as a matter of urgency to gather evidence and consider whether the behaviour breaches consumer protection laws which could result in enforcement action. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government was working with the watchdog to tackle any price gouging in heating oil. Yesterdays options volume was 452,959, 3.3 times its 30-day average. That volume helped produce the 67.28 Vol/OI (volume-to-open-interest) ratio for the June 18 $73 call above. Approximately 14.1% OTM (out-of-the-money), if youre bullish on regional banks, the obvious play is to buy one or more of these calls. Because its equal-weighted, youre not overweighting the top 10 holdings. With 144, youre back to about 0.69% per stock at the beginning of April, July, October and January. By comparison, the iShares U.S. Regional Banks ETFs (IAT) top 10 holdings account for 71% of the funds net assets. The State Street SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) tracks the performance of the S&P Regional Banks Select Industry Index, a modified equal-weighted index that tends to spread holdings across large-, mid-, and small-cap stocks. I like to think of it as a sports team; you never know whos going to come through in the clutch. So, yesterday, I thought: why not compromise and discuss one or more ETFs -- not the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, or a small-cap-specific -- with high options volume, unusually high options activity, and excellent long-term investment potential? But when it comes to the options markets, none of them matter much, which is why I often struggle coming up with subjects to write about. Sure, I could cover Palantir (PLTR), which I have covered many times in the pastit is a stock I generally likebut Im always looking for something unusual or under the radar. Those rarely come with significant options volume. Stocks such as Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Fairfax Financial (FRFHF), Exor NV (EXXRF), Loews (L), and many other excellent long-term investors will always get my attention. When I discuss unusual options activity, as I will today, my fundamentals-driven, long-term investor hat is usually firmly in place. Its just that Im wired. Stocks and ETFs like Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) tend to attract much of the action. The two Vs -- volatility and volume -- are what drive the options markets. While there are plenty of volatile stocks, options tend to favor those with significant volume. Story Continues A majority of the 78,579 in volume was for two trades at ask prices of $1.12 (18,480 call contracts) and $1.01 (60,000). So, your net debit was between $101 and $112 per contract, or less than 2% of KREs share price. Not a lot. Of course, the likelihood of being ITM (in-the-money) by the June expiration is low, with an expected move of 11.91%, below the 14.1% needed, so you might be better off doing a Long Call Diagonal Spread. This involves buying one June 18 $73 call and selling one April 17 $75 call, for a net debit of $98, which is less than the cost of the long call on its own. Indias Emerging Fast I havent been so excited about an emerging market since Brazils economy started to recover in the early 2020s. India has all the hallmarks of growth without the authoritarianism seen in China. Although the rule of law has recently been tested, it remains the best system for doing business globally and should survive the current turmoil. Earlier in March, I suggested the iShares India 50 ETF (INDY)was a good way to lean into the countrys economic growth, especially at current prices, which have been hurt by Indias reliance on energy imports to run its factories, etc. While INDY tracks the performance of 50 of Indias largest companies, the iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA) tracks the performance of the MSCI India Index. As a result, INDA owns 165 Indian stocks, with an average market cap of $35.4 billion, about half of INDY; theyre still large companies. As you can imagine, given the current situation in Iran, the volatility for Indian stocks has ramped up, which might not be good for your heart, but it provides the fuel to fire options strategies such as a Bull Call Spread. The volume from the June 18 $54 call was nearly eight times INDAs 30-day average of 9,979. Thats significant. In this example, the bull call spread involves buying the $54 call and selling a put with calls ranging from $55 to $60. As you can see from the profit probability percentages to the right, the likelihood of the share price being above the breakeven is very low, below 15%. However, in every case, the debit is less than the cost of buying a single call. And who knows, if the war in Iran ends with some sort of enforceable truce, INDA will shoot higher in no time. Staples Rarely Go Out of Style Lets face it, there are some terrible stocks in the consumer staples sector right now. For example, Campbells Co.s stock is down 21% in 2026, 43% in the past year, and down 54% in the past five years; a trifecta of misery. Campbells is one of the 36 stocks held by the State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLP). However, thanks to its poor performance, it has the second-lowest weighting at 0.2862%, just ahead of Brown-Forman (BF.B), which has been pummeled by lower consumption due to health and financial concerns, as well as a boycott by most Canadian provinces and territories in retaliation for the White Houses tariff policies. But I digress. The point is that consumer staples companies produce products we use every day. Theyre not going away anytime soon. With a 5% retreat in XLPs share price over the past month, its shares are more attractive than theyve been since early February. Youre not going to get rich owning XLP, but with options, you might be able to juice your returns a little. In this case, you might begin the first part of a Wheel strategy, which involves selling the cash-secured April 17 $76 put for income over the next 37 days. As you can see from above, theres no bid price showing. It turns out the 10,000 volume for the $76 put was on a single trade at 12:41 ET yesterday at $0.24. Selling the put generates an annualized return of 2.8% [$0.24 trade price / $84.59 share price - $0.24 trade price * 365 / 37 DTE]. Its not a lot of income, Ill grant you, but it allows you to get paid to wait for a better entry point to buy shares, in this case at $76. The downside risk is that the share price flies through the $76 strike price into the $60s, forcing you to buy XLP shares for more than theyd be trading at. With an expected move of 4.14%, the odds of this happening are slim to none. As for the Wheel strategy, once you buy shares, you move to a Covered Call for income, and keep selling calls every 30-45 days until the call buyer acquires your shares. On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Lady Blair has told Peter Mandelsons critics that the disgraced Labour peer is still human and is entitled to a fair trial over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. The wife of former prime minister Tony Blair also indicated that she felt sorry for Lord Mandelson over the scandal, saying she found it very sad that he had seen his life fall apart over his connections to the paedophile financier. Speaking to Times Radio, Lady Blair was asked if she felt betrayed by Lord Mandelson, who was a close family friend and one of the New Labour architects, alongside her husband. She said: I feel very sad that its come to this. I think when anyones life falls apart, we should remember that theres still a human being. And also, of course, we should also remember that theyre entitled to a fair trial. She added: In the media, and particularly today with social media, too, many people forget that the people that theyre talking about are human beings with feelings and can be hurt. Lord Mandelson, who was sacked as US ambassador last year over the revelations, was instrumental in Mr Blairs career. Documents reveal that he arranged a meeting between Sir Tony and Epstein when the former was still prime minister. open image in gallery Tony Blair with Peter Mandelson ( PA Wire ) But Lady Blair said she did not think her husband had been drawn into the Epstein controversy. The prime minister meets millions of people all the time, and actually, I think it was Bill Clinton who asked him to meet Epstein, she said. She said that her own name had cropped up in the Epstein files because I happened to be at a womens event and his girlfriend was there. She added: It just shows what he was doing, he was always trying to show how influential I am because I know all of these people. Lord Mandelson was arrested on 23 February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, having been accused of passing sensitive information to Epstein during his time as business secretary in Gordon Browns government. He was subsequently bailed, but later released from his bail conditions, although he remains under investigation. open image in gallery Peter Mandelson outside of his home after his arrest over misconduct in public office ( PA ) Days earlier, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Duke of York and the Kings disgraced brother, was also arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office after allegations that he had shared sensitive information with Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy. On Friday, a photo emerged showing Lord Mandelson with Epstein and the former prince sitting around a table in bathrobes, drinking from mugs printed with the US flag. It is the first known picture showing the three together and was reportedly taken between 1999 and 2000, although no exact date has been given. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing in the photo. open image in gallery New photo uncovered of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffery Epstein and Peter Mandelson ( US Department of Justice ) The photo came out of a tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the Epstein files. Both men feature a number of times in the files. Images of Lord Mandelson receiving a foot massage and others of him standing in his underwear have been published by the DOJ. Both Andrew and Lord Mandelson have denied any wrongdoing over their association with Epstein. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Prince Harrys spokesperson has vehemently dismissed claims from a new biography, which allege Queen Camilla remarked he had been "brainwashed" by his wife Meghan, as a "deranged conspiracy". The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been largely estranged from the British royal family since stepping back from official duties in 2020 and relocating to California, yet their lives continue to draw significant global attention. Extracts from author Tom Bower's latest book, serialised in The Times newspaper, suggest that tensions between the couple and other royals began shortly after their high-profile 2018 wedding. Mr Bower, who is known for his royal biographies, claims Harry and Meghan are now barely on speaking terms with the wider family, with Harry having rarely seen his father, King Charles, in recent years. The book further alleges that Harry's elder brother, Prince William, and his wife Catherine, were reportedly alarmed by Meghan's influence and viewed her as a threat. It is within this context that Camilla, the King's wife, is quoted as telling a friend: "Meghans brainwashed Harry." The biography claims Camilla told a friend Harry had been brainwashed by Meghan (Andrew Matthews/PA) ( PA Wire ) The biography also details Harry's alleged shock at the downfall of his uncle, Prince Andrew, who lost his titles and residence due to his association with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Harry reportedly feared his brother would similarly "banish" him. Andrew was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office before later being released on bail. In a notably strong rebuke, a spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan said that Mr Bower's commentary had "long crossed the line from criticism into fixation". The statement added: "Those interested in facts will look elsewhere; those seeking deranged conspiracy and melodrama know exactly where to find him." Buckingham Palace declined to comment on behalf of King Charles and Queen Camilla regarding the claims. Representatives for Prince William and Kate offered no immediate statement. Stay on top of the latest political news with our View from Westminster newsletter Get the latest political headlines with our free email Get the latest political headlines with our free email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Rachel Reeves has vowed to support households grappling with spiralling energy bills as a result of the deepening crisis in the Middle East. The chancellors announcement comes as a package of support for those reliant on heating oil, a fuel not covered by the energy price cap, is expected to be set out next week. Approximately 1.5 million households currently using heating oil are facing severe cost increases, with the price per litre having doubled since the onset of the crisis. It comes amid concerns that instability in the Middle East could hit the cost of living around the world, after Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, jumped to more than $100 (74) a barrel earlier this week for the first time since 2022, contributing to higher fuel bills and the risk of increased household energy costs across the UK. Meanwhile, official figures revealed economic growth flatlined in January, heightening fears that soaring fuel and energy prices could tip the struggling UK economy into recession, piling pressure on the chancellor to ensure that households are protected. Speaking to The Times over the weekend, Ms Reeves confirmed that she has set aside funding to support households reliant on heating oil, as well as working through a longer-term strategy to support other households once the energy price cap lifts in June. open image in gallery Petrol and diesel prices have increased significantly since the start of the Iran-US conflict ( PA ) I have found the money and weve worked through with MPs and others a response for people who are not protected by the energy price cap, she said. Were giving greater support to those who really need it. While gas and electricity bills are shielded by Ofgems price cap until June, analysts warn of potential dramatic hikes thereafter if the conflict persists and Iran maintains its grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Cornwall Insight forecasts a 10 per cent rise in household energy bills from July, pushing the typical dual fuel households annual cost to 1,801 an increase of 160 on Aprils cap. The chancellor indicated more time is available to formulate a plan for gas and electricity, thanks to the existing price cap. Weve got some time, and we are working through in the Iran response board (a group of Treasury ministers and officials) different approaches that we could take, including looking at more targeted options, she said. Ms Reeves also expressed concern over the nations high debt and played down the likelihood of a broad energy bailout, similar to the 35bn package following Russias invasion of Ukraine. open image in gallery Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a roundtable with petrol retailers and energy suppliers at 11 Downing Street ( PA ) It is important even when there is an economic shock or perhaps particularly when theres an economic shock that you continue to be disciplined about your use of public money, she added. It came after the chancellor and energy secretary met with oil firm bosses and forecourt operators in Downing Street on Friday, warning that ministers wont tolerate unfair pricing practices. But a petrol retailers trade group accused ministers of provoking abuse against forecourt workers with their use of incorrect and inflammatory language, just hours before the crunch meeting with Ms Reeves. The Petrol Retailers Association, which represents large and small independent petrol retailers across the UK, hit out at ministers suggestions that there had been rip-off pricing and profiteering by fuel providers. It comes as the wider Middle East crisis continues to escalate, with significant implications for global energy markets and international relations. On Friday, Sir Keir Starmer risked a fresh rift with Donald Trump by confirming that Britain wont be following the US in lifting sanctions on Russian oil, saying that the move risks helping Vladimir Putins war machine. No 10 instead urged its international allies to maintain pressure on Moscow, and to avoid inadvertently funding Putins war in Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. Mr Trumps decision to issue exemptions for Russian oil already at sea has sparked fears that Putin could use the Iran conflict to boost Russias own war chest, with foreign secretary Yvette Cooper accusing Russia and Iran of attempting to hijack the global economy. The Joint Maritime Information Centre has reported at least 20 incidents involving shipping and offshore infrastructure in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman since 1 March. The Strait, a vital artery for oil and gas, has seen traffic plummet from 138 to approximately five ships daily due to attack threats. But as the conflict continued to escalate, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth played down concerns over disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that the US was decimating the Iranian regime. open image in gallery The energy price cap for households since October 2023 ( PA ) The US has deployed 2,500 marines and an amphibious assault ship to the region, while an airstrike in Baghdad killed at least one person, and a missile struck the US embassy helipad. A government spokesman acknowledged public concern over the impact of global conflicts on the cost of living, stating: While it is too soon to know the full impact of this crisis, as the chancellor said, she will take the necessary decisions to help families with the cost of living and protect the public finances. The spokesperson highlighted existing measures, including the extended 5p fuel duty cut, the expanded warm homes discount, and the energy price cap, which is set to reduce bills by 117. Stay on top of the latest political news with our View from Westminster newsletter Get the latest political headlines with our free email Get the latest political headlines with our free email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Sir Keir Starmers former chief of staff reportedly used his private email address to communicate with Peter Mandelson ahead of his appointment as US ambassador, sparking further accusations of a cover-up. It comes after the government published the first tranche of files relating to Lord Mandelsons appointment to the sensitive role, from which he was forced to resign over his links with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The files released on Wednesday included just 31 messages and documents involving Lord Mandelson that relate to his appointment and dismissal as Washington ambassador, all from official email addresses - and do not include any messages from Morgan McSweeney, despite him having played a key role in the decision to appoint the disgraced peer. open image in gallery Morgan McSweeney reportedly used his personal email address to communicate with Lord Mandelson before his appointment (Jonathan Brady/PA) ( PA Wire ) But sources told The Times that Mr McSweeney used his personal email address and WhatsApp to communicate with Lord Mandelson before his appointment. None of the messages have yet been published. Responding to the reports, Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: The stench of a cover-up over the Mandelson files is overwhelming. After weeks of heel dragging, Labour has finally started releasing some of the files but so much vital information is very obviously missing in action, including any communication from the prime minister and his key advisers. Our humble address means the government must release all relevant communication, including on non-corporate devices like WhatsApp and private emails, relating to this appointment. We will hold them to account until they do. It comes after it was revealed that Sir Keir himself did not speak to Lord Mandelson during the vetting process. open image in gallery Lord Peter Mandelson leaving his home in north London on Wednesday, the day documents relating to his appointment as ambassador to the US were released (Jeff Moore/PA) ( PA Wire ) On Friday, Downing Street insisted there was no requirement for the PM to formally interview the peer for the US ambassadorship, amid accusations of a lack of prime ministerial involvement in the appointment. No 10 conceded there were lessons to be learned from the process but insisted due diligence was followed before the peer was given the Washington job. Sir Keirs official spokesman said: There was no requirement for a formal interview with the Prime Minister. Earlier this week, Downing Street was forced to deny allegations of a cover-up in the release of files after accusations the prime minister misled MPs over the vetting process. The absence of the prime ministers own comments in the trove of government papers released on Wednesday came under scrutiny, raising questions over whether Sir Keir misled MPs when he told them full due process had been followed during Lord Mandelsons appointment. It comes after the files showed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell raised concerns over Lord Mandelsons appointment, saying it had been weirdly rushed. open image in gallery Downing Street said there was no requirement for Sir Keir Starmer to interview Lord Mandelson for the ambassadorship (Brian Lawless/PA) Tory leader Kemi Badenoch claimed that a lot of information is missing from the files, pointing to an empty box she said Sir Keir was required to fill beneath advice he received in 2024 about the appointment. No 10 said no notes by Sir Keir were redacted, meaning that the prime minister did not fill out the box which was reserved for his response. But the PMs official spokesperson repeatedly insisted that the process was followed and said Downing Street would look at making improvements to both the vetting and due diligence procedures, claiming they are not up to scratch. Asked specifically about the blank box, he told reporters: I refute the suggestion of a cover-up. The government has complied fully. I just dont accept that its the case at all. There are a range of different ways in which the prime ministers senior team responds to advice. The spokesperson added: The prime minister did read the advice, but clearly there are lessons to be learned on the wider appointment processes, and the processes that led up to them. Mrs Badenoch asked the PMs independent ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus to investigate whether the ministerial code has been breached - but, responding, he said there were no grounds for an investigation. In the wake of the first tranches publication, the prime minister faced fresh questions about his judgment in giving the peer the ambassadorship despite being explicitly warned of a general reputational risk because of his relationship with the convicted paedophile. Downing Street declined to comment. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Emergency rooms across Canada are close to breaking point, doctors have warned, as the average hospital wait time for patients hits more than 20 hours. The strain is being felt across the country, from Newfoundland, where a man died from a heart attack after waiting over 10 hours to be seen, to Calgary, where a woman lay bleeding on a stretcher for hours resulting in an emergency hysterectomy. Recent data published by Ontario Health show that patients who came to the ER spent an average of 20.3 hours waiting before being given a bed in the hospital. Only 26 percent were admitted within the target time of eight hours. In Quebec, data showed that as of Friday, the average time spent on a stretcher in ERs across the province was just under 18 hours and officials in Alberta have called for a state of emergency to be declared. "I think we're close to the breaking point," Dr Margot Burnell, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told CBC News. open image in gallery Emergency rooms across Canada are close to breaking point, doctors have warned, as the average hospital wait time for patients hits over 20 hours ( Getty/iStock ) According to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, published in November 2025, Canada had an average of 2.5 hospital beds available per 1,000 people in 2023. This placed it 28th out of the 35 countries ranked by the OECD. However, Canadian medical professionals have suggested that the dire state of the emergency rooms is down to not just patient volume, but also the complexity of ailments being presented exacerbated by the countrys aging population. According to Burnell, elderly patients are not receiving necessary care or chronic disease maintenance, often resulting in trips to the ER. "For many of those illnesses, if they had good access to primary care, they might have gone in and had it treated before they became unwell," she said. As a result, some hospitals have resorted to "unconventional spaces with which to hold patients. open image in gallery According to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, published in November 2025, Canada had an average 2.5 hospital beds available per 1,000 people in 2023. This placed it 28th out of the 35 countries ranked by the OECD ( Getty/iStock ) Earlier this month, Kingston Health Sciences Centre revealed it had admitted 630 patients in one week, far beyond its capacity of 445 beds, and warned people that the care you receive may look a little different in the coming weeks. Regardless of where you receive care, please know that you will still receive high-quality clinical support. We know this can be frustrating for patients and families and we appreciate your patience and understanding, which already has been amazing, the hospital wrote online. It also advised patients with less serious conditions to consider alternatives. "The stories that you're seeing coast-to-coast reflect that breaking point of the system that I think we're unfortunately seeing manifest right now," Dr. Michael Herman, vice chair of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians public affairs committee, told CBC News. "I've been doing this job coming up on 12 years now, and I think morale amongst the physicians is about as low as I've seen it. It's a tough time right now, to be very frank." Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice More than 900 children have been held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities beyond a court-imposed 20-day limit, according to a new report. Under the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, the U.S. government is not supposed to hold children in immigration detention facilities any longer than is reasonably needed to arrange their prompt release or deportation. Federal courts have interpreted that "reasonable" time limit to be 20 days. But some children imprisoned by ICE are spending much longer some more than twice as long locked up, according to an NBC News report. The majority of the children detained by ICE are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. So many children have been kept beyond the 20-day mark that children's rights advocates visiting the detention center have stopped using the number as a benchmark. open image in gallery As of January 2026, more than 900 children have been detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, pictured, for more than 20 days. A federal rule states that children should be released or deported within 20 days ( AP ) Weve started to use 100 days as a benchmark because so many children are exceeding 20 days, Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at advocacy group Childrens Rights, told the Associated Press. She said she visits the facility regularly and noted that in February, she counted more than 30 children who had been held for more than 100 days. According to NBC's report, approximately 270 of the children currently in ICE custody have been detained for more than 40 days. NBC News spoke to a family of Russian immigrants who were arrested at the border and shipped to the Dilley detention center. The couple and their two young children one 5 years old were detained and were reportedly told that since their children were with them, they wouldn't be held more than 20 days. But 20 days came and passed. Aleksei whose last name was withheld over fears of retaliation should he be sent back to Russia asked his captors why his family hadn't been released after 20 days, and he was given a variety of answers. One told him erroneously that the 20-day rule was no longer in effect. Another told Aleksei he'd have to take it up with his boss. When Aleksei asked who his boss was, the guard at Dilley allegedly said he didn't know. "Maybe President Trump," the guard allegedly said. open image in gallery Detainees held at the South Texas Family Residential Center wave signs during a demonstration in Dilley, Texas, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026 ( AP ) Other families are fighting for their freedom as well. The El Gamal family, who have been in federal custody since last summer, have been detained longer than any other family at the Dilley facility since it reopened last year, when Trump returned to office, according to their lawyer. "The most powerful adults in the world are subjecting the El Gamal children to systematic abuse for nine months and counting, attorney Eric Lee, who represents the family, told The Independent in a statement. It is farcical that the United States calls itself a democracy when the federal government deliberately ruins childhoods and strips young people of their innocence. We urge people all over the world to demand the El Gamal family's immediate release." The family's five children, ages 518, have been in custody since shortly after Hayam El Gamals husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, allegedly attacked a group of primarily Jewish activists in Boulder, Colorado. The group was demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The attack wounded at least 29 people, and an 82-year-old later died from injuries she sustained during the attack. Soliman has pleaded not guilty to state charges, according to Colorado Public Radio. The El Gamals have disavowed Soliman's actions and say they did not know about his alleged crimes, but claim that they are now being punished. This prolonged detention has and continues to destroy our lives. It is slowly killing us on the inside, the familys 16-year-old, identified in documents as O.S., wrote in a letter. Our mental health is at great risk. It is rapidly deteriorating with every day we spend here. Our lives are without purpose. We are just waiting for this nightmare to end. An Egyptian family 18-year-old Habiba Soliman, her mother, and her four younger siblings have been imprisoned at Dilley for more than nine months. Two of the children are 5-year-old twins. open image in gallery A drawing by one of Hayam El Gamals young children, who is a detainee at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in Dilley, Texas, shows a family of six, with text overhead that reads, 'When will we go home?' ( Courtesy of Eric Lee ) They're facing potential deportation to Egypt, but they'd prefer to return to their home in Colorado, according to NBC News. Regardless of the outcome, Soliman's time in Dilley may stay with her forever. This place broke something in us something that I dont know if we will ever be able to fix, she told the broadcaster in a phone call. The Trump administration is not just ignoring the 20-day rule but is actively seeking its end. Trump challenged the Flores agreement in 2019, but federal courts struck down his challenge in August. That hasn't ended the president's desire to remove the protection; his administration appealed the ruling earlier this month. The Independent has requested comment from CoreCivic which operates the Dilley facility as well as the Trump administration. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A visibly irate Pete Hegseth has compared Irans leaders to rats in hiding and urged a "patriotic press to rewrite headlines about the deadly, costly and escalating war. The U.S. is decimating the radical Iranian regimes military in a way the world has never seen before, the defense secretary boasted at a Friday morning press briefing. We said it would not be a fair fight, and it has not been. To date, more than 15,000 Iranian targets have been hit, obliterating the nation's air defenses, air force, and navy, while its missile capabilities have plummeted by 90 percent, Hegseth said. He then warned Friday will be the most intense day of U.S. strikes on Iran to date. "Iran's leadership is in no better shape. Desperate and hiding, they've gone underground, cowering. That's what rats do, Hegseth said. The former Fox News host described Irans new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the so-called not-so-supreme leader who is wounded and likely disfigured. Hegseths comments came on the 13th day of the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran as the conflict engulfs the broader Middle East region. On Thursday, six crew members were killed on a refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command confirmed. At least 13 U.S. service members have died in the Iran war and 140 have been injured. open image in gallery On Friday, Pete Hegseth compared Iran's leadership to "rats" and chastised American reporters for their coverage of the war, which has engulfed the Middle East and led to the deaths of 13 US service members ( Defense Department ) Hegseth began the Friday morning briefing by berating the press, specifically targeting ABC News and CNN, and maintained a tone of barely concealed contempt throughout. Another example of a fake headline I saw yesterday: war widening, he said. Heres a real headline for you, for an actual patriotic press: Iran shrinking, going underground. Despite reporting to the contrary by multiple news outlets, Hegseth said there is no evidence that Iran has laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz a vital artery of international trade through which 20 percent of the worlds oil passes. He then claimed Americans dont need to worry about it. open image in gallery Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine said on Friday that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is 'complex' after traffic through the waterway trickled to a halt ( Defense Department ) Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine, who also attended the briefing, appeared more circumspect, calling the situation in the strait complex. On Thursday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the U.S. is not ready to escort tankers through the waterway, following strikes on several vessels. Oil prices have surged past $100-a-barrel multiple times in the past week. In order to ease prices, the Trump administration announced Thursday it will release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next four months. President Donald Trump has telegraphed little concern about oil prices, even as his energy secretary acknowledged this week that Americans could feel pain at the pump for weeks. The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money, Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World. Hegseth refrained from providing a clear timeline for the wars completion. President Trump holds the cards, hell determine the place, the tempo and the timing of this conflict, he said Friday. Later in the briefing, Caine provided more details on the KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq. The incident occurred in friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission and again was not the result of hostile or friendly fire, Caine said. open image in gallery Six crew members were killed on a KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command confirmed (stock image of a KC-135) ( Getty Images ) Officials said that the crash remains under investigation. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a group of armed Iran-backed factions, has said that it was responsible for downing the aircraft. Hegseth was also asked by a reporter about the strike on a girls school last week, which killed at least 175 people in southern Iran, most of whom were children, according to Iranian officials. U.S. officials are investigating the incident, and a preliminary report indicates an American Tomahawk missile struck the school, sources familiar with the matter told The New York Times. The defense secretary reiterated that the U.S. military never targets civilians and added that the investigation is being handled by a general officer from outside of U.S. Central Command. The U.S. war with Iran, which began February 28, has led to the death of at least 1,940 Iranians, most of whom were civilians, Irans representative to the UN, Amir Saeed Iravani, said Wednesday. The conflict has spread across the region, with Iranian retaliatory strikes targeting countries including Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has condemned the U.S. and Israeli attacks as illegal and accused the countries of perpetrating war crimes. A number of other nations, including Russia, China and Brazil, have also come out against the war. Meanwhile, close U.S. allies like the U.K., have warned Tehran to refrain from retaliatory strikes. open image in gallery Iranians observe an oil facility engulfed it flames after a strike. More than 15,000 targets in Iran have been struck since the outbreak of war, Hegseth said Friday ( ISNA ) Many lawmakers have also voiced concerns over the Iran war's mounting costs, with the Pentagon reporting $11 billion spent during the first six days alone. "While there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their health care, there's a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Tuesday. Recent polls show that Americans are broadly against the war. A majority of registered voters, 53 percent, oppose U.S. military action against Iran, according to a Quinnipiac Poll. And an Ipsos poll found more disapprove than approve of the campaign. Both polls were released on March 9. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Former US Senator Kyrsten Sinema has acknowledged a romantic relationship with a member of her security detail, which began while she was a lawmaker. This admission comes amidst a lawsuit from the man's former wife, who is seeking financial damages and blames Sinema for the breakdown of her marriage. The North Carolina federal court litigation has been brought by Heather Ammel, who contends she and her husband, Matthew, shared "a good and loving marriage" and "genuine love and affection" before Sinema allegedly interfered, pursuing him despite knowing he was married. In a signed declaration filed this week as part of a lawsuit response, Sinema stated her relationship with Matthew Ammel "became romantic and intimate" at the end of May 2024. It then became "physically intimate" over the subsequent months, with encounters occurring in California, New York, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, D.C. The Ammels separated in November 2024, according to the lawsuit. open image in gallery Sinema has been blamed for the breakdown of Heather and Matthew Ammels marriage ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) Sinemas legal team argues she should not be subject to the lawsuit, asserting that the marriage was "already over" when her relationship with Matthew Ammel intensified. Her attorney, Steven Epstein, wrote that Sinemas "conduct related to her romantic relationship with Mr. Ammel does not connect her to North Carolina in a meaningful way," adding that no jury would believe a single message she sent "had any bearing on the destruction of marital love and affection." However, Heather Ammels lawsuit claims she discovered messages of "romantic and lascivious natures" between Sinema and her husband on the Signal app in early 2024. It further alleges that Matthew Ammel stopped wearing his wedding ring that summer, and Sinema subsequently gave him a job on her Senate staff while he continued to serve as her bodyguard. North Carolina is one of a handful of US states that permit "alienation of affection" lawsuits, allowing aggrieved spouses to seek damages from a third party deemed responsible for the dissolution of their marriage. Sinema, who represented Arizona in both the US House and Senate for one term that concluded early last year, declined to seek re-election to the Senate in 2024. She had previously left the Democratic Party to register as an independent. She now works for a Washington-based legal and lobbying firm. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Laura Loomer, a right-wing social media personality and adviser to President Donald Trump, was forced to explain herself during a trip to New Delhi when a journalist read her anti-Indian tweets back to her during an event. During the India Today Conclave in New Delhi on Saturday, Indian journalist Rajdeep Sardesai presented a trove of tweets Loomer made disparaging India and its people. Loomers posts had been deleted before her visit, but not before others archived them. Loomer told the conference that she had just spoken to Trump and read out a message she claimed was from the president. "I love India. I love Modi and I love the Indian people," the message reportedly said. The hosts of the event pressed Loomer on controversial statements she has made about Islam in the past. Approximately 15 percent of India's population roughly 205 million people are Muslim. MAGA social media personality and adviser to President Donald Trump Laura Loomer was accused of racism, anti-Indianian rhetoric, and Islamophobia during her visit to the India Today Conclave in New Delhi on Saturday ( AP ) Nevertheless, Loomer said she believes that "Islam is a cancer on the world" and that she does not "believe that Islamophobia is real." "I believe that it should be illegal in the United States for Muslims to hold office," she said. Before her tweets were presented back to her at the event in New Delhi, she was asked about disparaging remarks she had made about India in the past. She immediately backed down, saying 'I shouldn't have said some of the things that I said ... and I apologize if my remarks offended people." She did maintain her criticism of the H-1B visa program which many Indian nationals have used to gain entry into the U.S. saying her views are intended to protect the American people. "My job is to speak for Americans and to stand up for American interests, and our immigration laws have been exploited and abused, and our labor laws have also been exploited and abused," she said. Near the end of the discussion, Sardesai, who works for India Today, confronted Loomer on her previous statements about India. He read a post from 2024 in which Loomer said the White House would "smell like curry" if then-Vice President Kamala Harris became president. She also said that the U.S. was built by "white Europeans, not third-world invaders from India." The journalist went on to accuse Loomer of being "brazenly racist and Islamophobic" and told her her comments represented "anti-Indianism, worse still Islamophobia, and even worse racism," which he said had "no place in today's world." Loomer insisted Islamophobia wasn't real, claiming the faith "explicitly calls for the killing of non-Muslims." She insisted that everybody who is not a Muslim should really honestly be fearful of this ideology. She also claimed her comments regarding Harris were actually "pro-Indian," saying they were a critique of Harris allegedly downplaying her Indian heritage during the election and instead emphasizing her Black heritage to win over voters. It doesn't seem as though Loomer is going to change her tune anytime soon. On Saturday afternoon she shared a video allegedly showing Muslims in India surrounding a Sikh restaurant and demanding they sell halal food. "Islam has no place in the West. Are you ok with this @sardesairajdeep? Should Muslims be allowed to terrorize Sikhs who refuse to sell halal food? Are you going to call the Sikhs Islamophobic and racist too?" she wrote in her post. Loomer is one of many MAGA personalities including lawmakers who have attacked Islam. The ramp-up in rhetoric appears to have coincided with Trump's war in Iran. Shortly after the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran, a series of violent attacks occurred in the U.S. in Texas, Virginia, and Michigan that the FBI are treating as possibly motivated by the war. Senator Tommy Tuberville was accused of Islamophobia earlier this week when he shared an image of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani breaking his Ramadan fast in City Hall alongside an image of the 9/11 terror attacks and wrote "the enemy is inside the gates." The Independent has contacted Loomer for comment. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice President Donald Trump said four U.S. Air Force tanker planes are back in service following reports of damage from an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia. Five Air Force refueling planes were damaged, but not completely destroyed, in an Iranian missile strike at Prince Sultan air base in recent days, The Wall Street Journal first reported. No one was killed, and officials were working to repair the tankers, the outlets sources said. In a Saturday morning Truth Social post, Trump responded to reports about the five planes and railed against the Fake News Media for its continuing coverage of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. In actuality, the Base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not struck or destroyed, he wrote. Four of the five had virtually no damage, and are already back in service. One had slightly more damage, but will be in the air shortly. At least seven Air Force refueling planes have been damaged or destroyed amid the ongoing conflict, according to the Journal. open image in gallery President Donald Trump said Saturday four U.S. tanker planes are already back in service following reports of an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia ( AFP via Getty Images ) A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command said they're "not discussing battle damage assessments" and declined to comment to The Independent. The Pentagon declined to comment. News of the strike in Saudi Arabia followed the announcement that all six crew members on a U.S. KC-135 refueling plane were killed after the aircraft crashed over friendly airspace in western Iran on Thursday. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire, U.S. Central Command said Friday. At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed since the conflict began February 28. At least 140 others were injured over the first 10 days of the campaign, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. At least 108 service members have returned to duty, and eight remain listed as severely injured, defense officials told The Independent. Recent polling has found that many Americans oppose the Iran war. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted this month found that 56 percent of people said theyre against the Trump administrations military campaign. A Quinnipiac University survey released Monday similarly found that 53 percent of voters oppose military action against Iran, and 74 percent are against sending in ground troops. open image in gallery At least 13 US service members have been killed since the Iran conflict began February 28 ( Getty ) Meanwhile, Trump announced Friday that the U.S. totally obliterated every military target on Irans Kharg Island, a key export hub. Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island, he wrote on Truth Social. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision, he added. The president said Saturday that Many Countries are sending War Ships to ensure the strait remains open and safe. in conjunction with U.S. operations there. Its unclear when the conflict, which is entering its third week, might come to an end. When Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Trump how hell know the war is over, the president replied: When I feel it feel it in my bones. Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Saving for retirement is hard, and many Americans are struggling. More employees are turning to their 401(k)s to pay necessary expenses despite the tax losses, according to a recent Vanguard report. The percentage of 401(k) participants who took money out has ticked up by about 1% since 2021, with the figure hitting 6% last year. So-called hardship withdrawals can be financially disastrous, since they sap important retirement savings, not to mention undermining the tax benefits of employer-sponsored retirement plans. The trend is something advisors should understand to better prepare both current clients and the general public, said Fred Barstein, CEO of The Retirement Advisor University. I dont think theres any real magic, like something happened, he said. The market went up, but that doesnt help you to buy food, or pay your rent or your mortgage. Sign up for The Daily Upside at no cost for premium analysis on all your favorite stocks. READ ALSO: Bye-Bye, Biden-Era Fiduciary Rule. Heres What Comes Next and Claiming Medicare Is Just the Beginning Amid Silver Tsunami Hard Times One reason Americans are taking money out of retirement funds is that federal rules preventing them from doing so have relaxed, such as one law, eliminated in 2018, that used to require people to take out a 401(k) loan first. But the primary factor is the rising cost of living, Barstein said, with the price of necessities like housing and healthcare more expensive than ever. I think its really just a function of rising costs, the cost of living: gas prices, food prices, pretty much everything, he said. According to the Vanguard report: The most common hardship withdrawal scenario is a worker making less than $50,000 who is unable to meet their monthly housing bills. Housing accounted for 40% of withdrawals for those making less than $50,000. Those in the highest income bracket, who made $150,000 or more, accounted for just 1% of the hardship withdrawals and were most likely to use that money for tuition payments. Education can help in the near term, Barstein added. The advisor should be more available, and they should do more education, he said. What I would be doing is on-demand webinars. Do a 12-minute video on, Hey, if youre having trouble and youre thinking of doing a hardship, I understand. Here are some other options. PLESA and Thank You. One underappreciated financial instrument is the PLESA, or pension-linked emergency savings account, Barstein said. PLESAs are short-term savings accounts that let workers who arent highly compensated make Roth, or after-tax, contributions. Those should be funded first before people put money in their 401(k), he said. Its sort of a sidecar, and when people are told to do this, and its part of the payroll, and it comes out of the payroll, theyre more likely to do it than if theyre doing it on their own. This post first appeared on Retirement Upside. To receive actionable insights for financial advisors guiding clients through the strategies, products, and policy shifts shaping retirement outcomes, subscribe to our free Retirement Upside newsletter. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice President Donald Trumps invocation of the 25-year-old bombing of an American warship as part of his justification for launching a massive bombing campaign against Iran could hamper long-running Pentagon efforts to finally bring the alleged terrorists accused of perpetrating the terror attack to justice. On two occasions over the nearly two weeks since the Defense Department launched Operation Epic Fury against targets across Iran, Trump has claimed Tehran was responsible for the October 2000 bombing of U.S.S. Cole, a grisly attack that killed 17 U.S. Navy sailors and left 37 others injured. When he announced the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign in the early hours of Feb. 28, Trump claimed Tehran knew and [was] probably involved with the Cole attack, and he repeated the allegations during a press conference on Monday when he insisted that Iran had been involved very strongly in the attack. Yet according to the very government he leads including a blue-ribbon commissions report on the attacks and filings by military prosecutors seeking to convict the alleged perpetrators Iran wasnt involved at all. And thats a key detail, because as Trump recklessly tosses out allegations about the Cole, he is also assisting in the defense of the very al-Qaeda terrorist who is awaiting trial for allegedly planning it. open image in gallery The U.S.S. Cole bombing was the worst attack on an American warship since 1987 ( US Navy ) According to the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States better known as the 9/11 Commission the attacks were planned and carried out by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent who joined up with al-Qaeda some time between 1996 and 1998 in Afghanistan, allegedly reporting only to the groups leader, Osama bin Laden. The commissions report states that al-Hashiri proposed attacking American warships in late 1998, with bin Laden, a Saudi construction scion who was the groups main financier, giving his approval and providing funds for the operation. After bin Laden allegedly suggested that al-Nashiri look for targets in the Port of Aden on Yemens southern coast, al-Nashiri unsuccessfully targeted the American destroyer U.S.S. The Sullivans 10 months before the successful attack on Cole. He was captured by the Central Intelligence Agencys Special Activities Division in 2002 as part of the U.S. effort to round up high-level al-Qaeda operatives, and he was moved to the U.S. military brig at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay four years later. The 61-year-old accused al-Qaeda operative is still at Guantanamo, where the U.S. has housed many of the alleged terrorists captured during the early years of the Global War on Terror. He is set to face trial in June before a military commission, which in 2011 formally accused him of three criminal law-of-war violations, conspiracy and terrorism charges stemming from the Cole attack. So when the President of the United States twice declared that Iran not al-Qaeda or any of its members had masterminded the Cole bombing, al-Nashiris legal team took notice. Allison Miller, the lead attorney responsible for defending the accused terrorist operative, told The Independent in an email that Trumps comments impact our defense. Weve requested additional information from the government regarding the intelligence information that supports President Trumps now repeated claims that Iran is responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole, she added. Because Trumps claim is at odds with the specific accusations the government has made against al-Nashiri in charging documents, the new accusations against Iran could, in theory, serve as a defense for the accused al-Qaeda operative. open image in gallery The Cole bombing claimed the lives of 17 American sailors ( US Navy ) Its not clear why Trump decided to include the Cole attack among the litany of grievances hes routinely recited against Tehrans government as hes sought to justify a war that has upended financial markets and sent oil prices soaring as Iran has moved to choke off the Wests oil supply by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most commercial traffic. The federal government has never linked Tehran with the bombing, though a 2015 court decision handed down in Virginia as part of a lawsuit by the family of one bombing victim suggested that Irans government had been complicit in the attacks by allowing al-Nashiri to travel freely through the country when transiting between Afghanistan and Yemen. Miller, his attorney, told The New York Times last week that her client has never been to Iran. But regardless of its veracity, Trumps claim that Tehran was behind the bombing contradicts decades worth of evidence gathered by federal investigators and could imperil the Defense Departments attempt to prosecute al-Nashiri for the attack. According to the commissions charging documents, he allegedly acquired the boat and explosives used in the attack, rented property to surveillance the harbor, modified the boat to turn it into a bomb, and sent the two suicide bombers out in it to attempt to sink the U.S. destroyer. Kind of thing that I think would have stuck out in my mind The strike on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which left a 3,200 square foot hole in the ships port side as it was making a refueling stop in Yemens Aden harbor, was the deadliest strike against an American warship since an Iraqi jet fired two anti-ship missiles at an American frigate, U.S.S. Stark during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. It was one of several terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin Laden during a three-year period leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The charging documents and 9/11 commission report both go into detail about al-Nashiris preparations for the attack and his association with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. Nowhere in the documents is the Iranian government mentioned. Morris Davis, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who served as the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions from 2005 to 2007, told The Independent in a phone interview that he had no recollection at all of there being any mention of Iran in any documents or evidence relating to al-Nashiri. That's the kind of thing, too, that would have been a pretty significant detail that I think would have stuck out in my mind, he said. Davis, who resigned as the head of the military commissions prosecution team rather than use evidence obtained through the use of torture, noted that it would have been highly unlikely for Iran to play any role in any al-Qaeda plot. Not only was al-Qaeda led by citizens of Saudi Arabia a rival power to Iran but Davis pointed out that the bin Laden-led organization was made up of Sunni Muslims who would not have wanted any association with the Shiite cleric-led Iranian government. He also told The Independent that were he al-Hashiris lawyer, hed have already filed a motion to compel disclosure of whatever evidence Trump was citing when he claimed Iran was responsible for the Cole attack. If you've got the president, who is the ultimate authority over the military commissions, stating as a fact that Iran was involved in the Cole bombing and your client is facing a murder trial, I would make the government state that the evidence exists or admit that the president was mistaken, he said. My guess is he pulled this out of his hat as some additional justification for attacking Iran. But to my knowledge, there's no evidence to support his assertion. The former Air Force Judge-Advocate also warned that Trumps comments could potentially blow up the years of work that has already been done to prepare for al-Nashiris trial because the statements could be exculpatory or prejudice the jury of military officers who will ultimately determine al-Nashiris guilt by linking him to a country with which the United States is now at war. It's an aggravated case to begin with, from the fact that we lost service members, but linking him to Iran just makes it worse. So he potentially taints the jury pool by making irresponsible statements like that, Davis said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Donald Trump has reportedly rejected an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to move Iran's enriched uranium to Russia. The proposal was made as part of a deal to end the U.S. and Israel's war against Tehran, Axios report. The offer was put forward during a phone call between the two leaders this week, but Trump is said to have declined it. This rejection comes amid Mr Trump's recent admission that Mr Putin could be assisting Iran in its military efforts against the U.S. It appeared to contradict earlier assertions from his Middle East envoy. U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who had previously stated that following a conversation with Mr Trump and other Russian officials on Monday, Moscow had denied sharing intelligence with Iran. Trump admitted that Putin could be helping Irans war efforts ( AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson ) I think he might be helping them a little bit, yeah, I guess, and he probably thinks were helping Ukraine, right? Trump said, speaking to Fox News Brian Kilmeade in a Friday interview. Yeah, were helping them also. So he [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing, you know, Trump said. Its like, hey, they do it and we do it, in all fairness. They do it and we do it. Witkoff and the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, held a separate phone call with Yuri Ushakov, Putins foreign policy advisor Monday morning , he said. According to Witkoff, Ushakov had also said that Russia is not sharing intelligence with Iran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week that Trump and Witkoff had told the Russians that if intelligence sharing was taking place, Its not something they would be happy with, and they hope that it is not taking place. Reports suggest that Russia could earn more than $10 billion in additional oil and gas revenues to help fuel its war on Ukraine, thanks to Trumps lifting of restrictions on countries buying Russian crude stranded at sea. The president decided on the closure of the key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, which sent prices soaring to over $120. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A federal judge has temporarily blocked a directive from the Donald Trump administration that would have compelled universities to submit data by next week to prove they no longer consider race in their admissions processes. U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, sitting in Boston, issued a temporary restraining order on Friday. This action came at the request of 17 Democratic state attorneys who had launched legal proceedings. Their lawsuit challenged a newly introduced component within the mandatory annual surveys, which the U.S. Department of Education uses to collect information from higher education institutions. It follows news from last month which saw dozens of universities cut ties with The PhD Project, which helps racial minorities earn doctorate degrees. The Trump administration had campaigned to end diversity programs in higher education. This action came at the request of 17 Democratic state attorneys who had launched legal proceedings ( AFP via Getty Images ) The PhD Project, a previously lesser-known non-profit, came under scrutiny last year after attracting the attention of conservative strategists, leading to an investigation by the US Department of Education. The Republican administration contends that such diversity programmes frequently disadvantage white and Asian American students. Launched in March 2025, the investigation has already seen 31 universities agree to terminate their partnerships with the group, according to the departments Office for Civil Rights. Discussions are ongoing with a further 14 institutions. The department said in its statement that The PhD Project unlawfully limits eligibility based on the race of participants and that institutions partnering with it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in education programs and activities that receive federal money. This is the Trump effect in action: institutions of higher education are agreeing to cut ties with discriminatory organizations, recommitting themselves to abiding by federal law, and restoring equality of opportunity on campuses across the nation, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Vice president JD Vance has been mocked online after claiming that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had not been fired from her role, but rather handed a great opportunity to leave. A lot of people in the media said that the reason we made a change at DHS is because we are backing off of our illegal immigration policy. That couldn't be further from the truth, Vance said, speaking at an event Friday. The reason is because Kristi Noem has a great opportunity to serve in this Shield of Americas position. Donald Trump announced under fire Noems departure from the DHS on Truth Social earlier this month, moments before she was set to appear at a law enforcement convention in Nashville. She reportedly learned that she was being removed from the role just as she was set to go on stage. The president also said that Noem would be named Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, which he described as our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere. open image in gallery ( REUTERS ) Social media users appeared less than convinced by Vances claims. This clown really expects us to believe Noem voluntarily left a cabinet position for a completely made up non-cabinet gig, wrote one user. Its obvious you dont even believe the b******* you are spewing, added another user, with a third branding Vance a lying a******. A third added: he was doing such an amazing job multiple US citizens were murdered under her watch and it was juuuust a coincidence that after she admitted Trump agreed to her $200 MILLION propaganda ads that she was moved to a new position. Right right right. During her 13-month tenure at the agency, Noem oversaw a number of controversial policies, including the pushing of Trumps aggressive mass deportation agenda that has seen tens of thousands of immigrants removed from the U.S. open image in gallery During her 13-month tenure at the agency, Noem oversaw a number of controversial policies including the pushing of Trumps aggressive mass deportation agenda that has seen tens of thousands of immigrants removed from the U.S. ( REUTERS ) Protests of the crackdown in Minnesota led to two protesters being fatally shot by federal agents within two weeks of each other. In addition, she also provoked outrage across the political aisle over multi-million dollar contracts that were handed out for a DHS ad campaign in which she was prominently featured. Noem testified to Congress that Trump had supported the campaign, only to have the president deny the fact one day later. I never knew anything about it, the president told Reuters. Noem is the first Cabinet member to be forced out of the administration since Trump returned to the White House last year. We all wish Kristi the best of luck in her new position as bus undercarriage inspector, one social media user replied to a clip of Vances remarks. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The Justice Department has moved to dismiss charges against an Army veteran who set an American flag alight near the White House in 2025. Jay Carey was arrested on August 25 after the incident, which was an act of protest against an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. The 55-year-old, from Arden, North Carolina, said he served in the Army from 1989-2012, with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He ignited the flag in Lafayette Park, an area managed by the National Park Service. It came on the same day that Trump signed an executive order mandating the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people for flag burning. Carey faced two misdemeanour charges, neither of which directly concerned the act of flag burning itself. Instead, he was accused of igniting a fire in an undesignated area and causing damage to property or park resources. He entered a plea of not guilty in September. Jay Carey was arrested in August 2025 after setting the flag alight ( AP ) The recent filing did not provide an explanation for the decision to dismiss the case, and the U.S. Attorneys office has yet to comment. A spokesperson for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond on Saturday to an email seeking comment. The Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is a legitimate political expression which is protected by the Constitution. Trumps order said that burning a flag can be prosecuted if it is likely to incite imminent lawless action or amounts to fighting words. I set out to demonstrate that the First Amendment is sacred and that no administration has the right to supersede our constitutional rights, Carey said in a statement from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. "I was targeted for federal prosecution because of that. I am glad to stand with all those who are fighting for our fundamental rights and hope that this victory can help the next person who takes a stand. It shows people that the Constitution still matters, Carey said when reached by telephone on Saturday. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, one of Careys lawyers and fund co-founder, said the prosecution should not have been brought. The governments attempt to criminally punish a protestor based on expressive conduct targeted for prosecution by presidential order posed a grave threat to First Amendment freedoms, Verheyden-Hilliard said in a statement. The governments about-face is a critical vindication of those rights. This case also lays the groundwork for defending those across the country who are targeted for vindictive prosecution by the Trump Administration in an effort to silence and punish viewpoints it doesnt like. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice An explosion caused minor damage to a Jewish school in Amsterdam early on Saturday, an incident the city's mayor has unequivocally condemned as "a deliberate attack against the Jewish community". The blast, which occurred at the school located in an upscale residential neighbourhood on the south side of the city, charred an outer wall and damaged a rainpipe. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. Mayor Femke Halsema stated that the incident is being treated with the utmost seriousness and will result in increased security measures at Jewish institutions across Amsterdam. open image in gallery The explosion caused minor damages but there were no injuries reported ( REUTERS ) "This is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community," Halsema declared. "Jewish people in Amsterdam are increasingly confronted with antisemitism. This is unacceptable." The school holds particular significance as the only institution specifically for orthodox Jews in the Netherlands, and it is already protected by a pointed, metal outer wall due to prior threats. This event follows an overnight arson attack at a synagogue in central Rotterdam on Friday, which had already prompted heightened security at Jewish sites in the Dutch capital. In neighbouring Belgium, an explosion also caused a fire at a synagogue in Liege on Monday. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten described the Amsterdam attack as "horrible," acknowledging that it understandably caused "fear and anger" within the Jewish community. He affirmed on X: "The safety of Jewish institutions has our full attention." Concerns about potential attacks against Jewish communities worldwide have escalated following recent US and Israeli actions against Iran and Tehran's subsequent response. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Pope Leo XIV has officially moved into the newly refurbished papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace, taking up residence in the flat famously shunned by his predecessor, Pope Francis. The Vatican confirmed that Leo will share the third-floor apartment, which offers views of St. Peter's Square, with his closest aides. Since his election last May, Leo had opted to remain in his more modest flat within the Vaticans Palazzo del SantUffizio, a building housing the Holy See doctrine office. The move follows a 10-month period of extensive renovations to the Apostolic Palace apartment. It had remained vacant throughout Francis 12-year papacy, requiring significant upgrades to its electrical, plumbing, and other essential utilities. A crane was spotted on site in recent months as the completion date approached. The papal apartment had been locked after Pope Francis' death, even though he died in his hotel room ( VATICAN MEDIA/AFP via Getty Imag ) Pope Francis famously chose not to inhabit the grand residence, stating a preference for being surrounded by others. He instead resided in the Vaticans Santa Marta residence, an institutional hotel typically used by visiting priests and cardinals during conclaves. Francis choice was in keeping with his simple taste and disdain for the pomp of the papacy. But the practical effect also meant that the entire second floor of the hotel was turned over to the pope, reducing its capacity for paying guests. Leo has made clear he is more comfortable using the traditional garb and accoutrements of the papacy. His decision to move into the Apostolic Palace has been praised in particular by conservative commentators who see it as a sign of respect for the papacy. Leo had actually taken formal possession of the residence in the days after his election, walking through the reception rooms and the small chapel reserved for his personal use. It had been sealed as called for by papal protocol, with a red ribbon and wax, after Francis died on 21 April 2025, even though he had died in his hotel room. Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Russia could earn more than $10bn (7.8bn) in additional oil and gas revenues to help fuel its war on Ukraine thanks to Donald Trump, experts warn. The US president lifted restrictions on countries buying Russian crude stranded at sea, after the closure of the key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, due to the Iran war he started, sent prices soaring. A fifth of the worlds oil supply passes through the strait. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent claimed the 30-day waiver would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government. He said the tailored, short-term move would only provide Moscow with a limited financial boost from oil sales, adding that it would address the instability posed by the terrorist Iranian regime. open image in gallery Iran has carried out several attacks on ships in the Gulf ( AP ) However, shipping data and surging prices suggest Moscow is set to earn up to two-thirds more this month than it did in February, potentially wiping out months of losses in a matter of weeks. Experts warn the move could see Vladimir Putin profit to the tune of $11.3bn (8.6bn). On Friday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky shared his concerns about the decision, saying it did nothing for peace. Benjamin Hilgenstock, head of macroeconomic research and strategy at the Kyiv School of Economics, told the BBC it was a serious bailout for Moscow, adding that the move would help significantly the Russian war effort as it struggles with increasing economic pressure. Moscow, meanwhile, says the move proves how crucial Russia is for the stability of the global energy market. Russias Urals crude has already risen over 50 per cent since the crisis began, to roughly $80-85 (60-64) per barrel. open image in gallery Experts warn that Donald Trumps move could see Vladimir Putin profit to the tune of $11.3bn (8.6bn) ( AFP/Getty ) Seaborne imports of Russian crude have also jumped from 3.18 million barrels a day in February to 4.56 million barrels a day so far in March, according to vessel-tracking data from Kpler. Both are moving in Russias favour simultaneously more oil being sold and at significantly higher prices. Analysts previously told The Independent that Mr Trumps war on Iran was going to benefit Russia heavily, and that appears to be exactly what will happen. The message to the Kremlin is wait long enough and the West will blink, Alexander Kirk, sanctions campaigner at human rights group, Urgewald, said. Russia has already made billions from fossil fuel exports since the strikes on Iran began, he told the BBC. Allowing more Russian oil onto the market now only helps refill the Kremlins war chest. Sanctions campaigner Bill Browder told the broadcaster it is a terrible decision that will enrich Vladimir Putin and prolong the war in Ukraine. The windfall comes after a bruising start to the year for Russian finances. Energy revenues fell almost 50 per cent year on year in the first two months of 2026, pushing Russias budget deficit to roughly 90 per cent of the figure projected for the entire year. Russias energy revenues fell sharply earlier this year as sanctions were starting to have an increased impact, but the current crisis could change that, despite US claims. The current surge in oil prices is very much helping the Kremlin to stabilise and potentially recover those losses, said Isaac Levi, Europe-Russia policy and energy analysis team lead at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. If elevated prices persist, higher export revenues could significantly improve Russias fiscal position and help offset much of the earlier deficit. Russia previously sold its sanctioned crude at a discount to the global industry benchmark, Brent. India, which became Russias largest seaborne crude buyer after Western countries cut imports following the invasion of Ukraine, was receiving Urals at roughly $10 below Brent as recently as February. That discount has now reversed. Urals delivered to India are trading at approximately $5 above Brent, according to Naveen Das, senior oil analyst at Kpler a swing of $15 per barrel across all of Russias existing sales. Indias Russian crude imports are now tracking at 1.6 million barrels a day, up from just over one million in February, and likely to rise further. open image in gallery Thai bulk carrier Mayuree Naree was attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on 11 March ( Royal Thai Navy/AFP/Getty ) China, which already receives around 800,000 barrels a day from Russia via pipeline, is also competing for additional seaborne supplies, but Indian refiners are now outbidding them for available cargoes, Mr Das said. Taken together, the price and volume increases could generate a windfall of between $5.7bn and $11bn in additional fossil fuel export revenues this month if Hormuz remains closed, according to Mr Levi. The estimate assumes Brent holds around $100 a barrel, the discount on Russian oil remains in the $10-15 range, and gas prices stay elevated alongside oil. Brent prices have been on a rollercoaster this week, rising to $119 on Monday and then falling heavily. Meanwhile, Iran has warned the world to prepare for prices as high as $200 as it threatened to set fire to any passing ship. A Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air report published on Thursday found that at the end of February, approximately 6.9 million tonnes around 50 million barrels of Russian crude, valued at $2.6bn, was at sea without a confirmed buyer. That stranded cargo is now being absorbed rapidly, in another boost to the Kremlin. open image in gallery Some Chinese-flagged tankers have been permitted to pass through the gulf ( AFPTV ) Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev has said the US sanctions waiver for countries to buy Russian oil stranded at sea covers 100 million barrels of crude, adding that further easing of restrictions on Russian energy supplies appears increasingly inevitable, despite resistance from some Brussels bureaucrats. And new buyers have already started emerging beyond Russias traditional customer base. Thailands deputy prime minister announced interest in purchasing Russian crude this week. Several countries in Asia are reeling under an oil and gas shortage, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, where fuel shortages from the Hormuz disruption are causing shutdowns and violence. But now, without the risk of US sanctions, they could also enter the market for Russian oil. Russia currently sells 93 per cent of its crude to just three buyers China, India and Turkey making any expansion of that pool strategically significant for Moscows coffers. Zelensky warns of 'distracted' US as acting ambassador Davis prepares to exit On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The UK is expelling a Russian diplomat and summoning ambassador Andrey Kelin in a tit-for-tat move after Moscow expelled a British diplomat on accusations of spying last month. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was taking reciprocal action for Russias unjustified decision in March to remove a British diplomat from the country. A Government spokesperson said: We strongly condemn Russias unjustified decision last month to expel another British diplomat and the malicious public smear campaign that followed. This behaviour is wholly unacceptable, and we will not tolerate harassment or intimidation of our diplomatic staff. Any further action by Russia will be treated as an escalation and met with a firm and proportionate response. Meanwhile, Russia is once again scaling back its annual Victory Day parade in Red Square, saying no military equipment will be used amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The parade is a key event in Russia and is held in Moscow on 9 May every year, marking the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945. It comes as Ukraine announced that its air defences shot down more than 33,000 Russian drones of various types in March, a new monthly record in the four-year war. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice As the US war with Iran continues, attention has turned to a tiny island off the coast of the Middle Eastern country. Kharg Island, whose total area is just 7.7 square miles, is situated northwest of the strategically important shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz. Despite its small size, the island holds around 94 per cent of the countrys crude oil for export, mostly bound for China, and its main oil export terminal. It has now been reported that Donald Trump is considering putting American troops on the ground in Iran to seize the key oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. The possibility of US troops seizing the island is a starkly different tone from the one struck by the president on Friday, who said he was considering winding down the war with Tehran. Mr Trumps top spokeswoman confirmed the details to The Telegraph but cautioned that he had not made a final decision. open image in gallery A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island ( Planet Labs PBC ) In response to questions about boots on the ground, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said: Its the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality. The possibility of further military intervention is in sharp contrast to his post on Truth Social, which said: We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran. The President has previously boasted that US strikes had obliterated Iranian military outposts on the island, but left its oil infrastructure alone for now. Meanwhile, Tehran warned that British lives are in danger after Sir Keir Starmer gave the US permission to strike Iranian missile sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz from UK bases. Ministers agreed to the move on Friday afternoon, having previously limited the US to only using the bases to hit missile sites targeting British interests in the region. But Mr Trump criticised the UK, saying it should have acted a lot faster in giving the US permission. US administration officials said that discussions on seizing the Kharg Island have taken place, according to Axios. The land, which is smaller than the city of Westminster in London, could choke off Irans economy and leave a devastating impact for years to come. Seizing the island would cut off Irans oil lifeline, which is crucial for the regime, Petras Katinas, research fellow in climate, energy and defence in the Europe office of the Royal United Services Institute, told The Telegraph. Of course, with shipping via the Strait of Hormuz now stopped, they cannot sell oil anyway, but looking ahead, seizure would give the US leverage during negotiations, no matter which regime is in power after the military operation ends. Shipping through the Strait has largely come to a halt after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took complete control of the major waterway. Global supply chains have been severely affected and experts have warned of a devastating economic impact across the world if it continues. Oil prices surged to more than $119 a barrel on Thursday before dropping, and the IRGC warned that it could reach $200 if hostilities escalate. Should he take Kharg, rather than destroy it, he can not only ensure the regime can never again pay the salaries of its bureaucrats and soldiers, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin wrote in an article for the American Enterprise Institute in January this year, before Trumps assault. But also, in the future after regime change, he can ensure that the new Iranian regime can finance its own rebuilding. The IRGC, of course, could target Kharg with ballistic missiles, but that would sign their death warrant. Not only would Trump respond in kind, but such action would end Iranian oil exports for months to come, again leaving salaries unpaid. Other analysts have suggested the island could be used as a bargaining chip as oil exports make up nearly 40 per cent of Irans government budget. However, it would make American and Israeli troops vulnerable to attacks by Iranian forces. If President Trump were to decide to seize this pivotal hub, it would deal a significant blow to the Iranian regime, as it would deprive them of a critical source of revenue, oil analyst Tamas Varga told CNBC. open image in gallery An Iranian military boat patrols next to the Artavil oil tanker, at Kharg Island, in Persian Gulf, ( EPA ) Such a move would be reminiscent of the US intervention in Venezuela at the beginning of the year, when it effectively took control of the countrys oil sector. The island was previously attacked by Saddam Hussein in 1984, sparking the oil tanker war in the ongoing conflict between Iran and Iraq. But this isnt the first time Kharg appears to have been in Trumps sightline. He previously made a throwaway remark about the island nearly 40 years ago while promoting his book The Art of the Deal in an interview with The Guardian. Theyve been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools, he said of Iran in 1988. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and Id do a number on Kharg Island. Id go in and take it. Neil Quilliam, an energy policy and foreign affairs analyst at Chatham House, told The Independent that while it is unlikely Trump would take over the territory, any attempt would likely send the markets into a tailspin. It could also block any future resolution between the countries, leading to an endless standoff. The US would effectively control Irans major export terminal, but the Iranian leadership would remain in control of the countrys production so there would be a standoff, he said. It could also be a major cause for concern for Gulf countries, setting a dangerous precedent. It is Irans Achilles heel in this war, but fighting for and occupying Kharg could cause irreparable damage to the terminal and hurt any successor regimes chances of managing the economy, he continued. Previous presidents have steered away from Kharg, understanding its strategic importance to global oil markets. Another long-running American restaurant chain is shutting down a historic location, continuing a wave of closures hitting the industry. Restaurant shutdowns have become increasingly common over the past few years. Still, the news often hits hardest when decades-old establishments with deep community roots close their doors. Even as the broader restaurant sector remains a major driver of the U.S. economy, many operators continue to face rising costs and shifting consumer spending habits. According to the National Restaurant Association, eating and drinking establishments were projected to contribute $1.54 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2025, accounting for more than 5% of nominal GDP. However, continued restaurant closures could begin to disrupt that economic momentum if industry pressures persist. One longstanding Midwestern chain now facing challenges is MCL Restaurant and Bakery, a family-owned brand that has served comfort food to generations of customers. Founded in 1950 in Indianapolis, the restaurant has built a loyal following through its cafeteria-style dining and classic homemade dishes. Menu staples such as fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and famous pies have made the chain a familiar gathering spot across the Midwest. Now, another one of its beloved locations is preparing to close after decades of serving the community. MCL Restaurant and Bakery confirms permanent closure MCL Restaurant and Bakery is permanently closing its Terre Haute restaurant at 3 Meadows Lane on March 15, 2026. The owners did not disclose a specific reason for the closure. However, the shutdown will affect approximately 20 employees, according to the Tribune Star. The Terre Haute closure follows several recent shutdowns by the family-owned chain, leaving just 10 locations across Indiana and Ohio. Recent MCL closures Springfield, Illinois: The restaurant at 2151 Wabash Ave. closed in February 2026, ending the chain's presence in the state, according to The State Journal-Register. Indianapolis, Indiana: The location at 6002 Crawfordsville Rd. closed in April 2025, according to IndyStar. In both cases, the company did not publicly state a reason for the closures. MCL Restaurant and Bakery is permanently closing its Terre Haute restaurant.Shutterstock Shutterstock Community members react to the MCL restaurant closures Although the owners have not explained the recent shutdowns, many longtime customers have shared their reactions online. Some community members expressed sadness at losing a restaurant tied to decades of family traditions. "My grandma ate there every night with her two sisters-in-law for years. Every time we were in town we would go with them. I'm sad to see it go," wrote one Facebook user. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Drones have crashed near Dubai airport, its harbour and the financial district. Flights have been cancelled, daily alerts warn residents to stay away from windows, and tourists are being arrested on suspicion of filming missiles. But two weeks after the US-Iran war began, some corners of social media would have you believe its still business as usual in the emirate. As the conflict has widened across the Middle East and beyond, Dubais air defences have faced down more than 260 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,514 drones, according to the Ministry of Defence. As of 10 March, the UAEs defence system had intercepted more than 90 per cent of all projectiles, but some have nonetheless gone on to strike targets in the countrys most populous city. open image in gallery A strike near Dubai airport, which has seen cancelled flights as tourism feels the impact of the regional conflict ( Social media ) On Friday, clouds of black smoke were seen billowing from Dubais International Finance Centre after debris from an intercepted drone damaged a building. Another drone hit a building in the vicinity of Dubais Creek Harbour in the early hours of Thursday morning, with a further strike reported in the Al Badaa area of the city. No one was injured in either incident, according to authorities. However, four people were injured after two drones fell in the vicinity of Dubai International Airport on Wednesday. Two Ghanaian nationals and a Bangladeshi national suffered minor injuries, while one Indian national was moderately injured, the citys authorities reported. Dubai has long sold itself as a safe destination in a troubled region, but the wars impact is already being felt by its tourism industry. Middle East Travel Alliance, which oversees logistics for around 20,000 tourists a year from the US and UK, told The Telegraph that they had seen a 100 per cent cancellation of all future bookings to the region since the conflict started. A growing number of airlines, including British Airways, Aegean Airlines and Air Canada, have all cancelled flights. open image in gallery Jebel Ali Port in Dubai was struck by Iran in the early days of the war ( Planet Labs PBC ) Multiple high-profile businesses have begun to remove staff from the international hub, after Irans joint military command announced it would start targeting financial institutions across the region. This week, Bloomberg told employees based in the Gulf, including its Dubai regional headquarters, that they can temporarily relocate and work from outside the region. The US lender Citigroup, British bank Standard Chartered and the London Stock Exchange Group have also told employees in Dubai to work remotely. According to Barbara Leaf, former US ambassador to the UAE, Dubais prominent economic role in the Gulf is exactly why its become a particular target for Iran. Dubai is this great emblem of the alternative economic present and future for the region, the alternative certainly to Iran, she told The Telegraph. Its the shiny symbol of everything that is bright and modern and dynamic in the region. So its exactly the place they want to hit and damage the most. open image in gallery Smoke rises after an Iranian drone attack in the port area of Dubai ( AP ) But anyone who searches Dubai on social media will see a very different narrative presented. Multiple videos posted on Instagram pose the questions You live in Dubai, arent you scared? or Do you feel safe in Dubai? before going on to explain why there is absolutely nothing to worry about. Some of the clips cut to a montage of the citys leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, accompanied by the words: I know who protects us. This contrast between the life presented online and footage of multiple drone incidents appears increasingly jarring, the longer the regional conflict goes on. The same day that four people were injured by drones, one influencer with 40,000 followers on TikTok shared a video of herself walking through the Dubai Hills Mall, talking about the vanilla matcha she just purchased. open image in gallery Debris from an intercepted drone came down in a financial district ( Social media ) I've lived in Dubai for three and a half years, and it's almost like you're in a new relationship, she said, while acknowledging that some will be sceptical. You know, when youre dating a new guy, youre not quite sure about him. Youre trying to see if you can trust him, and then over time, as the relationship develops, then you slowly learn like, No, this is the guy that I can rely on. I know hes always gonna have my back. The message that citizens are being kept safe is a frequent refrain in such posts, often using similar wording. Influencers in Dubai must operate under a Commercial Trade License and an E-Media Influencer Permit from the UAE Media Council. Authorities have framed the new legislation as a way to protect the public from misleading content and ensure the UAEs national interests, according to Gulf media outlets. The Dubai Media Office issued a warning on the first day of the US strikes, a crackdown on what they called outdated and misleading videos and images of past fire incidents in the city. open image in gallery Workers inspect damage to the Address Creek Harbour hotel ( AP ) The public and media are urged to rely solely on official sources for accurate information and refrain from sharing unverified material. Legal action will be taken against those who publish or republish such content in violation of UAE law, the statement said. Two weeks later, 21 people have been charged under the UAEs cybercrime laws, including a British tourist arrested for allegedly recording footage of a missile over Dubai. Detained in Dubai, the human rights advocate Radha Stirling reported that the man said he deleted the video immediately when asked and meant no harm, but he is still among those facing charges. Ms Stirling said the governments warning that people could face jail for posting videos, images, or even sharing the wrong news article about the attacks was a reminder that the United Arab Emirates is not the free society some visitors believe it to be. open image in gallery A police officer inspects the wreckage of a drone in downtown Dubai ( AFP/Getty ) In a single moment, the narrative of Dubai as a carefree, cosmopolitan safe haven collided with the reality of strict cybercrime laws that can send people to prison simply for sharing information that authorities consider negative or misleading, she said. But it appears the efforts to reassure the public may not have been quite as effective as hoped. Celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, who has long championed Dubai for its safety, have been spotted back in the US after leaving the UAE after the war began. A British property investor even went so far as chartering a 150,000 private jet to leave the region with his family, though he insisted that it was for a meeting rather than safety fears. Nevertheless, estate agents in the UK told The Independent this week they had seen an uptick in demand for London property from those wanting to return from the Gulf. The conflict has not surprisingly been a very abrupt reality check for many who have been lured to Dubai predominantly due to the tax-free regime, climate and perceived lifestyle, said Mark Pollack, co-founding director of Aston Chase. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Some oil-loading operations have been suspended at Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates' Fujairah port following a suspected Iranian drone attack and fire on Saturday. Fujairah, a major global hub for refuelling ships and crude and fuel exports, was struck following Iranian threats to expand strikes on US allies. Those followed a US strike on Irans Kharg Island, a vital hub for its oil industry. President Donald Trump claimed that the US had "totally obliterated every military target in Irans crown jewel" on Kharg Island. Here is what to know about Fujairah and its importance to the fuel market. open image in gallery Smoke rises from Fujairah, a major global hub for refuelling ships ( AFP via Getty Images ) How important is Fujairah globally? In 2025, Fujairah exported over 1.7 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined fuels, according to Kpler data, representing approximately 1.7 per cent of daily world demand. Its location on the Gulf of Oman, approximately 70 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz, amplifies its importance. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed due to the Iran war, Fujairah's flows are increasingly vital to the global market. In 2025, it sold 7.4 million cubic metres (about 7.33 million metric tons) of marine fuels, making it the world's fourth largest after Singapore, Rotterdam, and China's Zhoushan. Why does the port matter to the United Arab Emirates? The UAE, which before the war began produced more than 3.4 million bpd of crude, operates a 1.5 million bpd pipeline that can transport some crude to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. open image in gallery Ships are seen anchored near Fujairah port as smoke from a burning oil facility fills the sky ( AP ) The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP), also known as the HabshanFujairah Pipeline, transports oil from Abu Dhabis fields to Fujairah. The port loads the UAE crude grade Murban, sold mostly to buyers in Asia. With Hormuz largely shut to exports, significant disruptions at Fujairah would force OPECs thirdlargest crude producer to shut down more production. How much does it matter to crude and fuel markets? The port has a storage capacity of 18 million cubic metres, making it one of the world's top hubs for storing crude and fuels as well as blending operations. Blending in the oil industry is the process of mixing different petroleum components to create finished products such as gasoline and bunker fuels that meet specific standards. Major global storage companies operate at the port, including VTTI, Vitol, ADNOC, Vopak, and others. The Fujairah Oil Industry Zone hosts the Middle Easts largest commercial storage capacity for refined products. On The Ground newsletter: Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly dispatch from our international correspondents Get a weekly international news dispatch Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Against the intermittent thump of distant Israeli airstrikes, the elderly couple sit on the floor of a brightly coloured classroom, sobbing. Today they have fled their village in southern Lebanon under bombing, to this absurdly purple room covered in childrens scrawls. Neither of them can walk. They carry only a few bags between them. Early this morning their youngest son, Mohamed, 38, a father of three and their carer, had been shredded in an Israeli airstrike on his car between Lebanons southern city of Tyre, where we are sitting, and their village. The part-time electrician had been shuttling between his wife and three children, who were staying in a displacement camp in the coastal city, and his elderly parents, who, too old and infirm to move, were sheltering in their village of Chaatiyeh. Both are in Israels evacuation zone. open image in gallery Iman, 78, cries, as she explains how her son and carer was killed that morning after visiting his wife and children in Tyre ( Bel Trew ) By chance, Mohameds own nephew had been the ambulance driver on call in the area when Mohamed was killed. He found his uncle, his limbs severed, his car a charred wreck. Mohamed was looking after us, caring for us. Today the light went out of my life, Iman, 78, the mother says, her voice a cracked shell. Unable to continue speaking, her husband Daoud, 85, picks up the story. When they came and told me my son was killed, I collapsed. Totally collapsed. He has left three children with no father. My heart is burning. I feel like part of me died. Sitting perched on a childs chair in this room, their new home for now, Fouad, 54, their eldest son, explains that his own child had been killed in the last war with Israel in 2024 while volunteering with the civil defence. This is the second time the family has been displaced to this school where we all sit now. What, after all this, is left for us from life? There is no one, nothing left, he says, his face in his hands. For nearly two weeks Israel has been pounding swathes of Lebanon, and in the south here pushing deeper into the war-ravaged country, as it is locked in a fierce battle with the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. This war was triggered 12 days ago when Hezbollah fired at Israel in retaliation for massive US and Israeli strikes over Iran killing its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. open image in gallery Mohammed (not related to Iman), by the destroyed remains of his building in Tyre, which was damaged by Israeli airstrikes in 2024 and this month ( Bel Trew ) The conflict shows no signs of abating. Even as US president Donald Trump tries to suggest his offensive may be drawing to a close, there are fears the battle between Israel and Lebanon has only just begun. In fact, in the last few days Israeli defence minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli army to expand its operations, doubling the size of the forced evacuation orders in the south and even threatening to take Lebanese territory. Lebanons president, Joseph Aoun, has reportedly been seeking talks with Israel to end the conflict. But senior Hezbollah officials told The Independent Lebanon has no interest in negotiating with the enemy while it is under fire. They gave no timeline but said hostilities would keep going with the aim of breaking the enemys will and preventing it from continuing its aggression. Across Lebanon, Israeli strikes have killed more than 770 people, and injured nearly 2,000 more, according to the Lebanese authorities. They have also forced more than 800,000 people like Daoud and Iman to flee their homes, which according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, is roughly one in every seven people in the tiny country. open image in gallery The centre of Tyre a city in the evacuation zone after Israeli bombing ( Bel Trew ) In Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city which lies about 20km north of the border with Israel, strikes continue every day. As we arrive, Israel issues a new evacuation order and bombs Abbassieh, a district inside Tyre, which is strewn with towering mounds of chewed-up concrete and snarled rebar. Mohamed, 21, a local resident we meet by the iconic waterfront, says they also hit Abbassieh the day before, killing his father, critically wounding his mother, and partly destroying his home again. They bombed without warning. My mother has shrapnel in her brain and is in intensive care, he says blankly. Its really, really hard, but Im one of the lucky ones. Other families have been entirely wiped out. His mother is being treated at Jabal Amel Hospital, which was badly damaged three days ago by a nearby Israeli strike. There the hospital director, Dr Faraj Hamady, says they have been forced to expand their intensive care unit, which usually holds 27 patients, to accommodate the rush of critically injured. They are also running low on essential supplies. He describes burying a colleague two days ago, a first-responder killed in an apparent double-tap attack, and having to amputate the leg of a seven-year-old. Some patients were arriving and dying before they could even be triaged, he continues. We do our best but in the end we cannot do everything, he says. Dr Hamady says that, despite the hospital being inside the evacuation zone, they will not leave, even amid reports from Israel that it is planning a massive ground invasion into Lebanon to uproot Hezbollah and claim more territory. If there is to be an evacuation, it will be a forced evacuation. We absolutely cannot leave, he says grimly, showing images of the destruction. We will continue our services until the last pill, until the last oxygen supply, until we simply cannot do this any more. open image in gallery The director of Tyre's main hospital says it was damaged in strikes and the ICU is overflowing ( Bel Trew ) The other developing crisis in Tyre is the thousands of displaced people. Although it is being bombed itself, the city is supporting roughly 10,000 displaced people in schools, shelters and temporary accommodation, says Alwan Sharafeddine, the deputy mayor of the city. Across Lebanon the cash-strapped government has only been able to accommodate roughly 120,000 people as it scrambles to open shelters in schools and bring in more supplies. It has meant people have resorted to sleeping rough on the streets or in their cars under bombing. In Tyre, at the local university, guarded by United Nations peacekeeping troops, volunteers frantically hand out food rations, mattresses and blankets. open image in gallery Volunteers hand out supplies to displaced people in Tyre ( Bel Trew ) No one knows when this will end. I think it will continue for a long time and it will get harder, now the bombing is increasing step by step, Sharafeddine adds. At an iconic 1950s cinema and theatre in the heart of Tyres Christian quarter, owner Kassem Istanbouli says they are hosting 100 people across three spaces, and packing mattresses and beds into the stalls, stage and green rooms of all their cinemas. He says among them are refugees from Syria and people from Bangladesh and Somalia, who struggle to find places in government-run shelters that prioritise Lebanese citizens. Theatres in war and peace should remain open for the people. The goal of theatre is to support people. We practise cultural resistance and solidarity, he adds. Back in the school, Daoud and Iman are dazed as they set up mattresses on the floor of their new temporary home and come to terms with their grief. My message to the international community is stop killing humanity, says Daoud. They killed my son. He was an engineer. He was taking care of me even though he worried about his children. Isnt it a crime to kill him? I feel like from now on, I will keep dying inside. Stay on top of the latest political news with our View from Westminster newsletter Get the latest political headlines with our free email Get the latest political headlines with our free email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Donald Trump has pleaded for the UK and its allies to send warships to the embattled Strait of Hormuz in an effort to break Irans blockade of the key oil shipping route. Piling pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to deepen his involvement in the escalating conflict, the US president urged Britain and other nations including France, China and Japan to send warships to the area to protect oil tankers from Iranian attacks. The narrow waterway has been gripped by conflict after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had taken complete control of the passage, through which a fifth of the worlds oil passes. It is now effectively closed, stemming the flow of oil out of the Middle East, grinding trade in the region to a halt and pushing up energy prices across the globe. The UK government said it was discussing a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region. In a post on his Truth Social website, Mr Trump said: Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the strait open and safe. open image in gallery Donald Trump has urged a number of countries to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz ( Getty ) We have already destroyed 100 per cent of Irans military capability, but its easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. In what appeared to be an appeal to the UK and other nations, he added: Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated. Mr Trump struck a markedly different tone from when, earlier this month, he accused Sir Keir of joining the conflict after the US had already claimed victory, suggesting the US no longer needed UK assistance. The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East, Mr Trump wrote earlier in March. Thats OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we dont need them any longer But we will remember. We dont need people that join Wars after weve already won! The relationship between Mr Trump and Sir Keir has become increasingly fractious in recent months, a breakdown which began over US opposition to the UKs deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and the presidents threats to annex Greenland, but has only escalated since the outbreak of war with Iran. open image in gallery Keir Starmer confirmed this week that Britain wont be following the US in lifting sanctions on Russian oil At the start of the conflict, Mr Trump criticised the prime minister after he initially declined permission for the US to use UK bases to target Irans missile launchers. While the prime minister later allowed the use of joint UK-US bases for defensive strikes, Mr Trump nonetheless lambasted his relationship with Britain under Sir Keir, saying he is very sad to see it is obviously not what it was. The rift deepened this week, when the prime minister confirmed that Britain wont be following the US in lifting sanctions on Russian oil, saying the move risks helping Vladimir Putins war machine. No 10 instead urged its international allies to maintain pressure on Moscow, and to avoid inadvertently funding Putins war in Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. In his latest post, Mr Trump vowed to continue bombing the hell out of the shoreline of the country until the shipping lane was reopened, adding that the US would be continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water. open image in gallery Smoke rises from the direction of an energy installation in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah on 14 March ( AFP/Getty ) He added: One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! Some 3,000 ships usually sail through the Strait of Hormuz each month. But numerous vessels have come under fire as they attempted to pass through since the start of the conflict. Motjaba Khamenei, Irans new supreme leader, vowed to keep blocking it as a means of pressuring the US in his first public statement this week. Mr Trumps comments came on another dramatic day in the Middle East conflict, which began two weeks ago when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Earlier on Saturday, a fire broke out at the Fujairah port in the UAE, which had been targeted in an Iranian drone strike, forcing the facility to suspend part of its operations. It is one of the Middle Easts largest oil storage hubs, heightening concerns over already-surging oil prices. The Fujairah media office said the blaze was sparked by debris from a drone intercepted by air defences and that no injuries were reported. open image in gallery Trump releases video showing apparent strike on Kharg Island ( Donald Trump/Truth Social ) Shortly after, Tehran warned residents living near three UAE ports Jebel Ali in Dubai, Khalifa in Abu Dhabi and the Fujairah port to evacuate the areas, according to Iranian state media. The residents were told that the ports were being used by the US military and may be targeted in the coming hours. Jebel Ali is the busiest port in the Middle East. Iranian forces had threatened to expand strikes to US allies in the region after the US hit the countrys crucial Kharg Island overnight. The island accounts for about 90 per cent of Irans oil exports. Mr Trump claimed the US had totally obliterated every military target in Irans crown jewel and called the operation one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East. Irans military responded and warned that any attack on its oil and energy infrastructure would prompt strikes on facilities owned by oil companies in the region cooperating with the US, Iranian media reported. open image in gallery US embassy personnel inspect the damage caused by a bombing in Baghdad on Saturday, 14 March ( AP ) The US embassy in Baghdad was also struck by a missile in the aftermath of the attack on Kharg Island, according to Iraqi security officials. Plumes of black smoke were seen rising above the building after the attack hit a helipad in the compound on Saturday. Drones are reported to have struck the building. Three Iran-backed fighters were also killed in strikes on Baghdad, according to reports. It comes as the US deploys thousands of troops and more warships to the Middle East as Iran steps up its fight in the Strait of Hormuz. An MoD spokesperson said: As weve said previously, we are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region. Donald Trump was at his braggadocious, bombastic, bewildering best/worst (delete as applicable) when he spoke in Hebron on Thursday that is Hebron, Kentucky; not Hebron on the West Bank. He said the war in Iran was won. In fact, he told his audience, it was won in the first hour. He lauded himself for coming up with such a great name for the operation. Epic Fury, is that a great name? he joked with his audience, as if you cant launch a war without coming up with a great slogan first. Now you would think in week two of a war, where US servicemen and women are in harms way, there would be a rallying to the flag. Here he was in Republican Kentucky, and as he uttered these words, I expected every sentence, every rhetorical flourish to be met with a tub-thumping U-S-A from this loyal Maga crowd. But it didnt come. The audience was strangely muted. It was almost as if they knew what we all know: that there is no plan, and there is no victory in sight. The regime has not fallen, and the Iranians, with great ease, are able to block the Strait of Hormuz and there seems to be nothing the Americans, with all their prodigious might, can do about it. Now I would be overcooking it if I said this was akin to that moment on 21 December 1989, when Nicolae Ceausescu stood on the balcony in Romanias capital and found the audience not cheering his every word. And I would certainly be in danger of drifting into fantasyland if I compared this to a certain Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about a little boy who shouted out to a vain ruler who surrounded himself with sycophants that he had no clothes. But maybe there is a small element of that. The genius of Trump over the years is that he has been able to say the most tendentious things, totally untethered from any factual reality, and his fans have nodded along. This war in Iran feels different. His appeal to Americans when running for office was that he would not involve the US in conflicts in faraway lands. It was America First, and yet Donald Trump has involved the US in a war of choice. There was no preparation of public opinion, no coherent explanation of why and why now. No clear narrative about what the strategic aims are. Is it about regime change? Destroying Irans nuclear weapons? Or is it just a case of neutering them a bit? The messaging has been all over the place. open image in gallery A Himars missile fired during Operation Epic Fury by the US army ( US army/AFP via Getty ) We are now in a position where the Americans are running out of targets to hit. Theyve knocked out Iranian air defences, blown to bits key Iranian infrastructure (and a girls school), decapitated the Iranian leadership but the regime is still in place. Then there is the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the worlds oil flows. According to President Trump, the Iranian Navy has been destroyed. Its been sunk. But the strait is narrow. And all it takes is a dhow or skiff to drop a sea mine overboard (and the Iranians are thought to have an arsenal of around 1,000 of them) and, bingo, youve choked this vital artery of global trade. And for all the lethal power of the US Navy, there aint nothing much they can do about it. Its just so simple for the Iranians. Did anyone around Trump warn him there might be a rather big economic consequence? Had he thought this through? Well, maybe they did and he decided to ignore it. Remember this is a second term where the president doesnt want advisers who challenge him; he wants thigh-slapping cheerleaders who say: Way to go, Sir. So claiming victory as Americans are having to pay ever more to fill up their gas-guzzlers is going to feel pretty hollow. No one is saying hes naked and has no clothes an image no one, not even Melania, should have to conjure with but he is looking a little threadbare. These are scary times. But Donald Trump, ever the entertainer, is enjoying the beauty pageant hes able to mount between his VP, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the two men best positioned to succeed him in the 2028 election. The praise is being lavished on Marco right now. Trump seems to have warmed to him enormously. JD seems much more sceptical of the Iranian adventure or excursion, as Trump is now calling it. Vances scepticism about this might serve him well in the long term. open image in gallery The genius of Trump is that he has been able to say the most tendentious things, totally untethered from reality but Iran is different ( AP ) All of which brings us to footwear. It is known that this president takes a particularly dim view of lousy shoes. So when he saw his VP and secretary of state wearing scruffy, utilitarian pairs, he said he would buy them new ones. Rubio has recently been seen photographed wearing a pair where his heel is nowhere near the back of the leather upper. Now youll remember Rubio took Trump on in a presidential debate a decade ago, saying the property tycoons small hands were a sign of umm being small somewhere else. The theory doing the rounds now is that when Trump asked him what size shoes he wanted, Rubio gulped and replied size 11, when hes only an 8. So if you see the secretary of state on TV tottering around as though hes a little girl in his mums high heels, you know why. Do I have any reliable sources for any of this? No. But some stories are too good to check. And as I say, these are scary times. We need something to smile about. Flow of FDI to Ireland fell last year, as US firms sent more of their profits home Report says this is a one-off event as it points to Irish investment in America Paul Sweetman, CEO of American Chamber of Commerce Ireland John Burns Fri 13 Mar 2026 at 06:30 Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to Ireland fell last year due to US firms repatriating capital, according to a new report from the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland. As fans prepare for new film, shows creator Steven Knight weighs in on why class has always been a key theme in hit Netflix show Packy Lee, Cillian Murphy and Rebecca Ferguson at the global premiere of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man in Birmingham. Photo: WireImage From the moment Cillian Murphys Tommy Shelby first sauntered through a Birmingham slum on horseback in 2013 to the strains of Nick Caves Red Right Hand, it was obvious that Peaky Blinders was different. A post-World War I gangster drama set in a working-class area of Brum, backlit by factory flames and driven by a brooding soundtrack, it felt impossibly cool, stitching itself into the cultural zeitgeist like a razor blade in the peak of a flat cap. There was Shelby, his ice-blue eyes scything down men with a snipers precision. Then there was the haircut shaved back and sides, mop on top the tweed three-piece suits, the themed pubs, the Monopoly set, the clothing line. Snoop Dogg was a Peaky fan; so, too, was David Bowie, who sent a photograph of himself in the signature flat cap to series creator Steven Knight. Nobody predicted it would be such a phenomenon, least of all Knight himself. Six series later, having garnered more than six million viewers in its prime, its striding into cinemas and onto Netflix with a long-awaited film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, set in 1940, with Tommy grieving his daughter alone in a remote country pile. And yet two of its newest stars have barely watched any of it. Tim Roth who joins alumni such as Tom Hardy, Adrien Brody and Anya Taylor-Joy agreed to The Immortal Man after Murphy himself texted, asking him to take on the role of John Beckett, treasurer of the British Union of Fascists. I was a bit nervous about telling him I hadnt seen it, he says. But he laughed which is typical Cillian. Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Kaulo Chirklo, Queen of the Palmer Witches, the purportedly supernatural woman determined to lure Tommy back from his self-imposed exile, fared only marginally better. She watched one series. Its six bloody seasons, she laughs. Its a lot. Barry Keoghan and Cillian Murphy in 'Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man' Although Roth was tempted to swot up on the show, he decided against it. Come in totally fresh, come into their world, he recalls thinking. Ferguson agrees. If you over-research, she explains, the performance can lose that rawness, that frisson of unpredictability I would turn into something that has already been created. Roth had a more specific problem to solve. If Beckett is to infiltrate the Peaky Blinders by approaching Duke Shelby (Barry Keoghan), Tommys illegitimate son and successor, with a scheme to spread Nazi counterfeit currency across Birmingham he cannot arrive as a posh emissary from the establishment, as Knight had originally written him. That posh t*** wouldnt be able to communicate with these people, Roth says. So he suggested making Beckett working-class. Knight agreed. Just as well, really. As Beckett, Roth is a study in compressed malice: reptilian and calculating, a Tarantino villain reconfigured as a Whitehall traitor. Someone whod never watched the series could approach this as a standalone Equally impressive is Ferguson. She is at once luminous and glacial, with genuine menace a Lady Macbeth in Romany silk. Tom Harper, the films director, was dazzled by her mercurial performance. If Roth and Ferguson are the new blood, Murphy is still Peaky Blinders unquiet heart. The film, picking up six years after the series ended, finds him greyer and hollowed out by grief. Grace, his first wife. Ruby, his daughter. Arthur and John, his brothers. Polly, the family matriarch (who was played by the late Helen McCrory). All gone. Just as William Munny, Clint Eastwoods retired outlaw in the 1992 western Unforgiven, is dragged back into violence by forces that refuse to let him go, so Tommy is the haunted gunslinger who cannot outrun his past. The parallels were intentional, says Knight. I love that film, and what I love about it is that he doesnt pull the trigger he doesnt become the person everybody wants him to become until probably 10 minutes from the end. No matter how many times hes inhabited Tommy, Murphy says, preparing for the role is always a conscious effort the reading, the conditioning. But after a certain point, there is a sort of a blurring of lines between me and him, he tells me. It doesnt happen instantaneously. But its deeply satisfying. The Oscar he won for Oppenheimer in 2024 changed nothing, Murphy insists. That was this wonderful, crazy, sort of hallucinogenic moment, he tells me. But my taste and my values had remained the same. Harper sees a different story. He has a power now, the director says. If someone comes in for a day and finds themselves opposite Cillian playing Tommy Shelby, you can see theyre absolutely terrified. It always takes a minute just for them to catch their breath. That power is put to the test by Knights plot, which as ever with Peaky Blinders mines an obscure piece of history. Operation Bernhard: the Nazi scheme to forge 320m of British currency at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the notes so meticulous that even bank experts couldnt tell the difference. A scene from 'Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man'. Photo: Netflix/Robert Viglasky The Bank of England withdrew 10 notes during the war because of it; after the surrender of Germany, they changed the design entirely. True events are like nails, Knight says. You can hold things up with them. Whether a beloved TV series can survive the leap to cinema is another matter. Knight is clear-eyed about the challenge. Long-form television is like a novel, he says. A film is a short story. You have to have a very definite beginning, middle and end. You have to pay things off. The Immortal Man, he and Murphy insist, welcomes uninitiated viewers. Someone whod never watched it could approach this as a standalone, Murphy says. Which I think is the beauty of it. The someone most likely to draw them in is Keoghan. As Duke Shelby, the Dubliner is perfectly cast, exuding a scuzzy, live-wire nihilism that conceals a quiet frailty. Theres a longing for his fathers love and respect that the 33-year-old who has spoken about his tumultuous childhood, which included parental addiction and years in foster care doesnt so much perform as carry Duke in his bones. Of the Bafta-winning star of The Banshees of Inisherin and Saltburn, Murphy notes: He has that thing where you just put a camera on him, and hes instantly interesting. He has a sort of dangerous quality to him on camera, but he also has this vulnerability. They are sort of contradictory traits, but he has them all. Knight is similarly full of praise: Its just a gift from him, he says. Its super important that there is an avenue for kids to think that this isnt an impossibility Keoghans trajectory from Summerhill in Dublins north inner city is like a story told in the show. Peaky Blinders was born from Knights parents tales of Small Heath, where the series is set. It has always been, beneath its besuited, smoke-wreathed mythology, a drama about the cost of being working class. Murphy is clear that this should be reflected in who gets to make it in film. It certainly should not in any way be the case that this is an industry exclusively for privileged kids, he says. That would be a terrible reflection on the type of stories were trying to tell. He thinks for a moment. Youth drama, youth clubs and libraries if those places get shut down and kids get locked out, then where do they go? Its super important that there is an avenue for kids to think that this isnt an impossibility. Thats the bedrock of it. The Immortal Man couldnt be more timely. The far right is on the march again. In America, in Europe, in Britain. Set against the actual rise of British fascism in the 1940s, the film feels less like a period drama than a dispatch from the present. Sadly, its a very topical subject, Knight says. Good for the film, not good for the world. The political climate is like the weather you cant not know about it, because when youre sitting there, its coming against your window. It turns out Knight, who is also writing Bond 26 for Denis Villeneuve and Amazon MGM, has already finished the new Peaky series set this time in 1953 with shooting beginning soon. The Immortal Man, then, is not an ending but a hinge the point at which Tommy Shelby stops being a television character and becomes something larger. A reluctant king, as Harper puts it: The magnetism of the world is pulling him back in and there is no escape. Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is in cinemas now and is on Netflix from next Friday, March 20 Austin Appelbee (left), his mother Joanne and his siblings, Beau and Grace, with junior minister Kevin 'Boxer' Moran in Western Australia A teenage boy from Australia who swam for four hours to save his stranded family has received a commendation from President Catherine Connolly. On January 30, 13-year-old Austin Appelbee, his mother Joanne, and his younger siblings, Beau (12) and Grace (8), were swept 4km out to sea while they were kayaking and paddleboarding off the southwest coast of Australia at Quindalup beach, south of Perth. A three-year-old boy who died after he was struck by a vehicle in the underground car park of Charlestown Shopping Centre in Dublin has been named locally as Noah Sikora. By Jonathan Stempel March 13 (Reuters) - Adobe reached a $150 million settlement to resolve a U.S. government lawsuit accusing the Photoshop and Acrobat maker of harming consumers by concealing hefty termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions, the Department of Justice said on Friday. The accord requires Adobe to pay a $75 million civil fine, and provide $75 million in free services to customers. Court approval is required. In a June 2024 complaint, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission accused Adobe of burying termination fees for its popular "annual paid monthly" subscription plan, sometimes reaching hundreds of dollars, in the fine print or behind text boxes and hyperlinks. They also said the San Jose, California-based company made cancelling subscriptions a hassle, forcing subscribers who wanted to cancel online to wade through numerous pages, and subscribers who wanted to cancel by phone to repeat themselves to multiple representatives and encounter "resistance and delay." Adobe was accused of violating the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act, a 2010 law barring merchants from imposing charges, including for automatic subscription renewals, without disclosing material terms clearly and obtaining customer consent. The settlement also resolved government claims against two Adobe executives. American consumers deserve the right to make informed choices when deciding where to spend their hard-earned money, Brett Shumate, head of the Justice Department's civil division, said in a statement. In a statement on its website, Adobe said it has in recent years streamlined its sign-up and cancellation processes and made them more transparent. "While we disagree with the government's claims and deny any wrongdoing, we are pleased to resolve this matter," Adobe said. Subscriptions accounted for 97% of Adobe's $6.4 billion in revenue for the quarter ending February 27. Adobe's settlement was announced one day after Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen said he will step down after more than 18 years in the role. The company's shares have fallen this year, reflecting investor concern about how artificial intelligence will affect Adobe's business prospects. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Louise Heavens and Bill Berkrot) I cant walk away now: Osgur Breatnach, wrongly jailed for the Sallins train robbery, on his 50-year fight for justice The 75-year-old tells John Meagher about the ordeal he went through after a confession was beaten out of him by the shadowy garda Heavy Gang and how he hopes a benefit concert will be the catalyst for an official apology and a public inquiry I can't walk away now: Osgur Breatnach on his wrongful conviction for the Sallins train robbery John Meagher Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 06:30 There is a tunnel in Dublin that connects the Bridewell Garda Station and the Four Courts. It was here, 50 years ago, that Osgur Breatnach was tortured by plain-clothes detectives. Kinahans abandoned plans at last minute to flee UAE hideout for sanctuary in Russia Cartel leaders left with nowhere to run as war rages in the Middle East From left to right, Christy Kinahan Sr, Daniel Kinahan and Christy Kinahan Jr. The crime family kingpins had planned to flee Dubai for Russia Paul Williams Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 06:30 The Kinahan crime family abandoned secret plans to flee their hideout in Dubai at the last minute after securing a safe sanctuary in Russia. Violent pimp John Cullen, who murdered three women in horrific 1983 arson attack, dies of cancer aged 75 Gangster, who was a contemporary of Martin The General' Cahill and John Gilligan, controlled prostitution in Dublin in the 1970s and 80s Pimp and murderer John Cullen was one of the States longest-serving prisoners Paul Williams Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 06:30 Murderer and gangland criminal John Cullen has died at the age of 75 following stomach cancer. Sarah Carey: President Catherine Connolly is gambling with Irish livelihoods by wading into foreign affairs Head of state has stepped outside of her remit and made the Taoiseachs unenviable task of keeping Donald Trump onside this week even harder President Catherine Connollys comments will make Taoiseach Micheal Martins US trip even trickier than it already was. Photo: Getty Sarah Carey Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 06:30 My mother keeps a copy of the Irish Constitution in the kitchen. We check it regularly when political disputes arise. If there were more people like my mother, there wouldnt be such confusion about the presidency. Razan Ibraheem: I am no stranger to war, but I was shaken to the bone as the Dubai sky turned into a battlefield As my flights back to Dublin were cancelled again and again, I wondered if I would ever get home Razan Ibraheem waits for her flight at Dubai Airport Razan Ibraheem Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 16:15 I popped over to Dubai for two days, just two days. A quick visit to be with my Syrian family who now live there, to breathe the same air and, of course, catch up on the latest gossip. Over 200 locals had signed an objection as concerns were raised about scale, parking and anti-social behaviour. A planned student accommodation development on the site of an historic early 20th-century house has been given the green light by An Coimisiun Pleanala, despite receiving over 200 submissions and objections to Cork City Council during the initial planning phase. The building and grounds around Bishopstown House, located on Model Farm Road, just a stones throw from the nearby Munster Technological University, are due to be turned into accommodation for 170 students, spread across 41 units. Twenty-two of those will be located within the historic property, with a further 21 set to be built on the grounds of the former medical facility. The application to Cork City Council was opposed by nine separate parties, including the local residents association and a local councillor. The Parkway Leesdale Residents Association, in its objection, collected over 200 signatures from locals against the plan, calling the scale of the development excessive for the site. They said the proposed multi-storey blocks would adversely affect the character of the area. Independent councillor Albert Deasy also objected, pointing to the number of existing student accommodation projects in the area. He said residents were distraught at the prospect of another development on their doorstep. Incorporating a development of three storeys with five car parking spaces is a recipe for chaos and severe disruption to the lives of local residents, Cllr Deasy wrote. It shows no respect for the built environment of the area. Planning was granted by City Hall in October, subject to 42 conditions. However, further objections by locals, including Cllr Deasy, meant the decision was put in the hands of the national planning authority. As part of their report, the inspector noted that, as part of the appeal against the decision, locals claimed Cork City Council failed to address the serious concerns raised in the appellants submissions. They also said that, through its request for further information, city planners requested the removal of four recommended housing units; however, the applicant only removed one. Local residents also said that the building would be visually overbearing and would have a negative impact on property prices in the adjoining Greenfields and Parklea Court estates. They also raised concerns about potential anti-social and disruptive behaviour caused by what was labelled a lifestyle conflict between local residents and young students. They argued the lack of car parking provision would exacerbate existing parking issues in nearby estates. However, in the report, the An Coimisiun Pleanala inspector found that, according to the Cork City Development Plan, the proposed student accommodation would be an appropriate form of residential use at this location, would not adversely affect the character or the setting of the protected structure, would not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of property in the vicinity, and would be acceptable in terms of pedestrian and traffic safety and convenience. The proposed development would, therefore, be in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area, was the ultimate decision by the planning authority. However, the planning authority set out its own 26 conditions as part of the planning permission, many of which relate to the submission of documentation to show that the developers will abide by the conditions set out by Cork City Council, through reports on everything from telecommunications cables to waste management. Department of Education accused of dragging its heels on providing proper playing facilities at Carrigtwohill Campus The Department of Education has been accused of dragging its heels on providing a playing field at a three-school campus in the East Cork town of Carrigtwohill with a local councillor describing the departments inaction as disgraceful. The state of the art Carrigtwohill Campus opened two years ago and consists of three schools, including a 1,000-pupil community college, but the site doesnt have a playing field. There is a green area within the campus but its designation was changed from being a playing field to a flood retention zone during the planning process. The issue was discussed at a meeting of Cork County Council in January and the elected members agreed to write to the education minister to express their dissatisfaction with the departments lack of action. At that meeting Fine Gael Cllr Anthony Barry said that the council granted permission to the department in February last year to carry out works to upgrade the entrance to the green area but nothing has happened since. The locks are still on that gate and I think it's criminal to see the fact that there's a four-acre field inside the largest school campus in the country and it's not available to the students, he said. A written response from the education ministers private secretary provided to councillors this week said that the scope of works and associated costs to provide the entrance and access way will be reviewed by the department, and department officials will update the schools upon completion of that review. It added that the intention is that the field will be used by the schools on campus as an occasional recreational green area. The letter said a flooding specialist was employed during the planning process and a flood response plan formulated that included the green area, which it said will be subject to ponding of water and potential flooding at times given that these lands are designed to retain overflow flood waters during periods of heavy rainfall. Speaking at this weeks meeting of Cork County Council, Cllr Barry said he was disappointed but not surprised by the response. Its the same stock answer we've been getting for about two years from the department on this one. I have to say in all honesty the stock answer is absolutely ridiculous. This is the largest school campus that has been built in the country with not one square inch of grass for the kids to play on. The councillor said that during the heavy rain of the past few months, not one single pint of water has come through that pipe into that flood retention area and I think that speaks volumes. And if it did it'll disappear again after a few days and the field can be used. I just think it's disgraceful that the Department of Education are dragging their heels on this. Hopefully I will be able to get to talk some sense to the minister on it at some stage. Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. A man has been remanded in custody after being charged with violent disorder and a serious assault in a Dublin park that left a man in his 50s in a serious condition in hospital. Nigel Kennedy (31), of McIntosh Park, Dun Laoghaire, appeared before Dun Laoghaire District Court where he was charged with the dangerous driving of a Surron electric dirt bike, assault causing harm, violent disorder and robbery following an incident at McIntosh Park, Cabinteely, Dublin 18, on March 11 at around 3pm. The injured man was taken to St Vincents University Hospital, where he remains in a serious condition. Detective Sergeant Andrew Diamond told Judge Anne Watkin that gardai would be objecting to bail under Section 2 of the Bail Act, which permits a court to refuse bail to prevent the commission of a serious offence. Defence solicitor Andrew Vallely appeared on behalf of the accused and said no application for bail was being made at this stage. Mr Vallely also asked the court to direct that Kennedy receive medical treatment for head injuries he allegedly sustained during the incident. Judge Watkin remanded Kennedy in custody to appear again before Clover Hill District Court at 10am on Wednesday 18 March, when a bail application may be made. Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme. A learner driver tore a gardas trousers and shouted: "Give me back my f**king keys, you're not taking my van you pr**k," after being approached for blocking traffic by parking on double yellow lines, a court has heard. Laurance Connors (20), of Marlfield Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin 24, pleaded guilty to assault, criminal damage, threatening and abusive behaviour, obstructing a garda, driving without a licence and failing to produce a driving licence following an incident at Sandycove Point, Sandycove, Dublin, on April 30, 2025. Dun Laoghaire District Court heard that a garda approached a van parked on double yellow lines which was causing an obstruction. The garda spoke to the driver and asked him to produce his licence. The defendant failed to do so and the garda said he believed he was an unaccompanied learner driver. The garda told the court he cautioned the defendant about obstructing traffic and informed him that the vehicle would be taken. He said the defendant became abusive when he was told the van was being taken and shouted: "Give me back my f***ing keys". The court heard the garda had taken the keys from the vehicle but the defendant then opened the door and attempted to take them back. During the struggle, the defendant tried to remove the keys from the gardas pocket and at one point attempted to close the car window on his arm, the court heard. The court heard the defendant held onto the gardas arm and pulled on his trousers, causing them to tear. The garda said the defendant, while showing his teeth, shouted: "Give me back my f***ing keys, youre not taking my van, you prick". The garda said the abuse only began when Connors was told the van was being taken from him. Judge Anne Watkin heard that the garda used bodily force to remove the Connors from the vehicle. No injuries were reported. Defence counsel, Michael OBrien BL, said his client was a 20-year-old man with no previous convictions who had been under significant stress at the time. Counsel said the accused had been working as a carer for his father and had gone to the beach after two difficult days dealing with family pressures. Connors accepted that he had been unaccompanied while on a learner permit and acknowledged that he had no business driving in those circumstances. Judge Watkin described the behaviour towards the garda as outrageous and questioned the level of aggression involved. She ordered a probation report and a community service assessment, including consideration of restorative driving programmes, adjourning the case to September 14 for finalisation. Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme Adobe's stock has been pressured amid growing worries about competition and AI-driven disruption lately Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Key Takeaways Adobe shares plunged in extended trading Thursday after the software giant said CEO Shantanu Narayen is stepping down as soon as a successor is identified. The news overshadowed quarterly earnings that topped analysts' estimates. Adobe has had a tough time convincing investors to support its stock. Could a new CEO win them back? Reviving interest in the once-hot software company's shares will soon be the responsibility of someone new: CEO Shantanu Narayen plans to step down after 18 years on the joband as soon as a successor is found, Adobe (ADBE) said Thursday. Why This Is Significant Adobe's stock has slumped amid worries about growing competition and the impact of AI on the company's business. Uncertainty about its leadership may not help its case in the near term. The news comes as the yearslong slide for Adobe's stock continued. Shares of the Photoshop and Illustrator owner were down over 7% in extended trading following the news despite quarterly earnings that topped analysts' estimates. Adobe for its fiscal first quarter reported adjusted earnings per share of $6.06 on a 12% year-over-year jump in revenue to a record $6.40 billion. Both figures came in above analysts' estimates as compiled by Visible Alpha. The company forecast second-quarter EPS of $5.80 to $5.85 on revenue of $6.43 billion to $6.48 billion, also ahead of consensus projections. Concern about the effects artificial intelligence could have on Adobe's software business, along with those of other companies in the space, have weighed on the shares, contributing to a long drawdown. Shares of Adobe were down about 23% for 2026 through Thursday's close, extending their slump over the past two years: They've lost roughly 60% off their 2024 highs. "The announced CEO change adds another layer of uncertainty at a delicate moment in the story," Citi analysts wrote Thursday. Read the original article on Investopedia The Kinlough St Patricks Day parade will kick off from the Community Centre at midnight and travel through the towns Main Street making it the first St Patricks Day parade to be held in Ireland this year. A community group in County Leitrim is aiming to host the countrys earliest St Patricks Day celebrations with a parade starting just seconds past midnight. The Kinlough St Patricks Day parade will kick off from the Community Centre at midnight and travel through the towns Main Street making it the first St Patricks Day parade to be held in Ireland this year. The unique celebration has been organised by The Kinlough Town Team and everyone is invited to gather at the community centre from 11pm on Monday, March 16 with green outfits and costumes encouraged. Following the parade, there will be tea, cake and music in the community centre. This will be the first time Kinlough has hosted its own St Patricks Day parade as traditionally people would travel to Bundoran or Ballyshannon to celebrate the day. Councillor Justin Warnock, Chairman of Kinlough Community Development/Community Centre said the idea came to life as the committee wanted to plan something different and unique for the towns first parade. Its a first Kinlough, a first for Leitrim and a first for Ireland. "If we get out at a second pass midnight on the March 17, we will be the first in the country, said Cllr Warnock. Over the past 25 years, the town of Kinlough has grown in size with its population rising from less than 300 people to around 1,300 today. Organisers have been quietly planning the celebration as they wanted to protect the uniqueness of the idea. Cllr Warnock said the parade has gained a lot of of support from local people and there's great momentum building ahead of the event. We have been planning for quite a while now but it's out there now in the local community and the wider area. "We have grown by over 1,000 people in the space of 25 years so we are now at the stage where we can hold our own parades and events. "It is good for bringing the community together. "If we had it in the middle of the day, it probably wouldn't have meant as much but because we are going to be the first, there's a lot more excitement about it, said Cllr Warnock. The Kinlough St Patricks Day parade will kick off from the Community Centre at midnight and travel through the towns Main Street making it the first St Patricks Day parade to be held in Ireland this year. The organisers are hoping spectators and organisers from other parts of Leitrim and the surrounding areas will come along and enjoy the event. Cllr Warnock said with the timing of the parade, people will be able to attend multiple celebrations this year. Kinlough has always supported Bundoran, Ballyshannon and Manorhamilton so we hope to see some people from other areas too. "We have a good community here; the GAA is getting involved, Foroige, the kayak club and other groups are all taking part which is great to see. "We are starting with a bit of a sing song in the community centre and after the parade there will be tea and refreshments. The parade itself will probably last around half an hour. "We are going through the heart of the village and back to the community centre for more tea and a bit of craic. "Then, we will be looking forward to the rest of St Patrick's Day, Cllr Warnock. Irelands first St Patricks Day event is starting at 11pm on Monday, March 16, 2026 at the Kinlough Community Centre with the parade getting underway just after midnight. Everyone is welcome to attend and costumes welcome. Prime Minister Carney spoke warmly of his Mayo roots at an event in Ottawa, where Minister Dara Calleary attended as part of St Patricks Day Celebrations (L-R: Irish Ambassador to Canada, John Concannon, Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, Minister of Canadian Identity, Culture and Official Languages, Marc Miller). Minister Calleary presenting Minster Miller with a hurl engraved with his name to commemorate the St Patricks Day visit. Photo: Dara Calleary via Instagram. (L-R: Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, Irish Ambassador to Canada, John Concannon, former Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Minister of Canadian Identity, Culture and Official Languages, Marc Miller). Minister Calleary also met former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his visit to Canada. Photo: Dara Calleary via Instagram. On his delegation trip to Canada for St Patricks Day celebrations, Minister Dara Calleary met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and paid tribute to the Canadian leaders Mayo roots. During an event hosted by Irish-Canadian Ambassador John Concannon, attended by more than 300 guests, Minister Calleary presented Mr Carney with a Mayo GAA jersey in honour of his familys connection to the county. The Prime Minister reportedly spoke warmly about his Irish heritage and Mayo roots, recounting how his grandparents emigrated from Aughagower, outside Westport, in 1925. Minister Calleary said he is looking forward to welcoming the Prime Minister to Ireland very soon and added he was delighted to gift Mr Carney the jersey, which he was absolutely thrilled to receive. Speaking on CTV News Channel, Minister Calleary also highlighted the strength of the Irish-Canadian relationship, a connection he said is demonstrated by the Prime Ministers own family story. In 1925, two people left my county, Im from the county of Mayo, two people left that county [and] they emigrated to Canada, 100 years later, their grandson became Prime Minister of Canada, That gives you a sense of the depth of connection; it also gives you a sense of the ambition that Irish people bring to Canada, and that Canadians bring to Ireland, he said. The Minister for Social Protection spoke on the expanding economic and social ties between the two countries. We have seen a massive growth in trade over the last ten years since the provisional application of CETA (EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement), It is not just doing business with Ireland, it is doing business with the European Union. Ireland is the only English speaking country now in the European Union; we offer [an] extraordinary gateway for Canadian business, not just into Ireland, but into the European Union. (L-R: Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, Irish Ambassador to Canada, John Concannon, former Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Minister of Canadian Identity, Culture and Official Languages, Marc Miller). Minister Calleary also met former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his visit to Canada. Photo: Dara Calleary via Instagram. Ireland is the tenth largest investor in Canada, and equally, that relationship is strong on the Canadian side as well. We want to grow that by Irish companies investing here, and by Canadian companies investing in Ireland, he said. Minister Calleary outlined the Government's intention to fully ratify the CETA agreement this year and said it will allow us to grow the relationship going forward. After meeting Prime Minister Carney and presenting him with the Mayo jersey, Minister Calleary said the Canadian leader made it very clear that he wants to grow the relationship with Ireland and with the European Union, in terms of [the] economy, trade and in terms of our cultural links. He also referenced Irelands upcoming EU Presidency, and said the relationship with Canada will grow not only from an Irish perspective, but also from an EU perspective. A strong EU-Canada relationship has never been as important as it is now, he said. This is a relationship of depth, it is a relationship of culture, its a relationship of kinship, but ultimately this is a relationship of ambition for both our countries, he added. During his visit to Canada, the Mayo minister also met former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and he presented Canadas Minister of Canadian Identity, Culture and Official Languages, Marc Miller, with a hurl to commemorate the St Patricks Day visit. This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. Questions were raised with regard to the delays in funding being released for works to be carried out at Grange Post Primary School A motion before the March meeting of Sligo-Drumcliffe Municipal District tabled by Cllr Edel McSharry sought reasons for the delay in the release of funds for works to completed for the canteen at Grange Post Primary School. Cllr McSharrys motion said: This project has already been approved and the delay is adversely affecting the schools operations. Addressing the meeting, which was held in the unique setting of the Spanish Armada Centre in Grange, Cllr McSharry said, It will be great when the new school is built but that will take a number of years. The delay is in terms of the Department of Education releasing funding for works. "I am asking that we write and ask why the delay when the money is there and the project is approved. We need to make sure we keep it the nest possible learning environment. The motion was supported by Cllr Marie Casserly who said, I dont know what the delay is. Getting a response is very difficult. When asked by Cllr Donal Gilroy if it was known what the reason for the delay is, Cllr McSharry replied, Not that I am aware of. She continued, I am making the motion so we can move along the process. I have made lots of inquiries and will continue to do so. Cllr Thomas Healy offered his support for the motion as did Cllr Thomas Walsh who remarked, The school is at capacity, its a bad state of affairs. Its going on too long and it is a simple fix. Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. Cllr Dara Mulvey has called for an amendment to be made to the 'MyFuture Fund' savings scheme that would allow people to make additional lodgements to the fund. Photo: Getty At this months meeting of Sligo County Council Cllr Dara Mulvey asked that the Council write to the Minister for Department of Social Protection Dara Calleary seeking to allow participants of the recently established My Future Fund the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System that would allow them to lodge additionally. Addressing the meeting on Cllr Mulvey explained the new scheme will see an employee contribute 3 into the fund which is match by their employer and topped up by a 1 contribution from the Government. Cllr Mulvey explained, It will be of benefit for people without a pension as it will ensure they have a source of income. MyFutureFund is a new State-sponsored retirement saving scheme. It is administered by the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA), with the aim of increasing pension coverage in Ireland. Employees are automatically enrolled into the scheme if they earn more than 20,000 per year, are aged between 23 and 60, and are not paying into a pension through payroll. Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. Our neutrality is not a weakness; it is one of our greatest assets said Cllr Declan Bree in relation to a notice of motion passed at the March meeting of Sligo County Council which called for a referendum to be held in order for the nations neutrality to be enshrined into constitution. Speaking on behalf of his motion, Cllr Declan Bree hit out at the President of the United States of America Donal Trump and referenced the words of President Catherine Connolly who said money spent on war is at the cost of making the world less safe. Donald Trump, the unhinged mouthpiece for the US oligarchy, is not only a narcissistic bully and unashamed racist but he is also a war monger. In addition to funding the campaign of genocide against the people of Gaza his brazen bid to seize territory from an E.U. member state certainly dispelled the illusion that he is in any way interested in peace. His ongoing criminal behaviour puts the whole world at risk and makes us all unsafe. Trumps attempted regime-change assault on numerous nation states have alarmingly intensified the war agenda. And it has to be pointed out that the complicity of many Western countries in the genocide in Gaza has normalised military aggression against any state which is perceived to be against American interests. Western states appear to have only one response to this war-ridden world: a further ramping up of spending on arms and militarisation which inevitably means more wars. A number of months back our now President Catherine Connolly said there has to be a stop to war. She said she was particularly worried about the military industrial complex that is building up in Europe saying it was not the way to bring peace. And she highlighted the fact that the billions spent on armaments is at the cost of increasing poverty and the cost of making the world much less safe. Today we stand at a crossroads where the rule of force threatens to once again overshadow the rule of law. Supporting the United Nations and international law is not merely about defending a set of rules; it is about defending civilisation itself. Irish people are extremely proud of our long-standing neutrality and our role as UN peacekeepers. All of us acknowledge the bravery and courage of Irish peacekeepers who have participated in UN peace keeping missions over the decades, and in particular we acknowledge those currently serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. A number of years back in a Dail debate the Taoiseach Micheal Martin described the Triple Lock as being at the core of our neutrality. In its election manifesto five years ago, Fianna Fail pledged to fully maintain neutrality and the Triple Lock stating that Ireland has correctly conferred primacy to the UN since joining in 1955. Elements in Fine Gael have never been comfortable with our neutrality and have wanted to end the Triple Lock for many years. However it now appears that the leadership of Fianna Fail is willing to abandon Irish neutrality. Irelands strength has never come from military power. It has come from moral authority, principled diplomacy, and a longstanding commitment to peace. Our neutrality is not a weakness; it is one of our greatest assets. It allows us to speak honestly on the world stage, to mediate conflicts, to protect our citizens, and to avoid being pulled into wars we did not choose. There are no good arguments for abandoning neutrality and dismantling the Triple Lock. By undoing it, Ireland will significantly weaken its commitment to the UN system, UN peace-keeping and to multilateralism. This at a time when the UN faces an unprecedented challenge from Trump, Netanyahu and those who have no respect for international law. Ireland is a small island nation. Our contribution at a neutral state on the global stage has been immense, punching far above our weight to promote peace and reject war. Considering that a recent opinion poll showed that 71% of Irelands population want a guarantee of Irelands neutrality inserted into our Constitution I believe it is time for the government to hold a constitutional referendum to enshrine neutrality in the Constitution. The motion was supported by Cllr Gino O'Boyle who said, "Irish people have repeatedly shown they value neutrality, that is reflected in consistent opinion polling and made central in the Lisbon Treaty debate. If the Government truly respects neutrality, lets copper fasten it, lets put it to the people in a referendum. Cllr OBoyle added, Neutrality belongs to the Irish people. If the Government believes in that, they should trust them and hold a referendum. The motion was also supported by Cllr Fergal Nealon who criticised mention of the triple lock by Cllr Bree. I am very proud of Irelands neutrality and our records. Bringing the triple-lock into it, you can't equate the two of them together. Were rightly proud of the role members of the defence forces have played peace keeping missions across the world. "Their record going back to 1958 has remained unbroken ever since but the world is a different place from post World War II when the Security Council was initially set-up. The world has changed dramatically. Under the current triple lock system countries like Russia, China and the United States can veto Irelands participation in missions via their role as permanent members of the UN's Security Council. Our own Government, and we are rightly proud of our neutality, we can make up our own minds. I dont like the idea of us answering to Moscow or indeed Washington or Beijing. "No new mandate has been approved by the security council since 2014 and thats despite what we see in Ukraine, Syria, Gaza and Afghanistan. We are a small, proudly neutral country, being held hostage by theses vetos. I believe instead of a triple lock we should have a double lock so Government and Dail approval, Irish democratic control, and remove the dependency on the security council where Putin, China and Trump can have a say in where we send our troops, I think thats wrong. I agree with the motion but please don't bring the triple lock into it, it has nothing to do with it. Cllr Michael Clarke also offered his support for the motion saying, The general public dont know if we are neutral or not. Its something that needs clarification, A referendum and public debate would help. Cllr Ann Higgins also gave her backing to the motion saying, I 100% support this motion. Because of global instability it's more important than ever Irish people have a voice to say if they want to maintain neutrality. Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. The origin of the word marten is unknown as it is an old word with its roots lost in old English, French and German. It is used to describe a group of eight members of the weasel family that are about the size of a domesticated cat. They have a worldwide distribution and many of them are associated with trees. Ireland has just one species: the Pine Marten. The Pine Marten is regarded as a native Irish mammal with the earliest records of its presence dating back to 6,000 years ago. It is believed that it was common and widespread in the past. However, things were to change. Pine Martens are associated with woodlands. The destruction of our native woodlands over a long period of time, coupled with persecution of martens due to hunting for their fur, led to a decline in the Pine Marten population to the extent that they were rated rare animals by the 20th century. However, thankfully, things were to change again. The Pine Marten was afforded legal protection status and tree planting, especially forestry plantations, became widespread resulting in both factors leading, in combination, to a population rise that is still happening. Pine Marten records show that the cat-sized tree-dweller, an Cat Crainn as Gaeilge, is now found in every county in Ireland. The animals stronghold is in the Midlands, and it is scarcest in Munster and Ulster. In 2007, the first and only estimate of the national population was made and it was in the order of 3,000 to 4,000 individuals, so it is still one of our rarest wild animals. A handsome animal, the chestnut to dark brown fur of its slender and elongated body acts as a foil to show off its contrasting creamy-yellow throat patch that extends down its chest. Its ears are edged with a similarly pale fringe. Pine Martens are solitary and elusive animals. They spend a lot of time resting and sleeping during the winter and hunt under cover of darkness, so they are seldom seen. During spring and summer, they are more active, are breeding, and tend to be out more during daylight hours. While they are normally solitary they have to come together to mate. Once a year during spring, females give birth to two or three young, called kits. The mother rears the kits in her den on her own; the father plays no part in rearing his offspring or in family life. At this time of year, the normally elusive Pine Martens are are more active and are out and about in woodlands during daylight hours, so there is a better chance of spotting one. A rail advocacy group has blasted Iarnrod Eireann and the National Transport Authority for failing to increase service frequency between Rosslare and Dublin, despite an unprecedented surge in commuter demand and severe overcrowding on board trains. South East on Track presented figures which show a huge surge in demand on the Rosslare to Dublin line since 2019, with Gorey in particular seeing a 70% increase in passengers and Rathdrum a 60% increase. In fact all stations between Rosslare and Dublin saw an increase since pre-Covid levels, with Wexford town continuing to be the busiest station south of Greystones. As well as significant increases for Gorey and Rathdrum, there was also a 57% increase in passengers at Enniscorthy Station, a 46% increase at Arklow, a 31% increase at Rosslare Strand, a 13% increase at Wicklow and a 6% increase at Wexford Station. South East on Track have blasted continued failure to increase service frequency. As commuters flock to public transport, they are met with overcrowded carriages, stagnant timetables, and chronic underinvestment on a critical route in the South East, spokesperson Peter Branigan said. Despite ongoing campaigns by local representatives and South East on Track, capacity on the South Eastern rail line remains fundamentally unchanged. Since 2019 only one late night trip from Dublin has been added on the line, a service which doesn't run to Enniscorthy, Wexford Town, or either of the Rosslare stations, he added. Conversely, the latest you can leave Dublin heading south of Gorey is now earlier today than it was in 2019. South East on Track point out that while the Department of Transport continues to promote a shift towards sustainable travel, the required investment in infrastructure has been lacking. Furthermore, recent national timetable adjustments prioritised the Dublin-Belfast and Galway routes, leaving the South East with a woefully inadequate schedule that routinely forces commuters to stand for hours or back into their cars on the congested M11 heading towards the M50, a road that TII recently declared as "at capacity - we can't make it any wider, Mr Branigan said. Iarnrod Eireann has introduced no proportional increase in morning peak capacity or new rolling stock allocations for the route. The result is a daily commuter crisis. South East on Track is calling on the government to increase the capacity and the frequency of service along the entire line. Iarnrod Eireann has been contacted for comment. In what long-term councillors described as an unprecedented move, the monthly meeting of Wexford County Council (WCC) was abruptly adjourned on Monday afternoon so that the chair could discuss an internal matter privately with party whips. In the chamber on Monday afternoon, during the traditional round of congratulations to all those who had excelled in Co Wexford over the past month, Cllr Vicky Barron offered her praised to all those who had commemorated International Womens Day, in particular those at Wexford Womens Refuge where Cllr Barron is the current chair. On the day we had a presentation on online abuse and consent, including information on how to respond when youre told no, recounted Cllr Barron. The understanding of men and boys around consent is especially important in the current climate, conversations around consent are really important, those conservations need to be had in this chamber. Referencing a motion she had jointly submitted with Cllr Bridin Murphy in November of last, Cllr Barron said she had already asked for councillors to receive training on how to recognise domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. "That still hasnt progressed, she noted. This is important work, considering the current climate. It is not okay to touch anyone, the legal definition of assault is touching anyone without consent, sexual assault is defined as . . . At this point, noises of disapproval began to emanate from the top table with Cllr Sullivan asking whether Cllr Barron was straying away from the the topic at hand. I respectully ask that you give me my five minutes, came the response. That request was eventually granted but only after all congratulations had been issued. Five minutes later, Cllr Barron resumed. We did ask for training to be delivered for councillors in relation to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, we still havent had that, she said. I asked for it to be progressed, and we need to include all staff of WCC in this. We need to understand our limits as county councillors; many of us dont have offices so there has to be an understanding of where we meet. These meetings happen everywhere, and, whether we like it or not, theres a code of ethics which accompanies us. That was as far as Cllr Barron got as, on this occasion, she was firmly stopped in her tracks. Cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council, Cllr Joe Sullivan. Photo: Jim Campbell Im going to adjourn for ten minutes, announced Cllr Sullivan. I want to meet the whips from each party and have a short word. This needs to be addressed and you are silencing me, protested Cllr Barron above the ensuing din. Support came from Cllr Lisa McDonald who argued that closing down debate like this is not fair. However, the cathaoirleach was not for turning and he swiftly departed the scene, accompanied by the chief executive, Cllrs Anthony Donohue (FG), Pip Breen (FF), John ORourke (IND), Tom Forde (SF), Pat Barden (Wexford Independent Alliance), Cllr Barron herself, and county secretary Michael Drea. After an extended break which lasted over 20 minutes and had senior members checking the record books for similar instances, Cllr Sullivan returned and the meeting commenced. The chair immediately called upon Cllr Barron to carry on where she had left off. That motion needs to be followed up on and consent needs to apply to both men and women, she continued. Its important we as a council are seen to promote open and honest transparency in all we do. Thanks very much, Vicky, replied Cllr Sullivan. Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme. Students attending Scoil Naomh Brid celebrate their cash grant with Vanessa Cunningham of Circet, Deputy Principal Clare Kealy and Sandra Dinan, Stakeholder Engagement and PR Manager, NBI. A small rural primary school located at the foothill of the Keadeen Mountain in west Wicklow has been awarded a cash grant through the RISE Community Fund in order to strengthen their digital learning offerings. The funding comes as part of a new national programme by the RISE Community Fund to provide cash injections to schools in every county throughout 2026, supporting technology investments that enhance digital learning and maximise the benefits of high-speed broadband connectivity. Scoil Naomh Brid is a co-educational Catholic primary school with 77 pupils and a staff of 11. Active, inclusive learning is central to the schools approach, combining classroom instruction, group work, play-based activities and the use of technology. The grant will enable Scoil Naomh Brid to introduce a centralised tablet management system for its class set of devices - a step designed to significantly enhance teaching, learning and digital skills development across the school. In welcoming the funding, Scoil Naomh Brid Principal Lisa Jackson stated: As a small rural school, we are dedicated to providing a safe, inclusive and supportive environment where children can develop academically, socially and emotionally. "We focus on building strong foundations in literacy, numeracy, wellbeing, digital skills and important values such as respect and responsibility. This funding will allow us to introduce a tablet management system that will greatly enhance teaching and learning. "Centralised control of apps and content will ensure safe, efficient and age-appropriate use of devices, reducing time spent on set-up and freeing pupils to engage in meaningful digital learning. We are very grateful for this support, which will make a real difference to our schools digital provision. The RISE Community Fund is supported by National Broadband Ireland and partners involved in the delivery of the Governments National Broadband Plan, including KPMG, DreamDev Technologies, TLI Group, Entegro, Obelisk and Circet. Established by David McCourt, the RISE Community Fund has awarded more than 160 cash grants nationwide to rural schools, community groups, farms, small businesses and social enterprises seeking to use technology to scale the positive impact of their work. David, who is also chairman of National Broadband Ireland, said: When we created RISE, it was with a clear purpose - to ensure that rural communities could fully benefit from the transformative power of connectivity. Scoil Naomh Brid demonstrated a thoughtful and practical vision for how technology can enhance learning in a safe, inclusive and structured way. Arabella Harding (Journalist), Whitney Nolan (Media), Mary O' keeffe (The wise oul woman), Charlie Mullen (The Irish Mammy ), Oliver Altree (TV Host), Noah Keogh (Hans), Ruby Doyle (Cruella) and Jaiden Keogh (The Town Gossip) Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Emma Connolly (Snow White), Chloe Lambe (Sleepiing Beauty) and Rachel Murphy (Cinderella) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Aoife Canna (Ariel), Doireann Delahunt (Elsa) and Jaiden Keoth (The Town Gossip) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Mia Roche (Esmerlda ), Corey Foley ( The Matchmaker ) and Maisy Fitzgerald ( Rapunzel ) Colaiste Eoin's TY production, ' Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photos Joe Byrne Chloe Lambe (Sleeping Beauty), Rachel Murphy (Cinderella), Doireann Delahunt (Elsa), Holly Byrne (Aine) and Sophie King (Sophia The First) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Eabha Byrne (The Matchmakers Assistant) and Corey Foley (The Matchmaker) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Luke Mc Grath (Flynn Ryder), Chloe Kinsella (Alice), Grace Smith (Little Bow Peep) and Sophie King (Sophia the First) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Maisy Fitzgerald (Rapunzel), Aoife Canna (Ariel), Emma Connolly (Snow White), Grace Smith (Little Bow Peep) and Emma Murphy (Belle) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Emma Murphy (Belle) and Caitlin Whelan (Moana) in Colaiste Eoin Hacketstown's TY production 'Once upon a time in Lisdoonvarna'. Photo: Joe Byrne Colaiste Eoin Hacketstowns stage was transformed into a world of magic, mischief and matchmaking as students presented their 32nd annual Transition Year show Once Upon a Time in Lisdoonvarna. Set in the famous County Clare matchmaking town, this years production cleverly blended the charm of classic fairy tales with the humour of Irish life, with audiences treated to an imaginative storyline in which a host of fairy-tale characters somehow found themselves transported to the legendary matchmaking festival. Princes and princesses who appeared to have lost their way arrived in Lisdoonvarna in search of their happily ever after. Among them were familiar figures from childhood stories, alongside unexpected visitors such as Robin Hood, fairy godmothers, and even the mighty Hercules. Adding to the fun were lively television hosts reporting on the chaos, enthusiastic matchmakers determined to find the perfect couples, and the unmistakable presence of a formidable Irish mammy and the ever-wise Oul Woman whose approval was essential before any romance could blossom. The storyline followed a group of hopeful local lads eager to win the attention of Snow White. However, nothing in Lisdoonvarna is simple when an Irish mammy and the Oul Woman are keeping a close eye on proceedings. With characters including Prince Farming entering the scene, and the media getting involved in the matchmaking drama, the result was a hilarious series of misunderstandings, musical numbers, and larger-than-life moments. Full of energy, humour and creativity, the show highlighted the many talents of the schools transition year students. From acting and singing to stage design and production, the performance showcased the confidence, teamwork and enthusiasm that are hallmarks of the schools much-loved TY programme, a school spokesperson said. The packed audiences across both nights enjoyed a production that was equal parts fairy tale and Irish comedy, reminding everyone that sometimes fairy tales arent so different from real life, particularly when they end up in Lisdoonvarna! A production of this scale requires enormous dedication behind the scenes, they added. Sincere thanks to teacher/director Ms Nessa OMeara, whose creativity and leadership brought the production to life, together with Ms Caoimhe and Deirdre Byrne for their invaluable support throughout the process. Thanks also to Kieran Fitzgerald and his crew for their work behind the scenes, Luke Connolly for his contribution to the production, and to the parents, families, sponsors and members of the wider community whose continued support makes events like this possible. March 12 (Reuters) - Amazon.com is planning to move its Prime Day sale event up to late June, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, marking a rare shift in calendar for the critical, decade-old shopping event. Prime Day is marked by heavy discounts on categories ranging from apparel and electronics, and its summer iteration coincides with the back-to-school shopping season with parents and students waiting to cash in on the deals. The timing shift would also move Prime Day sales to Amazon's second quarter, which typically ends on June 30. The company declined to comment to Reuters on the report. Amazon's Prime Day event has taken place in July since its launch in 2015, barring a change for two years during the pandemic. Last year, the event was extended to four days from the usual two, and drove $24.1 billion in online spending across U.S. retailers, up 30% from a year ago, according to data from Adobe Analytics. However, Amazon has also had to contend with competing deals events from retailers such as Walmart and Target as these companies invest in their digital order fulfillment and same-day delivery capabilities. Contribution to U.S. sales from e-commerce almost doubled for Walmart in its most recently reported quarter, and the company said customers using its option for delivery under three hours grew more than 60% for fiscal year 2026. (Reporting by Juveria Tabassum in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur) Myanmar has been in a civil war since the military stormed the capital on February 1, 2021, and overthrew a democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. At least 41 civilians have been killed, including 18 children, in south-central Myanmar following a week of aerial bombings by the countrys military junta. Pilots in Chinese-made fighter jets flew over the eastern Bago region, dropping bombs on several villages between March 7 and 10, according to the Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN), a local rights group in Myanmar. Britain Kym Marsh: Its devastating to think that my father put off visit to GP until it was too late Donald Trump said US forces have "obliterated" military targets on an island vital to Iran's oil network and warned its oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. A cleric chants slogans during the annual anti-Israeli Quds Day rally in support of Palestinians in Tehran. Photo: AP Irans senior leadership marched through the streets of Tehran in daylight on Friday, defying American and Israeli bombs as explosions struck buildings along their route. Masoud Pezeshkian, Irans president, strolled through the city centre without visible bodyguards, riding at times on the back of a motorbike and posing for selfies during the Quds Day rally. Embarrassing why Pete Hegseth could be the first US political casualty of Iran conflict Defence secretary seems to be relishing a very expensive war most Americans dont support Pete Hegseth. Photo: Getty Benedict Smith Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd Fri 13 Mar 2026 at 06:00 After Donald Trump decided to go to war with Iran, he chose to communicate his reasons for doing so largely in short conversations with journalists who reached him on his personal phone number. Russians use pagers and maps after Putin turns off internet Daily business losses from the shutdown could be almost 10.9m A pedestrian walks past a board glorifying the Russian army in Moscow. Photo: Anastasia Barashkova Antonia Langford in Kyiv Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd Sat 14 Mar 2026 at 06:30 Disgruntled Muscovites have turned to pagers, walkie-talkies, landline phones and paper maps after more than a week of blackouts in the capital thought to have been ordered by the state. The crater caused by the impact is roughly 130km off the coast of Yorkshire in England. Stock image: Getty A long-running dispute about the origin of a North Sea crater has finally been settled, as new research finds a massive asteroid hit the water and triggered a towering tsunami millions of years ago. Scientists have found that the Silverpit Crater which lies around 700m beneath the southern North Sea seabed, roughly 130km off the coast of Yorkshire was formed when an asteroid or comet struck the region roughly 43 to 46 million years ago, sparking a 100-metre-high tsunami. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to the central Greek city of Larissa on Saturday to engage in a public dialogue with citizens, a move aimed at consolidating support in the politically sensitive Thessaly region ahead of New Democracys upcoming party congress. Mr. Mitsotakis is scheduled to lead a panel at the Grecotel Larissa Imperial as part of a pre-congress event titled Strong Economy, Strong Greece. The visit serves as the third stop in a nationwide tour following similar consultations in Ioannina and Alexandroupoli. The prime ministers focus on Larissa comes at a critical time for the region, which is still grappling with the long-term infrastructure and agricultural damage caused by Storm Daniel. Mr. Mitsotakis is expected to address these local recovery efforts alongside broader national issues, including the economic impact of the escalating Middle East conflict on Greek trade. The pre-congress tour is designed to set the agenda for the 16th Regular Congress of New Democracy, scheduled for May 1517 in Athens. While in the region, Mr. Mitsotakis may also visit the Fighter Wing in Larissa to review defense readiness. By engaging directly with farmers and small business owners, Mr. Mitsotakis aims to reinforce the governments commitment to political stability through 2027, despite a turbulent international landscape. iefimerida.gr "We could not make the investments we are making in our defense and project this strong deterrent image of our country if public finances were not in good shape", said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. "Therefore, the bridge between a strong economy and a strong, safe, and powerful Greece is reflected today more than ever in the image of the Greek frigates in Cyprus , the upgraded F-16s in Cyprus , and the Patriot air defense systems that protect Greek and European airspace", also said. Speaking on Saturday at the pre-conference in Larissa as part of the 16th ND Congress, he also addressed the future course of the national economy, noting that "we must be able to look at the economy in terms of the future where we want to be in 2030, where we want to be in 2035." He added that "New Democracy is the only party in the country with a coherent plan for Greeces progress over the coming decades." Mitsotakis also spoke about youth entrepreneurship in Greece, emphasizing that the new generation of entrepreneurs, who develop products and services, "are not addressing only the Greek market but a global market." He highlighted the significance of Greeces presidency of the Eurogroup, stating that "the bridge between a strong macroeconomic economy and national progress is a very important moment for Greece. For us, who were once the black sheep of Europe, to be able to proudly say that the President of the Eurogroup is the Greek Minister of Finance this is by no means obvious. What matters to all of you, however, is that this collective progress and the very good performance of the economy ultimately translates into individual progress, supporting society whenever it is most needed, something we have demonstrably done throughout our governance, and will continue to do if necessary." iefimerida.gr Main opposition PASOK-Movement for Change spokesperson KostasTsoukalas spoke of government inaction regarding major interests in an interview with OPEN TV on Saturday. "Everyone knows that the start of the fuel chain is the refineries. Thats where price increases are passed on. The government, clearly, does not want to touch the refineries. It makes no sense to set profit margins only for gas stations and wholesale distributors without addressing where the process begins. Unless they regulate intra-company and triangular transactions, there will be no result." He also added that "we are the only country where VAT is applied on top of the Special Comsumption Tax. Today, retail fuel is 1.90 euros per liter, the fuels base value is 45 euros including margins, and we end up paying 105 euros. Taxes and duties 59 euros, VAT another 20 euros. So obviously, at least for the duration of this crisis, there should be intervention on the Special Consumption Tax and on VAT." iefimerida.gr Quick Read American Airlines (AAL) stock fell 4% as Evercore ISI cut its price target from $17 to $14; the carrier faces unhedged fuel exposure with crude oil surging to $94.65 per barrel amid labor unrest from flight attendants and pilots. Southwest Airlines (LUV) shares dropped 6%, United Airlines (UAL) fell 4%, and Delta Air Lines (DAL) declined 2% in a wholesale selloff of airline stocks. The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks. Get them here FREE. American Airlines Group (NASDAQ:AAL) shares slipped 4% in Thursday trading, falling below $11 as a perfect storm of macro fears, surging oil prices, and company-specific news lands all at once. The broader airline sector is getting hit hard today, but American is absorbing the most punishment. The S&P 500 also headed lower as stagflation fears return to the forefront. Airlines are a high-beta expression of economic confidence, and right now that confidence is eroding. The sector-wide pressure is real and measurable. Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) stock is actually the hardest hit today, down 6% while United Airlines Holdings (NASDAQ:UAL) stock is off 4%. Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) stock is relatively resilient as it's down only 2%. For more on Delta and Wall Street's perspective, see Delta Air Lines' analyst outlook and price target analysis. READ: The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks Oil Prices Are the Sector's Biggest Enemy Right Now WTI crude oil surpassed $94 per barrel Thursday afternoon, up sharply from roughly $71 per barrel on March 2. That kind of move in under two weeks is a direct gut punch to airline operating margins. Crude oil temporarily topped $100 per barrel following new Gulf shipping attacks, and the market is pricing in sustained elevated fuel costs. Barron's reported on March 10 that airline stocks are "at the mercy of oil prices" following the Iran war onset, with UBS analysts suggesting only three airlines may be able to turn a profit under current oil price conditions. That framing is brutal for American Airlines specifically. Unlike competitors such as Delta, American Airlines made the decision not to hedge its fuel prices, leaving it fully exposed to every dollar of upside in crude. Consumer confidence isn't helping, either. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment index sits at 56.4 as of January 2026, deep in pessimistic territory and well below the 80-point neutral threshold. Discretionary travel is historically one of the first line items consumers cut when they feel financially squeezed. Canadian health authorities have launched an investigation into the deaths of two individuals including a Nigerian international student following plasma donations at private collection centres in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Plasma is the liquid component of blood and accounts for slightly more than half of its total volume. Health Canada said it received two reports of fatal adverse reactions involving plasma donors, one recorded in October 2025 and another on January 30, 2026. Advertisement Both incidents occurred at clinics run by Grifols, a Spanish healthcare firm that operates multiple plasma collection centres across Canada. One of the victims was Rodiyat Alabede, a 22-year-old Nigerian student who died on October 25 after donating plasma at the Grifols Plasma Donation Centre on Taylor Avenue. Alabede relocated from Nigeria to Winnipeg in 2022 to pursue her studies at the University of Winnipeg. Mary Ann Chika, a friend of the student, said she later identified Alabedes body at the hospital after doctors pronounced her dead. According to her, medical personnel gave limited details but informed her that Alabedes heart stopped beating during the plasma donation process at the centre. Health Canada said the second fatal adverse reaction was reported on January 30 after a donation at Grifols Innovation Drive location in Winnipeg. The regulator did not disclose the identity of the second deceased donor. The agency added that it has not yet established a direct connection between the plasma donations and the deaths and is still reviewing the incidents. It also said inspectors were dispatched to the facilities following the reports. Plasma donation is carried out in a process similar to blood donation. After blood is drawn, the plasma a pale yellow fluid rich in antibodies is separated while the remaining red blood cells are returned to the donors body. The procedure is widely regarded as safe. Plasma contains immunoglobulins that help strengthen the immune system as well as clotting factors that assist in controlling bleeding. These substances are used in the treatment of infections, bleeding disorders and liver disease. However, donors are cautioned that some side effects may occur, including fatigue, dehydration, dizziness, bruising and fainting. Grifols, which has operated in Winnipeg since 2022 after acquiring Canadian Plasma Resources, extended condolences to the families of the deceased. In a statement, the company said based on available information, we have no reason to believe that there is a correlation between the donors passing and plasma donation. The company added that prospective donors undergo a comprehensive review of their medical history and a physical examination before being approved to donate. At the centres, plasma donors can receive honorarium payments of up to $100 per donation, with extra incentives offered to those who donate regularly. Celebrity businessman Cubana Chief Priest has publicly admitted that failing to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the last general election was a mistake, announcing a new political direction centered on cooperation with the federal government. Speaking at a political gathering in Imo State, the socialite said the event marked a significant moment after weeks of planning, describing it as a demonstration of unity and support for the current administration. According to him, years of political resistance had not delivered the expected results, prompting a change in strategy. Advertisement We have decided to partner with the government at the center. We are not ready to fight. We tried fighting and it didnt work for us, he said. Chief Priest praised Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma for maintaining close ties with the federal government, arguing that collaboration had helped attract development to the state. He also commended Seyi Tinubu, describing him as a unifying figure who has strengthened relationships across regional and ethnic divides. Reflecting on the last election, the entertainer admitted he previously opposed Tinubu but now views that decision as a political misjudgment. Politics is a game we dont want to lose again and we will never waste our votes again, he stated. He further claimed that the growing support base backing the president could become one of the largest political movements in Nigeria, promising increased mobilisation ahead of future elections. Chief Priest concluded by expressing prayers for Tinubus success in office, urging Nigerians to embrace unity, partnership, and collaboration as the country moves forward. Nollywood actress-turned-evangelist, Tonto Dikeh, has expressed deep regret over mistakes in her past, saying God used them to shape her voice into one that now speaks truth, grace and redemption. Her confession comes as she faces a 200 million lawsuit filed by human rights lawyer Ikechukwu Obasi over a viral deliverance session involving a minor. In the suit, Obasi accused Dikeh of violating the childs rights to dignity and privacy during the deliverance ritual. Advertisement The incident, which reportedly occurred on March 6, 2026, was captured in a video later shared on Dikehs Facebook page. The footage showed the child being laid on bare ground and pressed against a stony surface during the session. Reacting in a reflective post on Instagram, Dikeh admitted to past mistakes but said they had contributed to her spiritual growth. I have made many mistakes in my life. Painful ones. Costly ones. But today, I understand that God did not waste any of them. He used them to shape my voice into one that speaks truth, grace and redemption, she wrote. I do not wish I had known then what I know now, because if I had never walked through those seasons, I would not carry the message I carry today. My story would lack the depth that comes from experiencing Gods mercy firsthand, she added. The lawsuit, filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja, seeks several declarations and court orders, including 200 million in damages, the removal of the video from social media platforms and a public apology. The suit was filed on behalf of the student, a Junior Secondary School 1 pupil of Junior Secondary School, Durumi II, Abuja, who is reportedly from Rivers State. A school teacher in Kebbi State, Abduljalal Usman, has reportedly been suspended for three months without pay after allegedly rejecting a Ramadan palliative and speaking out against what he described as bad governance. According to sources on Saturday, Usman declined one mudu of maize and one mudu of millet offered by the state government as part of a distribution program meant to provide relief during the fasting period. The teachers refusal and his criticism of the program led to disciplinary action by authorities under Governor Nasir Idris. A suspension letter issued by the education secretary at the Dandi Local Government Education Authority accused Usman of negligence of duty, though it did not specify what act constituted this negligence. Advertisement Critics say the teacher is being punished for refusing the Ramadan gesture and for speaking out against governance. Under the leadership of Nasir Idris, the Kebbi State Government is now punishing teachers for refusing hmiliation and criticizing the we@ponization of poverty, one source said. Observers have described the action as bias, incompetence, and total abse of power, arguing that teachers should not face punitive measures for expressing their views. Many also noted the irony that Governor Idris was once a classroom teacher. Listen to article 0:00 min Construction is finished on a major Massachusetts offshore wind farm, the first project to reach this stage during President Donald Trumps time in office. Offshore construction was completed Friday night on Vineyard Wind with the installation of the final blades, Craig Gilvarg, a spokesperson for the project, said Saturday. Advertisement Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any windmills be built. Vineyard Wind was one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt. Another one of the five, Revolution Wind, began sending power for the first time to New Englands electric grid on Friday and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational. While Revolution Wind just began delivering power, Vineyard Wind has been doing so for over a year as more turbines were finished. Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, located 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. It has 62 turbines that will generate a total of 800 megawatts. That is enough clean electricity to power about 400,000 homes. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has said the completion of this project is essential to ensuring the state can lower costs, meet rising energy demand, advance its climate goals and sustain thousands of good-paying jobs. The Trump administration has been particularly critical of the Vineyard Wind project because of a blade failure. Fiberglass fragments of a blade broke apart and began washing onto Nantucket beaches in July 2024 during the peak of tourist season. Manufacturer GE Vernova agreed to pay $10.5 million in a settlement to compensate island businesses that suffered losses. Vineyard Wind submitted state and federal project plans to build an offshore wind farm in 2017. Massachusetts had committed to offshore wind by requiring its utilities to solicit proposals for up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2027. In what might have been a fatal blow, federal regulators delayed Vineyard Wind by holding off on issuing a key environmental impact statement in 2019. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. William Keating said at the time the Trump administration was trying to stymie the renewable energy project just as it was coming to fruition. The Biden administration signed off on it in 2021, as it sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution. Construction began onshore in Barnstable, Mass. The first U.S. offshore wind farm opened off Rhode Islands Block Island in 2016, at the end of President Barack Obamas tenure. But with just five turbines, its not a commercial-scale wind farm. The nations first commercial-scale offshore wind farm officially opened in March 2024, when President Joe Biden was in office. Danish wind energy developer Orsted and the utility Eversource built that 12-turbine wind farm, called South Fork Wind, 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York. Trump began reversing the countrys energy policies his first day in office with a spate of executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas, and coal. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Friday night that Trump reversed course on Joe Bidens costly green energy agenda that gave preferential treatment to intermittent, unreliable energy sources and instead is aggressively unleashing reliable and affordable energy sources to lower energy bills, improve our grid stability and protect our national security. Listen to article 0:00 min Each year, Americans spend an average of $240 to prepare and file their tax returns, according to the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service. And the process is so complicated that about a million taxpayers who could get money back dont file returns, allowing the U.S. Treasury to keep more than $1 billion of their money. Many taxpayers can get free assistance preparing and filing their returns. Below is a rundown of available services, who is eligible, and how to avoid scams. Advertisement All these prep-and-filing options require you to track down documents and then enter or verify data. Fortunately, most websites are easy to navigate. Instead of filling out complicated forms and instructions, you answer simple questions, such as Do you have children living with you? and Did you have interest income from a bank, savings, or investment account? Warning: Dont search the internet using terms such as file my taxes for free you could end up on the website of a scammer, or even a well-known tax-prep brand that will charge you hefty fees. Instead, use the links provided in this article, or go to irs.gov. Free services from tax-prep companies Several tax-prep companies provide free online resources for those with low- or moderate-low incomes. Free File is a partnership between the IRS and eight companies (the IRS calls them trusted partners) to provide free tax preparation and filing services for individuals and families with adjusted gross incomes of $89,000 or less. This year, the participating companies are: 1040.com, 1040NOW.net, ezTaxReturn.com, FileYourTaxes.com, FreeTaxUSA.com, OLT.com, TaxAct.com, and TaxSlayer.com. In addition to the income threshold requirement, each company sets its own eligibility rules based on age, state residency, and other factors. Some companies charge fees to prepare and/or file state income tax returns. Click here for a list of participating companies and links to their eligibility requirements. Although H&R Block and TurboTax, the most popular tax-prep software companies, do not participate in the IRSs Free File program, they do offer free online prep-and-filing services to those with relatively simple tax returns. In general, you can use these two companies free options if you had wages reported on a W-2, had only one job, take the standard deduction, and are entitled to the most common credits, such as the child tax credit or earned income credit. H&R Block says 55% of taxpayers can use its free option; TurboTax estimates 37% can use its free online software. Free tax-prep help for low-income taxpayers The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program helps community organizations offer free basic tax preparation help, using IRS-certified volunteers, generally to households with adjusted gross incomes of $67,000 or less or to those with disabilities. Some programs specialize in assisting those who speak limited English. Selected help centers also have workstations where taxpayers can input info and electronically file their own tax returns with or without the assistance of an IRS-certified volunteer. Click here for a searchable database of VITA in-person-help sites. VITA also operates GetYourRefund.org, a website offering free tax-prep software. It was built by Code for America, a nonprofit organization, with help from the IRS. To qualify, you must meet income requirements (in general, its limited to individuals and families with adjusted gross incomes under $89,000 per year). Instead of meeting in person with a tax-prep volunteer, with GetYourRefund.org you upload your tax documents to its website and provide basic information. A VITA volunteer completes your return and then a second volunteer reviews it; you likely will be contacted several times with questions. It usually takes two or three weeks to complete the process. If you dont need any help, you can also use the website to file your return for free. Free tax-prep help for older taxpayers Similar to VITA, the Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) program helps community nonprofits provide free tax help to older adults. In general, you must be 60 or older, but some sites will help those in their 50s with low-to-moderate incomes. The AARP Foundations Tax Aide program staffs most sites, and many advisers specialize in pension and retirement issues unique to seniors. Between now and April 15, use the AARPs Tax-Aide Site Locator webpage to find nearby help. At some TCE locations, you can prepare and file your own return on-site for free using tax-prep software and with help from a volunteer. This option is available only at locations that list Self-Prep in the AARP online site finder tool. Free tax-prep help for military and recent veterans MilTax is a free resource backed by the Department of Defense for service members, eligible family members, survivors, and recent veterans (up to 365 days from their separation or retirement date). It includes tax preparation and electronic filing software, as well as personalized support from military tax experts. MilTax assists with issues involving deployments, combat and training pay, housing, and multistate filings. Eligible service members (and some veterans) can use MilTax to electronically file a federal tax return and up to three state returns for free. Get free one-on-one tax help from MilTax experts over the phone by calling 800-342-9647, use the live chat feature, or visit a VITA location for in-person help. Protect against fraud There are several steps you can take to protect yourself against tax-related identity theft. First, dont answer phone calls or respond to texts or emails that say theyre from the IRS. Its agents send all notices via mail; they wont ever call you out of the blue. Also, be on the lookout for warning signs of fraud. Monitor your mail. Most victims dont realize theyve been targeted until they send in their tax return and receive a warning letter from the IRS that more than one return was filed with their Social Security number, or that they didnt declare all their income from a company they didnt work for. Other IRS notifications that could indicate a problem: an online account that you didnt open was created in your name, or you were assigned an employee identification number that you didnt request. A simple but effective way to prevent tax identity theft is to request an identity protection PIN (IP PIN) from the IRS. This unique six-digit number prevents anyone else from using your Social Security Number or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) to file a return in your name. Its like freezing your credit files to lock out the bad guys. (Note: The IP PIN is different from the five-digit PIN you may use to sign your return electronically.) It takes only minutes to create an IP PIN. You will first need to have or create an online IRS account or visit an IRS Tax Assistance Center. And youll need to obtain a new number each year. Hundreds of thousands of Americans become victims of tax-related identity theft each year. Committing the crime has become easier because so much personal information has been exposed through massive data breaches. The average time to resolve tax-return-theft claims is nearly two years. Delaware Valley Consumers Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the service providers it evaluates. Until March 5, Inquirer readers can access Checkbooks ratings and advice free at Checkbook.org/Inquirer/taxes. Samuel and Michelle Riccobono pose for a photo with their son, Joseph, a sixth-grader, on Monday, March 2, 2026, near AMY Northwest Middle School in Philadelphia. Read more Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer Listen to article 0:00 min AMY Northwest parent Michelle Riccobono will never forget the day in 2024 she brought her son, Joseph, then a rising sixth grader, to visit the Roxborough magnet middle school. He really didnt want to come, Riccobono said. Then, principal [Jodan] Floyd walked in and started speaking, and I watched him sit up, his hoodie came off, he started raising his hands and answering questions. The sense of community was strong. I could feel it. My son could feel it. Advertisement Joseph, who has autism, has excelled in his first year at the school. Six months into sixth grade, he is engaged in all of his classes, including the ones hardest for him: math and gym. Thanks to AMY Northwests teachers, Riccobono said, her son no longer shuts down when he is afraid or challenged. He has become more outgoing and friendly, chatty even. They know my child, she said. Everyone in that building knows my child. Among the smallest middle schools in the district, AMY NW is seen as a gem by parents like Riccobono and teachers who value the culture they say it has fostered. If there is an issue in the school, teachers know about it immediately, they say. We have an AMY WhatsApp, social studies teacher Kenneth Bernstein explained one recent Friday morning. Yet AMYs size, in tandem with other factors including the poor condition of its 102-year-old building and a district plan to phase out middle schools in favor of K-8 facilities has put it in limbo and facing closure. The school board will soon decide whether to green-light a facilities plan that would shutter the magnet along with 17 others, including five other middle schools and many others that, like AMY, are under-enrolled and are valued by the community for that very reason. Read more about the proposed facilities plan Wholesale changes are coming to the Philadelphia School District, with Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. proposing a $2.8 billion facilities plan that includes closing schools. Watlington presented the plan to the school board Feb. 26 and it has already faced strong opposition. It's not yet final. Here's what we do and don't know. And to see the proposed list school closures and check how your school could be impacted, use our interactive charts. Each of the schools proposed for closure has its own story. Find them all here. The plan to close the school, which outperforms the district average on state reading and math exams, has roiled its community. Parents and staff are angry, hurt, and insulted. They dont want to break up a tight-knit community that they spent years building and has a reputation for good beyond the schools 19th-century walls. Floyd, the principal, points to AMY Northwests well-being survey as evidence of why the school should stay open. One hundred percent of AMY students, she said, reported they feel respected by their teachers. A whopping 85% say there is an adult they can talk to, while 90% say adults really try to know them and 92% say adults at AMY Northwest really care about them. As of February, 79% of kids are attending 90% of school days, said Floyd, who has been AMY Northwests principal for 13 years, while the district average is 65.9%. Still, AMY Northwests staff and students use less than 22% of the cavernous, three-story building the school occupies, and district officials say it needs millions of dollars in repairs and modernizations. The school, for instance, does not have air-conditioning. I have to own that, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said in an online video conference, referring to years of deferred maintenance and underinvestment. None of that, however, comforts students and families facing the loss of their community. Its not one of the most competitive schools, said Evan Moore, an AMY Northwest eighth grader. But its a good school because it does have criteria. There are a lot of students who dont have the eligibility to get into the best, best school, but still want and need something more than their neighborhood school. Having a school like that here is really important. Small class sizes are even more important to AMY parents, they say, because their children are at the delicate age when they are discovering themselves and need the extra attention to figure out who they are and what kind of students they want to be. At AMY, my daughter learned how to stand up for herself, said Megan Acedo, whose daughter, Naomi Acedo Moorhead, is in sixth grade. The school district has not decided whether it would keep the building or sell it. As of now there are no plans to move the AMY Northwest community to another building. In the meantime, Floyd said, she is trying to carry on with business as usual. With the 2027-28 sixth-grade class set to be the schools final addition there will be 180 students at AMY Northwest, she said. Yet when the 2028-29 class graduates, there will be fewer than 100 students. In such a vast building, these kids eighth-grade experience will be like learning in a ghost town. I wanted my daughter to have the opportunity to have a middle school experience, Acedo said. And I wanted other Philadelphia students to have a similar experience. Now we will all just be watching a slow death. Listen to article 0:00 min The University of Pennsylvania is aiming to expand undergraduate admissions access to military veterans and service members through a new initiative announced this week. Penn is partnering with the national nonprofit Service to School and its VetLink program, which offers free application counseling, mentoring, and networking for service members and veterans. The organization helps match veterans with colleges that best meet their goals and needs. Advertisement We understand that veterans not only bring unique perspectives to our undergraduate population, but also that they face unique challenges in navigating the college application process, said Penn admissions dean Whitney Soule, noting that they may have different perspectives if they went straight to the military from high school. We want them to hear loud and clear that Penn could be an option for them. READ MORE: Penn admitted 4.9% of applicants, its most selective year in its history The VetLink participants generally will apply as part of the traditional, highly competitive undergraduate admissions cycle as first-year students, Soule said. Penn accepted just 4.9% of applicants for its fall 2025 class. But Soule noted that each candidate is evaluated within the context of their life circumstances. Veterans have a unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership, achievement, and community engagement through the lens of their service, Soule said. While the partnership has been in the works for about the last six months, its announcement comes shortly after Penn got off a list of schools that the Pentagon planned to cut from its tuition assistance program for military officers applying to graduate programs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month announced a list of 22 schools where members of the military would be banned from using the defense departments tuition assistance. READ MORE: Trump administration cuts off tuition assistance for Army officers at 22 schools, but Penn isnt among them Penn was on an initial list. Princeton, Yale, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are among schools where that tuition assistance is no longer offered. Soule said the partnership with Service to School is fully unrelated to the Pentagon announcement. We hope that, regardless of whatever is happening in the news cycle, the partnership can signal to veterans that Penn is eager to read their applications and welcome them to campus, she said. A meaningful way to reach veterans Service to School was founded in 2011 by three veterans and an admissions professional and now counts seven of the eight Ivy League universities, including Penn, among its partners. Locally, Villanova University also has been a partner for nearly five years. It has been a meaningful way for us to connect with veterans across the country who may not have otherwise realized Villanova could be an option for them, said Mike Brown, Villanovas director of the Office of Veterans and Military Service Members. Several veterans have enrolled and completed degrees; others are currently on campus, Brown said. While Service to School helps veterans and service members apply to any school they choose, the organization specifically partners with schools that have at least a 70% six-year graduation rate, said Sydney Matthes, its CEO. Partner schools current average rate is 92%, she said. The organization also asks private school partners to participate in the Yellow Ribbon program, which bridges tuition and fee costs not covered by the GI bill; Penn expanded its participation in Yellow Ribbon in 2024-25 to offer unlimited funding for eligible undergraduate students. And, it asks schools to help veterans in other ways. Villanova, for example, funds a study abroad program for veterans because that opportunity is not typically covered by the GI bill, Matthes said. Others provide funded summer research opportunities and allow student veterans to live in graduate housing; they typically are older, with the average age between 24 to 27. We just want to ensure that when we are encouraging a veteran or active duty service member to invest their time at an institution, ...theres an ROI [return on investment] on their time, their effort, and their energy and potentially their hard-earned benefits from their time in service, Matthes said. The organization also hosts quarterly calls among partnership schools and a virtual college career fair with about 300 active-duty service members and veterans looking to attend college. The organization helps about 1,600 veterans annually, she said. While the specific partnership with Penn has been in the works since the fall, discussions have gone on longer, Matthes said. Some of the groups staff members are Penn alumni. Weve had students go to the admissions office and encourage admissions to reach out to us, Matthes added. While veterans certainly have applied to Penn in the past, the new partnership, she said, unlocks so many more opportunities for students to connect with the admissions office, and it helps our staff understand what the admissions office is looking for, so then we can better counsel our students. Penns existing work with veterans Penn has had longstanding programs to help veterans, including clubs and a student veteran network. The university currently has 268 student veterans using veterans educational benefits, said Lynn Manuel, who became Penns inaugural associate director of veteran and military engagement five years ago. But the vast majority are graduate students. Soule said there are five veterans enrolled in the traditional undergraduate program and 12 currently using VA benefits in Penns College of Liberal and Professional Studies undergraduate program. The actual population of veterans is larger, Manuel said, because some are not using veterans educational benefits. Both Soule and Manuel expect veteran numbers to grow with the new partnership. Some service members and veterans ...may not consider an Ivy League or elite institution, Manuel said. Thats what Service to School does so well, helps them understand, Aim as high as you possibly can, because it is a possibility for you. Yo-Yo Ma with Afghan cellist Mohammad Sami, right, after their performance at the Music School of the National Conservatory in Lisbon, March 29, 2022. Ma was in Philadelphia on March 13 to perform in a concert celebrating 100 years of the Interlochen Center for the Arts (AP Photo/Armando Franca) Read more Listen to article 0:00 min Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a new concerto by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and a rare performance of Charles Ives sprawling Symphony No 4 were the red-letter attractions at the Interlochen Center for the Arts celebration at the Kimmel Center on Friday. Though with so much else on hand, one overwhelmed listener asked: What WAS that? Advertisement This high-caliber Michigan-based training center for music, theater, dance, and visual arts can be expected to commemorate its forthcoming centennial (as well as America at 250) comprehensively. So many ancillary elements were packed into the meticulously produced evening that one had to tune out some of it to focus on the core experience. Interlochens talent was apparent at every turn, with work that was all fully realized on its own terms. No cut corners. Also in rich supply was the student idealism, starting with the Sydney Lea Kassekert song Imagine, in keeping with the programs title, Imagine US. The concert was the first in a tour with orchestra (conducted by Cristian Mcelaru) playing side by side with professionals, the Philadelphia Orchestra at this date and the Boston and Detroit orchestras in later performances. That may be the most important aspect for the 100-or-so instrumentalists. It allowed them to hear at proximity what the music can be and ways to get it done. And the Ives symphony gives orchestras more to do than perhaps anything else in the repertoire. Written between 1910 and the mid-1920s, the four recklessly innovative movements are separate worlds that collectively create an almost geological cross section of America at that time, with simultaneous parade music, hymns, and songs, often juxtaposed against one another. Theres also a strong industrial element: The symphony opens with stark, emphatic chords that stand like massive pylons, with Home Sweet Home heard in the background. Other moments are like tornadoes, but ones swirling with random debris. The new Thomas Brodhead edition heard here declutters some of the symphony, better allowing one to hear what Ives was after. Also, thanks partly to Interlochen principal conductor Mcelaru (formerly of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now Cincinnati Symphony music director), the sleek string tone revealed Ives third-movement fugue with more clarity than Ive ever heard. The Interlochen Arts Academy Choir was on hand for atmospheric vocal moments. Between movement, student actors delivered spoken context and commentary dressed in period costumes. Quite appreciated. Staging elements during the music were less appreciated. The large video screen dominating the Marian Anderson Hall stage was busy with visuals, some abstract shapes, some Americana collages, all well done and all significantly distracting from the music. The Marsalis concerto, heard in its premiere, is typically atypical. Marsalis follows few of the concerto traditions such as the heroic battle between soloist and orchestra preferring thematically connected suites, all hugely eventful in their musical imagery, like an inner travelogue with the soloist as a tour guide (and sometimes the brunt of musical jokes). This concerto started casually, disarmingly so, including a first-movement cadenza dominated by thoughtful pizzicato. It ended with orchestra members urging Ma on with fun, rhythmic clapping. In between, Marsalis was at his most graphic, notably with a police whistle, and then a cello solo figure that was a pale, downward exhalation. Has George Floyd been more eloquently memorialized? Marsalis built each movement with a series of high-density modules, each with its own character but often with a pensive pause recalling Aaron Coplands more serene movements. Marsalis loves historic dance forms the final movement was titled Cakewalk always made new by witty instrumentation, sometimes with piccolos making birdlike effects. Demands on Yo-Yo Ma include all manner of un-classical effects, most obviously bluesy pitch bending. Ma gave everything its due. The resources of articulation and color that make him a great classical cellist also make him a fine Marsalis interpreter, aided by his having no great attachment to classical poise. Valued at a market cap of $34.1 billion, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) is an agriculture company that provides human and animal nutrition ingredients and solutions. The Chicago, Illinois-based company specializes in the origination, transportation, and processing of agricultural commodities into vital ingredients for food, beverages, animal feed, and industrial applications. Companies worth $10 billion or more are typically classified as large-cap stocks, and ADM fits the label perfectly, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, underscoring its size, influence, and dominance within the farm products industry. The company serves as a critical connector between farmers and global markets, increasingly focusing its strategy on sustainable agriculture, human and animal nutrition, and innovative bio-based solutions to meet the needs of a growing global population. More News from Barchart This agricultural company has reached its 52-week high of $73.72 in the last trading session. Shares of ADM have rallied 22% over the past three months, outperforming the VanEck Agribusiness ETFs (MOO) 14.1% rise during the same time frame. www.barchart.com Moreover, on a YTD basis, shares of ADM are up 27.3%, compared to MOOs 16.7% return. In the longer term, ADM has soared 55.5% over the past 52 weeks, considerably outpacing MOOs 25.9% uptick over the same time frame. To confirm its bullish trend, ADM has been trading above its 200-day moving average since mid-June and has remained above its 50-day moving average since early January. www.barchart.com On Mar. 12, ADM announced a new initiative in collaboration with American Farmland Trust to work with hundreds of farmers across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and Missouri. The $500,000 investment from ADM Cares is part of the companys Farm Forward Initiative, a long-term effort to support American farmers and enhance agricultural resilience amid a rapidly evolving agricultural landscape. ADM has underperformed its rival, Bunge Global SA (BG), which surged 72.3% over the past 52 weeks and 41.4% on a YTD basis. Despite ADMs recent outperformance, analysts remain cautious about its prospects. The stock has a consensus rating of "Hold from the 11 analysts covering it. As of writing, the company is trading above both its mean price target of $60.50 and Street-high price target of $70. On the date of publication, Neharika Jain did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com Listen to article 0:00 min Matcha chia pudding at Enswell The creamy oat milk-based chia breakfast pudding at Enswell the swanky all-day cafe in Center City from the Rival Bros. team is as beautiful as its Art Deco setting. Weekday brunch there is a dream: You can gaze at the hand-painted murals while sipping a cappuccino and tucking into a healthy-feeling breakfast. Served in a fancy bowl and dusted with a mix of bursting pomegranate seeds and crunchy toasted coconut, the chia pudding is laced with so much matcha, it matches the vibrant green walls. I pay it the highest of compliments: Its a breakfast treat that isnt too sweet. Enswell, 1528 Spruce St., 215-398-5919, enswellphilly.com Kiki Aranita Crawfish pie at Rex at the Royal Some good restaurants (if they survive long enough) can take on a sustainable life force beyond the names of whichever head chef happens to be leading their kitchens. I was reminded of this after an enjoyable dinner at Rex at the Royal one of my best there, actually only to learn afterward that its kitchen leadership is in transition once again. The restaurant is in search of its fifth executive chef in the four years since it moved from the cozy Rex 1516 space down the block into the sprawling grandeur of the renovated Royal Theater at 1524 South St. Advertisement I savored some of the flakiest biscuits in town, a juicy smoked chicken with Hoppin John, and fried catfish over cornmeal waffles, whose dimpled grids were stuffed with warm butter and jewels of trout roe. But the star of our meal was a flashback to Rexs original opening menu from 14 years ago: a flaky crawfish pie handed down from its Alabama-born opening chef, the late Regis Jansen. The pie has evolved lightly in the intervening years and even disappeared for a spell until it was recently resurrected. Its return is triumphant as ever: a double-crusted puff pastry pocket stuffed with spiced crawfish etouffee enriched with creamy cheese thats tucked into a cast-iron pan. According to Aaron Daniels, culinary director of parent company Sojourn Philly, the continuity of this dish is thanks to a trio of veteran kitchen staffers from the same family: pastry chef Consuela Mendez, who makes the puff pastry; her son, Jonny Mendez, the lead prep cook who builds the pie; and her husband, Pedro Mendez, lead line cook (and facilities director), who bakes it to a golden crisp. I took one flaky, oozy crawfish bite and could almost hear the accordions from the New Orleans JazzFests zydeco tent pumping in the background. They nailed it. Whoever becomes Rexs next executive chef will no doubt have plenty to do to maintain this South Street standby and help it keep improving. But crawfish pie and the steady support of this stalwart kitchen crew are two things that wont need fixing. Rex at the Royal, 1524 South St., 267-319-1366; rexphl.com Craig LaBan Philly cheesesteak at Dancerobot Dancerobots best-kept secret is its take on the Philly cheesesteak. With only 10 available per day, this off-menu item pays homage to Nihonbashi Philly, Tokyos Philadelphia-themed bar. This sandwich marries rich, dry-aged rib-eye dressed in whiz made with New School American cheese with caramelized bell peppers. Its all packed into a house-made sourdough roll. This is no ordinary Philly cheesesteak. Dare I say its say even better? Brightened by the sweet peppers and balanced by the sourdough, the sandwich is comforting but not so overwhelming that it sits in heavy in your stomach. When I split it with friends, I had the selfish thought of wanting to take home an entire cheesesteak for myself. Fortunately for everyone else, I have self-restraint. Dancerobot, 1710 Sansom St., 215-419-5202, dancerobotphl.com Julia Duarte Baklava Sour at Maris I recently met a friend for drinks in Media at Maris, the Mediterranean seafood restaurant that opened in December in the previous home of new American restaurant Two Fourteen and Mexican spot Diegos Cantina. Ive liked the space in every iteration, and while the aesthetic changes in this latest version are fairly subtle, its enough to make the restaurant feel different. I mean, Ive seen dining room aquariums before, but certainly never a circular seafood display case with fresh fish before. I ordered a Baklava Sour, which came with bourbon, fresh lemon juice, honey simple syrup, cinnamon, egg white, and a crushed pistachio rim. The drink was well-crafted, but a bit more whiskey than sour for my taste though the incredible pistachio rim made up for it. Im going to need all my drinks to come with a halo of crushed pistachios from now on. (They have a pistachio martini Ill be trying on my next visit.) Maris, 214 W. State St., Media, 267-500-2979, marisseafood.com Stephanie Farr Listen to article 0:00 min The crocuses are up and the robins are back, but for many Philadelphians, it wont be spring without Zitners candy. Zitners Fine Confections, the century-old Philadelphia chocolatier known for its cream-filled Butter Krak eggs and other Easter specialties, is skipping this Easter season after shutting down its aging factory in North Philadelphia. Advertisement Customers have been asking about the disappearance on social media, while major retail outlets including Acme, Giant, ShopRite, Wawa, Walmart, CVS, Wegmans, Weis, and Boscovs have had to fill their candy shelves with other brands. The interruption is temporary. Zitners chief executive Evan Prochniak said he had closed a deal on Friday to acquire Kargher Chocolate, a small family-owned manufacturer in Hatfield, Montgomery County. The Hatfield plant will become Zitners new manufacturing base, while continuing to produce Karghers chocolate chips and nonpareils. Kargher president Douglas Kargher declined to comment and referred questions to Prochniak. Zitners candy will not return in time for Easter 2026, however. Prochniak said workers are scheduled to begin moving equipment into the new factory on Monday, but the timeline is too tight for this season, which will culminate April 5. A typical Easter production cycle takes about four months, he said. To bridge the gap, Zitners is planning a Christmas/Easter in July release on its Facebook and Instagram accounts and hopes to broaden its offerings beyond the core seasonal line. Prochniak said he wants to revive old handwritten recipes from the company archive and is considering a Philadelphia retail store as well as a possible outlet at Philadelphia International Airport. For now, though, the focus is on restarting production. Zitners last made candy in North Philadelphia in summer 2024, relying on an outside manufacturer for Easter 2025. That arrangement, Prochniak said, was never intended to last. These are very old-school recipes, and we wanted to maintain control, he said. I also wanted to grow the company, and Ive always had the vision of bringing back some of those other recipes that I have. So it was always the intent to manufacture ourselves somewhere. The plant in Hatfield has 11 employees, and Prochniak said he expects that number to double this year under Zitners. Zitners history Zitners traces its roots to 1922, when Russian immigrants Samuel Zitner and his wife, Annie, began making chocolate candies in a garage setup at their home at Kensington Avenue and Hart Lane in Kensington the same year the El began chugging overhead. One Inquirer article from 1927 described a theft from the shop by two 15-year-olds, who were identified as candy yeggmen. Like many neighborhood candy companies, Zitners grew into a factory business, operating over the years at sites that included Tulip and Dauphin Streets in Kensington and American Street and Germantown Avenue in Northern Liberties, according to Inquirer archives. In 1936, Leon Sherman, a nephew, took over and ran the business for decades with his brother Arthur. The Shermans helped standardize the recipes and production methods that defined the brand, according to the trade publication Snack & Bakery. Zitners built its reputation on chocolate-coated confections including coconut cream long spelled cocoanut as well as peanut butter, marshmallow, butter cream, and hard pretzels. Its best-selling product is the dark chocolate-covered Butter Krak egg, which Annie Zitner taught Leon Sherman to make from buttercream, long-shredded coconut, and toasted coconut. By the mid-1960s, the company had moved into its longtime plant near 17th and Clearfield Streets in North Philadelphia. Ownership changed several times after the Shermans era. In 1990, businessman Sidney Rosenblatt bought Zitners and ran it for about two decades, preserving the traditional line. In 2010, Rosenblatt sold the company to Prochniak and partners. At the time, Prochniak was practicing law with no plans to become a candymaker. His group initially planned to sell the candy business and redevelop the property. But a soft real-estate market changed that calculation, and they were persuaded to keep the business going. Then I got to see firsthand how popular the candy was, said Prochniak, who grew up in Southwest Philadelphia and remembers Zitners eggs in his Easter basket. The demand was there for more of it, but they had very limited capacity at that time. Zitners later ran into financial strain and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018 while seeking to restructure several million dollars in debt and continue operating; the bankruptcy was voluntarily dismissed. The building, which had been sold, had deteriorated badly in recent years, Prochniak said. After a salvage yard moved in next door, he said, Zitners lost its shipping and receiving area and had to load trucks on 17th Street. The main issue was safety, Prochniak said. That was dangerous. The new factory will allow us to preserve everything that makes Zitner special while giving us the space and technology needed to expand, Prochniak said. The Hatfield facility represents the next era for Zitner. Listen to article 0:00 min DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Iran issued an evacuation warning for three major ports in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, including the busiest in the Middle East, openly threatening a neighboring countrys non-U. S. assets for the first time as its war with the U.S. and Israel entered its third week. Iran said the U.S. had used ports, docks, and hideouts in the UAE to launch strikes on Irans Kharg Island, without providing evidence. It urged people to evacuate areas where it said U.S. forces were sheltering. Advertisement Hours after the threat, there was no sign of an attack on Dubais Jebel Ali port the Mideasts busiest or the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi. But Associated Press images showed a fire at the third port, in Fujairah, caused by debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hitting an oil facility. Iran says the U.S. attacked from close to Dubai Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told MS NOW that the U.S. attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island with low-range artillery from two locations in the UAE, Ras Al-Khaimah and a place very close to Dubai, calling that dangerous and saying Iran will try to be careful not to attack any populated area there. U.S. Central Command said it had no response to Irans claim, and the UAE didnt issue a statement. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Arab Gulf neighbors during the war, but it said it was targeting U.S. assets, even as hits or attempts were reported on civilian ones such as airports and oil fields. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. obliterated military sites on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Irans oil exports. He said oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with ships passage through the Strait of Hormuz, where vessels are backed up and one-fifth of global oil supplies usually transit. Irans parliamentary speaker has said strikes against the countrys oil infrastructure would provoke a new level of retaliation. As global anxiety soars over oil prices and supplies, Trump said Saturday that he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea, the U.K., and others send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and safe. Britain in response said it was discussing with allies a range of options to secure shipping. Araghchi, in a social media post, urged neighbors to expel foreign aggressors and described Trumps call as begging. Iran repeats threat against US-linked oil assets On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat to attack U.S.-linked oil, economic and energy infrastructures in the region if the Islamic Republics oil infrastructure is hit. Irans semiofficial Fars news agency said the Kharg Island strikes caused no damage to oil infrastructure. It said they targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar. U.S. Central Command said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and other military sites. Israel earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the last 24 hours, including missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites. Marines and an assault ship will add to U.S. forces A U.S. official said Friday that 2,500 more Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli were being sent to the Middle East, adding to the militarys largest buildup of warships and aircraft in the region in decades. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Marine Expeditionary Units can conduct amphibious landings but also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians, and providing disaster relief. The deployment doesnt necessarily indicate that a ground operation will take place. The Wall Street Journal first reported the Marine deployment. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, in the Arabian Sea. The total number of U.S. service members on the ground in the Middle East isnt clear. Another attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias. There was no immediate comment from the embassy. On Friday, it renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq, warning that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups have previously carried out attacks against U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure and may continue to target them. Meanwhile, Lebanons humanitarian crisis deepened, with over 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Listen to article 0:00 min NEW YORK Court documents show less than two years after Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was released from prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State group, he opened fire in a classroom at Virginias Old Dominion University on Thursday before ROTC students subdued and killed him. The shooting that left one person dead and another two injured has raised questions about why Jalloh, who the FBI identified as the gunman, was imprisoned and the conditions of his release with some elected officials questioning how someone with known ties to the Islamic State group was able to carry out such an attack. Advertisement The horrific tragedy that occurred today on ODUs campus never should have happened, U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents the congressional district neighboring the university, wrote on Facebook. After Jalloh pleaded guilty in October 2016 to providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization the Islamic State group a federal judge sentenced him in 2017 to an 11-year prison term with credit for time served retroactive to his July 2016 arrest. Jalloh was released from federal custody Dec. 23, 2024. He was granted an early release about 2 years into his sentence after completing a drug treatment program, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. It wasnt clear how Jalloh qualified for the program, which allows inmates to shave up to a year off their sentences. Inmates serving sentences for terrorism-related offenses typically arent eligible for such programs or other sentence-reducing credits. A message seeking information about Jallohs incarceration and release was left with the federal Bureau of Prisons. He was on supervised release, which is comparable to probation, when he carried out the attack on Thursday. Based on his release date, that wouldve run into 2029. Confessions to undercover agents Jallohs October 2016 plea came after a three-month sting operation in which he, then 26, confessed to an undercover FBI agent that he was thinking about carrying out an attack similar to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, which left 13 people dead. Authorities launched the 2016 operation after Jalloh made contact with members of the Islamic State group in Africa earlier that year. Jalloh later told the informant that the Islamic State group had asked if he wanted to participate in an attack. He tried to donate $500 to the group, but the money actually went to an account controlled by the FBI, according to court documents. Jalloh then tried to buy an AR-15 assault rifle from a Virginia gun store but was turned away because he lacked the proper paperwork. The affidavit says he returned the next day and bought a different assault rifle. Prosecutors said the rifle was rendered inoperable before Jalloh left the store, unbeknownst to Jalloh. He was arrested the following day. Debate over sentencing The Justice Department in 2017 requested a 20-year prison sentence for Jalloh, noting that he had made multiple attempts to join the Islamic State group and had attempted to acquire a gun to carry out a murder plot. The defendant was fully aware of what he was doing, and the consequences of those actions. His only misgivings seemed to be a fear that he would waver at the critical moment, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. They added: By putting the idea of this murder plot into religious terms, and by suggesting that murdering members of the US military would be a path to heaven, the defendant showed how strongly committed he was to the deadly ideology of the Islamic State group. Jallohs lawyers asked for a sentence of 6 years in prison and requested that he be placed in a facility that provides residential drug treatment for inmates with addiction and substance abuse issues. U.S. District Judge Liam OGrady, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, sentenced him instead to 11 years in prison. The judge also ordered Jalloh to participate in a program for substance abuse testing and treatment and mental health treatment, and requested that he be evaluated for the federal prison systems residential drug program. Completing the Residential Drug Abuse Program can reduce an inmates prison sentence by up to a year, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. It wasnt immediately clear if Jalloh qualified for the program. Normally, inmates serving sentences for terrorism-related offenses arent eligible. In addition, some inmates who stay out of trouble in prison can reduce their sentence by earning up to 54 days of good conduct time credit for each year of their sentence. However, under the 2018 prison reform law known as the First Step Act, inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses are not eligible for such credit. Troubled shooter lured by radical cleric Little is publicly known about Jalloh, who was a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone. But court documents depict him as a troubled man who was radicalized by Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known American imam who became an al-Qaida propagandist. The Virginia Army National Guard confirmed he served as a specialist from 2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged. Jalloh told a government informant he quit the National Guard after hearing lectures from al-Awlaki, according to a 2016 FBI affidavit filed in his criminal case. In a letter to the federal judge that presided over his sentencing, Jalloh wrote: I feel deep regret in having been driven by my emotions rather than my intellect and becoming involved with such an evil organization. I reject and deplore terrorism and any groups associated with it, especially ISIL. He wrote that he started using drugs after his girlfriend ended their six-year relationship. The pain I felt internally was unbearable, and drugs and alcohol were the only things that took that pain away, Jalloh wrote. I started doing marijuana, coke and mushrooms using one of them at least on a daily basis in order to kill the pain I was in and to fill in the void I felt internally. The letter itself remains under seal, but his lawyer included excerpts of it in his sentencing memorandum. Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter Good morning. Wild weather continues to leave its mark on nearly every part of the United States. On the bright side, Philly-area cherry blossoms still appear to be on schedule. Heres when we can expect the peak bloom period. Advertisement To bail or not to bail on a multifamily vacation? The Inquirer group chat helps a reader navigate a potential deal-breaker. But first, were covering Philadelphias lawsuit against a gun manufacturer, where and why the Roots Picnic is moving, and our report card for this week in Philly news. P.S. A link was broken in yesterdays newsletter. Heres the story: Phillys school board got an earful on 18 planned school closings. Paola Perez (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com) If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. What you should know today Heres the dilemma: We had talked to a family, lets call them the Beechers, about sharing a big Shore house for a week. We get along great with the parents and our kids are friends. The Beechers mentioned this plan to another family were sort-of friends with, lets call them the Smiths, and apparently sort-of invited them. We really get along with the Smith mother and their kids are great but we do not get along with the dad who says whatever pops into his head and yells at his kids constantly for the smallest things. Were not going to do it, we know that. The question is do we tell the Beechers why or do we make up a we decided to get a house on our own because maybe the grandparents are coming type of excuse? Barry unShore To help, Inquirer editor Evan Weiss looped in life and culture reporters Amy Rosenberg and Mike Newall. They considered ways for Barry to avoid drama and preserve the fun, memorable spirit of summer through sincere honesty. Shore houses are expensive. Time is precious, Newall said. Read my colleagues conversation here. And if youd like advice (or just want to share your thoughts), were all ears. Email us here. Elected officials recognize that housing affordability is a key issue. However, the effectiveness of federal legislation to tackle it is lacking, Inquirer columnist Daniel Pearson writes. In this weeks Shackamaxon, Pearson unpacks the potential impact of federal, state, and local policies that may or may not ease this burden. In related news: Mayor Cherelle L. Parker wants to bring a modular factory that builds housing to Philadelphia. A $10 million chunk of her latest budget proposal would help make it happen. Find the location Think you know where this library is located? Our weekly game puts your knowledge of Phillys streets and places to the test. Check your answer. Unscramble the anagram Hint: Go Birds HUSTLER JAN Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Kathleen Paulmier, who correctly guessed Fridays answer: Womans Medical College of Pennsylvania. The worlds first medical school created exclusively to grant women medical degrees will be celebrated this weekend as part of the Philadelphia Historic Districts 52 Weeks of Firsts series. Staff photographer Monica Herndon captured some stellar shots from the annual pond skimming event at Bear Creek Mountain Resort. More than 130 people signed up to try to skim all the way to the other side. The key to crossing? Speed. Wider skis help, and so does leaning back, keeping your ski tips up, Herndon writes. Somewhere on the internet in Philly @milliephanatics compilation of Random Philly things I love reminded me of the fun instrument-themed parking decks near the Kimmel Center. @phillyistheculture is coming for SEPTA and the transit systems use of the word jawn on its signage: Please stop misusing our words. Its giving Delco copywriter. We need transportation reporter Tom Fitzgerald to get the tea on who is crafting these saucy ads. And take a moment to delight in this sweet story about ice cream bringing neighbors together. I agree Philadelphia is unmatched. Thanks for stopping by. Have a good day, and Ill catch up with you again tomorrow. By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirers Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10. Gov. Josh Shapiro discusses his new book, "Where We Keep the Light," with Jay Wright, former head mens basketball coach at Villanova University, on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. Read more Listen to article 0:00 min Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was cagey about his presidential aspirations in an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, but he spoke like someone who has his eyes set on 2028. What is the story with always writing a book when youre running for president? Maher asked to begin Shapiros interview about his new memoir. Advertisement The Democratic governor skirted the question and answered instead by going into sales mode about his recently released book, Where We Keep the Light. "I wrote a book to try and highlight the people that bring light in my state, the people I see every day doing good things. Because our politics dont match the goodness of what I see on the ground every day," he said. But Shapiro couldnt resist a bit of campaign speak. He branded himself a GSD [Get S Done] Democrat, and said people feel cynical and frustrated about politics because they dont see many of their elected leaders putting points on the board for them. Shapiro pointed to his administrations speedy repair after part of I-95 in Philadelphia collapsed in 2023 as evidence that breaking through bureaucracy and getting things accomplished was a way to deliver hope. Maher said his responses sounded like Shapiro was on his way to the 2028 Democratic nomination. I refuse to take any of your bait here, Shapiro said jokingly. Rising antisemitism and the Iran war Maher brought up the rise of overt antisemitism around the nation and the world, including the Thursday attack on a Michigan synagogue. He asked Shapiro, should he run for president, if he could appeal to voters when his Jewish faith is a key part of his identity. I believe people are good and they are decent, and they want to know who you are at a deep level. And when you are open with them, theyre more apt to be open with you. I won that election because Im proud of who I am. Im proud of what motivates me to serve, and Im proud of my faith, Shapiro said, referencing his gubernatorial campaign. READ MORE: Gov. Josh Shapiro condemns attack at Michigan synagogue as unacceptable Shapiro called upon leaders of both parties to call out when antisemitism is present. He said hatred toward Jews has united both extremes of the political spectrum, and people have allowed antisemitism to fester by looking away from the problem. Maher ended the interview asking Shapiro about the war in Iran, and how he would have handled the situation if he were president. Shapiro declined to answer the question that way, but sharply criticized the Trump administrations lack of clarity as to why it attacked Iran in the first place, what its goals were, and how it planned to get out of the conflict. We have a commander in chief and his sidekick, Pete Hegseth, who are acting like a bunch of 8-year-olds playing with toy soldiers. Weve lost 13 American soldiers in a war that the American people [have] no idea why the hell we went there in the first place, he said. However, the governor said his critiques of the war should not be taken as having nuanced feelings about the Iranian regime, reiterating his stance on the countrys leadership. They chanted for five decades, Death to America, he said. And I am not shedding a tear for them being killed. With no immediate end to the Iran war in sight, Shapiro said, Trump has a responsibility to tell soldiers in harms way and Americans at home what his plan is for the conflict. The president has yet to look the American people in the eye and explain that, and that is a failure of leadership, he said. Listen to article 0:00 min HEBRON, Ky. President Donald Trump toured an Ohio pharmaceutical company on Wednesday and campaigned in the nearby Kentucky district of a Republican in Congress he would like to see defeated attempting to project political and economic strength as war in Iran has scrambled financial markets and hurt his poll numbers. Trump toured Thermo Fisher Scientific outside Cincinnati, talking up his administrations efforts to persuade major manufacturers to lower prescription medication prices so they are closer to what is charged abroad. Advertisement I used some very strong negotiating talent to get every single country to almost immediately approve. I threatened them with tariffs, he told reporters. The Supreme Court recently struck down sweeping tariffs that Trumps administration had imposed around the world to boost his economic policies. But the president used an executive order to restore some levies, and says his push to lower drug costs can help Republicans ahead of Novembers midterms. Wednesdays trip, however, was overshadowed by the military action launched by the U.S. and Israel in Iran, which Trump said was an excursion that will keep us out of a war. He added of Tehran: For them, its a war. For us, its turned out to be easier than we thought. In an interview with Cincinnatis WKRC-TV, Trump said he planned to tap the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down gasoline prices. Right now, well reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down, Trump said, without providing details. That interview followed the president noting during the tour of the drug company facility that stock markets had been volatile as gas prices have risen, saying: I figured wed be hit a little bit. But we were hit probably less than I thought. Well be back on track in a pretty short while, Trump said. Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming down. He also called the turmoil just a matter of war, saying that happens, while adding, I would say it went up a little bit less than we thought. Trump seeks to defeat a Republican antagonist Trump next headed to Hebron, Ky., in the district of Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the few congressional Republicans who has dared to defy Trump on Iran and other major issues. Trump has endorsed a GOP primary challenger to Massie, Ed Gallrein. The president, however, spent more time decrying his Democratic predecessor, President Joe Biden, than Massie. He ticked off his administrations accomplishments and told the crowd, The midterms are going to be very, very important to keep it going. Trump relished saying, Kenn-tucky, proclaiming that he was pronouncing it like a resident. He said the stock market had set repeatedly reached new highs since he was reelected in 2024, but did not mention that the markets more recently had dropped. Were making more things in the USA than we ever have, Trump said. When he mentioned Iran, the crowd chanted, USA! USA! They dont know what the hell hit them, Trump said of U.S. and Israel strikes there. They didnt expect anything like this. Polls showed that Americans were increasingly wary of Trumps handling of the economy even before the conflict with Iran began, and fighting there has derailed Trumps messaging, as the low gas prices he once bragged about are now surging and stocks that had set record highs have slipped. Employers also cut an unexpectedly high 92,000 jobs in February, and revisions trimmed an additional 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls which the White House had previously hailed as blockbuster. Affordability tour continues After Democrats who pushed the message that the cost of living remained too high won the Virginia and New Jersey governors races in November, the White House announced that Trump would travel the country more frequently. It was an attempt to show that he is taking kitchen table issues seriously and to reassure voters nervous about still-rising prices and economic growth. Before Wednesday, the president made stops in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas though his speeches have sometimes been focused more on his own political grievances than on his plans to help lower everyday costs across the country. This trip, however, marked the first time in this primary cycle that Trump has sought to keep promises to punish members of his own party who oppose him on key issues. The president has endorsed Gallrein, a farmer, businessman, and retired Navy SEAL who is running against Massie in Kentuckys Republican primary on May 19. Massie is an outspoken Trump critic who opposed the White House-backed tax and spending measure and bucked Trump by pushing to have files related to the sex-trafficking investigations into Jeffrey Epstein released. He has also criticized the U.S. strike on Venezuela that toppled then-President Nicolas Maduro and, most recently, the war in Iran. Trump posted on his social media site during his Wednesday trip: The Republican Partys Worst Congressman, EVER, Thomas Massie. Massie said he hoped the president would use his trip to help work for the district. He told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Trumps endorsement is all my opponent has going for him, adding that Gallrein has promised to be a rubber stamp when he gets to Washington, D.C., and I dont think people here want a rubber stamp. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill delivers her budget address Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026, in the Assembly Chamber at the New Jersey State House. Read more Listen to article 0:00 min New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she would not raise taxes on New Jerseyans, but when she made her budget pitch on Tuesday, it became clear that the promise didnt extend to businesses. That caught business leaders off guard. Advertisement Prior to the budget address, the governor had said many times, no new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes, which was music to our ears, said Tom Bracken, the president and CEO of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. But Bracken said Sherrill really went after the business community in parts of her first budget proposal. The Democratic governor will be meeting with South Jersey business leaders Monday as she seeks to sell her plan to address a projected $3 billion gap. Sherrill is seeking to address the budget deficit and direct resources to social programs that have lost federal funding under President Donald Trump. But business groups are taking issue with several of her key proposals that would cut down business tax deductions and require big companies to pay a fine if more than 50 of their employees are on Medicaid. Some details of the proposals are unclear to business leaders in the immediate days after the governor unveiled her proposal. Christina M. Renna, the president & CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey, expressed concern about Sherrills proposal to require companies with 50 or more employees on Medicaid (NJ FamilyCare) to pay a fee to help fund the state-run program thats partially funded by the federal government. The proposal aims to incentivize businesses to offer insurance coverage and reduce how much private companies rely on public benefits, according to Sherrills budget documents. Shes calling the charges Employer Healthcare Assistance Contributions and said it can raise $145 million. But Renna said the program could discourage companies from doing business in New Jersey. In a region that borders both Pennsylvania and Delaware, competitiveness is not theoretical, she said. READ MORE: Mikie Sherrills budget would kick high-earning seniors off a new tax relief program, expand mental health services for kids Sherrill said in her budget speech that her Medicaid proposal takes aim at companies like Amazon and Walmart. Her administration did not immediately respond to questions about her proposals on Friday. A 2024 state report found that nearly 750 companies have 50 or more employees on the states Medicaid program, with thousands of employees on the states coverage plan at Amazon and Walmart. Sen. Troy Singleton, a Burlington County Democrat, praised Sherrills proposal for making large corporations pick up their load, that frankly, is being pushed off on every taxpayer in the state of New Jersey. It doesnt seem right for those mega corporations to have their employees to have to rely on state health care programs like Medicaid in order for them to be treated fairly for their health care needs, Singleton said. Sherrill also wants to limit how much money businesses can deduct from their taxes for operating losses at $1 million for three years. This proposal could generate about $485 million in the coming fiscal year and would impact about 600 companies, or less than 1% of corporate taxpayers, according to Sherrills budget documents. She also wants to take away a tax break from larger companies she says was meant for small businesses struggling to survive the Great Recession called the Alternative Business Calculation Adjustment tax deduction. She wants to limit the deduction to businesses with a gross income of $1 million or less, and reduce it to 25% for businesses with gross income between $500,000 and $1 million. The car repair shop and the diner down the block are the ones who should benefit, she said in her speech on Tuesday. This fix will save another $120 million a year without taxing families a dollar more. Sherrill touted her budget as the most fiscally responsible budget our state has seen in years, because it fully funds the states pension system, doesnt include uniform tax increases, and closes corporate tax loopholes. But it still totals nearly $61 billion in spending, a record for the state. Anthony Russo, the president of the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, said business leaders were a little surprised by the high price tag but hes glad there arent a lot of new increases. And as certain businesses lose tax breaks, they could also do better on a federal level, he said, since its currently unclear how businesses tax bills will benefit from tax breaks in Trumps bill as 2025 returns are processed. We were happy to see that she wasnt introducing new taxes, she wasnt introducing increased taxes, but when you cap or you eliminate deductions, to those affected parties, its in essence a tax increase, Russo said. Dayna Marie Hood and her mother, Donna Lucille Hood, and Dayna's dog, Sylvie, in their new home in Philadelphia's Brewerytown. Read more Listen to article 0:00 min The buyers: Dayna Marie Hood, 40, caregiver Advertisement The house: A 1,350-square-foot rowhouse with three bedrooms and 1.5 baths built in 1915. The price: Listed for $379,900; purchased for $375,000. The agent: Brittany Malseed, Exit Elevate Realty The ask: From the moment Hood arrived in Philadelphia for work in 2014, she knew it was where she wanted to be. She would take long walks across the city, daydreaming about one day owning a home here. Sometimes, shed send videos of homes to her mother, imagining them living there together. I was born in California, I grew up in Virginia, but when I came to Philly the first time, I was like, This is home, she said. But in March 2024, when her father unexpectedly passed, everything changed. Her father had been the sole caregiver for her mother, who is paraplegic. So Hood left her dream job, as a marketing coordinator for DEI at Temple University, moved back to her hometown in Northern Virginia, and became her mothers full-time caregiver. But she missed Philadelphia and wondered whether shed ever manage to get back. Every time I heard anything about Philadelphia, I would just get nostalgic, she said. Then, last November, Hood asked her mother: What if we moved to Philadelphia together? Her mother loved the idea, and the two set about making it happen. They wanted a modern, renovated rowhouse. Hood wanted an office, so she could work from home, and a backyard for Sylvie, her chihuahua-dachshund mix. Above all, though, she wanted a bedroom on the first floor to make it easier for her mother to get around in her wheelchair. I knew it was going to be tough, but I was determined to make it happen. The search: Working with a real estate agent, they began looking last November, focusing on Queen Village, Rittenhouse Square, Brewerytown, and Fishtown. As shed predicted, the biggest hurdle was finding a home with a bedroom on the first floor. But she remained committed. I didnt want her to be trapped in a basement, Hood said. Some of the basements werent finished and they didnt look secure enough or warm enough or welcoming enough. I wanted her to be in a beautiful, well-lit space. The appeal: As soon as the agent sent her the listing for a three-bedroom home in Brewerytown, Hood was smitten. Still living in Virginia, and unable to travel because of a recent surgery, she asked the agent for a video tour and a brutally honest assessment. She said, Im not gonna lie, Im really impressed, said Hood. The home had a modern kitchen and LED lighting, plus fun features like a staircase that lit up as you ascended. There was a small backyard for Sylvie. Best of all, it was wider than a typical rowhouse, which would allow her mother to more easily get around. The deal: Things came together quickly. The day of the video tour which was the same day the house went on the market Hood and her mother put in a cash offer of $370,000. The seller countered with $375,000, and thats what they ultimately settled on. An inspection turned up a few issues the home didnt have a sump pump and the shower needed to be leak-proofed. But the seller agreed to make the fixes ahead of the sale, which made things easy. The money: Using money from the sale of their Northern Virginia home, they were able to make a cash offer on the home in Brewerytown, paying $375,000 about $5,000 less than the listing price. We do have taxes, but no mortgage, Hood said. When you take the mortgage out of the equation, its feasible. The move: The lead-up to the move was stressful, and the timing wasnt ideal coinciding with the early-February snowstorm that hit the northeast with force. All in all, though, things went smoothly. Because of her mothers condition, the move required finding accessible transport, and she worked with the movers to assemble her mothers medical bed. On the day of the move, after getting her mother to bed and dealing with a renegade security alarm she collapsed onto the couch and had her best nights sleep in a long time. I was in heaven, she said. I was surrounded by boxes and chaos, but I was in my new home. Any reservations? Since moving in last month, her love for her new home has only grown. Shes close to a Rival Bros Coffee, and is ecstatic to be back in a city with so many food options. Shes also fond of the Brewerytown neighborhood. You know when a neighborhood has that feeling like theres more coming? she says. I was like, When Im a homeowner, I want to be in one of those evolving neighborhoods so that I can see it happen and I think thats exactly what this is. Life after close: It took only two or three days to get unpacked, and since then, Hood has quickly made the place home, adding fresh flowers and plants and relying on TaskRabbit to help put furniture together. Most important, her mother is loving the space. She has [these] beautiful glass double-doors and she can look outside, day or night, Hood said. Two years after wondering whether shed ever make it back to Philly, she couldnt be happier to be here. I just feel like the whole thing started off because of something sad and I just felt so overwhelmed, she said. But ultimately, I got exactly what I wanted. Did you recently buy a home? We want to hear about it. Email darnett@inquirer.com. Management is transitioning the business from a device-placement model to a utilization-focused model to unlock the economic potential of the 36,000+ global installed base. The company is adopting a 'medtech' approach, replacing relationship-driven sales with a value-based selling model that emphasizes clinical economic differentiation and ROI for providers. Performance attribution for Q4 was driven by a favorable mix shift toward consumables, which grew 1.7% year-over-year, providing meaningful operating leverage and margin expansion. The aesthetics market is evolving into a lifestyle category focused on prevention and routine care, favoring HydraFacial's non-invasive, repeatable treatment profile. Operational stabilization is evidenced by adjusted EBITDA growth to $15 million in Q4, representing approximately 700 basis points of margin expansion despite a slight revenue decline. Management identifies the 'utilization flywheel' as the core strategy: brand demand drives traffic, which increases device usage and high-margin consumables revenue. State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Postal Code Wood floor specialist Canadia has announced five new appointments within the business, most notably Debbie Farrell as business development manager. An Irish-founded specialist in premium flooring, Canadia is celebrating 30 years in business. The company has enjoyed steady growth, and has invested heavily in training and development for its specialised team. One of the most enduring images from Irelands inaugural Fashion Week last October came courtesy of designer Sasha Donnellan and her interpretation of the classic Aran knit: a traditional piece, reimagined for a modern audience. Those lucky enough to be in the room watched as models sashayed down the runway, eyes lingering on the woollen jumper, bearing a Claddagh symbol embroidered on the front. Its impact was undeniable. Sasha Donnellan's interpretation of the classic Aran knit at Irish Fashion Week. Picture: Christian Tierney Donnellans debut collection was a wonderful fusion of old and new and perhaps the clearest indication of how a new generation of women is preserving the time-honoured traditions of our ancestors. In her words, it resonated because it was a contemporary take on heritage, one that didnt feel performative but intentional. Historically, traditional Irish handcrafts were a form of womens labour, providing women in rural communities with an income. As Leitrim-based knitwear designer Pearl Reddington points out, they were never just quaint little hobbies, they were economic survival strategies. Read More Purls of wisdom: The faces behind the revival of Irish knitwear Women built parallel economies inside their homes, long before they were recognised in formal employment structures, she says. A Sasha Donnellan piece at Irish Fashion Week. Picture: Christian Tierney They were spinning, knitting, sewing, embroidering, doing lace work and getting paid per piece. In places like the Aran Islands and across Donegal, knitting became organised piecework, and women were producing garments for export while also raising children, running farms and holding households together. I feel very strongly that craft should be recognised as art, she continues. It involves composition, colour, structure, discipline and technical mastery. The only reason it was separated from high art is because it happened in domestic spaces and it was primarily done by women. Mid-century Ireland offered women limited economic autonomy, and home-based textile work became one of the few ways to earn an income. While there isnt strong evidence to suggest these crafts were acts of rebellion in themselves, they did provide women with a degree of economic agency within very restrictive social structures. Pearl Reddington models her own knitwear. It was quiet power, agrees Reddington, whose work is shaped by the landscape of her home in Dromahair, Co. Leitrim. When we talk about knitwear now, we are not just talking about craft, she continues, We are talking about a lineage of women who sustained families and communities with their hands, often without recognition. These handcrafts thrived mainly in rural areas with existing textile traditions. The Aran sweater was the largest cottage industry that Ireland ever had, says Vawn Corrigan, author of Irish Aran: History, Tradition, Fashion. In rural areas, it was possible to assemble teams of over 200 women knitting to a professional standard, she tells me. The money would never have been big, but it was theirs. Vawn Corrigan, author of 'Irish Aran: History, Tradition, Fashion'. Knitting was often taught in schools, and this combined with tariffs on imported goods, encouraged people to maintain the skill. Clothes were expensive and people were cash poor, but they had time, Corrigan notes. State-supported agencies distributed wool and patterns, collecting finished garments for export. Aran sweaters were shipped across the world. There was a huge market for it, says Corrigan. It became a symbol of home, connection and belonging. The form of the Aran jumper alone is not what made it an iconic, though; timing mattered too. The concept of Irishness in a visual sense was becoming more part of the global cultural consciousness. JFK was in the White House, emigrants were making their mark on the places in which these jumpers were being exported to, and as such, there was a growing appreciation for Irish music, culture and fashion. Pearl Reddington knitwear. Of course, stereotypes persist. Theres a funny thing in Ireland where knitwear can get trapped in its own postcard, says Reddington. Theres a misconception that its a bit naff, that it belongs to souvenir shops and stage-Irish nostalgia. And yet, it has also been claimed by some of fashions most enduring style icons. Steve McQueen wore one in The Thomas Crown Affair and suddenly, it became shorthand for quiet, masculine, cool. When Grace Kelly wore one, it read as elegant, refined, almost architectural, she observes, adding it can be nostalgic and high fashion simultaneously; it's that duality that makes it powerful. If Irish knitwear once existed primarily as necessity, todays designers are approaching it in a different way treating it as a living, breathing thing, that can adapt to the modern world rather relegating it to the attic as a relic of times gone by. The challenge, as many admit, is in honouring tradition without slipping into costume. For Donnellan, modernity comes, not from abandoning heritage, but from adding something new. It has to say something new through silhouette, context, or message, instead of simply repeating what already exists, she clarifies. Failte Ireland commissioned Gabrielle Malone to create a one-of-a-kind hand knitted cardigan which represents some of the locations in Ireland that Taylor Swift has visited ahead of her Era's Tour dates in Dublin in 2024 Kildare native Gabrielle Malone whose work has been featured in Carrie Bradshaws wardrobe on And Just Like That takes a similar approach. Rather than reproducing historical garments outright, she focuses on individual elements and reshapes them through scale and proportion. The result, she says, can feel like a very distant granddaughter of traditional knitwear: recognisably connected to the past, yet unmistakably modern. I love a bishop sleeve, I love an oversized but slightly cropped silhouetteits about mixing things which it may not have been traditionally done before. Reddington describes this balance as an exercise in restraint, where sometimes, even one small intervention is enough. I prefer a little glimmer, a detail that shifts the tone without erasing the foundationthe smallest modern gesture can do most of the work. For all three designers, Irish knitwear is much more than just a design reference; its a creative outlet, a way of expressing identity. Donnellan describes working with Aran knit as a means of communicating connection to place without words. Sasha Donnellan: 'Introducing students to Irish textile traditions could inspire the next generation to learn more about them, support them, or even take up the craft themselves and preserve it through time.' Picture: Kelan Molloy Someone can buy a piece and be introduced to an entire region and its history through the garment alone, she tells me. That depth and authenticity is something mass produced synthetic fabrics simply cannot replicate. It's truly such a privilege to be able to work with these textiles, and get to tell their stories to people who may of never heard of them before. Malone remembers growing up surrounded by knitwear made by her grandmothersomething she only truly appreciated once she began knitting herself and understood the labour involved. That labour sits in direct contrast to an industry that thrives on speed and immediacy. Knitting demands time, patience and repetition while fast fashion has taught consumers to value new, quick, and disposable. Gabrielle Malone knitwear. Shifting towards commission-based work has allowed Malone to work at a pace that suits her, but the tension between staying small and authentic and scaling within a modern system remains. Donnellan describes the process as both empowering and demanding. Handcraft, she says, adds layers of work, but it is also what anchors her brands identity. With more and more people, particularly young women, embracing a more analogue life, it comes as no surprise that there has been a handcrafts revival amongst the general public too. Digital fatigue and AI slop have only fuelled our desire for community. Tired of doomscrolling, people are returning to more tactile, grounding activities such as knitting. Many of us feel disconnected from the physical world, agrees Donnellan who says that craft gatherings create real community and allow you to physically make something meaningful. Sasha Donnellan Claddagh jumper. Picture: Kelan Molloy That process can be grounding and therapeutic in a way that digital spaces are not. With a digital footprint, we don't have any physical evidence of the lives we're living, agrees Malone who says that knitting offers a real sense of achievement. For Reddington, its popularity harks back to that idea of quiet rebellion against an increasingly disposable culture. Craft is often romanticised today, but at its core, it is still skilled, time-intensive labour. The processes involved are much more understood in todays world, but there still exists a disconnect between pricing, effort, and aesthetic. People's Pinterest mood boards contain images of ateliers and needlework whilst they wear a Shein top made by an underage factory worker, notes Donnellan who thinks that the world has chosen to glamorise only a tiny section of the high fashion industry, all the while contributing to the problem. Malone believes fast fashion has, paradoxically, helped people appreciate quality. The consumer might not realise how many hours goes into a garment but theyre seeing the differences, she says, referencing Ryan Murphys latest series, Love Story, and conversations around fabric and construction. When test photos and paparazzi photos first came out, everyone was so upset with the wardrobe they put the actress in. "Even though all the pieces were kind of similar, something was offin the 90s, practically everything was organic material and now everything's polyester so even if you have two skirts that are almost the exact same style, but ones made from polyester and ones made from silk, theres going to be a huge difference in the way they look on the body. Pearl Reddington knitwear. If prioritising quality is a motivating factor, then ensuring traditional craft skills continue being properly sustained is of the utmost importanceparticularly here, now, when there is such appreciation for Irish talent. More needs to be done, agree all three designers. Textile artists and fashion designers werent included in government-approved funding for artists, says Malone, noting that many creatives have had to emigrate to further their careers. Two of the largest designers in the world right now are Simone Rocha and J.W. Andersonthe fact that they had to leave Ireland to achieve that success is really sad. They both reference Ireland so much in their design language, [their collections are] such a love letter to Ireland but it doesn't feel like Ireland necessarily loves designers back. Reddington echoes the same concerns. There are fewer mills than there used to be and skills are ageing, she says. We can produce responsibly and domestically, it just requires commitment, funding and consumer willingness to pay the full cost of true craft It can't survive on romance alone, it has to be economically supported. Pearl Reddington knitwear. Her long-term dream is to create her own local production mill to support both herself and other designers. Im definitely drawn to the idea of a cooperative model. Historically, that's how women built power and craftthrough shared structures, she explains. We're at the risk of losing that knowledge if it's not passed on. Donnellan also mentions education, suggesting Irish textile craft be added to the Leaving Certificate syllabus. Its just as important as the other art forms we studied, she maintains. Introducing students to Irish textile traditions could inspire the next generation to learn more about them, support them, or even take up the craft themselves and preserve it through time. Long before fashion week runways and international fashion houses, there were Irish women knitting quietly at kitchen tables for survival. Now reinterpreted by a new generation of designers, the impetus behind this desire to create remains the same: to make something lasting in a world that moves too quickly. Whether through community knitting circles, made-to-order collections or renewed interest in Irish wool, the craft endures not because it is frozen in time, but because it continues adapting buoyed by the hands of the thousands of women who came before. The Taoiseach has insisted the Government was not relieved to see no charges brought against Independent TD Michael Lowry over the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal. Micheal Martin has pushed back on questions about the tribunal, saying the Government respects the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). It's not a question of anyone in Government being relieved. The bottom line of justice must be seen to be done, and the criminal justice system is independent, and all governments must observe that, Mr Martin said. The DPP takes a decision, and we respect the independence of the DPP, he said. It was confirmed last Tuesday that the DPP would not be bringing charges against Mr Lowry over the findings of the tribunal, with the Independent TD excoriating the process. Mr Lowry said the findings, issued in 2011, had not been based on hard facts or admissible evidence, but on conjecture, manipulation, and speculation. The tribunal was established in 1997 to examine payments made to former taoiseach Charles Haughey and Mr Lowry, an Independent TD for Tipperary North and former cabinet minister. The tribunal found that Mr Lowry had an insidious and pervasive influence into the awarding of the States second mobile phone licence to Esat Digiphone, a company owned by Denis OBrien. The report, published in 2011, also found it was beyond doubt that Mr Lowry provided information to Mr OBrien, which assisted him in obtaining the licence. Mr Lowry has always denied any wrongdoing. In his statement on Tuesday evening, Mr Lowry claimed the report findings had always been flawed. Its findings have allowed me to be subjected to repeated insults, smears and false allegations, with no legal remedy available to me. "Even though its findings are legally sterile, as the Supreme Court have pronounced, it has deprived me of any ability to defend myself from repeated character assassination and attacks on my reputation. Its hard to describe the sensation but, not for the first time, the words on a decades-old document made me stop in my tracks. Among the military documents and the formal reports, a heartfelt letter written by one mother to another captured the unimaginable pain of losing a son. An Italian woman had reached out to an Irish woman to express her deep sadness at the death of Clonakilty-born special agent Captain John Keany in the final months of the Second World War. If Gertrude Gaffney, once described as Irelands ablest female journalist, were alive today she would surely be reporting from the Middle East. In the 1930s, she travelled extensively and reported from several war zones. Her car was ambushed by the Reds (anti-Franco forces) as she travelled to the front during the Spanish Civil War. On the eve of the Second World War, she was in Poland and saw German troops enter Danzig (now Gdansk). She escaped just before fighting broke out. In March 1940, and against all the odds, she got a tour on a trolley-train of the miles and miles of tunnels that made up the Maginot Line, the fortifications built along the French border after World War One to prevent another war. Gertrude Gaffney spoke out regularly and strongly on womens rights. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading As it turned out, they proved useless as the German lightning assault on Europe was launched through the supposedly impassable forested terrain of the Ardennes in May 1940, just weeks after her visit. Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France all fell in six short weeks. But Gaffney had already warned of what was to come in a series of articles published after her extended tour of the storm-centres of Europe in 1938. The people of this country have not even a faint idea of the ramifications of the Nazi reign of terror in Germany and Austria, she wrote in the Irish Independent. Its quite something to see how proud the newspaper was of its special foreign correspondent. Her photograph appeared on a map of Europe above a column called, Searchlight on Europe. Her work was heavily promo-ed. Heres an extract from one ad trumpeting her work: From Budapest she travelled through the Balkans then visited Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria, seeing for herself the extraordinary things which are happening in these countries. As a result of her experiences she is able to reveal in all its nakedness the intensity of the Nazi persecution of Catholics and Jews. Gertrude Gaffney's regular feature logo. She also wrote a regular feature called I sketch your world, an impressive title for pieces which might cover anything from Britains role in the Palestinian revolt of 1936 she was strongly pro-Palestinian to being asked what she thought of the tall hat and tails worn by taoiseach Eamon de Valera to the coronation of Pope Pius XII in Rome in 1939. Since I returned from Rome the very first question that everyone I have met so far has asked me was: Did you see Mr de Valera in his tall hat? Dear me, but we have awkward memories about the things that do not matter, and a tremendous facility for forgetting the things that do, or did matter. One of the things that deeply mattered to her was the way in which the tall-hatted Dev had, two years previously, sounded what she considered to be the death knell for working women in his 1937 Constitution. Gaffney spoke out regularly and strongly on womens rights. In the same year, she wrote a series of articles on the difficulties facing Irishwomen who emigrated to Britain and was stinging in her rebuke of parents and the Catholic Church who effectively banished unmarried pregnant women to Britain. Journalism career Born in Co Armagh and schooled at St Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, Gertrude Gaffney was already working as a journalist in London by 1917. She was accomplished in several genres; she wrote fiction under the alias Conor Galway, contributed to a number of Catholic publications and was on the editorial staff of The Queen magazine in London. She was appointed lady editor of the Irish Independent in 1920 and would go on to be its special correspondent, writing on a range of issues from the geopolitical implications of war to the difficulties of having a new pup who was chewing on her best slipper. She came to mind recently because Finola Finlay of the singular roaringwaterjournal.com sent a pencil sketch of her by artist Sean OSullivan. It was used as a photo byline in the Capuchin Annual (and is reproduced here with their kind permission) along with this flattering blurb: Irelands ablest woman journalist, whose bright informative style is known to thousands of readers. 'GG' has travelled extensively in Europe. Blue Blouses She was one of the first women correspondents to cover the Spanish Civil War. That war and the Irish women who flirted with fascism have also been in the ether because of Bo Medias fascinating TG4s documentary on the Blue Blouses ( Mna na Leinte Gorma), the female wing of Eoin ODuffys fascist Blueshirts movement. Gertrude Gaffney was not a Blue Blouse, but she was a big admirer of General Franco and ODuffys Irish brigade as was clear in the dispatches she sent from the war zone. She was unquestionably on Francos side although that wasnt unusual in Ireland, particularly at the start of the conflict when it was seen as a religious war rather than a political one. In Cork city in 1936, for instance, some 40,000 people attended a meeting of the pro-Franco Irish Christian Front to protest against church burning and priest slaughter, as the organisations manifesto put it. An Irish Christian Front meeting in Grand Parade, Cork on September 22. This paper published an arresting photograph showing thousands of people raising their hands above their heads to make the sign of the cross. What is more striking reading Gaffneys coverage of the war today is her tone. She seems almost flippant in some of the 23 pieces she filed in 1937. She wrote vividly about the spectacle of war, without the political context and depth so evident in her later writing. Then again, that might have had more to do with her editors. War coverage The Independent advertised her first series on one of the worst conflicts of the 20th century as an account of the thrills behind [enemy] lines in Spain, the colour and spectacle in Salamanca, the swarms of troops in their extraordinary medley of uniforms and all the clamour and the crowding, and movement and apprehension of a country at war. Whatever about the approach, Gaffney did nothing to hide her bias. She wrote about the refugee children orphaned by the Red Terror and her admiration for the well-groomed Irish Brigade whom she visited in Caceres in March 1937. The Irish, she wrote, stood out in the matter of grooming and smartness of bearing and putting on their uniforms, though how they manage to keep themselves so clean-looking on the very limited amount of water available was a complete mystery to me. She wrote of more serious matters too; the wounded, the fighting and venturing far too close to it for comfort. We might describe her as being embedded with the Nationalists now and elite ones at that, as this headline attests: Shells whizzed over as I lunched with two generals. She wrote of the weapons that travelled over them in corkscrews of high thin sound as they ate on a mountaintop, latter narrowly escaping fire. Her reporting of that war might have been one-sided and impressionistic but she proved fearless, resourceful, resilient and often quite brilliant in a wide-ranging career that continued until shortly before she died in 1959. Less than three decades later, I remember being told that journalism was a very difficult job for a woman. And it was, but what a shame we didnt learn about the life and exceptional reporting career of Gertrude Gaffney. Move along now, there is nothing to see here. So goes the refrain from minister for justice Jim OCallaghan in relation to the ending of a recent saga that had a major impact on policing in the Mid-West. Mr OCallaghans boss, Taoiseach Micheal Martin, has a different take on it. It seems that a review of what transpired needs to happen because it impacted Garda morale more broadly and had a significant negative impact on the careers of the five gardai and others as well, the Taoiseach told the Dail. Who among these cabinet colleagues is correct, and who believes accountability is a concept that should accompany actions invested with State power? A quick recap. On January 26 last, Limerick Circuit Court acquitted four serving gardai and a retired superintendent of 39 counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice. 35-day trial The trial of former superintendent Eamon ONeill, Sgts Anne-Marie Hassett and Michelle Leahy and gardai Colm Geary and Tom McGlinchey had lasted 35 days. The defendants' ordeal, however, had commenced in November 2020, when the four serving gardai, along with others, were suspended. Their alleged crime was attempting to square speeding tickets for errant motorists, effectively quashing any offence before it is processed. The attempted squares were not organised or planned. They were, the gardai maintained, using the discretion that is part of policing by consent. The only common factor across the defendants was the connection of each count to Eamon ONeill. Top left - Eamonn O'Neill and Annmarie Hassett, Colm Geary. Bottom - Sergeant Michelle Leahy and Garda Tom McGlinchey. The retired superintendent had been subjected to a high-profile arrest in 2019, when he was still serving, on suspicion of passing information to organised crime elements. It turned out there was no evidence against him and the DPP directed he not be prosecuted. The investigation was conducted by the Dublin-based National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI), which went on to investigate the quashing of road traffic offences, a highly unconventional use of the bureaus resources and power. A question arises as to whether the latter investigation was in any way connected to the apparent mess-up in arresting ONeill in 2019. If that were the case, it would represent an egregious abuse of power that had serious outcomes on policing and for individual gardai. Two days after the acquittal, the Taoiseach told his own partys TD, Cathal Crowe, in the Dail that a lookback on what occurred was needed. He said he would consult the minister for justice on the matter. Nothing to see here It would appear the minister for justice is of a mind there is nothing to see here. Last week, at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, Labour TD Alan Kelly brought up the subject. He asked Mr OCallaghan who pulled rank, the minister or the Taoiseach? The minister told him the five individuals concerned had been the subject of a lengthy criminal investigation, had been prosecuted and were acquitted. They are not guilty, the minister said. That was their vindication. Where people are prosecuted for offences and they are acquitted, they do not have a remedy. The minister is stepping around what is at issue. Any remedy available to the five who were acquitted is not the primary matter. What unfolded over the course of the investigation was highly unusual. Garda Tom McGlinchey. Why, for instance, was the NBCI, a crime fighting unit that is ordinarily concerned with murder and organised crime, detailed to investigate this matter? The squaring of tickets is something that may well require further scrutiny. It still goes on but on a very reduced scale. If somebody in headquarters wanted to stamp it out altogether, why was the high-powered criminal investigation confined to Limerick? Squaring tickets usually originates with a senior officer. There are proportionately far more senior officers in Dublin than Limerick. Why wasnt this zero tolerance approach taken to those in the capital, including all personnel who work out of headquarters? How come the only senior officer ensnared in the criminal investigation was Eamon ONeill, who was by that time retired? It is entirely implausible he was the only senior officer who had squared a ticket across the timespan the investigation examined. Where was the zero tolerance there? Then there was the prosecution. The DPP, as Mr OCallaghan pointed out, examined the file and prepared charges. Did the DPPs office come under any pressure to do so from any quarter? DPP gung-ho to prosecute One way or the other, the DPP appears to have been gung-ho to prosecute. In 2022, the office applied to have the trial switched from Limerick to Dublin. This application is highly unusual, and often comes from a defendant who believes a change of location is required for a fair trial. In this instance, it was the prosecutor who felt it would be unfair to hold the trial in the city where the offences were alleged to have occurred. In the same year, the five defendants took an action to stop the prosecution based on how the matter was investigated. Sergeant Michelle Leahy. The action was heard by Judge Tom ODonnell, who, in a detailed judgment, ruled in favour of the defendants. The DPP could have left things at that. Instead, the director appealed that decision to the Court of Appeal and was successful, so the criminal trial went ahead. If all of this was concerned with a matter of violent crime, or an elaborate fraud or an abuse of executive power, it might have been worth all that effort and considerable financial cost. But it wasnt and the jury found after an exhaustive trial there was no case to answer. During the trial, there was the strange spectre of prosecution Garda witnesses praising the professionalism and character of the defendants on trial. Those defendants deserve to know why their lives and careers were turned upside down. Public interest has a stake Beyond that, the public interest has a stake here. As previously reported in this newspaper, detections for speeding in the Limerick division fell from 10,908 in 2019 to 7,680 in 2024 at a time when the national figure showed a small increase in detections. Did the suspensions of members from the traffic corps in relation to this case have anything to do with that? Or, quite possibly, morale among the corps, and the force in general in the area over the whole affair, was depleted to a point where it impacted on performance. Contrary to what the minister for justice appears to believe, this was not a standard criminal justice matter where a crime is detected and investigated to be followed by a prosecution. If he really believes that, there is nothing to see here, maybe he isnt looking too hard. Labour TD Alan Kelly told the Irish Examiner Micheal Martin has to intervene if there is no further probe into what occurred. If the Taoiseach truly believes what he said in the Dail, he needs to pull rank on the minister for justice and ensure that an inquiry happens, he said. ANTIQUE Persian rugs, furniture, and decorative objects sourced at auctions in the 1960s, 70s and 80s at Kilroan House in Glanmire will come under the hammer at Sheppards on March 24 and 25. Some of the rugs were acquired at the dispersal sale of Malahide Castle in the mid 1970s and there is furniture from Adare Manor and other prominent Irish and English country houses from when their contents came to market. A large antique Caucasian rug at Sheppards. Kilroan is brimful of lots collected with discrimination over many decades along with family heirlooms that reach way back. Viewing gets underway at the former family home of Mrs Rosemary Punch and her late husband John in Glanmire on March 21. After three days of viewing in Cork on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday week, the live and online auction will be held over the following two days in Durrow. Auctioneer Michael Sheppard describes this as an exceptionally layered collection. Many of the Persian rugs were acquired at Malahide Castle. Sturdy oak furniture in the house has a timeless appeal. Carved oak pieces offer ultimate sustainability and versatility. The selection available here is plentiful and ranges from panelled oak coffers and trunks to armchairs, a court cupboard, and refectory tables. Oak is sought these days both by traditionalists and those seeking to make modern minimalist interiors. Map; The Harbour of Corke sold by Mount and Thos. Page at Tower Hill, London at Sheppards. At Kilroan, which has been sold, furniture was selected for quality and character. Practical 18th-century oak and mahogany pieces sit comfortably alongside more unusual and expressive objects like a metamorphic library pole which is both functional and a statement piece, a Regency crossbanded sofa table, a yew wood library table, a Regency inlaid cellarete, and a Regency ebony and parcel gilt open bookcase. Among the rare early books is a 17th-century translation of Homers Iliad, along with books on gardening and early maps of Ireland. An iron-bound oak rent box is a 17th century piece. The collection of clocks includes an 18th century oak longcase clock by James Aickin, and an 18th-century longcase clock by Maddock of Waterford. There are plenty of clocks to choose from, including a 19th-century boulle inlaid bracket clock, a 19th- century French gilt and marble figural mantel clock, a skeleton clock, and a 19th-century barograph. An 18th century oak longcase clock by James Aickin, Cork at Sheppards. Decorative garden ornaments, seats, and urns, accumulated over many years, are available along with an exceptional group of terracotta rhubarb forcers. The late John Punchs workshop is largely as he maintained it. There are engineering and woodworking machines including a Myford Super 7 centre lathe, an earlier Drummond Bros metal lathe, a Meddings pillar drill, and a Scheppach planerthicknesser. These are presented along with tools, fittings, and sections of old panelling salvaged from the dismantled RMS Celtic which foundered off Roches Point in December 1928. Silver on offer includes provincial Cork silver, and fine 18th-century Dublin silver. Two 19th-century portraits traditionally believed to depict John Punch and his wife have long presided over the dining room. A painting of Dublin Bay by Nathaniel Hone the Younger is accompanied by a presentation plaque, recording that it was gifted to John Punch in the 1840s. This is a comprehensive dispersal auction with appeal to all sorts of collectors. The catalogue lists more than 1,300 lots from the Punch collection and other clients. The American military has ordered 2,500 marines and an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East, a US official said in a major addition of forces in the region after nearly two weeks of war with Iran. Meanwhile in the Iranian capital, a large explosion rocked a central square where thousands were gathered for an annual state-organised rally to support the Palestinians and call for Israels demise. Israel had warned that it would target the area in central Tehran. There were no reports of casualties. But the decision to proceed with the mass demonstration that was attended by some senior government officials, and Israels threat to target the area, underscored the fierce determination on both sides nearly two weeks into a war that has rattled the global economy and shows no sign of letting up. Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepened, with nearly 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants and warned there would be no let up. In an interview with Fox News, US president Donald Trump said the war would end when I feel it in my bones. He was also more measured than in the past about the prospect of opponents toppling the Islamic government. So I really think thats a big hurdle to climb for people that dont have weapons, Mr Trump said, citing the paramilitary Basij force, which has played a central role in crushing recent nationwide protests. (PA Graphics) Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the Middle East, according to the US official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Marine Expeditionary Units are trained and equipped to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place at all. The deployment of the additional marines was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the marines, are based in Japan and have been at sea in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing alone near Taiwan. That location puts it more than a week away from the waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln to operate in the waters off Iran. While the total number of US service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear, Al-Udeid Air Base alone, one of the largest in the region, typically houses some 8,000 US troops. A man carries an Iranian flag past a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Vahid Salemi/AP) The explosion in Tehran rocked the Ferdowsi Square area midday, where thousands had gathered for an annual Quds Day rally in which they chanted death to Israel and death to America. Israel had issued a warning on a Farsi-language X account for people to clear the area shortly before the blast. But few Iranians would have seen it, as authorities have almost completely shut down the internet since the start of the war. Footage from the scene showed people chanting God is greatest, as smoke rose in the area. The Israeli military later posted a second message in Farsi, noting the head of Irans judiciary was at the rally and criticising Iran for blocking many from seeing their warning. The hard-liner who leads Irans judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, had been giving an interview on state television at the demonstration when the strike happened. His bodyguards encircled him, as he raised his fist and said Iran under this rain and missiles will never withdraw. Israel had earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the last 24 hours, including missile launchers, defence systems and weapons production sites. In Washington, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said that over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck, which is more than 1,000 a day since the war began. He also sought to address concerns about the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters: We have been dealing with it and dont need to worry about it. Irans Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday vowed to continue the attacks and keep the strait closed in his first public statement since succeeding his father, who was killed in the opening day of the war. Mr Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over leadership and released a written statement. Mr Hegseth said Mr Khamenei is wounded and likely disfigured, without providing evidence or elaborating. Israel suspects Mr Khamenei was wounded at the start of the war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The US military confirmed on Friday that all six crew members of an American KC-135 refuelling plane were killed when it crashed in Iraq, bringing the US death toll to at least 13 service members. US Central Command said the crash was not related to friendly or hostile fire, and that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely. The KC-135 is the fourth publicly acknowledged aircraft to crash as part of the US militarys operations against Iran. Last week, three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire. Iran continued its daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure across the Gulf. In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in the Sohar region, the Oman News Agency reported. Donald Trump said Friday that US forces have obliterated military targets on Irans Kharg Island and warned that the oil infrastructure there could be next. For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island, Trump wrote on social media. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. Within hours of Trumps announcement, the Iranian armed forces said any attack on Irans oil and energy infrastructure will lead to attacks on energy infrastructure owned by oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region, Iranian media reported. The small island in the Persian Gulf is the primary terminal through which Irans oil exports pass. Until Friday, the island had been spared during US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Just a day before, the speaker of the Iranian parliament said such a strike would provoke a new level of retaliation. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf warned in a Thursday social media post that attacks on the islands on Irans southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to abandon all restraint, underscoring how central they are to the countrys economy and security. Rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble after a strike in southern Tehran, Iran (Sajjad Safari/AP) Trump announced the action as he prepared to fly to Florida for the weekend. The president answered questions from reporters traveling with him before he boarded Air Force One, but he did not mention the latest US military operation against Iran. Axios reported last week that administration officials were weighing seizing the 5-mile coral island. Experts told the Guardian earlier this week that military actions against Kharg Island are likely to increase oil prices, already surging since the war began on 28 February. We may see the $120 a barrel price we saw on Monday heading to the $150 if Kharg were attacked, said Neil Quilliam of the Chatham House thinktank. Its too vital for global energy markets. Earlier Friday, a US official told the Associated Press that the American military had ordered 2,500 marines and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the Middle East. Firefighters try to extinguish flames at the site of a direct hit by an Iranian missile strike in Holon, central Israel, on Friday (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP) Marine Expeditionary Units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the Marines, are based in Japan and have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing alone near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from the waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. - The Guardian, Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting BlackRocks newest Ethereum exchange-traded fund launched on Thursday and is a big hit. The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF saw close to $16 million in trading volume after debuting with $100 million in assets under management, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart. Very very solid for a Day One ETF launch, he said on X. The ETF marks BlackRocks latest bet on Ethereum. The $14 trillion asset manager has celebrated the second-largest cryptocurrency as an anchor for the next era of tokenisation and institutional blockchain infrastructure. BlackRocks deepening exposure from new ETF products to equity stakes in Ethereum treasury firms such as Bitmine reinforces its long-term thesis that blockchain finance will run on Ethereum rails. Yet, the digital asset is still struggling despite BlackRocks vote of confidence. While Ethereums price enjoyed a 2.3% surge over the past 24 hours, it remains well below its August peak of $4,950. What is ETHB? BlackRocks new fund has the ticker ETHB. It gives investors exposure to Ether within a traditional brokerage account while allowing them to capture staking rewards a key differentiator from earlier spot Ethereum ETFs. Rather than merely tracking price, the fund participates in Ethereums proof-of-stake mechanism, generating yield from validating transactions on the network. For institutional allocators, that income stream enhances the assets appeal. Ethereum is very clearly a technology centred bet around blockchain innovation, Robert Mitchnick, BlackRocks head of digital assets, said on CNBC Television. For a lot of investors, being able to capture some additional yield is a point of attraction. BlackRocks ETF leverages infrastructure developed with Coinbase Prime, combining institutional-grade custody with crypto-native staking mechanics. In effect, it packages blockchain economics in a familiar wrapper for Wall Street. BlackRock pushes tokenisation The ETF debut sits within a much grander thesis. BlackRock argues that Ethereum will lead the tokenisation of real-world assets, the process of representing ownership of stocks, bonds, real estate or funds as blockchain-based tokens. In its 2026 outlook, the firm highlighted Ethereums dominant share of tokenised assets, far ahead of rival networks. In January, CEO Larry Fink described tokenisation as necessary, arguing that migrating financial plumbing onto blockchain rails reduces friction, cuts fees and improves transparency. Speaking at Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum, he said a common blockchain could modernise a financial system still running on decades-old software. A combined missile and drone attack on the Kyiv region has killed at least four people and wounded 15, regional officials have said. Three of those injured in the attack overnight into Saturday are in a critical condition, with two undergoing surgery, regional administration chief Mykola Kalashnyk said. The attack hit four districts of the Ukrainian capital, damaging residential buildings, educational institutions, enterprises and critical infrastructure, he added in a social media post. The strikes came days after the US postponed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine scheduled for this week, citing the war in the Middle East. As US and Israeli missiles and bombs rain down on Iran, Russia has responded with words of indignation but no action to support its ally. Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking in Paris on Friday, said the US waiver on Russian oil sanctions amid the war in Iran does not help peace in Ukraine (Ludovic Marin/pool/AP) Moscows failure to help another ally, after the 2024 ousting of former Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and Januarys US arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, highlighted the limits of its influence but the Kremlin expects to reap benefits from the Iran war. Russia is already profiting from a surge in global energy prices, and could hope the war will detract attention from its own operations in Ukraine and deplete Western arsenals. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday the 30-day US waiver on Russian oil sanctions amid the Iran war is not the right decision and will not help bring a stop to Russias now four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. This easing alone by the United States could provide Russia with about 10 billion US dollars for the war, he said. This certainly does not help peace. Earlier this week, Russian and Ukrainian officials both claimed gains in the conflict, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscows forces back across places on the front line and the Kremlin insisting Russias invasion of its neighbour is making progress. Meanwhile, Russias almost daily attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas have continued. Since its $90 August peak, shares of Trade Desk (TTD) are showing signs of life again. Granted, the stock dropped with slowing revenue growth, increased competition, and weak guidance. Another threat is artificial intelligence (AI), with Trade Desk competing with Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) and (META)-owned Instagram to win advertising spend. www.barchart.com Despite the chaos, there are reasons to get bullish on the Trade Desk stock. First, OpenAI is reportedly in talks with The Trade Desk about a partnership that could help scale advertising on ChatGPT. If a deal materializes, it could become easier for marketers to buy ChatGPT ads, as noted by eMarketer.com, turning the platform into a true ad channel rather than an experiment. They added, By tying into existing ad pipes, ChatGPT could start competing for the same dollars that currently go to social and search. More News from Barchart Next, CEO/Founder/Chairman Jeff Green put his money where his mouth is, buying $150 million worth of TTD stock. And while the massive buy doesnt eliminate the risks, it does tell us the one person with the clearest view is bullish. Sure, AI systems are taking over human workflows in the industry. However, as automating agents grow bigger, they will still need neutral platforms that can be trusted for reliable data, which is what Green is betting on with Trade Desk. In fact, as noted by Green on The Current: Let me go a click deeper on why Im so convinced that future is bright: TTD has been building AI and machine learning tools for more than a decade, long before the recent AI hype phase. AI is across our platform supercharging our bidder, our valuation engine, our SPO efforts, our predictive clearing product, our new Deal Desk. Kokai is able to analyze 20 million ad opportunities every second, each with thousands of variables, all in the context of first- and third-party data, in milliseconds, and find the right impression for any given advertiser. This is because we believe we have the industrys most advanced AI and the industrys richest, most refined, objective, and trusted data platform. Analysts at Wedbush downgraded shares of Trade Desk to underperform with a price target of $23 a share. They argue that investors are getting too bullish about the potential OpenAI deal. They also note that talks are still in the early stages and such a deal would not generate immediate revenue for the companies. While true, Greens purchase of $150 million worth of stock, which is off the charts, is a bullish indicator. Plus, an insider wouldnt put up that kind of money if they thought the stock was a dud. Plus, the company just authorized a $500 million stock buyback program, which sends a clear message of management bullishness. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) President Donald J. Trump threatened Friday to destroy Irans major oil terminal on Kharg Island if Tehran continued to obstruct shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. He said that the US had already destroyed military installations on the island. The Iranian press reported 15 large explosions on the island. Some 90% of Iranian petroleum is exported from Kharg, so destroying the facilities there would eliminate its oil exports. Not only does Iran have five terminals on the island, but the Iranian press alleges that other Gulf oil states have facilities there, as well. Destroying the terminals on Kharg would drive oil prices to $150 a barrel in and of itself, some analysts argue . Trumps threat is the most foolish thing he has ever said, which is saying quite a lot. Quite a lot. That is, it is galactically foolish. In International Relations, this threat is known as a form of escalation in the conflict. The recipient of the threat then has two choices, to back down or to escalate further. Where the opponent perceives the threat to be existential, or where they will be put at a serious disadvantage by not responding, they will tend to escalate further rather than withdraw from the fray. Iran will escalate. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps responded immediately, Any attack on its oil and energy infrastructure will lead to retaliatory strikes targeting facilities in the region owned by U.S. oil companies or cooperating with the United States. Pretty much all the oil facilities in the Gulf have some American connection, so this would be all of them. The position of the Iranian government has been for some time that if it cannot export petroleum from the Gulf, then no one else will be allowed to, either. That was the point of Irans attack on the Abqaiq oil refinery in Saudi Arabia in September 2019, which took half of Saudi oil off the market for several weeks. That attack came some 14 months after Trump tore up the 2015 nuclear agreement and placed maximum pressure sanctions on Iran, reducing its exports to 250,000 barrels a day, down from 1.5 million. After that operation, Irans exports gradually went back up to over a million barrels a day, most of it smuggled to China. Saudi Arabia made peace with Iran via Chinese mediation in March 2023, four years after the Abqaiq attack, deciding better relations with Iran were central to the well-being of Saudi Arabia itself. So what will happen if Trump follows through on his galactically foolish threat? Iran, having been deprived of its livelihood at Kharg, will take down the oil facilities of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. It has the drones and missiles to do so. Oil is, to say the least, flammable. So it can be done. As we saw in Kuwait after the Gulf War, when Iraqi troops set oil rig fires in Kuwait, they are almost impossible to put out in a short time. It takes years. The rigs and terminals would have to be rebuilt. If all Gulf oil is taken off the market for several years, the price of petroleum would go to $200, maybe $300 a barrel and the world economy would be thrown into a long-term recession. It would be a shock without precedent . File photo, Kharg Island. Public Domain. Via Picryl. As Larry C. Johnson points out, The IMF and World Bank have historically estimated that a $10 per barrel sustained rise in oil prices reduces global GDP growth by around 0.20.5 percentage points; a shock ten or twenty times larger would be categorically different in nature. The US is already only predicted to grow 0.7 % this year. A hundred dollar a barrel sustained price increase would reduce world economic growth by 2% to 5%. At the upper range of this impact, wed see another 2020 Covid-era style contraction, when we lost 20 million jobs. And that is just the US. The global pain would be considerable. Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC) Reported findings that the United States is responsible for the recent deadly school attack in Iran, and that it was based on outdated targeting data, highlight the need for reform and accountability within the US military to minimize civilian harm during conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. The New York Times reported on March 11, 2026, that an ongoing US military investigation has preliminarily determined that the United States is responsible for a Tomahawk missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the town of Minab on February 28. The findings of the US military investigation into the Minab school attack show a violation of the laws of war that cannot be boiled down to a blameless mistake, said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. Even if those responsible for the strike did not deliberately target a school full of children, the US military has an obligation to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm, which it clearly did not do in this case. The New York Times reported that the investigation found that the attack was the result of a targeting mistake by the US military, which was carrying out strikes on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base of which the school building had previously been a part. The report said that US Central Command officers created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Iranian authorities told the New York Times that the attack killed at least 175 people, including scores of civilians. Human Rights Watch reviewed lists with dozens of names of children and adults reportedly killed in the attack, and was able to immediately match some names with ages and other identifying information on body bags and caskets. Under customary laws of war applicable to the armed conflict in Iran, an attacking force must do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives or cancel or suspend the attack if it becomes apparent that the target is not a military objective. The laws of war prohibit indiscriminate attacks, which include attacks that are not directed at a specific military objective. No evidence has been put forward suggesting that there was a military objective in or near the school grounds at the time of the attack. Even if the attackers were targeting a legitimate military target in the vicinity of the school, the laws of war prohibit attacks on military objectives if the anticipated harm to civilians and civilian objects is disproportionate compared to the expected military gain from the attack. Serious violations of the laws of war committed by individuals with criminal intentthat is, deliberately or recklesslyare war crimes. Investigations into the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school should consider all circumstances of the attack, including whether those responsible acted deliberately or recklessly, and what knowledge they would or should have had about the school before and during the attack, which took place during a school day. A government responsible for violating the laws of war is obligated to make full reparation for the loss, including compensation, rehabilitation, and other appropriate redress. Governments have an obligation to investigate and appropriately prosecute violations of international law, including war crimes, committed by their own forces. Those responsible for the Minab school attack should be held accountable, including through prosecutions where appropriate. US forces had improved targeting processes over recent years to minimize civilian harm, including relying on multiple intelligence sources, teams to advise on the civilian environment, and confirmation that the target is a lawful military objective before a strike is approved. If the attack on the military base in Minab relied on outdated or incomplete information about the site or if other changes in the targeting process resulted in less oversight of strikes, it suggests a breakdown in those safeguards. Not the Minab Girls School but rather a file photo of Feyziyeh School, Qom, Qom Province, Iran, for illustrative purposes, by Javad Esmaeili on Unsplash Congress should hold a hearing specifically to understand current US military processes to distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law, including the role that any artificial intelligence or automated systems play in determining targets. The use of AI in military targeting decisions raises new risks for accountability in conflict. Military targeting decisions should not be made based solely on automated or AI-generated recommendations. Accountability is not just about acknowledging what went wrong, but about ensuring that failures in intelligence, target verification, or decision-making are identified and fixed so this never happens again, Yager said. The United States should make the findings public, discipline or prosecute those responsible, and carry out reforms to ensure its forces are minimizing civilian harm to the greatest extent possible. Via Human Rights Watch CF Industries Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CF) is one of the 10 Stock Winners in a Brutal Market. CF Industries soared to a new all-time high on Thursday, as investors snapped up shares in fertilizer stocks amid expectations that they would benefit from the ongoing tensions in the Middle East. At intra-day trading, the stock climbed to its highest price of $137.42 before paring gains to finish the session just up by 13.21 percent at $136 apiece. CF Industries Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CF) rallied alongside other chemical producers, with their upgraded ratings and price targets from Citigroup spilling over to its stock. According to Citi, North American chemical producers with access to low-cost natural gas feedstocks are expected to benefit from higher profit margins amid ongoing supply disruptions and higher oil prices. CF Industries (CF) Soars to All-Time High as Middle East Tensions to Benefit Firm wk1003mike/Shutterstock.com This, in turn, could support Illinois-based CF Industries Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CF), being one of the leading manufacturers of hydrogen and nitrogen products for clean energy, fertilizer, emissions abatement, and other industrial applications. Additionally, the outlook was supported by CF Industries Holdings Inc.s (NYSE:CF) statement last month that it expects nitrogen demand in North America to turn positive through the spring 2026 application season. Based on the fall 2025 ammonia application season and strong corn demand, the company expects another year of high planted acres of corn in the United States in 2026. Management believes that nitrogen channel inventory remains lower than historical averages. Globally, Brazil and India are expected to remain the worlds largest importers of urea driven by increased domestic demand, it said earlier. While we acknowledge the potential of CF as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. Chevron gas station with branded canopy and fuel pumps under clear blue sky, representing the oil and gas industry and Chevron company operations. Key Points Chevron shares have surged to fresh all-time highs as rising oil prices fuel renewed investor interest in energy stocks. The rally has been driven largely by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and fears of supply disruptions in key shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz. However, weakening technical momentum and fresh government intervention to contain oil prices raise questions about whether the surge can continue. Interested in Chevron Corporation? Here are five stocks we like better. Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) has quietly become one of the strongest performing mega-cap stocks in recent weeks. Shares hit a fresh all-time high in mid-March, adding to a rally that has lifted the stock nearly 30% in 2026 and pushed it firmly back into the spotlight for investors. Much of the surge has been driven by rising oil prices. Escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, including major disruptions to tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, have sparked concerns that global crude supplies could tighten significantly if the conflict intensifies. Alphabets Pullback May Be Opening a New Entry Point As the oil rally gathered momentum, energy stocks quickly replaced AI as one of the markets top talking points for investors. However, after its biggest run in years, the key question investors should be asking is if Chevrons rally still has room to go. Lets jump in and take a closer look. Oil Prices Have Been the Driving Force The most important factor behind Chevrons rally has been the surge in global oil prices over the past month, thanks to rising geopolitical tensions. The Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most strategic flashpoints, has become a particular focus for markets. D-Wave Keeps Delivering Good NewsSo Why Is It Falling? A significant portion of global seaborne oil exports passes through that narrow waterway, meaning that any disruption tends to trigger a sharp move in energy prices. As tensions escalated, investors moved quickly to reposition their portfolios around companies that benefit directly from rising oil prices. Integrated oil majors such as Chevron tend to be among the biggest winners in those environments because higher crude prices translate directly into stronger upstream profits, as the stocks 30% gain in recent months reflects. Teslas Big China Sales Spike Didnt Excite InvestorsHeres Why Governments Are Trying to Contain the Surge However, when oil prices rise rapidly, inflation risks tend to follow closely behind. Because of this, governments often take steps to prevent energy prices from spiraling higher, including releasing crude oil from their strategic petroleum reserves to stabilize markets. Friday, March 13, 2026 - Popular Kenyan actress and content creator, Sandra Dacha, has ignited a lively conversation online with her blunt advice for women navigating uncertain relationships. Taking to Instagram, the Auntie Boss star urged women to be mean with their wombs, especially when dealing with men who appear undecided about commitment. Leaving a relationship without a child is a big win. I need women to be stingy with their wombs. Dont carry a child for a confused man she wrote. She argued that walking away from a failing relationship is far easier when children are not involved, sparing women the emotional and financial strain of single motherhood or coparenting. Known for her role as Silprosa, Dacha has built a loyal following by being unapologetically herself. She often draws from personal experiences, including heartbreaks and her journey as a single mother to her son, Jewel. Her comments come at a time when family structures in Kenya are shifting. Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows a rise in singleparent households, with women bearing the brunt of the responsibility. Friday, March 13, 2026 - A Kenyan creative has captured the nations attention with a powerful video montage honouring the young lives lost during the 2024 Gen Z protests. The emotional clip, which has gone viral, features names and photos of victims displayed on tombstones, symbolising the tragic cost of standing up against corruption and the controversial Finance Bill. In the montage, flowers are placed on the tombs, a gesture of remembrance that underscores the innocence of those whose only crime was showing up with nothing more than a Kenyan flag, a water bottle and a smartphone. The creative choice of background audio - featuring the voice of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga - adds a hauntingly emotional layer, amplifying the sense of loss and resilience. Netizens have hailed the artistry, praising it as a moving tribute that keeps alive the memories of the fallen. Many noted that the video not only honours the victims but also serves as a rallying cry for accountability and justice. The montage has sparked renewed conversations online, with Kenyans urging each other to register as voters ahead of the 2027 elections. For many, the video is more than art - it is a reminder of the sacrifices made by a generation determined to demand better governance. Watch the video>>> below With Baba's voice takes it to another level pic.twitter.com/XKgR7uKclj DAILY POST (@dailypost_ke) March 14, 2026 The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - Mueni, the wife of renowned Kenyan fashion designer, Bolo Bespoke, has set tongues wagging after declaring that she would not hesitate to fight any woman who tries to get close to her husband. In a candid TikTok video posted on Friday, March 13th, 2026, she spoke openly about marriage and fidelity, insisting that she is ready to defend her family at all costs. According to Mueni, some slay queens actively pursue married men, and she refuses to sit back and watch. If I find my husband with other women, I will fight. Some people say they have class and cant fight, but if you refuse to defend him, youll end up a single mother, she said. She argued that pride or the desire to appear classy should never stop a woman from protecting her marriage. Mueni described marriage as a beautiful journey, but one that inevitably comes with challenges, especially after children arrive and the spark of courtship begins to fade. She criticized the culture of couples faking perfection on social media, saying she prefers authenticity over validation. Too often people go online to fake things, but that is not me. I will show the world who I am, she added. Mueni stated that her resolve is not just about her husband, but about safeguarding her childrens future and her own health. I entered marriage in good health, and I will not leave it weakened or broken. I will fight to the death to protect my family, she declared. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - Slay Queen Mercy Masai has seemingly put to rest rumours about her relationship with Kapseret MP, Oscar Sudi, after sharing a photo showing the two spending time together. The controversial social media personality took to social media and posted a cozy photo with the outspoken legislator, suggesting that their relationship is still intact despite recent speculation that they had parted ways. Rumours had been circulating online claiming that Sudi had allegedly dumped Mercy. However, the latest photo shared by Mercy tells a different story. In the image, the two appear relaxed and comfortable in each others company, hinting that they are still very much together. She posted the photo and wished him a happy birthday with the caption, Mine. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - Former Machakos County First Lady and rapper Julians wife, Lilian Ng'ang'a has sparked debate after calling for Kenyas maternity leave to be extended from three months to six. In a candid TikTok video>>>, the mother of one argued that the current 90-day allowance under the Employment Act 2007 is simply not enough for mothers to heal and bond with their newborns. By law, Kenyan women are entitled to three months of paid maternity leave, while fathers receive two weeks of paternity leave. Afterward, employees must return to their roles or similar positions. She believes this timeline forces many mothers back to work before theyve fully recovered - especially those who undergo Caesarean sections, which often require longer healing. Three months is too short for mothers to heal and properly take care of their babies, she emphasized. Beyond recovery, she highlighted the importance of bonding, breastfeeding and monitoring infant health during those crucial early months. She noted that many babies begin complementary feeding at six months, suggesting maternity leave should align with this developmental milestone. Employers in some sectors already offer extended leave through internal policies, but the statutory minimum remains three months. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - A bold middleaged woman popularly known as Mumama from Nyeri County has set social media ablaze after issuing a fiery warning to slay queens. In a viral TikTok video, she cautioned slay queens against heading to Naivasha for the World Safari Rally with a young man she proudly claimed as her Ben 10. In the clip, the mumama confidently names the man - Dennis Muriithi Kamenjo from Nyeri Town - before declaring, Huyo ni wangu (that one is mine). She warned that any lady spotted with him at the rally will be in for trial, leaving viewers stunned by her audacity. Her boldness has sparked a flurry of reactions online. Many netizens were surprised at her boldness, given that such relationships between older women (Wamama) and younger men (Ben 10s) are often frowned upon in Kenyan society. Others, however, turned the moment into comic relief, joking that the young man must be exceptionally good in supplying electricity for the Mumama to publicly stake her claim without shame. Watch the video>>> below A young legend by the name Dennis Mureithi has single-handedly shaken the Ben Kumi industry. The boy is said to have supplied high voltage electricity to a vintage baddie who has now surfaced on TikiToko breathing fire like a dragon guarding its treasure. Na ndio maana me pic.twitter.com/Bhz20RFOpY George T. Diano (@georgediano) March 13, 2026 The Kenyan DAILY POST Corn futures closed the Thursday session with contracts fractionally to 4 cents higher across the board. March expires on Friday. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 2 1/4 cents to $4.19 . Crude oil was up another $9.15 on Thursday to add to some spillover support. Export Sales data from this morning showed 1.53 MMT of old crop corn sold in the week ending on March 5. That was down from last week, but 58.2% larger than the same week last year. Japan was the top buyer of 670,000 MT, with 367,600 MT sold to Mexico and 209,100 MT to South Korea. New crop sales were just 500 MT. More News from Barchart Census data showed 6.61 MMT (260.1 mbu) of corn shipped in January, which was a record for the month. Distillers were the highest in 4 years for January at 1.01 MMT. Ethanol shipments were 212.07 million gallons a record. Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.48 1/4, up 4 cents, Nearby Cash was $4.19 3/4, up 2 1/4 cents, May 26 Corn closed at $4.62 1/2, up 2 1/4 cents, Jul 26 Corn closed at $4.74, up 2 cents, On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com Friday, March 13, 2026 - Renowned political activist and businessman, Morara Kebaso, is under intense scrutiny following revelations that he brutally assaulted his househelp amid tensions in his marriage. An insider revealed that the incident occurred when Kebaso went to confront his estranged wife after she had moved out of their family home. During the confrontation, the domestic worker reportedly sustained severe injuries, including a broken arm, a dislocated hand, and serious back injuries. According to the source, the matter was swept under the carpet after Kebaso used his deep pockets to evade justice, reportedly paying Ksh 1.5 million to kill the assault case. The extent of the injuries was grave enough to require significant medical attention and has left many of us deeply disturbed by what happened. From what we understand, the matter did not proceed publicly and was instead quietly settled with a payment of approximately Ksh 1.5 million, after which the case went silent, the insider said. The insider further described Kebaso as narcissistic, presenting himself as a good family man in public while being violent and unfaithful in private. It is also claimed that Kebaso has connections within the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), which he used to intimidate witnesses and prevent others from speaking out about the assault. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - Renowned social media influencer, Cera Imani, who previously dated disgraced city car dealer, Khalif Kairo, is reportedly being secretly funded by a wealthy mubaba. The glamorous influencer has recently caught the attention of netizens after sharing photos and videos of luxurious vacations and a lavish lifestyle, including frequent international trips and high-end experiences. It is now emerging that her lifestyle is being sponsored by John Gicaci, an accomplished businessman and financial expert. According to whispers, Gicaci has deep pockets and is known for financing the lifestyles of several high-end city slay queens, including Cera. Gicaci is described as a seasoned financial professional who has previously held senior positions in Government, further fueling curiosity about his wealth and influence. See his photos below. Cera Imani parading lavish lifestyle sponsored by her rich mubaba. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, March 13, 2026 - As Kenyans continue to react to Khalif Kairos recent predicaments, including the auctioning of his property, a private message has surfaced showing him exposing his former boss for cheating. In the message, Kairo informed Clements wife that he was being unfaithful, claiming that he was cheating on her with a close friend named Slyvia. In a past interview, Clement revealed that Kairos actions contributed to the collapse of his marriage, alleging that Kairo had badmouthed him to his wife, creating mistrust and tension in their relationship. Some netizens are now questioning: Is karma finally hitting back? The Kenyan DAILY POST Corn price action is down 1 to 3 cents in the front months on Friday morning. Futures closed the Thursday session with contracts fractionally to 4 cents higher across the board. Open interest rose another 28,874 contracts on Thursday. March expires on Friday, with another 49 deliveries issued overnight. The CmdtyView national average Cash Corn price was up 2 1/4 cents to $4.19 . Crude oil was up another $9.15 on Thursday to add to some spillover support. Export Sales data from Thursday morning showed 1.53 MMT of old crop corn sold in the week ending on March 5. That was down from last week, but 58.2% larger than the same week last year. Japan was the top buyer of 670,000 MT, with 367,600 MT sold to Mexico and 209,100 MT to South Korea. New crop sales were just 500 MT. More News from Barchart Census data showed 6.61 MMT (260.1 mbu) of corn shipped in January, which was a record for the month. Distillers were the highest in 4 years for January at 1.01 MMT. Ethanol shipments were 212.07 million gallons a record. CONAB estimates the Brazilian corn crop at 138.27 MMT, down 0.18 MMT from last month, as the second crop number was trimmed by 0.83 MMT to 108.43 MMT. Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.48 1/4, up 4 cents, currently unch Nearby Cash was $4.19 3/4, up 2 1/4 cents, May 26 Corn closed at $4.62 1/2, up 2 1/4 cents, currently down 1 1/4 cents Jul 26 Corn closed at $4.74, up 2 cents, currently down 1 1/2 cents On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com THE first of my many treasured literary pilgrimages was to the lakeside home of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas many years ago. I am afraid the poet was long dead at that time but visiting his writing cabin, at Laugharne, and later his hillside grave gave me an opportunity to understand and appreciate his contribution to Welsh poetry history. On that occasion, I had been visiting the book town of Hay on Wye and Hay would be my base for further literary pilgrimages in Wales and England. One literary pilgrimage I made on three occasions was to Haworth, the west Yorkshire home of the Bronte sisters and, for me even more importantly, the home of their father, the Irishman, Patrick Bronte or Prunty as he was once known. Patrick, a Church of England clergyman, outlived his daughters and his son Branwell and the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth is a fitting and magnificent tribute to the entire Bronte family. At the recent launch of John MacKennas new book The Lock Keepers Wife I mentioned my visit to Helpston in Northamptonshire to visit the home of the poet John Clare. He was a pastoral poet who was first brought to my attention by John MacKenna and whose works I have returned to on many occasions. Another poet, although better known as a novelist, was Thomas Hardy who drew me to Dorchester and his nearby birthplace, the small village of Higher Brockhampton. Dorchester has a statue of Thomas Hardy and his library/study recreated in the local museum attracts a lot of visitors. No literary pilgrimage can be expected to be made in England unless one has visited William Shakespeares Stratford-Upon-Avon. I have been there several times and never fail to marvel at what the authorities have achieved in remembering and honouring Englands greatest literary figure. Jane Austen was not overlooked, requiring visits to her birthplace in Steventon, Hampshire, Bath where she lived for a time and Winchester where she died and was buried in the local Cathedral. This was an important visit as one-time Athy resident Thomas Lefroy was for a short period Jane Austens love interest. Thomas, who attended a private school in Athy, was later in life appointed Irelands Chief Justice. His brother who also attended a private school in Athy, set up home in the South Kildare town and built a fine residence at Cardenton which was subsequently acquired by the Shaw family. One literary pilgrimage I made to an Irish village associated with an English writer was to Drumsna, Co Leitrim. It was there that Anthony Trollope lived and worked for a time while an employee of the Irish postal services. I was then a member of the Trollope Society and the weekend events in Drumsna were organised by the London-based society and attended by 30 or so members including one Irish member all the way from Athy. President McAleese who had a holiday home nearby, gave a short address to the Trollope Society members and was surprised when one of the group (myself) thanked her afterwards in Irish. Robbie Burns, the great Scottish national poet and songwriter, was a subject of my only literary pilgrimage to Scotland when I visited the Burns museum in the town of Alloway where he was born. My literary pilgrimages throughout Wales and England took place over the last thirty-five years or so and strangely enough occurred after I ceased reading novels other than those written by local author John MacKenna. I was an avid fiction reader prior to that and followed the great Irish writers of the Irish literary revival period and those of a later vintage. I worked in Dublin for twelve years or so just a short distance from Parsons bookshop on Baggot Street Bridge. May OFlaherty was the proprietor and, during my weekly visits, May and her assistant Mary King introduced me to many of the great writers of the day. I met Mary Lavin on more than one occasion as well as the poet, Patrick Kavanagh. I met and enjoyed the company of writers such as Sean OFaolain, Mervyn Wall, Liam OFlaherty, John D. Sheridan, Leon O Broin and Francis Stuart. I had the pleasure of meeting Seamus Heaney and Edna OBrien, each on two occasions. I no longer read the fiction works of any of the English or Irish writers I have mentioned. It is amazing how the Irish literary scene has changed over the years. The one-time male-dominated writers scene is now dominated by female writers and while their names are recognised by me, regrettably, I no longer see myself lingering over works of todays fiction writers whether male or female. My time and energies are confined to reading Irish history and all books relating to Ireland, English social history and English politics from 1800. The reading of books is something I have always encouraged, and this is why over fifteen years ago I was responsible for opening the Lions Club second-hand book shop in Duke Street. My thanks to Eugene Prendergast who did much needed repair work in the then vacant shop before the bookshop opened and to Alice Rowan who volunteered to open the shop five days a week. The Lions Book Shop is a success story not least in running the childrens book scheme which allows young readers to claim a free book from the book shop once a month. Another initiative was the holding of the twice-yearly Lions Book Fair which is held in the Athy Recreational Community Hall on the Kilkenny Road. The next book fair with dealers from around the country starts on Saturday 14 March at 11am. I hope to see you there. Tom Tuite A homeless man accused of burning out a tent belonging to a woman who also sleeps rough in central Dublin has been remanded in custody. Jason Smith, 30, appeared at Dublin District Court on Saturday, charged with criminal damage by arson at Coles Lane on March 13th. Smith, who has also been sleeping rough in the same area, has yet to enter a plea and will appear again on March 18th. Garda Jordan Mulcahy told Judge Catherine Ghent that the accused faced bail objections. He alleged Smith was captured on high-quality CCTV footage of the Dublin 1 lane as he pulled the woman's tent "and lit it on fire". No one was in it at the time. Garda Mulcahy maintained that the accused was observed throwing cardboard on it "to keep the fire going". It belonged to a woman who had health problems, and it was "completely destroyed", the court heard. The garda said he was waiting for an estimate of the clean-up cost of the path. Legal aid was granted to Smith. His barrister, Kevin McCrave, informed the court that his client was deferring his bail application. The tent owner did not attend the proceedings. DRUGS and a knuckle-duster were found by Laois gardai when they searched a van they dubbed a mobile pharmacy. A wooden bat and deal bags of cocaine and cannabis were also uncovered in the vehicle, which was being driven by a learner who tested positive for drugs. The van was stopped by gardai on patrol in Borris-in-Ossory after the driver did an illegal U-turn, cutting off another motorist. According to gardai, the van was in such poor condition that it stood out before it even moved. The driver tested positive for cocaine and cannabis and proved to be an unaccompanied learner permit holder with no insurance. The van, whose left wing mirror was hanging off, had no certificate of roadworthiness. A search of the van uncovered a wooden bat, a knuckle-duster and deal bags of suspected cocaine and cannabis, with an estimated street value of 850. The suspected drugs will be sent to Forensic Science Ireland for analysis. In a social media post today titled Illegal Mobile Pharmacy: Closed for Business, gardai confirmed that the driver was arrested and the vehicle was seized. The van was pulled in by members of the Laois Roads Policing Unit (RPU), who were out on patrol in the Borris-in-Ossory area. Posting a series of pictures from the scene on the An Garda Siochana Laois Offaly Facebook page, gardai said: Laois RPU had their attention drawn to a van in such a poor state of repair it stood out before it even moved. Things didnt improve when this driver carried out an illegal U-turn, cutting off another road user in the process. Once stopped, the situation quickly went from bad to worse ... The driver is expected to face court proceedings for a series of road traffic and drug offences. Global tensions are increasingly becoming a concern for retailers. Even before the recent Iran conflict erupted, tensions overseas have been fueling economic uncertainty here in the U.S. And no retailer is really immune. The problem is that when geopolitical disputes occur, they can escalate into trade wars, leading to tariffs and supply chain disruptions. This inevitably makes goods more expensive for retailers, who then have to pass the cost along to consumers. That's something Costco has always gone out of its way to avoid. Roughly one year ago, during Costco's second quarter 2025 earnings call, CEO Ron Vachris said, "It is difficult to predict the impact of tariffs, but our team remains agile and our goal will be to minimize the impact of related cost increases to our members." Vachris also confirmed that about one-third of U.S. products sold are imported from other countries, and so the company would "continue to rise to this challenge by leveraging our global buying power, strong supplier relationships and innovation." Middle East tensions could raise costs The current conflict in the Middle East is already driving oil prices up. And the fear is that the cost of consumer goods will increase broadly due to a rise in energy, transportation, and production costs. Costco admitted during its most recent earnings call that the situation in the Middle East could eventually affect operating costs if disruptions intensify. Related: Costco cuts prices on eggs, butter, other staples CFO Gary Millerchip said, "The situation in the Middle East could impact fuel costs and shipping schedules if there is instability in the region for a sustained period of time." So far, however, Costco says the conflict has not significantly disrupted its supply chain. Costco is also well positioned to avoid such disruptions due to the strength of its Kirkland brand. Plus, the company said it's willing to source more products domestically as needed to keep prices as low as possible. As Vachris said during the company's second quarter 2026 earnings call, "At Costco, we always want to be the first to lower prices and the last to raise them." Shutterstock Shutterstock Costco has a big advantage over its rivals Costco is sometimes criticized for having a limited selection of goods. But in a situation like this, that strategy can actually work to Costco's advantage. Costco typically limits its inventory to about 4,000 SKU (stock keeping units), whereas a typical supermarket might carry anywhere from 15,000 to 60,000. But this streamlined approach gives the company flexibility to adjust suppliers or product mix when costs change. THE KILDARE Irish Figure Dancers are preparing to bring the heart and heritage of County Kildare to the streets of Paris this March as they take centre stage during Ireland Week 2026 celebrations in the French capital. Running from 10-18 March, Ireland Week will showcase Irish culture across Paris and France, through music, literature, sport, food, cinema, tradition and the craic but it will be Kildares own dancers who will provide one of the most vibrant highlights of the programme. At an open-air pop-up Ceili organised by Tourism Ireland on Saturday, 14 March, the Kildare Irish Figure Dancers will perform at Place de lOdeon on the citys iconic Left Bank, leading an event that promises to draw locals and tourists alike into the rhythm of Irish dance. The France-based Vesinet Irish Ceili Dancers will join the dancers travelling from Kildare, while music will be provided by the OChampoe Irish Sessions musicians. The dancing follows a unique Irish-themed Culture Run through Pariss historic 5th and 6th arrondissements, created by Culture Run, in partnership with Tourism Ireland. The run will explore Irish connections, from literature and music to whiskey, woven through the Latin Quarter, passing iconic monuments such as the newly renovated Notre Dame Cathedral and taking in the Cultures of Ireland exhibition created by Tourism Ireland. The exhibition will showcase multiple facets of Irish culture alongside the historic Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The run through the City of Lights historic boulevards will conclude at the Ceili gathering. Once the runners arrive at Place de lOdeon, it will be the Kildare and Vesinet dancers who will kick up their heels. Following a demonstration of traditional Irish figure dances, passersby will be invited to join a free Ceili lesson in the open air, transforming the square into a lively celebration of shared culture. The Kildare Irish Figure Dancers, a voluntary-run organisation with five classes across County Kildare, have been preserving and promoting Irish figure dancing for almost eight decades. The association has built a strong reputation for blending traditional choreography with contemporary energy, regularly performing at exhibitions and cultural events both nationally and internationally. For Jackie ONeill-Noonan, founder of the France-based Vesinet Irish Ceili Dancers and a lifelong supporter of Kildare Irish figure dancing, the Paris gathering holds deep personal significance. A second-generation Kildare dancer, she grew up immersed in the tradition. The Kildare Irish Figure Dancers association has been in existence for almost eighty years, she said. My mother danced with them, and when she visits me in France she joins in seamlessly with the Vesinet dancers. Dances like the Siege of Carrick work wherever in the world they are danced. Rather than a formal stage performance, the event is designed as an accessible, joyful experience, inviting French participants to learn a few steps and experience the communal energy that defines a Ceili. Barbara Wood of Tourism Ireland said the combination of dancers, live music and audience participation offers a natural and engaging way to present Irish culture abroad. Irish dancers, the fun, the musicians, the conviviality and the fact that French people will join in and learn a few steps provide a terrific and inclusive way to present Irish culture, she said. French people kicking up their heels and embracing a good Ceili swing theyll get a real feel of what the craic is all about, right there on the spot at Place de lOdeon. As Ireland Week 2026 unfolds across Paris, Irish culture will spill into cobbled streets and historic squares. And at the heart of it, County Kildares dancers will be leading the steps. The Roving Crows are a folk-rock group based in the UK, founded and fronted by Athy man Paul ONeill of the Athy musical family from St Josephs Terrace. Paul informs the Kildare Nationalist that they have won best song for Wild Atlantic Woman and best album for their recent release UNITE at the Celt Cast awards. The award ceremony was held in Ryswick, south Holland on Saturday 21 February. The Crows were nominated in four categories and managed to bring home two and the band are over the moon. UNITE is the energetic new album from the already multi award-winning Roving Crows and Wild Atlantic Woman was released as a single on 30 January, receiving rave reviews in the folk-rock press and social media, as well as radio play right across the UK, Holland, Germany and Scandinavia. The four-piece, who have been carving out a niche in the UK folk music scene for more than ten years, will tour Ireland in 2026. Known for their passionate and vibrant live performance, the Roving Crows showcase a mix of fiery, celtic-inspired fiddle, conscious, intelligent lyrics, thumping rhythms and driving, innovative bass. They have performed at festivals and venues around the world, from England and Ireland, to France, The Netherlands and Australia. Among their many accolades are band of the year at the 2014 FATEA Music Awards, best live act at the 2014 Spiral Earth Awards, international artist of the year at the Australian Celtic Music Awards 2017 and top celtic rock band and top fiddle player at the Irish Music Association Awards. For tour dates in Ireland this year, visit Facebook @rovingcrows. BOOK number 26 titled The Lock-Keepers Wife, from prolific wordsmith, playwright, novelist, short story writer and actor John MacKenna from Castledermot brought over 200 people to Athy Library when the compelling novel was launched by local legend and Johns friend, Frank Taaffe on Friday 27 February. Stephen Reid, John MacKenna and Antony Farrell Photos: Aisling Hyland Before the crowds gathered in the wonderful building, the man who has been writing for over 50 years spoke to the Kildare Nationalis t about his latest contribution to the literary world. John said: The Lock-Keepers Wife is a fiction novel set between south-Carlow and south-Kildare in 1950 and 1951 and is the story of a woman called Julie McDermot. At the beginning of the novel, Julie is being released from a psychiatric hospital in Carlow. Her husband had committed her there because she was menopausal. "This followed the devastating loss of their two infant children and having spent three months there Julie returns to her lonely life along the canal and is haunted by grief and the aching absence of what might have been. The idea grew from a couple of things. I once read that Ireland had the highest committal rate of menopausal women during the 1910s to the 1950s. Women who were going through menopause were regarded as acting peculiarly and were locked up. "Sometimes they got back out and sometimes they didnt, depending on whether somebody signed them out or not. The other part of the inspiration was that along the canal and the river Barrow there are lots of old derelict lock keepers houses. "Ive often wondered who lived there and what their lives were like while I was walking by. Between the article I read and the walks I took I got the idea for the life of not so much the lock keeper, whos not a particularly nice man, but the lockkeepers wife and what her life might have been like and how she got through it. Over 150 people attended John MacKenna's book launch in Athy Library When asked about his long friendship with Frank Taffe, John said: Im as excited to have Frank here as I am about the book! ... Frank has been a fantastic friend for 40 years. We met in a little town in Wales called Hay-on-Wye, a book town with lots of bookshops. We were both there separately and met on the street. We didnt know each other from Adam, but we got chatting and weve been friends ever since. Frank is a local historian and local solicitor and is the absolute driving force behind the Shackleton Museum. Without Frank that building wouldnt be standing. There was a proposal in the 1980s to knock it down and turn it into a carpark. Frank fought tooth-and-nail against it. Then he fought tooth-and-nail to get the Shackleton Museum into it, then fought tooth-and-nail to get everything thats there now. He really has changed the face of Athy for the better in many ways. Dave Daly, Martha Woodcock and Maura Barrett Copies of The Lock-Keepers Wife (published by Lilliput Press) were on sale at the launch by team at Kilcullen's Woodbine Books and all 150 copies brought to the launch sold-out. Following over an hour of people queueing to have John sign copies, executive librarian at Athy Library Sandra Lewis opened proceedings stating John needed no introduction. Tonights launch ties in as an Ireland Reads event which is a national campaign to promote books, reading, writing and literature in all of its forms. John is a great friend of Kildare Libraries, and what better way to celebrate than to have the launch of Johns new book. "I want to thank John, Frank and the library staff who stayed back this evening to make this wonderful event happen. Publishing manag Anthony and Rixt Davis er with Lilliput Press, Stephen Reid spoke next. He said: We are incredibly proud to publish Johns latest novel. We also published Johns great book titled Shackleton a number of years ago. "I first encountered John in Maynooth 14 years ago during his creative writing course when I hadnt a clue what I was going to do careerwise. John is a very influential character who has steered a lot of people towards writing books and towards all things literature. We are very proud of his book and what John explored in it through Julie McDermots life and the history of the incarceration of women, especially this week when we see the Taoiseach's apologies on institutional abuse. John has done very careful and gracious work in The Lock-Keepers Wife. Frank Taaffe was called upon to conduct the launch. Frank is known for his tireless, lifelong dedication to documenting, preserving, and promoting the town's social, architectural, and cultural history. This massive body of work serves as a living archive of Athys history while preserving stories of the people and the events that formed the community. Frank said: I have attended many events in this library. I must say that this is the biggest audience that I have ever seen here. Turning to John, jokingly he said: And its all because of me John! Frank continued: John is the most prolific author from South-Kildare that I have ever met. I havent read fiction for 40 years. Nowadays, I confine my reading to history, English social history, Irish History and English politics in the 1800s, but John is the one writer who grabs my attention. I have read all of his books. Frank went on to speak in-depth about Johns writings from his first published book titled The Occasional Optimist published half-a-century ago in 1976, right up to giving a review (without spoilers) of The Lock-Keepers Wife. Frank spoke of the importance of Johns writings surrounding social historical issues, and he read several critically acclaimed comments by professional critics and reviewers from both Ireland and from abroad which were written over the decades. Dawn Behan and Aidan Cunnane. While addressing the audience himself, John thanked everyone for attending. Clearly delighted to see such a huge audience, He said: In the hour before the launch I got seven texts from people saying they couldnt make it and I thought - Oh God! I dont ever take things like this for granted. I really am grateful to all of you for being here this evening. I wish to thank the Kildare Arts Office, county librarian Gillian Allen, branch manager Sandra Lewis, the library staff members and Woodbine Books. I want to thank Lilliput Press, a small independent publisher for having faith in the book, I am very grateful. They did a beautiful production. John quipped: Its the kind of book that Id buy myself if I didnt write it! The audience laughed and applauded. John read the first few pages of The Lock-Keepers Wife and captivated everyone. During those timeless minutes while John was reading, a pin dropping would have been mistaken for thunder - but wouldnt have distracted anyone from the storyteller even if one had dropped. Renowned writer John MacKenna will conduct a creative writing workshop in Preston House, Abbeyleix, Co Laois in May with limited spaces. For more details check - Power of Words Events on Facebook. The Lock-Keepers Wife is now available in all good book shops, online and from the publisher priced at 15.99. With the price of energy continuing to rise as a result of ongoing international conflict, it is time the Government steps in and re-introduces some sort of energy credit to offset the soaring cost of heating our homes. After a pandemic, amid a housing and cost-of-living crisis, the sad reality is that many people are having to choose between heating their home and everything else. It shouldn't be this way. The Government should extend the Fuel Allowance to support families most at risk, as well as offer a wider energy credit. People are afraid to order heating oil. The knock-on effect of these price increases on everything else, including food, is a further blow. We are still dealing with the impact of increased costs triggered by the war in Ukraine in 2022. Real wages have not kept up with escalating prices, and the latest global turmoil only serves to add to the misery. Growing international connectivity, globalisation, and improvements in supply chain logistics have been a boon to society. However, it also means global events are felt at a local level like never before, and disruption half a world away hits home. READ MORE KILKENNY VIEWS AND OPINION HERE Meanwhile, Taoiseach Micheal Martin will make the perilous journey to the White House on St Patricks Day, where US President Donald Trump quite literally could do or say anything. These visits are important, and the invitation should be taken when it is offered. It should not, however, come at the expense of the Irish State and its institutions to be able to exercise their function and speak plainly. President Catherine Connolly is entitled to point out that the ongoing violence being meted out in the Persian Gulf is illegal and outrageous. If these matters are discussed during the Irish visit to Washington and indeed, on the many other foreign trips Irish politicians will go on there is of course need for tactful diplomacy and the careful choice of words. However, our leaders must not be cowed into silence at the destruction of countless lives, and the real consequences of this aggression being felt by people all around the world. They must fight the corner of those they represent, and position themselves on the right side of history in terms of international law and human decency. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. NASA is not happy with Boeing (NYSE: BA). A little over six years ago, Boeing flew the first uncrewed Orbital Flight Test of its new CST-100 Starliner, attempting to dock the spacecraft with the International Space Station (ISS) -- and failing. Two years later, Starliner did successfully reach ISS (albeit with some glitches along the way). But when Boeing went for three in 2024 -- this time with astronauts on board -- it ended up stranding the astronauts on ISS for months longer than planned until they were finally rescued by a SpaceX spacecraft. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue Starliner hasn't flown since... and a new NASA report raises doubts about whether it should ever fly again. Image source: Boeing. What NASA says about Starliner This new NASA report, titled the "Starliner Propulsion System Anomalies during the Crewed Flight Test Investigation Report," runs to 311 pages and describes how "technical, organizational, and cultural contributors" all added up to a failed Crewed Flight Test (CFT) for Boeing in 2024. NASA identified four key hardware defects with the Boeing spacecraft: Five thrusters failed on the service module and one on the crew module. Seven of eight helium manifolds had leaky seals. Finally and perhaps most critically, redundancy was lacking in the spacecraft's propulsion system, such that more than one material failure might have been enough to prevent a safe return to Earth. As NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya commented, "[W]e almost did have a really terrible day." NASA further faulted Boeing for inadequate testing of the hardware and misdiagnosis of anomalies in Starliner's previous flights. This was worsened by NASA's poor oversight of Boeing's work. Ultimately, NASA decided to classify the CFT mission as a "Type A mishap," which can encompass disasters such as the loss of a spacecraft and even crew fatalities. In the instant case, NASA chose "mission failure" as the best description of the incident, based on Starliner losing flight control when docking. Citing "critical vulnerabilities" discovered with the spacecraft -- as well as in how Boeing built it and how NASA oversaw its construction -- NASA issued 61 separate formal recommendations for next steps to address the problems it revealed. And yet, NASA did not cancel the Starliner program outright. Liam Hehir writes: The debate over whether Tamatha Paul bears meaningful responsibility for Wellingtons sewage crisis has gathered pace and heat in equal measure. At the centre of it sits a blog post attributed to a writer named Peter Bassett, which has been widely circulated and confidently asserted as fact. The claim is stark. In May 2021, faced with a choice between major wastewater renewals and expanded cycleways, Paul chose cyclists. The argument is simple, morally charged and politically explosive. It is also worth noting that Peter Bassett may be an alias. There appears to be no person of the name on the Wellington electoral rolls. Hehir sets out that while it is true Paul moved an amendment to adopt a more expensive option for cycleways, there was no actual vote in wastewater funding. But as far as I can see, the minutes contain no reference whatsoever to wastewater infrastructure, other than a section concerning bulk water charging methodology between councils. There is no option presented for wastewater renewal spending. There is no discussion recorded of sewage treatment investment. There is no figure resembling the $391 million wastewater programme that sits at the centre of the case against Paul. There is no moment where the committee considered and declined to invest in underground pipe infrastructure of any kind. It looks like while there was an option in the papers about wastewater investment, it was never considered or voted on by council. The issue here is that the case against Paul makes much about a choice between two presented options. The minutes do not show that choice being made. They show cycleway acceleration being voted on. They show no corresponding wastewater option being voted down. This is important. There was only one vote, not two. You can make the case that WCC has under invested in water infrastructure and has been fixated on cycleways (both true) but there was no simple vote at this meeting. Tamatha Paul moved a cycleways amendment. That is documented. The claim that she did so by directly turning down a wastewater option placed before her is not. What would be interesting would be to ask the Greens and Ms Paul whether she thinks in hindsight she thinks water infrastructure should have been a higher priority than cycleways. British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc has emerged as the leading contender to acquire French biotech Abivax SA, following the company's dramatic valuation surge after strong clinical progress tied to its lead drug candidate. The potential takeover comes as major pharmaceutical companies hunt for innovative therapies to replenish their pipelines. Abivax drew attention after its shares soared roughly 1,600% in 2025 to reach a market value of about 7.7 billion euros (around $8.9 billion). Don't Miss: AstraZeneca Gains Early Advantage In Abivax Talks According to a French media house, AstraZeneca has held exclusive access to Abivax's data room since early February. The exclusivity period runs through March 23, giving the British drugmaker time to evaluate the company's data and potentially formalize an acquisition offer. If AstraZeneca does not submit a bid by that deadline, the exclusivity arrangement will expire. That could reopen negotiations and allow other interested parties to engage with Abivax. One potential rival is Eli Lilly and Co, which previously expressed interest in the French biotech and could re-enter discussions once the exclusivity window closes. Abivaxs Promising Drug Candidate Draws Big Pharma Interest Founded in 2013 by Philippe Pouletty, co-founder of investment firm Truffle Capital and Abivax focus on treatments for inflammatory diseases. Abivax stock skyrocketed in July 2025 after the company announced overwhelmingly positive topline results from its Phase 3 ABTECT-1 (Study 105) and ABTECT-2 (Study 106) eight-week induction trials for oral obefazimod (ABX464) in adult patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Trending: Before the IPO: How One Company Quietly Locked Up 500+ Iconic Character Rights The company achieved a significant breakthrough with its experimental treatment, which demonstrated impressive efficacy and offers new promise to patients afflicted with this chronic inflammatory bowel ailment. The therapy is currently undergoing Phase 3 trials aimed at treating inflammatory bowel diseases. If successful, the company expects potential commercialization around 2027. The U.S. is expected to represent nearly 70% of the drug's potential commercial opportunity, making regulatory approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a critical milestone. Abivax Phase 3 Data And French Oversight Could Shape Deal Despite growing buyer interest, the takeover timeline could hinge on another important event. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Eon Resources (EONR) shares ripped higher on Thursday after the Houston-headquartered firm said it has expanded its hedging to cover 75% of oil production for the next 15 months and more than 50% for late 2027. Many of these contracts were locked in at prices exceeding $70 a barrel, enabling the Permian Basin producer to secure a guaranteed financial floor for the next 24 months. More News from Barchart Eon Resources stock is now up an incredible 300% versus its year-to-date low. www.barchart.com What Expanded Oil Hedging Position Means for EONR Stock EONR announcement is bullish as it offers critical cash flow visibility at a time when the company is transitioning to a more capital-intensive horizontal drilling phase in the San Andres formation. By securing no-cost swaps and collar, Eon Resources has effectively insulated itself from a sudden collapse in crude prices, which is a major win for a micro-cap producer with high operating leverage. Furthermore, management said these hedges support future banking and acquisition needs as well. In short, EONR shares rallied today primarily because the ability to lock in $70 plus floor ensures the company can fund its 92-well development plan without immediate fear of a liquidity crunch. Why Eon Resources Shares Remain Unattractive Risk-averse investors are still cautioned against chasing the momentum in Eon Resources, as it remains a volatile penny stock with significant financial hurdles. The company has a history of posting net losses and negative EBITDA, and while Q3 saw a brief surge in profitability, long-term consistency remains unproven. The bull case relies entirely on the successful execution of its horizontal drilling program a high-stakes endeavor for a company with a market cap under $70 million. With more than 25% of near-term production still unhedged and a history of sharp sell-offs following news cycles, the risk of a buy the rumor, sell the news event remains extremely high for late-stage investors. A 14-day relative strength index (RSI) in the late 80s, indicating extremely overbought conditions, also suggests EONR will significantly retreat in the near term. EONR Doesnt Currently Receive Wall Street Coverage Another major red flag on EONR stock is the absence of Wall Street coverage. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Gross Sales Growth: 5% year-on-year increase to EUR 4.6 billion. Gross Profit Margin: Solidly above 5.5%. Net Financial Position: EUR 43.8 million, weight positive when considering bank position. Return on Capital Employed: Down to 6.1%, affected by higher depreciation. Cash Conversion Cycle: Closed at 26 days. Dividend: Proposed dividend of $0.35 per share. Revenue Growth in Spain: More than 10% for the full year. Revenue Growth in Portugal: Doubling the market growth in Q4. EBITDA Margin: Increased from 1.56% to 1.90% in certain segments. Net Income Impact: Affected by write-off of deferred tax assets in Portugal. Operating Net Working Capital: Flat versus year-end 2024. Net Financial Debt: Increased from EUR 36 million to EUR 44 million. Release Date: March 11, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Positive Points Esprinet SpA (STU:EP4A) reported a 5% year-on-year gross sales growth, reaching EUR 4.6 billion. The company experienced strong performance in the Iberian Peninsula, with sales growth exceeding 10% in Spain and Portugal. Esprinet SpA's focus on high-value markets like digital solutions and green technology has outperformed market expectations. The company's gross profit margin is solidly above 5.5%, indicating strong profitability. Esprinet SpA has made significant strides in sustainability, receiving high ratings for climate change and water security from CDP. Negative Points The Italian market remained flat, showing no growth in sales, which is a concern given its significance to the company's operations. The company faced higher than expected tax expenses due to a write-off of deferred tax assets in Portugal. Esprinet SpA's return on capital employed decreased to 6.1%, impacted by higher depreciation costs from past investments. There was a decline in sales of consumer electronics, printers, and accessories, attributed to strategic decisions to exit less profitable segments. The company is still short of its cash conversion cycle target, closing at 26 days instead of the desired 20-21 days. Q & A Highlights Q: Can you elaborate on the 2025 gross margin, which was flattish year-on-year despite some benefits from lower factoring costs? A: Alessandro Cattani, CEO, explained that while there was a good performance in terms of product mix, especially in Q4, the solar business did not reach the same level of rebates as in 2024. This was part of the strategic rationale behind the acquisition of Womat, which is expected to provide higher rebates in the future. Fiona Magennis Records relating to Boy As progress in custody will be crucial to his appeal against his life sentence for the murder of schoolgirl Ana Kriegel in Dublin seven years ago, a court has heard. His lawyers told the Court of Appeal on Friday that his case will require document-heavy analysis as they sought more time before a date for the hearing of his appeal is set. The appellant, who was one of two boys convicted of the teenagers murder, was in 2019 sentenced to life with a review after 12 years. The defendant was also sentenced to 12 years for an aggravated sexual assault on Ana, which runs alongside the murder sentence. Last November, Boy As lawyers successfully applied for more time to bring an appeal against his life sentence, following a landmark Supreme Court decision. In a judgment delivered by Judge Iseult OMalley in March 2025, the Supreme Court found that life sentences for a child convicted of murder should only be imposed in exceptional cases where the evidence showed the intentions and actions of the child were akin to those of an adult. The ruling also said a sentencing court does not have jurisdiction to review terms of detention imposed on child offenders. Boy As case came before the Court of Appeal on Friday, where Judge Isobel Kennedy had been due to set a hearing date. However when the matter was called on, Niall Nolan, representing the appellant, asked that the case instead be listed for mention towards the end of July. Asked by the judge why a date couldnt be fixed at this juncture, Nolan said the legal team was seeking a significant number of records in order to progress the appeal. He said records relating to his clients progress in custody would be crucial to the determination of this case. While his solicitor has been very diligent in seeking reports, there had been a limited response in terms of hard data, Nolan added. He said the trial judge, Paul McDermott, had made certain directions on the production of reports along the way. The barrister said these reports were supposed to be prepared twice yearly. We need to determine whether they are there, Nolan said, adding that enquiries were ongoing. The barrister said he also believed a probation report would have been prepared. We have been very active in trying to put together the records, he said. Nolan added that, unlike other cases, there was not a pressing need to get this on for hearing. He asked the court for more time to allow the youths lawyers to assemble the appeal. It is going to be a document-heavy analysis, the barrister said, before also making an application for a documentary junior counsel for the appeal. The judge granted the request, noting that a solicitor and two counsel have already been approved for the case. She adjourned the matter to July 10th for mention, but said there was an expectation that a date for hearing will be fixed at that point. The two boys, referred to in the media as Boy A and Boy B, were both 13 years old when they murdered Ana Kriegel in an abandoned house at Laraghcon, Clonee Road, Lucan on May 14th, 2018. They were convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury in June 2019 of murdering Ana, with Boy A also convicted of Ana's aggravated sexual assault in a manner that involved serious violence. The jury accepted the prosecution's case that Boy B lured Ana to the house by telling her that Boy A wanted to meet her, knowing that Boy A intended to kill her. He watched as Boy A, who was dressed all in black and wearing a ghoulish mask, shin guards and knee pads, sexually assaulted Ana having dragged her to the ground, where he beat her repeatedly with a piece of wood and a large block. David Raleigh The HSE said it is reviewing the circumstances surrounding its failure to suspend a doctor at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) after it was initially made aware he had raped a nurse who was also working at the hospital. The HSE Mid West, which is the health authority in charge of UHL, said it is reviewing all of the circumstances to ensure all appropriate supports were made available to the victim. However, it admitted: Dr Kila should have been suspended from clinical practice when we became aware of the assault. Moroccan native, Louay Kila, was a registrar doctor working at UHL when he raped a young UHL nurse after they had both separately been socialising in Limerick City and had later separately gone to the same apartment as part of two groups, on March 2nd, 2024. Kila, (31), continued working as a doctor and was only voluntarily suspended from the list of medical practitioners in Ireland in March 2025, a full year after he raped and sexually assaulted the nurse. Last week, Kila was convicted by a jury following his trial held at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, of raping the woman while she was asleep. Kila was also convicted of sexually assaulting the woman despite her pleading with him to stop. On Friday, Kila was sentenced to eight years in prison for the rape. He received a concurrent four-year sentence for the sexual assault. He showed no emotion as he was led away to jail. The court heard Kila, with an address at Cois Luachra, Dooradoyle, Limerick, raped the woman as she was sleeping on a couch at a friends apartment after a night out. Kila had earlier encountered the victim and her friends at a club in the city and he arrived at their apartment. The court found that Kila told gardai lies, that he and the victim engaged in consensual kissing and touching on the night, and that the woman made up the complaints against him because she was concerned her then boyfriend would find out. A HSE statement issued to this reporter from the health authority running UHL said: HSE Mid West notes the sentencing of Kila, he should have been suspended from clinical practice when we became aware of the assault. The evidence of the victim in this case was clear that our failure to do so added to her suffering. We are sorry for the additional hurt this caused the victim. Our failure to promptly take the appropriate action to make the victim feel safe at work does not reflect current practice and policy. In light of the victim impact statement and the evidence heard during this appalling case, we are reviewing all of the circumstances to ensure all appropriate supports were made available to the victim. We are taking this situation extremely seriously and the welfare of our staff remains our priority. HSE Mid West said that a range of supports are available to staff who suffer violence or trauma both inside and outside of the workplace. It added that protective measures were put in place for the victim based on her individual requirements following her identification of the assault. The victim, who said she did not want to waive her legal right to anonymity, faced Kila at his sentencing hearing and told him: "I got justice." Addressing Kila, she said: "To my rapist, I stood up and I am holding you accountable for your actions and I got justice." "I hope to be an inspiration for any woman who has dealt with an incident like this and encourage them to stand up and hold their rapists accountable," she said. The woman said that prior to the rape and assault she had been "excited" to be nursing at UHL, but that after the rape she "couldn't" return there. She said she felt "physically sick" walking back into the hospital, where Kila continued working for a time. "I feared for the patients of UHL, I knew that I had gotten out of the hospital but what about those who were left behind?" The woman concluded: "I am a strong woman, I will heal from this, and I will be a stronger, more resilient version of myself. I will never let that man take that away from me." The court ordered that Kila be placed on a register for convicted sex offenders, which means he must continue to engage with gardai and the probation service after he completes his sentence. Part of the order, as a matter of routine procedure, includes that Kila must notify gardai of any change to his address after he is released. Niamh ODonoghue A carer defrauded the State of over 110,000 by claiming Deserted Wifes Benefit while cohabiting, a court has heard. Deirdre Buttner (67) of Winterwood, Kilmactalway, Newcastle, Dublin pleaded guilty to three counts of deception at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on dates between 2014 and 2021. She has no previous convictions. The court heard there were 29 counts of deception on the indictment and the case was to be dealt with on a full facts basis. Garda Anna Masterson told the court Buttner was in receipt of Deserted Wifes Benefit since she separated from her husband in 1985. She is also caring for a person with additional needs and was claiming Carers Allowance. In July 2019 an investigator from the Department of Social Protection, Tracey Talbot, called out to Buttners address in Newcastle, Co Dublin, but she previously lived at an address in Tallaght. Buttner said she was living in a property owned by her landlord, but the spare room looked like it was being lived in. The landlords sister, who was living in the US and is now deceased, had pictures of Buttner and the man she was living with on her social media account, and it was established they were in a romantic relationship, the court was told. Certain expenditures were being shared by Buttner and her partner, including holidays, and the court heard they had travelled abroad quite frequently. The court was told you cannot be in a cohabiting relationship while on Deserted Wifes Benefit. Furthermore, Carers Allowance is means-tested, and a partners income would have to be assessed. Buttner had not declared to the department that she had been cohabiting. A warrant for the Newcastle address was obtained, and Buttners partner was asked if anyone else was in the house, and he replied yes, my partner. She was arrested and said it was a landlord/tenant relationship. The prosecuting garda agreed with Garret McCormack, defending, the total loss in both welfare payments was 112,000 and that half that amount was present in court. A payment plan for the further 56,000 was to be put in place for a repayment of 50 a week, but it would take 20 years to complete. A document outlining the repayment plan and the proposed future payments was handed to the court on a previous hearing date last month. Mr McCormack said Buttner was in a platonic relationship with the man she was living with and that he had paid the 56,000 that had been repaid. Any period of incarceration would have catastrophic effects, because of her role as a carer, counsel said. Judge Orla Crowe noted that a 50 a week repayment plan would take 20 years to complete, according to McCormacks calculations. This is a very serious matter its the taking of funds from the public purse, said Judge Crowe. Adjourning sentencing for a year, the judge said it was a very unusual case and remanded Buttner on continuing bail. Its no exaggeration to describe Portlaoise courthouse as one of the busiest courts outside Dublin, with thousands of criminal, civil and family law cases held there every year. It is widely acknowledged that the existing courthouse on the towns Main Street, which was first built in 1782 and rebuilt after a fire in 1805, is no longer suitable to deal with the volume of business. Indeed, in recognition of the ailing facilities in the premises, the Courts Service purchased a green field site nearby for the construction of a new courthouse at Kylekiproe for 750,000 in 2020. To date, nothing has been built on it. In the meantime, the workings of the courts in Portlaoise go on, conducted by a small group of people who ensure the smooth, professional and timely running of the service. From judges, court clerks, office administrators and caretakers, the group works in challenging conditions to deliver the service. So, it was no wonder when one of the key cogs in the well-oiled wheel decided to call it a day and her colleagues gathered in the courtroom to wish her well in her retirement on Thursday, March 5. Sheila Larkin has worked in the civil service for over 41 years. For the past 20, she has worked in the Portlaoise court offices. In acknowledging her service over the years, circuit court Judge Keenan Johnson said that during her time she has been a rock and foundation of the office, contributing in no small measure to the excellent reputation of the office for her professionalism, competency, efficiency and her facility to offer help and assistance to practitioners and litigants. Congratulating Tomas Moore on taking over her role, Judge Johnson said: I know hes aware of the big shoes he has to fill and Id like to welcome him and wish him all the best in his new position. When it comes to court registrars, Sheila was the gold standard and an exemplary public servant, said Judge Johnson. District court Judge Andrew Cody said: While we reluctantly let Sheila go, we do so with enormous gratitude. Gratitude for her wisdom, her patience and her humour. I want to thank Sheila for leading with distinction and serving with honour. Will Fennelly BL, who spoke on behalf of the bar and members of the midland circuit, said: During Sheilas time in court, she served as registrar to a number of judges, not alone the judges present today, but Judge Moran, Judge Kennedy, Judge Michael White and Judge Hunt. In all of those instances, Sheilas calm and attentiveness was very welcome and in one or two instances absolutely necessary to maintain the functioning of the court. The county registrar for Laois and Offaly, Rory Hanniffy, also spoke glowingly of Ms Larkin. He said: Over and above her work in the court office, I want to particularly recognise Sheilas contribution to the elections over her many years working in the Courts Service. Sheila has been central to the conduct of elections and all the electoral events across Laois and Offaly. Portlaoise courts office manager Catherine Magner said: Sheila has represented this office in a very good way. She is an exceptionally kind person, very calm person and has a wonderful work ethic. Speaking on behalf of the Solicitors Association, Josephine Fitzpatrick said: Youve swept around nice and quietly and gave us the level of support which was required. As practitioners, we will miss you. Garda Sgt JJ Kirby, on behalf of An Garda Siochana, said: I begin with a quote from Bill Clinton people around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power. Youve been cool, calm, collected and an absolute lady. Ive known you for the best part of 25 years and any questions we have, youve been always there for us and youre going to be sadly, sadly missed. Funded by the Court Reporting Scheme. There have been calls to carry out work on Stradbally Main Street where a wheelchair user was recently involved in an accident. Fine Gael Cllr Vivienne Phelan asked in a motion that Laois County Council review the tactile paving at Main Street, Stradbally and make adjustments as necessary to ensure wheelchair users can safely pass. In a written response, a Road Design Engineer stated that: Road Design will engage with the TII(Transport Infrastructure Ireland) on this issue. A full assessment will be carried out. All possible funding sources will be explored. Cllr Phelan was unhappy with the response. There was a recent accident with a wheelchair user at this site, she explained. She expressed concern about the potential delays involving TII and said she didnt believe it was a big job. Fianna Fail Cllr Paschal McEvoy also queried the involvement of TII. He said there were a lot of wheelchair users in Stradbally. It needs to be done. It needs to be done straight away, he insisted. He asked Senior Executive Engineer Tom Drennan to look at the issue. Mr Drennan said he would contact the Road Design Engineer but he believed TII may need to be involved as the work is on the national N80 road. Independent Cllr Ben Brennan said wheelchair users are entitled to fair play and action needed to be taken. Independent Cllr Aisling Moran said the Council should be allowed in the interest of safety to step in. Should it not just be taken on and done by Laois County Council, she asked. Director of Services Julie Bergin said she believed the Council had to engage with TII in relation to the matter. Cllr Phelan said maybe you might mark it urgent for Road Design. The issue was discussed at the latest meeting of Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District. There is a huge buzz around Rathangan at the moment with filming on a major Netflix production starring Emily Blunt, Andrew Scott and Ciaran Hynes due to begin this Wednesday, March 18. Many buildings have been given a bright lick of paint to represent a more traditional Irish main street. The former Hacketts supermarket has a whole new temporary facade to create the exterior of an old style cinema. The old bookies on Bridge Street has also benefited, with a new orange shop front with the title, Dolans stenciled over the front door. The drapery side of Mas Kitchen has also got a make over reminiscent of old Ireland. Filming on Walk the Blue Fields, an adaptation of a romantic short story by Claire Keegan, is due to take place on the main street between March 18 and 20, from 1pm to 11.30pm each day. READ MORE: PHOTOS: Work begins on beautiful restoration of Kildare guesthouse The production crew has informed local residents and businesses there may be some disruption as a result. "During this period, there may be temporary changes to parking, traffic flow, and pedestrian access. Every effort will be made to minimize disruption, and access to homes and businesses will be maintained at all times, said the crew. "You may notice production vehicles, crew members, lighting, and filming equipment in the area. Our team will be on-site to assist with any questions or concerns and to ensure that the process runs as smoothly as possible. The film is being directed in Ireland by John Crowley of Brooklyn fame, and the script is by Conor McPherson. Emily Blunt is a British actress, Golden Globe winner, and an Academy Award nominee. Famous for films such as The Devil Wears Prada, Oppenheimer, The Girl on the Train and A Quiet Place, she will appear opposite Andrew Scott. Scott, also a Golden Globe winner, is known for his roles in the TV series, Sherlock and Fleabag. He also has a huge number of films under his belt and took on the role of villain in the James Bond production, Spectre. By Katie Paul, Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (Reuters) - Meta (META) is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers. No date has been set for the cuts and the magnitude has not been finalized, the people said. Top executives have recently signaled the plans to other senior leaders at Meta and told them to begin planning how to pare back, two of the people said. The sources spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to disclose the cuts. "This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in response to questions about the plan. If Meta settles on the 20% figure, the layoffs will be the company's most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the "year of efficiency." It employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, according to its latest filing. The company laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs. Zuckerberg focusing in on generative AI Over the last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attends a dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump with tech leaders for a dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 4, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) SAUL LOEB via Getty Images The company has said it plans to invest $600 billion to build data centers by 2028. Earlier this week, it acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for AI agents. Meta is also spending at least $2 billion to buy Chinese AI startup Manus, Reuters previously reported. Zuckerberg has alluded to efficiency gains from the investments, saying in January he was starting to see "projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person." Meta's plans reflect a broader pattern among major U.S. companies, particularly in tech, this year. Executives have pointed to recent improvements in AI systems as one reason for the changes. In January, Amazon (AMZN) confirmed it would cut some 16,000 jobs, amounting to nearly 10% of its workforce. Last month, the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI tools and their growing capability to help companies do more with smaller teams. By Sonya McLean A man who falsely claimed his Mercedes-Benz had been stolen in order to process an insurance claim has been given a suspended sentence. Donatas Sadauskas (41) never owned the car and later produced a false purchase order, which claimed he had bought the vehicle from a named man in November 2016. He said he bought the car for 16,000 from a person in the UK, but gardai were never able to identify the seller. The claim was not processed and no payment was made to Sadauskas. Sadauskas, previously of Sallins Pier, Sallins, Co. Kildare, but now living in the UK, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to making a false statement at Dun Laoghaire Garda Station on December 17, 2016, tending to show that an offence had been committed. Detective Garda Daniel Treacy previously told Caroline Latham BL, prosecuting, that Sadauskas reported to gardai that the car had been stolen from Victoria Road in Dalkey on December 17, 2016. READ NEXT; Dozens of new homes being built in Athy area. He said he was a car dealer, that he had bought the car and had last seen it when he parked it on Victoria Road on November 3, 2016. He showed gardai the key for the car and his driving licence. Sadauskas had initiated a claim with AXA insurance in relation to the theft of the car a few days before reporting it to gardai. He had a motor trader policy with the insurance company, which counsel said was an open policy allowing Sadauskas to be insured on a number of different cars. Det Gda Treacy confirmed Sadauskas did not own the car and never owned it. When asked by Judge Orla Crowe why Sadauskas chose this particular car, the detective replied: That is what I am dying to find out. Det Gda Treacy said the purchase order later proved to be a false document. He said Sadauskas moved to the UK and then on to Belgium. Gardai secured a European Arrest Warrant and he was extradited back to Ireland. He was remanded on bail and has abided by those bail conditions, which allow him to travel back and forth for court appearances from his home in England. Sarah Connolly BL, defending, said Sadauskas had been working in Ireland until 2015 when he was made redundant from the factory where he worked. He then began to work in the car trading business but left Ireland to live in England. He would regularly return to Ireland due to his involvement in the car industry. Ms Connolly said her client made a grave error but submitted that he did not actively pursue the claim once he made it. She said he took a stupid risk to pull a fast one but she said the fraud was very quickly uncovered. Today/yesterday (THURS), Judge Crowe described the defendants scheme as sophisticated and very elaborate. She noted that he had moved here from his native Lithuania 22 years ago, and had just two minor road traffic convictions from 2010 before becoming involved in it. His aim and the deliberate planning was to cause loss to another and gain to himself, she said. An abundance of resources had to be expended to pursue this matter. She described as laudable the fact that he had donated vehicles to a charitable foundation related to the war in Ukraine, and said she would take this into account. She imposed an 18-month sentence, but suspended it for three years. Karen Langton, Peter Whyte and Cllr Carmel Kelly (Cathaoirleach KCC) GALLERY: Relay for Life Kildare 2026 officially launched in Newbridge, Kildare PHOTOS: Martin Connelly The campaign for Relay for Life Kildare 2026 was officially launched on Wednesday 11th March at the Keadeen Hotel in Newbridge, bringing together cancer survivors, volunteers, community supporters and local representatives to mark the beginning of this years event. Relay for Life Kildare 2026 will take place at The Curragh Racecourse, Newbridge, on Saturday 6th June Sunday June 7th from 1pm to 1pm 2026, when communities from across the county will once again gather for this powerful 24-hour event in support of the Irish Cancer Society. Relay for Life sees communities come together to celebrate cancer survivors, remember loved ones lost to cancer, and stand shoulder to shoulder with those currently facing cancer. The event raises vital funds for the Irish Cancer Society while also raising awareness of the ground-breaking research and free support services available to cancer patients and their families. READ NEXT: Home heating oil hikes 'exposes government failure to protect Kildare families' In 2025 alone, the Irish Cancer Society provided significant support to people across Kildare. This included 2,145 free lifts to bring patients to and from cancer treatment, 341 free counselling sessions for people affected by cancer, and 233 nights of Night Nursing care, allowing patients to spend their final days at home surrounded by loved ones. In addition, the Societys Support Line and Daffodil Centres provided comfort and guidance during 1,067 conversations with people affected by cancer. The launch event was hosted by Irish radio and television presenter Brenda Donohue, who acted as MC for the evening. Among those attending were Peter Whyte, Chair of Relay for Life Kildare, Cllr. Carmel Kelly, Cathaoirleach of Kildare County Council; Ciara Hughes, Relay for Life Campaign Manager; Deirdre OCallaghan, Vice Principal of Newbridge College; Karen Langton, Global Hero of Hope and cancer survivor Eamonn Nolan, Rotary Club Kildare, Relay for Kildare teams, cancer survivors and family members. Relay for Life Kildare also celebrated a major milestone, having raised over 1 million for the Irish Cancer Society during its 13 years of events. The landmark was achieved following last years Relay at The Curragh Racecourse, where 16 charity teams raised an incredible 90,279 during the 24-hour event, bringing the total funds raised for the Irish Cancer Society beyond the seven-figure mark. Speaking at the launch, Chair Peter Whyte praised the dedication of teams and volunteers from across the county. The launch of Relay for Life Kildare 2026 marks the beginning of another incredible community effort to support those affected by cancer, said Peter Whyte. We look forward to welcoming teams, survivors, families and supporters from across Kildare to The Curragh Racecourse this June. Ciara Hughes, Relay For Life Campaign Manager at the Irish Cancer Society, said: People in Kildare have always enthusiastically supported Relay For Life, and in doing so they generously support ground-breaking research and the vital services provided by the Irish Cancer Society, so we can ensure no one has to face cancer alone. Were delighted that Relay for Life has returned to Kildare this year, giving people in the area the opportunity to come together, remember their loved ones and celebrate survivors within their community. In 2025 more than 7,000 people attended the event, with over 1,000 gathering on the Saturday night for the moving Candle of Hope ceremony, where hundreds of personalised candle bags illuminated the night in tribute to loved ones affected by cancer. During the 24-hour Relay event, teams take turns walking a designated route throughout the day and night, ensuring that someone from the team is always on the move reflecting the message that cancer never sleeps, so neither do Relay teams. One of the most powerful moments of the event is the Survivors Lap, where those who have lived with or are living with cancer take a special lap of honour, symbolising courage, resilience and hope. Another highlight is the Candle of Hope Ceremony, which takes place at dusk. Hundreds of personalised candle bags, decorated with names, messages and photographs, light up the night sky in a moving tribute to loved ones lost to cancer. Relay for Life Kildare organisers are encouraging individuals, families, workplaces and community groups from across the county to get involved in the 2026 event. The event is free to attend and open to everyone, whether people wish to participate for the full 24 hours, support a team, make a donation, partake in family fun activities from 1pm to 8pm or attend the Candle of Hope ceremony on the evening of 6 June 2026. Relay for Life Kildare continues to play a vital role in supporting the work of the Irish Cancer Society while bringing the community together in solidarity with those affected by cancer. To purchase a candle for the event by following this link: https://www.relayforlife.ie/event/kildare/shop Gearoid Gilheany, transport manager for a large fleet of hauliers in Leitrim said that a "near fatal" accident near Carrick-on-Shannon could have been avoided if the hedges on the side of the road had been cut. Speaking about the incident to the Leitrim Observer, Mr Gilheany said: "There was an accident, about a month, involved two trucks. That section of road would benefit an awful lot from having a view of what's coming before you actually come to the corner and I can think of an awful lot of other places where cutting the hedges would be a big benefit to road safety." He added: "They talk about road safety and the number of deaths but there are, in my opinion, relatively cheap options to improve views at junctions and improve corners where people have to slow down. You need to be able to anticipate what's coming around the corner and drive accordingly. These roads that are designated as regional roads but don't seem to be of the standard of regional roads." READ MORE: It's not a luxury: Leitrim TD calls on Government to intervene on through the roof fuel prices He continued: "Very fortunately that day, there were no injuries; it was just material damage. I'm in the haulage industry over 50 years as a driver and that had the potential to be a fatality and that's why I feel that a cheap option would have been just to cut the hedge and then put the cost back on the landowner because they are legally obliged to make sure the hedges are safe. The house there seems to be derelict but in my opinion, the council in those cases should just go and cut the hedges and charge wouldn't be significant." Mr Gilheany's fleet travel through counties Leitrim, Longford and Westmeath and while he said that Leitrim County Council is one of the "better councils for keeping roads in good condition", overgrown hedges are "costing us a lot of money and it's very dangerous where we have to go out over the white line to avoid breaking our mirrors or damaging our trailers. The impression I get is that it seems difficult for the council to follow it up; they have to establish who the last owner was and might not get a response from the landowner." It is illegal to cut hedgerows in Ireland between March 1st and August 31st under the Wildlife Act which Mr Gilheany said will further complicate matters. "Are the government prioritising the environment over people?" At a council meeting back in October, a response to a motion about hedge cutting, stated that the under the Roads Act, the council can issue a hedge/tree cutting notice to the land owner requesting that they carry out works and after a period of inaction, the local authority can carry out the works and pursue the land owner for these costs through the legal system. READ MORE: Pregnant and homeless - Leitrim mother shares struggle in emergency accommodation District engineer, Emma Donohoe said regarding the notices, "most people do act on them and then we'd send a follow-up letter if necessary." Director of services, David Minton said that "enforcement in relation to road safety is critical. No local authority wants to take people to court for hedge cutting but there are a number of serial offenders around the county and a lot of correspondence being ignored and I think we need to be seen to enforce the legal powers we have." Yes, we had a problem of liquidity, van Raemdonck admitted. It led to a problem of inventory and performance. That was the summary of last year. The summary of this year is we are through a financial restructuring that gives us access to liquidity and allows us to refocus the business on the most valuable assets we have, and when we emerge later this year, we will be able to perform at the level we want. Whats changed over the last two months is that we have $1.75 billion of committed capital. We have $825 million that weve received, and we are receiving another $300 million in a matter of days or weeks. Its really, really closeWhen we entered the [bankruptcy] process, we received DIP (debtor-in-possession) financing and we put in a topline revenue budget and a budget for receiving inventory, and we are exceeding both the revenue budget and the amount of inventory we are receiving, which is very encouraging. What the business plan will show is that we have a plan of action to drive sales, to grow from a smaller footprint, and to be significantly more profitable, van Raemdonck said. It is also going to demonstrate that we have ample liquidity to operate and fund the business, as well as generate free cash flow to invest in the business over the next five years. Thats what this business plan will be detailing. The plan is being formulated by Saks Global in negotiations with creditors, who will vote on the plan, which then must get final approval by the bankruptcy court for the company to emerge from bankruptcy. Since Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Jan. 13, Step one was to get the financing. Step two was to get the inventory, and now we are really focused on the vision for the future and how the company is going to be structured when it emerges from bankruptcy, van Raemdonck said. The restructuring plan is going to be filed in weeks from now, and that will detail how this company will be structured, from a business plan, from a capital structure, post emerging. Its moving faster than I anticipated, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, chief executive officer of Saks Global, told WWD, exclusively discussing the Saks Global Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and what to expect in the coming weeks. We were able to make very decisive decisions in less than 60 days, to focus on luxury. Saks Global is expected to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings before the end of the year with new ownership, a five-year business plan, and a strategy designed to better differentiate the merchandising and marketing of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Story Continues Inventory Flowing In While theres no guarantee that Saks Global successfully emerges from bankruptcy this year, van Raemdonck, while being interviewed from the Brookfield Place headquarters of Saks Global in lower Manhattan, cited progress in the court proceedings, and expressed gratitude that many designers and brands have either continued or resumed shipping the luxury retailer. He said brands have committed to close to $1.3 billion of inventory. Thats 80 percent of the [spring] season that we need to have. And that number is growing week by week, he said. I was looking at our receipts this month theyre up 63 percent compared to last year, and from February to this month to date, we are up 15 percent We have many, many brands, but if you take our top 100 or 200 brands, none have said theyre not going to do business with us going forward. Brands are really catching up very fast and supporting us. I dont take that for granted. We need and we are actively rebuilding their trust. According to van Raemdonck, Saks Globals top 10 brands account for a third of the retailers volume. We are their largest partner in the U.S., for sure, and in most cases, globally, he said. We have many brands that are exclusive to us, and many emerging brands that do 30, 40, 60 or more percent of their business with us. While resuming support for Saks Global, many designers and brands remain cautious and looking to lower risks, seeking quicker payments, sometimes upfront. Saks Global internally, working with financial advisers, compiled a list of critical vendors it needs to have goods from, to fill its shelves and successfully reorganize, and also settle some pre-petition liabilities. Saks Global has indicated that post-petition invoices for merchandise receipts will be paid pursuant to current terms, which are set at 90 days from receipt of goods, though payment terms can vary by brand. Its expected that if and when Saks Global emerges from bankruptcy, payment terms would revert to those that were in place prior to Saks Globals acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group, though a schedule for paying vendors must be approved by the bankruptcy court judge. Thirty- to 60-day payment terms are the industry standard. Under Saks Globals prior regime, the company largely lost the support of the fashion industry due to its failure to pay bills for several seasons and a host of unmet promises. Consequently, the stores were depleted of merchandise, market share was lost, and competitors, most notably Bloomingdales and Nordstrom, have been taking advantage of the situation by aggressively working to add designers they did not previously sell, and provide more space in their stores to certain designers that they already did sell. But at Saks Global, much has happened in the two months since going bankrupt to obtain financing to replenish inventories and maintain operations and set a new foundation for a potentially more viable and streamlined future. Its expected that through a debt-for-equity swap, key bondholders, including Pentwater Capital and Bracebridge Capital leading the lending group arranging a $1.75 billion financing package for Saks Global in bankruptcy, will become owners in Saks Global. In effect, Saks Global will become a new debt-free or near debt-free company post bankruptcy. Hudson Bay Co., Amazon, Authentic Brands Group, and G-III all had equity stakes in Saks Global going into the bankruptcy, but its anticipated they will see the value of those shares slip away in the court-led process. Chapter 11 bankruptcy enables a retailer to get out of leases without penalty. Saks Global is closing 20 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, leaving just 13 operating, including the Fifth Avenue flagship in Manhattan, and shutting four Neiman Marcus units, leaving 32 operating. In addition, Saks Fifth Avenue was pulled off Amazon.com; one distribution center was closed, leaving three operating, though three others were closed pre-bankruptcy, leaving the company with its newest facilities that provide better service, and 57 Saks Off 5th stores are being shuttered, leaving just 12 for the time being. Saks Global has also shut down the Horchow catalogue and the five Last Call clearance centers for Neiman Marcus. Saks Global volume was listed at about $7.3 billion shortly after the Neimans acquisition in fiscal 2024, before the streamlining. Saks Global executives leave open the possibility that a few more Saks or Neimans stores could close. There has been speculation of asset sales, including Bergdorf Goodman. Asked about that, van Raemdonck replied: We are always going to continue to look at the footprint, the assets, we have. Thats normal course of business. But today, there are no active conversations about any asset sales. Upon going bankrupt, a new management team was set with a blend of senior executives from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Van Raemdonck became CEO of Saks Global in January, after sitting on the sidelines of luxury retailing for a year. He had been CEO of the Neiman Marcus Group for nearly seven years until it was purchased by Saks Global. I came back because I have a belief in what Saks Global can be, and Im confident that we can emerge as a strong business, van Raemdonck told WWD. What youre seeing is someone who is very matter-of-fact and very confident. I didnt have to do this. But I did this out of belief that Saks Global will be successful, and Im willing to put my reputation on the line. Van Raemdonck said he believes combining Saks Fifth Avenue and the Neiman Marcus Group into Saks Global is a good idea. The merger made a lot of sense to me, because by bringing the two best players in the industry that have three banners [Saks, Neimans and Bergdorfs] you get to attain a certain level of scale and synergies that help your overall profitability and ability to invest. Cost Savings Navigating through the bankruptcy is further challenged by the ongoing systems integrations and consolidations initiated when Saks Global bought NMG for $2.7 billion in December 2024. The goal has been to achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings by centralizing and eliminating duplicative functions, such as accounting, planning, human resources, legal and distribution facilities. There is now one buying team for Neimans and Saks, and one marketing team serving Bergdorfs, Neimans, and Saks. Bergdorfs has its own buying team. Savings will also be attained through store closings, leading to layoffs and payroll reductions. Aside from cost savings, the combined business should benefit from access to greater data, sharing best practices, enhanced personalization, and increased use of AI. Merging loyalty programs is a possibility. For example, using each retailers credit cards to shop could earn points valid at both Saks and Neimans. Or spending enough at either store could lead to access to invitation-only events at both Saks and Neimans. Van Raemdonck described Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus as the same yet different both operating as multibrand luxury retailers but doing it in different ways. Neiman Marcus has been a relationship business and very focused on omnichannel, and on wholesale, and the metric of success was profitability, he said. Saks was a business that was focused on growth, on digital, and adopted the marketplace format much more, and it didnt have the same level of profitability, van Raemdonck said. They were both were operating with distinct strategies that resonated with the customer, but with a different impact on profitability and generation of cash flow. Sources have told WWD that among true luxury brands such as Chanel, Dior, and Giorgio Armani theres been about 90 percent overlap between Saks and Neimans. But Saks has been emphasizing a wider range of categories and price points, attracting a broader demographic, and has been aggressive trying to build business online. Saks stores house many more leased designer shops than Neimans, which has long been reluctant to open leased shops but in recent seasons has opened some. By virtue of its Fifth Avenue flagship being a major tourist attraction, Saks has more international recognition than Neimans. In fiscal 2025, the flagship saw nearly 3 million shoppers from over 150 countries, and generated three times the amount of business as the largest Neiman Marcus stores, according to Saks Global. As van Raemdonck pointed out, Neimans has maintained its focus on its wealthiest customers, through exclusive offerings, personal service and VIP-type events. Neimans has a track record of providing deeper, broader assortments of each of the top luxury collections it sells, and has a stronger selling culture than Saks. Differentiating the Banners Regarding the future of Saks and Neimans, van Raemdonck said, We want to separate and differentiate them. As a point of reference, if you take the six markets where Saks and Neimans are either in the same mall, or across the street like in Beverly Hills, the overlapping customer is between 10 and 15 percent which [means] the customer is telling us theyre different brands. And in the future, we want to make them even more different, so that theres a reason to shop in both of them, or to be deeply loyal with one of them. Asked how thats accomplished, van Raemdonck said, Its in the positioning. Its in the expression, in the assortment, and it can be the same brands [sold at both stores], but the assortment should be slightly different, meaning each having a different merchandise edit. The Saks customer likes to express herself through fashion, but she needs a little bit more guidance in choosing the fashion that is right for her, van Raemdonck said. The Neimans customer is a fashion customer who has her own sense of taste, loves color, and loves newness, and so their way of approaching the same element of fashion and newness is slightly different. Discussing Saks Global overall, van Raemdonck boasted, We have the largest base of highly engaged luxury customers. Fifty to 60 percent of our sales are with customers who shop seven to nine times a year with us, depending on the retail banner. They spend more than $5,000 with us, and we retain more than 80 percent of them. Forty percent of our sales come from customers who spend $10,000 or more with us. And so the majority of our sales are from loyal customers and when you shop seven to nine times a year, youre deeply loyal. We have a retention rate of 90 percent from top customers. One of the big challenges in a bankruptcy is retaining employees and communicating to all constituencies concerned that the company isnt disappearing and has a future, even in a downsized state. We are doing this very, very frequently and very openly, because transparency is critical, van Raemdonck said. This morning I was talking with our employees in Bangalore. We have a whole team there that supports us across all functions, including creative, planning, merchandising and payroll functions. This Monday, we had what we call an All Access, meeting which is our all-employee town hall. We call it All Access because everyone gets a front row seat [its a virtual meeting] and everyone gets access to the information. Its a monthly event. And then we meet with our leadership council, the top 50 people in the organization, every other week. And every week, we talk with the ad hoc group of creditors, and we are meeting in person with the unsecured creditor committee [Thursday] to share with them our business plans. So the communication is very, very frequent. We communicate with brands on a very frequent basis, at my level, and then Lana [Todorovich, chief global brands partnerships officer] is with the brands on a daily basis. We have more than 1,500 sales associates who sell at least $1 million per year and in aggregate deliver more than $2.8 billion of revenue, the CEO added. Over the last 12 months, our attrition rate amongst top sellers that sell more than $3 million annually is in the low-single digits. Best of WWD Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The recent tanker attacks and vessel rerouting near the Strait of Hormuz have once again highlighted just how fragile global energy flows can be. According to Robert Price, CEO of March GL and incoming CEO of Greenland Energy Company, markets may be underestimating the deeper structural risks facing oil supply. Global Oil Supply Risks "Markets often react to the immediate headline," Price told Benzinga in an exclusive email interview. "But they frequently underestimate the underlying structural fragility of global energy flows." Don't Miss: With roughly 20% of global seaborne oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions there can quickly ripple through energy markets. Heightened tensions near the Strait of Hormuz can also influence oil-linked ETFs such as the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF, the United States Oil Fund and the State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF. But Price argues the bigger issue is the industry's declining investment in long-term supply. "The real takeaway," he said, "is that Western supply chains are too vulnerable to these geopolitical chokepoints." The Next Oil Province? That vulnerability is one reason Price believes new conventional resources will play a growing role in stabilizing energy markets. His company is advancing exploration in Greenland's Jameson Land Basin, which independent evaluations suggest could contain as much as 13 billion barrels of resource potential. Trending: Before the IPO: How One Company Quietly Locked Up 500+ Iconic Character Rights The basin has already benefited from decades of geological work. "We're not entering a blind frontier," Price said. "Legacy exploration and seismic programs have already identified more than 50 distinct drilling targets." Geologically, the basin shares characteristics with prolific North Sea petroleum systems and has shown natural oil and gas seepage a sign of an active petroleum system. We're Not Drilling For $60 Oil For Price, the timing of Arctic exploration reflects a longer-term view of the energy market. "We aren't drilling to chase today's $60 oil prices," he said. "We're drilling to secure the massive volume the world will desperately need in the years ahead as current capacity declines." ON March 13, 1807 a notice in the Limerick Chronicle informed the public that Miss Linwoods Gallery of Pictures, in Needlework would be exhibited at G. Blacks large house on Brunswick Place (Sarsfield Street), next to Swinburnes Hotel. The notice included details of the entrance fee which stood at 2s and 2d for general admittance and 5s and 5d for perpetual tickets. The gallery was open from 10.00am until one hour before dusk. Highlights on display included a picture of Lady Jane Grey which measured 9 feet by 7 the figures are as large as life. Other subjects included Napoleon Bonaparte, thought to have been created from real life, and Sir Thomas Gainsboroughs The Shepherds Boy. In addition to the main exhibition, Miss Linwood also advertised a promenade and ball to take place on Thursday 23rd of April in which the room will be splendidly illuminated the promenade commencing at 8.00pm. A promenade and ball referred to a formal social evening that combined public display, polite walking, music and dancing and was usually aimed at the upper echelons of society. READ MORE: Limerick poet Desmond OGrady - rooted in Ireland, nourished by the world A native of Birmingham, Mary Linwood (1755-1845) was a pioneering needlewoman, famous for her detailed copies needle paintings of contemporary oil paintings by artists including Gainsborough and Reynolds. Linwood, who took up to ten years to create her embroidered masterpieces, toured her creations across London, Edinburgh, Moscow, Paris, Dublin, and Limerick. She lived in Leicester where she produced all her work. She opened a gallery in Leicester Square, London in 1809, the first woman to own a gallery in the city. The gallery remained open until 1845 and attracted a well-heeled clientele. On the occasion of the centenary of her death, the director of the Leicester City Museum and Art Gallery stated that her name was known in Russia, France and all over Europe, the Royal Family had her pictures in Windsor Castle; Napoleon asked for her presence; the Empress of Russia wished to purchase all her works for the sum of 40,000. By day, Linwood was the mistress of a boarding school in Leicester which had been founded by her mother in 1766, while at night she laboured long hours to create her tapestries. In all, she created over 60 needlework pictures based on the works of the great masters of painting. While some artists struggle in their lifetimes to sell pictures; Linwood refused to accept money for her creations. It was widely reported that she refused an astounding three thousand guineas for her most famous work, Carlo Dolcis Salvator Mundi instead she bequeathed it to Queen Victoria. It has remained part of the art collection of Windsor Castle ever since. Mary Linwood died 2nd March 1845 at her residence, Belgrave Gate, Leicester. She had taken ill some weeks earlier while taking her annual visit to the exhibition of her needlework in London. Her estate was valued at over 10,000. Linwoods works were displayed in London for over forty years. Her death was widely reported including in Limerick newspapers. Linwoods travelling exhibition suggests that cultural events were very much part of Georgian Limerick from its nascent days. While Mary Linwoods artistic creations were exhibited in a private house, the success of the initiative must have inspired Anthony Swinburne who operated the Limerick Hotel next door. Over the course of the next few decades, the Swinburnes hosted travelling libraries, artists and musicians in their large ballroom on Sarsfield Street, one of the original Georgian avenues in Limerick. READ MORE: The Limerick born detective turned notorious highwayman of the 19th century Another internationally famous artist, Limericks Catherine Hayes (1818-1861) also performed at Swinburnes Hotel in 1840. The full story of Hayes recitals at Swinburnes along with an account of the performances of Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in the same venue will be discussed at the lecture below: Members of the public are invited to Mary Immaculate College on Wednesday 25 March 2026 at 7.30pm in Room T.118 for a highly illustrated lecture about the history of Sarsfield Street by Paul O'Brien. Come along and meet new and old friends while we share stories and reminisce about Sarsfield Street. Free event. No booking required. Dr Paul OBrien, assistant professor in Pedagogy of History, Faculty of Education, Mary Immaculate College UISCE Eireann are holding a community engagement clinic on Thursday, March 19, in Castleconnell, for people to meet with a dedicated community liaison officer. There will be various clinics in Limerick, Clare, Offaly, Kildare and Tipperary, all related to the water supply in the easter and midland regions. The meeting in Castleconnell will be on in the ACM community centre (V94FA0D) between 11am and 1pm. According to Uisce Eireann, a water supply project for the Eastern and Midlands regions would supply water for the needs of 50% of the population. It would bring treated water from the Parteen Basic to Peamount in Dublin with the capacity for offtakes along the route in Tipperary, Offaly and Westmeath. READ ALSO: First new acute hospital in Ireland in almost 20 years is officially opened in Limerick The water supply has been approved in principle by the Government and a planning application has been submitted. At the meetings, people will get to ask questions and address any potential concerns. There will be another meeting on April 16 between 5pm and 7pm for those in the Ballina Killaloe areas, it will be held in the family resource centre (V94W7X6). For more information see www.water.ie/watersupplyproject. Anyone who wants to meet with the Uisce Eireann community liaison officer outside of these clinics can email watersupply@water.ie Illegal hare lurching, which is rife at this time of year, continues to take a huge toll on wildlife and on many people living in rural communities across Limerick and beyond. The activity, which has been described in court by gardai as a "season scourge" sees groups of people (usually men) enter onto lands, without the permission of the landowner, with lurcher type dogs in a bid to find and kill the Irish hare. This is a crime and is punishable under the Wildlife Act. Regional Manager of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) for Limerick/North Tipperary, Dr Aine Lynch, says she gets excited when she comes across a hare out in the open now. Given the fact the protected species has been under attack for years, she says it is a rare occurrence to see them in their natural habitat. Greyhound dogs mixed with a terrier-breed are typically used in this illegal hunting activity. Their owners search for a hare, walk towards it and when the hare is frightened, a dog or dogs are set after it. The dogs are not muzzled and the purpose is to kill the hare. Usually taking place in the daytime, Dr Lynch, who has been working in this are since 2007, disclosed that the people who partake in this crime see it as a competition. Dogs that kill more hares, the owner gets more kudos. That dog is more valuable. There would be gambling involved in this activity as well too. They'd be betting on which dog will kill the most hares and if they rise a hare and kill the hare, they usually say, one up, one down and that gives credence to that dog, she said. The illegal lurching of hares has always been a quick and decisive crime. Unfortunately, this has now ramped up due to the rise in popularity (and availability) of thermal imagers. Such devices, which retail for about 3,000, locate exactly where an animal is sitting in a field, making it quicker than ever for a lurcher to pounce. READ NEXT: Major boost for Limerick village as lease is approved for new 'community facility' Historically, individuals involved in this activity would have walked across fields searching for hares. However, with thermal imagers now on the market, this allows people to search from gates or gaps without trespassing on lands until they identify and locate a hare. Those involved can then get very close to the animal before releasing the dog. This takes away the advantage from the hare, which uses the element of surprise to put distance between it and the dog. According to the NPWS, since the introduction of these devices, hares have a very little chance of getting away as the thermal imagers are very effective. It's not illegal to have one. They are used legitimately when it comes to monitoring wildlife and for surveying wildlife and all of those other great advantages for having this kind of technology at our disposal but in the wrong hands for the wrong reasons, they're absolutely devastating and have a devastating outcome for the animals involved, said Dr Lynch. Thermal imaging devices are now widely available Unsurprisingly, a huge amount of planning and organisation goes into this wildlife crime. Oftentimes, individuals are travelling considerable distances to carry out this activity. It is not unusual for people from one county to hunt in another. According to Dr Lynch, some of those who partake in illegal lurching could be considered poly criminals, meaning they may well have a history of being involved in other areas of criminality such as theft, burglary, drugs, violence and domestic violence. Citing statistics gathered by the National Wildlife Crime Unit in the UK, where illegal lurching is also an issue, those who conduct this crime tend to have prior offences across many categories. The illegal hunting of hares using lurchers is a widespread issue and usually occurs from September until the end of March. This is most popular time for the activity to take place. The NPWS receive reports regarding the crime throughout the year from many counties, including Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Offaly, Tipperary, Kildare, Louth, Wexford, Carlow, Waterford and Donegal. Pictured is the Regional Manager of National Parks and Wildlife Service for Limerick/North Tipperary, Dr Aine Lynch In many cases, repeat offenders are identified as well as the next generation. For example, in certain instances, the NPWS has encountered sons or grandsons of individuals who were on their radar years ago. In order to tackle this wildlife crime, the NPWS regularly conducts multiagency checkpoints and successful joint operations with An Garda Siochana and other bodies, such as the ISPCA, across the country. There is a joint protocol between An Garda Siochana, who are very proactive in dealing with illegal lurching and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The organisation also liaises with local coursing clubs, hunting groups and gun clubs in a bid to tackle this ongoing issue. NPWS staff attend public meetings across the country and they also carry out regular patrols to detect, disrupt and deter this wildlife crime. As more and more landowners are now alert to the issue, an increasing number of prosecutions are coming before the courts arising from complaints. It's not just a wildlife crime, it's a crime. It may lead to other crimes. People feel violated by people entering onto their lands who they don't know and oftentimes, if they challenge these individuals, they'll be met with verbal aggression and, in some cases, physical aggression. We've all read about those very unfortunate cases where farmers have been attacked by these individuals when they've asked them to leave their land or told them that they can't do what they're doing, Dr Lynch commented. In recent months, several courts have heard how gardai identified offenders who had travelled from outside of their home counties to engage in illegal hunting - often in large groups. The garda advice to landowners, who are often elderly and vulnerable, is to contact them as soon as they are alerted to intruders on their lands and to never confront those involved. Those on the ground who are tasked with enforcing the legislation would like to see tougher penalties apply, tougher sanctions apply. Currently, those charged with illegal lurching in Irish Courts typically receive a Class A fine, however, there are certain offences under the Wildlife Act that do carry a custodial sentence. If you are convicted of offences under this Act, they are criminal convictions that do stay on your record. In one recent prosecution in County Limerick a judge banned a young man from entering the village where the offence occurred while in another case, it was noted that disqualifications can be imposed on those who allow their vehicles to be used by anybody engaging in criminal behaviour, including trespassing on lands. The Wildlife Act is currently undergoing a review, which, in addition to hopefully strengthening the protections already in place for wildlife, will also seek to review and strengthen the penalties for those who engage in wildlife crime. Those who have interests or concerns about Irelands natural heritage are encouraged to give their opinion on the review of the legislation here. A large crowd attended a public meeting in Tipperary earlier this year Other species are also hunted illegally using dogs. When deer are illegally hunted, a slightly larger lurcher-type dog may be used. As well as thermal imagers, individuals tend to use lamps to dazzle and confuse the animal before the attack takes place. The dog will often go for the throat of the deer and hang out of it, making it a very slow and painful death, with Dr Lynch saying: Licensed deer hunting in Ireland is where people use a rifle and its quick and its humane, whereas this is just disgusting. Badger digging and baiting is another widespread issue that the NPWS deals with on a regular basis. Typically in this practice, individuals use a mixture of Terriers and lurcher-type bullhound dogs. They send a terrier underground and use the dog below to locate where the badgers are. They then dig with shovels and use the dog to pull the badger out. In some instances, they'll set the bigger dog on that badger right there and in other instances, they may take the badger away and use it for baiting at a premises with other dogs. Essentially, it's dogfighting, said Dr Lynch. Illegal lurching can cause local extinctions, particularly of hares, since the use of thermal imagers has become so widespread. While there are other reasons that contribute to the loss of this species, if the number of hares in a locality have been reduced by these other elements, it's very easy then when these guys (hunters) come in to just wipe out what's left. Illegal lurching of hares is unfortunately a criminal activity that has always been there much like the illegal hunting of badgers and deer. Its an activity that causes a lot of hurt and distress to landowners because it's a violation of their space, the act itself is also very cruel. It is a crime because the Irish hare is protected by law and its illegal to hunt it in this manner, Dr Lynch stated. It is also illegal to enter onto land for the purpose of hunting any wildlife, including rabbits and foxes, unless you have the permission of the landowner. If you see or suspect illegal lurching or any wildlife crime taking place, please report it. All reports are welcome, taken seriously and treated in confidence. Reports would ideally include the location, type of activity, numbers of individuals involved and the registrations of any vehicles associated with the activity. Such information should only be gathered if safe to do so. Wildlife crimes can be reported to the National Parks and Wildlife Service via your local Conservation Ranger, to WildlifeEnforcement@npws.gov.ie or to An Garda Siochana via the 999 emergency number. ENTRIES are now open for a journalism award established by University of Limerick, in association with The Irish Times, in memory of Joe Drennan, the UL journalism student killed tragically in 2023. Unheard Voices: The Joe Drennan Memorial Prize for Inclusive Journalism will celebrate journalism that advances social justice and enhances understanding of marginalised communities and values. Open to students in third-level institutions studying for all courses - not just journalism degrees - throughout the island of Ireland, the Drennan Prize will honour Joes legacy and encourage emerging journalists to amplify underrepresented voices. A native of Mountrath, Co Laois, Joe was a final year journalism student in UL when he was killed just two weeks after his 21st birthday. He was standing at a bus-stop on his way home from working in a restaurant in Limerick when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. READ MORE: University of Limerick research finds relationships with practitioners can reduce youth offending Joes passion was to build a journalism career grounded in inclusivity and social justice, said Dr Kathryn Hayes, Associate Professor in Journalism and Digital Communication at UL. We are proud that this prize established by the journalism department in UL honours Joes legacy, particularly his dedication to journalism that speaks for often-unheard voices. Opening it up to students across Ireland ensures that Joes values will inspire a new generation of journalists nationally. The editor of The Irish Times, Ruadhan Mac Cormaic said: The Joe Drennan prize is a fitting way to memorialise a promising young journalist who was just starting out in our trade. It will create an invaluable opportunity for an emerging reporter to do work of real depth on a subject that matters. Entrants are required to submit a 1,500-word article, along with images and video. The winning entry will be published in the Irish Times. Entries can be submitted to Kathryn.hayes@ul.ie, and the closing date is May 31. A MAJOR programme hosted by Mary Immaculate College and aimed at tackling misinformation and disinformation in the media across the world has reached its conclusion. Mary Immaculate College joined nine other third-level colleges across Europe for MeDeMap, short for Mapping Media for Democracy. It was a three-year European research project funded through the European Unions (EU) Horizon programme. It set out to identify future-proof pathways to strengthen democracy by improving accountability, transparency and effectiveness in media production, while expanding active and inclusive citizenship. READ MORE: Young man disqualified after performing illegal U-turn in front of Limerick gardai The central focus of the research examined what people make of their media and how they use it in their everyday lives. Focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted across Europe provided a wealth of insight in how audiences engage with news and what they believe needs to change in order to better support democratic life. Mary Immaculate College flew the flag for Ireland, and its research was led by Dr Rosemary Day, head of media and communication studies. She was joined by researchers Jude McInerney and media studies lecturer Kathy Cush. At the heart of the colleges research was the convening of a citizens parliament on media and democracy. Twenty local people selected from 60 applicants met across four sessions last spring. Here, they deliberated how media can better serve democracy. Their discussions explored the organisation of the Irish media landscape, the role of content in supporting democratic values and ways to enhance citizen participation in and through the media. Some 22 resolutions came from that parliament, which were then presented to Limericks local authority, the Oireachtas, and members of the European Parliament and Commission in Brussels. Recommendations included introducing media literacy and strengthening protections for journalists. (Bloomberg) -- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened broadcasters with cancellation of their licenses if they did not correct course on news coverage. Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions also known as the fake news have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up, Carr said in a social media post Saturday. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not. Carr posted his warning on top of a post from President Donald Trump complaining about coverage of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also criticized news outlets for war coverage that he said makes the president look bad. Its Carrs latest threat against television broadcasters after Trump has expressed displeasure with coverage, or with a particular reporter or late-night talk-show host. Trump has suggested that networks should lose their broadcast license due to unfair coverage. Such licenses dont apply to cable, streaming or print outlets. The FCC didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Even before Trump began his second term, he urged the FCC to impose the maximum fines and punishment on CBS for alleged unlawful and illegal behavior when it edited a 60 Minutes interview with 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. In September, Carr suggested that local stations risked their broadcast licenses for airing ABCs Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the late-night host accused Trump supporters of using conservative activist Charlie Kirks murder to score political points. The FCC doesnt directly license the national networks themselves, and therefore cant bring enforcement actions against them directly. Individual local stations including those owned by the networks and independently owned affiliates do hold FCC licenses and are legally responsible for complying with the agencys rules. Revoking licenses for content the administration doesnt like would be an unprecedented expansion of the FCCs powers and some attempts have been successfully challenged in court. After Carrs remarks on Kimmel, Nexstar Media Group Inc., the largest owner of local TV stations in the US, pulled the show from its 32 ABC stations. Sinclair Inc. also dropped the show from its ABC affiliates. Both companies restored the program to their stations in late September. The FCC launched an equal-time investigation into ABCs daytime talk show The View after it had Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico as a guest in February when he was competing in the primary. CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert said his network said he couldnt air an interview with Talarico out of concern that Carr would consider it a violation of federal fairness rules. Colbert posted the interview on YouTube, where it got more than 9 million views. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Jindal Steel International, the Indian bidder, is seeking clarity on the pension liabilities and retrenchment costs it would inherit with the asset. The company also wants to know how much fiscal support the German government would provide to help fund the transition from blast furnace-based steelmaking to relatively cleaner operations, in line with support extended by other European governments to their domestic steelmakers. However, Thyssenkrupp first wants Jindal to disclose its post-acquisition investment plans for the asset and explain how it intends to finance them, one of the two people said. As companies around the world increasingly integrate artificial intelligence into their daily operations, consulting firm Accenture is making AI proficiency a prerequisite for moving up the career ladder, indicating that those unwilling to adapt may not have a place at the company. In a recent episode of the Rapid Response podcast, Accenture chief Julie Sweet said employees must adopt the company's AI tools to move up its ranks. If you want to get promoted, youve got to do the things that we do in order to operate Accenture, she noted. In September last year, the company unveiled a six-month optimization program with an investment of $865 million. The initiative aims to realign its workforce and operations for rising demand in digital and AI services. Accenture's aggressive AI push The large-scale reskilling effort is part of Accentures three-year, $3 billion plan announced in 2023 to embed AI first across its operations. A key target of the programme is to double the companys AI talent to 80,000 professionals through hiring, acquisitions, and training. The consultancy currently employs more than 770,000 employees worldwide, according to Fortune. These are the new tools to operate a company, she said, adding that the shift did not happen overnight. We didnt go from zero to you wont get promoted in a month. Instead, the transition has unfolded over a three-year period, during which the company focused on familiarising employees with the technology, making sure its user-friendly, and building the right digital workbench. Once all that was ensured, then it said, "Hey, this is Accenture and how we operate." Sweet explains why AI skills are important According to Sweet, integrating AI into the workplace is a natural progression in the evolution of technology at work. The Accenture CEO compared the current push to learn AI tools with the time when computers first became an important part in offices. No one would have said that requiring someone to use a computer is coercion, Sweet said. Its how the companies were going to get work done. Today, AI at Accenture is how we do work. Also Read | FedEx is planning an AI agent workforce She also had an advice for companies. I think were a good lesson in something that Im advising CEOs all about: In order to capture the opportunity with AI, you really have to be willing to rewire your company, Sweet noted. However, she acknowledged that the transition has not been easy at Accenture as well. Employees initially faced hurdles in adapting to the new tools, she said, adding that embracing the shift required changes in both the workforce and the company's traditional ways of doing business. Livemint For about a decade, LivemintNews Desk has been a credible source for authentic and timely news, and well-researched analysis on national news, business, personal finance, corporates, politics and geopolitics. We bring the latest updates on all the listed companies on BSE and NSE, startups, mutual funds, Union ministries, geopolitics, and untapped human interest stories from around the world, helping our readers to stay informed on the latest developments around the globe. Our Coverage Areas 1. Companies: Comprehensive news and analysis on listed and unlisted companies, corporate announcements, corporate chatter, C-suite, business trends, hiring alerts, layoffs, work-life balance, world's top billionaires and richest and more. 2. Personal finance: Insights into mutual funds, small savings schemes like - PPF, SSY, post office savings scheme, stock to watch, personal loans, credit cards, top bank FDs, real estate, income tax and more. 3. Politics: Comprehensive coverage of general elections, state elections and bypolls, Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Parliament, PMO, PIB, finance ministry, home ministry, among other union ministries and government departments. 4. National News: From metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and e to untapped stories from rural India, we cover human interest, health, education, crime and courts, and law and order, among other areas of public interest. 5. 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Jocelyn Felix Fernandes, Senior Content Producer 11. Swastika Das Sharma, Content Producer 12. Mausam Jha, Content Producer 13. Riya R Alex, Trainee Content Producer Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers, according to a Reuters report. However, no date has been set for these cuts, and the magnitude has not been finalised, Reuters was told by sources. Top executives have recently signaled the plans to other senior leaders at Meta and told them to begin planning how to pare back, anonymous sources told Reuters. "This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in response to questions about the plan. Most significant job cut at Meta Meta employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, according to its latest filing. If Meta settles on the 20% figure, this layoff may affect nearly 16,000 employees, making it the most significant job cut at Mark Zuckerberg's company since its restructuring in the "year of efficiency" late 2022 and early 2023. Meta laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs. Focus on generative AI Over the last year, CEO Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team. The company has said it plans to invest $600 billion to build data centres by 2028. Earlier this week, it acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for AI agents. Meta is also spending at least $2 billion to buy a Chinese AI startup Manus. Zuckerberg has alluded to efficiency gains from the investments, saying in January he was starting to see "projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person." Meta's planned AI investments follow a series of setbacks with its Llama 4 models last year, including criticism that it provided misleading results on the benchmarks it used for early versions. It abandoned the release of the largest version of that model, called Behemoth, which had been due out in the summer. Meta's superintelligence team has been working to reassert the company's standing this year by building a new model called Avocado, but the performance of that model has also lagged expectations. Its release has also been pushed to later. AI-led job cuts this year Meta's layoff plans reflect a broader pattern among major US companies, particularly in tech, this year. Executives have pointed to recent improvements in AI systems as one reason for the changes. In January, Amazon confirmed it would cut some 16,000 jobs, amounting to nearly 10% of its workforce. Last month, the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI tools and their growing capability to help companies do more with smaller teams. Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is included among the 15 Best Dividend Leaders to Buy Right Now. Exxon (XOM) Plans Legal Shift to Texas after More than a Century in New Jersey On March 10, The Wall Street Journal reported that Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) plans to move its legal home to Texas from New Jersey. The decision would place the company among a growing group of firms that have chosen to incorporate in the state in search of a more business-friendly environment. Exxon has been incorporated in New Jersey since 1882. The company plans to ask shareholders to vote on a proposal to redomicile in Texas. If the measure is approved, Exxon would follow companies such as Tesla and Coinbase Global that have also chosen to reincorporate in Texas. Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the move is meant to protect the company from shareholder abuse. He was referring to what many companies view as a rise in frivolous shareholder lawsuits filed in certain legal venues. Texas is already our operating home, and we think it makes sense to make it our legal home, Woods said. Exxon, which has a market value of more than $630 billion, moved its headquarters from New York City to Texas in 1989. Woods said the company has not faced any problems with New Jersey. At the same time, he believes Texas has a deeper understanding of the oil and gas industry and a stronger interest in its long-term success. He also said that having more companies domiciled in Texas, across a range of industries, could be beneficial. Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is one of the largest integrated fuels, lubricants, and chemical companies in the world. While we acknowledge the potential of XOM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading into 2026 and 14 Low PE High Dividend Stocks to Buy Right Now Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. Devendra Singh Chaplot, an Indian AI researcher and robotics expert, announced that he is joining SpaceX and xAI to team to build superintelligence. He said he will work directly under Elon Musk. In a viral X post, Chaplot wrote: I'm joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence. Together, SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique, he said. The techie shared that he was excited to advance the fields. Ive obsessed over for years, from robotics research to building AI models on the founding teams of Mistral and TML, Chaplot wrote in his post. Both were extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that shaped how I think about building intelligence from the ground up. Expressing gratitude, Chaplot said, Grateful for everything that brought me here and cant wait to get started. Who is Devendra Singh Chaplot? Devendra Singh Chaplot is an IIT Bombay Computer Science graduate who has a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University. He was a Research Scientist at Mistral AI working on building the next generation of AI models. According to his LinkedIn bio, he has previously worked as a Research Scientist at the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) Lab, working at the intersection of Machine Learning, Computer Vision and Robotics. He has led the design of several AI systems, which won the CVPR-2019 PointNav and CVPR-2020 ObjectNav, NeurIPS-2022 Rearrangement Habitat Challenges and the Visual-Doom AI Competition 2017. Chaplot is a recipient of the Facebook Fellowship Award, and his research has received Best Paper and Best Demo awards at leading AI conferences. He has also worked at Samsung Electronics HQ in South Korea for about a year. His research has also been featured in several popular media outlets such as MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Engadget, Popular Science, Kotaku, and Daily Mail. Also Read | Microsoft AI chief warns AI superintelligence could be too powerful to control Elon Musk welcomes Devendra Chaplot xAI boss Elon Musk shared Devendra Chaplot's post and welcomed him to the team. Welcome to @xAI! wrote Musk. Also Read | xAI hiring reset: Musk apologises to AI talent overlooked during early hiring On Friday, Musk apologised for xAI's past hiring misses and announced a review of interview records to re-engage overlooked candidates, signalling a talent-focused reset amid the company's foundational rebuild. Washington [US], March 14 (ANI): Actor Adrian Grenier has shared his "disappointment" over not being part of the upcoming sequel to the hit film 'The Devil Wears Prada.' The actor who played Nate, Andy Hathaway's boyfriend in the 2006 film, recently spoke about the situation, saying he did not receive a call to return for the sequel. The sequel, titled 'The Devil Wears Prada 2,' has already created excitement among fans of the original film. Several actors from the first film are back for the second instalment, including Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton, and Stanley Tucci as Nigel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Grenier, while speaking to Page Six, said that although he is happy that the film is returning, he was sad that he was not asked to be part of it. "We're all fans of the movie, whether or not we were in it," Grenier said. "Obviously, it was a disappointment that I didn't get the call to be in the sequel. But I also understand there was some backlash with Nate, the character, so that might have something to do with it." For many years, fans of the film have shared their views about Nate on social media. Some viewers felt that the character did not support Andy enough as she struggled with the pressures of her demanding job. When Grenier was asked if he truly believed that the 'backlash' from fans could be the reason why his character is not returning, the actor responded with a laugh. "As opposed to what?" he said. "Either way, it's a disappointment, and either way, it leaves room for a beautiful spinoff in which Nate has his own film," he added. The first instalment, which hit theatres in 2006, was based on Lauren Weisberger's best-selling novel. The story follows a young journalist, Andy, who gets a job as an assistant to the powerful fashion editor Miranda Priestly. LPG shortage: The ongoing LPG cylinder crisis has made its way into the film sets, affecting the production houses in the film industry. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East, involving the US-Israel and Iran, has led to fuel supply disruptions after Iran reportedly blocked the Strait of Hormuz. LPG crisis hits film industry Amid this, the Kerala Film Producers Association (KFPA) said that as many as 18 Malayalam film shoots are at risk due to the LPG cylinder shortage. The president of the film body, B. Rakesh, said that the crew members are struggling to prepare meals for hundreds who work daily on the film sets. Rakesh told The Hindu, We have stock that may last for about two more days. If the shortage continues beyond that, it will become extremely difficult for us to continue shooting. Also Read | LPG cylinder price today: Check latest rates in your city on 13 March Malayalam films at risk He added that the situation can collectively cause a loss of about 5 crore, halting the film shoots. The total loss estimated for the producers of the 18 movies is around 5 crore, once we are forced to cancel the shooting in view of the crisis. It is not easy to re-organise the entire crew and other logistics, once we have to break the shooting process midway. Dixon Poduthas, production controller, told the portal that the cylinder stock is expected to last for two more days for most contractors. We have stock for two days more. But the situation will turn difficult if the situation persists," added the president of the KFPA Around 100-250 people are served food on a film location, depending on the scale of the project. Reportedly, cooking on the sets begins around 3 AM, ensuring breakfast is ready by 7:30 am. Film sets use firewoods to cook meals For now, crew members have turned to firewood to ensure food supply. "The people supplying food have informed us that they are managing the gaps with firewood. Many of them already have the facilities to make the food using wood-based stoves, informed Poduthas. Also Read | LPG Shortage News Today LIVE: Hyderabad hotels forced to cook on firewood According to a report by the Indian Express, besides Malayalam, other film industries have also been affected by the LPG shortage in the region. Reportedly, a Hindi film, which was being shot in Thiruvananthapuram and a Tamil film in Edakochi have been struggling to procure LPG cylinders to continue their respective schedules. If it persists, the situation is likely to impact even more films. For the unversed, India produces more than 2,000 films every year across languages, reportedly. The turmoil is a blow to the shipping industry, which was just beginning to regain confidence to send cargo between Europe and Asia via the Red Seaa separate route rendered off-limits for two years because of attacks on ships by Yemens Houthi rebels. Companies instead will have to keep relying on the longer, costlier voyage around Africa. We consider the loosening of sanctions, for whatever reason, to be wrong, Merz told reporters Friday. The tone was a shift for Merz, who has been one of Europes more conciliatory leaders toward Trump and initially expressed some support for the attack on Iran. That has changed as Moscow has emerged as a clear beneficiary of the war. Why did Trump order an attack on Kharg Island? The depot is the beating heart of the Iranian oil industry, storing and loading most of its crude oil exports. Iran has continued loading from Kharg even as it impedes transit through the Strait of Hormuz for other exporters. Trump indicated that he is targeting Kharg to force the Iranians to loosen their grip on the Strait of Hormuz. 3. High-growth industry According to Mordor Intelligence, the Indian wire and cable market is expected to grow at around 9% CAGR from 2026 to 2031. The market size is projected to increase from about $21.2 billion in 2025 to $35.6 billion by 2031. Stocks to buy under 200: The Indian stock market witnessed a sharp and volatile decline in the week ending March 13, 2026, largely due to escalating geopolitical tensions in West Asia (USIran war), a surge in crude oil prices, continued FII outflows, and a weakening rupee hitting record lows. Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty 50 recorded significant weekly losses, with Nifty falling around 45% to close near 23,15023,200, while the Sensex dropped about 1,470 points (-1.93%) to around 74,564 after a particularly brutal Friday session. The broader markets underperformed, with midcap and smallcap indices declining by nearly 2.53%, while sectors like Auto, Metals, PSU Banks, and Private Banks were among the worst hit amid rising oil prices and risk-off sentiment. Market volatility surged, with India VIX spiking sharply, making it one of the most turbulent weeks in recent times for Indian equities. Outlook for the Indian stock market Mehul Kothari, Deputy Vice President Technical Research at Anand Rathi, believes that despite the recent stock market crash, the broader market structure remains intact, suggesting the current move could be part of a corrective phase rather than a structural breakdown. Speaking on the outlook for the Nifty 50 index, Mehul Kothari of Anand Rathi said the index is approaching the gap zone near 22,900, which formed in April 2025 during the earlier phase of the rally. Interestingly, the index has now retraced nearly 61.8% of the entire rally from the low of 21,743 to the recent high of 26,373, bringing it close to an important technical support area. Despite the recent sharp decline, the broader market structure remains intact, suggesting the current move could be part of a corrective phase rather than a structural breakdown. Mehul Kothari, Deputy Vice President at Anand Rathi A decisive move below 22,900 could open the doors for the 22,800 21,800 zone, which may remain volatile and confusing for traders due to the absence of strong intermediate supports. On the upside, the immediate hurdle stands near 23,500, which also coincides with Fridays high, and a sustained move above this level would be required for the index to regain short-term stability, Mehul Kothari said. Advising investors to remain cautious amid developments around the US-Iran war, Mehul Kothar of Anand Rathi said traders should avoid aggressive new positions and focus more on risk management and hedging existing exposure. A sustained move above 23,500 may help restore confidence, while holding above the 22,900 support zone would be crucial for maintaining the broader structure. On the outlook of the Bank Nifty index, the Anand Rathi expert said, We had been maintaining a cautious stance on Bank Nifty, primarily due to the rising trendline resistance visible on the longer-term charts. Kothari said that 53,500 remains a crucial level to watch. A decisive move below this level could open the room towards the 52,000 zone, as there are limited immediate supports in between. On the upside, a recovery above 54,700 would be important for Bank Nifty to regain short-term strength and stabilise after the recent sharp correction. Mehul Kothari's stock recommendations today Regarding short-term stock picks, Mehul Kothari of Anand Rathi recommended these three shares: Shree Renuka Sugars, Suzlon Energy, and Adani Power. 1] Shree Renuka Sugars: Buy at 24, Target 27, Stop Loss 22.50; 2] Suzlon Energy: Buy at 41 to 40, Target 46, Stop Loss 38; and 3] Adani Power: Buy at 145, Target 160, Stop Loss 137.50. At the moment, U.S. residents arent able to access Hyperliquid, and the exchanges oil-futures trades still account for less than a drop in the barrel. In the global commodities markets, millions of energy contracts have changed hands daily since the war with Iran unfolded. But the crypto exchanges oil perps, listed for the first time in January, offer a glimpse of a future where traditional and digital finance convergeand all forms of assets can be traded at any moment. The factor that most threatened the owner-operator model was the integral to the business test. If a motor carriers core business is moving freight which it is then the truck driver hauling that freight is performing work that is integral to the carriers operations. Under the Biden framework, that factor carried equal weight to everything else in the analysis. Combined with a long-term hauling relationship and a carrier providing the freight, a lawyer hostile to the independent contractor model could construct a reasonable argument that the driver was economically dependent on the carrier and therefore should be classified as an employee. That sounds reasonable in the abstract. In practice, it created a specific problem for trucking that the ATA described bluntly as opaque and deliberately confusing. Here is why. The 2024 Biden rule, which took effect in March of that year, established what the Department of Labor called a totality of the circumstances analysis for determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act . It laid out six economic reality factors control over work, opportunity for profit or loss, the workers investment in equipment, the permanence of the relationship, how integral the work is to the hiring companys business, and the workers skill and initiative. The critical detail: under the Biden rule, no single factor carried more weight than any other. All six had to be considered together, with no hierarchy among them. To understand what the Trump administration is unwinding, you need to understand what the Biden rule actually changed and why it generated so much concern in trucking specifically. Each time this pendulum swings, the trucking industry produces a wave of celebration or alarm depending on which direction it moved. The industrys reaction to this latest move has been heavily celebratory and not without reason. But if you are running a small fleet or operating as an owner-operator, the celebration needs to come with a clear-eyed understanding of what this rule change actually does, what it does not do, and where the real risk to your business model still sits. Three times in five years. That is how many times the federal standard governing whether an owner-operator is legally classified as an independent contractor or an employee has fundamentally shifted under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The 2021 Trump rule. The 2024 Biden rule. And now, on February 27, 2026, the Department of Labors formal proposal to rescind the 2024 rule and return to something close to the 2021 framework. Story Continues That argument, if it had been litigated at scale, would have forced a fundamental restructuring of the owner-operator relationship across the trucking industry. Carriers would have faced the choice of either absorbing owner-operators as employees with the associated costs of payroll taxes, benefits, workers compensation, overtime, and minimum wage obligations that can run up to 30% more per worker than contractor relationships or terminating those relationships entirely to avoid the legal risk. For small carriers and owner-operators who have structured their businesses and their finances around the 1099 model for years or decades, either outcome would have been operationally and economically devastating. The anticipated flood of reclassification lawsuits never materialized under the Biden rule, primarily because the DOL signaled early in the current administration that it was reconsidering the rule and would not enforce it. But the legal risk it created was real, and the uncertainty it generated was real. Contracts went unsigned. Relationships that would have been formalized were kept informal. Carriers that might have expanded their owner-operator rosters held back. What the New Proposed Rule Does The Trump DOLs proposed rule does two things. First, it formally rescinds the 2024 Biden rule, eliminating the six-factor equal-weight framework. Second, it restores something close to the 2021 Trump-era framework, which applied the same economic reality test but with a critical structural difference: it elevated two factors above the rest as core factors that carry the most weight in the analysis. Those two core factors are the degree of control the hiring company exercises over the work, and the workers opportunity for profit or loss based on their own initiative and investment. If those two factors point clearly in the same direction both suggesting independent contractor, or both suggesting employee then the other factors in the analysis are generally not needed. Only if the core factors point in different directions do the remaining considerations come into play. This is a more favorable framework for the owner-operator model for a simple reason: it centers the analysis on entrepreneurial independence rather than functional integration. An owner-operator who owns their own truck, sets their own schedule, manages their own fuel costs, chooses their own loads, and takes on the financial risk and reward of their own business makes their own profit-and-loss decisions. Those are the exact conditions the core factors test is designed to recognize as genuine independent contractor status. The integral to the business consideration the one that threatened to reclassify every owner-operator hauling freight for a carrier as that carriers employee is still present in the new framework but no longer carries equal weight. The DOLs Wage and Hour Division administrator Andrew Rogers described the philosophical shift directly: Generally, if a worker is in business for him or herself and isnt dependent on an employer for work, the worker is an independent contractor. OOIDAs position is worth noting because it is more nuanced than a simple celebration. OOIDA senior director of government affairs Collin Long welcomed the proposal specifically because the new rule corrects a problem in the 2021 version that OOIDA had flagged: an example in the prior rule suggested that motor carriers could require speed limiters and other technology on independent contractors trucks to maintain regulatory compliance. That opening, in OOIDAs view, would have allowed carriers to micromanage their contractors under the guise of compliance requirements undermining the very independence that defines the contractor relationship. The new proposal removes that example. OOIDA called it a win for owner-operators who do not want to be controlled like employees even while being classified as contractors. Three Things Every Small Carrier Needs to Understand Here is where the article needs to slow down, because the celebratory coverage of this rule change has not been doing justice to the complexity of the situation on the ground. First: this is a proposed rule, not a final rule. The Department of Labor published its proposed rescission on February 27. A 60-day public comment period is open through April 28, 2026. After comments are reviewed, the DOL must issue a final rule. That process takes additional months. The 2024 Biden rule technically remains the law of the land during this period, although the DOL has made clear it will not enforce it pending the rulemaking. The practical effect is that enforcement has shifted already, but the legal framework has not been finalized. If you are making business decisions restructuring contracts, adding owner-operators, revising your leasing agreements based on the assumption that this proposed rule is final law, you are operating ahead of the regulatory reality. Comment period closes April 28. Watch for the final rule timeline after that. Second: federal rules do not override state law. This is the part of the coverage that almost never gets adequate attention, and it is the part that matters most to carriers operating in California, New Jersey, Illinois, and several other states with independent contractor laws that are substantially stricter than the federal standard. Californias AB 5 law which has been in effect since 2020 applies an ABC test to worker classification. Under the ABC test, a worker can only be classified as an independent contractor if the hiring entity satisfies all three of the following: the worker is free from the control and direction of the company; the worker performs work outside the usual course of the companys business; and the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade or occupation. The third prong that the worker must be independently established in their own trade is essentially impossible for many trucking relationships to satisfy, because a driver who hauls exclusively or primarily for one carrier does not qualify as independently established under AB 5s framework. Californias AB 5 devastated the dray trucking market at the ports. It has been the subject of years of litigation, a ballot initiative fight, and federal court battles. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge brought by the California Trucking Association that would have preempted AB 5 for trucking specifically. As of today, if you operate in California, AB 5 still governs your owner-operator relationships regardless of what the federal DOL does with its proposed rule. The same principle applies in New Jersey and Illinois, which have their own stricter classification tests that do not yield to the federal economic reality test. The proposed federal rule does not fix California. It does not fix New Jersey. For small carriers whose operations touch those states, the risk profile of the owner-operator model has not changed based on this announcement. Third: the rule governs federal enforcement not private litigation. The Fair Labor Standards Act gives individual workers and class action attorneys the right to sue for misclassification independently of DOL enforcement. The proposed rule governs how the Wage and Hour Division conducts its own investigations and enforcement actions. It does not prevent a plaintiffs attorney from filing a misclassification lawsuit using the same six economic reality factors in federal court because those factors predate both the Biden rule and the Trump rule and have been used by courts for decades regardless of DOL regulatory preference. What the rule does is reduce the likelihood of an aggressive DOL enforcement campaign targeting carrier-contractor relationships. It does not eliminate the civil litigation risk. If you are operating owner-operator relationships that would not survive scrutiny under a rigorous analysis drivers who have no independent business existence, who haul exclusively for you, who use your equipment, who operate under your continuous direction the shift in DOL enforcement posture does not immunize those relationships from a lawsuit. The core question of whether your contractors are genuinely independent is answered by the facts of the relationship, not by which party is in the White House. What This Means If You Are Running an Owner-Operator Model Today The practical implications for small carriers and owner-operators who use the 1099 contractor relationship are real and immediate, with the caveats above applied. The pressure that the Biden rule created around the integral to the business factor has been removed from the federal enforcement framework. Carriers who held off on formalizing or expanding owner-operator relationships because of that risk can now move forward with more confidence at the federal level. The economic reality tests emphasis on the core factors control and profit-or-loss opportunity maps well onto genuine owner-operator relationships where the driver owns their truck, manages their costs, and makes entrepreneurial decisions about their own business. If you are an owner-operator who is leased to a carrier: understand that the new framework protects your contractor status primarily if you are actually operating as an independent business. Own your truck. Hold your own authority or be clearly engaged as a contractor with your own commercial relationships. Make your own business decisions. Document that independence. The protection the rule offers is protection of genuine independence not protection of arrangements that look like employment from the inside and only call themselves contracting on paper. The speed limiter loophole that OOIDA flagged in the 2021 rule has been corrected in this proposal. Carriers who want to use compliance requirements as a mechanism to exert operational control over contractors managing how fast they drive, mandating specific technology, directing their daily operations cannot use regulatory compliance as cover for doing so without risking reclassification of the relationship as employment. The comment period closes April 28. If you have a stake in how this rule is finalized and every small carrier and owner-operator who uses the contractor model does submit a comment. The DOL is required to consider public input before issuing a final rule. Industry voices that explain how the owner-operator model actually works in practice, and why the two-core-factor framework accurately reflects genuine contractor independence, are the comments that carry weight in this rulemaking process. The Context Nobody Is Putting on This Story This rule change is happening in a freight environment where over 350,000 independent owner-operators represent a critical component of trucking capacity and where that capacity is already under pressure from CDL enforcement, diesel price volatility, and a freight market still working through the hangover from a once-in-a-generation boom-and-bust cycle. The independent contractor model in trucking has been under assault from multiple directions simultaneously: from federal classification rules like the Biden rule, from state ABC tests like California AB 5, from misclassification litigation brought by plaintiffs firms, and from the cultural and political argument made with varying degrees of good faith that owner-operators in the trucking industry are not really independent and should be reclassified as employees of the carriers they haul for. The Trump DOLs proposed rule pushes back on one of those vectors at the federal level. It does not resolve the others. California is still California. The plaintiffs bar is still the plaintiffs bar. And the genuine question of whether any given carrier-contractor relationship reflects real entrepreneurial independence or disguised employment is still answered by the facts of that specific relationship not by the regulatory language in Washington. What the rule does do is remove a significant source of regulatory uncertainty that was chilling legitimate owner-operator relationships at a moment when the freight market can ill afford to lose more capacity. For small carriers who structured their business around the owner-operator model and spent two years wondering if a federal enforcement campaign was coming, that uncertainty is gone at the federal level. That matters. Just read all three items above before you restructure anything. The post The Federal Government Just Moved to Restore the Owner-Operator Model Here Is What Actually Changed, What Did Not, and What You Still Need to Watch appeared first on FreightWaves. Over a thousand years ago, one of the largest com plexes of rock-cut caves in the world were carved in the village of Elapura in Maharashtra. Between 600 CE and 1000 CE, highly skilled guilds of sculptors, painters and architects together created Buddhist, Hindu and Jain imagery in these rock-cut temples, including the Kailash in Cave 16, which is the largest monolithic rock excavation in the world dedicated to Shiva. Carved into the Charanandri Hills, Ellora, featuring 34 main caves and spread across 2km, has been studied by scholars from around the world. There has been debate about the overlapping styles of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples, making it difficult to agree upon a specific chronology of their creation. A new book, Ellora: A Cross-Fertilization of Style in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Cave Temples (Mapin Publishing), goes beyond just documentation and chrono logical arrangement of the Unesco World Heritage Site. Rather, it seeks to capture the essence of the complex by investigating the three groups of rock-cut templesBuddhist (Caves 1-12), Hindu (Caves 13-29) and Jain (Caves 30-34) through their iconography, patronage, stylistic influences, economics of monastery life, cultural exchange, and the pro cess of art production. When I began to go through my doctoral thesis anew, it was clear that I could not do justice to this site alone, writes Deepanjana Klein, art historian, special advisor to the chairperson, and director of acquisitions and development, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, in her preface. So, she began to assemble a group of scholars who share the same passion, dedication and scholarship for the site. She has co-edited the book with her husband, Arno Klein, director of innovative technologies at the Child Mind Institute in New York. Ellora doesnt just feature photographic documentation and ground plans, but also rare 19th-century etchings of the caves, including hand-coloured aquatints by Thomas Daniell, watercolours by M.F. Pithawalla, and James Burgesss plans for the Archaeological Survey of India. The book has essays by academics such as Naman Ahuja, Vidya Dehejia, Nicolas Morrissey and Lisa N. Owen. View full Image View full Image Dancing Shiva in tandava, Kailash, Cave 16, Lankeshwar shrine Deepanjanas tryst with Ellora started in 1993 after she graduated from Santiniketan, West Bengal. She was exposed to the site by Prof. Walter Spink, a renowned art historian whose main area of research was the Buddhist caves of Ajanta and Ellora. This remains a subject closest to her heartso much so that Deepanjana named her daughter Ellora. The couple and their child would visit the site year after year, photographing it from every vantage point. As a young art historian, I was interested in the dialogue between architecture and sculpture, more so in cave temples, where you have to design everything ahead of time and there is no room for error, Deepanjana tells Lounge. Say, an artist was sculpting a temple top down and made a mistake, they would have had to abandon the spot. In some areas, the rock might have been unstable, which is why some caves are abandoned. There are so many uncertainties that a sculptor and an architect might have faced in a project such as this one. Its fascinating and quite mind boggling, she adds. The Kleins, for nearly a decade, have been working on an interactive website on Ellora. Together with an assistant, they have geolocated more than 7,000 anno tated images of sculptures, paintings and architectural details on old floor plans. The website (elloracaves.org) allows visitors to navigate the temples by moving the cursor over the floor plans. When I finished my PhD, I was lucky enough to have received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to support my documentation of the Ellora caves. We felt that we had been supported through this journey so generously that we needed to give something back to a community of art historians, students and scholars. So, Arno came up with the idea of the website, says Deepanjana. The idea is that anyone anywhere in the world should be able to see where sculptures stand in the site, and what their relationship with the space is like. Deepanjana hopes to make this an open-source site on Ellora so that scholars can keep adding information and keep the knowledge growing. The book then is an organic extension of the web site project. Also Read | How contemporary archives are telling the history of modern India View full Image View full Image Seated Buddhas, Tin Thal, Cave 12, third floor Ellora is interesting for the context that it offersfor instance, where does the cave complex stand in relation to other rock-cut architecture in India from the same period? Was there a cross-fertilisation of styles and ideas, say between the Bhokardan Tukai Buddhist caves in Jalna district in Maharashtra and Ellora. There are further questions around the role that patronage played in bringing about these stylistic affiliations and the movement of artist guilds from site to site. In the chapter, Power, Prestige and the Greatest Myths at Ellora, Deepanjana cites the work of archaeologist K.V. Soundara rajan regarding Cave 15, a Buddhist cave converted for Hindu use under Rashtrak uta patronage (757-772CE). He argues that artisans from Vijayawada worked at Bhokardan for the Rashtrakutas in the late 7th or 8th century. As evidence, the Seshashayi Vishnu image from Cave 15 is very similar to the one at Bhokardan and may be compared to the very badly damaged one at Pataleshwar in Pune. The same sculptors from the Andhra region may have trav elled to Bhokardan and then Ellora. These sculptors might have reached Ellora in the 7th century and were immediately followed by the Pattadakal masters from the Chalukyan sites in Karnataka, she writes. Looking at Cave 15, for instance, it seems as if these groups worked together. According to Deepanjana, it is important to understand that there was a vibrant ecosystem for artists and sculptors. Most of them were affiliated to guilds, which were not necessarily tied to a religion. Rather, their work was driven by patronage. She points the readers towards stylistic affiliations between Elephanta and the Dhumar Lena cave (Cave 29) at Ellora, which indicates that the two might have been created by the same guild during the reign of the Kalachuris (575-608 CE). Cave 29 is one of the earliest Hindu caves at the site. This was built under the Kalachuris, who were in power then and belonged to one of the oldest Shaivite sects and worshipped Lakulisha. And then came the Rashtrakutas, who were also interested in Shaivism and ended up commissioning the iconic Kailash in Cave 16. Around the time that Kalachuris power was waning, they were hurriedly trying to finish Cave 29. Vidya Dehejia, in her essay, asks what is a complete cave. She explains that for the Kalachuris, completion meant finishing the main shrine, explains Deepanjana. So, even though Cave 29 is not fully complete, the shrine is beautifully finished. In the rest of the caves, some of the panels are not well-carved, some are incomplete. That is because the Kalachuris had to give up on the work due to lack of funding and waning of power. The Rashtrakutas were not interested in Cave 29, they wanted to leave their own signature on the site. So, they ended up building the Kailash, she adds. In another insightful essay, The Buddhist Cult of Images and the Business of Buddhist Monasticism, Nicolas Morrissey questions the concept of intrusive images, traditionally considered as images that did not conform toor even violated or disrupteda preor dained decorative plan for a given cave For example, along the interior of Cave 2 there are dozens of sculpted image panels along the aisle walls and window recesses, which seem not to adhere to an orderly plan. Nicolas offers a very interesting way of looking at the economics of monastic life. How do the monks maintain these beauti fully embellished caves that they live in? They ask donors to pay for an image, say of a standing or a seated Buddha. The images of the donors too make an appearance at the bottom. So, the intrusive images actually speak of the entire business of maintaining the site and keeping the monastery alive, says Deepanjana. Also Read | Saturday Feeling: New archives are telling stories of our daily lives View full Image View full Image Interior stupa with Buddha triad, Vishvakarma, Cave 10 In his essay, Naman Ahuja looks at how architecture, sculpture and literature inspired one another. The guilds referred to the scriptures for guidance on depic tions of myths and legends, and yet some of the artists ended up taking liberties. Cave 21, for instance, is a Shaivite site. However, the overall composition reveals that the artists dedicated the entire cave to Shakti, be it the Lajja Gauri in the front courtyard carved at the base of Nandi, a panel on Parvatis penance, or the scenes featuring the Saptamatrikas. In Cave 14 too, you see two images of devi as Simhavahini and Mahishasura Mar dini. At the southern end of the circum ambulatory path, there is an iconic panel of the Saptamatrika as well. These artistic liberties are fascinating. A corpse lies outside a gas station. Its been under the blazing sun for the past three days. The police have been called, but theyre busy. When they do arrive, its just as Armando Solimoes (Wagner Moura, Narcos) is about to drive off. The cops direct their attention not to the body, but to him. You can trust me, says one officer, in the tone of voice that immediately implies otherwise. They examine his documents, search his car. Its a menacing enough sequence but the eventual reveal that Armando is in hiding, travelling under an aliasand is a target of Brazils dictatorshipretroactively adds another layer of peril to this suffocating scrutiny. I wanted it to be like those James Bond movies, which begin with a sequence that feels like the end of some other story, said writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho of this scene in an interview to A Rabbits Foot. Nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Moura, The Secret Agent draws on the audiences familiarity with spy moviesconsider the films title itselfonly to refashion their tropes. There are forged passports, tapped phone lines, assumed identities and assassination plots. And yet, these arent the imagined intricacies of spy craft, but reflective of a grim reality. Unlike the Bond films, Armando, a former professor, is not in service to his country but under attack from it. He cant envision globe-trotting, only desperately hope to immigrate with his young son, Fernando (Enzo Nunes), if they are to survive. (In the films sweetest subversion, Armando is told someone left him a message. Primed to deal with another furtive telegram, he instead receives a note from Fernando telling him to have a good day.) Set during the late-1970s, The Secret Agent recounts a period of military dictatorship and political violence in Brazil, during which dissidents were tortured, killed and disappeared. Reminders of death are everywhere, from news reports of the mounting death toll at the ongoing Carnival to a body tossed into the sea only to end up inside the stomach of a shark. Armandos wife died of illnessthats how he gently puts it to Fernandobut theres a nagging implication of foul play. Even the films sole stretch of fantasy, in which a severed limb attacks couples on park benches and in parked cars, references a cruel historythe director, who worked in a newsroom in the 1990s, is evoking an urban legend invented by Brazilian journalists two decades earlier to circumvent censorship. Hairy leg attacks reported in newspapers were code for orchestrated instances of police brutality against the countrys queer population. The sequence hasironically and infuriatinglybeen edited out of the films India release. Mendonca Filho, a former film critic, is well aware of cinemas transformative powerits ability to alchemise images and ideas into something that feels real and tangible in the dark of the movie theatre, and maybe even after. In one scene, a woman walks out after a screening of horror movie The Omen (1976), convulsing violently. Armando, on his first visit to the theatre, thinks shes possessed. This is that movie, his father-in-lawthe projectionistexplains. To this end, the director crafts The Secret Agent as not just a movie about movies, but one about the vital importance of cinema itself, particularly as a preservation tool. The film unfolds in his hometown of Recife and frames the act of remembering as crucial, particularly against a state apparatus working everyday to erase people. Its immersive period detailing suggests a meticulous reconstruction of the past so as to immortalise it. Its meandering pace is much like the process of recollection itselfimprecise, non-linear, informed by what we prioritiseand a rebuke to those who would rather the story not be told. Several scenes are staged in the projection booth of Recifes Sao Luiz cinema, a location that recurs in Mendonca Filhos deeply personal, melancholic 2023 documentary Pictures of Ghosts (MUBI), which narrates the origin of his cinephilia and the death of his towns movie palaces. The erasure of history and loss of the collective moviegoing experience permeate The Secret Agents end too, by which time the cinema has been converted into a hospital. Fiction films are the best documentaries, says a character in Pictures of Ghosts, a line that resonates in a film determined to locate a kernel of truth even in its characters personal fictions. The refugee apartment complex Armando finds shelter in once belonged to a young woman. Her aunts official story is that she moved; the grim fact is that she was murdered by her fiance. In having her eventually confide in one of her tenants though, the film seems to be saying that the desire to let the truth be known, to preserve the accuracy of memory, wins out. Other times, the characters seek the anchoring weight of realityArmando searches for his late mothers identity card at the city office, seeking tangible proof that she existed. Similarly, in Walter Salles Im Still Here (2024), which chronicles the same time, the receipt of a death certificate is the unlikely source of happiness for a widow, underscoring the tragedy of shattered families deprived of answers after their loved ones were forcibly disappeared (it won Best International Feature Film at last years Oscars, becoming the first-ever Brazilian-produced film to win an Academy Award). Here, Armandos anxieties are echoed in Fernando, who also worries about one day forgetting what his late mother was like. On the other hand, Brazil as a country is often defined by its desire to forget, said Mendonca Filho in an interview to Time magazine: Its like a self-inflicted amnesia to avoid discussing its unpleasant past. The film then, is his emphatic reminder. Its recurring theme of posterity is rendered more poignant by the flash-forwards, which reveal present-day student researchers looking into historical records of Armando and Elza (Maria Fernanda Candido), the leader of a political resistance movement. Mendonca Filho has namechecked Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) as an influence and its easy to see the parallels. If Steven Spielbergs film is about a connection that persists across a language barrier, characters in The Secret Agent reach out across a temporal one. As Armando and Elza record their conversations, someone in the future cares enough to listen. Earlier in the film, the bureaucrat targeting Armando had tasked hitmen with putting a hole in his mouth, or rendering him mute. Decades on, his voice endures. Its another Spielberg movie that lends the film its most wrenching moment. Fernandobased on Mendonca Filhos own childhood memories of being obsessed with Jaws (1975)fixates on drawing sharks as a child, unaware he and his father are being circled too. The Jaws poster gives him nightmares. Present-day Fernando recounts that the moment his grandfather finally took him to see the film, however, the bad dreams stopped. Having a greying Moura play this older Fernando makes for a startling intrusion of the past into the present, a man who has his fathers face, but tragically, none of the memories they once shared. His anecdote is illuminatingin The Secret Agent, its what you cant confront or remember thats all the more traumatic. In a late gut-punch, we find out Armandos story was officially rewritten to paint a false picture. Even so, the truth makes its way to his son. I told the story out of order, says Armando, voice captured on the recording. In depicting how peoples histories were cruelly revised and contrasting constructed narrative against the real deal, The Secret Agent makes the case for how essential it was for him to have told it anyway. In 1656, a senior courtier of the sultan of Golconda defected to the Mughals. Titled Mir Jumla, this Persian emigre was one of Indias wealthiest, most powerful men: he lent money to English traders on the coast, owned a merchant fleet of his own, controlled the kingdoms diamond mines, possessed an army, and above all, steered the sultans government. It was a phenomenal achievement for an immigrant who had begun life as a shoe-salesman. So phenomenal, in fact, that eventually, the sultan smelled a threat. Salacious gossipfor instance, that Mir Jumla had taken a tumble in bed with the queen-motherdid not help. With things at a risky impasse, the minister chose to flee. But in the process the Persian also carted off to the Mughals a massive diamond, believed by some to be the Kohinoora gem that, less than a century later, another Persian, Nadir Shah, would seize for himself. Indias links to Persiamuch discussed in the context of the ongoing war in Iranare old and fascinating. In the medieval Deccan, for instance, Persianate culture was fashionable, in the same way that American soft power prevails in our time. Local Muslim kings, therefore, actively sought to cultivate it. One Bahmani sultan, for instance, nearly wooed the poet Hafiz to India, while another imported Persian scholars, warriors, architects, artists and other professionals by the shipload. At a certain level, this sparked remarkable interactions. Bijapurs Adil Shahi dynasty, to cite one, was founded by a Persian warrior and his Hindu queen. Equally, however, it resulted in hostilities between local grandees and the foreign-born nobility. Around 1470, a Russian traveller was astonished that the Deccans ruling class seemed overwhelmingly Persian, and the Bahmani state was soon torn up by a sons-of-the-soil-versus-immigrants type of conflict. Interestingly, while the Mughals occupy much imperial real estate in our imagination, the Shah of Persia also had some sway in India. For the Deccan sultanates looked not to Delhi but Isfahan for protection, openly declaring themselves its vassals. This flirtation was strategic: an insurance policy against the Mughals. But faith was a factor too. Many of the Deccans princes were Shia Muslims. Indeed, the rulers of Ahmednagar (descended from a converted Brahmin, funnily enough) routinely sent their bodies to be buried in Persian-held Karbala. In the early 1600s, there was talk of a marriage alliance between Shah Abbas and a Golconda princess (whod have introduced some Telugu blood into the Safavid dynasty had the union materialised), while some decades later begums from that kingdom travelled to pay their respects to Shah Safi. Such advertisements of loyalty to Persia didnt pan out in the end, though, for the Mughals swallowed up the sultanates. Interestingly the emperor who achieved this, Aurangzeb, had an Iranian mother. But Persianate influence was not limited to Muslim courts, even if it was most pronounced in those settings. Architecture in Vijayanagara featured Persian flourishes, for example, and the courts sartorial styles also absorbed foreign inspiration. The conical kullah hat became the kullayi, or in everyday Kannada, kulavi. Murals at Tiruppudaimarudur and Lepakshi depict Hindu lords also sporting a tunic, the kabayian Indianisation of the Persian qaba. To be clear, embracing foreign fashion trends does not suggest a wholesale acceptance of Persianate political ideology or power. Krishnadevaraya, for instance, wore the kullayi. But in his poetry, he also delights at crushing the heads of Persians like melons, and of filling (proverbial) tanks with their blood. It is a little bit like present-day supporters of the Iranian regime. They may wear trousers and shirts, and yet rail against the Westin English. Language, in fact, is another area where Iranian influences left a mark. On the one hand, under the powerful Muslim-ruled empires of the subcontinent, Persian itself became the lingua franca for transregional diplomacy and politicsa lot like the place English holds in our time, with its advantages and exclusions both. As late as the 1820s, therefore, Malayali royals writing to the British in Bengal did so not in their mother-tongue or the colonisers language, but in Persian. Equally, however, just as the legitimacy of English is questioned, Persian too had its critics. In a 14th century Vijayanagara poem, the screeching of owls is preferred to this language. Three-hundred years later, the Maratha hero Shivaji sought to replace overvalued Yavana words with Sanskrit. The projects practical success was limited: later Maratha rulers were known by the Persian title, Peshwa. Why, the surname of the incumbent Maharashtra chief minister (Fadnavis) too has Persian roots. As odd as it may seem to us today, during the early modern period, to quote Arthur Dudney, Indiaeven compared with Iranwas arguably the worlds main centre for the patronage of Persian literature and scholarship. Many took to the language for better employment but there was genuine passion too. One of the great Persian prose stylists and poets of the 17th century, thus, was a man called Chander Bhan, who proudly also flaunted his Brahmin roots. Translation of Sanskrit texts into Persian had their own impact, including in ways that might surprise us now. In the 1860s, for example, Kanhaiyalal Alakhdhari translated 52 Upanishads into Urdu, to popularise among Hindus their textual and philosophical traditions. Except that with Sanskrit sealed off from most, his work was based on the Sirr-i-Akbar, a Persian treatise on the Upanishads, made by a Mughal prince, Dara Shukoh. The decline of Persianand Persianate culturecoincided with the rise of colonialism in the country. People seeking upward mobility now began to prefer English to the old court language, while in dress and other respects too, Anglicisation became attractive. One exemplification of this new trend appears in portraits of a single figure. The Travancore rajah Uthram Tirunal (reigned 1846-60), like several of his ancestors, sat for portraits dressed in Persian robes. But towards the end of his rule, he did something unusual: he asked a durbar painter to depict him in the Englishmans garb, resulting in perhaps among the earliest images of an Indian man in Western attire. His predecessor had already switched Persian with English when corresponding with the British. This transition to the white mans clothes, however, confirmed something more sharply: the advent of a new age, and the passing of another. We obsess over building financial wealth for the future, but rarely talk about the other inheritance that compounds quietly over time: health. India is adding wealth faster than ever. It is also adding chronic disease at an unprecedented rate. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), more than 100 million Indians are living with diabetes, with a comparable number classified as pre-diabetic. NFHS-5 data (from 201921) shows obesity rising across both urban and rural populations. The World Health Organization estimates that over half of Indian adults are insufficiently physically active. The concern has moved beyond medical journals into national discourse, with the prime minister recently highlighting obesity and declining physical activity as urgent national priorities. The urgency is clear at the policy level, the paradox lies at the behavioural level. In the same growth corridors driving economic expansion, industry data suggests that nearly half of those who begin a structured fitness routine disengage within the first three months. But this is not a motivation gap. It is an adherence gap. India does not lack awareness. It lacks systems designed for sustained participation. Here are five principles that can help close this gap and make fitness a consistent habit. Also Read | Can five more minutes of exercise a day help you live longer? 1.DESIGN FITNESS AROUND REAL INDIAN LIVES Most fitness programmes are built for ideal calendars, not Indian ones. In a country where gym penetration is still below 1%, the real challenge is not sign-ups but retention. Dropout rarely happens at enrolment. It happens when routines collide with real life: long working hours, heavy commutes, caregiving responsibilities and unpredictable schedules are the norm. When rigid systems are interrupted, people disengage. Adherence improves when fitness models absorb disruption rather than collapse under it. Remember: Skipping a workout does not end a routine, losing the pathway back does. 2. PRIORITISE CONSISTENCY OVER TRANSFORMATION The Indian fitness industry is addicted to intensity. Six-week challenges and dramatic before-and-after narratives drive sign-ups. They do not drive retention. Behavioural science shows that habits form through repetition, not dramatic effort. Outcomes lag behaviours. Yet transformation culture compresses timelines and inflates expectations. Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular conditions account for nearly two-thirds of deaths in India, according to the WHO. These conditions develop over decades so, expecting reversal in 12 weeks is unrealistic. The people who sustain fitness are not extreme. They are predictable. Three moderate sessions per week over a year outperform sporadic bursts of intensity. Remember: Intensity markets well but it is consistency that works. 3. REDUCE DECISION FATIGUE, INCREASE DIRECTION India has more fitness content than ever. Apps, reels, programmes and devices offer infinite choice but adherence has not kept pace. When someone asks, What should I do today? and the answer is overwhelming, inaction wins. Behavioural economics consistently shows that excessive choice reduces follow-through. The dropout driver is rarely lack of knowledge. It is cognitive overload. Systems that retain users simplify decisions. They make the next step obvious. When direction replaces ambiguity, behaviour stabilises. Remember: People do not need more inspiration. They need fewer decisions. Also Read | 3 great quick gym workouts for when your short on time 4. INTEGRATE FITNESS WITH LIFE, NOT AGAINST IT In Indias fast-urbanising environment, sleep is irregular, stress is high and sedentary work dominates. Yet fitness is still treated as a standalone event: workout here, eat separately, recover when possible. This fragmentation weakens adherence. Energy, nutrition, stress and sleep are interlinked. When these variables are ignored, fitness becomes fragile. When they are integrated, participation stabilises. Sustainable systems treat movement as a normal part of daily structure, not a heroic act. Remember: Fitness fails when it competes with life. It succeeds when it fits inside it. 5. MAKE EFFORT VISIBLE TO MAKE HABITS STICK Another quiet reason Indians quit fitness is invisibility. Without feedback, effort feels abstract. Without visible markers, progress feels uncertain. Simple loggingworkouts, meals, energy patternscreates awareness loops. Not obsessive tracking, but constructive feedback. When effort is acknowledged, continuation becomes easier. Habits form when effort is recognised, not when perfection is demanded. Remember: Consistency becomes its own currency. What gets recorded gets repeated. In fitness, what works looks very different from what dominates marketing. The models that retain people are not louder or more extreme. They are structurally smarter. They reward repetition over intensity. They reduce cognitive load. They integrate with daily routines. They assume disruption and build recovery pathways into the design. This is not about lowering standards. It is about raising the design intelligence of fitness. India does not have a motivation problem. It has a systems problem. And systems CAN BE redesigned. With equities on a steady downward spiral due to a host of factors, including the war in the Middle East, is there any sliver of hope left in the space? While most equity mutual fund (MF) categories have slipped into the red during the short-term and have not generated great returns in the three and five-year timeframe, funds that invest in shares of PSUs (Public Sector Units) have been an exception. MFs, which deploy money exclusively in shares of PSUs, are among the only three equity fund categories that have given positive returns so far in 2026. Incidentally, the category is the best performer among equity funds in the three and five-year horizon offering investors 30.5% and 27.3% (as on March 11) returns on an annualised basis during the timeframe. Category Year-to-date return (%) 1-year return (%) 3-year return (%) 5-year return (%) Equity: Large Cap -7.3 8.3 14.4 11.4 Equity: Mid Cap -6.5 12.9 20 16.7 Equity: ELSS -7.5 7.1 14.8 12.5 Equity: Multi Cap -7 8.8 17.3 14.7 Equity: PSU -0.3 16.2 30.5 27.3 Data as on March 11, 2026 While the best performer among equity PSU MFs surged nearly 29% in the last one year, the worst performer declined by about 5.6% during the period. But there are only a handful of funds (seven to be precise) to choose from in the category. And the portfolios of these funds are heavily stacked in favour of PSU banks and companies engaged in the energy and utilities businesses. Top Performing Equity PSU Funds Fund Name 1-year return (%) Kotak BSE PSU Index Fund 28.9 SBI PSU Direct Plan-Growth 27.8 Invesco India PSU Equity Fund 26.4 Aditya Birla Sun Life PSU Equity Fund 26 ICICI Prudential PSU Equity Fund 20.9 Data as on March 11, 2026 State Bank of India (SBI), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), Bank of Baroda and NTPC are among the top picks of equity MFs investing in PSUs. The scrips of these PSUs have been among the best performers on the bourses. While the SBI scrip has soared by 49.3% in absolute terms during the last one year compared to the 5.7% recorded by NIFTY-50 index, Bank of Baroda surged by 42.8%, BPCL increased by 22.9% and NTPC was up by 17.4%. The strong performance of equity mutual funds investing in PSU stocks has largely been driven by a combination of earnings recovery, valuation re-rating and policy support, said Rajani Tandale, senior vice president, mutual fund, 1 Finance, a personal finance advisory firm. PSU funds delivered strong returns driven by valuation re-rating from historically low levels, with stocks moving from cheap to reasonable valuations, said Swati Jain, CEO, Wealth, Arihant Capital Markets. Also Read | Equity mutual funds inflow rises 8pc to 25,978 crore in Feb With many PSUs having presence in infrastructure-related sectors, the governments increased focus on them has had a positive impact on companies. The allocation for infrastructure spending, as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), has increased from 1.13% in 2019-20 to a projected 3.2% in 2026-27. If the government continues to spend big on infrastructure, PSUs would gain. PSUs saw an uptick in their fortunes in tune with the governments spending on the sector to improve the overall economy, say experts. Over the past few years, PSU banks have significantly improved their balance sheets with a sharp decline in NPAs, while the governments sustained infrastructure and capital expenditure push has supported sectors such as defence, power and energy where many PSUs operate, Tandale said. These funds also benefited from starting at relatively depressed valuations, so the rally reflected both improved fundamentals and a market re-rating of the sector, she said. Also Read | SOA vs demat: How different modes of owning mutual fund works The union governments sustained commitment to infrastructure-led economic growth with increase in capital expenditure to a record 12.2 lakh crore in the budget for 2026.27, alongside the proposed Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund, meaningfully improves project viability, enhances risk-sharing, and will further mobilises long-duration institutional capital, say industry experts. Can the category sustain the momentum? Advisors say that these funds would not be able to match the current performance. Expecting the same pace of returns going forward may not be realistic. From here, performance will depend more on earnings delivery and execution rather than valuation expansion, Tandale said. Power generation companies like NTPC and GAIL, shipping companies like SCI, fertilizer companies like NFL, RCF will face pressure due to higher input costs (due to the Iran-Israel war). This can affect the performance of the overall PSUs in the medium term, Jain said. The structural capex cycle, governance reforms, strong order books will help PSUs in the long term. The future returns from these funds will depend far more on earnings growth and actual execution of government capex plans, she said. How much should investors allocate to thematic funds such as equity MFs investing in PSUs? Investors should also recognise that sectoral or thematic calls, including PSU-focused strategies, are inherently high-risk bets because they involve concentrated exposure to a narrow segment of the market and are often linked to policy cycles, Tandale said. Go for PSU or any thematic funds only if you have a high-risk appetite, lots of patience to endure negative and below-industry average returns for a few years and also have the know-how of when to get in and out of these funds, Jain said. US president Donald Trump's administration has reportedly rejected attempts by US' Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending Israel and US' conflict with Iran, Reuters reported, citing three sources aware of the matter. President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated, Reuters quoted a senior White House official as saying. Earlier, Trump claimed on Truth Social, that Irans leadership and military had been so weakened by USIsraeli strikes that they wanted to negotiate but that it was Too Late! Which nations have tried to mediate talks? Oman, which had mediated talks before the war began, has made several attempts to reopen communication channels, but the White House has indicated it is not interested, according to two sources. A senior White House official confirmed the development and said that Trump is not interested and remains focused on continuing with the mission unabated. He's not interested in that right now, and we're going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there's a day, but not right now, Reuters quoted the official as saying. Egypt, which also played a role in mediation before the conflict began, has similarly tried to revive communication channels, as per three security and diplomatic sources. While those efforts have yet to yield progress, one source reportedly said they have helped secure some military restraint from neighboring countries targeted by Iran. The developments come as Israel-US-Iran's conflict crossed its second week on Saturday, 14 March. Israel-US-Iran conflict Iran launched retaliatory strikes after US and Israel jointly attacked the Islamic Republic on Saturday, 28 February which also killed former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Explosions were reported across Gulf cities including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, among other key West Asian hubs which are also home to US military bases. On Friday, 13 March, Iranian Press TV said a woman had been killed by an airstrike close to a rally in Tehran for Quds Day. Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air defence systems and weapons production sites as per reports by news agencies. Earlier, Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei reportedly vowed to continue the attacks in his first public statement since succeeding his father - Ayatollah Khamenei. He also said that leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz should be used, reported news wire AP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, March 14, launched 18,680 crore connectivity projects in West Bengal ahead of the Assembly elections in the country unveiled connectivity projects worth 18,680 crore in West Bengal on Saturday, and said a new chapter of India's development was being written from the state. Addressing a massive rally afterwards, PM Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, expressing confidence that political change in the state was now inevitable. "Massive crowd at Brigade Parade Ground testimony to what Bengal is thinking today. Change in Bengal is now written on the walls and etched in the hearts of Bengal's people as well. Now, the end of the ruthless government from Bengal is inevitable The Allahabad High Court recently set aside an order issued by the Government of Uttar Pradesh that limited the number of people allowed to offer prayers at a mosque in Sambhal district on law and order grounds, according to ANI. It observed that the Superintendent of Police and the District Collector should either step down or seek a transfer if they consider themselves incapable of maintaining the rule of law. What did the court say? It is the duty of the State to ensure that the rule of law prevails under every circumstance. If the local authorities i.e. Superintendent of Police and Collector feel that the law and order situation could arise because of which they want to limit the number of worshippers within the premises, they should either resign from their post or seek transfer outside Sambhal, the court said after hearing counsels for the parties. Also Read | Delhi HC rules in favour of Maruti Suzuki over Volkswagen trademark dispute A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan noted that it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that members of every community are able to offer prayers peacefully at their designated places of worship. The bench further indicated that if the site in question is a private property, as held earlier by the court, worship can be conducted there without requiring prior permission from the State. Also Read | No records on whether Sambhal Jama Masjid built over ruins or vacant land: ASI The court was hearing a petition filed by Munazir Khan from Sambhal, who alleged that he was stopped from offering prayers during Ramzan at Gata No. 291, where he claimed a mosque is located. "This court has already settled that it is only where prayers or religious functions have to be held on public land or spill over the public property that the involvement of the state is essential and permission must be sought," the court mentioned in its order dated February 27. The state government has contested the petitioners claim over Gata No. 291, stating that revenue records show the land registered in the names of Mohan Singh and Bhooraj Singh, both sons of Sukhi Singh. Authorities had granted permission for only 20 people to offer namaz at the site. However, the petitioner argued that a much larger gathering is expected for prayers since it is the month of Ramzan. Representing the state, counsel submitted that the restriction on the number of worshippers was imposed due to apprehensions regarding the law and order situation. The court has scheduled the matter for next hearing on March 16. Cooking gas prices were hiked across India, pushing up the cost of both domestic and commercial LPG cylinders amid supply disruptions. The crisis has forced some Indian kitchens to ditch certain food items in their menu, while some establishments scramble to look for alternatives of gas. The price of a 14.2 kg domestic cooking gas cylinder was raised by 60 around a week back, while the 19 kg commercial cylinder has become costlier by 144 across major cities and states of the country. The revision comes amid disruptions in LPG supply chains caused by escalating conflict in West Asia involving US, Israel, and Iran. The joint attack by US and Israel on Iran, followed by the Islamic Republic's retaliation have led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which India gets 85-90% of its LPG imports from West Asian nations, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. How the India tackling cooking gas crisis? The Central government on Tuesday invoked the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 aimed at maintaining natural gas supplies amid a shortage of supply in the country due to geopolitical tensions in West Asia. The Act empowers the Centre to regulate or prohibit the production, supply, distribution, trade, and commerce of essential commodities, such as food items, fertilizers, drugs, and fuel. The move is typically used to prevent hoarding, black marketing, and artificial shortages. Meanwhile, India is also procuring additional liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shipments from new suppliers, including the United States, Norway, Canada, and Russia, while continuing to source from available Gulf region exporters, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday, 12 March. Price of domestic and commercial LPG in major Indian cities full list City Domestic rates Commercial rates New Delhi 913 1,884.50 Mumbai 912.50 1,836 Kolkata 939 1,988.50 Chennai 928.50 2,043.50 Hyderabad 965 2,105.50 Lucknow 950.50 2,007 Bengaluru 915.50 1,958 Patna 1,002.50 2,133.50 Restaurants, eateries bear the brunt of the crisis Communities, canteens, hotels and restaurants across the country are facing severe disruption due to LPG supply curbs for uses other than households and the four priority sectors. Some eateries have stopped serving non-vegetarian items such as mutton, as they take longer time to cook and consume more cooking gas. Meanwhile, in cities like Hyderabad, the food establishments are forced to switch to firewood stoves. As a result, langars and Atal canteens have also been forced to cut menu options and come up with contingency plans, while restaurants are also actively changing menus, raising prices and even temporarily shutting down operations to limit the consumption of fuel. Though the price of commercial and domestic cylinders have been increased, it is important to note that the rates of LPG cannisters under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana remain unchanged, PTI reported earlier. LPG Cylinder Shortage News Today: As cooking gas becomes harder to procure, hotels are being forced to switch to firewood stoves and reduce food items in their menus. Meanwhile migrants in Hyderabad are repairing old pump stoves to manage cooking, leading to increased demand at pump stove repair centres. "We work in hotels and are repairing pump stoves only because of the gas shortage. We're using diesel to run these stoves since kerosene isn't available," Sanjay, a migrant labourer from Odisha told ANI. India is in its fifth consecutive day of LPG crisis, with disruptions being reported across major cities of the country, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata, and Chennai. The crisis comes after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, followed by the Islamic Republic's retaliation. The conflict led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway which transports around 85-90% of India's LPG imports from West Asia, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Govt's move to curb hoarding The Central government on Tuesday invoked the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 aimed at maintaining natural gas supplies amid supply shortages in the country due to geopolitical tensions in West Asia. ALSO READ: How the world's fourth-largest economy is tackling cooking gas crisis The Act empowers the Central Government to regulate or prohibit the production, supply, distribution, trade, and commerce of commodities declared as "essential" (such as food items, fertilizers, drugs, and fuel). It is typically used as a move to prevent hoarding, black marketing, and artificial shortages. Earlier, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas also assured that India has sufficient availability of petrol and diesel across the country, while the LPG situation continues to remain a "matter of concern" for the government. Price of cooking gas cylinder hiked The price of a 14.2 kg domestic cooking gas cylinder was raised by 60 last week. Meanwhile a 19 kg commercial cylinder become costlier by 144 across major cities and states of the country. Customers can book LPG refills from home through WhatsApp, SMS/IVRS or their respective OMC mobile apps. A 14.2 kg domestic LPG cylinder costs anywhere between 900-100 in India, depending on the city. Whereas, a 19 kg commercial cylinder costs around 1,800-2,200 in Indian cities. The Oil Ministry on Friday noted that trends showed panic, with LPG booking demand up to 75.7 lakh against an average of 55.7 lakh in the pre-war period. There is no need for panic booking; no dry-out at any LPG dealer, Sharma added. Catch LIVE Updates on LPG Cylinder Shortage in India with Mint This story was originally published on Supply Chain Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Supply Chain Dive newsletter. UPS and FedEx introduced temporary fees for shipments between the U.S. and the Middle East and bumped up their fuel surcharge rates as ripple effects from the Iran war strain logistics networks. UPS announced that a $0.64 per-pound surge fee took effect Sunday for volume traveling from the U.S. to 15 countries in the Middle East, and vice versa. The fee, which remains in effect until further notice, applies to shipments using UPS Worldwide Express or one of five other services. Meanwhile, FedEx started applying a $0.50 per-pound demand surcharge for parcel and freight shipments from the U.S. to dozens of countries in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa earlier this month. A $0.70 per-pound fee applies to shipments from those countries to the U.S. The surcharges are in effect until further notice. FedEx also started applying a $1.50 per-pound surcharge on Monday for parcel and freight shipments traveling from the U.S. to Israel, up from $0.50 per pound previously. UPS and FedEx's new surcharges appear to be a direct response to the war in Iran, oil price concerns and geopolitical risks, David Sullivan, director of professional services at ShipScience, said in a LinkedIn post. Parcel shippers should "expect more price volatility and targeted lane fees tied to the conflict," he added. Both carriers acknowledged the effects of conflict in the Middle East in service alerts on their respective websites. UPS said it is tapping into contingency plans and working to limit the impact on customers. FedEx said it has resumed pickup and delivery services in the region where safe to do so, but noted that affected shipments will experience extended transit times. Extensive air space closures in the Middle East due to the war in Iran are challenging connectivity between the Indian subcontinent and North America and Europe, Flexport said last week. The logistics provider added that the situation has forced carriers to take longer routes and carry heavier fuel loads, straining available air freight capacity. Going forward, shippers should watch for fuel surcharge pricing swings, longer transit times on affected corridors, capacity pressures and potential variations in month-to-month invoices, ShipScience's Sullivan said. FedEx and UPS' weekly fuel surcharge rates are poised to jump further amid climbing diesel prices, and the Strait of Hormuz bordering Iran is a critical oil chokepoint. An Indian expat has sought help for his ailing mother, who has been admitted for 40 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Dubai which has been marred by drones and missiles amid the ongoing IsraelIranUS conflict. The ongoing conflict has disrupted the normal lives of people, with flight cancellations and skyrocketing airfares. The hospitality sector the lifeline of the Gulf nation is among the worst hit as tourists have fled and beach bars, malls and five-star hotels remain eerily empty. Medical emergency after visit Thilakkumar Jalathu Aniruthraraj and his wife, Shaamini Ramesh - who hail from Tamil Nadu - have been residing in Dubai for eight years. Thilakkumar's mother had recently travelled from India to visit her son and daughter-in-law, but she had no idea that the circumstances were not in her favour. She suddenly developed a severe bacterial infection and was admitted to hospital; it has been 40 days since she has been in the ICU. A report by NDTV stated that she will need the ventilator for at least another two months. Mounting hospital expenses As a single mother, Thilakkumars mother endured immense struggles to bring him up. Today, the roles seem reversed as he stands powerless beside her hospital bed, unable to afford the mounting medical expenses. The financial strain is enormous. The hospital charges alone amount to about 3 lakh a day, not including scans or specialised procedures. The total bill has already reached 1.25 crore and continues to rise by nearly 4 lakh daily. Evacuation plans disrupted Desperate to save their mother's life, the couple opted for medical treatment in India, which is more affordable. Doctors gave her the green light to travel on a commercial medical escort flight on March 4, which would have cost 7 lakh. However, the flight was cancelled due to the war. Their only remaining option now is to arrange a private air ambulance. However, due to the ongoing conflict, the cost has shot up nearly sevenfold to around 50 lakh. Also Read | Flight status UAEKuwait: 25 flights cancelled at Hyderabad Airport "We are working-class people; we are not in a position to fund this," Thilakkumar told NDTV. "The biggest burden now is the air ambulance. I need 50 lakh immediately just to get her home." Appeal for help The family must clear the hospital dues at the time of discharge and is hoping the hospital will offer some concession. However, even if a discount is granted, it is unlikely to exceed 10 to 15 lakh. The couple has also reached out to charitable organisations in Dubai for assistance. Shaamini added that even if they manage to arrange the funds, securing a slot for the air ambulance remains a major challenge. "The availability of air ambulances is extremely low due to the current situation," she said. Under the Supreme Courts 2023 verdict on Advanced Medical Directives, there is already a clear legal procedure involving primary and secondary boards for withholding and withdrawing support. "The perceived gap in practice is actually a lack of awareness, as the living will and advanced medical directives are now a legal document, yet it remains underutilized because people are often reluctant to discuss death, said Bhatnagar, who is presently principal director, oncology (looking after onco-anesthesia, onco-critical care, and palliative care) at Max Hospital, Saket. Days into the shortage of commercial LPG cylinders in the country, pan-India restaurants have adapted multiple ways to stay afloat. Talking to Live Mint, Wow Momo founder Sagar Daryani predicted price hikes, restaurant shutdowns and even job losses if the situation persists. Job loss and shut downs of restaurants You will see a lot of mortality rate in the food business industry. There will be job losses happening if this goes on, he warned. Daryani, who is the president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), said more than 100 restaurants have been shut in Bengaluru. Seeking relief from the government, he told us, There are a lot of people who depend on the restaurant. These are mostly people from urban cities, bachelors or even those who live in hostels and paying guest accommodations. Hence, restaurants must fall under essential services. The ongoing crisis erupted from the severe disruption to key import routes, including the very crucial the Strait of Hormuz, due to ongoing war in the Middle East. With India relying on imports for more than 60% of its LPG, shipping bottlenecks due to the conflict have led to supply shortages, priortising domestic over commercial use. Affecting all eateries across India, especially metro cities, Daryani shared what he is ensuring for his venture. Alternative to LPG cooking Revealing how his Wow Momo and Wow China franchise is coping up with the situation, Daryan said, We have resorted to alternative energy. However, converting to electric cooking isn't easy. 50 per cent of our restaurants have worked on electricity since the beginning. However, the rest use LPG. We will now convert to induction cooking or an electronic fryer. In a lot of locations, we might not have adequate load to use electricity. We are trying to recreate a few dishes using a microwave," he added. Ankit Gupta, co-founder of the popular pan-India restaurant Burma Burma, shared that they are reimagining and focusing on the selection of salads and desserts, which are already crowd-pleasers. Now, best-sellers like Khao Suey and Samosa soup are being made on induction. We have a mix of PNG (Piped Natural Gas) and LPG across our outlets in India. There are 5 restaurants, I think, where we use LPG. We are identifying alternate ways. The stock is sufficient for now, Gupta said. Revamped food menu Down South, the award-winning restaurant, Kappa Chakka Kandhari shifted to electric induction stoves and other equipment like steamers, fryers and wood fire stoves. Chef Regi Mathew revealed, We have cut short our regular menu to 50% and have temporarily stopped offering our tasting menus. The branches of the eatery in Bengaluru and Chennai now only offer a limited a la carte menu. Price hike debate among restaurateurs Amid the search for alternative fuel, restaurants predict a temporary price hike. While a premium spot like Kappa Chakka Kandhari confirmed to maintain the prices, a budget-friendly brand like Wow Momo might increase the food price as a last resort. We don't want to profit from this. However, our cost will go up because of electricity. We have to cover the cost, but we haven't thought about it, clarified Daryani. Also Read | Govt concedes LPG supply an issue, nudges city dwellers to opt for piped gas On the other hand, Burma Burma which falls under the mid-to-high-end category, might consider a price change if fuel costs shoot up amid the war. A social media post detailing the experience of living in Indias technology hub has caught the attention of people on the internet, with several left stunned after learning about the salary and savings at the end of the month. Taking to X, a user who goes by the name @AlfinCodes detailed how his cousin was left with minimal savings despite having a lucrative package. The post shared how his cousin, a computer science graduate, excitedly moved to Bengaluru for his first software developer job with a salary of 1.5 lakh per month. He added that the family back home initially believed the move meant he had made it. My cousin moved to Bengaluru for a 1.5L per month tech job. Six months later, he realised something no one tells freshers. A Computer Science graduate in his first software developer role, he moved to Bengaluru for better opportunities with a salary of 1.5L per month, the user wrote. Back home, everyone thought he had made it. Big tech job. Big city. Big salary. Living costs quickly change the perception However, the post explained that the reality of living in Bengaluru quickly changed that perception. According to the user, a significant portion of the salary was consumed by basic living costs. Rent for a small apartment near the office was 36K. Food and groceries cost 13K to 15K. Cabs and autos, with traffic being insane, added another 6K to 8K. Swiggy, coffee and weekends out came to 10K to 12K. Also Read | A Bengaluru bar that wants you to keep your phone away plus other new openings He added that a number of overlooked expenses pile up over time. Then came the things nobody talks about. Subscriptions. Medical expenses. Unexpected bills. Sending money back home. Limited savings by months end According to the post, the young professional was left with only limited savings by the end of the month. By the end of the month, savings were barely 15K to 20K. Thats when he realised something most people outside big cities dont see. A 1L plus salary sounds huge in your hometown, but in a city like Bengaluru, it often just means youre getting started. Big salary. Small savings. Welcome to Bengaluru life, the post added. Social media users weigh in The post has evoked several responses from social media users, many of whom discussed the cost of living in the city. One user asked, Is Bengaluru that expensive? while another suggested that rent could be reduced with better location choices. Well the rent part could be reduced if you find places a little farther away from the office area along the metro, from where he could reach his office, which would save quite a lot! Others simply agreed with the sentiment. Its expensive here, one person wrote, while another added, Yes, that's true. If you're working in your hometown, you're earning the most. A different user summed up the situation by calling it the Sad reality of Bengaluru. Another asked: Is Bangalore that expensive? Another said: The expenses listed are mostly exaggerated and discretionary. You can do away with most of these. A professional who spent nearly five years at a previous company has shared a cautionary story online after a job move unexpectedly collapsed. The individual said their offer from a new employer was allegedly withdrawn soon after they revealed the companys name during a resignation discussion. Posting on Reddit, the professional said they had worked at their former organisation for more than four years and had generally had a positive experience. However, towards the end of their tenure, they felt their contributions were not adequately recognised, and their salary had fallen behind industry standards. Told my boss where I was going next. Offer got rescinded soon after, the Redditor wrote. The employee explained that after securing a new role, they submitted their resignation and informed their skip-level manager about the company they planned to join. I worked at my previous company for 4.5+ years. Most of it was fine, but towards the end I felt the respect and recognition were missing, and my pay had fallen behind the market. So I started looking. I got an offer and resigned. During the discussion I made the mistake of telling my skip-level boss which company I was joining, the user wrote. Also Read | Job applicants are winning the AI arms race against recruiters Boss warned of alleged no-poach agreement According to the Reddit post, the manager cautioned the employee against joining the new organisation, claiming the two companies had a no-poach agreement. Concerned about the warning, the employee said they reached out to the chief executive of the new company to verify the claim. The CEO reportedly assured them that no such restriction applied to their position. However, the situation soon changed. A few days later the offer was rescinded. No explanation, but the timing was pretty clear. I didnt take my resignation back and eventually found another job, but its in Mumbai. After almost a decade in Gurgaon, the move is tough, the individual recalled. Reflecting on the experience, the employee concluded: I just wish I hadnt told him where I was going. Lesson learned. Online reactions and advice from users One commenter wrote, Rookie mistake by an experienced individual. That's new. But it happens. Also, all the best for Mumbai. You're gonna need it, bud. Happy House Hunting. Another user, who said they were planning a job change soon, expressed uncertainty after reading the post: I'm a fresher looking to switch in a few months. After reading this post, I'm confused about what to say when resigning and what to say if they ask about the next company. Also, what should be my reply to colleagues forcing me to tell them the company name? Some users suggested keeping resignation explanations vague. Also Read | Woman gets 29 lakh as workplace harassment compensation Management is never a friend. If I were you, Id just cite personal reasons while resigning and, if prodded, say Im taking a short break to recharge. Simple. No need to get into where youre going next, one commenter wrote. Another person shared their own experience of resigning for the first time, advising employees to remain cautious while discussing their next move. Fresher here, gave my first resignation a month back. I gave the most generic reason, and they kept pushing for more details, but I kept repeating the same thing. And never give the company name ever, no matter what. Even if it's your boss or colleagues, just say you can check my LinkedIn after I join there, repeat this line like a robot. And another thing I learnt is that, even when you fill out the exit form (oral and/or written), give the most generic answers. Don't ever say that my salary was low, that's why I am switching, my manager/any colleague was a bi**h, this thing was the problem in this company, you can improve this and that, never. You're leaving anyway, so saying all of this will have no impact on your life, but it could definitely backfire on you. And yes, take help from ChatGPT, it was quite helpful for me. A man has shared a grateful account on social media of how Blinkits in-app ambulance service was a lifesaver for his friends family. The user, who goes by the name Harpreet, detailed how the ambulance arrived in four minutes and the patient was transported to the hospital within 20 minutes. He further applauded the crew for their excellent service. Dear Blinkit, your ambulance service is a lifesaver indeed. Just this morning, a classmate of mine requested an ambulance in Gurgaon. It arrived in 4 minutes, and his mom was in the emergency ward of a hospital within 20 minutes, Harpreet wrote. Also Read | Bengaluru CEO praises Blinkit after midnight medicine order prompts doctor call Both the paramedic attendants and the driver were top-notch and took excellent care of the patient, the post further said. Family realised service was free The user added that after completing the hospital formalities and once the patient had stabilised, the family stepped outside to thank the ambulance crew. After the formalities in the ER were done and the patient stabilised, her son went out to thank the ambulance staff, only to find out that they had already gone. Two minutes later, he got the scolding of his life from his wife for not giving them any token of thanks, especially since the ambulance service didnt charge anything, he wrote. Harpreet said the family had initially assumed the charges were already paid when the ambulance was booked through the app. He ended his post by offering a suggestion to the company. On that note, you may consider adding an option on your app for a token payment and perhaps a rating system for your ambulance crews after the job is completed. They are lifesavers indeed. Also Read | Stranded in Dubai amid war, Indian couple seeks help Social media users praise initiative The post has evoked a plethora of responses and has amassed a flurry of reactions, with some praising the initiative. One user wrote: Would love to donate to this cause. Knowing the ambulance from Blinkit is around the corner and serves my area brings so much peace of mind. Another user observed: The fact that they left without waiting for a tip or a thank you suggests they are optimised for turnaround time. Also Read | Mumbai woman narrates how Blinkit ambulance service helped at 4am in Delhi Several others also lauded the companys efforts. One comment read: Wow, thats how leadership by private enterprise is upgrading India to a different level. Another user wrote: These startups are a trillion times better than the others. Quote of the day: American memoirist and essayist Maya Angelou once offered a powerful piece of life advice, Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution. The quote continues to resonate across generations because it speaks to one of the most common human struggles, dealing with situations that seem beyond our control. Angelous words highlight the importance of action, resilience and mental flexibility. In a world that often presents unexpected challenges, her message serves as a reminder that individuals are not entirely powerless. Even when circumstances appear fixed, the way people respond to them can shape outcomes in meaningful ways. What does Maya Angelou's quote mean? The quote encourages people to take initiative. When faced with difficulties, the first step should be to attempt to change the situation directly. This could mean addressing problems at work, resolving conflicts in relationships, or making efforts to improve social or personal conditions. Angelous emphasis on every effort suggests persistence and determination, rather than passive acceptance of unfavourable realities. However, the quote also recognises that not all situations can be altered. There are moments in life when external factors such as societal structures, institutional limitations or personal constraints make change difficult or even impossible. In such cases, Angelou proposes a shift in perspective. Changing ones mindset does not imply surrender; rather, it opens the door to creative thinking and alternative solutions. By reassessing assumptions and adopting new ways of viewing a problem, individuals may discover opportunities that were previously overlooked. This philosophy reflects the broader theme of adaptability. History and everyday experience show that those who can adjust their outlook often navigate adversity more effectively. A change in thinking can reduce stress, improve emotional well-being and foster innovation. It can also help individuals transform setbacks into learning experiences, thereby strengthening their capacity to face future challenges. Angelous insight remains relevant in contemporary times marked by rapid change and uncertainty. Whether in personal growth, professional development or social engagement, her words inspire a balanced approach, one that combines proactive effort with inner transformation. Ultimately, the quote serves as a call to remain hopeful and resourceful, reminding people that solutions sometimes emerge not from altering the world alone, but from reimagining the way they see it. Who was Maya Angelou? Maya Angelou, who died at the age of 86, was a noted American memoirist, essayist, poet and civil rights campaigner. During a literary career spanning more than five decades, she authored seven autobiographies, three collections of essays and several volumes of poetry, while also contributing to plays, films and television productions. Her work earned her numerous honours, including more than 50 honorary academic degrees. Much of her acclaimed seven-part autobiographical series focused on her experiences during childhood and early adulthood. At one stage, she relocated to New York City with her husband and son to study African dance under Trinidadian performer Pearl Primus, though the family returned to San Francisco within a year. Berkshire Hathaway founder and chairman, Warren Buffett has offered a wealth of investment advice over the years. Known for his long-term approach to stocks, sticking to fundamentals, and taking calculated but thoughtful risks, the so-called Oracle of Omaha's wisdom often makes the rounds online. Buffett and his long-time business partner and friend, the late Charlie Munger, are known for their no-nonsense approach to doing business. Keep things simple and don't be swayed by alarmist tendencies. Buffett in fact, once extolled the benefits of looking at a company's balance sheet instead of its income statement before making an investment decision, as it is harder to hide or play games. Also Read | India amends rules on minimum public shareholding for IPOs Details He further noted that Wall Street often disregards the document, adding: You do learn more from balance sheets, than most people give them credit for Quote of the Day by Warren Buffett You judge management by two yardsticks: how well they run the business and how well they treat shareholders. What does Warren Buffett's quote mean? At the Berkshire Hathaway annual general meeting in 1994, Buffett explained to the audience why he buys corporations with good management, and what he means by the qualifier. The question on how to identify good management was asked by an average investor in the audience. According to the ace investor, you can judge if a business has good management by reading about what they and their competitors have accomplished, and how much capital they have allocated to their successes over time. You have to have some understanding of the hand they were dealt when they themselves got a chance to play the hand, he added. Further, he noted to make these conclusions, you must also have an understanding of the business the company is in and look at how well the management have been doing in playing the hand. Also Read | PPF vs EPF vs VPF: Check here for a direct comparison before you choose On the second parameter how they treat their shareholders, Buffett noted that while this may be a bit more difficult to determine, there are some examples. I think you can usually figure it out Bill Gates, or Tom Murphy, or Don Keough, or people like that, are really outstanding managers. And its not hard to figure out who theyre working for, he stated. He added that most will not be able to make a judgement about managers on a personal basis but can form some opinion by reading the company reports. So, you know, read the proxy statements, see what they think, how they treat themselves versus how they treat the shareholders, look at what they have accomplished, considering what the hand was that they were dealt when they took over compared to what is going on in the industry. And I think you can figure it out sometimes, he added. Buffett and Munger consistently expressed that they placed trust high on their list of requirements when making business decisions. In a 2021 interview with CNBC Buffett told the channel that you can't make a good deal with a bad person. Who is Warren Buffet the Oracle of Omaha? Warren Buffett, alongside friend and business partner Charlie Munger were the architects who over nearly 60 years transformed Berkshire Hathaway Inc. from a failing textile maker into an empire, worth billions. Decades of compounded returns made the pair billionaires and folk heroes to adoring investors. Notably, in January this year, Buffett handed over the reins and CEO position to successor Greg Abel. But his bull run with Berkshire has been legendary gaining more than 55,00,000% returns over 60 years (1964-2024), to building the group to $1.2 trillion, and expanding Class A shares to worth $167 billion. Known as the Oracle of Omaha for his uncanny prediction on stocks, Buffett gained fame and investor confidence for handpicking companies (Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, etc.) that exploded and now account for 70% of Berkshire's $263 billion stock portfolio. He termed this as one wonderful business can offset the many mediocre decisions that are inevitable. After two weeks of Operation Epic Fury, US President Donald Trump has reiterated that Iran is totally defeated and claimed that they want a deal. However, with no end to the war in view, Trump said that the alleged Iran deal is not the one he would accept. In a Truth Social post on Friday night, local time, Trump wrote: The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept! Thank you for your attention to this matter. Iran, however, showed no sign of capitulating or bowing to US-Israeli military pressure. Attack on Kharg Island In a separate post on Friday, Trump claimed that US forces had carried out one of the most powerful bombing runs in the history of the Middle East, with Iran's crown jewelKharg Islandas its target. Asserting that American weapons were "the most powerful and sophisticated" in the world, Trump said he had "chosen NOT to wipe out" the oil infrastructure on the island "for reasons of decency". Kharg Island, located roughly 30 kilometres off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports, reported AFP, citing a recent JPMorgan note. Iran's Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island, earlier hit by US strikes. It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower, and an offshore oil company's helicopter hangar, adding that no oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack. Following up on his earlier assertions, Trump said that Iran "will NEVER" have a nuclear weapon, "nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle East or, for that matter, the World!" Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East nearly two weeks into the war with the Islamic Republic. Iran reiterates threats to target US-linked oil facilities Iran's joint military command reiterated its threat to attack US-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if the Islamic Republic's oil infrastructure were hit. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, made the threat early Saturday, according to Iran's state-run television. He warned that Iran will target "all oil, economic, and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with America" if energy and economic infrastructure in Iran is attacked. Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. The Trump administration has ordered the restart of offshore oil operations in California to strengthen energy security and curb reliance on foreign crude as fuel prices rise after the Iran war. President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing the energy secretary to take action under the Defense Production Act to address potential supply disruptions. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright then directed Sable Offshore Corp. to restore operations at the Santa Ynez Unit and the Santa Ynez Pipeline System off the California coast. Administration cites energy security and military readiness Announcing the decision, Wright said the move is necessary to protect the country's energy security and ensure reliable fuel supplies for military installations along the West Coast. The Trump Administration remains committed to putting all Americans and their energy security first, Wright said. Unfortunately, some state leaders have not adhered to those same principles, with potentially disastrous consequences not just for their residents, but also our national security. He added that the order would help strengthen the US oil supply and restore a key pipeline network used to deliver crude to refineries. Todays order will strengthen Americas oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness, Wright said. Production boost and reduced foreign oil dependence The Santa Ynez facility operated by Sable Offshore has the capacity to produce around 50,000 barrels of oil per day, which the administration says would increase Californias in-state oil production by roughly 15 percent. Officials say this additional output could replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of imported crude each month. According to the energy department note, California currently imports more than 60 percent of the oil refined in the state, much of it from overseas sources. Some shipments pass through the strategically sensitive Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil transit chokepoint. The administration argues that this reliance exposes the state and US military operations to potential geopolitical disruptions. Pipeline capacity to be prioritized The order also prioritizes pipeline transportation capacity so that crude produced offshore California can move through the Las Flores Pipeline System to Pentland Station, before entering interstate pipeline networks. Officials say this would allow American-produced oil to reach domestic refineries more efficiently while reducing reliance on imported crude. Californias refining system is relatively isolated from interstate crude pipelines used elsewhere in the United States, making the state more dependent on maritime imports. Newsom pushes back California Governor Gavin Newsom strongly criticized the federal decision, accusing the administration of prioritizing oil production over environmental protections. In a post on X, Newsom said: Trump knew his war with Iran would raise gas prices. Now he wants to illegally resurrect a pipeline shut down by courts and facing criminal charges. And it won't even cut prices. Named after the 1908 merger of Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank, Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) is a diversified bank holding company that offers commercial banking, consumer lending, and wealth management services. The company provides business credit, treasury and capital markets solutions, mortgages, and consumer loans. It also delivers investment advisory, brokerage, trust, and estate planning services to individuals, institutions, and nonprofits. With a market cap of nearly $40.8 billion, the company sits in the large-cap territory, a category reserved for firms valued above $10 billion. The scale underscores Fifth Third Bancorps entrenched role in regional banking. More News from Barchart Shares of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based bank currently trade about 21.4% below their 52-week high of $55.44 reached in February. Shares have declined 9.5% over the past three months, while the iShares U.S. Regional Banks ETF (IAT) plunged 6.9% over the same period, signaling mild short-term underperformance. www.barchart.com Over a broader horizon, the gap remains visible. During the past 52 weeks, the stock has gained 13.1%, trailing the ETFs stronger 15.3% advance. The pattern has carried into 2026 as well. Year-to-date (YTD), the shares are down 6.9%, slightly worse than the ETFs 5% decline, indicating that the bank has modestly underperformed its regional banking peers across multiple time frames. Technical signals echo the cooling momentum. The stock briefly reclaimed both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages between December 2025 and February, hinting at renewed strength. The momentum faded, however. Shares now sit below the 50-day moving average of $50.38 and the 200-day moving average of $44.92. www.barchart.com Momentum briefly turned positive when Fifth Third Bancorp reported its fourth-quarter fiscal 2025 results on Jan. 20. Revenue rose 7.8% year over year to $2.34 billion, matching analyst expectations of $2.34 billion. Earnings also came in stronger than anticipated, with EPS climbing 22.4% to $1.04 and clearing the Streets estimate of $1.01. Management credited the performance to higher net interest income, steady loan growth, and expanding commercial payments activity. The market responded quickly. Shares gained nearly 2% on the day of the release and extended the rally with another 5.5% jump in the following trading session. United States President Donald Trump has warned that the country will be bombing the h*ll out of the shoreline at the Strait of Hormuz and expressed hope that other countries would also send their war ships to the area. In a post on Truth Social today, Trump wrote: Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. Reuters in a report said that the White House did not immediately respond to queries on whether any countries had agreed to send ships. Also Read | Iran US war LIVE: Trump urges other nations to send ships to secure Hormuz Destroyed 100% of Irans military capability': Trump Trump further claimed that the US has already destroyed 100% of Irans military capability, but that it is easy for the West Asian country to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. He was referring to the Strait of Hormuz. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated, he added. Trump said that in the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! US to escort vessels through strategic waterway? Earlier on 13 March, in an interview with Fox News, Trump said the US would escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz if needed. When asked, he answered We would do it if we needed to. But, you know, hopefully things are going to go very well. We're going to see what happens. A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report the same day cited sources to report that the US is weighing sending more warships to the Middle East in preparation to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. It however added that even with the additional warships, the US wouldn't begin escorting vessels until the threat from Iran is reduced. That could take up a month or more as the US and Israel continue to pound Tehran with missiles and drones, it said. IndiGo announced on Saturday, March 14, that the airline will be operating a total of 252 weekly flights to and from six Middle East cities including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in view of the evolving situation in the region as the Iran, US-Israel conflict continues to disrupt airspace and aviation operations. Starting March 16, IndiGo will be operating 252 weekly flights till March 28, 2026 and 98 weekly flights to and from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). IndiGo has announced the schedule for the six Middle East cities namely Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Jeddah, Medina and Riyadh. IndiGo is almost back to operating its regular schedule with 126 weekly flights to/from Saudi Arabia and 28 weekly flights to/from Oman, IndiGo said in a statement. IndiGo flights' schedule to and from Middle East, until March 28: Abu Dhabi: IndiGo will operate daily flights between India and Abu Dhabi, including services from Mumbai and Delhi. Flight 6E 1401 departs Mumbai at 1600 and arrives in Abu Dhabi at 1800, while the return flight 6E 1402 leaves Abu Dhabi at 1900 and lands in Mumbai at 0005 (+1). From Delhi, flight 6E 1405 departs at 1540 and arrives in Abu Dhabi at 1810, while flight 6E 1406 departs Abu Dhabi at 1910 and arrives in Delhi at 0020 (+1). Dubai: IndiGo will run multiple daily flights between India and Dubai from Delhi and Mumbai. From Delhi, flight 6E 1461 departs at 0740 and arrives at 1020, while flight 6E 1463 departs at 1530 and arrives at 1805. The return flights, 6E 1462 and 6E 1464, depart Dubai at 1120 and 1910, arriving in Delhi at 1620 and 2355 respectively. From Mumbai, flights 6E 1455, 6E 1451 and 6E 1453 depart at 0635, 0925 and 1530, arriving in Dubai at 0825, 1115 and 1720. The return services 6E 1456, 6E 1452 and 6E 1454 depart Dubai at 0925, 1215 and 1820, reaching Mumbai at 1420, 1650 and 2300. Medina: IndiGo will operate daily flights between Mumbai and Medina. Flight 6E 0059 departs Mumbai at 2205 and arrives in Medina at 0110 (+1), while the return flight 6E 0060 departs Medina at 0210 and reaches Mumbai at 0905. Here's the full scheduled of all IndiGo flights to six Middle East cities: View full Image View full Image Here's the full scheduled of all IndiGo flights to six Middle East cities Additionally, as part of these necessary network adjustments, planned operations to Doha, Kuwait, Bahrain, Dammam, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah will remain suspended till 28 March 2026, it said. IndiGo imposes fuel surcharge IndiGo has started to levy fuel charges ranging from 425 to 2,300 on domestic and international flight tickets from Saturday, March 14, amid the steep surge in jet fuel prices due to the West Asia crisis. The move will increase the airfares for all IndiGo flights. For domestic flights and those within the Indian subcontinent, the fuel charge will be 425, while it will be 900 for the Middle East services, the airline said in a statement on Friday. The fuel charge will be 1,800 for South East Asia, China, and Africa flights, and 2,300 for Europe flights. Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly proposed moving Irans enriched uranium to Russia as part of a potential deal to end US, Israel's ongoing conflict with Iran, Trump rejected the idea during a phone call this week, mentioned a report by Axios, citing sources. On Monday, March 9, Trump said that war against Iran was very much complete,' and had a call with Putin which according to the Kremlin, was a frank and businesslike conversation, and lasted about an hour. What did Putin and Trump discuss? Putin reportedly proposed several ideas for ending the war during the call with Trump including the possibility of transferring the enriched uranium to Russia. However, a US official told Axios that the proposal was not accepted. This is not the first time it was offered. It hasn't been accepted. The U.S. position is we need to see the uranium secured, the official said. The outlet also reported that Russia had floated similar proposals during US-Iran nuclear negotiations last May before the US and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities in June as well as in the weeks leading up to the current conflict. Why is the enriched Uranium important? Iran is believed to have around 450 kg of 60%-enriched uranium material that could be converted to weapons-grade within weeks and is considered enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs. Russia is already a nuclear power and has previously stored Iran's low-enriched uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal, making it one of the few countries with the technical capacity to accept the material, as per Axios. Donald Trump has said that completely eliminating Irans nuclear capabilities is one of his key objectives in the ongoing war. During a press conference on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that the US "has a range of options" to take control of Iran's uranium stockpile. He said one possible scenario could be Iran voluntarily surrendering the stockpile, which the US would welcome. They weren't willing to do that in negotiations. I would never tell this group or the world what we're willing to do or how far we're willing to go but we have options, for sure, Hegseth said, as per multiple reports. Larger US military presence required? Recovering Irans remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium believed to be stored in an underground facility would require a far larger US military presence than a small special operations force, CNN reported earlier, citing seven current and former officials familiar with the planning. Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has dismissed speculation about the health of Irans new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, saying there are no issues with his condition despite claims made by US defense secretary Pete Hegseth. Speaking with MS Now, Araghchi said there was no problem with the Iranian leaders health. US claims leader is wounded The remarks come after Pete Hegseth said on Friday (March 13) that Irans new Supreme Leader was wounded and likely disfigured. We know the new so-called (not-so) Supreme Leader is wounded and likely disfigured. He put out a statement yesterday, a weak one actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement, Hegseth said. He also questioned why the message was issued only in written form. Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why. His father's dead. He's scared. He's injured. He's on the run. And he lacks legitimacy. It's a mess for them. Who's in charge? Iran may not even know, he added. Iran warns over attacks on energy infrastructure During the same interview, Araghchi warned that Iran would target American-linked energy infrastructure in the region if its own facilities are attacked in the ongoing conflict with the United States and Israel. Our Armed Forces have already answered that they would retaliate if our oil and energy infrastructure are attacked, he said. Iran would strike energy infrastructure belonging to American companies or those in which US firms hold stakes, he added. Strikes on Kharg Island Araghchis warning came after the US military struck Kharg Island on Friday, a critical export hub from which most of Irans oil shipments are sent overseas. US President Donald Trump said earlier that military targets had been obliterated, though energy infrastructure was not directly targeted. Allegations of attacks launched from UAE Araghchi also accused the United States of launching short-range rocket attacks from bases in the United Arab Emirates, including one near Dubai. They are using the territory of our neighbors to attack us by these kind of rockets and this is absolutely unacceptable, he said. It is very dangerous that they use highly populated areas, Araghchi added, while stressing that Iran would attempt to avoid civilian casualties. Also Read | Did Trump block efforts for Iran ceasefire talks? What report revealed Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Saturday criticized the United States for its changing position on Russian oil, saying that Washington is now begging countries worldwide including India to buy Russian crude, despite previously pressuring them to halt such imports. In a post on X, Araghchi said, The US spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the world--including India--to buy Russian crude. The Iranian foreign minister also criticised European countries for backing an "illegal war" against Iran, claiming they expected American support against Russia in return. "Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win US support against Russia. Pathetic," he said. See the post here: Meanwhile, Iran has allowed two India-flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers to transit through the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in the Middle East region, Reuters reported, citing four sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Also Read | Iran allows two gas tankers to sail to India through Hormuz, sources say Reuters, citing two sources and shipping data from Lloyds List Intelligence, reported that a crude oil tanker carrying Saudi Arabian oil is scheduled to reach India on Saturday after passing through the Strait of Hormuz around March 1. Earlier, Mohammad Fathali, Irans Ambassador to India, stated that Iran would ensure safe passage for vessels heading to India through the Strait of Hormuz despite the ongoing tensions in West Asia, emphasizing the long-standing friendship and shared interests between the two nations. Answering a question on whether Iran would allow Indian-bound ships safe transit through the Strait, which is one of the critical routes for global energy trade, Fathali said, "Yes. Because India and I are friends. You can see the future, and I think that after two or three hours. Because we believe that. We believe that Iran and India are friends. We have common interests; we have a common fate." He emphasised the mutual responsibility between the two nations, adding, Suffering of the people of India is our suffering and vice versa. And for this reason, the government of India help us, and we should help the government of India because we have a common fate and common interest. US strikes Persian Gulf island The US strikes on Iran's Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf targeted military sites but left alone its oil infrastructure for now, Trump said in a social media post. But he warned that if Iran or anyone else interferes with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to "wipe out the Oil Infrastructure." Also Read | How many Shahed drones does Iran have and why are they crucial? Explained On Thursday, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned in a social media post that attacks on the islands on Iran's southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to "abandon all restraint," underscoring how central they are to the country's economy and security. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Irans parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, hinted on Saturday, March 14, that Ukraine could be the next target for Iran, accusing Kyiv of providing drone support to Israel. Israel, with support from the United States, launched strikes against Iran on February 28 that killed the countrys Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since the start of the conflict in the West Asia, Iran has targeted seven other countries, in the Middle East, accusing them of providing assistance to the United States. In a post on X, Ebrahim Azizi said that by providing drone support to Israel, Ukraine has effectively become involved in the war. He said, By providing drone support to the Israeli regime, failed Ukraine has effectively become involved in the War and, under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, has turned its entire territory into a legitimate target for Iran." Ukraine is already being battered by Russia for the past four years after Moscow announced a special military operation, targeting Kyiv and other parts of the country relentlessly. Since then, hundreds have displaced in the conflict. After nearly two weeks of war between US-Israel and Iran, 2,000 people have been killed, most in Iran, but many in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line. While Iran has apologised to the neighbouring countries it has hit, Tehran has also justified the attacks on the countries, the territories were being used by the United States and Israel as launchpads for strikes. Several million people have been displaced from their homes. As Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut's suburbs with air strikes, Lebanon's interior minister said authorities were unable to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge in the capital. An Iranian spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, mentioned that the damaged structures from the strikes included 36,469 residential units and 6,179 commercial facilities, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Iran has also suffered military damages and casualties, but hasn't provided any information about the losses. The war has, however, taken a heavy toll on women and girls. On the first day of the conflict, a US strike hit a girls' school that killed dozens. So far, as many as 223 women and girls have been killed, and 2,129 others wounded. Fatemeh Mohajerani didn't provide an overall death toll, but previously, authorities have said that 1,230 people have been killed. Iran US war news: A missile hit a helipad within the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, according to two Iraqi security officials. Footage showed a column of smoke rising over the embassy Saturday morning, AP reported. The large diplomatic complex one of the biggest U.S. missions in the world has been repeatedly struck by rockets and drones launched by militias aligned with Tehran, as reported by AP. Qatar said on Saturday that it had intercepted two missiles following explosions in the capital, Doha, prompting authorities to evacuate certain key areas, as reported by AFP. AFP journalists reported seeing interceptors take down two projectiles over downtown Doha as blasts were heard, amid Irans ongoing retaliatory air campaign in the Gulf. The Qatari defense ministry said in two separate statements on Saturday that its forces had successfully intercepted a missile attack aimed at the country, AFP reported. US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States military had carried out heavy bombing on targets on Kharg Island in Iran and warned that the islands oil facilities could also be targeted, as reported by AFP. The strategic island, which manages nearly all of Irans crude oil exports, has largely been avoided by both the United States and Israel so far. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the strike was carried out on his orders and asserted that it was one of the most powerful bombing raids in the region's history. Here's what Trump said "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump said. He added that the United States deliberately avoided striking oil infrastructure on the island. "Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he said. Trump also warned that the decision could change if shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. "However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. During my First Term, and currently, I rebuilt our Military into the Most Lethal, Powerful, and Effective Force, by far, anywhere in the World," he said. The US president added that Iran would not be able to stop American military strikes. "Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack --There is nothing they can do about it!" he said. However, officials in the Trump administration have reportedly suggested that seizing Kharg Island remains a possible option as the conflict in the Middle East continues. Located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) off the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf, Kharg Island is responsible for handling roughly 90 percent of Irans crude exports, according to a recent note from JPMorgan. Get all the Iran US war news LIVE Updates here on Mint! Kharg Island, where U.S. forces struck military targets on Friday, serves as the gateway for about 90% of Irans oil exports and has long been considered a critical weak point that could trigger a strong retaliation from Tehran if attacked, as reported by Reuters. US President Donald Trump said on social media that the U.S. totally obliterated every MILITARY target on Kharg and threatened that oil infrastructure could be targeted if Iran continues to interfere with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island strategic importance Often referred to as the orphan pearl of the Persian Gulf by Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the small coral island has served various roles through history, including a trading hub, place of exile, religious site and strategic military location. During the Pahlavi era, the islands role changed notably. Between the 1940s and 1958, Kharg served as a remote penal colony and place of exile for political opponents. Also Read | The Iran war is now disrupting global trade Kharg Island lies about 16 miles (26 km) off Irans coast and roughly 300 miles (483 km) northwest of the Strait of Hormuz. The surrounding deep waters allow large oil tankers, too big to reach the mainlands shallow coastal areas, to dock and load crude, Reuters reported. View full Image View full Image A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, February 25, 2026. 2026 Planet Labs PBC/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT ( via REUTERS ) As a result, the island accounts for a notable share of Irans oil exports to international markets. Data from the US Energy Information Administration shows that about 20 million barrels of oil moved through the Strait of Hormuz each day in 2024, making it one of the worlds most crucial energy corridors. A large share of Irans oil passing through the strait originates from facilities linked to Kharg Island, Reuters reported. Iran, which increased oil production ahead of the February 28 start of the war involving Israel and the United States, has continued exporting crude at a pace of about 1.1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day, according to data from TankerTracker.com and Kpler. Meanwhile, markets have been closely monitoring whether the strikes caused any damage to Kharg Islands complex system of pipelines, terminals and storage facilities. Even limited disruptions could further squeeze global supply and heighten pressure on an already volatile oil market. "You take out Kharg infrastructure, then you take 2 million bpd out of the market for good - not until the Straits get fixed," said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners, as reported by Reuters. Irans armed forces said on Saturday that any strike on the countrys oil and energy facilities would prompt retaliatory attacks on energy infrastructure owned by companies in the region that cooperate with the United States, Iranian media reported. "Im very concerned it elevates the temperature and Iran has less to lose and it seems to escalate. Iran when backed into a corner is highly emboldened to act, said Patrick De Haan, an analyst with U.S. fuel price tracker GasBuddy, as reported by Reuters. Iran has all but shut shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil flows, mostly to Asia. Key supply source for China A major share of the oil exported from Iran through Kharg is shipped to China, the worlds largest crude importer. Beijing has taken steps such as restricting refined fuel exports to safeguard domestic supplies amid disruptions in the Middle East. According to tanker-tracking firm Kpler, Iranian crude has made up about 11.6% of Chinas seaborne oil imports so far this year. Most of these shipments are purchased by independent refiners, drawn by the steep discounts resulting from U.S. sanctions on Tehran. Iran has exported 1.7 million bpd crude so far this year, of which 1.55 million bpd was shipped via Kharg, Kpler data shows. Before the war, Iran had ramped up exports to about 2.17 million bpd in February, Kpler data showed. It shipped a record 3.79 million bpd in the week of February 16, the data showed. Kharg has storage capacity of roughly 30 million barrels, and held about 18 million barrels of crude as of early March, according to a JP Morgan report citing Kpler data. Multiple very large crude oil tankers were loading at Kharg on Wednesday, according to satellite imagery reviewed by TankerTrackers.com. Iran is the third-largest producer in OPEC, accounting for roughly 4.5% of global oil supply. The country produces about 3.3 million barrels of crude oil per day, in addition to around 1.3 million barrels per day of condensate and other liquid hydrocarbons. (With inputs from agencies) A chartered aircraft organised by Tehran left southern India late on Friday carrying several sailors from a naval vessel that had recently docked in the country, along with the bodies of crew members killed in a U.S. strike near Sri Lanka, two sources told Reuters. The transfer of sailors comes as the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran has unsettled shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for global energy trade and the source of about 40% of Indias crude oil imports, as reported by Reuters. Following days of uncertainty after Iranian attacks on ships, Tehran said on Friday that Indian vessels would be permitted to transit the strait, easing concerns in New Delhi over a potential energy supply disruption. The aircraft had earlier taken off from Sri Lanka carrying the bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. submarine attack on a warship off the islands coast last week, an Indian official with direct knowledge of the matter said. It then landed in the neighbouring southern Indian city of Kochi before departing with sailors from another Iranian vessel and some Iranian tourists stranded in India, the official added. The vessel has been stationed in Kochi since March 4, with its 183 crew members accommodated at Indian naval facilities in the coastal city. As reported by PTI, sources said that all non-essential crew members will return to Iran, while a small number of sailors will remain aboard as the ship remains in Kochi. They added that the Iranian sailors are expected to be flown to Armenia and then travel by road to Iran, PTI reported. Reuters reported last week that Washington had urged Colombo not to return the survivors from the two vessels. The repatriations highlight the widening regional impact of the conflict involving Tehran, which has severely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after several attacks on vessels. India, the worlds third-largest oil consumer, has been in regular contact with Iranian authorities to ensure safe passage for ships flying the Indian flag or bound for Indian ports. Iran's ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed safe passage for Indian vessels. "Because we believe that Iran and India are friends," he told reporters late on Friday. "We have common interests and a common fate. I, as the ambassador for Iran in India, I say to you that the government of India .. after the war, will help us in different fields." Reuters reported last week that Washington had urged Colombo not to send back the survivors from the two vessels. The repatriations highlight the widening regional consequences of the conflict involving Tehran, which has severely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after several attacks on vessels. India, the worlds third-largest oil consumer, has been in regular contact with Iranian officials to ensure safe passage for ships flying the Indian flag or bound for Indian ports. A small number of vessels have already moved through the strait in recent days, offering some relief. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday (March 14) that the Strait of Hormuz remains open to international shipping but is closed to vessels belonging to countries that are attacking Iran, specifically the United States and Israel. Araghchi in an interview with MS Now, said: As a matter of fact, this Strait of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and the allies. Others are free to pass, he said. Significance of the Strait of Hormuz The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most strategically important maritime chokepoints in the world, playing a critical role in global energy trade and regional security. Vital global oil route The narrow waterway connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. A large share of the worlds crude oil and liquefied natural gas shipments passes through the strait every day, making it a lifeline for global energy markets. Major oil-producing countries in the Gulf including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates rely heavily on the route to export energy to international markets. Strategic geographic location The strait lies between Iran on its northern coast and Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south. At its narrowest point, the waterway is only about 33 kilometers wide, with designated shipping lanes even narrower, making it a sensitive point for global maritime traffic. Impact on global markets Because so much of the worlds oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, any disruption whether due to military conflict, political tensions, or security threats can quickly affect global oil prices and shipping routes. Energy-importing countries across Asia, Europe, and beyond depend on the uninterrupted flow of oil through this corridor. Also Read | Trump orders restart of California oil ops to cut reliance on foreign crude US strike on Irans Kharg Island raises threat of retaliation Abbas Araghchi warned that Iran would retaliate if its energy facilities were attacked, saying Iranian forces could target energy infrastructure connected to the United States across the region. If Irans facilities are targeted, our forces will strike facilities belonging to American companies in the region or companies in which the United States holds shares, Araghchi said, according to Irans semi-official Tasnim News Agency. He added that Iran would certainly respond to any such attack but said Tehran would act cautiously to avoid striking densely populated areas. Trump confirms US strike on Kharg Island Earlier, US President Donald Trump said they had carried out a strike on Kharg Island, a key hub for Irans oil exports. In a social media post on Friday, Trump said the operation had been conducted by United States Central Command moments ago at his direction. The President said the bombing raid targeted Iranian military sites rather than energy facilities. In his view, its simply a tool to recoup the dollars that the health plan should not be paying. He pointed to a hypothetical example of a company that pays $2 billion in claims each year. If subrogation can recover even 1% of that, that could amount to upwards of $20 million. Mehta came to Intellivo after several years running finance for private equity-backed firms. While he wasnt familiar with subrogation at the outset, hes since become a champion for it. The practice, he says, can benefit both self-funded health plans and employers who use them. Over the years, firms like Intellivo and others have sprouted up and carved out a lucrative niche in subrogation, while some observers see the practice as extraordinarily harsh in some cases. But those on both sides would agree that finance teams should, at the very least, familiarize themselves with the details of the practice to avoid unfortunate surprises. As Intellivo officials put it in a blog last year : While it may seem like an opaque, behind-the-scenes process, its impact is far-reaching. Its a seemingly straightforward legal concept that reportedly dates back to the days of the Roman Empire . But ask around, and youll quickly find that subrogation provokes strong responses both for and against the practice. In a nutshell, in a subrogation case, an insurer looks to recoup money it paid to an insured person by seeking compensation from the at-fault party. An example might work like this: Youre injured in a car wreck that was no fault of your own. Your car insurer pays for your car repairs and health care bills, and then seeks compensation from the individual who caused the accident. Health care costs are continuing to rise, and the demand on the health care system overall is just growing, says Mehta, who joined Intellivo in July 2025. I decided to make the plunge. But, after he did some more research, he came to see the relatively arcane practice as an untapped financial lever that could help organizations bring down health care costs. Gee Mehta says he knew nothing about subrogation before he was first approached to serve as finance chief of Intellivo, a company that focuses exclusively on the area. This story was originally published on CFO.com . To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CFO.com newsletter . Story Continues These are actual dollars found on the table, he adds. Not only do they go to the companys bottom line, but these dollars help offset the health care costs that employees are going to bear. Intellivo has evidently had success in the area, having landed on Deloittes North America Technology Fast 500 list in late 2025. The list ranks the fastest-growing companies in North America by revenue across a range of industries, including tech, fintech and life sciences. From 2021 to 2024, Intellivo reported a 154% increase in revenue. The company has competitors, such as UnitedHealth Groups Optum arm, SubroIQ and Latitude Subrogation Services. But Mehta says Intellivo differentiates itself by focusing solely on subrogation, where others may also fold in other cost containment services. The company also touts a seamless, friction-free process that doesnt even require any contact with a plan member, as Intellivo CEO Laura Hescock put it in a November 2025 news release. Companies like Intellivo arent necessarily an entirely new phenomenon. Roger Baron, a retired law professor at the University of South Dakota, describes the rise of such firms as a cottage industry. While he says he sees subrogation as a more reasonable solution in the context of property damage, he maintains that some applications in the health care space have manifested in rather disastrous ways. He points back to an infamous case from the late aughts involving Walmart, which sued an employee who received a settlement with a trucking company after she was in a motor vehicle accident that left her severely brain-damaged. Walmart had initially paid for her health care claims, but when the company learned of the settlement, the retailer initiated subrogation to get back what it deemed to be its fair share. The employee had even brought her appeal all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case, and was denied. But Walmart eventually relented and dropped the case in the wake of damning press coverage and public anger. Mehta with Intellivo acknowledges that there can certainly be difficult and challenging cases from time to time. Each client controls plan language options like the make-whole doctrine, and the approach to difficult cases, he says. As the provider of subrogation services for our clients, we carry out the case approach established by our clients. However, our experience is that our clients are sensitive and thoughtful about distinctively challenging cases. And Baron himself acknowledges that a lot of claims arent that bad. But some of them are just horrendous, he says. Dave Place, an attorney whos worked on subrogation plans on behalf of health plans and others for 15 years, would know. He says he switched sides back in 2012 and came to represent victims. The money recovered in subrogation cases, he notes, comes from an injury victim. Before he launched his own law firm, he had worked on several cases in Southern California, where Kaiser Permanentes presence looms large. One of his final straws, he says, came when he was pursuing a case against a newly engaged couple who had been injured by a drunk driver. One half of the couple was left paralyzed from the incident. Place also takes issue with the idea that subrogation cases ultimately bring down health care costs. The idea that subrogation dollars coming in enables these companies to lower premiums and costs, theres just zero evidence of that, he says. Not the bad guys Ashton Kirsch, a shareholder with subrogation law firm Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, says subrogation is much more nuanced than it appears on the surface. To start, he notes, insurance carriers have a policy duty to engage in the practice. If they don't, they're arguably committing bad faith against their insurance, Kirsch says. The insurance carriers arent the bad guys; theyre doing what their policy tells them to do. While hes aware there are some cases that are unfair that may have been highly sensationalized, Kirsch maintains that subrogation has, in some cases, brought about positive changes to various industries over the years. He cites examples of subrogation cases brought against manufacturers that forced them, as an industry, to make their products safer. Subrogation, in Kirschs view, also prevents injury victims from getting paid twice: once from their own insurer and again from the at-fault partys insurer. Thats the idea of subrogation, he says. Youre only getting money back when the policyholder has received a double recovery. Though those on opposing sides of the subrogation debate may have different takes on the ultimate results of the practice, they see value in getting a firm handle on how it works. Understand what it is, and what it isnt, says Kirsch. Understand that subrogation is not debt collections. Baron advises finance leaders to consider asking third-party subrogation providers whether they have protections in place for situations where there might be undue hardship. Though subrogation is rarely something that most CFOs outside the insurance and legal space will need to handle on a day-to-day basis, sources agreed that finance teams should take time to get a better grasp on their insurers policies on the matter. As Baron puts it: This is a clause in an insurance policy that nobody appreciates until it happens to them. Two tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have crossed the Strait of Hormuz and are heading to India, offering some relief as disruptions linked to the war in West Asia trigger concerns about cooking gas shortages. Rajesh Kumar Sinha, special secretary at the Union ministry of ports, shipping and waterways, said the vessels Shivalik and Nanda Devi crossed the strait early on Saturday and are expected to reach Indian ports by 17 March. The development comes amid an LPG shortage in the country, with the government prioritising household consumers as supply disruptions raise concerns over cooking gas availability. As of yesterday, there were 24 India-flagged vessels, out of them two vessels -- Shivalik and Nanda Devi -- carrying LPG early in the morning today cross the Strait of Hormuz safely and they are coming towards India. Both of these vessels are carrying about 92,700 metric tonne LPG and they will arrive at Mundra and Kandla. Their expected arrival dates are 16 March and 17 March, he said. Sinha added that 22 India-flagged vessels remain stuck on the western side of the Strait of Hormuz, including six LPG carriers, four crude carriers and one LNG carrier, with 611 Indian seafarers onboard. Six LPG vessels have arrived at major ports in the past few days, Sinha said. The two LPG carriers were chartered by state-run Indian Oil Corp., people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. The vessels are owned by Shipping Corp. of India Ltd. The ships were granted safe transit through the strait which has been all but closed for nearly two weeks after a deal between New Delhi and Tehran, the people said, without providing details. Also Read | Iran war is squeezing the global economyand exposing new ironies Indias Ministry of External Affairs didnt immediately reply to a request for comment, reported Bloomberg. An Iranian official familiar with the matter, who also declined to be named as hes not authorized to speak to the media, said he could not confirm an agreement. Indian Oil did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment, it added. Ship-tracking data shows that Shivalik has already sailed through the strait, while Nanda Devi appears to be in transit, though electronic interference around the waterway complicates accurate monitoring. Both ships loaded LPG from Ras Laffan in Qatar, Bloomberg added. Vessels in limbo The Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most critical energy chokepoints, has seen severe disruption since the conflict escalated in West Asia, leaving several vessels stranded near the waterway. According to Sinha, 22 India-flagged vessels remain stuck west of the strait, including ships carrying LPG, crude oil and LNG. India, which imports nearly 90% of its crude and LPG from the Persian Gulf, has been in discussions with Iran to ensure safe passage for its vessels through the strait. A number of LPG vessels are now lined up to make the crossing, the people told Bloomberg. Surge in LPG demand On Friday, the government acknowledged concerns over cooking gas supplies in the country. Addressing the media on Saturday, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary for marketing and oil refinery at the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, said concerns around LPG supply remain, though no distributor in the country has run dry so far. The country has around 25,000 retail LPG distributors. Amid panic booking, daily LPG cylinder bookings have risen to 88 lakh from a pre-war average of 55 lakh, she said. India has an annual LPG requirement of 31-32 million tonnes, of which 60-65% is imported, making it the worlds second-largest LPG importer. Around 90% of imports come from West Asian countries, mainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. To manage supplies, the government earlier increased the lock-in period for booking household cylinders to 25 days, and later extended it to 45 days for rural consumers. Urban consumers can continue to book a cylinder after 25 days of the previous booking. Sharma also noted that oil marketing companies are trying to source LPG from other countries. BRICS discussions Responding to a question on the position of BRICS members on the ongoing war in West Asia, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs, said discussions are underway to develop a common position. Some members of the BRICS as you know are directly involved in the current situation in West Asia. This has obviously impacted forging a consensus on a common BRICS position on the ongoing conflict. As chair of BRICS, we have been facilitating discussions among BRICS members through Sherpa channel. The last meeting of the Sherpas of the BRICS took place virtually on 12th March. We are trying our best to develop a position, but because of differing positions, it has been difficult, he said. Also Read | Iran war is squeezing the global economyand exposing new ironies US President Donald Trump on Friday claimed that US forces had carried out one of the most powerful bombing runs in the history of the Middle East, with the Iran's crown jewelKharg Islandas its target. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island (sic)," wrote Trump in a post on Truth Social. Asserting that American weapons were "the most powerful and sophisticated" in the world, Trump said he had "chosen NOT to wipe out" the oil infrastructure on the island "for reasons of decency". "However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision," Trump warned. Kharg Island, located roughly 30 kilometres off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports, reported AFP citing a recent JPMorgan note. "A direct strike would immediately halt the bulk of Iran's crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure," the news agency quoted JPMorgan as saying. 'Nothing they can do' Trump's warning to Iran did not stop there --- the US President emphasized how he, in his first term, had "rebuilt" the US military into the "the Most Lethal, Powerful, and Effective Force, by far, anywhere in the World (sic)". "Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack There is nothing they can do about it!," Trump said. Following up on his earlier assertions, Trump said that Iran "will NEVER" have a nuclear weapon, "nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle East or, for that matter, the World!" "Irans Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save whats left of their country, which isnt much!," Trump said. Minutes later, in a separate post, Trump said, "Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD!" The US President did not elaborate on his last post. CENTCOM says B-2 bombers on mission Hours before Trump announced the strikes on Kharg Island, the US Central Command shared a video showing B-2 stealth bombers taking off in the dead of the night to carry out attacks under Operation Epic Fury, which was launched on 28 February. What was predicted to be a quick campaign for the US and Israel is turning out to be anything but. Overnight on Friday (13 March), US forces struck military targets on Kharg Island, Irans main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. US President Donald Trump warned that oil infrastructure on the island could be next if Iran disrupted shipping in the region. Prior to 1999, TCS was not quite the favoured child of the Tata group. Growth required internal accruals rather than hoping for investment from a parent wrestling with legacy businesses in steel and power. When it finally came to market in July 2004, five years after Kohli had retired as deputy chairman, having handed over the CEO role to S. Ramadorai in 1996, the scale of what had quietly been built came as a surprise. India's first billion-dollar public offer by a private sector company was valued at $10.4 billion on listing, dwarfing every other Indian IT firm. (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is working with Venezuelas interim government to bring a key ally of ousted leader Nicolas Maduro to the US to face prosecution on charges that could include money laundering, according to people familiar with the matter. Alex Saab, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen originally from Colombia, was detained early in February shortly after being removed from office as industry minister. The government hasnt disclosed charges against him. People with knowledge of the situation said he has been held at least part of the time since at Caracas El Helicoide prison, infamous for its harsh conditions. In Miami, prosecutors have obtained a new grand jury indictment against Saab in preparation for a potential handover, some of the people said. While the details are unclear, Saab has previously been investigated for his handling of proceeds of a Venezuelan government food-for-oil program. An attorney for Saab declined to comment. Whether or not hes brought to the US, officials there want Saabs testimony to help build their case against Maduro, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. Maduro is facing multiple federal criminal charges, including including conspiracy to commit narcoterrorism and to import cocaine into the US. He has maintained his innocence. US prosecutors view Saab as a central figure in the financial networks that sustained Maduros government, where he was a cabinet-level official until the presidents capture. Sending him to the US would represent the most significant legal cooperation between Caracas and Washington since Maduros capture in January and could open a new front in corruption cases tied to the former administration. Saabs detention follows other moves by acting President Delcy Rodriguez to comply with US demands. Beyond Saab, Washington is seeking the handover of dozens of financiers, officials and military personnel facing US charges, said some of the people, who declined to be identified since the talks are confidential. Saab was previously extradited to the US in 2021 following his arrest in Cape Verde and indicted on money-laundering charges. Then-President Joe Biden pardoned him in a 2023 prisoner swap. Before Maduros ouster, Saab served as industry minister. Rodriguez removed him from the post less than two weeks after taking power. His wife, Camilla Fabri, was also recently ousted as head of the governments repatriation program. Some of the people said Fabri has been delivering meals to her husband in prison. Fabri couldnt immediately be reached for comment through an intermediary. Since assuming the presidency, Rodriguez has kept a fragile balance among the factions of Chavismo, the regime that has governed Venezuela for almost three decades. The arrests of Saab, media mogul Raul Gorrin and former official Alexander Mimou Vargas have already rattled the movement. Some figures, fearing they are next, have gone into hiding or are trying to negotiate with US officials. Sending Saab to the US would likely prompt others to flee the country, the people said. The Venezuelan Information Ministry didnt respond to requests for comment. The US Justice Department declined to comment. US officials have held talks with Saab in Caracas, pressing him to disclose the location of Maduros assets, one of the people said. To facilitate a possible handover, the interim government is exploring ways to annul Saabs Venezuelan citizenship, likely by alleging irregularities in how it was granted, some of the people said. Venezuelas constitution forbids the extradition of its own citizens. It remains unclear how the process would unfold for other Venezuelans the US is seeking, including former Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, who has been under arrest since April 2024 on charges of treason and money laundering. Attempts to locate an attorney for El Aissami werent immediately successful. --With assistance from Michael Smith and Eric Martin. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com Indias indigenous GPS alternative, NavIC, has suffered setback with the loss of satellite IRNSS-1F after its final atomic clock stopped functioning on Friday. With this development, only three satellites, IRNSS-1B, IRNSS-1L and NVS-01, remain operational for providing positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services. This poses a challenge as a minimum of four satellites is reportedly required to ensure complete navigation coverage across India and surrounding areas. IRNSS-1F satellite launched in March 2016 has completed its design mission life of 10 years on 10th March 2026, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) stated on its website, adding, On 13th March 2026, procured on-board Atomic clock stopped functioning. However, the satellite will continue to function in-orbit for various societal applications to provide one way broadcast messaging services. View full Image View full Image ISRO website Since July 2013, the ISRO has launched 11 satellites for the nearly 2,250-crore NavIC navigation programme, but six of them have failed, largely due to defective imported atomic clocks in the initial phase and, in some recent cases, because of orbital complications, noted an Indian Express report. 11 satellites have been put in orbit: Govt last year to Parl In a reply tabled in Parliament last year, the Union government stated that only four of the 11 satellites deployed for the NavIC system were fully operational for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services, while the remaining spacecraft were being utilised in a limited or sub-optimal capacity. Minister of State for the PMO, Jitendra Singh informed the Lok Sabha on July 23 last year, stating, "As of now, 11 satellites have been put in orbit. Some of them are not functioning. At present, four satellites are providing Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services, four satellites are being used for one way message broadcast, one satellite got decommissioned after its end-of-life service. Two satellites could not reach the intended orbit." Location services provided by the NavIC system in India are going to be affected, the report cited space department sources as saying. Also Read | Google Doodle marks Republic Day 2026 with ISRO themed illustration The government had further informed Parliament in its July 23 response that about 12,000 trains are planned to be tracked in real time using NavIC along with other Global Navigation Satellite System constellations, and that nearly 8,700 trains have already been equipped with NavIC-based tracking capability. About NavIC India experienced GPS denial, or reduced accuracy of navigation signals, during the 1999 conflict with Pakistan, which made it difficult for its armed forces to operate effectively in the challenging Himalayan terrain and limited their capacity to carry out precision strikes on enemy positions. Recognising this strategic weakness and dependence on foreign systems, the government decided to develop an indigenous alternative to the American GPS, reported WION. While the United States operates GPS, China runs the BeiDou system, Europe manages Galileo, and Russia controls GLONASS, NavIC was conceived as Indias sovereign navigation network. Unlike these global services, NavIC has been designed to provide coverage primarily over the Indian subcontinent, extending up to about 1,500 kilometres beyond Indias borders. Tesla is preparing to move forward with a massive semiconductor manufacturing project aimed at meeting its rapidly growing artificial intelligence needs. On Saturday (March 14), Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the companys Terafab project a giga-sized AI chip manufacturing facility could launch within the next seven days. The facility is expected to produce large volumes of advanced processors required for Teslas artificial intelligence systems used in vehicles. Growing AI demand drives chip factory plan Musk has previously indicated that Tesla may need to build its own semiconductor manufacturing facility to meet its escalating demand for AI chips. Speaking last year, he said Tesla would probably have to build a gigantic chip fab to support its artificial intelligence ambitions. In November, Musk again suggested that creating Teslas own Terafab could be the only viable solution to supply the enormous number of chips the company requires. Last month, Musk noted that Teslas demand for AI processors could exceed even the best-case output from existing suppliers and strategic partners. Capacity could rival the worlds largest chipmakers The proposed Terafab facility would likely operate at more than 100,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM) a scale that could place Tesla among the worlds largest semiconductor manufacturers. Currently, Tesla relies heavily on leading chip producers such as TSMC, Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology. Teslas AI push requires massive computing power Teslas push into artificial intelligence is expanding rapidly. As a global carmaker Tesla operates some of the industrys largest AI supercomputing clusters to train autonomous driving systems and robotics models. The company already uses tens of thousands of GPUs from Nvidia to train AI models. Following the cancellation of Teslas Dojo chip program, the company plans to rely on its AI5 processors to power both its vehicles and humanoid robots while also deploying them in data centers. Tesla could become its own chipmaker With the Terafab initiative, Tesla could eventually transform itself into an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) designing and producing its own semiconductors. Such a move would give the company greater control over its AI hardware supply chain while supporting the development of next-generation autonomous vehicles, robotics platforms and large-scale AI systems. Also Read | The AI boom is creating a new chip problem for carmakers Is Ford a good stock to buy now? We came across a bullish thesis on Ford Motor Company on R. Denniss Substack by OppCost. In this article, we will summarize the bulls thesis on F. Ford Motor Company's share was trading at $12.11 as of March 11th. Fs trailing and forward P/E were 11.84 and 8.33, respectively according to Yahoo Finance. Pixabay/Public Domain Ford Motor Company develops, delivers, and services Ford trucks, sport utility vehicles, commercial vans and cars, and Lincoln luxury vehicles in the United States and internationally. F has been navigating a transitional period, balancing one-time GAAP charges tied to its EV strategy with a fundamentally strong operational outlook. While headlines highlighted short-term losses, investors are focused on the companys guidance of $8 billion to $10 billion in adjusted EBIT for 2026, signaling substantial underlying profitability. A notable institutional trade on February 12, 2026, executed a zero-cost synthetic long by buying 15,000 $14.50 calls for $0.20 and selling 15,000 $13.50 puts for $0.30, effectively financing a high-conviction upside bet while committing to purchase the stock at $13.50, a level that has served as key support. Fords performance is underpinned by Ford Pro, the commercial segment that generated $66 billion in revenue in 2025 with double-digit EBIT margins and is building a recurring-revenue ecosystem through paid software subscriptions, which grew 30% last year. The hybrid pivot, with top-selling models like the F-150 and Maverick, has also strengthened near-term cash flow while the Universal EV Platform is being readied for 2027. The $13.50 put strike acts as an engineered floor, supported by a $0.15 dividend and a forward P/E of 7x8x 2026 earnings, offering limited downside relative to free cash flow generation. This positioning allows investors to benefit from potential upside toward the 52-week highs of $14.50 while being willing to acquire a high-quality American brand at a discount if the stock falls. Overall, the trade reflects a strategic, low-risk approach to capitalizing on Fords resilient cash flows, growing recurring revenue, and improving EV and hybrid positioning, presenting a compelling risk/reward opportunity. Previously, we covered a bullish thesis on Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) by Oliver | MMMT Wealth in April 2025, which highlighted the companys long-term ambitions in autonomy, AI, robotics, energy, and data despite near-term delivery and margin pressures. TSLAs stock price has appreciated by approximately 74.81% since our coverage. OppCost shares a contrarian view but focuses on Ford ($F)s cash-generative Ford Pro segment, hybrid pivot, and engineered support levels, creating a low-risk, high-conviction upside scenario. Three members of the Stokes family accused of being involved in a violent brawl on Ballymahon Street, Longford last October were served with a Book of Evidence last week and sent forward to stand trial. Sean Stokes (37) of 29 Ardnacassa Avenue, Longford, Patrick Stokes (36) of 6 Cartrun Breac, Lisbreac Road, Longford and 31 year old John Paul Stokes, of 40 Palace Crescent, Longford stand accused of violent disorder with persons unknown as well as assault causing harm to a specific individual on Saturday, October 18, 2025. Garda Keith Maher said he served the Book of Evidence on the three accused men at Longford courthouse earlier that morning. Sergeant Mark Mahon for the State, told Judge Bernadette Owens the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had given permission for the trio to be sent forward later this month to the next sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court in connection with two charges. Barrister Josephine Casey, who appeared on behalf of Dublin based solicitor Andrew Broderick, represented all three accused in Longford District Court on the day. READ NEXT: Major step forward for Longford and Midlands tabletop gaming community Judge Owens delivered the alibi warning separately to Sean Stokes, Patrick Stokes and John Paul Stokes and she informed them that if they wished to rely on an alibi warning they must inform the prosecution within 14 days. The court heard an application for legal aid was granted for all three. Ms Casey applied for a second counsel due to what she described as the 'serious charges on conviction' and Judge Owens subsequently approved the request. The men did not speak for the duration of their time in court. Judge Owens sent the trio forward to the next sitting of Longford Circuit Court on July 7. The strict conditions of bail set out previously will remain the same, however, a curfew has been removed. The conditions include residing at their stipulated address, to notify Gardai of any change of address, and proof of compliance, no contact directly or indirectly with any witnesses and to refrain from use of social media. READ NEXT: Longford family wins the BIG top prize on National Lottery scratch card A judge has given a man who stole items valued at more than 260 from a supermarket on two separate occasions, an opportunity to avoid a prison term. Anthony Mannion (56) of Clygeen, Lenamore, Longford pleaded guilty at the local district court to the offence at Tesco, Longford Shopping Centre on January 2 and January 8 last. In relation to the earliest theft, Sergeant Mark Mahon said the defendant entered Tesco and he took two sets of ear pods from the packages. They were valued at 40 and he placed them into his pocket and he left the store and passed all points of payment and he failed to pay for same. The court heard the property was not recovered. READ NEXT: Major step forward for Longford and Midlands tabletop gaming community Sgt Mahon said the defendant entered Tesco, Longford again on January 8 last at 6pm and he selected various electronic items valued at 220 and he placed them in a shopping bag. The defendant also selected grocery items and he brought them forward and paid for them at the till. He failed to make a payment for the electronic devices and he concealed them in the shopping bag and he left the shop past all points of payment, Sgt Mahon said. He was stopped by security personnel and by Gardai and the items were recovered and resaleable. Mr Mannion had 15 previous convictions. Solicitor Frank Gearty said the law had caught up with his client who had experienced some family difficulties in recent years. He cooperated in every way and he is asking me to say to you he has learnt a lesson. Judge Bernadette Owens noted the early plea and she decided to put the matter back to assess if Mr Mannion has 'turned a corner'. She directed Mr Mannion to make a charitable contribution of 200 to Longford Community Resource Centre by September 8 and she said if this was done she would apply the probation act. READ NEXT: Longford family wins the BIG top prize on National Lottery scratch card Cork city. Gardai have launched an investigation following the discovery of a woman's body at a house on the outskirts of The alarm was raised at around 5.30pm this Friday after e mergency services responded to the discovery of the woman's body - at a house in Ballincollig - in unexplained circumstances. It's understood the woman was aged in her 30s. "Nobody else was in the house at the time the womans body was discovered deceased at the scene. Her body is expected to be conveyed to the morgue at University College Cork this evening, for post-mortem examination tomorrow, Saturday 14th March 2026," said a garda spokesperson. The area has been sealed off and will be subject to technical examination by members of the Scenes of Crime Unit, based in Cork City. Gardai say the coroner has been notified and that th e results of the post-mortem examination will determine the course of the investigation. A Family Liaison Officer (FLO) has been assigned to support the family of the deceased and g ardai are appealing for witnesses to this incident to come forward. "Anyone who was in the Innishmore area of Ballincollig, Co Cork between 3pm on Thursday, March 12 and 5.30pm on Friday and who may have camera footage is asked to provide this footage to investigating gardai," said a spokesperson. Anyone with information is asked to contact Togher garda station in Cork on 021 4947120, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station. Summary created by Smart Answers AI In summary: Apples new MacBook Neo, priced at $499 for education, targets students with premium aluminum design and full macOS capabilities to compete against dominant Chromebooks. Macworld reports the device offers seamless iPhone integration, professional software access, and longer software support compared to budget Windows laptops and Chromebooks. This strategic pricing aims to cultivate lifelong Apple customers by introducing younger generations to the ecosystem early, securing future upgrades to higher-end devices. For years, Chromebooks and low-cost Windows laptops have dominated the education sector for one primary reason: aggressive pricing. Some models sell for under $200, making them easy to deploy at scale. Theyre also more sensible than entry-level iPads, thanks to the more mature operating systems, larger displays, built-in keyboards, and fuller feature sets. That dynamic is about to shift, however. With the new MacBook Neo, Apple is set to disrupt this longstanding formula, positioning itself as a serious player in education. Until now, a truly affordable MacBook that parents and schools could justify for kids didnt existApples cheapest laptop started at $999 with the MacBook Air. Starting at a mere $499 for education, Neo is catering to this untapped market for the first time ever. Before long, many students will either be using a MacBook Neo or asking for one. Long-term gains The MacBook Neos starting price is a calculated decision. Apple couldve easily charged more and still sold plenty of them, but short-term profit isnt the primary goal here. With such a low starting price for students, Apple is ensuring Macs will begin showing up in classrooms all over the world, winning over younger generations and getting them accustomed to Apple hardware and software. By introducing students to the Mac at a young age, Apple potentially secures them as lifelong customers who will later spend much more on higher-end devices. Plenty of Chromebooks and Windows laptops cost less than $499, but they dont have the design or ecosystem Apple does. The MacBook is an established premium line, and, at just $499, its bound to become the new cool at school. Apple laptops are already popular with students, but now theyll be popular with schools too. Apple iPhones BFF Back in the days when I was a college student, I sold my mid-range Lenovo laptop right after I switched from Android to iPhone. Instead of a Mac, I opted for an iPad to keep things in sync with my iPhone while I worked. Within a couple of years, my entire setup was converted to Apple-made products that worked seamlessly together. Many parents buy their kids iPhones for similar reasons. They can easily AirDrop notes, add them to shared photo albums, track them with Find My, set Screen Time limits, approve purchases, and much more. When they grown up, these kids will want a laptop that works just as well with their iPhones. The MacBook Neo offers native integrations with iOS, including iPhone Mirroring, notification forwarding, Universal Clipboard, plus the practical iCloud sync for photos, notes, contacts, files, and other data. No Chromebook or Windows laptop can beat that. Full desktop experience Another reason parents and schools may want to prioritize the MacBook Neo over a Chromebook is that it runs the full version of macOS. ChromeOS is essentially a glorified web browser that doesnt offer the same set of advanced apps. While the MacBook Neo may run an iPhone chip, users will still get to install professional Mac software, such as coding tools, photo editors, and other comprehensive desktop apps. Apple doesnt say how long it will support the MacBook Neo with software updates, but its safe to assume that itll be longer than any of its mid-range rivals. Cheap laptops often get quickly neglected by their manufacturers, as they focus their resources on supporting flagship machines. As such, Neo users will get the latest security patches, AI enhancements, and other new Mac features for years to come. Apple learned from the mistakes it made with the iPhone 5c. Foundry Far from an iPhone 5c When the plastic iPhone 5c flopped, Apple learned how not to build cheap products, switching to the SE model, which maintains the premium materials for budget iPhones and watches by incorporating dated components. The MacBook Neo is an evolution of this successful formula that sacrifices certain technologies for design and features that matter. According to Macworlds Michael Simonwho got to try the notebook at Apples hands-on eventthe MacBook Neo feels as premium as the MacBook Air. It features a sturdy aluminum chassis, reliable Magic Keyboard (albeit not backlit), stunning display, decent audio system, and more. Sure, youre missing out on some higher-end specs available on Air and Pro MacBooks, but it doesnt feel like similarly priced, low-grade laptops. Beyond its durability, the MacBook Neo also caters to students and youngsters by offering vibrant color options, including citrus and blushplus the more subtle silver and indigo. The selection can add a fun aspect to a serious productivity device, making it appealing to a broader range of customers. If pretty much everything about the MacBook Neo is superior, why would anyone still want to buy another cheap laptop? Operations at the United Arab Emirates key oil storage and bunkering hub in Fujairah are gradually returning to normal after attacks earlier this week disrupted loading activities at several terminals. Most storage terminals and berths at the Fujairah Oil Tanker Terminal (FOTT) are now operating again, according to trade and shipping sources. Shipping agent reports show that all berths at Oil Terminal 1 and a very large crude carrier (VLCC) jetty are functioning, while several berths at Oil Terminal 2 have also resumed accepting vessels. The resumption follows an incident on March 9 when debris from a drone intercepted by UAE air defence systems fell inside the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, sparking a fire that damaged oil storage infrastructure, according to the Fujairah press office. Authorities said the blaze was quickly brought under control, but the incident forced several terminals to suspend operations temporarily as a precaution. FOTT, which has storage capacity of about 1.18 million cubic metres, is one of the main locations where crude cargoes are loaded in the emirate. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, several terminal operators halted loadings while bunker terminals suspended the loading of fuel onto barges, tightening marine fuel availability for ships operating in the region. Limited bunkering continued using inventories already stored on barges, traders said, though suppliers have been unable to replenish those stocks until terminal operations resume fully. State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has since informed international partners holding stakes in Murban crude production that they can proceed with loading some March cargoes from Fujairah, signalling a gradual normalization of operations. Not all facilities have fully restarted. The Mena Fujairah Terminal remains offline after drone debris damaged naphtha storage tanks last week, while bunker suppliers said they are still awaiting clearance to resume barge operations at the Vopak Horizon terminal. Fujairah is one of the worlds largest oil storage and refuelling centres for ships, located just outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman. The port is a critical refuelling hub for vessels travelling between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The temporary disruption earlier this week tightened bunker fuel availability and pushed regional marine fuel prices higher, with traders reporting reduced offers and increased caution among suppliers. Industry participants say operations remain cautious as the conflict continues, with companies closely monitoring security conditions around critical energy infrastructure and shipping routes in the Gulf. New trial reveals epilepsy drug Sulthiame reduces obstructive sleep apnea breathing pauses by up to 47%, offering hope as a pill-based alternative to CPAP machines. Highlights: Epilepsy drug Sulthiame reduces sleep apnea breathing interruptions by up to 47% reduces sleep apnea breathing interruptions by up to 47% Medication offers potential pill-based solution for patients unable to tolerate CPAP masks for patients unable to tolerate CPAP masks Treatment stabilizes breathing control and prevents upper airway collapse during sleep Trusted Source Sultiame once per day in obstructive sleep apnoea (FLOW): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-finding, phase 2 trial Go to source Trusted Source Advertisement Sulthiame Reduces Nighttime Breathing Interruptions Advertisement Sulthiame Signals Possible Breakthrough in Sleep Apnea Treatment Advertisement Sleep Apnea Risks and Current Treatment Challenges Patient Struggles with Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Masks Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is sulthiame? A: Sulthiame is a medication previously approved to treat a form of childhood epilepsy and is now being studied as a possible treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. Q: How does sulthiame help people with sleep apnea? A: The drug stabilizes the body's breathing control and increases respiratory drive, which helps prevent the upper airway from collapsing during sleep. Q: How effective was sulthiame in the clinical trial? A: Participants taking higher doses experienced up to a 47% reduction in breathing interruptions during sleep. Q: What treatment is commonly used for sleep apnea today? A: Continuous positive airway pressure therapy is the most common treatment and uses a mask to keep the airway open during sleep. Q: Why are researchers looking for alternatives to continuous positive airway pressure therapy? A: Many patients find the mask uncomfortable and up to half stop using the device within a year. Sultiame once per day in obstructive sleep apnoea (FLOW): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-finding, phase 2 trial. - (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01196-1/fulltext) A medication known as, suggesting a possible pill-based alternative to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy. It may help individuals with obstructive sleep apnea breathe more easily at night and achieve better overall sleep quality ().Evidence for this comes from a European clinical trial, according to investigators, the findings indicate the potential for aThe results of the trial were published in. The study involvedAbout one quarter of them were given a placebo, while the remaining participants received varying doses of sulthiame. Conducted across four European countries, the trial used a double blind design, meaning neither the participants nor the investigators knew who received the actual medication.Participants treated with higher doses of sulthiame experienced as much as acompared with those who received the placebo. In addition, theirThe medication appears to function by. This mechanism reduces the chances that the upper airway will collapse during sleep, which is the main cause of obstructive sleep apnea. Most side effects reported in the trial were mild and temporary.Jan Hedner, senior professor of pulmonary medicine at the Sahlgrenska Academy, played a leading role in the investigation.We have been developing this treatment strategy for a long time, and the findings demonstrate that sleep apnea can indeed be influenced through medication. It feels like a breakthrough, and we now anticipate, said Jan Hedner.Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the. These episodes temporarily stop breathing, reduce oxygen levels in the blood , and repeatedly interrupt normal sleep.Over time, untreated sleep apnea increases the risk of serious health problems, includingAlthough the condition is widespread, there is currently no medication that directly treats its underlying cause. The most widely used therapy is continuous positive airway pressure, commonly called CPAP, which uses a mask to keep the airway open during sleep. Despite its effectiveness, many people struggle to use the device consistently.because the mask can feel uncomfortable or disturb sleep. As a result, alternative treatment approaches are urgently needed.Sulthiame is an existing medication that has. Scientists are now examining whether this drug could also serve as a treatment option for people with obstructive sleep apnea.In conclusion, the findings indicate that sulthiame may offer a promising medication-based approach for treating obstructive sleep apnea by reducing breathing interruptions and improving oxygen levels during sleep. While the results are encouraging, larger and longer studies will be necessary to confirm its long-term effectiveness and safety for broader patient groups.Source-Medindia Ever since Ranveer Singh headlined Dhurandhar, the film has significantly altered the box-office landscape. The ensemble espionage thriller, directed by Aditya Dhar, turned into a historic success and is now expected to raise the bar even higher with its sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge. Over the past few weeks, several internet users have pointed out noticeable similarities between Dhurandhar and Satya. Ram Gopal Varma Some even went as far as claiming on social media that the Ranveer Singh starrer was a frame-to-frame copy of the cult crime drama. Addressing the chatter, Satya director Ram Gopal Varma finally shared his perspective on the debate. Reacting to the online comparisons, he acknowledged that Ranveers blockbuster does draw inspiration from his iconic film. Ram Gopal Varma told DNA, See, whether Aditya Dhar did it consciously or not, eventually, all filmmakers will go back to something they've seen, or they got inspired by, and they're bound to be influenced. Ram Gopal Varma went on to acknowledge that even some of his most celebrated films were influenced by earlier cinematic works. Reflecting on the creative process, he said, For me, Shiva was inspired by Bruce Lee's Return of the Dragon and Sunny Deol's Arjun. Satya was a bit of The Godfather and The Goodfellas. So likewise, when I spoke to Aditya, he told me, 'I was mainly influenced by Satya and Company, and then I mixed them, and put some patriotism'. That was his first idea. Gas prices in Southern California continue to climb as the conflict in Iran intensifies with no end in sight. In Riverside County, gas prices rose 6 cents per gallon overnight - they're up 46 cents per gallon compared with last week, and are up 88 cents per gallon compared with last month. "The community is being affected," said Tom Fitzgerald, who was traveling to Las Vegas with family for his 50th birthday. "Prices are really high, so it's a shame." But travel experts say there are ways to help save between 10 and 50 cents per gallon, not only by using apps like GasBuddy to find the cheapest gas in the area but also by using various credit cards and rewards programs. "Everyone is thinking about how they can save," said Eric Rosen, the director of travel content for The Points Guy. "For instance, I logged into my Citi account the other day and found an offer for 4% back at Shell gas stations." For example, that means if you're paying $6 for a gallon of gasoline, you can save nearly 25 cents per gallon just by taking advantage of that offer. "Just make sure you're using a credit card that offers multiple points per dollar, or several percentage points of cash back per dollar on your gas purchases," said Rosen. Another way to save is to buy gasoline at stations with deals with local supermarkets. For example, people who shop at Vons can redeem rewards at Chevron gas stations. "If that's a grocery chain where you shop, and it's a line of gas stations where you tend to buy your gas, you can be in line for savings," said Rosen. "According to the program (at Vons) for every 100 points, you earn by shopping at Vons and Pavilions, you receive a 10 cent per gallon gas reward." For example, by purchasing $300 of eligible groceries at Vons can earn you an extra 30 cents per gallon off when filling up at Chevron. Rosen also said to take advantage of big discounts offered on gasoline at membership stores like Costco or Sam's Club. "You can see savings that are 10, 20, even 50 cents off per gallon, based on what you'll find just sort of regular retail with no rewards applied whatsoever." At Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital in Fort Polk, Louisiana, there's a portrait in the hospital lobby that tells a remarkable story. It's the likeness of Brigadier General Stanhope Bayne-Jones, the hospital's namesake, depicting a man with a steady gaze watching over the hospital and indirectly greeting soldiers, families and hospital staff. While the general is a towering figure in his own right, the artist who painted the portrait of him earned her place in history. Margo Roll, an artist and military spouse, painted the portrait of General Bayne-Jones in 1983, leaving her signature in the corner of the canvas. Roll recently passed away at the age of 94, with her name catching the attention of Dawn Dunbar, a healthcare risk manager with BJACHs Quality Management Division, who realized the artists work had become a prominent part of the hospitals history. Portrait painted by artist Margo Roll of Gen. Stanhope Bayne-Jones. It hangs inside the Louisiana Army hospital that bears his name. (BJACH/Facebook) I just knew there was a story here, said Dunbar, in a U.S. Army news release obtained by Military.com. Dunbar reached out to the Roll family, who shared her life's story, hoping it could be preserved. Marguerite Wood, Rolls daughter, said her mothers artistic gift was just another way she served her community. The family shared paintings, photographs and a scrapbook filled with old newspaper clippings documenting Rolls lifelong involvement in the local community. She loved people, she loved her church, and she loved her art, Wood said. And she always wanted to use her gifts for something meaningful. Roll was born September 10, 1931, in Rockaway, New York, and later moved to Louisiana with her husband, retired Chief Warrant Officer Ernest R. Roll, who served as an Army Criminal Investigation Division special investigator. Roll in her own right built a reputation as a respected artist, teacher and custom framer. Artist Margo Roll pictured with husband retired Chief Warrant Officer Ernest R. Roll (BJACH /Facebook). At BJACH, other paintings by Roll hang in the hospital, including landscape scenes depicting Louisianas natural beauty. Every painting is an artistic nod to the region and the military community at Fort Polk. BJACH exists to deliver combat-ready care and ensure warfighter readiness, said Col. Patrick W. Miller, commander of BJACH. He said Rolls work represents the relationship between the hospital and the people it serves. But our mission is only possible because of the people who stand beside us our staff, our Families, and our community partners. Mrs. Rolls artwork reflects that bond, and her legacy will remain part of this hospital for years to come. Rolls influence also reached beyond BJACH and into the neighboring community, where her work is displayed at RealArt DeRidder Arts Cooperative. Betty White, president of the Beauregard Parish Art Guild, said Roll helped shape the organization from its earliest days. Her work will continue to be displayed and shared with the community as an inspiration to others, White said. Roll's daughter, Marguerite Wood, said her family is proud of her mothers connection to BJACH. She didnt talk much about recognition, Wood said. But she cared about leaving something behind that mattered something that would still be here long after she was gone. The portrait of Bayne-Jones serves that purpose -- as a reminder of the hospitals namesake and the artist who painted his portrait, Margo Roll, a woman whose service and dedication shine with every brushstroke. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea on Saturday fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea, South Koreas military said, staging its own show of force as the rival South conducts a joint military exercise with the United States. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from an area in Sunan, the site of Pyongyangs international airport, and flew about 350 kilometers (220 miles). Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the weapons landed outside the countrys exclusive economic zone and that there were no reports of damage to planes or ships. The Souths Joint Chiefs said the military has stepped up surveillance and is maintaining readiness against possible additional launches while closely sharing information with the U.S. and Japan. The launches came as the U.S. and South Korean militaries conduct their annual springtime exercises involving thousands of troops while the Trump administration also wages an escalating war in the Middle East. The war has raised concerns about potential security lapses in South Korea, as local media citing security camera footage and other images have speculated that the U.S. is relocating some missile defense assets stationed in the country to support operations against Iran. When asked by The Associated Press this week whether U.S. Forces Korea was moving interceptor missiles from its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system in Seongju to the Middle East, South Korean President Lee Jae Myungs office said it could not confirm details about U.S. military operations. The office said the potential relocation of U.S. military assets would not affect the allies defense posture against nuclear-armed North Korea, while also citing South Koreas conventional military strength. It earlier gave a similar response to reports about the possible relocation of Patriot missile defense systems from South Korea. The launches came hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Seouls No. 2 official after Lee, met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington and expressed hope for renewed diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. Lee seeks improved inter-Korean relations, and some of his top officials have said Trumps expected visit to China, starting March 31, may create an opening with Pyongyang. But Saturdays launches appeared to dim such hopes, signaling defiance by Pyongyang, which in recent months has hardened its stance toward Seoul and urged Washington to drop denuclearization demands as a precondition for talks. North Korea has long described the allies drills as invasion rehearsals and often uses them as a pretext to dial up its own military demonstrations or weapons testing. The North in previous years has conducted numerous salvo launches of missiles or artillery while describing them as simulations of nuclear attacks against targets in South Korea. The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday criticized Washington and Seoul for proceeding with their drills at a perilous moment for global security, and warned that any challenge to the Norths safety would bring terrible consequences. Without directly referring to the Iran war, Kim Yo Jong said the U.S.-South Korea drills undermine regional stability at a time when the global security structure is collapsing rapidly and wars break out in different parts of the world due to the reckless acts of outrageous international rogues. North Koreas Foreign Ministry has released separate statements denouncing the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and expressing support for Tehrans new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise, which runs through March 19, is one of two annual command post exercises conducted by the militaries of the United States and South Korea. The largely computer-simulated drills are designed to test the allies joint operational capabilities, while incorporating evolving war scenarios and security challenges. Freedom Shield will be accompanied by a field training program called Warrior Shield. North Korea has repeatedly rejected Washington and Seouls calls to resume diplomacy aimed at winding down its nuclear program. Talks derailed in 2019 following the collapse of Kim Jong Uns second summit with Trump during his first term. Kim has made Russia the priority of his foreign policy, sending thousands of troops and large amounts of military equipment to support Moscows war in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for aid and military technology. AP journalists Yuri Kageyama and Mayuko Ono contributed from Tokyo. The ongoing conflict in Iran and normal seasonal demand increases have caused gas prices to climb. "Spring Break season is here as the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped nearly 35 cents since last week," according to data from AAA. March 12 national average: $3.59 One week ago: $3.25 One month ago: $2.94 One year ago: $3.08 That's an opportunity for Costco, which has used low gas prices as a way to entice people to join the warehouse club. "You save approximately 20 cents a gallon at Costco over other local vendors," David Schwartz, who, together with his wife Susan, authored "The Joy of Costco," told CNBC. "That's something we have seen time and time again across the country." Costco has a plan to combat rising gas prices When gasoline prices fall, Costco does not lower prices at the same pace it raises them when prices are climbing. This allows the company to recoup some of the profits lost by doing the reverse when prices rise. In theory, that alleviates some of the pain at the pump for Costco members as prices climb. Former Costco CFO Richard Galanti defended that practice, discussing the warehouse clubs gas business during its second-quarter earnings call. I think part of that story has been thrown away because it seems that not only us, but the supermarket retailers and other discount retailers that operate large numbers of gas stations, theyve been able to use it too. As prices went up or went, even went down a little bit, they didnt go down as fast as perhaps they could have been, which gives us, in our view, an ability to make a little more and still be the most competitive, he said. Rising gas prices may drive more people to Costco's gas stations. Shutterstock Shutterstock Costco's gas can be worth a membership Costco sells its Gold membership for $65. If you assume $0.20 per gallon in gas savings, simple math reveals that joining the warehouse club is worth it for the gas savings alone. Every five gallons saves you $1, so 50 gallons is $10 in savings, and 325 gallons equals the price of your membership. As gas prices rise, Costco customers are also more willing to drive farther to visit the chain's pumps. Former Costco CFO Richard Galanti shared more color on the chain's gas pricing during its fourth-quarter-earnings call. Related: History of Costco: Company timeline and facts Everybody seems to be wanting to make more in gas, which allows us, in our view, to make a little more and still be even more profitable, he said. Weve seen our competitive spread versus our direct competitors at every location, on average, improve over the last couple of years to now be in the I want to say the $0.30 range per gallon. Thirty is the average, which is up. Its an average, and it can range from 10 to 45. The Pentagon has issued a new modernization plan for Stars & Stripes that would impact the longstanding military publications reporting coverage, causing editorial leadership deep concern about the future of independent journalism. In mid-January 2026, the Pentagon announced via social media that it would alter the newspapers editorial objectives to stray from woke distractions and instead devote more literary capital toward reporting for our warfighters. It struck Stars & Stripes' editorial staff as quite the surprise, with newsroom leaders vowing to follow the freedom and independence afforded by the Constitution. Stars & Stripes reported Friday that an 8-page memo, written by Pentagon leaders and combatant commanders and without Stars and Stripes input, limits the use of wire services, bars comics and other syndicated features, and states that content must be consistent with good order and discipline, borrowing a phrase from the Uniform Code of Military Justice. My first reaction was one of deep concern for our newsgathering and for our readers, Stars & Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin told Military.com on Saturday afternoon. The memo says that Stars and Stripes is unofficial and independent. At the same time, it restricts what news sources can be published and directs that Stars and Stripes should publish official information along with its staff stories. Weve sought to have a conversation with Defense Department officials ever since the Jan. 15 social media post discussed changes. We have yet to receive a reply to our request to discuss the organizations future. The only message the publication has received from the Pentagon, according to Slavin, was a statement they issued on Friday regarding a story about the new memo that was discovered via Department of Defense website search. 'Warfighter' Agenda Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Military.com that the department is returning S&S to its original mission: an independent news source for service members stationed overseas that is by the warfighter and for the warfighter. This will be achieved through a comprehensive modernization of S&S operations, including a transition from print to digital, transition to uniformed staff at locations outside the continental U.S., and other efficiency measures that will eliminate redundancies and ensure smart use of DOW resources," Parnell said. "The Departments effort will evolve S&S to meet industry trends and changes in how new generations of Service members consume media. It remains to be seen what that will entail, as the Pentagon has not yet elaborated on specifics. Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer reportedly told U.S.-based staff of the memo on Thursday, with intentions to meet with organizational leaders on implementation. That response left several of our questions unanswered and raised some new ones, Slavin said. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) The Pentagon may not be aware of the extensive modernization already started by Stars and Stripes, said Slavin, pointing to previous changes to the publications digitally produced news and information that have resulted in significant increases in pageviews, engagement, video viewership and subscribers. He said there is particular concern about the good order and discipline phrase and legal implications on military reporters, of which Stars & Stripes employs active-duty servicemembers who report for 1-3 years and are mentored by professional civilian journalists. We are seeking clarification from the Pentagon, Slavin added. An Independent Voice Since the Civil War The Pentagons forced changes would represent a sea change for a newspaper first published by Union troops during the Civil War, becoming a mainstay notably since World War II with print editions still published overseas as well as a U.S. weekly edition. It also distributes copies to combat zones. The print newspaper continues to be read at overseas bases around the world and is particularly popular in areas where commercial internet service is restricted or unreliable, Slavin said. The pickup rate is very high in remote parts of Kuwait, for example. It would be very difficult to restart if shuttered entirely. Staff members watch as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, reflected in a window, speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Any restrictions on wire content would also negatively impact coverage, he said, due to limited manpower or other news organizations having paywalls or not being curated in service members best interests. Comics, national sports, state-by-state roundups and other content soon may no longer be published due to the limits of the memo, Slavin added. Feedback from deployed troops tells us that this will not be a popular decision. Stars and Stripes has begun processing its compliance with the memo, with no plans to commingle independent staff reporting with military public relations content. Stars and Stripes remains committed to balanced and accurate reporting on behalf of the military community we serve, to the greatest extent that we are able, Slavin said. JERUSALEM (AP) The islands off Iran have become the latest focus of the war after a U.S strike destroyed military sites Friday on Kharg Island, which is vital to Iran's oil network. The U.S. strike on the island in the Persian Gulf left its oil infrastructure intact, but President Donald Trump warned that if Iran or anyone else interferes with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to wipe it out. Although they account for only a small share of Irans territory, the islands carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. Heres what to know about Iran's islands in the Persian Gulf up to the Strait of Hormuz: Kharg Island The small coral island about 21 miles (33 kilometers) off Irans coast is the primary terminal through which nearly all of Irans oil exports pass. Iran has exported 13.7 million barrels since the war started, and multiple tankers were seen on satellite imagery Wednesday loading at Kharg, according to TankerTrackers.com, maritime intelligence company. Iran gets a significant share of its revenue from oil, with shipments flowing to countries like China. A strike on Kharg would not only damage Irans current government but also could undermine the viability of whatever might eventually replace it. The island has storage tanks in the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. Gazelles roam freely near the refineries and depots that make Kharg one of Irans most valuable and sensitive assets. Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said Kharg Island was critical to funding Irans government and military. If Iran were to lose control of Kharg, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn't a military or nuclear target, he said. It doesnt matter which regime is in power new or old," Katinas said. A takeover would give the U.S. leverage over negotiations with Iran because the island is the main node of its economy. JPMorgans global commodity research team warned this week in an investment note that a strike on the island would have major economic implications. Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb The three tiny islands have long been a front line in tensions between Iran and Gulf states allied with the United States. Iranian forces seized the islands in November 1971, days after the United Kingdom withdrew from the Gulf and just before the sheikhdoms joined to form the United Arab Emirates. Iran maintains military assets and garrisons on the islands. The territorial dispute over the islands remains one of the Gulfs most persistent flashpoints. Qeshm Island The largest island in the Persian Gulf sits near the Strait of Hormuz and is home to about 150,000 residents. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. struck a desalination plant on the island on March 8 a claim not acknowledged by Washington. Attacking Irans infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences, Araghchi warned in a March 7 post on X. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran. The desalination plant supplies water to about 30 villages. In Bahrain home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet the Interior Ministry said an Iranian drone had caused material damage to a desalination plant there the next day, although water supplies were never disrupted. AP journalists Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Ken Sweet in New York contributed. U.S. immigration officials have secured travel documents that could allow the deportation of a double amputee Georgia man held in immigration detention while his appeal remains pending. Speakers during a virtual press conference on Friday called for the release of Rodney Taylor, 47, who has been held since January 2025 at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. Advocates said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently obtained travel documents that could allow his deportation to Liberia while his immigration appeal remains unresolved. Taylors case drew national attention last week after it surfaced during a congressional hearing involving thenDepartment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Military.com reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, Stewart Detention Center operator CoreCivic, and several advocacy organizations for comment. The case comes amid growing scrutiny of immigration detention oversight in Congress. A recent court decision allowed Democratic lawmakers to conduct visits to immigration detention facilities without advance notice, increasing pressure on federal officials to address conditions inside those centers. A detainee mops the floor at the intake station at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) Family Warns Disabled Detainees Health Is Declining Taylors wife, Mildred Taylor, said during the online press conference on Friday that her husbands health has worsened over more than a year in detention and that he has not received medical treatment despite suffering flu symptoms. She said Taylor has experienced fever, chills, severe headaches, coughing and congestion while being held at the Stewart Detention Center, an immigration detention facility operated by the private prison company CoreCivic under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. My husband is not a number. Hes a father, hes a husband, hes a beloved barber in our community, Mildred Taylor said during the Zoom event Friday. Rodney is being forced to endure conditions that are breaking his body and his spirit. She said Taylor has lost significant weight in detention and faces daily challenges navigating the facility because of his disabilities. Advocates said Taylor was born in Liberia with severe physical disabilities, including a club foot and missing bones in his legs. Doctors later amputated both of his legs and fitted him with prosthetics after he arrived in the United States as a young child for medical treatment. Taylor has lived in Georgia for most of his life and worked as a barber in the community, advocates said. Supporters also raised concerns about access to medical care inside the detention center, saying detainees must submit requests through electronic tablets shared among large groups of detainees and that responses can take days or weeks. Barbed wire lines a recreation area at the Stewart Detention Center. The Stewart Detention Center sits in Lumpkin, a rural town about 140 miles southwest of Atlanta and right next to the Georgia-Alabama state line. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Advocates Describe Harsh Conditions at Georgia ICE Facility Advocates speaking during the press conference also raised concerns about conditions inside the Stewart Detention Center, including water quality, food and access to medical care. Speakers said detainees with medical needs and disabilities often struggle to obtain accommodations inside the facility. A recorded message from Taylor played during the event included thanks to supporters and criticism of detention conditions. We are human beings, and everybody deserves rights, Taylor said in the recording. Advocates said deportation could leave Taylor without family support in Liberia because most of his relatives live in the United States, and he has lived in Georgia since early childhood. El Refugio, a nonprofit that supports detainees and families connected to the Stewart Detention Center, said Taylors continued detention raises serious concerns about his health and treatment. We urgently call for his immediate release and demand that immigration authorities uphold his basic human rights, provide proper medical care, and ensure full transparency and due process in his case, Johanna Garcia, communications and advocacy manager for El Refugio, said in an email to Military.com. They urged federal officials and lawmakers to intervene and release Taylor while his immigration appeal remains pending. Debates about immigration detention have also drawn attention from lawmakers reviewing enforcement practices affecting families across the United States, including those connected to military households. USS Mississippi (BB-41) fought across the Pacific for four years. She earned eight battle stars, took two kamikaze hits and kept firing at enemy positions. She survived two catastrophic turret explosions and watched Japan surrender from Tokyo Bay. After the war, she fired the first guided missiles ever launched from an American surface warship. But it is her role at the Battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944 that cemented her place in naval history, where she fired the last shot any battleship ever fired at another. A Ship Built For WWI Newport News Shipbuilding laid down Mississippi's keel on April 5, 1915. She slid down the ways and was launched on Jan. 25, 1917, sponsored by Miss Camelle McBeath, daughter of the chairman of the Mississippi State Highway Commission. The Navy commissioned her as BB-41 on Dec. 18, 1917, with Capt. Joseph Lee Jayne in command. She was the third U.S. Navy ship to carry the state's name and the second of three New Mexico-class battleships. She was 624 feet long, 32,000 tons at full load and carried twelve 14-inch guns in four triple turrets. The USS Mississippi launching at Newport News, 1917. (Wikimedia Commons) The Navy sent her to the Atlantic Fleet for the remainder of American involvement in World War I. She ran training exercises along the East Coast, though she never fired at an enemy during the war. By July 1919, she had sailed through the Panama Canal and settled into Pacific Fleet operations at San Pedro, California. She spent the next 12 years on exercises and Caribbean winter cruises under a succession of commanding officers. Among them was Capt. William A. Moffett, who led the ship from 1919 to 1921 and later became the Navy's first chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, the father of American naval aviation. The No. 2 Turret Accident On June 12, 1924, during routine gunnery practice off San Pedro, the center gun of No. 2 turret exploded on a reload. A burning ember left in the barrel from the previous shot ignited 470 pounds of propellant as the crew loaded for the next round. The blast warped the steel passageways shut, sealing the gun crew inside. Forty-four men asphyxiated before rescue teams could cut through the sealed metal with acetylene torches. When the ship reached port, residual powder detonated inside the same turret and killed four men from the rescue party. Forty-eight men were killed, three of them were officers and 45 were enlisted. It was the deadliest peacetime disaster in Navy history to that point. USS Mississippi (BB-41) firing a broadside of 12 14-inch guns, on page 151 of the May 1921 Camera Craft. (Wikimedia Commons) The Bureau of Ordnance concluded that the center barrel received weaker air purging than the outer barrels, allowing burning debris to remain in the breech. Reload procedures were updated and the ship received extensive refitting over the next decade. However, the problem, as would become clear later, was not fixed. Mississippi entered Norfolk Navy Yard in March 1931 for a two-year overhaul that transformed her silhouette entirely. Her old cage masts came down, a new superstructure went up and torpedo protection was added along the hull. She returned to the Pacific in late 1934 on a visually different ship. The USS Mississippi Goes to War In May 1941, with U-boats ravaging Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, the Navy transferred Mississippi and her sister ships to the Atlantic Fleet. The battleships spent months escorting convoys to Iceland, under the constant threat of an unprovoked submarine attack. When Japan struck Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, she was at Reykjavik, one of the few American battleships fully operational in those first 48 hours. With Germany's surface fleet and the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean held up by the Royal Navy, American battleships were almost exclusively sent to the Pacific. She turned west and reached San Francisco on Jan. 22, 1942. While the battleships that survived Pearl Harbor spent years in salvage and reconstruction, Mississippi trained and ran escort duty along the West Coast. View of Hvalfjorur anchorage, Iceland, with U.S. Navy warships on 6 October 1941. The heavy cruiser USS Wichita (CA-45) is at left. The battleships USS Mississippi (BB-41) and USS Idaho (BB-42), the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), and several destroyers and auxiliary ships are also present. (U.S. Navy Photo) In May 1943, she sailed for the Aleutians, where Japan had occupied American soil since June 1942. She joined a bombardment force on July 22 and spent hours shelling Kiska, hitting Japanese positions across the island in preparation for the American landings. Six days later, on the night of July 28-29, Japanese Rear Adm. Masatomi Kimura slipped two cruisers and ten destroyers through the American blockade under dense fog and evacuated over 5,000 troops in under an hour. When Allied forces landed on Aug. 15, they found the island was empty. Bombarding the Enemy On Nov. 20, 1943, Mississippi was providing naval gunfire support off Makin Island in the Gilbert Islands when smoke emerged from the rangefinder ports of the No. 2 turret. A sudden explosion then erupted, causing extensive damage to the Mississippi. The explosion had come from the center barrel, the same gun responsible for the 1924 disaster. Burning debris from the previous round had ignited the propellant charge during loading, the exact mechanism the Bureau of Ordnance had identified nearly two decades earlier and declared corrected. Forty-three men died. No. 2 turret was knocked out for the remainder of the operation. USS Mississippi (BB-41). Casemate gun crew loading their 5"/51 gun, during the bombardment of Peleliu, circa mid-September 1944. Note line of shell passers in the background, and the gun's breech in the lower right foreground. (U.S. Navy Photo) Mississippi's three remaining turrets kept firing until the shore bombardment mission was complete. The Bureau of Ordnance investigated and reached the same conclusion it had reached in 1924. After repairs, she went straight back to work. She hit Kwajalein on Jan. 31, 1944, bombarded Taroa and Wotje in February, then shelled Kavieng on New Ireland in March. Following a summer refit at Puget Sound, she arrived off Peleliu on Sept. 12, 1944, to support the Marine and Army assault on the Palau Islands, spending a week in continuous shore bombardment before moving on to Leyte, Philippines, arriving Oct. 19. Five days later, the Japanese fleet made its move to intercept the American landings. The Mississippi would find itself in the midst of the largest naval battle in history. Surigao Strait: The Last Battleship Engagement Vice Adm. Shoji Nishimura commanded the Japanese Southern Force moving north through Surigao Strait on the night of Oct. 24-25, 1944. His force was built around battleships Yamashiro and Fuso, sister ships of the same class, along with a heavy cruiser and four destroyers. His orders were to break through to the Leyte Gulf landing beaches and add his firepower to the larger Japanese force coming from the north. The intelligence provided to him made it clear the mission had almost no chance of success. He pressed on anyway. American PT boats and destroyers hit his column repeatedly as he drove north. Fuso took numerous torpedo hits and sank before reaching the battleship line, taking most of her 1,630-man crew with her. Two destroyers sank as well. Nishimura pressed on with what remained, a burning, battered column that had lost half its ships before any American battleship fired a round. Battle of Surigao Straight. Part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. (Wikimedia Commons) Rear Adm. Jesse Oldendorf's six battleships were arrayed across the strait's exit with cruisers on both flanks. In almost textbook fashion, the U.S. force had crossed the T and intercepted a Japanese fleet heading straight for them. Three of the battleships, West Virginia, California and Tennessee, had been refitted after Pearl Harbor with the Navy's advanced Mark 8 fire control radar, which could track a target at long range even in complete darkness. West Virginia opened fire first and put 93 rounds into the Yamashiro. California and Tennessee added 63 and 69 rounds, respectively. American destroyers on both flanks continued pressing torpedo attacks throughout the engagement. Maryland, equipped with the older Mark 3 radar, tracked the enemy vessels by watching West Virginia's shell splashes and managed six salvos and 48 rounds against them. Pennsylvania, also with the Mark 3, failed to acquire any targets at all and never fired a single shot during the engagement. Mississippi Ends the Age of Battleships Mississippi also carried a Mark 3. Her gunnery team worked to acquire the Yamashiro while the rest of the battleline was already tearing the Japanese ship apart. By the time she locked on, Yamashiro had been under sustained fire for more than 15 minutes and had been struck by multiple torpedoes. At 4:08 a.m., she fired a single 12-gun salvo at a range of 19,790 yards. Oldendorf had issued the cease-fire order only moments earlier, though the Mississippi had not yet received it. However, the rounds had come too late as the Japanese ship was already ablaze and sinking. Yamashiro with Fuso and Haruna (in the distance), Tokyo Bay, 1930s. (Wikimedia Commons) Even as she began slipping under, the Yamashiro struck back. The Japanese battleship's secondary battery found the American destroyer Albert W. Grant and badly damaged her before the end. At 4:09 a.m., with his ship ablaze and listing hard, Nishimura transmitted his final message to the fleet, "We proceed till totally annihilated. I have definitely accomplished my mission." Yamashiro finally capsized at 4:19 a.m. Vice Adm. Nishimura and nearly all of her 1,636 officers and men went down with her. Only 10 survived. The Mississippi had contributed to the destruction and sinking of the Yamashiro. While the other ships scored direct hits, Mississippis quick salvo became the final time in history that a battleship fired shots in anger at another. Kamikazes and Okinawa Mississippi continued shore bombardment support at Leyte until Nov. 16, then staged from the Admiralty Islands before returning to San Pedro Bay on Dec. 28 to prepare for the next operation. On Jan. 6, 1945, she opened fire in Lingayen Gulf as the invasion force approached Luzon. Three days later, a Japanese kamikaze struck her port side while she was standing by for fire support near the landing beaches. The impact killed 26 sailors and wounded 70 others. She stayed on station and kept firing for 32 more days before withdrawing to Pearl Harbor for repairs. The U.S. Navy battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) bombarding Luzon, during the Lingayen operation, 8 January 1945. She is followed by USS West Virginia (BB-48) and HMAS Shropshire (73). Mississippi is painted in camouflage Measure 32, Design 6D. (U.S. Navy Photo) She returned to combat in time to join the Okinawa invasion fleet, arriving off Nakagusuku Wan on May 6, 1945. The land battle had stalled against the Shuri Line, a fortified network of ridges, tunnels and caves anchored by Shuri Castle, the ancient seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Mississippi fired 1,300 14-inch shells at the castle and its surrounding defensive network over the course of three days. The concentrated naval bombardment, combined with sustained Army and Marine assaults, broke the Japanese hold on the Shuri Line. The castle fell on May 29, 1945. On June 5, a second kamikaze approached the Mississippi. The men mistook the plane for a friendly one before it struck her starboard side, killing one sailor. She kept firing at enemy positions until June 16. Following the end of hostilities, she anchored in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2 as Japanese officials signed surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri. She then briefly participated in the Occupation of Japan. Mississippis Later Years Following the war, Mississippi transited the Panama Canal and entered the Mississippi River. On Oct. 16, 1945, she steamed through to New Orleans for Navy Day celebrations. The Navy eventually stripped three of her four main battery turrets in 1946, redesignated her AG-128 and assigned her to the Operational Development Force in the Atlantic as a test platform. For a decade, she carried prototype radar systems, experimental guns and new fire control equipment. On Jan. 28-29, 1953, off Cape Cod, the new test platform launched the RIM-2 Terrier, a new surface-to-air weapon that became the foundation of American ship-based air defense through the Cold War. The ship that fired the last battleship salvo against an enemy battleship in history also fired the first guided missile launched from a surface warship in Navy history. She had closed one era of naval warfare and opened another. Mississippi (BB-41) in the Mississippi River, en route to take part in Navy Day celebrations at New Orleans, Louisiana, 16 October 1945. Note her anchors suspended below their normal stowed position at the bow. (U.S. Navy Photo) The Navy decommissioned the Mississippi on Sept. 17, 1956, and sold her for scrapping two months later. She had earned eight battle stars for her WWII service. Naval historian Rear Adm. Samuel Eliot Morison described what Mississippi had done that October night in his official history of U.S. Navy operations in World War II. "When Mississippi discharged her twelve 14-inch guns at Yamashiro at a range of 19,790 yards, at 0408 October 25, 1944," Morison wrote, "she was not only giving that battleship the coup de grace, but firing a funeral salute to a finished era of naval warfare." In her 39 years of service, she survived two catastrophic turret explosions, absorbed two kamikaze hits and fought across the entire Pacific from the Aleutians to Tokyo Bay. She participated in the largest naval battle in history, fired the final battleship salvo against an enemy battleship and fired the first guided-missile from a surface vessel in naval history. The USS Mississippi remains one of the most storied and legendary ships to have ever served in the U.S. Navy. Sources: Naval History and Heritage Command, DANFS, USS Mississippi (BB-41); Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1958, "The Battle of Surigao Strait"; Naval History Magazine, October 2018, "Terror and Triumph at Lingayen Gulf" (James M. Scott, USNI); Battle of Okinawa, NHHC; NavSource, BB-41 War Diary; South Bay History/Daily Breeze, Oct. 19, 2011; Daily Press (Newport News), Nov. 16, 1989; Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 12, "Leyte, June 1944-January 1945." After serving as a U.S. Army Ranger, Jeremy Clark went searching for a less stressful but still adventurous way to transition to post-military life. He became a cowboy. More specifically, Clark and his wife, Heather, started ranching, opening C-4 Cattle Co. near Grand Bay, Alabama, along the Gulf Coast. They began raising cattle for their family and to meet their sons nutritional needs, building a herd of Texas Longhorns. We bought our first four cows before we even had a fence up and we jumped right in, Jeremy Clark told RFD TVs Market Day Report. So, its been an exciting journey over the last couple of years getting started. C-4 Cattle Co. quickly grew into a successful meat-producing business, boasting more than 130 acres of land, but the Clarks yearned for more, wondering what they could do to help veterans. Vets to Cowboys Is Born In 2021, they established Vets to Cowboys, a nonprofit organization, to help other veterans realize their ranching dreams. The program pairs veterans with seasoned cattle ranchers as mentors, teaching them the ins and outs of agriculture. Veteran Jeremy Clark and his wife Heather own the C-4 Cattle Co. in Southern Alabama. (Facebook) For veterans, ranching checks several of the boxes missing from the military: hard work, physical fitness, challenges, responsibility, dedication and service. Ranchers also need strong leadership skills to operate a large-scale agricultural operation. Veterans specifically have a lot of the same values that cattlemen and people in agriculture do, Heather Clark said. A lot of what they learn in the service transitions into agriculture jobs beautifully. So, were able to combine that resilience of the warrior with the spirit of the American cowboy. Some veterans feel lost after the service, a sense of what do I do now? Many likely dont even consider a career in ranching, but Vets to Cowboys gives them a shot and renews their sense of purpose. Ranching also forges community bonds with other ranchers, building teamwork and camaraderie that they felt in the service. Getting Youth in Ag Another goal is to provide younger veterans with a sustainable path into ranching. Thats what we want to do with Vets to Cowboys, work with other (ranchers) in our area so they dont have to start blind, they have somebody to teach them, Jeremy Clark said. You know, if you dont grow up with a grandpa doing this, its hard to learn third and fourth-generation tricks if youre a first-gen coming into it blind. We just want to partner with those mentors and make sure we dont lose that knowledge and information thats typically passed on from generation to generation that you cant find in a textbook, Heather Clark said. Were trying to make sure we fill in that gap. Jeremy Clark serving as an Army Ranger. (Cowboys to Vets) Mental Health on the Ranch Being in nature and working with animals tends to help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. You see a lot of benefits from equine therapy and things of that nature, Jeremy Clark said. Were using the cowboy way of life and working with cattle to help with mental health. Clark said the program also emphasizes food security seeing what it takes to get food from the farm to the table. Another aspect is workforce development, teaching veterans new skills to succeed in agriculture or other fields, such as construction. Candidates that have come into our program, like the five weve helped so far, were replenishing the number of dwindling farms because in Alabamas last ag survey, we lost 8 percent of our farms, and the country lost 7 percent, Jeremy Clark said. If we get veterans transitioning from one form of service to the other, we can help prevent those losses and get new farmers out there. Since its beginning five years ago, Vets to Cowboys has garnered positive feedback from veterans, according to the Clarks. The next five years could bring some exciting changes to the organization. The Clarks are working on fundraising events to help pay for a mobile facility to travel to other parts of the U.S. to train veterans. Sales of electric vehicles globally booked another monthly decline in February, after dipping in January, mostly on the back of a marked slowdown in purchases in China. The country, which is the worlds biggest EV market, saw a sizable 32% decline in new electric car and hybrid registrations. The decline followed the phaseout of a tax incentive at the end of last year and the cancellation of funding for so-called trade-ins. As a result, new EV and hybrid registrations in February stood at less than 500,000 cars, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reported, as cited by Reuters. Global sales of electric cars declined by 11% in February to around 1 million vehicles. This was the lowest monthly total since February 24, Reuters noted in its report. The total was also dragged down by sales in North America, which fell for the fifth month in a row, following Trumps clampdown on incentives. The total stood at fewer than 90,000 cars last month, down 35%. Europe, as usual, bucked the trend in China and North America, booking a 21% increase in EV registrations as European governments stick with incentives they see as crucial for the electrification of transporta fundamental part of net-zero efforts. Germany notably reconsidered the cancellation of an EV incentive scheme that the government approved two years ago, which led to a slump in sales. The cancellation was prompted by budgetary difficulties. Earlier this year, however, the Merz coalition brought back the scheme, committing some 3.5 billion euros to it over the period to 2029 in a bid to help its struggling car manufacturing industry and pursue its net-zero goals. The current oil crisis in the Middle East could provide an additional incentive to car buyers to go electric, but on the other hand, it could have a deterring effect as higher oil prices make everything else costlier, too, extending all the way to cars. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Oilprice Intelligence brings you the signals before they become front-page news. This is the same expert analysis read by veteran traders and political advisors. Get it free, twice a week, and you'll always know why the market is moving before everyone else. You get the geopolitical intelligence, the hidden inventory data, and the market whispers that move billions - and we'll send you $389 in premium energy intelligence, on us, just for subscribing. Join 400,000+ readers today. Get access immediately by clicking here. Jharkhand High Court Assistant result 2026 out at jharkhandhighcourt.nic.in; direct link here Jharkhand High Court has declared the Assistant result 2026 for 410 posts, with 1,594 candidates shortlisted after the written exam. Check details and next steps. Jharkhand High Court Assistant Result 2026 Declared for 410 Posts Jharkhand High Court Assistant Result 2026 has been declared. 1,594 candidates selected for Computer Skill Test and Viva-Voce. 410 Assistant and Clerk vacancies to be filled in civil courts. Did our AI summary help? Sanya Malhotra shares glimpses of her new sea-facing Mumbai home as she performs griha pravesh: Its a little piece of my journey Sanya Malhotra recently shared a glimpse of a special milestone as she moved into her new home in Mumbai and celebrated the occasion with a traditional griha pravesh ceremony. The pictures featured the Mrs. actress performing the griha pravesh rituals, looking beautiful and elegant in a light pink saree. Sanya Malhotra moves into her new sea-view home in Mumbai She performed griha pravesh rituals with family and friends Celebrities congratulated Sanya on her housewarming Did our AI summary help? When Aditya Dhar addressed claims of his film being a 'political propaganda', said It is a very balanced perspective Filmmaker Aditya Dhar has once again addressed the long-running debate surrounding his 2019 blockbuster Uri: The Surgical Strike, particularly the claims that the film functioned as political propaganda. In a throwback interview with film critic Rajeev Masand that is currently circulating online, Aditya Dhar clarified that the films release timing had nothing to do with politics and was purely a business decision. Aditya Dhar on his film being a propoganda Aditya Dhar denies Uri was released for political reasons He says Uri presents a balanced, chronological account of events Dhar's next film Dhurandhar releases on 19 March 2026 Did our AI summary help? Gaurav Khanna confirms receiving the Bigg Boss 19 prize money; asks fans to stop over-reacting A few days after stating he hasn't received the winning amount for Bigg Boss Season 19, Gaurav revealed that he has indeed gotten the money. Gaurav Khanna recieves BB19 prize money Gaurav Khanna confirms receiving Bigg Boss prize and rewards His vlog was filmed before receiving the funds, causing confusion He asks fans not to overreact, clarifying the issue is resolved Did our AI summary help? Every year, the Academy Awards promise glamour, celebration and cinematic excellence. Yet alongside the standing ovations and golden statuettes, the Oscars have also become synonymous with controversy. From historic snubs and shocking onstage moments to debates about diversity and accountability, the ceremony has repeatedly sparked conversations that extend far beyond Hollywood. As the 97th Academy Awards approach, here is a look at 11 of the most talked-about controversies in Oscars history. Oscars 2026: When and where to watch the 98th Academy Awards in India The 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Heres when and where viewers in India can watch Oscars 2026 live, including TV channels, streaming platforms, and telecast timings. Every year, the Oscars bring together some of the biggest names in filmmaking to honour excellence across categories ranging from acting and directing to technical achievements. Oscars 2026 airs in India on March 16 from 4:30 AM IST Live broadcast on Star Movies, Colors Infinity, and JioHotstar Priyanka Chopra Jonas will present at the ceremony Did our AI summary help? This story was originally published on C-Store Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily C-Store Dive newsletter. In a shift that highlights its ambitious plans to become a U.S.-focused company, global convenience retailer EG Group has rebranded to Cumberland Farms, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to C-Store Dive on Thursday. The name change became apparent when a company announcement yesterday specified that Cumberland Farms, not EG Group, had agreed to acquire East Coast convenience retail competitor Coen Markets. The companys announcement referred to what formerly made up EG Group over 4,300 retail sites across eight countries as Cumberland Farms. This rebrand, which the source said became official in recent weeks, all but cements the companys status as an America-focused entity. Last year, EG Group began the process of relocating its headquarters from the U.K. to Charlotte, North Carolina, and divested hundreds of c-stores across Italy, France and Australia. It also appointed its first-ever American CEO in Russell Colaco. The name change marks a rapid organizational shift for the company, which was founded in 2001 but didn't arrive in the U.S. until it acquired Cumberland Farms and its roughly 600 convenience stores in 2019. After that purchase, EG Group launched its EG America subsidiary. The company now known as Cumberland Farms still has numerous assets overseas, including c-stores in Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. In the U.S., Cumberland Farms has roughly 1,500 c-stores under several banners aside from its own, including TomThumb, TurkeyHill, Certified, Fastrac and KwikShop. EG Group had previously expressed intentions to rebrand its entire c-store network in the U.S. to the Cumberland Farms banner, a process that has been underway for years and still has a ways to go. The corporate rebrand aligns with recent reporting that the company has been preparing to file for an IPO in 2026 under the name Cumberland Farms at a value of around $9 billion. While no filing has been confirmed, the recent trimming of several business segments and the rebrand certainly aligns with that strategy. A Cumberland Farms spokesperson declined to comment when asked about the name change, as well as how it may correlate to rumors about its pursuit of an IPO in the U.S. Recommended Reading R Madhavan issues fraud alert after fake account claims to represent him online R Madhavan has warned fans about a fake social media account impersonating him online. The actor shared a fraud alert on Instagram and urged followers to avoid interacting with the profile while authorities take action. Sharing the update through his official Instagram handle, Madhavan informed followers that the person running the account has no connection with him or his team. R. Madhavan warns fans about a fake account impersonating him Actor warns fans about fake profile, urges them to avoid it. Madhavan to star in Dhurandhar: The Revenge, releasing March 2026 Did our AI summary help? Market veterans congregated at the Global Wealth Summit in Mumbai to speak on the theme 'Inside India's Family Offices : The New Playbook for Private Wealth.' No need to hoard LPG: Piyush Goyal says fuel supply stable despite war According to Piyush Goyal, the commerce ministry is also preparing standard operating procedures to support exporters if shipments need to be returned or rerouted. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal India's fuel supplies stable despite conflict disruptions Government increases kerosene supply as precaution India diversifies crude imports, trade talks with US ongoing Did our AI summary help? Global Wealth Summit 2026: Digital-first brands double down on offline as founders say India still buys in stores Purplles Manish Taneja, Atombergs Arindam Paul and The Whole Truths Shashank Mehta say physical retail remains critical for scale and profitability as consumer brands balance digital discovery with store-led sales in Indias still offline-heavy market. Indian consumer brands are shifting to offline retail for growth Purplle's offline sales grow 400-500% annually. Offline channels boost profitability and brand power over online Did our AI summary help? India working on insurance scheme to counter Red Sea crisis impact, says Piyush Goyal We have been engaging with all export promotion councils. We have a 24-hour helpline ready to resolve any issues. We are constantly coming up with SOPs to help any cargo which needs come back to ensure custom or port support, says minister. Union Minister Piyush Goyal Iran oil hub strike raises risk of further disruptions to supply Iran is heavily reliant on Kharg Island, which processes about nine out of every 10 barrels of its crude exports mostly to China. The Islamic Republics military threatened to hit US-linked oil targets in the Middle East if Irans energy facilities were attacked US bombed Kharg Island military targets, sparing oil facilities. Kharg Island processes 90% of Iran's crude exports. Iran threatens retaliation if energy facilities are attacked. Did our AI summary help? Best of Indian stock markets still ahead of us: Madhu Kela urges investors to stay patient Madhu Kela noted that continued efforts by investors to identify opportunities reflect sustained confidence in the countrys future growth prospects Investor Madhu Kela Madhu Kela: India's stock market has strong long-term outlook Volatile markets create opportunities for disciplined investors Patience and learning from mistakes are vital for investing success. Did our AI summary help? Global Wealth Summit 2026: Why Aletheia's Jonathan Wilmot thinks the four-decade bull market is in its last phase Global equities may be in the last phase of a bull market that started in 1982, with potential for another major decline, says Jonathan Wilmot. Strategist says the equity bull market that began in 1982 may still have time left but could face another major decline. Global equity markets may be nearing the end of a long bull cycle Wilmot warns of a possible major decline before the cycle ends Rules-based ETF strategies are emerging to manage market stress Did our AI summary help? Post-Covid bull market nearing its end; oil not only reason behind selloff: Ramesh Damani Damani spoke about the market correction amid the ongoing war in Iran and asserted that the rising oil prices alone do not determine the direction of the markets. He said that there has been a suggestion that the post-Covid bull market is nearing its end and we are entering a sustained bearish phase. Ramesh Damani warns post-pandemic bull market may be ending Investors urged to focus on business fundamentals, not prices War in Iran and oil price spikes trigger major market selloffs Did our AI summary help? Motilal Oswal chairman says deeper corrections often create stronger compounding opportunities, urges investors to focus on business value rather than short-term price swings. Google announced a $1 billion investment in North Carolina on Friday to expand its data center infrastructure over the next two years. The funding will primarily support the growth of the companys data center in Lenoir alongside several new community development initiatives, officials said. Google has operated in North Carolina for more than 15 years, with a data center in Lenoir and an office in Durham. The facility in Lenoir supports global services including Search, Maps, YouTube and Workspace, officials said. Local leaders expressed support for the investment during a community event held the week of the announcement. Joseph Gibbons, mayor of the City of Lenoir, said the funding is expected to enhance the local workforce and expand economic development. Googles latest investment in the City of Lenoir and Caldwell County underscores a deep commitment to North Carolinas continued growth and success, Gibbons said. Google also established a $2 million Energy Impact Fund in collaboration with Blue Ridge Community Action, Blue Ridge Energy and Advanced Energy. The fund will support energy affordability, weatherization upgrades and efficiency projects for K-12 schools and low- to moderate-income households in Caldwell County, officials said. Beyond energy initiatives, Google is donating $100,000 to the City of Lenoir for a historic high school renovation project. The company also issued a $270,000 grant to Communities In Schools of Caldwell County to establish a Workforce Development & Digital Equity Fund, Google officials said. The $1 billion infrastructure investment is scheduled to be completed within the next two years. The Workforce Development & Digital Equity Fund grant will support local students through 2027. WATCH: New owner may breathe life into struggling Queen City Quarter in Uptown Charlotte He said that there has been a suggestion that the post-Covid bull market is nearing its end and we are entering a sustained bearish phase. India, US remain key markets for global investors; manufacturing exports could be next growth engine: Experts Experts at Moneycontrol Global Wealth Summit said global diversification and thematic investing are key to capturing future growth opportunities. summit India and US offer strong long-term returns for investors Global diversification and thematic investing are key strategies Manufacturing exports may drive India's future growth Did our AI summary help? Despite the risks, Wilmot said the assumption remains that reopening the straits will be a priority for all parties involved, including regional powers and China. Global Wealth Summit 2026: India played hardball in US trade talks, Washington did not see it coming, says Signum Globals Charles Myers India surprised Washington by taking a firm stance in US trade talks, even as tariffs were lowered and broader negotiations remain delayed, says Charles Myers. Tariffs on India were lowered, but negotiations over a wider trade agreement have become more complicated, strategist says. India's firm stance surprises US in trade talks India tariffs reduced, broader trade deal delayed US-India relations stay strong despite complex talks and differences Did our AI summary help? Who will be next US President? Top investor's big prediction "Trump will not get a third term. He wants it very bad. But I think Donald Trump Jr will run for elections," said Charles Myers at Moneycontrol's Global Wealth Summit. Charles Myers, Chairman and Founder, Signum Global Advisors. Why Sachee Trivedi says India is the only economy that will double twice Sachee Trivedi says India is the only economy that will double and double again, highlighting strong growth, diversification and global capital shifts. Trident Capital Investments founder says Indias diversified economy, steady growth and shifting global capital flows could support long-term expansion. India poised to repeatedly double its economic size over time Diversified economy offers broad investment opportunities Geopolitical tensions and capital flows impact investor sentiment Did our AI summary help? 100 stray dogs poisoned to death in Telangana: Injected and buried near river, alleges NGO The complainant accused that the Sarpanch and Gram Panchayath Secretary of Kishtapur village, hired two persons and killed the stray dogs by giving poisonous injections and buried them near a river. PTI March 14, 2026 / 21:40 IST Representative image Activist Laura Loomer apologises for anti-India posts: 'Shouldn't have said some of the things' When asked about the now-deleted posts, Loomer accepted she should not have said some of the things in her tweets Activist Laura Loomer (Image: X) Laura Loomer apologises for past anti-India posts after backlash She defended her opposition to the H-1B visa programme Loomer will spend several days travelling across India Did our AI summary help? Akasa Air hikes fare by Rs 199-1,300 surcharge amid oil price spike, joining Air India, IndiGo According to Akasa Air, the decision comes after a significant increase in aviation turbine fuel prices linked to geopolitical developments in West Asia. The airline highlighted that the significant increase in aviation turbine fuel prices is a result of ongoing geopolitical developments in West Asia. Akasa Air adds fuel surcharge of Rs 199-1,300 from March 15, 2026 Surcharge due to rising jet fuel prices amid West Asia conflict Akasa Air to open MRO facility at Noida Airport Did our AI summary help? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei loved India; insisted on good India-Iran ties: Iranian Supreme Leader's representative Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader said Tehran is prepared to continue the war "even for five years" ANI March 14, 2026 / 20:43 IST Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi Iran stresses historic ties and peaceful relations with India Iran denies seeking negotiations with US amid West Asia conflict UN urges de-escalation and diplomacy in West Asia crisis Did our AI summary help? Oil producers in the Arab Gulf have already lost at least $15.1 billion in oil and gas revenues since the start of the Middle East war, per estimates by commodities analytics firm Kpler cited by the Financial Times. The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has choked off since March 1, millions of barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products, and 20% of the global LNG supply. Since the war began, Gulf producers have already lost $15.1 billion in revenues, based on estimates that the choked supplies that cannot pass the Strait of Hormuz were worth $1.2 billion per day, based on average 2025 prices and volumes, according to Kpler. Shortly after the war started, Qatar announced it was halting LNG production at Ras Laffan, the worlds biggest liquefaction complex, and issued force majeure notices to customers. Combined with the volumes from the United Arab Emirates, the war is trapping 20% of the global LNG supply in the Gulf. The situation with oil is equally direGulf producers have already shut in about 10% of daily global oil production, and losses are bound to mount in the coming days and weeks as attacks on ships in the Gulf, and on export infrastructure in Oman and Fujairah, are expanding the conflict to a much wider area than the Strait of Hormuz itself. With limited capacity available to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and storage filling up, Gulf producers have slashed their combined oil output by at least 10 million barrels per day, the IEA said in its monthly Oil Market Report on Thursday. Alternative routes such as Saudi exports from the Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea, arent enough to offset the huge loss of supply from the Strait of Hormuz route. The East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia has 7 million bpd capacity on paper, but there is the question about how much the terminals at Yanbu can load, with some estimates putting this capacity at around 3 million bpd, Vortexa said last week. Prior to the war, Aramco was exporting about 6 million bpd via the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has lost the most revenues since the war started, but the biggest loser in terms of strained government finances would be Iraq, which is the most reliant on oil revenues and doesnt have a large sovereign wealth buffer as Kuwait, the UAE, or Saudi Arabia do, analysts say. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Can BJP take Punjab in 2027? Amit Shah makes bold promises, signals solo fight Amit Shah says BJP will form the government in Punjab in 2027 and end the states drug menace, while targeting the AAP leadership at a rally in Moga. Union Home Minister attacks AAP leadership at Moga rally, accuses Punjab government of corruption, gangster rule and misusing state resources. BJP aims to form Punjab government after 2027 elections Shah claims only BJP can end drug menace in Punjab Shah slams AAP for resource misuse and poor governance Did our AI summary help? The Centre said the purpose of the Bill was to protect a specified class of persons socially and culturally known as transgender people who face societal discrimination of an extreme and oppressive nature. (Representative photo) Consumers with PNG connections cannot keep or refill LPG cylinders: Govt The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said the revised rule also prohibits government oil companies from issuing new LPG connections or refilling cylinders for consumers who already have PNG connections. A man speaks on a phone as he sits on an empty LPG cylinder inside a truck PNG users can no longer retain or refill domestic LPG cylinders Two Indian LPG carriers safely crossed Strait of Hormuz to India Govt monitors safety of Indian seafarers in Persian Gulf Did our AI summary help? Crew of Iranian warship IRIS Lavan, docked in Kochi, repatriated in charter plane The charter flight is also carrying the bodies of Iranian sailor who were killed when another warship, IRIS Dena, was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine near Sri Lanka on March 4. IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi. (Image: X) A destroyed truck is seen next to the private airline Kam Air's fuel depot after a strike in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani air strike India really: Iran envoy heaps praise, drops a telling line after US sank IRIS Dena Irans ambassador to India says New Delhi really helped after the US torpedoed Iranian warship IRIS Dena near Sri Lanka, amid debate in India over the incident. Ambassador Mohammad Fathali praises New Delhis support after US strike killed over 100 sailors; debate had erupted in India over incident near Sri Lanka. Iranian envoy lauds India's support post US torpedo attack India sheltered Iranian warship IRIS Lavan in Kochi Experts: India not operationally responsible for incident Did our AI summary help? India resilient amid West Asia crisis, says Piyush Goyal; reaffirms commitment to US trade deal after tariffs verdict Goyal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has guided the country to look for opportunities amid challenges Piyush Goyal Iran repatriates IRIS Lavan crew from Kochi on chartered flight, says MEA MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the chartered flight departed from Kochi on 13th March carrying stranded Iranian nationals, including tourists and diplomats. IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi. (Image: X) Iran repatriates IRIS Lavan crew from Kochi on chartered flight Bodies of IRIS Dena sailors sent to Iran via Armenia Some IRIS Lavan crew remain in Kochi for technical checks Did our AI summary help? Karnataka clears Rs 4,824 crore investment proposals, likely to create 14,525 jobs State-level panel approves 39 projects across sectors such as IT infrastructure, textiles, aerospace and hospitality in 13 districts Karnataka approves Rs 4,824 crore investments across 13 districts 37 new industrial projects expected to create 14,525 jobs Key sectors: IT, sugar, textiles, biogas, hospitality Did our AI summary help? Forbes has released their annual billionaires list. For their 2026 list of the richest people in the world, the business magazine saw 400 new individuals added to their rankings since last year, citing the proliferation of artificial intelligence as the primary reason for their arrival. This marks a new record for the publication, a total of 3,428 billionaires in their report. "They are richer than ever, worth a record $20.1 trillion, up $4 trillion from last year," Forbes said. "The U.S. has the most billionaires, with a record 989, including 15 of the top 20. China, including Hong Kong, is next, with 610, and India (229) ranks a distant third." Of that list of billionaires, 902 have citizenship in the United States and 103 are new to the list this year. None of the new billionaires live in New Hampshire or Maine. Here's the full list of New Hampshire and Maine billionaires. Elon Musk, X and Tesla, CEO, left, gives a thumbs up to a reporters question, sitting next to Alex Karp, Palantir on Sept. 13, 2023 in Washington DC. New Hampshire billionaires Rick Cohen, Symbotic CEO; $26.3 billion Rick Cohen is the owner and executive chairman of C&S Wholesale Grocers, the largest grocery wholesaler in the U.S., according to Forbes. This put his worth at $26.3 billion as of March 10, 2026, making him the 97th richest person in the world. However, much of his wealth comes from his other title, the chairman and CEO of Symbotic, a warehouse company "which is currently automating Walmart's 42 regional distribution centers," Forbes said. He lives in Keene. Alexander Karp, Cofounder and CEO, Palantir Technologies; $13.1 Billion Alexander Karp lives in Lyman. He cofounded data mining firm Palantir Technologies, which does contract work with places like he Department of Defense, the FBI and the Danish National Police and had early backing from the CIA investment arm. Maine billionaires Susan Alfond, heiress of Dexter Shoe Company fortune; $3.5 billion Susan Alfond, who lives in Scarborough, inherited her fortune. "Her father Harold Alfond, bought an old mill in Maine in 1958 and turned it into a shoemaker that sold millions of boots and casual shoes," Forbes said. "In 1993 Harold sold the company to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $420 million of stock; the shares are worth billions of dollars now." As of March 10, 2026, Forbes put her net worth at $3.5 billion. Who is the richest person in the world? Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, according to Forbes, worth an estimated $839 billion. In last year's report, he was worth an approximate $342 billion. "Elon Musk cofounded seven companies, including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI," Forbes said. "SpaceX, founded in 2002, acquired xAI in February 2026 in a deal that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion. Musk owns an estimated 43% stake." Modi govt fully exposed, done total U-turn: Cong after Wangchuk's detention order revoked With Wangchuk released from the Jodhpur Central Jail on Saturday afternoon after nearly six months of incarceration PTI March 14, 2026 / 22:41 IST Sonam Wangchuk "Of course. Yes": Iran's Supreme Leader's representative on passage to Indian vessels through Strait of Hormuz Amid the conflict, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most critical routes for energy shipments. Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi Indian ships allowed to cross Strait of Hormuz amid conflict Iran granted transit to two Indian LPG vessels through the strait Iran offers special concessions to India for solidarity, energy needs. Did our AI summary help? The advisory was issued after authorities detected a case in Tamil Nadu where petrol was reportedly being dispensed into a loose container at a retail outlet, in violation of safety norms Oil price going to be significantly lower later this year, says Signum's Charles Myers I say that because the United States now controls Venezuela essentially, and which means the United States has unfettered 100% access to the biggest oil reserves in the world, he says. Charles Myers, chairman of the consulting firm Signum Global Advisors at the the second edition of Moneycontrol's Global Wealth Summit 2026 PM Modi performs Bhoomi Pujan of Shillong-Silchar Corridor | All you need to know The 166 km corridor, with an investment of around Rs 22,860 crore, will significantly improve connectivity between Meghalaya and Assam. ANI March 14, 2026 / 12:43 IST Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi says Nehru would have made Kanshi Ram UP CM; Mayawati questions Congress Bharat Ratna promise Mayawati urges party workers across the country to remain vigilant against what she termed attempts by other political parties, particularly the Congress, to weaken the BSP. Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Rahul Gandhi said Nehru would have made Kanshi Ram UP CM. Mayawati questioned Congress' proposal to honor Kanshi Ram. Mayawati slammed Congress for ignoring Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram. Did our AI summary help? Two Indian-flagged tankers, carrying 92,700 MT of LPG, transit Strait Of Hormuz safely: Special secy, ministry of shipping Government sources told Moneycontrol that India is continuously engaging with Iran to ensure safe transit of remaining stranded vessels in the Persian Gulf. "We are in continuous talks, we want to ensure safe passage for Indian vessels," the source said, adding that there will be more talks. This followed intense diplomatic outreach between India and Iran Two Indian LPG tankers safely crossed the Strait of Hormuz All Indian seafarers in the Persian Gulf are reported safe India relies on Gulf LPG; diplomatic talks ensured vessel safety Did our AI summary help? US-India ties complicated but positive; Pakistan factor adds complexity: Charles Myers Myers said Indias firm negotiating stance on trade and its neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine war have also shaped Washingtons perception. Charles Myers, Chairman and Founder of Signum Global Advisors Watch: Clashes break out between BJP and TMC workers in Kolkatas Girish Park ahead of PM Modi's visit, stones pelted The situation created panic in the locality as tensions rose between the rival groups. West Asia Conflict: 'Five Indians lost lives, one missing', says MEA The Additional Secretary (Gulf) said that for places such as Bahrain and Kuwait from where direct flights are not operating, the Indian nationals are being assisted with visa extensions and transit visas for their journey to India via Saudi Arabia ANI March 14, 2026 / 17:44 IST The developments come amid the evolving security situation in West Asia and the Gulf after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 in joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran Our Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis suggests Helmerich & Payne is undervalued by 44.8%. Track this in your watchlist or portfolio , or discover 48 more high quality undervalued stocks . This DCF model produces an estimated intrinsic value of US$64.58 per share, compared with the recent share price of US$35.65. That gap implies the stock is 44.8% undervalued based on these cash flow assumptions and discounting inputs. For Helmerich & Payne, the model uses a 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity approach based on cash flow projections. The companys last twelve months Free Cash Flow is US$22.77 million. Analysts provide Free Cash Flow estimates for the earlier years, and Simply Wall St then extrapolates further out, with projected Free Cash Flow of US$376.23 million in 2035. All cash flows are assessed in US$ and discounted back to arrive at an implied value per share. A Discounted Cash Flow model projects a companys future cash flows and then discounts them back to todays value, so you can compare that estimate with the current share price. On our valuation checks, Helmerich & Payne scores 5 out of 6, giving it a value score of 5/6 . Next, we will walk through how different valuation approaches line up for the stock and then finish with a broader way to think about its value beyond any single metric. Recent coverage around Helmerich & Payne has focused on its role as a contract driller in the energy sector and how that positioning influences investor sentiment on the stock. This context helps frame the recent share price moves as part of a broader conversation about capital allocation, drilling activity and the outlook for energy producers. The stock last closed at US$35.65, with stated returns of 4.6% over 7 days, 3.9% over 30 days, 19.1% year to date, 44.0% over 1 year, 19.3% over 3 years and 42.1% over 5 years. These figures may catch the eye of investors comparing it with other energy names. If you are trying to figure out whether Helmerich & Payne is genuinely good value or just riding a sector narrative, this article is designed to walk you through the numbers step by step. Never miss an important update on your stock portfolio and cut through the noise. Over 7 million investors trust Simply Wall St to stay informed where it matters for FREE. Story Continues Approach 2: Helmerich & Payne Price vs Sales For companies where earnings can be volatile, the P/S ratio is often a useful cross check because it focuses on revenue, which tends to be more stable than profit in capital intensive sectors like Energy Services. In simple terms, the higher the expected growth and the lower the perceived risk, the more investors might be willing to pay for each dollar of sales. A normal or fair P/S ratio should therefore reflect both prospects and the uncertainty around those prospects. Helmerich & Payne currently trades on a P/S of 0.87x. That sits below the Energy Services industry average P/S of 1.35x and also below the peer group average of 1.82x, which may catch your eye if you are comparing it with other contract drillers and related service names. Simply Wall Sts Fair Ratio for Helmerich & Payne is 0.95x. This is a proprietary estimate of what the P/S ratio might be given factors such as the companys earnings growth profile, industry, profit margins, market cap and key risks. Compared with a straight industry or peer comparison, the Fair Ratio aims to be more tailored because it tries to adjust for differences in growth, risk and profitability rather than assuming all Energy Services firms deserve the same multiple. With the current P/S at 0.87x versus a Fair Ratio of 0.95x, the shares screen as modestly undervalued on this metric. Result: UNDERVALUED NYSE:HP P/S Ratio as at Mar 2026 P/S ratios tell one story, but what if the real opportunity lies elsewhere? Start investing in legacies, not executives. Discover our 18 top founder-led companies. Upgrade Your Decision Making: Choose your Helmerich & Payne Narrative Earlier we mentioned that there is an even better way to understand valuation. Narratives on Simply Wall St let you attach a clear story about Helmerich & Payne to the numbers you care about, link that story to a forecast of revenue, earnings, margins and fair value, compare that fair value with the current share price to decide if the stock looks attractive or expensive, and then see those fair values update automatically as fresh information like earnings or news lands. This is why one investor on the Community page can build a more cautious Helmerich & Payne view with a fair value of US$30.00, while another builds a more optimistic view at US$36.00, even though they are both looking at the same company. For Helmerich & Payne, however, we will make it really easy for you with previews of two leading Helmerich & Payne Narratives: Helmerich & Payne Bull Case Fair value in this bullish narrative: US$36.00 per share Implied mispricing versus last close: about 1.0% overvalued using this fair value benchmark Revenue growth assumption: 5.53% a year Focus on Saudi rig reactivations, the KCAD acquisition and a broader international footprint as key supports for future contracts and earnings capacity. Assumes higher future margins helped by automation, digital drilling tools and a stronger balance sheet that leaves room for dividends and buybacks. Flags long term risks from the energy transition, regulation, rig utilization swings and customer concentration, and encourages you to test the analyst case against your own expectations. Helmerich & Payne Bear Case Fair value in this bearish narrative: US$30.00 per share Implied mispricing versus last close: about 18.8% overvalued using this fair value benchmark Revenue growth assumption: 1.39% decline a year Starts from a cautious view that the energy transition, regulation and higher operating costs could limit drilling demand and pressure long term margins. Assumes modest revenue contraction and a lower earnings base, with concerns around capital intensity, fleet upgrade needs and earnings volatility. Acknowledges potential offsets from international expansion, technology and KCAD synergies, but still concludes that the market price looks ahead of this fair value estimate. Do you think there's more to the story for Helmerich & Payne? Head over to our Community to see what others are saying! NYSE:HP 1-Year Stock Price Chart This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include HP. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Bengaluru student offers Rs 15,000 to hire fake parent for PTM, leaves internet in splits Bengaluru college student posted online looking for a standin parent to attend an upcoming PTM, offering Rs 15,000. The unusual request went viral, sparking jokes, curiosity, and reactions across social media as users shared their own experiences and playful offers. Harsh Goenkas Strait of Hormuz workaround sets off online debate The industrialist shared a graphic suggesting oil could bypass the narrow waterway by moving cargo across land, but the idea quickly drew both curiosity and scepticism. 'It will be used for charity': Man turns Rs 53,360 into Rs 53,360 crore, builds steamed bun business A school dropout from Anhui, built a steamed bun empire with over 5,600 stores across China, earning about 180 million yuan (around Rs 2,256 crore) annually despite facing business failure and serious injuries. He rebranded as Babi Steamed Bun to attract more customers. (Representational image/AI) Liu Huiping grew Babi Steamed Bun to a 180 million yuan enterprise. He overcame bankruptcy, injury, and attacks to expand nationwide Babi Food surpasses 5,600 stores, backs education programs Did our AI summary help? 'Lesson learned': Employee says job offer was withdrawn after telling boss about new company The account, posted on the social platform Reddit, has sparked debate among users about how much information employees should disclose when leaving a job, particularly when discussing their next career move with managers. According to the individual, the situation unfolded after they decided to leave their organisation following several years in the role. 'Small salary, big life': Man says Rs 65,000 in Patna beats Rs 1.5 lakh life in Bengaluru. Internet debates According to the post, the individual accepted a position as an artificial intelligence engineer at a startup based in Muzaffarpur, earning Rs 65,000 per month. The post concluded with a short phrase summarising the authors view of the situation. 'Small salary. Big life. Welcome to the Patna Paradox.' Two dozen masked thieves steal jewellery worth Rs 18 crore in just 70 seconds, 4 arrested A large group of robbers carried out a swift jewellery store heist in California, storming the showroom and escaping with valuables worth nearly Rs 18 crore million in just over a minute. Masked robbers target Indian American familys California store. (Image credit: X/@CollinRugg) Masked thieves stole $1.7 million in jewelry in 70 seconds Four suspects, aged 19-20, were later arrested No injuries reported during the Fremont, California robbery Did our AI summary help? A 140-foot asteroid named 2007 EG is speeding toward Earth at over 17,000 mph and will make a close flyby soon. Sheetal Kumari is a skilled sub-editor and content creator with expertise in digital news, multimedia storytelling, and social media content. With a strong grasp of topics like science, politics, and many more, she crafts compelling narratives, transforming complex topics and trending stories into engaging, accessible reads across various media platforms. ByteDance reportedly finds workaround to access Nvidias latest AI chips ByteDance is reportedly building a massive AI computing cluster in Malaysia using NVIDIAs latest Blackwell chips, potentially sidestepping US export restrictions that limit access to the technology in China. Sarthak Singh March 14, 2026 / 19:51 IST Bytedance ByteDance to use Nvidia B200 AI chips through Malaysia cloud Aolani Cloud to build $2.5B system for ByteDance outside China Arrangement complies with US export rules, Nvidia confirms Did our AI summary help? Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day IG is a drug: US jury set to deliberate in landmark social media addiction trial against Meta and YouTube A US jury is set to deliberate in a landmark trial accusing Meta and YouTube of designing addictive platforms for children, with plaintiffs alleging social media features caused serious mental health harm. Sarthak Singh March 14, 2026 / 09:25 IST instagram Jury to decide if social media caused mental health harm to KGM Meta and YouTube deny blame for KGM's mental health problems Trial outcome may impact future social media addiction lawsuits Did our AI summary help? Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day Honda Motor expects charges of up to Y2.5tn ($15.75bn) as it revises its electrification strategy and cancels three planned electric vehicle (EV) models. The Japanese carmaker has decided to stop the development and the planned US launch of the Honda 0 SUV, Honda 0 sedan and Acura RSX amid a slowdown in demand. According to the company, initiating production of these models could lead to losses over the long-term. Instead, it will now shift focus towards strengthening its hybrid line-up. The move follows what Honda described as a reassessment of its electrification strategy in response to shifts in the business environment. The automaker said the decision will affect its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2026 and has led the company to revise its earlier forecast. Honda now expects losses for the fiscal year ending March to range between Y270bn and Y570bn. The company said the review reflects several pressures on its automotive business. These include the effect of changes in US tariff policies on petrol and hybrid vehicles, as well as weaker competitiveness in Asia after resources were increased for EV development. Honda also pointed to slower growth in the US EV market, citing factors such as relaxed fossil fuel regulations and changes to EV incentives. In China, the company said rivalry has intensified as buyers increasingly favour software-based vehicle functions, including software-defined vehicle (SDV) technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Honda said newer EV makers have moved faster, with shorter development cycles, and that it was unable to offer better value for money in that market, contributing to declining competitiveness. It expects write-offs and impairment on assets tied to producing the cancelled models, alongside additional costs linked to halting development and sales. The company further noted it has reassessed recoverability of equity-method investments in China and anticipates an impairment loss. It also plans to improve its model lineup and cost competitiveness in India and other Asian markets while continuing long-term electrification efforts. "Honda braces for Y2.5tn hit after EV strategy shift" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. Instagram to remove end-to-end encryption from DMs starting May 2026 Meta will discontinue end-to-end encrypted messaging in Instagram DMs from May 8, 2026, saying the optional feature saw very little adoption among users who had access to it. Sarthak Singh March 14, 2026 / 21:06 IST Instagram Meta to end Instagram DMs encryption by May 2026 Feature was rarely used and only available in select regions Users wanting encrypted chats are advised to use WhatsApp Did our AI summary help? Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day 11 Indian nationals arrested in US for staging fake robberies, 'visa fraud' conspiracy According to US federal investigators, the group staged fake robberies at various businesses, enabling the store clerks to falsely claim they were crime victims on immigration applications. A U-Visa is granted to individuals who have been victims of serious crimes and who cooperate with law enforcement investigations. (Representative photo) 11 Indians in US arrested for faking robberies for U-Visas Suspect linked to six robberies in Massachusetts and beyond Penalties include up to five years prison and $250,000 fines Did our AI summary help? 270 rockets in 48 hours: Why the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is suddenly on edge The barrage targeted multiple districts in the eastern Afghan province bordering Pakistan, marking one of the most intense episodes of cross-border shelling since fighting between the two sides intensified earlier this year. Pakistans Kunar barrage raises the stakes in a fast-worsening Afghanistan conflict 270+ rockets fired from Pakistan into Afghanistan's Kunar Province Pakistan conducts airstrikes on Taliban and TTP in Afghanistan No casualties reported yet; tensions remain high along the border Did our AI summary help? A darker warning from Iran: US and Israel are 'indistinguishable' in this widening war Iran says it no longer sees any distinction between the US and Israel as IRGC claims fresh retaliatory strikes in the escalating conflict. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accuses Donald Trump of acting under Benjamin Netanyahus influence as Iran signals the conflict will continue and the IRGC claims a new wave of attacks. Iran now sees US and Israel as "indistinguishable" enemies IRGC claims missile and drone strikes on Israeli and US targets Iran reports launching hundreds of missiles and drones amid conflict Did our AI summary help? As Iran internet shutdown enters third week, people turn to radios, satellite tools to stay connected Despite the sweeping restrictions, some Iranians are still finding limited ways to communicate with the outside world. Did the US kill the Iranian official linked to a Trump assassination plot? What we know so far US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said an Iranian operative behind a plot to kill Donald Trump had been hunted down and killed, but US officials say the reality is far less clear US intelligence agencies have been aware for some time that Iran was interested in targeting Trump Eight countries criticise Israel over restrictions at Al Aqsa during Ramadan Muslim-majority nations say limits on access to the Jerusalem mosque during the holy month risk inflaming tensions across the region. Israel says restrictions are needed to prevent violence. (Image credit: AFP) 8 Muslim-majority nations condemn Israel's Al Aqsa restrictions Foreign ministers say limits violate worshippers' rights and law Israel limits access during Ramadan over security concerns Did our AI summary help? Explosions rock Doha as Qatar downs Iranian missiles, evacuates key areas Interceptors were seen over the Qatari capital's downtown area downing two projectiles, an AFP journalist said, as Iran presses its retaliatory air campaign against Gulf states. AFP March 14, 2026 / 05:57 IST The Gulf state's defence ministry said its military had "intercepted missile attack which targeted State of Qatar". Missile attack intercepted over Doha, Qatar's capital Residents evacuated key areas after blasts and alerts Iran targets Gulf states amid regional tensions Did our AI summary help? Five US Air Force refueling planes hit in Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia air base The planes, which were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired. Binance has not disputed the specifics of how investigators linked money flows to these accounts. The exchange has defended its approach to any illicit transactions on its platform and argued that its compliance program worked as designed. Still, this comes as the Justice Department is reportedly investigating Irans use of Binance to evade sanctions, according to the Wall Street Journal . A Binance spokesperson said the exchange isnt aware of any investigations. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. Binance has responded to the reports, which have prompted inquiries by the U.S. Senate, by arguing the investigators departures were unrelated to the discovery of the Iran transfers, and that the company has upheld its 2023 pledge to maintain a rigorous compliance program. The new details related to the Chinese and Iranian accounts, however, raise new questions about the efficacy of that program. The details of the VIP account, which have not been previously reported, come at a sensitive time for Binance. In February, a series of media reports revealed that the company had fired internal investigators who had described to top executives that over $1 billion had flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked wallets, and that one of Binances close commercial partnersa Hong Kong entity that arranged crypto to fiat paymentshad facilitated the transfers. This is not merely a red flag, it is an immediate escalation trigger, said Amanda Wick, a former federal prosecutor and head of Americas at the crypto compliance software company VerifyVASP, upon learning of the transactions from Fortune. Surprisingly, though, the transfers triggered no immediate alarms for Binance, which had agreed in late 2023 to impose a rigorous series of compliance procedures as part of a $4.3 billion plea agreement with the U.S. government. As the investigators detailed in documents reviewed by Fortune, it was suspicious for a single elderly man to be moving hundreds of millions of dollars. This was especially the case since the transactions in question involved moving Tether stablecoins on the blockchain Trona payment method favored by cyber-criminals and money launderers. In early 2025, an embattled Iranian regime was turning increasingly to crypto in order to thwart sanctions choking its economy. During this time, a VIP account on Binance registered to a 79-year-old Chinese resident used a series of transfers to send $439 million worth of digital tokens from the crypto exchange to an outside wallet. That wallet in turn forwarded most of the funds to ones that company investigators would later identify as connected to sanctioned organizations linked to Iran like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Story Continues Binances compliance program is constantly improving and evolving, said the exchanges chief compliance officer Noah Perlman in a statement shared with Fortune. The goal is to become stronger and prevent issues from recurring. Chinese nexus Like traditional financial institutions, crypto exchanges have dedicated compliance procedures set up to verify users and to screen for illegal activity. In a blog post in February, Binance touted a best-in-class program that has almost 600 full-time employees. As part of this program, Binance asked the 79-year-old Chinese man to upload an ID to open his VIP account. (Binance users automatically receive VIP status based on asset holdings and trading volumes, a spokesperson said.) Thats how internal investigators at the exchange eventually found he had indirectly contributed around $400 million to a cluster of previously unidentified wallets tied to Iran outside of Binance, which they dubbed Entity Athe sort of activity that Wick, the former prosecutor, says should be flagged as a matter of course. If nearly half a billion dollars move out of a clients account into a single noncustodial wallet, then quickly flow onward to wallets tied to a sanctioned jurisdiction thats the kind of activity compliance teams are built to catch, she said. Binance, though, allowed the VIPs account to trade freely for months. The exchanges compliance staff would only flag the activity, which began in January of 2025, much later, after a law enforcement agency in the Seychelles submitted a request to Binance on Aug. 11 concerning a serious case involving terrorism financing. A Binance spokesperson told Fortune that the 79-year-old VIP users account was blocked in September 2025 and offboarded in January 2026. Other compliance experts expressed surprise that Binance did not move more promptly to address the account. Robert Appleton, a partner at Olshan Frome Wolosky who used to prosecute Iran-related sanctions cases for the Justice Department, told Fortune that, especially in light of Binances checkered past and prior legal struggles with sanctions evasion, he expected the exchange would be more vigilant about suspicious activity of any sort. That agreement with the government changes everything because it increases their obligations, he said. Meanwhile, the $439 million of transfers made in the name of the elderly Chinese man represent only part of the Iran-related activity. The documents reviewed by Fortune show that, in the course of their investigation, the former Binance staffers found that the cluster of Iran-linked wallets known as Entity A had received $1.7 billion in total via businesses and individuals who held Binance accounts. Entity A, in turn, sent a portion of those funds to the largest Iranian crypto exchange, Nobitex, and to digital wallets linked to U.S.-designated terrorist groups like the IRGC and the Houthis. A Binance spokesperson said that none of the wallets were sanctioned by global law enforcement agencies when the transactions occurred, meaning the transfers did not trigger alerts. Though the wallets controlled by Entity A and the sanctioned groups did not sit on Binance, the nature of the flows from the crypto exchange still should have raised alarm bells, crypto compliance experts told Fortune. The Binance investigators, who opened a case after receiving the Seychelles request, would come to describe the series of flows as part of a Chinese nexus that also included another VIP trader. In this case, the VIP customer was a 38-year-old Chinese woman who sent nearly $200 million of the stablecoin Tether to an intermediary wallet, which then relayed the funds to Entity A between November and December 2024. (A spokesperson for Binance said the term Chinese nexus was an informal internal reference that is imprecise and likely changed over time and that the VIPs account was offboarded in January 2026.) Even more revealing, documents reviewed by Fortune showed that the accounts for the two VIPs likely accessed Binance from the same devicesuggesting the same person, or possibly a third party entity, controlled both accounts. If two ostensibly unrelated VIP clients were also found to be accessing accounts from the same device, that would raise serious beneficial ownership concerns, said Wick. In any case, the investigators found blockchain data that revealed both accounts had received funds from Blessed Trust, a Hong Kong-based business that helps firms convert crypto funds to fiat, and that also performed back-office tasks such as payroll and taxes for Binance. They eventually concluded that, of the $1.2 billion in total funds that flowed through Blessed Trust to Entity A, around half came from the two Chinese VIP traders. Binance has sought to downplay the links between accounts on its platform and the Iran-linked wallets, arguing in a recent blog post that there were multiple intermediaries between the exchange and the sanctioned wallets. The post also notes that $1.1 billion of the funds flowed into Binance from a major regulated stablecoin issuer. In their findings, the investigators wrote that the two Chinese VIP accounts likely received a majority of their funds through stablecoins issued by Circle, the publicly traded U.S. crypto company. We take our regulatory obligations seriously, a Circle spokesperson told Fortune, adding that Circle had terminated Blessed Trust as a customer in 2025. However, Binances blog posts as well as responses to Fortune and other media outlets concerning the money flows have not included the specifics of the two Chinese VIP accounts on its exchange. Moreover, the investigators found the two accounts also shared a device with Blessed Services, another business tied to Blessed Trust that sat in between crypto flows to Entity A. The evidence suggests that the same people may have operated all of the accounts. A Binance spokesperson declined to comment on device sharing details and said that Blessed Services had no business relationship with the exchange. An email address tied to Blessed Trust and Blessed Services did not respond to a request for comment. The Chinese nexus included one more element: a Hong Kong-registered business, Hexa Whale Trading Limited, which operated on Binance, and sent around $500 million to Entity A. By the time Binance investigators discovered the Hexa Whale activity, other members of the companys compliance team had already offboarded the account. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times previously reported details about Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust. Efforts by Fortune to reach Hexa Whale and the two Chinese VIP users were unsuccessful. Those investigators involved in the initial reports were fired by Binance in the weeks after they filed their initial conclusions. Binance denied that the employees were let go for raising compliance concerns and said in a blog post that some left after an internal review found breaches of company data-protection and confidentiality guidelines. The exchange maintains that it continued the investigation and that it offboarded Blessed Trust in January 2026. The investigators declined to comment. The chart illustrates the flow of funds described in this article as laid out by Binance investigators. Not all money transfers or wallets are depicted. The Iran connection Though much smaller in volume, a separate pattern of transactions on Binance also concerned the investigators. These were carried out by two suspected Iranian nationals. According to compliance experts, the success of these individuals in obtaining Binance accounts and sending funds in the first place raises questions about the rigor of the companys screening program. The first account, opened in 2021, belonged to a 44-year-old with an ID from Dominica that listed Iran as his place of birth, and whose name appeared in a 2020 report from the United Nations Security Council about a gold-and-cash smuggling network for Iran and North Korea. The other account, also opened in 2021, belonged to a 37-year-old who uploaded an Iraqi ID that listed Iran as his place of birth. The pair of accounts had been restricted by the time the Binance investigators discovered them. Those transactions included both accounts sending around $100 each in 2024 to the Iran-linked cluster in a cryptocurrency called TRX, which is the only currency accepted by the Tron blockchain to pay for transactions. While the overall sum may have been trivial, the transfer of TRX was significant as it likely paid for the vital transfer fees between the cluster of wallets in Entity A. The situation is roughly analogous to tracking the credit card payments used to pay for a cars fuel. If the same card keeps paying for gas, it wont describe whos driving, but can signal whos funding the cars trip. Most people look only at big transactions, but small ones are equally important, said Lex Fisun, cofounder and CEO of the blockchain analytics company Global Ledger. On the blockchain, you usually cannot link a wallet to a real person. However, when one address repeatedly sends TRX to cover another wallets fees, that shows a connection. Moreover, Wick noted that the accounts ties to Iran also should have drawn more immediate scrutiny. Binance, after all, had pleaded guilty to charges related to similar transactions and had pledged to stamp out such activity on its platform. In a scenario where multiple high-risk indicators convergeparticularly involving a heavily sanctioned jurisdiction such as Iran or individuals identified in reporting by the United Nations Security Councila properly functioning compliance program should escalate in real time, she said. You would expect account restrictions, enhanced due diligence, blockchain tracing, and a sanctions risk assessment. These are the kinds of issues that should trigger action as they occur, not months after the fact. A Binance spokesperson said that one of the Iranian accounts was fully offboarded and the other is blocked from making transactions and is in the offboarding process. The exchange did not specify if the accounts were restricted at the time of the transactions. Efforts by Fortune to reach the two individuals were unsuccessful. Fallout Exposure to sanctioned entities is a significant worry for any financial institution, and Binance already has paid a hefty price for its connections to Iran. In 2023, it struck a $4.3 billion plea deal with the U.S. government for failing to establish effective anti-money laundering and sanctions programs, among other charges. As part of the plea agreement, the exchanges cofounder, Changpeng Zhao, stepped down as CEO and spent four months in federal prison. Binance also agreed to cooperate with monitors that reported to the DOJ and Treasury Department about its internal operations. But the recent firings of the investigators and potential exposure to Iran has members of Congress worried. In late February, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) opened a preliminary inquiry into Binance and sent a letter to co-CEO Richard Teng demanding information on the fired investigators findings and other Iran-related activity at Binance. Blumenthal also pointed to President Donald Trumps recent pardon of Zhao in October, which drew accusations of conflicts of interest due to Binances increasing ties to the Trump familys crypto businesses. President Trumps assets are in a trust managed by his children, a White House spokesperson told Fortune. There are no conflicts of interest. Still, Blumenthal told Fortune that Binances connection to the White House raises ongoing ethics concerns: One of my main worries is that the relationship between Binance and the administration may discourage or deter the compliance monitors from uncovering and reporting wrongdoing, or the Department of Justice from pursuing and prosecuting it. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem says group ready for 'long confrontation' with Israel "We have prepared ourselves for a long confrontation, and God willing, they (Israelis) will be surprised on the battlefield," Qassem said in a televised address, adding that "the enemy's threats do not frighten us". AFP March 14, 2026 / 01:20 IST Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced on Friday that they had launched missiles and drones at Israel in coordination with Tehran's Lebanese ally Hezbollah. How Irans response to the US-Israel war caught Washington off guard Tehrans mix of intelligence networks, cheap drones and regional proximity allowed it to strike targets across the Gulf, widening the conflict in ways many US officials had not fully anticipated. How US and Israel plan to stop Irans Shahed-136 drones with Merops drone killers Merops interceptor drones currently cost between $14,000 and $15,000 each, though Driscoll said large-scale orders could bring the price down to between $3,000 and $5,000 per unit. The US has been sending a range of counter-drone capabilities to the region, including RTX Corp.s Coyote interceptor drone. US Army deployed 10,000 Ukrainian-made Merops interceptor drones Merops drones use AI to counter Iranian Shahed-136 drones Merops cheaper than Iranian drones and missile systems Did our AI summary help? Id do a number on Kharg Island: Trumps 1988 Iran warning resurfaces after US strikes A 1988 interview shows Donald Trump spoke about attacking Irans Kharg Island decades before ordering US strikes on the strategic oil hub. After Shivalik, Indias Nanda Devi sails out of Hormuz with critical 46,000 tonnes LPG cargo Nanda Devi exits the Strait of Hormuz with over 46,000 tonnes of LPG under Indian Navy escort. Inside Epsteins Caribbean fortress: DOJ files reveal how Little St James became a playground for power and abuse Millions of pages of documents released by the US Department of Justice provide the clearest picture yet of what happened on Little St. James, Epsteins roughly 70-acre private island in the US Virgin Islands. A drone view shows Little St. James, a small private island formerly owned by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and later sold by his estate to settle lawsuits, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (REUTERS) DOJ reveals documents on Epstein's island abuse network Victims reveal years of sexual abuse and secrecy on island Epstein hosted powerful guests, many deny witnessing wrongdoing Did our AI summary help? Inside Kharg Island: The oil hub shaping the Middle East war dynamics As tensions escalate in the region, Kharg Island has once again come into focus because of its economic and strategic value. Kharg Island Kharg Island is Iran's main hub for crude oil exports. Its deep waters allow supertankers to load oil efficiently. Disruption at Kharg could impact global oil supply and prices. Did our AI summary help? Tehran rejects claims its leadership is 'desperate and hiding' as Ali Larijani fires back at the US defence secretary. Rewati Karan is Senior Sub Editor at Moneycontrol. She covers law, politics, business, and national affairs. She was previously Principal Correspondent at Financial Express and Copyeditor at ThePrint where she wrote feature stories and covered legal news. She has also worked extensively in social media, videos and podcasts at ThePrint and India Today. She can be reached at rewati.karan@nw18.com | Twitter: @RewatiKaran Iran hits out at US for 'begging world' to buy Russian oil after 2 weeks of war: 'Spent months bullying India ...' Criticising US, Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said first Washington spent months bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia and now the White House is begging all to purchase the same. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (Courtesy: Reuters photo) Iran threatens US-linked oil sites after Kharg Island strikes; says oil facilities unharmed Iranian media on Saturday cited the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters as saying oil and energy facilities in the region linked to companies cooperating with the U.S. or having American shareholders would be targeted if Iranian infrastructure is attacked. Iran unveils 'Kamikaze' naval drone fleet inside underground 'missile city', threatens shipping through Strait of Hormuz State television broadcast the images, which appear to show a sprawling tunnel complex lined with military hardware. The recordings, whose timing could not be independently verified, were said to have been filmed inside the subterranean base. Irans military said the arsenal includes numerous suicide drone boats that could be used to block maritime traffic in the strategic waterway. (Representative image) Iran reveals underground missile city with naval drones and mines Naval drones linked to recent tanker attacks in Gulf waters Iran warns of possible disruption in Strait of Hormuz shipping Did our AI summary help? Iran vows retaliation for 104 sailors killed in US attack on IRIS Dena in Indian Ocean: 'Will not go unanswered' The warning comes days after a US submarine attack on the IRIS Dena on March 4, which torpedoed the frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka while it was returning from a naval exercise organised by India. Plan could see Israeli forces seize territory south of the Litani River and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in the largest ground operation since 2006. Key UAE port suspends oil loadings after drone attack, fire Exports of crude and fuels at the port of Fujairah, which lies outside the Persian Gulf, were halted earlier as a precautionary step Smoke rises from the direction of an energy installation in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah (AFP image) UAE suspended oil loading at Fujairah after drone strike and fire The blaze was extinguished; loadings may resume soon No injuries reported; exports halted as damage is assessed Did our AI summary help? Low-cost drones, satellite imagery and lessons from Russia: How Iran has managed to uphold retaliatory attacks against US, Israel The scale of the retaliation has raised questions over whether the United States had anticipated the extent of Irans response to the strikes that have killed more than 1,400 people in the country, including former supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The attack comes amid heightened security across the United States following the launch nearly two weeks ago of the US-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict that has since broadened to the Middle East. Launch comes days after cruise missile test from new warship and as tensions rise over Iran strike and nuclear recognition demand Pakistan scales down National Day celebrations amid austerity measures Diplomatic missions will hold only flag-hoisting ceremonies this year as Islamabad cuts spending during economic strain and regional uncertainty. Officials cite financial strain and rising costs for the move. (Image credit: AFP) Pakistan embassies to mark National Day with simple ceremonies No diplomatic receptions abroad due to economic pressures Scaled-back events show solidarity with conflict-hit Middle East Did our AI summary help? Report says US did not fully factor in risk of Iran closing Strait of Hormuz A key global oil route has been disrupted, pushing crude prices sharply higher and raising questions about early US planning. Iran has warned it may block the Strait of Hormuz under military pressure. (Image credit: Getty Images) US underestimated impact of Strait of Hormuz disruption Oil prices surged to USD119 a barrel after strait tensions Strait of Hormuz closure poses global economic risks Did our AI summary help? Signum's Charles Myers on why Trump invited Pak PM to White House: 'This is what he always does ...' Trump hosted Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House last year, just weeks after Operation Sindoor. Following a lengthy run of underperformance against the backdrop of soaring megacap growth stocks, high-dividend equities are back in the spotlight. Investors who need convincing of that fact need not look any further than the iShares Core High Dividend ETF (NYSEMKT: HDV), which is up nearly 12% since the start of the year. That showing, coupled with a current dividend yield of 2.96%, or nearly triple what's found on the S&P 500, would be enough to satisfy many dividend income investors. They might say: Take the 12% gain in just over two months, the dependable dividend stream, be happy, and don't ask questions. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue This dividend is built for the current market climate and has long-term promise, too. Image source: Getty Images But savvy investors know there's more to consider. Sure, this exchange-traded fund's stellar start to 2026 warrants attention and potentially purchasing, but with about 10 months remaining in the year, investors may wonder what's gotten the iShares ETF to this point and what factors could support more upside as this year matures. An ETF made for these times Not all low-volatility stocks feature high dividends, and not all high-payout names have favorable volatility traits. Still, there is often an intersection between those characteristics, as this $13.3 billion fund shows. Right now, sector rotation from growth to value appears to be gaining steam -- and that benefits this ETF, which has about 52% of its weighting in consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities stocks. But note that energy is this fund's second-largest sector weight at 26.6%, with the bulk of that allocated to ExxonMobil and Chevron -- and like some of their peers, those stocks are benefiting from developments in Venezuela and Iran. Potentially, that's a double-edged sword for this dividend ETF because oil is a notoriously volatile commodity, and that much has been on display in recent days. In overnight trading on Sunday, March 8, crude prices surged more than 20% amid Iran-related fears, only to close 9.6% lower on Monday. During the March 9 trading session, oil swung in a range of $34 per barrel. To its credit, the iShares fund closed flat. Mostly a buy, likely not a clear sell It's clear that oil investing isn't for the faint of heart, but there are multiple bright spots with the iShares Core High Dividend ETF. First, it's less vulnerable to the volatility factor than many of its high-dividend rivals. Second, and this is important to dividend investors, the fund's quality tilt has increased in recent years. The quiet expansion of Trumps immigration crackdown While immigration arrests dominate headlines, a much larger shift is unfolding inside the rapidly expanding detention system where tens of thousands of migrants are now being held. The number of immigrants being held in ICE custody has climbed dramatically since Donald Trump returned to office. Immigrant detention centers expanding rapidly under Trump Deaths in custody rise, sparking concern over medical care Oversight reduced as detention facilities double in number Did our AI summary help? Trump breaches red line in Iran war: Why Kharg Island strike may cause alarm in China and the world The tiny island, located about 25 km off Irans coast, has long been seen as a key vulnerability that would provoke a severe response by Tehran if attacked. Image by the European Space Agency shows a view of Iran's Kharg Island (AFP) US strikes Kharg Island, crippling Iran's key oil export hub Attack may escalate tensions and impact global oil markets Kharg Island handles 90% of Iran's oil exports Did our AI summary help? Trump rejects Putin's offer to transfer Iran's uranium stockpile to Russia amid raging war, report says Witkoff and Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly held a separate call earlier this week with Yuri Ushakov. According to Witkoff, Ushakov reiterated that Moscow was not sharing intelligence with Tehran. Trump says Iran 'totally defeated' & wants a deal he won't accept The comments by Trump followed his claim that Washington had heavily bombed military targets at Irans Kharg Island oil hub and that the US Navy would soon start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz US President Donald Trump Kharg Island handles the vast majority of Irans crude oil exports and sits near the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime route for global energy shipments. In another post, Trump sharply criticised federal judge James Boasberg after subpoenas issued during an investigation into Jerome Powell were quashed The warning came as Trump announced that US forces had carried out major strikes on Irans Kharg Island, destroying what he described as key military installations. Trump said the United States had deliberately avoided striking the islands oil facilities but made clear that restraint could quickly end if shipping in the strait was threatened. Donald Trump urges other nations to send warships, says Hormuz Strait will be open, safe and free Donald Trump, who has said the United States will soon start escorting tankers through the Hormuz Strait A map showing the Strait of Hormuz and Iran is seen in this illustration Trump urges nations to send ships to secure Strait of Hormuz US plans to escort tankers amid halted maritime traffic Trump claims Iran's military destroyed but attacks still possible Did our AI summary help? UAE's Fujairah stops some oil loading operations after drone attack Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, is the outlet for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE's Murban crude oil - a volume equal to about 1% of world demand Reuters March 14, 2026 / 22:58 IST Smoke rises in the Fujairah oil industry zone, caused by debris after interception of a drone by air defenses, according to the Fujairah media office, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Fujairah Oil-loading suspended in Fujairah after drone attack and fire UAE ports threatened by Iran after US strike on Kharg Island No injuries; civil defence containing Fujairah fire Did our AI summary help? USIran war live: India seeks passage for more vessels stranded around Strait of Hormuz after a few sail through India has sought safe passage for 22 of its vessels stranded west of the Strait of Hormuz, a foreign affairs ministry spokesperson said on Saturday, after Iran allowed a few Indian ships to sail through, in a rare exception to the blockade. Randhir Jaiswal told a press conference that India has stayed in touch with all major parties in the Middle East - including Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran, the U.S. and Israel - to convey its priorities, particularly on energy security. Tehran's Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Iran has allowed some Indian vessels to sail through the Strait of Hormuz. He was speaking on broadcaster India Today's conclave in New Delhi. Since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iran, Tehran has largely halted traffic through the strait, which runs past its coast and through which around 20% of global oil and seaborne liquefied natural gas is supplied. -- Reuters US offers $10 million reward for information on Iran's Mojtaba Khamenei, other top leaders Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Minister of Intelligence and Security Esmail Khatib were among the 10 individuals on the State Department list. AFP March 13, 2026 / 23:50 IST Mojtaba Khamenei's father Ali Khamenei was killed in a bombing on February 28 at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran. US offers $10M reward for info on Iran's new leader, officials Iran claims to have destroyed 111 enemy drones in Middle East war Iran's internet blackout exceeds 14 days, likely government-imposed. Did our AI summary help? Jet fuel prices are rising as the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil supplies, putting cost pressure on airlines as the busy summer travel season approaches. Experts say its not a question of if airfares will go up, but when, for how long and by how much. The impact may be felt most on long-haul international routes, which burn significantly more fuel than shorter flights. Some airlines outside of the U.S. have announced fare increases or fuel surcharges in an effort to offset the growing expense. In the U.S., United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby recently warned that airfare increases will probably start quick as increasing fuel costs work their way through the industry. Why are jet fuel prices rising? The war is constraining oil exports and prompting major producers like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq to scale back output as shipments face growing obstacles. Iran has attacked commercial ships across the Persian Gulf and targeted oil infrastructure in Gulf Arab nations following U.S. and Israeli strikes. The attacks have effectively halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage that carries about one-fifth of the worlds oil supply. The volatile crude oil prices causing retail gasoline prices to swing up sharply have had the same effect on the price of jet fuel. The average price in the U.S. reached $3.99 per gallon on Friday, up from $2.50 the day before the war started two weeks ago, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index. The index tracks the average price airlines pay for jet fuel across major U.S. airports. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportations Bureau of Transportation Statistics show that U.S. airlines paid about $2.36 per gallon for fuel in January, the most recent data available. What does it mean for airlines? Some airlines are partially protected from sudden price spikes through fuel hedging, a strategy that allows them to lock in fuel prices months or even years in advance. But not all airlines hedge, and those that do are usually only protected for a portion of their fuel needs, meaning prolonged price surges may cause more carriers to raise fares. No one hedges anymore, and even if you do, hedging the crack spread is really hard to do, Kirby said at a Harvard event last week. The crack spread is the difference between the price of crude oil and the price of products produced from it, like gasoline. Another factor for airlines: Air space closures have required rerouting flights around parts of the Middle East, which can mean longer routes, additional fuel burn and higher operating costs. Watch: Israel shares bodycam footage of soldiers carrying out military operation in Lebanon during night hours The release of the footage comes after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. The group said the action was in response to what it described as the unilateral war launched by Tel Aviv and the United States against Iran, as well as the assassination of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'Will be targeted in coming hours': Iran advisory urges evacuation near UAE ports as smoke seen rising from Fujairah energy hub The warning came hours after the United States carried out strikes on Irans oil export hub at Kharg Island. Woman becomes sole passenger on Riga to Dubai flight A Russian travellers video showing an empty aircraft cabin turned a routine trip into an internet curiosity. Marina Gilla shared her Riga-to-Dubai experience on Instagram. (Image credit: marinagilla2022) A woman flew alone on a commercial flight from Riga to Dubai Her video of the empty cabin went viral on social media Experts: Rare but possible for flights to have very few passengers Did our AI summary help? 'You may start a war, but ending it will not be in your hands': Iran envoy's warning for US as West Asia war rages Mohammad Fathali discussed developments related to the regional confrontation and Irans stance on negotiations. March 14, 2026 War On Iran: The Saudis Alternative Crude Export Outlet Is Also A Trap Saudi Arabia is trying to avoid damage from the war on Iran by diverting oil exports from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea through its East-West pipeline. This scheme however will fail at least as long as it takes part in that war. During the 1980s the rulers of Saudi Arabia feared that another war between Iran and Iraq would close the Strait of Hormuz. In normal times Saudi Arabia would export between 6 to 8 million barrels of crude oil per day through its Persian Gulf side harbors. The closure of the Strait would have threatened all oil export capabilities for Saudi crude. A pipeline system was built to allow for the divergence of crude from the Saudi east coast in the Persian Gulf to its west coast at the Red Sea. The system consisted of two strings one for crude, the other for natural gas liquids. The capacity of the pipeline is about 5 million barrels per day for crude plus an additional 2 million barrels if the natural gas pipeline is converted to crude and used too. The East-West pipeline, also known as Petroline, ends at the Read Sea harbor city of Yanbu where several refineries convert a share of the crude to products that are locally used. The crude oil export capacity of Yanbu is estimated to be between 3 to 5 million barrels per day. Due to the recent USraeli war on Iran the Strait of Hormuz was closed. Saudi Arabia immediately reacted by diverting crude from its eastern ports through the East-West pipeline towards Yanbu. According to Windward: Saudi Arabia has reportedly curtailed approximately 2.02.5 million barrels per day of offshore production, including output from the Safaniya, Marjan, Zuluf, and Abu Safa fields, representing roughly 20% of national output. Saudi Arabia has pivoted onshore Arab Light volumes onto the 7 million b/d Petroline, pushing Yanbu exports to approximately 2.47 million b/d, a 330% increase compared with pre-crisis levels. That shift is now visible in fleet behavior. Twenty-seven VLCCs are currently heading toward Yanbu, compared with 18 vessels for Jeddah and three each for Jizan, Duba, and Rabigh. This concentration indicates that Yanbu is now serving as the primary outlet for Petroline-delivered crude and the central node of Saudi Arabias Red Sea export workaround. Notice the (blue) Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) on the map coming from Asia, passing through the Arabian Sea, along the Gulf of Aden, through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait passage and into the Red Sea. This is a one-way road as VLCCs are too big to pass through the Suez Canal at the north-west (upper left) corner of the map. These ships will have to come back along the same route that takes them to Yanbu. The Saudi rulers have done well with the diversion of oil from the eastern to the western export facilities. This move would have been a winning one if the closure of Hormuz had been caused by a war between Iran and Iraq. This war however was launched by the U.S. and Israel and, as a U.S. vassal, Saudi Arabia is part of it. Its airports and air-space are used for fueling U.S. airplanes which are bombing Iran. Last night five U.S. Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia. Iran has allies which have helped it to widen the war to the region. Shia militia in Iraq have attacked local U.S. bases. Hizbullah in Lebanon is diverting Israeli forces by dragging them into a local fight. Then there Ansar Islam, aka the Houthi, in Yemen which says it is ready to soon join the struggle on the side of Iran: Senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti says the group has decided to stand militarily with Iran and will announce Hour Zero (start of action) at the appropriate time. Between 2015 and 2022 the Saudis fought, and lost, a war against the Houthi of Yemen. During that war, in May 2019, the Saudi East-West pipeline took hits: The Houthis, who are at war with Saudi Arabia, said earlier Tuesday they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations, without elaborating. They later claimed responsibility for the pipeline attack in comments broadcast by Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari. The Saudis did not immediately assign blame for the drone assaults, which targeted two oil pumping stations west of the capital supplying the pipeline that runs from the east of Saudi Arabia to the Yanbu Port on its western coast. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said that as a precaution, it temporarily shut down the East-West Pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. In October 2023, out of solidarity with people of Gaza who were under attack by Israel, the Houthi closed the Bab el-Mandeb and Red Sea for all U.S./Israel aligned traffic. The U.S. Navy tried for several months to reopen the Red Sea but failed. In October 2025, after a ceasefire in Gaza, the Houthi did lift their Red Sea blockade. Now U.S. President Donald Trump is dreaming of Chinese war ships to help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz. This as Iran is planing, with the help of the Houthi, to also close Bab el-Mandeb and to shut down Red Sea traffic: Iranian decision makers indicate that the Americans appear to be failing to understand that, for Iran, this is an existential war. In such a context, nothing is considered too precious to sacrifice. With the approval of the new leader, Sayyed Mojataba Khamenei, it was agreed that if the US strikes or lands on any Iranian installations, Tehran is prepared to escalate dramatically. Possible approved responses include: 1. Closure of Bab el Mandeb and attacks on Red Sea ports exporting oil, expanding the war to a vital global shipping route. The Saudi move to divert crude oil export from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea via the East-West pipeline was smart and timely. But it will not help as long as the Saudis are part of the USraeli side in the war on Iran. The East-West pipeline has already been proven to be vulnerable to drone attacks launched from Iran or the Houthi controlled parts of Yemen. The Saudi Red Sea export outlet in Yanbu will be cut off from most global traffic when the Houthi decide to again close the Red Sea and to stop traffic through Bab el Mandeb. Saudi export will then be restricted to Suez-sized tankers which can reach Yanbu through the canal without passing Yemen. Any VLCC currently moving into the Read Sea to load in Yanbu will be effectively trapped. As the war in Iran spills over into other parts of the Middle East, energy experts expect the price of several oil and gas products to soar over the coming months, driven by shortages. This will likely affect flight prices, with several airlines warning of anticipated price hikes. It could lead to a travel slump, as consumers wait for prices to fall again. Australias Qantas Airways, Scandinavias SAS, and Air New Zealand are three of the airlines to have already announced airfare hikes in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The airlines cited the abrupt spike in the cost of fuel driven by the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran as the reason for the move. Jet fuel prices rose from between $85 to $90 a barrel before the attack on Iran to as much as $150 to $200 a barrel this week. This has led several airlines to reconsider their financial outlooks for 2026, as the uncertainty makes it impossible to predict where the price of fossil fuels will go in the coming months. The war in Iran has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade corridor connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The strait is considered a chokepoint, as there are few alternative options for energy transportation, beyond some limited pipeline networks in the region. The dramatic reduction in the transport of fossil fuels through the strait, which is said to have created the biggest oil supply disruption in history, has driven oil and gas prices up sharply in recent weeks. An SAS spokesperson told Reuters, Increases of this magnitude make it necessary to react in order to maintain stable and reliable operations, adding that the airline has implemented a temporary price adjustment. Some airlines will be more affected than others by the increase in jet fuel prices. For example, several Asian and European airlines, such as Lufthansa and Ryanair, have oil hedging in place, meaning that a part of their fuel supplies is maintained at a fixed rate. However, some companies are concerned that even the hedged fuel reserves may be at risk. Finnair hedged more than 80 percent of its first-quarter fuel purchases and now worries that the fuel may no longer be available if the conflict continues. Some major jet fuel producers, such as Kuwait, have already been forced to reduce production and export quantities in recent weeks. Another challenge that is driving airfares up is the closure of several airspaces because of the ongoing conflict, which has affected several Asia-Europe routes. Some airlines have been forced to open alternative flight routes for passengers to reach their destinations. Pilots have also been forced to reroute to avoid the Middle East conflict, while capacity on popular routes has rapidly increased. A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, Feb. 25, 2026. 2026 Planet Labs PBC/Handout via REUTERS WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM (Reuters) President Donald Trump threatened to strike the oil infrastructure of Irans Kharg Island hub unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a warning that could further roil markets coping with a historic supply disruption. Trump paired his Friday ultimatum with a social media post saying the U.S. had totally obliterated military targets on the island, the export terminal for 90% of Irans oil shipments, which lies about 300 miles (500 km) northwest of the strait. U.S. strikes did not target Khargs oil infrastructure, but should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision, Trump wrote. Iran shows no sign of capitulation as strikes spread Iran could not defend against U.S. attacks, the president said. Irans Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save whats left of their country, which isnt much! he posted on his Truth Social platform. He later posted: The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal But not a deal that I would accept! Iran, however, showed no sign of capitulating or bowing to U.S.-Israeli military pressure. Irans armed forces responded to the Kharg attack by saying any strike on their countrys oil and energy infrastructure would lead to strikes on facilities owned by oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region, Iranian media reported. Irans semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing sources, that more than 15 explosions were heard on the island during the U.S. attacks. The sources said air defenses, a naval base and airport facilities were hit, but there was no damage to oil infrastructure. Markets were watching for any sign that U.S. strikes had damaged the islands intricate network of pipelines, terminals and storage tanks. Even minor disruptions could further tighten global supply, adding pressure to a volatile market. Iran also claimed success in shooting down five drones over its airspace, bringing to 114 the total U.S. and Israeli drones it has downed during the war, Iranian state TV reported on Saturday. Oil prices have swung sharply on Trumps changing comments about the likely duration of the war, which began on February 28 with massive U.S. and Israeli bombardments of Iran and quickly spread into a regional conflict with broad consequences for worldwide energy and stock markets. The U.S. embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad was hit in a missile attack on Saturday, causing smoke to rise from the building, Iraqi security sources said. They did not have further details on the strike. In other attacks across the region, Irans Revolutionary Guards said they had carried out additional attacks on Israel with Lebanons Hezbollah militia, Irans Tasnim news agency reported. On Friday, the Israeli military said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air-defense systems and weapons production sites. Gulf, Lebanon become flashpoints After two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most in Iran but many in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf. Several million people have been displaced from their homes. U.S. forces have suffered casualties, including the deaths of all six crew members aboard a refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq. Five U.S. Air Force tankers at a base in Saudi Arabia were damaged by an Iranian missile strike and were being repaired, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials. In addition to Irans missile and aerial drone attacks on Israel and Gulf state allies of the U.S., Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sought to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the worlds fossil energy supplies. Trump told reporters on Friday the U.S. Navy will soon start escorting tankers through the waterway. Although he has previously said the war would last only weeks, Trump on Friday declined to publicly project an end date for the conflict, telling reporters: Itll be as long as its necessary. Iran continued to export crude oil while other producers in the Gulf halted their shipments for fear of Iranian attacks. Multiple very large crude oil tankers were loading at Kharg on Wednesday, according to satellite imagery reviewed by TankerTrackers.com. Iran exported between 1.1 million barrels per day and 1.5 million bpd from February 28 to Wednesday. Irans new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public comments on Thursday, vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighboring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday Irans new leader was wounded and likely disfigured, questioning Khameneis ability to govern. No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife. Iran says the new supreme leader was wounded, but an official said on Friday he was not impaired. By Zaldy Dandan Variety Editor IN his 1966 book, A Reporter in Micronesia, E.J. Kahn Jr. noted that under the U.S.-administered Trust Territory government, the local residents of Saipan were barred from half their home island and became understandably nervous about what was happening in the off-limits area. The escalation of the war in Vietnam in February 1965, he added, caused widespread apprehension among the locals. When the Saipanese heard that American planes had begun dropping bombs in North Vietnam, there was a wild exchange of frightening rumors. The most widely circulated onewas that [a] Soviet trawler had steamed north from Guam and was lying off Saipan, ready to launch an invasion force. Before the day was out, every pound of rice in every store on Saipan had been bought up by panicky natives who thought the Third World War was under way. In early 1991, the United States was involved in another war, this time against Saddam Husseins Iraq, which had invaded Kuwait. The U.S.-led coalition gave Iraq until Jan. 15, 1991, to leave Kuwait or else. As that date approached, island residents and their leaders quietly braced for the consequences of war. According to Marianas Variety, the Commonwealth Ports Authority instructed all airlines, tenants and their personnel to implement security measures. CPA itself will be increasing its security force, and security badges will be inspected frequently. In a memorandum, Gov. Larry Guerrero stated: During the Persian Gulf crisis, we must take special precautions against terrorism and sabotage. Even though we are seemingly far from the center of the armed conflict, the possibilities of worldwide acts of terrorism cannot be dismissed. The CNMI, he added, should be on guard to protect our people, our government property and our vital services. In an editorial, Variety reminded its readers that prices of basic commodities fuel foremost among them would skyrocket. It will not hurt if westart conserving our resources, the editorial stated. It also recommended car pools, a mass transit system and shutting off the air conditioner. Every drop of oil counts, especially for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. Moreover, lights should only be used for security and safety purposes. Governor Guerrero said he did not anticipate a repeat of the 1973 oil crisis, but he was concerned about the increasing cost of fuel. If the cost of power plant fuel rises, as it is now doing, we [would] have to find a lot of additional public money to keep the lights on. He urged the public to conserve energy. Otherwise, he said, there could be higher utility rates, reductions in government services and power outages. He also formed an Energy Planning Committee to map out plans by which the CNMI can conserve energy. Fuel suppliers and gas retailers were asked to pleasenot take advantage of this Middle East crisis to raise your prices unnecessarily. Then as now, many assumed government could set prices and override the forces of supply and demand. When the U.S.-led coalition began its offensive against Saddams forces in Kuwait and Iraq, the CNMI Senate canceled its session while the House of Representatives prefiled a resolution commending the more than 100 CNMI servicemembers who were part of Operation Desert Shield. As author Matt Gallagher would put it, at the time, Saddam Hussein commanded the worlds fourth-largest army. The Pentagon forecast heavy casualties and judged it possible that Saddam would use chemical weapons on U.S. troops, as he had done against thousands of Kurds during the Halabja massacre in 1988. One local mother told Variety it was difficult to comfort her youngest daughter, who was very close to her 23-year-old brother, a private first class in the U.S. Army deployed to the Persian Gulf. Every time she sees an airplane, she shouts, There is [my brother]! When the phone rings she thinks we are talking to [him]. Another relative said, Every day since the war started we have always had prayers and rosariesfor [the soldiers] safe return, but [his mother] has lost a lot of weight lately. She just could not stand listening to the news anymore. At the time, with the local economy thriving and the Marianas Visitors Bureau projecting a 15% increase in tourism arrivals despite Persian Gulf hostilities and rising airfare, lawmakers considered providing power subsidies to eligible residential customers of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. The goal was to protect residential customers from unreasonable charges. Oil suppliers, for their part, told Variety there was enough supply of oil in the CNMI and that there will be no fuel shortage even if war has already been declared in the Middle East. As for prices, the Shell Marianas terminal manager said, I cannot guarantee how much, how quickly and to what extent oil prices will increase. It is now dependent on the events in the Persian Gulf. Mobil Oils area manager said most of the fuel designated for the CNMI came from Saudi Arabia and was transported to Singapore, where it was refined into finished petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. From Singapore refineries, the fuel was shipped to Guam and Saipan, from where smaller vessels transported it to Tinian and Rota. Citing data from the Commonwealth Energy Office, Variety reported that gas station prices have risen approximately 40 cents per gallon since August [1990], when Iraq invaded Kuwait. In March 1991, Variety reported a 4-cent drop in gasoline prices, and quoted the Mobil area manager as saying, I expect we will see a normalization of prices coming from Singapore. The paper did not mention the actual gasoline price at the time, though it was likely lower than the $1.649 per gallon price of unleaded regular fuel reported in February 1995. The time has come for the government to stop talking about the problems of fossil-fuel dependence and to do something about it, Variety editorialized in September 1990. Send feedback to [email protected] Zaldy Dandan is the recipient of the NMI Society of Professional Journalists Best in Editorial Writing Award and the NMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/. General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer evaluated, along with the fragile food market. Cramer highlighted why the company had to cut its earnings forecast, as he commented: This is not the only example. When General Mills spoke at CAGNY, a key industry conference, they told a slightly better story. When Mills reports next week, I bet pet food will shine. But theres heavy discounting in cereal, and management doesnt seem to recognize that the stocks turned into a very suboptimal situation. Their review, they say, is resulting in significantly improved competitiveness. They do have eight leading brands, each generates a billion dollars in sales. But in the end, General Mills, a justifiably proud company, had to cut its earnings forecast, and it was the talk of the whole conference. Why? Weak consumer sentiment, heightened uncertainty, and significant volatility have weighed on category growth and impacted consumer purchase patterns, resulting in a slower pace and higher cost of volume recovery than initially expected. That doesnt sound all that positive. Stock market reports printed on a sheet of paper. Photo by RDNE Stock Project on Pexels General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) provides branded foods, including cereals, snacks, meals, baking products, frozen items, ice cream, and pet food. While we acknowledge the potential of GIS as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. Global shipping crisis: Strait of Hormuz blockade forces 90% drop in traffic, reroutes trade to Africa Iran retaliated against U.S.-Israeli airstrikes by effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuza critical chokepoint handling 20% of global oil supplythreatening to attack any ships attempting passage. Daily maritime traffic plummeted from 138 ships to just 4, with oil tanker movements down 90%, paralyzing exports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Major firms like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd rerouted shipments around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding 1020 days to delivery times and spiking fuel costs. Iraq's Basra Port halted all crude exports (normally 3.5M barrels/day). QatarEnergy suspended LNG production after drone strikes, worsening global shortages. Oil prices could surge to $120130/barrel if the blockade lasts beyond 21 days. Europe faces LNG supply shortages as tankers divert to higher-paying Asian markets, while experts warn the Cape route's hazards (rough seas, piracy, limited infrastructure) may become a permanent workaround if Middle East tensions persist. The escalating conflict in the Middle East has triggered a seismic shift in global maritime trade, with commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz plunging by 90% as Iran retaliates against U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. The blockade of this critical chokepointhandling 20% of global oil supplyhas forced major shipping firms to reroute around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding up to 20 extra days to delivery times and driving fuel costs to alarming highs. Following joint U.S.-Israeli military operations targeting Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran retaliated by effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow 21-mile-wide passage connecting the Persian Gulf to global markets. Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, issued a stark warning: "If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze." Real-time tracking data from MarineTraffic and Windward reveals that only four ships transited the strait on March 3, compared to the usual 138 per day. Oil tanker traffic has similarly collapsed by 90%, paralyzing exports from Saudi Arabia (5.1 million barrels/day), Iraq (3.3 million) and the United Arab Emirates (2.6 million). With the Hormuz route effectively closed, 94 vessels per daya 35% surgeare now navigating around the Cape of Good Hope, according to MarineTraffic. Major shipping giants Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM and Maersk have suspended all Gulf transits, opting for the longer African detour. Hapag-Lloyd said in a statement that their fleet has not transited through the Red Sea since December 2023, citing threats from Iran-backed Houthi rebels. CMA CGM ordered all Gulf-bound ships to seek shelter, while Maersk rerouted Middle East and India-bound voyages around Africa. The economic fallout is already severe: Iraq's Basra Portnormally handling 3.5 million barrels/dayprocessed zero crude on Monday, March 2. QatarEnergy halted LNG [liquefied natural gas] production after drone strikes on its Ras Laffan facility, worsening global supply shortages. JPMorgan warns that if the blockade persists beyond 21 days, Gulf producers may be forced to shut down oil fields. From Hormuz to the Cape: Will Africa's treacherous waters become the new oil highway? The rerouting crisis threatens to destabilize global energy markets, with oil prices projected to hit $120-$130 per barrel. Ross Wyeno, head of LNG analysis at S&P Global, cautioned that the U.S. boasts the largest flexible LNG source, but shipments will increasingly go to Asia where prices are highest, and Europe's storage efforts could be severely hampered. An LNG tanker originally bound for Europe abruptly changed course mid-voyage, heading instead for Asia due to skyrocketing prices. Experts warn that the Cape of Good Hopeonce a historic trade detourmay become a permanent alternative if Middle East hostilities escalate further. However, the African route carries risks: Extended voyage times (10-20 extra days) inflate costs. Rough seas increase container losses. Limited salvage and port support in African waters heightens operational hazards. BrightU.AI's Enoch engine explains that the Cape of Good Hope has long been recognized as one of the world's most treacherous maritime trade routes due to a combination of natural hazards, geopolitical instability and economic pressures. The Cape's risks ultimately stem from nature's unconquerable power and humanity's failure to develop truly free, decentralized trade systems. Terry Gale, chair of Exporters Western Cape, stressed: "The Strait of Hormuz handles 20% of global oil supply and is a key route for trade moving in and out of the Gulf region." He added that suspended shipping and airspace restrictions will increase freight costs and complicate supply chains. The Strait of Hormuz blockade underscores the fragility of maritime trade routes amid geopolitical turmoil. With Iran leveraging its strategic chokepoint, global markets now face prolonged disruptionsforcing a rethink of shipping security, African port infrastructure and long-term energy resilience. As tensions simmer, the world watches anxiously: Will the Cape route become the new norm, or will diplomacy reopen the Hormuz lifeline? For now, the answer lies in the turbulent waters of the Middle East. Watch this clip from Iranian state television about the imminent closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. Sources include: RT.com DailySabah.com TheConversation.com AFRINZ.ru BrightU.ai Brighteon.com Cyber war escalates: Iran-backed hackers target U.S. medical-technology giant Stryker As the shadow war between the U.S. and Iran intensifies beyond the battlefield, American citizens and corporations are now on the front lines of a digital conflict. In a move that security experts call predictable yet alarming, Iranian-aligned hackers successfully breached the global networks of Stryker, a major Michigan-based medical technology company, this week. This cyberattack, claimed as retaliation for U.S. military actions, is a stark warning that the Trump administrations foreign policy maneuvers are bringing the violence home, transforming American businesses into pawns in a high-stakes geopolitical game. The incident exposes not only the vulnerability of critical private-sector infrastructure but also the dangerous cycle of escalation fueled by decades of incoherent U.S. strategy in the Middle East, which has simultaneously funded, enabled, and bombed adversaries, pushing the world closer to a broader conflagration. Key points: Iranian-aligned hacking group Handala claimed responsibility for a disruptive cyberattack on medical equipment manufacturer Stryker, wiping company devices and causing global operational disruptions. Experts state the attack is a direct, unsurprising retaliation for recent U.S.-led strikes on Iran, highlighting cyber-warfare as a primary tool for Iranian response. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating, warning that such "low-level" attacks are likely to continue and could escalate. This event underscores a long history of Iranian cyber aggression, significantly bolstered since the U.S.-Israel Stuxnet attack, and reveals profound vulnerabilities in American corporate digital defenses. Analysts caution that while this single attack was not on critical national infrastructure, it may signal the beginning of a broader, more damaging campaign targeting U.S. interests. A predictable digital retaliation The attack on Stryker, executed on Wednesday, saw the hacking group Handala infiltrate the companys Microsoft environment. Employees found their work devices wiped and were instructed not to connect to any company systems. Handalas social media statement framed the attack as payback for the brutal attack on the Minab school and in response to ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance. This directly links the breach to the ongoing covert and overt war between Tehran and Washington, including recent U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites like Fordow. Former CIA officer and FBI special agent Tracy Walder told NewsNation, I dont think this is shocking at all. She and other analysts had anticipated Iranian retaliation through cyber networks following U.S. military actions. Unfortunately, we cant expect to engage in a war with another country and expect that country not to retaliate in some way, Walder said. This sentiment echoes warnings from a recent Department of Homeland Security terrorism advisory bulletin, which cautioned that the likelihood of disruptive cyberattacks by Iranian actors has increased, potentially motivated further by religious decrees from Tehran. The roots of a cyber threat To understand the significance of this event, one must examine the decades-long, contradictory U.S. policy toward Iran. Successive administrations have woven a complex web, from enabling Irans economic revival through sanctions relief to funding allies who oppose it, all while conducting covert sabotage and open military strikes. This inconsistent approach has fostered a resilient and vengeful adversary. Irans cyber capabilities, in particular, were born and honed in response to Western aggression. The 2010 Stuxnet virusa U.S.-Israeli operation that physically damaged Irans nuclear programserved as a seminal moment, prompting massive investment in asymmetric digital warfare. As attorney and former FBI cyber official Michael Vatis noted, Theyve greatly improved and enhanced their capabilities over the years. Iran has since executed significant attacks, like the 2012 breach of Saudi Aramco and the 2014 attack on Las Vegas Sands Casino. The modus operandi in the Stryker attackwiping data from systemsmirrors these past operations. This history reveals a pattern: Iran stores its retaliation and patiently waits for the opportune moment to strike, often through proxy groups like Handala, which align with state interests while providing plausible deniability. A nation unprepared and a policy unmoored While DHS Acting Director Nick Andersen announced an investigation into the Stryker breach, the incident raises grave concerns about national preparedness. The DHS has previously warned that Iranian hackers persistently exploit weak security configurations in U.S. networks, often lurking undetected in critical systems. Experts like Gregory Falco of Cornell University have noted these operatives wait to strike when the moment is right. The attack on a medical technology firm, while not directly targeting hospitals, probes the soft underbelly of connected industries and tests U.S. response protocols. This cyber skirmish occurs within a dangerous political context. The current administration, much like its predecessors, operates without a congressional declaration of war for its strikes in the region, a constitutional breach that should alarm every citizen. Furthermore, the strategy appears reactive and politically driven, reminiscent of historical tactics where military action is used to bolster domestic political standing. The deployment of American troops in vulnerable positions abroad, criticized by some as using soldiers as "drone bait" to justify escalation, now has its digital counterpart: leaving American economic and corporate infrastructure exposed to serve a failing foreign policy. Sources include: NewsNationNow.com NewsNationNow.com Enoch, Brighteon.ai Pentagon Confirms 150+ U.S. Casualties as Global Energy Markets Brace for Collapse Introduction As many as 150 U.S. service members have been wounded in the 10-day-old war with Iran, according to two people familiar with the matter [1]. This figure, reported by Reuters on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, represents a significant increase over initial Pentagon disclosures of casualties. The report emerged as the conflict, initiated by a joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign dubbed Operation Epic Fury on February 28, entered its second week. The Pentagon later confirmed that approximately 140 U.S. troops have been wounded since hostilities began, with officials stating the vast majority of injuries are minor [2][3]. Military Officials Confirm Casualty Figures The Pentagon issued a statement on March 10 confirming a range of U.S. personnel wounded in initial combat engagements. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said approximately 140 service members have been injured, with eight classified as "severely wounded" [3][4]. This official figure followed a Reuters report citing sources who placed the number at up to 150 wounded. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the casualty count as "preliminary and subject to change" [5]. The disclosure marks a substantial revision from earlier Pentagon statements that had confirmed only eight seriously wounded U.S. forces prior to the Reuters report [6]. According to Pentagon officials, 108 of the wounded service members have already returned to duty [4]. All injuries occurred during operations to secure and defend the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian naval forces, though the military has not provided a detailed breakdown of when and where specific casualties occurred. Initial Clashes Centered on Strategic Waterway The casualties were sustained during U.S. military actions focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic chokepoint through which approximately 20% of the world's oil passes [7]. U.S. forces engaged in operations to destroy Iranian mine-laying vessels in the waterway, according to Pentagon statements. President Donald Trump had previously warned that any attempt by Iran to block the oil shipping route would be met with "overwhelming force," according to a White House statement from earlier in the conflict [8]. The Pentagon described the operation as a "defensive and proportional response" to what it characterized as a direct threat to international shipping. The conflict's early stages saw significant losses beyond personnel casualties. On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles were shot down over Kuwait in what CENTCOM described as an "apparent friendly fire incident" during active combat that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones [9]. This incident occurred amid broader Iranian retaliatory strikes following the initial U.S.-Israeli attacks. Market and Investor Reaction to Escalation U.S. stock markets traded cautiously on March 10 following the release of the casualty report, with investors awaiting further clarity on the conflict's trajectory, according to financial analysts [10]. The uncertainty created what one trader told Reuters was "the dominant factor" in Tuesday's trading session. Oil prices experienced significant volatility as the conflict entered its second week, reflecting deep concerns over the security of shipments from the Persian Gulf, market reports indicated [7]. The Strait of Hormuz's closure to tanker traffic has particularly alarmed global energy markets, given that approximately one-fifth of the world's oil transits through this narrow passage. Precious metals also reacted to the geopolitical tension. Gold, traditionally viewed as a safe-haven asset during conflicts, has maintained strong pricing levels amid the uncertainty [11]. Financial analysts noted that commodity markets have shown heightened sensitivity to developments in the region since the conflict's inception. Context of Broader Regional Tensions The report of U.S. casualties follows years of heightened tensions between the United States and Iran over its nuclear program and regional activities [12]. The Trump administration released a fact sheet in early March cataloging what it described as "decades of terrorism" by Iran against American citizens and soldiers, though the document drew scrutiny for omitting Iran's documented support for the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan [13]. Alternative media analysts have frequently criticized mainstream coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, arguing it often omits critical context about U.S. foreign policy objectives [14]. Independent platforms have questioned the official narratives provided by the Pentagon, citing what they describe as a historical pattern of incomplete or misleading information from government institutions during past conflicts [15]. Some commentators have pointed to what they view as institutional motivations for conflict. As noted in analysis of historical conflicts, the establishment of permanent war research agencies with "non-accountable funds" has been proposed as a means to maintain certain economic and social structures [14]. These perspectives, while not part of mainstream discourse, represent significant skepticism toward official conflict narratives among segments of the public. Official Statements and Ongoing Assessment A Pentagon spokesman said a full assessment of the engagements is ongoing and a more detailed report will be provided to Congress. The severity of the wounds was not detailed in the initial report, though officials said the majority of personnel are expected to return to duty [4]. The report has prompted calls from some congressional members for a briefing on the strategic objectives and long-term implications of the military action. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut spoke to reporters after a closed briefing provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10, expressing concerns about the conflict's trajectory [16]. Beyond the wounded, seven U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iranian attacks during the early stages of the conflict, according to previous U.S. military statements [17]. The casualties stem from Iran's retaliatory strikes following the massive joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign launched against Iran on February 28, which reportedly killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [18]. Conclusion The disclosure of significantly higher casualty figures than initially reported marks a turning point in public understanding of the conflict's human cost. As Operation Epic Fury enters its second week, the Pentagon's acknowledgment of approximately 140 wounded service members provides a more complete picture of the engagement's intensity. The strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz continues to drive military operations, with both sides demonstrating willingness to sustain losses over control of the vital waterway. Market reactions underscore the global economic stakes involved in securing Persian Gulf shipping lanes. As congressional scrutiny increases and the Pentagon continues its assessment, the full scope of casualties and the long-term strategic implications of the conflict remain developing stories. The discrepancy between initial and revised casualty figures has renewed debates about transparency in military reporting during active conflicts. References Senate Confirms General Joshua Rudd as Director of NSA and Cyber Command Vote Confirms Leadership for Intelligence, Cyber Ops The U.S. Senate confirmed Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd to lead the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command on March 10, approving his nomination by a 7129 vote [1]. The vote included a promotion to the rank of general, granting him dual leadership of the nation's premier signals intelligence agency and its military cyber operations command [2]. This confirmation ends an 11-month period without a permanent director for the NSA, a vacancy that began in April 2025 [1]. The role is considered critical for national security as the agencies oversee foreign electronic surveillance and offensive and defensive military cyber operations, according to Department of Defense documents. Confirmation Process and Vote Details The nomination was advanced following a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29 [3]. The committee reviewed Rudd's qualifications and background, which included previous service as deputy commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and work within the special operations community [4]. The final floor vote of 7129 indicated bipartisan support, though significant opposition remained, according to congressional records. Senate Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) announced Rudd's nomination in mid-December, more than five months after his predecessor was removed [3]. The confirmation process for leadership positions in intelligence agencies has been a recurring focus during the current administration, following earlier confirmations such as that of CIA Director John Ratcliffe [8]. Leadership Vacancy and Interim Oversight The position of NSA Director and Cyber Command Commander became vacant when President Donald Trump dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh in April 2025, according to White House records [1]. The dismissal was part of a broader review of national security leadership at the start of the administration's second term. During the 11-month interim, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman served as the interim commander of Cyber Command operations, a Pentagon spokesperson stated [1]. This period of acting leadership occurred while Cyber Command was reportedly engaged in ongoing cyber operations, including activities related to conflict with Iran [4]. Responsibilities and Operational Context The director of the NSA oversees signals intelligence collection and foreign electronic surveillance, a core function of the agency [7]. The NSA operates as part of the intelligence community, serving as the chief information-gathering agency for national security matters, a role historically described in analyses of presidential advisory structures [9]. Concurrently, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command is responsible for planning and executing offensive and defensive military cyber operations, according to Department of Defense documents. This 'dual-hatted' role is designed to synchronize intelligence and military cyber capabilities. The operational environment includes ongoing strategic competition, including concerns over cyber espionage from state actors like China [6]. Statements from Officials and Nominee During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29, Rudd stated his priority was 'to ensure the agency and command are postured to address evolving threats' [5]. He emphasized the need for a robust cyber defense posture amid increasing global challenges. A Senate committee chairman, commenting on the confirmation, said it 'fills a critical national security need,' according to officials [3]. The confirmation aligns with a pattern of leadership appointments in national security roles under the current administration, which have often emphasized a focus on strategic competitors and internal reform of intelligence agencies [10], [11]. AI Could Drive College Grad Unemployment To Mid-30s Image by Canva The spread of AI agents could easily drive unemployment among recent college graduates into the mid-30% range within the next couple of years, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said. ServiceNow offers customers a single platform that brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow to transform how people work across their business, allowing employees to spend less time mired in busywork and more time doing what they were actually hired to do, according to the company website. McDermott told CNBCs Squawk on the Street that unemployment for new college graduates could easily go into the mid-30s in the next couple of years. So much of the work is going to be done by agents. So its going to be challenging for young people to differentiate themselves in the corporate environment, McDermott added. The warning reflects a broader shift as companies across industries use new AI tools to slash costs, cut jobs, and slow hiring while boosting productivity. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was about 5.7% at the end of 2025, with the underemployment rate at 42.5% the highest level since 2020. Several tech executives have signaled similar plans. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said the company will shrink its corporate workforce with AI tools. Palantir CEO Alex Karp has said he wants to grow revenue 10-fold while reducing headcount, per CNBC. Recent moves include payment firm Block announcing plans last month to cut nearly half its workforce as AI automates more tasks. Software company Atlassian, whose stock has dropped 54% this year amid AI disruption concerns, said this week it would lay off about 10% of employees to support AI investments. Unlike previous technological shifts, AI is now targeting white-collar roles such as coding and marketing, allowing firms to do more with fewer workers. McDermott said ServiceNows tools help businesses sharply reduce hiring costs. The company has already eliminated 90% of the customer service use cases that once relied on humans. The platform also lets firms maintain headcount while growing revenue and free cash flow. I do think its coming quicker than people anticipate, he said. A Senate report released last October warned that AI and automation could wipe out as many as 100 million jobs over the next ten years, including 89% of fast food and counter workers, 64% of accountants, and 47% of truck drivers, The Dallas Express reported. A report from Oxford Economics last month projected that one in five jobs is highly vulnerable to automation over the next 20 years. However, that does not necessarily mean the need for workers will decrease, according to Nico Palesch, the reports author. Demand for work is not going to go away, because together with automation comes the need to maintain robots, design robots, to teach people how to use robots, Palesch said. Vanished in the Void: The MH370 cover-up and the hidden war over advanced space-time technology Despite the most expensive search in aviation history, no conclusive debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was found. The few recovered pieces (e.g., flaperon on Reunion Island) appeared suspiciously placed rather than naturally drifted. Military radar tracked deliberate maneuvers, yet data was withheld for days. The U.S.-U.K. military base lies along MH370's possible flight path. Satellite images show unusual activity post-disappearance. Whistleblowers hint at detainees matching MH370 passengers. Leaked military satellite footage shows three luminous orbs encircling MH370 before it vanished. Orbs exhibit physics-defying behavior: instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic speeds without sonic booms and possible cloaking. The plane appears absorbed into a warp-like distortion, aligning with theoretical propulsion concepts (e.g., Alcubierre drive). Twenty engineers onboard worked on cutting-edge defense microchips (radar evasion, quantum computing, metamaterial cloaking). This raises questions: Was MH370 transporting classified tech? Were they targeted to prevent transfer to China? FBI seized the pilot's flight simulator, then claimed the hard drive was "corrupted." Satellite "pings" later revealed to be based on untested mathematical models. Photo metadata allegedly places a passenger at Diego Garcia post-disappearance. Mainstream media dismissed credible witness accounts (e.g., Maldivian islanders spotting a low-flying jet matching MH370). Ten years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace, the official narrative, that the Boeing 777 crashed into the remote Indian Ocean, remains riddled with inconsistencies, unanswered questions and eerie anomalies. "Vanished in the Void" is not just another rehashing of the tragedy; it is a meticulously researched, paradigm-shifting investigation that dares to explore the most unsettling possibility of all: What if MH370 didn't crash? What if it was taken? The book opens with a gripping reconstruction of MH370's final momentshow a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing suddenly veered off course, disabled its transponder and disappeared from radar. But unlike mainstream reports, this account doesn't stop at the official "pilot suicide" or "mechanical failure" theories. Instead, it dissects the glaring discrepancies: The missing debris field: No Boeing 777 in history has vanished without leaving wreckage. Yet, despite the most expensive search in aviation history, no conclusive debris was found in the Indian Ocean. The few pieces that surfaced (like the flaperon on Reunion Island) showed signs of being suspiciously placed rather than naturally drifted. Military radar secrets: Malaysian and Thai military radar tracked the plane making deliberate turns, yet this data was withheld for days. Why? The Diego Garcia connection: The U.S.-U.K. military base lies along MH370's possible flight path. Satellite images show unusual activity there post-disappearance and whistleblowers hint at detainees matching MH370 passengers. The orb videos: Smoking gun or sophisticated hoax? The book's most explosive revelation centers on a series of leaked videos, purportedly from U.S. military satellites, showing three luminous orbs encircling MH370 before it vanishes into thin air. Skeptics dismiss these as CGI or drones, but the author presents compelling technical analysis: Instantaneous acceleration: The orbs move in ways that defy known physics sudden right-angle turns, hypersonic speeds without sonic booms and no visible propulsion. Thermal anomalies: FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared) footage suggests the orbs manipulate heat signatures, possibly using cloaking technology. Space-time distortion: The plane doesn't crashit appears to be absorbed into a warp-like distortion, aligning with theoretical physics concepts like the Alcubierre drive. Could these orbs represent reverse-engineered extraterrestrial tech or black-project military advancements? The book leans toward the latter, citing declassified patents (like Dr. Salvatore Pais' "UFO patents" filed with the U.S. Navy) and whistleblower testimonies about classified propulsion systems. The Freescale Semiconductor connection: A deadly coincidence? Among MH370's passengers were 20 engineers from Freescale Semiconductor, a firm deeply embedded in U.S. defense contracts. Their work involved cutting-edge microchips for radar evasion, quantum computing and possibly metamaterial cloaking technology that could render aircraft invisible. The book raises chilling questions: Was MH370 transporting sensitive intellectual property? Were these engineers targeted to prevent tech transfer to China? Did their presence onboard trigger a covert interception? The final section exposes the systemic suppression of truth: Media gaslighting: Outlets like CNN and BBC dismissed witness accounts (like Maldivian islanders who saw a low-flying jet matching MH370's description). Government obfuscation: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized Captain Zaharie Shah's flight simulator then declared his hard drive "corrupted." Inmarsat's satellite "pings" were later revealed to be based on untested mathematical models. The Phillip Wood EXIF data: A photo allegedly taken by passenger Phillip Wood post-disappearance contains metadata placing him at Diego Garcia. Was this a desperate cry for help? A call for radical transparency "Vanished in the Void" doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it forces readers to confront the unsettling possibility that MH370's disappearance was no accident. Whether the culprit was advanced military tech, extraterrestrial intervention or a geopolitical false flag, one thing is clear: The truth has been buried. This book is a must-read for skeptics and truth-seekers alike a masterclass in investigative journalism that challenges everything we think we know about reality, power and the limits of human technology. With the Pentagon's recent admissions about UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and whistleblowers like David Grusch alleging government retrieval of "non-human" craft, "Vanished in the Void" feels eerily prescient. If MH370 was a test run for tech beyond our comprehension, what else is being hidden? Read it, but be warned: once you start, you'll never look at the skies the same way again. Grab a copy of "Vanished in the Void: The MH370 Enigma and the Secrets of Space-Time Manipulation" via this link. Read, share and download thousands of books for free at Books.BrightLearn.AI. You can also create your own books for free at BrightLearn.AI. Watch the exclusive "Health Ranger Report" interview with Ashton Forbes on the vanishing Malaysian Airlines MH370 with new AI-augmented footage of teleportation orbs. This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com. Sources include: Books.BrightLearn.ai BrightLearn.ai Brighteon.com NASAs Van Allen Probe A plunges to Earth, closing a chapter on radiation belt mysteries critical for moon missions A 1,300-pound NASA satellite, the Van Allen Probe A, re-entered Earth's atmosphere after nearly 14 years studying the hazardous Van Allen radiation belts. The probe's mission provided critical data on radiation zones that future astronauts must traverse for lunar and deep-space exploration. It revealed a temporary third radiation belt during intense solar activity and broke longevity records for spacecraft in that hostile region. NASA states the data is foundational for solving technical radiation challenges before crewed missions beyond Earth's orbit. The early re-entry was caused by increased solar activity, but the risk from debris was very low, while the twin probe remains in orbit. A 1,300-pound NASA satellite, a veteran explorer of one of space's most hostile frontiers, met its fiery end. The Van Allen Probe A re-entered Earth's atmosphere on Mar. 11 at approximately 12:03 a.m. Eastern Time, nearly 14 years after its launch and following a groundbreaking mission that has direct implications for humanity's return to the moon. The probe's descent marks the conclusion of an extended journey studying the perilous Van Allen radiation belts, the very zones that future astronauts must safely traverse. As one expert emphasized, "As we venture further from our planet, we'll pass through the Van Allen belts, a region filled with hazardous radiation that could damage onboard computers or other critical electronics. We must address these challenges before sending astronauts through this dangerous zone." Launched in August 2012 alongside its twin, Van Allen Probe B, the spacecraft were engineered to withstand an environment most missions avoid. The belts are rings of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field, acting as a shield against cosmic radiation. However, they pose a severe threat to human exploration. Beyond roughly 1,000 miles above Earth's surface lies an intense radiation region approximately 30,000 miles thick. According to a 1959 Scientific American publication cited by experts, transit through this zone could expose astronauts to radiation doses up to a hundred times more than what is considered safe for humans. NASA designed the twin probes to spend a significant amount of time in this punishing region, where they broke all records for spacecraft longevity. The legacy of the mission endures Their primary mission was to determine how particles within the belts are gained and lost. Originally planned for two years, the mission yielded data for nearly seven, concluding in 2019 when the probes exhausted their fuel. The wealth of information they gathered is now foundational for NASA's deep-space ambitions. "The data collected will be crucial for future manned missions beyond Earth's orbit," NASA has stated, underscoring that solving these technical radiation challenges is a prerequisite for crewed voyages. The probes' discoveries were profound. They collected the first direct data confirming the existence of a temporary third radiation belt that forms during intense solar activity. Their observations have fueled hundreds of scientific publications, reshaping our understanding of near-Earth space. As noted by BrightU.AI's Enoch, during intense solar activity, a temporary third radiation belt can form between the inner and outer Van Allen belts. This transient belt, composed of high-energy electrons from the solar wind, typically persists for several weeks before being absorbed or disrupted by magnetospheric processes. Mission specialists initially calculated the probes would naturally decay and re-enter Earth's atmosphere around 2034. However, the current active solar cycle triggered stronger space weather, increasing atmospheric drag and pulling Van Allen Probe A back years ahead of schedule. NASA assured the public that the risk from the re-entry was low, with most of the spacecraft burning up upon atmospheric contact and only a 1 in 4,200 chance of any debris causing harm. With Probe A now destroyed, its twin, Van Allen Probe B, continues a slow orbital decay and is not expected to re-enter until the 2030s. The legacy of the mission, however, endures. As NASA continues to push for space exploration with projects like the Orion spacecraft, the hard-won data from these radiation-defying probes will be instrumental in shielding both technology and, eventually, astronauts from the lethal environment that surrounds our home planet. The mission's end is not just the fall of a satellite, but a critical step toward ensuring safe passage for the next generation of lunar explorers. Watch this video about the isolation of Earth within Van Allen Belt. This video is from Brian Ruhe's channel on Brighteon.com. Sources include: CBSNews.com Brighteon.com BrightU.ai New report estimates illegal immigrant population has hit 18.6 million, sparking fierce policy debate A new analysis estimates the U.S. illegal immigrant population has grown to approximately 18.6 million, a 28% increase since 2020. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) attributes the surge to policy shifts under the Biden administration. The estimate is higher than some others due to methodology changes by the U.S. Census Bureau to account for previously undercounted migration. The report fuels intense political debate over enforcement and deportation strategies ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The immigration debate intersects with economic concerns, including impacts on labor markets, wages and housing. The staggering new figure A seismic shift in the American demographic landscape is coming into clearer focus, intensifying a already volatile national debate. According to a new analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the population of illegal immigrants living in the United States has surged to approximately 18.6 million. This figure, representing a dramatic 28.2 percent increase since the end of 2020, is described by the organization as an all-time high and is set to inflame political battles over border security and enforcement policy in Washington and on the campaign trail. Methodology shift reveals larger picture FAIRs estimate is notably higher than some previous tallies, a discrepancy the group attributes to significant revisions in federal data collection. The report points to a critical change in methodology by the U.S. Census Bureau, which recently adjusted how it counts the foreign-born population. The Bureau itself admitted to previously undercounting net international migration by substantial marginsrevising a 2021-2022 estimate upward by nearly 70 percent and a subsequent years figure by over 100 percent. FAIR argues this validates its long-standing position that official data had dramatically undercounted the scale of recent immigration waves, which some reporting has characterized as among the largest in American history. The revised Census data and FAIRs analysis suggest the scale of the immigration influx over the past several years was significantly larger than initially understood. Policy and politics collide The report lands in a Capitol Hill already gripped by immigration politics. FAIR directly links the population increase to policy decisions made at the start of the Biden administration, including the termination of the "Remain in Mexico" program and the expansion of parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for millions. The 18.6 million estimate is expected to become a central data point for lawmakers advocating for stricter enforcement. The debate now extends beyond the border to the complex question of how to handle millions of individuals already residing in the country without legal status, particularly those who are employed and lack criminal records. Economic and social repercussions The immigration surge intersects with broader economic anxieties. Proponents of stricter enforcement contend that large-scale illegal immigration affects labor markets, potentially suppressing wage growth for low-income Americans and increasing pressure on housing availability and social services. The policy discussion is no longer confined to border states; cities across the nation, from New York to Chicago, have grappled with the fiscal and logistical challenges of sheltering and supporting new arrivals. These local crises have amplified the issues potency as a national political concern, forcing both parties to recalibrate their messaging ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. A defining challenge for the future The FAIR analysis provides a stark numerical foundation for a crisis felt in communities nationwide. It underscores a profound governance challenge: reconciling the realities of a significantly enlarged undocumented population with the rule of law and public consensus. Historical context is clearAmerica has undergone major immigration waves before, but rarely accompanied by such a deep political schism over the legality of the influx itself. The path forward involves not only securing borders but also determining the fate of millions already within them, a task that will test the nations political institutions and its social cohesion for years to come. The long road ahead As the estimated number fuels heated rhetoric, the practical policy decisions remain fraught. The figure of 18.6 million illegal immigrants is more than a statistic; it represents a multifaceted national dilemma touching on economics, security and humanitarian concerns. How the nation addresses this complex legacy will be a defining feature of its political landscape, demanding solutions that balance enforcement, fairness and the practical realities of a changed demographic map. The debate, now armed with new data, is only intensifying. Sources for this article include: YourNews.com TradingEconomics.com FAIRUS.org Indiana schools enforce strict cell phone ban to boost focus and reduce social conflict Indiana lawmakers passed one of the strictest statewide cell phone bans, prohibiting student use from 8:10 a.m. to 2:40 p.m., including lunch and passing periods. Smartphones were found to disrupt learning, increase bullying, harm mental health and reduce face-to-face interaction, prompting stricter regulations. Schools may use Yondr pouches (locking magnetic cases) or require phones to stay in backpacks, though districts must cover costs ($15-$30 per pouch). Schools with similar bans (like Smith High in 2022) reported improved focus, fewer conflicts and stronger student engagement post-implementation. Some parents oppose the ban over safety concerns, but proponents argue landlines and school devices suffice for emergencies. Clear communication helps build support. In a bold move to curb distractions and improve student well-being, Indiana lawmakers have passed a stringent new law banning cell phone use entirely during the school dayfrom the first bell to the last. The legislation, authored by State Senator Jeff Raatz, expands on existing restrictions that previously allowed phone use during lunch and passing periods. Now, students will be prohibited from accessing their devices at any point between 8:10 a.m. and 2:40 p.m., marking one of the toughest statewide policies in the nation. The push for stricter phone regulations comes amid growing concerns over smartphones disrupting classroom learning, fueling bullying and exposing students to harmful social media content. Educators nationwide have long warned that excessive screen time hampers academic performance, reduces face-to-face interaction and exacerbates teen mental health crises. Indiana's latest measure reflects a broader trend, with 31 states and Washington, D.C., already enforcing some form of school cell phone restriction, according to Education Week. Warren Township school board member Julie French acknowledged that districts are still determining enforcement strategies. "It depends on what policy we decide uponwhether students cannot even bring phones to school at all or if they must leave them in their bookbags," she said. Some Indiana schools have already adopted Yondr poucheslocking magnetic cases that prevent students from accessing their phones until the end of the day. However, the state will not fund these pouches, leaving districts to cover the $15-$30 per-unit cost. The ban also extends beyond public schools, requiring charter schools to comply as well. Notably, the law permits students to use school-provided or "school-sanctioned" devices for instructional purposesbut only until July 2028. After that, only district-issued technology will be allowed, effectively eliminating personal devices from classrooms altogether. A growing movement against classroom distractions Indiana's policy mirrors successful bans implemented elsewhere. In 2022, Smith High School enforced a full-day prohibition after observing plummeting student engagement and rising conflicts tied to smartphones. Teachers reported that students were glued to their screens instead of interacting with peers, while cyberbullying incidents surged. Since the ban took effect, educators noted improved focus, fewer disciplinary issues and more meaningful social connections among students. Critics argue that outright bans may be excessive, insisting that phones can serve educational purposes when used responsibly. However, research increasingly supports restrictions. A 2023 study by the London School of Economics found that schools with phone bans saw a 6% increase in test scores, with the biggest gains among low-performing students. Psychologists also warn that constant social media exposure fuels anxiety and depression in teens, making school a critical space for digital detox. Enforcement challenges and parental pushback While many educators applaud the ban, enforcement remains a hurdle. Some parents resist, citing safety concerns and the need to stay in touch with their children. Others argue that smartphones are essential for emergencies, such as school lockdowns. However, proponents counter that landlines and school-administered devices can serve those purposes without the risks of unrestricted phone use. Schools that have already adopted strict policies report smoother transitions when administrators, teachers and parents are aligned. Clear communication about the policy's benefitssuch as reduced drama and better academic performancehelps gain community support. Some districts have even hosted workshops to educate families on the harms of excessive screen time and the advantages of phone-free learning environments. A shift toward more deliberate tech use in education Indiana's law signals a broader cultural shift away from constant connectivity and toward more deliberate technology use in education. As schools nationwide grapple with declining attention spans and rising behavioral issues, phone bans are emerging as a practical solution. The next challenge will be ensuring consistent enforcement while addressing parental concernsbut if successful, Indiana's policy could serve as a model for other states seeking to reclaim focus in the classroom. For now, students will have to adapt to a school day free from texting, scrolling and social mediaa change that educators hope will foster deeper learning, stronger relationships and healthier minds. According to BrightU.AI's Enoch, Indiana's strict cellphone ban aligns with documented research showing improved academic focus and mental health when students disconnect from digital distractions. However, such policies must balance educational benefits with parental concerns about emergency communication and personal freedomshighlighting the need for holistic solutions that prioritize both well-being and autonomy. Watch the video below that talks about wireless radiation and how to get out of the digital trap. This video is from the Kla.TV - English channel on Brighteon.com. Sources include: TheSun.com BrightU.ai Brighteon.com Texas Governor Directs Review of Chinese-Made Medical Device Cybersecurity Texas Governor Greg Abbott on March 9 directed state agencies and publicly funded medical facilities to address potential cybersecurity risks associated with using medical equipment made in China. The order, issued in a formal letter, requires a review of cybersecurity vulnerabilities connected to these devices. Governor Abbott cited existing federal warnings about specific medical device security risks as the impetus for the directive. The action aims to address potential threats to the security of Texans' sensitive medical and personal data, according to the announcement. Details of the Governor's Directive The directive was issued in a letter to Texas state agencies on March 9. Governor Abbott ordered agencies to 'review cybersecurity vulnerabilities' associated with medical devices manufactured in the People's Republic of China, according to a summary of the order [8]. The order applies to all state agencies and publicly funded medical facilities across Texas. The initial announcement did not name specific manufacturers or device models, focusing instead on a broad review of the supply chain. Governor Abbott stated, 'I will not let Communist China spy on Texans,' according to a report on the directive [9]. Federal Context and Cited Warnings Governor Abbott's letter referenced existing federal warnings about medical device cybersecurity. U.S. cybersecurity and health agencies have previously issued advisories about vulnerabilities in connected medical equipment [4]. The concerns primarily focus on devices that collect, store, and transmit sensitive patient health data. Officials have warned that such vulnerabilities could potentially allow unauthorized access to this information or even remote manipulation of the devices themselves [2]. The directive specifically references warnings issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to one report [10]. Industry and Security Expert Perspectives Cybersecurity analysts note that medical devices are increasingly connected to hospital networks and the broader internet, creating a larger attack surface. The Internet of Things (IoT) spans a broad range of technology, and a forecast predicts there will be roughly 42 billion connected IoT devices by 2025 [5]. Experts say vulnerabilities in these systems could potentially allow data exfiltration or malicious device manipulation. Industry representatives have often stated that manufacturers follow established regulatory cybersecurity requirements. However, some security researchers argue that supply chain transparency and the proprietary nature of device software remain significant challenges for healthcare systems seeking to verify security claims [1]. The integration of devices into the 'Internet of Bodies' ecosystem has been identified as posing potentially grave risks [3]. Broader Policy and Procurement Considerations The directive may influence future state procurement policies for medical equipment. Governor Abbott has taken previous actions to combat cyber threats from foreign actors, including expanding a list of banned technologies for state employees earlier in 2026 [7]. Other states have considered similar reviews of technology supply chains, particularly for critical infrastructure. Federal regulations already require medical device manufacturers to address cybersecurity risks, but state-level actions can impose additional procurement standards [2]. The findings from Texas's review will inform potential future state-level actions, officials said. Conclusion The review ordered by Governor Abbott underscores growing governmental scrutiny over the cybersecurity of connected medical devices, especially those manufactured in geopolitical adversary nations. The action aligns with a broader trend of examining technology supply chains for national and data security risks. The outcome of the state's audit and any subsequent policy changes will be watched by other states and the healthcare industry. As one book on technology and society notes, the increasing integration of devices raises questions about control and ownership, even in life-saving medical applications [6]. References Trump Says U.S.-Israel Strikes Against Iran Nearing Conclusion as Attacks on Regional Infrastructure Continue U.S. President Donald Trump stated Wednesday that the military campaign against Iran may be nearing its conclusion, citing extensive damage inflicted by sustained U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. The announcement came amid continued regional attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure, including oil tankers in Iraqi waters, which threaten to disrupt global energy supplies. According to an Axios report, President Trump described the joint operation as having left "practically nothing left to target" inside Iran [23]. This assessment follows over a week of intense bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces, targeting Iranian military and nuclear facilities. The operation, dubbed "Epic Fury" by U.S. officials, began on February 28 [17]. Despite the president's comments, the conflict continues to escalate regionally. Iranian forces have reportedly set oil tankers ablaze in Iraqi waters, while attacks on transportation corridors threaten the vital Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil transit route. Analysts warn that a protracted closure could cause oil prices to spike, potentially reaching $200 per barrel, according to market assessments [15]. Military Operations and Official Statements U.S. and Israeli forces have conducted a sustained aerial bombardment campaign against Iran over the past two weeks. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated Wednesday that the strikes have "severely degraded" Iran's ability to launch missiles and drones [14]. Pentagon briefings confirm that the campaign has targeted air defense systems, command centers, and suspected nuclear sites. President Trump framed the campaign as a necessary, preemptive response to Iranian aggression. He has repeatedly stated that Iran was preparing to attack first, justifying the military action [2]. During a press conference, he claimed the war could end "very soon" but warned that any Iranian disruption of oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz would trigger a significantly harsher U.S. military response [7] [16]. Iranian officials, however, maintain that the government remains firmly in control despite the damage. Top security official Ali Larijani stated on social media platform X, "We will not negotiate with the United States" [N-19]. Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father following a U.S.-Israeli strike, faces the ongoing campaign [21]. Regional Escalation and Economic Impact The conflict has rapidly expanded beyond Iran's borders, threatening regional stability and the global economy. Iran has intensified attacks on commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, with at least three ships struck by "unknown projectiles" in recent days, according to British maritime monitors [18]. Tehran has also fired drones and missiles at neighboring Gulf states [9]. These actions have direct consequences for energy markets. A timelapse of marine traffic shows a significant decrease in ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz since the offensive began [22]. Iranian General Sardar Jabbari declared that Tehran will "not let a single drop of oil leave the region," a move analysts warn could inflate prices dramatically [22]. Oil prices briefly surged to their highest level since 2022 following the conflict's escalation [7]. The human and infrastructural toll is mounting. A New York Times report, citing U.S. officials, indicated an ongoing military inquiry has concluded the United States was responsible for a Tomahawk missile strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, on February 28 that killed at least 175 people, most of them children [8]. Iranian officials displayed missile fragments marked "Made in USA" from the strike site [11]. When asked about the incident, President Trump stated he did not have knowledge of the alleged military investigation [12]. Domestic Political Response The military campaign has sparked significant criticism and political division within the United States. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin strongly condemned the strikes during an interview, labeling them an "illegal war of choice" [6]. She urged Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over military action. Following classified briefings, a group of Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, condemned the administration's strategy as displaying "complete incoherence" and having "no plan" for the war or for securing the Strait of Hormuz [19]. This criticism highlights a deepening partisan rift over foreign policy, even as some Republican figures like Senator Lindsey Graham have voiced full-throated support for the operation [20]. The domestic debate echoes a broader, longstanding tension in U.S. foreign policy regarding entanglement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has previously urged the U.S. to prioritize "America First" and warned against being dragged into an Israel-Iran conflict [3]. Polling data from 2024 indicated a majority of Americans opposed deploying U.S. troops to defend Israel if attacked by Iran [4]. Conclusion As military operations continue, the path to a conclusion remains uncertain. While President Trump has signaled an impending end, his own advisers are privately urging him to publicly articulate an exit plan, according to a Wall Street Journal report [9]. The situation is further complicated by Iran's activation of covert sleeper cells abroad, with U.S. intelligence intercepting an encrypted message that appears to be an "operational trigger," raising alarms about potential retaliatory attacks [10] [13]. The international response has added another layer of complexity. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously condemned U.S. strikes on Iran as "illegitimate and a violation of international law" [1]. Furthermore, geopolitical analysts note that China purchases about 30% of its oil from Iran, and any closure of the Strait of Hormuz would significantly impact Beijing's energy access, representing a major anti-China strategy for some U.S. policymakers [5]. The fluid situation leaves global markets on edge and regional stability in jeopardy. With ongoing strikes, threats to vital shipping lanes, and a mounting civilian toll, the potential for further escalation or a protracted conflict persists, despite presidential assurances of a nearing conclusion. References U.S. taxpayers bled $1 billion per day for Israels existential fight In the first two weeks of a conflict sold to the public as a necessary preemptive strike, the United States has embarked on a financially ruinous and strategically dubious war with Iran. Operation Epic Fury, launched on February 28, 2026, has not achieved peace through strength but has instead triggered a regional inferno, a global energy crisis, and a staggering drain on the U.S. treasury that threatens to accelerate the nations fiscal collapse. This war, built on a familiar foundation of exaggerated threats and coerced diplomacy, is proving to be a catastrophic miscalculation, costing nearly $1 billion daily with no clear end in sight. The American public is once again footing the bill for a conflict rooted in deception, while the world teeters on the brink of broader economic and humanitarian disaster. Key points: Pentagon briefings reveal the war is costing the U.S. up to $1 billion per day, with $11.3 billion spent in the first six days alone. The conflict, initiated by a U.S.-Israel strike killing Iranian leadership, has triggered massive retaliation, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Global oil prices are surging past $92 a barrel, with the UN warning of severe impacts on the world's most vulnerable populations. Iranian retaliation has caused significant U.S. military casualties and targeted global shipping, while Israeli expansion into Lebanon has killed hundreds. The war is accelerating amid a dire U.S. fiscal outlook, with federal debt projected to hit 120% of GDP, making the conflict's exorbitant cost unsustainable. A war of choice, a bill of consequences The opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury on February 28 targeted Tehran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior military officials. This decapitation strike, however, did not end the conflict. It ignited it. The Iranian response was immediate and fierce, launching Operation "True Promise 4." The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began barraging U.S. bases and naval assets with missiles and drones, confirming pre-war warnings from former Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh. Crucially, Iran made good on its ultimate strategic threat: closing the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for 20% of the world's oil. The global economic shockwaves began instantly. The human cost mounted with terrifying speed. An early strike hit a girls' school in Minab, Iran, killing 170, mostly children. By March 10, Lebanese authorities reported 486 dead from Israeli strikes. The Pentagon confirmed the first U.S. troop fatalities on March 1. The conflict rapidly expanded, with pro-Iranian militias attacking U.S. facilities in Iraq and Jordan, and Israel striking Hezbollah in Lebanon. By March 12, the UN reported 3.2 million people displaced inside Iran. The "preemptive" war had created the very regional conflagration it claimed to prevent. The unsustainable arithmetic of destruction While the battlefield expanded, the financial toll became a crisis in itself. Congressional briefings, as reported by The New York Times and NBC News, laid bare the unsustainable economics of this war. The first six days cost over $11.3 billion. Independent analysts now estimate the daily cost at between $800 million and $1 billion. This hemorrhage of capital is fueled by the use of hyper-expensive munitions like the AGM-154 glide bomb, which can cost nearly $836,000 per unit. Put this in perspective for the 153.8 million U.S. taxpayers. At $1 billion in war costs per day, the American taxpayer is paying an average of $6.5 per day, or nearly $100 per person in just two weeks. This isn't the only tax. Americans are already paying higher prices at the pump because of the blow back of this war. The Congressional Budget Office already projects federal debt to reach 120% of GDP by 2035, with interest payments consuming one-fifth of all federal spending. Funding this war will require massive supplemental appropriations, adding tens of billions to the deficit. Analysts from the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimate a two-month conflict could add $65 billion in new spending. Senator Chris Coons acknowledged the initial $11.3 billion figure likely "significantly" understates the true burden. The United States is borrowing from its future to fund a war with no defined victory or exit. The strategic picture grows darker by the day. New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to open new fronts against all U.S. bases. Iran maintains its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with the IRGC targeting commercial vessels. Oil prices continue to climb, and the UN warns of soaring costs for essentials worldwide. Israels strike on a Tehran nuclear facility on March 12 risks provoking the very weaponization the war was ostensibly launched to prevent. Sources include: Yournews.com English.News.cn BSSNews.net The Norwegian Refugee Council reports that escalating conflict along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has forcibly displaced 115,000 Afghan civilians since late February, resulting in significant civilian casualties and damaged infrastructure. Humanitarian access is severely constrained, with health services suspended and food distributions halted, exacerbating an already dire situation for vulnerable populations. Thousands previously displaced by an earthquake are now under evacuation orders, forced to return to areas with no services, while refugees in Iran face instability and potential forced return. Aid officials warn that families on the brink of survival are losing access to water, healthcare, and schooling, calling for urgent international funding and adherence to humanitarian law. Over 115,000 Afghan civilians displaced as conflict escalates. 56 killed, 129 injured. Aid groups demand protection and access amid shattered infrastructure. Oslo, March 14 The Norwegian Refugee Council has warned that escalating conflict along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has severely impacted civilians in eastern Afghanistan, displacing 115,000 people since February 26. It also called for stronger protection of civilians and safe access for humanitarian organisations to reach families in need. The organisation stated that in the first eight days of the conflict, 56 Afghan civilians were killed and a further 129 were injured. "Afghanistan is facing crisis on top of crisis, and it is civilians who are paying the highest price. All parties to the conflict must abide by international humanitarian law and ensure civilians, and civilian infrastructure, are protected," said Jacopo Caridi, NRC's Country Director for Afghanistan. "Families who were already on the brink of survival have been forced from their homes. Thousands have found refuge in makeshift camps and with local families. Others are being forced to rent substandard accommodation they can little afford. They have lost access to clean water, health services, and schooling. We urgently need funding to be able to scale up our support to these families," he added. The NRC highlighted that 826 homes have been damaged in the conflict, while its team reported particular concern among displaced communities in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar for child and women-headed households and the elderly, many of whom said they had received no assistance. "More than 25,000 people who were displaced by the earthquake in Kunar province six months ago are subject to evacuation orders. They have been forced to return to their areas of origin, where little to no services are available, risking their health and well-being. Another 14,500 people are at risk of being displaced for a second time," the NRC stated. The organisation added that health services at more than 20 facilities have been suspended due to insecurity, including five that were damaged in airstrikes and shelling. The World Food Programme (WFP), it said, was forced to temporarily suspend food distributions. "We left everything behind. Our belongings, our clothes, everything. We don't even know what has happened to our house," NRC quoted an Afghan civilian, Bakhtiar, who fled from Torkham, near the border with Pakistan, as saying. According to the organisation, Afghans in Iran are also being affected by instability in the region, noting that the country hosts more than 4.4 million Afghan refugees, including around 1.4 million undocumented migrants, who are at risk of forced return. Some families, it said, have already begun returning to Afghanistan due to safety concerns, with a reported 1,700 refugees currently returning daily. "With a world in turmoil, Afghans must not be forgotten. Rising food prices and closed borders are making survival even harder for families whose lives have already been shattered by conflict," said Caridi. - IANS Around 200 couples tied the knot at a multi-faith mass marriage ceremony in Shujalpur, Madhya Pradesh, under the state's 'Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah/Nikah Yojana'. The event saw 162 Hindu and 38 Muslim couples getting married according to their respective customary rituals. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav attended the ceremony virtually, extending his wishes and highlighting the event as a symbol of social unity. Higher Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar attended in person, distributed gifts, and even joined the traditional wedding procession with other local leaders. 200 couples from Hindu & Muslim communities wed in Shujalpur under a state scheme providing financial aid. CM Mohan Yadav attended virtually. Shajapur/Bhopal, March 14 Around 200 couples tied the knot at a multi-faith mass marriage ceremony organised under the 'Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah/Nikah Yojana' in Shujalpur town of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, government officials said. According to an official information, as many as 162 newly-wed couples belonged to the Hindu community while 38 couples were from the Muslim community. The marriages were solemnised according to the customary rituals of their respective faiths. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav attended the ceremony virtually from his residence in Bhopal and extended his wishes to the newly married couples. He said the state government remains committed to the dignity, empowerment, and social security of daughters across the state. "Mass marriage is a symbol of social unity. I am delighted that during this ceremony, the marriages of 162 daughters and the nikah of 38 daughters were successfully solemnised in Shujalpur today (Saturday)," the Chief Minister added. Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar, a veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, who represents the Shujalpur Assembly constituency, attended the ceremony in person along with local party workers and distributed gift items to the newly-wed couples. Under the Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah/Nikah Yojana, the Madhya Pradesh government provides financial assistance of Rs 49,000 directly to the bank accounts of brides belonging to economically weaker sections to support their marriage. On the occasion, the marriage of the son of Sita Devi Ramchandra Patodiya, Shujalpur Janpad Panchayat President, was also mentioned from the dais. Several dignitaries were present, including District Panchayat President Hemraj Singh Sisodia, State BJP Secretary Babita Parmar, BJP district general secretary Vijay Bes, and District Collector Riju Bafna. Before the wedding ceremony, a collective wedding procession of the grooms covered nearly 1.5 km from the Police station intersection to the venue. Minister Parmar, along with BJP leaders and officials, joined the wedding procession and was seen dancing while wearing traditional turbans. Security arrangements were supervised by Sub-Divisional Magistrate Rajkumar Haldar and Sub-Divisional Police Officer Nimish Deshmukh, with police station in-charges S.K. Yadav and Praveen Pathak deployed along with their teams. - IANS Typically, Morgan Stanley observed in a big research note earlier this week, headcount growth has been required for revenue growth but AI is changing that relationship. Its the latest puzzle piece in the paradox of productivity under AI: it seems to be making work more intense, not less, and despite all the doomsday predictions of massive job loss and an impending white-collar recession, many CEOs insist they are still planning to hire more people. The investment bank, drawing on takeaways from its annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, identified three distinct areas where AI is actually creating demand for workerseven as it threatens to hollow out others. The findings arrive at a pivotal moment. Corporate America is increasingly signaling a decoupling between revenue growth and headcount growth, Morgan Stanley noted, with executives from companies like Snowflake and Shopify describing how AI tools are allowing them to do more with smaller teams. But Morgan Stanleys analysts argue the picture is more nuanced than a straightforward displacement storyand that three areas of the labor market in particular are experiencing a surge in demand driven directly by AI. While some companies have reduced headcount, the majority of discussions [at the TMT conference] around AIs impact on white collar work centered on productivity transformation and growing results without growing headcount, they said. In a related thought exercise last month, the Deutsche Bank Research Institute decided to ask AI how many human jobs it was going to displace, and the robot answered back that it saw 92 million jobs on the chopping block. On the other hand, it said AI would create 170 million new roles, more than offsetting the losses. However, this transition will be disruptive, Deutsche Banks Jim Reid and Adrian Cox predicted. But for Morgan Stanley, analysts said the disruption is happening right now. Skilled Trades: The Hidden Bottleneck The most urgent and underappreciated jobs sector, according to Morgan Stanley, is in skilled trades. The unprecedented scale of the AI infrastructure buildoutspanning data centers, power delivery systems, and networking equipmentis driving demand for electricians, electrical engineers, and construction workers that far exceeds supply, the bank said. Executives from CoreWeave described a shortage of thousands of skilled-trade workers needed for data center construction, warning that because relevant skills take years to acquire, the supply-demand gap will persist. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang echoed the concern, noting electrician shortages in key markets like Texas as a constraint on expansion. The bottleneck, CoreWeave noted, isnt just about available powerits about having the human capital to physically deliver that power into racks and servers. Twenty-four youths from Manipur's Meitei, Kuki, Naga, and Meitei Pangal communities have completed a 10-day National Integration Tour across four Indian states. The tour, flagged off by the Chief Minister and concluded with the Governor, aimed to expose the youth to India's cultural diversity and strengthen national unity. Officials highlighted the initiative as a step towards healing after the state's ethnic conflict, where over 47,000 people were relocated. The participants are expected to carry forward the message of harmony and share their experiences within their communities. 24 youths from Meitei, Kuki, Naga & Meitei Pangal communities tour 4 states to foster national unity and cultural understanding. Imphal, March 13 In an exceptional display of ethnic harmony, 24 young people from four different communities of Manipur -- Meitei, Kuki, Naga and Meitei Pangal -- have completed a 10-day National Integration Tour covering Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal, officials said on Friday. Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla, along with First Lady Jyoti Bhalla, on Friday visited the Assam Rifles 9th Sector headquarters at New Keithelmanbi Garrison and flagged in the 24-member youth team from Manipur that had participated in the National Integration Tour across the country. A senior official said the team visited Thiruvananthapuram, Kanniyakumari, Mumbai and Kolkata during the 10-day tour. During their visit, the participants also had the opportunity to call on Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar. According to the official, the initiative aimed to foster the spirit of 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' and provide the participants an opportunity to experience the nation's cultural diversity, heritage and technological progress. Brigadier Pratyush Kumar, Deputy Inspector General of the 9th Sector Assam Rifles, apprised the Governor about the National Integration Tour. Addressing the gathering, the Governor said the tour had given the youth an opportunity to witness the country's cultural diversity and understand how people from different communities live and work together across India. He noted that such exposure helps broaden perspectives, strengthen the spirit of national unity, and encourage young participants to share their experiences with their peers and communities. The Governor expressed confidence that the lessons and memories from the tour would inspire the participants to contribute positively to society and work towards the vision of a developed India by 2047. He also appealed to the participants to carry forward the message of national unity and harmony across the state. The participants shared their experiences and expressed gratitude to the Assam Rifles for organising the exposure visit. The Governor also interacted with the participants of the National Integration Tour. Meanwhile, on March 3, Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh, while flagging off the National Integration Tour, expressed happiness that the participants represented an integrated Manipur, as they belonged to various communities residing in the state. The Chief Minister had said that during the ethnic conflict in the state, more than 47,000 people from both the Meitei and Kuki communities were relocated to safer zones by the Assam Rifles to ensure their security and well-being. He commended the prompt and dedicated efforts of the Assam Rifles in carrying out the relocation process during the hostilities. The Chief Minister further said that despite differences, elders should not jeopardise the future of children. "We should forgive and forget the past and jointly move towards bringing peace and development in the state," he observed. - IANS The Maharashtra government informed the Legislative Council that 41 of India's 166 recorded tiger deaths in 2025 occurred in the state. Forest Minister Ganesh Naik provided details in a written reply, citing causes from natural deaths to fights among tigers. He outlined extensive conservation measures, including patrols by the Special Tiger Protection Force, surveillance with camera traps, and a dedicated Wildlife Crime Cell. The state also employs informer networks, cyber tracking, and regular monitoring of water bodies to prevent poisoning and poaching. Maharashtra reports 41 of India's 166 tiger deaths in 2025. Forest Minister details anti-poaching and surveillance measures for tiger conservation. Mumbai, March 13 The Maharashtra government, on Friday, told the State Legislative Council that in the year 2025, 166 tiger deaths were recorded in the country, of which 41 occurred in the state. Independent MLC Satyajeet Tambe along with others had raised questions on the death of tigers in Maharashtra in the year 2025 and steps taken by the state government to curb the deaths. State Forest Minister Ganesh Naik in a written reply said that of the 166 tiger deaths in the country, 41 occurred in Maharashtra in the year 2025. He added that on January 7, 2026, a tiger cub was found dead and preliminary investigations suggest the death was caused by a fight among tigers. Similarly, another decomposed carcass of another tiger cub was found. Prima facie, this death appears to be due to natural causes. "Regular patrolling is conducted in hypersensitive areas by teams of the Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF). Additionally, hunting activities are monitored through dog squad patrols. Field staff have been provided with mobiles equipped with the M-Stripes system to track suspicious movements," Minister Naik added. Measures that are implemented at the field level for tiger conservation, include strategies for the protection of tigers, leopards, and other wildlife are formulated during District Level Tiger Committee meetings. "Informers have been appointed at the range level to gather intelligence on illegal poachers, and action is taken based on the information received. Secret service funds are utilised for this purpose. A wireless communication system has been activated in hypersensitive areas," the Minister said. The Minister in his reply added that protection huts and observation towers have been constructed to maintain focus on necessary forest locations. "To maintain up-to-date information on wildlife crimes in the state, a Wildlife Crime Cell has been established at the Office of the Nagpur Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and is currently being strengthened. Furthermore, a Cyber Cell established in the Melghat Tiger Project is used to track accused individuals involved in poaching incidents. Checkposts have been set up at necessary points in hypersensitive areas to conduct regular inspections of incoming and outgoing vehicles. A fortnightly tracking programme for tigers and leopards is implemented at the range level to monitor their presence. Inspections of nomadic settlements near villages are conducted to monitor their movements," the Minister said. "Surveillance of suspicious activities is maintained by installing camera traps at tiger corridors, water bodies, and other critical locations. Additionally, water bodies are regularly inspected to prevent poisoning. Metal detectors are also used to ensure that hunters have not placed iron traps on paths leading to water sources," he added. - IANS The 40th edition of AAHAR, The International Food and Hospitality Fair, has concluded in New Delhi, reinforcing its status as South Asia's leading B2B platform for the sector. The event facilitates crucial connections between hotels, restaurants, suppliers, and distributors, often leading to lasting business partnerships. A notable trend is entrepreneurs, like Dhyaan Mehta of TGR Foods, who transition from being attendees to exhibitors, launching their own brands after years of learning at the fair. Regional participation was strong, with pavilions like Kerala's showcasing local companies such as RG Foods, which used the platform to expand the reach of traditional snacks and products. AAHAR 2026 connects food & hospitality businesses for growth. Discover success stories from RG Foods, TGR Foods, and the Kerala pavilion. New Delhi, March 14 'AAHAR-The International Food and Hospitality Fair' continues to serve as a trusted platform where businesses in the food and hospitality sector come together to connect, grow, and expand, it was announced on Saturday. The 40th edition of the event, that took place from March 10-14 here, has emerged as one of South Asia's most prominent B2B platforms for the food and hospitality sector. "What makes the exhibition stand out is not just the scale of participation, but the way it has evolved into a trusted name and source for businesses in the food and hospitality industry to grow, scale, and expand," according to the government. It brought together hotels, restaurants, catering institutions, importers, distributors, and suppliers, creating a platform where interactions frequently develop into business partnerships. Over the years, the exhibition has witnessed an interesting trend: several entrepreneurs who once attended as visitors or buyers now return as exhibitors with their own brands. Their journeys illustrate how continued participation in the fair can yield business insights, build market connections, and ultimately drive entrepreneurial growth. Among the vibrant state pavilions, the Kerala pavilion showcased how regional businesses are using the platform to expand their product reach. One of the participating companies, RG Foods, traces its origins back to 1940 in Calicut, Kerala. Known for its diverse product line, including edible oils (gingelly oil, mustard oil, coconut oil), rice varieties (Palakkadan Vadi Matta rice), breakfast powders, traditional Kerala snacks (such as frozen foods), and Ready-to-use cooking pastes (ginger paste, ginger-garlic paste, garlic paste), the company has gradually expanded its presence beyond regional markets. At this year's exhibition, the company showcased authentic Kerala snacks, including banana chips, spicy mixtures, murukku, and other traditional delicacies. A similar story of growth was shared by Dhyaan Mehta from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. His company, TGR Foods, produces cake and bread mixes used as raw materials by bakeries, confectioneries, and dairy industries. For nearly 10 years, Mehta attended AAHAR as a customer, exploring suppliers and learning about industry trends. This year marked a milestone for him as he participated for the first time as an exhibitor, showcasing his own products. His journey shows how entrepreneurs often learn from the AAHAR ecosystem before launching their own ventures, said the statement. - IANS Actress Aditi Bhatia visited the Mahakal Temple in Ujjain to seek blessings and express gratitude following the release of "The Kerala Story 2". She described feeling overwhelmed by the powerful audience reactions and the love received for the film. Bhatia stated that being at the temple provided a deep sense of peace and was a reminder of divine grace in her journey. She also took to social media to thank the entire cast and crew for their hard work on the project. Actress Aditi Bhatia offers prayers at Ujjain's Mahakal Temple, expressing gratitude for the audience's overwhelming response to her film. Mumbai, March 14 Actress Aditi Bhatia paid a visit to the Mahakal Temple, Ujjain, seeking blessings from Lord Shiva after the release of her movie "The Kerala Story 2". Calling her religious visit "surreal", Aditi shared that the last few weeks have been an emotional whirlwind for her. "There has been so much love, so many messages, and such powerful reactions from people that I honestly feel overwhelmed with gratitude. I felt a very strong pull to come here, to Mahakal, to just bow my head and say thank you." Aditi stated that being in this sacred space was a reminder for her of how everything happens with divine grace. "As actors we work hard and give our heart to a story, but the way audiences embrace it is something beyond us. Standing here today, I feel incredibly blessed and grounded. There is a deep sense of peace and magic in the air here in Ujjain - it's a feeling that is difficult to explain, but you feel it the moment you step into Mahakal's presence." She revealed that she simply prayed for strength, gratitude, and guidance for her journey ahead. "I'm so thankful for the past few weeks and for every person who supported the film and my work. Today I simply wanted to offer it all at Mahadev's feet. The feeling truly is magical. Har Har Mahadev." In another update, a few days back, Aditi used social media to express her gratitude to the entire cast and crew of "The Kerala Story 2". "A film is the sum of so many unseen hands working with heart. Grateful for this wonderful crew who made every day on set special. I learnt so much & will always hold this journey so close to my heart. Thank you for everything", her post on Instagram read. - IANS Narayen to step down as CEO after 18 years Adobe's long-serving CEO Shantanu Narayen has announced his decision to step down from the role after nearly two decades. He will transition out once a successor is appointed but will remain as the chair of the company's board. The board has formed a special committee to oversee the search for the next CEO, evaluating candidates from both inside and outside the company. Narayen informed employees of his decision, emphasizing his commitment to ensuring a smooth leadership transition. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announces he will step down after 18 years, triggering a leadership search. He will remain as board chair. Washington, March 13 Adobe said that its long-serving chief executive Shantanu Narayen, will step down after nearly two decades in the role, triggering a leadership search at one of the world's most influential software companies. The San Jose-based company said Narayen will transition from the CEO role after a successor is appointed, but will remain as board chair to support the leadership change. The board has formed a special committee to oversee the search process, considering both internal and external candidates. "On behalf of the Board, I want to recognise Shantanu's contributions as CEO and architect of Adobe's transformation over the past 18 years, and for positioning Adobe for success in the AI-driven era," said Frank Calderoni, Lead Independent Director of Adobe. "As we take the next step in succession planning, we are focused on selecting the right leader for this next exciting chapter of the company's growth and are grateful for Shantanu's continued leadership as CEO to ensure a smooth transition," Calderoni said. Narayen informed employees of his decision in a message circulated inside the company on Thursday. "I want to share with all of you that I have informed the Board of my decision to transition from my role as CEO of Adobe after over 18 years in the job," he wrote. "Over the coming months, I will be working with Frank Calderoni, our lead Director, and the Board of Directors to identify my successor and to ensure a smooth transition." Narayen emphasised that he will continue to support the company after stepping down from the chief executive role. "I will stay on as Chair of the Board to support the next CEO just as John and Chuck did when I took on this role," he said. Reflecting on his long tenure, Narayen said Adobe had expanded dramatically during the past two decades. "Over this time, we grew from 3K employees to -30K employees, delivered technology that touched billions of people as customers of our products or the digital experiences that our customers create, leading to our revenue growing from <$1B to -$25B," he said. "I am so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together." Narayen also highlighted the company's future strategy, particularly the growing role of artificial intelligence in creative and digital tools. "Our mission, Empower Everyone to Create, represents an even larger opportunity in the AI era," he said. "The next era of creativity is being written right now - shaped by AI, by new workflows and by entirely new forms of expression." Technology leaders across the industry reacted to the announcement. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella congratulated Narayen, writing on social media: "Congrats Shantanu, on a legendary run at Adobe! You've built one of the most important software companies in the world, and expanded what's possible for creators, entrepreneurs, and brands everywhere." Adobe said Narayen will continue to lead the company while the board conducts the search for a successor. "I will ensure that I set up Adobe for its next decade of greatness with the right leader and executive team, in partnership with the Board," Narayen said. Narayen joined Adobe nearly three decades ago and became chief executive in 2007, overseeing a major transformation of the company's business model and product portfolio. Under his leadership, Adobe shifted from selling packaged software to a subscription-based cloud platform and expanded its products across digital media, creative tools, and customer experience services. The company's flagship platforms - including Photoshop, Acrobat, and Creative Cloud - have become central tools for creators, businesses, and digital publishers worldwide. - IANS Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence claims its forces conducted retaliatory operations against Pakistani military positions, resulting in the deaths of 14 soldiers. The action follows Pakistani airstrikes that reportedly killed civilians and damaged a fuel depot at Kandahar Airport reserved for Hajj flights. The United Nations mission has documented numerous civilian casualties, including women and children, from the recent escalation in cross-border violence. Tensions have been high since the Taliban's return to power, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of harboring militant groups. Afghanistan launches retaliatory strikes after Pakistani airstrikes kill civilians and hit Hajj fuel depots, escalating cross-border tensions. Kabul, March 14 Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence has claimed that its forces carried out operations against Pakistani military positions along the disputed Durand Line, as tensions between the two neighbours continue to escalate following cross-border airstrikes and artillery exchanges. In a statement, the Afghan Defence Ministry said its forces conducted operations in the eastern zone covering Kunar and Nangarhar provinces in response to what it described as actions by Pakistan's military regime. "In response to the crimes committed by the Pakistani military regime, Afghan Defense Forces carried out operations along the Durand Line in the eastern zone of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces. During the operation... which resulted in the killing of 14 soldiers and the injury of 11 others. An armored tank and an International vehicle were also completely destroyed and taken out of service," the Islamic Emirate's MoD said. As part of their 'RejectOppression' campaign, Afghan forces had earlier launched an airstrike on Pakistan's strategic military centre. "In continuation of the ongoing 'RejectOppression' retaliatory operation At about 5:00 PM today, Afghan Air Forces carried out an airstrike on the Pakistani military's strategic center, 'Hamza' in Faizabad, Islamabad..." the Islamic Emirate's statement said. The development follows the earlier airstrike that Pakistan conducted in Afghanistan, which Kabul said caused civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. Officials from Kam Air also confirmed to Tolo News that the airline's fuel reserves stored at Kandahar Airport were hit during airstrikes carried out by Pakistan's Air Force (PAF) on Friday. They added that the fuel stock had been kept for this year's Hajj flights, raising concerns about disruptions to aviation operations. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid also accused Pakistan of striking civilian infrastructure. In a post on X, Mujahid said the targeted fuel facility supplied domestic airlines and aircraft operated by the United Nations. He further alleged that Pakistan had previously targeted fuel storage belonging to a trader named Haji Khan Zadah. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the latest strikes have also resulted in more civilian casualties. "UNAMA documented at least four civilian deaths and 14 injured, including women and children, as a result of airstrikes in Pul-e-Charkhi area in Kabul Afghanistan last night. We continue to call for an immediate cessation in hostilities to prevent further loss of civilian life," the mission said. It added that civilians were bearing the brunt of the renewed violence. "Civilians, mostly women and children, continue to pay the price for the latest escalation in cross-border violence. Since 26 February, UNAMA has recorded at least 75 civilians killed and 193 injured in Afghanistan as a result of ongoing armed clashes," the mission said. According to Tolo News, Pakistan's military had earlier targeted areas in the Alisher-Terezai district of Khost province near the Durand Line using artillery fire. Four members of a family were killed and three others were injured in the shelling. The latest escalation comes amid a growing cycle of airstrikes and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan along the Durand Line. Relations between the two countries have remained strained since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Kabul of allowing militant groups to operate from Afghan territory. On February 26, Pakistan had launched "Operation Ghazab lil-Haq" (Righteous Fury) and declared what it described as "open war" against the Afghan Taliban after the initial airstrikes on Afghanistan. Islamabad, as per a Geo News report, had said the strikes targeted militant bases and came amid a rise in suicide bombings in Pakistan, claiming that the attackers were operating from Afghan territory. However, Pakistan has not provided credible proof to justify its belligerent actions against Afghanistan. In the initial airstrikes, too, dozens of women and children were among those who bore the brunt of the attacks, as per a Reuters report. In response, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan announced a retaliatory campaign, which they named "Radd-e-Zulm". The IEA said its operation would continue until what it described as Pakistan's attacks stop, according to TOLOnews. - ANI The ruling BJP in Haryana has gathered its 48 MLAs and supporting Independents at a Chandigarh hotel for a program to explain the Rajya Sabha voting procedure ahead of the March 16 polls. Party leaders dismissed secrecy, calling it essential training, with some MLAs light-heartedly comparing the trip to a picnic. This move comes a day after the Congress shifted its Haryana MLAs to Kufri near Shimla in an effort to keep its flock united for the elections. Congress legislators stated the move was for a training session and reaffirmed their support for the party's Rajya Sabha candidate. Ahead of Rajya Sabha elections, Haryana BJP moves MLAs to Chandigarh for training, while Congress shifts its legislators to Kufri in a bid to ensure party unity. Chandigarh, March 14 Ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections slated for March 16 in Haryana, the ruling BJP on Saturday moved its 48 MLAs, along with supporting Independent Legislators, together in buses to a private hotel located at Sector 35 in Chandigarh, triggering political speculation over preparations for the upcoming poll. Haryana BJP President Mohan Lal Badoli said the gathering was part of a programme to brief legislators about the voting procedure for the Rajya Sabha election. "A small programme is being held to explain the entire process of how voting will take place. All 48 BJP MLAs are here," Badoli told reporters. He dismissed speculation about secrecy surrounding the movement of MLAs and said the party was only ensuring that legislators were fully prepared for the election process. "We are not hiding anything. We will roam around here in Chandigarh. This is the land of Haryana; it is a land of miracles. Training is essential. Every political party wants to ensure it is well-prepared," he said. Some BJP legislators struck a lighter note about the trip. MLA Laxman Yadav compared the outing to a picnic. "Wherever the bus takes us, there will be a picnic. Look, every college and every school has a picnic. This is the Vidhan Sabha's school and all the students are going to enjoy the picnic," he said. Another BJP MLA, Moolchand Sharma, said the legislators would remain within the city. "Lunch will be right here in Chandigarh. We will be local," he said. MLA Randhir Panihar added that even the legislators themselves were unaware of the destination. "We ourselves don't know where we are going," he said. Haryana Minister Krishan Lal Panwar told IANS, "We are not disappearing like Congress; we are only conducting a mock drill." The development comes a day after the Congress moved its Haryana MLAs to Kufri near Shimla in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls, in what party sources described as an attempt to keep its flock together. According to sources, Congress legislators arrived in Shimla in three buses on Friday evening and were lodged in two hotels in Kufri, where around 37 rooms were booked for them. Earlier, Congress MLA Jassi Petwar told IANS that the party legislators were heading for a two-day training session. "All 37-38 Congress MLAs will attend. The strategy is to ensure party unity, and all MLAs are together supporting the party's decisions and directives from the leadership," he said. Another Congress MLA, Kuldeep Vats, said a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party chaired by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had reaffirmed support for the party's Rajya Sabha candidate. "On March 16, all MLAs will vote for the Congress Rajya Sabha candidate," Vats said. Polling for two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana is scheduled to take place on March 16. - IANS Air Canada has suspended all flights between Toronto and Dubai until at least May 1, citing safety concerns due to escalating tensions in the Middle East. The airline stated it will gradually reintroduce the service when safe passage is ensured and is simultaneously expanding its flight capacity to Delhi. Meanwhile, Air India and Air India Express are operating a combined 80 scheduled and non-scheduled flights to and from the West Asia region. The disruptions follow Iranian strikes in the Gulf, which have partially closed airspace and impacted global flight operations. Air Canada suspends Toronto-Dubai flights until May 1 due to Middle East unrest, while increasing flights to Delhi. Air India maintains regional operations. Ottawa, March 14 Air Canada has suspended all its Toronto-Dubai flight operations till May 1 amid the escalating tensions in West Asia. The airlines said that they will resume their flight operations when safe passage is ensured. The airlines further said that it will continue to add to its capacity to Delhi to provide travellers with options to Canada. "Due to unrest in the Middle East, our Toronto-Dubai flights are cancelled until at least May 1. We plan to reintroduce service gradually when flights can safely resume. We continue to add capacity to Delhi to provide travellers with options to Canada," Air Canada said in a post on X. Meanwhile, Air India and Air India Express will operate a total of 80 scheduled and non-scheduled flights to and from the West Asia region on March 14, the airline said. According to a press release, the two carriers continue to operate their respective scheduled services to and from Jeddah and Muscat on March 14, operating a total of 10 flights to and from Jeddah and Air India Express operating 8 scheduled flights to and from Muscat. Additionally, Air India will operate one round-trip from Delhi and two round-trips from Mumbai to Jeddah. Air India Express will operate one flight each from Kozhikode and Mangaluru to Jeddah and back. Air India Express will also operate its scheduled services to Muscat, including one round-trip each from Delhi, Kochi, Kozhikode and Mumbai. In addition to the scheduled services, Air India and Air India Express would operate a total of 62 non-scheduled flights to and from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, subject to the availability of slots and other prevailing conditions at the departure stations at the time. These flights are being operated with the requisite permissions from the relevant Indian and local regulatory authorities. Earlier, nearly 500 Indian nationals travelled from Qatar to India and other global destinations on flights operated by Qatar Airways, the Indian Embassy in Doha said in an advisory. In a post on X, the embassy on Friday said the passengers travelled on Qatar Airways flights to Kochi and other destinations. The airline also facilitated the transportation of the mortal remains of two Indian nationals who died of natural causes, along with their accompanying family members, to Kochi on humanitarian grounds. The embassy said Qatar's airspace is only partially open, resulting in limited flight operations by Qatar Airways. The limited flight operations follow an escalating West Asia security crisis, triggered by Iranian missile and drone strikes targeting US military bases, embassies, and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf region, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The conflict has caused significant disruptions to global energy supplies, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, where approximately 20 per cent of the world's oil transits. - ANI Bollywood superstar Ajay Devgn wished filmmaker Rohit Shetty a happy birthday with an action-packed social media reel. The tribute featured a montage of explosive car stunts synonymous with Shetty's directorial style. The duo shares one of Bollywood's most successful actor-director partnerships, beginning with the 2011 hit 'Singham'. Their collaboration also spans the popular 'Golmaal' comedy franchise, cementing a friendship that has lasted decades. Ajay Devgn shares an action-packed reel to wish filmmaker Rohit Shetty a happy birthday, celebrating their iconic Bollywood collaborations. Mumbai, March 14 Bollywood superstar Ajay Devgn, on the 14th of March, wished ace filmmaker Rohit Shetty on his birthday with a special social media post, further calling for a "dhamakedaar" celebration in the director's signature style. Sharing a reel on his social media account, Ajay posted a picture of himself standing alongside Rohit Shetty, where they are seen posing together. The reel also features a short action montage from Rohit Shetty's films, showing one of his trademark cinematic moments of cars exploding, flipping through the air and dramatic action sequences. Theaw particular action sequences have become synonymous with the director's style, over the years. Along with the post, Ajay wrote in the caption, "@itsrohitshetty ka birthday hai, dhamakedaar toh hona hi chahiye. Happy Birthday Rohit! Have a blast." Talking about Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty's equation, the two share one of the most successful actor-director collaborations in Bollywood. The duo first teamed up for the action film Singham, which released in 2011 and went on to become a massive box-office success. The film introduced Ajay as the fearless cop Bajirao Singham and laid the foundation for Rohit Shetty's popular cop universe. The two reunited for Singham Returns, the sequel that released in 2014. Apart from the cop franchise films, Ajay Devgn has also been a key part of Rohit Shetty's hit comedy franchise Golmaal. The actor starred in several instalments of the series including Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006), Golmaal Returns (2008), Golmaal 3 (2010) and Golmaal Again (2017). Ajay and Rohit have been friends from decades, and often are seen sharing fun posts about each other on social media. - IANS Allu Arjun wishes director Lokesh Kanagaraj, teases their upcoming film AA23. Also get updates on Pushpa 3 and his project with Atlee & Deepika Padukone. Chennai, March 14 Wishing director Lokesh Kanakaraj a happy birthday, Telugu star Allu Arjun on Saturday expressed the hope that the coming year for the ace director would be one that would bring him euphoria, joy, peace and positivity. Taking to his X timeline to pen the greeting, Allu Arjun, who will be seen acting in Lokesh's direction soon, wrote, " Wishing a very Happy Birthday to my dear director @Dir_Lokesh garu. May this year bring you euphoria, joy, peace, and positivity. Have a wonderful year. Excited for the #AA23 #LK7 journey ahead." For the unaware, Lokesh Kanakaraj is to direct Telugu star Allu Arjun's 23rd film, tentatively being referred to as #AALoki. The film is also being referred to as #AA23 #LK7. Well known production house Mythri Movie Makers is producing this film, the music of which is to be scored by one of the country's top music directors, Anirudh. Mythri Movie Makers too took to its time to greet Lokesh Kanakaraj on his birthday. The production house said, "Happy birthday to the sensational @Dir_Lokesh. Wishing you a blockbuster year ahead and, as always, STRIVE FOR GREATNESS.-Team #AA23." It may be recalled that Allu Arjun had expressed excitement about his film with Lokesh even when it was announced. Allu Arjun had, on his Instagram timeline then, said, "I SAY 23. Goin' on a spree. Low-Key G.Locked in mentally. That's a guarantee !Excited about the new journey with the Maverick @lokesh.kanagaraj garu and at last with brother @anirudhofficial. Can't wait for this one. #AALoki #AA23 #LK07 @mythriofficial" Lokesh Kanakaraj, for his part, wrote on X, "Blessed with the best @alluarjun #AALoki. Looking forward to kicking off this journey with you sir. Let's make it a massive blast. Once again with my brother. @anirudhofficial #AA23 #LK7 @MythriOfficial" This will be the third major project that Allu Arjun will be embarking upon. He already has at least two other magnum opus projects for which audiences are eagerly awaiting. The actor will be seen in the third instalment of the blockbuster franchise 'Pushpa', which is being directed by ace director Sukumar. Apart from this, Allu Arjun is also working on his film with director Atlee, being tentatively referred to as AA22 X A6. A22 X A6 is among the most eagerly awaited films in the industry. It may be recalled that the makers had, in June last year, welcomed actress Deepika Padukone onboard the film's unit. Sun Pictures, the production house producing the film, had then shared a video of Atlee meeting Deepika Padukone and narrating the script to her. A clip they had released then gave a glimpse of Deepika Padukone's motion capture portions in the film. The visuals gave the impression that Deepika Padukone was to play a queen, who would ride a horse and wield a sword in the film. - IANS By Anton Bridge and Miho Uranaka TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) - Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group will closely monitor liquidity when issuing loans, an executive said, as Japanese banks prepare to potentially back projects under the country's $550 billion investment package in the United States. Japanese financial institutions are expected to participate in the initiative alongside support from state-owned agencies Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), which are providing equity, loans, and loan guarantees. "We must be vigilant," Chief Financial Officer Jun Togawa told Reuters. "A sharp and sudden rise in long-term loans would be challenging from an NSFR perspective," Togawa said, referring to the Basel III Net Stable Funding Ratio. Togawa declined to comment directly on Japan's U.S. investment commitments that are part of its trade agreement with Washington, signed last year. The NSFR requires banks to maintain stable funding sources, such as capital or long-term liabilities, to offset illiquid or long-term assets, as part of international regulatory reforms developed after the 2008 financial crisis. Several deals are being discussed and could be announced during Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's upcoming visit to U.S. President Donald Trump, sources told Reuters last week. (Reporting by Miho Uranaka and Anton Bridge, editing by Andrei Khalip) Iran has escalated military operations by launching the 46th wave of "Operation True Promise 4" against US and Israeli targets. Spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that America and Israel would pay for damages, citing the destruction of over 112 hostile drones by Iranian defenses. The strikes specifically targeted locations in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and US bases like Al Dhafra and Erbil. The IRGC simultaneously showcased its advanced drone capabilities in a large underground tunnel, vowing to continue the campaign. Iran escalates regional conflict, launching new drone and missile waves against US bases and Israeli targets, vowing retaliation will continue. Tehran, March 14 In a significant escalation of regional tensions, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the Spokesperson of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, issued a televised address on Saturday, warning that "America and the Zionists will pay the price for every single drop of unjustly shed blood and the compensation for the damages inflicted." Zolfaghari noted that, in line with the "operations of the defenders of the country's sky, two MQ-9 drones in Firuzabad and Bandar Abbas and another aircraft in the sky of Tabriz were intercepted and destroyed by the Sepah's air defense systems." According to the spokesperson, the "total number of drones destroyed up to this moment has reached 112 aircraft of various types of combat, reconnaissance, and suicide drones." The military official linked these defensive measures to broader offensive actions, stating that the "brave warriors of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Aerospace and Naval Forces of Sepah and Hezbollah carried out the 45th wave of Operation True Promise 4" under the holy code "'Ya Saheb al-Zaman, may God hasten his relief'" following the "astonishing presence of the people in the International Quds Day march." During the address, Zolfaghari confirmed that "'Kheibar-Shekan' solid-fuel precision missiles and offensive drones were sent in large and effective numbers towards enemy targets." He emphasised that the "destruction of the northern command infrastructures of the occupying Zionists and the gathering place of American forces" served as primary strategic goals, specifically naming targeted centres in "Haifa, Caesarea, settlements of Zariit and Shlomi, as well as the 'Holon' military-industrial complex." The scope of the operation also extended to regional US assets. The spokesperson claimed that American gathering places, including "'Al Dhafra' and 'Erbil' bases, were identified and hit" following a prior "warning to leave the region." Maintaining the momentum of the campaign, a "46th wave of Operation True Promise 4 was also carried out" shortly thereafter, targeting the "centers and forces of the American and Zionist antagonists." Zolfaghari asserted that this specific phase aimed at "hunting down Zionist and American criminal commanders," claiming that "10 hiding and residence points in the occupied territories and 3 gathering and hiding places of Americans in the region were identified and precisely targeted." These precision strikes reportedly included "seven points in Tel Aviv, two points in Rishon LeZion, and one point in Shoham," as well as US commander locations at the "'King Sultan', 'Victoria', and 'Erbil' bases." Reinforcing this message of military defiance, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has unveiled a significant display of its aerial capabilities within a vast subterranean arsenal. In a report shared on X by the Mehr News Agency, it was highlighted that "the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps displays a collection of its drones in a large tunnel." This demonstration, titled "Display of a Portion of the IRGC Drone Power Under an Image of Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei," featured rows of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) staged within an extensive underground facility. Vowing that the campaign would persist, Zolfaghari declared that "the doors of hell will not be closed until the destruction of the last child-killing criminal." He swore by the "oppression of our martyrs" to recover the "blood money of every single drop of blood shed unjustly," maintaining that "victory is not but from God, the Mighty, the Wise." - ANI Netflix has confirmed a sequel to the animated hit 'KPop Demon Hunters,' with original directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans returning to write and direct. The first film, released in June 2025, garnered over 500 million views and won major awards. It is currently nominated for two Oscars, including Best Animated Feature, ahead of the March 15 ceremony. While a release date is not set, the original voice cast has previously hinted at more stories to come. Netflix announces a sequel to the Oscar-nominated animated film 'KPop Demon Hunters' with directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans returning. Los Angeles, March 13 Netflix has announced a sequel to the Oscar-nominated animated feature 'KPop Demon Hunters', with Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans returning to write and direct, according to E! News. "We're thrilled to bring back the HUNTR/X saga," said Maggie Kang, expressing pride as a Korean filmmaker. "There's so much more to this world we've built, and I'm excited to show you. This is only the beginning." Chris Appelhans added, "These characters are like family to us. We're excited to write their next chapter and push the boundaries of music, animation, and story." Although Netflix did not reveal when the sequel would premiere on their streaming platform, they'd previously shared that the first film had amassed over 500 million views since its June 2025 debut, as per E! News. It also became an award season favourite, picking up the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Golden"--categories the movie is also nominated for at the upcoming March 15 Oscars. The sequel's release date remains under wraps, but fans can expect more updates soon. The original film's singing voices, EJAE (Rumi), Audrey Nuna (Mira), and Rei Ami (Zoey), had hinted at a possible sequel, with EJAE saying "Stay tuned" at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards, according to E! News. KPop Demon Hunters is nominated for two Oscars, with the awards ceremony taking place on March 15. - ANI India has issued a strong condemnation of recent Pakistani air strikes on Afghan territory, calling them an act of aggression that violates Afghanistan's sovereignty. The strikes reportedly hit civilian infrastructure, including airline fuel reserves designated for Hajj flights, and caused multiple civilian casualties. The United Nations mission documented deaths and injuries, noting that civilians are bearing the brunt of escalating cross-border violence. India reiterated its consistent position calling for stability and full respect for Afghanistan's territorial integrity. India strongly condemns Pakistan's airstrikes in Afghanistan, citing civilian deaths and a violation of sovereignty. UN reports casualties. New Delhi, March 14 India on Saturday strongly condemned recent air strikes carried out by Pakistan on Afghan territory, stating that such actions violate Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. In response to media queries on the strikes, Official Spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, stated in a statement that India strongly opposes the use of force that results in civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. India has consistently emphasised the importance of respecting Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity while calling for stability and peace in the region. "India condemns the air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan's territory, leading to the death of several civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is yet another act of aggression by a Pakistani establishment that remains hostile to the idea of a sovereign Afghanistan. India reiterates that Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be fully respected," the statement read. The development follows the earlier airstrike that Pakistan conducted in Afghanistan, which Kabul said caused civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. Officials from Kam Air confirmed to Tolo News that the airline's fuel reserves stored at Kandahar Airport were hit during airstrikes carried out by Pakistan's Air Force (PAF) on Friday. They added that the fuel stock had been kept for this year's Hajj flights, raising concerns about disruptions to aviation operations. Afghanistan spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid also accused Pakistan of striking civilian infrastructure. In a post on X, Mujahid said the targeted fuel facility supplied domestic airlines and aircraft operated by the United Nations. He further alleged that Pakistan had previously targeted fuel storage belonging to a trader named Haji Khan Zadah. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the latest strikes have also resulted in more civilian casualties. "UNAMA documented at least four civilian deaths and 14 injured, including women and children, as a result of airstrikes in Pul-e-Charkhi area in Kabul Afghanistan last night. We continue to call for an immediate cessation in hostilities to prevent further loss of civilian life," the mission said. It added that civilians were bearing the brunt of the renewed violence. "Civilians, mostly women and children, continue to pay the price for the latest escalation in cross-border violence. Since 26 February, UNAMA has recorded at least 75 civilians killed and 193 injured in Afghanistan as a result of ongoing armed clashes," the mission said. According to Tolo News, Pakistan's military had earlier targeted areas in the Alisher-Terezai district of Khost province near the Durand Line using artillery fire. Four members of a family were killed and three others were injured in the shelling. (ANI), - ANI A new study reveals a dramatic, coordinated surge in anti-Indian hate speech online, with posts tripling in 2025 and garnering hundreds of millions of views. This rhetoric frequently spiked following announcements of U.S. immigration policy changes, including a proposed $100,000 fee for H-1B visas. The attacks have targeted both ordinary immigrants and high-profile Indian-Americans, including Usha Vance and Harmeet Dhillon. Researchers warn this is not random bigotry but an amplified digital attack that endangers communities and bilateral relations. Report finds anti-Indian rhetoric online tripled, driven by immigration debates and coordinated accounts, targeting even prominent Indian-Americans. Washington, March 12 The US-based Network Contagion Research Institute in a recent study traced a surge in anti-Indian rhetoric online, citing 24,000 posts on X in 2025 that were viewed more than 300 million times, with such content tripling compared to the previous year, a report said on Thursday. "The attack was led by just a few accounts rather than organically spreading online. According to the study, the three 'most prolific posters' generated a total of 525 posts on X - and those posts were viewed, liked, and reposted 18.4 million times. Those three X accounts attracted over 10 per cent of all likes and 20 per cent of all reposts among the anti-Indian posts reviewed by NCRI," a report in American news website 'The Free Press' highlighted. According to the report, the study documented that spikes in anti-Indian posts frequently followed announcements of changes to immigration policy under President Donald Trump's administration, including the introduction of a $100,000 fee for employers sponsoring H-1B workers. In an executive order in September 2025, Trump said the fee was intended to curb fraud. "Most of the highly-engaged anti-Indian tweets during this period applauded this order as a way to curb Indian immigration while simultaneously engaging in racist verbal abuse," The Free Press quoted the NCRI study as saying. The report noted that ethnic slurs and stereotypes were frequently used alongside discussions about visas, legal and illegal immigration, and assimilation. Citing NCRI, it stated that the volume of anti-Indian posts reached their peak in mid-December, including over 800 posts per week featuring slurs such as "pajeet and dothead". Recently, a viral video of an Indian couple participating in an online dance challenge at Washington DC's World War II Memorial triggered outrage with calls to slash visas. "The clip led to demands from some Americans to acknowledge the solemnity of the space. 'No more H-1B,' one user replied. The work visa has become a frequent reference in insults lobbed online at some immigrant group," it mentioned. A report in India Narrative stated that the rise in anti-Indian hate, revealed by NCRI analysis, is not mere random bigotry but a coordinated digital attack amplified by influencers and algorithms, endangering immigrant communities and free discourse. "Even prominent Indian-Americans face the barrage. Usha Vance, the US Second Lady with Indian immigrant parents, drew over 2,000 hostile posts; Vice President J D Vance fired back bluntly against critics. FBI Director Kash Patel and DOJ Civil Rights head Harmeet Dhillon endured racist attacks. Dhillon called out "blatant racism and nativism" during the 2024 RNC. Indian conservatives like Utsav Sanduja warn that this erodes bipartisan support built over the years," it detailed. The report further said, "Platforms must act: curb algorithmic boosts for hate, verify influencer networks, and enforce transparency on high-view content. Policymakers should distinguish legitimate H-1B reforms from ethnic scapegoating. India, a key US ally in tech and defence, deserves better than slurs." - IANS Arunachal Pradesh Governor Lt Gen K.T. Parnaik has urged universities to develop strong start-up ecosystems through innovation hubs and incubation centres. He emphasized integrating modern technologies like AI and data science into academic curricula to enhance learning, especially in remote areas. The Governor highlighted the need for research focused on regional challenges such as sustainable agriculture and Himalayan ecology. State Education Minister P. D. Sona and other officials also stressed digital transformation and collaborative efforts to strengthen higher education. Governor K.T. Parnaik urges universities to build start-up ecosystems, integrate AI in curriculum, and focus research on regional challenges. Itanagar, March 14 Arunachal Pradesh Governor Lt Gen K.T. Parnaik on Saturday urged educational institutions to nurture entrepreneurship and develop strong start-up ecosystems through innovation hubs, incubation centres, and start-up laboratories so that students can emerge as job creators. Addressing the 23rd Conference of Higher and Technical Education, the Governor called on universities to promote innovation, research, and creativity, encouraging students and faculty to develop solutions to regional challenges such as sustainable agriculture, biodiversity conservation, disaster management, and border area development. He emphasised the need for focused research in areas relevant to the state, including Himalayan ecology, renewable energy, and indigenous knowledge systems. Stating that technology is the biggest enabler, the Governor highlighted the importance of integrating modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, coding, and data science into academic curricula. Lt Gen Parnaik said AI-enabled digital platforms, virtual labs, and smart classrooms can help students in remote areas access quality education. At the same time, he reminded students to use AI as a learning aid rather than a substitute for critical thinking. The Governor also stressed that sectors such as eco-tourism, agri-technology, handicrafts, and digital services hold immense potential for Arunachal Pradesh and align with the national vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat. He further underscored the importance of building strong collaborations with national institutions, international universities, and industry partners to strengthen research, faculty development, and global exposure, while also creating centres of excellence in Himalayan studies, biodiversity, and sustainable development. The Governor felicitated pioneers of higher education in Arunachal Pradesh, acknowledging their dedication, vision, and perseverance in laying a strong foundation for the growth of higher learning in the state. Speaking on the occasion, State Education Minister P. D. Sona called for a committed effort from all stakeholders to implement corrective measures in the education sector and emphasised the importance of digital transformation. MLA and Advisor to the Minister for Education Mutchu Mithi, Commissioner of Education Amjad Tak, and Director of Higher and Technical Education Dr. Milorai Modi also addressed the inaugural session of the two-day conference. In their remarks, they shared insights on strengthening the education sector and highlighted the importance of innovation, quality learning, and collaborative efforts to further enhance higher and technical education in the state. - IANS Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma distributed appointment letters to 5,754 candidates for posts in the Education and Power Departments. This brings the total number of government appointments made under his administration to over 1.64 lakh. Sarma highlighted the fulfillment of his 2021 election promise to provide one lakh jobs and emphasized the transparency of the recruitment process. He also outlined future plans to appoint an additional 65,000 teachers and develop youth through entrepreneurship. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma distributes 5,754 appointment letters for education & power depts, highlights 1.64 lakh total jobs under his govt. Guwahati, March 12 Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday distributed appointment letters to 5,754 candidates under the Education and Power Department at a function held at the Veterinary College playground, Khanapara in Guwahati. With today's programme, the total number of government appointments made during the tenure of the present state government has gone up to 1,64,423. During the programme, appointment letters were distributed to 3,515 teachers for upper and lower primary schools, 116 candidates promoted from provincialised tutors to teachers, 197 teachers promoted from assistant or science teacher in upper primary schools to the post of Head Master and 446 Headmasters of higher secondary schools. In addition, 177 candidates were appointed as assistant professors and to Grade III and Grade IV posts under the Higher Education Department, while four principals were appointed in government engineering colleges. Moreover, 60 lecturers were appointed under the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). Further, 1,175 contractual and state pool teachers working under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan were appointed to permanent posts under the Directorate of Elementary Education. Appointment letters were also handed over to 64 candidates selected as Assistant Accounts Officers in the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL). Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that the transparent and merit-based recruitment process carried out during the tenure of the present government would remain a rare and memorable example in the administrative history of the state. He recalled that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's economy and the livelihoods of people were severely affected. Despite the difficult circumstances, during the 2021 Assam Assembly elections, he had promised that if voted to power, the government would provide one lakh government jobs to the youth and free women borrowers from the burden of microfinance loans. The Chief Minister noted that many had doubted whether these commitments could be fulfilled, and the opposition had raised questions in the Assam Legislative Assembly. However, after assuming office, the government worked with dedication and sincerity and succeeded in fulfilling both commitments within the first three years of its tenure. He added that the government could have concluded the recruitment process after providing jobs to 50,000 to 60,000 youths, as no previous government in Assam had appointed more than 25,000 candidates during a five-year tenure. However, the present government has broken all previous records. The fact that no dissatisfied candidate approached the courts reflects the public's confidence in the transparent recruitment process, he said. Referring to the education sector, the Chief Minister said the government has appointed nearly 95,000 teachers over the past five years. Such a large-scale recruitment in Assamese-medium schools and the public education system was once considered unimaginable. He said positive results are already visible due to efforts to strengthen the education sector and foster better coordination among teachers, parents and students. The number of single-teacher schools has declined, while public confidence in the government education system has increased. He also stated that efforts would be made to appoint another 65,000 teachers in the coming years. The Chief Minister further said a new initiative has begun in Assam to develop the younger generation into a strong human resource through entrepreneurship and skill development. He said that the earlier atmosphere marked by frequent protests has gradually given way to a competitive environment where students are focusing on education, preparing for examinations and striving to become self-reliant. He said development, reforms in the education sector, expansion of health infrastructure, improved transport systems and the use of technology would enable Assam to establish itself as one of the leading states in the country. Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu, Power Minister Prasanta Phukan, Commissioner and Secretary of the Education Department Narayan Konwar, Managing Director of APDCL Rakesh Kumar and several senior officials were present in the programme. - ANI Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurated the new Assam Secretariat for Barak Valley in Silchar, marking a major step in decentralizing governance. He also inaugurated and laid foundation stones for numerous development projects totaling approximately Rs 340 crore across Cachar, Hailakandi, and Sribhumi districts. The newly completed Secretariat complex, built on 15 bighas, includes administrative offices, an auditorium, and residential quarters. Sarma emphasized that the facility aims to bring government services closer to the people of the region. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurates the new Barak Valley Secretariat in Silchar and launches development projects worth Rs 340 crore. Silchar, March 14 Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday dedicated the Assam Secretariat, Barak Valley, in Silchar to the people and inaugurated and laid the foundation stones for several development projects worth around Rs 340 crore across the three districts of the valley -- Cachar, Hailakandi and Sribhumi. Speaking at the event in Silchar, the Chief Minister said the new Secretariat marks a major step towards decentralising governance and bringing the administration closer to the people of Barak Valley. Constructed on 15 bighas of land with a built-up area of 18,585 square metres, the Assam Secretariat complex was completed within 36 months. The facility includes the main Secretariat building, an auditorium with a seating capacity of 747, a guest house, the Chief Minister's residence, officers' quarters and residential quarters for Grade-III and Grade-IV employees. The sixth floor of the Secretariat building houses offices for the Chief Minister, the Additional Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister and the Minister of the Barak Valley Development Department. CM Sarma said that for many years administrative decision-making in Assam remained largely centred in Guwahati, but the present government has prioritised balanced regional development and decentralisation. He noted that an Assembly session had earlier been held in Kokrajhar and a new Secretariat has also been established in Dibrugarh, along with an Assembly complex currently under construction there. "The government should reach the people rather than the people having to go to the government," Sarma said, adding that the new Secretariat would make government services more accessible to residents of Barak Valley. Earlier in the day, the Chief Minister inaugurated the Silchar Convention Centre at Shilkuri in the Borkhola constituency, built at a cost of Rs 15.6 crore. The facility includes a conference hall with a seating capacity of 142 people, along with guest rooms, VIP lounges, a media room and parking space for around 80 vehicles. Sarma also laid the foundation stones for several infrastructure, healthcare and connectivity projects across Cachar, Hailakandi and Sribhumi districts. - IANS Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed the Bhoomi Pujan for the 166 km Shillong-Silchar access-controlled Greenfield corridor, a major infrastructure project in Northeast India. The corridor, built with an investment of around Rs 22,860 crore, will drastically reduce travel time between Guwahati and Silchar from 8.5 to 5 hours. During his two-day visit, he also inaugurated projects worth thousands of crores and laid the foundation for an agricultural college in Karimganj. A key highlight was the handing over of land ownership documents to tea garden workers, a significant welfare measure. PM Narendra Modi performs Bhoomi Pujan for the 166 km Shillong-Silchar Greenfield Corridor, a Rs 22,860 crore project to boost NE connectivity and economy. Guwahati, March 14 On the second day of his two-day visit to Assam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will perform the Bhoomi Poojan of the Shillong-Silchar Corridor, the first access-controlled Greenfield four-lane High-Speed Corridor in North-East India. The 166 km corridor, with an investment of around Rs 22,860 crore, will significantly improve connectivity between Meghalaya and Assam. The project will reduce the distance between Guwahati and Silchar and cut travel time from 8.5 hours to approximately 5 hours, boosting economic growth and cross-border trade in the region. The Prime Minister will also perform Bhoomi Poojan for an elevated corridor on NH-306 from Trunk Road near Capital Point to Rangirkhari Point in Silchar (Phase I). The project will decongest one of Silchar's busiest roads, improve connectivity with neighbouring states such as Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur, and contribute to the economic development of the Barak Valley. He will lay the foundation stone for a new College of Agriculture at Patharkandi in Karimganj district. The institution will strengthen the ecosystem of agricultural education and research in Assam and provide students from the Barak Valley and neighbouring regions access to high-quality agricultural education closer to home. The Prime Minister will also address a public rally at Ramnagar area. On March 13, the Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for various development works worth over Rs 4,570 crore in Kokrajhar, Assam. In Guwahati, the Prime Minister dedicated and initiated 13 projects worth Rs 19,577.58 crore spanning multiple sectors of hydrocarbons, power, shipping, railways, etc. at a programme held at Jyoti Bishnu Antarjataik Kala Mandir in the presence of Assam Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. At the same programme, Prime Minister Modi handed over land ownership to tea workers, ushering in a new dawn of development in the state. The Prime Minister, on the occasion, also released the 22nd PM KISAN instalment across the country. - ANI Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed the Bhoomi Pujan for the 166 km Shillong-Silchar Greenfield Corridor, a major infrastructure project aimed at drastically improving connectivity in Northeast India. The corridor, with an investment of around 22,860 crore, will cut travel time between Guwahati and Silchar from 8.5 hours to approximately 5 hours. He also laid the foundation stone for a new College of Agriculture in Karimganj to strengthen agricultural education in the Barak Valley. These initiatives are part of a series of development projects worth thousands of crores launched by the Prime Minister during his Assam visit. PM Modi performs Bhoomi Pujan for the 166 km Shillong-Silchar Greenfield Corridor and lays foundation for an Agriculture College in Karimganj, Assam. Guwahati, March 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday performed Bhoomi Poojan of the Shillong-Silchar Corridor, the first access-controlled Greenfield four-lane High-Speed Corridor in North-East India. The 166 km corridor, with an investment of around Rs 22,860 crore, will significantly improve connectivity between Meghalaya and Assam. The project will reduce the distance between Guwahati and Silchar and cut travel time from 8.5 hours to approximately 5 hours, boosting economic growth and cross-border trade in the region, according to a release. Speaking at the occasion, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "India is moving forward with the resolve to transform itself into a developed nation. On behalf of Assam, it is our endeavour that as India becomes developed, our Assam, too, will emerge as a strong and robust state. This is our goal. Elections in Assam are just around the corner. On behalf of the Barak Valley and the people of Assam, I wish to convey this message to the Prime Minister: The people of Assam will bring back the Modi government". The Prime Minister also performed Bhoomi Poojan for an elevated corridor on NH-306 from Trunk Road near Capital Point to Rangirkhari Point in Silchar (Phase I). The project will decongest one of Silchar's busiest roads, improve connectivity with neighbouring states such as Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur, and contribute to the economic development of the Barak Valley. He laid the foundation stone for a new College of Agriculture at Patharkandi in the Karimganj district. The institution will strengthen the ecosystem of agricultural education and research in Assam and provide students from the Barak Valley and neighbouring regions access to high-quality agricultural education closer to home. On March 13, the Prime Minister inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for various development works worth over Rs 4,570 crore in Kokrajhar, Assam. In Guwahati, the Prime Minister dedicated and initiated 13 projects worth Rs 19,577.58 crore spanning multiple sectors of hydrocarbons, power, shipping, railways, etc. at a programme held at Jyoti Bishnu Antarjataik Kala Mandir in the presence of Assam Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. At the same programme, Prime Minister Modi handed over land ownership to tea workers, ushering in a new dawn of development in the state. The Prime Minister, on the occasion, also released the 22nd PM KISAN instalment across the country. - ANI The Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, highlighted the deep-rooted friendship between Iran and India, spanning over five thousand years. He revealed that the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei loved India, with his first book being about the country, and consistently insisted on strong collaboration. Ilahi firmly rejected US claims that Iran seeks negotiations, stating Tehran is prepared to continue the conflict "even for five years" based on past experiences. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating West Asia crisis, urging all sides towards de-escalation and dialogue. Iran's Supreme Leader's representative reveals Ayatollah Khamenei's deep affection for India and insists on strong bilateral cooperation, while rejecting US negotiation claims. New Delhi, March 14 Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi underlined how Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted on having deeper ties with India. He underlined the historic longstanding ties between the two countries and said that Iran does not want to have any conflict or problems in the ties with India. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview to ANI. Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi said, "The friendship between Iran and India is rooted in more than five thousand years. Iranians connected to Indians through cultural, through civilization, through philosophy and spirituality. Late our Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Uzma Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the first book he wrote was about India, and it's in two volume. This means he loved India. And several times he was insisting on the good collaboration, cooperation between Iran and India." He added, "Even his son also, because whenever I was going back to Iran, I was meeting him, and he was insisting on good collaboration with India and was praising the Indians. He was saying: "They are very loyal, they are very honest, they are very kind, they are very smart, they are very good people." Ilahi further told ANI, "So we never want to have any kind of problems in our relationship and friendship, and I'm sure that there is not any conflict and any problem in our relationship which started long ago and it will continue." During the interview, he also rejected the claims made by US President Donald Trump that Tehran is seeking negotiations as the conflict in West Asia escalates, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, the representative in India of Iran's Supreme Leader, on Saturday, dismissed these assertions, saying Tehran is prepared to continue the war "even for five years". Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi firmly denied that Iran currently wants to enter into negotiations with the United States, noting that it was Washington that targeted Tehran in the middle of negotiations. "No. Never ever. Iran never wants at the moment to negotiate with them because they started this war. And we have experiences with them. Two times we were negotiating with them, and they attacked us. They targeted us," he said. Ilahi stated that Tehran would not submit to its enemies and was prepared for a prolonged conflict if necessary. Drawing parallels with the conflict between Iran and Iraq, the representative said that Iran had experience in sustaining a long war. "I don't know any deadline for this war. But what I know is that Iran is ready to continue this war to the end, even for five years. And we have experience in the war. We had eight years of experience of the war between Iran and Iraq at that time. And we are ready. And if you go to the streets of Iran, you will see all the people are there, and they are chanting for retaliation. And they say we are ready to give our blood, but we are not ready to give our land," he said. Ilahi also said Iran had attempted several times to avoid escalation in the region and had urged neighbouring countries to help prevent conflict in the Middle East. "We didn't want war. Several times, we tried to avoid any type of war in the region. Even though we informed our neighbours that they have to try to avoid the region of this war because the region cannot tolerate any more war," he said. His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. - ANI March 14 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday that the company's Terafab project to make artificial intelligence chips will launch in seven days. Musk had said last year that Tesla probably will have to build "a gigantic chip fab" to make artificial intelligence chips. Tesla is designing its fifth-generation AI chip to power its autonomous ambitions, and Musk at the company's annual meeting last year laid out potential manufacturing plans. Musk had said at the time that the EV maker could work with Intel and said, "You know, maybe we'll, we'll do something with Intel." "We haven't signed any deal, but it's probably worth having discussions with Intel," he had said. Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking more details about the project. Musk has teased the AI5 chip before and reiterated that Tesla was also partnering with Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung. The AI chips power Tesla's autonomous driving systems, including the Full Self-Driving software. "Even when we extrapolate the best-case scenario for chip production from our suppliers, it's still not enough," Musk said last year, at Tesla's AGM. "So I think we may have to do a Tesla terafab. It's like giga but way bigger. I can't see any other way to get to the volume of chips that we're looking for. So I think we're probably going to have to build a gigantic chip fab. It's got to be done," he said. (Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens) The Ram Rasoi in Ayodhya is successfully serving free meals or 'prasad' to a large number of devotees, despite false rumors on social media suggesting its closure due to the LPG cylinder crisis. Devotees from Delhi and Ambedkar Nagar have expressed gratitude for the free and good-quality food service. Meanwhile, President Droupadi Murmu is scheduled to visit Ayodhya on March 19 to participate in special Hindu New Year ceremonies at the Ram Mandir. Her itinerary includes installing sacred items, participating in Vedic prayers, and honoring workers involved in the temple's construction. Ram Rasoi in Ayodhya continues free prasad service despite false social media rumors. President Droupadi Murmu to visit for Hindu New Year rituals at Ram Mandir. Ayodhya, March 13 The Ram Rasoi in Ayodhya has been operating on a massive scale. While rumours regarding its closure have caused an uproar on social media, a large number of devotees continue to partake in the food or 'prasad' at the Ram Rasoi. Speaking to IANS, a devotee, while having her meal at the Ram Rasoi, said, "I am from Delhi. With Lord Ram's grace we are able to get 'prasad' here. It is very good . First we did 'darshan' of Hanumangarhi and Lord Ram and now we have got a chance to have this 'prasad' at Lord Ram's place. It is a great feeling." On the food being served for free she said, "Yes this 'prasad' is for free, it didn't cost us anything". Another devotee, hailing from Ambedkar Nagar, said, "We are having food at the Ram Rasoi. It is very good and free of cost. There is no problem here at all." Amid the ongoing crisis of LPG cylinders caused by the West Asia conflict, rumours have been rife on social media that the 'rasoi' might be closed. The Ram Rasoi continues to operate despite this, serving meals to devotees. Meanwhile, President Droupadi Murmu is scheduled to visit Ayodhya on March 19 to participate in a series of religious ceremonies at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as part of special celebrations marking the Hindu New Year. During the visit, President Murmu is scheduled to instal the Shri Ram Yantra and Shri Ram Naam temple on the second floor of the temple complex and take part in Vedic prayers that will begin at around 9 A.M. The rituals will be performed by 51 Vedic scholars from southern India, Kashi, and Ayodhya under the guidance of priest Ganeshwar Shastri. The President will also honour nearly 400 workers who contributed to the construction of the temple and hoist a flag at one of the temples located along the outer precinct, known as the parkota. - IANS The Israeli Air Force claims it conducted a strike in Beirut, killing Marthsa Hussein Sarour, a member of Hezbollah's aerial unit. Israel alleges Sarour was a key figure involved in producing weaponry for the militant group. The statement further accused Hezbollah of systematically embedding its operatives and weapons infrastructure within civilian areas across Lebanon. Sarour was also employed as a chemistry lecturer at the Lebanese University. Israeli Air Force claims strike eliminated Marthsa Hussein Sarour, a Hezbollah aerial unit member and chemistry lecturer involved in weapons production. Beirut, March 14 The Israeli Air Force on Saturday claimed that it carried out a strike in Beirut, killing a member of the aerial unit of the militant group Hezbollah. As per IAF, the attack was carried out on Thursday (local time). In a post on X, the Israeli Air Force said the strike targeted Marthsa Hussein Sarour, claimed as "a terrorist" near the Lebanese University. "The Air Force, under the guidance of Military Intelligence, struck and eliminated Marthsa Hussein Sarour, a terrorist in the aerial unit of the terror organisation Hezbollah (127), in the area of the Lebanese University in Beirut yesterday (Thursday)," the statement said. According to the Israeli military, Sarour was involved in weapons production for Hezbollah and was considered a key figure in the group's aerial unit. The Israeli Air Force said he was the brother of Muhammad Hussein Sarour, described as the commander of Hezbollah's aerial unit who was previously killed during an Israeli military campaign known as Operation "Arrows from the North". The statement said," The terrorist Marthsa Hussein Sarour operated under the terror organisation Hezbollah and served as a leading figure and center of expertise in the field of producing weaponry for the terror organisation. In addition, Marthsa was the brother of the terrorist Muhammad Hussein Sarour, commander of the aerial unit of the terror organisation Hezbollah who was eliminated in Operation "Arrows from the North." The statement also said Sarour worked as a chemistry lecturer at the Lebanese University in Beirut, alleging that several Hezbollah operatives employed in academic institutions simultaneously serve as technical specialists involved in weapons production for the group. It said, "Beyond his activities in the terror organisation Hezbollah, Marthsa Hussein Sarour was employed as a chemistry lecturer at the Lebanese University in Beirut. In addition to him, there are many other operatives who, parallel to their activities in the terror organisation Hezbollah as centres of expertise in the fields of production, are employed as lecturers at various universities in Lebanon." The IAF further claimed that Hezbollah operates weapons production infrastructure at multiple sites across Lebanon to increase the group's ability to manufacture its own weapons. It also accused Hezbollah of embedding operatives and infrastructure within civilian areas throughout Lebanon while carrying out militant activities. The statement said, "Production elements for the weaponry of the terror organisation Hezbollah operate at various sites across Lebanese soil to enhance the organisation's independence in supplying its weaponry. The terror organisation Hezbollah systematically takes over civilian spaces throughout the state of Lebanon in order to carry out terrorist activities and infrastructures, while embedding its operatives and commanders in the civilian space." - ANI Bharat Biotech has celebrated 30 years of operation, marking its journey from a startup on Hyderabad's outskirts to a global vaccine leader. The company was founded by Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella with the mission to create world-class, research-driven vaccines in India. Its portfolio includes landmark vaccines for Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Typhoid, and the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN, developed during the pandemic. The company reaffirms its commitment to advancing equitable healthcare and entering new fields like cell and gene therapy. Bharat Biotech celebrates three decades of developing affordable vaccines like COVAXIN and Rotavirus, advancing global public health from its Hyderabad base. Hyderabad, March 13 Bharat Biotech celebrated 30 years of scientific innovation, public health impact, and its continued commitment to protecting lives in India and around the world. Commemorating this significant milestone, the company unveiled a special anniversary logo symbolising its three-decade legacy of excellence and impact. The logo was unveiled by its founders, Krishna Ella, Executive Chairman, and Suchitra Ella, Managing Director, amid enthusiastic applause from its large workforce at its Genome Valley facility. The celebration marked the beginning of a year-long calendar of initiatives highlighting the company's journey and reaffirming its focus on advancing global health. Founded in 1996 by Krishna Ella, widely regarded as the Father of Genome Valley, and Suchitra Ella, a driving force behind India's vaccine innovation ecosystem, Bharat Biotech began its journey on the outskirts of Hyderabad with a bold vision to build world-class, research-driven vaccines in India. Over three decades, Bharat Biotech has helped position India as a trusted innovator and supplier of affordable, high-quality vaccines to the world. Reflecting on the milestone, Krishna Ella said, "Thirty years ago, we started Bharat Biotech with a simple but powerful belief that Indian science can solve global health challenges. Our strength has always been our scientists, our proprietary technologies, and our commitment to innovation with purpose. Every vaccine we developed carries the hard work of teams who believed that affordable healthcare is a right, not a privilege." Suchitra K Ella expressed, "This journey is about people, the researchers in our labs, the partners who trusted us, and the families whose lives have been protected by our vaccines. We built our own intellectual property, our own manufacturing strengths, and our own scientific platforms because we believed India must lead, not follow. As we enter advanced cell and gene therapy, we remain guided by the same mission: science for society." From its early breakthrough in developing one of the world's most affordable recombinant Hepatitis B vaccines, Bharat Biotech established itself as a pioneer in accessible vaccine innovation, focused on addressing infectious and neglected diseases that disproportionately affect emerging nations. Over the years, the company has developed and supplied vaccines that form an integral part of national and global immunisation programs, including vaccines against Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Malaria (RTS, S), and Typhoid Conjugate Disease, reinforcing its commitment to advancing equitable healthcare worldwide. A defining milestone in the company's journey was the development of its indigenous Rotavirus vaccine through an Indo-U.S. public-private partnership, aimed at protecting millions of children from life-threatening diarrheal disease. Reinforcing its commitment to equitable access, Krishna Ella pledged to make the vaccine available at an affordable price of just US$1 per dose for public health programs, an unprecedented step that emphasised the company's mission to deliver high-quality, life-saving vaccines at scale for the developing world. The company's Japanese Encephalitis vaccine significantly strengthened India's response to a recurring and often fatal seasonal threat. It further advanced global immunisation efforts with the development and introduction of a pioneering Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV), expanding access to longer-lasting protection against typhoid fever, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The company is also advancing MTBVAC, a tuberculosis vaccine candidate, as part of ongoing efforts to address the global TB burden. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bharat Biotech demonstrated its scientific agility with the rapid development of COVAXIN, India's first indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine. Developed under a public-private partnership in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research, COVAXIN emerged as a powerful symbol of India's scientific capability and self-reliance. The vaccine received Emergency Use Authorisation in multiple countries and played a meaningful role in global vaccination efforts during one of the most challenging public health crises in modern history. Bharat Biotech has also established global leadership in rabies prevention, emerging as the world's largest manufacturer of rabies vaccines and playing a critical role in expanding access to life-saving post-exposure prophylaxis. Reinforcing its commitment to scale and next-generation innovation, the company established Sapigen Biologix at the Odisha Biotech Park--an ambitious life sciences ecosystem envisioned by Krishna Ella to catalyse regional biotechnology development to address global public health priorities. Recently, Bharat Biotech stepped into the future with advanced research in cell and gene therapies through Nucelion Therapeutics, expanding beyond traditional vaccines into next-generation biotechnology solutions. This move reflects the company's ambition to tackle complex diseases through precision science, innovative platforms, and transformative technologies. Over the past 30 years, Bharat Biotech has grown from a single facility in Hyderabad into a global vaccine powerhouse. Today, the company boasts a portfolio of 20 vaccines, world-class manufacturing sites in Hyderabad, Ankleshwar, and Odisha, and a robust intellectual property portfolio with over 220 granted patents. With a growing workforce of over 4,000 employees, and having delivered more than 9 billion doses of vaccines to over 125 countries. - ANI The Bihar Department of Food and Consumer Protection has established a control room in Patna to address public grievances related to oil and LPG availability. The control room will operate daily from 7 AM to 9 PM, providing a dedicated contact number for consumers to report issues. Despite district officials claiming adequate stock, tense scenes and long queues were reported in several districts including Katihar and Sasaram, with one woman fainting in a crowd. In Araria, authorities seized 135 illegally hoarded cylinders in a major raid aimed at curbing black marketing. Bihar establishes a control room in Patna to address LPG cylinder shortages and complaints. Contact number and operational details inside. Patna, March 13 Amid concerns over the availability of cooking gas across Bihar, the Department of Food and Consumer Protection, Bihar, has set up a control room in Patna to address public grievances related to oil and Liquefied Petroleum Gas. The control room has been established to provide prompt assistance to consumers facing difficulties in obtaining LPG cylinders. It will remain operational daily from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM, during which residents from across the state can lodge complaints or seek information regarding LPG availability and distribution. Consumers can contact the departmental control room at 0612-2233050 to report issues. Officials said the department will take immediate cognisance of complaints and ensure necessary action is taken. The department has also urged people not to panic and instead contact the control room for quick resolution of their problems. Meanwhile, Tyagarajan SM, the District Magistrate of Patna, said there is no shortage of LPG in the district. He added that the administration is keeping a strict watch on hoarders and black marketers, while a control room has been established to address public grievances. However, the situation appeared tense in Katihar, where long queues formed outside gas agencies despite the administration claiming that adequate stock was available and that reports of shortages were merely rumours. Amid the crowd of people waiting to refill their cylinders, one woman reportedly fainted. In Araria, the administration conducted a major raid under the leadership of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and seized 135 LPG cylinders allegedly stored illegally for black marketing. Officials said the cylinders were recovered from a warehouse where they had been hoarded. A similar situation was witnessed in Sasaram, where consumers gathered outside gas agencies from early morning. Many residents said they had been standing in queues since 5:00 AM, waiting to refill their LPG cylinders. Hundreds of people carrying cylinders were seen outside several agencies. Locals said the shortage was causing difficulties, particularly as the holy month of Ramadan is currently underway, and families require cooking gas for daily meals. The administration has assured that strict action will be taken against hoarding and black marketing, while efforts are being made to ensure smooth LPG supply across the state. - IANS The Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme, launched in 2020, is providing crucial support to micro-entrepreneurs across India. Veeru Rajak, a beneficiary from Bihar, used a scheme loan to start a successful mushroom business that now supports his family and employs others. The scheme offers financial, technical, and business assistance to help units become competitive and formalized. It employs an One District One Product approach to boost local economies, reduce waste, and create rural jobs. A Bihar mushroom farmer shares how the PMFME scheme loan transformed his life, providing income, education for his children, and jobs for others. Patna, March 14 One of the parameters to measure the success of a government depends on how far its policies are able to benefit people at the grassroot level. The Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme is one such example. Launched in June 2020, the PMFME scheme focuses on the growth and formalisation of micro food units across the country. The scheme is part of the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan' and supports the Vocal for Local vision in the food processing sector. It provides financial, technical and business assistance to entrepreneurs for setting up new units or upgrading existing ones. The scheme aims to make micro enterprises more competitive, bring them into the organised sector and unlock new growth opportunities. Veeru Rajak, a beneficiary from Sheikhpura in Bihar, told IANS, "With this loan granted under the PMFME scheme, I started my mushroom business, and now I can sustain my family through this. My children are now receiving a good education, and about 10-15 people are also working here." Speaking about his business, Rajak said, "After growing the mushrooms, I supply them throughout the city. I also sell it directly in the vegetable market." He further added, "Earlier, I used to do small jobs at my house, but I was not able to make ends meet with that. I built this business of mine after taking the loan granted by the government. Now I am happy with my work and also getting a good income, and I can take good care of my family." Rajak also appealed to the government to make more people avail this benefit. "It is a good scheme of the government. I thank the government for this and also appeal that it let more people benefit through this loan, which will also increase their sources of income," he said. The scheme further aims to provide direct support to 2 lakh micro food processing units through credit-linked subsidies. It also seeks to create common infrastructure and strengthen institutional support to drive faster growth in the sector. It follows the One District One Product (ODOP) approach to scale up procurement, services, and marketing. States identify products, with priority on perishables such as fruits, vegetables, spices, fisheries, and traditional foods like honey and turmeric. Support is focused on processing, storage, branding, and reducing wastage. Through its ODOP focus, common infrastructure, skill training, and access to credit, the PMFME provides small entrepreneurs with the tools to grow and compete. By reducing wastage, improving value addition, and promoting branding, the scheme not only boosts farmers' and producers' incomes but also creates jobs and supports rural development. - IANS India's captive, commercial, and other coal mines have collectively crossed the landmark production of 200 million tonnes during FY 2025-26. The sector achieved this milestone 24 days ahead of the previous fiscal year's total, demonstrating strong momentum with a 10.56% year-on-year growth. Coal dispatch also maintained steady growth, rising 7.71% to meet the country's energy requirements. The Ministry of Coal attributes this success to forward-looking policies, technological innovation, and the dedication of the workforce, reinforcing coal's pivotal role in India's energy security and industrial progress. India's captive, commercial & other coal mines achieve historic 200 MT production in FY26, marking 10.56% growth and strengthening energy security. New Delhi, March 13 India's coal sector has achieved a significant milestone as Captive/Commercial & Other mines crossed the landmark of 200 Million Tonnes of coal production on March 11, 2026, during FY 2025-26, according to the statement released by the Ministry of Coal. This achievement reflects the collective efforts and unwavering commitment of various Central and State Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs/SPSUs) along with private sector participants, whose relentless work and resilience have played a crucial role in strengthening the nation's coal production. Out of the total production, Captive and Commercial Coal Mines contributed 194.17 Million Tonnes (MT), while Other mines have contributed 6.06 MT, taking the overall production beyond the historic 200 MT mark, the statement added. Notably, coal production in FY 2025-26 surpassed the total production of FY 2024-25 (197.32 MT) on March 7 2026, achieving this milestone 24 days ahead of last year. The sector has thus continued to demonstrate strong momentum, recording a year-on-year growth of 10.56 per cent during the same period. Furthermore, Coal dispatch has also maintained a steady upward trajectory, registering a 7.71 per cent year-on-year growth, increasing from 182.98 MT to 197.09 MT. This sustained rise in dispatch reflects the sector's growing capacity to meet the country's energy requirements while ensuring a reliable coal supply to key consuming sectors. The Ministry of Coal remains committed to further advancing captive and commercial coal mining as a key driver of India's energy ecosystem. Supported by forward-looking policies, technological innovation, and the dedication of the mining workforce, the sector continues to expand its contribution to national growth. These achievements reaffirm coal's pivotal role in ensuring a reliable energy supply, supporting industrial progress, and reinforcing the vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, as India progresses on its path towards becoming a Viksit Bharat by 2047. - ANI The Ministry of Home Affairs has revoked the detention of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act with immediate effect. The government stated the decision aims to foster peace and stability in Ladakh to facilitate meaningful dialogue with stakeholders. Wangchuk was detained in September 2025 following a law and order situation in Leh, having served nearly half of his detention period. The Supreme Court was scheduled for a final hearing on a plea challenging his detention this month. The MHA revokes climate activist Sonam Wangchuk's detention under the National Security Act, citing a commitment to dialogue in Ladakh. New Delhi, March 14 The government has decided to revoke the detention of Sonam Wangchuk with immediate effect by exercising the powers available under the National Security Act, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Saturday. MHA said the government remains committed to fostering an environment of peace, stability, and mutual trust in Ladakh so as to facilitate constructive and meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders, and that the decision to revoke Wangchuk's detention has been taken in furtherance of this "objective and after due consideration". It further said that the government has been actively engaging with various stakeholders and community leaders in Ladakh with a view to addressing the aspirations and concerns of the people of the region. However, the MHA pointed out, the prevailing atmosphere of bandhs and protests has been detrimental to the peace-loving character of the society and has adversely affected various sections of the community, including students, job aspirants, businesses, tour operators, tourists and the overall economy. "The government reiterates its commitment to providing all necessary safeguards for Ladakh. It remains hopeful that the issues concerning the region will be resolved through constructive engagement and dialogue, including through the mechanism of the High-Powered Committee as well as other appropriate platforms," added the MHA. In the backdrop of the serious law and order situation that arose in the peace-loving town of Leh on September 24, 2025, Wangchuk was detained on September 26, 2025, under the provisions of the NSA pursuant to an order issued by the District Magistrate, Leh, with a view to maintaining public order. Wangchuk has already undergone nearly half of the period of detention under the said Act. Earlier, on February 26, the Supreme Court scheduled the final hearing on a plea challenging climate activist Sonam Wangchuk's detention under the National Security Act for March 10. The Court also questioned whether his speeches and social media posts could legitimately be interpreted as provocative and linked to the Leh violence of September 24, 2025. - ANI Simone Ledward-Boseman, Chadwick Boseman's widow, has shared the acceptance speech she wrote for the 2021 Oscars, where he was posthumously nominated for Best Actor. The emotional speech, discovered on her computer, thanks God and his family while celebrating his artistic integrity and humanity. Boseman, who died in 2020, was widely expected to win for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," but the award went to Anthony Hopkins. His legacy, particularly through "Black Panther," remains a powerful force in popular culture. Simone Ledward-Boseman reveals the speech she prepared for Chadwick Boseman's 2021 Best Actor Oscar win, honoring his legacy five years later. Washington, March 14 Chadwick Boseman's widow, Simone Ledward-Boseman, has shared the speech she would have given at the 2021 Oscars if the late actor had won the Best Actor award for his role in the film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Boseman, who was married to Chadwick before his death at 43 in 2020, shared the speech in The Hollywood Reporter's oral history of the 2021 Oscars, published on Friday, March 13, five years later. Chadwick Boseman passed away in 2020 at the age of 43 after battling cancer. Many people expected that he would win the Best Actor award at the 2021 Oscars for his performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. However, the award went to Anthony Hopkins. The speech, according to The Hollywood Reporter, read: "I will never stop thanking God for you. Thank you to the most high God. Thank you, Carolyn and Leroy Boseman [Chadwick's parents], and your mothers, and your mothers' mothers. What purity. What honesty. What pain. What a role. What work." Ledward-Boseman's speech, which she told the outlet she found on her computer, continued: "What beautiful, intricate humanity. What courage, bravery, fearlessness, honesty, commitment, humanity, strength. A spirit that refused to surrender to despair. What an actor. What an artist. What a cast. What a team. What a vision. Glory be to the most high God. Long live the King." The 2021 Oscars ceremony took place during the pandemic and was produced by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh along with Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher. Late Hollywood star Chadwick Boseman, who was born on November 29, 1976, was an actor whose iconic on-screen body of work will be remembered for years to come. Boseman's impact is still deeply ingrained in popular culture. His breakthrough performance in Black Panther made the movie the first superhero film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. His other film credits include Get on Up, Marshall, 42, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, among others. - ANI Mizoram celebrated its traditional spring festival, Chapchar Kut 2026, with grandeur in Aizawl, featuring vibrant dances, cultural exhibitions, and a large gathering of locals and tourists. Chief Minister Lalduhoma, as the chief guest, emphasized the festival's historical role in fostering reconciliation and unity, urging people to embrace this spirit. The week-long event, themed "The Beauty of Zo Culture: Harmony," included handicraft displays, food courts, and film screenings. Other dignitaries present included Governor V. K. Singh and Art Minister C. Lalsawivunga, who helped host the successful celebrations. Mizoram celebrated Chapchar Kut 2026 in Aizawl. CM Lalduhoma called for unity, highlighting the festival's theme of "The Beauty of Zo Culture: Harmony." Aizawl, March 13 Mizoram's traditional spring festival Chapchar Kut 2026 was celebrated with great enthusiasm and cultural splendour in the state capital Aizawl on Friday, with Chief Minister Lalduhoma calling for harmony and unity among the people. Chapchar Kut, the most joyous festival of the Mizo community, is observed in spring after the completion of jhum cutting, the initial stage of the traditional slash-and-burn farming practice. The festival marks the end of winter and the arrival of spring, symbolising renewal in nature and human life. People of all ages and genders participate in the celebrations. Dressed in vibrant traditional attire, young men and women perform traditional dances, often continuing late into the night. Chief Minister Lalduhoma attended the event as the Kut Pa (Chief Guest), while Art and Culture Minister C. Lalsawivunga hosted the celebration as the Kut Thlengtu. Mizoram Governor V. K. Singh (Retd.) was also present at the grand event. The theme of this year's festival was "Zo Nun Ze Mawi - Inremna", which translates to "The Beauty of Zo Culture: Harmony". The week-long celebrations began on March 9 with the traditional Kut Tlan ceremony. Various programmes were organised throughout the week, including exhibitions of handloom, textiles and handicrafts, a food processing showcase and food court, a flower show, a living museum demonstrating traditional Mizo life, photo and painting exhibitions, and Chapchar Kut film screenings. The main celebration on Friday served as the highlight of the festivities. A large number of tourists from across India and abroad, along with ethnic Mizo communities from neighbouring Northeastern states, attended the festival. Addressing the gathering, Lalduhoma extended his greetings to Zo people around the world and wished everyone a joyful Chapchar Kut. He noted that the forefathers of the Mizo people celebrated the festival in happiness and harmony, traditionally avoiding quarrels during the celebrations. He said the festival was historically a time for reconciliation and unity, adding that this year's theme perfectly reflects the spirit of Chapchar Kut. The Chief Minister also highlighted that harmony and reconciliation were highly valued in traditional Mizo society. According to him, customary justice systems practised principles such as "Chalrem" and "Saui Tan." He stressed that true reconciliation requires the courage to accept responsibility and admit mistakes. Acknowledging one's faults without blaming others, he said, often leads to peace and reconciliation. Lalduhoma also urged people to exercise caution while posting or commenting on social media, stating that creating hostility in politics is not part of Mizo culture. "Even when disagreements arise in debates or discussions, Mizo society traditionally maintains mutual respect and friendship afterwards," he said, urging people to renew harmony and unity in the spirit of the festival. Art and Culture Minister C. Lalsawivunga also extended his best wishes for the celebration and thanked everyone involved in organising the successful event. Central Young Mizo Association (YMA) President R. Lalngheta expressed gratitude that the Mizo people were once again able to celebrate the important festival. He encouraged people to cherish the occasion and practise the theme of "Inremna" (Harmony) in their lives to strengthen unity within the Mizo community. During the event, Chief Minister Lalduhoma presented the Chief Minister's Special Awards to recognise distinguished individuals. Historians trace the origin of Chapchar Kut to between 1450 and 1700 AD in the village of Suaipui, near present-day Myanmar. The festival declined after the arrival of Christian missionaries in the late 19th century, who discouraged it on religious grounds. However, it was revived on a large scale in 1973, without animistic practices or alcohol. - IANS Authorities in Chhattisgarh have seized 741 domestic LPG cylinders from 102 locations in a statewide crackdown on hoarding and black marketing. The raids, led by the state Food Department and district administrations, targeted suspected storage facilities following reports of illegal stocking. The highest number of seizures occurred in Raipur, where 392 cylinders were confiscated, followed by Bilaspur with 130. Officials warn of strict legal action against those involved, emphasizing that such hoarding creates artificial shortages and public inconvenience. Authorities in Chhattisgarh seize 741 domestic LPG cylinders from 102 locations to combat hoarding and black marketing amid global supply concerns. New Delhi, March 14 Authorities in Chhattisgarh seized 741 LPG cylinders on Saturday from 102 locations across the state as part of a major crackdown on hoarding and black marketing of cooking gas amid concerns triggered by the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict. According to officials, teams from the state Food Department, along with district administration authorities, have been carrying out surprise inspections at suspected storage locations to prevent illegal hoarding of domestic LPG cylinders. The inspections are being conducted to ensure the uninterrupted supply of cooking gas to consumers and to stop illegal traders from taking advantage of the international crisis. An official statement released on Friday said that the raids were conducted across several districts following reports that some traders were illegally stocking LPG cylinders in anticipation of supply disruptions and higher prices. "So far, 741 cylinders have been seized from 102 locations across the state," the statement said. The highest number of seizures was reported from Raipur, where authorities confiscated 392 domestic LPG cylinders during multiple inspections. This was followed by Bilaspur, where 130 cylinders were seized during enforcement operations. Officials said that several inspections were carried out at warehouses, shops, and other suspected storage facilities where cylinders were allegedly being hoarded. Authorities warned that strict legal action would be taken against individuals found involved in illegal stocking, diversion, or black marketing of LPG cylinders. The administration has also urged citizens to report any suspicious activities related to LPG supply or illegal sales so that immediate action can be taken. Officials emphasised that hoarding essential commodities such as cooking gas during times of uncertainty can create artificial shortages and cause inconvenience to the public. Meanwhile, a similar case of LPG black marketing was uncovered in Mumbai earlier in the day, where officials raided a residential location in the Worli area and seized a large number of illegally stored gas cylinders. Authorities found that the cylinders were allegedly being stored and refilled illegally before being sold at inflated prices in the black market. Police have registered a case in connection with the incident and seized the cylinders along with a transport vehicle, while further investigations are currently underway. Authorities across states have intensified monitoring to prevent such illegal activities and ensure the safe and fair distribution of LPG cylinders. - IANS Solar panels have become a popular option for American homeowners looking to shrink their carbon footprint and cut monthly utility bills. Many buyers finance their solar panels with loans often counting on a federal tax credit to offset part of the upfront cost and expect to see years of lower energy bills. But that equation can fall apart quickly if the installer turns out to be unlicensed, inexperienced or outright fraudulent. Must Read New York City is combating that problem in its recent lawsuit against Radiant Solar, a local installation company the city claims has ripped off hundreds of homeowners who tried to join the renewables revolution (1). The solar scam Prompted by a CBS News New York investigation, the citys Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) found that clients who purchased solar panels from Radiant Solar did not see the savings promised by the installer. "We've identified several hundred victims of the scheme, DCWP Commissioner Samual Levine told CBS. We think there might be more out there." The suit seeks the return of the homeowners money, but some may be locked into installation loans and are now unsure if those will get cancelled. Attorneys for Radiant Solar told CBS that although the company is no longer in business, it had been committed to quality service and clear, transparent pricing about potential savings. Former customers, however, tell a different story. Several say the promised savings never materialized and transparency was hard to find. One client even claimed the panels were installed facing the wrong direction away from optimal sun exposure. "Southern exposure is where we get the most sunlight, and I point out that he's setting up the panels in the wrong direction," homeowner Arthur Klein told CBS. "It really got me upset." Other homeowners reported roof damage, leaking and unauthorized drilling by the installers. One homeowner said Radiant Solar would not cover damages when his ceiling collapsed after installation. The more troubling issue, according to customers, was the promise of dramatic energy savings even $0 electric bills. Instead, some homeowners say they were left paying high monthly utility costs while also carrying loans for the solar installation. China has announced it will provide $200,000 in aid to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun condemned attacks on civilians and called for an immediate halt to military operations by all parties involved in the West Asia conflict. He emphasized the critical importance of maintaining stability in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global trade and energy route. China also expressed willingness to communicate with all sides to de-escalate tensions and restore peace. China provides $200,000 aid to Iranian Red Crescent, calls for end to military ops in West Asia, and stresses Strait of Hormuz stability. Beijing, March 13 Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Friday that China will be providing the Iranian Red Crescent Society with aid worth USD 200,000, reported China Daily. He also said that Beijing condemned indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets Earlier, Jiakun expressed China's willingness to remain in touch with all the parties involved in the West Asia conflict to de-escalate the issue, reported China Daily. Addressing mediapersons, Jiakun said, "Will continue to strengthen communication with all relevant parties, including the parties directly involved in the conflict, and play a constructive role in easing tensions and restoring peace in the MiddleEast." Jiakun also said that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also criticized US and Israel for breaking international law while still holding peace talks with Iran. Before this, China expressed concern over the functional blockage of the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing West Asia conflict and called on "relevant parties" to immediately halt military operations and avoid further escalation. Addressing a press conference, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said stability in the region is crucial as the Strait of Hormuz is a vital route for global trade and energy supplies."The Strait of Hormuz and waters nearby are an important route for international goods and energy trade. Keeping the region safe and stable serves the common interests of the international community," Guo said. He urged all parties, particularly the US, Israel and Iran, involved in the conflict to prioritise de-escalation and prevent the crisis from affecting the global economy." China urges parties to stop the military operations at once, avoid further escalation, and prevent the regional turmoil from having a larger impact on global economic growth," he said. Reiterating Beijing's position, the spokesperson said the immediate priority should be to end hostilities and stop tensions from spreading further in the region."The pressing priority now is that relevant parties should stop the military operations at once, avoid further escalation and spread of tensions, and prevent the regional turmoil from having a larger impact on global economic growth," Guo added. - ANI Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma inaugurated a state-level Sanitation Week in Jaipur, linking the cleanliness mission to the broader vision of a developed India and Rajasthan by 2047. He highlighted a significant increase in public awareness and behavioral transformation regarding sanitation over the past decade. The celebration week from March 14 to 19 will feature a packed schedule including a 'Viksit Rajasthan Run', ODOP exhibitions, foundation stone ceremonies, and dialogues with industrialists. The events will culminate with the flagging off of 207 roadways buses and cultural programs across the state. CM Bhajan Lal Sharma kicks off state-level Sanitation Week in Jaipur, linking cleanliness to the vision of a Developed India and Rajasthan by 2047. Jaipur, March 14 Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Saturday inaugurated a state-level Sanitation Week in Jaipur as part of the Rajasthan Day celebrations. Rajasthan Day is celebrated every year on March 30 to mark the formation of the state of Rajasthan. Highlighting an increase in public awareness regarding sanitation, the CM said, "When we speak of cleanliness within our homes and families, one can observe a remarkable increase in public awareness regarding sanitation over the past 8 to 10 years. The scope of this mission is not limited merely to the cleaning of roads and drains; rather, it has also brought about a profound transformation in people's behaviour. The dream of a 'Developed India by 2047' and a 'Developed Rajasthan by 2047' will be realised only when every home, every street, every park, and every monument is clean..." During the celebration week, various cultural programmes and commemorative events will be organised across the state from March 14 to 19. On March 15, 'Viksit Rajasthan Run' will be organised, and the fair and exhibition of ODOP (One District One Product) will be organised in the state. On March 16, the laying of the foundation stone for various development projects and an exhibition will be organised while Rajasthan Yuva Shakti Diwas will be observed on March 17. Events on March 18 include Aarti in all government temples, which includes a Maha-Aarti at the Govind Dev Ji Temple, and a groundbreaking ceremony for investment proposals. It will also feature dialogues with industrialists and the distribution of employment letters for the private sector. The celebrations will culminate on March 19 with the flagging off of 207 roadways buses and cultural programs at both the state and district levels. - ANI CM Stalin announces Rs 2 per unit subsidy for eateries adopting electric stoves amid LPG shortage, with loan schemes for MSMEs and fuel relaxations. Chennai, March 14 A review meeting under the leadership of Tamil Nadu MK Stalin was held at the Secretariat on Saturday to discuss measures required to address the difficulties faced by industries and various sectors, including the food sector, due to the LPG shortage in Tamil Nadu caused by the war-like situation in the Gulf region, and to ensure that their operations continue smoothly. Speaking to the media after the meeting, Chairman & Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Power Generation and Distribution Corporation J Radhakrishnan said that on February 28 last month, the United States and Israel launched a joint military attack on Iran. Following this, the Iranian government blocked ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Due to this, the supply of crude oil and LPG to India from the Gulf region was disrupted. Following today's review meeting, chaired by the Chief Minister with senior government officials, several decisions were taken by the Tamil Nadu Government, according to a release. The Chief Minister announced that restaurants, tea shops, cloud kitchens, and other food production units that switch from LPG to electric stoves will receive a subsidy of 2 per unit for the additional electricity consumed. This subsidy will remain in force for the duration of the restrictions on commercial LPG usage imposed by the Central Government. To help Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Tamil Nadu manage the current LPG crisis, the Chief Minister has ordered the provision of loans with subsidies for purchasing electric equipment, such as electric stoves and heaters. Under the Unemployed Youth Employment Generation Programme (UYEGP), eligible entrepreneurs can avail of a 25% subsidy up to 3.75 lakh, while the Tamil Nadu Women Entrepreneurship Development Scheme offers a 25% subsidy, capped at 2 lakh, for loans up to 10 lakh to empower women-led businesses, the release noted. Additionally, for the promotion of SC/ST entrepreneurs, the Annai Ambedkar Business Champions Scheme provides a higher 35% capital subsidy, up to a maximum of 1 crore, encouraging the adoption of high-efficiency electric machinery. In Tamil Nadu, 60,698 factories are operating with consent from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, using fuels such as LPG, CNG, diesel, furnace oil, and firewood. These industries will now be allowed to temporarily switch to alternative fuels such as kerosene, RDF, HSD, and biomass instead of LPG and CNG. They will not be required to obtain fresh CTE/CTO approval from the Pollution Control Board; only prior intimation will suffice. This relaxation will remain in effect during the period of restrictions on LPG and CNG usage announced by the Central Government. Across Tamil Nadu, 9,300 primary milk producers' cooperative societies have the capacity to procure and handle 55 lakh litres of milk per day. Due to the current situation, excess milk produced by farmers will be procured without restrictions by Aavin milk cooperative societies. Due to the LPG shortage, if restaurants are forced to close, the sale of vegetables produced by farmers may be affected. Considering the livelihood of farmers, they will be allowed to sell their vegetables and fruits without restrictions in 194 Uzhavar Sandhais (farmers' markets) across the state. Additionally, to monitor the proper allocation of LPG cylinders to commercial establishments, the Chief Minister has ordered the formation of a state-level monitoring committee under the supervision of the Chief Secretary, consisting of senior government officials. Similarly, district-level monitoring committees led by District Collectors, including officials from oil distribution companies, will oversee the distribution. Furthermore, an additional 3,228 kilolitres of kerosene have been supplied this month to ration card holders under the Public Distribution System (PDS). State Government Oil Companies Coordinator assured that preparations are adequate, urging the people not to panic. "Petrol and diesel stocks are sufficient for one month, and further arrangements will also be made. There is no need for the public to panic. Due to rumours, petrol and diesel sales have doubled. Gas cylinders are normally supplied in urban areas once every 25 days, and there is sufficient stock for up to one month. LPG supplies will be prioritized for hospitals, schools, and college hostels," he said. Regarding the LPG shortage in Tamil Nadu, a review meeting chaired by the Chief Minister was also held on March 10, where directions were given to the concerned departments to take appropriate measures to address the fuel restrictions. As per the Chief Minister's instructions, the Minister for Food and Civil Supplies held a meeting on March 11 with representatives of industry and trade associations and hotel and restaurant associations. In addition, the Chief Secretary conducted review meetings on March 9, 12, and 13 with the secretaries of relevant departments, following the Chief Minister's directions. During the meeting chaired by the Food and Civil Supplies Minister, industry associations and the Tamil Nadu Hotel Owners Association submitted several demands, as per the release. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Muruganandam, Additional Chief Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Forests Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary and Chairman & Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Power Generation and Distribution Corporation J Radhakrishnan, Additional Chief Secretary for Home, Prohibition and Excise, Dheeraj Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary for MSMEs Atul Anand, Principal Secretary for Municipal Administration and Water Supply Karthikeyan, Secretary for Industries, Investment Promotion and Commerce Arun Roy, Secretary for Cooperation, Food and Consumer Protection K.S. Palanisamy, Secretary for Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development, Fisheries and Fishermen Welfare Subbaiyan, Director of Food Supply S. Sivarasu, and other senior government officials. - ANI Iran's representative in India has defended recent missile strikes on Gulf countries, stating they target US military bases used against Tehran. He claimed Iran warned neighbors not to host these bases, but attacks originating from them continued. The conflict escalated following the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader in joint US-Israel strikes. In retaliation, Iran has targeted assets in the Gulf and Israel, leading to the closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Supreme Leader representative defends strikes on Gulf nations, cites US military bases as targets. Conflict escalates, Strait of Hormuz closed. New Delhi, March 14 The representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, on Saturday defended Iran's attacks on neighbouring Gulf countries amid the West Asia conflict, saying that the strikes are aimed at US-backed bases used against Tehran and are part of self-defence measures taken by the regime. In an interview with ANI, Ilahi said Iran has been in the region for thousands of years and is compelled to act against attacks originating from foreign bases. He added that the United States has established 33 to 45 military bases around Iran and that Tehran had asked its neighbours not to allow these bases to be used against Iran by the US, but attacks continued. "We were living in this region for more than ten thousand, twenty thousand, one million years. We were in this region. When there wasn't even America yet, we were in this region. And you know America is far from Iran, more than six thousand miles--roughly seven thousand miles. It's far from Iran. Never can America attack us and target Iran from New York, Washington or California. America should use some bases near Iran. Where are these bases which America uses? Exactly. America established thirty-three, and yesterday I heard from some American senators, forty-five bases around Iran," the representative said. "We said to our neighbours before the war that, please, they should not provide American bases, and these bases should not be used against Iran. And they informed us that they will not allow America to use it, and they assured us that they don't want this to happen. But unfortunately, it's happened," he added. Ilahi further claimed that the missiles that struck the Primary Girls' School in Minab, which killed over 180 people, including schoolgirls, came from Bahrain. Earlier, CNN, citing sources, reported that the US accidentally struck the school, relying on outdated data. Responding to questions about civilian casualties, including Indian nationals in the conflict, Ilahi acknowledged the loss of innocent lives but said responsibility lies with those who initiated the war. "Actually, the war is unfair. They initiated the war. I say to the people in the world: they are suffering. Why do the leaders of these countries criticise the war? It is better to ask the aggressors why they initiated it and caused people to suffer," he added. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Due to the conflict in the region, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply. - ANI The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has confirmed executing the 48th wave of its retaliatory "Operation True Promise 4," targeting Israeli locations in the north and American bases across the region. The attacks employed a mix of solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles, liquid-fuel Qadr missiles, and attack drones. This follows the 47th wave which struck the Negev Desert, the tech hub of Be'er Sheva, and the critical US airbase at al-Udaid in Qatar. The IRGC has also intensified a psychological campaign, sending Hebrew warning messages to residents in the occupied territories. Iran's IRGC launches new missile and drone strikes on Israeli and US targets, warning of "days of darkness" in latest phase of Operation True Promise 4. Tehran, March 14 The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign, targeting various Israeli and American installations, according to reports by state broadcaster Press TV. In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC announced the "successful execution of the 48th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against Zionist and American targets." This latest offensive was reportedly carried out in coordination with the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah. Military officials identified the primary targets within the occupied territories as being situated in the northern sector, specifically focusing on "Galilee, Golan, and the occupied city of Haifa." Beyond these areas, several "American bases throughout the region" were also struck during this stage of the conflict. According to Press TV, the 48th wave utilised a sophisticated mix of weaponry, including "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles, liquid-fuel Qadr missiles, and attack drones." This follows the earlier completion of the 47th wave, which took place on Friday. The previous 47th phase targeted strategic locations such as the "Negev Desert, including Nevatim," which is home to one of the largest airbases in the region. Other strikes were directed at "Be'er Sheva," described as a technological hub, and the city of "Lod." Notably, the IRGC also reported hitting "al-Udaid," identified as the "United States' most important airbase in the West Asia region," located in Qatar. The operation further extended to the "hiding places of the anti-Iran Komala terrorist group," employing both "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles and liquid-fuel Qadr missiles." Press TV further reported that during the 46th wave, which also occurred on Friday, the IRGC utilised "Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Qadr missiles." Highlighting the impact on the ground, the Corps noted the psychological toll of the strikes, stating, "Siren to siren and a scramble to enter shelters, this is the current state of the Zionists at this moment." Since the onset of hostilities late last month, the IRGC has reportedly deployed "hundreds of ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well as attack drones." On the defensive front, the Corps claimed to have downed five invading aircraft on Friday, including "Orbiter 4, Hermes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones." Military records cited by the state broadcaster indicate that a total of "114 reconnaissance and combat drones" have been neutralised by Iran's "advanced air defense systems" since the start of the aggression. In a final escalation of the psychological campaign, the IRGC has reportedly begun sending Hebrew text messages to residents within the occupied territories. The warning message stated, "By the permission of God, we will bring upon you days of darkness in which you will wish for death, but you will not find it." - ANI Flight operations in the Washington, DC region have resumed after a reported chemical odour at the Potomac TRACON facility in Virginia forced a temporary ground stop. The incident, which affected major airports including Reagan National and Dulles, was traced to an overheated circuit board that was replaced. The disruption caused widespread cancellations and delays, with passengers stranded for hours with limited information. While the site is now safe and delays are decreasing, travel schedules are expected to remain volatile through the weekend. A chemical odour at a key Virginia air traffic facility caused a massive ground stop, cancelling and delaying hundreds of flights across DC-area airports. Washington, DC, March 14 Flight operations across the Washington, DC region resumed following a temporary suspension triggered by reports of a "chemical odour" at a key air traffic control facility. In a post on X on Friday, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the resolution of the incident, stating, "The ground stop is over and operations have resumed." He further noted that emergency services had cleared the site, adding, "Firefighters from Fauquier County and Prince William County confirm there is no danger to air traffic controllers." The disruption initially threw air travel across the region into chaos, halting arrivals and departures at several major hubs. According to Duffy, "The temporary ground stop affected Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) and Richmond International Airport (RIC)." Following the safety clearance, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the emergency status to ground delays, with authorities confirming that services are gradually returning to regular schedules. Providing further context on X, Secretary Duffy explained that the disruptions stemmed from the "temporary closure of a crucial air traffic control centre in Virginia" after "FAA employees reported a strong chemical smell in the building." This facility, Potomac TRACON in Warrenton, manages the airspace for the entire region. Emergency services and a HAZMAT team eventually found that the issue was "traced to a circuit board that had overheated and was subsequently replaced". Following the repairs, over 30 FAA staff members were medically assessed and cleared to return to their posts. Despite the site being deemed safe, the fallout has been extensive. CNN reported that flight cancellations are beginning to "tick upward" as crews exceed their legal working hour limits. Reagan National has been the hardest hit, recording over 136 cancellations and 300 delays. According to CNN, travellers were seen "sprawled out on the floor" on Friday evening as they awaited updates. The network further reported that many passengers are relying on their mobile devices for information, as airline staff are broadly citing an "air traffic control issue" without further detail. One passenger, Kristen Rodrigues, described a frustrating ordeal to CNN, explaining that she remained on the tarmac for three hours before being returned to the terminal. "Two hours go by, we're still on the runway - no updates - and I could see that the pilots are pretty frustrated," Rodrigues said, noting she had only received two official notifications from her carrier throughout the afternoon. While the ground stop has been lifted, the recovery process remains slow. Data indicates that delays at Reagan reached over three and a half hours, while Dulles and Baltimore saw hold-ups of three hours and two and a half hours, respectively. By late Friday night, average delay times decreased to approximately 90 minutes. However, travel schedules across the DC area are expected to remain volatile through the weekend. - ANI Democratic U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Pentagon for a full investigation after reports that a U.S. airstrike hit a girls' elementary school in Iran, killing at least 175 civilians. Representative Gabe Vasquez and over 120 other Congress members have sent letters demanding detailed information on civilian protection measures during Operation Epic Fury. The lawmakers expressed horror at the attack, which they called one of the deadliest civilian casualty events in recent U.S. operations in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed a formal military probe has been launched, pledging to investigate and share the findings. Democratic lawmakers press Pentagon for answers after US strike reportedly hits Iranian girls' school, killing 175 civilians. Calls for investigation grow. Washington, March 14 Democratic lawmakers in the US Congress are pressing the Pentagon for answers after reports that a US strike during Operation Epic Fury hit a girls' elementary school in Iran, killing at least 175 civilians - many of them children - prompting calls for a full investigation, accountability, and stronger safeguards to prevent civilian casualties. Members of the House and Senate said the incident, which reportedly occurred on February 28 near the town of Minab, could represent one of the deadliest civilian casualty events linked to recent US military operations in the Middle East. Representative Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico said he has sent a letter to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding "detailed information about the steps the US is taking to prevent and respond to civilian harm," including an assessment of casualties caused by the airstrike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school. "Civilians and civilian infrastructure may under no circumstances be the object of attack and must at all times be respected and protected by all parties," Vasquez and other lawmakers wrote. "We seek detailed information regarding civilian protection during Operation Epic Fury and steps the military is taking to mitigate and respond to civilian harm." Separately, Congressman Jason Crow and more than 120 Democratic members of Congress also asked the Pentagon for answers about the strike and broader civilian casualties reported during the ongoing war in Iran. The lawmakers said they were "particularly disturbed by reports of what appears to be the deadliest attack on civilians thus far: a girls' elementary school, where at least 175 civilians, many of them children, were reported killed and 100 children and staff wounded." In their letter, they requested detailed information about the targeting process, civilian harm risk assessments, and the steps taken by the military to prevent or respond to civilian casualties during Operation Epic Fury. They also asked the Defence Department whether artificial intelligence tools were used in selecting targets and whether any such systems were subject to human verification before strikes were authorised. The lawmakers further urged the Pentagon to make public the findings of the ongoing investigation into the school strike and other reported civilian casualty incidents during the operation. Another group of senators, including Mark Warner, Brian Schatz, Patty Murray, Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed and Chris Coons, issued a statement condemning the reported attack. "We are horrified by the latest reports concerning the February 28th strike on an Iranian elementary school near the town of Minab, which resulted in the killing of at least 175 people, most of whom were school children," the senators said. "The killing of school children is appalling and unacceptable under any circumstance," they added, urging a thorough and impartial investigation into the incident. The pressure from Congress comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US military has launched a formal probe into the strike. "The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident," Hegseth said. He added that the military would examine the circumstances of the attack and disclose the findings when the inquiry is complete. Hegseth also stressed that the United States does not intentionally target civilians, telling reporters: "We will investigate, we'll get to the truth and we'll share it when we have it." The controversy comes amid mounting scrutiny over civilian casualties linked to the Trump administration's war in Iran and the conduct of Operation Epic Fury. According to the letters sent by lawmakers, more than 1,000 civilians have reportedly been killed during the campaign so far, with concerns raised about strikes hitting schools, hospitals, public gathering places and other civilian infrastructure. - IANS Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan has called on states and Union Territories to develop robust, specialised units for the timely investigation of online crimes. He emphasised prioritising crimes against women and children and ensuring a swift, coordinated response. The directive came during the inauguration of a national dialogue, which also launched a Master Trainers Induction Programme to create a national pool of trained officers. The event aimed to strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration to ensure a safer digital ecosystem. Home Secretary Govind Mohan directs states & UTs to create specialised units for prompt probe of online crimes against women & children. New Delhi, March 13 Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan on Friday stressed that states and Union Territories must develop robust, specialised units and coordinated response mechanisms to ensure prompt investigation of online crimes, given the increasing challenges posed by such offences. He also emphasised quick victim support action and swift move against perpetrators while addressing a gathering at the Inauguration of the 'National Dialogue on Online Crimes Against Women and Children (OCWC)' in New Delhi. The event was organised by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs, with the objective of bringing together key stakeholders to deliberate on strengthening coordinated mechanisms to prevent and effectively respond to online crimes targeting women and children. Highlighting the growing challenges posed by online crimes in an increasingly digital ecosystem, the Home Secretary emphasised the need for strengthening institutional capacities at the state and UT-level to combat such offences "effectively". Govind Mohan also directed law enforcement agencies of all states and UTs to accord "priority to online crimes against women and children and ensure prompt and coordinated response to such cases." He further urged IT intermediaries to strictly adhere to the provisions of the Information Technology Act and relevant rules, and called upon all stakeholders to work collectively towards ensuring a safe and secure digital ecosystem. The national dialogue provides a platform for knowledge exchange, sharing of best practices, and collective deliberation on building a coordinated national strategy to address the evolving challenges posed by online crimes in the digital environment. It also marked the launch of the Master Trainers Induction Programme for states and UTs on online crimes against women and children, aimed at creating a national pool of trained officers who will lead capacity-building initiatives in their respective states and UTs. The programme seeks to equip selected officers with specialised knowledge, investigative techniques, and best practices required to address emerging cyber threats targeting women and children. These officers will further train law enforcement personnel at the state and district levels, thereby strengthening the country's response framework to such crimes. The national dialogue witnessed participation from senior officials from state and UT Law Enforcement Agencies, representatives from concerned Central ministries and departments, social media intermediaries, internet service providers, academia, civil society organisations, legal experts, and student representatives. During the dialogue, discussions were held on key issues, including emerging trends and patterns in online crimes against women and children, strengthening investigative frameworks and digital forensics capabilities, improving victim support and reporting mechanisms, enhancing coordination with digital platforms for timely removal of harmful content, and promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration for prevention, awareness, and enforcement. - ANI Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu has praised the state's 2026-27 budget, which has an outlay of Rs 36,607 crore. He outlined its six foundational pillars, emphasizing people-centric development and sustainable economic growth. The budget is designed to consolidate past reforms and specifically targets youth entrepreneurship and employment generation. Khandu described it as a pivotal step towards the goal of a developed Arunachal Pradesh by 2047. CM Pema Khandu hails Arunachal's 2026-27 budget, focusing on six pillars for sustainable growth, youth employment, and a developed state by 2047. Itanagar, March 13 Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu hailed the State Budget 2026-27, saying that it consolidated the work accomplished over the past decade while charting the course for a developed Arunachal by 2047. The Arunachal Pradesh government, on Thursday, passed the state budget with an outlay of Rs 36,607 crore, with a fiscal deficit of Rs 701 crore, 1.7 per cent of the state's GDP. Speaking to ANI on Friday, CM Pema Khandu described the six pillars of the budget, with a focus on people-centric development, sustainable economic growth, and employment for youth. Describing the budget, he said, "This time, we have prepared the budget broadly with six pillars, keeping in mind all the focus areas: How do we strengthen our foundation for the future, second is people-centric development, how do we bring progress in people's lives. The third focus area is sustainable economic growth. We have focused on the fact that our government has a lot of policies, especially for the entrepreneurship and employment generation of the youth. By linking all these policies with the youth, the focus has been on how entrepreneurship and employment generation should happen." "The fifth pillar is how to take our state's own resources forward, and lastly, how to make further reforms in our governance. In the last 10 years, we in the state government have taken many reforms, and we have talked about reforms in many other sectors in this budget. I believe that this year's budget marks a pivotal moment. It serves to consolidate the work accomplished over the past decade while charting the course for our future journey toward realising a developed Arunachal by 2047," he added. This year's budget is Rs 36,607 crore, Rs 2,835 crore less than last year. The state has projected a revenue of Rs 5,208 crore, including Rs 3,634 crore tax revenue and Rs 1,575 crore from non-tax sources. Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at current prices, as per the budget document, stands at Rs 41,314 crore. Earlier on Thursday, Pema Khandu expressed gratitude towards Deputy CM Chowna Mein and MLAs while calling for strengthening fiscal discipline. In an X post, he wrote, "With the passing of the Arunachal Pradesh Budget 2026-27, I extend my sincere gratitude to all Hon'ble colleagues for their valuable suggestions and constructive participation. This year's budget has been presented in an evolving fiscal scenario following the recommendations of the 16th Finance Commission. It provides us with an opportunity to further strengthen fiscal discipline, reorient our thinking, and manage our resources with greater efficiency and responsibility. We must also expand our avenues of revenue generation, close systemic leakages, and continue improving governance mechanisms." "The budget has been carefully designed to meet the aspirations of our people while laying a strong foundation for sustainable growth and a more self-reliant Arunachal Pradesh. I place on record my deep appreciation for Hon'ble Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein Ji for presenting a thoughtful, balanced, and forward-looking budget. I also extend my sincere thanks to Hon'ble Speaker Tesam Pongte Ji and Hon'ble Deputy Speaker Kardo Nyigyor Ji for ensuring the smooth and successful conduct of the proceedings of the House," the post read. - ANI The ruling DMK has called a crucial meeting of all its district secretaries on March 16, intensifying preparations as the announcement of the Tamil Nadu Assembly election schedule is anticipated. The meeting aims to review the party's organizational readiness and the political climate at the grassroots level. Chief Minister and DMK president M. K. Stalin is expected to address the gathering, outlining the party's broad campaign strategy and stressing coordination with alliance partners. This gathering is a key step in shaping the DMK's final campaign preparations for the upcoming electoral battle. DMK convenes crucial district secretaries meeting on March 16 to review poll preparedness and strategy ahead of anticipated Tamil Nadu election schedule. Chennai, March 14 The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has convened an important meeting of its district secretaries on March 16, as political activity intensifies in anticipation of the announcement of dates for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. In a statement issued on Saturday, DMK general secretary S. Duraimurugan called upon all district secretaries of the party to attend the meeting without fail. Members of Parliament representing the party have also been asked to participate, underlining the importance the party leadership has attached to the gathering. The meeting assumes significance amid expectations that the Election Commission of India may announce the schedule for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections on March 15 or March 16. With the formal notification of the polls expected shortly, the DMK leadership is moving to ensure that the party's organisational machinery is fully geared up for the electoral battle. Party insiders said the meeting would serve as a platform to review the prevailing political situation in the State and assess the readiness of the party at the grassroots level. District secretaries, who play a key role in mobilising cadres and coordinating campaign activities, are expected to provide updates on organisational preparations and the political climate in their respective districts. Sources within the party indicated that the meeting is likely to feature an address by Chief Minister and DMK president M. K. Stalin. He is expected to outline the broad campaign strategy the party plans to adopt for the Assembly elections and offer guidance to district-level leaders on strengthening voter outreach. The Chief Minister is also likely to stress the importance of maintaining close coordination with the DMK's alliance partners during the election campaign. Political observers note that the ruling party is expected to rely significantly on its alliance network to consolidate support across constituencies. According to party sources, the leadership wants to ensure seamless coordination between the DMK and its allies at the grassroots level to avoid confusion among cadres and voters during the campaign. The March 16 meeting is therefore seen as a key step in shaping the DMK's campaign preparations as the party gears up for a crucial Assembly election in Tamil Nadu. - IANS Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is one of the 11 Best Large-Cap Tech Stocks to Invest In. On March 10, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) reported its earnings for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, posting $1.79 per share in adjusted earnings compared to the consensus of $1.70, as per LSEG. Revenue came in at $17.19 billion, compared with estimates of $16.91 billion. Oracle Backs $50 billion CapEx Following Strong Earnings CNBC reported that Oracle announced plans to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion in FY2026 and spend on its cloud infrastructure. The companys results and backlog indicate the growing demand for AI infrastructure. For instance, the companys remaining performance obligations quadrupled to over $553 billion from a year ago. The company noted that it has capital to support the high demand. Prior to the earnings, on March 7, Bloomberg reported that Oracle, along with OpenAI, canceled plans to expand its flagship AI data center in Texas. This development occurred over financing and OpenAIs changing needs. However, Oracle has pointed out that its capital expenditures will reach $50 billion for FY2026. 45 analysts cover ORCL, with 35 rating the stock a Buy, 9 a Hold, and 1 a Sell. The average price target of $240 indicates an upside potential of over 60.50% as of March 10. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) provides information technology-related products and services to enterprises through its main business segments: Cloud and License, Hardware, and Services. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and was founded in June 1977 by Lawrence Joseph Ellison, Robert Nimrod Miner, and Edward A. Oates. While we acknowledge the potential of ORCL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. The Department of Personnel and Training has amended the 1979 Ex-Servicemen rules to formally include Military Nursing Service officers. This grants them full Ex-Servicemen status, entitling them to post-retirement benefits like age relaxation and reservation in Central government jobs. The reform addresses a long-standing demand and ensures MNS officers are treated on par with other armed forces branches. The government states the decision takes immediate effect, recognizing the officers' critical service in military medical establishments. DoPT amends rules to grant Ex-Servicemen status to Military Nursing Service officers, ensuring post-retirement benefits and government job reservations. New Delhi, March 14 The Department of Personnel and Training has formally notified the restoration of Ex-Servicemen status to officers of the Military Nursing Service, a move that marks a significant recognition of their contribution to the Armed Forces. The decision comes through an amendment to the Ex-Servicemen (Re-employment in Central Civil Services and Posts) Rules, 1979, which now explicitly includes MNS officers under the definition of Ex-Servicemen, the DoPT said in a post on X. The post said, MNS officers, commissioned in the Indian Army, form a vital component of the Armed Forces Medical Services. They serve across Army, Navy, and Air Force medical establishments, providing critical nursing care in military hospitals, supporting operations during emergencies, and attending to casualties in hostile and demanding environments. Their role has long been acknowledged as indispensable, yet the absence of formal parity with other service personnel in post-retirement benefits had remained a point of contention. With the amendment, MNS officers will now enjoy the full spectrum of benefits accorded to Ex-Servicemen. These include age relaxation and reservation in Central government services, educational reservation for their wards, and enhanced career security after retirement. The reform ensures that MNS officers are treated on par with their counterparts in other branches of the Armed Forces, reinforcing both dignity and welfare. The government has underscored that the reform takes immediate effect, reflecting its commitment to the welfare of Ex-Servicemen and recognition of the invaluable service rendered by MNS officers. By restoring their status, the move not only addresses a long-standing demand but also strengthens the morale of serving personnel, assuring them of equitable treatment once they retire. This restoration is more than a bureaucratic correction; it is a reaffirmation of the nation's gratitude to those who have served in uniform, often under extreme conditions, to safeguard lives. For MNS officers, who have stood at the frontline of medical care in war and peace, the recognition ensures that their sacrifices and service are honoured with tangible support in civilian life. The decision is expected to open wider avenues for their re-employment, while also securing educational and social opportunities for their families, thereby weaving their contribution more firmly into the fabric of national service. - IANS Dry fruit prices in Hyderabad have surged by 30-40% due to escalating geopolitical tensions in West Asia. Conflicts involving Iran, Israel, and the US, along with Afghanistan-Pakistan border issues, have severely disrupted supply chains and slowed goods movement. Traders report shipments from key regions like Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are stuck, forcing a shift to expensive air cargo. This has increased operational costs and made it difficult for retailers to maintain stable supply and convince customers. Geopolitical tensions disrupt imports, causing a 30-40% price surge for dry fruits in Hyderabad markets. Traders cite stalled shipments and costly air cargo. Hyderabad, March 14 Dry fruit prices in Hyderabad have surged by nearly 30-40 per cent as escalating geopolitical tensions in West Asia disrupt supply chains, affecting imports from key producing regions such as Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and parts of the Middle East. Traders in the city say the ongoing conflicts involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, along with border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, have significantly slowed the movement of goods, leading to delays and higher transportation costs. The disruption has particularly impacted businesses dependent on imports from these regions, with several consignments either delayed or stranded in transit. Traders say the instability has forced suppliers to shift to costlier logistics options such as air cargo, further increasing the prices of dry fruits in local markets. The sudden rise in prices is also affecting consumer demand, as retailers struggle to maintain a stable supply and convince customers amid the steep hike. Speaking to ANI, Aman Khan, owner of Afghan Baghban in Hyderabad, said the ongoing conflict has severely impacted the dry fruit trade in the city. "I have kept many varieties in this store. There are some products from Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, and I will try to add more to them. Unfortunately, war has been going on for 15-20 days, due to which some of my products are stuck and have not reached yet. Our Turkish products are stuck, but we still have some stock," he said. Khan explained that Afghanistan remains a major supplier for his store, but ongoing tensions in the region have disrupted trade routes. "Most of our exports are from Afghanistan. There has been a war going on in Iran and between Pakistan and Afghanistan for the last 8-10 days. So our work has been disturbed a lot because of this," he added. He further said the supply of products from Turkey, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia has nearly halted, pushing prices sharply upward. "The effect is being felt because the goods coming from Turkey, Dubai and Saudi Arabia have stopped, due to which the pricing has increased by 30-40 per cent. The products from Afghanistan are coming by air now," Khan said. However, he noted that air cargo significantly increases operational costs. "The problem with air cargo is that it is very expensive. This is very difficult for us to convince the customer and to remain stable in the market," he added. - ANI The Election Commission of India has conducted special training for District Election Officers in Kerala ahead of the upcoming assembly polls. Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U Kelkar stated the ECI has directed that the Kerala elections should be the "best ever" and serve as a global model. A key target is achieving a voter turnout of at least 85%, alongside ensuring the election is inclusive and clean. The election will see a contest primarily between the LDF and UDF, with the BJP-led NDA also in the fray. Kerala's Chief Electoral Officer announces Election Commission's directive for 85%+ voter turnout and a model election. Training for officials underway. Thiruvananthapuram, March 13 The Election Commission of India on Friday conducted a special training programme for all District Election Officers as part of its preparations for the upcoming assembly elections in Kerala. Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U Kelkar stated that ECI officials recently visited the state to review the preparations for the polls. He added that the Commission has emphasised that the elections in Kerala should be "the best ever held and serve as a model for the world." "After the Election Commission of India visited and reviewed the preparedness of Kerala, and as per the directions of the Commission, we have moved forward in terms of preparing for the upcoming elections in Kerala. Today we are having a training for all the District Election Officers and we are attaching a lot of importance to the training...As directed by the Commission, the Commission has instructed us that the elections in Kerala should be the best elections ever held and should be a model for the world," Kelkar told ANI. He further noted that during an ECI meeting, all political parties and officials committed to ensuring high-quality elections. An action plan has been prepared, discussed with the Collectors, and feedback is being incorporated before implementation. "During the meeting of the Election Commission, all the political parties and all the officials have committed to making it the best elections. As part of that, we have prepared an action plan and the same has also been discussed with the Collectors and feeback being taken before we move forward. Our expectation is that we will conduct a very unique kind of election this time with the maximum voter turnout. The Commission has already asked us to have at least 85% plus voter turnout, which we will attempt to achieve; at the same time, make it very inclusive, clean, responsible election and with the participation of youth as well as all voters in Kerala," said Kelkar. Kerala is set to hold elections in the first half of this year, with the main contest between the incumbent Left Democratic Front (LDF) and United Democratic Front (UDF). The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is also in the fray for the upcoming Kerala polls. - ANI The election process for the next UN Secretary-General will commence next month, with five candidates officially nominated so far. Starting April 20, each candidate will participate in a public, three-hour interactive dialogue to present their vision. The process emphasizes transparency and a strong push for gender equality, though only three of the five current nominees are women. The final appointment requires a recommendation from the often-fractions UN Security Council before a vote by the General Assembly. The UN election for the next Secretary-General begins next month with five candidates. Meet the nominees and see how the transparent selection process works. United Nations, March 14 Five candidates have been nominated to vie to become the next United Nations secretary-general, taking over the organisation at a time of crises around the world and within it, and the election process will start next month, according to General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. "This is a very transparent, very neutral, and fair process in which every candidate ... will have the same chances and opportunities", she said on Friday. Starting April 20, each of the candidates will face a three-hour interactive session during which they will present their case for election to head the 193-member organisation and run a gauntlet of questions. The dialogue will include civil society organisations and be broadcast on the web. The call for candidates was put out last year by Baerbock and the then-president of the Security Council called for women candidates, reflecting a wide sentiment that after 80 years it was time for a woman to helm the organisation. The Assembly resolution on the election set "equal and fair distribution" on the basis of gender as a desirable goal. But two of the five candidates nominated so far are men. The three woman candidates are former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who was also the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and was nominated by Chile, Brazil and Mexico; Costa Rica's nominee Rebecca Grynspan, the secretary-general of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and a former vice president of Costa Rica, and Virginia Gamba, a Argentinian nominated by Maldives, who held senior positions at the UN, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, and the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Another Argentinian, Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, and was nominated by his country, is one of the two men running for the office. The other, nominated by Burundi, is Macky Sall, a former president and prime minister of Senegal. Nominations close on April 1, and other candidates can emerge. Although the winner will need a simple majority in General Assembly, the factitious Security Council, where the five permanent members have veto powers, really makes the decision as the UN Charter says that the Assembly appoints the UN's top official "upon the recommendation of the Security Council". Baerbock said the interactive dialogue first will "be structured around the personal vision statements and the management skill, and then in the second part, around the three pillars being peace and security, sustainable development and climate, and human rights". Asked about the qualities expected of the person who will succeed Guterres, she said the person "should provide strong and dedicated, effective leadership skills with experience in governance structures". The next leader should also have the management skills to guide the UN through reforms, she said. Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, will be completing his second term this year. - IANS Japan's government issued an emergency alert after North Korea launched a suspected ballistic missile, prompting the activation of a crisis management team. The projectile was assessed to have fallen in waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, with no damage reported. The launch was also tracked by the South Korean military amid ongoing US-South Korea joint exercises. This incident follows a similar pattern of weapons tests by Pyongyang earlier this year. Japan issues emergency alert and activates crisis team after North Korea launches a suspected ballistic missile, raising regional tensions. Tokyo, March 14 Tensions flared in East Asia on Saturday as the Japanese government issued an urgent warning following military activity from Pyongyang. The Prime Minister's Office of Japan, in a post on X, alerted the public to the developing situation, stating: "[Emergency alert] North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile. More updates to follow." Following this alert, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the nation's first female premier who recently secured a historic landslide victory in the February 2026 general elections, immediately activated emergency protocols to monitor the projectile's trajectory. Takaichi has maintained a robust stance on regional security and the protection of Japanese territory throughout her tenure. Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday that this latest weapons test by North Korea has further heightened security anxieties in the region. Providing specific timing, the Japan Coast Guard announced at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday that what appears to be a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea, citing defence ministry information. In response to the launch, the coast guard issued an urgent advisory calling on ships at sea to pay attention to future updates on the situation. According to NHK, the projectile's flight path suggests that the immediate danger to Japanese territory has subsided, as defence ministry officials believe it fell in waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Kyodo News reported that a government source confirmed the projectile had apparently fallen outside the EEZ. Authorities moved quickly to assess the impact of the launch, though no damage due to the launch has been reported so far. The activity was also tracked by the South Korean military, which stated that North Korea fired at least one unidentified projectile in an eastward direction. The launch occurred amid heightened tensions as the United States and South Korea continue their annual springtime joint military exercises. To manage the ongoing situation, the Japanese government has convened an emergency response team consisting of officials from relevant ministries and agencies at the crisis management centre in the prime minister's office. As per Kyodo News, this incident follows a similar pattern of military demonstrations by Pyongyang earlier this year. North Korea last fired two ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on January 27, which were also assessed to have fallen outside Japan's EEZ. - ANI Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav hailed the discovery of two new species of Lichen moths by Indian lepidopterists, calling it a vital contribution to documenting the country's moth biodiversity. Separately, he announced that Project Great Indian Bustard has entered its fourth year of captive breeding, with the recent hatching of two chicks bringing the total in captivity to 70. Yadav stated that some of this year's captive-bred chicks will be soft released into the wild, marking a new phase for the conservation project. He also emphasized India's proactive global role in promoting environmental responsibility and the sustainable use of natural resources. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announces discovery of two new Lichen moth species and progress in captive breeding of Great Indian Bustards. New Delhi, March 14 Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Saturday hailed the discovery of two new species of Lichen moths by country's lepidopterists. In a social media post, headlined 'A milestone in Indian taxonomy!', Yadav said, "In a remarkable development, Zoological Survey of India has announced the discovery of two new species of Lichen moths." "The discovery of Caulocera Hollowayi and Asura Buxa are vital contribution to the documentation of India's moth biodiversity. Research into evolutionarily significant and lesser-known groups like Lepidoptera is essential for understanding ecosystem functioning and air pollution indicator species of Indian Himalaya," said Yadav. He said this success underscores the necessity of sustained taxonomic efforts in biodiversity hotspots like the Himalayas. On Friday, Yadav said that Project Great Indian Bustard (GIB) has entered the fourth year of its captive breeding programme with the hatching of two new chicks at the Conservation Breeding Centre of Rajasthan this week, taking the tally of birds in captivity to 70. The Minister said that under the environmentally-sensitive leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country is well on track to make the project a great success. Yadav shared this development in a post on social media platform X, describing it as another milestone achieved under Project GIB. The Minister said the two chicks hatched at the Conservation Breeding Centre in Rajasthan this week, one from natural mating and the other from artificial insemination. Calling it an important milestone for the species' conservation efforts, Yadav said some of this year's captive-bred chicks will be soft released in the wild, marking a new challenging beginning for the project. He also congratulated the forest officials of the Rajasthan Forest Department for the achievement. Earlier, Yadav stressed the importance of the balanced and sustainable use of natural resources. He noted that ancient Indian traditions have long guided society towards harmony with nature. He cautioned that uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources could lead to a serious imbalance in the ecological system. Yadav further stated that India has consistently raised this issue at the global level and continues to play a proactive role in advancing environmental responsibility. The Minister observed that over the past few years, the Indian Institute of Forest Management has demonstrated outstanding performance, and its students have been securing excellent placement opportunities. - IANS An Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi arrived safely at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport despite heightened tensions in the Middle East. Passengers reported that the situation in the UAE remains comparatively stable, though they expressed concern for Indians working in the region if the conflict persists. They strongly advised against believing fake news circulating on social media and Indian media about attacks in Dubai. Concurrently, special flights from the UAE have also landed in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Kochi, bringing home Indian nationals amid the airspace crisis. Passengers from Abu Dhabi report normalcy in UAE, urge against fake news, as special flights bring Indians home amid West Asia airspace crisis. Bangalore, March 14 Etihad Airways flight EY-262 from Abu Dhabi to Bengaluru safely arrived at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru despite the concerns about air travel due to the war situation involving Iran in the Middle East. Due to the rising war tensions in the Middle East region between Iran, the US, and Israel, an atmosphere of concern has developed among Indians living in that region. Passengers who arrived at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru from Abu Dhabi said that the situation in the UAE was comparatively better than in Kuwait and Bahrain.However, they also expressed fear that if the war continues in the coming days, it could affect the lives of Indians working in the Middle East. They expressed hope that the conflict will end soon and that everyone will be able to live peacefully.A passenger from Abu Dhabi said there was no problem and the government was very helpful and supportive. "There is no problem actually, but in Abu Dhabi and Dubai it is. But the government are very helpful and supportive. We are working in the healthcare department, and it is running very smoothly. Personally, the current situation is okay now," the passenger said. Another passenger urged people not to follow fake news on social media and said not to panic, as all things are under control. "No need to panic. All things are in control. I think I need to follow genuine sites and genuine news instead of following fake news on social media. Try to see what the government is giving the updates and all. Especially the Dubai government and the Abu Dhabi government. They are giving day-to-day updates. Follow that. There is no panic. Everything is going normal," the passenger said. Another passenger dismissed reports circulating on Indian media and social media about attacks on Dubai landmarks and urged people not to believe any fake news. "Especially in Indian media, showing that Burj Khalifa has been hit, some walls have been hit and all. It's all fake news. Don't believe all those things. Whenever there is an interception, there is something, debris, and all falling down. There will be some smoke out of it. That's happening. And because of that, only some minor injuries are happening. Otherwise, things are normal. Business is working normal. The office is normal. You can see the people in Dubai, you know, malls, everything. So everything is normal," the passenger added. A special flight from Abu Dhabi has arrived at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi as well, bringing home citizens stranded due to the ongoing West Asia airspace crisis. A passenger, Shamsher Khan, at Delhi Airport, said they were informed by the local government in advance to move to safe zones and refrain from venturing outside in Abu Dhabi. "I have come from Abu Dhabi. We have been living there for 2 years. Given the current atmosphere of conflict, specifically the drones being launched from Iran towards Abu Dhabi, we are informed in advance to move to safe zones, remain inside our rooms, and refrain from venturing outside. The local government is handling these issues," said Khan. Another passenger, Rashi, who arrived on a special flight from Abu Dhabi at IGI Airport, said the situation is not very bad in Dubai as the drones flying in the sky are being intercepted. "The situation is not very bad in Dubai. There are problems in some places. Our flight was also on time. There are some drones flying in the sky, but they are being intercepted," said Rashi. Another special flight has arrived from Abu Dhabi at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. A passenger at Hyderabad Airport said the situation is absolutely normal in Abu Dhabi as the administration there is protecting very well. "I went there three months ago. The situation is absolutely normal. There is nothing to worry about. The administration there is protecting us very well," said the passenger. Meanwhile, a special flight from Dubai carrying Indian nationals has arrived at Cochin International Airport (CIAL) in Kerala as well amid the ongoing West Asia airspace crisis. - ANI Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has declared the conflict with Israel an "existential battle," stating his forces are prepared for a long confrontation. The Israeli military has escalated strikes, destroying a key bridge over the Litani River used by Hezbollah for troop movement. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon would pay an "increasing price" through infrastructure damage for failing to disarm Hezbollah. The conflict has resulted in significant casualties, including the reported deaths of 12 medical staff in a strike on a healthcare centre. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem warns of an "existential battle" as Israel strikes key Lebanese bridge, escalating the cross-border conflict. Beirut, March 14 Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has asserted that his organisation is prepared for a "long confrontation" with Israel, as Israeli authorities warned that Lebanon would face an "increasing price" through extensive damage to its national infrastructure, according to a report by The Times of Israel. The conflict intensified on Friday following Hezbollah's decision to target Israel in retaliation for the killing of the Iranian former supreme leader in joint strikes. In his second televised address since the hostilities began, Qassem described the situation as an "existential battle, not a limited or simple battle," adding that his forces have "prepared ourselves for a long confrontation" and that the Israeli military "will be surprised on the battlefield." The Israeli military confirmed it had destroyed a bridge over the Litani River on Friday, which connects the towns of Zrarieh and Tayr Falsay. As reported by The Times of Israel, the IDF identified the structure as a "key crossing" used by Hezbollah to move between northern and southern Lebanon to "prepare for combat against IDF troops" and launch operations against civilians. This strike represents the first time the Israeli military has officially acknowledged hitting public infrastructure since the war commenced. The IDF maintained the move was necessary to neutralise a "threat to Israeli civilians, and the continued harm to Lebanese civilians," further alleging that rocket launchers had been positioned in the immediate area. Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a stern warning following a military assessment, stating that the Lebanese government would be held accountable for failing to disarm the group. According to The Times of Israel, Katz warned that the state would "pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory" until military commitments were fulfilled. The Lebanese health ministry further reported that a strike on a primary healthcare centre in Burj Qalawiya killed "12 doctors, paramedics and nurses on duty." The Times of Israel noted that the IDF is currently bolstering its presence in northern Israel and pushing deeper into southern Lebanon to "establish a forward defense" for residents in the north. Military data cited by The Times of Israel suggests that the IDF has conducted over 1,100 strikes in Lebanon, targeting command centres and "rocket and missile launchers." These operations included strikes north of the Litani River that reportedly killed two commanders, including the head of a "rocket and missile unit" responsible for attacks on Israel. In addition to the physical strikes, psychological operations have intensified. As highlighted by The Times of Israel, Israeli aircraft have dropped leaflets over Beirut urging the public to "disarm Hezbollah, Iran's shield." The messages framing the current crisis told the Lebanese people that "Lebanon is your decision, not someone else's." - ANI The Indian government has reiterated its call for de-escalation in the West Asia conflict while assuring citizens of stable fuel and LPG supplies. Officials confirmed that crude oil supplies are sufficient and refineries are operating at full capacity, with no shortages reported at retail outlets. Efforts are also focused on maritime security, with 253 Indian seafarers successfully repatriated from the affected region. Authorities have urged citizens to avoid panic booking of LPG cylinders, noting a recent surge in bookings, and to utilize digital platforms for services. India assures adequate crude, petrol, diesel & LPG supply, repatriates 253 seafarers, and urges de-escalation amid the West Asia conflict. New Delhi, March 14 The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday reiterated India's call for de-escalation in the ongoing regional conflict while assuring that adequate supplies of crude oil, petrol, diesel and LPG are available in the country. The government also said efforts are underway to safeguard maritime operations and repatriate Indian seafarers from the affected region. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India has consistently called for dialogue and restraint since the conflict began, stressing the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted transit of goods and energy. "Since the outbreak of this conflict, India has consistently called for de-escalation and for all issues to be addressed through dialogue. At the same time, one of our key priorities is to ensure the unimpeded transit of goods and energy," Jaiswal said. He added that India has urged all sides not to target civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, given the wider global impact of the conflict. Jaiswal said India has been in constant communication with key stakeholders in the region. "We have remained in close contact with all important interlocutors, including the Gulf Cooperation Council members, Iran, the U.S. and Israel, at various political and diplomatic levels to underline our priorities, particularly regarding energy security," he said. He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also spoken with several counterparts in recent days, while External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Indian embassies have maintained close coordination with their interlocutors. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said that efforts are being made to assist Indian seafarers and maintain smooth maritime operations. Special Secretary Rajesh Kumar Sinha said that in the past 24 hours, 30 Indian seafarers have been repatriated and transported safely to their respective destinations, taking the total number of repatriated seafarers to 253. He said major ports had accorded priority berthing to six LPG carriers that arrived from various parts of the world. Sinha also noted that the DG Shipping Communication Centre has been operating round the clock and handling a large volume of queries. "Over the past 15 days, the centre has received more than 2,500 phone calls and around 5,000 emails, all of which have been responded to," he said. Providing an update on maritime movement in the Gulf region, Sinha said that two Indian-flagged LPG carriers - Shivalik and Nanda Devi - had safely crossed the Strait of Hormuz early on Saturday and are now heading towards India. Officials from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas also assured that the country has adequate fuel supplies. Joint Secretary (Marketing and Oil Refinery) Sujata Sharma said India's crude oil supply remains sufficient and refineries are operating at full capacity. "Our crude supply is sufficient, and our refineries are operating at full capacity. There are no dry-out reports at retail outlets, and sufficient petrol and diesel are available," she said, adding that India produces enough petrol and diesel domestically to meet its needs. She said state governments and district administrations are closely monitoring the fuel supply situation. Sharma noted that several Chief Ministers, including those of Haryana and Goa, have already held review meetings with officials. On LPG supply, Sharma said the situation remains stable despite the geopolitical challenges, but warned against panic booking by consumers. "Yesterday, we reported around 75-76 lakh LPG bookings. That number has now increased to nearly 88 lakh. This is clearly due to panic booking," she said, urging citizens to book cylinders only when necessary. She clarified that booking restrictions remain in place, with a minimum gap of 25 days between bookings in urban areas and 45 days in rural areas. Sharma also appealed to consumers to use digital platforms for LPG bookings and avoid visiting distributors or standing in queues. "There is no need for panic - neither for booking nor for cylinders. Oil marketing companies are delivering cylinders to homes and will continue to do so," she added. - IANS An international civil society group has addressed the UN Human Rights Council, highlighting the 2025 Pahalgam terror attack and calling for stronger global action against terrorism. The representative condemned the assault as a cold-blooded violation of human rights and humanitarian law. The intervention warned that cross-border backing of terrorist groups threatens international peace and sovereignty. It urged member states to cooperate and ensure perpetrators and their facilitators face justice. Civil society addresses UN Human Rights Council, calling for global action against perpetrators of the deadly 2025 Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir. Paris, March 14 Drawing attention to the heinous April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, an international civil society group has called for global accountability and stronger action against terrorism at the ongoing 61st of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Speaking at the session, Yasser Laaroussi of the ECO FAWN Society called on the international community to bolster its response against terrorism and hold perpetrators accountable for attacks on civilians. Laaroussi paid homage to the victims of the terror attack in the Baisaran Valley, calling it a "cold-blooded assault" against humanity itself. "He stressed that deliberately targetting civilians constitutes a grave violation of international human rights law and fundamental humanitarian principles," a report in French digital news platform 'Paris Telegraph' noted. Emphasising that acts of terrorism represent a direct threat to the universal rights to life, liberty and personal security, Laaroussi told UNHRC that terrorism in all its forms is a clear rejection of human dignity and civilised order. "No political, ideological or strategic pretext can ever justify violence against innocent civilians," the Paris Telegraph quoted him as saying. The statement also warned that cross-border backing or tolerance of terrorist groups can escalate threats to international peace and sovereignty. "Calling for international cooperation, Laaroussi urged member states to ensure that impunity does not prevail and to take stronger measures against those who harbour, finance or facilitate terrorist organisations," the report noted. The ECO FAWN Society's intervention, it said, reaffirmed the "organisation's commitment to defending human rights, protecting victims of terrorism and strengthening international accountability mechanisms." According to the report, the organisation emphasised that remembrance of victims killed in deadly terror attacks "must be accompanied by collective international action so that justice, peace and human dignity prevail over violence and extremism." As many as 26 innocent tourists were massacred in the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Pahalgam. This was the deadliest attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, also conducted by Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT). Pakistan-based The Resistance Front (TRF), a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) outfit, twice claimed responsibility for the heinous attack on civilians in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025. The TRF, a proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), has been involved in numerous terror-related activities. - IANS If a rental listing looks like a great deal in a tight market, renters are often warned to slow down and take a closer look. Rental scams are becoming increasingly common, and they often rely on small upfront fees and rushed decisions to trap unsuspecting applicants. According to the Federal Trade Commission, there have been more than 65,000 rental scam reports since 2020, resulting in roughly $65 million in losses (1). Must Read Thats a lesson Christy Cosgrove learned while searching for an apartment in Osceola County, Florida. What appeared to be a legitimate listing on Realtor.com soon turned into something very different. Cosgrove eventually discovered that the listing wasnt what it seemed and her experience is now serving as a warning to other renters (2). The 1 red flag that was overlooked After finding an apartment she was interested in, Cosgrove said she contacted the number listed on the ad and was directed via text to a website called Locayt.com, where she was asked to pay a $49 application fee. Cosgrove said, They told me it would just go towards the down payment, the deposit, adding that she was promised a refund if she didnt move forward. But after she paid, Cosgrove started to notice long delays and vague responses from the company. Eventually, Locayt provided her with the contact info for the actual listing agent and thats when everything unraveled. Cosgrove said she told the listing agent what happened because she was starting to get suspicious. According to Cosgrove the agent told her, I have no idea what youre talking about. The agent told her he had no connection to Locayt, there was no application fee, and he hadnt even listed the property on Realtor.com. He suspected someone had scraped his legitimate listing and reposted it with fake contact details. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), rental scams involving pre-payment are becoming increasingly common (1). There are multiple rental listing platforms where consumers are coming across Locayt, said BBB CEO Holly Salmons. Salmons highlighted that Locayt currently holds an F rating, mostly because of unanswered complaints. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju affirmed the government's commitment to the welfare of micro-minority communities after receiving a representation from BJP's Kerala chief. The assurance emphasizes fair and transparent implementation of all schemes for vulnerable sections. This comes as the BJP's parliamentary board met at the Prime Minister's residence to strategize for the upcoming Kerala and West Bengal Assembly elections. The party plans to contest over a hundred seats in Kerala, with alliances covering the remainder. Kiren Rijiju affirms commitment to micro-minority communities as BJP's parliamentary board meets to strategize for the upcoming Kerala Assembly elections. New Delhi, March 14 Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday received a representation from Bharatiya Janata Party Keralam President Rajeev Chandrasekhar regarding the need for recognition and protection of micro-minority communities in the country. Sharing a post on X, Rijiju said the government remains committed to the welfare of micro-minority communities. He said that all schemes and initiatives are implemented in a fair and transparent manner. "Received a representation from @BJP4Keralam President Shri @RajeevRC_X ji regarding the need for recognition and protection of micro-minority communities in India. The Government of India remains committed to the welfare of all micro-minority communities. All schemes and initiatives are implemented in a fair, transparent, and inclusive manner, ensuring that smaller and vulnerable sections receive due attention," the post read. "We will continue engaging with stakeholders to uphold harmony, justice, and the spirit of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas," the post further read. The meeting comes at a time when Keralam is gearing up for the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections later this year. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a parliamentary board meeting to deliberate on candidate selection and overall strategy for the upcoming Keralam and West Bengal Assembly elections. The parliamentary board meeting was held at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, former BJP president JP Nadda, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, BS Yediyurappa, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former Kerala BJP president K Surendran, election co-incharge Shobha Karandlaje, Vinod Tawde, V Murlidharan, and Prakash Javadekar were present at the meeting. According to sources, the meeting involved extensive discussions on around 140 Assembly constituencies in Keralam BJP is going to contest more than a hundred seats in Kerala, and the remaining seats will be contested in alliance with the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), Twenty20 and others, sources said. - ANI The Indian government is actively monitoring the safety of its maritime assets and personnel in the Gulf region amid heightened tensions. Officials report 27 Indian-flagged vessels with over 750 seafarers in the area, alongside approximately 23,000 Indian nationals working on various ships. A dedicated 24/7 control room has been established, receiving thousands of calls and emails from concerned seafarers and families. The Directorate General of Shipping has also facilitated the repatriation of over 200 workers and issued detailed safety advisories. India monitors 27 Indian-flagged vessels and 23,000 seafarers in the Gulf region, with a 24/7 helpline fielding thousands of calls for safety. New Delhi, March 13 India is actively monitoring its vessels and seafarers operating in the Gulf region, including three Indian-flagged ships in the Gulf of Oman, amid ongoing regional tensions and maritime security concerns, government said. Highlighting the government's commitment to safeguarding its maritime workforce amid West Asia conflict, Rajesh Kumar Sinha, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Chief Secretary said, "All Indian vessels and seafarers are under active monitoring to ensure their safety and security." "On the eastern side of the Strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman, there were four Indian-flagged vessels yesterday, but one oil tanker -- Jal Prakash -- has moved out, so three Indian-flagged vessels remain in that area now, with 76 Indian seafarers on board," he said during an inter-ministerial meeting today. Sinha also provided an update on Indian ships in the nearby Persian Gulf. "On the western side of the Strait of Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, there are currently 24 Indian-flagged vessels. The number was the same yesterday and remains the same today. A total of 677 Indian seafarers are onboard these vessels," he said. Apart from these vessels, Sinha said around 23,000 Indian seafarers are working across the Gulf region on merchant ships, offshore vessels and other maritime operations. "The Directorate General of Shipping is in constant contact with them," he said. Communication with seafarers is being maintained "through their engagement agencies known as Recruitment and Placement Service Licenses (RPSL), through Indian missions in those countries, and through other stakeholders," Sinha said. The DG Shipping had also issued an advisory on March 4 in this regard. There are around 7.5 lakh Indian seafarers overall, and the Directorate General of Shipping sent a communication to all of them updating the contact details of its 24/7 helpline, he said Since February 28, he said, DG Shipping's 24/7 control room, known as the DG Communication Centre, has received around 2,425 calls and approximately 4,500 emails. These communications have come from seafarers, their family members, and other stakeholders. Sinha said DG Shipping has also been facilitating returns for those whose terms of employment have ended. "The DG Shipping has also successfully facilitated the return of around 200-225 Indian nationals who were working in the Gulf region and whose employment terms had ended and who had signed off from ships. This was done in close coordination with Indian embassies," he said. "All Indian vessels and Indian seafarers are under active monitoring to ensure their safety and security," Sinha added. Sinha reiterated key points from the DG Shipping advisories. "Seafarers should contact the DG Shipping communication centre through the helpline or email in case of any requirement. They should follow safety instructions and comply with directives issued by local authorities or Indian missions abroad. All Indian-flagged ships should conduct ship-shore security drills. Seafarers should also regularly monitor advisories or updates issued by DG Shipping or the Ministry of External Affairs," he said. On port operations in India, Sinha said, "Port operations across India remain stable. Standard Operating Procedures have been issued for all major and non-major ports so that they maintain coordination with shipping lines and exporters. Any grievances from stakeholders should be addressed within a time-bound framework." He added that "each major port has also designated a single point of contact, and this information has been communicated to stakeholders. LPG carrier vessels are being given priority berthing at major ports. Ports have also implemented facilitation measures such as allowing storage of Middle East-bound cargo affected by the situation... providing ad-hoc vessel berthing... prioritising handling of perishable and returning export cargo... expediting back-to-town movement in coordination with customs, and enhancing bunkering support wherever feasible." Sinha expressed regret over casualties in the ongoing Gulf crisis: "Unfortunately, three Indian nationals have been reported dead. One seafarer is currently missing. Four seafarers had sustained minor injuries, but they have now been evacuated and are receiving medical treatment. The Directorate General of Shipping remains in contact with the families and next of kin of all the affected seafarers." The conflict in the region escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel on February 28, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. - ANI The Gujarat government has revised the Mukhyamantri Gaumata Poshan Yojana, extending the registration deadline for cow shelters to December 2025 to allow more institutions to qualify for state financial assistance. State Minister Jitu Vaghani stated the change responds to requests from previously ineligible shelters. In a separate move, the government will develop 500 villages as "natural farming villages" using a cluster-based approach to promote sustainable agriculture. This initiative aims to provide farmers with training and market linkages for their chemical-free produce. Gujarat revises cow shelter scheme rules to include more institutions and announces 500 villages for a cluster-based natural farming initiative. Gandhinagar, March 14 The Gujarat government has expanded the scope of the 'Mukhyamantri Gaumata Poshan Yojana' by extending the registration deadline for cow shelters and animal shelters, a move expected to bring more shelters under the state's financial assistance scheme. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel approved a revision to the eligibility rules so that all cow and animal shelters registered under the Public Trust Act by December 31, 2025, will qualify for assistance from the 2026-27 financial year. State Animal Husbandry Minister Jitu Vaghani said the change was made in response to representations from several institutions that were previously ineligible under the earlier cut-off date. "The eligibility conditions under the Mukhyamantri Gaumata Poshan Yojana have been significantly revised so that more cow and animal shelters in the state can be brought within the ambit of the scheme," he said. The scheme, which provides financial assistance of Rs 30 per animal per day for the upkeep of cattle in recognised shelters, was announced in 2022-23 at Ambaji by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the state government, between the launch of the scheme in 2022-23 and September 2025, financial assistance amounting to Rs 1,364 crore has been disbursed for the maintenance of more than 4.50 lakh animals housed in over 1,600 institutions across Gujarat. Under the earlier rules, only institutions registered under the Public Trust Act before March 31, 2022, were eligible for the support. As a result, those shelters registered after the 2023-24 financial year were unable to receive the benefit. Vaghani said several organisations had requested the government to reconsider the cut-off date. "Taking a positive view of these representations, the Chief Minister has decided to extend the trust registration limit so that more cow shelters can become eligible for assistance," he said. With the revised provision, any shelter registered under the Public Trust Act by December 31, 2025, will be eligible to receive assistance under the scheme from April 1 this year. In a separate announcement, the state government also said it would expand natural farming through a cluster-based approach by selecting 500 villages to be developed as "natural farming villages". Vaghani said the selected villages would gradually bring a large part of their agricultural land under natural farming practices. "Farmers in these villages will receive not only advisory support but also training, guidance and technical assistance at the grassroots level," he said. The government also plans to simplify certification processes so that produce grown through natural farming can gain recognition at national and international levels. In addition, the selected clusters will be linked directly with market systems to help farmers secure better prices for chemical-free produce. Vaghani said adopting natural farming collectively through clusters would reduce transportation, packaging and marketing costs for farmers. "When farmers work together in clusters instead of individually, they can reduce operational costs and achieve better returns in the market," he said. The initiative, he added, is intended to encourage sustainable agricultural practices while ensuring the availability of chemical-free food for consumers. - IANS The Gujarat government has intensified monitoring to ensure an uninterrupted supply of domestic LPG and natural gas across the state. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel chaired a high-level meeting to review arrangements and coordinate with central authorities and oil marketing companies. The Centre has issued notifications classifying domestic PNG and CNG as Priority-1 sectors and directing maximum LPG production to public sector firms. Authorities are also taking steps to expand pipeline infrastructure and prevent hoarding to maintain supply for households, vehicles, and critical institutions. Gujarat govt coordinates with Centre & energy firms to ensure continuous domestic LPG, PNG, and CNG supply, prioritizing households and vehicles. Gandhinagar, March 14 The Gujarat government has stepped up monitoring and coordination with the Centre and energy companies to ensure an uninterrupted supply of domestic LPG and natural gas across the state amid global disruptions in the energy sector. At a high-level review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Friday evening, officials assessed the prevailing gas supply situation in Gujarat, the challenges arising from global developments, and the outlook for supply in the coming days. The meeting reviewed arrangements to maintain a regular supply of domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders as well as piped natural gas (PNG) for households and compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles. According to the state government, coordinated efforts are being undertaken by the Central government, the Gujarat government and oil and gas marketing companies to maintain continuous supply and avoid inconvenience to consumers. The Chief Minister directed officials to ensure that citizens continue to receive domestic LPG cylinders regularly without difficulty. He also emphasised the need to maintain uninterrupted gas supply to priority sectors such as domestic PNG and CNG for vehicles, while ensuring reliable supply to industries and consumers, as well as implementing advanced and long-term planning measures. Officials said the Centre has issued regulatory measures to safeguard LPG availability. A Gazette notification issued on March 5 directed that butane and propane used for LPG be utilised to the maximum extent for LPG production and supplied only to the three public sector oil marketing companies - Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation - under the Essential Commodities Act to maintain uninterrupted domestic LPG supply. In another notification issued on March 9, the Centre classified domestic PNG and CNG for vehicles as Priority-1 sectors, ensuring 100 per cent natural gas supply to these segments so that consumers do not face disruption. Authorities said a limited cut has been applied to the natural gas supply for the industrial sector under the current circumstances. However, LNG cargos from regions outside the conflict-affected Middle East are expected to arrive in India in the coming days, which officials said would further stabilise supply. Gujarat is a key hub in India's gas-based energy network, with 1,073 CNG stations and more than 37 lakh domestic PNG consumers. The state's Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department and the Energy and Petrochemicals Department are conducting regular reviews of supply with city gas distribution companies and oil marketing firms. During the review, officials were also instructed to expand the clean energy network by increasing domestic and commercial PNG connections and accelerating the expansion of pipeline infrastructure in new areas to connect more consumers. The government said adequate gas supply arrangements have been made not only for households but also for hospitals, educational institutions, hostels, community kitchens, welfare institutions such as orphanages and old-age homes, as well as schemes including the mid-day meal programme and anganwadis. Supply of PNG to restaurants and CNG for vehicles is also being maintained. The state government has directed district collectors and superintendents of police to coordinate with LPG distribution agencies to ensure smooth distribution. Authorities have also been asked to take strict action against hoarding or illegal activities under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. Officials said the Centre has directed that there should be a minimum gap of 25 days between two LPG cylinder bookings in urban areas and 45 days in rural areas by the same consumer. The government has also appealed to citizens not to be misled by misinformation, stating that the state is receiving additional LPG supply through production and supply channels to meet current consumption levels. - IANS HCL Concerts has announced the winners of the fifth edition of its national talent hunt, Carnatic Quest 2025. The competition saw participation from over 2,500 artists aged 18-30 from 145 cities across India. Winners across five categories, including Vocal and Violin, were selected by an eminent jury of renowned musicians. The initiative aims to build a community and provide performance platforms for emerging Carnatic artists. HCL Concerts announces winners of Carnatic Quest 2025 talent hunt. Over 2,500 artists from 145 cities participated in the national competition for young Carnatic musicians. Chennai, March 14 HCL Concerts, a platform dedicated to identifying and nurturing emerging talent in Indian classical performing arts, has announced the winners of Carnatic Quest 2025, the fifth edition of its national talent hunt for young Carnatic musicians. The competition, conducted in collaboration with the Rhapsody Music Foundation, saw participation from over 2,500 artists aged between 18 and 30 from 145 cities across India. Winners were selected across five categories - Vocal, Violin, Veena, Flute and Percussion, following a grand finale held in Chennai, as per the press release. The first-place winners received a trophy, certificate and cash prize, while the second and third rank holders were awarded certificates and cash prizes. The winners will also get an opportunity to perform on platforms hosted by HCL Concerts, providing them with wider exposure in the classical music circuit. The contest is held annually, alternating between two age groups: 12-18 and 18-30. The fifth edition marked the third cycle focused on senior-level artists aged 18-30. Participants competed across three digital screening rounds before advancing to the on-ground finale in Chennai. Previous winners of Carnatic Quest, including P Vikram (Vocal), V S P Gayatri Sivani (Violin), K R Shrivats (Veena), and Sairam Kumar (Percussion), have gone on to perform at prominent classical festivals and platforms. The 2025 edition was evaluated by an eminent jury panel comprising leading Carnatic musicians: Sikkil Gurucharan (Vocal), Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi (Violin), K V Prasad (Percussion), Shashank Subramanyam (Flute), and Jayanthi Kumaresh (Veena). The panel includes recipients of prestigious honours such as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the Kalaimamani title. Following the final performances, the jury announced winners across the five categories. Carnatic Quest 2025 WinnersVocal Winner: Hari Kishan Prakash Flute Winner: Sreenidhi Shiruru Violin Winner: Aravind H Veena Winner: Vinayak Vaidyanathan Percussion Winner: Abhijith Arun Speaking about the initiative, Nikhil Soni, Associate General Manager - Marketing, HCL Group, said that the competition goes beyond being just a talent contest. "What makes Carnatic Quest special is not just the competition, but the community it builds around young classical artists. This year, we saw participants from across the country bring their own regional influences and individual voices to a shared tradition, and that is exactly what keeps this art form alive and evolving. Through initiatives like Carnatic Quest, we aim to provide emerging musicians with meaningful platforms to present their talent and connect with wider audiences. We are proud to stand behind these artists as they step into the next chapter of their careers," Soni said. With its fifth edition concluded, Carnatic Quest continues to serve as a national platform for emerging musicians, helping young artists gain visibility and opportunities within India's classical music ecosystem. - ANI Hotel associations in Manali and Shimla are implementing alternative cooking methods due to commercial LPG supply constraints linked to global geopolitical conflicts. They are adopting electric appliances, diesel furnaces, and traditional wood-fired tandoors to ensure uninterrupted food preparation for tourists. The associations have curated streamlined menus and reassure visitors that food availability will not be affected. The Union government has invoked the Essential Commodities Act, prioritizing domestic LPG supply, which has restricted commercial distribution. Manali & Shimla hotel associations adopt electric appliances, tandoors, and streamlined menus to ensure tourist food supply amid commercial LPG constraints. Manali, March 14 Amid commercial LPG gas constraints, the hotel industry in Manali and Shimla has initiated alternative arrangements to ensure that tourism remain unaffected. A joint meeting regarding this issue was held at the office of the Manali Hoteliers Association, attended by representatives from the Shimla Hotel Association as well. Mohinder Seth, President of the Shimla Hoteliers Association, stated that gas supplies have been disrupted due to ongoing West Asia conflicts and global geopolitical conditions, an impact that is being felt across the entire country. As Himachal Pradesh is a prominent tourism state, the hotel industry has requested the government to ensure the availability of commercial gas; however, the situation has yet to return to normalcy. He noted that the hotel industry is adopting alternative measures to resolve this issue. Many hotels in Manali have begun utilising electric furnaces, induction cooktops, and other electrical appliances. Additionally, furnaces powered by diesel and kerosene are also being employed. According to Roshan Thakur, President of the Manali Hoteliers Association, several hotels have also started purchasing tandoors (traditional clay ovens), as firewood is readily available in Manali. This ensures that there will be no disruptions in food preparation. Reassuring incoming tourists, the Association affirmed that there would be no shortage of food availability in Manali. Electric ovens are already being utilised for items such as baked goods and pizzas. Furthermore, a streamlined menu has been curated, featuring Indian and Chinese cuisines that can be easily prepared using these alternative cooking methods. He added that not only hotels, but also restaurants and dhaba operators are adopting these alternative solutions. Hoteliers in Manali are operating with full preparedness to ensure that this crisis does not adversely affect the tourism industry and that tourists do not face any inconvenience. The President of the Association stated that it is difficult to predict how long the war will last; therefore, all hotel operators have been advised to make preparations in advance. Additionally, continuous contact is being maintained with the government and local gas suppliers to find a permanent solution to the LPG supply issue. Amid global energy supply disruptions triggered by the ongoing conflict in West Asia, the Union government has invoked the Essential Commodities Act to prioritise domestic LPG supply, reserving higher allocations for households, hospitals, and essential services while restricting commercial distribution in several regions. - ANI A Gulf-based analyst warns that Houthi threats in Yemen and supportive Islamist rhetoric from Sudanese voices are escalating security concerns in the Red Sea and Gulf region. The ongoing West Asia conflict risks widening into a regional crisis with serious implications for global energy security and vital shipping lanes. The strategic waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea, face disruption, threatening international trade and market stability. Diplomatic engagement with Gulf states and international actors is urgently needed to contain the situation. Analyst warns Houthi threats & Islamist rhetoric risk Red Sea security, global shipping, and energy markets amid West Asia conflict escalation. New Delhi, March 13 Houthi threats in Yemen, along with supportive Islamist rhetoric from Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-linked voices, are raising concerns over the security of the Red Sea and the broader Gulf region amid the West Asia conflict, a Gulf-based analyst warned. The analyst cautioned that the ongoing conflict in West Asia could escalate into a wider regional crisis unless diplomatic efforts succeed in containing it quickly. Intensive engagement is underway, as per the analyst, with Gulf states, neighbouring countries, and key international actors to manage the situation. The analyst further stressed that the issue cannot be seen as a narrow regional flashpoint, warning of wider repercussions for fuel security, shipping channels, market confidence, and international stability. "The issue cannot be viewed as a narrow regional flashpoint, since any deeper escalation would carry implications for energy security, shipping lanes, market stability, and the broader global order," the analyst said. "Houthi threats in Yemen, coupled with supportive Islamist rhetoric from Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-linked voices, are adding to anxiety over the security of the Red Sea, one of the world's most important commercial waterways," the analyst added. The warning underscores growing anxiety in the Gulf over regional stability, particularly in light of the strategic importance of the Red Sea as one of the world's key commercial waterways. Due to the conflict in the region, the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply, has reportedly been rendered inoperational. The analyst warned that escalation in the conflict can also be witnessed in the trade routes through the Red Sea, with added threats by Houthis in Yemen, and Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-linked voices. The Red Sea, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal, is a key commercial transit point for trade connecting Europe with Asia. Earlier on Thursday, the newly appointed Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, in his first-ever address, thanked resistance fighters of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen for supporting the Islamic Regime, as the conflict escalates. "Without a doubt, the solidarity of the components of the resistance front will shorten the path to liberation from the Zionist sedition. The brave and faithful Yemen did not stop defending the oppressed people of Gaza, and the devoted Hezbollah has come to the aid of the Islamic Republic despite all obstacles, and the Iraqi resistance has courageously taken the same line," the Supreme Leader said. The conflict in the region escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel on February 28, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. - ANI The Israeli Air Force launched extensive simultaneous strikes on Iranian infrastructure in Tehran, Shiraz, and Ahvaz. The military says it targeted ballistic missile production, air defense systems, and regime headquarters in operations aimed at reducing threats to Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting he could be targeted. The strikes are part of an ongoing Israeli operation described as "Roar of the Lion." Israeli Air Force strikes over 200 targets in Iran, including Tehran. Netanyahu issues direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. Tehran, March 13 A huge blast was reported in the residential area of eastern Tehran after Israel Air Force launched a fresh wave of strikes targeting the infrastructure of the Iranian regime, Iranian state broadcaster Press TV reported. In a post on X Press TV, the visuals from the site showed several injured people being rushed to the hospital. This came after the Israel Air Force on Friday said that it had completed waves of strikes targeting the infrastructure of the Iranian regime. "In Tehran, Shiraz, and Ahvaz simultaneously: The Air Force completed waves of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime The Air Force, under the direction of Military Intelligence, completed several waves of strikes over the past day targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime in Tehran, Shiraz, and Ahvaz simultaneously. In Shiraz in southern Iran, An underground site used by the Iranian terror regime for the production and storage of ballistic missiles intended for launch toward the State of Israel was struck. In Tehran: Sites and a central base of the air defence array in the Iranian terror regime were struck," the IAF said. "In addition, numerous sites used for the production of various combat means, air defence systems, and components of ballistic missiles were struck. Simultaneously, in Ahvaz in western Iran: Headquarters of various regime bodies were struck. Activity by soldiers of the Iranian terror regime was identified in the struck headquarters, and dozens of soldiers operated from them to advance and carry out terror attacks against the State of Israel and countries in the region. The completed strikes are part of the phase of deepening the damage to the core arrays of the Iranian terror regime and its foundations," it added. Earlier, the Israeli Air Force said that in the last 24 hours, it had struck more than 200 targets in Western and Central Iran. The IAF said, "Dozens of Air Force fighter jets, guided by Military Intelligence, completed extensive strike sorties over the past day in western and central Iran, during which numerous munitions were dropped on more than 200 targets of the Iranian terror regime, including ballistic missile launchers, defence systems, and production sites for means of combat." "Since the launch of Operation 'Roar of the Lion," the Air Force has completed hundreds of strike sorties targeting a variety of infrastructures of the Iranian terror regime, with the aim of reducing as much as possible the scale of fire toward the territory of the State of Israel," it added. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting that Israel could look at targeting him just as they did his father. Asked if Israel would go after Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, Netanyahu replied, "I wouldn't issue life insurance policies on any of the leaders of the terrorist organizations. This is their patron of terrorism. And I don't intend to provide an exact report here about what we are planning or what we are going to do." Netanyahu dubbed the younger Khamenei a "puppet" of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps who "cannot show his face in public." - ANI A side event at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will focus on Pakistan's GSP+ trade status with the EU and its attached human rights obligations. The panel will examine the relationship between preferential market access and compliance with international conventions on rights, labor, and governance. It aims to assess implementation and accountability, highlighting specific concerns and presenting cases of affected individuals. The discussion seeks to inform advocacy and policy regarding the conditionality of the EU's trade preference scheme. UNHRC side event examines if Pakistan meets EU human rights obligations tied to preferential trade access under the GSP+ scheme. Geneva, March 14 A side event during the 61st Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council will focus on Pakistan's Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus status and the human rights obligations attached to it. The discussion is scheduled to take place at the United Nations in Geneva on March 25. Titled "Pakistan's GSP+ status: human rights conditionality, treaty obligations and accountability," the one-hour panel will examine the relationship between trade preferences granted by the European Union and compliance with international human rights conventions. Under the EU's GSP+ framework, beneficiary countries receive preferential market access in return for ratifying and implementing a set of core international treaties related to human rights, labour standards, environmental protection and good governance. The event aims to assess whether these obligations are being effectively implemented in Pakistan and whether monitoring mechanisms are ensuring accountability. Organisers say the discussion will highlight concerns raised by critics who argue that issues such as civil and political rights, democratic freedoms, due process and the protection of vulnerable communities continue to raise questions about the credibility of the conditionality attached to Pakistan's trade preferences. The event will also present selected cases involving individuals reportedly affected by actions of the Pakistani authorities, providing real-world examples to accompany broader legal and policy discussions about treaty compliance and international accountability. The proposed panel features political leaders, parliamentarians and analysts, including Barbara Bonte, Naseem Baloch, Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, Kasim Khan, Nikolaos Vrettos and geopolitical analyst Raphael Kalyviotis. According to organisers, the discussion will explore the legal architecture of GSP+ conditionality, the international conventions underpinning the scheme and the extent to which those treaty obligations are reflected in domestic practice. It will also consider the role of European institutions and international human rights bodies in monitoring compliance. The panel is expected to draw diplomats, parliamentarians, representatives of international organisations, human rights advocates, researchers and journalists following developments in Pakistan, EU trade policy and global human rights governance. The session will be moderated as a panel discussion and is planned to be filmed for later distribution. Organisers also intend to broadcast the event live, subject to final technical arrangements and venue rules. Participants hope the event will contribute to broader discussions during the Human Rights Council session by placing the debate over Pakistan's GSP+ status within the framework of human rights conditionality and international treaty obligations. The discussion may also help inform future advocacy, parliamentary debate and media coverage related to the EU's trade preference scheme and its implementation. - ANI India has announced a 30-day visa extension and a waiver of overstay penalties for foreigners stranded in the country due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia. The Indian Consulate in Dubai stated exit permits would also be issued free of charge to facilitate departure once routes reopen. The move comes amid significant flight disruptions, with Qatar Airways operating limited services from partially open airspace. The security crisis has been triggered by Iranian strikes targeting US bases and infrastructure across the Gulf region. India offers 30-day visa extensions and waives overstay penalties for foreigners stranded due to West Asia airspace disruptions and conflict. Dubai, March 14 India has announced the extension of visas and waiver of overstay penalty to foreigners stranded in the country due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Indian Consulate in Dubai issued a notification announcing that all Visas and e-Visas expiring or due for expiry soon would be extended for a month on a gratis basis for the jurisdictional Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROS). Authorities said the penalty for any overstay by affected foreign nationals due to the ongoing conflict after February 28 would be waived. The authorities also clarified that the exit permits will be issued free of charge to foreign nationals affected by the travel disruption so they can leave India once routes reopen. The consulate also stated that if a foreign nation is unable to apply for an Exit Permit and Extension of Visas, then it would not be treated as a violation of migration legislation. Temporary Landing Permit (TLP) would also be granted to a foreign national arriving in India due to diversion of flights on a gratis basis, authorities said. This comes as conflict in West Asia continues with the US and Israel pounding Iran with their drone and missile attacks. Iran, in retaliation, has targeted US strategic bases in the Gulf region, along with directly hitting Israel. Nearly 500 Indian nationals travelled from Qatar to India and other global destinations on flights operated by Qatar Airways, the Indian Embassy in Doha said in an advisory. In a post on X, the embassy on Friday said the passengers travelled on Qatar Airways flights to Kochi and other destinations. The airline also facilitated the transportation of the mortal remains of two Indian nationals who died of natural causes, along with their accompanying family members, to Kochi on humanitarian grounds. The embassy said Qatar's airspace is only partially open, resulting in limited flight operations by Qatar Airways. "One flight to Mumbai is planned for operations by Qatar Airways on March 14," the advisory said, referring to Mumbai. The limited flight operations follow an escalating West Asia security crisis, triggered by Iranian missile and drone strikes targeting US military bases, embassies, and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf region, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The conflict has caused significant disruptions to global energy supplies, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, where approximately 20 per cent of the world's oil transits. - ANI Ripple is a popular crypto company that builds payment and financial infrastructure using blockchain technology. The firm is building a one-stop shop for institutions to access fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and asset custody services. The company has processed more than $100 billion in payments as of March 9. It serves more than 60 markets and 51 real-time financial rails. Related: Ripple executive touts one-stop shop for XRP ecosystem Ripple to buy back $750 million in shares As per a recent Bloomberg report, Ripple has kicked off a new share buyback program that raises its valuation by 20%. The goal is to buy back up to $750 million in shares from investors and employees at a valuation of $50 billion through a tender offer expected to run through April, anonymous sources familiar with the matter told the publication. The company last raised $500 million from Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group among other investors at a valuation of $40 billion in November last year. It means the latest share share buyback would raise Ripple's valuation by 20%. Popular on TheStreet Roundtable: XRP unmoved by latest news The team behind Ripple developed and launched a blockchain network called the XRP Ledger. The network's native token is XRP, which is the world's fifth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $84.5 billion. The latest news didn't have any positive impact on XRP's price as it trades at $1.38 at the time of writing. RLUSD is a USD-pegged stablecoin launched by Ripple in December 2024. The value of one RLUSD is the same as that of one dollar. It has a market cap of $1.5 billion, cementing its status as one of the major stablecoins. Related: Cathie Wood's ARK warns of shocking risk to 35% Bitcoin This story was originally published by TheStreet on Mar 12, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here. The United Nations has issued a stark warning that the Iran-Israel conflict is rapidly escalating with severe humanitarian and global consequences. UN spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani stated the crisis was "entirely avoidable" and urged an immediate ceasefire. She emphasized that influential countries, including India, can play a critical role in de-escalation by recommitting to the UN Charter. The UN also expressed horror over a reported strike on a girls' school in Minab, potentially killing over 100 students, which may constitute a grave violation of international law. UN warns of humanitarian catastrophe, urges immediate ceasefire in Iran-Israel war, and calls on influential nations like India to help de-escalate the crisis. New Delhi, March 14 The United Nations Human Rights Office has warned that the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict is rapidly escalating with serious humanitarian, economic, and global consequences, urging all parties to move towards an immediate ceasefire and stronger diplomatic efforts from influential countries including India to help de-escalate the crisis. Speaking to IANS, UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the organisation had already warned about the possibility of a conflict months before the hostilities began. "We have been warning about this for several months. In fact, just the week before the war began, our monitoring showed there was a heightened risk of conflict and hostilities," she said. According to the UN Human Rights Office, the conflict has expanded beyond initial attacks and now involves multiple actors across the region. Ravina Shamdasani noted that the escalation began after attacks involving Israel, Iran and the United States, followed by retaliatory actions and wider hostilities affecting neighbouring countries. "This is an unfolding catastrophe before our very eyes, and it was entirely avoidable," she said. She added that the UN is closely monitoring developments in several countries including Iran, Lebanon and Israel, while also tracking global consequences such as rising fuel prices, disruption of humanitarian aid and economic difficulties affecting migrant workers in Gulf nations. Shamdasani also highlighted that countries with global influence - including India - can play an important role in helping to end the conflict. "India, along with other influential countries, can recommit to the UN Charter and insist on bringing this conflict to an end," she said. She added that world leaders must push for dialogue, negotiations and respect for international law to prevent the crisis from escalating into a wider regional war. The UN also expressed deep concern over reports that a strike hit a girls' school in Minab, killing a large number of students. "This is absolutely horrific," Shamdasani said. According to the UN Human Rights Office, reports indicate that more than 100 students - around 160 girls -were killed during school hours, raising serious concerns about possible violations of international humanitarian law. "This is potentially a grave violation of international law. We are urging a prompt investigation and full accountability," she said, stressing that the victims' families deserve transparency about what happened. Shamdasani emphasised that international humanitarian law clearly requires the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure during armed conflicts. "Even wars have laws. Parties to a conflict must do their utmost to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure," she said. She warned that attacks on schools, hospitals, desalination plants and other civilian facilities could amount to war crimes if intentionally targeted. The UN's message to governments involved in the conflict is clear, she said. "There needs to be a ceasefire. Everyone should be working toward this goal. The current cycle of attacks and counterattacks is harming civilians and cannot serve long-term security objectives." According to the UN Human Rights Office, sustained diplomatic efforts and international pressure are essential to secure a ceasefire and prevent further civilian casualties as the conflict continues to intensify across the region. - IANS India, as the current BRICS Chair, is facilitating discussions among member states to forge a common position on the West Asia conflict, though consensus is challenged by some members' direct involvement. The conflict intensified following military strikes targeting Iran's Supreme Leader, leading to Iranian retaliation and regional instability. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar recently discussed bilateral and BRICS issues with his Iranian counterpart, who emphasized the group's potential role in condemning aggression and supporting stability. The BRICS grouping has recently expanded, adding several new full members and partner countries. India, as BRICS Chair, facilitates discussions on the West Asia conflict. Members seek consensus as Iran stresses the group's role in regional stability. New Delhi, March 13 Some members of the BRICS are "directly involved in the current situation in the West Asia region," which has impacted forging a consensus on a common position on the ongoing conflict, sources said. India, as the current Chair, has been "facilitating discussions" among member states through the Sherpa channel, they said. The sources added that the last virtual BRICS Sherpa meeting was held on March 12 to deliberate on the situation. "Some members of the BRICS are directly involved in the current situation in the West Asia region, which has impacted forging a consensus on a common BRICS position on the ongoing conflict. As Chair of BRICS, India has been facilitating discussions among members through the Sherpa channel. The last virtual BRICS Sherpa meeting was held on 12 March," the sources said. Sources further said that the Indian leadership has also been "engaging" with leaders of BRICS member countries in the region as part of ongoing diplomatic consultations."India will continue to engage," the sources added. The conflict in the region escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel on February 28, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Earlier on Thursday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke with Iran's Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, during which the two sides discussed bilateral ties and cooperation within the BRICS grouping. "Had another conversation with Iranian FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi yesterday night. Discussed bilateral matters as also BRICS related issues," Jaishankar stated in a post on X on Friday. The Iranian Foreign Ministry today, in a statement on X, stated that Araghchi briefed Jaishankar on the latest situation in the region and emphasised the firm resolve of the Iranian government, people and armed forces to exercise what he called their legitimate right to self-defence against the aggressors. Araghchi also stressed the need for regional and international bodies to condemn the military aggression by the US and Israel against Iran and highlighted the importance of the BRICS grouping as a forum for strengthening multilateral cooperation. He added it was essential for BRICS to play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability and security. "The Iranian Foreign Minister stressed the necessity for regional and international bodies and organisations to condemn the military aggression against Iran. Highlighting the importance and position of BRICS as a forum for developing multilateral cooperation, Araghchi deemed it essential for the institution to play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability and security," the statement read. The BRICS is led by five major economies--Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa--with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Indonesia becoming full members of the forum later. The grouping took formal shape after a meeting of the leaders of Russia, India, and China in St. Petersburg during the G8 Outreach Summit in 2006, and was further institutionalised during the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York later that year. The first BRIC Summit was subsequently held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. In 2010, it was agreed to expand BRIC to BRICS, with South Africa joining at the 3rd BRICS Summit in Sanya in 2011. The grouping expanded further in 2024, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE becoming full members on January 1, 2024. Indonesia joined as a full member in January 2025, while Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan were inducted as partner countries of BRICS. - ANI India is undertaking a major diplomatic and logistical operation to ensure the safety of approximately 9,000 of its nationals in Iran, including students, seafarers, and pilgrims. The Ministry of External Affairs is actively assisting those who wish to leave by facilitating land border crossings into Armenia and Azerbaijan for onward flights home. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has held multiple calls with his Iranian counterpart to secure the safety of commercial shipping and protect India's crucial energy imports through the Strait of Hormuz. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also engaged with Gulf leaders, stressing dialogue and the protection of civilians amid regional instability. India's MEA assists 9,000 citizens in Iran, secures shipping lanes, and engages in high-level diplomacy to ensure safety and energy security. New Delhi, March 12 India on Thursday highlighted a high-level diplomatic push to protect Indian interests, emphasising the twin priorities of citizen safety and the stability of energy supply chains. During the weekly press briefing on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India is working to ensure the safety of its 9,000 nationals in Iran, with several students and others returning home through embassy assistance. Jaiswal confirmed that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held three telephone conversations with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, to ensure the safety of commercial shipping and protect India's energy security. "External Affairs Minister and the Foreign Minister of Iran have had three conversations in recent days. The last one discussed issues pertaining to the safety of shipping and India's energy security. Beyond that, it would be premature for me to say anything," he said. Notably, following these talks, stabilisation in the transit of Indian oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz was secured, a crucial chokepoint for the nation's energy imports. Moreover, the MEA is proactively assisting the approximately 9,000 Indian nationals currently in Iran, many of whom are students, seafarers, and pilgrims. "We've had some 9,000 Indian nationals who were there or who are there in Iran. These 9,000 Indian nationals comprise students. They also comprise seafarers, some business people, some professionals, and some pilgrims. Of these 9,000, you would have seen that we had issued an advisory some time back. Our mission issued an advisory following those advisories, which were issued on the 14th of January, if I'm not wrong, and 23rd of February, several Indian nationals, mostly students, a lot of students, left the country and reached home," said Jaiswal. The Indian Embassy in Tehran is facilitating the safe movement of nationals who wish to leave the country. This includes helping them reach Armenia and Azerbaijan via land borders, where they can access commercial flights to return to India. "We have recently, as you know, we have shifted several Indian nationals, including students and pilgrims, who were based in Tehran to other safer locations and cities in the country. We are also assisting Indian nationals who wish to travel to Azerbaijan and Armenia, and from there to take commercial flights to return home. We are assisting them with visas. We are also assisting them with land border crossings. So this is happening," he said. "We've had several Indian nationals who have approached us and we have helped them to cross over into Azerbaijan and Armenia and for them from there to take commercial options of flying back home. I would take this opportunity to advise all Indian nationals who desire to leave Iran via land borders. They should adhere to the advisory that our embassy has issued," he added. For those remaining in the country, the mission has moved Indian nationals--including students and pilgrims--from Tehran to safer cities. The Embassy has issued specific travel advisories (most recently on March 9) and remains in 24/7 contact with the community to provide consular support. "This was issued on 9th March and they will do the needful. Our mission in Tehran, needless to say, stays in constant touch with our community members and is offering all possible assistance to them. I would like to say that our mission is completely working and our Indian community for their benefit and security," he said. India's diplomatic efforts extend beyond Tehran, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi actively engaging with leaders across the Gulf to stress the importance of regional stability. Prime Minister Modi has consistently urged regional leaders to return to dialogue and diplomacy, emphasising that "India First" remains the guiding ideology in navigating this global crisis. "Our Prime Minister, as you know, has spoken to several leaders in the Gulf after the conflict started. In these conversations, he stressed the need for dialogue and diplomacy so that early peace can return. He also underlined the need to avoid civilian casualties, and he focused on the priority for the protection of civilians," said Jaiswal. Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shared their perspectives on the conflict. "The conversation between Foreign Minister Lavrov and External Affairs Minister. Post the conversation which happened yesterday, if I'm not wrong, we have given details of that conversation where the two leaders shared their perspectives and assessment on the ongoing conflict and several other issues were also discussed," he said. "We have a large Indian community in the GCC countries, and obviously, their security and welfare are of utmost importance. This was highlighted. We also, in several cases, condemned the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states," he said. Meanwhile, multiple explosions have been reported across Iran's capital, Tehran and other cities as US-Israeli attacks continue. Iraq has shut down oil port operations after deadly attacks on two foreign oil tankers, as Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia intercept more Iranian missiles and drones, as reported by Al Jazeera. - ANI India and the United States have announced the Pillar III meeting of their Counter Narcotics Working Group for April 2026, following discussions in Vienna. The focus is on strengthening cooperation and enabling real-time information exchange to conduct parallel investigations against transnational drug networks. This builds on the inaugural meeting of the Drug Policy Executive Working Group held in Washington in January. Both nations reaffirmed their commitment to dismantling illicit drug production and trafficking, treating the drug crisis as a core national security priority. India and the US announce a key 2026 meeting to enhance cooperation, intelligence sharing, and efforts against transnational drug cartels and narco-terrorism. Vienna, March 13 The Narcotics Control Bureau of India and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will be holding the Pillar III meeting of the US-India Counter Narcotics Working Group in April 2026. According to a post by the Narcotics Control Bureau of India (NCB) on X on Friday, the announcement was made following the meeting of Director General of NCB, Anurag Garg and Sara Carter, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), on the sidelines of the 69th Session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria. During the meeting, the two sides also discussed strengthening cooperation between India and the United States to counter transnational drug trafficking networks. It further added that the discussions also focused on real-time information exchange to facilitate expeditious parallel investigations in their respective jurisdictions into transnational drug cartels. "Focus on sharing actionable intelligence between India & US to strengthen counter-narcotics cooperation. Real time sharing of information for expeditious parallel investigations in corresponding jurisdictions on transnational drug cartels. Both sides decided to convene the Pillar III meeting of U.S-India Counter Narcotics Working Group (CNWG) in April 2026," the post read. Earlier in January, the US hosted the inaugural meeting of the US-India Drug Policy Executive Working Group in Washington, bringing together officials from both countries to strengthen bilateral cooperation against illicit drugs and narcotics trafficking. The meeting, which took place between January 20 and January 21, was opened by Carter, who highlighted the commitment of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to enhancing security cooperation and eliminating narco-terrorism. From the Indian side, Ambassador of India to the United States Vinay Kwatra said that India accords the highest priority to tackling the threats posed by narcotics trafficking and the diversion of precursor chemicals while maintaining a balance between strict enforcement and the facilitation of legitimate trade. "The drug crisis is now a core national security priority. This Executive Working Group leverages the bilateral partnership to protect families while also supporting legitimate industries," Carter said. Both countries further reaffirmed their commitment to intensifying efforts to dismantle the illegal production and trafficking of illicit drugs and their precursor chemicals. They also emphasised the need for a whole-of-government approach to streamline interagency and intergovernmental efforts and secure the pharmaceutical supply chain in accordance with national regulations. - ANI India's data centre capacity has quadrupled since 2020, reaching nearly 1,500 MW. The government has facilitated access to over 38,000 GPUs for AI development at a subsidised rate. Electricity demand from the sector is projected to grow significantly, requiring infrastructure expansion. The industry is also adopting advanced cooling technologies to manage water consumption as it scales. India's data centre capacity jumps from 375 MW to 1,500 MW. Govt provides 38,000+ GPUs for AI at subsidised rates, with power demand projected to hit 13.56 GW. New Delhi, March 13 India's data centre industry is witnessing steady growth, with the country's total capacity rising from around 375 MW in 2020 to nearly 1,500 MW by 2025, the Parliament was informed on Friday. In a written response to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister Jitin Prasada said that to support artificial intelligence (AI) development, about 38,231 GPUs have been onboarded through 14 empanelled service providers and data centres under the AI compute capacity framework. These computing resources are being provided to startups, researchers, academic institutions and other eligible users at a subsidised average rate of Rs 65 per hour, which is roughly one-third of the global average cost, he added. The data centres are located across key technology hubs in the country, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Noida and Jamnagar. The minister said the government is aware of the infrastructure requirements of the growing data centre ecosystem, including electricity and water. According to the Ministry of Power, electricity demand from data centres is projected to reach 13.56 GW by 2031-32 as the sector expands alongside AI and other large-scale computing applications. India's national transmission infrastructure is being continuously expanded to meet rising electricity demand and ensure reliable power supply across regions, he added. The recently enacted Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act is also expected to support reliable power solutions for emerging sectors such as AI and data centres by enabling future deployment of small modular and micro nuclear reactors. Prasada noted that water consumption in data centres varies depending on the cooling technologies used. Groundwater extraction for industrial use, including for data centres, is regulated under guidelines issued by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, according to him. To minimise water usage, the industry is increasingly adopting advanced cooling technologies such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling, adiabatic cooling and immersion cooling. Companies are also deploying high-density racks to efficiently support high-performance computing and AI workloads while reducing overall power and water consumption, the minister said. - IANS Former MEA Secretary Riva Ganguly Das states India's neutral position in the West Asia conflict is strategically driven by national interests, including energy security and diaspora welfare. She notes the absence of a coordinated UN response to the crisis, which has severely disrupted global oil markets via the Strait of Hormuz. India's balanced diplomacy is yielding visible benefits, including Iran granting safe passage to Indian-flagged vessels through the critical waterway. High-level engagements between Indian and Iranian leaders are ongoing to manage the evolving situation. Former MEA official explains how India's balanced diplomatic approach during the West Asia conflict is securing energy supplies and protecting national interests. New Delhi, March 14 Riva Ganguly Das, former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Saturday that India's position on the ongoing West Asia conflict is guided primarily by its own strategic and economic interests, adding that maintaining a neutral stance has worked in New Delhi's favour. Speaking about the growing global energy crisis and how different countries are reacting to it, Das told IANS that nations are responding according to their own energy security requirements while also holding consultations with regional allies. "I think countries are responding to this challenge individually based on their energy security needs, and they are consulting with their partners in the region. I think it's still very early days," she said. Das also added that the current crisis has not yet produced a coordinated international response. "Hopefully, the tension and the crisis will end soon. However, there hasn't been any initiative for a collective response as of now. As you know, the whole situation did not start through any UN initiative, so the world's largest multilateral organisation is absent from this discussion," she said. Explaining India's approach to the conflict in West Asia, Das noted that New Delhi's decisions have been shaped by its national priorities, energy requirements and longstanding relationships with countries across the region. "India's stand in this case has been driven by its own interests. India is a large country and a major consumer of energy. We also have a significant diaspora in West Asia. We maintain good relations with all the countries in that region. Therefore, our response has naturally been guided by our national interests and our relationships with the various regional players," she said. Her remarks came as two tankers carrying around 46,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LNG) departed from the Strait of Hormuz for India. Reacting to this development, Das said India's balanced diplomatic approach was yielding visible benefits. "As people can see, India is getting benefits out of its neutral stance," she added. The global energy market has been under intense pressure following escalating tensions between the US and Iran, which intensified into open conflict in late February. The crisis deepened after joint US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets reportedly began on February 28, killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The conflict has severely disrupted global oil markets, creating one of the most serious supply shocks in recent decades. A key factor has been the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime passage through which nearly 20 per cent of the world's daily oil supply and a similar proportion of LNG normally pass. In response to the attacks, Iran has effectively blockaded or heavily restricted shipping through the strait, causing tanker movements in the area to drop by more than 90 per cent during certain periods. Tehran has also carried out attacks on oil tankers and energy infrastructure in the Gulf region, further adding to supply concerns. At the same time, production and exports from several regional oil producers -- including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait -- have been affected by precautionary shutdowns or reduced output. Amid the disruption, Iran has now granted safe passage to Indian-flagged vessels through the Strait of Hormuz despite the wider restrictions imposed on global shipping, and an LPG tanker sailing to India crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The development follows a series of high-level diplomatic engagements between India and Iran, including phone conversations between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday to review the rapidly evolving situation in the West Asia region. - IANS The Indian Naval Sail Training Ship INS Sudarshini has arrived at the port of Valletta, Malta, a key stop in its ambitious 22,000-nautical-mile Lokayan-26 expedition. The visit underscores the deep maritime ties between India and Malta, following the ship's transit through the Suez Canal. The Commanding Officer called on India's High Commissioner, who highlighted the voyage as a symbol of maritime cooperation under the MAHASAGAR vision. The crew will engage with the Armed Forces of Malta and host community events before sailing to a maritime festival in France. Indian Naval ship INS Sudarshini reaches Valletta, Malta, strengthening maritime ties during its 22,000-nautical-mile Lokayan-26 global voyage. Valletta, March 14 The Indian Naval Sail Training Ship INS Sudarshini has arrived at the historic port of Valletta, Malta, marking a significant milestone in her landmark transoceanic expedition Lokayan-26, according to an official press release by the Ministry of Defence. The ship arrived in Valletta on 12 March, underscoring the deep-rooted maritime ties between India and Malta. This visit represents an important leg of the ship's ambitious 22,000-nautical-mile global voyage. The arrival follows a successful transit through the Suez Canal and a recent port call at Alexandria. On arrival, the Commanding Officer called on Rachita Bhandari, High Commissioner of India to the Republic of Malta. The press release stated that the interaction highlighted the role played by the Indian Navy in strengthening the bilateral relationship between the two nations. The High Commissioner noted that the presence of INS Sudarshini in Malta serves as a powerful symbol of the vision of MAHASAGAR, reinforcing maritime cooperation while fostering people-to-people connections. During the visit, the ship's crew will engage in professional interactions and courtesy calls with the Armed Forces of Malta, further promoting mutual trust and interoperability. The press release added that the ship will also host community outreach activities, including a guided "Open Ship" for schoolchildren and members of the Indian diaspora in Malta. INS Sudarshini is currently in the second month of her voyage, which commenced at Kochi on 20 January. Following the visit to Malta, the ship will sail towards the French coast to participate in the Escale a Sete maritime festival. As the press release noted, she will proudly represent India alongside some of the world's most celebrated tall ships. - ANI Iran's Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Tehran has allowed some Indian vessels to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, citing the historical relations between the two countries. The envoy's comments come amid reports of two Indian LPG tankers being granted safe transit through the vital shipping lane, which handles 20% of global oil and gas exports. Fathali also defended Iran's actions in targeting US bases in the region, referencing a missile strike on a school. He highlighted a recent phone call between the Indian Prime Minister and Iranian President, asserting that both nations have common interests and the maturity to handle differences. Iran's ambassador confirms safe passage for some Indian ships through the vital Strait of Hormuz, citing historical relations between the two nations. New Delhi, March 14 Citing the "historical relations" between both countries, Iran's Ambassador to India Mohammad Fathali on Saturday said that Tehran has allowed some Indian vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz though he declined to share further operational details. "Yes, we have allowed, but let me not tell you how many. As an Ambassador of Iran to India, I will follow this issue in the future as well because Iran and India have historical relations. Of course, as an Ambassador, I have done my best. There was some delay, but it happened," said Fathali while responding to a question on how many Indian ships have been allowed and "for how many days" at the annual India Today Conclave in New Delhi. The Iranian diplomat's comment amid reports that two Indian LPG tankers have been allowed to transit the Strait Of Hormuz amid the ongoing West Asia conflict. Two oil tankers, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, are on their way to arrive in the country in a couple of days. These vessels are owned by state-run Shipping Corporation of India Limited. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most vital shipping lanes through which 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas exports transit. After the safe passage of two LPG carriers, more tankers are lined up for crossing the war-affected zone after Iran granted Indian-flagged tankers safe passage from the Strait, reliable sources told IANS on Saturday. Fathali also defended Tehran's decision to target US bases in several Gulf nations, highlighting that the Tomahawk missile that reportedly struck a girls' school in Iran and killed around 170 students was launched from a US base in the region. "We have announced that you will not actually be touched... Your assets, whatever you have inside your country... But, we asked them what we should do when one of our schools, including the children, was hit by American Tomahawk missiles. We respect them completely but we will definitely target the American bases. It is very bad that we witnessed these schools being hit by missiles launched from a base in one of the neighbouring countries," the envoy remarked. Ambassador Fathali asserted that Tehran has repeatedly conveyed that it was ready for both negotiations and war. "We announced several times. Iran is ready for negotiation and war. But we prefer negotiation," the Iranian diplomat said at the event on Saturday. "We are also ready for the war. But beware, you can start, but you cannot finish," he responded to another question on the ongoing conflict. He also spoke about the recent discussions held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian over a phone call, highlighting that the call was delayed due to technical difficulties being faced during the ongoing conflict. "I believe Iran and India have common interests," Fathali said while also mentioning that both sides have the "political and social maturity" to handle any differences and work together. - IANS Warns UAE over ports used by US Iran's military launched a new wave of missiles amid escalating regional conflict, state media reported. The move followed a stark warning from an Iranian military spokesman that Tehran could target ports and docks in the United Arab Emirates, which it alleges conceal US forces. This warning came after US forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Iran's Kharg Island, hitting over 90 military targets but reportedly sparing oil infrastructure. Iran maintains its attacks target US military interests, while vowing to increase the use of upgraded, high-impact weapons systems. Iran launches new missiles, warns it may strike UAE ports used by US forces after American strikes on vital Kharg Island oil hub. Tehran, March 14 Iran's military on Saturday launched a fresh wave of missiles as part of ongoing strikes against regional adversaries amid the West Asia conflict, Iranian state media Press TV reported. The incident came moments after a spokesperson from Iran's military warned that Tehran could target ports and docks in the United Arab Emirates after recent US strikes on Kharg Island, a key hub for Iran's oil exports. The warning came as tensions escalated in the Gulf following US missile strikes on military facilities on Kharg Island on Friday. Saturday's warning specifically addressed the UAE, urging civilians to avoid ports and docks. "We warn the UAE leadership that the Islamic Republic of Iran views it as its legitimate right to strike the origins of American missile launches--those concealed in ports, docks, and shelters used by US forces under the cover of Emirati cities--in defence of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity," the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, said, as quoted by CNN. According to CNN, Kharg handles around 90 per cent of Iran's crude oil exports and is considered vital for the country's economy. US officials and Iranian state media said that the strikes did not hit oil infrastructure or targets related to oil trade. Earlier today, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) stated in a post on X that over 90 Iranian military targets were hit on Kharg Island. "Last night, U.S. forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island, Iran. The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites. U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island while preserving the oil infrastructure," the post read. Iran has maintained that its attacks in the Gulf have been aimed at US military interests, though hotels, civilian high-rises, and key oil infrastructure have reportedly been hit across the region. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that Tehran has vowed to increase the use of upgraded weapons systems -- particularly ballistic missiles and other high-impact munitions with greater destructive potential -- as part of its broader offensive strategy. - ANI U.S. defense officials state that a 13-day military campaign, Operation Epic Fury, has severely degraded Iran's armed forces. The Pentagon reports striking over 6,000 targets, specifically crippling Iran's naval capabilities to the point of being "combat ineffective." The operation's stated goals are to dismantle Iran's missile infrastructure and its ability to threaten shipping, while deliberately avoiding broader political objectives. Officials caution that Iran retains some capacity to harm forces and commercial traffic as the intensity of U.S. strikes continues to increase. Pentagon reports over 6,000 targets struck, rendering Iranian naval power "combat ineffective" in a sustained 13-day campaign. Washington, March 13 The US said Friday that its military campaign against Iran had sharply degraded Tehran's armed forces, with more than 6,000 targets struck and Iranian naval power rendered "combat ineffective" as the conflict entered its 13th day. At a Pentagon news conference, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said American forces were intensifying operations under what officials described as Operation Epic Fury, targeting Iran's missile infrastructure, naval assets, and defence industrial base. "This morning, we enter the 13th day of Operation Epic Fury, and we continue to make progress toward our military objectives," Caine told reporters. The U.S. military has carried out a sustained air and missile campaign across Iran, striking military facilities, production centres, and launch systems that officials say enable Tehran to threaten American forces, regional partners, and commercial shipping. "We've attacked over 6,000 targets, and our strike packages continue to launch every hour," Caine said. "Centcom is now persistently over the enemy." According to the Pentagon, the campaign has significantly reduced Iran's ability to conduct military operations. "As Admiral Cooper said in his update on Wednesday, Iranian combat power continues to decline as a result of the continued strikes," Caine said. He added that American forces had inflicted major damage on Iran's naval capabilities. "In less than two weeks, we've rendered the Iranian Navy combat ineffective and continue to attack naval vessels," he said, including ships armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapons. U.S. officials said the military campaign was designed to dismantle Iran's capacity to threaten maritime traffic and project power in the region. "Our bases or our partners there are continuing to destroy the Iranian Navy," Caine said. American forces are also targeting Iran's mine-laying capabilities and infrastructure linked to attacks on commercial shipping. "This means going after Iran's mine-laying capability and destroying their ability to attack commercial vessels," he said. Despite the progress reported by the Pentagon, Caine cautioned that Iran still retained some capacity to threaten U.S. forces and international shipping. "Iran still can harm friendly forces and commercial shipping, and our work on this effort continues," he said. Defence Secretary Hegseth said the objectives of the military campaign had remained consistent since the beginning of the conflict. "We've defined these objectives. We're pursuing those objectives," he said. He said the United States was focused on destroying Iranian missile launchers, crippling its defence industrial base, and degrading its naval forces. "Launchers, missile launchers, defence industrial base, their navy, the ability to project power on the naval sense leading toward denying them the ability to get a nuclear weapon," Hegseth said. The defence secretary stressed that the administration was deliberately avoiding broader military or political objectives that had characterised earlier U.S. wars in the region. "Mission creep or expansive missions or prolonged timelines or democracy building or nation building, you name it, has not been part of what President Trump wants us to be involved in," he said. Hegseth said President Donald Trump would ultimately determine the pace and duration of the campaign. "The President has his hand on the throttle and will decide ultimately when they've been reached," he said. The Pentagon also indicated that the intensity of U.S. strikes was continuing to increase. Caine said Thursday would be the most active day of the campaign so far. "Today will be our busiest day," he said. Hegseth said the operation was ramping up across multiple domains. "We continue to ramp up every tool of AI, of cyber, of space, EW, counter-UAS - you name it, we're employing it," he said. The briefing also addressed concerns about the security of global energy routes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz. Caine said Iranian actions were responsible for disruptions to commercial shipping through the strategic waterway. "The only thing preventing commercial traffic and flow through the Straits right now... is Iran," he said. The Pentagon said the United States was prioritising operations aimed at neutralising Iran's ability to threaten maritime traffic. "We've made it a priority to target Iran's mine-laying enterprise," Caine said. Hegseth said Washington had long anticipated Iranian attempts to use the strait as leverage during a conflict. "For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," he said. "We have a plan for every option here." The briefing also touched on the risks and costs of the ongoing military campaign. Caine confirmed that a U.S. KC-135 refuelling aircraft had crashed over western Iraq during a combat mission. The incident, he said, was not caused by hostile or friendly fire. "We're still treating this as an active rescue and recovery operation," Caine said. He added that four airmen had been recovered and that updates would be provided as more information became available. "Our service members make an incredible sacrifice to go forward and do the things that the nation asks of them," he said. The chairman also noted a fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, saying the Pentagon was monitoring the situation and referring further questions to the Navy. Both officials praised U.S. troops involved in the campaign, particularly artillery forces supporting the operation. Caine said American soldiers and Marines had fired the Precision Strike Missile for the first time in combat during the conflict. "In just the first 13 days of this operation, our artillery forces have made history," he said. "They fired the first precision strike missiles ever used in combat, reaching deep into enemy territory." The general described speaking with soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "One had been in the Army only six months and had been in the unit for two months and was already deployed," Caine said. Despite their youth, he said the troops carried out their missions with professionalism and discipline. "They spoke with the sense of calm, pride, purpose and clarity," he said. The confrontation between Washington and Tehran comes amid longstanding tensions over Iran's nuclear programme, its missile arsenal and its network of regional proxies across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints, carrying a large share of global oil shipments each day. Developments in the conflict are being closely watched by energy-importing countries, including India, which relies heavily on crude oil supplies from the Gulf region and whose economy is sensitive to disruptions in global energy markets. - IANS Sable Offshore Corp. (NYSE:SOC) is one of the 10 Stock Winners in a Brutal Market. Sable Offshore extended its winning streak to a third straight day on Thursday, adding 5.19 percent to finish at $17.44 apiece, as investors await President Donald Trumps intervention that could allow the company to resume full operations at its California pipeline system. A report by Bloomberg said Wednesday that President Donald Trump is looking to exercise his emergency powers under the Defense Production Act in support of Sable Offshore Corp.s (NYSE:SOC) restart of its Las Flores onshore pipeline system, having been shut for more than a decade due to a major oil spill. Sable Offshore (SOC) Jumps 5% as Traders Await Trump Intervention Pixabay/Public Domain The report followed a legal opinion from an office of the Department of Justice earlier in the week confirming such. An order issued as an exercise of congressionally delegated authority or the Presidents constitutional powers has the force of federal law under the Supremacy Clause and may preempt contrary state law, said Thomas Elliot Gaiser, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel of the DOJ. While Sable Offshore Corp. (NYSE:SOC) has restarted operations of its Santa Ynez offshore unit, it remains unable to sell or transport hydrocarbons through its Las Flores facility pending court approval. While we acknowledge the potential of SOC as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. US President Donald Trump sharply criticized Iran, labeling it "a nation of terror and hate" during a White House event. He stated Iran is "paying a big price right now" and that the situation is moving along very rapidly. Trump praised the US military as unsurpassed and suggested actions against Iran were long overdue. The remarks highlight the continuing prominence of Iran in US national security policy, with tensions rooted in Tehran's regional influence and nuclear ambitions. US President Donald Trump sharply criticizes Iran, calling it a nation of terror and hate, as tensions dominate US national security discussions. Washington, March 13 US President Donald Trump sharply criticised Iran, calling it "a nation of terror and hate" and saying it was "paying a big price right now" as tensions with Tehran continue to dominate US national security discussions. Speaking at a White House event marking Women's History Month, Trump briefly turned to foreign policy and said the situation with Iran was "moving along very rapidly", while praising the strength of the US military. "They really are a nation of terror and hate, and they're paying a big price right now," Trump told a packed East Room, mostly women. "Our military is unsurpassed. There's never been anything like it." The president suggested that the current actions against Iran were long overdue. "We're doing what has to be done, should have been done," he said, adding that such steps "could have been done by a lot of different people" over "a 47-year period". Trump offered no operational details about US actions toward Iran during the remarks. However, he emphasised that events were unfolding quickly. "The situation with Iran is moving along very rapidly," he said. "It's doing very well." The comments came during a speech largely focused on Women's History Month, working mothers, and domestic economic policy, but Trump's remarks on Iran underscored the continuing prominence of the issue in US national security policy. Iran has long been at the centre of tensions with Washington, particularly over its regional influence, support for militant groups, and nuclear ambitions. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, relations between the United States and Iran have remained strained, with successive US administrations imposing sanctions and seeking to curb Tehran's military and nuclear capabilities. - IANS Iran's diplomatic representative in India has clarified that his country has not closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz, though shipping is currently disrupted due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia. He placed blame for the war and resulting global oil price increases squarely on the United States, calling on world leaders to pressure the US to stop the conflict. Meanwhile, Iran's military warned of a devastating response if its energy infrastructure is targeted by the US or Israel. Despite the tensions, Iran's UN ambassador stated Tehran has no intention to close the vital waterway but asserts its right to preserve security there. Iran's Supreme Leader's representative in India states the Strait of Hormuz remains open despite disruptions, blaming the US-Israel conflict for rising oil prices. New Delhi, March 13 Noting that Iran has not closed the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz and ships are unable to pass through the Hormuz due the prevailing situation in West Asia, Dr Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, has said that his country never wanted the Strait to be blocked but "some ships are still passing". Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi told ANI that world leaders should put pressure on US President Donald Trump to stop the war against his country. He said people across the world are suffering due to the rise in oil prices. "Iran has not closed the Strait. It remains open; however, due to current conditions and circumstances, ships are unable to pass through the Hormuz. Otherwise, Iran never wanted the Strait to be closed or blocked. Some (ships) are still passing through," he told ANI. "Those who initiated this war are the very ones who must stop it... Many people across the world are suffering due to this war. World leaders must unite and exert pressure on the President of the United States, urging him to put an immediate stop to this unjust war," he added. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. The West Asia conflict has entered its 13th day. Earlier in the day, Iran's Military Headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya, warned of dire consequences if Iran's energy infrastructure is targeted by the US and Israel. "The slightest attack on #Iran's energy infrastructure and ports will result in our crushing and devastating response. In the event of such an attack, all the oil and gas infrastructure in the region, in which the United States and its Western allies have interests, will be set on fire and destroyed." Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has indicated that the closure of the Strait would remain a pressure tactic, according to remarks broadcast on Iranian state television."Dear fighter brothers! The desire of the masses of the people is the continuation of effective and regret-inducing defence. Furthermore, the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must certainly continue to be used," he said. Khamenei said that Iran had identified sites which he claimed were vulnerable for future strikes from the Islamic Republic, a spokesperson for the Military said. "Studies have been conducted regarding the opening of additional fronts in areas where the enemy has negligible experience and would be highly vulnerable, and their activation will be carried out if the state of war persists and in accordance with the observance of interests," he said. Later, Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani stated that Tehran has no intention to close the Strait of Hormuz amid the West Asia conflict but added that it is their "right to preserve the peace and security in this waterway." Amir Saeid Iravani also said Iran respects and remains committed to the principles of freedom of navigation under the law of the sea, adding that the situation of the Strait of Hormuz is "not the result" of Iran's action."We are not going to close the Strait of Hormuz, but it is our inherent right to preserve the peace and security in this waterway, and it is our right," he said, speaking at the UN stakeout. "Iran has no choice but to exercise its inherent right to self-defence under the UN Charter and international law. Iran fully respects and remains committed to the principles of freedom of navigation under the law of the sea. However, the current situation in the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, is not the result of Iran's lawful exercise of its right of self-defence," he added. Strait of Hormuz, links the oil-rich Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea and over 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports pass through the strait. In view of supply disruptions due to the West Asia conflict, India now imports crude from around 40 countries. As a result of this diversification, about 70 per cent of crude imports are coming from routes outside the Strait of Hormuz compared with about 55 per cent earlier. India is the third largest importer, fourth largest refiner, and fifth largest exporter of petroleum products globally. - ANI Iran has released images of the coffins of sailors killed when the IRIS Dena frigate was sunk by a US submarine torpedo near Sri Lanka. Iranian officials have condemned the attack as a "war crime" and a violation of international laws, stating the vessel was officially invited by the Indian Navy. The incident occurred on March 4, leading to a significant loss of life among the crew. Indian and Sri Lankan forces participated in the subsequent search and rescue operations. Iran publishes pictures of coffins from the sunken IRIS Dena, accuses the US of a "war crime" for attacking the frigate near Sri Lanka. Tehran, March 14 The Iranian administration on Friday released pictures of coffins of fallen IRIS Dena sailors who lost their lives in the attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship. In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in India said, "The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship." Earlier, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, on Tuesday paid tributes to the sailors of IRIS Dena who were killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. He called the action by the United States a "war crime" and in violation of international laws-- further underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it. In a post on X, Baqaei said, "We honour the fallen sailors of the #Dena frigate, martyred on 4 March far from their homeland. The Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit. In a brutal act amounting to a war crime, the United States attacked the vessel near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka and sank it." The post added, "Worse still, the U.S. deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. This act not only constitutes aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (Definition of Aggression), but also a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II (1949) and Additional Protocol I (1977). The Iranian people will neither forget nor forgive this heinous crime." IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels, including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with maritime patrol aircraft such as P-8I aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations. Of the estimated 180 crew members on board IRIS Dena, around 87 sailors were reported dead, while about 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. - ANI India has facilitated the repatriation of over 100 non-essential crew members from an Iranian naval vessel, the IRIS Lavan, docked at Kochi. The sailors were flown out on a Turkish airline flight on humanitarian grounds following a US-Iran naval confrontation in the region. The warship, which originally had 183 personnel, now retains about 50 sailors for operational needs while its departure date remains unclear. Indian authorities are monitoring the situation closely, balancing maritime protocols with diplomatic sensitivities amid heightened strategic activity in the Indian Ocean. India repatriates over 100 crew from Iranian naval ship in Kochi. Vessel remains as US-Iran tensions escalate in Indian Ocean. Kochi, March 14 India has repatriated more than 100 non-essential crew members of an Iranian naval vessel that docked at Kochi earlier this month, even as the warship continues to remain berthed at the southern port, here amid escalating hostilities between Iran and the United States. Officials familiar with the development said the sailors were flown out late on Friday night on a Turkish airline flight after India facilitated their departure on humanitarian grounds. The aircraft is believed to have stopped at Colombo where an Iranian warship was sunk by a US submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka on March 4. The repatriated sailors were part of the crew of the Iranian naval ship IRIS Lavan, which had docked at Kochi port the same day the naval confrontation unfolded in the Indian Ocean Region. Sources said the vessel originally had 183 personnel on board, but with the departure of the non-essential crew members, around 50 sailors have remained with the ship for operational and maintenance requirements. Indian authorities have been closely monitoring the situation since the vessel arrived, particularly in the backdrop of the rapidly deteriorating military situation between Tehran and Washington. Officials indicated that the presence of the Iranian warship in Kochi was being handled with caution while ensuring adherence to maritime protocols and diplomatic sensitivities. While the remaining crew members continue to stay on board the vessel, there has been no official indication yet on when the warship will leave Indian waters. Maritime and security agencies are maintaining a close watch on developments in the region. The episode has drawn attention in diplomatic and naval circles as the Indian Ocean has witnessed heightened strategic activity following the confrontation between Iran and the United States earlier this month. - IANS Iran's representative in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, stated that recent conversations between Indian and Iranian leadership were "good and successful," highlighting strong bilateral support. He accused the United States and Israel of attacking Iran and targeting civilians, vowing Iran's sacrifice for its dignity. The discussions between officials, including PM Modi and EAM Jaishankar, focused on the deteriorating security situation, energy security, and the safety of shipping lanes. India has emphasized its priorities of protecting nationals, ensuring unhindered energy transit, and resolving the crisis through dialogue and diplomacy. Iran's representative in India says leadership talks were successful, praises Indian support, amid escalating West Asia conflict and discussions on energy security. New Delhi, March 14 Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, the Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, said that the Indian and Iranian leadership held a "good and successful" conversation amid the developing security situation in West Asia. Speaking to ANI about the conflict, he underlined that Iran, while it did not start the war, will sacrifice everything it has for their "dignity and land". Ilahi on Friday said, "Iran did not initiate this war. Iran was engaged in negotiations with the United States and was also pursuing diplomatic efforts. Both delegations were very happy with the progress in negotiation. But it is not clear what happened. Suddenly, the United States, along with the Zionist regime, attacked Iran, and they targeted a lot of civilians in Iran. We hope that we will win in this war, and will sacrifice whatever we have for our dignity and our land." When asked about the conversation between the Indian and Iranian leadership, Ilahi said that it was successful. "This conversation was very good, successful, and I am sure there are a lot of achievements based on that conversation. We sent a lot of reports to Iran that all Indian brothers and sisters, regardless of religion, are supporting Iran, are supporting justice, because this land (India) is the land of justice, wisdom, culture and civilisation. They are students of Gandhi, and Gandhi was just. I'm sure that based on our relationship, cooperation, we will have a lot of achievements and our relationship will be deeper," he added. This comes after External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar held another conversation with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi and discussed bilateral matters and BRICS-related issues. In a post on X, Jaishankar said, "Had another conversation with Iranian FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi yesterday night. Discussed bilateral matters as also BRICS related issues." This was the fourth conversation between the two leaders since the current round of conflict between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. Earlier, when Jaishankar spoke to his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, he discussed the safety of shipping and energy security, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a press briefing. External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the discussion focused on ensuring the safe passage of ships and maintaining stable energy supplies through the region. "EAM and FM of Iran have had three conversations in the last few days. The last one discussed issues pertaining to the safety of shipping and India's energy security. Beyond that, it would be premature for me to say anything," Jaiswal said. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Gulf region amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia, backed by the US, involving Iran and Israel. In a post on X, PM Modi said he expressed deep concern over the escalation of tensions, particularly the loss of civilian lives and damage to civilian infrastructure in the region. He said, "Had a conversation with Iranian President, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, to discuss the serious situation in the region. Expressed deep concern over the escalation of tensions and the loss of civilian lives as well as damage to civilian infrastructure." The Prime Minister also underlined that the safety and security of Indian nationals remains a key priority for the government. He noted that ensuring the unhindered transit of goods and energy supplies is equally important for India. He added, "The safety and security of Indian nationals, along with the need for unhindered transit of goods and energy, remain India's top priorities." The PM asserted that India remains committed to peace and stability and stressed the need for dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. "Reiterated India's commitment to peace and stability and urged for dialogue and diplomacy," PM Modi concluded. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. In a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. "De-escalation and dialogue are the only way out," Guterres said, urging all parties to cease hostilities, uphold international law, protect civilians and return immediately to negotiations. - ANI Iran's Army Chief has declared that the attack on the IRIS Dena warship, which resulted in numerous sailor fatalities, will not go unanswered. The vessel was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine near Sri Lanka while returning from a military exercise. Iranian officials have condemned the act as a "war crime" and a violation of international laws, claiming the US obstructed rescue operations. The Indian and Sri Lankan navies assisted in search and rescue efforts following the incident. Iran's army chief warns of retaliation after US submarine attack sinks IRIS Dena, killing sailors. Tehran calls it a "war crime" and violation of international law. Tehran, March 14 Iran's Army chief has issued a stern warning that the deaths of crew members from the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean "will not go unanswered", as reported by Al Jazeera, citing Iran's state news agency IRNA. Major General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the Iranian army, condemned the attack on the vessel, one of the country's newest warships, which occurred while it was returning from a military exercise. According to the report, Hatami was quoted by IRNA as saying, "The crew of the Dena destroyer had completed a peaceful mission and were targeted while on their way back to Iran." He emphasised that the sailors faced the assault "despite not being engaged in a direct battle". Paying tribute to the fallen personnel, Hatami stated, "The name of Dena and the sacrifice of its crew will remain a symbol of courage and dedication in Iran's naval history." He further affirmed Iran's resolve, adding, "The army will defend Iran's maritime borders and strengthen its naval power with even greater determination." This stance was reinforced on Friday when the Iranian administration released pictures of the coffins of the fallen IRIS Dena sailors. In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in India stated, "The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship." Providing further details on the incident, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, on Tuesday paid tributes to the sailors killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. Baqaei called the action by the United States a "war crime" and a violation of international laws, underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it. He noted on X that the Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit before it was attacked near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka. The spokesperson claimed that the United States deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. He argued that this act constitutes aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 and a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II and Additional Protocol I. The IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on 4 March after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels, including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations. Of the estimated 180 crew members on board the vessel, around 87 sailors were reported dead. Approximately 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. - ANI Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has vowed revenge for those killed, including his father, in recent airstrikes. In his first message, he declared the strategic Strait of Hormuz will remain closed. The hardline leader, who has never held formal office but wields significant influence, warned Iran could open other fronts if necessary. His selection follows the killing of his father, Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli airstrikes last month. Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vows revenge for his father's killing and says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed. Tehran, March 12 Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday in his first message to the country, called for continued resistance and said that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed. In a written message, Mojtaba Khamenei vowed revenge for those killed in the conflict, insisting that Tehran "will not refrain from avenging the blood of its martyrs". The message, local media reported, was read by a female presenter on Iranian state television. It also said "the tool of closing the Strait of Hormuz must be preserved" and warned that Iran could open "other fronts, if necessary". The message added that Iran seeks friendly relations with neighbouring countries and would target only bases from which attacks are launched against it. "The message attributed to Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's third supreme leader, was released without any indication of his whereabouts, health condition or physical status," Iran International reported. Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was selected as Iran's new Supreme Leader, after the killing of his father. Born in 1969, Mojtaba is the second son of Ali Khamenei and has long been a hardliner against the West. Though he has never held formal office, Mojtaba wields influence through close ties to senior clerics and the IRGC, hence is widely seen as his father's gatekeeper and successor - effectively a "mini-supreme leader" - and has been sanctioned by the United States since 2019 for representing his father in an official capacity, Xinhua news agency reported. Experts say he could adopt an even tougher posture toward the United States and Israel than his father did. The United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on Tehran and other Iranian cities on February 28, killing Ali Khamenei, along with some of the leader's family members, Iran's senior military commanders and civilians. Iran responded through several waves of missile and drone attacks targetting Israel and US assets across the Middle East. - IANS The Iranian naval vessel IRIS Lavan remains docked at Kochi, India, after experiencing technical issues. Non-essential crew members departed on a chartered flight arranged by Iranian authorities for stranded nationals. India's Ministry of External Affairs emphasized its diplomatic calls for de-escalation and dialogue in the West Asia conflict, prioritizing the safe transit of goods and energy supplies. The spokesperson also noted that involvement of some BRICS members in the regional situation has complicated efforts to forge a common position. MEA says IRIS Lavan remains in Kochi, non-essential crew left on chartered flight. India calls for de-escalation, energy security amid West Asia conflict. New Delhi, March 14 The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday said that the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship Lavan continues to remain docked at Kochi in Kerala, while non-essential crew members departed India on a chartered flight arranged by Iranian authorities along with other stranded Iranian nationals. Addressing an inter-ministerial briefing on the recent development in West Asia, the MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the flight departed from Kochi and carried non-essential members of the crew of IRIS Lavan, along with several other Iranians who were stranded in India due to widespread flight disruptions amid the conflict. "Owing to the widespread flight disruption, several Iranians were stranded in India. The Iranian authorities arranged chartered flights to take back these stranded nationals," he said. "The flight took off from Kochi and also included the non-essential members of IRIS Lavan, which remains docked in Kochi," Jaiswal added. IRIS Lavan, which took part in the International Fleet Review (IFR) 2026 from February 15-25, was earlier docked in Kochi after developing technical issues. The crew from the Iranian vessel approached India, days before the IRIS Dena incident, which was sunk on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle, Sri Lanka. IRIS Lavan was in the region as part of the Iranian naval presence for the International Fleet Review and MILAN 2026. The request from Iran was received on February 28, seeking urgent docking support for the vessel due to technical problems with approval accorded for the docking on March 1. IRIS LAVAN has since docked at Kochi from March 4. Speaking on the wider regional situation, Jaiswal said that since the outbreak of the conflict in West Asia, India has been "calling for de-escalation" and dialogue while emphasising the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted transit of goods and energy supplies. "Since the outbreak of this conflict, besides calling for de-escalation and addressing all issues through dialogue, India has continually emphasised that one of its priorities is to ensure the unimpeded transit of goods and energy," he said. He added that India has also called for avoiding attacks on civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, noting that the impact of the conflict is being felt globally. Highlighting India's diplomatic outreach, Jaiswal said New Delhi has remained in touch with key stakeholders, including members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Iran, the United States and Israel at political and diplomatic levels to convey concerns regarding energy security. "In the process, the concerns of shipping lines were also addressed. As a result of multiple contacts, some ships destined for India have been able to cross through the Strait of Hormuz," he said. He noted that two Indian vessels, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, have already crossed the strait and are heading towards ports in India, with several other ships in standby. "Several of our ships remain on standby in the Gulf region. We propose to continue to remain in touch and coordinate with all concerned countries for safe and unimpeded transit in an effort to ensure our energy security," he added. On discussions within BRICS regarding the conflict, Jaiswal said that some member countries (Iran and UAE) are directly involved in the situation in West Asia, which has complicated efforts to arrive at a common position. "Some members of BRICS are directly involved in the current situation in the West Asia region, which has impacted forging a consensus on a common BRICS position on the ongoing conflict," he said. He added that as the current Chair of BRICS, India has been facilitating discussions among member states through the Sherpa channel, with the last virtual BRICS Sherpa meeting held on March 12. Jaiswal also said that India continues diplomatic engagements with global partners on the evolving situation. "In the last several days, our External Affairs Minister has had conversations with leaders across the world. He also had a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the ongoing conflict in West Asia," he said, adding that there have also been other high-level engagements with Russia on the matter and other issues. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Due to the conflict in the region, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply. - ANI Indian intelligence agencies report a significant expansion of the Islamic State Khorasan Province's (ISKP) propaganda apparatus, moving beyond official channels to a vast network of voluntary supporter accounts. These volunteer channels are difficult to track and shut down, ensuring the group's radical narrative remains active with minimal investment. The propaganda, often created in Arabic and translated via Artificial Intelligence, is being heavily circulated with a specific focus on audiences in Southern Indian states. The situation is further complicated by a reported new cooperation between ISKP and Pakistan, where the terror group assists in Balochistan in exchange for propaganda support. Indian intelligence warns of a surge in ISKP-linked volunteer propaganda channels using AI translation to radicalize audiences, especially in South India. New Delhi, March 14 With the war raging on in Afghanistan, the Islamic State Khorasan Province has stepped up its propaganda media narrative. Indian Intelligence agencies say that in addition to the exisiting propaganda channels, the ISKP has set up semi-media organisations. This has been done with the intention of ensuring that the propaganda campaign remains sustained. However, what the Indian agencies worry most about is the lakhs of channels that have come up voluntarily in support of the ISKP. Officials say that this strategy works perfectly for the ISKP. When official and semi-official channels come under scrutiny, the ISKP shuts them down temporarily. This is when the voluntary channels come in handy, officials say. These channels create content based on the ideology of the Islamic State. This helps the ISKP keep the narrative alive and at the same time there is zero investment. Another official said that the propaganda is always out there considering the number of voluntary channels that have come up. It is extremely difficult for the agencies to keep track of so many channels. Every time a channel is blocked, there are many others that come up, an Intelligence Bureau official said. The agencies are also keeping a close watch on the Khorasan Ghag Radio and al-Azaim Foundation. The radio channel has of late been conducting plenty of discussions on the global situation. The war in Iran and the Afghanistan issue are the primary topics of debate. The foundation on the other hand publishes books relating to Islam and the Sharia Law. These books primarily focus on the implementation of the Sharia Law. The radio on the other hand has held over 150 discussions. The content produced by these official channels of the Islamic State is picked up by the voluntary accounts created by individuals. They are being circulated in large numbers across the world. As has been reported in recent times, this content which is mainly created in Arabic, is being translated using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The translated content helps the outfit reach a larger audience, officials say. Intelligence agencies say that there has been a surge in this kind of activity in recent months and this is worrying. Another official explained that there has been a special focus on the Indian audience and such content is very high in circulation in the Southern states. The ultimate goal is to ensure that a large number of people are radicalised and make sure that they subscribe to the thought process of the Islamic State. This, according to the outfit, would in the long run not just change the way people think but also ensure that recruitments take place in large numbers. The outfit is in desperate need for people, especially in its battle in Afghanistan. There have been many instances, especially in states like Kerala where people have left the country and joined the ISKP. The Intelligence agencies say, what has made the situation even more worrisome is the new found love between the ISKP and Pakistan. The Pakistanis have roped in the outfit to fight its battle in Balochistan and also against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In return Pakistan would help the ISKP with its propaganda drive to ensure that such radical content has an even bigger reach, officials explain. - IANS The Israeli Air Force reports striking over 200 targets across western and central Iran, focusing on ballistic missile launchers and defense systems. Simultaneously, the IDF claims to have eliminated several senior Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon, including key figures in missile coordination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting he could be a target. The operations are part of a broader campaign to degrade Iranian and proxy capabilities aimed at Israel. Israeli Air Force hits over 200 targets in Iran, eliminates key Hezbollah commanders, and PM Netanyahu issues a stark warning to Iran's new leader. Jerusalem, March 13 The Israeli Air Force says that in the last 24 hours it has struck more than 200 targets in Western and Central Iran. The IAF said, "Dozens of Air Force fighter jets, guided by Military Intelligence, completed extensive strike sorties over the past day in western and central Iran, during which numerous munitions were dropped on more than 200 targets of the Iranian terror regime, including ballistic missile launchers, defence systems, and production sites for means of combat." "Since the launch of Operation "Roar of the Lion," the Air Force has completed hundreds of strike sorties targeting a variety of infrastructures of the Iranian terror regime, with the aim of reducing as much as possible the scale of fire toward the territory of the State of Israel," it added. Earlier the Israel Defence Forces said that the 'Taleghan' compound, a site they claimed was used by the Iranian regime to advance nuclear weapons capabilities had been destroyed. The IDF said the compound was used to develop advanced explosives and conduct sensitive experiments as part of the covert 'AMAD' project in the 2000s. On the front against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the IDF claimed that its forces had eliminated Abu Dharr Mohammadi, the operations commander in the IRGC's missile unit within Hezbollah in Beirut. According to IDF, Mohammadi was a central figure coordinating between Hezbollah and the Iranian terror regime and played a key role in rehabilitating Hezbollah's missile program following Operation Northern Arrows. IDF also claimed to have eliminated Ali Muslim Tabaja, a senior commander of the Iranian Imam Hossein Division. The IDF said, Tabaja was a key figure who held a series of military roles both within Hezbollah and within the division. The Imam Hussein Division is a military force used by the Iranian Quds Force to strengthen the Iranian axis and to operate against the IDF and Israeli civilians. IDF also eliminated Abu Ali Riyan, Hezbollah's 'Radwan Force' southern Lebanon unit commander. IDF claimed, Riyan was the central figure responsible for coordinating operations, recruiting operatives, and managing its weapon supply chain. IDF said that it had also eliminated 100 plus fighters and destroyed 60 plus command and control centres of the 'Radwan Force'. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayotallah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting that Israel could look at targeting him just as they did his father. Asked if Israel would go after Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, Netanyahu replied: "I wouldn't issue life insurance policies on any of the leaders of the terrorist organizations. This is their patron of terrorism. And I don't intend to provide an exact report here about what we are planning or what we are going to do." Netanyahu dubbed the younger Khamenei a "puppet" of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps who "cannot show his face in public." In a strong statement, Netanyahu suggested that developments in the region have transformed the strategic balance involving Israel, Iran and the broader Middle East, while also hinting at possible future actions against groups that Israel considers terrorist organisations. - ANI Thomas C. Chesterman: Thank you, Jamie. I will begin with a summary of the year's performance and key developments before reviewing the financial results in more detail. Overall, 2025 reflected continued progress in expanding our commercial reach and strengthening our business model. For the year, revenue increased 20% to approximately $2.2 million compared with $1.86 million in 2024. It is important to note that the fourth quarter included an approximately $200,000 revenue impact associated with the company's transition to directly managing the EVOLVE Rat and EVOLVE Mouse on Amazon. Excluding that transition effect, full-year revenue growth would have been closer to 30%. That transition represents an important step in our e-commerce strategy. We are focused on delivering our current initiatives, scaling the areas where we are seeing traction, and maintaining discipline in how we allocate resources. We will continue to keep shareholders informed as the leadership transition progresses. With that, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Thomas C. Chesterman. The transition is planned and orderly, and the business continues to move forward without interruption. The Board has initiated a formal search process to identify the company's next CEO. Our focus is on finding the right leader help scale the business and build on the progress that has been made. In the meantime, the board remains closely engaged in man with management and focused on execution. Our directors bring experience across areas such as e-commerce, international markets, finance, strategic growth, which we believe will be valuable if the company continues to expand. Importantly, the company's core strategy remains consistent. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: Thanks, Robert. Thank you, operator. Thank you to everyone who is joining us today. I am Dr. Jamie Bechtel, and I am the Chair of SenesTech, Inc.'s board. As we recently announced, Joel L. Fruendt is retiring following several years of leadership at SenesTech, Inc. On behalf of the board, I want to thank Joel for his and for helping position the company for the next phase of growth. To support continuity during this transition, the board created the role of Interim Executive Chair, and I was asked to step into that position. To help ensure alignment between the board and management the CEO search is underway. Story Continues Directly managing Amazon allows us to improve product presentation, optimize marketing performance using platform data, and retain a greater portion of the revenue generated through that channel. E-commerce continued to be our fastest growing segment. For the year, e-commerce revenue increased 88%, driven by strong growth on Amazon and our direct-to-consumer website. Even with that temporary transition impact, e-commerce now represents more than one-half of our total revenue. And now that we have direct control of Amazon selling activity, we can better tailor the message and accelerate growth much, much further. Beyond e-commerce, we continue to expand activity across several additional verticals. In municipal markets, interest in fertility control approaches continues to grow as cities evaluate alternatives to traditional rodent control methods. Programs such as the rat contraception initiatives in New York City, Chicago, and elsewhere reflect this broader shift towards integrated pest management strategies. The Chicago neighborhoods deploying EVOLVE continue to reorder and expand deployment. New York City will soon conclude their trial of EVOLVE, and we are already in discussions with potential deployment partners so as to be able to move quickly. Internationally, we expanded our footprint during the year with regulatory approvals and new distribution relationships. EVOLVE received regulatory approval in New Zealand, and we shipped the initial stocking order to our exclusive partner, Evicom. We have expanded distribution activity in Belize, through the Belize Raptor Center, and we have other areas with potential regulatory approval pending as well. On the retail side, where decision making is a longer process, we have made multiple presentations to some of the largest brick-and-mortar retailers about stocking EVOLVE on their shelves. I should point out that success on Amazon and the press around deployment feeds well into the retail decision making. We laid the groundwork last year, this is the year we will see the benefit of that work on the top line and the bottom line. Finally, should mention, some of you have been about our legal dispute with Leafotech. I am pleased to say that this dispute has been resolved in a manner satisfactory to all involved. All litigation has been dismissed and cannot be reinstated. Turning to the financial results in more detail. For 2025, gross margin improved to 62.5% compared with 54.1% in 2024. This reflects improved product mix and a growing contribution from e-commerce channels. The company reported a net loss of $6.4 million compared with $6.2 million in 2024. The 2025 results include approximately $131,000 in one-time legal expenses, some of which associated with Leafotech, and $135,000 in non-cash operating lease expense. Excluding these items, the adjusted net loss for the year would have been approximately $5.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the year improved to $5.3 million compared to $5.8 million in 2024. From a liquidity standpoint, the company ended the year with $8.6 million in cash and short-term investments, which we believe provides a solid operating runway as we continue executing our strategy. As we look towards 2026, our focus remains on maintaining financial discipline while investing in areas where we are seeing traction, including e-commerce expansion, municipal adoption, and continued validation of our technology. At the same time, we are managing operating expenses carefully and prioritizing investments that support measurable commercial progress. And, importantly, we are also maintaining flexibility for the company's next CEO to help shape that longer-term strategy. With that, operator, we are ready to open the call for questions. Robert Blum: All right. Thank you very much, Jamie, and Tom. We will now open for questions. Once again, if you have a question, you can type it into the Ask a Question queue there on your webcast player. First question here, given that 2025 revenue growth would have been 30%, excluding the impact of transition to directly managing Amazon sales, should we expect a similar growth rate in 2026 or could this be higher? Thomas C. Chesterman: That is a great question. Yes, absolutely, it can be higher, and that is in fact what we are aiming for. We want to accelerate growth in the areas where we can and make sure that we maximize that growth as long as it remains profitable. Robert Blum: Alright. Our next question here. What are likely to be the contributors to 2026 revenues? Amazon and D2C, pest management professionals networks, municipal orders, or international expansion in New Zealand, Belize, and beyond. Thomas C. Chesterman: So it will definitely be a mixture of all of those. But let me walk through kind of how each of them looks as we are moving forward. I mentioned the e-commerce and Amazon particularly. This is an area where with Amazon, we were not managing it directly. We were using a third party. And so we were not really in full control of the message and the rate of spend. As we begin taking over Amazon and also working on improving our own website, we know that further investments in the messaging, and in the ad campaign will drive sustainable and increasing growth. So, definitely, we expect to see strong growth in that area. Municipal certainly is an area of growth. There have been a number of successes in that area. All eyes are on New York right now where we have a trial underway. We do not know exactly what their deployment plans will be. We will see that when the request for proposals come out. But we do see that as a growth area. Retail is an area where we have not yet seen the growth that we would hope, but when you see growth in that area, you see it is a very explosive area. And to give you an example, we have made multiple pitches to brick-and-mortar retailers. We have worked with them on their website. We have worked on trials. At some point, one of them is going to say, alright. Let us go ahead and send one pallet to 200 stores. One pallet each. That is a $2 million order. So the growth there can be very, very explosive in that segment. International continues to look very good. There are a number of areas internationally where they have a similar need to improve their rodent management techniques, and they seek alternatives to traditional methods like EVOLVE, like ContraPest, etcetera. We do definitely see some improvement there. We have mentioned before, Australia is nearing the conclusion of the regulatory review. We are expecting an answer from them shortly. There are other jurisdictions as well. So in closing, it really is a combination of a variety of shots on goal as Joel used to put it. Robert Blum: Alright. Very good. Our next question here is what kind of follow-up should we expect from the two field validations in urban areas? What level of revenue should we expect from these two areas? Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, I am not quite sure what the second one is that they are talking about. The one right now, the trial that has all eyes on it is in New York. And as I mentioned, that trial will be concluded sometime in the spring. We do not know what their deployment will be, so we cannot give you a good sense of how much revenue or how quickly. In the other areas, such as Chicago, they have already begun the deployment in Chicago in a number of neighborhoods and areas. So that will expand as additional neighborhoods come on into the program. Robert Blum: Alright. The next question here is why have all the social media accounts, Facebook, for example, been quiet since December 2025. Talk about the marketing department employment there. Thomas C. Chesterman: Yeah. Jamie, actually, why do you not take this one? Dr. Jamie Bechtel: Thanks, Tom. Robert, that is a great question. The marketing team is absolutely still in place. Over the past few months, we have been focused on strengthening our core commercial efforts, customer outreach, sales enablement, channel and partnership development rather than prioritizing social media. Social media will definitely pick back up as we roll out a couple of initiatives this year, but the team has actively been working on growth and brand positioning. So you will see a more structured communication cadence as we launch our new milestones this year. Robert Blum: Next question here, and I think Tom, you have addressed this in your prepared remarks, but if there is anything to add on to it. What is the status of the court case of Leafotech versus SenesTech, Inc.? Thomas C. Chesterman: So that case has been settled. It has been settled, as the lawyers put it, to the satisfaction of all parties. The results were immaterial to us both financially and operationally. So at this point, we consider it a past issue. Robert Blum: Okay. And a bit of a follow-up on that. You guys mentioned in the prior quarter that you had incurred $100,000 of one-time legal costs due to the Leafotech IP infringement and NDA violations. It says here, I noticed that the one-time legal fees in this quarter came to $275,000. Let us see here. Can you, I guess, expand upon and clarify this cost and whether it is expected to recur going forward. Thomas C. Chesterman: So let me take the last part first. No. It should not recur now that we have successfully concluded that litigation issue. It is, you know, litigation is very expensive these days. And so it takes quite a bit to defend oneself from charges or allegations. So, unfortunately, it did end up costing us quite a bit in terms of legal expense. But it was an investment well worth it given the positive outcome. Robert Blum: Okay. Following up on a question on legal fees, could you provide more granularity in how much of those fees during this last year related to financing? Thomas C. Chesterman: The legal fees which were expensed do not have anything to do, are not classified as operating expense. Those would be part of the cost of the financing. So you would not see any of legal cost of financing in the income statement. Robert Blum: Next question here is what is the status of product registration in Australia? Thomas C. Chesterman: Yeah. As I mentioned, we, with our partner, have submitted all the necessary information. The regulatory authorities have gone through it. They expect to be able to produce an answer to us, as our partner says, quote, in the spring. I do not have any more precise dates than that, but we are expecting a response from them. We are not expecting a positive response. Robert Blum: Okay. Our next question here is how much revenue do you expect from Belgium during the coming two years? Thomas C. Chesterman: We actually do not have any direct input or insight into Belgium. We have no partner that is in Belgium. So, it really is more a matter of as we look at the European market and our distributors there, what are we selling to them? And, you know, whether it is in Belgium or somewhere else, really do not have a whole lot of insight into that. Robert Blum: K. Next question. Can you break out the SG&A, which is up? How much is sales and how much of the G&A and, well, there will be a follow-up to that. Thomas C. Chesterman: So we are, at conclusion of this call, scheduled to file our 10-K. So all of the detail of the SG&A and R&D expenses will be in the 10-K. So I would encourage you to, our investors, to look at that, read that. If you have any questions on that, follow up with us. We would be glad to go into as much as we need. Yeah. Robert Blum: Next question here is, what are the new international opportunities? Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, unfortunately, I cannot really comment on them until we have signed agreements in place. So I am going to have to let you wait for our press releases as we sign them. We will let our investors know. Robert Blum: Okay, very good. Next question here is how likely is it that EVOLVE bait gets to brick and mortar during 2026? Thomas C. Chesterman: So we are already in some of brick and mortar, but not much. I think that given the time frame in which they make their decisions, that it may not be likely until at least the end of the second quarter, but it is more likely in the second half of the year for retail in a big way. Robert Blum: Okay. Our next question here is what municipalities besides New York City are evaluating EVOLVE? Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, that is the biggest trial that has been out there. Baltimore concluded their study and has been deploying EVOLVE there. Chicago did not, they went right past a study, at least in the neighborhoods, but the city of Chicago continues to be assessing fertility control. I do not know if there are, I am sure, others that are doing trials that are not necessarily formal trials. But that would be a level of detail that I would not have readily available right now. Robert Blum: Alright. The next question here is on how is the agricultural sector working out? Thomas C. Chesterman: It is working out quite well. There are, you know, we have talked about some of the successes in the past and the almond groves in the West. Those go well. They are expanding those as well. We continue to work on some of the crop issues like sugarcane. We continue to see actually some expansion as well into poultry. That is another area of growth. And we are beginning to see actually some of that in an interesting area, irrigation. Turns out that rats are very destructive to irrigation, so we are seeing some progress in that area as well. So it is going well. Very well. Robert Blum: Alright. Here, another follow-up here, and I am not sure if there is anything that could be added here. But how soon will you know about the trials in the New York City program, and what is the potential market for that? Thomas C. Chesterman: Yeah. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned, the trial will be ending this spring. I believe it is the middle of the second quarter. We do not know what they are going to be doing immediately after that, but we have begun discussion with some people that are expecting to bid on whatever comes out. These are large pest management organizations that would like to be able to respond to New York's requirements. So we have already begun those discussions as to how to best be flexible and nimble when the information does come out. Robert Blum: Our next question here. How has the e-commerce business been when it comes to Home Depot and Lowe's? Thomas C. Chesterman: So these are areas where they are really almost trials before they make their decisions about their shelf placement. We are focusing, as has been mentioned before, our own e-commerce program on Amazon now and on our website. So these programs have not been a huge e-commerce per se push. But rather are ways of continuing the discussions with them. So that at this point, they are nowhere near the size of what we are seeing in Amazon or on our own website. Robert Blum: Okay. Our next question here, are there any new species you anticipate in 2026 or 2027, such as ground squirrels, gophers, etcetera. Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, I will let Jamie comment on this, but I will also kind of mention that, from my perspective, I think the rodent market is the rat and mouse market. It has enough potential that we could be quite successful maximizing those opportunities, but Jamie, you are one of our lead scientific types. Any comment there? Dr. Jamie Bechtel: I will just add that the technology is really exciting because it is broadly applicable, especially to mammalian species. And while there is a lot of opportunity there, I second Tom with the idea that we are going to remain very focused and deliver what is in front of us with extraordinary discipline. Thomas C. Chesterman: Alright. Thank you for that both. Robert Blum: Our next question here is, will evolverodentbirthcontrol.com be available in the future? Someone noticed that the site was down. Thomas C. Chesterman: I will have to look into that to understand why it is down. I was not aware of that, but I will look into that immediately. We own it. Very good. So it should be up. Robert Blum: Alright. Very good. Our next question here, what qualities is the board looking for in the next CEO to improve profitability, or the, I am sorry, the probability of successful commercialization? Jamie, that sounds like a question for you. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: It does, does it not, Tom? Robert, thanks for that. That is a great question. We are looking for a leader who can take the company through its next phase of growth. That means someone who has a strong commercial instinct, experience scaling a business, the ability to build and lead high-performance teams. Just as important is operational discipline. Someone who can translate strategy into consistent execution. The opportunity in front of us is significant, exciting and significant. So we want a CEO who can bring both that strategic vision and the day-to-day rigor necessary to capture that vision. Robert Blum: Alright. Thank you for that. Question here, discussing cash runway implies, obviously, losses at its current revenue levels. Is there any reason why improvement should not be expected? Thomas C. Chesterman: There is no reason why improvement should not be expected and sought after. But the attorneys tell us to be very conservative in how we disclose things in the 10-K and on the press releases about such matters. So we take the most conservative approach in terms of that disclosure. But yes, improvement should be expected. Robert Blum: Okay. Next question here is on inventory. Inventory grew 25% year over year, which is relatively high compared with the quarterly revenue. Is the current inventory reflecting anticipated demand from newly expanded locations or slower-than-expected turnover. Thomas C. Chesterman: It is the former. It is trying to make sure that we are ready for that surge demand I mentioned. If we do get a call from a retailer saying we want the pallets in every store, we want to make sure that we have that inventory available to fulfill. Robert Blum: Alright. Next question here is why was Joel not able to be on the call today? Thomas C. Chesterman: I was going to say, Jamie, you probably should take this one. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: Robert, thanksoops. Sorry. Go ahead, Tom. That is exactly how aligned we are, Tom, and that is the answer to the Right? We have a really strong leadership team in place. As I mentioned earlier, there is continuity in this transition. And we are all fully engaged in communicating progress and executing on the strategy. While Joel was not on today's call, the team is completely aligned, we are moving forward. Robert Blum: The next question here is what other target markets will SenesTech, Inc. focus on this year? Will there be increased focus on the agricultural sector, for instance? Thomas C. Chesterman: Yeah. To some extent, I have already answered that. It is going to be all of the markets that we have talked about before. We are going to be going after all of them. They each have a different strategic approach identified as to how we will address them, what the pacing will be. But these are the markets that we are focused on now. The specific verticals that we have talked about in past calls. Until we have sufficiently hit and hit our targets, our own internal targets and external targets, in these markets, we do not think that there is a need to expand to other verticals. These are the ones that look like they have the highest potential in the shortest amount of time. And so that is why we have chosen them to focus on. Robert Blum: Alright. Thank you for that. Our next question here, I think you have addressed some of this, but have there been any new trials or deployments in major cities, specifically on the West Coast? San Francisco, Los Angeles, for instance. Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, San Francisco has a trial ongoing. We have talked about it before. It is being done with a local pest management company there, using some state funding. I am not aware of any other West Coast formal trials, although there certainly are a number of the smaller municipalities that tend to look at it first before they make their decisions, but those are more informal. We did have an interesting trial that we did produce some data on at the UC Irvine housing project, where they have quite a bit of interest in looking at innovative ways of controlling pests. And so that trial did conclude quite successfully. We put out a press release on it earlier, but they were very pleased with the approach and have continued to deploy and expand in that. I am not aware of any others that are as formal as that. Robert Blum: Next question here is does management attend any, I guess this would reflect to industry conferences, to showcase EVOLVE? Thomas C. Chesterman: Management does not necessarily, but the sales department certainly does. Sales is responsible for identifying those conferences and those meetings that have the highest potential for a return. They tend to be very, very focused on that return. Is it really going to be something where we get a lot of orders? And these can be both professional organizations, but we also attend some of the, I will call them, retail or other shows. For example, we were very recently at the Bradley Caldwell show, where they bring in all of their potential customers into one place and present different companies like ourselves. We have also been to the ACE show. So we are at both kinds of shows. We are also at the PestWorld. We have had a booth there for a couple years now. So, yes, answer is yes. We do. Robert Blum: Okay. Next question here. Will the new CEO have incentives built around the price of the company's stock? I am sure that Jamie is ready to answer this one. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: Robert, the short answer is yes. As with most public companies, the CEO's compensation structure, we expect a meaningful portion of that to be equity based and aligned with long-term shareholder value. The board's compensation committee will finalize the specific structure, of course, but alignment with stock performance will absolutely be a key component. Robert Blum: Okay. The next one, I am not sure if there is a question in here, but maybe more of a comment at top. Agricultural production state California would greatly benefit from expansion of the label for use in ground squirrels. With ever-increasing regulations on pesticides, 25(b) products have incredible potential. So maybe this circles back to expansion into adjacent species. Thomas C. Chesterman: Yeah. I would agree. It is very definitely, California is not the only area that would benefit from an expansion. There are lots of different pest species that need some work, need better solutions. When we have, again, when we have managed to demonstrate success in rat and mouse, we certainly would look at that. I will tell you there is an issue around ground squirrels. They are not considered the same kind of pest as rodents are. So they have a different regulatory approach that is required there. So there are a few complexities that would need to be worked out before we could really consider that kind of an expansion. Robert Blum: Okay. The next question here is, will you be expanding your sales team? Thomas C. Chesterman: The short answer is yes. We will. We actually had the sales team in for a kind of a beginning-of-the-year conference not that long ago. We are going to have another one coming up shortly where we are really focused on exactly what resources do we need to maximize the B2B sales effort, and whether it be more people, and if so, where, or how are they focused, what materials are needed, what, again, all the resources that are necessary to really expand and drive the B2B growth to its maximum potential. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: And, Robert, before we move on, I just want to add to Tom's answer there that because we have brought e-commerce in-house, not only are we going to see a bigger sales force, both in the D2C and the B2B profile, but we are going to see a higher ROI on that because we are going to be able to collaborate across those two verticals. Robert Blum: Alright. Fantastic. Our next question here, can you clarify when the New Zealand order was shipped and if it was in Q1, how much of the did that eat up, and has it been replaced? Thomas C. Chesterman: And, yes, it has been replaced. Yes. That shipment was in Q1. Robert Blum: Alright. I think that was all the questions. I think you hit it there. Next question here. Is sales working with UC Davis regarding Kern County and other California counties being overrun by rats. Thomas C. Chesterman: The short answer is yes. We are focused on that, in general. But that is also one of the areas where we think some additional resources might very well be useful. And so as they have been, one of the things that came out of that sales meeting was looking specifically at different opportunities in California being not only a large market, but also a market which has taken the step to ban or limit the use of certain rodenticides. So, there are definitely the problem now is fewer solutions, and so even more opportunity for rat birth control. Robert Blum: Alright. Tom, quick asking of clarification on the New Zealand order. Was that revenue recognized in Q1? Or was that revenue recognized in Q4 for the New Zealand order? Thomas C. Chesterman: Q1. Q1. Robert Blum: All right. And as a follow-up to that, how frequently do you expect follow-up orders from New Zealand and for how long? Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, New Zealand has an initiative, which we have talked about before, to rid itself of predators and other pests, invasive pests. And their target is, I think, 2050 to complete that. That is a massive, massive, multibillion-dollar undertaking. How exactly they are going to be going through that may change now with fertility control being added. I think, I know Evicom is working with the authorities in New Zealand to really focus on how to best now incorporate rat birth control with the other methods that have been used. So I do not have a forecast for you yet. But the opportunity there, the need there, is tremendous. Robert Blum: Alright. Coming back to California here with a question is, do you have any other distributors in California outside of Ace Hardware? Thomas C. Chesterman: Well, Ace Hardware, we do not consider a distributor. We consider that a retail. But in terms of other distributors, yes, we do. As a matter of fact, with AgriCom, AgriTurf, a couple of the ones that have come across my desk recently. They are focused more on the agricultural side, particularly poultry. So, yes, we do have other distributors there. And, of course, our top distributors, two top distributors in the pest management industry, Veseris and Target Specialty, both of them have a solid presence in California. Robert Blum: Alright. Very good. I am showing no further questions. So with that, I will turn it back over to you both for any closing remarks. Thomas C. Chesterman: Great. Well, thank you all for joining us. And we certainly look forward to being able to update you as frequently as we can on our progress. This is, as I said in my prepared remarks, last year was a year of preparation, of setting the groundwork, setting the foundations. This year is undoubtedly going to be the most exciting year that we have. And you do not usually hear CFOs saying things like that, but I am truly excited for the potential in the coming year. So thank you very much. Dr. Jamie Bechtel: Thanks, everybody. Operator: Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Should you buy stock in SenesTech right now? Before you buy stock in SenesTech, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and SenesTech wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $511,735!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $1,140,464!* Now, its worth noting Stock Advisors total average return is 946% a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of March 12, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. SenesTech (SNES) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool The Israel Defence Forces confirmed a targeted airstrike in Tehran that killed two senior Iranian intelligence officials, Abdollah Jalali-Nasab and Amir Shariat. The strike is part of a broader Israeli campaign, dubbed Operation Roaring Lion, targeting Iranian military and intelligence infrastructure. An IDF spokesperson stated the operations will continue until the existential threat from Iran is eliminated, acknowledging the campaign could be prolonged. The reported strike follows waves of Israeli attacks on over 150 Iranian government targets aimed at disrupting command networks. IDF confirms targeted airstrike killed two senior Iranian intelligence commanders in Tehran, escalating campaign against Iran's military infrastructure. Tel Aviv, March 15 The Israel Defence Forces said that two senior Iranian intelligence officials were killed in a targeted airstrike carried out by the Israeli Air Force in Tehran. In a post on X, the IDF said, "ELIMINATED: Abdollah Jalali-Nasab & Amir Shariat, senior intelligence officials of the "Khatam al-Anbiya" Emergency Command. The two senior commanders were key figures in the Iranian intelligence community and close to the leadership of the Iranian terrorist regime." The IDF identified the officials as Abdollah Jalali-Nasab and Amir Shariat, describing them as senior intelligence figures in Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command. According to the Jerusalem Post, the IDF said the strike was conducted with precise guidance from Israeli Military Intelligence. According to the IDF, the two men had recently been appointed as acting replacements in the intelligence division after their predecessor, Saleh Asadi, was killed during the early phase of what Israel calls Operation Roaring Lion. The Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command is responsible for gathering and analysing intelligence for senior officials in Iran's security establishment, assessments that help shape the country's military decision-making against Israel, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said the operation was part of a broader campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure. According to The Jerusalem Post, since the start of the campaign, hundreds of Israeli Air Force aircraft have struck hundreds of targets linked to the Iranian government across Iran, Defrin said. He added that the operation began with a surprise attack after Israeli military intelligence identified two gathering points in Tehran where senior Iranian security leaders had assembled. The reported strike comes a day after the Israeli military said it had completed 20 waves of attacks against more than 150 Iranian government targets, in what appears to be an escalating effort to disrupt Iran's command and intelligence networks, according to The Jerusalem Post. Earlier, the IDF said its joint military operations with the US against Iran in the Middle East will continue until an "existential threat" to Israel is eliminated. Speaking in an interview with ANI, IDF spokesperson Lt Ben Cohen said Israel is prepared for a prolonged operation if required, stressing that the objective is to neutralise Iran's military capabilities that threaten Israel and the wider region. "I'm not going to give any specific timeframe, but I'll tell you that we're going to keep going until we know that we've taken away that existential threat," Cohen said. Cohen noted that while Israel generally seeks to avoid prolonged conflicts, operations against Iran's military infrastructure could take time due to the scale of the threat. - ANI The Malayalam film 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1' starring Jayasurya gets a 'U' certificate from the censor board. Releasing worldwide on March 19, 2026. Chennai, March 14 The Central Board of Film Certification has now cleared director Midhun Manuel Thomas's eagerly awaited Malayalam film 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1', featuring actor Jayasurya in the lead, for release with a clean 'U' certificate. Actor Jayasurya took to his Instagram page to share the news. He wrote, "AAD'U' !Aadu 3 censored with a Clean U. Enter a new world on #March19. #ReleasingWorldwide." It may be recalled that the makers of the film had only recently dismissed rumours of the film's release being postponed. Production houses, Friday Film House and Kavya Film Company, which are producing the film together, had issued a joint statement in this regard. In their statement, the production houses had said, " 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1' has been crafted with immense love, laughter, and a deep sense of gratitude for the audience who embraced the 'Aadu' franchise and transformed it into a cult classic it is today." They further said, "Over the past few days, we have been closely monitoring global developments. We know many of you have reached out with concerns regarding a potential postponement of our release. After careful consideration of various factors including the vital need for our industry to thrive during these challenging times - we are glad to confirm that Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1 will release in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026." The makers had gone on to say that the journey of bringing this film to life had not been without its set of challenges. However, they pointed out that through the challenges, the passion of their team and the constant support of audiences had kept them moving forward. "In times like these, we believe storytelling has the power to bring people together. The 'Aadu' franchise has always celebrated friendship, joy, chaos, and the healing power of laughter. We stand for peace, love, and happiness, and hope stories continue to unite us all," the makers had said. "We extend our sincere thanks to the media fraternity for their continued support.We look forward to welcoming you and your loved ones back to cinemas to experience this ride on a brand-new canvas with a fresh take on the genre," they added. For the unaware, 'Aadu 3 : One Last Ride, Part 1' will, apart from Jayasurya, also feature actors Vijay Babu, Sunny Wayne, Vinayakan, Saiju Kurup, Dharmajan, Harikrishnan and Bhagath Manuel. Directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas, the film has cinematography by Akhil George and music by Shaan Rahman. Background score for the film is by Dawn Vincent and editing in by Lijo Paul. - IANS The production houses behind 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1' have officially confirmed the film's global theatrical release for March 19, 2026, putting to rest speculation about a delay. They stated the film was made with love and gratitude for the audience that turned the franchise into a cult classic. The makers acknowledged the challenging global context but emphasized their belief in cinema's power to bring people together through joy and laughter. The film features a large ensemble cast and is directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas. The makers of Malayalam film Aadu 3 confirm the worldwide theatrical release for March 19, 2026, dismissing rumors of a postponement. Chennai, March 13 The makers of director Midhun Manuel Thomas's eagerly awaited Malayalam film 'Aadu 3', featuring actor Jayasurya in the lead, have now dismissed rumours of the film's release being postponed and have confirmed that the film would indeed hit screens on March 19 this year. Production houses, Friday Film House and Kavya Film Company, which are producing the film together, issued a joint statement in this regard. In their statement, the production houses said, " 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1' has been crafted with immense love, laughter, and a deep sense of gratitude for the audience who embraced the 'Aadu' franchise and transformed it into a cult classic it is today." They further said, "Over the past few days, we have been closely monitoring global developments. We know many of you have reached out with concerns regarding a potential postponement of our release. After careful consideration of various factors including the vital need for our industry to thrive during these challenging times - we are glad to confirm that Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1 will release in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026." The makers said that the journey of bringing this film to life had not been without its set of challenges. However, they pointed out that through the challenges, the passion of their team and the constant support of audiences had kept them moving forward. "In times like these, we believe storytelling has the power to bring people together. The 'Aadu' franchise has always celebrated friendship, joy, chaos, and the healing power of laughter. We stand for peace, love, and happiness, and hope stories continue to unite us all," the makers said. "We extend our sincere thanks to the media fraternity for their continued support.We look forward to welcoming you and your loved ones back to cinemas to experience this ride on a brand-new canvas with a fresh take on the genre," they added. For the unaware, 'Aadu 3 : One Last Ride, Part 1' will apart from Jayasurya also feature actors Vijay Babu, Sunny Wayne, Vinayakan, Saiju Kurup, Dharmajan, Harikrishnan and Bhagath Manuel. Directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas, the film has cinematography by Akhil George andmusic by Shaan Rahman. Background score for the film is by Dawn Vincent and editing in by Lijo Paul. - IANS The Karnataka BJP's state core committee met in Bengaluru to strategize for upcoming bypolls in the Bagalkote and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies. Chaired by state President B.Y. Vijayendra, the meeting focused on finalizing candidate names to be sent to the party's central leadership for approval. Leaders emphasized the need for unity, urging workers to set aside past differences to ensure victory in both the Assembly and Legislative Council elections. Vijayendra expressed confidence that internal issues, including factionalism that impacted the Lok Sabha polls, would be resolved. BJP's Karnataka core committee, led by B.Y. Vijayendra, discusses candidates for Bagalkote and Davanagere South bypolls, aiming for unity. Bengaluru, March 13 A BJP state core committee meeting was held on Friday at the BJP state office 'Jagannath Bhavan' in Bengaluru to discuss candidates and election strategy for bypolls to two Assembly seats in the state. The meeting, held under the leadership of the party's state President and MLA B.Y. Vijayendra, was attended by Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, Karnataka BJP in-charge and National General Secretary Dr Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, former Chief Minister and MP Basavaraj Bommai, Leader of Opposition in Assembly R. Ashoka, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, former CM D.V. Sadananda Gowda, former Deputy CM and MP Govind Karjol, former Deputy CM Dr C.N. Ashwath Narayan, former National General Secretary and MLC C.T. Ravi, and former Minister B. Sriramulu. Speaking to media representatives after the core committee meeting, Vijayendra said that discussions were regarding the selection of candidates for the upcoming Bagalkote and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies. He said the meeting discussed the names of aspirants for the constituencies, which will be sent to the party high command in New Delhi for a final decision. Vijayendra said the party has already announced candidates for the Legislative Council elections and that the meeting also resolved that all leaders and workers must work unitedly to ensure victory for BJP candidates in the upcoming Assembly and Legislative Council polls. He added that Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, senior BJP leader Govind Karjol, and he himself had held a separate meeting with aspirants and key party leaders from the Davanagere South Assembly constituency. During the meeting, leaders were urged to forget past differences and work together to secure victory for the party. Vijayendra said the names finalised during the Core Committee discussions would be sent to the party leadership in Delhi either on Thursday or Friday. Responding to a question about dissatisfied leaders, he said the party had already spoken to them privately. "We have called everyone and discussed the matter. We have conveyed that all differences should be set aside and everyone must work together in the interest of the party," he said. He added that leaders from both groups from Davanagere had been brought together for discussions and expressed confidence that the issues would be resolved soon. "Mainly, the discussion has been held about candidates for the by-elections for the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Constituencies. The names discussed in the core committee will be sent to the high command. The candidates for the Legislative Council polls have already been declared. To ensure the victory of the candidates, a discussion was held in the meeting," Vijayendra stated. "Pralhad Joshi, Govind Karjol, and I, aspirants, have held a meeting and it's decided to bury the hatchets. The list will be sent to Delhi by today or tomorrow. We have conveyed what needed to be conveyed to those who are unhappy with the ticket allotment within the four walls," he stated. When asked about the factionalism, which proved to be a setback for the party in the Lok Sabha election, resulting in the victory of Congress candidate Prabha Mallikarjun, Vijayendra stated that he had also held discussions on that. - IANS Kate Middleton has revealed she has significantly reduced her alcohol consumption following her cancer diagnosis, stating she is now more conscious of her habits. During a brewery visit with Prince William, she declined to taste beer or cider, opting for a soft drink instead. The Princess of Wales, who announced she was in remission in January 2025, has shared that public engagements have helped uplift her during recovery. She has spoken reflectively about finding gratitude, peace, and healing through nature and stillness. Princess of Wales Kate Middleton reveals she has significantly cut alcohol consumption since her cancer diagnosis, focusing on health and healing. London, March 13 Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, has revealed that she has significantly reduced her alcohol consumption following her cancer diagnosis, saying the experience has made her more conscious about her eating and drinking habits, according to E! News. During a visit to Southwark Brewing Company in London on March 12 with her husband, William, Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales declined to taste beer or cider offered at the brewery, as per the outlet. "Since my diagnosis, I haven't had much alcohol," Kate told brewery owner Hannah Rhodes, adding that it is something she now has to be "a lot more conscious of," according to E! News. Instead, the 44-year-old opted for a soft drink while interacting with the brewery staff and visitors. Prince William, meanwhile, joked about being the cider enthusiast in the family. "I'm a cider man, I like cider. I grew up on cider in the West Country," he told onlookers. During their visit, Kate also tried stirring one of the brewhouse kettles and joked with the crowd, asking, "What am I doing?" The royal couple later visited several shops at Borough Market, where they browsed local products and interacted with vendors and tourists. They were also seen serving desserts to visitors at Humble Crumble. Kate and William are parents to three children--Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Louis of Wales. Since sharing her diagnosis in March 2024, the royal has been focused on healing, sharing how she's found peace within. "Even in the coldest, darkest season, winter has a way of bringing us stillness, patience and quiet consideration," Kate said in a January post to Instagram in honor of her birthday. "Where the stream slows just enough for us to see our own reflection, to discover the deepest parts of ourselves, alongside the whispers and the pulse of every living thing." "I find myself reflecting on how deeply grateful I am," she added. "For the rivers within us flow with ease, fears washed away, cleanse and purify, come to peace with our tears and discover what it means to be alive, to be at one with nature--a quiet teacher and a soft voice that guides in memory helping us to heal in," according to E! News. The Princess of Wales had earlier announced in January 2025 that she was in remission from cancer. She has also shared that interacting with members of the public during royal engagements has helped uplift her spirits during recovery. In a reflective message posted on social media earlier this year to mark her birthday, Kate expressed gratitude and spoke about healing, patience and finding peace through nature. - ANI The Kolkata Knight Riders have launched a new jersey for the upcoming TATA IPL 2026 season, themed "Lines of Legacy." The design incorporates abstract lines representing pivotal moments in the franchise's history, forming the team's initials. A supporting social media campaign includes a film featuring local artists to bring the concept to life. Team executives state the jersey allows fans to wear a piece of the team's storied journey. Kolkata Knight Riders reveal new 2026 jersey with "Lines of Legacy" design, celebrating iconic moments from McCullum's 158* to Rinku Singh's five sixes. Kolkata, March 14 Three-time champion Kolkata Knight Riders have unveiled a fresh new jersey ahead of TATA IPL 2026, designed in the theme of Lines of Legacy, according to a release from KKR. At the heart of the design are the defining moments that have shaped KKR's journey over the years. From the unforgettable opening night when Brendon McCullum smashed 158* back in 2008, to Rinku Singh's five sixes in the final over, KKR have produced many such moments that have become part of IPL folklore. Each iconic moment forms a line in the franchise's star-studded story, and when these lines come together, they create the initials (K) (K) (R) in the style of abstract linear art. This season, those lines are not just remembered - they are woven into the jersey itself, allowing fans to wear a piece of the team's story. Speaking on the jersey reveal, Venky Mysore, Chief Executive Officer, Knight Riders Sports, said, "The Lines of Legacy captures the essence of KKR's storied history and celebrates the journey of the team over the years. Each line represents a pivotal moment of brilliance, reflecting the energy and spirit that weaves together to form our identity. We are proud of this legacy that we have built and want to carry it into the upcoming season while creating more memories for our fans to cherish." To bring the idea to life, the jersey reveal was supported by a viral creative campaign on Social Media, culminating in a film featuring well-known artists from various works in the industry. Talking about the film that blends humour and pop culture into the storytelling around the new kit, Binda Dey, Chief Marketing Officer of Knight Riders Sports, said, "Through our 'Kya Line Hai?' campaign film featuring actor Rajat Bedi and comedian Anirban Dasgupta, and other popular creators from Kolkata, we wanted to bring the idea of the 'Lines of Legacy' to life and celebrate the iconic moments that define KKR's journey. The campaign invites fans to be part of that story as we head into a new season. By collaborating with local Kolkata influencers and creators, we're bringing the legacy of the team to fans in a fun and authentic way." - ANI Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar appealed to voters in Bagalkote to support the Congress candidate in the upcoming by-election, crediting the party's five guarantee schemes for helping poor families. He highlighted the distribution of compensation cheques to land losers under the Upper Krishna Project, a major decision by the state government. Shivakumar also mentioned that neighboring states Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have raised objections to the project with the Centre, prompting his planned visit to Delhi. Additionally, he announced the sanctioning of a medical college for the region as part of efforts to strengthen healthcare. Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar urges voters to back Congress in Bagalkote bypoll, citing five guarantee schemes and compensation for land losers. Bagalkote, March 14 Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress President D.K. Shivakumar on Saturday appealed to the people to bless the Congress government once again in the upcoming by-election, stating that the government has been implementing welfare programmes for the poor. Speaking after distributing compensation cheques to land losers under the third phase of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP) during a development programme in Bagalkote, Shivakumar said the state government had fulfilled the promises it made to the people by implementing the five guarantee schemes. "You blessed us and we implemented the five guarantee schemes as promised, setting an example for the country. Inspired by Karnataka, other states have also begun announcing similar guarantee schemes. Before the elections, when I visited this place, I had said that a lotus looks good in a pond, a sheaf of grain looks good in a field, and a hand that gives charity looks good only when it is in power. Because that giving hand is in power, these schemes have been implemented," he said. He said the five guarantees had strengthened the government and helped poor families save about Rs 5,000 every month. Shivakumar also referred to the upcoming by-election to the seat earlier represented by H.Y. Meti and urged voters to elect the Congress candidate with a larger margin than the late leader had secured. "During last year's by-elections in three constituencies, the people defeated the sons of two former chief ministers and blessed this guarantee government. This is our own constituency, and considering the welfare programmes we have implemented for the poor, you should once again bless us," he said. Shivakumar said the government had taken a major decision to provide fair compensation to land losers under the Upper Krishna Project. He said that although the tribunal had issued its order about 15 years ago, the Centre had not implemented it. "Keeping in mind the people of Bagalkote, Badami, Vijayapura and Kalaburagi regions, we discussed the issue several times in the Cabinet and also consulted opposition leaders and farmer organisations. Based on their demands, we decided to provide just compensation to land losers covering 1.33 lakh acres," he said. He said the government had decided to distribute Rs 3,000 crore as compensation this year and had begun issuing cheques to the beneficiaries. Referring to water disputes, Shivakumar said the state government was satisfied with the outcome of the Cauvery issue and noted that the Supreme Court had delivered justice in the Mekedatu project matter. He also appealed to farmers not to be misled into approaching courts unnecessarily, pointing out that the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of the government. He said around 29,000 people had filed petitions in various courts and urged farmers to withdraw such cases, stating that the state government had taken decisions that no previous government had taken. Shivakumar said neighbouring Andhra Pradesh had written to the Centre objecting to the implementation of the Upper Krishna Project and the land acquisition process, urging that compensation should not be paid to farmers and that the dam height should not be increased. He added that Maharashtra had also been exerting pressure on the Centre to stop the implementation of the project. "I tried to convince them. Two meetings were called by the Union Ministers, but once Maharashtra postponed the meeting and another time Andhra Pradesh postponed it. Later they raised objections," he said. Shivakumar said he would travel to New Delhi to discuss the issue with Members of Parliament and urge the Centre not to obstruct the state's development projects. The Deputy Chief Minister said the government had also sanctioned a medical college in the region to benefit poor people. He said the state government had resolved to establish medical colleges in every district to strengthen healthcare services. He said Karnataka currently has 70 medical colleges and provides 13,945 medical seats for students, along with 7,501 postgraduate seats. In addition, there are 3,405 dental seats with 933 postgraduate seats, around 44,000 nursing seats, and over one lakh paramedical seats. "With these facilities, Karnataka has become a model not only for the country but also for the world. As per the dream of H.Y. Meti, we have also performed the foundation ceremony for the medical college," he said. - IANS Leaders across India's political spectrum have welcomed Iran's decision to allow Indian-flagged tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a positive development. The passage follows high-level diplomatic engagement, including a conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also held several calls with his Iranian counterpart amid regional tensions. The move is seen as crucial for maintaining India's energy supply, with one vessel carrying over 46,000 metric tonnes of LPG. Indian tankers cross Strait of Hormuz after PM Modi's talks with Iran's President. Leaders across parties call for sustained diplomatic engagement. New Delhi, March 14 Leaders across party lines on Saturday welcomed Iran's decision to allow Indian-flagged tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, describing it as a positive development while emphasising the importance of continued diplomatic engagement with Tehran. Government sources said that the vessel Shivalik is currently being escorted by the Indian Navy and is expected to reach an Indian port within the next two days. Mumbai or Kandla are being considered as likely destinations. The ship has already entered open sea and is sailing safely under the guidance of the Indian Navy. Meanwhile, another vessel, Nanda Devi, is carrying more than 46,000 metric tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), which is considered crucial for maintaining India's energy supply chain, officials said. The development comes after a high-level conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian regarding the continued flow of goods and energy supplies. External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, has also held several telephone conversations with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, amid the escalating tensions and conflict in West Asia. Reacting to the development, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP, Priyanka Chaturvedi, welcomed the decision but said the permission had come after India finally adopted a "clearer position" on the developments involving Iran. "I welcome the permission that has been granted, but this permission came only after India finally took a stance regarding Iran. Please note that when the war broke out between Iran, Israel, and the US, no statement came from our side after the death of Khamenei," Chaturvedi told IANS. "When we expressed our outrage, it was regarding the way Khamenei ruled in Iran -- oppressive, objectionable, and fascist. We all know this, and we did not support it. But it is also true that he was a spiritual leader for the Shia community, and the fourth-largest Shia community exists in our own country. India and Iran have had relations for many years. Remaining silent on this matter -- when national sovereignty was violated, and Israel launched attacks even before a formal declaration of war -- cannot be considered correct," she said. She also pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken with the Iranian President only recently. "Our Prime Minister talked to the Iranian President just two days ago, which was very late. Hence, the ships are only being let out now, and it was not done before," Chaturvedi said. RJD MP, Manoj Kumar Jha, speaking to IANS, also welcomed the development, highlighting the importance of India's diplomatic tradition and the recent diplomatic outreach by the government. "India has a civilisational legacy. I am glad that in the past two days, S. Jaishankar has said he spoke five times with his counterparts, and the Prime Minister also spoke with the President of Iran. Sometimes, delays in diplomatic corridors lead to many complications. Nevertheless, this is progressing correctly, and hopefully normalisation will happen soon, because the crisis is visible," Jha said. Congress MP Mohammad Jawed also expressed appreciation for Iran's decision and described the move as reassuring for India during a difficult time. "It is a very happy moment that Iran, as one of India's oldest friends, has shown great support during this crisis by leaving two ships for us. This brings us relief, and we are grateful. Their support brings relief to us, and we are thankful," he said. BJP leader and Rajasthan Finance Commission Chairman, Arun Chaturvedi, described the development as a diplomatic success for India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. "Certainly, this is a major diplomatic success for India. Over the past few days, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has pursued a policy of 'align to all,' ensuring that our national interests are protected while maintaining dialogue and cooperation with everyone," he said. Samajwadi Party spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand also stressed the importance of safeguarding India's interests while maintaining diplomatic relations with all sides. "When a war is going on diplomatically, India should prioritise its own interests. The Samajwadi Party believes that the country's interest comes first. Diplomatic dialogue should be maintained so that our relations with Iran and other countries remain strong, and these relationships should be upheld," he said. - IANS Actor Sanya Malhotra has moved into her new home in Mumbai, marking a significant personal milestone. She performed a traditional griha pravesh puja with her family, describing the home as the result of patience, faith, and hard work. On social media, she shared an emotional note calling the house "a little piece of my journey." Professionally, she is preparing for the release of her upcoming Netflix film 'Toaster', co-starring Rajkummar Rao. Actor Sanya Malhotra performs griha pravesh puja at her new Mumbai home, shares emotional post. Details on her upcoming Netflix film 'Toaster'. Mumbai, March 14 Actor Sanya Malhotra has moved into her new home, and she could not be happier. With her heart brimming with joy and emotion, Sanya recently performed the Griha Pravesh puja alongside her family. For the actress, the new home is not just a milestone but a symbol of years of dedication, perseverance, and the unwavering support of her loved ones. Sharing pictures from the puja, Sanya took to Instagram and wrote, "Har Har Mahadev Years of dreaming, working, learning and growing. Iss ghar ki har deewar mujhe yaad dilayegi ki patience aur faith ka result kitna sundar ho sakta hai. And through it all meri family and friends ka trust was always my biggest strength. This is more than just a house. It's a little piece of my journey. Welcome to my ghar." Meanwhile, on the work front, Sanya is gearing up for her upcoming film 'Toaster' alongside Rajkummar Rao, which will premiere on Netflix. Abhishekh Bannerjee, Upendra Limaye, Seema Pahwa, Jitendra Joshi, and Archana Puran Singh are also a part of the film. - ANI Authorities in Lucknow conducted a massive crackdown on the black marketing of cooking gas cylinders, raiding 1,483 locations and arresting six people. The operation, led by the Uttar Pradesh Food and Civil Supplies Department, followed reports of illegal storage and inflated sales of domestic LPG. Simultaneous raids targeted warehouses and distribution points to prevent the diversion of cylinders to the black market. Similar enforcement drives have been reported in other states like Chhattisgarh and Mumbai to protect consumers and ensure supply. UP authorities raid 1,483 locations in Lucknow, arresting six for LPG black marketing. Crackdown aims to stop hoarding and ensure supply. New Delhi, March 14 Authorities in Lucknow launched a large-scale crackdown on the alleged black marketing of cooking gas cylinders, conducting raids at 1,483 locations across the city and arresting six individuals, officials said on Saturday. The operation was carried out by the Uttar Pradesh Food and Civil Supplies Department in coordination with the district administration as part of efforts to curb illegal hoarding and black marketing of LPG cylinders during the ongoing supply concerns. According to an official statement issued by the Government of Uttar Pradesh late on Friday night, the raids were conducted simultaneously across multiple areas of the city following reports that some traders and individuals were illegally storing and selling domestic LPG cylinders at inflated prices. During the inspections, authorities checked warehouses, distribution points and suspected storage locations to ensure that LPG cylinders meant for domestic use were not being diverted into the black market. Officials said strict action would be taken against those found violating supply regulations. "As part of the operation, 24 FIRs were registered against individuals allegedly involved in illegal storage and black marketing of LPG cylinders," the statement said. Authorities added that the crackdown aims to protect consumers from exploitation and ensure the smooth supply of cooking gas to households. Officials have also warned that further inspections will continue in the coming days to prevent hoarding and illegal trade of LPG cylinders. The administration has urged residents to report any suspicious sale or storage of LPG cylinders so that enforcement teams can take immediate action. Similar enforcement drives have also been conducted earlier in the day in other parts of the country. In Chhattisgarh, authorities recently seized 741 LPG cylinders from 102 locations during raids carried out by the state Food Department and district administrations to prevent hoarding and black marketing. Meanwhile, in Mumbai, officials uncovered a case of illegal gas cylinder storage in the Worli area. Authorities raided a residential location where cylinders were allegedly being illegally refilled and sold at higher prices in the black market. Police seized several filled and empty cylinders along with a transport vehicle and registered a case in connection with the incident. Officials across states say such operations are being intensified to prevent illegal LPG trading and ensure that essential cooking gas supplies reach consumers safely and without disruption. - IANS SoftBank downgraded by Jefferies on rising risks tied to OpenAI investment Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock SoftBank Group was downgraded on Thursday to Underperform by Jefferies, which warned that the Japanese technology investors rapidly expanding financial commitments to OpenAI are raising concerns about valuation integrity. The brokerage warned of growing structural risks tied to SoftBanks concentrated investment exposure and its accelerating funding of the AI company. Jefferies said SoftBanks heavy capital support for OpenAI could create valuation distortions similar to past high-profile startup funding cycles. Analysts noted that SoftBank has provided roughly 85% of the cash raised by OpenAI in recent funding rounds, which they said helped drive successive valuation increases (from $150 billion to as high as $840 billion) while boosting SoftBanks reported net asset value. The analysts also pointed to related-party transactions that they said complicate the financial picture. SoftBank pays OpenAI about $3 billion annually for rights tied to Japan, equivalent to roughly 15% of the companys reported December revenue, while a separate $200 million payment from SoftBank to chip designer Arm Holdings accounts for around 16% of Arms quarterly revenue. Jefferies said some previously reported external funding commitments for OpenAI appear uncertain. The firm highlighted reports of $100 billion from Middle Eastern investors and a $30 billion contribution from Microsoft that have yet to fully materialize. Investments from companies such as Amazon and Nvidia are structured largely as cloud or computing credits rather than direct equity funding. Beyond funding structure concerns, Jefferies said OpenAIs competitive position in the generative AI market is becoming more challenging. Benchmark tests show OpenAIs ChatGPT increasingly matching competing models such as Gemini from Google, Claude from Anthropic and Grok from xAI, the analysts noted. In enterprise software, Jefferies cited Anthropic as emerging as a leader with about $19 billion in annual recurring revenue in early 2026. Meanwhile, Microsoft recently launched its Copilot CoWork product in partnership with Anthropic rather than OpenAI, according to the analysts. Jefferies said competition is also intensifying in consumer AI, where Google benefits from broad distribution across billions of Android and iOS devices, proprietary computing infrastructure such as its tensor processing units, and large data resources. The analysts also flagged deteriorating economics at OpenAI. According to filings from Microsoft, OpenAI posted a loss of about $12 billion in the third quarter of 2025, implying an annualized cash burn exceeding $50 billion. The company has also begun introducing advertising in 2026, which Jefferies said marks a shift from earlier statements by OpenAI executives that ads would only be used as a last resort. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the state government to submit a detailed plan for assessing and cleaning contaminated soil and groundwater at the former Union Carbide factory site by March 23. This follows a petition by an NGO representing Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims. The state's affidavit indicates plans for fresh studies with agencies like NEERI and NGRI, as suggested by a Supreme Court-appointed Oversight Committee. While 337 tonnes of toxic waste were incinerated in 2025, contamination at the factory site and nearby ponds remains a significant challenge. Madhya Pradesh High Court orders state to submit detailed remediation plan for contaminated soil & groundwater at Union Carbide site by March 23. Bhopal, March 13 The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday directed the state government to submit a detailed plan for assessment and remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater in and around the defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal by March 23. The direction by a bench of Justices Vivek Kumar Singh and Ajay Kumar Nirankari came as it heard the writ petition of an NGO working for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, seeking remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater in the surroundings of the Union Carbide factory and detoxification and time-bound action. Responding to the writ petition, the state government filed an affidavit, stating that the remediation plan, including the assessment of contaminated soil and groundwater and the tendering process for cleaning up the surroundings, was underway and requested some more time. After hearing the arguments from both sides, the bench fixed the matter for the next hearing on March 23. Meanwhile, the affidavit, signed by Deputy Secretary, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, Krishna Kant Dube, said that the department held a meeting on March 5 in compliance with the directions of the Oversight Committee/Task Force constituted by the Supreme Court in 2023. "In the meeting presided by the Additional Chief Secretary, discussions were held on various issues such as assessment of remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater in and around the erstwhile UCIL premises, detoxification and decontamination of corroded plant and time-bound remediation," it said. "As the Oversight Committee had suggested that the Madhya Pradesh government may undertake fresh studies with the assistance of NEERI and NGRI to quantify the soil and groundwater contamination, as well as the mercury spillage and the groundwater dumps. In this regard, the state government submitted the action plan including identification and finalisation of an agency/consortium of agencies to carry out the study," the affidavit further read. It also mentioned that the state government has decided to utilise 87.74 acres of land (Union Carbide factory site) for various other purposes, including the establishment of a memorial, and an action plan will be prepared for this purpose. The toxic waste from the defunct Union Carbide factory, weighing 337 tonnes, was shifted from Bhopal to the Pithampur Industrial site on January 1, 2025, and was completely incinerated at a private waste treatment facility by the end of June 2025. The disposal of the toxic waste came more than 40 years after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy had occurred on December 2-3, 1984, causing the tragic death of more than 5,000 people. However, the contaminated soil at the site of the factory and three ponds located a few metres away (in the north direction of the factory site) still remains a challenge for the authorities. - IANS The Maharashtra government has introduced the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill, 2026, to prohibit conversions carried out through force, fraud, or allurement. The proposed law mandates a 60-day prior notice to district authorities for anyone intending to convert and requires registration within 25 days post-conversion. It empowers blood relatives to file complaints and prescribes severe penalties, including imprisonment up to seven years and fines up to Rs 5 lakh. The Bill, drafted based on recommendations from a high-level police committee, will come into force after approval from the state legislature and the President of India. Maharashtra govt tables Bill to curb forced religious conversion. Requires 60-day notice, allows kin to complain, proposes 7-year jail & Rs 5 lakh penalty. Mumbai, March 13 The state government on Friday introduced the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill, 2026, to curb religious conversions carried out through force, fraud, or allurement. The Bill proposes to protect the right to freedom of religion and the prohibition of unlawful conversion. The Bill was tabled by the Minister of State for Rural Pankaj Bhoyar in the state assembly. According to the Bill, individuals intending to convert must provide a 60-day advance notice to the district authorities. Following the conversion, the change must be officially registered within 25 days to be considered legally valid. Further, the Bill has proposed that blood relatives of a person being converted can file a complaint if they suspect the process involves force or inducement. Section 14 empowers the state to ban and fine organisations found guilty of facilitating or funding illegal conversions. Section 9 outlines the judicial consequences for offenders with imprisonment up to 7 years of rigorous jail time and a penalty of up to Rs 5 lakh. The Bill has proposed stringent administrative requirements and criminal penalties to ensure that conversions are a matter of personal choice rather than coercion. The Bill proposes to prohibit conversion made by use or practice of allurement, misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion or by any other fraudulent means, provide the procedure for conversion which includes declaration of intention of conversion by giving prior notice to the Competent Authority; provide for declaration by the converted person and the person and institute which organise such conversion, to the Competent Authority after conversion; provide for offences and punishment for violating the provisions of the proposed law and provide for investigation of unlawful conversion by an officer not below the rank of Sub-Inspector of Police. The state cabinet had given its approval during the meeting held on March 5, following recommendations from a high-level special committee. This committee, headed by the Director General of Police (DGP), was established on February 14, 2025, to study legal frameworks and draft a robust mechanism to handle complaints related to illegal conversions. Once the bill receives approval from both houses of the state legislature, it will be sent to the President of India for final assent. The law will come into force across Maharashtra immediately after receiving presidential approval. The government has maintained that the law is necessary to protect vulnerable individuals from predatory conversion tactics. Ministers, including ports and shopping minister Nitesh Rane, who has been a strong advocate of law against forced conversions, highlighted that while the Indian Constitution guarantees the freedom to practice any religion, it does not grant a right to convert others through "misrepresentation, force, or allurement." Various States such as Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu have already enacted the Freedom of Religion Acts for the prohibition of such forceful and unlawful conversions from one religion to another. The Bill further said that the right to freedom of religion guaranteed under the Constitution of India is not absolute, but is subject to public order, morality, health and to other provisions of Part III of the Constitution relating to the fundamental rights of citizens. It said that the Supreme Court of India has, in many cases, held that the freedom of religion is subject to reasonable restrictions and the right to propagate under Article 25 of the Constitution does not include the right to forcibly convert another person. Instances of religious conversions which are forceful, involuntary or caused by influencing the free consent of the citizens have been increasing and are being carried out in an organised manner by various institutions. It added, "Many instances of mass conversion have come to light where gullible persons have been forcefully converted from one religion to another by offering any gift, gratification, easy money or material benefit either in cash or kind, employment, free education in school or college run by any religious body or institution, promise to marry, better lifestyle, divine healing, etc. These instances are causing disturbance to public order in the State and are affecting social harmony." Defending the need for the new legislation, the government said that individuals or families are susceptible to unlawful conversions due to their social and economic vulnerability in society. Such vulnerable sections of society need protection from the State. The existing laws are not sufficient to tackle various issues arising out of such religious conversion. - IANS Maharashtra's Social Justice Minister Sanjay Shirsat announced a policy to provide government jobs to eligible family members of SC/ST victims in atrocity cases, particularly involving murder or death. The government is addressing approximately 889 pending atrocity cases, with 144 specifically concerning tribal communities. Shirsat emphasized the government's seriousness in registering cases while ensuring innocent persons are not falsely implicated. He also praised Shiv Sena's decision to nominate Jyoti Waghmare, a Dalit woman from Solapur without a political background, for the Rajya Sabha. Maharashtra govt to provide govt jobs to families of SC/ST atrocity victims, addressing 889 pending cases. Minister Sanjay Shirsat announces policy. Mumbai, March 14 Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice, Sanjay Shirsat on Friday said that a decision has been taken to induct eligible persons from the family of the deceased in atrocity cases involving Scheduled Castes and Tribes, particularly in cases of murder or death related to atrocities, into government service under the Social Justice Department. He informed that there are approximately 889 pending cases of atrocities against Scheduled Caste and Tribe citizens, of which 144 cases are related to tribals. The government is serious about this matter, and if injustice occurs, a case will certainly be registered; however, the government will also take appropriate decisions to ensure that innocent persons are not falsely implicated. Earlier, on March 5, he praised Shiv Sena for nominating Jyoti Waghmare, a Dalit woman from Solapur, as their candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections. Shirsat said the nomination of a woman without a political background reflects a major decision that will be appreciated across the state. "Eknath Shinde has given a Rajya Sabha nomination to a woman who has no political background, an ordinary woman. I think this is a very big decision, and all the women of Maharashtra will welcome it, and everyone should think the same. We welcome it," Shirsat said. - ANI An expert warns that the West Asia conflict risks major regional escalation and global energy disruption, urging engagement from major powers like India and China. He argues Iran could widen the conflict to pressure adversaries, which would damage US credibility and regional security. The current US-led military response is assessed as poorly coordinated and insufficient for the scale of the crisis. Resolving the situation depends on a coordinated ceasefire and international guarantees for peace. Expert warns West Asia conflict could disrupt global energy, spike oil prices. Calls for India, China, Russia engagement to secure ceasefire and peace. New Delhi, March 13 Amid the evolving conflict in West Asia, concerns are mounting over rising global oil and gas prices and the risk of a broader regional escalation that could draw in multiple global powers. Jing Huang, Director, Institute of US and Pacific Studies, warns that the instability in the region, combined with growing tensions between Iran, Israel, and the United States, could significantly disrupt global energy supplies and further strain international security dynamics. Speaking at the Synergia Conclave 2026 here, Huang emphasised the role of major global powers in preventing the conflict from escalating further. "It takes the entire village to solve this issue. Which means the major powers like India and China and Russia should all get engaged... because it matters to all of us." Without broader diplomatic intervention, Huang warned that Iran may attempt to widen the conflict to pressure its adversaries. "Because Iranians, the only way for Iran to prevail in the conflict is, number one, to escalate. Attack not only Israelis and Americans, but all the countries that have military bases," he said. Such a strategy could dramatically increase pressure on the United States and its regional allies. "If that is gone, it not only damages US military capability, but essentially what's damaged is the credibility of the superpower," Huang added, warning that prolonged instability could undermine Washington's security commitments across the region. He highlighted that the military response and coordination seen in the current conflict appear limited compared with previous large-scale operations carried out by the United States and its allies. "It's not very well coordinated. And so there's not enough ammunition prepared," he said. Drawing comparisons with earlier conflicts, Huang pointed to the scale of military mobilisation during the United States' operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. "For example, in 2001, the United States attacked Afghanistan. It's a five-carrier battle group with cooperation of NATO over almost 1,000 airplanes. In 2003, I attacked Iraq. It's a six-battle group with cooperation of NATO," Huang said. The current deployment, Huang argued, appears insufficient for a conflict of such magnitude. "By this time, two battle groups. It's far from enough and for such a big war. Last but not least, no plan B. That's what really, really hurt Americans," he added, warning that the lack of a clear alternative strategy could prolong the conflict. The killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini was described as a major turning point that could further harden Iran's stance. "And also now, because the assassination, the killing of Ayatollah Khomeini is a really bad idea," Huang said, arguing that Iran's political system is resilient and cannot be destabilised by eliminating individual leaders. "Because Iran is such a country that all the regime, it just cannot overthrow a third. It's just about killing one or two or even dozens of the leaders. Because that's not the way the Iranian government or the Iranian regime is structured. It's very resilient," he said. Jing Huang added that Khamenei's influence extends far beyond political leadership. "Now the worst thing is that Ayatollah Khamenei is not just a president or general. It's a living god, basically. So therefore, it's actually mobilized the Iranian people to fight to the end." The conflict has also raised serious concerns about global energy security, particularly regarding shipping routes that supply crude oil to Asia. Huang noted that disruptions in key maritime corridors could severely impact major Asian economies. "Everybody suffers, especially the countries like India, China, Japan, of course, Korea and Taiwan. So all the Asian countries depend on the oil coming from the street. But now it's in danger," he said. Rising tensions could also push insurance costs for shipping dramatically higher. "Because what happens there will skyrocket in the insurance in London. The London insurance company will skyrocket in the US field. Nobody can afford it," he said. Apart from role of major global powers in preventing the conflict from escalating further, the expert said resolving the crisis will depend on two more key conditions. "Number one, ceasefire. That's most important. How to do that needs a lot of coordination, negotiations on the table," he said. A second critical element would involve international guarantees for peace. "Iranians' argument or claim that you attack us when we talk to you. It's a breach of trust. So we don't trust you anymore. You have to have an international guarantee to make sure that you don't attack us like this anymore." - ANI The Maharashtra government has issued a notification making Marathi a compulsory subject in all schools across the state, regardless of the medium or management board. School Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse warned that strict action, including potential cancellation of recognition, will be taken against institutions that violate this rule. The policy applies to private, unaided, and even schools affiliated with international boards, where Marathi must be taught as a second or third language. The minister emphasized that learning Marathi is essential for the new generation to contribute to preserving the state's official language. Maharashtra mandates Marathi as a compulsory subject in all schools, including private and foreign boards. Violations may lead to cancelled recognition. Mumbai, March 14 The state government has issued a notification making the Marathi language a compulsory subject in schools of all mediums and under all management boards across the state. Strict action will be taken against schools that violate this rule, School Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse informed the Legislative Assembly. Minister Bhuse was responding to a question raised by MLA Haroon Khan in the Assembly. Bhuse said that according to the government notification issued on March 1, 2020, Marathi has been made a compulsory subject in schools of all mediums and under all managements in the state. In some international or national boards, Marathi must be taught either as a "second language" or a "third language". He clarified that under no circumstances can Marathi be excluded. Responding to the complaint raised by MLA Haroon Khan regarding a particular school, Bhuse said the Education Department will immediately conduct an inspection of the institution. If it is found that Marathi is not being taught there, the school will be made aware of the legal provisions, and necessary action will be taken. The minister further said that the rule of teaching Marathi in schools is not limited only to government schools but also applies to private, unaided, and schools affiliated with foreign boards. Since Marathi is the official language of the state, it is essential that the new generation learns it and contributes to its preservation, he said, adding that the state government will not make any compromise on the issue. Schools that are not teaching Marathi will be instructed to implement the rule, and institutions that fail to comply with the order may have their recognition cancelled, Bhuse clarified. MLAs Atul Bhatkhalkar and Amit Deshmukh also participated in the discussion on the issue in the Assembly. - ANI Following safe passage for two initial carriers, more Indian-flagged LPG tankers are preparing to cross the Strait of Hormuz after Iran granted them secure transit. Currently, 28 Indian vessels with 778 seafarers are in the Persian Gulf region, carrying significant cargoes of LNG, LPG, and crude oil. Two specific tankers, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, are being escorted by the Indian Navy and are expected to reach Indian ports soon. This development follows high-level discussions between Indian and Iranian leadership regarding the flow of goods and energy through the critical waterway. Iran grants safe passage to Indian-flagged LPG carriers through the Strait of Hormuz, with 28 vessels and 778 seafarers being monitored. New Delhi, March 14 After the safe passage of two LPG carriers from the Strait of Hormuz, more LPG tankers are lined up for crossing the war-affected zone after Iran granted Indian-flagged tankers safe passage from the Strait, reliable sources said on Saturday. The number of Indian-flagged vessels operating in the Persian Gulf region are at 28, and all Indian vessels and crew are being actively monitored for their safety and security. As many as 24 of these Indian ships are located west of the Strait of Hormuz, carrying 677 Indian seafarers, and four vessels are on the east of the Strait with 101 Indian seafarers on board. According to data from the Directorate General of Shipping (DGS) as on March 12, these ships were carrying around 2,15,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), 4,15,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and about 17.5 lakh tonnes of crude oil. The Ministry of Ports,Shipping and Waterways continues to closely monitor the prevailing maritime situation in the Persian Gulf region and has strengthened monitoring and preparedness measures in view of the evolving maritime situation in that region. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most vital shipping lanes through which 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas exports transit. Meanwhile, two oil tankers, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, are on their way to arrive in the country in a couple of days. These vessels are owned by state-run Shipping Corp of India Ltd. Government sources said that Shivalik is being escorted by the Indian Navy, which is expected to reach an Indian port within the next two days, with Mumbai or Kandla likely to be its destination. The ship has reached open sea and is sailing safely under Indian Navy guidance. Meanwhile, 'Nanda Devi' is carrying more than 46,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), critical for India's energy supply chain, they added. According to sources, both ships are being closely guided by naval assets to ensure safe transit through the strategically sensitive waters. This move follows a high-level discussion between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian regarding the flow of goods and energy. Iran's Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, indicated on Friday that Indian ships could soon get safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, which has brought transit through the crucial waterway to a standstill. - IANS Union Minister Piyush Goyal has inaugurated the revived Van Rani toy train at Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The train, damaged in a 2020 cyclone, now operates on a battery-powered system for environmental sustainability. Goyal emphasized that the train symbolizes India's ability to pursue modern development while preserving its heritage. The project was approved under the leadership of Maharashtra's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister. Union Minister Piyush Goyal inaugurates the revived, eco-friendly Van Rani toy train in Mumbai, highlighting heritage and modern development. Mumbai, March 14 Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal inaugurated an iconic Van Rani toy train at Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on Saturday. The toy train, which had been discontinued following damage caused by a cyclone in 2020, has been successfully reinstated. Now featuring a battery-operated system to ensure environmental sustainability, it was inaugurated under the leadership of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. During his visit to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the Union Minister emphasised that the "Van Rani" toy train remains a significant attraction for visitors. He asserted that the train exemplifies India's modern strength and demonstrates the nation's commitment to pursuing development and preserving its heritage simultaneously. "This was truly a train that, for 50 years, held immense appeal for visitors to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Its tracks were damaged during a cyclone in 2020, necessitating its closure; however, I am delighted that CM Devendra Fadnavis and DCM Eknath Shinde have granted approval for its revival... It is battery-operated; therefore, it will cause no harm to the environment... This exemplifies India's modern strength, that we pursue development while simultaneously preserving our heritage..." Goyal told reporters. Earlier on February 27, the Union Minister held a meeting with the Managing Director of Zurich Airport International Ltd, Daniel Bircher, and discussed ongoing and future investment plans, particularly regarding the Noida International Airport project. In a social media post, the minister said he was delighted to meet Daniel Bircher and deliberate on their ongoing and future investment plans, particularly concerning the Noida International Airport project. Goyal stated, "Delighted to meet Mr. Daniel Bircher, Managing Director, Zurich Airport International Ltd. Deliberated on their ongoing & future investment plans particularly regarding the Noida International Airport project. This partnership reflects India's growing aspirations for building world-class infrastructure and our journey towards Viksit Bharat 2047." - ANI Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has strongly defended the Musi River Rejuvenation Project, positioning it as a crucial "growth engine" for the state's future development. He launched a scathing attack on the opposition BRS, accusing them of spreading misinformation and obstructing progress out of political fear. The CM emphasized the project's role in preserving Hyderabad's heritage, combating pollution, and developing tourism and real estate for public benefit. He also addressed rehabilitation concerns, stating the government possesses details of all displaced persons and is working to provide housing and employment opportunities. Telangana CM Revanth Reddy counters BRS criticism, framing the Musi River Rejuvenation Project as vital for heritage, tourism, and the state's economic future. Hyderabad, March 14 Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy reaffirmed that the Musi Rejuvenation Project has been conceived with a big objective of developing a new facility of a "growth engine" for the state. Speaking at the "Musi Invites" programme on Friday, the Chief Minister said that the Musi project was neither against anyone nor intended to forcibly seize anyone's assets. "The entire world is looking towards Hyderabad, which is a safe city. If anyone goes against the wishes of the poor, can they come to power again?" the CM asked. In a scathing attack on opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for peddling "false propaganda" against the Musi project, the CM said they were spreading misinformation to create panic among people. "Our government firmly believes that we exercise the powers as a custodian of the state and not show the authority," Reddy said. The Chief Minister challenged the opposition leaders to stay for at least three months in the Musi area, saying that the government was ready to construct a container house for them. "Shall we simply abandon this city, which possesses such a magnificent heritage? Why did the previous BRS government neglect the Musi project and now obstruct it? Obstructing development is not the solution to the problem," said Reddy. The Chief Minister demanded that the opposition explain the valid reasons for opposing the project. The CM took strong exception to the opposition party labelling the Musi "beautification" project as "lootification". Further, the Chief Minister said that it is our duty to preserve and protect the historical city. "The opposition was attempting to obstruct the Musi project out of fear that the successful execution of the project would bring great repute to the Congress party and him," said Reddy, adding, "I am one of you and ready to receive advice and suggestions from all. Let us complete this project with the cooperation of everyone." "Nothing wrong in doing real estate business and tourism development for state development. What is wrong if the government engages in real estate for the sake of the state's interests? What is wrong with developing tourism?" he said. Reddy also raised objections to the opposition statements that bulldozers are being deployed in the Musi River basin area. "When we seek to implement a law enacted by the Central Government, some individuals threaten to obstruct us. This initiative is not merely about the rejuvenation of the Musi River, but also about preserving our culture and history. As part of this effort, the government has already restored Nalla Cheruvu, Bathukamma Kunta, and Bamruk-ud-Doula," he added. The CM also said that it was at the confluence of the Musi and Eesa rivers where Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were immersed. "How many tourists actually visit Bapu Ghat? Due to pollution, the Musi River has turned toxic. Nalgonda district people are facing trouble due to Musi pollution. Originating in Ranga Reddy district, the Musi River became heavily polluted in Hyderabad," he added. Reddy asserted that the development we are undertaking is for the sake of future generations. "It is our duty to protect nature and the environment. With the rejuvenation of the Musi River, the state will transform into a powerful engine of growth. Even during the construction of the Outer Ring Road, some individuals lost their lands," he said. On compensation for those affected, the CM said the government possess comprehensive details regarding all those displaced within the Musi river basin area "We possess comprehensive details regarding all those displaced within the Musi River basin area. Our government is making efforts to construct houses, following discussions with the Jana Andolan Sangh. In addition to providing schools and other amenities, we are striving to create employment opportunities for them within those very localities. Our government exists solely to serve the welfare of the poor", the CM said. Countering opposition claims that the cost of the Gandhi statue will be Rs 5,000 crores, the CM said Mahatma Gandhi proved that even the greatest of wars can be won through peace. "Do we not have the responsibility of carrying forward the ideals of such a great soul? Shall we let slip this opportunity to rewrite our own history?" he said. The Chief Minister highlighted that both the Musi River and the city of Hyderabad possess a magnificent history. "Human civilisation has historically flourished around rivers. We have held consultations with intellectuals from all walks of life to seek their suggestions regarding the nature of development that needs to be undertaken," he said. The CM noted that in 1908, Musi floods inundated the city. At that time, after consulting with the renowned engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, the Nizam commissioned the construction of the Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar reservoirs to mitigate the flood threat. "For over a century, these reservoirs have served not only to safeguard the city from floods but also to quench the thirst of its residents," he said. Revanth Reddy observed that although many CMs ruled the state, history remembered only a select few. "Only those who formulate and execute development plans with true vision are the ones who are remembered in history. The Nizam rulers transformed the city of Hyderabad into a vibrant economic hub. Shouldn't we provide proper infrastructure for the poor? Shouldn't we create blue-collar jobs and foster tourism development? Shouldn't we boost the night economy? Will history forgive us if we fail to accomplish even ten percent of what the Nizam achieved," the CM pointed out. - ANI The ruling NDA held a key strategy meeting in Patna ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, showcasing unity among its constituent parties. State LJP-RV President Raju Tiwari asserted the alliance's strength, contrasting it with the opposition's "chaotic squabble." He expressed high confidence that the NDA would win all five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar. The meeting was attended by legislators and senior leaders, including from the BJP, signaling a coordinated political approach. NDA leaders hold unity meeting in Patna, express confidence in winning all five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar. Get the latest political updates. Patna, March 14 Amid heightened political activity ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in Bihar, a key strategy meeting of leaders from the ruling NDA was held at the office of the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas in Patna on Saturday. The meeting highlighted the unity among NDA parties as they discussed their strategy for the upcoming polls. The gathering, described as a grand meeting, was attended by all legislators of the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas. Several veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders also joined the meeting, a move seen as a clear show of solidarity within the NDA. Among the prominent leaders present were Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, Bihar BJP President Sanjay Saraogi, and Rajya Sabha election in-charge Rituraj Sinha. Their presence alongside LJP-RV leaders sent a strong political signal about the NDA's coordinated approach. After the meeting, State LJP-RV President Raju Tiwari addressed the media and launched a sharp attack on the Opposition. State LJP-RV President said, "Ours is an alliance (Gathbandhan), not a chaotic squabble (Lathbandhan). Visiting each other's offices is a normal process within our alliance." Tiwari emphasised that all five constituent parties of the NDA are united and there are no internal differences within the coalition. Expressing strong confidence, he said the NDA is poised to win all five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar. According to Tiwari, the NDA has prepared a strategy that will effectively counter the claims being made by opposition parties. Taking a swipe at meetings held by the Opposition, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the State LJP-RV President said that despite their claims of having the required numbers, the reality is that the NDA's political base remains strong and united. Tiwari concluded by asserting that the results of the Rajya Sabha elections would be a one-sided victory for the NDA, reflecting the alliance's numerical strength and coordination. A similar meeting was held at Rashtriya Lok Morcha President Upendra Kushwaha's official residence in Patna on Saturday evening, where several Janata Dal-United legislators participated and showed solidarity with the NDA. - IANS JD(U) MP Sanjay Jha expressed the NDA's confidence in securing all five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar. He stated that the decision regarding the successor to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will be taken collectively by the alliance's top leadership. The remarks follow Nitish Kumar filing his Rajya Sabha nomination, hinting at the end of his long tenure as CM. Meanwhile, JD(U) is holding legislature party meetings as part of its preparations for the upcoming political transition. JD(U)'s Sanjay Jha says NDA will win all Rajya Sabha seats; decision on next Bihar CM to be made by alliance top leadership. Patna, March 14 Janata Dal MP Sanjay Kumar Jha said that the National Democratic Alliance is confident of winning all five Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar and asserted that the decision on the next Chief Minister of the state will be taken by the alliance's top leadership. Speaking to the media here, Jha said meetings of the JD(U) legislature party are being organised as part of the party's preparations for the upcoming political developments in the state. "The Legislature party meeting is being held at the residence of Upendra Kushwaha, tomorrow the meeting will be held at Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary's residence," he said. Expressing confidence in the NDA's prospects in the Rajya Sabha elections, Jha said the alliance expects a clean sweep. "We will win all five Rajya Sabha seats," he said. On the question of who would succeed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Jha said the matter would be decided collectively by the top leaders of the NDA. "The top leaders of the NDA will decide who will become the next CM of Bihar," he said. The remarks come amid political developments in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recently filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections, signalling the end of his long tenure as the state's Chief Minister. Kumar had earlier emphasised that Bihar is steadily progressing with the support of the central government. Addressing a gathering during the Samriddhi Yatra in Madhepura earlier this week, Nitish Kumar said development work in the state is moving forward steadily. "Development is taking place in the district today. Bihar is also receiving full cooperation from the central government. Now, Bihar will progress in every way and will be among the country's progressive states," he said. Meanwhile, Kumar's son Nishant Kumar formally joined the JD(U) on March 8. Addressing party workers after joining, Nishant Kumar praised his father's leadership and said he would work to uphold the trust placed in him. - ANI Starbucks is continuing to reshape its store footprint as part of a sweeping turnaround effort to reverse declining customer traffic and slowing sales growth. The coffee giant has made significant changes across its business in recent years, including closing hundreds of locations while investing heavily in store upgrades and new formats designed to win back customers. The strategy has already produced some unexpected moves. In September 2025, Starbucks surprised many customers when it permanently closed two major Starbucks Reserve Roastery locations in Seattle: one inside its global headquarters building after nine years in the city's SODO district and another after 11 years on Capitol Hill. Now, more closures are planned in the company's hometown market. Starbucks confirms closure of five stores Starbucks confirmed it will permanently close five Seattle coffeehouses in April 2026, four of which are unionized. "We regularly review how our coffeehouses serve their neighborhoods and if they are meeting customers where they are. Sometimes that means investing in updates or trying new formats," said Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson in a media statement. "Other times, it means making the difficult decision to close a location that no longer fits how people in that community live, work, or gather." Seattle stores closing 1101 Madison St.: Unionized 4147 University Way N.E.: Unionized 305 Harrison St., Suite 220: Unionized 4800 Sand Point Way N.E.: Unionized 1730 Minor Ave.: Non-union Starbucks announces five store closures in its hometown of Seattle.Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Starbucks Workers United responds The decision has drawn criticism from Starbucks Workers United, the labor union representing around 11,000 Starbucks baristas nationwide. The union has been pursuing higher wages, more consistent scheduling, and better working conditions since its founding in 2021, according to its website. "Starbucks continues to fail its hometown," said Starbucks Workers United in a statement reported by Fox13. "After laying off thousands of corporate employees, opening a new office in Nashville, and closing its flagship stores, CEO Brian Niccol is yet again upending the lives of employees and disrupting customers with no notice or justification." The union added that it has filed an unfair labor practice charge and plans to demand bargaining rights with Starbucks regarding the shutdowns. Inside Starbucks' "Back to Starbucks" strategy The store closures come as Starbucks accelerates its broader turnaround plan following several quarters of slowing traffic and declining sales. The company launched its "Coffeehouse Uplift" initiative, a multi-year effort to invest about $150,000 per store and remodel 1,000 locations by the end of 2026. Nepal has suspended its visa-on-arrival facility for Iranian citizens, requiring them to obtain visas from diplomatic missions abroad first. The government cites the ongoing conflict in West Asia and national security concerns, including the risk of entry via the porous border with India. This brings the total number of countries excluded from Nepal's visa-on-arrival scheme to thirteen, including several conflict-affected nations. Immigration officials deny the move is in response to US pressure, stating no such diplomatic communication was received. Nepal suspends visa-on-arrival for Iranians, citing regional conflict and national security. Iranians must now get visas from embassies abroad. Kathmandu, March 13 The government of Nepal has decided to stop providing visa-on-arrival facilities to Iranian citizens visiting the country amid the ongoing US-Iran conflict in West Asia, the country's Department of Immigration said on Friday. "The move is aimed at preventing an influx of Iranian citizens into Nepal due to the ongoing conflict in the region," Ram Chandra Tiwari, Director General of the department, told IANS. "We have been adopting similar policies for other nations affected by conflicts." He said that, based on the recommendation of the department, the Ministry of Home Affairs decided to stop providing visa-on-arrival facilities to Iranian citizens. "The decision was taken on national security grounds, as there is also a possibility that Iranians could enter the country via India through the porous border," he said. Under the new provision, Iranian nationals - except those holding official and diplomatic passports - will now be required to obtain a visa from a Nepali Embassy or diplomatic mission abroad before entering Nepal, the department said. With this decision, the number of countries whose citizens are not eligible for visa-on-arrival in Nepal has reached 13. The other countries or territories whose citizens are not eligible for visa-on-arrival include Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Cameroon, Somalia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Syria. The Nepali government has also maintained that individuals travelling with refugee-status travel documents must obtain a visa from a Nepali diplomatic mission abroad before entering the country. Nepal has been expressing concern about a potential influx of foreign nationals who could seek refugee status after arriving in the country. In the past, hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrived in Nepal due to the war waged by Myanmar's military government against them. Nepal also hosted more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees for two decades since the early 1990s, before most of them were resettled in several Western countries. When asked whether the decision was also aimed at addressing US security concerns regarding Iranian nationals in Nepal, Tiwari said this was not a factor behind the decision. "We have not received any diplomatic communication from the US about any threat posed by Iranian nationals in Nepal," Tiwari said. The department said the latest measure regarding Iranian nationals is part of Nepal's immigration regulations governing entry procedures for certain nationalities. - IANS Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has expressed strong confidence that the ruling Left Democratic Front will secure more seats in the 2026 state elections than it did in 2021, dismissing any notion of anti-incumbency. He accused the central government of consistently treating Kerala unfairly, citing denied disaster relief in 2018 and obstruction of foreign loans for development projects. Vijayan also highlighted his government's interventions in education, health, and infrastructure, including state funding for national highway projects. He reiterated long-pending requests for central support, particularly for an AIIMS facility, which he claims has been unjustly delayed. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan claims no anti-incumbency, vows to win more seats in 2026 while alleging unfair treatment and lack of support from the central government. New Delhi, March 12 Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Thursday, while speaking at the NDTV Keralam Power Play summit, expressed confidence that the Left Democratic Front will win more seats in the upcoming state elections than in 2021. Vijayan said there is no anti-incumbency in the state, adding that the people hold a positive view of the government and its policies and believe only the current administration can take Kerala forward. "There is no anti incumbency in the state. Travel anywhere in the state and tell me if there is anti incumbency. People have good views of the government and our policy. They have a strong view that only we can take the state forward. In 2026, we will more seats than in 2021," Vijayan said at the NDTV Keralam Power Play summit. He also highlighted that his government has repeatedly sought better relations with the Centre but alleged that Kerala has often been treated unfairly. Referring to the 2018 disaster, Vijayan said the state had requested assistance but did not receive adequate support from the Centre. He recalled that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Kerala had extended help to Gujarat during natural calamities. "We are a state. We tried to have better relations with the centre, always, at every step. Kerala has always got a bad treatment from the centre. In 2018, the state was hit by a major disaster. We wanted help. PM came to tour, we expected help. We didn't receive help. Other states came forward to help us. They also informed the centre about our need. Centre said we never asked for help. When PM Narendra Modi was CM, other states, including Kerala, helped Gujarat in natural calamity. But when Kerala needed help, it never received one," Vijayan said. On governance and development, Vijayan said he is leading the party for elections and denied being a "supreme leader", saying "the party decides what is going to be done". He added that despite repeated appeals since 2016, his government has not received due consideration from the Centre on developmental issues, including setting up an AIIMS facility in the state. "You cannot say that I am the supreme leader. No, the party decides what is going to be done. The party decide the details. I am taking leadership for elections. In our states, to run developmental projects, we need help from Centre as well. Actually, we didn't receive the due consideration from the centre, and justice was not done. Due to lack of fund, we decided to borrow money from outside, and the centre even tried to block that also and put in measures to stop us from taking loans from outside the country. Since 2016, we have been approaching central government for help. Do you think that a state like Kerala does not deserve to have a facility like AIIMS? Every year, we keep approaching the centre. Till now, we have not got it," the Chief Minister said at the NDTV Keralam Power Play summit. Recounting progress since coming to power in 2016, Vijayan said the state was in "dire crisis" with the education sector "on the back foot" and many schools on the verge of closure. He added that the health sector also needed attention due to insufficient doctors and infrastructure, and that returning migrants felt "nothing has changed". He said his government introduced policies to address these issues. "5 years back, in 2021. Till 2016, other coalition was ruling the state. When we came to power, the situation of the state was in dire crisis. Education sector was on the back foot. Many schools were on the verge of being shut down. Health sector was also in dire need of attention. No doctors, no infrastructure. Speciality of Kerala is that there are lakhs of people who are working outside the state. People who used to come back to their native place used to think that nothing has changed in their state. We were able to bring in policies in the state," he said. On infrastructure, he said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was reluctant to implement highway projects in Kerala, citing high land costs, and alleged they stalled several developments. The state government decided to contribute 25 per cent of the total expenditure from the state treasury to keep the project on track. He also said the GAIL pipeline project, which was delayed, was intervened in by the state and completed successfully. "National Highway per notification developed, we had to intervene to get the highway projects going on. The national highway authority was unwilling to help us, it build the highway. They were stating reasons like the high cost of land and other factors, and they all destroyed projects in Kerala. But we put a foot down and said no, and we decided to give 25% of the total expense for the national highway from the state treasury. Similarly, Gail Pipeline project was stuck. We did intervention to ensure that the project started moving, and it completed," Vijayan said. - ANI Moradabad Divisional Commissioner Anjaneya Kumar Singh has firmly dismissed reports of a cooking gas crisis in the district, attributing public panic to rumours. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also held a review meeting, assuring there is no shortage of diesel, petrol, or LPG in the state and warning of strict action against hoarding. However, Congress leader Vishwavijay Singh has accused the government of failing to control black marketing, with gas being sold at higher rates. The broader supply situation is complicated by halted imports through the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran-US-Israel conflict, though one India-bound crude carrier has recently arrived in Mumbai. Moradabad and UP officials deny cooking gas shortage, warn against rumours and black marketing. CM Yogi Adityanath assures smooth supply. Moradabad, March 13 Moradabad Divisional Commissioner Anjaneya Kumar Singh on Friday dismissed reports of a cooking gas crisis in Moradabad, stating that the government is maintaining constant vigilance over the situation. Moradabad Divisional Commissioner Anjaneya Kumar Singh, while speaking to ANI, said, "Currently, there is absolutely no crisis of any kind in Moradabad. People are panicking after hearing news from outside sources, and rumours are being circulated; we have already initiated action to address this through a dedicated awareness campaign... Provided there is no hoarding or black marketing, there is no crisis whatsoever here, and we are maintaining constant vigilance over the situation... We are also monitoring social media... There is no need for anyone to panic..." Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held a meeting with officials regarding the state's gas supply situation and assured that there was no shortage of diesel, petrol, and cooking gas in the state, urging people to avoid rumours. The meeting reviewed the availability of gas cylinders and essential food items across the state. Officials informed the Chief Minister that there was no shortage of gas in the state and that the supply system was operating smoothly. The Chief Minister directed that the supply system be continuously monitored to ensure that the general public is not inconvenienced. In a post on X, CM Yogi Adityanath said, "There is no shortage of diesel-petrol in Uttar Pradesh. Avoid rumours related to shortage of cooking gas." "If any distributor agency or private individual is found involved in black marketing or hoarding, an FIR will be immediately registered against them, and the strictest action will be ensured," he said. On Thursday, amid fears of a disruption over the shortage of LPG gas, the consumers at Gorakhpur have been lined up outside gas agencies since morning, looking to get a fresh stock of cylinders for their home cooking needs. On the other hand, Vishwavijay Singh, State Vice President of the Congress party, while talking to ANI, said, "There is black marketing. People are being sold gases at higher rates. The UP government has been unsuccessful in giving gas to everyone." Meanwhile, the LPG shortage has been worsened by the halt in imports through the Strait of Hormuz due to the ongoing Iran-US-Israel conflict. However, Iranian authorities have allowed Indian-flagged vessels to pass safely as maritime traffic remains largely suspended in the region. A Liberia-flagged tanker, the Shenlong Suezmax, carrying Saudi crude, reached the Mumbai Port, becoming the first India-bound vessel to pass through the Strait of Hormuz since the Iran-US conflict began. The vessel docked at the Mumbai Port at 1 pm on Wednesday and was berthed at Jawahar Dweep at 6:06 pm. It is carrying 1,35,335 metric tonnes of crude oil, which will be supplied to refineries in Mahul, eastern Mumbai. The crude discharge process is expected to take around 36 hours. - ANI Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat stated there is no petroleum crisis in India, despite the challenging global energy market due to conflict in West Asia. He highlighted the government's strategy of diversifying crude oil import sources from 27 to 40 countries to secure supplies. The Petroleum Ministry assured uninterrupted LPG delivery to households, hospitals, and institutions, with a 30% increase in domestic production. The issue has become politically charged, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticizing the government's energy security management. Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat says India has diversified crude oil imports to 40 countries, ensuring no petroleum crisis despite Middle East tensions. Jodhpur, March 14 Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Saturday said there is no crisis regarding petroleum products in India, even as the West Asia conflict poses challenges for global energy markets. Speaking to the media, Shekhawat said the current war-like conditions in the Middle East have created concerns for several countries, stating that some neighbouring countries are facing serious disruptions. "There is no crisis regarding petroleum products in India... the war-like situation in the Middle East has posed a challenge before all countries. Speaking of our neighbouring countries, an emergency-like situation prevails in Pakistan, while schools and colleges have been closed in Bangladesh," he said. Highlighting the government's strategy to secure energy supplies, Shekhawat said India has significantly diversified its crude oil import sources. "We used to import crude oil from a total of 27 countries earlier; now the government has signed agreements with 40 countries for crude oil imports. We have diversified our supply lines," he said, adding that while the gas supply has been disrupted, the government has taken necessary steps to keep the supply going. He also said protocols have been put in place to prevent black marketing and hoarding of petroleum products. Responding to the criticism over the situation from the Congress, he accused them of attempting to create an unnecessary controversy over the issue. "The Congress has no issue, that's why they are trying to make it an issue," he said. Meanwhile, the Union Petroleum Ministry on Friday said that the supply of LPG to domestic households across India remains uninterrupted, with consistent deliveries also being ensured for hospitals and educational institutions. "Uninterrupted supply to domestic households has been ensured. Similarly, LPG supplies are also being provided to hospitals and educational institutions. Domestic production of LPG has increased by 30% as of today; compared to March 5th, our refineries are currently producing 30% more LPG. Regarding commercial cylinders, these have been placed at the disposal of the State Governments to facilitate priority distribution. We are requesting the State Governments to determine the priority criteria and ensure that these commercial cylinders effectively reach the intended consumers," said Sharma. However, the energy issue has sparked a political firestorm, as a day earlier, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi intensified his critique against the Central government. Gandhi claimed India's energy security has been compromised by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and external geopolitical pressures. "Today, America says, we can purchase gas and oil from Russia. America will say if we can buy from Iran, Iraq, or anyone else. The implication is that our Energy Security has been compromised... The man whom you appointed as Oil Minister, whose name appears in the "Epstein Files"--he is a friend of Epstein. Money belonging to George Soros has flowed into his daughter's company," Gandhi added. This comes amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, and has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Due to the conflict in the region, the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply, has reportedly been rendered inoperational, affecting the global energy supplies. - ANI North Korea launched approximately 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Saturday, marking its third such test this year. The launch coincides with the ongoing Freedom Shield joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. North Korean officials, including Kim Yo-jong, have condemned the drills, warning of severe consequences. Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continues to emphasize the expansion of the country's nuclear deterrent capabilities. North Korea fires 10 ballistic missiles as South Korea and US conduct joint military drills, escalating regional tensions. Seoul, March 14 North Korea on Saturday launched around 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea or the Sea of Japan, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Yonhap News Agency, the missiles were detected at around 1:20 pm (local time) after being launched from the Sunan area in North Korea. The launch marked Pyongyang's third ballistic missile test this year. "Our military maintains a firm readiness posture while closely sharing North Korean ballistic missile information with the US and Japanese sides amid a heightened surveillance posture against additional launches," the JCS said, as quoted by Yonhap News Agency. The launch came as South Korea and the United States are conducting their annual joint military exercise, Freedom Shield, which began earlier this week and is scheduled to run for 11 days. North Korea has repeatedly criticised such joint drills, describing them as rehearsals for an invasion. However, Seoul and Washington have maintained that the exercises are defensive in nature. Earlier this week, Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, condemned the drills and warned of "unimaginably terrible consequences", Yonhap News Agency reported. The development also comes after North Korea recently test-fired strategic cruise missiles from the Choe Hyon destroyer, with leader Kim Jong-un emphasising the need to maintain and expand a "powerful and reliable nuclear war deterrent", according to the North Korean state media. Meanwhile, South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok recently said that US President Donald Trump remained positive about resuming dialogue with Kim Jong-un, though the timing of such talks remains uncertain, according to Yonhap News Agency. The remarks came amid speculation that Trump could seek a meeting with the North Korean leader during a planned visit to China for a summit with Xi Jinping in early April. North Korea last conducted a similar launch on January 27, when it fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, which it said were part of tests for a renewed large-calibre multiple rocket launcher system. - ANI North Korea launched approximately 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Saturday, marking its third such launch this year. The launch coincided with the ongoing Freedom Shield military exercise conducted by South Korea and the United States. Kim Yo-jong, sister of leader Kim Jong-un, had previously condemned the drills and warned of severe consequences. The missiles flew an estimated 350 kilometers, with South Korean and US forces monitoring the situation under a combined defense posture. North Korea fires 10 ballistic missiles toward East Sea as South Korea and US conduct Freedom Shield military exercise, escalating tensions. Seoul, March 14 North Korea fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea Saturday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, in an apparent muscle-flexing as South Korea and the United States were conducting their key springtime military exercise. The JCS said it detected the missiles launched from the Sunan area in the North at around 1:20 p.m. It marked the North's third ballistic missile launch this year. The missiles flew about 350 kilometres, the JCS said, adding that further analysis is underway, reports Yonhap news agency. "Under a robust South Korea-US combined defence posture, our military is closely monitoring North Korea's various movements, and maintains capabilities and a posture that can overwhelmingly respond to any provocation," it added. The latest launch came as South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual Freedom Shield exercise Monday for an 11-day run. The North has long denounced the allies' combined military drills as a rehearsal for an invasion, though Seoul and Washington have said the exercises are purely defensive. Earlier this week, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, condemned the ongoing military drills and warned of "unimaginably terrible consequences." The North also recently test-fired strategic cruise missiles from the Choe Hyon destroyer, with the North Korean leader underscoring the need to maintain and expand a "powerful and reliable nuclear war deterrent," according to Pyongyang's state media. The North's latest missile launch also came after Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said that US President Donald Trump remained positive about the resumption of dialogue with the North Korean leader while leaving open its timing. The prime minister's remarks came amid speculation that Trump could seek a meeting with Kim during his upcoming trip to China for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump reportedly plans to travel to China from late March to early April. North Korea last fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on January 27, which it said was aimed at testing a renewed large-calibre multiple rocket launcher system. - IANS Farmers in Jharkhand's Sahibganj district are praising the PM-KISAN scheme for providing crucial financial assistance directly to their bank accounts. Beneficiaries like Amit Singh and Arun Thakur state the annual 6000 installment helps them purchase farming inputs without needing loans. They credit Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the initiative, which uses a digital infrastructure to ensure transparency and avoid middlemen. The scheme's latest installment saw nearly 19,000 crore transferred to over 9 crore farmers nationwide. Jharkhand farmers hail PM Modi's PM-KISAN scheme for providing direct financial aid, ending their reliance on loans for seeds and fertilizers. Sahibganj, March 14 Farmers in Jharkhand who have been beneficiaries of the central government's flagship 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi' scheme thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being able to avail the financial assistance and carry out farming without being dependent on loans. The PM-KISAN scheme, aims at providing financial assistance to all cultivable landholding farmer families across the country, subject to certain exclusion criteria. Under the Scheme, an amount of Rs. 6000 is transferred annually in three equal installments of Rs. 2000 directly into the Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts of the growers. Amit Singh, a farmer in Jharkhand's Sahibganj, told IANS, "The Modi government has brought many schemes for farmers but the most beneficial is the PM-KISAN scheme. Things have changed a lot from what they used to be earlier. There are many schemes being brought for farmers by both the central and state governments. We are glad that the Prime Minister thinks about the farmers too." He also spoke about how farmers face a lot of losses due to water shortage and other things, because of which their financial situation further weakens. "It is because of this scheme that we get help in the form of seeds, fertilisers and manure for farming." Thanking the Prime Minister, Singh said, "I thank PM Modi for thinking about the people at the grassroot level, even the farmers. I also appeal that along with this, other schemes should also be brought by the government to help growers." A farmer-centric digital infrastructure has ensured the benefits of the scheme reach all the growers across the country without any involvement of middlemen, maintaining absolute transparency in registering and verifying beneficiaries. Speaking to IANS, another farmer Arun Thakur, who is also a beneficiary of the scheme, said, "I receive Rs. 2,000, and with that money I carry out my farming work. It is very beneficial for us. It helps a lot in buying fertilisers and seeds, and we do not face any difficulty." Emphasising that he doesn't need to take loans anymore, he said, "Now I don't have to take any loan to do farming. I get the money in my bank account and use it whenever necessary, for my farming needs." Thakur further added, "It is a very good scheme and should keep benefitting farmers like this. We won't face any problems. I want to thank the Prime Minister for this." Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi on Friday launched the distribution of the 22nd installment of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi in Guwahati, Assam. Around Rs 19,000 crore was transferred to about 9.32 crore farmers across the country on PM Kisan Utsav Diwas. - IANS Haryana BJP MLAs assembled in Chandigarh for training ahead of the crucial Rajya Sabha elections, with state party chief Mohan Lal Badoli openly stating the preparations are not secret. Meanwhile, Congress MLAs from Haryana have been shifted to a resort in Kufri, Himachal Pradesh, amid concerns of poaching attempts by the BJP. The elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states, including two from Haryana, are scheduled for March 16. Senior leaders from both parties are overseeing the arrangements to ensure their legislators are secure and prepared for the vote. Ahead of Rajya Sabha elections, Haryana BJP MLAs undergo training while Congress MLAs are shifted to a Himachal resort amid poaching concerns. Chandigarh, March 14 Haryana BJP MLAs were seen travelling together in a bus in Chandigarh on Saturday ahead of the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, with state party president Mohan Lal Badoli stating that the move was part of preparations and training for legislators ahead of the crucial vote. Addressing reporters here, Badoli dismissed speculation about secrecy around the move and said the party was openly preparing its MLAs for the election process. "We are not hiding anything. We will roam around here in Chandigarh. This is the land of Haryana; it is a land of miracles. A miracle will happen. We will certainly provide training to MLAs," he said. Haryana Minister Mahipal Dhanda also confirmed that all BJP MLAs had assembled for discussions and training sessions ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls. "All the MLAs have arrived. Our party in charge has arrived as well. We will meet with them. Training is essential. Every political party wants to ensure it is well-prepared," Dhanda said. The move comes ahead of the Rajya Sabha election for two seats from Haryana scheduled on March 16. The polling for the biennial elections to the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) to fill the 37 seats across 10 states is scheduled to take place on March 16, with the counting of votes on the same day at 5 pm. Meanwhile, Haryana Congress MLAs arrived at the hill resort town of Kufri near Shimla on Friday ahead of the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in the state. The legislators reached a resort at Gallu in New Kufri, around 25 kilometres from the Himachal Pradesh capital, amid tight security arrangements at around 9 pm. Senior Congress leaders, including All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge for Haryana, BK Hariprasad, and Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rao Narender Singh, accompanied the MLAs. The BJP has fielded two candidates, including one Independent-backed nominee, for the polls. According to party sources, the Congress leadership, led by former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has shifted the legislators to the hill resort as a precautionary measure amid concerns of possible poaching attempts by the BJP. A large security deployment has been put in place around the resort, with the Shimla district police guarding the premises and restricting entry to media and outsiders. The term of 37 members who were elected from Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana will conclude in the month of April, vacating the seats for new members to be elected. - ANI Major Al-Quds Day rallies were held across Pakistan, including in Islamabad and Karachi, with participants condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and rejecting normalization with Israel. Speakers labeled Israel an "illegitimate colonial project" and criticized the silence of global powers and Muslim nations. The protests were notably fervent this year, fueled by recent regional tensions including US and Israeli actions against Iran. Demonstrators carried portraits of Iranian leaders and demanded immediate international assistance for Gaza through legal and diplomatic channels. Massive rallies across Pakistan mark Al-Quds Day, condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and demanding accountability from global powers and Muslim nations. Islamabad, March 14 A Youm-e-Quds rally was organised in Islamabad, where participants gathered to express their unwavering support for the Palestinian cause. During the demonstration on Friday, the crowds chanted slogans against Israel, highlighting the ongoing tensions in the region. The event saw significant participation from various political and religious leaders, who joined a large number of citizens to mark the occasion. Speaking at the event, Zahir Shah, one of the participants, emphasised the importance of resisting global powers. He stated that they intended to send a message to America and Israel, asserting that no matter how powerful an oppressor may be, and regardless of the scale of the oppression, it remains essential to speak out against it. Mirroring the demonstrations in the capital, rallies were organised across Karachi and various regions of Sindh to observe Al-Quds Day, Dawn reported. A significant number of demonstrators, including women and children, gathered on MA Jinnah Road on Friday to commemorate the day under stringent security measures. Primarily spearheaded by the Imamia Students Organisation (ISO), the participants marched from the Numaish intersection to the Tibet Centre. At the centre, they were addressed by a broad spectrum of leaders, including Ameen Shirazi of the ISO, Hasan Zafar Naqvi, Nazar Abbas Taqvi, and Sindh Local Bodies Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah. Other prominent speakers included Mairaj ul Huda Siddiqi of the Jamaat-i-Islami and Firdous Shamim Naqvi of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. According to Dawn, those in attendance demanded a robust response from the Muslim world to provide immediate assistance to people in Gaza. The protesters explicitly rejected the "so-called normalisation of terms with Israel" by certain Islamic nations, warning that such diplomatic shifts could result in catastrophic outcomes. The intensity of this year's annual rally, traditionally observed on the final Friday of Ramazan, was marked by intense fervour attributed to the significant escalation of tensions in the Middle East. The demonstrations saw heightened emotions following US and Israeli actions against Iran, including the reported assassination of Ali Khamenei. Consequently, protesters carried banners and portraits of the late leader and the newly elected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Dawn noted that the crowds voiced strong condemnation of what they characterised as ongoing Zionist atrocities within Gaza and the wider Palestinian territories. In his address, Ameen Shirazi asserted that the Zionist state is an "illegitimate colonial project" and urged the international community to commence legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He also questioned the "criminal silence" of global powers and Muslim nations concerning the situation. Adding a visual dimension to the protest, the Palestine Foundation set up a pictorial exhibition to depict the plight of the Palestinian people and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Sabir Abu Maryam of the Foundation told the media that they condemn the silence of human rights organisations regarding the actions of the "Zionist regime" and its allies. As reported by Dawn, the momentum of the movement was evident as similar rallies were held in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, and other district headquarters. In Hyderabad, the Shia Ulema Council (SUC) staged a march to the local press club, while in Sukkur, a grand rally was led by the Al-Quds Committee of Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM). Further demonstrations in Badin specifically protested against alleged attacks on Iran, while in Khairpur and Jacobabad, participants reiterated their support for Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. - ANI A report accuses Pakistan's military of orchestrating a decades-long crackdown on the Shia majority in Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, using counter-terrorism charges and proxy groups. The latest violence on March 1 resulted in 14 civilian deaths and 60 injuries, including children, during protests. The report contrasts the persecution with the situation in Indian Ladakh, where the Shia population has grown safely and is embraced as citizens. It asserts that Pakistani policies have fueled local resentment and a desire for liberation, with tens of thousands protesting. Report details Pakistan's decades-long military crackdown on Shias in occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, alleging state-sponsored violence and persecution. Islamabad, March 14 Pakistan is using its counter-terrorism department to tighten the noose around the local Shia community, arresting dozens of Shia student protesters and charging them with terrorism. Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, where Shias form the majority population, has long witnessed such actions with the secret service agencies framing the community as a national threat, a report has highlighted. According to a report in the Global Strat View, the Pakistani military orchestrated the first Shia-Sunni clash in PoGB after occupying the region in 1947 to garner support among the local Sunni minority and consolidate its authority. Since then, it said, "hundreds of native Shias" in PoGB have been "slaughtered or displaced by the army and its proxy terrorist groups." The latest military onslaught on Shias in PoGB on March 1 left 14 civilians dead and 60 injured, including eight boys under the age of 15. "This happened when Shias were protesting the assassination of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. Pakistan's military blamed residents for setting fire to military offices, schools, and offices. In an interview with a journalist in Islamabad, a Shia leader said that military personnel shot and killed four women in front of him," the report noted. Highlighting that PoGB remains under curfew , he said, "Life has become unbearable during Ramadan because individuals must fast while being denied access to fuel, food, water, and electricity. Thanks to Pakistani corruption and mismanagement in Gilgit, residents have access to water and electricity for a few hours every three days. As Ramadan begins, prices of food and beverage items in Pakistan skyrocket. In comparison, in India, vendors cut food prices during Ramadan to make life easier for Muslims in Ladakh and Kashmir." The report noted that, similar to earlier attacks, the latest Shia massacre in PoGB had been preplanned. "Millions of Shias demonstrated on the same day in Indian Ladakh and Kashmir, but no one was killed. The difference is that India embraces the Shias of Ladakh and Kashmir as its own citizens, while Pakistan continues its presence as an illegal occupier and coloniser of Gilgit Baltistan," it added. The report alleged that Pakistan's Shia "extermination policy" has turned the local people of PoGB into a minority. "On the other hand, the Shia population in Ladakh has increased from 40 per cent to 46 per cent in recent decades. There have been no attacks, targeted executions, or accusations of blasphemy, treason, or terrorism against Shias in Ladakh," it mentioned. Asserting that Pakistani military policies fueled resentment among locals and a growing desire for liberation, the report said tens of thousands of people are currently on the streets of PoGB "wishing Pakistan's Army Chief, General Asim Munir, death." - IANS Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is one of the Best AI Stocks That Will Make You A Millionaire. On March 10, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) reported revenue data for February 2026. The company reported February 2026 revenue of approximately NT$317.66 billion, reflecting a 20.8% decrease month-over-month. However, the revenue was up 22.2% year-over-year from NT$260.009 billion in February 2025. Moreover, the revenue from January 2026 to February 2026 came in at NT$718.91 billion, reflecting an increase of 29.9% compared to the same period a year ago. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) Reports Feb 2026 Revenue Data On March 10, Haas Liu from Bank of America Securities reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $470. The analyst cited that while the February revenue figures were softer, they are tracking above the usual seasonal first-quarter patterns. The analyst expects earlier-than-usual orders for consumer semiconductors to carry the momentum throughout the quarter. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is the largest contract semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Some of its prominent customers include semiconductor companies that outsource all or part of their chip production, including Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Broadcom, and more. While we acknowledge the potential of TSM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. American far-right activist Laura Loomer used the India Today Conclave platform to sharply criticize Pakistan, labeling it a state that exports Islamic terrorism. She cited the case of a convicted Pakistani national who plotted to assassinate former US President Donald Trump as evidence. Loomer also addressed controversy by apologizing for past offensive social media posts about Indians, though she stood firm in her criticism of the H-1B visa program. Her comments have reignited debates on terrorism and US foreign policy. At India Today Conclave, Laura Loomer criticizes Pakistan's terror links and apologizes for past anti-India social media remarks. New Delhi, March 14 American far-Right activist and staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, sparked debate during her appearance at the India Today Conclave 2026 on Saturday for sharply criticising Pakistan and apologising for some of her past anti-India social media posts. Speaking at the conclave in New Delhi, Loomer warned the US against strengthening ties with Pakistan, alleging that the country was linked to global terrorism. "Pakistan's biggest export to the world is Islamic terrorism, and I don't believe the US should be cosying up to the Pakistani government at all," she said. Loomer further accused Pakistan of supporting extremist networks and claimed that several global terror incidents had links to the country. "Pakistan operates as an openly jihadist and pro-Sharia state, and when you look at many of the Islamist terror attacks around the world, there is often some connection back to Pakistan," she added. Referring to a recent case in the US, Loomer cited the conviction of a Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, who was accused of plotting to assassinate President Trump and other senior American politicians. According to investigators, Merchant allegedly attempted to recruit individuals in the US to target President Trump, reportedly in retaliation for the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. "The incident makes one thing clear. All of the terrorism, for the most part, is largely coming from Pakistan," Loomer said. During the same event, Loomer also addressed criticism over several past posts she made on the social media platform 'X' that contained offensive and derogatory remarks about Indians. The posts resurfaced online after she arrived in India for the conclave, triggering widespread backlash. When questioned about the controversy, Loomer acknowledged that some of her comments were inappropriate. "I should not have said some of the things I wrote in the other tweets," she admitted. However, she made it clear that she stood by her criticism of the H-1B visa programme in the United States. "I am not going to apologise for opposing the H-1B visa programme, because my job is to stand up for American interests. Our immigration and labour laws have been exploited and abused. I will continue to fight for American workers who are struggling to find employment," she said. - IANS At the 61st UN Human Rights Council session, the Director of the Solidarity Advocacy Group raised serious concerns about the persistent hardships faced by minorities in Pakistan and across Asia. Mohamed Serkal emphasized that despite years of advocacy, concrete steps to ensure the safety and rights of these communities remain insufficient. He called on the UN and its member states to place minority rights firmly on the international agenda and ensure accountability. Serkal highlighted that collaboration between advocacy groups, NGOs, and international institutions is essential to maintain momentum and push for urgent action. At the 61st UNHRC session, advocacy groups highlight the persistent hardships and insufficient protections for minorities in Pakistan and Asia. Geneva, March 14 The Director of the Solidarity Advocacy Group, Mohamed Serkal, has raised serious concerns regarding the persistent hardships faced by minorities in Pakistan and throughout Asia during the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Speaking on the sidelines of the session, Serkal highlighted the ongoing plight of these vulnerable communities and issued a call to the international community. He emphasised the necessity of addressing minority rights as a global priority to ensure their protection and well-being. He pointed out that the situation of minorities in Asia, especially in Pakistan, has been a long-standing concern raised by various advocacy groups and rights organisations. However, he noted that despite years of discussions and repeated calls for reform, concrete and effective steps to ensure the safety and rights of minority communities remain insufficient. Speaking about the organisation's work, Serkal explained that the Solidarity Advocacy Group focuses on advocating for the protection of minority communities worldwide, particularly in matters related to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. The group works to defend the rights of communities that face discrimination or persecution based on their identity. Serkal emphasised that without sustained attention and meaningful policy action, the fundamental rights of minority groups risk continuing to be neglected. He called on the United Nations and its member states to ensure that minority-related concerns are placed firmly on the agenda of international discussions. Highlighting the role of civil society, Serkal said collaboration between advocacy groups, non-governmental organisations, and international institutions is essential to maintain momentum on minority rights issues. He added that such cooperation can help bring greater visibility to the struggles faced by marginalised communities and encourage stronger global responses. According to him, the Solidarity Advocacy Group believes that global platforms such as United Nations sessions provide a crucial opportunity to highlight these challenges and push for accountability. Serkal expressed hope that ongoing discussions at the UN will recognise that minority rights violations remain a pressing issue requiring urgent attention. - ANI The Patiala Foundation addressed the UN Human Rights Council, framing road safety as a critical human rights issue connected to life, health, and dignity. It commended India's national focus on road safety, including initiatives like Sadak Suraksha Abhiyan 2026 and its receipt of the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. The Foundation detailed its own Project SADAK efforts, such as distributing reflective stickers to cyclists and creating the Children Challan Book program. It urged global recognition of road safety to prevent households from falling into poverty due to traffic fatalities. Patiala Foundation addresses UN Human Rights Council, advocating for safe mobility as a human right and highlighting India's road safety initiatives. Geneva, March 13 At the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, during the General Debate Item 3, which focuses on the promotion and protection of all human rights, Ravee Singh Ahluwalia from Patiala Foundation delivered a video statement highlighting the importance of safe mobility and calling for greater recognition of road safety as a human rights priority. Speaking on the theme of the "right to safe mobility," Patiala Foundation emphasised that road safety should not be seen merely as an issue of transportation or infrastructure but as a matter closely connected to fundamental human rights. The organisation stated that unsafe roads directly affect the rights to life, health and dignity, particularly for vulnerable groups such as cyclists, pedestrians and children. The statement welcomed India's growing focus on road safety and noted that the country now treats it as a national priority. Initiatives such as Sadak Suraksha Abhiyan 2026 were highlighted as key steps toward raising awareness, strengthening traffic discipline and improving road safety infrastructure across the country. Patiala Foundation also pointed out that India's efforts to improve road safety and vehicle standards have received international recognition. In 2025, the Government of India was honoured with the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for its work in strengthening vehicle safety regulations and implementing advanced crash-test rating systems. According to the Foundation, the award reflects India's increasing leadership in promoting safer roads and vehicles. The organisation further highlighted its own initiatives under Project SADAK, which supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). As part of this initiative, the Foundation has distributed reflective stickers to more than 27,000 cyclists to improve their visibility on roads and help prevent accidents. Other initiatives include the creation of the Children Challan Book, an innovative programme designed to encourage children to promote road discipline within their families and communities. Patiala Foundation has also conducted road safety audits and advocated for Safe School Zones, ensuring that children, including those with disabilities, can travel safely to school. Emphasising the broader social consequences of road accidents, the Foundation noted that when a family's breadwinner dies in a crash, households can fall into poverty overnight. It urged the Council and Member States to recognise road safety as a critical human rights issue so that people do not have to risk their lives simply to travel from one place to another. - ANI Peru has declared a 60-day state of emergency across 283 districts in 20 regions to address the severe impacts of intense seasonal rainfall. The decree mandates coordinated disaster response and rehabilitation efforts by regional governments and national ministries. The heavy rains have already resulted in at least 41 fatalities, one missing person, and damage to approximately 5,500 homes. The extreme weather is attributed to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon, intensified by climate change and geographic factors. Peru declares a 60-day state of emergency across 283 districts due to intense rainfall, with 41 fatalities reported and thousands of homes damaged. Lima, March 13 Peru has declared a state of emergency in 283 districts to mitigate high risks and address the impact of intense rainfall on public safety, the official gazette El Peruano reported. According to several decrees published in the gazette on Thursday, the emergency measure will be in effect for 60 calendar days across 20 of Peru's regions, including Lima, Amazonas, Ancash, Cusco and Arequipa. During the emergency period, regional and local governments, in coordination with the National Institute of Civil Defence and various ministries, will implement immediate and necessary exceptional measures and actions for disaster response and the rehabilitation of affected areas. Ministers of the country are also deployed in different affected areas to directly supervise response and relief efforts, as well as to mobilise health brigades that provide first aid, psychological support, and humanitarian assistance to the affected population. The Peruvian Armed Forces have also deployed specialised personnel to assist with rehabilitation and logistics, working in coordination with the National Police, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier on March 3, the country's Ministry of Health reported at least 41 people have been killed and one remains missing as a result of the rainy season in Peru since the beginning of this year. According to an official statement 56 people had been injured, of whom 48 were discharged and seven remain hospitalised. On February 25, the Peruvian government had declared a 60-day state of emergency in various regions in view of the imminent danger posed by intense rainfall. Torrential downpours have caused widespread damage across southern Peru, affecting about 5,500 homes and forcing many residents to evacuate. Peru experiences heavy rains primarily due to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, which warms coastal waters, increases atmospheric moisture, and triggers intense, seasonal rainfall. This is often intensified by warm, humid air from the Amazon Basin hitting the Andes mountains and the recent impacts of climate change. - IANS Andhra University is hosting the Pharma Innovation 2026 conclave under the Pharmacy Council of India to mark its centenary and 75 years of its Pharmacy Department. Vice Chancellor G.P. Rajasekhar stated the event aims to prepare pharmacy students for the industry through awareness programs on modern pharmaceutical sciences. The university also recently facilitated exam results via a WhatsApp service. Earlier this year, the university grounds successfully hosted vibrant Sankranti festivities, celebrating Andhra Pradesh's cultural heritage. Andhra University hosts Pharma Innovation 2026 conclave to prepare students for the pharmaceutical industry as part of its centenary celebrations. Vishakapatnam, March 13 Andhra University is set to host Pharma Innovation 2026 as part of its centenary celebrations. The event is being organised to commemorate 75 years of the AU Pharmacy Department. The conclave is being conducted under the aegis of the Pharmacy Council of India. Speaking to the media, AU Vice Chancellor G.P. Rajasekhar said the conclave aims to prepare students to become industry-ready in the pharmaceutical sector. He said programs are being planned over the next five years to create awareness among students about developments in modern pharmaceutical sciences. Experts from the pharma industry and students from various colleges across the country are expected to participate in the national-level conclave. The Vice Chancellor also stated that Andhra University examination results have been made available through the state government's Manamitra WhatsApp service, enabling students to easily access their results. Earlier in January, Visakhapatnam witnessed a vibrant celebration of tradition and culture as Sankranti festivities concluded successfully at the Andhra University Grounds. The Sankranti event, held from January 9 to January 16, showcased the essence of rural life and traditional celebrations under the initiative of former BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao. The venue came alive with colourful rangolis depicting village culture, traditional bullock cart races, Haridasu performances, Burrakatha storytelling and cultural musical programmes. The aroma of traditional homemade delicacies added to the festive atmosphere, drawing large crowds from across the city. The event received an enthusiastic response from the public, highlighting the rich cultural heritage of Andhra Pradesh and reinforcing the spirit of Sankranti celebrations. BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao also celebrated Bhogi Pongal at the Andhra University Grounds in Visakhapatnam, performing traditional rituals including lighting the bonfire and chanting mantras. Speaking on the occasion, he said, "Today marks the beginning of the four-day Sankranti festival. On Bhogi day, the first day of the festival, we pray to God to end any negativity we have experienced in the past and to bring prosperity and happiness to everyone. This morning, we lit a bonfire, chanted mantras and conducted a pooja karyakram for Agnidev. May this Sankranti bring happiness in the lives of everyone." - ANI The representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India praised the newly appointed Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei for his personal purity, humility, and management experience. He assured that Indian vessels would be allowed safe passage through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, linking this concession to perceived Indian public solidarity with Iran against "oppression." These remarks come amid escalating conflict in West Asia following the killing of the previous Supreme Leader. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed serious concern, urging de-escalation and dialogue. Iran's Supreme Leader rep praises Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's purity & management, assures safe passage for Indian vessels through Strait of Hormuz. New Delhi, March 14 Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, spoke of the recent appointment of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as the Supreme Leader of Iran, praising him for his experience in management and humility. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with ANI. When asked about Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, shared that he has a close friendship with Khamenei. "I have had the privilege to have a very close friendship with him for several years. In his personal life, he is very pure. He never uses anything from the government. He lives in a rented house. He doesn't have a car and bank account." He further noted, "He's very pious. His heart is very pure. In the matters of management, he's very smart. He has a very good experience in management because he was under the supervision of his father and some other responsible officials in Iran. He was my classmate. He's very wise. He's a man of theory. He is very wise and very humble as well." During the interview, Ilahi also reiterated that Indian vessels would be allowed to pass through the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia. Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi responded affirmatively, "Of course, of course. Yes," when asked whether Indian ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait. Ilahi further said that the special concessions for India on the passage of vessels were a reflection of the Indian public showing solidarity with the Iranian regime against what he described as "oppression" by the US and its allies. "I can say the majority of Indian people are with Iran. They condemned the oppression. They follow justice. And they don't want war. Even I can say they are against the war," he said. He further claimed that the Iranian leadership had been informed about expressions of sympathy from people in India and said Tehran was mindful of India's energy needs. "They (Indians) show their loyalty to the oppressed people. Even with the children of the girls' school, which is attacked by the United States, they show their sympathy, their solidarity. We informed our people in Iran of the sympathy and solidarity of our brothers and sisters in India. And we said that now also they are suffering from a shortage of gas and a shortage of petrol, and we have to provide for them and help them and support them," Ilahi added. His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. - ANI Union Minister Piyush Goyal met with Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-Koo to discuss strengthening the India-Korea economic partnership. The talks focused on deepening trade, encouraging manufacturing in India, and enhancing investment and supply-chain collaboration. Bilateral trade currently stands at nearly $27 billion, with South Korea being a significant FDI investor in sectors like automobiles and electronics. Both countries aim to expand economic cooperation, with a target to reach $50 billion in bilateral trade by 2030. Piyush Goyal meets Korea's Trade Minister to strengthen economic ties, boost investment, and target $50 billion bilateral trade by 2030. New Delhi, March 14 Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal held a meeting with Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-Koo to discuss ways to strengthen economic ties, enhance investments and deepen supply chain collaboration between the two countries. In a social media post following the meeting, Goyal said the discussions focused on strengthening the India-Korea economic partnership and exploring opportunities to expand trade and manufacturing. "Held a meeting with Mr. Yeo Han-Koo, Trade Minister, Republic of Korea. We had constructive discussions on strengthening the India-Korea economic partnership. Also discussed ways to deepen trade, encourage greater manufacturing and exports from India, and unlock new opportunities for our businesses," Goyal said in the post on X. He added that both sides reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing investment, expanding supply-chain collaboration and working towards a more mutually beneficial trade relationship. India and the South Korea share longstanding historical and cultural ties spanning over two millennia. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1973 and have since steadily strengthened their economic engagement. According to data from the Department of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the bilateral trade between India and Korea stood at USD 26.89 billion during FY25. South Korea is also a significant investor in India. The Republic of Korea is India's 13th largest foreign direct investment (FDI) investor from April 2000 to March 2025, with total investments amounting to USD 6.69 billion. Key sectors that have attracted investment from Korea include metallurgy, automobile, electronics, prime movers, machine tools, hospitals and diagnostic centres. As economic cooperation between the two countries continues to expand, bilateral trade between India and South Korea is expected to reach USD 50 billion by 2030. India's exports to Korea stood at USD 5.82 billion during FY25, with the country exporting around 3,200 commodities to the Korean market. Major exports from India to Korea include engineering goods valued at USD 2.6 billion, petroleum products worth USD 964 million, organic and inorganic chemicals worth USD 730 million, other items valued at USD 205 million, and drugs and pharmaceuticals worth USD 187 million during FY25. - ANI Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal stated that India remains economically resilient with strong fundamentals despite the ongoing West Asia conflict. He assured that India is well-placed regarding crude oil and fuel supplies and has increased kerosene production as an alternative. Goyal reaffirmed India's commitment to its Free Trade Agreement with the United States, despite a recent US Supreme Court ruling. He emphasized that the FTA protects sensitive agricultural sectors, prohibiting the entry of certain GM products to safeguard Indian farmers. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal asserts India's economic strength during West Asia conflict and reaffirms commitment to the US trade agreement. New Delhi, March 14 Amidst the ongoing West Asia conflict and evolving world order, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday asserted that India remains economically resilient with strong fundamentals. While speaking during the CNBC-TV18 India Business Leader Awards 2026, Goyal mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has guided the country to look for opportunities amid challenges. "With a war ranging on, people of India understand the situation and are ready to work with the government to find solutions," said Piyush Goyal at the CNBC-TV18 India Business Leader Awards 2026. Goyal further added that while some short-term disruptions may occur, India remains well poised to emerge as a reliable global partner. Addressing concerns over fuel availability, Goyal said India remains well placed in terms of crude oil and fuel supplies, adding that the ongoing conflict involving Iran may not last very long. "The petroleum ministry and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) have been very candid and upfront in sharing with people of India that when there's a war, there are going to be problems. On crude oil and fuel, we are very well placed. We have also ramped up kerosene production to provide alternate option for common man," he said. Responding to a question on whether India would revisit the interim trade deal with the US following the ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump were illegal, Goyal said India remains committed to the free trade agreement. "We had a very robust and good FTA. A trade agreement is about getting preferential access, the absolute tariffs does not matter. The US agreement gave India the lowest import duty compared to all our peers. Apart from that, we had a number of products where we had zero duty," Goyal said. He added that the preferential element of the agreement had been lost after the decision of the US Supreme Court. "We are in talks with the United States and we stand by the FTA," he added. "When we finalise a FTA... we also protect sensitive sectors. With the US, all GM products will not be allowed entry into India -- corn, soybean, rice, wheat, millets. The only access is in areas which do not threaten our farmers," Goyal stated. - ANI Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a major BJP rally at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground to conclude the party's Parivartan Yatra ahead of the state assembly elections. During his visit, he will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for national highway and connectivity projects valued at approximately Rs 18,680 crore. The flagship project is the 231-km Kharagpur-Morgram Economic Corridor, expected to drastically reduce travel time in the region. Authorities have deployed extensive security and traffic measures for the anticipated record turnout at the event. PM Modi addresses BJP rally in Kolkata, inaugurates Rs 18,680 crore highway projects including the Kharagpur-Morgram Economic Corridor. New Delhi, March 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a major political rally on Saturday at the historic Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata as the BJP concludes its statewide Parivartan Yatra ahead of the upcoming West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. The BJP's West Bengal unit expects a record turnout at the rally, with supporters travelling from across the state to hear the Prime Minister's address. Preparations at the venue are in full swing, with multiple stages being constructed for the event. Authorities have deployed thousands of police personnel and imposed traffic restrictions in parts of the city to manage security and the anticipated crowd. During his visit, PM Modi will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for infrastructure and connectivity projects worth around Rs 18,680 crore, including national highway developments valued at about Rs 16,990 crore covering more than 420 kilometres of road projects. These initiatives are aimed at improving road safety, easing congestion, reducing travel time, and boosting regional connectivity and economic growth in eastern India. The most significant project is the 231-km Kharagpur-Morgram Economic Corridor, which will be developed as a four-lane highway. The corridor is expected to reduce the distance between Kharagpur and Siliguri by about 120 km, cutting travel time by around eight hours. The Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone for the Dubrajpur Bypass on NH-14 and new bridges over the Kangshabati and Silabati rivers to further strengthen highway connectivity in the region. According to BJP West Bengal vice-president Raju Banerjee, organisational preparations for the rally are progressing rapidly. However, he declined to reveal the exact number of stages being set up at the venue, citing security protocols. Earlier in the day, PM Modi is scheduled to attend programmes in Silchar, Assam, before travelling to Kolkata for the rally and other engagements in West Bengal. - IANS Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled development projects worth over Rs 4,570 crore in Assam and flagged off three new train services aimed at enhancing regional connectivity. The launched trains include the Kamakhya-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express, providing a direct link between the Northeast and Southern India. He also virtually performed Bhoomi Poojan for the Assam Mala 3.0 road initiative and other infrastructure projects in the Bodoland Territorial Region. This visit comes ahead of the upcoming state assembly elections, with the BJP aiming for a third consecutive term. PM Modi flags off three new train services and launches road & rail projects in Assam worth over Rs 4,570 crore to boost NE connectivity. Guwahati, March 13 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday unveiled various development projects worth over Rs 4,570 crore and flagged off three new train services aimed at improving connectivity in Assam's Kokrajhar and the North-East region. The three trains are the Kamakhya-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express, Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri Express and the Narangi-Agartala Express. The Prime Minister is on a 2-day visit to Assam ahead of the assembly elections. He performed Bhoomi Poojan and laid foundation stones for various development projects worth over Rs 4,570 crore via Video Conferencing from Guwahati as he was unable to go to Kokrajhar due to bad weather. The Kamakhya-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express which will provide direct rail connectivity between the North-East and Southern India, while the Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri Express will enhance connectivity between Assam and West Bengal, and the Narangi-Agartala Express will improve connectivity between Assam and Tripura, facilitating smoother inter-state travel for passengers, traders and tourists. These projects will help reduce traffic congestion in Kokrajhar distric located in the Bodoland Territorial Region of Assam and improve connectivity, tourism, agricultural access, healthcare access and rural mobility. PM Modi also laid the foundation stone of a Periodic Overhauling (POH) Workshop at Bashbari in Kokrajhar district. The workshop will strengthen railway maintenance infrastructure, enhance operational efficiency and create employment opportunities in the region. PM Modi also virtually performed Bhoomi Poojan of Assam Mala 3.0, a major road infrastructure initiative worth over Rs 3,200 crore. Under this scheme, more than 900 kilometres of roads will be constructed across Assam to improve inter-state connectivity and strengthen linkages between national highways and rural roads. The Prime Minister also performed Bhoomi Poojan for six road infrastructure projects in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) area, including four flyovers and two bridges, with an investment of around Rs 1,100 crore. On March 14, the Prime Minister will perform Bhoomi Poojan and dedicate to the nation various projects worth about Rs 23,550 crore at Silchar. The Assembly polls in Assam are expected to be held next month, with the ruling BJP gearing up for a possible third consequetive term in the state. - ANI Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is one of the Best AI Stocks That Will Make You A Millionaire. On March 5, TD Cowen lowered the firms price target on Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) from $300 to $282, while reiterating a Buy rating. The firm said in a research note that they expect the companys fiscal Q2 2026 earnings to be stable despite the current market volatility. The stock has declined more than 22% year-to-date. TD Cowen noted that the AI narrative pressure is overdone and the firm expects the company to post stronger than expected results. The firm also expects the company to raise the lower end of its fiscal 2026 guidance, driven by stable enterprise spending. TD Cowen Lowers PT on Accenture (ACN), Here's Why The company is expected to release its fiscal Q2 2026 results on March 19. Wall Street expects the quarterly revenue to be around $17.83 billion, along with a GAAP EPS of $2.83. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) provides services and solutions across strategy and consulting, technology, operations, Industry X, and Song. While we acknowledge the potential of ACN as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a virtual rally for Kokrajhar after weather prevented his physical visit, using the platform to launch a sharp attack on the Congress party. He accused Congress of historically betraying Bodoland with unimplemented agreements and compromising national security by supporting infiltrators. Modi highlighted the peace and development in Assam over the past decade, crediting the BJP's "double-engine" government and the landmark 2020 Bodo Peace Accord. He concluded by appealing to voters to reject Congress in the upcoming assembly polls and launched new development initiatives for the region. PM Modi addresses Kokrajhar virtually, slams Congress for "betrayal," highlights Bodo Peace Accord success and Assam's development under BJP. Guwahati, March 13 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday virtually addressed a large gathering in Kokrajhar from Guwahati after inclement weather prevented him from travelling to the Bodoland area as scheduled. Addressing the people of Bodoland through a virtual link, the Prime Minister said he had started from Delhi with the intention of reaching Kokrajhar, but could not do so due to adverse weather conditions. "That is why I am addressing the people of Bodoland from Guwahati," he said. Highlighting the transformation of Assam over the past decade, PM Modi said the state had witnessed decades of violence in the past but is now moving steadily towards peace and stability. "Assam has witnessed violence for decades, but today the state is peaceful. In the last 10 years, the state has seen tremendous development," the Prime Minister said. He said Kokrajhar and the Bodoland region are poised to emerge as important centres of economic activity and business in the coming years. The Prime Minister also launched a sharp attack on the Indian National Congress, accusing the party of betraying the people of Bodoland and Assam for years. "Bodoland was a witness to the betrayal of Congress. When Congress was in power at the Centre, they only signed agreements on paper but did not implement them," he said. PM Modi said that real progress began only after the Congress was voted out of both the Centre and the state. "When Congress was routed from both the state and the Centre, the double-engine government of the BJP started working with full commitment to fulfil the aspirations of the people," he said. He alleged that Congress had a history of making false promises. "Congress is a machine of false promises. They never had the intention to fulfil their promises, whereas the BJP has been honestly trying to implement every commitment made to the people," the PM said. Referring to earlier initiatives for Bodoland, he recalled that during the tenure of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Centre had taken significant steps for the region. "In 2003, the Vajpayee government formed the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) and launched several development projects in the region," he said. PM Modi further said that the signing of the historic Bodo Peace Accord in 2020 marked a major step towards lasting peace in the region. He added that several cadres of insurgent groups have shunned violence and joined the mainstream, leading better lives. "Many cadres of terror outfits have laid down arms and joined the mainstream. They are now leading a good life and contributing to the development of society," he said. The Prime Minister also highlighted the expansion of healthcare infrastructure in Assam, noting that several new medical colleges are being established across the state. Reaffirming the Centre's commitment to the development of Bodoland, PM Modi said the BJP government remains dedicated to improving the lives of the people of the region. He also accused the Congress of compromising national security and supporting infiltrators. "Congress has done a sin by compromising national security. They have always stood behind infiltrators and continue to do the same," he said. The Prime Minister warned that the situation in Assam's Dhubri and Goalpara districts was becoming dangerous due to infiltration. He said the present government has taken decisive steps to reclaim land occupied by infiltrators and restore the rights of indigenous people. "Our government has taken a big step to bring back lands occupied by infiltrators. Now the indigenous people of Assam are getting their land rights," the PM said. Appealing to voters ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections, PM Modi urged people to reject the Congress. "I appeal to the people to punish the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls. Together we are building a prosperous Assam," he said. During the programme, the Prime Minister virtually launched a series of development initiatives aimed at boosting infrastructure and economic growth in the Bodoland region and across Assam. - IANS Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Assam and West Bengal to launch key infrastructure projects. His itinerary includes laying foundation stones for road connectivity projects in Kokrajhar and launching the Assam Mala 3.0 road development programme. The Prime Minister will also flag off three new train services to improve rail connectivity across the Northeast and eastern India. These initiatives aim to boost economic activity, trade, and tourism in the region. PM Narendra Modi visits Assam & West Bengal to launch Assam Mala 3.0 road projects and flag off new train services, boosting Northeast connectivity. New Delhi, March 13 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Assam and West Bengal on Friday and Saturday to attend multiple programmes and launch major development initiatives aimed at strengthening connectivity and infrastructure in the region. During his visit, the Prime Minister will attend events in Kokrajhar, Guwahati and Silchar in Assam before travelling to Kolkata in West Bengal. According to PM Modi, the programmes will provide him an opportunity to interact with people from different parts of the two states while unveiling several key development projects. Earlier on Thursday, PM Modi said in a post on X that he looks forward to engaging with the people during the visit and inaugurating a range of development works that will benefit the region. The Prime Minister will begin his Assam visit in Kokrajhar, a region closely associated with the rich cultural heritage of the Bodo community. During the programme, he will lay the foundation stones for a series of road connectivity projects aimed at improving infrastructure and boosting economic activity. Among the major initiatives to be launched is Assam Mala 3.0, a major road development programme designed to enhance connectivity within Assam and strengthen inter-state transport links with neighbouring regions. In addition to road projects, PM Modi will also flag off three new train services intended to improve rail connectivity across the Northeast and eastern India. These include the Kamakhya-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express, the Guwahati-New Jalpaiguri Express, and the Narangi-Agartala Express. The new railway services are expected to significantly improve passenger connectivity between Assam and neighbouring states, while also facilitating trade, tourism and economic development. Officials said the Prime Minister's visit is expected to highlight the Centre's continued focus on infrastructure expansion and connectivity in the Northeast, which has witnessed a series of large-scale development initiatives in recent years. After attending programmes in Silchar in Assam on March 14, PM Modi will travel to Kolkata to participate in additional events in West Bengal. - IANS Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a major political rally at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground, marking the conclusion of the BJP's Parivartan Yatra in West Bengal. The event featured two separate programs, one administrative for launching central projects and another for a political speech, with stringent security measures in place. The Kolkata Police deployed about 3,000 personnel, declared the area a no-fly zone, and positioned officers on rooftops to monitor the event. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress countered with posters along the Prime Minister's route, demanding payment of central dues to the state. PM Modi addresses a mega rally in Kolkata, marking the end of BJP's Parivartan Yatra in West Bengal ahead of crucial state elections. Kolkata, March 14 Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will address a mega rally organised by the West Bengal unit of the BJP on Saturday afternoon at Brigade Parade Ground in central Kolkata. This will also mark the end of the party's 'Parivartan Yatra' in the state amid the crucial Assembly elections in the state scheduled for later this year. The Prime Minister will be addressing two programmes at Brigade Parade Ground today, the first being administrative and the second being political. Two separate platforms have been erected at the Brigade Parade Ground for the two programmes adjacent to each other. The dais for the administrative programme had been erected behind the main dais, from where the Prime Minister will give his political speech. The officers of the different Central Government departments are in charge of the administrative dais, from which the Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone of different central government projects in West Bengal virtually. "After being in the administrative dais for a brief period, the Prime Minister will reach the main dais and deliver his political speech from there," said a state committee member of the BJP in West Bengal. Meanwhile, almost the entire central Kolkata had been wrapped under a blanket security cover since morning amid the twin programmes of the Prime Minister. The rally ground, as well as the adjacent zones, had already been declared as "No-Fly Zone". Even flying of drones has been strictly banned in that area during the rally period. Security personnel have already been deputed on the roofs of high-rise buildings adjacent to the rally ground, and they will keep a close watch on movements in the area. About 3,000 security personnel have been deployed for the rally alone, said a senior officer of the Kolkata Police. On Friday evening, the BJP leadership reviewed the preparations for the rally. It is learnt that the security arrangements have been made in a zone-wise manner. Deputy commissioners are in charge of each zone. An officer of the rank of joint commissioner will oversee the entire arrangement. Officers of the rank of additional commissioner of police will also be on the streets on Saturday. Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress, since Friday night, has flooded the city with posters demanding payment of unpaid dues under various central government schemes to the West Bengal government. The posters have been displayed especially at the routes from where the Prime Minister's convoy will be moving. "Go back, Modi," posters have also been deployed in the area. The state unit of the BJP has also flooded the city with posters of the rally and huge cutouts of the Prime Minister. - IANS One chick from natural mating, one from AI India's captive breeding program for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard has reached a significant milestone with the hatching of two new chicks, bringing the total captive population to 70. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announced the achievement, noting one chick resulted from natural mating and the other from artificial insemination. The next phase involves a planned "soft release" of some captive-bred birds into the wild later this year. The project, which has improved survival rates by 20-30%, operates under scientific management supported by the central government. India's Project GIB hits a milestone as two new chicks hatch, bringing the captive population of the critically endangered bird to 70. Jaipur, March 13 India's conservation efforts for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard have reached a significant milestone with the hatching of two new chicks at the Conservation Breeding Centre in Rajasthan this week. The development takes the captive population of the species to 70 birds for the first time since the launch of the breeding programme. Announcing the update on Friday, Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupender Yadav described the moment as a proud achievement under Project Great Indian Bustard (GIB), which has now entered the fourth year of its captive breeding initiative. According to the ministry, the two chicks hatched through different methods, one through natural mating and the other through artificial insemination. "Another milestone achieved in Project GIB," Bhupender Yadav wrote in a post on the social media platform X, noting that the latest development reflects steady progress in the programme. With the addition of the two chicks, the total number of Great Indian Bustards currently under captive care has reached 70. The minister also said that the next phase of the project will involve the "soft release" of some captive-bred chicks into the wild later this year. This step is expected to mark a new and challenging stage in the conservation effort, aimed at strengthening the species' population in its natural habitat. Bhupender Yadav congratulated officials from the Rajasthan Forest Department for their work in achieving the milestone, acknowledging their role in implementing the conservation programme. Images shared alongside the announcement illustrate the careful methods used in captive rearing. They include a newly hatched chick inside an incubator, a handler using a feeding puppet to care for a young bird, and a freshly laid egg at the facility. These techniques, based on peer-reviewed avian conservation practices, have helped improve survival rates by 20-30 per cent in comparable breeding programmes, as per a press release shared by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The project operates under the broader environmental vision supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with officials expressing confidence that continued scientific management will help secure the future of the Great Indian Bustard in India. - ANI The Amritsar Rural Police has busted a terror and arms smuggling module with alleged links to Pakistan's ISI, arresting two individuals. Authorities recovered an AK-47 rifle, multiple pistols, and live cartridges from the accused, who were reportedly radicalizing youth and spreading anti-India narratives online. This operation is part of a broader crackdown, following the recent arrest of two individuals connected to an RDX blast at a Himachal Pradesh police station. Investigations aim to dismantle the entire network and establish its connections to foreign-based handlers. Amritsar police dismantle an ISI-sponsored terror module, arresting two and seizing AK-47, pistols, and ammunition. Investigation ongoing. Amritsar, March 14 Amritsar Rural Police has busted an ISI-sponsored terror and cross-border arms smuggling module, apprehending two accused and recovering rifles, pistols, and cartridges, according to the Director General of Police of Punjab. Preliminary investigation reveals that the accused were in contact with foreign-based handlers through social media, The module was also involved in radicalization and spreading Anti-India and Anti-Police narratives. In an X post, DGP Punjab Police said, "An FIR has been registered at PS Gharinda, #Amritsar Rural. Further investigation is underway to establish forward and backward linkages and dismantle the entire network. @PunjabPoliceInd remains steadfast in its zero-tolerance approach against terrorism, illegal arms trafficking and organized crime." One AK-47 rifle with 2 magazines and 36 live cartridges, along with 3 sophisticated Glock 9mm pistols were recovered from the module. Earlier on February 22, Counter Intelligence Jalandhar, in a joint operation with Counter Intelligence, SAS Nagar, has successfully apprehended two key perpetrators involved in the IED (RDX) blast at Nalagarh Police Station (Himachal Pradesh) on January 1, 2026, police said. According to the release, the arrested accused have been identified as Mahavir @ Kaka and Manpreet @ Mani, both residents of SBS Nagar, Punjab. During the operation, one 9mm Glock pistol, along with live cartridges, was recovered from their possession. Preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused were operating under the directions of foreign-based masterminds Gopi Nawashehria and Jassi Kulam, both associated with the proscribed terrorist organisation Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), as stated in the release. Further, it was established that the accused, along with their accomplices, had procured consignments containing IEDs (RDX) and hand grenades on the instructions of their foreign handlers. From these consignments, one IED (RDX) was utilised in executing the blast at Nalagarh Police Station. - ANI Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma unveiled Honda Cars India's first electric vehicle model, the Honda 0 Alpha. The EV will be manufactured at Honda's existing plant in Tapukara, with production scheduled to begin later this year. The CM stated this investment reflects confidence in the state's policies and aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' vision. Honda plans to transform the Tapukara facility into a major EV production hub for both domestic and international markets. Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal Sharma unveils Honda's first EV, the Honda 0 Alpha, with production set for Tapukara plant, boosting state's green mobility. Jaipur, March 14 Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Saturday unveiled the first electric vehicle model of Honda Cars India -- the Honda 0 Alpha -- during a meeting with the company's delegation at the Chief Minister's Office in Jaipur. The EV will be manufactured at Honda's plant in Tapukara, with production scheduled to begin later this year. Calling the decision a matter of pride for the state, CM Sharma said Honda's choice of Rajasthan for producing its first electric vehicle reflects growing global confidence in the state's investment policies. He noted that during his visit to Japan in September 2024, ahead of the Rising Rajasthan Global Investment Summit, he had invited Honda's top leadership to invest in electric vehicle manufacturing in the state in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of "Make in India for the World". The Chief Minister assured the company of full government support in terms of infrastructure and policy facilitation for EV manufacturing. Sharma said the state government remains committed to promoting green energy and sustainable mobility while simultaneously generating employment opportunities. He added that Rajasthan's vast solar energy potential, combined with EV manufacturing, would significantly accelerate the state's economic growth. He also said Honda plans to transform its Tapukara facility into a major hub for electric vehicle production, which could attract further investments in the EV sector and strengthen Rajasthan's role in India's evolving automotive industry. Highlighting the state's initiatives to promote electric mobility, the Chief Minister said the government is providing subsidies on EV purchases and establishing charging infrastructure through a single-window system. Under the state's vehicle scrapping policy, incentives are also being offered for scrapping vehicles older than 15 years and purchasing new ones. Honda representatives informed the Chief Minister that EV models produced at the Tapukara plant would cater to both domestic demand and exports to international markets. Takashi Nakajima said the Tapukara plant is a key production hub for the company in India, manufacturing vehicles and components for domestic and global markets. He added that Honda has developed a strong automotive ecosystem in Rajasthan through its supplier network and two-wheeler manufacturing operations. The meeting was also attended by senior officials, including Chief Secretary V. Srinivas, along with members of the Honda delegation from Japan. - IANS The BJP held a crucial parliamentary board meeting at the Prime Minister's residence to strategize for the upcoming Kerala Legislative Assembly elections. The meeting focused on candidate selection for approximately 140 constituencies, with a priority on fielding women, youth, and new faces. Sources indicate Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar may contest from Nemom, while George Kurian is being considered to attract the Christian vote bank. The party plans to contest over a hundred seats independently, with the remainder in alliance with partners like the BDJS. BJP's parliamentary board meets to finalize candidates for Kerala elections, with Rajeev Chandrasekhar and George Kurian likely to contest. Strategy for 140 seats discussed. New Delhi, March 13 The Bharatiya Janata Party held a parliamentary board meeting to deliberate on candidate selection and overall strategy for the upcoming Kerala Legislative Assembly elections. The parliamentary board meeting was held on Thursday at 4:00 pm at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence and covered two parts - the West Bengal and Kerala assembly elections. The Kerala parliamentary board meeting started at 5:30 pm and concluded at 7:30 pm at the Prime Minister's residence.Union Home Minister Amit Shah, former BJP president JP Nadda, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, BS Yediyurappa, Rajiv Chandrashekhar, former Kerala BJP president K Surendran, election co-incharge Shobha Karandlaje, Vinod Tawde, V Murlidharan, and Prakash Javadekar were present at the meeting. According to sources, the meeting involved extensive discussions on around 140 Assembly constituencies across the state. In the meeting, discussions were held on ticket distribution, candidate names, election surveys managed by private agencies and their comparison, strategy, situation and manifesto in Kerala, sources said. This time, 20 per cent of women, 25 per cent of youth and new faces will be on the party's priority list. George Kurian may get a ticket to woo the Christian vote bank, sources said.BJP former leader K Surendran might get a ticket from Manjeshwar, Kerala, and state president Rajiv Chandrashekhar may get the ticket from Nemom, Thiruvananthapuram, sources added. Once the Election Commission announces the election, the BJP will release the candidate list in two parts.BJP is going to contest more than a hundred seats in Kerala, and the remaining seats will be contested in alliance with the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), Twenty20 and others, sources said.Another parliamentary board meeting will be held from March 15 to 17 to focus on Tamil Nadu, Assam and other states, sources added. - ANI The Gujarat government has allocated Rs 5,479 crore to its Rural Development Department for 2026-27, marking a significant increase from the previous year. Key initiatives include providing an additional Rs 50,000 to 18,000 beneficiaries under the rural housing scheme and extending the guaranteed wage employment from 100 to 125 days. The budget also prioritizes sanitation, with a new Rs 50 crore provision for liquid waste management in villages, and supports women's livelihoods through the 'Lakhpati Didi' scheme. Separate allocations for skill development and labor welfare, including affordable meals and healthcare for workers, aim to strengthen youth employability and worker support systems. Gujarat govt allocates Rs 5,479 crore for rural development, offering Rs 50,000 extra housing aid and extending employment guarantee to 125 days. Gandhinagar, March 14 The Gujarat government has outlined a series of spending priorities for the 2026-27 financial year, focusing on rural housing, sanitation, rural employment, skill development and labour welfare, with ministers detailing allocations and programme expansions following the passage of the state budget. Rural Development Minister Kunvarji Bavaliya said the Rural Development Department has been allocated Rs 5,479 crore for 2026-27. The allocation represents an increase of Rs 779 crore compared with the previous year's Rs 4,700 crore. "The increase indicates that the government is committed to strengthening rural infrastructure facilities and livelihood resources," Bavaliya said at a press conference. A major share of the allocation has been made under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin), for which Rs 1,755 crore has been provided. The minister said around 18,000 beneficiaries who have reached the roof-casting stage of house construction will receive additional assistance of Rs 50,000 each, for which Rs 90 crore has been allocated. Under the scheme, tribal beneficiaries will receive Rs 2,72,820 in assistance while non-tribal beneficiaries will receive Rs 2,32,920. The government has also allocated Rs 737.91 crore for the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) during 2026-27. As part of sanitation and wastewater management in villages, a new provision of Rs 50 crore has been made under a liquid waste management system to treat wastewater in rural areas. End-drain treatment works are planned to be undertaken in 400 villages across the state. For rural employment, Rs 1,500 crore has been earmarked under the 'VB G-RAM-G' scheme. Bavaliya said the government plans to extend the guarantee of manual wage employment from 100 days to 125 days. "There is also a provision to pay unemployment allowance if employment is not provided within the stipulated time," he said. The minister also highlighted provisions aimed at strengthening women's livelihoods. A total of Rs 48 crore has been allocated under the 'Lakhpati Didi' Empowerment Scheme for 2026-27. According to Bavaliya, around 10,000 experienced 'Lakhpati Didis' will be supported each year to scale up their enterprises through assistance for production, packaging and value addition. To provide a permanent sales platform for products made by women's self-help groups, the government plans to establish Gram Haat marketplaces with an allocation of Rs 20 crore. These will be developed on government land in municipal corporations, municipalities and tourist locations. A further Rs 25 crore has been allocated to support production, marketing arrangements and online sales of 'Sakhi Mandal' products through e-commerce platforms. Bavaliya also outlined the plans of the Labour, Skill Development and Employment Department for the same financial year, stating that Rs 2,902 crore has been allocated for programmes aimed at strengthening youth employability and labour welfare. "This budget will play an important role in realising the Prime Minister's vision of Viksit Bharat @ 2047 and Atmanirbhar Bharat through Viksit Gujarat," he said. Among the new initiatives, Rs 226 crore has been allocated for the Namo Gujarat Skill and Employment Mission to improve employability among young people. Under the PM Setu scheme, Industrial Training Institutes will be upgraded through a hub-and-spoke model at a cost of Rs 200 crore. An allocation of Rs 40 crore has also been made under the Namo Kaushalya Laxmi scheme to encourage female students studying in Industrial Training Institutes. Assistance of Rs 15,000 will be provided for one-year courses and Rs 24,000 for two-year courses. Several labour welfare programmes are also set to expand. The Shramik Annapurna scheme has been allocated Rs 200 crore and will see the addition of 300 new Annapurna booths where workers can obtain meals for Rs 5. Under the Shramik Basera scheme, Rs 150 crore has been allocated to provide accommodation facilities for construction workers at affordable rates, while Rs 160 crore has been earmarked to add 50 new Dhanvantari health vans to provide healthcare services to labourers. Construction workers are eligible for accident insurance assistance of Rs 3.5 lakh in cases of death or permanent disability. The Agariya housing scheme has been allocated Rs 25 crore to provide houses equipped with solar panels and basic facilities for salt pan workers. Bavaliya said assistance of Rs 3 lakh would be provided at the time of diagnosis to individuals suffering from silicosis, while Rs 4 lakh would be provided to families in the event of death caused by the disease. Highlighting departmental performance, he said Gujarat currently has 559 Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) with a combined training capacity of 2,18,516 seats, including 11,448 seats for women, while 15 dedicated ITIs are functioning for persons with disabilities. Up to February in the current financial year, employment opportunities were provided to 2,60,878 candidates through 1,215 job fairs organised across the state, he said. According to Bavaliya, a 2023-24 survey places India's unemployment rate at 3.2 per cent, compared with 1.1 per cent in Gujarat. He also said six drone pilot training centres approved by the DGCA have been sanctioned in the state. Through Kaushalya - The Skill University, more than 600 drone pilots and over 1,200 trainees have been trained in drone manufacturing. Under the Chief Minister Skill Development Initiative, 4,27,861 trainees were trained during 2025-26. The number of registered factories in the state increased from 50,017 in March 2025 to 51,033 by February 2026, reflecting an addition of 1,016 factories in one year. During 2025, officials inspected and certified 8,447 boilers and 339 economisers across the state, while 579 new boilers and 10 economisers were registered. No accidents were reported in certified boilers during the year. The government has also set a target of strengthening the state's skill ecosystem and plans to train more than 60,000 people over the next four to five years. - IANS Saudi Arabia's air defense forces intercepted and destroyed a drone that entered the airspace over the northern Al-Jawf region. This incident follows a massive wave of hostilities where nearly 50 drones were neutralized over Saudi Arabia in a single day. Regional tensions are escalating concurrently, with Israel launching strikes in Tehran and against Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has issued stark warnings to Iran, even as reports suggest concerns that Iran may retaliate by closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Saudi air defense destroys drone over Al-Jawf. Incident follows wave of aerial threats amid escalating US-Iran-Israel tensions in the region. Riyadh, March 14 The Saudi Ministry of Defence announced on Saturday that its air defence forces have successfully neutralised an aerial threat in the northern part of the country. In a formal statement, the ministry confirmed the "interception and destruction of a drone" after it was detected entering the airspace over the "Al-Jawf region in the north of the country." This latest incident follows a massive wave of hostilities earlier in the week. Saudi Arabia reported that its air defence systems intercepted nearly 50 drones that entered its airspace within a span of a few hours early Friday, according to Euro News. The Ministry of Defence of Saudi Arabia stated that these drones were detected during the early hours of Friday and were neutralised before reaching their intended targets. Officials noted that the sheer volume of drones represents an "unusually high level of aerial threats for Saudi Arabia." The escalation comes as several critical locations in the Kingdom, including the United States Embassy in Riyadh, key oil infrastructure facilities, and a military base hosting American troops, have faced threats. These tensions have intensified amid the ongoing conflict involving Iran, as reported by Euro News. Contributing to this volatile climate, the Israeli military confirmed it launched a new wave of strikes in Tehran on Friday morning. "The IDF has just begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime across Tehran," the military said. Simultaneously, Israel has extended its operations into Lebanon, striking the Al-Zrariya Bridge on the Litani River to disrupt Hezbollah's movement. Israel stated that the organisation used the bridge to move from the north to the south of the country to prepare for combat against IDF forces. "The Hezbollah terror organisation uses this bridge to move from the north to the south of the country, prepare for combat against IDF forces, and act against civilians of the State of Israel, all while endangering Lebanese civilians and causing extensive destruction in populated areas. In order to prevent a threat to civilians of the State of Israel and the continued harm to Lebanese civilians, it was necessary to strike the bridge," the IDF added. As these multi-front engagements continue, US President Donald Trump signalled Washington's intention of going all out in its campaign against Iran's Islamic regime. In a post on Truth Social, he warned Iran to watch out for what would happen today, asserting that the US was winning the conflict. "We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning. Iran's Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth," Trump said. The President further said, "We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time - Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honour it is to do so." However, despite this show of force, concerns regarding regional stability persist. A CNN report suggested that the Trump administration reportedly underestimated the likelihood that Iran would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes. CNN sources revealed that while planning for the ongoing military operation, the Pentagon and the National Security Council did not fully anticipate that Iran would attempt to close the waterway, despite long-standing contingency plans developed by the US military for such a scenario. - ANI The government has granted in-principle approval to 288 shipbuilding contracts worth nearly Rs 20,000 crore, covering 456 vessels under its financial assistance policy. Financial aid of over Rs 620 crore has already been disbursed to 23 shipyards for the construction of 204 vessels. The initiatives, including the Shipbuilding Development Scheme, aim to address sectoral challenges like high financing costs and boost India's global competitiveness. With a high employment multiplier, these schemes are projected to support projects worth Rs 96,000 crore over the next decade. Govt approves 288 shipbuilding contracts under SBFAS, disburses Rs 620 cr for 204 vessels to boost maritime sector and employment. New Delhi, March 14 The government on Saturday said that under the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy, a total of 288 contracts worth Rs 19,748 crore, covering 456 vessels, have received in-principle approval to date. Moreover, total financial assistance amounting to Rs 620.57 crore has been disbursed to 23 shipyards for the construction and delivery of 204 vessels, according to the Union Minister of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal. The types of vessels covered include tugs, general cargo vessel, bulk carrier, oil tanker, crane pontoon, heavy deck cargo vessel, RO-RO pax vessel, crew boat, deck loading craft, coastal research vessel, modular pontoon, passenger catamaran, passenger cum motor cycle ferry, passenger ferry, landing craft, jack-up barge and self-elevating platform. The government in September 2025 approved the Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SBDS) having provision for credit risk coverage to Indian shipyard and viability gap funding in the form of capital assistance to brownfield/existing Indian shipyards towards expansion of production capacity. The guidelines for the same have been issued recently, the minister said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. An assessment of the shipbuilding sector through a third party was conducted in 2024. The report highlighted the shipbuilding sector's high employment multiplier of 6.4 and a huge potential for generating both direct and indirect employment. Further, it also highlighted challenges constraining the growth of shipbuilding in India like lack of domestic demand, high cost of financing, capacity and technology limitations, etc. To address these challenges, the government approved SBFAS, Maritime Development Fund (MDF) and Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SBDS) to enhance India's global competitiveness in shipbuilding and maritime sector. The government recently notified the operational guidelines for two major shipbuilding initiatives with Rs 44,700 crore outlay, which are aimed at strengthening India's domestic shipbuilding capacity and improving global competitiveness. Under the SBFAS, which has a total corpus of Rs 24,736 crore, the government will provide financial assistance ranging from 15 per cent to 25 per cent per vessel, depending on the vessel category. Over the next decade, SBFAS is expected to support shipbuilding projects worth about Rs 96,000 crore, stimulate domestic manufacturing and generate employment across the maritime value chain. - IANS March 12 (Reuters) - Canadian telecommunications and business services firm Telus is investigating a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to some of its systems, a company spokesperson said on Thursday. The ShinyHunters hacking group told Reuters in a message it stole at least 700 terabytes of data from Telus. All business operations within the company remain fully operational, and there is no evidence of disruption to customer connectivity or service, the spokesperson said in a statement provided to Reuters. Telus is working with cyber forensics experts to support its investigation and with law enforcement, and is "notifying impacted customers, as appropriate," the spokesperson said. The statement did not address what kind of data was stolen or how much. Samples of the data shared by the hacking group with Reuters suggest the stolen data includes information related to at least two dozen companies that included personally identifiable information, call data and recordings, FBI background check information and source code spanning multiple business divisions within the business services and telecommunications company. Reuters has not verified the authenticity of the data. ShinyHunters has been linked to a string of hacks targeting major companies around the world. Dutch telecom Odido said last month that the company believed the group's claims that it was behind a recent hack that exposed personal information from more than six million accounts. The group has also targeted data associated with PornHub, Wynn Resorts, and many other companies. (Reporting by AJ Vicens in Detroit. Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kirsten DOnovan) US Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated that a significant short-term disruption is necessary to secure long-term global energy flows, defending the coordinated international release of strategic oil reserves. The move aims to stabilize markets rattled by attacks and threats in the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping route, which have raised fears of prolonged supply cuts. The release is specifically intended to prevent Asian refineries in countries like India, Japan, and South Korea from reducing operations due to supply uncertainty. Wright emphasized that U.S. military efforts are focused on degrading Iran's ability to threaten regional shipping while the oil release bridges the gap until normal transit resumes. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright explains the strategic oil reserve release to stabilize global energy markets and secure shipping amid Iran conflict. Washington, March 13 The world is facing a "significant disruption in the short term" to secure global energy flows in the long run, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, defending Washington's decision to release oil reserves amid the war involving Iran. "We're in the midst of a significant disruption in the short term to fix the security of energy flow for the long term," Wright said in an interview with CNN. The United States has announced plans to release about 172 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as part of a coordinated international effort aimed at stabilising global markets. Around 30 countries are participating in the emergency move, which could release roughly 400 million barrels of oil into the global system to offset disruptions triggered by the conflict. Energy markets have been rattled by tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical oil shipping routes. Tankers have faced attacks and security threats in the region, raising fears that oil supplies could be disrupted for an extended period. Speaking in separate interviews with Fox News, CNBC, and CNN, Wright said the reserve release was meant to ensure oil supplies continue flowing to global markets, particularly Asia. "The release certainly helps fill the hole," he said during an interview with Fox News, referring to supply disruptions. Washington moved after signs that refineries in Asia - including those in India, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand - were considering reducing operations because of uncertainty about oil supplies. "Late last week, we started to see Asian refineries talk about turning down the throughput of their refineries in India, in Korea, in Japan, in Thailand," Wright said. "And we really want to keep the refineries running so they can deliver jet fuel and diesel and all the products that keep the Asian economy running." Japan is releasing oil at a higher rate than its proportional share of the global emergency stockpile to help stabilise supplies to Asian markets. The United States currently holds about 415 million barrels in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Officials say the emergency release is designed to bridge supply gaps until normal shipping resumes through the Strait of Hormuz. Wright said the United States military is focused on weakening Iran's military capabilities that threaten regional shipping routes and global energy flows. "All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's ability to wage war and terrorize the neighborhood," he said in the CNN interview. Naval escorts for oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz could begin once security conditions improve. "This is an operation that will take weeks, not months," Wright said during an interview with CNBC. Despite the disruption, Wright argued that the United States is better positioned than many countries because it now produces more oil than it consumes. "The United States... we've produced more oil than we consume. We're a net oil exporter," he said in the Fox News interview. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created after the oil shocks of the 1970s to protect the US and global markets during supply disruptions. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world's most important energy chokepoints, with roughly one-fifth of global oil trade passing through the narrow waterway. Any prolonged disruption could significantly affect global prices and supply chains, particularly for major oil importers such as India and other Asian economies. - IANS Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented Supplementary Demands for Grants worth approximately 2.81 lakh crore in the Lok Sabha. A major allocation of over 41,000 crore is directed toward defence services, while an additional 30,000 crore is earmarked for the rural employment guarantee scheme. The proposal also creates a new 57,381 crore Economic Stabilisation Fund to guard against global economic shocks. Sitharaman assured that these expenditures would not breach the government's committed fiscal deficit target. FM Nirmala Sitharaman seeks Parliament nod for 2.81 lakh crore in supplementary grants for defence, rural jobs, and an economic stabilisation fund. New Delhi, March 13 Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday presented the Supplementary Demands for Grants - Second Batch for 2025-26 in the Lok Sabha, proposing a gross expenditure of approximately Rs 2.81 lakh crore. The proposal, which includes cash, technical, and token supplements, aims to strengthen national defence, bolster social security through VB-G RAM-G, and establish a fiscal buffer to navigate global economic volatility. Responding to the discussion on the grants, the Finance Minister clarified the components of the expenditure. "This involves gross expenditure of about Rs 2.81 lakh crore through cash or technical or token supplementaries. The present proposal also includes an amount of Rs 902 crore that is being provided for recouping advances of an equivalent amount from the Contingency Fund of India," Sitharaman said. She further detailed that Rs 2.01 lakh crore constitutes the cash supplementary across 18 grants, while Rs 0.80 lakh crore is sought for 32 grants as technical supplementaries. A significant portion of the allocation is directed toward the Armed Forces and rural employment. The Minister announced an allocation of Rs 41,430.48 crore for Defence Services (Revenue), urging the House to support the move. "Under Prime Minister Modi's government, efforts are being made to support and strengthen them (soldiers). In these Supplementary Demands for Grants, the Opposition should extend its support, as funds are being allocated for defence and for economic stability," she stated. Addressing rural employment, Sitharaman noted that while Rs 95,000 crore was initially provided for the VB-G RAM-G, an additional Rs 30,000 crore is now allocated under these demands. "Our commitments for MGNREGA-VB-G-RAM G are being fulfilled," she added. The Finance Minister also introduced an Economic Stabilisation Fund, involving Rs 57,381.84 crores, designed to protect the Indian economy from external shocks. Sitharaman maintained that the introduction of supplementary demands does not indicate poor initial budgeting but reflects a flexible and responsive governance model. She noted that the government has restricted such demands to a "bare minimum" of two per year. The Finance Minister also assured the House that these additional expenditures would not impact the government's fiscal discipline. "We will, in no way, fail to fulfil the commitment made in the Budget. I would like to reiterate that the assurances given in this House... will remain within the fiscal deficit target that was presented in Parliament on February 1, 2026," she said. Defending the creation of this fiscal cushion, she asked, "Are the Opposition members suggesting that in times of unforeseen challenges, should the govt not create a fiscal buffer or equalisation fund of Rs 50,000 crores?" She emphasised that this fund provides the "fiscal headroom" necessary to respond to supply chain disruptions and unanticipated global headwinds. - ANI South Korean and U.S. militaries conducted joint river-crossing drills on the Imjin River in Yeoncheon as part of the ongoing Freedom Shield exercise. The training involved approximately 700 troops and 200 pieces of equipment, including the newly integrated Korean KM3 amphibious system and the U.S. Improved Ribbon Bridge. The drills occurred on the same day North Korea fired around 10 ballistic missiles into the East Sea, in an apparent show of force against the allied exercise. Senior military leaders from both nations observed the exercise, highlighting its role in strengthening the combined defense posture and interoperability. South Korean and US forces hold joint river-crossing drills on the Imjin River as part of Freedom Shield exercise, coinciding with North Korean ballistic missile launches. Seoul, March 14 The South Korean and US militaries staged joint river-crossing drills in the border county of Yeoncheon on Saturday as part of their annual key springtime exercise aimed at enhancing interoperability between the allies. The field training coincided with North Korea firing around 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea earlier in the day. The North's missile launch came in an apparent muscle-flexing against the Seoul-Washington joint military exercise. The training took place on the Imjin River in Yeoncheon, located about 50 kilometres north of Seoul, involving some 200 pieces of equipment, including KM3 amphibious bridging vehicles and ribbon bridge systems, according to the armed services, reports Yonhap news agency. The drills are part of the on-field training events of the Freedom Shield (FS) exercise, which kicked off Monday for an 11-day run, aimed at strengthening the allies' combined defence posture. Some 700 troops from the South's Capital Mechanised Infantry Division and 7th Engineer Brigade, and the US Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division participated in the drills. This year, the Korean-made KM3 amphibious bridge and ferry system was connected with the United States' Improved Ribbon Bridge (IRB) for the first time in a wet-gap crossing. The KM3, which acts as a floating bridge or ferry to carry heavy combat vehicles and trucks, enables swift troop manoeuvres over streams and rivers at a faster rate than existing ribbon floating bridge equipment. It was deployed to the South Korean Army in 2024. The drills began under a simulated attack scenario, in which US forces engaged in an assault river crossing and occupied the territory across the river. The allies then attempted to put together a bridge across the Imjin River, with CH-47 Chinook transport aircraft dropping off sectional pontoon bridges, which were later pieced together by bridge erection boats on call nearby. A total of 25 pontoon pieces were pieced together to form a 180-meter-long bridge across the river, enabling strikers and other equipment to cross over to push forward the enemy lines in a simulated war scenario, according to a 2nd Infantry Division official. The Army has been staging combined drills with US forces as part of the FS exercise from March 8 to 19 across the border cities and counties of Pocheon, Paju and Yeoncheon. Saturday's drills were attended by US Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson and Army Gen. Kim Sung-min, deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, among others. Standing in front of the bridge completed by the allied forces, Brunson underscored the importance of such combined training, saying drills between the allies were "what makes us different." "It's the asymmetric advantage that we enjoy across the Indo-Pacific. The fact that we can train and build readiness across our formations and the fact that we can do this together," Brunson said. "The example that you see out there; It is the envy of the world that we get to do this here right now," he added. The USFK commander also thanked South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Jin Yong-sung for enabling the execution of this "great combined training out here." The allies have continued combat drills since September last year to enhance interoperability of river-crossing equipment between the forces. - IANS A suicide drone reportedly targeted the radar system at the US embassy in Baghdad, followed by a missile strike on the compound's helipad, according to Iranian state media. The attacks coincide with sharp rhetoric from Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who stated Iran now views the US and Israel as indistinguishable. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed launching the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign, targeting Israeli and American installations with missiles and drones. This escalation is part of a series of strikes the IRGC claims have deployed hundreds of missiles and drones since late last month. Iranian media reports a suicide drone and missile strike targeted the radar system and helipad at the US embassy in Baghdad, amid escalating regional conflict. Baghdad, March 14 A "suicide drone" was used to target the "radar system" at the United States embassy in Baghdad, according to a report by the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV. Citing "Iraqi sources," the report indicated that the mission specifically focused on the electronic detection equipment situated within the diplomatic mission's compound. In a further escalation of the assault on the heavily fortified site, a missile strike also reportedly targeted the "helipad" at the embassy, as documented by Al Jazeera. According to "Iraqi officials," the missile successfully struck the "landing area within the compound," signifying a diversified strike against the United States mission. This physical assault coincides with sharp diplomatic rhetoric from Tehran. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has asserted that the Islamic Republic now views the United States and the Israeli regime as indistinguishable regarding the severity of their actions against the Iranian people. In a statement shared on X, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf remarked, "Trump was duped by [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu into starting the war and is now acting under his control." The Speaker further clarified Tehran's current stance, noting that, in light of the "major crime they have committed, Iran no longer makes 'any distinction' between the United States and the Zionist regime." Qalibaf's comments come at a time of intensifying regional conflict, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continuing its series of "successful and decisive waves of unrelenting retaliatory strikes" against what it describes as hostile American and Israeli installations. Regarding the future of the military engagement, the Speaker maintained a firm position, declaring that "the war will continue until the enemy's calculus is altered and they are driven to regret." Mirroring this defiant political stance, the IRGC has confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign, targeting various Israeli and American installations, according to reports by Press TV. In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC announced the "successful execution of the 48th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against Zionist and American targets." This latest offensive was reportedly carried out in coordination with the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah. Military officials identified the primary targets within the occupied territories as being situated in the northern sector, specifically focusing on "Galilee, Golan, and the occupied city of Haifa." Beyond these areas, several "American bases throughout the region" were also struck during this stage of the conflict. According to Press TV, the 48th wave utilised a sophisticated mix of weaponry, including "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles, liquid-fuel Qadr missiles, and attack drones." This follows the earlier completion of the 47th wave, which took place on Friday and targeted strategic locations such as the "Negev Desert, including Nevatim," which is home to one of the largest airbases in the region. Other strikes during that phase were directed at "Be'er Sheva," described as a technological hub, and the city of "Lod." Notably, the IRGC also reported hitting "al-Udaid," identified as the "United States' most important airbase in the West Asia region," located in Qatar. The operation further extended to the "hiding places of the anti-Iran Komala terrorist group," employing both "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles and liquid-fuel Qadr missiles." Press TV further reported that during the 46th wave, which also occurred on Friday, the IRGC utilised "Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Qadr missiles." Highlighting the impact on the ground, the Corps noted the psychological toll of the strikes, stating, "Siren to siren and a scramble to enter shelters, this is the current state of the Zionists at this moment." Since the onset of hostilities late last month, the IRGC has reportedly deployed "hundreds of ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well as attack drones." On the defensive front, the Corps claimed to have downed five invading aircraft on Friday, including "Orbiter 4, Hermes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones." Military records cited by the state broadcaster indicate that a total of "114 reconnaissance and combat drones" have been neutralised by Iran's "advanced air defense systems" since the start of the aggression. In a final escalation of the psychological campaign, the IRGC has reportedly begun sending Hebrew text messages to residents within the occupied territories. The warning message stated, "By the permission of God, we will bring upon you days of darkness in which you will wish for death, but you will not find it." - ANI Banana farmers in Tiruchirappalli are facing severe distress due to a sudden and sharp fall in the price of Nendran bananas. The income from sales is now far below the soaring cost of cultivation, which includes fertilizers, pesticides, and labor. Many farmers who pledged household jewellery for loans now fear they cannot even pay the interest, let alone redeem their valuables. The affected farmers are urgently calling for government compensation and direct procurement to sell produce to other states. Nendran banana prices crash in Tiruchirappalli, leaving farmers in debt and unable to cover cultivation costs. They demand government compensation and intervention. Tiruchirappalli, March 14 Banana growers were left concerned on Saturday with a sudden fall in Nendran banana prices in Tiruchirappalli and are now demanding government intervention to address the issue and support their livelihood. Banana Farmer Rajendran said that several farmers fear that, due to the sudden crash in prices, those farmers who have pledged their valuables in private banks might be able to redeem them next year. He urged the government to provide compensation. "Many farmers had pledged household jewellery in private banks, hoping to repay the loans with the profits from this season's harvest. However, due to the sudden crash in prices, they are now unable even to pay the interest and fear they may only be able to redeem their pledged valuables next year. We urged the government to provide compensation to banana farmers affected by the price fall. Government could procure bananas directly from farmers and sell them to neighbouring states to prevent further losses," he said. Banana farmer Damodaran expressed his shock, saying the income from sales is far below the cost of cultivation. He noted that the farmers are unable to recover basic expenses with the current market price. "The sudden fall in prices has come as a major shock for banana growers... Farmers in areas such as Vayalur are currently harvesting their crops and sending them to markets, but the income from sales is far below the cost of cultivation... The cost of cultivating bananas has risen to nearly Rs 2 lakh per acre, including expenses for fertilisers, pesticides, support poles and labour. With the current market price, farmers are unable to recover even these basic costs, leading to heavy financial losses," he said. - ANI 2021 formula of 25 seats for Congress at stake The ruling DMK has formalized a seat-sharing agreement with ally KMDK, allotting it two constituencies to contest under the DMK's symbol. This comes amid escalating friction with its primary INDIA bloc partner, the Congress, which is demanding at least 35 seats and a share in the state cabinet. The DMK leadership is firm on contesting 180 seats independently and is reluctant to offer more than the 25 seats Congress contested in 2021. The stalemate centers on the Congress's push for governance power-sharing, which conflicts with the DMK's traditional stance of single-party rule. DMK finalizes pact with KMDK for 2 seats as Congress demands 35, sparking a major alliance dispute over seat-sharing and power in Tamil Nadu. Chennai, March 13 The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Friday formalised its seat-sharing pact with the Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi, allotting two constituencies to the regional ally for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. The agreement was signed at the DMK headquarters here at Anna Arivalayam, in the presence of Chief Minister and DMK chief M.K. Stalin and KMDK general secretary E.R. Eswaran. As per the deal, KMDK candidates will contest both seats under the DMK's iconic 'rising sun' symbol. After concluding seat-sharing talks and confirming the alliance with the KMDK party, Stalin departed from Anna Arivalayam. This move comes amid intensifying friction between the DMK and its primary INDIA bloc ally, the Congress. The Congress party has reportedly demanded a minimum of 35 seats, citing its improved performance in recent local and national polls. However, the DMK leadership is firm on contesting at least 180 seats on its own to ensure a comfortable majority in the 234-member house. This has led to a significant dispute, with DMK negotiators indicating that the Congress may have to settle for 25 seats, similar to the 2021 assembly polls formula. The dispute between the Congress and DMK has intensified ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections, with the Congress explicitly demanding a share in the state cabinet. Senior Congress leader Manickam Tagore recently emphasised that "power-sharing is the need of the hour," asserting that a coalition government would better reflect the aspirations of the alliance partners. While the DMK is willing to discuss seat-sharing, it remains firm on its "single-party rule" stance, traditionally rejecting ministerial berths for allies. This ideological rift has created a high-stakes standoff, as Congress leaders argue that their grassroots support merits a role in governance, not just electoral cooperation. The DMK maintains that its leadership is the primary face of the Dravidian model and remains unwilling to accommodate allies in the ministry. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the DMK returned to power after a decade, winning 133 of the 234 seats on its own and securing a clear majority in the Assembly. The Congress, a key ally, had contested 25 seats and won 18 seats. - IANS A parliamentary select committee chaired by MP Tejasvi Surya has submitted its report on the Jan Vishwas Bill, 2025, to the Lok Sabha. The committee recommends decriminalising 689 provisions across 78 legislations, which would remove over 1,000 criminal offences, primarily by replacing imprisonment with civil penalties for technical violations. The bill aims to improve ease of living and doing business by rationalising regulations in sectors like municipal governance, motor vehicles, and MSMEs. The committee emphasized balancing regulatory compliance with citizen convenience while retaining criminal provisions for offences affecting public health or safety. Select Committee chaired by Tejasvi Surya submits report to Lok Sabha, recommending removal of over 1,000 criminal offences to boost ease of living and business. New Delhi, March 13 The Select Committee on the Jan Vishwas Bill, 2025, chaired by Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, on Friday presented its report to the Lok Sabha. The Bill seeks to further the Government's effort to improve Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business by decriminalising minor offences across multiple sectors, including municipal governance, motor vehicles regulation, MSMEs, electricity, textiles, agriculture processing and legal metrology. Introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 18, 2025, by Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, the Bill was referred to a Select Committee the same day, and Surya was appointed Chairperson of the Committee on October 1, 2025. Building on the Reform Express during the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, the 2025 Bill proposed amendments across 17 Central Acts administered by multiple Ministries. The Committee examined the provisions in detail and made several recommendations aimed at balancing regulatory compliance with citizen convenience while ensuring deterrence against serious offences. Since October 2025, the Committee has held 49 sittings, including one for adopting the report, reflecting the extensive efforts made in the finalisation of the report. Speaking on the submission of the report, Surya said, "The Committee has recommended the decriminalisation of 689 provisions across 78 different legislations, resulting in the removal of more than 1000 criminal offences. This makes it the largest exercise of its kind and a major step towards promoting Ease of Living." "Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government has been consistently working towards rationalising regulatory frameworks and reducing compliance burdens. The Jan Vishwas 2.0 Bill represents one of the most comprehensive efforts in this direction and will further strengthen India's journey towards becoming a Viksit Bharat by 2047," he added. As per the release, the Committee recommended decriminalisation of several provisions by replacing imprisonment or criminal fines with civil penalties in areas where offences are procedural or technical in nature. At the same time, it retained criminal provisions in cases where public health, safety, or systemic integrity could be compromised. Among its key recommendations, the Committee suggested retaining enforcement powers of the Reserve Bank of India under the RBI Act while accepting the removal of certain provisions relating to auditors. With respect to the Motor Vehicles Act, the Committee endorsed the proposed amendments aimed at simplifying compliance and reducing legal ambiguity while strengthening road safety provisions. It also suggested clarifications in certain sections to improve legal clarity and ensure stronger deterrence against repeat offences. In the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, the Committee recommended a calibrated approach to penalties to protect public health and maintain public trust in traditional medicine systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Unani. The Committee also supported conversion of fines into penalties in laws governing sectors such as the Central Silk Board Act, Tea Act, Coir Industry Act and the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Act. In municipal laws such as the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act and the New Delhi Municipal Council Act, the Committee recommended replacing imprisonment provisions with structured penalties and further decriminalising several additional sections to promote ease of living. The Committee further recommended the adoption of graded compliance mechanisms in several Acts, where first-time violations could attract advisories or warnings, followed by monetary penalties for repeated violations. It also emphasised the need for clearly defined adjudication and appellate processes within each Act. The Committee also made several broader recommendations, including ensuring proportional penalties based on the gravity of offences, establishing clear minimum and maximum penalty structures, introducing tiered compliance frameworks for repeat offenders, and strengthening digital compliance systems. It further suggested exploring the creation of a Centralised Regulatory Management System to streamline regulatory compliance across Ministries and regulators, the press release stated. Tejasvi Surya added, "The Committee has undertaken a detailed examination of provisions across multiple laws to ensure that minor procedural violations do not attract criminal penalties while preserving strict action for serious offences affecting public safety and trust. This approach will significantly reduce unnecessary litigation and improve the ease of living for citizens." Other members of the Committee include Damodar Agarwal, Dhairyasheel Sambhajirao Mane, Khagen Murmu, Kalyan Banerjee, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, Malvika Devi, NK Premachandran, Praveen Khandelwal, Suresh Kumar Kashyap, T Sumathy, Sunil Dattatray Tatkare and Ujjwal Raman Singh. - ANI Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai has asserted there is no LPG shortage in the state, calling reports to the contrary misinformation. He simultaneously launched the 'Gaudham Yojana' for cattle protection and promotion across Chhattisgarh. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also denied any LPG shortage nationally, accusing the Congress party of deliberately creating confusion. The statements come amid global supply concerns, though the Union Petroleum Ministry has stated India has sufficient crude oil supplies and refinery capacity. Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai assures no LPG problem, calls rumors misinformation. Maharashtra CM Fadnavis also denies shortage, blames Congress. Bilaspur, March 14 Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on Saturday said that there is no problem regarding the LPG in the state, asserting that misinformation is being spread. Speaking to the media in Bilaspur, CM Sai urged the citizens to stay away from rumours, further assuring them that they will not face any problem. "There is no problem. Misinformation is being spread... The people of the state should stay away from rumours; they will not face any trouble," he said. He also said that the state government has launched the 'Gaudham Yojana' for the protection and promotion of cattle across the state. The Chief Minister said that 29 Gaudhams have been inaugurated under the scheme, and proper arrangements will be ensured at all these facilities. "Today, we have launched the 'Gaudham Yojana' for the protection and promotion of cattle across the entire state. Here, 29 Gaudhams have been inaugurated... Proper arrangements will be made in all these Gaudhams... This initiative will also increase the income of farmers and livestock rearers. This program was successfully concluded in the presence of all," CM Vishnu Deo Sai said. Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said there is no shortage of LPG in the country and accused the Congress of misleading people by creating confusion. Speaking to the reporters, Maharashtra CM said, "Whether it's Maharashtra or the country, there is no shortage of LPG anywhere. The central government, secretaries, and companies have continuously stated this, but deliberately, Congress and its leaders are creating confusion among the people and making them stand in queues.... There is no need to stand in queues; Congress should stop misleading the country."The shortage of LPG has emerged amid global energy supply disruptions triggered by the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Amid concerns over fuel supply due to developments in West Asia, the Union Petroleum Ministry on Saturday said India has sufficient crude oil supplies and that refineries across the country are operating at full capacity, with no reports of fuel shortages at retail outlets. - ANI Thousands gathered in Budgam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Leh, Ladakh, for peaceful rallies on Youm-e-Quds to express solidarity with Palestine and Iran. Simultaneously, a protest in Lucknow was led by Shia cleric Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, who criticized the US and called for India to condemn its actions more strongly. The protests follow the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israel military strike on February 28. Youm-e-Quds, established by Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, is an annual day of support for Palestine and opposition to Israeli occupation. Large protests in Budgam, Leh, and Lucknow mark Youm-e-Quds, condemning US-Israel actions and expressing solidarity with Palestine and Iran. Budgam, March 13 Thousands of people gathered in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam and Leh, Ladakh, on the occasion of 'Youm-e-Quds' on Friday and participated in a large protest march expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine and Iran. A large congregation assembled at Markazi Imambara Budgam, following which people took out a peaceful rally and marched towards Main Chowk Budgam. Simultaneously, in Leh, Ladakh, thousands joined a similar demonstration to protest the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli and US strikes on February 28. Participants said the rally was organised to mark Youm-e-Quds, reiterating their support for Palestine and Iran and condemning actions against the leadership of the Islamic world. Furthermore, thousands of people also gathered in Tehran, Iran, on 'Youm-e-Quds' and held a protest march over the death of Khamenei. According to Al Jazeera, Al-Quds Day is an annual international day to express support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Large rallies are held, usually beginning after the communal Friday prayers. Iran's first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, established Quds Day in 1979 shortly after the Iranian Revolution to show solidarity with Palestinians and reject Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. It has since become a symbol of resistance, as per Al Jazeera. Earlier in the day, a protest was held at the Bara Imambara in Lucknow on Friday, where people gathered after Jumma prayers. The protest was led by Shia cleric Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, who criticised the United States and called for stronger condemnation of its actions over the ongoing conflict involving Iran. Speaking to ANI, Kalbe Jawad Naqvi said, "...Iran is totally defenceless; America is dropping bombs on it and attacking the public. This is a matter of great shame that our country is not condemning it. Our country has adopted such a bad attitude towards Iran, and Iranians are showing mercy towards us. They have given permission to India to bring its oil ships... America should be stopped from attacking. Otherwise, the whole world should boycott America and Israel." He further said that India should take a stronger stand internationally and support Iran. This comes amid escalating tensions in West Asia after a joint US-Israel military strike on February 28 on Iranian territory resulted in the death of its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures, prompting a fierce response from Tehran. In retaliation, Iran launched waves of drone and missile attacks across multiple Arab countries as the conflict continues. - ANI An Anti-Hijacking Mock Exercise for 2026 was successfully conducted at Tiruchirappalli International Airport. The drill aimed to assess the preparedness and coordination of various security and aviation agencies during a simulated hijacking incident. Independent observers monitored the exercise, evaluating response times and operational efficiency. The findings will be used to update standard operating procedures and enhance future security readiness at the airport. A major anti-hijacking mock drill was conducted at Tiruchirappalli International Airport to assess security preparedness and agency coordination. Tiruchirappalli, March 14 An Anti-Hijacking Mock Exercise for the year 2026 was successfully conducted at Tiruchirappalli International Airport on Friday to assess preparedness and coordination among various security and aviation agencies in the event of a hijacking incident. The exercise was followed by an Aerodrome Committee Meeting, which was chaired by N. Kamini, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Tiruchirappalli. Officials from different security agencies and airport stakeholders participated in the meeting and reviewed the mock drill. The annual Anti-Hijacking Mock Exercise is conducted at airports across the country to familiarise authorities with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that must be followed in the event of an aircraft hijacking. The drill also evaluates the preparedness and response capabilities of various agencies responsible for airport security and emergency management. During the exercise, several simulated emergency drills were carried out as per established procedures. Independent observers monitored the drill and recorded their observations regarding coordination, response time, and operational efficiency, according to the statement issued by the Airport Director of AAI, Tiruchirappalli Airport. The feedback and observations from the exercise will be incorporated into future standard operating procedures to further strengthen security preparedness at the airport. The meeting was convened by S. S. Raju, Airport Director of the Airports Authority of India at Tiruchirappalli Airport. - ANI By Ella Cao and Naveen Thukral BEIJING/SINGAPORE, March 13 (Reuters) - Tighter phytosanitary checks are hitting Brazilian soybean shipments to China, threatening to squeeze supplies to the world's top importer after authorities in the South American country stepped up inspections at Beijing's request. Brazil's Agriculture Ministry increased inspections on soybean shipments to China following Beijing's repeated findings of pesticide- and fungicide-coated beans, four trade sources said. "Chinese customs in various regions have observed increased issues in Brazilian soybeans, including the presence of live insects, beans coated with seed treatment agents such as pesticides or fungicides, and heat damage," said an Asian trader at an international company which sells beans to China. Importers now must repeatedly verify with Brazilian suppliers that shipments are free of phytosanitary problems before departure, on risk of being blocked once they reach China, a second Asian trader said. Tighter quality checks during Brazil's peak export season could hit supplies in China, though the market is well-stocked following last year's record purchases. "If inspections are tightened and clearance times lengthen on both ends, it could slow the pace of arrivals in March-April," said Cheang Kang Wei, vice president at StoneX in Singapore. That could provide a window of opportunity for U.S. suppliers to sell more to China, which resumed purchases from the United States in late October following a trade deal. Beijing had not bought any U.S. soybeans from the autumn harvest until late October. "There is a window, in theory, if Brazilian flows are disrupted, but it would likely be timing-related rather than a lasting shift, unless trade diplomacy improves," said Cheang. Trading firm Cargill's Latin America head told Reuters on Wednesday it had paused soybean exports from Brazil to China. China's General Administration of Customs and Brazil's embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to requests for comment. LONGER WAITS, HIGHER COSTS Longer waiting time for ships for certification at Brazilian ports have raised demurrage costs, adding to pressure from high freight rates following the Iran war. The freight rate for Panamax vessels from the Santos Port to major northern Chinese ports rose around 24% in March, consultancy Mysteel data showed. Offers to sell Brazilian soybeans to China have dried up due to tighter phytosanitary checks and higher freight rates, traders said. Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi announced that a Transitional System under his leadership is prepared to govern Iran following the potential fall of the Islamic Republic. He stated a committee has been evaluating qualified individuals inside and outside the country to lead this effort. His remarks come amid heightened regional tensions following the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader and retaliatory strikes. The UN Secretary-General has expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis, warning it threatens global peace. Iran's exiled crown prince says a leadership plan is prepared to assume power if the Islamic Republic falls, amid regional tensions. Paris, March 14 Iran's exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi said in a message on Saturday that the Transitional System under his leadership would be ready to assume governance of the country as soon as Iran's Islamic Republic falls and said that several people have declared readiness to participate in the rebuilding of the country. He made the remarks in a post on X and said, "To ensure that Iran does not experience a disruption in governance with the fall of the Islamic Republic, two important efforts have been underway in recent months. First, the development of a clear plan for governing the country within the framework of the Iran Prosperity Project. Second, identifying and selecting qualified women and men to serve in the Transitional System and implement this plan. In this process, many compatriots with valuable experience and the expertise declared their readiness to participate in the rebuilding of the country and to serve the homeland." Pahlavi noted that the process has been carried out within the framework of the committee for reviewing and selecting members of the Transitional System, directed by Saeed Ghaseminejad. He added, "Within this framework, in recent months, capable individuals both inside and outside the country have been identified and evaluated to lead various sections of the Transitional System.The Transitional System, under my leadership, will be ready to assume governance of the country as soon as the Islamic Republic falls, and in the shortest possible time, establish order, security, freedom, and the conditions for Iran's prosperity and flourishing." His remarks come as joint US-Israeli military operations resulted in the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 and has escalated tension across West Asia and the Gulf. In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, disrupting key shipping routes and affecting global energy markets. As the war enters its 14th day, the exchange of fire continues with threats of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the energy needs of several nations. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. - ANI The upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections are shaping up as a direct contest for power between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the principal opposition BJP. The Congress and the Left Front, having failed to win a single seat in 2021, are now primarily focused on improving their diminished vote shares. Their former "Mahajot" alliance has dissolved, with each party contesting separately in a bid to reclaim their traditional voters. The electoral arithmetic suggests a challenging landscape for these former giants, where even a modest increase in support is seen as a significant outcome. Analysis of West Bengal's electoral landscape, highlighting the direct TMC-BJP contest and the Congress-Left focus on improving vote share ahead of the Assembly polls. Kolkata, March 14 In West Bengal, days before the schedule for the Assembly election is announced, the battle lines appear clear, with the ruling Trinamool Congress and the state's principal Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in a direct contest for power, while the Left and the Congress are looking at improving their respective vote shares. When the Trinamool first came to power in 2011, it won 184 seats in the state Assembly, which has a total strength of 294, with a mandate of over 1.85 crore votes and a vote share of about 39 per cent. The main constituent of the Left Front it dethroned -- the CPI-M -- won only 40 seats, securing more than 1.43 crore votes and a 30 per cent vote share. The Congress, which had been reduced to the margins of the state's political landscape over time, contested in alliance with the Trinamool, winning 42 seats with about 43 lakh votes and a nine per cent share. At that time, the BJP failed to win a single seat, polling about 19.3 lakh votes and securing a four per cent vote share. Contesting on its own in the subsequent Assembly election, the Mamata Banerjee-led party captured 211 seats in 2016, with over 2.45 crore votes and close to a 45 per cent vote share. The Communist Party of India-Marxist(CPI-M) slipped to 26 seats, securing about 1.08 crore votes and close to a 20 per cent vote share, while the BJP won three seats, polling around 55 lakh votes and securing around a 10 per cent vote share. The Congress managed to add two more seats to its earlier tally and secured about 67 lakh votes and roughly a 12 per cent vote share. Post-poll analysis of the performance of what was called the "Mahajot" or Grand Alliance between the Left Front and the Congress suggested that supporters of the communists largely voted in favour of the ally in a bid to remain politically relevant. However, many Congress supporters reportedly did not reciprocate, citing 34 years of "CPI-M repression". In a dramatic turn of events in the 2021 Assembly election, both the Congress and the Left Front failed to win a single seat. For the first time in West Bengal's electoral history, the two former ruling blocs failed to send any representative to the state's Legislative Assembly. In a major development, the BJP emerged as the principal Opposition, winning 77 seats, securing a comparatively large mandate of 2.29 crore votes and about a 38 per cent vote share. The Assembly also had its first Leader of Opposition from the BJP benches in Suvendu Adhikari. The Mahajot failed to revive its fortunes, with the Congress eventually parting ways months before the upcoming state polls. Simple arithmetic suggests that with further division in non-BJP votes and the Trinamool being the major player in that space, the two former allies face a difficult electoral challenge. According to a senior Congress leader, both parties are primarily aiming to increase their respective vote shares this time. In 2021, while the CPI-M managed a vote share of less than five per cent, the Congress just managed to cross three per cent. By going to the polls on their own, the two parties expect an increase of "at least one to 1.5, or a maximum of two" percentage points each. The leader also said that by contesting independently, the Congress hopes to regain the support of its voters who had shifted towards the Trinamool rather than backing its earlier ally, the Left Front. For the CPI-M, the focus is on consolidating its vote share with support from sections of its cadres who had voted for the BJP instead of supporting the Congress or the Trinamool. For the two parties that once dominated the political arena in West Bengal, their leaders admit privately that they now face a challenging situation, with even a modest increase in vote share being seen as a significant outcome. - IANS Iran makes no distinction between US and Israel Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has declared that Iran no longer distinguishes between the United States and Israel, accusing former President Donald Trump of being duped and controlled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is actively conducting what it calls the 48th wave of retaliatory strikes, targeting Israeli and American installations with advanced missiles and drones. These coordinated attacks focus on areas like Galilee, Golan, Haifa, and key US bases, including the al-Udaid airbase in Qatar. Alongside military action, Iran is engaging in psychological warfare, sending Hebrew warning messages to residents within occupied territories. Iranian Parliament Speaker says war will continue until enemy's "calculus is altered," accuses Trump of being controlled by Netanyahu in escalating conflict. Tehran, March 14 Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has asserted that the Islamic Republic now views the United States and the Israeli regime as indistinguishable regarding the severity of their actions against the Iranian people. In a statement shared on X, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf remarked,"Trump was duped by [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu into starting the war and is now acting under his control." The Speaker further clarified Tehran's current diplomatic and military stance, noting that, in light of the "major crime they have committed, Iran no longer makes 'any distinction' between the United States and the Zionist regime." Qalibaf's comments come at a time of intensifying regional conflict, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continuing its series of "successful and decisive waves of unrelenting retaliatory strikes" against what it describes as hostile American and Israeli installations. Regarding the future of the military engagement, the Speaker maintained a firm position, declaring that "the war will continue until the enemy's calculus is altered and they are driven to regret." Mirroring this defiant political stance, the IRGC has confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign, targeting various Israeli and American installations, according to reports by state broadcaster Press TV. In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC announced the "successful execution of the 48th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against Zionist and American targets." This latest offensive was reportedly carried out in coordination with the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah. Military officials identified the primary targets within the occupied territories as being situated in the northern sector, specifically focusing on "Galilee, Golan, and the occupied city of Haifa." Beyond these areas, several "American bases throughout the region" were also struck during this stage of the conflict. According to Press TV, the 48th wave utilised a sophisticated mix of weaponry, including "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles, liquid-fuel Qadr missiles, and attack drones." This follows the earlier completion of the 47th wave, which took place on Friday and targeted strategic locations such as the "Negev Desert, including Nevatim," which is home to one of the largest airbases in the region. Other strikes during that phase were directed at "Be'er Sheva," described as a technological hub, and the city of "Lod." Notably, the IRGC also reported hitting "al-Udaid," identified as the "United States' most important airbase in the West Asia region," located in Qatar. The operation further extended to the "hiding places of the anti-Iran Komala terrorist group," employing both "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles and liquid-fuel Qadr missiles." Press TV further reported that during the 46th wave, which also occurred on Friday, the IRGC utilised "Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Qadr missiles." Highlighting the impact on the ground, the Corps noted the psychological toll of the strikes, stating, "Siren to siren and a scramble to enter shelters, this is the current state of the Zionists at this moment." Since the onset of hostilities late last month, the IRGC has reportedly deployed "hundreds of ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well as attack drones." On the defensive front, the Corps claimed to have downed five invading aircraft on Friday, including "Orbiter 4, Hermes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones." Military records cited by the state broadcaster indicate that a total of "114 reconnaissance and combat drones" have been neutralised by Iran's "advanced air defense systems" since the start of the aggression. In a final escalation of the psychological campaign, the IRGC has reportedly begun sending Hebrew text messages to residents within the occupied territories. The warning message stated, "By the permission of God, we will bring upon you days of darkness in which you will wish for death, but you will not find it." - ANI US President Donald Trump has vehemently denied media reports claiming five US refuelling planes were destroyed at a Saudi airport. He stated on Truth Social that four aircraft sustained virtually no damage and are back in service, while one will be repaired shortly. Trump specifically targeted The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, accusing them of "intentionally misleading" coverage that favors US adversaries. The controversy stems from reports of damage to the planes following an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Air Base. President Trump denies media reports that five US tanker planes were destroyed in Saudi Arabia, calling the coverage intentionally misleading. Washington DC, March 14 US President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed the media reports that five US tanker planes were destroyed at a Saudi airport, calling the coverage "intentionally misleading" and accusing outlets of undermining US military efforts in West Asia amid the conflict. In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the outlets 'Fake News Media', stating that the planes "were not struck or destroyed". He said that four of the aircraft have "virtually no damage", while the one sustained "slightly more damage". Trump specifically targeted publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, accusing them of "terrible reporting." He further claimed their coverage favours adversaries of the United States. "Yet again, an intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media about the five tanker planes that were supposedly struck down at an Airport in Saudi Arabia, and of no further use. In actuality, the Base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not 'struck' or 'destroyed.' Four of the five had virtually no damage and are already back in service. One had slightly more damage but will be in the air shortly. None were destroyed, or close to that, as the Fake News said in headlines," his post read. "The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (in particular), and other Lowlife "Papers" and Media actually want us to lose the War. Their terrible reporting is the exact opposite of the actual facts! They are truly sick and demented people that have no idea the damage they cause the United States of America. Fortunately, as proven by our Great and Conclusive Election Win in 2024, the People of our Country understand what is happening far better than the Fake News Media!" it added. The remarks come after media reports suggesting that five US Air Force refuelling planes were damaged on the ground during an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in recent days. According to The Wall Street Journal, citing two US officials, the tankers sustained damage but were not destroyed and are currently undergoing repairs. No casualties were reported in the attack. - ANI A report by Axios reveals that President Trump told G7 leaders on a call that Iran was about to surrender. Concurrently, Iran's IRGC has launched a new phase of missile strikes targeting Israeli and US positions in the region. Trump has publicly vowed to totally destroy Iran's regime militarily and economically. Meanwhile, a CNN report suggests the US administration underestimated the likelihood of Iran moving to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Axios reports Trump told G7 leaders Iran was about to surrender. Iran's IRGC launches new missile phase as Trump vows to destroy the regime. Washington DC, March 13 US President Trump has told the Group of Seven countries on a call on Wednesday that Iran was about to surrender, reported Axios, citing officials of three G7 countries who were on the call. The call came before Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed vengeance and urged citizens to continue their fight against the attacks by US and Israel. The Axios report said that President Trump was as confident about the war's outcome in private as he is in public. However, today, Trump signalled US' intention of going all out in its campaign against Iran's Islamic regime, warning Iran to watch out for what would happen today and saying that the US was winning the conflict despite what reports claimed. "We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning. Iran's Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth. We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time - Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honour it is to do so," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had launched the 44th phase of its Operation True Promise 4, targeting a series of key military sites in Israeli-occupied lands and US bases across West Asia. IRGC said the operation began with a heavy barrage of Kheibar Shekan missiles, each carrying a one-ton warhead, which hit multiple strategic locations, including Israeli military positions in the Palestinian territories, Tel Aviv, Eilat, and West Al-Quds. The commander of Iran's Khatam al Anbiya headquarters Major General Ali Abdollahi said in a statement that Iranian armed forces will stand to the "last breath" against enemies. The enemy, he added, will be "forced to pay the price for its crimes." Earlier, a CNN report said that the administration of US President Donald Trump reportedly underestimated the likelihood that Iran would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes. CNN sources revealed that while planning for the ongoing military operation, the Pentagon and the National Security Council did not fully anticipate that Iran would attempt to close the waterway, despite long-standing contingency plans developed by the US military for such a scenario. Officials from the US Departments of Energy and Treasury were present at some planning meetings before the operation began, but CNN sources said the detailed economic forecasts and interagency analysis that typically shape major decisions were not central to the discussions. The conflict has already entered Day 13 and neither side is showing any side of moving back. - ANI Iran's Armed Forces spokesperson has called on leaders of Muslim states to unite against the influence of the United States and Zionists. Military officials detailed defensive actions, including intercepting drones, and offensive strikes allegedly targeting Zionist and American command centers. The campaign, linked to International Quds Day, reportedly aimed at infrastructure in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and US bases in the region. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also showcased its drone capabilities in a subterranean arsenal, vowing to continue the campaign. Iran's military calls on Islamic leaders to unite against the US and Zionists, detailing drone interceptions and claimed strikes on enemy targets. Tehran, March 14 The spokesperson of Iran's Armed Forces, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, has addressed the leaders of Muslim states, calling for unity against the influence of the US and the Zionists, according to state broadcaster Press TV. In a direct appeal to the leadership of Islamic nations, the Brigadier General stated, "Trust Islamic Republic and its Muslim people, and let us unite for the solidarity of the Islamic world against disbelief, polytheism, and hypocrisy led by the US and the Zionists." These remarks, carried by Press TV, emphasise the General's call for solidarity across the Islamic world to challenge the current global leadership of the United States and the Zionists. This call for regional unity coincides with a significant escalation in military rhetoric. Earlier, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the Spokesperson of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, issued a televised address on Saturday, warning that "America and the Zionists will pay the price for every single drop of unjustly shed blood and the compensation for the damages inflicted." Underlining recent defensive actions, Zolfaghari noted that "two MQ-9 drones in Firuzabad and Bandar Abbas and another aircraft in the sky of Tabriz were intercepted and destroyed by the Sepah's air defence systems." He claimed the total number of drones destroyed has reached 112 aircraft, including combat, reconnaissance, and suicide drones. The military official linked these measures to broader operations by the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Aerospace and Naval Forces of Sepah, and Hezbollah. These actions, conducted under the holy code "'Ya Saheb al-Zaman, may God hasten his relief'", followed the International Quds Day march. During the address, Zolfaghari confirmed that "'Kheibar-Shekan' solid-fuel precision missiles and offensive drones were sent in large numbers towards enemy targets. He stated the "destruction of the northern command infrastructures of the occupying Zionists and the gathering place of American forces" served as primary strategic goals. Specific targets identified included centres in Haifa, Caesarea, settlements of Zariit and Shlomi, and the 'Holon' military-industrial complex. The scope also extended to regional US assets, with the spokesperson claiming gathering places, including 'Al Dhafra' and 'Erbil' bases, were hit following a warning to leave the region. Zolfaghari further asserted the campaign aimed at "hunting down Zionist and American criminal commanders." He claimed that 10 residence points in the occupied territories and 3 gathering places of Americans in the region were precisely targeted. These reported strikes included seven points in Tel Aviv, two in Rishon LeZion, and one in Shoham, as well as US commander locations at the 'King Sultan', 'Victoria', and 'Erbil' bases. Reinforcing this message of defiance, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has unveiled its aerial capabilities within a subterranean arsenal. A report by Mehr News Agency highlighted a collection of drones displayed in a large tunnel under an image of Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei. Vowing the campaign would persist, Zolfaghari declared that "the doors of hell will not be closed until the destruction of the last child-killing criminal." He maintained that victory comes from God, swearing to recover the "blood money" for those killed. - ANI Two Indian expatriate workers were killed and ten others injured after debris from a downed drone fell in an industrial area in Sohar, Oman. The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed the mission is providing all assistance, with five injured already discharged from hospital. In a separate incident, the 15 crew members of the Safesea Vishnu, attacked near Iraq, have been safely evacuated. The UN Secretary-General has expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, urging de-escalation. Two Indian nationals killed, 10 injured after drone debris fell in Oman's Sohar. MEA updates on repatriation efforts and Safesea Vishnu crew evacuation. New Delhi, March 13 Aseem Mahajan, Additional Secretary, on Friday shared updates about the death of two Indians who passed away in Muscat and also provided an update on Safesea Vishnu, noting that the efforts are underway to repatriate the 15 Indian nationals and also to bring back the mortal remains of the Indian national. He made the remarks during the Inter-Ministerial Briefing on Recent Developments in West Asia. Mahajan said that of the 10 injured, five had been discharged while others were receiving treatment--with none having serious injuries. He underlined that the mission remains in close touch and continues to provide all assistance. "I wish to share with all of you an incident which has happened in Sohar City in Muscat today. There was an attack, and in this incident, two Indian nationals have died. We express our deepest condolences to their families. Of the 11 injured, 10 are Indians. Out of them, 5 have been discharged after receiving treatment, and 5 others are receiving treatment in local hospitals. None of them are reported to have serious injuries. Our mission is in close touch with the concerned company and local authorities and is rendering all assistance", Mahajan said. Two expatriate workers were killed after debris from a downed drone fell in an industrial area in the Sohar province of Oman, Al Jazeera reported, citing the state news agency. Citing a security source, Al Jazeera reported that the drone crashed in the al-Awahi industrial area, resulting in the deaths of two foreign workers and injuries to several others. Another drone was shot down in the Sohar province during the same incident. Mahajan also provided an update on Safesea Vishnu, noting that the 15 crew members had been safely evacuated and efforts are underway to safely bring back the mortal remains of the Indian national, alongside the repatriation of the seafarers. He said, "An update on Safesea Vishnu, which came under attack on the 9th of March near Basra in Iraq. The 15 crew members have been safely evacuated and are currently lodged in a hotel in Basra. Efforts are also underway to transport the mortal remains of the deceased Indian national and for safe repatriation of the 15 rescued seafarers. Our mission team is in Basra and is rendering all assistance." Joint US-Israeli military operations that resulted in the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has escalated tension across West Asia on February 28. In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, disrupting key shipping routes and affecting global energy markets. As the war enters its 14th day, the exchange of fire continues with threats of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the energy needs of several nations. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. In a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. "De-escalation and dialogue are the only way out," Guterres said, urging all parties to cease hostilities, uphold international law, protect civilians and return immediately to negotiations. - ANI Two expatriate workers were killed in Oman after debris from a downed drone fell in an industrial area. Simultaneously, sirens were activated at Turkiye's Incirlik Air Base, a crucial NATO facility hosting US troops. Meanwhile, Israel struck a bridge in Lebanon, claiming it was a main crossing point for Hezbollah militants, and Iran's IRGC announced a new phase of missile attacks targeting Israeli and US positions. The regional conflict has escalated with concerns over potential Iranian action to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Two workers killed by drone debris in Oman. Sirens sound at NATO's Incirlik base. IDF strikes bridge in Lebanon as IRGC launches missiles at Israeli targets. Muscat, March 13 Two expatriate workers were killed after debris from a downed drone fell in an industrial area in the Sohar province of Oman, Al Jazeera reported, citing the state news agency. Citing a security source, Al Jazeera reported that the drone crashed in the al-Awahi industrial area, resulting in the deaths of two foreign workers and injuries to several others. Another drone was shot down in the Sohar province during the same incident. Additionally, sirens have gone off at Turkiye's Incirlik airbase, located near the southeastern city of Adana, according to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu. Incirlik airbase is a key NATO facility where US troops are stationed. Meanwhile, Israel has continued its actions in Lebanon, striking the Al-Zrariya Bridge on the Litani River to neutralise Hezbollah's movement. Israel stated that Hezbollah used the bridge to move from the north to the south of the country, prepare for combat against IDF forces, and act against the civilians of Israel. "IDF Strikes Al-Zrariya Bridge on Litani River Used as Main Crossing for Hezbollah Terrorists. The IDF struck, a short time ago the Al-Zrariya Bridge over the Litani River in Lebanon, which served as a main crossing for terrorists from the Hezbollah terror organisation," they said in a post on X "The Hezbollah terror organisation uses this bridge to move from the north to the south of the country, prepare for combat against IDF forces, and act against civilians of the State of Israel, all while endangering Lebanese civilians and causing extensive destruction in populated areas. In order to prevent a threat to civilians of the State of Israel and the continued harm to Lebanese civilians, it was necessary to strike the bridge," the IDF added. Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had launched the 44th phase of its Operation True Promise 4, targeting a series of key military sites in Israeli occupied lands and US bases across West Asia. IRGC said the operation began with a heavy barrage of Kheibar Shekan missiles, each carrying a one-ton warhead, which hit multiple strategic locations, including Israeli military positions in the Palestinian territories, Tel Aviv, Eilat, and West Al-Quds. Earlier, a CNN report said that the administration of US President Donald Trump reportedly underestimated the likelihood that Iran would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes. CNN sources revealed that while planning for the ongoing military operation, the Pentagon and the National Security Council did not fully anticipate that Iran would attempt to close the waterway, despite long-standing contingency plans developed by the US military for such a scenario. Joint US-Israeli military operations that resulted in the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has escalated tension across West Asia. on February 28. In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, disrupting key shipping routes and affecting global energy markets. As the war enters its 14th day, the exchange of fire continues with threats of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the energy needs of several nations. - ANI The United Arab Emirates announced its air defense systems successfully intercepted nine ballistic missiles and 33 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from Iran. The ministry reported these attacks have resulted in six fatalities and 141 injuries among nationals from nearly 30 different countries. In a separate incident, drones struck the US Embassy compound in Baghdad, with damage and casualty details still unclear. The UAE affirmed its full preparedness to confront threats to its national security and sovereignty. UAE air defenses intercept 9 ballistic missiles and 33 UAVs from Iran, reporting 6 fatalities. Separate drone attack targets US Embassy in Baghdad. Abu Dhabi, March 14 The United Arab Emirates' air defence systems intercepted nine ballistic missiles and 33 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from Iran on Saturday, the UAE Ministry of Defence said. In a post on X, the ministry said the interceptions were carried out as part of ongoing defensive operations amid the escalating regional conflict. "UAE air defence systems on 14th March engaged 9 ballistic missiles and 33 UAVs launched from Iran," the ministry stated. It added that since the onset of what it described as Iranian aggression, the country's air defence systems have intercepted a total of 294 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,600 UAVs launched from Iran. According to the ministry, the attacks have resulted in six fatalities involving nationals from the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh so far. The ministry also said that 141 people have sustained minor to moderate injuries. "These attacks have resulted in 6 fatalities of Emirati, Pakistani, Nepali and Bangladeshi nationals and 141 minor to moderate injuries among nationals of the UAE, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Comoros, Turkiye, Iraq, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Jordan, Palestine, Ghana, Indonesia and Sweden," the statement read. The UAE Ministry of Defence affirmed that the country remains fully prepared to address any threats and will firmly confront attempts to undermine national security. It added that the UAE is committed to protecting its sovereignty, security and stability while safeguarding its national interests and capabilities. Meanwhile, CNN reported, citing a security official, that two drones struck the US Embassy in Baghdad today, though the extent of the damage and possible injuries remains unclear. According to CNN, the drones hit the US diplomatic compound in the Iraqi capital, prompting concerns over the security situation in the area. Video footage geolocated by CNN showed smoke and small flames rising from a building in the vicinity of the embassy compound following the incident. Authorities have not yet confirmed the extent of the damage or whether there were any casualties. - ANI The United Arab Emirates has emphasized that Dubai continues to function normally as a global financial hub despite recent Iranian drone and missile attacks, dismissing reports of significant investment outflows as exaggerated. A regional analyst highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is viewed as a potential leader for de-escalation due to India's strong regional ties and his communication channels with various actors. The UAE welcomed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Iranian strikes, which was adopted with broad support but saw abstentions from China and Russia. Emirati authorities expressed confidence in their resilience while remaining deeply concerned about the widening regional conflict that has now drawn in nearly a dozen nations. UAE asserts Dubai remains functional and open for business despite Iranian attacks, while regional analysts view PM Modi as a key figure for potential de-escalation efforts. Dubai, March 13 As the conflict in West Asia enters Day 13, the United Arab Emirates has voiced deep concern over the continuing escalation, while stressing that Dubai remains steady, functional, and open for business despite Iranian drone and missile attacks. A well-informed Gulf analyst rejected suggestions that the recent strikes had triggered any meaningful adverse impact on investment flows into Dubai. The analyst said reports claiming that the Emirate's standing as a global financial and commercial hub had been damaged were exaggerated and did not reflect realities on the ground. The well-informed Gulf analyst also indicated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is viewed in the region as a leader who could play an important role in supporting de-escalation efforts. This assessment, the analyst said, stems from India's strong ties across the region, the significant Indian diaspora in the Gulf, and PM Modi's ability to maintain channels of communication with a broad range of regional and international actors, including both Israel and Iran. The Emirates took particular exception to reports in sections of the British media suggesting that Dubai's days as a financial powerhouse were coming to an end, or that investors and expatriates were beginning to pull out of the city. According to the analyst, such narratives were misleading and disconnected from the resilience that Dubai has consistently demonstrated during periods of regional uncertainty. The analyst underlined that there has been no broad-based movement of investment out of Dubai, nor any sign of businesses shutting down or expatriates resigning and leaving the city in significant numbers. Dubai, the analyst said, continues to function normally, with commercial life, financial activity, and daily operations proceeding as usual. Where departures have occurred, the analyst noted, they largely involve tourists completing their visits or isolated cases of individuals leaving behind financial liabilities, a phenomenon seen previously during times of economic stress, when some abandoned mortgaged cars or properties before departing. At the same time, Emirati authorities have been clear in expressing concern about the widening scope of the conflict. The well-informed Gulf analyst said the scale of the escalation was unexpected, particularly as Oman, too, recently became a target. Dubai has also faced sporadic drone strikes launched by the Islamic regime in Iran. Most of these attacks have been intercepted, while a limited number caused minor damage. The analyst stressed that the UAE remains confident in its resilience and in its capacity to protect its people, economy, and institutions. At the same time, officials believe the current phase will pass, after which the UAE will reassess aspects of its regional relationships in light of recent events. Earlier, the UAE welcomed the adoption by the UN Security Council of a resolution that "condemns in the strongest terms" the unprovoked Iranian missile and drone strikes. The resolution, co-sponsored by a record number of nearly 140 Member States, including India, followed a period of unprovoked Iranian attacks against the UAE, Jordan, and other Gulf Cooperation Council states. Resolution 2817 (2026) was adopted by the 15-member Council with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions from China and the Russian Federation. The conflict, which began on February 28, has now entered its second week and drawn in nearly a dozen nations. Under the terms of the resolution, the Council specifically condemned Iranian strikes on residential areas and civilian objects, and demanded their immediate cessation. The UAE emphasised that the Council has now determined these actions constitute a breach of international law, as well as a serious threat to international peace and security. Throughout history, wars have been linked to rumors and attempts at disruption, making caution against them a national responsibility. The UAE said it stands today in a firm and steadfast position in confronting the Iranian aggression, and alongside this resilience, the media and societal responsibility emerges in countering the enemy's rumors and preventing their dissemination. The UAE says that it stands on the threshold of a decisive overcoming of this crisis, and this does not leave room for rumors to confuse or exaggerate. - ANI TotalEnergies has restarted production at Libyas Mabruk oil field after more than a decade of inactivity, restoring output from an onshore asset that had been offline since 2015 following security disruptions. The French energy major said the field, in which it holds a 37.5% stake, resumed operations on February 28 after the completion of a new production unit capable of processing up to 25,000 barrels per day. Construction on the facility began in May 2024, allowing the project to reach start-up in less than two years. Located roughly 130 kilometers south of Sirte within concession C17, Mabruk is one of several upstream assets operated in Libya by international partners alongside the state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC). The fields restart marks the latest step in the gradual recovery of Libyas oil sector, which has faced years of instability, intermittent shutdowns, and infrastructure damage since the countrys civil conflict intensified in the mid-2010s. For TotalEnergies, the project reinforces a long-standing presence in Libya, where the company has operated since 1956. The restart also aligns with the companys strategy to expand upstream production through relatively low-cost projects tied to existing infrastructure. The company said the development supports its broader goal of increasing hydrocarbon production by around 3% annually through 2030. Management described the Mabruk restart as part of a series of recent moves in Libya, including the extension of the Waha concessions, which remain among the countrys most significant oil-producing assets. TotalEnergies Libyan portfolio includes interests in the offshore Al Jurf field and several onshore developments, including El Sharara and the Waha concessions. The Waha assets are operated by Waha Oil Company, which is wholly owned by Libyas National Oil Corporation and jointly held with TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips. In 2025, TotalEnergies reported average production in Libya of about 113,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day across its operated and non-operated assets. The addition of output from Mabruk could modestly increase that figure while contributing to the countrys broader efforts to stabilize and expand crude production. Libya holds Africas largest proven oil reserves but has struggled to maintain consistent production levels due to political fragmentation and security risks. International operators have cautiously re-engaged in projects where infrastructure and operating conditions have improved, particularly in the Sirte Basin, one of the countrys most prolific hydrocarbon regions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported a massive overnight Russian attack involving approximately 430 drones and 68 missiles, including 13 ballistic missiles. He emphasized that air defense systems are a "daily necessity" and urged international partners to accelerate agreements on missile supplies and production. Zelenskyy also discussed security cooperation with French President Emmanuel Macron, focusing on joint defense projects and air defense. Furthermore, he stated Ukraine is ready to share its world-leading expertise in countering Iranian-made "Shahed" drones with partner nations. Zelenskyy reports a massive Russian attack of 430 drones & 68 missiles, urging partners to speed up air defense agreements and missile production. Kyiv, March 14 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said that Russia launched about 430 drones and several ballistic missiles towards Ukraine and underlined the importance of air defence system as a "daily necessity" for the country. He urged for speeding up of agreements on missile supplies and called for the production of air defence missiles. He made the remarks in a post on X and said, "Russians launched around 430 drones of various types and a significant number of missiles. There were 13 ballistic missiles alone, and the total number of missiles in this attack was 68. According to preliminary data, 58 of them were intercepted by our air defense system." The post further noted that such strikes are a reminder of the importance of air defence and said, "Every such night of Russian strikes is a reminder to all our partners that air defenses and the missiles for them are effectively a daily necessity. Every agreement on missile supplies cannot wait - everything must be implemented as quickly as possible. Our agreements to increase the production of air defense missiles are a critical direction, and this direction requires one hundred percent attention. Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine. This is why we must be fully aware of the real level of the threat and prepare accordingly, namely: in Europe, we need to develop the production of air defense missiles - especially those capable of countering ballistic threats - as well as all other systems necessary to truly protect lives, regardless of what may be happening in any other part of the world. Europe is able to ensure this level of reliable protection. Thank you to everyone who is helping!" Zelenskyy informed in the post that efforts to deal with the aftermath of the attack are currently underway in the Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Mykolaiv regions and that all necessary services are involved. "The main target for the Russians was the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv region, but unfortunately, there were also direct hits on and damage to ordinary residential buildings, schools, and civilian businesses. As of now, four people have been reported killed. My condolences to their families and loved ones. Many people have been injured, and some are still seeking medical assistance", the post added. Meanwhile on Friday, Zelenskyy met French President Emmanuel Macron and thanked France for the support to Ukraine and said that the two discussed Ukraine, Europe and West Asia conflict. He said, "Today, Emmanuel and I spoke primarily about security of Ukraine and Europe, as well as global security in light of the events in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Of course, today and always, Emmanuel and I maintain substantive coordination on issues related to our protection in Ukraine and our defense. We devote significant attention to joint defense production. We discussed both bilateral projects and the SAFE instrument. We identified steps and specific decisions that can deliver strong results. This concerns both air defense and combat aviation." In another post on X, he shared his remarks during the press conference with Macron and added, "Opinions may vary regarding this U.S. campaign against the Iranian regime, but it is hard for anyone to argue with the fact that the regime in Iran is terrorist in nature, and the entire region - and Iran itself - certainly needs far greater respect for life and stronger protection of life, first and foremost from this regime in Iran. Ukraine can contribute to stabilization. More than ten countries have already approached us for support in defending against "shaheds" - Iranian attack drones. These are essentially the same attack drones that the Iranian regime supplied to Russia and taught the Russians to use." He said, "Today, Ukraine has the greatest expertise in the world in countering "shaheds" - from developing interceptors to establishing a systemic defense against drones. It is not enough simply to obtain interceptors somewhere - there must also be experience in using them. Our warriors have such experience. There must also be proper systemic work with radars and with the entire air defense system. Ukraine is ready to share this experience for the security of those partners who are helping us." Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. - ANI Iran's ambassador to Britain has accused the United States and Israel of "unlawful and irresponsible" actions heightening tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. Seyyed Ali Mousavi warned Tehran would use all military capabilities to defend its sovereignty in response to perceived threats. He called on international bodies like the IMO to take a stand against these violations of maritime security. In response, IMO President Arsenio Dominguez acknowledged Iran's role and stressed the importance of sailor safety and free shipping. Iranian envoy condemns US and Israel, warns of using military capabilities to defend sovereignty in the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway. London, March 14 Iran's Ambassador to Britain and permanent representative to the International Maritime Organisation, Seyyed Ali Mousavi, has condemned the "unlawful and irresponsible" actions of the United States and Israel in the Strait of Hormuz, according to state broadcaster Press TV. During a meeting with IMO President Arsenio Dominguez in London on Friday, Mousavi attributed the heightening tensions within the strategic waterway to repeated acts of aggression. The Iranian diplomat asserted that the Islamic Republic is acting in self-defence under the United Nations Charter and within the framework of its inherent right. He further warned that Tehran will utilise all its military capabilities to defend its sovereignty, security, and national interests. According to the Press TV report, Mousavi specifically highlighted threats made by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) against Iranian ports and maritime installations. He described such intimidations as being in line with flagrant and recurrent violations of international law. He noted that these violations are currently occurring across the sectors of shipping, port infrastructure, and non-military sea facilities. "Not only are such threats in violation of the fundamentals of international law and established rules concerning maritime security, they can also have adverse results on international shipping and regional stability," Mousavi stated. As per the state broadcaster, the Ambassador appealed to the global community and international bodies, particularly the IMO, to take a stand against these violations. He urged an end to the authorisation and continuation of such moves to stop the escalation of maritime insecurity. In response, the IMO President acknowledged Iran's significant role within the organisation and the global shipping industry, stressing the importance of protecting the safety of sailors and maintaining free shipping. Regarding the ongoing tensions, Press TV reported that Dominguez noted that all countries reserve the right to act in self-defence. He emphasised the necessity of securing international maritime routes and preventing potential threats to the lives of seafarers. - ANI The U.S. State Department has announced a $10 million reward for information leading to Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and other senior officials through its "Rewards for Justice" program. This move follows escalated hostilities after coordinated U.S.-Israeli strikes and subsequent Iranian retaliatory attacks in late February. President Donald Trump told G7 allies that Iran is "about to surrender" and labeled Tehran's leadership "deranged scumbags." The regional conflict continues into its second week with ongoing drone and missile exchanges. US announces $10M reward for info on Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and senior officials as Trump calls regime "deranged scumbags." Washington, DC, March 14 The United States State Department has announced a bounty of USD 10 million for intelligence leading to Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, alongside several other high-ranking Iranian officials. The move on Friday follows an escalation in regional hostilities after coordinated US-Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military installations, which were met with retaliatory missile and drone offensives across the Middle East on February 28. The incentive was launched via the State Department's "Rewards for Justice" initiative. This programme provides financial compensation for information that assists in finding or bringing to justice individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism directed at the United States. In addition to Khamenei, the programme's updated list includes Iran's interior minister and the minister of intelligence and security. In a social media update, Rewards for Justice stated, "Got information on these Iranian terrorist leaders? Send us a tip. It could make you eligible for a reward and relocation." Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump claimed that the Iranian government is "about to surrender" in the face of the ongoing Middle East crisis. According to Axios, which cited officials from G7 nations, the President made these comments during a virtual summit with world leaders on Wednesday. During the Group of Seven discussions regarding the results of Operation "Epic Fury," Trump reportedly told allies that he had "got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all." As the regional conflict enters its second week with persistent drone and missile exchanges, the US President launched a scathing verbal attack on Tehran's leadership, labelling them "deranged scumbags." He further remarked that it was his "great honour" to eliminate them. Discussing the extensive military campaign against Iran, the President asserted that Washington is conducting operations to "destroy the terrorist regime of Iran" through military means. - ANI The United States is deploying the USS Tripoli amphibious ready group and approximately 2,500 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to West Asia. This movement responds to escalating tensions with Iran near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments. The deployment strengthens an already substantial US military presence, reported to exceed 50,000 troops in the region. Recent attacks attributed to Iran have disrupted maritime traffic, slowing tanker movements through the waterway. The Pentagon deploys the USS Tripoli strike group with 2,500 Marines to West Asia as tensions escalate with Iran around the Strait of Hormuz. Washington DC, March 14 The United States is sending an amphibious Ready Group led by the USS Tripoli and around 2,500 Marines to West Asia as tensions rise near the Strait of Hormuz following recent attacks linked to Iran, Fox News, citing a defence official, said. According to the report, the Pentagon is deploying the USS Tripoli ARG, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), part of its own strike group. The ship is currently based in Japan and is expected to reach the US Central Command's (USCENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR), West Asia, within one to two weeks. The Marines will join a large American military presence already in the region. According to New York Times, more than 50,000 US troops are currently operating across West Asia. US Pentagon's want for this new deployment comes amid increasing tensions in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's recent attacks near the waterway have disrupted maritime traffic through one of the world's most important energy routes. The Strait of Hormuz is considered one of the most strategically important waterways in the world. It connects the Persian Gulf with the northern Arabian Sea and is a key route for global energy supplies. Iran's southern coastline runs along the strait. Ships passing through the waterway are often contacted by Iranian authorities through maritime radio communications when they enter or exit the Gulf. The Strait handles a major share of global oil transport. Around one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the route on large commercial tankers. Recent security concerns have already affected oil shipments in the region. Tanker traffic slowed after strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran in later part of February. The USS Tripoli is part of the Tripoli Expeditionary Strike Group operating under the US Seventh Fleet. The group includes the USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The USS Tripoli is one of the largest amphibious assault ships in the US Navy. Nearly the size of an aircraft carrier, the ship can carry dozens of helicopters, MV-22 Osprey aircraft and F-35B Joint Strike Fighter jets, along with more than 1,700 Marines and their equipment. Amphibious ships like the USS Tripoli are designed to operate close to shore and support amphibious operations. They can deploy landing craft and aircraft to move troops and equipment from sea to land, as per the US Navy. As the regional conflict enters its second week with ongoing exchanges of projectiles, the US President had earlier labelled Tehran's leadership as "deranged scumbags". He had also said that it would be a "great honour" for him to eliminate them. President Trump had also asserted that Washington is conducting operations to "destroy the terrorist regime of Iran" through military means. - ANI The US Senate, led by Senator Dick Durbin, honored the life and legacy of Indian-American businessman and philanthropist Sunil Puri. Puri immigrated to Rockford, Illinois, in 1979 with minimal funds and worked multiple jobs to put himself through college. He founded a successful real estate group that revitalized the city's neglected properties and became a major philanthropic force, funding community centers and public spaces. Puri was also noted as an advocate for stronger diplomatic relations between the United States and India. The US Senate paid tribute to Sunil Puri, an immigrant from India who became a transformative businessman and philanthropist in Illinois. Washington, March 14 The US Senate paid tribute to Indian-American businessman and philanthropist Sunil Puri, with Senator Dick Durbin recalling his journey from a young immigrant arriving from India with little money to a civic leader who helped transform Rockford, Illinois. Durbin announced Puri's passing on the Senate floor and described him as a powerful example of the American dream. "Mr. President, when I think about the American dream, I think about my friend Sunil Puri," Durbin said. Puri immigrated to the United States from India in 1979 at the age of 18. Durbin said he arrived in Rockford "with little more than hope, tenacity, and $150 in his pocket." Over the next four decades, Puri became a leading businessman and philanthropist in the city. "Yet, over the span of four decades, he became one of Rockford's leading businessmen and philanthropists," Durbin said. Durbin recounted how Puri left Mumbai for Rockford in hopes of studying at Rockford College, now Rockford University. During his college years, Puri worked several jobs to support himself. "Through hard work, dedication, and many odd jobs, including cleaning bedpans and laying concrete, Sunil put himself through school," Durbin said. Durbin also highlighted the role of the local community in helping Puri succeed during those early years. "The citizens of Rockford opened their arms to Sunil, and in return, Sunil would spend the next four decades repaying the favor," he said. After graduating with a degree in accounting, Puri founded First Rockford Group, later known as First Midwest Group, a real estate development company involved in numerous redevelopment projects in the city. Durbin said the firm helped transform neglected properties into productive spaces. "They have turned abandoned and forgotten buildings into thriving restaurants, offices, and warehouses," Durbin said. He said the company's investments helped drive economic growth and job creation across the region. "First Midwest's investments in Rockford have breathed new life into the city, driving economic growth and creating jobs for thousands of Illinoisans," he said. Beyond business, Durbin noted Puri's extensive charitable work in Rockford. Inspired by a lesson from his parents, Puri often spoke about the importance of giving back. "'Water the flowers where you smell the roses,'" Durbin said. Puri donated millions of dollars and contributed significant time to community initiatives. His philanthropy helped fund several major projects, including the Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza, the southeast Rockford YMCA branch and the Salvation Army Puri Family Disaster Services Center. Durbin also noted Puri's advocacy for stronger ties between the United States and India. He said Puri was "a passionate advocate for improved US-Indian relations" and traveled to India with Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to support expanded engagement between the two countries. - IANS US Senator John Kennedy has introduced the Diego Garcia Treaty Oversight Act to prevent any modification of the 1966 US-UK agreement without Senate approval. The move directly challenges a UK proposal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, which include the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius. Kennedy framed his opposition by warning the base could fall under the influence of China, calling Mauritius "a pal of Xi Jinping's." The strategic military installation is a critical logistical hub for US operations across the Indian Ocean, Middle East, and Indo-Pacific. Senator John Kennedy introduces bill requiring Senate approval for any changes to the US-UK treaty governing the strategic Diego Garcia military base. Washington, March 14 A US senator has introduced legislation to block any transfer of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands - including the strategic Diego Garcia military base - unless the US Senate formally approves changes to the long-standing defence treaty between Washington and London. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, introduced the Diego Garcia Treaty Oversight Act, which would require the advice and consent of the Senate for any modification to the 1966 agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom concerning the British Indian Ocean Territory. The move comes amid concerns in Washington over a proposal by the United Kingdom to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The archipelago includes Diego Garcia, home to a key joint US-UK naval support facility. "When two countries shake hands on a treaty, one of them can't start changing the terms without the other country agreeing to it. That's just common sense," Kennedy said. "That's why I take issue with the United Kingdom trying to give our joint military base on Diego Garcia to a pal of Xi Jinping's-all without getting the US Senate's consent. My bill would make sure that our friends in the UK don't modify our treaty and hand this gift to China without giving the Senate a say," he added. Under the legislation, any modification to the 1966 agreement would require Senate approval before it could take effect. The bill also prohibits federal agencies from using funds to alter the treaty unless the Senate has provided its consent. In addition, the measure would require the President to submit a report to Congress before entering negotiations on any treaty modification. The report must detail the national security rationale for the proposed change, assess implications for US operational control of Diego Garcia, and evaluate risks posed by third-party sovereignty claims or foreign military presence. Kennedy has repeatedly criticised the proposed transfer of the Chagos Islands. The Louisiana senator has also engaged critics of the proposal in Britain and led a letter to the Trump administration encouraging Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to oppose the arrangement. Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, hosts a major joint US-UK military installation and serves as an important logistical and operational hub for American forces in the Indian Ocean region. The base has long played a key role in US military operations across the Middle East, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. Its location allows the United States to support long-range naval and air operations and maintain strategic presence across a vast stretch of the Indian Ocean. The dispute over the Chagos Islands has been a long-running issue in international diplomacy. Mauritius has long claimed sovereignty over the archipelago, which Britain separated from the territory before Mauritius gained independence in 1968. - IANS Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami celebrated the traditional Phool Dei festival at his official residence with his family. Children dressed in traditional attire performed rituals by placing flowers and rice at the doorstep, singing folk songs. The Chief Minister emphasized that the festival reflects the state's rich folk culture and respect for nature, marking the arrival of spring. He stated that preserving such traditions is a collective responsibility to ensure they are passed on to future generations. Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami celebrated the traditional Phool Dei festival, emphasizing the preservation of folk culture and gratitude towards nature. Dehradun, March 14 Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami celebrated the traditional folk festival Phool Dei with his family at the Chief Minister's residence on Saturday. On the occasion, he extended his greetings and best wishes to the people of the state. His wife, Geeta Pushkar Dhami, was also present. The festival was celebrated with great enthusiasm and according to traditional customs. Children dressed in traditional attire placed flowers and rice on the doorstep of the house and prayed for everyone's happiness and prosperity. They also sang traditional folk songs. The Chief Minister welcomed the children and presented them with gifts. The Chief Minister said that the festival of Phool Dei reflects the rich folk culture, traditions, and respect for nature in the state. He added that the festival marks the arrival of spring and conveys a message of nature's beauty and renewed energy in life. "It also reminds people to always express gratitude to nature," CM Dhami added. He further said that the folk culture and traditional festivals of Uttarakhand are part of the state's cultural heritage, and preserving them is a "collective responsibility of everyone". He emphasised that such festivals should be celebrated with enthusiasm so that they "reach future generations and keep the state's folk culture alive" The Chief Minister added that the festival of Phool Dei, which conveys the message of gratitude toward nature, welcoming the spring season, and preserving folk culture, inspires people to stay connected with their roots and introduce future generations to these invaluable traditions. CM Pushkar Singh Dhami also participated in the 119th All India Farmers' Fair and Agricultural Industry Exhibition being held at Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - ANI The Uttarakhand government is directing officials to ensure wide publicity of the new "Plea Bargaining" provisions introduced under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. The move aims to make the justice system more accessible and effective while reducing the burden of pending court cases. Under these provisions, an accused in cases with potential punishment of less than seven years can apply for plea bargaining within 30 days of charges being framed. In a separate administrative meeting, Dehradun's District Magistrate also reviewed the LPG gas supply and distribution system in the district. Uttarakhand govt orders wide publicity of new plea bargaining provisions under BNSS 2023 to simplify justice and reduce court case backlog. Dehradun, March 13 The Uttarakhand government has stated that the Government of India has introduced a provision for "Plea Bargaining" under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, to make the justice system more accessible and effective, as well as reduce the burden of pending cases in courts. Referring to a letter sent by the Union Home Secretary to all Chief Secretaries, Gajendra Singh Kaflia, Joint Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand, in a communication addressed to the Inspector General of Police (Crime and Law & Order), the Prison Administration and Correctional Services Department, the Additional Secretary of the Medical Education and Health Department, the Director of the National Informatics Centre, the Additional Director of the Prosecution Directorate, and the Joint Director of the Forensic Science Laboratory Uttarakhand, has requested that wide publicity of the provisions related to "Plea Bargaining" under the BNSS, 2023 be ensured in the public interest. The letter emphasises that extensive awareness should be created so that the implementation of the plea bargaining provisions under the BNSS, 2023, can gain greater momentum and help make the judicial process simpler, faster, and more effective. He further clarified that the primary objective of the new provisions introduced under this code is to bring greater ease to the justice system and reduce the pressure of pending cases on courts. Under these provisions, in cases where the punishment is less than seven years of imprisonment, the accused has been granted the legal right to apply for plea bargaining within 30 days of the framing of charges, thereby helping to bring greater efficiency and dynamism to the judicial process. Meanwhile, Dehradun District Magistrate Savin Bansal held a meeting at Rishiparna Auditorium in the Collectorate on Thursday to review the availability and distribution system of LPG gas in the district. The meeting was attended by officials from oil companies and operators of gas agencies. During the meeting, the status of domestic and commercial gas supply in the district was reviewed, and necessary directions were issued to ensure a smooth distribution system. - ANI Vice President CP Radhakrishnan and Himachal Pradesh Governor Kavinder Gupta visited the Mata Chamunda Temple in Kangra district to offer prayers. They sought divine blessings for the peace, prosperity, and well-being of the state's people. Both leaders emphasized the temple's role as a center of faith and a pillar of the region's rich cultural heritage. The Governor also highlighted the immense potential of religious and spiritual tourism for Himachal's development. Vice President CP Radhakrishnan and Himachal Governor Kavinder Gupta offered prayers at Mata Chamunda Temple, highlighting its spiritual and cultural significance. Dharamshala, March 14 Vice President CP Radhakrishnan, along with Governor Kavinder Gupta, on Saturday paid obeisance at the sacred Mata Chamunda Temple in Kangra district. They offered prayers at the temple and sought the blessings of Goddess Chamunda for the peace, prosperity and well-being of the people of the State. During his visit, the Governor also interacted with the temple authorities and appreciated the spiritual significance of the shrine, which attracts a large number of devotees from across the country throughout the year. Radhakrishnan said that such revered places of worship are not only centres of faith and devotion but also reflect the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of Himachal Pradesh. Kavinder Gupta said that religious and spiritual tourism holds immense potential in the State and could play an important role in promoting Himachal Pradesh as a prominent destination for pilgrims and tourists alike. He added that the preservation and promotion of such historic temples would further strengthen the cultural identity of the region. The Governor also prayed for the progress and prosperity of the State and expressed hope that the divine blessings of Mata Chamunda would continue to guide the people of Himachal Pradesh on the path of peace, harmony and development. Jai Ram Thakur, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Minister Chander Kumar, Anurag Thakur, Member of Parliament, Senior district officers, temple authorities and other prominent people were also present on the occasion. - ANI Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal inaugurated the BJP's Election Media Workshop 2026 in Chennai to establish a positive narrative for the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections. He accused the Congress and DMK of creating a "fake narrative" using AI to claim PM Modi is against reservations, countering that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who opposed the system. Meghwal emphasized the workshop's role in strengthening the party's spokesperson network to coordinate messaging across the state. With elections due in April-May, the BJP is focusing on expanding its grassroots support and capitalizing on its NDA alliance. Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal says BJP workshop will counter Congress-DMK "fake narrative" on Constitution and reservations ahead of TN polls. Chennai, March 14 Union Minister and BJP Election Co-Incharge for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, Arjun Ram Meghwal, on Saturday said that the Election Media Workshop 2026 was organised to set a positive narrative ahead of the Assembly elections. "In 2024, the Congress party and DMK created a fake narrative that if the BJP comes to power, they will change the Constitution and abolish reservation. It was a fake narrative. Today, it was a workshop for the spokespersons of the BJP. We will oppose the fake narrative, and we will create a positive narrative," he said while speaking to the reporters. Addressing the gathering at the workshop, the Tamil Nadu BJP Election Co-Incharge affirmed that Congress has set a false narrative stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is against reservation, further claiming that it was former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was against the idea of the reservation system in India. "Through AI, they created the idea that PM Modi is against reservations. We couldn't oppose it in the proper way so that it reached people. The fact is, Nehru was against reservations. Nehru wrote a letter to all the CMs of state saying that he is against reservations. They did a fake narrative and said if the BJP crossed 400, they would change the constitution," he said. Furthermore, Meghwal highlighted that the BJP is making its footing in the state and emphasised that the workshop will help strengthen the Spokesperson ECI system and will set a positive narrative. "BJP is expanding rapidly in Tamil Nadu with growing grassroots support. We have a very good alliance now. And now in the rally, people like the media have started to talk about the NDA coming tomorrow in Tamil Nadu. We need coordinated narratives; this workshop is to strengthen the Spokesperson ECI system. Every Spokesperson is the voice of this region in Tamil Nadu," he said. The Tamil Nadu elections are set to happen in April or May, with all political parties gearing up to prepare for campaigning. Both the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the DMK-led alliance (with Congress) have almost finalised the seat-sharing arrangement. In the 2021 elections, the DMK-led alliance secured a major victory by winning 159 seats, with the DMK becoming the single largest party by 133 seats, crossing the halfway mark on its own. The AIADMK had secured 60 seats, while their alliance partner, the BJP, secured 4. - ANI Chinese senior officials to attend ministerial meeting of China-Vietnam "3+3" strategic dialogue in Vietnam Xinhua) 16:40, March 13, 2026 BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson announced here Friday that at the invitation of the Vietnamese side, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, member of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, and Minister of National Defense Dong Jun will be in Vietnam from March 15 to 17 for the first ministerial meeting of the China-Vietnam "3+3" strategic dialogue on diplomacy, defense and public security. The spokesperson also announced that Wang Yi will co-chair the 17th meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation with leader from the Vietnamese side. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Trex Company, Inc. (NYSE:TREX) is among the 11 Most Oversold Stocks to Buy Now. Trex Company, Inc. (TREX) Introduces Trex Refug Fire-Resistant Decking On March 9, 2026, Trex Company, Inc. (NYSE:TREX) introduced Trex Refug decking, a new product engineered to resist fire ignition and slow flame spread. The polymer PVC boards are supported by independent third-party testing and are designed to meet building-code requirements for Class A Flame Spread and ignition resistance. The company said the product complies with standards for both WUI zones and IWUIC, allowing it to be specified in many high fire-risk areas while maintaining aesthetics and performance. On March 3, 2026, Trex Company announced an agreement to repurchase approximately $100M of its outstanding common stock through an accelerated share repurchase program with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association. The program is part of the companys board-approved $150M share repurchase authorization. Under the agreement, Trex paid $100M to Wells Fargo and expects to receive an initial delivery of about 1.9M shares of its common stock. On February 24, 2026, Trex reported Q4 EPS of 4c compared with the (1c) consensus estimate and revenue of $161M versus the $144.4M consensus. CEO Bryan Fairbanks said fourth-quarter sales exceeded expectations despite a challenging repair and remodeling environment, supported by stronger railing sales late in the quarter and slightly better-than-expected decking shipments in December. Fairbanks added that the estimated sell-through of Trex products grew about 4% for the year, outpacing the broader repair and remodel market. Trex Company, Inc. (NYSE:TREX) manufactures and sells composite decking and railing products in the United States. While we acknowledge the potential of TREX as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock . READ NEXT: 12 Best Tech Stocks that Beat Earnings Estimates and 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026 Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. The Regional Meteorological Centre forecasts very light, isolated rainfall for Ramanathapuram and Thoothukudi districts over the next two days. For the rest of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, dry weather conditions are expected to persist with no significant rainfall. Daytime temperatures are predicted to rise slightly across the state, leading to warmer conditions as summer intensifies. Officials advise the public to take precautions against heat exposure and stay hydrated. Ramanathapuram & Thoothukudi may see light rain. Rest of Tamil Nadu to stay dry with rising temperatures. Chennai forecast included. Chennai, March 14 The Regional Meteorological Centre has forecast the possibility of light rainfall in isolated places in Ramanathapuram and Thoothukudi districts over the next two days, while most other parts of Tamil Nadu are expected to experience dry weather conditions. According to the weather department, one or two locations in Ramanathapuram and Thoothukudi districts may receive very light rain today and tomorrow. However, the rest of the State is likely to remain largely dry, with no significant rainfall expected in most districts. Meteorological officials said the brief spell of rain in the southern coastal districts is due to minor atmospheric changes over the region. Though the rainfall is expected to be minimal, it may provide temporary relief from the rising temperatures in these areas. The department further noted that there is unlikely to be any significant change in the maximum temperatures across Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal in the coming days. However, temperatures may rise slightly in some regions, resulting in warmer daytime conditions. Weather experts have advised residents to prepare for increasingly warm weather as summer gradually intensifies across the State. With the absence of widespread rainfall, several districts are expected to continue experiencing dry and hot conditions during the daytime. In Chennai, the weather is expected to remain partly cloudy on Saturday. The Regional Meteorological Centre has predicted that the maximum temperature in the city will hover between 34 degree Celsius and 35 degree Celsius, while the minimum temperature is expected to range between 24 degree Celsius and 25 degree Celsius. Despite the partly cloudy skies, the city is unlikely to receive rainfall, and the weather is expected to remain largely stable over the next 24 hours. Humidity levels are likely to remain moderate, which could add to the feeling of warmth during the afternoon hours. Meteorological officials said that such isolated rainfall activity is typical during this transitional period between winter and summer in Tamil Nadu. While southern coastal districts occasionally experience light showers due to localised weather patterns, most parts of the State generally remain dry during this time. The department continues to monitor weather patterns across the region and has advised the public, particularly those working outdoors, to stay hydrated and take precautions against heat exposure as temperatures gradually rise in the coming weeks. - IANS External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held a telephonic conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, discussing bilateral cooperation and the role of BRICS in the current West Asian crisis. This follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, where Modi expressed deep concern over escalating tensions and civilian casualties. The Iranian side briefed Jaishankar on the situation, emphasizing its right to self-defence and calling for international bodies to condemn the aggression. India reiterated its commitment to regional stability, highlighting the safety of its nationals and the importance of unhindered energy transit as key priorities. EAM Jaishankar and Iranian FM Araghchi hold talks on bilateral cooperation and BRICS role amid escalating West Asia conflict. PM Modi also spoke with Iranian President. New Delhi, March 13 External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday held another telephonic conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, discussing bilateral cooperation and matters concerning BRICS, where India is the current chair and Iran a member of the grouping. This marked the fourth such conversation between the two ministers amid the escalating crisis involving Iran, the United States, and Israel. The interaction followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday night to review the serious situation unfolding in the West Asian region. Taking to social media platform X on Friday, EAM Jaishankar said, "Had another conversation with Iranian FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi yesterday night. Discussed bilateral matters as also BRICS-related issues." According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Araghchi briefed EAM Jaishankar on the latest situation resulting from the "acts of aggression and atrocities" committed by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran, as well as the consequences for regional and global stability and security. "He emphasised the firm resolve of the Iranian government, nation, and armed forces to exercise their legitimate right to self-defence against the aggressors. The Iranian Foreign Minister stressed the necessity for regional and international bodies and organisations to condemn the military aggression against Iran. Highlighting the importance and position of BRICS as a forum for developing multilateral cooperation, Araghchi deemed it essential for the institution to play a constructive role at the current juncture in supporting regional and global stability and security," read a statement issued by Iran's Foreign Ministry on Friday afternoon after the phone call between both ministers. "During the call, India's Foreign Minister expressed his country's readiness to expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation within regional and international forums. He also emphasised the importance of finding a path to strengthen sustainable stability and security in the region as a collective necessity," it added. During his conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian late Thursday evening, PM Modi had voiced concern over the escalation of tensions, pointing to the loss of civilian lives and damage to infrastructure. He underlined that the safety of Indian nationals remains the government's foremost priority while reiterating India's commitment to peace and stability in the region. "Had a conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss the serious situation in the region. Expressed deep concern over the escalation of tensions and the loss of civilian lives as well as damage to civilian infrastructure. The safety and security of Indian nationals, along with the need for unhindered transit of goods and energy, remain India's top priorities. Reiterated India's commitment to peace and stability and urged for dialogue and diplomacy," PM Modi posted on X. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reached out to several Gulf leaders following the outbreak of the conflict, stressing the importance of dialogue and diplomacy to restore peace and safeguard civilians. "Our Prime Minister, as you know, has spoken to several leaders in the Gulf after the conflict started. In these conversations, he stressed the need for dialogue and diplomacy so that early peace can return. He also underlined the need to avoid civilian casualties, and he focused on the priority for the protection of civilians," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a weekly media briefing in New Delhi. "We have a large Indian community in the GCC countries, and obviously, their security and welfare are of utmost importance; this was highlighted. We also, in several cases, condemned the violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity of states," he added. Responding to a question regarding the movement of vessels around the Strait of Hormuz, the MEA spokesperson said that EAM Jaishankar and the Foreign Minister of Iran have discussed issues pertaining to the safety of shipping and India's energy security. The conversation indicates India's proactive diplomatic outreach in light of the evolving situation. Iran recently allowed India-flagged tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following talks between EAM Jaishankar and Araghchi, with the aim of keeping the critical sea route open for the transportation of crude oil and natural gas. According to sources familiar with the developments, Indian tankers 'Pushpak' and 'Parimal' passed safely through the Strait of Hormuz even as ships from the US, Europe and Israel continue to face restrictions in the strategically important waterway. - IANS Two Indian nationals were killed and several others injured in an attack in Sohar, Oman, as confirmed by the Ministry of External Affairs. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal expressed condolences and stated the Indian mission is in touch with local authorities and the employer to assist those affected. The incident occurs amid escalating tensions and security concerns in the West Asian region, which hosts a large Indian diaspora. The report follows high-level diplomatic conversations between Indian and Iranian officials regarding the regional crisis. Two Indian nationals killed, several injured in an attack in Sohar, Oman. MEA confirms, offers condolences, and is providing assistance amid West Asia tensions. New Delhi, March 13 Two Indian nationals were killed and several others injured in an attack in Oman's Sohar amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X that the Indian mission in Oman is in contact with local authorities and the employer company and is providing assistance to those affected. "We lost two Indian nationals today in an attack in Sohar, Oman, in the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Several other Indian nationals were also injured. We express our deepest condolences to the families of the deceased and wish a speedy recovery to the injured," Jaiswal said. He added that the Indian embassy in Oman is closely monitoring the situation and extending all possible help to the victims and their families. "Our Mission in Oman is in touch with the local authorities as well as the employer company and is extending all possible assistance," the MEA spokesperson said. The incident comes amid heightened tensions and security concerns in parts of West Asia, where ongoing hostilities have affected several areas and raised concerns about the safety of foreign nationals working in the region. Sohar, an industrial port city in Oman, hosts a number of industrial facilities and employs a large expatriate workforce, including many Indian nationals working in various sectors. India maintains a sizeable diaspora presence in Oman, with hundreds of thousands of Indians employed across sectors such as construction, industry, services and trade. The Indian embassy in Muscat regularly coordinates with Omani authorities and employers to address issues related to the welfare and safety of Indian workers in the country. Earlier on Friday, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar held another telephonic conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, discussing bilateral cooperation and matters concerning BRICS, where India is the current chair and Iran a member of the grouping. This marked the fourth such conversation between the two ministers amid the escalating crisis involving Iran, the United States and Israel. The interaction followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday night to review the serious situation unfolding in the West Asian region. Taking to social media platform X on Friday, EAM Jaishankar said: "Had another conversation with Iranian FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi yesterday night. Discussed bilateral matters as well as BRICS-related issues." According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Araghchi briefed EAM Jaishankar on the latest situation resulting from the "acts of aggression and atrocities" committed by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran, as well as the consequences for regional and global stability and security. - IANS BJP supporters from remote Sundarbans islands embarked on early morning boat journeys to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's major rally at Kolkata's historic Brigade Parade Ground. The supporters cited a desire for political change and criticized the current state government over allegations of corruption. The rally is a key part of the BJP's statewide campaign ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections and is expected to draw a massive crowd. During his visit, the Prime Minister will also inaugurate and lay foundation stones for significant infrastructure projects, including national highway developments. Supporters from remote Sundarbans islands journey by boat to attend PM Narendra Modi's major political rally at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground. New Delhi, March 14 Supporters of the BJP from remote areas of the Sundarbans began their journey early on Saturday to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mega rally at the historic Brigade Parade Ground. Large groups of party workers and supporters from island regions such as Sagar Island, Namkhana and Patharpratima were seen crossing rivers by boats to reach the mainland before travelling onward to Kolkata. Due to the geographical challenges of the Sundarbans region - where waterways remain the primary mode of transportation - many supporters started their journey early in the morning to ensure they could attend the rally. Visuals from the area showed dozens of people boarding boats carrying party flags as they headed towards the rally venue. BJP leaders said the turnout from remote and rural parts of the state reflects growing enthusiasm among supporters ahead of the upcoming political battles in West Bengal. One BJP supporter travelling from the Sundarbans said the group was eager to hear the Prime Minister speak at the rally. "We are going by boat through the Sundarbans today because Modi ji is coming to the Brigade rally. We are going there to listen to him. Under the current state government there has been a lot of corruption and theft -there have been scams and even theft of rice meant for people. We want change in 2026," he told IANS. Another supporter said people from various backgrounds were coming together for the event. "People from different areas and communities are coming together to attend the rally," he added. Prime Minister Modi's address at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata is expected to be one of the largest political gatherings in the state this year. The rally also marks the culmination of the BJP's statewide outreach campaign ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. During his visit, the Prime Minister is also scheduled to inaugurate and lay the foundation stones for major infrastructure projects, including key national highway developments aimed at improving connectivity across West Bengal. Party leaders expect a massive turnout at the rally, with supporters arriving from districts across the state since early morning to attend the event. - IANS West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced the formation of five new Cultural and Development Boards for specific Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste, and Other Backward Class communities. The boards are intended to protect the unique languages and traditions of the Munda, Kora, Dom, Kumbhakar, and Sadgope communities while ensuring their socio-economic growth through better access to education, healthcare, and jobs. The announcement comes in a political climate ahead of the 2026 state elections and follows a recent controversy during President Droupadi Murmu's visit to a Santhal conference. The ruling TMC government frames the move as part of its commitment to inclusive progress for all communities in Bengal. CM Mamata Banerjee announces new boards for Munda, Kora, Dom, Kumbhakar & Sadgope communities to protect language, tradition & ensure development. Kolkata, March 13 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday announced five new Cultural and Development Boards for marginalised communities in the state. Taking to X, Mamata Banerjee announced Cultural and Development Boards for the Munda (ST), Kora (ST), Dom (SC), Kumbhakar (OBC) and Sadgope (OBC) communities. She said that the boards will protect their unique languages and traditions while ensuring education, healthcare, and jobs. The West Bengal CM wrote, "I am pleased to announce that our government intends to constitute soon five new Cultural and Development Boards for the Munda (ST), Kora (ST), Dom (SC), Kumbhakar (OBC) and Sadgope (OBC) communities. These communities are integral to the vibrant fabric of Bengal. My heartiest congratulations to all of them." She added that the boards' aim is to safeguard customary rights and bring socio-economic growth to the communities. "These boards will protect their unique languages and traditions while ensuring better education, healthcare, and jobs. They will safeguard customary rights and bring further socio-economic growth. Since 2013, we have established many such boards for our weaker communities, ensuring their all-round development," she said. "Our commitment to Ma, Mati, Manush means we remain dedicated to ensuring no community is left behind. Our goal is simple: to bring a smile to every face through inclusive progress and unwavering support. Jai Bangla," the X post read. This comes ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections, where the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will look to defend its fortress against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which would want to secure a victory after winning 77 seats in the last elections. The move also follows the political row surrounding President Murmu's recent visit to West Bengal. During a Santhal conference held on March 7, the President expressed disappointment over the arrangements at the event and questioned the choice of venue, saying many members of the Santal community were unable to attend because it was located in a remote area. She also noted the absence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other state ministers during the event. While the ruling TMC rejected allegations of protocol lapses, the BJP called it a "disrespect" towards the President and tribal communities. - ANI The White House has issued a strong statement accusing CNN of publishing a false report regarding U.S. planning for a potential Iranian move to close the Strait of Hormuz. Officials stated the network misrepresented military planning linked to Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing campaign against Iran's military capabilities. The statement cited Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and supportive comments from Senators Tom Cotton and Tim Sheehy, who attended classified briefings. It emphasized that Operation Epic Fury is designed to neutralize Iran's ability to threaten global shipping lanes. White House calls CNN report "false," insists US long planned for Iran closing Strait of Hormuz. Senators Cotton and Sheehy back administration. Washington, March 14 The White House accused CNN of publishing false claims about US planning for a possible Iranian move to close the Strait of Hormuz, pushing back strongly against a report questioning whether American officials had prepared for the scenario during the ongoing military campaign against Tehran. In a statement issued by the White House, officials said the report misrepresented US military planning linked to Operation Epic Fury, the campaign targeting Iran's military capabilities. "Fake News CNN is at it again," the statement said, accusing the network of pushing "Democrat-sourced fiction to undermine our decisive victories in Operation Epic Fury." According to the White House, CNN had alleged that the Pentagon and the National Security Council "did not plan" for Iran's willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical shipping corridors. The White House rejected that claim and said the possibility had long been part of US military planning. "As Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has made crystal clear, the military has planned for this exact contingency for decades," the statement said. The White House said Operation Epic Fury was designed specifically to neutralise Iran's ability to threaten maritime routes. "Operation Epic Fury is deliberately designed to annihilate Iran's navy, missiles, drones, and launch capabilities precisely to eliminate any meaningful threat to global shipping lanes like the Strait of Hormuz," the statement said. The statement also cited comments from lawmakers who attended classified briefings and disputed the reporting. "As Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, let me make clear: whoever leaked this lied. CNN should do some fact-checking. The US has planned for Iran to try to close the strait for decades," said Sen. Tom Cotton. Another senator who attended the briefing, Tim Sheehy, also rejected the claim. "I received a classified briefing from the administration. It is categorically false that they did not plan for Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. Lawmakers and national security officials have known for years that this was Iran's plan once their backs were against the wall," Sheehy said. The White House said Operation Epic Fury continues to pursue its stated objectives against Iran's military capabilities. "Under President Trump's bold and resolute leadership, Operation Epic Fury continues to advance its clear objectives: destroying Iran's ballistic missile arsenal and production capacity, obliterating its navy, severing its support for its terrorist proxies, and ensuring the regime can never threaten the free world with nuclear weapons," the statement said. - IANS Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a direct and stark warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting he could be targeted. Netanyahu labeled Khamenei a "puppet" of the IRGC and declared a transformed strategic reality in the Middle East, emphasizing Israel's proactive military stance. He stated an additional goal of creating conditions for the Iranian people to potentially overthrow their government, while acknowledging the ultimate choice rests with them. The remarks come amid heightened regional tensions, with Israel accusing Iran of backing militant groups across the Middle East. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu issues a stark warning to Iran's new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting he could be a target and vows continued attacks. Jerusalem, March 13 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delivered a direct warning to Iran's new supreme leader, Ayotallah Mojtaba Khamenei, suggesting that Israel could lok at targeting him just as they did his father. Asked if Israel would go after Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, Netanyahu replied: "I wouldn't issue life insurance policies on any of the leaders of the terrorist organizations. This is their patron of terrorism. And I don't intend to provide an exact report here about what we are planning or what we are going to do." Netanyahu dubbed the younger Khamenei a "puppet" of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps who "cannot show his face in public." In a strong statement, Netanyahu suggested that developments in the region have transformed the strategic balance involving Israel, Iran and the broader Middle East, while also hinting at possible future actions against groups that Israel considers terrorist organisations. "Even now it can be said with certainty: This is no longer the same Iran. This is no longer the same Middle East. And this is also not the same Israel. We are not waiting, we are initiating, we are attacking. And we are doing so with a force the like of which has not been seen before," Netanyahu said. The Israeli leader also referred to political conditions inside Iran and said Israel's actions aim to create circumstances that could encourage change within the country. However, he acknowledged that such an outcome would ultimately depend on the Iranian people themselves. "I have added another goal: to create the conditions for the Iranian people to overthrow this terrible tyrannical regime. To create conditions doesn't guarantee that it will happen. And I told them just now in what I said a moment ago. I said 'It's up to you.' It depends on you," he said. Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel's military actions could weaken Iran's leadership but stressed that the fate of the regime would ultimately depend on the Iranian people themselves. "You can lead someone to water, but you can't make them drink," Netanyahu said, referring to the possibility of a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic. The remarks come at a time of heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, with both countries accusing each other of supporting destabilising activities across the Middle East. Israel has repeatedly alleged that Iran backs militant groups operating in several parts of the region, including in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Tehran, however, has denied the accusations and has criticised Israel's military actions in the region. Israel has carried out a number of operations targeting what it describes as Iranian military infrastructure and allied armed groups in neighbouring countries. The Israeli government maintains that these actions are necessary to prevent Iran from expanding its military presence and influence near Israeli borders. - ANI The Israel Defence Forces issued an urgent evacuation order for an industrial zone west of Tabriz, Iran, warning civilians their lives are at risk. This alert follows a major Israeli aerial offensive that struck over 150 Iranian military targets across western and central Iran. The military operations included 20 waves of strikes targeting missile sites, drone facilities, and weapons production sites. In a related ground escalation, the IDF also reported eliminating members of Iran's Basij forces overnight in Tehran. Israeli military warns civilians to evacuate an industrial area near Tabriz, Iran, ahead of imminent operations, escalating regional tensions. Tel Aviv, March 14 The Israel Defence Forces issued an urgent evacuation mandate on Saturday morning for an industrial zone situated west of Tabriz, Iran, as military tensions between the two nations continue to escalate. The directive was communicated via a Farsi-language post on X, targeting residents and workers within the specified perimeter. "The Israeli army, as it has done in recent days in the Tehran region by targeting the military infrastructure of the Iranian regime, will conduct operations in this area in the coming hours," read the warning. This alert follows a series of recent surgical strikes conducted by the Israeli military against strategic facilities within Iran. Emphasising the immediate danger to those remaining in the vicinity, the military stated, "Dear citizens, for the sake of your safety and well-being, we kindly request that you immediately evacuate the designated area indicated on the map." Officials further warned civilians that failure to comply with the directive would lead to life-threatening circumstances, adding, "Your presence in this area puts your life at risk." These developments come as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have concluded a massive aerial offensive against Iranian military assets, striking over 150 regime locations across the western and central regions of the country, according to a report by The Jerusalem Post. The military confirmed that the operations, which spanned 20 waves of strikes on Friday, successfully dismantled a wide array of strategic targets. These included missile sites and launchers, drone facilities, defence systems, and weapons production sites. In a significant escalation of ground-level engagement, an IDF statement said that the IAF had eliminated several members of the Iranian Basij forces overnight as they operated recently established roadblocks in Tehran. As noted by The Jerusalem Post, the military highlighted the specific role of the targeted personnel within Iran's internal power structure. The Basij forces, part of Iran's security apparatus, had led the Islamic regime's deadly crackdown on protesters in January 2026, the IDF noted. - ANI Trump Jr, European Lithiums Tanbreez and the new geopolitics of rare earths Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock Tony Sages recent meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in Singapore highlights how a once-obscure rare earths project in southern Greenland could become increasingly important in the global race to secure critical minerals supply chains. Sage, the CEO of European Lithium Ltd (ASX:EUR, OTCQB:EULIF), the owner of Critical Metals Corp, sat down with Trump Jr. to discuss the potential for the Tanbreez Rare Earths Project to help break Chinas dominance over heavy rare earth elements. While the conversation was informal, it reflects the growing convergence between private capital, geopolitical strategy and the mining sector as Western governments scramble to secure supply of minerals essential to modern technology and defence systems. Donald Trump Jr. and European Lithium CEO Tony Sage, after discussing the potential of the Tanbreez mine to end Chinas dominance of the heavy rare earths market. Trump Jr. is heavily involved in the rare earths sector. His venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, backs rare earths magnet producer Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina-based company that recently secured a $620 million direct loan from the US Department of Defense as part of a broader $1.4 billion agreement aimed at boosting domestic rare earth magnet production. Rare earth magnets are critical components in everything from electric vehicles and robotics to semiconductors, wind turbines, drones and smartphones. The Pentagons willingness to fund projects across the rare earth value chain reflects a growing consensus in Washington that supply security for these materials is increasingly viewed as a matter of national security. That same strategic imperative sits at the centre of Critical Metals Tanbreez project in Greenland. Tanbreez hosts one of the worlds largest rare earth deposits, containing the mineral eudialyte, which is enriched in rare earth elements. Importantly, around 30% of the deposit consists of heavy rare earth elements the most strategically valuable portion of the rare earths spectrum because they are essential for defence technologies, high-performance magnets and advanced electronics. Tanbreez Rare Earths Project (Source: Critical Metals Corp) Heavy rare earths are far more difficult to source than their light rare earth counterparts and remain heavily concentrated in Chinese supply chains. China controls roughly 90% of global rare earth processing capacity, giving it enormous leverage over global technology supply chains. Tanbreez emerges as a strategic Western asset The geopolitical stakes have been rising in recent years. Beijing has imposed export controls on several strategic minerals, including gallium, germanium and antimony materials used in semiconductors and defence applications. The move highlights the vulnerability of Western supply chains and accelerated efforts in the United States and Europe to develop alternative sources of critical minerals. Due to scheduled maintenance from Saturday, March 15, 2025, at 10 PM to Sunday, March 16, 2025, at 2 AM, there may be interruptions for our News Gazette Digital subscribers. During this time frame, please click on any News Gazette website content without logging into your News Gazette Digital subscription account. Thank you for your patience during this scheduled maintenance. Older Americans are willing to travel far for medical care - sometimes much farther than policymakers and experts assume, according to researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Why it matters: As hospitals close in some areas, practices consolidate and telehealth expands, older adults may tolerate long trips for care - but not equally. The study suggests socioeconomic status affects willingness to travel. What's new: A study published recently in JAMA Network Open finds that many Americans age 65 and older are willing to travel more than an hour for routine or specialized medical care. What happened: Researchers at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) surveyed a nationally representative group of older adults. Questions centered on how long respondents currently travel for care and how much farther they would be willing to go before deciding to delay or skip an appointment. Results: On average, respondents would tolerate about an hour or more of travel time, particularly for specialty care. Growth of telehealth may be impacted by how willing patients are to take long trips for in-person care versus receiving remote clinical care. (Image source: iStock.) For primary care visits, they would travel 68 minutes. For a diagnostic test, such as an MRI, 113 minutes. For a specialist visit, 128 minutes. What they're saying: "This shows older adults place a high value on access to care," said Soeren Mattke, professor (research) of economics, director of the Brain Health Observatory at CESR and study senior author. "They are often willing to travel significant distances before delaying or forgoing care." Yes, but: The averages mask important differences. Older adults in poorer health, those living in large metropolitan areas and those who had previously struggled with transportation were less willing to travel long durations. In contrast, those with higher incomes, more education and reliable access to a car reported greater willingness to spend more time traveling. Study first author Jeremy Burke, senior economist at CESR, said those gaps matter for health equity. "If someone is already dealing with health challenges or transportation barriers, even modest increases in travel time can become a real obstacle," Burke said. "Those are the patients most at risk of delaying care." The big picture: Health systems are consolidating, with some services moving into regional hubs rather than neighborhood clinics. Policymakers often debate how far is "too far" for patients to travel, especially for older adults. This study suggests that distance alone isn't the full story. The type of visit, transportation options and personal resources all shape decisions. The findings also have implications for telehealth. Virtual visits can reduce travel burdens, but they may not fully replace in-person care, especially for diagnostic tests or specialist consultations that require equipment or physical exams. "Telehealth is an important tool, but it's not a cure-all," Mattke said. "We still need to think carefully about where services are located and how patients physically get there." What else? Transportation policy plays a role, too. Programs that offer ride services, improved public transit or partnerships with community organizations could make a meaningful difference for vulnerable seniors. Between the lines: Older adults living in big cities were less willing to travel long durations. This might boil down to traffic, parking and other travel complexities, which make even short drives feel burdensome. But rural residents, who often already travel long distances for care, appeared more accepting of extended trips. Bottom line: Many older Americans are willing to travel surprisingly long distances for medical care - but willingness depends on health, resources and access to transportation. As care delivery models evolve, understanding those differences may help health systems and policymakers design services that better match patients' needs and circumstances. About the study The findings are based on data from the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative internet panel administered by CESR. For this study, researchers surveyed a representative sample of 2,650 adults age 65 or older between April 23 and June 8, 2025, about their willingness to travel for primary care, specialty care and one-time diagnostic appointments. In addition to Mattke and Burke, authors on the study include USC Dornsife researchers Tabasa Ozawa, Ying Liu and Wei Ye, all from the USC Brain Health Observatory based at USC Dornsife. The study was funded by National Institute on Aging grants 1R01AG083189 and 1U01AG077280. A new University of Utah-led study has discovered the mechanism behind a decades-old evolutionary mystery-how "selfish chromosomes" cheat the rules of genetic inheritance. The researchers found that rogue chromosomes hijack the Overdrive (Ovd) gene to destroy rival sperm. The study is the first to identify that the Ovd gene acts as a quality control checkpoint during sperm development. Normally, Ovd detects and eliminates abnormal sperm cells. But selfish chromosomes exploit the system to kill competitors, boosting their chances of passing into the next generation. The findings reveal the biology behind segregation distortion, a phenomenon in which genes sway inheritance in their favor to beat the standard 50/50 odds predicted by Mendelian genetics. The team observed the scheme in two Drosophila species, each carrying completely different selfish chromosomes, which suggests that multiple genetic systems may evolve independently to exploit the same Ovd pathway. This is the first time that the same gene has been shown to be crucial for eliminating gametes by multiple independent selfish chromosomes. It indicates that evolutionarily distant selfish chromosomes may often converge on shared cellular processes." Jackson Ridges, U biologist and lead author of the study Scientists first discovered segregation distortion in the 1920s while studying the fruit fly Drosophila obscura. Since then, the phenomenon has been found across the animal kingdom, from nematodes to mammals, yet its underlying mechanisms have remained unknown. While humans lack an exact genetic equivalent, a similar quality-control process may exist that uses different machinery. The findings could offer new insights into male infertility and the evolution of reproductive barriers between species. "How selfish genes can cause sterility has been a long-standing mystery in field of speciation," said Nitin Phadnis, associate professor at the U and senior author of the study. "By going for a deep understanding of how Overdriveworks, we inadvertently opened up entirely new directions of research into understanding the mechanisms of cellular quality control systems, and how sterility emerges between young species." The version of record of the study was published on Feb. 10, 2026, in the journal Nature Communications. Selfish chromosomes and the Overdrive gene Nearly 20 years ago, then grad student Phadnis and mentor H. Allen Orr first identified Ovd as an element in male sterility and segregation distortion in hybrids between two Drosophila species. Their 2009 paper revealed that the gene could block competing sperm from forming. The findings led to widespread acceptance that segregation distorters can drive reproductive isolation between species. He explored other topics as a post doc, but Ovd never left his mind. "A big question in evolutionary genetics is, 'What is the engine that drives genes to evolve such that organisms diverge into new species-internal genetic conflict or organismal adaptation? Our Overdrive discovery was the first clear, direct link between the two phenomena," Phadnis said. "When I started my own lab, it was time to pick it back up, but this time we wanted to get at how it actually works." First, the researchers tackled whether Ovd was essential to sperm production. Jackson Ridges, doctoral student in the Phadnis lab, led the experiments. "I wanted to look for a way that we can show this isn't just some weird selfish chromosome stuff going on. This is a genuine physiological phenomenon that we're investigating," Ridges said. The group knocked out the Ovd gene in D. pseudoobscura and D. melanogaster to test two different, completely independent selfish chromosomes. Surprisingly, they observed no difference in male fertility, establishing that the gene isn't necessary for sperm production in either species. "This got us thinking, 'What other genes work like this?'" Ridges said. The P53 gene's role in cancer came to mind. P53 works as a safeguard to stop runaway cell reproduction. Flies without P53 are fine unless there's a problem to genome integrity. "Maybe Ovd's only role is to recognize damage and remove those cells. But if there's no damage, everything's fine without it," Ridges said. "It was the primary way we could connect all these findings that didn't make intuitive sense, at first." To test their theory, they used a well-known temperature threshold beyond which fruit flies can't reproduce. At temperatures greater than 31 C, all male Drosophila go sterile, but no one knew why. After exposing normal flies and flies without Ovd to a high-temperature bacterial incubator for one week, the normal fly stock was sterile while the males without Ovd produced progeny. Ovd was blocking sperm formation at the high temperature to prevent potential unhealthy sperm. "That was the final nail in the coffin-Overdrive's normal function is acting as a blocker of bad gametes. When you remove the blocker, then the selfish behavior goes away," Phadnis said. "That doesn't mean Overdrive is the selfish gene-it's just being hijacked." The team's next steps are to knock out Overdrive in different Drosophila species to assess how many other selfish chromosomes in different species operate through this system of hijacking the Overdrive checkpoint. They're also investigating if segregation distortion occurs in human lineages. All cards on table: IDF spokesperson on possible ground invasion in Lebanon Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 02:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Tel Aviv [Israel], March 15 (ANI): Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lieutenant Ben Cohen on Saturday described Hezbollah as an Iranian terrorist proxy", and said that all cards were on the table to stop the Lebanese militant group from moving forward with their terrorist agenda".When asked about whether Israel plans to launch a ground invasion in South Lebanon, Lt Cohen told ANI that the current security situation must be understood in the context of past events. He recalled Hezbollah joining Hamas in an attack against Israel on October 8, 2023.To understand the situation in Lebanon, you have to understand the history. And the history in this regard starts were talking about October 8th, 2023. Then, too, a different terrorist organisation, Hamas, launches an attack against Israel, and Hezbollah decides to join. On October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah decided to join, Israel made the difficult decision to evacuate over 60,000 civilians in the north and remove them from their homes, you know, and it took a very long time until they could come back. We understand that we cant live in a reality where terrorist organisations are threatening our civilians inside their homes," he said. In order to push back the Hezbollah, Lt Cohen said that Israel has taken a forward defensive posture" with its forces moving hundreds of meters from the border with Lebanon to protect Israeli civilians so that Hezbollah cant fire those rockets. What we do over the first week of this war is we establish what we call a forward defensive posture. Its not a ground invasion, all right? Its Israeli forces that have moved hundreds of meters from the border with Lebanon in order to protect Israeli civilians so that those Hezbollah terrorists cant fire those rockets, those anti-tank missiles at Israeli civilians, and so that we can protect ourselves wherever we need to. As it goes for future operational plans, I obviously wont go into any specifics, but you know, all cards are on the table. We understand that we cant allow for Hezbollah to be with weapons right on our borders and to continue to move forward with their terrorist agenda," he said. Lt Cohen called Hezbollah a terrorist proxy of Iran and added, I want to make the story of Hezbollah very clear. All right, you have an Iranian terrorist proxy. Over the last year, Iran has funded almost a billion dollars into the Hezbollah terrorist organisation. We didnt fire at them first, you know. We opened an operation against Iran, and then they started firing hundreds of rockets and UAVs at Israeli civilians." His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf.Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) said that under the direction of military intelligence earlier this week, it struck and eliminated Sham Abd al-Karim Yassin, a key commander in Hezbollahs communications unit and the Palestine Corps of Irans Quds Force.As this happened, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem asserted that his organisation was prepared for a long confrontation" with Israel, as Israeli authorities warned that Lebanon would face an increasing price" through extensive damage to its national infrastructure, according to a report by The Times of Israel.The conflict intensified on Friday following Hezbollahs decision to target Israel in retaliation for the killing of the Iranian former supreme leader in joint strikes. In his second televised address since the hostilities began, Qassem described the situation as an existential battle, not a limited or simple battle," adding that his forces have prepared ourselves for a long confrontation" and that the Israeli military will be surprised on the battlefield". Israel Katz, the defence minister of Israel, issued a stern warning following a military assessment, stating that the Lebanese government would be held accountable for failing to disarm the group. According to The Times of Israel, Katz warned that the state would pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory" until military commitments were fulfilled.Military data cited by The Times of Israel suggests that the IDF has conducted over 1,100 strikes in Lebanon, targeting command centres and rocket and missile launchers". (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 15, 2026, 02:30 IST News agency-feeds All cards on table: IDF spokesperson on possible ground invasion in Lebanon Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... All military targets on Iran's Kharg island have been 'obliterated', says Trump Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 05:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Washington DC [US], March 14 (ANI): President Donald Trump on Saturday said the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) carried out a massive bombing raid" on military targets on Kharg Island in Iran, claiming the operation totally obliterated" every military site on the island.In a post on Truth Social, he said the strike was carried out on his orders and asserted that it was one of the most powerful bombing raids in the regions history. Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump said.He added that the United States deliberately avoided striking oil infrastructure on the island.Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he said.Trump also warned that the decision could change if shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. During my First Term, and currently, I rebuilt our Military into the Most Lethal, Powerful, and Effective Force, by far, anywhere in the World," he said.The US president added that Iran would not be able to stop American military strikes.Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack There is nothing they can do about it!" he said.Trump reiterated that Tehran would not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons.Iran will NEVER have a nuclear weapon, nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle East or, for that matter, the World!"He also warned Irans military and its allies to surrender.Irans Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save whats left of their country, which isnt much!" he said.Earlier, the United States CENTCOM said B-2 stealth bombers had taken off to carry out a mission as part of Operation Epic Fury, aimed at eliminating threats" posed by the Iranian regime" and preventing the Persian Gulf country from rebuilding its capabilities in the future.CENTCOM said the bombers launched to deliver long-range firepower during the operation. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 05:30 IST News agency-feeds All military targets on Iran's Kharg island have been 'obliterated', says Trump Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Comedy is the toughest, never got its due: Akshay Kumar Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 22:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar credited filmmakers Priyadarshan, Rajkumar Santoshi and late Neeraj Vora for making him understand comedy, the genre he thinks still hasnt got its due in the film industry. Kumar attended the second day of the India Today Conclave held in New Delhi on Saturday, where he was asked about the filmmakers he has worked with in the last 30 years. The actor noted he has collaborated with over 70 directors and starred in 150 films. Recommended Stories I have worked on around 150 films, and I have worked with around 70 directors. But there is a tuning with Priyadarshan; its fun to work with him. I have learnt a lot of comedy from him. Rajkumar Santoshi is also one of the directors from whom I have learnt a lot. There was another late director and writer, Neeraj Vora. These are the three people, if I got to know even the C of comedy, its because of them," Kumar said. The actor, who is reuniting with Priyadarshan for Bhooth Bangla", which is set to release on April 10, spoke in details about the comedy and said its the toughest genre. Comedy cant be taught; it comes from inside. You start getting to know about it. If I talk about the film industry, if there is any actor who does comedy, you will never have them getting the Best Actor award. They dont consider it. Whereas, if you ask the biggest actors, comedy is the toughest to do. To make someone laugh. When it comes to making someone cry, a situation can do that. You can have glycerin and cry, but comedy is the toughest, and unfortunately, it never got its due. Never. I have never come across any award event where the actor who did the comedy in the entire film got the Best Actor award," he added. Asked about the preference of the audience, the actor said the film industry is like a circle, but its challenging to know what the moviegoers will approve. Kumar gave examples of horror-comedy franchise Stree" and Aditya Dhars latest directorial Dhurandhar", featuring Ranveer Singh. The film industry is like a circle, after every 2-3 years, everything changes, the audience keeps on changing what they want, everything changes. Take, for example, Dhurandhar, an action film. Its nice, people have enjoyed it, and the hero is Ranveer Singh, who does action. Very angry young men kind of thing, whereas it wasnt there in between. If I take 5-6 years before now, when I was doing social films, be it Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, Pad Man, those would work. So everything keeps on changing; theres a time of horror comedy now. People are liking the horror comedy, Stree. We dont know what they will like next," he said. Kumar, known for finishing 3-4 films every year, was asked about his preparation, to which he replied he ensures to read the script. Several people say that I do four films, and I do it because I have so much time. There are 365 days in a year Before starting the film, I read the script for more than 100 times, and that is why the flow of the film goes My films must be completed in 50-55 days, and thats why I can succeed in doing it," he said, adding he takes enough days off from his work in the process. The actor noted there was a time he gave 16-17 back-to-back flops. I have always flown like waterI have never planned anything, I have always left myself I also gave flops. There was a time I gave 16-17 flops back to back, but I can proudly say I still had work. Even at that time, I had 4-5 films because I believe discipline is a key thing, and I also want to tell people who want to enter this industry, to ensure to have discipline," he said. Asked if theres competition for being on the top, Kumar said, There can be regret (of not being in certain projects), but theres no jealousy. We are actors, we get our work, and mentality of number one, two, three, because of this, you dont have happiness, you only strive that you want to be above." The actor, who also has Welcome to the Jungle" and Golmaal 5" in the lineup, said he would want to keep doing films until he is shot down" in the industry. I love films, I want to do different kind of films, whether its action, tragedy, comedy, everything, I want to try everything. I got an opportunity in such a population, only a few get a chance, so I got a chance. I have been chosen, people want me, they watch my films, they spend Rs 200-300 for each film, why wont I do it? I will try to give my best to them and I will keep on working in this industry till they have to shoot me down," he said. PTI ATR ATR ATR News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 22:00 IST News agency-feeds Comedy is the toughest, never got its due: Akshay Kumar Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Hyderabad: Man arrested for selling spoiled, unhygienic dry fruits Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 11:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], March 14 (ANI): The Special Crime Team (CCS), Food Adulteration Team, and Bahadurpura Police apprehended Asawa Manish (42) for selling spoiled, unhygienic dry fruits in Hyderabad, police said on Saturday. The accused person was running a godown business under the name of GEM Foods (Imports and Exports) at Chelapura, Charminar, in Hyderabad. The accused was found to have falsely represented the dry fruits as good quality and fit for consumption.Upon search, the dry fruits supplied were found to be spoiled, exhibiting fungal growth and emitting a foul smell. They were stored in unhygienic conditions, rendering them unfit for human consumption. The joint team recovered a total of 30 cartons of unhygienic dry fruits. The arrest was made by Inspector of Police of Special Crime Team D Bikshapathi, along with his staff, the Food Adulteration Team and Bahadurpura Police under the supervision of G. Venkateswar Reddy, ACP, Special Crime Team, CCS, Hyderabad.Police have advised the public to remain cautious while purchasing food items, especially packaged or bulk food products such as dry fruits and any other. If anyone notices the sale of spoiled, adulterated, or unhygienic food products, they should immediately report the matter to the nearest police station or food safety authorities.Earlier on March 12, Police in the Mailardevpally area arrested two persons, identified as Mohammed Ziyauddin and Mohammed Mazhar Ali, for allegedly manufacturing and selling adulterated ginger paste from houses in Subhan Colony, Alli Nagar.The arrests followed a police raid on March 11, after authorities received reliable information about the use of harmful ingredients in violation of food safety regulations.The individuals were operating under the names SEVEN COOKS" and Arjun Enterprises".According to Police official, On March 11, we received reliable information that a person was making ginger paste in Subhan Colony, Alli Nagar, using adulterated and harmful ingredients, in violation of the regulations, we immediately went and raided and found that a person named Mohmmed Ziyauddin age 45 years, in the name of SEVEN COOKS in a house at Ali Nagar and a person named Mohammed Mazhar Ali age 47 years, in the name of Arjun Enterprises, without following any regulations and cleanliness, brought spoiled ginger paste in an unhygienic environment and sold it to others. They said that they were preparing a paste of Ginger by mixing chemicals and selling it to local shops in Hyderabad and various shops." (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 11:00 IST News agency-feeds Hyderabad: Man arrested for selling spoiled, unhygienic dry fruits Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Iran releases pictures of coffins of fallen IRIS Dena sailors Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 05:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Tehran [Iran], March 14 (ANI): The Iranian administration on Friday released pictures of coffins of fallen IRIS Dena sailors who lost their lives in the attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship. In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in India said, The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship." The pure and honored bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by U.S. forces on the IRIS Dena warship. pic.twitter.com/oKw2pCwp1p Iran in India (@Iran_in_India) March 13, 2026 Recommended Stories Earlier, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, on Tuesday paid tributes to the sailors of IRIS Dena who were killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka.He called the action by the United States a war crime" and in violation of international laws further underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it.In a post on X, Baqaei said, We honour the fallen sailors of the #Dena frigate, martyred on 4 March far from their homeland. The Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit. In a brutal act amounting to a war crime, the United States attacked the vessel near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka and sank it."The post added, Worse still, the U.S. deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. This act not only constitutes aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (Definition of Aggression), but also a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II (1949) and Additional Protocol I (1977). The Iranian people will neither forget nor forgive this heinous crime."IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels, including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with maritime patrol aircraft such as P-8I aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations.Of the estimated 180 crew members on board IRIS Dena, around 87 sailors were reported dead, while about 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 05:15 IST News agency-feeds Iran releases pictures of coffins of fallen IRIS Dena sailors Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Jared Kushner is under a ticking clock. Following his official appointment as Special Envoy for Peace by President Donald Trump, Kushner has just ten days left to publicly disclose his financial records, bringing fresh scrutiny to his multibillion-dollar investment firm. The Saudi Connection And Affinity Partners Kushner's forthcoming disclosure is highly anticipated due to the massive influx of foreign capital into his private equity company, Affinity Partners. Since leaving his role as a White House adviser in 2021, Kushner's firm has grown to manage $5.4 billion. Notably, Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia just six months after the first Trump administration ended. Reports indicate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally overruled his own financial advisors who objected to the sum. Don't Miss: Despite managing billions, Affinity Partners has returned zero profits to its investors, amplifying public interest in the firms financial health. More recently, in September 2025, Electronic Arts Inc. announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired in an all-cash transaction valued at $55 billion by an investor consortium comprised of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. Breaking: Jared Kushner was appointed Special Envoy for Peace by President Trump, and he has 10 days left to disclose his financial records Here is why Kushner's financial records could be very interesting: Left the White House in 2021 Got $2B from Saudi Arabia 6 months pic.twitter.com/vnPQGEcWFw Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker (@pelositracker) March 12, 2026 Trending: Own the Characters, Not Just the Content: Inside a Fast-Growing Pre-IPO IP Company A Formal Return to Diplomacy The strict disclosure deadline was triggered on Feb. 19, when President Trump formally announced Kushner's appointment during an inaugural Board of Peace meeting. Very smart guy. We're making Jared also an envoy of peace, Trump said during the announcement at the Board of Peace event, adding that with Kushner and co-envoy Steve Witkoff, at least we're covered from an IQ standpoint. Prior to this formal appointment, Kushner engaged in high-stakes negotiations in the Middle East and Russia as a private citizen. By officially taking the government role, he is now legally bound by federal ethics and transparency laws. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi joins march to mark International Quds Day Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 04:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Tehran [Iran], March 14 (ANI): Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi joined a march in Iran to mark the International Quds Day and said that Iran would stand firm and not cower in the face of attacks. In a post on X, Araghchi said, Proud and honored to have accompanied the Strong and Resilient People of Iran to mark International Quds Day. Iranians will ALWAYS stand firm and NEVER cower before cowardly attacks. Video: Reaction of demonstrators when Tehran was bombed today is nightmare for aggressors." Proud and honored to have accompanied the Strong and Resilient People of Iran to mark International Quds Day. Iranians will ALWAYS stand firm and NEVER cower before cowardly attacks. Video: Reaction of demonstrators when Tehran was bombed today is nightmare for aggressors. pic.twitter.com/0dtcHXMlTE Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 13, 2026 Recommended Stories Thousands of people on Friday gathered in Tehran on the occasion of Youm-e-Quds day and held protest marches condemning the assassination of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the joint US-Israel strikes on February 28. Visuals shared by the state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), showed large crowds taking to the streets carrying Iranian flags and portraits of Khamenei while chanting slogans condemning the US and Israel.Demonstrators described the strikes as acts of aggression and voiced anger over the escalating conflict in the region.Youm-e-Quds is an annual international day held on the last Friday of Ramzan to express support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Large rallies are held, usually beginning after the Friday prayers.Irans first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, established Quds Day in 1979 shortly after the Iranian Revolution to show solidarity with Palestinians and reject Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. It has since become a symbol of resistance, as per Al Jazeera.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also called on citizens to participate actively in Quds Day events, describing the occasion as a symbol of support for the Palestinian cause and oppressed people around the world.In a post on X, Pezeshkian said Quds Day represents solidarity with Palestine and emphasised the importance of public participation in national events.Referring to the countrys leadership, the Iranian President said the peoples awareness and presence play a key role in ensuring the countrys strength and urged citizens to demonstrate unity and resilience through their participation, saying such presence would disappoint Irans adversaries.Quds Day is a manifestation of support for the cause of Palestine and the defence of the oppressed peoples of the world. In emulation of the Supreme Leader, who, in his message, emphasised the presence and insight of the people and regarded it as the guarantor of the countrys power. I invite the dear people of the country to more enthusiastically than in past days, through their presence in the field, disappoint the enemies of Iran," Pezeshkian said. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 04:00 IST News agency-feeds Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi joins march to mark International Quds Day Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Iranian missiles target Israeli territory, confirms IDF Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 04:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Tel Aviv [Israel], March 14 (ANI): Missiles were launched from Iran toward the territory of Israel, prompting air defence systems to intercept the threat, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Saturday. In a post on X, the Israeli military said missiles had been detected heading toward Israeli territory and that defence systems were activated to counter them. The IDF has identified that a short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defense systems are operating to intercept the threat. In the last few minutes, the Home Front Command has issued a preliminary directive directly to mobile phones in the relevant areas," the Israeli Air Force (IAF) said. The IAF urged the public to follow safety instructions and move to protected spaces when alerts are issued. It also said the Home Front Command had sent emergency alerts to mobile phones in affected areas, instructing residents to remain in protected spaces until further notice. " . . . . Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) March 13, 2026 Recommended Stories It added, The public is requested to exercise responsibility and act in accordance with the directivesthey save lives. One must enter protected spaces upon receiving the alert and remain in them until a new announcement. Exit from the protected space will be permitted only after receiving an explicit directive; continue to act in accordance with the Home Front Commands directives." Meanwhile, Irans state-run broadcaster Press TV reported that Iranian missiles had struck targets in the occupied territories", including the Nevatim Airbase in Israel. Press TV also reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to have successfully shot down five US-Israeli drones" over several Iranian cities within three hours using an advanced air defence system.According to Iranian state media, the intercepted aircraft included Hermes UAV, Orbiter 4 and MQ-9 Reaper drones.Press TV further said several drones from Iran had been launched toward the US-Israeli bases in the region.In a separate development, the group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced a reward of 150 million Iraqi dinars for information leading to the killing or arrest of senior US military officials, intelligence personnel, or agents, according to Press TV.Earlier, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that all six crew members aboard the US KC-135 refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq on March 12 have died. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 04:15 IST News agency-feeds Iranian missiles target Israeli territory, confirms IDF Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Israel claims 2 senior Iranian intelligence officials killed in Tehran airstrike Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 01:15 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Tel Aviv [Israel], March 15 (ANI): The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that two senior Iranian intelligence officials were killed in a targeted airstrike carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in Tehran. In a post on X, the IDF said, ELIMINATED: Abdollah Jalali-Nasab & Amir Shariat, senior intelligence officials of the Khatam al-Anbiya" Emergency Command. The two senior commanders were key figures in the Iranian intelligence community and close to the leadership of the Iranian terrorist regime." ?ELIMINATED: Abdollah Jalali-Nasab & Amir Shariat, senior intelligence officials of the Khatam al-Anbiya" Emergency CommandThe two senior commanders were key figures in the Iranian intelligence community and close to the leadership of the Iranian terrorist regime. pic.twitter.com/fhdVnMPfsj Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 14, 2026 Recommended Stories The IDF identified the officials as Abdollah Jalali-Nasab and Amir Shariat, describing them as senior intelligence figures in Irans Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command. According to the Jerusalem Post, the IDF said the strike was conducted with precise guidance from Israeli Military Intelligence. According to the IDF, the two men had recently been appointed as acting replacements in the intelligence division after their predecessor, Saleh Asadi, was killed during the early phase of what Israel calls Operation Roaring Lion. The Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command is responsible for gathering and analysing intelligence for senior officials in Irans security establishment, assessments that help shape the countrys military decision-making against Israel, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said the operation was part of a broader campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure. According to The Jerusalem Post, since the start of the campaign, hundreds of Israeli Air Force aircraft have struck hundreds of targets linked to the Iranian government across Iran, Defrin said. He added that the operation began with a surprise attack after Israeli military intelligence identified two gathering points in Tehran where senior Iranian security leaders had assembled. The reported strike comes a day after the Israeli military said it had completed 20 waves of attacks against more than 150 Iranian government targets, in what appears to be an escalating effort to disrupt Irans command and intelligence networks, according to The Jerusalem Post.Earlier, the IDF said its joint military operations with the US against Iran in the Middle East will continue until an existential threat" to Israel is eliminated. Speaking in an interview with ANI, IDF spokesperson Lt Ben Cohen said Israel is prepared for a prolonged operation if required, stressing that the objective is to neutralise Irans military capabilities that threaten Israel and the wider region.Im not going to give any specific timeframe, but Ill tell you that were going to keep going until we know that weve taken away that existential threat," Cohen said.Cohen noted that while Israel generally seeks to avoid prolonged conflicts, operations against Irans military infrastructure could take time due to the scale of the threat. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 15, 2026, 01:15 IST News agency-feeds Israel claims 2 senior Iranian intelligence officials killed in Tehran airstrike Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Saudi air defence intercepts, destroys drone over Al-Jawf region Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 08:30 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Riyadh [Saudi Arabia], March 14 (ANI): The Saudi Ministry of Defence announced on Saturday that its air defence forces have successfully neutralised an aerial threat in the northern part of the country.In a formal statement, the ministry confirmed the interception and destruction of a drone" after it was detected entering the airspace over the Al-Jawf region in the north of the country."This latest incident follows a massive wave of hostilities earlier in the week. Saudi Arabia reported that its air defence systems intercepted nearly 50 drones that entered its airspace within a span of a few hours early Friday, according to Euro News.The Ministry of Defence of Saudi Arabia stated that these drones were detected during the early hours of Friday and were neutralised before reaching their intended targets. Officials noted that the sheer volume of drones represents an unusually high level of aerial threats for Saudi Arabia."The escalation comes as several critical locations in the Kingdom, including the United States Embassy in Riyadh, key oil infrastructure facilities, and a military base hosting American troops, have faced threats. These tensions have intensified amid the ongoing conflict involving Iran, as reported by Euro News.Contributing to this volatile climate, the Israeli military confirmed it launched a new wave of strikes in Tehran on Friday morning. The IDF has just begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime across Tehran," the military said.Simultaneously, Israel has extended its operations into Lebanon, striking the Al-Zrariya Bridge on the Litani River to disrupt Hezbollahs movement. Israel stated that the organisation used the bridge to move from the north to the south of the country to prepare for combat against IDF forces.The Hezbollah terror organisation uses this bridge to move from the north to the south of the country, prepare for combat against IDF forces, and act against civilians of the State of Israel, all while endangering Lebanese civilians and causing extensive destruction in populated areas. In order to prevent a threat to civilians of the State of Israel and the continued harm to Lebanese civilians, it was necessary to strike the bridge," the IDF added.As these multi-front engagements continue, US President Donald Trump signalled Washingtons intention of going all out in its campaign against Irans Islamic regime. In a post on Truth Social, he warned Iran to watch out for what would happen today, asserting that the US was winning the conflict.We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning. Irans Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth," Trump said.The President further said, We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. Theyve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honour it is to do so."However, despite this show of force, concerns regarding regional stability persist. A CNN report suggested that the Trump administration reportedly underestimated the likelihood that Iran would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes.CNN sources revealed that while planning for the ongoing military operation, the Pentagon and the National Security Council did not fully anticipate that Iran would attempt to close the waterway, despite long-standing contingency plans developed by the US military for such a scenario. (ANI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 08:30 IST News agency-feeds Saudi air defence intercepts, destroys drone over Al-Jawf region Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Turkey's Foreign Minister talks diplomacy efforts as regional war rages Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 01:00 IST Representational image (Image: News18) Ankara, Mar 14 (AP) Turkeys powerful foreign minister said Saturday that there is no serious initiative to resume negotiations between the United States and Iran but that he believes Iran is open to back-channel talks. The comments by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview came as Ankara is striving to stay out of the widening war in the Middle East. Recommended Stories Ankara, which has good relations with both Washington and Tehran, had attempted to mediate a solution between them before the US and Israel attacked Iran two weeks ago, triggering the war. The conditions are not very much conducive" to diplomacy now, Fidan said. The Iranians feel betrayed" because for a second time they were attacked while in active negotiations with the US over their nuclear programme, he said, but added, I think they are open to any sensible back-channel diplomacy." Fidan, 57, served as Turkeys intelligence chief for more than a decade before being appointed foreign minister in 2023. In that role, he played a key part in shaping Turkeys policy in the Middle East, particularly toward Syria, Iraq and Iran. He is considered to be one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans most trusted advisers and one of the potential candidates to succeed him. Turkey has maintained a neutral position in the war, criticising both the US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Tehrans retaliatory actions against Gulf states that host US bases. Fidan said he has been attempting to persuade the Iranians to halt those attacks. Fidan said Turkeys top priority is to remain outside of the conflict, even after three missiles believed to come from Iran were intercepted over Turkey by NATO defences. Turkey is a NATO member and an air base in southern Turkey is used by NATO forces, including US troops. Iranian officials have insisted that they did not fire at Turkey, although the available data shows that the missiles came from Iran, the Turkish foreign minister said. He ruled out a military response at this stage, saying that NATOs defenses were effective and that Ankaras primary objective" is to stay out of the conflict. I know that we are being provoked and we will be provoked, but this is our objective," he said. We want to stay out of this war." Fidan, who has regular contact with Iranian officials, said he does not know the severity of the wounds suffered by Irans new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in a strike earlier in the war, but that what we know is that he is alive and functioning." Khamenei was appointed to replace his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed Feb 28 during the wars opening salvo. Fidan said the process of electing a new leader and the medical conditions of the new leader, it created a gap" in Irans power structure and I think that gap has been filled by the high command of the Revolutionary Guards," referring to the paramilitary force reporting to the Supreme Leader. Before the conflict, Turkey tried to avert a war by offering to host talks in Istanbul that would have brought US, Iran and other regional countries together. Iran later opted for talks mediated by Oman, without the participation of regional actors and focusing solely on its nuclear program talks that ultimately failed. Fidan said Iran had refused to discuss its missile programme and the proxy armed groups it backs in the region, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and a group of Iraqi militias both of which have now waded into the regional war. Turkey had proposed that the Americans and the Iranians can discuss fully the nuclear issue and we as regional countries can come together to discuss the other two with Iran" as part of an initiative to build trust within the region. Turkey and Israel have tense relations, with Erdogan becoming one of the most vocal critics of Israels actions in Gaza. Turkey has cut trade ties with Israel and frequently accuses Israel of committing genocide. Israel in turn accuses Turkey of supporting Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched the deadly Oct 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel. Since Israel launched its strikes on Iran, some have gone as far as to suggest that Turkey could be the next target. Fidan dismissed that possibility, while acknowledging that the war in Iran gave Turkey an increased incentive to step up its own production of weapons and air defences. As long as Netanyahu is there, (Israel) will always identify somebody as an enemy," he said. Because they need it to advance their own agenda. If not Turkey, they would name some other country in the region." He criticised Israels role elsewhere in the region, including in Syria, where both countries have strategic interests. Turkey has been a strong backer of the current government in Damascus led by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist rebel group. Israel regards al-Sharaas government with suspicion and, since it took power in December 2024, Israeli forces have seized control of a swathe of land in southern Syria and launched airstrikes on Syrian military facilities, wiping out much of the countrys arsenal. Israel has said its presence in Syria is meant to secure its border from another Oct 7-style attack. They are after not security, they are after more land," Fidan said. So as long as they dont give up this idea, there will always be a war in the Middle East." Turkey has also sought to play an active role in postwar Gaza. It has joined US President Donald Trumps Board of Peace boycotted by many other countries that see it as an attempt to supplant the United Nations and criticise the lack of a role for Palestinians and has offered to supply troops for an international stabilisation force in the battered enclave. Fidan said it was important for Turkey to join the Board of Peace, as an opportunity" to stop the war, although we are not under the illusion that the Board of Peace will address all the existing issues." Fidan said Turkey has not received a request to contribute troops to the stabilisation force, which he attributed to the Israeli opposition, but added, I think the Americans are quietly trying to settle the issue with the Israelis to allow Turkey to participate." Fidan said however, that Turkeys priority was the establishment of an administration committee for Gaza, which is to be made up of 15 politically independent Palestinian administrators. We expect them to go into Gaza and start their work," he said. This has not started yet, so we need to start from somewhere." (AP) SCY SCY News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 15, 2026, 01:00 IST News agency-feeds Turkey's Foreign Minister talks diplomacy efforts as regional war rages Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Sagittarius Horoscope Today, March 14, 2026 Curated By : GaneshaGrace Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 06:50 IST Sagittarius Horoscope for March 14, 2026: Invest now for good results. Focus on family happiness and shopping. Avoid stubbornness to prevent conflicts. Sagittarius astrological predictions for March 14, 2026 Sagittarius Horoscope Today, March 14, 2026: Ganesha says, Sagittarius, if youve been thinking about investing, now is the time to act, as it will yield favorable results. Family happiness will be a priority for you, and youll likely spend time enjoying comforts and indulging in shopping. However, be mindful of your behavior and avoid being overly stubborn or arrogant, as it could lead to unnecessary conflicts. While some people may try to sabotage your plans, they wont succeed, so stay focused on your goals. For those starting a new job, patience and hard work are essential for success. The business related to media, technology, and the internet will show signs of growth, and a special person may help you complete any pending tasks. Family life will be peaceful, and married life will be enjoyable. However, take care of your health by avoiding crowded places to reduce exposure to pollutants. Positive If you have plans to invest somewhere, then complete it immediately, and you will benefit. The happiness of family members will be your priority, and time will be spent on comforts and shopping. You will also spend money on this. Business If you have started a new job, then a lot of patience and hard work are needed now. There is a possibility of expansion in business related to media, computers, the internet, etc. With the help of a special person, any of your pending or stuck work can be completed. Financial- you should take advice from your father or any experienced person. This will help you in making a very good decision for your future. Today will be a very promising day for Sagittarius people from a financial horoscope point of view. Today, you are feeling self-satisfied and wasteful, so this is the day when you will be thinking of buying some luxury item for yourself. Go ahead and keep yourself busy, but be careful not to overdo it. This is a great time for you to choose a vehicle, so dont be afraid to visit the best dealer. However, make sure you dont overdo it and break the bank. Be practical. There are signs of tremendous progress in your job. There are signs of students making amazing progress. Talking about domestic life, this month can be full of happiness for you. There are chances of some religious or auspicious event taking place at home. You will get immense happiness and support from your mother. Love Married life will be pleasant, and the atmosphere of home and family will also remain good. Health It is important to protect yourself from the current environment. Avoid going to polluted and crowded places. Lucky Color Red Lucky Number 2 News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 06:50 IST News astrology horoscope Sagittarius Horoscope Today, March 14, 2026 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, Saturday, March 14? Check Bank Holidays This Month Reported By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 07:05 IST Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, March 14? As it is the second Saturday of the month, banks will remain closed today across the country. Bank Holidays 2026: Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, March 14? Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, March 14? If you are planning to visit your bank branch, it is necessary to check the list of RBI-notified holidays. These holidays are not uniform nationwide and vary from state to state. That means on some dates, banks in certain states will remain closed, while in others, they will function normally. Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, March 14? As March 14 is the second Saturday of the month, banks will remain closed across the country. Banks remain closed on second and fourth Saturdays of the month, apart from all Sundays and other RBI-notified holidays. Bank Holidays In March 2026 Holiday Description Date Holika Dahan 2 Holi (Second Day)/Dol Jatra/Dhulandi/Holika Dahan/Attukal Pongala 3 Holi/Holi 2nd Day Dhuleti/Yaosang 2nd Day 4 Chapchar Kut 13 Shab-I-Qadr 17 Gudhi Padwa/Ugadi Festival/Telugu New Years Day/Sajibu Nongmapanba (Cheiraoba)/1st Navratra 19 Eid-Ul-Fitr (Ramzan)/Jumat-ul-Vida 20 Ramzan-Id (Id-Ul-Fitr) (Shawal-1)/Khutub-E-Ramzan/Sarhul 21 Shree Ram Navami 26 Shree Ram Navami (Chaite Dasain) 27 Mahavir Janmakalyanak/Mahavir Jayanti 31 Full state-wise bank holiday list can be check on this RBIs official link. Banks Timings Most major banks in India, including SBI, Bank of India, and Punjab National Bank, operate between 10 am and 4 pm, while ICICI, HDFC, Axis, Yes Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank usually function from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm or 3:30 pm, depending on the branch. Bank of Baroda has slightly extended hours, operating between 9:45 am and 4:45 pm or 10 am to 5 pm, and Canara Bank typically works from 10 am to 3:30 pm. Five-Day Workweek Demand Though banks remain closed on second and fourth Saturdays of the month, bank unions have been demand five workweek. If approved, it would mean banks will remain all Saturdays and Sundays. Last month, on January 27, 2026, bank unions went on strike. They said a five-day work week would reduce work pressure, improve efficiency, and allow employees more time with their families. Most central government offices and financial institutions in India already follow a five-day schedule, bank staff want the same. To ensure customer services arent affected, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has proposed working 40 extra minutes a day from Monday to Friday. The forum points out that RBI, LIC, GIC, stock markets, forex and money markets already remain closed on Saturdays. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 07:05 IST News business banking-finance Are Banks Open Or Closed Today, Saturday, March 14? Check Bank Holidays This Month Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Oil Prices Likely To Fall Later This Year As Global Supply Expands: Signum's Charles Myers Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 12:22 IST 'Because the US now controls Venezuela essentially, and which means the US has unfettered 100% access to the biggest oil reserves in the world,' chairman of Signum Global Advisors. Easing geopolitical tensions later this year could unlock additional oil supply from multiple regions, says Charles Myers, Chairman of Signum Global Advisors. Global oil prices could decline significantly later this year as additional supply enters the market from countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia, according to Charles Myers, Chairman of Signum Global Advisors. Speaking at the second edition of Moneycontrols Global Wealth Summit 2026, Myers said geopolitical developments could eventually lead to a surge in global oil supply. I say that because the United States now controls Venezuela essentially, and which means the United States has unfettered 100% access to the biggest oil reserves in the world. The oil output from Venezuela will increase much faster than most assessments," he said. More supply from Venezuela, Iran and Russia Myers said easing geopolitical tensions later this year could unlock additional oil supply from multiple regions. He noted that Venezuela, which holds the worlds largest proven oil reserves, could play a key role in boosting global supply if production ramps up quickly. According to him, improved relations with Iran and the possibility of a renewed nuclear deal could allow Tehran to export more oil legally. A potential ceasefire in the Ukraine war could also bring more Russian oil back to global markets. He added that strong investor interest in Venezuelas energy sector has prompted a visit to Caracas with 55 clients in the coming days. Myers argued that global oil supplies are already ample and that resolving geopolitical conflicts would help ensure a more stable and secure flow of energy worldwide. Israel-Iran war Commenting on the ongoing Middle East conflict, Myers said he believes the outcome of the war involving the United States, Israel and Iran is inevitable. The US today is at war, it is a very big deal. There is only one outcome of this war that Iran will lose. I say that factually, at the end of the day, Iran is up against the two most powerful, battle tested, sophisticated militaries in the world," he said. He added that the United States military would eventually control the Strait of Hormuz, ensuring the continued flow of oil through the critical global shipping route. The United States military will occupy the Strait of Hormuz and the oil will flow again. Though the war might not end," he said. The remarks come as tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate. Iran recently warned it could reduce US-linked oil facilities to a pile of ashes" after US President Donald Trump said Washington could wipe out" Irans largest oil export terminal on Kharg Island. Since the United States and Israel launched hostilities on February 28, waves of missile, drone and air strikes have reportedly displaced millions and killed more than 1,200 people in Iran. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 12:22 IST News business economy Oil Prices Likely To Fall Later This Year As Global Supply Expands: Signum's Charles Myers Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 50-Year-Old Woman Dies, Son Injured After Scooter Crashes Into Wall In Udupi Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 15:59 IST Both were rushed to a nearby hospital but the woman died on the way. Her son, the driver, remains under treatment at a private hospital. According to police, the woman along with her son were on a scoter when the driver lost control and crashed into the compound wall along the roadside.(Representative image) A 50-year-old woman has died after a scooter rammed into a roadside compound wall in Karnatakas Udupi. According to police, the woman along with her son were on a scoter when the driver lost control and crashed into the compound wall along the roadside. The incident took place near Nittur. Police said that the crash left both riders seriously injured. Both were rushed to a nearby hospital but the woman died on the way. Her son, the driver, remains under treatment at a private hospital. Police said that the deceased was identified as Helen Soas and the injured was Sherwin. They further said that CCTV footage of the accident has been obtained. A case has been registered under the Udupi Town police station limits, and further investigation is underway, they added. Earlier, the district administration imposed a complete ban on two-wheelers and heavy transport vehicles on the Garuda Varadhi bridge in the temple city due to a worrying pattern of road accidents since its inauguration. While the restriction may cause some inconvenience to commuters and devotees, officials said the decision was taken in the larger interest of public safety. The city, which is home to several prominent temples and pilgrimage sites, has been declared a smart city by the Centre, and the administration is focusing on strengthening urban infrastructure and traffic management. Authorities have urged the public to cooperate with the restrictions and follow traffic regulations in order to prevent accidents and ensure safer travel in the city. The administration said the move is part of broader efforts to improve urban mobility and reinforce safety measures as the city continues its development under the smart city initiative. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Udupi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 15:51 IST News cities bengaluru-news 50-Year-Old Woman Dies, Son Injured After Scooter Crashes Into Wall In Udupi Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Mumbais First School Road Safety Pilot Exposes Major Infrastructure Gaps Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Aanchal Sinha Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:35 IST Launched in February 2025 and concluding in March 2026, the project engaged 34 municipal schools and reached over 2,600 students. Rapid Read School Safety Committees were also formed in all 34 schools Mumbai has taken a significant step toward improving road safety for children, with a pilot initiative in the Andheri area revealing serious infrastructure gaps around municipal schools. The year-long project, titled Strengthening Road Safety for Children and Adolescents," was implemented by UNICEF and the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CACR) across schools in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations K-East Ward. Conducted with support from the BMC Education Department, the initiative aimed to raise awareness about road safety and help schools identify risks affecting students. Launched in February 2025 and concluding in March 2026, the project engaged 34 municipal schools and reached over 2,600 students. It also trained teachers and students to act as advocates for safer roads within their communities. As part of the initiative, a School Road Safety Audit carried out in August 2025 highlighted several alarming deficiencies around school zones. The audit found that many schools lacked basic safety infrastructure such as clearly visible School Zone" signboards, speed limit indicators and distance warning boards. In several areas, footpaths were either missing, damaged or encroached upon, forcing children and other pedestrians to walk directly on busy roads. Traffic congestion during school arrival and dispersal hours was another major concern. Random parking near school gates and the absence of designated drop-off zones further increased the risk for students. To address these issues, the project adopted a participatory approach involving both teachers and students. A total of 57 teachers were trained as Road Safety Ambassadors," while 94 students were designated as Road Safety Messengers." These student leaders conducted 180 awareness sessions across participating schools. School Safety Committees were also formed in all 34 schools, holding 144 meetings to discuss safety concerns and coordinate local solutions. Creating safer school environments and managing traffic during school hours is essential. The audit shows that basic road safety infrastructure around many schools in K-East Ward is inadequate and requires coordinated action from traffic police and local authorities," said Gorakhnath Bhavri, Administrative Officer (Schools), K-East Ward. Early results are already visible. At Nityanand Municipal School near the Western Express Highway, speed breakers, zebra crossings and school zone signage were installed following the audit. Separate entry and exit gates were also introduced to manage student movement safely. The project also engaged the wider community, sensitising nearly 965 residents and local stakeholders, including auto unions and delivery partners. Encouraged by the results, organisers now plan to expand the model to more schools across Mumbai while introducing regular monitoring and joint reviews with civic and traffic authorities to ensure long-term impact. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:35 IST News cities mumbai-news Mumbais First School Road Safety Pilot Exposes Major Infrastructure Gaps Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Last weeks tensions and military actions have already forced regional and global shipping companies, international insurers, and energy traders to reassess their exposure to the Middle East. At the same time, the fallout is also hitting the Red Sea/Bab El Mandab area, the East Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and the Indian Ocean. Due to these real and perceived risks, tanker risk premiums have increased, maritime insurance costs are spiking, and energy markets are pricing in the possibility that the Strait could become partially or fully inaccessible, not for days but for a prolonged period. The point is illustrated by the immediate geopolitical backdrop, as escalation in the Gulf region has again shown the impact and vulnerability of global energy flows. As the Arabian Gulf transports roughly one-fifth of the worlds oil and is also a critical part of global liquefied natural gas transit, all of which passes through the Strait of Hormuz , one of the most critical maritime chokepoints on the planet. Any disruption, military or proxy activities, or even perceived threats can destabilize markets and trigger dramatic price spikes within hours. In moments of crisis, such as right now, this dual approach matters more than ever. Dont think that this role is accidental; it is part of an existing national strategy. Over the last two decades, Abu Dhabi, supported by its national oil company, ADNOC, as well as its expanding list of sovereign wealth funds , including ADIA, Mubadala, and IHC, has pursued a deliberate strategy to combine hydrocarbon reliability with large-scale investment in the energy transition. This dual-energy model has been replicated only by a few other countries, as it is built on maintaining a robust oil and gas supply while positioning itself as a leading investor in renewable energy and hydrogen. Energy markets have entered an unprecedented crisis, pushing the world to look instinctively toward the largest producers: Saudi Arabia, the United States, or Russia. However, in the background, but sometimes hitting already the headlines, of todays geopolitical turbulence, especially due to the ongoing, escalating confrontation around Iran, showing the fragility of maritime chokepoints (Hormuz), another actor has already, for years, quietly become indispensable to the current and future stability of global energy. The United Arab Emirates, and particularly Abu Dhabi, has emerged, and will be even more showing its power in the future, as one of the most strategically important pillars of energy security globally. Story Continues These circumstances have reshuffled and potentially partially rewritten global energy markets. Without any doubt, global energy markets are looking at the capacity of certain producers to stabilize supply, which is becoming crucial. Abu Dhabi sits at the center of that equation, based on the role of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The Emirate holds and increasingly controls one of the most technologically advanced and strategically managed oil sectors in the world. Before the Iran crisis hit, ADNOC had already expanded its production capacity to around 4.84.9 million bpd, aiming to reach 5 million bpd by the end of the decade. The most important point in this equation is that the UAE maintains significant spare production capacity, which, in theory, will allow it to increase output when markets tighten. As has been the case since the 1970s, in the volatile arithmetic of global oil markets, spare capacity should be considered a hard power. Spare production capacity acts as a buffer against supply shocks, especially during crises. Its marginal barrels are providing the flexibility that global energy markets in general need to prevent extreme price spikes. While the world has long looked to OPEC Kingpin Saudi Arabia to hold most of that stabilizing capacity, the UAE has stepped up its own capabilities, joining the very small group of producers capable of acting as a swing supplier. Related: No Missiles, No Drones: What Happens When Rare Earths Stop Flowing? Market parties should understand that this spare production capacity is not merely a technical feature of the UAEs oil sector. In recent years, it has been established as part of a deliberate national strategic philosophy. The powers in Abu Dhabi understood not only the role but also the instrumental basis of this, as energy reliability translates into geopolitical influence. By maintaining low-cost production and up-to-date, future-proof infrastructure, combined with investment-friendly frameworks, Abu Dhabi has built a reputation as one of the most dependable suppliers in the global market. For sure, part of this is the countrys resource base, as Abu Dhabi holds roughly eight percent of the worlds proven crude oil reserves. This clear factor supports and cements its physical foundation for long-term supply security. Asia and Europe are increasingly looking at Abu Dhabi as a reliable party, which is a key asset. Due to the Ukraine war, Europe has been forced to implement strategies to replace its Russian energy imports, crude oil, and natural gas. Gulf producers, especially in that European context, have become central in the Old Continents diversification strategy. Without, however, addressing the current state of affairs, we will miss the larger strategic advantage the UAE holds. While others also hold vast reserves and capacity, the main differentiator at present is that Abu Dhabi not only can pump oil but also move it. This, when looking at Hormuz and other issues, matters most, as regional tensions have already or threaten to disrupt the main maritime routes. Unlike most other Gulf producers, whose exports are mainly linked to Hormuz, the UAE has spent the past decade building an alternative architecture for energy exports. This, without any doubt, is now going to prove to be pivotal and support its strategic value. The HabshanFujairah pipeline is playing a pivotal role here. The pipeline, also known as the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, is approximately 360 kilometers long, connecting Abu Dhabis inland oil fields to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. As has always been the target, the pipeline allows crude oil to flow, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. It has a transport capacity of around 1.5 to 1.8 million bpd, which supports the UAE in continuing to export a substantial share of its production. It doesnt need to have tankers passing through Hormuz. The total project was designed with exactly the current geopolitical scenarios in mind. The explicit goal was to safeguard oil exports through Hormuz, even though most oil market analysts doubted that Hormuz would ever be closed. Abu Dhabis foresight (to include a black swan scenario in plain sight) is now paying off. The pipeline feeds directly into the rapidly expanding energy hub of Fujairah, which has evolved into one of the most important oil storage and bunkering centers in the global maritime system. The total scale of the Fujairah hub matters, as its storage capacity runs into tens of millions of barrels of crude and refined products. At the same time, it offers sufficient offshore single-point moorings, allowing large tankers to load cargoes without entering the Persian Gulf. This situation, pipeline, storage, and moorings, still allows Abu Dhabi to have crude oil flow to global markets. When looking at shipping markets, Fujairah currently plays an additional role. The port is not only an export terminal, especially at present a pivotal one, but it is also one of the worlds largest marine fuel bunkering hubs. Thousands of vessels transiting between Asia, Europe, and Africa will bunk in the port for fuel and lubricants and take advantage of its logistical support. Its refining and blending facilities produce large volumes of marine fuel oil and low-sulfur bunker fuel for tankers, container ships, and bulk carriers operating along the Indian Ocean trade routes. The above role is even more critical during a crisis. Shipping companies are already rerouting cargoes, seeking safe and reliable refueling points, and will need Fujairah without entering the more vulnerable waters of the Strait. Abu Dhabi is not standing still either, as its NOC continues to expand the infrastructure feeding Fujairah. There is a major expansion planned, focusing on pipeline capacity and expanded storage terminals. The underlying target is clear: increase export resilience while reducing overall dependence on Hormuz. Such investments reflect a broader strategic philosophy. Energy security is not only about production volumes; it is also about logistics, redundancy, and infrastructure resilience. At the same time, the UAEs strategy does not stop at hydrocarbons, as it is building one of the most ambitious renewable energy portfolios in the world. Abu Dhabis Masdar, the state-backed clean energy company, is already a global player in solar, wind, and hydrogen development, operating renewable energy projects in more than 40 countries, with around 100 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2030. This is part of the UAEs broader Net Zero by 2050 strategy. Full focus is on diversification of its national energy mix while maintaining the countrys role as a major global energy exporter. Madar invests in large-scale renewable projects and hydrogen initiatives designed to help the continent decarbonize heavy industry and transport, as well as in other parts of the world. By investing heavily in both systems, Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a bridge between the two. In many ways, the UAEs energy strategy reflects a pragmatic understanding of the global transition that is often missing from political debates elsewhere. The shift toward cleaner energy will not happen overnight. For decades to come, the world will still require reliable supplies of oil and gas, even as renewable capacity expands rapidly. Countries that can engage across all sectors will shape the future of the global energy landscape. In an era defined by volatility and uncertainty, that combination of reliability and adaptability may prove to be one of the most valuable energy assets the world possesses. By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Oilprice Intelligence brings you the signals before they become front-page news. This is the same expert analysis read by veteran traders and political advisors. Get it free, twice a week, and you'll always know why the market is moving before everyone else. You get the geopolitical intelligence, the hidden inventory data, and the market whispers that move billions - and we'll send you $389 in premium energy intelligence, on us, just for subscribing. Join 400,000+ readers today. Get access immediately by clicking here. Delhi Govt Says Women Can Still Use Pink Paper Tickets For Free Bus Travel Curated By : News18 Cities Last Updated: March 13, 2026, 16:06 IST Free bus travel for women in Delhi will continue with the existing pink paper tickets, as the Delhi Government has issued a clear clarification on the new smart card rollout Rapid Read DTC has advised women passengers not to worry and to collect their Pink Saheli smart cards whenever they become available at the designated counters. The Delhi Government clarified on Friday that women in the capital can continue travelling free of cost on Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses using the existing pink paper tickets. The announcement was made to reassure passengers after questions were raised about the introduction of the new Pink Saheli smart card. Officials said women do not need to rush or worry if they have not yet received the new smart card. Until the distribution process is completed, the current pink paper ticket system will remain fully valid for free travel on DTC buses across the city. Recommended Stories Pink Paper Ticket System To Continue For Now In an official statement, the Delhi Transport Corporation confirmed that the pink paper ticket system will continue to operate as before. Women passengers can keep using these tickets for free travel even if they have not yet received the Pink Saheli smart card. Authorities also clarified that the paper ticket system will only be phased out once most eligible women in Delhi have received their smart cards. This step is intended to ensure that no passenger loses access to the free travel benefit during the transition period. Pink Saheli Smart Card Scheme Launched The Pink Saheli smart card scheme was officially launched on March 2 as part of the governments efforts to modernise public transport ticketing in the capital. The initiative is designed to replace the paper ticket system with a more convenient and digital payment method for women passengers. Earlier, under the One Nation, One Card programme introduced by the central government, women in Delhi could use the Pink NCMC card to travel free of cost on DTC buses. However, the government has now limited this benefit specifically to women who are residents of Delhi. One Card For Multiple Transport Systems According to Rekha Gupta, the new Pink Saheli smart card will allow women to make payments seamlessly across several modes of public transport using a single card. With this smart card, women will be able to travel conveniently on DTC buses, the Delhi Metro, and the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), among other public transport services. The card is being issued completely free of cost to eligible women living in Delhi. Cards Available At DTC Counters Eligible women can collect the Pink Saheli smart card from any of the 50 designated counters operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation across the city. The government has stated that the distribution process is being carried out gradually and in an organised manner to ensure that all beneficiaries receive their cards without facing inconvenience. Officials added that the phased rollout will help avoid overcrowding at counters and ensure a smooth transition from the paper ticket system to the digital smart card. Relief For Millions Of Women Passengers The clarification has brought significant relief to millions of women who rely on DTC buses for their daily commute. In recent days, many passengers were uncertain about whether free travel would continue if they had not yet received the new smart card. Women had reportedly begun purchasing tickets or were hesitant to travel by bus due to the confusion surrounding the scheme. The latest announcement confirms that free travel will continue using the existing pink paper tickets until the new cards are widely distributed. DTC has advised women passengers not to worry and to collect their Pink Saheli smart cards whenever they become available at the designated counters. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 13, 2026, 16:06 IST News cities new-delhi-news Delhi Govt Says Women Can Still Use Pink Paper Tickets For Free Bus Travel Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Threatened To Kill Me: Uber Driver Allegedly Molests Woman During Bike Ride In Delhi Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Aanchal Sinha Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 13:45 IST Security guards, school staff, and women nearby helped her, after which the accused fled on his bike. Rapid Read Uber driver allegedly molested a woman on a moving bike in Delhi. (Representative Image) An Uber driver allegedly molested a woman on a moving bike during a late-night ride in the national capital on Thursday. According to the complaint, the incident occurred on March 12 at around 1:28 PM when the woman booked an Uber bike ride from Rohini Sector-15 to MP Block Market in Pitampura. The drivers name appeared as Sachin on the app. The victim said that shortly after she sat on the bike, the driver began behaving inappropriately. As soon as he started riding the bike, he began touching me in a wrong manner and behaving indecently," she stated. When she objected, the driver reportedly rode at high speed and applied sudden brakes. When I asked him to slow down the bike, he did not listen and kept driving fast," she said. She further alleged that the driver grabbed her from behind and molested her. When I told him to stop the bike, he held me from behind and touched my chest inappropriately," she stated. The woman also alleged that the driver threatened to kill her if she raised an alarm and diverted from the route shown on the app. He threatened that if I shouted, he would kill me," she said. Terrified, she began screaming and warned she would jump off the moving bike. According to the complaint, the driver finally stopped outside Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in F-U Block, Pitampura, after she raised an alarm. Security guards, school staff, and women nearby helped her, after which the accused fled on his bike. The victim said she immediately lodged a complaint with Uber and called the police on 112. I am very frightened after this incident and feel that my life is in danger," she said. Police said no FIR has been registered so far, but they have received the complaint and are examining the allegations. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 13:11 IST News cities new-delhi-news Threatened To Kill Me: Uber Driver Allegedly Molests Woman During Bike Ride In Delhi Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... About 73% Drop In Bangladeshi Visitors Dragged Down Indias Foreign Tourist Arrivals In 2025 Written By : News18.com Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:47 IST Excluding Bangladesh, foreign tourist arrivals to India actually grew by about four per cent from 82.01 lakh in 2024 to 85.50 lakh in 2025, according to Tourism Ministry data Rapid Read Tourism Ministry data shows that inbound tourism had been recovering steadily since 2022, but 2025 broke the trend. (PTI) In 2025, only 4.7 lakh Bangladeshi visitors arrived in India, down from 17.5 lakh in 2024 and 21.2 lakh in 2023. Between 2017 and 2023, Bangladesh consistently contributed around 20-23 per cent of total foreign tourists, making it Indias largest source of FTAs. This means roughly one in four to five foreign tourists to India came from Bangladesh. Starting 2017, over 20 lakh Bangladeshis were arriving in India each year until 2020. In 2019, about 25.8 lakh Bangladeshi visitors arrived in Indiathe highest in history. In 2022, arrivals from Bangladesh were 12.8 lakh. If Bangladesh is included, the arrivals of foreign tourists dropped to the lowest level in the past three years in 2025. Foreign Tourist Arrivals rose from 64.4 lakh in 2022 to 92.4 lakh in 2023 and nearly one crore in 2024, before slipping to 90.2 lakh in 2025. Overall, including Bangladesh arrivals, India registered 99.51 lakh foreign tourist arrivals in 2024 against 1.09 crore in 2019. With the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus infection in early 2020, countries across the world banned or restricted travel and tourism. However, over the course of time, particularly after 2022, the situation improved with removal of travel restrictions. Tourism Ministry data shows that inbound tourism had been recovering steadily since 2022, but 2025 broke the trend. In terms of daily average, India was registering close to 30,000 FTAs daily in 2019 that slipped to just 24,712 in 2025 after touching about 27,260 in 2024. The decline in Bangladeshi visitors alone (about 12.8 lakh) was larger than the total drop in foreign tourist arrivals in 2025 (9.35 lakh), indicating that arrivals from other countries actually increased. Excluding Bangladesh, foreign tourist arrivals to India actually grew by about four per cent from 82.01 lakh in 2024 to 85.50 lakh in 2025, according to Tourism Ministry data. Bangladesh Once Indias Top Source Market The data shows that Bangladesh was the largest source market in 2001-2003 but the USA took over the top position between 2004 and 2015. However, for the next four years, from 2016 to 2019, Bangladesh again took the top slot. The USA has remained on the top since 2021, except 2023. There were exceptionally high arrivals from Bangladesh in 2017 (21.56 lakh), 2018 (22.56 lakh), 2019 (25.77 lakh) and 2023 (21.19 lakh). Foreign tourist arrivals from Bangladesh surged to nearly 26 lakh in 2019almost six times the 5.2 lakh recorded in 2013. Between 2001 and 2013, arrivals remained below five lakh in most years, except in 2008 and 2013. The number fell below that threshold again only in 2025. Bangladeshs share in Indias foreign tourist arrivals rose steadily from about 7 per cent in 2011 to nearly 24 per cent in 2019 before plunging to just about 5 per cent in 2025. As the arrivals dropped to 17.5 lakh in 2024, Bangladesh slipped to second position with about 18 per cent share. That year, USA, with almost the same share and 18.04 lakh arrivals, took the top position. In 2025, the dominance of USA continued with about 18 lakh arrivals, but Bangladesh slipped to fifth position while the UK, Australia and Canada also took over Bangladesh. In 2023, of the 21 lakh Bangladeshi arrivals in India, about 70 per cent were for leisure, holiday and recreation and accounted for over 22 per cent of the total FTAs. Next was USA with about 18 per cent share. Impact of Operation Sindoor While Bangladesh has been the biggest driver, the analysis also shows that among the months, nearly half of the overall decline of about 9.35 lakh foreign tourist arrivals was recorded between May and July alone, accounting for roughly 4.54 lakh fewer arrivals. The period coincided with heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025 that killed 26 people, after which India launched Operation Sindoor in May. Between January and July, India recorded 7.92 lakh fewer foreign tourist arrivals compared to the same period in 2024. Throughout 2025, December was the only month when foreign tourist arrivals exceeded the corresponding figures in 2024. Foreign Exchange Earnings Tourism is one of the largest foreign exchange earners for any country. The importance of tourism as an instrument for economic development and employment generation, particularly in remote and backward areas, has been well recognised all over the world. The benefits of tourism can be enhanced either by increasing the number of tourists or by increasing the duration of stay of tourists in the country. With the decline in foreign tourist arrivals in 2025, the foreign exchange earnings from tourism also fell in 2025 to $31.33 billion from a record $35.02 billion in 2024 and $32.2 billion in 2023. Even though foreign tourist arrivals have yet to surpass the 2019 peak, tourism earnings remain slightly above the pre-pandemic level of $30.7 billion. The sharp fall in Bangladeshi visitors in 2025 also reveals a deeper structural shift in Indias inbound tourism, with long-haul markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia increasingly driving arrivals even as regional dependence declines. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:47 IST News india About 73% Drop In Bangladeshi Visitors Dragged Down Indias Foreign Tourist Arrivals In 2025 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Act Of Aggression': India Slams Pakistan's Air Strikes On Afghanistan Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 20:49 IST India condemned Pakistan's air strikes in Afghanistan, killing 16 civilians and injuring 15. MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal called it aggression. Pakistani airstrikes hit oil depots for commercial airlines, near the Kandahar airport in the Daman district of Kandahar province, on Friday. (Image: AFP) India on Saturday condemned the air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan, killing 16 civilians and injuring 15 others, calling it act of aggression". India condemns the air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistans territory, leading to the death of several civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is yet another act of aggression by a Pakistani establishment that remains hostile to the idea of a sovereign Afghanistan. India reiterates that Afghanistans sovereignty and territorial integrity should be fully respected," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries on recent attacks by Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban government on Friday accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes in Kabul and several areas in eastern Afghanistan. Also Read: Pakistan President Zardari Says Afghan Taliban Crossed Red Line With Drone Attacks On Civilians Hours later, authorities in Kabul said Afghanistans air force had responded by targeting Pakistani military installations near Islamabad and in parts of northwestern Pakistan. Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan. According to Mujahid, the fuel supplies are used for civilian and United Nations flights. Islamabad denied deliberately targeting civilians, stating that its operations were aimed at Pakistani Taliban militants and their support networks operating from across the border. Islamabad described the escalating confrontation as an open war," raising concerns among the international community about regional stability as the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues to widen tensions in the region. Also Read: Pakistan Fires Over 270 Rockets Into Afghanistans Kunar Province As Cross-Border Clashes Intensify Pakistan has long accused Afghanistans Taliban-led government of harbouring militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which Islamabad says carry out attacks inside Pakistan after crossing the porous and volatile border. Pakistani officials have also alleged that Kabul maintains links with India, a claim the Afghan government denies, insisting it does not shelter militant groups. The escalation came as a roadside bomb targeting Pakistani police killed seven officers in the northwestern district of Lakki Marwat on Friday. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 20:49 IST News india 'Act Of Aggression': India Slams Pakistan's Air Strikes On Afghanistan Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Centre Decides To Revoke Activist Sonam Wangchuk's Detention Months After Leh Protests Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 12:16 IST Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer, innovator and education reformer from Ladakh, was detained by Ladakh police on September 26, 2025. Sonam Wangchuk, a Ramon Magsaysay awardee and the prominent face of the movement demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule safeguards for Ladakh, was detained on September 26, 2025. (File pic/PTI) The central government on Saturday revoked the detention of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act with immediate effect. The Ministry of Home Affairs said the government remains committed to fostering an environment of peace, stability and mutual trust in Ladakh to facilitate constructive and meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders. It added that, in furtherance of this objective and after due consideration, the government and the Ministry of Home Affairs decided to revoke Wangchuks detention. The government also reiterated its commitment to providing all necessary safeguards for Ladakh. Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha, who was leading the legal fight in the Supreme Court for Sonam Wangchuks release, said, I am glad that the Government of India has notified the release of Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act. Sonam was detained in Ladakh on September 26. Sonams actions were misunderstood. He is an icon of climate change and glaciers. A real nationalist." Arrest in 2025 protests Wangchuk, an engineer, innovator and education reformer from Ladakh, was detained by Ladakh police on September 26, 2025. His arrest came amid violent protests in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and protections under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. He was detained while on his way to a press conference and was booked under the National Security Act for allegedly inciting unrest that left four people dead and around 90 injured. Authorities described him as a chief provocateur" in a border-sensitive region. The detention was challenged in the Supreme Court of India by his wife, Tsering Angmo, during hearings held in January and February 2026. The Centre had defended the detention, saying it helped restore normalcy and that proper procedures were followed. Wangchuk had spent more than 140 days in custody at Jodhpur jail. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 11:51 IST News india Centre Decides To Revoke Activist Sonam Wangchuk's Detention Months After Leh Protests Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... India Bolsters Fertiliser Stocks And Leads BRICS Diplomacy Amid West Asia War Reported By : CNN-News18 Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 00:28 IST The government dismissed concerns regarding agricultural shortages while detailing the complexities of navigating a fractured BRICS consensus Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. (File pic/MEA) In a comprehensive briefing on Indias strategic preparedness, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has dismissed concerns regarding agricultural shortages while detailing the complexities of navigating a fractured BRICS consensus. Addressing the factual situation" of Indias fertiliser reserves, Jaiswal urged observers to avoid uninformed speculation that might induce panic, asserting that the nations food security remains firmly insulated from global volatility. Fertiliser Security and the Kharif 2026 Outlook The Department of Fertilisers has confirmed that India currently holds more than adequate stocks of essential nutrients, specifically positioned to meet the demands of the upcoming Kharif 2026 season. In a significant year-on-year improvement, Urea stocks have surpassed last years levels, while DAP (Diammonium Phosphate) reserves have remarkably doubled. NPK stocks are similarly reported to be in a much stronger position today than they were at this time in 2025. With the Rabi season drawing to a close, domestic Urea production is now projected to exceed nominal consumption. This stability is the result of proactive industrial management, including the strategic advancement of annual maintenance schedules for fertiliser plants. This move has allowed India to maximise production with available gas supplies. Furthermore, the Department of Fertilisers anticipated current geopolitical pressures by issuing global tenders well in advance. These tenders have received a robust international response, with the bulk of ordered quantities expected to arrive by the end of March. To further bolster production, the government has decided to procure spot gas on a competitive basis, with the first phase of purchases scheduled for completion this Tuesday. All international partners have provided assurances of uninterrupted supply, ensuring comfortable stock levels by the time Kharif demand peaks on 15 May. Navigating the BRICS Consensus on West Asia On the diplomatic front, Indias role as the Chair of BRICS is being tested by the direct involvement of some member states in the escalating West Asia conflict. Jaiswal acknowledged that these direct stakes have impacted the groups ability to forge a unified common position. Despite these challenges, India has been actively facilitating dialogue through the Sherpa channel, with the most recent virtual meeting held on 12 March. The Indian leadership is also engaging directly with the heads of BRICS member states within the West Asian region to find common ground. As the presiding chair, India remains committed to these high-level engagements, balancing its role as a regional mediator with the need to maintain the internal cohesion of the BRICS bloc amidst a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 15, 2026, 00:28 IST News india India Bolsters Fertiliser Stocks And Leads BRICS Diplomacy Amid West Asia War Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Indian LPG Vessel 'Shivalik' Reaches Open Sea With Navy Escort, Another To Cross Hormuz Soon | Exclusive Reported By : CNN-News18 Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 08:51 IST Sources said an LPG vessel is also expected to pass through the Strait at 9.30am IST, and will similarly be guided by Indian naval assets once it clears the sensitive maritime zone Rapid Read The movement of Shivalik comes after intense diplomatic engagement between India and Iran to ensure safe passage for Indian-flagged ships amid the ongoing regional crisis. (AP Image for Representation) An Indian LPG carrier Shivalik, carrying over 40,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), has successfully moved into the open sea after transiting the Strait of Hormuz, sources have told CNN-News18. The vessel is currently being escorted by the Indian Navy and is expected to reach India in about two days, likely docking at Mumbai or Kandla port. Sources said another LPG vessel is also expected to pass through the strait at around 9.30am IST, and will similarly be guided by Indian naval assets once it clears the sensitive maritime zone. The movement of Shivalik comes after intense diplomatic engagement between India and Iran to ensure safe passage for Indian-flagged ships amid the ongoing regional crisis. Earlier reports had indicated that India was in talks with Iran to secure passage for up to eight LPG tankers stranded in the Gulf region due to the conflict. According to sources, negotiations helped facilitate the first movement of vessels, with CNN-News18 earlier reporting that transit would begin soon after talks progressed. Diplomatic Push for Tanker Movement India has been actively engaging Tehran to allow its energy shipments to pass through the strategic waterway. The discussions come as several Indian LPG carriers were stuck in the Persian Gulf after shipping through the strait was disrupted due to the West Asia war. Reports indicate that Iran has permitted select Indian-flagged LPG carriers to transit the strait, including Shivalik and another vessel, as a special exemption during the ongoing tensions. Crisis in the Strait of Hormuz The development comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis, which began after escalating hostilities involving Iran, the United States, and Israel in late February. The tensions led to severe disruptions in shipping through the critical energy corridor. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the worlds most important maritime chokepoints, handling roughly 20 per cent of global oil and gas shipments, making any disruption a major concern for global energy markets and for import-dependent countries like India. With India heavily reliant on Middle Eastern LPG supplies, the safe passage of vessels such as Shivalik is seen as crucial for maintaining domestic cooking gas availability and energy security. Government sources say authorities are closely monitoring the movement of ships, with naval escorts continuing for Indian vessels navigating the region until they safely exit the high-risk zone. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 08:51 IST News india Indian LPG Vessel 'Shivalik' Reaches Open Sea With Navy Escort, Another To Cross Hormuz Soon | Exclusive Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Indian Seafarer From Mumbai Killed In Iranian Strike On US Tanker, Family Says He Was Forced To Join War Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:54 IST Family members alleged that the company forced Deonandan Prasad Singh to rejoin duty three days before the war began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Deonandan Prasad Singh, an Indian engineer from Bihar, who was residing at Kandivali, killed in Iranian strike on US ship. (Photo: X) A 54-year-old seafarer from Kandivli, Deonandan Prasad Singh, was killed after the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker MT Safesea Vishnu, on which he was serving, came under attack near Khor Al Zubair Port close to Basra, Iraq, on Wednesday. The information was confirmed by the director general of shipping under the ministry of port, shipping and waterways. In a press release issued on March 12, the ministry confirmed the death of one Indian seafarer. An official said Singh, who was serving as the additional chief engineer (superintendent) on the vessel, died following the attack. A ministry official said Singh sustained severe injuries during the incident and later succumbed to them. Authorities and relevant maritime agencies have been informed, and an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack is underway. Family alleges he was forced to rejoin ship amid war Singhs family said he had been on shore duty for more than seven years after leaving sailing work. He had earlier served on the engineering side for nearly 25 years. Family members alleged that the company forced him to rejoin a ship three days before the war began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Singh was killed almost two weeks after he joined the vessel in Iraq. It is sort of forcing him to join as he had signed the agreement with the company and in a corporate world one has to abide by the companys rules and regulations. Despite having stopped sailing and having taken a shore desk job, he was sent to die. The company forced him to join the ship as per the contract clause he had signed and he joined the ship in Iraq three days before the war began," a family member said as quoted by Times of India. Crew rescued after attack After the incident, all crew members abandoned the vessel and entered the water. They were rescued by an STS tug. The Iraqi Coast Guard evacuated all 28 crew members, including 16 Indian nationals and 12 Filipino nationals, and transported them to the port of Basra. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:54 IST News india Indian Seafarer From Mumbai Killed In Iranian Strike On US Tanker, Family Says He Was Forced To Join War Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Piped Gas Connection At Home? You Cant Get LPG Cylinders Now. Here's Why Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 21:31 IST The government has banned domestic LPG connections for households with PNG amid the West Asia crisis. Government bans LPG refills for consumers with piped gas connections (File image) In view of the disrupted energy supply amid the West Asia crisis, the government has amended the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order to prohibit domestic LPG connections and refills for households that already possess a Piped Natural Gas (PNG) connection. The amendment also prohibits government oil companies from providing LPG connections or refills to households that already have PNG connections, the oil ministry said in a statement. India, the worlds second-largest LPG consumer, relies on imports for about 90 per cent of its requirements. Supplies from West Asia have been disrupted following the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz one of the worlds most crucial maritime chokepoints in the wake of the US-Israel strikes on Iran. India Seeking Diversified Options Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of Oil and Petroleum, recently told the Lok Sabha that New Delhi was seeking additional cargoes from the US, Norway, Canada, Algeria and Russia in view of the conflict. Listing measures taken to ensure smooth supply of LPG across the country, he said refiners have been ordered to maximize output, lifting domestic production by 28 per cent. Asserting citizens there is no need to worry, the minister highlighted that the shortage in LPG gas cylinders was largely driven by panic buying. West Asia Crisis The Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint which accounts for nearly one-fifth of the global oil trade, was closed by Iran in the wake of the coordinated US-Israeli strikes on the country. Meanwhile, two Indian-flagged LPG tankers belonging to the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), the Shivalik and the Nanda Devi, passed through the Strait of Hormuz today and are now bound for New Delhi. The development follows intensive diplomatic efforts between India and Iran. The ships are now slated to arrive at Mundra and Kandla ports on March 16 and 17. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 21:24 IST News india Piped Gas Connection At Home? You Cant Get LPG Cylinders Now. Here's Why Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Tamil Nadu Woman In Dubai ICU, Family Pleads For Help As Hospital Bill Reaches 1.5 Cr Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 16:03 IST As per the doctors, the woman needs the ventilator for at least another two months. Representational image The ongoing tensions in West Asia continue to cause global disruption at all levels. Several families are stuck due to the unprecedented crisis. One such family is of Thilakkumar Jalathu Aniruthraraj who moved to Dubai eight years ago. His mother is in ICU in Dubai and due to soaring hospital bills, the family opted for medical repatriation to India. However, their flight got cancelled due to the ongoing war. As per a report by NDTV, Thilakkumars mother is ICU for 40 days and per day expense is Rs 3 lakh. Till now the bill has reached to a whopping Rs 1.5 Crore. For a salaried professional, such an expense is nearly impossible to meet. The doctors treating his mother told NDTV that she will need the ventilator for at least another two months. Familys Struggle Toughened Due To War To get respite from the soaring medical bills, Thilakkumar Jalathu Aniruthraraj and his wife, Shaamini Ramesh decided to opt for medical repatriation to India, where long-term medical assistance is affordable. All the formalities were done and the family was set to travel on a commercial medical escort flight on March 4. The flight had costed them Rs 7 lakh but it got cancelled due to the war. The only solution left for them was a private air ambulance. However, due to the crisis, the prices of air ambulance reached Rs 50 lakh. We are working-class people; we are not in a position to fund this. The biggest burden now is the air ambulance. I need Rs 50 lakh immediately just to get her home," Thilakkumar told NDTV. The family pleaded for help with the air ambulance as even if they arrange funds, the availability is very low. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Tamil Nadu, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 14:34 IST News india Tamil Nadu Woman In Dubai ICU, Family Pleads For Help As Hospital Bill Reaches 1.5 Cr Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... At roughly $73 per share as of this writing, Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) is trading well below its 52-week high of nearly $102. This pullback is, in part, a reflection of uncertainty regarding how the self-driving cars will impact Uber's business. Investors are likely becoming increasingly concerned that companies developing their own self-driving technologies will eventually be able to leapfrog Uber's ride-sharing network and ultimately erode the company's dominant market position. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue However, a strategic partnership announced on Wednesday with Amazon's autonomous vehicle unit, Zoox, points to a much more favorable scenario for the ride-hailing giant. Rather than being disrupted by the self-driving transition, Uber is actively positioning its platform as the indispensable demand-generation engine for the autonomous era. With the stock trading at a discount to recent highs and the company continually expanding its network of self-driving partners, investors have to ask whether this is a compelling opportunity to buy into a highly profitable tech platform before the AV market fully matures. Image source: Getty Images. Outsourcing the hardware risk Under the newly announced multiyear agreement, Zoox's purpose-built robotaxis -- which lack traditional steering wheels and pedals -- will be available to Uber users in Las Vegas beginning this summer. The companies plan to expand the service to Los Angeles by mid-2027. The deal is a crucial validation of Uber's capital-light approach to the future of transportation. Developing autonomous hardware and software arguably requires tens of billions of dollars in capital expenditures and entails significant regulatory and execution risks. Instead of trying to build its own fleet of robotaxis from scratch, Uber is leveraging its massive existing ride-sharing user base to partner with the developers who are taking on that hardware risk. Uber ended 2025 with 202 million monthly active platform consumers. For hardware companies like Zoox trying to achieve utilization and scale, that built-in audience is incredibly valuable. This is the first time Zoox has agreed to offer its rides through a third-party application, underscoring the gravity of Uber's network effects. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi captured the essence of this strategy in a recent press release announcing a suite of solutions to help AV partners monetize their autonomous vehicles. While noting that the innovation in autonomy is moving fast, he said that "meaningful commercialization will take much longer." Beyond The 10-Step Routine, How India Is Shaping The Future Of K-Beauty Written By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 10:27 IST Experts reveal how India is adapting K-beauty routines to suit local skin concerns like pigmentation, humidity and sun exposure. Indian skin behaves differently due to higher sun exposure and pollution. Over the past decade, Korean beauty has quietly transformed skincare habits across the globe and India is no exception. From sheet masks and snail mucin serums to the famed 10-step routine, South Koreas philosophy of gentle, layered skincare quickly found a devoted following among Indian consumers. But as the trend matured, so did the understanding that what works for Korean skin doesnt always translate seamlessly to Indian conditions. Today, dermatologists and skincare entrepreneurs believe India is entering a new phase one where K-beauty principles are being adapted, simplified, and recalibrated for local skin concerns, climate realities, and lifestyle patterns. According to Jenovia Daun Jung, Founder and COO of KorinMi, the shift is already visible among consumers seeking more personalised care. K-beauty gained popularity in India largely through product trends and multi-step routines. However, Indian skin behaves very differently due to higher sun exposure, pollution levels and a stronger tendency toward pigmentation. Many Korean skincare philosophies need to be adapted rather than followed exactly as they are," she explains. Why Indian Skin Needs A Different Approach One of the most significant differences lies in how Indian skin responds to environmental triggers. Dermatologists say that pigmentation and post-inflammatory marks are far more common in South Asian skin types. Dr Neha Yadav, dermatologist at KorinMi, points to the biology behind this. One of the biggest differences we see in Indian skin is its heightened melanocyte response, which means pigmentation and post-inflammatory marks can develop quite easily," she says. Because of this sensitivity, treatments and skincare routines originally designed for other skin types often need careful modification. Dr Yadav notes that patients are increasingly prioritising long-term skin health over quick aesthetic fixes. This is where adapting Korean skincare philosophies for Indian skin becomes important focusing on barrier repair, hydration and controlled skin renewal rather than aggressive procedures," she adds. From 10 Steps To Smarter Skincare K-beauty famously popularised the idea of elaborate routines built around multiple lightweight layers. While the philosophy introduced Indian consumers to concepts like skin-barrier care and preventive skincare, experts say routines are gradually becoming more streamlined. Dr Shifa Yadav, Consultant Dermatologist at Artemis Hospitals, Gurugram, explains that Indian skincare is evolving into a more targeted system. K-Beauty taught Indian consumers about skin barrier care, layering lightweight products and skincare that focuses on prevention. But India is now going beyond just following these trends and is slowly changing them to fit the needs of its skin and the realities of its environment," she says. Instead of long routines, dermatologists now recommend ingredient-focused regimens that address specific concerns such as pigmentation, tanning and pollution-related sensitivity. Ingredients like niacinamide, ceramides, and sunscreen have become central to these routines because they strengthen the skin barrier while protecting against UV exposure and environmental stress. Climate Matters More Than You Think Another key factor shaping Indias version of K-beauty is climate. South Koreas colder weather often requires deeply hydrating formulations designed to prevent dryness. In contrast, Indian weather conditions particularly heat, humidity and intense sunlight require lightweight textures that control oil while offering stronger sun protection. Dr Shifa Yadav notes that this environmental difference is pushing brands and dermatologists to rethink formulations and routines entirely. Indian skincare focuses on balancing oil, creating products that dont feel heavy in humid weather, and prioritising sun protection," she says. Indias relationship with K-beauty is clearly moving beyond imitation. Instead of simply adopting Korean routines, dermatologists and consumers alike are reshaping them to address pigmentation, climate stress and long-term skin health. The result is a hybrid approach: one that retains K-beautys emphasis on gentle care and prevention while grounding it firmly in the realities of Indian skin. In doing so, India may well be writing the next chapter of the global K-beauty movement. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 10:27 IST News lifestyle beauty Beyond The 10-Step Routine, How India Is Shaping The Future Of K-Beauty Ahead Of Oscars 2026, Isha Ambani Brings Quiet Elegance To Academy Museum In Classic Denim Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 12:44 IST Isha Ambanis minimalist white shirt and jeans outfit at the Academy Museum proves understated style can be powerful. Isha Ambani met Amy Homma, the Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In a world where celebrity fashion often leans toward statement couture and high-octane glamour, Isha Ambani proved that understated style can be just as impactful. During a recent visit to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the business leader embraced quiet luxury with a polished shirt-and-denim ensemble that balanced ease with sophistication. The visit saw Isha Ambani meet Amy Homma, Director and President of the museum, to celebrate a shared commitment to the arts and cinema. The meeting also signalled growing cultural ties between the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre and the Academy Museum. The Power Of A Classic White Shirt Isha Ambanis look revolved around a wardrobe staple the crisp white shirt. Cut from structured poplin fabric, the piece featured a long-collared neckline, front button closures, a chest pocket and tailored full-length sleeves. The silhouette leaned toward clean, modern tailoring rather than dramatic styling. By tucking the shirt neatly into her jeans, Isha created a structured business-casual aesthetic that felt both polished and effortless. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Academy Museum (@academymuseum) Balancing the structured shirt was a pair of light blue denim jeans designed in a classic straight-leg silhouette. The high-ankle cut and mid-rise waist gave the look a relaxed yet contemporary edge. Often referred to as mom jeans," the style has made a strong comeback in recent years, blending vintage influence with modern wearability. A sleek black leather belt with a gold buckle added subtle contrast, tying together the monochrome elements of the ensemble. Isha completed the look with elegant yet understated accessories. Dainty diamond earrings and a delicate necklace featuring a black gemstone pendant added a hint of sparkle without overwhelming the outfit. Her footwear choice classic black-and-white ballerina flats reinforced the effortless sophistication of the ensemble while maintaining comfort. For the glam, she opted for a soft, natural look. Her long hair was styled loose with a centre parting, while the makeup palette featured defined brows, mascara-coated lashes, blush-tinted cheeks and a glossy brown lip. The glowing highlighter and subtle contour enhanced the fresh, polished finish. With her refined shirt-and-denim ensemble, Isha Ambani demonstrated that modern power dressing doesnt always require elaborate couture. Sometimes, the most striking fashion statements come from simplicity where impeccable tailoring, thoughtful accessories and effortless confidence create a look that feels both timeless and contemporary. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 12:44 IST News lifestyle fashion Ahead Of Oscars 2026, Isha Ambani Brings Quiet Elegance To Academy Museum In Classic Denim What Was Princess Diana's Favourite Dish & Cheat Meal? Royal Chef Reveals Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 14:16 IST According to chef Darren McGrady, the late Princess Diana enjoyed a jacket potato, or baked potato, with some hearty fillings. Princess Diana died in a car accident on 31 August 1997. (Photo: Bang Showbiz) It might be nearly three decades since the passing of Princess Diana, who was called the peoples princess because of her affable nature and the genuine care she showed to everyone she interacted with. On multiple occasions, she broke royal traditions and did what she felt was best in the situation, like hugging an AIDS patient, walking through landmine fields, and showering those in need with love and support. So it is no wonder that even after 28 years since her death, on 31 August 1997, due to a car crash, Princess Diana and her life continue to draw attention. In conversation with Marie Claire, former royal chef Darren McGrady, who worked for Princess Diana at Kensington Palace, shares tiny tidbits from her life. He shared that while Princess Diana, mum to Prince William and Harry, had access to the best chefs, ingredients and cuisines in the world at Kensington Palace, her choice for her daily meals was all about balance and clean eating. The late princess favoured clean, fresh dishes like stuffed peppers, salmon and overnight oats. In fact, her recipe for overnight oats has become wildly popular on social media, with many people recreating her recipe. Another habit that made Princess Diana relatable to people was her liking of cinema and cheat meals. She wanted her sons to enjoy a relatively normal existence despite who they are and the constant media attention they received. She would take them to theme parks and even trips to McDonald, as she aimed for as many normal" experiences as possible. So, every Saturday night, the late royal reserved it for pizza and burgers around the TV with Prince Harry and Prince William. On a Saturday night, youd see Diana sitting down in front of the TV eating dinner with her boys, it just made everything so normal," McGrady told U.K. coffee retailer Coffee Friend. Although their royal nanny always suggested that the boys have roasted chicken, green vegetables and healthy food," Diana allowed Prince Harry and Prince William to eat fast food as a treat" on the weekend. Another comfort food that Princess Diana also loved" was a jacket potato, or baked potato, with some hearty fillings. I know Princess Diana loved them," he says. For all the lavish food she had access to, one of her favourite ways to eat a jacket potato was with baked beans and cheese! She loved that." News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 14:16 IST News lifestyle food What Was Princess Diana's Favourite Dish & Cheat Meal? Royal Chef Reveals Iran-Israel War Updates: Middle East Tourism Faces $600 Million Daily Loss As Conflict Escalates Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 15:29 IST Travel across the Middle East faces disruption as the Iran conflict escalates, forcing airlines to reroute flights and impacting tourism across the region. Prior to the conflict, jet fuel prices were hovering around $85$90 per barrel. In recent days, however, they have surged dramatically to between $150 and $200 per barrel Global travel routes across the Middle East are facing one of their most significant disruptions in years. As tensions escalate following military strikes on Iranian targets, the regions aviation corridors, some of the busiest connecting Europe, Asia and Africa, have rapidly become uncertain territory. The result is a ripple effect across tourism, aviation and hospitality. Airlines are adjusting routes, travellers are reconsidering itineraries and airports across the Gulf are navigating sudden operational challenges. According to estimates by the World Travel & Tourism Council, as shared by The Financial Times, the financial toll on the regions tourism industry has surged to roughly $600 million in daily losses, driven largely by the collapse in international visitor spending and widespread flight disruptions. Airspace Disruptions Reshape Travel Routes The Middle Easts strategic position makes it a critical crossroads for global aviation. Major hubs such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi serve as key transit points for long-haul routes between continents. However, with sections of regional airspace restricted or closed, airlines have been forced to cancel or reroute flights. Carriers including KLM and British Airways have already suspended or modified services to several destinations, leaving passengers stranded or scrambling to adjust travel plans. For travellers, the disruption extends beyond cancelled flights. Longer flight paths, unexpected layovers and reduced seat availability are beginning to reshape travel patterns across the region. Tourisms Fragile Recovery Faces A Setback The timing of the crisis could not be more challenging for the regions tourism sector. The World Travel & Tourism Council had previously projected international visitor spending in the Middle East to reach $207 billion by 2026, signalling a strong post-pandemic recovery. Security concerns, however, have prompted many travellers to delay or cancel trips. Hotels, airlines and tour operators across Gulf destinations are now grappling with uncertainty as bookings slow. Escalation Raises Global Trade Concerns Beyond tourism, the widening conflict is raising alarm about global trade routes and energy supplies. Iran has threatened maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most critical shipping lanes for oil and energy exports. The escalation has also drawn international attention at the United Nations Security Council. What It Means For Travellers For travellers planning trips to or through the Middle East, flexibility has become essential. Airlines are advising passengers to monitor flight schedules closely, while travel insurers are seeing a rise in policy inquiries related to geopolitical disruptions. Travel experts say that once stability returns, tourism demand is likely to rebound quickly. The Middle East remains one of the worlds most important travel crossroads, linking continents through its major aviation hubs. Yet the ongoing Middle East conflict has exposed how quickly geopolitical tensions can ripple through global travel networks. While the industry has proven resilient in the past, the coming weeks will determine how swiftly tourism and aviation can stabilise, and whether travellers regain confidence in the regions skies. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 15:29 IST News lifestyle travel Iran-Israel War Updates: Middle East Tourism Faces $600 Million Daily Loss As Conflict Escalates 'Akshaye Khanna Used To Be A Different Person': Farah Khan Recalls He Was 'Not Nice, Irritable' On Set Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:20 IST Farah Khan recalled Akshaye Khannas irritable phase when he was struggling with hair loss, which made her avoid working with him initially. Rapid Read Farah Khan Recalls Akshaye Khannas Irritable Phase Akshaye Khanna is currently basking in the success of Aditya Dhars film Dhurandhar, in which he played Rehman Dakait. His popularity has grown exponentially after the film, and this renewed interest in the actor has led many to revisit his quirky yet earnest role in Farah Khans comic film Tees Maar Khan. Despite its initial box-office failure, the film has developed a cult following over the years. Recently, Farah Khan recently revealed that her early professional relationship with Akshaye Khanna was strained, even admitting that she once avoided projects involving him. Farah Khan Recalls Akshaye Khanna Was Not A Nice Person On Set Farah Khan shared on Ranveer Allahbadias podcast that working with Akshaye Khanna in the 90s was challenging. She described him as being difficult on set, which made her hesitant to work with him back then. She explained that during that time, Akshaye was dealing with hair loss, which contributed to his irritability. In the 90s, I did a couple of movies with Akshaye, and after that I was traumatised. Because he used to be a different person. Yes, introverted, but not a nice person on set. Whenever I heard that Akshaye Khanna was in a film, I used to say, I dont have the dates," she said. She further recalled, I think at that time he himself had said that he was losing his hair. He was constantly irritable. He used to throw things and say, What kind of dialogue is this? He used to be that kind of person." Akshaye Khanna Became Very Chill During Dil Chahta Hai However, Farahs opinion of Akshaye changed when she worked with him in Farhan Akhtars Dil Chahta Hai. She couldnt refuse the project as it was her cousin Farhan Akhtars directorial debut. By then, Akshaye had come to terms with his hair loss and had become more relaxed. He had completely changed by then. He had reconciled with his hair. In Dil Chahta Hai, he became very chill. Before that, if there was water or rain in a scene, he would always wear a cap, like see every rain song of his, such as in Taal. But after Dil Chahta Hai, something changed. And he is a brilliant dancer, if you watch Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe, he is dancing better than Aamir and Saif," she said. Today, Farah and Akshaye share a warm relationship. Farah even called Akshaye to congratulate him after watching Dhurandhar and visited his house in Alibaug. She appreciates that Akshaye is dedicated to his craft and enjoys acting without getting caught up in superficial aspects. Farah also revealed that Akshayes role in Tees Maar Khan was turned down by several actors before he accepted it. Initially, Sharman Joshi declined due to his commitment to Ferrari Ki Sawaari. Akshaye, who wasnt the obvious choice for the role due to its zany nature, ultimately took it on and delivered a memorable performance. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:20 IST News movies bollywood 'Akshaye Khanna Used To Be A Different Person': Farah Khan Recalls He Was 'Not Nice, Irritable' On Set Dhurandhar 2 Scoop: Yami Gautam To Perform An Intense Action Scene In Aditya Dhar's Film? Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 07:53 IST Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is expected to pick up directly from the cliffhanger ending of the original film. Rapid Read Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is scheduled to arrive in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026. After the massive success of Dhurandhar, everyone is eagerly waiting for the second part of Aditya Dhars directorial. As fans wait for the film to hit theatres on March 19, several theories regarding what might happen next in the Ranveer Singh starrer have also been going viral on social media. Now, an X user, who was previously a journalist, has claimed that Yami Gautam will play an intense role in Dhurandhar 2. Yami Gautam turns full-on action mode as an agent in a high-octane hospital sequence in Dhurandhar 2 ," the user wrote. He then praised Dhurandhar: The Revenge and added, Director Aditya Dhar is set to deliver another intense moment on screen." Check it out here: Sara Arjuns Yalina To Kill Hamza? Dhurandhar 2 trailer offers a glimpse into the violent world of Lyari, where Hamza also known as Jaskirat Singh Rangi is seen navigating a dangerous web of secrets, loyalties and betrayal. Among the many scenes that sparked curiosity, one moment stood out: Yalina pointing a gun at an unidentified person. This brief shot has led fans to speculate whether the target might actually be Hamza her own husband. The speculation intensified after viewers revisited the song Gehra Hua, sung by Arijit Singh and written by lyricist Irshad Kamil. Fans believe the lyrics subtly hint at the emotional conflict and betrayal that may unfold in the sequel. One line in particular Teri mohabbat mein jalna bhi hai" has sparked discussions about Hamzas possible emotional and psychological downfall. According to many fans, the lyrics suggest that his relationship with Yalina may become the most dangerous element in his life. About Dhurandhar 2 Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is expected to pick up directly from the cliffhanger ending of the original film. The sequel will further explore Jaskirats dual identity and the wider intelligence operation unfolding across borders. The narrative is also likely to focus on the shifting power dynamics within Karachis underworld following the death of Rehman Dakait. Backed by Jio Studios and B62 Studios, the film continues Aditya Dhars large-scale spy action franchise. Like its predecessor, the sequel has been mounted on a big scale and will be released in multiple languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is scheduled to arrive in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 07:53 IST News movies bollywood Dhurandhar 2 Scoop: Yami Gautam To Perform An Intense Action Scene In Aditya Dhar's Film? Farah Khan Reveals Karan Johar Received Threats Before Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Premiere Published By : Trending Desk Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 17:03 IST Farah stated on a podcast held by Ranveer Allahbadia that during her college years, many people in her generation preferred Hollywood films Rapid Read Farah Khan calls the 80s the worst era in films. (Photo Credit: Instagram) Farah Khan recently reflected on the working environment in Bollywood when she began her career in the early 1990s, recalling a time when Hindi cinema struggled with its image and the industry was dealing with the shadow of the underworld. The filmmaker and choreographer stated on a podcast held by Ranveer Allahbadia that during her college years, many people in her generation preferred Hollywood films and frequently looked down on Hindi cinema. During the podcast, Farah Khan said, Ill tell you the context of where the film industry was in the early 90s. Earlier, we used to look down upon Hindi films because of the 80s. When we were in college, we were only watching Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing Hollywood films and we used to look down on Hindi movies." Farah Khan On The Why 80s Films Were Worst Farah also called the 80s the worst era in films and explained that the perception stemmed largely from the kind of films being made in that era. She recalled, There were all those multi-hero films Mithun-style or three-hero movies. You had Dharmendra ji, Jeetendra ji, Shatrughan Sinha all coming together, but you cant even remember one particular film clearly." Farah Khan On Underworlds Influence She went on to say that, while many of those films are now widely shared as memes on the internet, the industry was very different back then. Farah also recalled how the film industry in the 1990s was dealing with the growing influence of the underworld. She added, I remember I had just started my career around 1993 or 1994 and producer Mukesh Duggal was shot. That really shook everyone." The filmmaker went on to say that comparable tensions existed during film premieres as well. She recalled that during the premiere of Duplicate and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Karan had received an underworld threat. It was very scary," According to Farah, the threat had led to serious discussions about whether the premiere should go ahead. Later on, the event went ahead as scheduled, but Johar was very stressed. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 17:03 IST News movies bollywood Farah Khan Reveals Karan Johar Received Threats Before Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Premiere Who Will Play Bade Sahab In Dhurandhar 2? Fans Think 'Either Salman Khan Or Emraan Hashmi' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:25 IST Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is expected to pick up directly from the cliffhanger ending of the original film. Rapid Read Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is scheduled to arrive in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026. With fans waiting for the release of Dhurandhar 2, there is one question that everyone is thinking about: Who is Bade Sahab in the movie? Directed by Aditya Dhar and headlined by Ranveer Singh, the film has already sparked massive buzz, but the identity of the actor playing Bade Sahab remains one of its biggest secrets. In the first installment of the superhit movie, references to Bade Sahab appear multiple times, establishing him as the powerful superior of ISI chief Major Iqbal. The character is said to be the mastermind operating behind the scenes, making him one of the most intriguing figures in the franchise. Even Sanjay Dutts character SP Chaudhary Aslam frequently mentions Bade Sahab, hinting at the latters influence within the terror network. As fans wait to know who might play Bade Sahab in Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge, casting director Mukesh Chhabra also took to his X handle recently and dropped an intriguing post. Who is the Bade Bhai Sahab? The guess game is still on. Just wait a few more days, guys youll get all your answers," he wrote. Who is the Bade Bhai Sahab? The guess game is still on. Just wait a few more days, guys youll get all your answers. Mukesh Chhabra CSA (@CastingChhabra) March 13, 2026 Reacting to Mukeshs post, one of the users wrote, Its either Salman Khan or Emraan Hashmi". It should be noted that previously, a photo of Salman from the sets of Dhurandhar had also gone viral on social media. Another user claimed that Anil Kapoor was approached by the makers for the part but he could not sign the project due to certain reasons. Several others asked Chhabra to reveal the secret soon. Meanwhile, Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is expected to pick up directly from the cliffhanger ending of the original film. The sequel will further explore Jaskirats dual identity and the wider intelligence operation unfolding across borders. The narrative is also likely to focus on the shifting power dynamics within Karachis underworld following the death of Rehman Dakait. Backed by Jio Studios and B62 Studios, the film continues Aditya Dhars large-scale spy action franchise. Like its predecessor, the sequel has been mounted on a big scale and will be released in multiple languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge is scheduled to arrive in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:23 IST News movies bollywood Who Will Play Bade Sahab In Dhurandhar 2? Fans Think 'Either Salman Khan Or Emraan Hashmi' Emma Watson, Robert Pattinson Catch Up At Pre-Oscars Bash, Potterheads Go Wild Published By : Trending Desk Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 12:45 IST Emma Watson and Robert Pattinson were spotted chatting at a pre-Oscars party, delighting Harry Potter fans who called it a reunion of Hermione Granger and Cedric Diggory. Rapid Read Emma Watson and Robert Pattinson have worked together in the Harry Potter film series. (Photo Credit: Instagram) Hollywood stars Emma Watson and Robert Pattinson recently delighted fans when they were spotted catching up at a pre-Oscars celebration. The unexpected reunion of the two actors instantly sent the internet into a nostalgic frenzy, especially among fans of the iconic Harry Potter film series. Photos from the star-studded bash captured Watson and Pattinson engaged in a lively conversation, smiling and enjoying the moment together. Their candid interaction quickly began circulating online, sparking excitement among longtime followers of the wizarding world. For fans, the moment felt like a mini Hogwarts reunion. Take a look at it here: Emma Watson and Robert Pattinson reunited yesterday at an event in Beverly Hills!Hermione and Cedric pic.twitter.com/HBZfA0rpw1 Harry Potter Universe (@HPotterUniverse) March 13, 2026 Hermione Granger Meets Cedric Diggory Again Watson and Pattinson are both closely associated with the beloved Harry Potter franchise. Watson famously portrayed Hermione Granger across all eight films of the series. Pattinson, meanwhile, appeared in the fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where he played the charming Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory. Although Pattinsons role was brief, Cedric Diggory became one of the most memorable characters from the film. Seeing the two actors together years later instantly reminded fans of their shared connection to the magical franchise. Fans Celebrate The Unexpected Reunion Soon after the photos surfaced online, fans flooded social media with nostalgic reactions. One fan joked, Hogwarts Class of 2009 members Cedric Diggory and Hermione Granger discussing wizardry at the recent class reunion." Another wrote, Hermione and Cedric Diggory OMG," while someone else commented, Welcome back Hermione Granger and Cedric Diggory." The reunion may have been brief, but for Potterheads, it was enough to spark memories of the beloved series that defined a generation. Emma Watson And Robert Pattinsons Careers Today Both actors have moved far beyond their Hogwarts days and built impressive careers in Hollywood. Emma Watson was last seen in major films such as Beauty and the Beast and Little Women, where she showcased her range in both blockbuster and critically acclaimed projects. Robert Pattinson, meanwhile, continues to headline major franchises. The actor is set to appear in upcoming projects including The Batman Part II and Dune: Part Three, along with another film titled The Drama. A Star-Studded Night In Hollywood The pre-Oscars bash brought together several big names from Hollywood. During the event, Emma Watson was also seen interacting with Priyanka Chopra. Robert Pattinson attended the party with his fiancee Suki Waterhouse. The couple, who welcomed a baby girl in 2024, were seen enjoying a relaxed evening together. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 12:45 IST News movies hollywood Emma Watson, Robert Pattinson Catch Up At Pre-Oscars Bash, Potterheads Go Wild Rebel Wilson Faces Fresh Controversy After Leaked Audio In The Deb Legal Dispute Published By : Trending Desk Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 11:06 IST Rebel Wilsons legal battle surrounding The Deb intensifies after leaked audio and court filings allege discussions of a smear campaign against producer Amanda Ghost. Rapid Read Rebel Wilson faces controversy amid leaked audio in a legal dispute. (Photo Credit: Instagram) Hollywood actor Rebel Wilson has is surrounded by a fresh controversy following the emergence of leaked audio linked to an ongoing legal dispute involving her directorial debut film, The Deb. According to newly filed court documents in Los Angeles Superior Court, crisis PR professionals allegedly discussed creating anonymous websites targeting film producer Amanda Ghost. The materials reportedly include voice notes and text messages that reference damaging allegations aimed at discrediting Ghost during a legal battle tied to the film. Recommended Stories Razzie Awards 2026: Ice Cube Named Worst Actor As War Of The Worlds Leads With Five Wins The filings claim the strategy involved publishing false accusations online to harm Ghosts reputation. The revelations have intensified the already complicated legal dispute surrounding the production. Voice Notes Discuss Alleged Strategy According to People, the leaked audio transcripts were introduced during a deposition involving Katie Case, a former employee of public relations firm The Agency Group (TAG). In the recording, digital strategist Jed Wallace allegedly outlines a plan to build a narrative that portrays Amanda Ghost in a negative light. According to the transcript cited in the court filings, Wallace suggests creating online content that would accuse Ghost of serious misconduct. During the recording, Wallace allegedly states that the accusations should be really, really heavy" and connected to serious allegations in order to gain traction. Ghosts legal team has described the alleged websites and claims as unmistakably defamatory" and has asked the court to allow further investigation into the matter. Links To Other Hollywood Legal Disputes Some of the PR professionals mentioned in the filings have also appeared in separate legal proceedings involving Blake Lively and filmmaker Justin Baldoni. In that case, Lively filed a lawsuit in New York against several individuals, including Wallace, crisis publicist Melissa Nathan and attorney Bryan Freedman, alleging a coordinated smear campaign connected to the film It Ends With Us. Wallaces legal team has denied the accusations and stated that he had already been dismissed from the case. They also noted that a judge previously sealed the audio file in the related proceedings to prevent speculation about the recording being taken out of context. The Dispute Surrounding The Deb The legal battle stems from conflicts related to The Deb, which marks Rebel Wilsons first project as a director. The Australian musical premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024. Following its premiere, the project became entangled in multiple lawsuits involving Wilson and several producers, including Amanda Ghost. The dispute includes allegations of defamation and misconduct connected to the films production. Amid the ongoing litigation, the release of The Deb has reportedly been pushed back to April 2026. Lawyers Claim Evidence Contradicts Past Denials Amanda Ghosts attorney, Camille Vasquez, stated that the newly submitted evidence contradicts Wilsons earlier denials regarding the alleged smear websites. In a statement, Vasquez claimed the legal team had long suspected Wilson played a role in the creation of the websites and that the newly presented materials support that theory. Rebel Wilson has repeatedly denied any involvement in the creation of the smear websites. The evidence submitted to the court today supports the conclusion that she was involved," Vasquez said. Representatives for Rebel Wilson and other individuals named in the filings have not yet issued official responses. The case is currently scheduled to go to trial in October 2026, meaning the legal battle surrounding The Deb is far from over. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 11:06 IST News movies hollywood Rebel Wilson Faces Fresh Controversy After Leaked Audio In The Deb Legal Dispute Warren Buffett certainly popularized the concept of value investing. This involves buying companies for less than their estimated worth and has worked well for the Oracle of Omaha. However, there are many investors who want to own businesses that are rapidly increasing their revenue and profits, and this group of market participants is in luck. Here's the ultimate growth stock to buy with $1,000 right now. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue Image source: Getty Images. Finding success in a competitive market Investors should get familiar with Dutch Bros (NYSE: BROS). The company operates and franchises small-format coffee shops that generally only serve customers via drive-throughs. Success stems from a highly customizable menu, personalized service, and fast order completion times. There were 1,136 Dutch Bros locations scattered across the country, mainly in the western and southern parts of the U.S., as of Dec. 31, 2025. Just five years before, there were only 441 stores. That translates to a remarkable 158% growth rate. The retail coffee market might be one of the most competitive industries, but Dutch Bros is finding notable success. Its same-store sales streak, consisting of positive growth in at least the last three years, is indicative of the durability of its business model. This stands out, particularly against Starbucks, which has struggled. Dutch Bros' leadership team has high hopes. The clear objective is to have 2,029 shops open by 2029, which represents 79% growth, compared to today. The target market opportunity in the U.S. is now 7,000 stores, up from a previous estimate of 4,000. There's ample opportunity to open new locations in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Why now? Shares of Dutch Bros have been extremely volatile, and this can be a distraction for investors. The main focus should rest on the company's fundamentals -- and they look strong. Dutch Bros increased revenue by 27.9% year over year in 2025 to $1.6 billion. Its operating income surged 51.9%. These are all positive trends. Wall Street analysts believe that the future will bring more financial success. Over the next three years, the consensus estimate calls for revenue and operating income to rise at compound annual rates of 24.7% and 29.3%, respectively. Dutch Bros' ongoing success, especially at a time of heightened economic uncertainty, should give prospective investors the confidence they need. Vishal Appreciates Rajendra Prasad For Understanding Sentiments And Apologising Over MGR Remark Curated By : IANS Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 13:08 IST Actor Vishal thanked veteran Telugu actor Rajendra Prasad for apologizing for his comment on late actor and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran (MGR). Vishal Says To Err Is Human As Rajendra Prasad Apologises For MGR Comment Actor Vishal, who is also the secretary of the South Indian Artistes Association (SIAA), better known as the Nadigar Sangam, has now thanked veteran Telugu actor Rajendra Prasad for understanding the sentiments of the fans of late actor and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran and seeking an apology for his recent remark on him. In a video clip which he posted on his social media timelines, Vishal said, Greetings Rajender Prasad Sir, On behalf of the South Indian Artistes Association and the fans of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran, we would like to thank you. We put out a video based on what you had spoken. It was because all of us were hurt. Everybody expressed how hurt they were and based on it, we placed a request to you. To err is human but on realising your mistake, you apologised. I thank you sir. It was very, very nice and sweet of you to understand and seek an apology. If somebody were to speak about you like that in future, we would definitely condemn it." The actor went on to say, We might be of this generation, but several people who journeyed with the former Chief Minister like Saidai Duraisamy sir expressed pain at that comment (of yours). However, when you released a video tendering an apology for that comment, everybody was happy that you had realised your mistake. It was sweet of you to understand all our sentiments and on behalf of everyone there are so many fans with some even thinking that he (MGR) is still alive we are thankful." For the unaware, actor Rajendra Prasad, during the course of his speech at an event in Hyderabad, heaped praise on veteran Telugu actor Kanta Rao. While highlighting Kanta Raos significance, he made a comment that demeaned legendary Tamil actor and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR. His comment stirred a hornets nest in Tamil Nadu, resulting in several Tamil actors and fans seeking an apology from the Telugu star. Rajendra Prasad, on learning that his inadvertent remark had hurt the sentiments of fans of MGR, tendered a heartfelt apology. In a video clip, the veteran Telugu actor apologised in Tamil. He said, I am Telugu actor Rajendra Prasad. There was a function that happened in our place. In it, they gave me an award named after veteran actor Kanta Rao. When I was speaking in that function in a jolly manner about the God of Tamil cinema MGR sir, a word slipped out." Pointing out that his comment was an inadvertent one, the actor stressed upon the fact that he had high regard for former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran. Will I talk about him in that fashion? How can I have the courage to talk like that? When I studied in the Madras Film Institute, he was the Chief Minister. He would visit us to see how we were learning to act. I am nobody to speak about him. However, if the word that slipped out of my mouth has hurt any of you, please forgive me. I give you an assurance that in my life, I will never ever speak again in that fashion. Please forgive my mistake this time and close the issue," he said. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 13:08 IST News movies regional-cinema Vishal Appreciates Rajendra Prasad For Understanding Sentiments And Apologising Over MGR Remark Allu Sirish On Being Trolled For Wearing Jewellery At His Wedding: Others Cant Dictate Whats Masculine Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 10:16 IST Allu Sirish, who was trolled for wearing jewellery at his wedding, said that he didnt want criticism to hold him back and felt it was important to challenge stereotypes. Rapid Read Allu Sirish Says He Didnt Mind Being Trolled for Breaking Gender Norms Allu Arjuns younger brother Allu Sirish tied the knot with Nayanika Reddy on March 6 in Hyderabad, and pictures from their wedding festivities went viral on social media. What stood out the most was his elaborate jewellery worn during pre-wedding festivities, as well as the wedding ceremony. Although Sirish faced memes and trolls for challenging gender norms with his style, he mentioned that he possesses enough confidence to not let others dictate what is considered masculine or feminine. Allu Sirish Reacts To Being Trolled For Wearing Jewellery In an interview with Hindustan Times, Allu Sirish stated he was unfazed by the trolling for defying gender expectations. Throughout the ceremonies, he wore diamond and gold jewellery, even applying mehendi with Nayanikas name along with Lord Balajis namam-shanku-chakra for the big day. Gender norms are a new construct, and in ancient times, we were more gender fluid. Men also wore jewellery, and until a hundred years ago, there was no separate perfume for men and women. But now, its all blue for boys and pink for girls. I thought even if I get trolled, let me break that. We needed to start somewhere," said Sirish. Convincing those around him initially proved challenging. They questioned the necessity of him wearing a necklace at that moment. He responded by saying it was essential to try new things, or else nothing would change for another twenty years. They were like, enduku, ipudu avasarama haralu veskovadam (do you need to wear a necklace now)? I said, ehe urukondi. Manam kuda try cheyyakapote inkevaru chestaru. Ilage untundi inko iravai elu kuda. (Let it go. If we also dont try it, nobody will. Things will stay the same for 20 more years)," he said. Sirish pointed out that men typically have limited fashion choices, mainly accessories, which he finds restricting. Confident in his decisions, he asserted that he alone decides what he can wear, without external influences dictating what is masculine or feminine. Men, we dont get to play with clothes, only accessories. Im saying its restricting. Besides, I am pretty self-assured, so I dont need others to dictate whats masculine or feminine. I will dictate what I can wear and nobody else," he said. When Allu Sirish Reacted To Memes About Wearing Jewellery This isnt the first time he has reacted to being trolled for wearing jewellery. After his engagement to Nayanika last year, Allu Sirish reacted to the viral memes circulating about the necklace he wore during his engagement. Sharing his amusement on social media, Allu Sirish pointed out that chokers have a long history of being worn by men. He said that Indian maharajas and Mughal rulers used to wear chokers and that its time to move past the idea that jewellery is only for women. Allu Sirish took to his social media to react to a meme about the jewellery he wore during his engagement to Nayanika. Hahahaha. Our Telugu memers are too funny! Btw vaddanam is worn only by women but our Indian maharajas & Mughals wore chokers," he wrote. He further added, "Chokers are only for women", is a very western construct. Its 2025 & high time we break free from such limiting beliefs and fully embrace our Indian style jewellery." He continued, Infact one of the worlds most valuable jewellery the Khiraj-i-Alam" or Timur Ruby was a choker. It is 352 carat and was worn by Akbar the Great, Shah Jahan and later worn by Maharaja Sher Singh. Later the East India Company stole it & presented it as a gift to Queen Victoria in 1851." News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 10:12 IST News movies telugu-cinema Allu Sirish On Being Trolled For Wearing Jewellery At His Wedding: Others Cant Dictate Whats Masculine Amid Poaching Fears, Congress Trouble-Shooter Shivakumar Hosts Odisha MLAs Before Rajya Sabha Polls Reported By : CNN-News18 Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:54 IST Around 12 Congress legislators from Odisha were flown from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru late on Thursday night and are currently staying at a resort near Bidadi on the city's outskirts Rapid Read Karnataka's deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar (seated 4th from left) with Odisha legislators. (News18) In a move reflecting the Congress partys crisis-management strategy ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, Karnatakas deputy chief minister and state Congress president DK Shivakumar has stepped in to keep the partys flock together by hosting a group of Odisha Congress MLAs in Bengaluru amid fears of cross-voting. Around 12 Congress legislators from Odisha were flown from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru late on Thursday night and are currently staying at a resort near Bidadi on the outskirts of the city. Sources said the MLAs will remain in Karnataka until Monday before returning to Bhubaneswar to participate in the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled for March 16. The relocation comes amid intense political manoeuvring in Odisha after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded three candidates for four Rajya Sabha seats, increasing the possibility of cross-voting. A total of five candidates are in the fray for the four seatsBJP has fielded three candidates, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) one candidate, while the Congress and BJD have jointly backed noted neurologist Dr Datteshwar Hota, former director of Odisha Medical University. Each candidate requires 30 votes to secure victory in the election. The joint BJD-Congress candidate is estimated to have 32 voteswith BJD holding 18 MLAs, Congress 14, and the CPI(M) one votegiving the alliance a slender margin. However, party leaders fear attempts at poaching by rivals. Particularly vulnerable are eight first-time Congress MLAs, who are believed to be targets of political inducements. These legislatorsRajan Ekka, Ashok Das, Appala Kumar Swamy, Mangu Killo, Pavitra Sauntha, Nilamadhav Hikka, Prafulla Pradhan and Sathyajit Gomongoare among those currently staying at the Wonderla resort near Bengaluru. Speaking about the development, Shivakumar said the move was made at the request of the Odisha Congress leadership. We have a secular candidate in Odisha. Their PCC president called me and requested support. As the Karnataka Congress president, I invited them to Bengaluru and made all the arrangements. The BJP has attempted Operation Kamala and given big offers to lure them," Shivakumar said. The Odisha Assembly has a total strength of 147 members, and with the numbers for the joint candidate being tight, the Congress leadership appears keen to avoid any last-minute surprises. Shivakumar, known within the party for managing delicate political situations and safeguarding legislators during crucial votes, once again appears to be playing the role of the Congress go-to troubleshooter as the high-stakes Rajya Sabha election approaches. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Bidadi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:54 IST News politics Amid Poaching Fears, Congress Trouble-Shooter Shivakumar Hosts Odisha MLAs Before Rajya Sabha Polls Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Beyond The M-Y Formula: Samajwadi Party Signals Brahmin Outreach As 2027 UP Elections Approach Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 16:27 IST The Samajwadi Partys renewed focus on Brahmin issues also comes at a time when it has been trying to consolidate its political gains from recent elections Rapid Read Akhilesh Yadav has been advocating the PDA formula Pichhda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak (Backward, Dalit and Minority) as the partys central political plank since the 2022 election. (PTI) Is the Samajwadi Party moving beyond its traditional M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) formula to woo Brahmins ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections? The question has begun to echo in the states political corridors after Leader of Opposition Mata Prasad Pandey made a striking appeal to the Brahmin community during an event in Ayodhya on March 9. Brahmins are frightened by the governments authoritarian attitude. They must unite and make Akhilesh Yadav the chief minister in 2027 so that their lost honour can be restored," Pandey said in a remark that has sparked debate about whether the Samajwadi Party is attempting to expand its social base beyond the Muslim-Yadav coalition that has defined its politics for decades. However, this was not the first time that the signals of this outreach appeared on any political platform. In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, SP MLA Kamal Akhtar demanded that April 19, the birth anniversary of Lord Parashuram, be declared a public holiday again, saying such a holiday existed during the SP government but was withdrawn later. The demand was framed as an issue of respect for the Brahmin community, and it reflected a broader trend where SP leaders have begun raising Brahmin-related concerns during legislative debates as well as in public meetings across districts. Political observers believe two developments have played an important role in shaping this emerging narrative. The first was the controversy during Magh Mela earlier this year when police stopped the palanquin of Swami Avimukteshwaranand from proceeding towards the Sangam for ritual bathing. The incident triggered protests and clashes between disciples and police personnel, and images circulated widely showing a young disciple being dragged by his hair tuft during the scuffle. The episode created resentment among sections of the Brahmin community and soon turned into a political flashpoint, with opposition leaders accusing the government of disrespecting religious figures. The second issue relates to new guidelines notified by the University Grants Commission aimed at preventing caste discrimination in higher educational institutions. Some upper-caste student groups criticised the rules, arguing that they could create a perception that general category students are inherently discriminatory. The Samajwadi Partys renewed focus on Brahmin issues also comes at a time when it has been trying to consolidate its political gains from recent elections. In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the party had been reduced to just 47 seats. However, in the 2022 assembly election, the SP-led alliance secured 125 seats and emerged as the principal opposition in the state. Its vote share also increased significantly, reaching around 32 per cent compared with about 21.8 per cent in 2017. Much of this growth was attributed to consolidation among OBC, Muslim and sections of Dalit voters. Akhilesh Yadav has been advocating the PDA formula Pichhda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak (Backward, Dalit and Minority) as the partys central political plank since the 2022 election. However, the current emphasis on Brahmin concerns indicates that the party may be attempting to broaden its coalition while maintaining its traditional support base. After the Magh Mela controversy, Akhilesh Yadav reportedly spoke to Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand, while several SP MPs and MLAs have been raising the issue publicly and criticising the government led by Yogi Adityanath. Political analyst Shashikant Pandey, who heads the department of political science at Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, believes that the Samajwadi Party is attempting a strategic expansion rather than abandoning its core formula. The SPs M-Y base remains intact and central to its politics. However, the party understands that to challenge the BJP in a major way, it must widen its social coalition. Reaching out to Brahmins is part of that effort. The recent controversies have provided a political opportunity for the opposition to highlight grievances within sections of the upper-caste electorate," he said. Despite this outreach, electoral history suggests that Brahmin voters have rarely supported the Samajwadi Party in large numbers. The community, which accounts for roughly 10-12 per cent of Uttar Pradeshs population, remained largely aligned with the Congress until the late 2000s before shifting decisively toward the BJP. Election data highlights this trend: in the 2017 assembly election, the BJP received about 83 per cent of Brahmin votes, and in both the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2022 assembly elections, the figure was close to 89 per cent. Even in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, only one Brahmin MP was elected among the SPs 37 winning candidates. For the Samajwadi Party, therefore, the challenge lies in retaining its traditional Muslim-Yadav base while persuading Brahmin voters that the party can represent their interests as well. Party leaders often cite the legacy of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who maintained close relations with prominent Brahmin leaders such as Janeshwar Mishra, to argue that the party has always had space for upper-caste leadership. Whether the current outreach will translate into electoral gains remains uncertain, but as the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly election approaches, the contest for the Brahmin vote appears to be emerging trend in poll-bound UP. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 16:27 IST News politics Beyond The M-Y Formula: Samajwadi Party Signals Brahmin Outreach As 2027 UP Elections Approach Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... With Focus On Muslims & Christians In Kerala, RSS Looks To Expand Footprint Via Social Pitch Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:26 IST The outreach forms part of a nationwide campaign marking 100 years of RSS, an effort aimed not merely at expansion, but also at building what the Sangh describes as Sajjan Shakti Rapid Read RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, left, and General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale during the 'All India Representative Assembly of RSS', in Samalkha, Panipat, Haryana. (PTI) Amid its centenary year, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has projected a carefully calibrated message that speaks about the expansion of the organisation alongside outreach across castes and communities, including Muslims and Christians. And the most striking illustration, according to Sangh functionaries, has come from Kerala. Addressing journalists at the annual Akhil Bhartiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) in Haryanas Samalkha, RSS joint general secretary CR Mukunda highlighted that the Sangh volunteers conducting the centenary Griha Sampark Abhiyan (door-to-door campaign) reached out to over 55,000 Muslim households and more than 54,000 Christian families in Kerala, where they were warmly welcomed. The outreach forms part of a nationwide campaign marking 100 years of the RSS, an effort aimed not merely at organisational expansion but also at building what the Sangh describes as Sajjan Shaktithe constructive forces within society. The three-day Pratinidhi Sabha, inaugurated by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, is being held at the Madhav Srishti campus in Samalkha with more than 1,400 representatives from across the country participating. Among other things, the ABPS paid tributes to several eminent personalities who passed away recently, including former Union Home Minister and Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil and veteran Communist leader R Nallakannu. The Sangh remembered their public service and contributions to national life during the opening session of the ABPS. Expansion & The Social Narrative The numbers presented in the Sanghs annual report reflect a steady organisational expansion. Over the past year, the RSS has increased its footprint from 83,129 shakhas operating at 51,740 locations to 88,949 shakhas across 55,683 places, adding nearly 3,943 new locations and 5,820 shakhas in a year. Parallel to this expansion, the Sangh has pushed its social mobilisation through large gatherings. According to Mukunda, over 37,000 Hindu Sammelans have been organised nationwide with the participation of around 3.5 crore people, cutting across urban, rural and tribal regions. These events, the RSS says, are meant to promote its concept of Panch Parivartan, a five-point societal transformation agenda focusing on social harmony, environmental consciousness, family values (Kutumb Prabodhan), pride in civilisational identity, and civic responsibility. Messages on Security and Borders The Sangh leadership also used the platform to address developments in conflict-affected regions. Mukunda welcomed government efforts to restore peace in Naxal-affected areas, saying the improving security situation is enabling development to reach regions long trapped in insurgency. He also pointed to encouraging signs of stabilisation in Manipur, noting that RSS volunteers had been involved in relief and reconciliation efforts on the ground. At the same time, the Sangh expressed concern about the condition of Hindus in neighbouring Bangladesh, hoping that the situation of the community there would improve. Taken together, the messaging from the Pratinidhi Sabha reflects the Sanghs twin strategy in its centenary year, expanding its organisational reach while projecting a broader social engagement narrative from minority outreach in Kerala to national security concerns along Indias borders. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Samalkha, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:26 IST News politics With Focus On Muslims & Christians In Kerala, RSS Looks To Expand Footprint Via Social Pitch Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Bengaluru Student Looks For Fake Parent To Attend College PTM: Hit Me Up If Youre 40 Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 14:27 IST The post showed a Bengaluru student looking to hire a fake parent to attend a parent-teacher meeting. The post first appeared on Reddit. (Representative Image) Hiring someone to act as your parent might sound like a plot straight out of a comedy film. But a recent post circulating online suggests that for some students, it might actually be a real solution. A post that first appeared on Reddit has now gone viral on social media after it showed a Bengaluru student looking to hire a fake parent" to attend a parent-teacher meeting. The unusual request has left the internet both amused and curious. Bengaluru Student Looks For Fake Parent For PTM The original post asked for someone to act as a parent from Indiranagar and attend a PTM on behalf of the student. Need a fake parent for my PTM. l am in college and I have a PTM coming up. I need a fake dad or mom to come with me. Hit me up if you are above 40 years of age and can speak fluent English. My bf is ready to pay Rs 15,000." According to the post, the college is located in JP Nagar. The unusual request caught attention online and soon found its way to other platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), where users began sharing their own stories and reactions. Chennai Man Shares Similar Story From 2003 Among those reacting to the post was a man from Chennai who recalled a somewhat similar incident from his college days: A college classmate did this in 2003. Hired his good-looking, English-speaking cook to attend the PTM as his father. Paid him 10K. It was on a Saturday, and the cook gave an Oscar-level performance. Everything was perfect. Until the following Tuesday, when his real father decided to drop by college and say hello." A college classmate did this in 2003.Hired his good-looking, English-speaking cook to attend the PTM as his father. Paid him 10K. It was on a Saturday, and the cook gave an Oscar-level performance. Everything was perfect. Until the following Tuesday, when his real father pic.twitter.com/FIqBZKQIUN Narayanan Hariharan (@narayananh) March 13, 2026 Internet Reacts With Jokes And Stories The post sparked plenty of jokes and playful reactions from internet users with a person jokingly commenting, My dad has retired and is looking for a side hustle." Im 34. Have few strands of white hair in my moustache and beard. Will it work?" another said. Someone else jested, Ill be 31 in August this year, but Im an old soul. Can I try?" Too expensivemy friend hired some random uncle from bus stop at school for 500 to be his dad. Only at the end of the year his real dad came to know about this," a viewer shared. One of my buddies at school had friends attend his wedding (bhaag ke shadi, with no small challenges) posing as his relatives!!" an individual wrote while another added, Could be a startup idea." Meanwhile, some users were more puzzled than amused and questioned the concept of a parent-teacher meeting at the college level. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 14:27 IST News viral Bengaluru Student Looks For Fake Parent To Attend College PTM: Hit Me Up If Youre 40 Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Who Is Devendra Chaplot? IIT Bombay Genius Joins Elon Musks xAI Superintelligence Squad Curated By : Trending Desk Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 12:51 IST An IIT Bombay graduate and AI researcher, has joined SpaceX and xAI to work closely with Elon Musk on building advanced artificial intelligence systems. His work will focus on combining robotics and AI to develop what he calls superintelligence. Devendra Singh Chaplot, an Indian researcher known for his work in artificial intelligence and robotics, has announced a major step in his career. On March 14, he shared that he is joining SpaceX and xAI, two companies led by Elon Musk. His new role will involve working closely with Musk and his teams on advanced AI projects. Chaplot made the announcement in a post on X (formerly Twitter), where he spoke about the opportunity to work on building powerful AI systems. His focus will be on bringing together robotics and artificial intelligence to create smarter technologies that combine the physical and digital worlds. Chaplot Announces New Role At Musks Companies In his post, Chaplot explained that he would be directly involved in building what he described as superintelligence." He believes the collaboration between SpaceX and xAI could open doors to major breakthroughs in technology. Im joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence. Together, SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique," he wrote. Chaplot also shared how meaningful this moment is for him personally. Much of his career has been spent exploring robotics and artificial intelligence, and he said this new role connects directly with the areas he has cared about for years. Im excited to advance the fields Ive obsessed over for years, from robotics research to building AI models on the founding teams of Mistral and TML. Both were extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that shaped how I think about building intelligence from the ground up," he added. Im joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence.Together SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and pic.twitter.com/tjaPUjGUwK Devendra Chaplot (@dchaplot) March 13, 2026 He ended the message by thanking the people and experiences that helped shape his path so far. Chaplot said he is ready to begin this next stage of his career. Grateful for everything that brought me here and cant wait to get started." Elon Musk also responded to the announcement. The xAI chief reshared Chaplots post and welcomed him to the organisation, writing, Welcome to @xAI!" A Move That Follows Company Restructuring Chaplots joining comes shortly after an important development involving Musks companies. In February, SpaceX acquired xAI as part of a corporate restructuring effort. The move was aimed at bringing together Musks ambitions in artificial intelligence and space technology. By combining the two organisations, the goal is to create stronger links between advanced AI systems and real-world hardware used in space exploration. Chaplots experience in both robotics and machine learning makes him a strong fit for this vision. Who Is Devendra Singh Chaplot? Journey From IIT Bombay To Global AI Labs Devendra Singh Chaplot studied at IIT Bombay, one of Indias top engineering institutes. He later earned a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. His academic journey began with strong achievements early on. In 2010, he secured an All India Rank 25 in the IIT-JEE examination. He also achieved an International Rank 5 at the International Mathematics Olympiad. Over the years, Chaplot has worked with several leading organisations in the AI field. He was part of the founding team of Mistral AI and served there as a Research Scientist, focusing on building advanced AI models. Before that, he worked at the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) Lab. His research there covered areas such as machine learning, computer vision, and robotics. Chaplot has also led teams that built AI systems which performed strongly in major global competitions. These include the CVPR-2019 PointNav Challenge, the CVPR-2020 ObjectNav Challenge, the NeurIPS-2022 Rearrangement Habitat Challenge, and the Visual-Doom AI Competition in 2017. His work has earned several honours. He received the Facebook Fellowship Award and has also won Best Paper and Best Demo awards at major AI conferences. Chaplot also spent about a year working at Samsung Electronics headquarters in South Korea. His work and research have been featured in well-known technology publications including MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, and Popular Science. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:54 IST News viral Who Is Devendra Chaplot? IIT Bombay Genius Joins Elon Musks xAI Superintelligence Squad Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 11 Indian Nationals Stage Fake Robbery To Secure America's 'U Visa', Arrested Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 10:32 IST All of them were residing unlawfully in different US states, including Massachusetts, Kentucky and Ohio. Rapid Read The school acknowledged the distress caused by the false alert. (Representative Image) At least eleven Indian nationals living illegally in the United States have been charged with visa fraud for allegedly conspiring to stage armed robberies at convenience stores, US federal prosecutors said. Authorities said the accused organised fake robberies so that store clerks could falsely claim to be victims of violent crime in immigration applications in an attempt to obtain a Green Card. Recommended Stories Jitendrakumar Patel, 39, Maheshkumar Patel, 36, Sanjaykumar Patel, 45, Dipikaben Patel, 40, Rameshbhai Patel, 52, Amitabahen Patel, 43, Ronakkumar Patel, 28, Sangitaben Patel, 36, Minkesh Patel, 42, Sonal Patel, 42, and Mitul Patel, 40, have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud. All of them were residing unlawfully in different US states, including Massachusetts, Kentucky and Ohio. Dipikaben was deported to India after unlawfully living in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the Justice Department said in a statement. Jitendrakumar, Maheshkumar, Sanjaykumar, Amitabahen, Sangitaben and Mitul were arrested in Massachusetts and released after an initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Friday. Rameshbhai, Ronakkumar, Sonal and Minkesh were arrested and made their initial court appearances in Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio, and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date. According to the charging documents, in March 2023 Rambhai and his co-conspirators organised and carried out staged armed robberies at at least six convenience stores, liquor shops and fast-food restaurants in Massachusetts and other locations. Prosecutors allege the purpose of the staged robberies was to enable clerks present at the stores to falsely claim they were victims of a violent crime while applying for U non-immigrant status, also known as a U Visa. A U Visa is available to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and who have been helpful to law enforcement in investigating or prosecuting criminal activity. It offers work authorisation and a potential pathway to a Green Card within five to ten years. Authorities said that during the alleged staged robberies, the robber" would threaten store clerks or owners with what appeared to be a firearm, take cash from the register and flee, while the entire interaction was recorded on store surveillance cameras. The clerks or store owners would then wait at least five minutes until the robber" had left before calling the police to report the crime." Investigators said the victims" allegedly paid Rambhai to take part in the scheme, while Rambhai in turn paid store owners to use their shops for the staged robberies. Rambhai, along with the robber" and the getaway driver, had previously been charged and convicted. The 11 defendants charged on Friday are accused of either coordinating with the organiser to arrange the robberies or paying for themselves or a family member to take part as a victim." The charge of conspiracy to commit visa fraud carries a possible sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of USD 250,000. (With inputs from PTI) News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 10:32 IST News world 11 Indian Nationals Stage Fake Robbery To Secure America's 'U Visa', Arrested Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 270 Rockets, Artillery Shells In 48 Hours: Why Pakistan And Afghanistan Are In 'Open War'? Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 19:04 IST Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have surged again with Islamabad firing over 270 rockets fired into the Kunar Province. Image for representation (File image credit: REUTERS) Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have surged once again, with more than 270 rockets and artillery shells fired from Pakistan into Afghanistans Kunar Province over the past 48 hours, CNN-News18 sources reported. Ziaurrahman Spin Ghar, director of information at Kunars Department of Information and Culture, acknowledged the strikes affected multiple regions across the province, but added there had been no casualties so far. Conflicts Ongoing Since Feb Pakistan and Afghanistan the two Asian neighbours have been in an open conflict since February 21, when Islamabad conducted airstrikes on Kabul and targeted camps associated with Taliban. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of allowing militant groups especially the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to operate from Afghan territory and launch attacks in Pakistan. Kabul, on the other hand, has constantly denied the allegations. The airstrikes prompted a retaliatory attack from the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, triggering a cycle of daily clashes, drone strikes and cross-border exchanges along the shared frontier between the two nations. Since then, the conflict has only intensified, with both sides accusing each other of harbouring militant groups responsible for cross-border attacks. Pakistan Renews Air Campaign Earlier this week, Islamabad intensified its air campaign against Kabul, targeting multiple locations across the border. Pakistani intelligence sources said the operations aimed to target high-value targets linked to the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Following the strikes, Taliban officials warned that the attacks will not go unanswered." Local reports and intelligence sources said Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter jets conducted coordinated strikes and targeted several key sites across Afghanistan, including Kandahar airport, military positions in Paktia province and sites in Kabul. The strikes highlight the deepening crisis along the Pak-Afghanistan border, , a volatile region that has long been a hub for militant activity. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 19:04 IST News world 270 Rockets, Artillery Shells In 48 Hours: Why Pakistan And Afghanistan Are In 'Open War'? Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Anyone Clothed By US Is Naked: Iranian Officials Unity Message To Gulf States Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 21:17 IST Irans parliament speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf, criticized US bases in Gulf countries, claiming they pose threats, prioritize Israel, and warned Gulf states of potential risks. Irans parliament speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf, criticized US bases in Gulf countries, claiming they pose threats, prioritize Israel, and warned Gulf states of potential risks. (Image: X) Irans parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has again criticised the presence of US forces in Gulf countries, claiming American military bases in the region pose a threat rather than providing security. In a post on X, the Iranian parliament speaker said the ongoing conflict had exposed what he described as the risks of hosting American troops. This war proved one thing quite clearly: American bases in our region do not protect anyone they are a threat," Ghalibaf wrote. He accused the United States of prioritising support for Israel over the interests of other regional partners. America sacrifices everyone for Israel and does not care about anyone but Israel," he added. Ghalibaf also used a striking metaphor to criticise countries that rely on US military protection. Anyone clothed by the US is literally NAKED!" he wrote in the post. The remarks come as tensions remain high across the Gulf following the escalation of the war between Iran and the US-Israel alliance, which has spread military activity across multiple countries in the region and threatened key shipping routes. Iranian officials have repeatedly warned Gulf states hosting US bases that they could become targets if the conflict widens further. Meanwhile, Washington maintains that its military presence in the region is necessary to protect allies and secure critical maritime routes such as the Strait of Hormuz. Ghalibaf, a former commander in Irans Revolutionary Guard and a long-time hardline political figure, has been among the most vocal critics of the US presence in the Gulf during the ongoing war. He has served as speaker of Irans parliament since 2020 and previously held senior military and political roles in the country News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Tehran, Iran First Published: March 14, 2026, 21:17 IST News world Anyone Clothed By US Is Naked: Iranian Officials Unity Message To Gulf States Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE:UHS) is among the 11 Most Oversold Stocks to Buy Now. Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) Announces Agreement to Acquire Talkspace (TALK) for $5.25 Per Share On March 9, 2026, Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE:UHS) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Talkspace (TALK) for $5.25 per share, implying an enterprise value of about $835M. The transaction will be financed through borrowings under the companys existing revolving credit facility. Talkspace is a virtual behavioral healthcare provider with a network of roughly 6,000 licensed professionals serving all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. As of December 31, 2025, its services were available to more than 200M individuals through health insurance plans, employee assistance programs, or employer, school, or government benefits. The company generated $229M in revenue and delivered more than 1.6M therapy and psychiatry sessions in 2025. Excluding one-time acquisition costs, the deal is expected to be slightly accretive to UHS adjusted net income per diluted share during the first twelve months after closing and increasingly accretive thereafter. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to Talkspace shareholder approval, regulatory approvals, and customary closing conditions. On March 2, 2026, Wells Fargo lowered its price target on Universal Health Services to $212 from $235 and maintained an Equal Weight rating. Wells Fargo said Q4 results were weak, primarily due to the Acute business. The firm added that 2026 guidance is in line with consensus but will require stronger volumes and core growth than seen in 2025. On February 25, 2026, Universal Health Services reported Q4 EPS of $5.88 versus the $5.90 consensus estimate and revenue of $4.49B compared with the $4.5B consensus. The company expects FY26 adjusted EPS of $22.64-$24.52, compared with the $23.52 consensus estimate. Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE:UHS) owns and operates acute care hospitals and outpatient and behavioral health care facilities in the United States through its Acute Care Hospital Services and Behavioral Health Care Services segments. While we acknowledge the potential of UHS as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If youre looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock . READ NEXT: 12 Best Tech Stocks that Beat Earnings Estimates and 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026 Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. 'Begging China' Over Hormuz: Iran Slams US Security Role, Asks Gulf States To Choose Sides Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 23:26 IST Irans Foreign Minister criticised the US plan for a multinational naval force in the Strait of Hormuz, accusing it of escalating tensions. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqhchi. (AFP) Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi criticised Washingtons plan to assemble a multinational naval force to secure the Strait of Hormuz, saying the United States is now begging others" to ensure the waterway remains safe. In a post on X, Araqchi said the US security umbrella in the region had failed and accused Washington of escalating tensions in West Asia. Touted US security umbrella has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble. US is now begging others, even China, to help it make Hormuz safe.Iran calls on brotherly neighbors to expel foreign aggressors, especially as their only concern is Israel. Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 14, 2026 Touted US security umbrella has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble. US is now begging others, even China, to help it make Hormuz safe," he wrote. Also Read: Trump Says Global Coalition Will Send Warships To Hormuz. Which Countries Did He Name? Araqchi also urged neighbouring countries to distance themselves from the United States and expel foreign troops from the region. Iran calls on brotherly neighbours to expel foreign aggressors, especially as their only concern is Israel," he added. The remarks came after Donald Trump said several countries could join the United States in sending warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open following Irans attempts to disrupt shipping in the strategic waterway. In a Truth Social post, Trump said countries heavily dependent on Gulf oil, including China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, could send naval ships to operate alongside US forces. Washington has argued that international cooperation is necessary to secure the narrow maritime corridor, through which roughly one-fifth of the worlds oil supply passes each day. Iran, however, has repeatedly warned that foreign military presence in the Gulf threatens regional stability and has called on neighbouring states hosting US bases to reconsider their security arrangements. The escalating war between Iran and the US-Israel alliance has increasingly focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz, raising concerns about global energy markets and the risk of a wider regional conflict. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Tehran, Iran First Published: March 14, 2026, 23:25 IST News world 'Begging China' Over Hormuz: Iran Slams US Security Role, Asks Gulf States To Choose Sides Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Camilla Believed Meghan 'Brainwashed' Prince Harry: Shocking Claims In New Book On Royal Family Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 22:10 IST Royal author Tom Bower's book claims Queen Camilla said Meghan Markle "brainwashed" Prince Harry. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (Image credit: Reuters) Prince Harry and Meghan Markle the estranged couple from the royal family were the subjects of a new book by royal author Tom Bower, according to the extracts published by The Times. The upcoming book, Betrayal: Power, Deceit and the Fight for the Future of the Royal Family," claims Queen Camilla, 78, privately told a friend that Meghan had brainwashed" Harry. Meghan had become a divisive agent. To please her, Harry was ignoring his old friends. He even changed his telephone number without telling his family", Bower wrote. Increasingly, his character mirrored Meghans. Emotionally, he veered towards extremes. Simple dislikes became passionate hatred. Meghans brainwashed Harry, Camilla told a friend." Meanwhile, Prince Harrys spokesperson hit back at the claims, describing it as a deranged conspiracy". Mr Bowers commentary has long crossed the line from criticism into fixation. This is someone who has publicly stated, the monarchy in fact depends on actually obliterating the Sussexes from our state of life, language that speaks for itself." He has made a career out of constructing ever more elaborate theories about people he does not know and has never met. Those interested in facts will look elsewhere; those seeking deranged conspiracy and melodrama know exactly where to find him", he added. What Are The Claims? In the book, Bower recalls a meeting after the couple returned from their honeymoon in 2018, when the Sussexes met Prince William and Princess Kate at Kensington Palace. He claimed the couples relationship had bothered Prince William, and that his suspicion of Meghan was echoed by his wife, Princess Kate. Williams dislike of Meghan had been obvious after his warning to Harry before their engagement. Its gone too quickly, William had said about the speed of Harrys relationship with the American actress. Williams suspicion of Meghan was echoed by his wife.", Bower writes. On Andrews Arrest According to a snippet from the excerpt, the book shed light on how Prince Harry was stunned by Prince Williams reaction to their uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsors arrest, who was held on the suspicion of misconduct in public office. The arrest pertained to allegations of leaking confidential documents with dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during his time as a trade envoy. It said William backed his father King Charles and his decisions to kick out Andrew of Royal Lodge and strip his titles. It also said the Prince of Wales issued a statement after Andrews arrest, saying he and Princess Kate stood by the actions of the King. Rightly, Harry fears that the future King William could remove all the Sussexes titles and effectively banish him from Britain", Bower wrote. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : London, United Kingdom (UK) First Published: March 14, 2026, 22:10 IST News world Camilla Believed Meghan 'Brainwashed' Prince Harry: Shocking Claims In New Book On Royal Family Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Effects Will Last Decades: How Iran War Could Undermine US Military Edge Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 18:41 IST Analysts warn the US lacks a clear objective in its conflict with Iran, risking long-term impacts. Trumps approach and reduced agency coordination complicate the response. Iran was covered in black smoke and toxic rain after Israeli strikes on one of its oil refineries. (Reuters) Analysts are raising concerns over the political strategy behind the United States war with Iran, warning that while the military operations have been effective, Washington lacks a clearly defined objective for the conflict and will have a long-term negative impact on the American armed forces. Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities, said the long-term impact could reshape US military posture. The long-term consequences could be significant," she said. This kind of sustained conflict could affect the United States ability to project power for years, if not decades." Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the military execution of the campaign had been strong but criticised the absence of a coherent political strategy guiding the strikes. The military planning has been strong," Rubin said. But politically this is becoming increasingly chaotic because the United States appears to have targeting strategies without a clearly defined goal." Since the US began building up forces in the region earlier this year, the stated objectives of the mission have shifted several times from backing anti-government protests in Iran to dismantling Tehrans nuclear programme, destroying its ballistic missile systems, and most recently reopening the Strait of Hormuz after Iran shut the critical oil shipping route. Michael Singh, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the US National Security Council under President George W Bush, said each of these objectives would normally require a different military strategy. With Iran now closing the Strait of Hormuz, Singh noted that Tehran could increasingly influence how long the conflict lasts. The other side gets a vote in how and when the conflict ends," he said. Analysts have also pointed to President Donald Trumps governing approach as a factor complicating the US response. After returning to office, Trump launched a sweeping effort to dismantle what he described as the Washington foreign policy deep state", reducing the role of career officials across government agencies. Within months, the National Security Council was significantly downsized, while the State Department underwent major layoffs under Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Former US defence official Mara Karlin said the limited coordination across agencies may have contributed to the chaotic early days of the conflict, including the absence of clear evacuation plans for American citizens in the region. Operational secrecy is important," Karlin said. But you also need systems in place so that the government can respond when events escalate." The criticism comes as the conflict with Iran expands and the United States faces growing military, economic and diplomatic challenges in the region. Trump has also acknowledged the difficulty of achieving regime change in Iran. While he initially suggested that figures inside the country might seize power, many potential successors were reportedly killed during the early strikes. Irans internal security forces have also suppressed public protests. They literally have people in the streets with machine guns shooting protesters," Trump said, suggesting that internal opposition faces major obstacles. The expanding conflict has also forced the Pentagon to shift military resources from other theatres, including air-defence systems originally deployed in Asia to deter threats from North Korea and China. Some analysts warn that the prolonged conflict could strain US military capabilities and weaken its ability to respond to future crises. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 17:47 IST News world Effects Will Last Decades: How Iran War Could Undermine US Military Edge Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Entering Decisive Phase: Israeli Defence Minister's Evaluation After 2 Weeks Of Iran War Curated By : News18 Tech Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 19:12 IST Israels Defence Minister Israel Katz said the war with Iran is in a decisive phase as US and Israel intensify strikes. Over 1,500 deaths in Iran, 10-13 in Israel. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz (File Pic: reuters) As the war enters its second week, Israels Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has said the war with Iran is entering a decisive phase", as the United States and Israel intensify military operations against Iranian targets. Speaking to senior military officials in a televised statement, Katz praised recent US strikes on what Washington described as military targets on Kharg Island, Irans key oil export hub. The global and regional struggle against Iran, led by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is escalating and entering the decisive phase that will continue as long as necessary," Katz said. The remarks come as the conflict between Iran and the US-Israel alliance enters its third week, with heavy strikes and counterattacks reported across the region. The war began on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched large-scale airstrikes on Iranian military and strategic targets. Since then, Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel and US-linked positions in the Middle East. The fighting has resulted in heavy casualties, particularly inside Iran. More than 1,500 people have been reported killed in Iran, many of them civilians, following waves of US-Israeli airstrikes across multiple cities. In Israel, the death toll has been significantly lower but still rising, with around 1013 people killed in Iranian missile strikes despite the countrys advanced air-defence systems intercepting many incoming attacks. The conflict has also spilled beyond the two countries, affecting parts of Lebanon, Iraq and several Gulf states hosting US military bases, raising fears of a broader regional war. Israel has vowed to continue its campaign until Irans military and strategic capabilities are severely weakened, while Tehran has warned that the conflict could expand further if attacks on its territory continue. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Israel First Published: March 14, 2026, 19:12 IST News world 'Entering Decisive Phase: Israeli Defence Minister's Evaluation After 2 Weeks Of Iran War Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... First Crack In Iran-Hamas Axis? Militant Group Calls On Tehran To Avoid Gulf Targets | Exclusive Reported By : CNN-News18 Edited By: Apoorva Misra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 14:28 IST Sources say Hamass unusual public appeal is largely driven by concerns over its financial and diplomatic lifelines in the Gulf region Rapid Read Analysts say the message appears designed to protect Hamass relationships with Gulf states and preserve its international legitimacy. (AFP) Palestinian militant group Hamas has publicly urged Iran to avoid launching strikes on Gulf states, signalling what intelligence sources describe as the first visible tension in the Iran-Hamas alliance in nearly 17 years. Top intelligence sources told CNN-News18 that Hamas issued a public call asking Tehran to refrain from targeting Gulf countries during the rapidly widening West Asia war. The statement has been reported by multiple Arabic-language and Palestinian media outlets and has not been denied by Hamas, while no other member of the Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance" has contradicted the appeal. The timing of the statement coincides with Irans ongoing ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting several Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, as well as strikes reported near Qatar and Oman. Protecting Critical Gulf Support Sources say Hamass unusual public appeal is largely driven by concerns over its financial and diplomatic lifelines in the Gulf region. The group is believed to rely on networks linked to the United Arab Emirates as a key conduit for transfers and financial flows that help sustain the fragile economy in Gaza Strip. Iranian missile strikes on Emirati locations, particularly near Dubai, could disrupt these channels and threaten one of the last functioning financial pipelines supporting Gazas economy, intelligence sources said. The group is also wary of alienating Qatar, which hosts Hamass political leadership in Doha and has played a central role in ceasefire negotiations and diplomatic outreach on the Gaza conflict. Iranian strikes near Qatari territory risk putting Doha in a difficult position and could force it to distance itself from the group. Fear of Losing Gulf Backing Beyond financial concerns, Hamas is also wary of the broader political fallout across the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, which plays a key role in shaping Arab League positions on the Gaza war, provides crucial diplomatic space for Palestinian political engagement in the region. Analysts say Iranian missile strikes on Saudi territory risk provoking anger in Riyadh and could harden regional sentiment against Hamas, potentially undermining the groups standing across the Arab world. A Rare Public Divergence The statement marks the first clear sign of friction between Hamas and Tehran, long regarded as one of its principal military backers. For years, Iran has provided funding, weapons and training to Hamas as part of its broader regional network of allied groups. However, intelligence sources say the latest appeal suggests that Hamas is attempting to distance itself from Irans escalating regional confrontation, fearing that Tehrans military strategy could jeopardise the political and financial support systems the group depends on. Analysts say the message appears designed to protect Hamass relationships with Gulf states and preserve its international legitimacy, even as the regional conflict deepens. While it remains unclear whether Iran will heed the appeal, the episode highlights the growing strain within the pro-Iran alliance network as the war spreads across the Middle East. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Palestine First Published: March 14, 2026, 14:22 IST News world First Crack In Iran-Hamas Axis? Militant Group Calls On Tehran To Avoid Gulf Targets | Exclusive Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Five US KC-135 Refuelling Aircraft Hit In Iranian Missile Strike On Saudi Arabia Airbase: Report Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 07:41 IST Iran War Updates: The incident brings the total number of US Air Force refuelling planes that have been damaged or destroyed recently to at least seven. Five US Refuelling Aircraft Damaged in Iranian Missile Strike on Saudi Arabia Airbase. (Representative Image) US-Israel-Iran War: Five US Air Force refuelling aircraft were damaged in an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The aircraft were hit on the ground during the attack in recent days. According to two US officials, the aircraft affected were KC-135 Stratotanker refuelling planes belonging to the US Air Force. The officials said the tankers were damaged but not completely destroyed and are currently undergoing repairs. No one was killed in the strike, the WSJ report said. However, when asked by WSJ, US Central Command declined to comment on the situation. The officials said the Iranian missile assault struck the base and impacted the aircraft while they were stationed there. The incident brings the total number of US Air Force refuelling planes that have been damaged or destroyed recently to at least seven. This comes after an incident on Thursday when two KC-135 refuelling planes from the US Air Force collided. One of the aircraft crashed, and the Pentagon confirmed on Friday that all six crew members on board were killed. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 07:41 IST News world Five US KC-135 Refuelling Aircraft Hit In Iranian Missile Strike On Saudi Arabia Airbase: Report Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... From Fujairah To Jebel Ali: These UAE Ports Are On Edge As Iran Retaliates After Kharg Island Strike Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 20:24 IST Iran attacked oil storage facilities at the UAE's Port of Fujairah, causing a massive blaze and suspending some oil-loading operations. Smoke rising from the direction of an energy installation in the Fujairah port (Image credit: AFP via Getty) The United Arab Emirates (UAE) once again came under attack as Iran targeted oil storage facilities at the port of Fujairah on Saturday, triggering a massive blaze at the strategic oil terminal. Following the attack, some oil-loading operations were suspended at the Port of Fujairah, just outside the Strait of Hormuz, as plumes of smoke were seen emerging from the debris. A fire broke out at oil storage facilities at the UAEs Port of Fujairah early Saturday, following an attack pic.twitter.com/rsms0pzYtx Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) March 14, 2026 The UAE intercepted the missile and no injuries were reported, according to the emirates media office. The strike followed US attack on military targets on Irans Kharg Island oil export terminal. Why Port Of Fujairah Is Important? A crucial oil storage facility, Fujairah accounts for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAEs Murban crude oil, equal to about 1 per cent of world demand. The port of Fujairah is based outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman. Because it lies outside the Strait through which a large share of global oil shipments pass it is strategically important for oil storage and export routes that bypass the chokepoint. As the largest port on the UAEs eastern coast and the worlds second-largest bunkering hub, the port serves as a significant outlet for Gulf oil. Irans Threats Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has warned that ports in the United Arab Emirates could be legitimate targets", urging residents to avoid them, in a statement carried by state Television. According to Iranian media reports, the IRGC urged the UAE residents to avoid ports, docks and areas where US forces may be present, warning that these locations could become targets in the strikes. Operations Briefly Suspended At Jebel Ali Port Earlier this month, operations at Jebel Ali Port, West Asias largest container hub, were temporarily suspended after debris from an aerial interception triggered a blaze within the port area. However, there were no reports of casualties or structural damage, officials said. As the largest port in the Middle East, the Jebel Ali port serves as a major transshipment and re-export hub linking Asia, Europe and Africa. The incident came amid the West Asia conflict, following the February 28 coordinated US-Israel strikes on Iran and the subsequent retaliatory actions by Tehran targeting the Gulf nations. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 20:24 IST News world From Fujairah To Jebel Ali: These UAE Ports Are On Edge As Iran Retaliates After Kharg Island Strike Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Last Updated: March 16, 2026, 09:41 IST A drone incident in the vicinity of Dubai International Airport (DXB) affected one of the fuel tanks. US-Israel-Iran War LIVE: The conflict between Iran and Israel entered its 17th day on Monday, with both sides intensifying their rhetoric and military operations. The war has continued to disrupt the region, affecting oil supplies, shipping routes and the broader security situation across several countries. Iranian media reported multiple explosions in Tehran as the fighting escalated. According to Irans Ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, the US-Israeli attacks on Iran have killed more than 1,300 people, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top Iranian officials. Dubai, Abu Dhabi News Today Live Iravani accused the United States and Israel of deliberately targeting civilians by striking populated residential areas and critical civilian infrastructure. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has warned that the toll may be even higher, estimating at least 1,858 people have been killed, including both civilians and military personnel. Meanwhile, at least 773 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the Iran-backed Hezbollah group launched attacks on Israel, according to the countrys Ministry of Public Health. Iran Sends Chartered Plane To Repatriate Crew Of Warship IRIS Lavan Docked In Kochi Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:01 IST On March 1, India granted permission to three Iranian warships that were in regional waters - IRIS Dena, IRIS Lavan, IRIS Booshehr - to dock at countrys ports. Iranian warship IRIS Lavan | File Image Hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi and Indias External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held the fourth round of talks over the West Asia crisis, a chartered aircraft arranged by Iran departed from Kochi late on Friday carrying most of the crew of the Iranian warship IRIS Lavan, which had docked at the Kerala port last week, according to a Hindustan Times report. Officials familiar with the matter said the flight was also transporting the bodies of Iranian sailors who were killed when the warship IRIS Dena was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine near Sri Lanka on March 4. Bodies collected from Sri Lanka The chartered flight, believed to have originated from Turkey, travelled to Colombo to collect the bodies of sailors killed in the sinking of IRIS Dena. Reports in Sri Lankan media said 45 bodies of crew members were transported from Galle National Hospital to Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport for the airlift. Sri Lankan authorities recovered the bodies of 84 Iranian sailors after IRIS Dena was sunk. They also rescued 32 crew members who had been kept at a naval facility. Crew to be taken to Iran Sources familiar with the matter said the crew of IRIS Lavan and the bodies of sailors from IRIS Dena will be transported to Iran by road after reaching Armenia. Iran is repatriating the non-essential members of the 183-strong crew of IRIS Lavan, while a limited number of crew members will remain behind to maintain the warship. Talks between India and Iran The development came after external affairs minister S Jaishankar held the fourth round of talks with Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi. Jaishankar said the Indian governments decision to allow IRIS Lavan to dock at Kochi was the right thing to do" and was taken on humanitarian grounds. Iranian warships in regional waters IRIS Dena had participated in an International Fleet Review and a multi-nation exercise hosted by the Indian Navy last month. On March 1, India granted permission to three Iranian warships that were in regional waters IRIS Dena, IRIS Lavan and IRIS Booshehr to dock at the countrys ports in response to a request from Tehran. However, only IRIS Lavan docked at Kochi on March 4 and its 183-member crew was accommodated at naval facilities. IRIS Booshehr docked in Colombo and its 204-member crew was sent to a Sri Lankan naval facility, while IRIS Dena was sunk by a US submarine in international waters off Sri Lankas southern coast. Iranian sailors in Sri Lanka Sri Lankan authorities and officials of the Iranian embassy in Colombo are engaged in discussions regarding the next steps for the Iranian sailors currently in Sri Lankas care. The Sri Lankan government has decided to grant one-month free visas to the Iranian sailors and to provide them necessary facilities on humanitarian grounds. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Kochi [Cochin], India, India First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:01 IST News world Iran Sends Chartered Plane To Repatriate Crew Of Warship IRIS Lavan Docked In Kochi Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Iran Taunts US Over U-Turn On Russian Oil, Says 'Now Begging World, Spent Months Bullying India' Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 11:38 IST Iran's comments came days after the administration of US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day waiver allowing countries to buy Russian oil cargoes despite existing sanctions. Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US President Donald Trump With the Iran war entering its 15th day and a global oil crisis mounting following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran on Saturday accused the United States of double standards over Russian crude, saying Washington is now begging" several countries to buy the same oil it had earlier tried to block. Follow US-Israel-Iran War LIVE Updates Araghchi criticises US and Europe Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi criticised the United States and European nations over the conflict. Reacting to a report by Financial Times, he said the US had earlier bullied India to stop buying Russian oil. The U.S. spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the worldincl Indiato buy Russian crude. Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win U.S. support against Russia. Pathetic," Araghchi said. The U.S. spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the worldincl Indiato buy Russian crude.Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win U.S. support against Russia. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/fbkrXpXa9P Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 13, 2026 Araghchis comments came days after the administration of US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day waiver allowing countries to buy Russian oil cargoes despite existing sanctions. Last week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington had allowed Indian refiners to buy Russian oil that was stranded at sea and could consider allowing more barrels into the market if supply pressures continue. The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall. They did," Bessent said, noting that New Delhi complied with earlier US requests before receiving the temporary waiver. Oil prices rise amid Strait of Hormuz closure The waiver was introduced after benchmark crude prices crossed $100 per barrel. The rise followed supply disruptions caused by the war and Irans closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most vital oil shipping routes. Iran assures safe passage for Indian ships Meanwhile, Irans Ambassador to India Mohammad Fathali said India would be granted safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Responding to a question about whether Iran would allow Indian-bound ships safe transit through the strategic route, he said, Yes. Because India and I are friends. You can see the future, and I think that after two or three hours. Because we believe that. We believe that Iran and India are friends. We have common interests; we have a common fate." News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Iran First Published: March 14, 2026, 11:02 IST News world Iran Taunts US Over U-Turn On Russian Oil, Says 'Now Begging World, Spent Months Bullying India' Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Image Credit: WFTV Channel 9/YouTube. If you've ever felt like the little guy getting steamrolled by a big corporation, this one's for you. Because a Pittsburgh used-car dealership just walked away with nearly $10 million after a Pennsylvania judge essentially told Hyundai Motor America to sit in the corner and think about what it did. Between early 2018 and mid-2019, Knight Motors and its sister business Doman Auto & Marine Sales both out of Pittsburgh and both owned by the same person purchased 628 used Hyundai Sonatas (model years 20112014) at auction. And these weren't random clunkers; they were part of a massive recall involving Hyundai's notoriously problematic Theta II engines, which affected over 1.6 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles. The dealerships did exactly what the recall process allows: they brought the cars to Hyundai's own franchised dealers for engine replacements or buybacks. Perfectly legal. Perfectly logical. American capitalism at its finest, actually which is a phrase we'll come back to shortly. Hyundai Did Not Take This Well Rather than honoring the recall obligations like any responsible automaker would, Hyundai apparently looked at the volume of claims coming from Knight and its peers, decided something smelled fishy, and in May 2019 made what the judge later called a "stunning decision" to deny every single claim tied to Knight Motors all at once, no nuance, no individual review. Hyundai internally referred to Knight and similar dealerships as the "Frequent Buyback Club" and "repeat offenders," and took steps to reduce or deny their payments. Then, in a bold move that one can only describe as extremely confident for someone about to get caught, Hyundai sued the dealerships for fraud in 2019, after already paying out more than $5 million in buybacks. The Judge Was Not Impressed Image Credit: Harrison Keely - Own work, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia. Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Philip Ignelzi had 16 years on the bench when this case went to trial. By the end of it, he said Hyundai's conduct was among the most egregious examples of evidence destruction and courtroom abuse he had ever seen in all those years. That's a remarkable thing to say about a major automaker. What did Hyundai do, exactly? First reported by Automotive News, the court found that the company crushed hundreds of the recalled vehicles (the very vehicles at the center of the lawsuit), effectively destroying key physical evidence. Emails from a Hyundai case manager were also deleted. The judge called this "rampant spoliation," which is the legal term for destroying evidence, and is generally considered a very bad look in court. Iranian Minister Says New Supreme Leader Has No Problem, Rejects US Wound Claim Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 22:57 IST Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi denied US claims that Irans new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, was wounded in recent strikes. Demonstrators hold a poster of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei inIstanbul, Turkey. (Image: Reuters) Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no problem" with Irans new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, rejecting claims by the United States that he had been wounded and disfigured during the ongoing war. In an interview with MS Now on Saturday, Araqchi dismissed remarks made a day earlier by Pete Hegseth, who had said the Iranian leader was wounded and likely disfigured" following US-Israeli strikes. He is fine. There is no problem," Araqchi said, pushing back against speculation about Khameneis health and ability to lead the country. Who is Irans Supreme Leader? Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, became Irans Supreme Leader after the death of his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in airstrikes at the start of the current war on February 28. The Supreme Leader is Irans most powerful political and religious authority, controlling the armed forces, intelligence services and key state institutions. Mojtaba, long seen as a powerful figure behind the scenes in Iranian politics, was chosen by Irans clerical leadership shortly after his fathers death to take over the role. Family members killed in the strike The strike that killed Ali Khamenei also killed several members of his family. Among those reported dead were his daughter Boshra Khamenei, her daughter Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani, and his son-in-law Mesbah Bagheri Kani. Another relative, Zahra Haddad-Adel, also died in the attack, according to Iranian reports. Claims about injuries US officials have suggested that Mojtaba Khamenei himself may have been injured in the same strike and has not appeared publicly since assuming power, fueling speculation about his condition. Hegseth said the Iranian leaders absence from video appearances and reliance on written statements indicated he might be seriously wounded. Iranian officials, however, insist the new Supreme Leader remains fully capable of governing and dismissed the US claims as misinformation amid the ongoing conflict. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Tehran, Iran First Published: March 14, 2026, 22:57 IST News world Iranian Minister Says New Supreme Leader Has No Problem, Rejects US Wound Claim Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Kandahar Decapitation Strike: Pakistan Targets Taliban Supreme Leader In Deadliest Raid Of 2026 | Exclusive Details Reported By : CNN-News18 Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 08:12 IST While the strike successfully breached the outer security layers of the Camp Gecko facility, the ultimate status of Haibatullah Akhundzada remains unconfirmed If the status of Haibatullah Akhundzada is confirmed, it would represent the most significant leadership decapitation attempt in the region in decades, likely triggering a full-scale regional conflagration. File image/Getty In a major military escalation marking a potential turning point in the 2026 Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has reportedly launched a high-stakes assassination attempt against the Afghan Talibans reclusive Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada. According to exclusive details shared by top security sources with CNN-News18, the precision strikes targeted a high-security compound at Camp Gecko in Kandahar, the spiritual and operational heart of the Taliban leadership. The operation, which took place in the early hours of Friday, is being described as the deadliest single engagement since Pakistan declared open war" in February. Initial ground reports indicate that at least 22 individuals were killed and more than 50 others injured in the bombardment. The strike hit the precise grounds where intelligence suggested Akhundzada had been maintaining a temporary residence for several weeks. Kandahar, which serves as the base for the Talibans top tier, has seen increased jet activity and explosions over the past 48 hours. While the strike successfully breached the outer security layers of the facility, the ultimate status of the Supreme Leader remains unconfirmed. Security analysts and intelligence operatives suggest that any attempt on Akhundzadas life is complicated by the Talibans extensive defensive architecture. The Supreme Leader is reported to operate from deep underground bunkers designed to withstand conventional aerial bombardment. Security Perimeter: The 22 fatalities are believed to be part of the Red Unit" special security apparatus that guards the inner sanctum of the compound. Structural Impact: While the surface structures at Camp Gecko suffered catastrophic damage, the subterranean levels may have shielded the primary target from the kinetic impact of the strikes. The Kandahar strike is part of Pakistans broader Operation Ghazab Lil Haq" (Wrath of Justice), launched in response to a series of cross-border incursions and terror attacks. The Taliban administration in Kabul has condemned the strikes as a clear aggression" and a violation of sovereignty, with spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid vowing a retaliatory response. The situation remains extremely fluid, with satellite imagery currently being analysed to determine the extent of the damage to the Kandahar leadership compounds. If the status of Haibatullah Akhundzada is confirmed, it would represent the most significant leadership decapitation attempt in the region in decades, likely triggering a full-scale regional conflagration. On the other hand, the Taliban administration has issued a fierce denial, dismissing the Pakistani claims as fabricated psychological warfare. In a statement released shortly after the reports emerged, the group asserted that the news regarding the Supreme Leader, Amir al-Muminin Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, is entirely false. They stated that Alhamdulillah, nothing has happened," claiming that the Pakistani military is incapable of such an action. The statement further mocked the military regime as a puppet government," suggesting that if the United States failed to eliminate their leadership over two decades, its regional neighbours would similarly fail no matter if a hundred years pass." The Taliban also highlighted a pattern of what they term lying and propaganda" from Pakistani media. They pointed to previous reports that claimed the elimination of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Noor Wali Mehsudnews that they say has been published multiple times, only to be proven false. Afghan officials maintained that the country remains safe and that the Pakistani regime is merely recycling failed narratives to project strength during the ongoing border hostilities. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 15, 2026, 02:55 IST News world Kandahar Decapitation Strike: Pakistan Targets Taliban Supreme Leader In Deadliest Raid Of 2026 | Exclusive Details Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... No Ceasefire Without Victory: IRGCs Rezaei Vows 'Definite Outcome' In West Asia | Exclusive Details Reported By : CNN-News18 Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 18:50 IST The Iranian regime now appears committed to a war of attrition designed to test the endurance of American military and economic interests in West Asia The United States and Israel launched a joint large-scale military offensive against Iran on February 28. (File pic/AFP) In a significant hardening of Tehrans rhetorical position, Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a veteran voice of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a current member of the Expediency Council, has delivered a defiant rebuff to international calls for a ceasefire, CNN-News18 has learnt. Rezaei asserted that Iran has no intention of ending the current hostilities until a definite outcome" is achieved. This stance signals a strategic shift away from early diplomatic feelers, as the regime now appears committed to a war of attrition designed to test the endurance of American military and economic interests in West Asia. The core of the Iranian strategy, as articulated by Rezaei, rests on the belief that a prolonged conflict will eventually become untenable for Washington. The Iranian leadership is focused on imposing a heavy toll on the United States across three distinct fronts: economic stability, military assets, and human lives. According to top intelligence sources, this messaging is being amplified across Iranian social media to craft a narrative of inevitable American retreat from the Persian Gulf. By projecting an image of unwavering strength, Tehran aims to convince regional players and the American public alike that the cost of staying in the Gulf far outweighs any strategic benefit. Intel sources suggest that Rezaeis rhetoric serves as a primary tool of psychological warfare rather than a formal list of diplomatic conditions. The General claimed that the regime has utilised only a mere fractionestimated at roughly 30%of its total military capabilities during the recent exchanges with Israel. By hinting at an infinite" stockpile of missiles and the ability to blind" US forces stationed in the Gulf, Rezaei is attempting to create a shadow of fear" over the maritime corridors. The strategy is clear: rather than negotiating for compensation or immediate withdrawal, Iran is seeking to create the conditions of a global economic crisis through oil disruptions to force a unilateral US departure. Despite the escalating tension, senior intelligence analysts note that Rezaeis refusal to frame formal conditions suggests the regime is still prioritising posture over policy. By keeping the criteria for a decisive result" vague, Tehran maintains the flexibility to continue its military operations through regional proxies while avoiding the constraints of a formal peace treaty. This approach relies on the calculation that the US is more vulnerable to sustained, low-intensity economic and military pressure than to a conventional direct confrontation. For now, the IRGC remains firm, leveraging its hardline mouthpieces to signal that the war will only conclude on terms that project a total Iranian victory. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit First Published: March 14, 2026, 18:36 IST News world No Ceasefire Without Victory: IRGCs Rezaei Vows 'Definite Outcome' In West Asia | Exclusive Details Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... North Korea Fires 10 Ballistic Missiles Towards Sea Of Japan Amid US-South Korea Drills Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 13:06 IST North Korea fired a possible ballistic missile towards the sea on Saturday, landing off its east coast amid US-South Korea military drills, say Japan and South Korea. Rapid Read Image used for representation North Korea on Saturday fired around 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea, South Koreas military said, in what appeared to be a show of force as Seoul conducts joint exercises with the United States. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were launched from near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, but did not immediately provide information on their range. Japans Defense Ministry said the missiles landed in waters outside its exclusive economic zone. The South Korean military said it has heightened surveillance and is maintaining readiness for possible additional launches, while closely coordinating with the U.S. and Japan. The launches come as the U.S. and South Korean militaries carry out their annual spring exercises involving thousands of troops, at a time when tensions in the West Asia are also escalating. Seoul and Washington, D.C. began the large-scale military drills five days earlier, describing them as purely defensive exercises designed to test readiness against potential threats from North Korea. Nuclear-armed North Korea has frequently expressed anger over such exercises, calling them dress rehearsals" for armed aggression by the United States and South Korea. On Thursday, South Koreas prime minister met Donald Trump in Washington to discuss ways to reopen dialogue with the North, which has been suspended since 2019. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : North Korea First Published: March 14, 2026, 10:59 IST News world North Korea Fires 10 Ballistic Missiles Towards Sea Of Japan Amid US-South Korea Drills Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Not The Kind I Would Accept...': Trump Says Iran 'Totally Defeated' And Looking For A Deal Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 10:34 IST Trump said the United States carried out major airstrikes on military targets on Irans Kharg Island, a key hub for the countrys oil exports. US President Donald Trump (Image Courtesy: AP) Hours after President Donald Trump said the United States had carried out major airstrikes on military targets on Kharg Island, a key hub for Irans oil exports, he claimed Iran had suffered a crushing defeat and was now seeking a deal, but not the kind he would accept. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal But not a deal that I would accept! Thank you for your attention to this matter." US strikes Irans Kharg Island Earlier, Trump said the United States carried out the most powerful bombing raid" in the Middle East on Kharg Island. He claimed American forces totally obliterated" all military targets while deliberately sparing the islands oil infrastructure. Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, is Irans main terminal for oil exports and a key part of the countrys energy sector. Trump said the United States chose not to damage the oil facilities for reasons of decency". Trump also warned that any interference with the free passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz would lead the United States to reconsider its decision regarding the islands oil infrastructure. Trump had earlier announced the operation in a Truth Social post late Friday (US local time). He wrote, Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island." News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 10:18 IST News world 'Not The Kind I Would Accept...': Trump Says Iran 'Totally Defeated' And Looking For A Deal Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Pakistan Fires Over 270 Rockets Into Afghanistans Kunar Province As Cross-Border Clashes Intensify Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Shuddhanta Patra Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 14:46 IST Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in open conflict since 21 February. Taliban security personnel keep watch near the Durand Line in Gurbuz district of Khost province on February 27, 2026.(Image: AFP) Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have escalated sharply. Over the past 48 hours, more than 270 rockets and artillery shells were fired from Pakistan into several districts of Afghanistans Kunar Province, CNN News18 sources reported. Ziaurrahman Spin Ghar, director of information at Kunars Department of Information and Culture, said the strikes affected multiple areas across the province. He added that no casualties have been reported so far. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in open conflict since 21 February. The fighting began after Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Taliban camps, prompting Taliban retaliation. Since then, clashes and drone strikes have occurred daily along the border. This week, Pakistan carried out a series of airstrikes across multiple Afghan locations, targeting what it said were militant positions. According to Pakistani intelligence sources, the strikes focused on high-value targets linked to the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). However, the Afghan Taliban accused Islamabad of killing civilians and warned that the attacks will not go unanswered." Local reports and intelligence sources said Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter jets conducted coordinated strikes on several locations, including Kandahar airport, military positions in Paktia province, and sites in Kabul. One reported target was the headquarters of the Talibans Al-Badr Corps in Kandahar city, where senior commanders were believed to be present at the time of the attack. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Afghanistan First Published: March 14, 2026, 14:46 IST News world Pakistan Fires Over 270 Rockets Into Afghanistans Kunar Province As Cross-Border Clashes Intensify Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump Rejects Putins Offer To Move Irans Enriched Uranium To Russia: Report Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 15:46 IST US President Trump rejected Russian President Putin's proposal to move Irans enriched uranium to Russia, warning Moscow against intelligence sharing with Iran. US President Trump rejected Russian President Putin's proposal to move Irans enriched uranium to Russia, warning Moscow against intelligence sharing with Iran. (Image: AP) US President Donald Trump has reportedly rejected a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin to move Irans enriched uranium stockpile to Russia as part of efforts to end the ongoing US-Israel war with Tehran, according to an Axios report. The offer was made during a phone call between the two leaders earlier this week, but Trump is said to have declined the suggestion. The development comes as Trump acknowledged that Moscow could be providing limited assistance to Iran in its confrontation with the United States. I think he might be helping them a little bit, yeah, I guess, and he probably thinks were helping Ukraine, right?" Trump said during an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Friday. Yeah, were helping them also." He added that such dynamics were common in global geopolitics. So he [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing, you know. Its like, hey, they do it, and we do it, in all fairness. They do it, and we do it," Trump said. Trumps remarks appeared to contrast with earlier statements from his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. Witkoff had said Russia denied sharing intelligence with Iran following discussions with US officials. Witkoff and Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, reportedly held a separate phone call with Putins foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, earlier this week. According to Witkoff, Ushakov reiterated that Russia was not providing intelligence support to Tehran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said that US officials had warned Russia about the issue. President Trump and Mr Witkoff told the Russians that if intelligence sharing was taking place, its not something they would be happy with, and they hope that it is not taking place," Leavitt told reporters. Meanwhile, reports suggest Russia could gain more than $10 billion in additional oil and gas revenues to support its war in Ukraine after Trump lifted restrictions on countries buying Russian crude that had been stranded at sea. The geopolitical tensions have also rattled energy markets. Trumps decision to close the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz has pushed global oil prices above $120 per barrel. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Moscow, Russia First Published: March 14, 2026, 15:46 IST News world Trump Rejects Putins Offer To Move Irans Enriched Uranium To Russia: Report Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump Says US 'Obliterated Every Military Target On Iran's Kharg Island, Warns Oil Facilities Could Be Next Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 07:46 IST Iran War Updates: Trump warned Iran against blocking the free passage of ships through Strait of Hormuz, saying the United States would next hit oil infrastructure on Kharg Island. US President Donald Trump (AFP) Iran vs US-Israel War: President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States carried out the most powerful bombing raid" in the Middle East on Irans Kharg Island. He claimed American forces totally obliterated" all military targets while deliberately sparing the islands oil infrastructure. Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, is Irans main terminal for oil exports. It is a key part of the countrys energy sector. Trump emphasised that the US chose not to damage the oil facilities for reasons of decency," but warned that any interference with the free passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz would change that decision. Trump announced the operation in a Truth Social post late Friday (US local time). He wrote, Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island." He added, Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack There is nothing they can do about it!" He also warned Iran and other countries against interfering with international shipping. In a separate post, Trump claimed that Iran had plans to dominate the Middle East and destroy Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD!" he wrote. The US strikes come as US military sending 2,500 Marines and an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East, according to a US official. This deployment comes after nearly two weeks of conflict with Iran, marking a significant reinforcement of American forces in the region. Meanwhile, a large explosion struck a central square in Tehran, where thousands had gathered for an annual state-organised rally supporting Palestinians and calling for Israels destruction. Israel had previously warned it would target the area. There were no immediate reports of casualties. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 06:45 IST News world Trump Says US 'Obliterated Every Military Target On Iran's Kharg Island, Warns Oil Facilities Could Be Next Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... Trump's 'Racist Hate Speech' And Crackdown On Immigration Violate Human Rights: UN Panel Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 19:05 IST A U.N. panel criticized U.S. President Trump for racist hate speech and immigration crackdowns, urging policy reviews and humane treatment for migrants. US President Donald Trump (Image Courtesy: AP) A U.N.-backed panel of independent experts on racial discrimination has highlighted grave human rights violations" stemming from racist hate speech by U.S. President Donald Trump and other American political leaders. This, along with a crackdown on immigration in the United States, has raised significant concerns. According to a report by AP, the Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued its decision on Wednesday, urging the U.S. to halt immigration enforcement operations near schools, hospitals, and faith-based institutions. Although not legally binding, this decision aims to hold the U.S. accountable to its international commitments. The committee expressed alarm over the use of derogatory and dehumanising language regarding migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. It noted a reported increase in racial discrimination linked to such rhetoric, although it did not cite specific data. The panel also warned against politicians and public figures using stereotypes to incite hate crimes and discrimination. Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the President may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes," the committees statement in a news release cited by AP reads. While the U.N. has previously condemned systemic racism, hate, and discrimination during the tenures of Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, this panel specifically called out Trumps speech. Biden and Obama were not singled out for their rhetoric. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection were criticised for racially profiling people of colour and conducting seemingly arbitrary identity checks. This United Nations assessment is just as useless as their broken escalator, and their extreme bias continues to prove why no one takes them seriously," said White House spokesperson Olivia Wales, who noted Trumps work reducing crime and securing the U.S. border. No one cares what the biased United Nations so-called experts think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before," she added. The report accused the U.S. of failing to meet its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the U.N. in 1965. It highlighted incidents involving discriminatory, dangerous, and violent methods that resulted in eight deaths in the last three months, including Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were killed by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. The U.N. panel called on the U.S. to review its immigration policies to ensure they comply with international human rights law, including suspending immigration enforcement operations around sensitive locations, repealing discriminatory asylum measures, and safeguarding personal data in government databases. However, it remains uncertain if the U.N. can enforce these proposals. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 19:05 IST News world Trump's 'Racist Hate Speech' And Crackdown On Immigration Violate Human Rights: UN Panel Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... US B-1 Bombers Take Off From UKs RAF Fairford As Britain Allows America To Use Airbase For Iran War | Watch Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 09:37 IST Iran War Updated: As per reports, the bombers are being used to target Iranian missile sites and command-and-control nodes with JDAM and JASSM weapons. US Deploys B-1 Bombers From UK Base for Operation Epic Fury Against Iran US-Israel-Iran War: Two US Air Force B-1 bombers took off from RAF Fairford in England as the Iran war entered its 15th day. The deployment comes as part of the ongoing Operation Epic Fury against Iran. RAF Fairford is one of two bases that the United Kingdom has allowed the United States to use for specific defensive operations into Iran". British Defence Minister John Healey confirmed the permission for the use of the base. Up to 12 B-1B bombers from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and Ellsworth Air Force Base were deployed to RAF Fairford after approval from the UK. The move reduced mission times for targets in Iran by about half. As per reports, the bombers are being used to target Iranian missile sites and command-and-control nodes with JDAM and JASSM weapons. The first aircraft arrived at Fairford on March 6. It was identified as PIKE72 with the serial number 86-0120. Other aircraft were diverted to Ramstein because of fog after their missions and later landed at Fairford. Three B-52H bombers from Minot Air Force Base joined the deployment by March 9, marking a record presence of US heavy bombers in the region amid the escalating West Asia conflict. Two US Air Force B-1 bombers take off from RAF Fairford in England.Fairford is one of two bases that the UK has given the US permission to use for specific defensive operations into Iran", British Defence Minister John Healey has said pic.twitter.com/EB2cRnWYHV AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 14, 2026 The United States is using RAF Fairford in England as its primary forward operating base for heavy bombers during the 2026 Iran war under Operation Epic Fury. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer authorised access to RAF Fairford on March 1 after a request from US President Donald Trump. The approval was limited to specific defensive operations", including destroying Iranian missiles at their source, despite initial resistance. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : United Kingdom (UK) First Published: March 14, 2026, 09:37 IST News world US B-1 Bombers Take Off From UKs RAF Fairford As Britain Allows America To Use Airbase For Iran War | Watch Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... HANOI, March 13 (Reuters) - Vietnam produced the largest trade surplus with the United States in January, overtaking both Mexico and China, latest official U.S. data shows, as its exports rose sharply while Chinese direct shipments to the United States fell. Hanoi has been negotiating a trade deal with Washington for months but no agreement has been reached because of the large trade gap and disagreements over tariff rates the U.S. wants to impose on Vietnamese goods, officials have said. * In January, Vietnam's trade surplus with the United Statesreached $19 billion, according to U.S. official data released onThursday. It was the biggest dollar surplus for all tradingpartners, followed by Taiwan, Mexico and China. * Hanoi's exports to the U.S. rose 53% to exceed $20 billionin January from a year earlier, the data shows, while U.S.imports from China in the same period dropped by 46%. * Vietnam's trade surplus with the U.S. has surpassedChina's since the second quarter of 2025 and was second only toMexico in the last three quarters. It reached $178 billion forall of 2025. * Vietnam's exports to the United States have been risingsteadily as higher tariffs on Chinese goods discouragedBeijing's exports. At the same time Vietnam's imports of Chinesegoods, largely for re-export, reached record levels in January,according to Vietnamese data. * The Trump administration has repeatedly accused Vietnam ofbeing a waypoint for Chinese goods directed to the UnitedStates, which face lower duties when carrying a "Made inVietnam" label. * Illegally transshipped goods are subject to U.S. tariffsof 40%, but the White House has not yet indicated its criteriato determine what can be considered as an illegal transshipment. * It has however launched this week new investigations onVietnam and other countries over possible unfair tradepractices. * Washington imposed 20% tariffs on Vietnamese goods inAugust. After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's globaltariffs as illegal in February, the White House imposed a 10%global tariff for 150 days. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington: Editing by Neil Fullick) US Targeting Iran's 'Inner Circle' With $10 Million Bounty On Top Officials: Sources Reported By : News18.com Edited By: Aveek Banerjee Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 07:36 IST The US bounty, made through the Rewards for Justice" programme on March 13, targets Iran's most powerful figures, including Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Rapid Read The US has announced a $10 million bounty on Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. (Image Courtesy: Rouzbeh Fouladi/ZUMA Wire/Shutterstock) The US State Department has placed a massive $10 million bounty on key Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, that is aimed at the inner circle" of Tehrans power structure, top intelligence sources told CNN-News18. The announcement, made through the Rewards for Justice" programme on March 13, targets ten of the most powerful figures within the Iranian regime, including Khamenei, Ali Asghar Hejazi, Yahya Rahim Safavi, Ali Larijani, Esmail Khatib, and Eskandar Momeni. ALSO READ: Who Are the Shadow Ten? The Iranian Powerbrokers Named In The US Rewards For Justice List The US said these officials collectively direct the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These top officials are allegedly involved in criminal operations, including bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, rocket attacks, drone strikes, and supplying advanced weapons. According to sources, the reward is aimed at individuals within the inner circle of Irans power structure and reflects the view in the United States that Irans proxy warfare and militant operations are directed through the institutional network of the Supreme Leader. US-Israel-Iran War LIVE Updates Proxy Warfare Sources told CNN-News18 that the reward focuses on the strategic security system that oversees the IRGC and are involved in planning, funding and direction of overseas operations. Under their authority, the IRGC funds and arms proxy militias like Hezbollah and Hamas to attack US allies. With the bounty, the US has made it clear that the real operational control of Irans regional activities is within the leadership network surrounding the Supreme Leaders office, as per sources. The reward appears to target Irans decision-making ecosystem rather than only battlefield commanders. Many of the individuals listed are political, intelligence, or advisory figures, sources said. The Rewards for Justice" programme offers cash for intelligence leading to the capture or prosecution of wanted individuals. The US State Department has advised tipsters to send information via Tor or Signal, adding that your information could make you eligible for relocation and a reward." News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : United States of America (USA) First Published: March 14, 2026, 07:36 IST News world US Targeting Iran's 'Inner Circle' With $10 Million Bounty On Top Officials: Sources Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'Will Turn US-Linked Oil Infra Into Ashes': Iran Vows Retaliation After Trumps Kharg Strike Claim Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 08:06 IST US President Trump claimed US forces attacked Irans Kharg Island, targeting military sites but sparing oil infrastructure. Iran warned of retaliatory strikes. Rapid Read This handout image from the European Space Agency, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, shows Irans Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, the countrys main crude export terminal located about 30 km south of the mainland, on March 7, 2026. (AFP) After US President Donald Trump claimed that American forces had carried out an attack on Irans Kharg Island, a spokesperson for the Central Headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya issued a warning in response. According to Iranian media reports, the spokesperson said that if Irans oil infrastructure is targeted, all the oil and energy infrastructure belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with the United States will be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes." Check Live Updates Trump had said the United States conducted what he described as the most powerful bombing raid" in the Middle East on Kharg Island, claiming U.S. forces totally obliterated" all military targets while deliberately sparing the islands oil infrastructure. Also Read Trump Says US Obliterated Every Military Target On Irans Kharg Island, Warns Oil Facilities Could Be Next He also warned that Irans oil facilities on the island could be attacked next. Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, serves as Irans main oil export terminal and is a crucial hub for the countrys energy sector, handling the vast majority of its crude shipments. Trump said the United States deliberately avoided striking the islands oil infrastructure for reasons of decency," but warned that the decision could change if Iran or others interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Also Read Five US KC-135 Refuelling Aircraft Hit In Iranian Missile Strike On Saudi Arabia Airbase: Report In a post on Truth Social late Friday (US local time), the US President wrote, Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island." Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack There is nothing they can do about it!" he added. He also warned Iran and other countries against interfering with international shipping. The US strikes come as the American military is sending about 2,500 Marines and an amphibious assault ship to the West Asia, according to a U.S. official. The deployment follows nearly two weeks of conflict with Iran and marks a significant reinforcement of American forces in the region. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Iran First Published: March 14, 2026, 08:06 IST News world 'Will Turn US-Linked Oil Infra Into Ashes': Iran Vows Retaliation After Trumps Kharg Strike Claim Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... 'World Cannot Afford To Lose...': Kremlin Says Global Markets In Dire Need Of Russian Oil Curated By : News18.com Last Updated: March 14, 2026, 15:48 IST The Kremlin stressed the need for Russian oil for global stability amid the West Asia crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin with US President Donald Trump. (Reuters) Amid the crisis in West Asia, the Kremlin said Saturday that the world cannot afford to lose large volumes of Russian oil", adding it will bring greater stability" to the energy market. The situation is clear. The international energy infrastructure cannot afford to lose large volumes of Russian oil," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media agency TASS. This Russian oil is needed, and now, when part of it begins to enter the energy markets, greater stability is emerging," he added. US Lifts Sanctions On Russian Oil The United States lifted sanctions on the sale of oil and petroleum products from Russia loaded onto ships before March 12, a measure which Washington said was aimed at cooling global energy prices that have surged after the Iran war. With the disruption in the global energy supply amid the West Asia conflict, the US has signaled the exemption period may be extended. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the short-term step was intended to stabilize global energy markets" and increase the global reach of existing supply" after surging oil prices in the wake of the conflict involving Iran and the subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. According to a report by Reuters, the US administration said the move would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government. On March 5, Washington issued a waiver for India to allow purchased of Russian oil already stranded at sea. News18 Newsletter Handpicked stories, in your inbox A newsletter with the best of our journalism submit Location : Moscow, Russia First Published: March 14, 2026, 15:38 IST News world 'World Cannot Afford To Lose...': Kremlin Says Global Markets In Dire Need Of Russian Oil Disclaimer: Comments reflect users views, not News18s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Loading comments... A smiling kid posing at Tokyo's famed Shibuya crossing is now central to Japan's latest public-behavior worry: the rise of the "bumping" attacker. Viral video from Feb. 25 shows the young girl, visiting from Taiwan, knocked flat from behind by a masked woman who keeps walking, per the Guardian . Police haven't said whether they're investigating, but the clip has revived concern over butsukari otokoliterally, "bumping man"a term used for people who deliberately slam into strangers in crowded spaces. The phenomenon involving what Japan Today calls a "uniquely Japanese class of criminals" first drew wide attention in 2018, when footage surfaced of a man plowing into multiple women at Tokyo's Shinjuku Station. Though reliable data is scarce, a 2024 survey of 21,000 adults found that 14% said they'd been targeted, and 6% had witnessed such an incident, per the Guardian. Cases have included a Fukuoka associate professor accused of hitting passersby with his bag, as well as a woman near Tokyo's Tamachi Station reportedly struck hard enough to result in broken ribsprompting the station to add bollards to keep foot traffic in lanes. Both men and women appear in social media clips purposely shoulder-checking others. Sociologist Kiriu Masayuki of Toyo University calls bumping a "reflection of modern society," saying some men, in particular, are lashing out amid economic anxiety and shifting gender roles, viewing women as low-risk targets; they assume they won't be reported or caught. Tourism is adding friction, too, as travelers crowd already packed crossings to capture social media shots, irritating some locals. After the Shibuya incident, the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo urged citizens to keep their distance in crowds and avoid using phones while walking. The girl's mother, who says her daughter wasn't hurt, tells the Guardian she'd unknowingly filmed a "terrifying scene," then was bombarded with online criticism for photographing her child in the crosswalk. European leaders are quietly testing a diplomatic side door around the Strait of Hormuz crisis. France and Italy have opened exploratory talks with Iran over securing safe passage for commercial ships, hoping to restart oil and gas flows through the narrow waterway without sliding deeper into the regional war, officials tell the Financial Times . Traffic through the straitnormally a route for roughly 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gashas plunged after attacks on tankers by Iran and a pledge by Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to keep it shut. Forbes notes that Iran has threatened to "set fire" to any ships that try to go through the strait. The outreach is controversial inside the EU, with some capitals opposing direct engagement with Tehran, and officials stressing there's no sign yet that Iran is ready to cut a deal, per the FT. European navies, already operating in the Red Sea as part of the EU's Aspides mission, are refusing to escort ships through Hormuz while the risk of attack remains, wary of escalation. Yet the economic stakes are rising: Oil has climbed to about $100 a barrel (it was around $60 a barrel at the beginning of 2026), while European gas prices are up 75% in the same time period. The White House says President Trump is prepared to order US Navy escorts "if he deems it necessary," even as Europe searches for a negotiated way to get tankers moving again. A source from Italy's Foreign Ministry denied any "under-the-table negotiation aimed at preserving only some merchant ships at the expense of others," noting instead that any "diplomatic contacts" made by Italian leaders were to "favor the conditions for a general military de-escalation," per Reuters. A spokesperson for France's Elysee Palace, meanwhile, referred the FT back to a post last week from President Emmanuel Macron, in which he noted he'd spoken to Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and told him that his country "needs to guarantee freedom of navigation to put an end to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz." The State Department has slashed the fee for Americans to formally renounce their US citizenship by about 80%. After years of legal battles with several groups representing Americans wanting to give up their citizenship, the department on Friday published a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the cost from $2,350 to $450, per the AP . The new fee, which took effect on Friday, had been promised in 2023 but had never been implemented. The cost is now the same as it was when the State Department first started charging Americans to formally renounce their citizenship in 2010. Renouncing US citizenship can be an intensive and lengthy process. Applicants must repeatedly confirm in multiple written and verbal attestations to a State Department consular officer that they understand the implications of the step before being allowed to take a formal oath of renunciation. It must then be reviewed by the department. The fee was raised from $450 to $2,350 in 2015 to cover the administrative expenses as the number of people wanting to renounce their citizenship surged, in part due to new US tax reporting requirements for American expatriates that angered many. That dramatic fee increase drew significant opposition from groups such as the France-based Association of Accidental Americans, which represents people mainly living abroad whose US citizenship is due solely to the fact that they were born in the United States. The association filed several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the fee, including one that remains pending that argues there should be no cost at all for renouncing one's citizenship. The association "welcomes this decision, which acknowledges the necessity of making this fundamental right accessible to all," its president, Fabien Lehagre, said in a statement. "This victory is the direct result of six years of relentless legal action and advocacy." In court, the association said that since the 2023 announcement that the fee would be reduced, at least 8,755 Americans had paid the full $2,350 to renounce their citizenship. The State Department didn't provide numbers for the total number of Americans who've renounced it. The semiconducting industry is in trouble, which means the global economy is in trouble. The sector that creates the computer chips that increasingly power our world requires a huge amount of resources to operate efficiently, including a number of different critical minerals and a whole lot of energy. And those supply chains are now facing major disruptions thanks to the war that the United States and Israel are waging in Iran. Though Donald Trump stated on Monday that the war will end very soon, there is cause for concern that the conflict and its fallout will be protracted. This would be disastrous for a huge number of global supply chains, not to mention the tragic loss of human lives and the grave environmental impacts that the war is already ushering in. Computer chips may not seem like such a big deal in comparison, but they have become integral and indispensable to the daily functioning of the global economy as our world becomes more and more digitalized. Semiconductors have reshaped the digital age and are embedded in everything from satellites and smartphones to medical devices and electric vehicles, in the words of Duke Universitys Deep Tech blog. An interruption to their supply or affordability could therefore be majorly destabilizing to producers and consumers the whole world over. A prolonged regional conflict could potentially disrupt chipmakers manufacturing operations regarding sourcing materials like Helium and Bromine, Ray Wang, memory analyst at SemiAnalysis, told CNBC earlier this week. For now, the impact appears to be limited. However, a prolonged conflict could eventually lead to disruptions or require adjustments in the sourcing of key materials. Related: Six Stocks That Could Soar in an Era of Regional Instability Even though the vast majority of the worlds advanced computer chips are produced in Taiwan (at more than 90 percent) the Middle East is integral to semiconductor supply chains. For example, more than a third of the worlds helium, which is used in cooling systems and circuitry printing for semiconductor manufacturing, is produced in Qatar. And if there were to be a major disruption to helium supplies on a global level, whether due to production issues or transportation issues, there is simply no substitute for the element in these processes. The semiconductor industry was already facing considerable headwinds thanks to the extreme concentration of the industry in Taiwan, which has pre-existing issues with energy security. The island nation was already facing high levels of energy insecurity thanks to its dependence on imports and the ever-present threat of conflict with China. The current disruption of global oil supplies could prove to be devastating to the nations energy supplies if prolonged. President Trump says the United States has hit what may be the most valuable piece of real estate in Iran's energy network. In a Truth Social post on Friday night, the president claimed that American forces bombed Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, calling it Iran's "crown jewel" and saying "every MILITARY target" there was "totally obliterated." The Washington Post reports it couldn't independently confirm the scale of the damage. Kharg handles roughly 90% of Iran's oil exports, and a serious blow there could further constrict an economy already under pressure and complicate Tehran's ability to fund its military. Trump said he deliberately avoided striking the island's oil facilitiesfor nowbut warned that could change if Iran continues to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the key route for global oil flows where traffic has largely stalled during the conflict. Pentagon officials earlier had labeled Friday the likely peak day for "kinetic fires" against Iranian missile, drone, and mine-laying capabilities. Analysts say the Kharg strikes could set up a possible move to seize the island, though US officials aren't saying whether a ground operation is planned there. Oil prices, already elevated since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, keep climbing; Trump has predicted they'll come "tumbling down, along with everything else" once the fighting ends, without offering a timeline. The AP notes that Iran's parliamentary speaker had cautioned such a strike on Kharg could spur further retaliation. Meanwhile, a militia in Iraq said to be backed by Iran claimed on Saturday that it had carried out an early morning strike on the US Embassy in Baghdad, which was confirmed by two Iraqi security officials, per the New York Times. CNN has video showing smoke rising from the area near the embassy. North Korea on Saturday fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea, South Korea's military said, staging its own show of force as the rival South conducts a joint military exercise with the United States. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from an area in Sunan, the site of Pyongyang's international airport, and flew about 220 miles, per the AP . Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the weapons landed outside the country's exclusive economic zone and that there were no reports of damage to planes or ships. The South's Joint Chiefs said the military has stepped up surveillance and is maintaining readiness against possible additional launches while closely sharing information with the US and Japan. The launches came as the US and South Korean militaries conduct their annual springtime exercises involving thousands of troops, while the Trump administration also wages an escalating war in the Middle East. The war has raised concerns about potential security lapses in South Korea, as local media, citing security camera footage and other images, have speculated that the US is relocating some missile defense assets stationed in the country to support operations against Iran. The launches came hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Seoul's No. 2 official, met US President Trump in Washington and expressed hope for renewed diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung seeks improved inter-Korean relations, and some of his top officials have said Trump's expected visit to China, starting March 31, may create an opening with Pyongyang. Saturday's launches, however, appeared to dim such hopes, signaling defiance by Pyongyang, which in recent months has hardened its stance toward Seoul and urged Washington to drop denuclearization demands as a precondition for talks. North Korea has long described the allies' drills as invasion rehearsals and often uses them as a pretext to dial up its own military demonstrations or weapons testing. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on Tuesday criticized DC and Seoul for proceeding with their drills at a perilous moment for global security, warning that any challenge to the North's safety would bring "terrible consequences." Newly recovered images from surveillance cameras at Nancy Guthrie's Arizona home are giving investigators more context, though not exactly the answers they'd hoped for. Federal agents have pulled still images, not full video, from motion-triggered cameras pointed at the pool, backyard, and side yard of the Tucson property, sources briefed on the case tell ABC News . The recovered thumbnails show multiple people in those outdoor areas in an unspecified period leading up to the 84-year-old's abduction, and they later show law enforcement officers around the pool after she was reported missing. What the cameras don't show is anything from the night Guthrie was taken, in the early hours of Feb. 1an absence one source noted was "odd." Investigators haven't determined why the cameras captured no activity during that critical window. The Pima County Sheriff's Department said on Friday that it's still reviewing multiple forms of evidence, including lab material and camera imagery, but it declined to discuss specifics. Guthrie, the mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for nearly six weeks. The FBI has previously released pics and video of an unidentified armed masked man outside the front of the home on the morning she vanished, shown apparently interfering with a security camera; sources say he appears to have been at the door on an earlier date as well. The county sheriff has said he believes Guthrie was deliberately targeted, but investigators haven't publicly identified a suspect or motive. A reward totaling $1.2 million$1 million of it offered by Savannah Guthrieremains in place. The Arizona Republic and USA Today have more on where the case stands, including reports that authorities are looking into whether someone jammed Nancy Guthrie's internet on the night of her abduction. Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or the Pima County Sheriff's Department at 520-351-4900. Hollywood has its Oscars, and then there are the trophies nobody's bragging about. The Golden Raspberry Awards rolled out the annual sendup of the film industry's work on Oscars eve, with the 2025 version of War of the Worlds dominating the "worst of" list. CNN reports the sci-fi remake took home worst picture, worst remake/rip-off sequel, worst screenplay, worst director for Rich Lee, and worst actor for Ice Cube, after earning six nominations overall. The lack of appreciation for the film apparently is widespread: USA Today points out that Rotten Tomatoes puts its positive reviews at 4%. War of the Worlds was edged out in only one category Saturday: worst screen combo. That honor went to the seven CGI dwarfs from Disney's Snow White, who collectively "won" worst supporting actor in what would have been an emotional presentation to imagine. Rebel Wilson was named worst actress for Bride Hard, and Scarlet Rose Stallone picked up worst supporting actress for Gunslingers. The Razzies, a long-running parody of awards season, traditionally announce the unwanted hardware the day before the Academy Awards. This year's Razzie Redeemer Award went to Kate Hudson, cited for her performance in Song Sung Blue after a prior worst actress win for Music in 2021. War of the Worlds went directly to video, where NPR reports the Golden Raspberry Foundation said it became a "cult hate-watch classic." USA Today says, "The film was roundly mocked by critics for its clumsy dialogue, blatant Amazon product placement, and wildly inept storytelling, with the bulk of its action taking place across phone and computer screens." CNN has a list of the Razzies honorees, as well as those for whom it was a dishonor just to be nominated, here. The flip side, the Academy Awards, will be broadcast from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles at 7pm ET Sunday on ABC, per NPR. President Trump's political action committee is offering donors what it describes as access to his "private national security briefings" in a fundraising email built around an image from a recent dignified transfer of fallen American soldiers at Dover Air Force Base. The message, sent by Never Surrender Inc., pitches a "National Security Briefing Membership" and urges recipients to "claim your spot" via multiple donation links, CNN reports. In exchange, Trump's primary leadership PAC promises "unfiltered updates on the threats facing America," including what it calls "border invasions, foreign adversaries, deep state sabotage, and every danger the fake news hides." The email includes an official White House photograph of Trump saluting a flag-draped transfer case at Dover Air Force Base during Saturday's ceremony for six soldiers killed in the war with Iran. "I'm the strong commander who stares down tyrants, obliterates terrorists, and never backs down." Clicking through leads to a donation page that reads, in all caps: "I am President Donald J. Trump. You're the only reason we saved America. Now I am asking you to consider making a small sustaining contribution, so we can complete the MAGA agenda!" The appeal, one of several recent Trump fundraising pitches invoking the conflict with Iran, drew criticism from Democrats after screenshots circulated on social media. Sen. Andy Kim posted on X that he hopes the donors' briefing doesn't leave out that "Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz," a possibility he said Trump missed. California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office accused Trump of "fundraising off of dead soldiers." Never Surrender is Trump's main leadership PAC, per Politico, after being converted from his 2024 campaign committee. Earlier this year, Trump's operation sent out a first-person email in which he said he was sitting alone in a dark war room, per People. Last year, a fundraising email plea said, "I want to try and get to Heaven." President Trump called Saturday in a pair of posts for an international naval effort to secure oil shipping lanes severely restricted by Iran. Trump wrote on Truth Social that "many countries" would dispatch warships to the Strait of Hormuz to ensure it remains "open and safe," urging Britain, China, France, Japan, and South Korea to participate, though he did not identify any governments that have agreed, the Washington Post reports. Iranian forces have been able to restrict traffic through the waterway despite heavy US and Israeli airstrikes, using drones and mines that Trump acknowledged would remain a threat "no matter how badly defeated they are." Persian Gulf nations reported more attacks by drones and missiles on Saturday, but the pace seemed to slow, per the New York Times. Beirut was relatively calm until a heavy Israeli airstrike hit around dusk. Many residents have cleared out of Tehran, where security forces take control at night. For the first time, Iran threatened to attack the infrastructure of a neighboring country, urging people to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that it claimed were "legitimate targets" because the US military used them for attacks, per the AP. After the US Embassy in Baghdad was struck early Saturday, the US urged all Americans in Iraq to leave the country immediately, per the Times. The White House did not respond to requests to clarify whether any nations have agreed to Trump's request for help with the Strait of Hormuz. British and Chinese spokespeople told CNN only that their governments are discussing options to ensure the security of shipping with other nations. France is sending an aircraft carrier strike group with a dozen or so vessels to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and possibly the Strait of Hormuz in defense of allies, per Reuters. x-Admiral Montgomerys sees a 2-3 week timeline to US control of Hormuz. Conditions must be set for control, if they are not set then it will very difficult to end the war. The degradation strikes continue (including on all the island sites) could reach the knock-down point by ~March 2128. After the missiles, drones are other Iran factories and systems are degraded then roll in 1014 Aegis destroyers + air/helo cover for convoys. This strait will flip from closed to open perception, with US control lasting 37 years. Part of the degradation phase is hammering every island launch site, radar, runway, and boat port with airstrikes. Montgomery does not mention it but NBF (Brian Wang) theorizes there might be quick Marine and special operation raids only on the three smallest highest-threat islands (Abu Musa + Greater/Lesser Tunb). These are tiny and give permanent pincer denial. There will be no occupation or ground on Qeshm but it is and will be hit. Kharg island strategy is only for the extra economic pressure and is not part of the Hormuz strategy other than leverage. Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) is featured on our list of the 11 best value stocks to invest in according to billionaires. Wells Fargo More Confident on Carnival (CCL) Amid Strong Cruise Demand and Booking Patterns At the same time, as geopolitical tensions heighten uncertainty across the broader travel industry, analysts remain optimistic about Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL)s recovery trajectory, which continues to draw investor interest. Citing its expectations that the companys Q1 2026 performance could outperform management guidance, Wells Fargo increased its price target on Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) earlier in March 2026 from $38 to $40 while keeping an Overweight rating. The firm highlighted that cruise demand and booking patterns remain strong. However, it also noted that management may update forward guidance cautiously due to ongoing geopolitical events in the Middle East, which could temporarily affect global travel demand. Amid these external risks, overall sentiment remains positive. As of March 9, 2026, approximately 75% of analysts remain bullish on Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL), indicating their confidence in Carnivals momentum for further recovery. The consensus price target indicates a 47.89% upside for Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL), which is now trading at $25.70. Moreover, shares rose by 26.70% over the last year, outperforming the travel services sector, which declined by 10%. Investor focus remains on the upcoming Q1 2026 earnings announcement, which may provide more precise indicators on pricing power and demand trends, according to recent market commentaries. The emphasis is on how vulnerable global cruise operators are to macro and geopolitical changes. Meanwhile, most analysts view the potential travel impact of the U.S.-Iran geopolitical tensions as temporary. Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) is a global operator of cruise and leisure services in the travel sector, offering cruise experiences, onboard amenities, and passenger experiences under several brands across multiple regions. While we acknowledge the potential of CCL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Investors have been rather energized about Ur-Energy (NYSEMKT: URG) lately. That's due in part to greater visibility, as the uranium production and exploration company specializes in a material used for power generation that isn't petroleum. A business update also provided enough optimism to mitigate an annual earnings report that showed a deepening net loss. Week-to-date as of early Friday morning, Ur-Energy's stock was up by 12%, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue The nuclear option The Iran war has, predictably, driven oil prices considerably higher. When this occurs, investors like to buy into alt-fuel stocks, such as nuclear power producers and companies mining non-petroleum energy sources. Ur-Energy -- which is both an active uranium producer and an exploration company seeking more -- fits the bill. Image source: Getty Images. Compounding that, on Tuesday, the company published its 2026 results. For the year, Ur-Energy's sales dipped to $27.2 million from $33.7 million in 2024. The bottom line also worsened, deepening to over $75 million from the previous year's $52.7 million shortfall. Fortunately, on the same day as the earnings release, Ur-Energy published an operational update on its flagship Lost Creek mine in Wyoming. A technical report issued by the company indicated that the facility's estimated life is longer than expected; it should yield uranium until mid-2039, notably past the original projection of 2036. In financial terms, the net cash flow from Lost Creek is now estimated at over $442 million. That's well above the under $304 million in the last forecast. In a powerful position In that business update, Ur-Energy quoted CEO Steve Hatten as saying that "With only a relatively small portion of the property drilled to date, the potential scale and long-term growth prospects of Lost Creek remain compelling." I'd agree with that, especially given the jump in projections from the new estimate. A fresh net cash flow estimate that's 45% higher than its predecessor makes the company compelling on its own; meanwhile, it's in an appropriate business for our times of strife. Should you buy stock in Ur-Energy right now? Before you buy stock in Ur-Energy, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Ur-Energy wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Americans looking for employment have one more thing to worry about: the workers who are holding onto their jobs with an iron grip. People's willingness to leave their jobs is widely seen as a barometer of confidence in the labor market. And right now, that indicator is flashing red. The share of employees who quit their jobs in January was 2%, Labor Department data showed, and February survey data from the New York Federal Reserve showed workers' perceived probability of leaving their job voluntarily in the next year hit a record low in data going back to 2013. - Sign up for the Mind Your Money weekly newsletter By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy Subscribe - "The probability of losing your job has not gone up all that much. But if you lose your job, the probability of finding a new one that's gotten harder, that's gone down," Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Yahoo Finance. "It's especially true in the sectors that have low hires and low quits rates," she added, "where they're just not seeing room made for new people." Ullrich pointed to government, financial activities, and manufacturing, which all have a quits rates below 1.5%. In an economy that's hardly sustaining any payroll growth outside of the healthcare sector, and amid persistent fears of AI-induced layoffs, it only makes sense that those with jobs are treating them like precious jewels. But that leaves those without them trapped between stagnant hiring and the anxious employed. There were just 0.94 jobs available for every unemployed person in January, compared to the roughly 2 positions open for each out-of-work American in the white-hot labor market of 2022. Read more: Worried about job security? Take these 5 steps now to protect your finances. A sign with information about employment is displayed during a job fair in Dallas, on Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero) ASSOCIATED PRESS It no longer pays to job-hop The Federal Reserve's Beige Book hinted at the trend this month, with the Boston Fed reporting an increase in applicants, as well as "some experienced workers applying for junior-level positions." The New York Fed also noted "labor supply generally continued to exceed labor demand," while the Cleveland Fed found "increased availability of qualified candidates as larger firms slowed hiring." Do you have a story about navigating the job market? Reach out to Emma Ockerman here. That intense competition for jobs, combined with workers' reluctance to leave, gives employers the upper hand. Pay growth for job-switchers is slowing, according to data tracked by ADP, with the premium for job-hoppers hitting a record low in February in data dating back to 2020. That may only further incentivize staying put, since pay for job-stayers is steadier. Tax refunds leapt more than 10% over this time last year, nearing $3,700 on average, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, visits to the IRS website are surging as tax season winds down, with just a month left to file. IRS.gov visits reached 321.5 million last week, the IRS said. Thats up nearly 53% from the same period in 2025 as taxpayers zero in on their obligations and any potential benefits in an especially complex year for taxes, since President Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill Act introduced new deductions and expanded others. The average federal tax refund, meanwhile, has hit $3,676, a 10.6% increase from the same week last year, the IRS said. Tax refunds were expected to be larger this year, and experts noted in a recent Bank of America Global Research report that returns may have temporarily helped put a slight dent in the yawning spending gap between lower- and higher-income consumers part of the K-shaped economy in February. Learn more: Your tax refund may be bigger this year. Here's why. Still, so far, Bank of America deposit account data suggests that higher-income households have received larger increases in their tax refunds compared to other income cohorts, the report said. As of last Friday, the government had processed nearly 44 million refunds, with almost $161 million returned to taxpayers. The deadline to file is April 15. Best ways to use your tax refund 1. Start an emergency fund Been meaning to put away some savings, but keep getting sabotaged by unexpected bills? A tax refund is the perfect seed money for an emergency savings fund. Emergency savings, sometimes called rainy day funds, can help support your family during a job loss, which often involves not just the loss of income but also healthcare. Or it could front money for unexpected costs, such as car or home repairs. How much should you have squirreled away in an emergency fund? Any cash is better than nothing, but experts encourage putting away savings equivalent to three to six months' worth of expenses. Read more: What is an emergency savings fund? 2. Add to your savings Dumping a sizable portion of your refund check into a savings account to keep it safe from impulse buys isnt a bad idea. But its important to remember that not all savings accounts are created equal when it comes to interest rates. Youll get more bang for your buck by leaning into high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts, or a high-yield CD (certificate of deposit). While those high APYs are a big benefit, there are some drawbacks, such as restricted access to your funds and scheduled minimum deposits. Understanding how these accounts work is crucial. And be sure to choose a bank thats FDIC-insured. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a government agency that insures your bank deposits up to $250,000 per depositor in case of bank failure. Read more: High-yield savings account vs. CD: Which is right for you? >> Sign up for Mind Your Money newsletter for weekly tips and insights 3. Pay off high-interest debt One of the most effective ways to use your refund check is to pay down debt. Eliminating your credit card debt, paying down medical bills, and tackling any other debts with interest in double-digit territory is a solid investment in your financial future. If you dont have high-interest debt, you can make extra payments on student loans, a car loan, or even a home loan that you might not otherwise be able to afford. Read more: The best ways to pay off credit card debt 4. Put your refund check toward retirement Thanks to the magic of compound interest, putting your refund check into a retirement account is an investment strategy that pays serious dividends. Adding $3,138 (the average refund in 2024) to a typical IRA could turn your refund check into as much as $25,000 after 25 years. However, before you decide to use all your extra money to pad your retirement savings, double-check the contribution limits for a traditional IRA, Roth IRA, and 401(k). If youve already contributed the maximum, you may want to add funds to your health savings account (HSA) instead. Worried about protecting the gains of your retirement plan as you approach 65? Experts recommend pulling 5-10 years of living expenses into more accessible high-yield savings accounts when you reach retirement age and shifting some of your asset allocation into the relative safety of high-quality bonds. Reducing risk in your retirement portfolio can shield your immediate retirement income from potential volatility in the stock market. Read more: These are the new traditional IRA and Roth IRA limits in 2026 5. Invest in your financial goals Take time to carefully consider your personal finance goals and put your refund to work. Some possibilities include: Watertown, NY (13601) Today Cloudy with occasional rain during the afternoon. High 61F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 43F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible. You are the owner of this article. Tackling serious violence and preventing young people from living in fear must remain a top priority for agencies across Devon and Cornwall, the regions Police and Crime Commissioner has said. Alison Hernandez made the comments during a Serious Violence Summit held in Plymouth on Monday, March 9. The event brought together senior representatives from Devon & Cornwall Police, local authorities, the fire service, probation services and the National Health Service to discuss ways of tackling violence across the peninsula. The summit took place shortly after the arrival in Plymouth of the Knife Angel, a 27ft sculpture made from more than 100,000 surrendered or seized knives. The artwork is currently on display near the Plymouth Civic Centre on Armada Way until March 30 as part of a campaign to raise awareness about knife crime. The event was opened by Caroline Harlow, who chaired the summit and described it as a pertinent and important gathering aimed at addressing what she called the scourge of serious violence in our society. During the day, attendees took part in presentations and workshops examining the causes of serious violence, reviewing evidence and discussing prevention strategies. Sessions also focused on early intervention, improving collaboration between agencies and developing a shared strategic approach. Speaking at the summit, Commissioner Hernandez said preventing violence must remain a collective effort. She said: Children living in fear is too much, and this isnt the way we want to be in our society across our two counties. This summit is about making sure that all our partners get involved because they have a duty under the law to collaborate to tackle the problem. My office will be collating all the ideas which were put forward during the event and will use them to inform decisions about how the governments Serious Violence funding will be spent. The Home Office has awarded Devon and Cornwall a Serious Violence Grant of 657,000, which will be distributed among upper-tier local authorities to help deliver the Serious Violence Duty in the 202627 financial year. The duty, introduced under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, requires key agencies to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence by sharing data, assessing local needs and developing coordinated strategies. The region will also receive 487,000 in knife crime concentration funding during 202627. The funding will be used to develop targeted interventions aimed at supporting communities most affected by knife crime. Tackling serious violence forms a central part of the commissioners Police and Crime Plan 20252029, which sets the priorities for policing and crime prevention across Devon and Cornwall. More restaurants are closing and more pubs appear to be in darkness as the economic challenges continue to strangle our tourism and hospitality businesses. Oh for some good news. Enter Canadian businessman Khalil Viraney. He has given the Bay a massive vote of confidence by buying the award-winning Lincombe Hall Hotel in Torquay thanks to a touch of the Mediterraneans! After 15 years of ownership and a remarkable business turnaround, Brett and Jo Powis have announced the sale of the hotel to Mr Viraney. When Brett and Jo acquired the property in 2009, Lincombe Hall was a bankrupt three-star hotel in need of significant investment and repositioning. Through sustained reinvestment, operational focus and a clear vision, the couple transformed it into one of the South Wests leading four-star adult-only spa hotels. Today, Lincombe Hall is widely recognised for its premium facilities, strong financial performance and loyal guest base. Over the course of their ownership, the Powis family oversaw major refurbishments, including the development of an award-winning spa, upgraded bedrooms and public areas, and a full rebrand that repositioned the hotel within the upper tier of the regional market. Their hands-on leadership and long-term commitment have been central to the propertys success. And that is obviously what attracted the interest of Mr Viraney. Brett said: We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the past 15 years. When we purchased Lincombe Hall, it was in administration and facing an uncertain future. Through hard work, belief in the team, and significant investment, weve built something truly special. Now feels like the right time to pass the baton. Mr Viraney is an experienced hotel owner who also operates the award-winning Hadley Park House Hotel in Telford. He brings a strong track record in boutique hotel management and a commitment to maintaining high standards while pursuing thoughtful growth. Mr Viraney said: Brett and Jo have built an outstanding hotel with an excellent team and reputation. I am honoured to take on the next chapter of Lincombe Halls journey and look forward to building on the exceptional foundation they have created. The hotel will continue to operate as normal, with no disruption to staff or guests. The existing team will remain in place, ensuring continuity and stability as the business transitions to new ownership. Mr Viraney, 56, has two grown-up children and lives in Toronto. He took time out from a flying visit to talk about the Lincombe Hall deal. He tells me: I generally oversee the business from Canada and usually visit every three months to make sure everything is OK. The managers are in charge. With the internet you can do everything. I have access to all the information. He has owned the Hadley Park House in Telford for a couple of years. He explains why he has invested in the UK and the Bay: In Canada it is mostly chain hotels. There are very few independent properties. I looked around and found the UK had independent hotels. I decided to pick the UK as a destination. He added: The Hadley Park is a nice heritage hotel especially for weddings and events. The property is 350 years old. We have won several awards best wedding venue in the West Midlands and Best hospitality business in Shropshire. The property was nice and offered a lot of potential. Of the Lincombe Hall, he says: Lincombe Hall is a different business model. It is for leisure and as a destination. It is a bit of a mix. I wanted something different. It has been well maintained and has strong potential in terms of promoting the spa further. It will allow me to leverage both properties. Weddings and spas go very well. I do not see a complete marriage because of the distance involved. He said the West Country and Torbay were the ideal locations to invest. It is a lovely destination for the British to holiday and get away for the weekend - its their Mediterranean in Great Britain. Devon and Cornwall are extremely popular for the British. He revealed how he visited Devon and Cornwall 12 months ago and viewed a few properties. Referring to the Lincombe Hall, he said: I really liked this one. I loved Cornwall but it was just the sheer distance between Devon and Cornwall. There is a direct rail route to Paddington and Torquay is much closer to the M5. It is pretty easy to get here. It makes it a more attractive destination. He welcomes the regeneration taking place in and around the English Riviera. If the council can make the place more attractive to visit, that would be good, he says. One of the regeneration sites is the former Debenhams building on Torquay harbourside which is earmarked for a four-star hotel. Competition for the Lincombe Hall? Mr Viraney says: The more places to stay the more people will come. Khalil Viraney, new owner of the Lincombe Hall Hotel and general manager Peter Watkins Pic miraclePR.com It is early days and no major works are planned at the Lincombe Hall except, perhaps, refurbishment of some rooms. General manager Peter Watkins will be running the ship. Mr Viraney says: The focus will be further promoting the hotel and its spa. We will start promoting locally and then within a 50-mile radius. That is where a lot of our guests are from. He has been in Canada for 33 years and his business background is in the energy sector. He says: Hotel busy is easy. It is not about making computer chips. It is a simpler business. It goes without saying that the finances and the potential of the business have to stack up as well. But Mr Viraney says: You stop at a hotel, go into a room and see if you like it. That is what he must have done at the Lincombe. Welcome to the English Riviera, Mr Viraney, and thank you for some good news which is very welcome at this moment in time! Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A torrent of fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence have overrun social networks during the first weeks of the war in Iran. The videos showing huge explosions that never happened, decimated city streets that were never attacked or troops protesting the war who do not exist have added a chaotic and confusing layer to the conflict online. The New York Times identified over 110 unique A.I.-generated images and videos from the past two weeks about the war in the Middle East. The fakes covered every aspect of the fighting: They falsely depicted screaming Israelis cowering as explosions ripped through Tel Aviv, Iranians mourning their dead and American military vessels bombarded with missiles and torpedoes. Collectively, they were seen millions of times online through networks like X, TikTok and Facebook, and countless more times within private messaging apps popular in the region and around the world. The Times identified the A.I. content by checking for both obvious signs such as depictions of buildings that do not exist, garbled text and behaviors or movements that defy expectations and for invisible watermarks embedded within the files. The posts were also checked with multiple A.I. detector tools and compared with reports from news organizations. A sophisticated new wave of A.I. tools makes the fakes possible, enabling nearly anyone to create lifelike simulations of war that can deceive the naked eye for little to no cost. Similar content has spread in other conflicts, including the war between Ukraine and Russia. But this war has multiple fronts, and that has led to a proliferation of fake content since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran, according to experts. Even compared to when the Ukraine war broke out, things now are very different, said Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor of media analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar. Were probably seeing far more A.I.-related content now than we ever have before. Overall, the A.I. fakes included 37 fake images and videos falsely depicting active war A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. 5 fake images and videos falsely depicting war preparation A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. 8 fake images and videos falsely depicting destruction A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. 5 fake images and videos falsely depicting crying soldiers A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. 43 memes and overt uses of A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. 13 other fake images and videos A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. A.I. The content has become a potent informational weapon for Tehran as it seeks to shake the publics tolerance for war by depicting scenes of devastation and destruction across the region. The majority of A.I. videos about the war push pro-Iranian views, often to falsely demonstrate its military superiority and sophistication, according to a study of online activity by Cyabra, a social media intelligence company. The use of A.I. images of places in the Gulf being burnt or damaged becomes more important in Irans playbook, Mr. Jones said, because it allows them to give a sense that this war is more destructive and maybe more costly for Americas allies than it might actually be. In one of the most circulated fake videos found online, a shaky handheld scene seemingly shot from an apartment balcony in Tel Aviv shows the skyline pounded with missiles as an Israeli flag sits in the foreground. The video was viewed millions of times across platforms and was picked up by social media influencers and fringe news websites, according to a review of social media activity by The Times. A.I. The Israeli flag in the foreground was one telltale sign that the video was A.I.-generated, experts said. To generate such videos, creators who use A.I. tools will typically write simple text instructions describing, for example, a shaky handheld video of a missile strike on Israel. The A.I. tools will then often include an Israeli flag or the Star of David to fulfill such a request. Several other A.I. videos included the flag. A.I. A.I. A.I. There is ample genuine footage of the war being shared online, too, with cellphones and social platforms giving a real-time view of the conflict. Many of those images and videos are more subdued than the scenes made by A.I. tools. Real footage of missile strikes was often shot from far away, typically at night, with missiles visible as little more than bright lights in the distance. Explosions in real videos are more often shown as plumes of smoke, not as fireballs, with bystanders rushing to film the scene only after the munitions meet their target. Some A.I. videos and images, by contrast, have falsely depicted war like an over-the-top Hollywood action movie, with enormous explosions resulting in mushroom clouds, sonic booms that ripple across unnamed cities and supposed hypersonic missiles that leave glowing streaks in the sky. Real footage is sometimes enhanced by A.I. tools to make explosions appear larger and more devastating, further blurring the line between what is real and fake. The A.I. footage has essentially created an alternate reality more suited to social media, experts said, where the exaggerated footage is more likely to find an audience. A.I. In one instance, the A.I. fakes played an outsize role in the debate online and between governments over the fate of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier deployed to the region. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy initially suggested on March 1 that they had successfully attacked the ship, possibly sinking it. That led to a deluge of A.I.-generated fakes depicting the ship or those like it on fire. Iranian users celebrated the footage online as evidence that their countrys counteroffensive was rattling the U.S.-Israeli alliance. The United States later said that the attack was unsuccessful and that the ship was unharmed. A.I. A.I. A.I. Dozens of other A.I. images and videos made no effort to hide that they were fake, acting instead as a new form of digital propaganda that brought to life the political arguments typically made by governments or their propaganda arms. Those included flattering depictions of world leaders as powerful men, or dehumanizing depictions of opposition leaders. One collection of clearly fictional videos offered a view of the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, which was destroyed by the United States in an apparent errant missile strike on Feb. 28, according to a preliminary inquiry. At least 175 people were killed, most of them children, according to Iranian officials. The A.I.-generated videos unfolded like short films, showing school girls playing outside before an American fighter jet launches missiles. A.I. A.I. A.I. Social media companies have done little to combat the scourge of A.I. videos that overwhelmed their platforms last year after OpenAI released Sora, a video-generating app that allowed anyone to create realistic fakes through a simple app. (The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.) Though videos generated by many A.I. tools can include both visible and invisible watermarks labeling them as fake, those are easy to remove or obscure. Only a few of the videos identified by The Times contained such watermarks. Elon Musks X, which has taken a broadly permissive approach to allowing misinformation on its platform, announced last week that it would suspend accounts from receiving revenue from the platform for 90 days if they posted A.I.-generated content of armed conflict without labeling it as such, in a bid to stop users from profiting off the falsehoods. But many of the Iranian-linked accounts identified by Cyabra appeared far more focused on spreading its messages than making money. This is a natural front for Iran to try and exploit and it feels like this is one of the reasons it is so voluminous, said Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution studying foreign policy and A.I. Its actually a tool of war. Offaly County Council has said that plans for the development of a domestic violence refuge in the county are continuing apace. Pauline Hoctor, Senior Executive Officer at Offaly County Council, outlined the plans at the March meeting of the Edenderry Municipal District. Ms Hoctor was briefing elected members as part of a presentation on the work of the councils housing department. She stated: There are three safe houses that continue to be operational by the support of the Offaly Domestic Violence Support Services (ODVSS) across the county. There is one in each municipal district area. Currently, we have ongoing meetings with the ODVSS and Cuan, the Department and The Housing Agency around progressing the delivery of a domestic violence refuge for the county. READ NEXT: Couple fined after dog near Offaly border 'savaged' by German shepherds Ms Hoctor continued by outlining the progress the council is looking to make on those plans over the coming months. Thats in line with Government policy. Offaly is one of the priority areas and we would be hoping to make significant progress on the development of that refuge over the first six months of this year. So I would hope when we go to the full council meeting in October, well have some positive news on that front. Sinn Fein councillor Claire Murray welcomed this news and outlined how prominent domestic violence still is in Irish society. Cllr Murray said: I just want to say thats really good news in relation to the refuge. We had a presentation recently and the most dangerous place to be is in your own home. Nearly all of the combined reported incidents of all different types and robberies and stuff were equal to the number of domestic violence reports to the gardai last year. So any progression in relation to a refuge for women and children is really welcome. In December, the Department of Justice announced that a funding application for the development of a domestic violence refuge in Tullamore had passed the first stage. The refuge is set to consist of ten self-contained family units with 24/7 crisis response, therapeutic supports and pathways to recovery. Offaly County Council is working on the project in conjunction with housing body Oaklee and ODVSS. BIRR 20|20 Vision, a local community development company formed in 2014, is holding its 2026 AGM in the Council Chambers beside the library building on Wilmer Road on Wednesday March 18th at 7.30 pm. They have a number of projects in the works, including: the Creative Court, a space where artists and creatives can explore their craft and create; their continuing support for a burgeoning animation industry in Birr; two new town walks in planning with the 6k Camcor River Walk Trail opening later this year, and two 5k walk loops at Killaun bog in the design and specification stage; work toward securing a Family Resource Centre for the community, which will host child and family support services that are so badly needed. Other projects include support for several local groups and clubs, with Birr 20|20 frequently acting as a facilitating entity or as a voice for concerns in the town. Considering demands on the group they are actively recruiting new members to bring new skills, ideas and passion to the team. If you have an interest in bettering and adding value to the community, you are more than welcome to come along and join them. It is a great opportunity to get to connect with your community if you are new to the area. They look forward to seeing you on the night. For more information on Birr 20|20 Vision please check out their website, birr2020vision.ie . READ NEXT: Coolderry GAA Club to commemorate legendary Offaly hurler and teams of the past With the 98th Academy Awards days away, prediction markets are revealing where bettors believe the biggest Oscars will land. From Best Picture to Best Actor, volumes highlight the favourites and potential upsets shaping Hollywood's biggest night. Hollywoods biggest night, Sunday 15 March 2026, is approaching fast. As the 98th Academy Awards (also called the Oscars) draw closer, prediction markets are offering a fascinating look at where the industrys most coveted trophies may land. The Perfect Time to Bet Clear trends show across major prediction market categories like Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director, making this years Oscars the perfect betting opportunity. There are literally millions in trading volume, revealing what the smart money is gambling on. With clear frontrunners to tight races, punters have both strong favourites and genuine upset potential to explore. From total Oscars wins to technical categories, bettors have dozens of ways to bet before the final envelopes are opened. Most Popular Oscars Props Beyond the red carpet and speeches, bettors are closely watching the numbers. Prediction markets, such as Polymarket, track millions in trading volume across categories, revealing real-time sentiment about which nominees are most likely to win. Heres a look at the props currently attracting the most attention: Best Picture: Can One Battle After Another Hold Its Lead? The Best Picture market, with nearly $30m in trading volume, currently has a clear favourite: One Battle After Another 78% 78% Sinners 120% 120% Hamnet 1.4% 1.4% Marty Supreme <1% For months, One Battle After Another has dominated predictions for both Best Picture and Best Director. Momentum around Sinner has grown recently and can quickly shift probabilities as the film leads the nominations list with a record-breaking 16. Best Actor: Another Two-Horse Race Currently exceeding $7m in volume, the Best Actor market is shaping up to be one of the most competitive races on the night. With probabilities so close, this category remains one of the most unpredictable heading into the ceremony: Michael B. Jordan 47% 47% Timothee Chalamet 40% 40% Leonardo DiCaprio 7% 7% Wagner Moura 6% Jordans performance in Sinners has kept him slightly ahead, but Chalamets incredible role delivery in Marty Supreme continues to draw strong support from bettors. Best Director: A Near Lock This category, with $5m in volume, is one of the clearest races on the betting board: Paul Thomas Anderson 94% 94% Ryan Coogler 5.9% 5.9% Chloe Zhao <1% <1% Joachim Trier <1% Unless something dramatic shifts before the ceremony, this category appears almost settled. Best Supporting Actor: Sean Penn Leads The Best Supporting Actor race, currently attracting over $4,4m, has veteran actor Sean Penn firmly in the lead: Sean Penn 70% 70% Stellan Skarsgard 19% 19% Delroy Lindo 9% 9% Benicio Del Toro 1.3% Penns role in One Battle After Another continues to generate momentum, while Skarsgard's performance in Sentimental Value has earned backing. Best Supporting Actress: A Tight Contest The Best Supporting Actress category, with $2,1m in volume, remains one of the closest races: Amy Madigan 50% 50% Teyana Taylor 28% 28% Wunmi Mosaku 21% 21% Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas 1% Madigan holds a slim advantage for her role in Weapons, but Taylor and Mosaku are still within striking distance. Best Actress: A Wide Open Field Unlike some categories with clear leaders, the Best Actress Winner (nearly $2m in volume) is still highly uncertain: Jessie Buckley 97% 97% Rose Byrne 1.7% 1.7% Renate Reinsve <1% <1% Emma Stone <1% Award season buzz and final voting trends, however, could still reshape this market. Other Interesting Oscars Markets To Watch Beyond the main awards, prediction platforms feature some creative side bets: Who will attend the Oscars? - With over $102K+ in volume, Yes/No bets are on celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Taylor Swift, Margot Robbie, and Zendaya. - With over $102K+ in volume, Yes/No bets are on celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Taylor Swift, Margot Robbie, and Zendaya. What will be said during the Oscars? - Bettors are putting $50k behind phrases like Epstein, Trump, Ukraine, Will Smith, Netflix, and Elon. Bettors are also predicting total award counts for the biggest contenders: Sinners: 4 (29%) 4 (29%) One Battle After Another: 6 (32%) 6 (32%) Marty Supreme: zero (53%) zero (53%) Hamnet: 1 (77%) 1 (77%) Sentimental Value: 1 (57%) 1 (57%) Frankenstein: 3 (76%) There are dozens of markets remaining, including Best Film Editing, Adapted Screenplay, Original Song Writer, and Original Screenplay. You can even start betting on which film will get the most Oscar nominations at the 99th Academy Awards. How to Get Your Bets In Do you want to be part of the excitement on Hollywoods biggest night? Now is the perfect time to explore trusted online casinos and betting sites offering award markets. From predicting Best Picture to backing surprise acting winners, theres no shortage of ways to get involved before the envelopes are opened. Trump Blames Iran for Deadly School Strike. Then Says He's Not Sure #IranWar #Trump #breakingnews A shocking moment from the Iran conflict is raising major questions. Donald Trump suggested that Iran might be responsible for ... (Image by YouTube, Channel: Lamont Tyson) Details DMCA US President Donald Trump saying "It was done bythe Iranians" regarding the US Tomahawk missile that killed over 160 elementary school girls in southern Iran, February 28, 2026 Multiple US media outlets including CBS News, the AP, CNN, plus the New York Times and Washington Post have confirmed a US Tomahawk missile struck an elementary school in southern Iran killing over a 160 school-age girls on February 28. [1] This criminal attack by the US military murdering innocent children will leave an indelible mark in the hearts and minds of the Iranian people remembering it was the US who committed this vile attack. Incredibly, Trump says, "It was done by the Iranians". Meanwhile his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth compounds Trump's audacity saying "the only side that targets civilians is Iran". Their historical memory is so blind. How about the US torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004 authorized none other by "Dubya" Bush's administration. Put simply this murder by the Trump administration of innocent school girls in Iran is a war crime. But what official entity will hold Trump accountable for this impeachable offense? The UN Security Council where the US is one of the permanent members? The US House and Senate where the Republicans are in the majority? How about a US special commission authorized to investigate the killing of the Iranian school girls? None of the above will happen. Nonetheless, this was an unprovoked, aggressive war perpetrated by the US and Israel and won't end with Iran capitulating to Trump who wants Iran to accept unconditional surrender. Not likely. The Iranians may not agree on everything. But they are in solidarity to the Iranian nation surviving. As part of Iran's retaliation the Strait of Hormuz is essentially closed to any oil and gas traffic transiting to the Arabian Sea. That means 20% of the world's oil isn't being delivered. On Monday March 9, the price of crude oil exceeded $100 per barrel and will probably go higher as long as this war in Iran continues This surge in crude oil prices will have economic reverberations affecting the entire world. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio the U.S. attacked Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran, likely producing Iranian attacks on U.S. bases. This comment suggested that Israel began a U.S. war, but also that U.S. bases began the war. Neither thing is as unusual as perhaps imagined. The United States has loaded up with bases the area that Iran has the ability to hit with missiles. Not only does the presence of a U.S. base tend to make wars more likely, but the U.S. claim that distant wars are "defensive" is propped up by the bases -- imagined as U.S. territory and often treated as such in every way. Iran does not have missiles that can hit the actual United States. Billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry and infrastructure has been destroyed by Iran at U.S. bases -- on top of the billions used by the U.S. military. Spent wisely, that funding could have saved many lives. The blowback over the years to come is also not likely to be slight. The economic impact of this war -- through oil, tourism, and otherwise -- is likely to continue to rub Gulf nations' faces in the colossal error of allowing the U.S. military to use their land for its wars. A U.S. embassy is becoming less a coup threat in this part of the world, and more a danger to anyone near it as a target for foreign attack. Some nations have claimed -- with, I think, little credibility -- to be denying the United States the use of its bases. Their failure to denounce the crime committed by the United States and Israel in launching another war is revealing of their choice of subservience to the U.S. military and its ludicrous promise to keep them safe from the dangers it is itself creating. A map of U.S. military bases in Western Asia is often surprising to people in the United States. Over 50,000 troops occupy dozens of bases in some of the world's most brutal dictatorships -- dictatorships propped up in part by these bases. Of the nations to the west of Iran, these have U.S. bases in them: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Cyprus, Egypt. These do not: Lebanon, Yemen, and what's left of Palestine. The U.S.-supported wars on Yemen and Palestine are long-running, while that on Lebanon -- renewed this month -- is more intermittent. The deaths that U.S. media has featured the most are six U.S. troops killed in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile six more U.S. troops and one French and one Czech have reportedly died in a helicopter crash in Egypt. But reports suggest that 1,255 people have been killed by the United States and Israel in Iran, 394 by Israel in Lebanon, and 57 other people by Iran in Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Oman. The injuries are many times the deaths. The disrupted, traumatized, and made homeless are many times the injured. U.S. deaths constituting 0.4% of the deaths but occupying a large portion of the U.S. media coverage and speeches in Congress is par for recent U.S. wars, albeit still on a relatively small scale. Here's a quick look at what's happened so far this month in U.S. "host" nations, where Iran has apparently made a priority of attacking U.S. bases and oil infrastructure. This is in addition to major Iranian attacks on Israel. BAHRAIN The tiny island nation kingdom of Bahrain is ruled through arbitrary imprisonment and torture by a nasty king educated by the U.S. military in Kansas, whose brutal police force has been trained by the United States. The U.S. Navy bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The U.S. government provides military training and funding to Bahrain, and facilitates the sale of U.S.-made weapons to Bahrain. The United States has almost certainly used its Bahraini bases in its war on Iran. Iran has attacked at least one U.S. base in Bahrain, as well as a water desalination plant, an oil refinery, and residential buildings. Iran has also attacked the USS Eisenhower, as did Venezuela earlier this year. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES The United States bases troops in the UAE and provides the UAE military with weapons and training, even though its tyrannical ruler was educated by the British military. The UAE, for its part, tries to outdo Bahrain in the brutality of its endless assaults on human rights, while marketing itself as a happy location for tourism. The United States has no doubt made use of its bases in UAE for its war on Iran. In retaliation, Iran has attacked at least two U.S. bases, that at Jebel Ali Port, and that at Al Dhafra just south of Abu Dhabi, as well as missile sites at Al Ruwais that may belong to the UAE or to the United States, as well as Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, oil infrastructure, and the Palm Hotel and many other sites in Dubai. Will new vacation ads pair waterslides through shark tanks with Iranian missiles as thrills to be enjoyed? KUWAIT Moving north along the riviera of U.S.-backed dictatorships, in Kuwait we find another nation ruled by a British-educated, U.S.-armed royal thug, and full of U.S. military bases heavily used for wars on Iraq and now -- although Kuwait may deny it -- for a war on Iran. At least three U.S. bases have been attacked by Iran: Ali Al-Salem Air Base, Camp Buehring, and Camp Arifjan. Iran has killed six U.S. troops, while the United States has shot down its own planes without U.S. deaths resulting. Iran has also attacked the U.S. embassy and an oil refinery. How does Kuwait think the pay-off for that fable about Iraqis taking babies out of incubators is adding up thus far? QATAR Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Op-Ed: Why No One Should Be Gloating Over The Lodge Poker Room Raid Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S. Copy link Authorites conducted a search of The Lodge Card Club in Texas on Tuesday, which turned out to be due to suspicion of money laundering and illegal gambling. No one has been arrested or charged with any crime at this point, but the card room Texas' largest remains closed during the investigation, and it appears highly unlikely to reopen any time soon. Some poker fans have cracked jokes on Reddit and other social media platforms about the situation, most taking shots at co-owner Doug Polk who, they claim, is getting "karma" for ripping other poker players over past scandals on YouTube. Whether or not Polk has gone too far attacking his peers isn't the point. The fact of the matter is the legal action against a poker room with nearly 80 card tables and an attached full-scale restaurant and bar impacts far more people than Polk or his co-investors such as Brad Owen and Nik Airball. Bad Beat for Poker Dealers The Lodge Card Club in the Austin area is one of the biggest card rooms in Texas, employing hundreds of poker dealers, floor managers, bartenders, social media managers, and many other people working different jobs. These employees had nothing to do with any alleged nefarious activity the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) is investigating. Some poker dealers even moved to Texas from other states to work at The Lodge, and the income they receive from their job is necessary to pay bills and feed their families. A dealer from The Lodge who relocated to Austin for the job shared her sentiments on the closure in a Facebook post. "It's hard to stay positive when we have zero information, no timeline, nothing to look forward to, and no hope for reopening... but I feel it's necessary to adress the overwhelming amount of positivity and support that we've been given today. For every bad apple, there are 1000 good ones and I'm so grateful for every one of you today," dealer Alisa Maria wrote. A Facebook group called "Lodge employee side work group" was created to help employees of The Lodge find side gigs during the closure. Many members of the Austin poker community have already posted in the group seeking someone for various odd jobs. Beyond the job losses, there are others who will be affected, including all the poker playerrs who who enjoy playing at The Lodge and there are hundreds of them. Some have outstanding poker chips in their possession. What if the card room never reopens and poker has another Full Tilt Poker situation where the business can't cover outstanding balances? Or, in this case, outstanding chips. That would benefit exactly no one, and would take money out of the poker economy. Innocent Until Proven Guilty As mentioned earlier, no arrests have been made. No one is in jail facing charges. It's unclear at this point if that will ever change. But the point is no one knows if any crimes or wrongdoings have been committed. We don't even know exactly why the TABC conducted the raid. The only information the TABC has released is that they are investigating money laundering and illegal gambling. They haven't specified what sort of evidence, if any, they've uncovered or who within The Lodge may be under suspicion. Nor has it been revealed how they even came about looking into the business dealings of The Lodge. It's possible no arrests will ever be made and The Lodge Card Club will return to action before long having been charged with no crimes. Or, perhaps, the outcome will go the other way and the poker club will never reopen. Either way, until further details about the allegations come out, perhaps we should all reserve judgment. Share this article Jon Sofen Senior Editor U.S. Follow on In this Series Event #9: $10,000 No-Limit Holdem at the 2026 PokerGO Cup inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino drew a field of 70 entries, with players battling deep into the night until just seven remained in contention for the title. The surviving players have locked up at least $28,000, but all eyes are on the $210,000 first-place prize that awaits the eventual champion. Benjamin Grise ended the night as the chip leader, putting himself in prime position to capture a PokerGO Cup trophy. The American will also have a shot at quick redemption after finishing runner-up in Event #8 earlier in the day and now returns to the PokerGO Studio with the biggest stack as he looks to go one spot better. Also advancing to the final day are a stacked group of high-stakes regulars including Aram Zobian, Brandon Wilson, Sean Winter, Jeremy Ausmus, Justin Zaki, and Myles Mullaly who will battle it out when play resumes. Top 10 Chip Counts Rank Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Benjamin Grise United States 2,040,000 41 2 Sean Winter United States 1,530,000 31 3 Aram Zobian United States 1,180,000 24 4 Myles Mullaly United States 1,130,000 23 5 Jeremy Ausmus United States 1,115,000 22 6 Brandon Wilson United States 980,000 20 7 Justin Zaki United States 775,000 16 Bubble Drama Extends the Night The money bubble proved to be one of the most dramatic stretches of the tournament as short stacks repeatedly found ways to stay alive. Multiple players doubled through to keep the bubble intact and delay the inevitable elimination. One of the wildest hands came when Joao Simao found himself all-in and dominated by pocket aces. Simao needed a miracle and he got one spiking a two-outer to crack the rockets and double his stack while the rest of the room groaned as the bubble continued. Eventually, the bubble burst in dramatic fashion when 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Joe McKeehen was eliminated just shy of the money. McKeehen got his chips in with ace-king suited in a classic race against pocket queens, but the board ran out clean for the queens to send the former world champion to the rail as the bubble boy. Joe McKeehen Despite the stacked field, several big names were unable to reach the payouts. Among those falling before the money were Jesse Lonis, Jeremy Becker who slow rolled John Riordan early in the day, Chino Rheem, and Shannon Shorr. Shannon Shorr The remaining players will return to the PokerGO Studio Saturday at 11:45 a.m. local time to play down to a champion. As with other PokerGO Cup events, the final table will be streamed on PokerGO at 1 p.m. local time on delay. Play will resume in level 19 at the 30,000/60,000(60,000) blind levels. Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued live updates, chip counts, and a full recap once a champion is crowned. Aiken Standard Executive Editor John Boyette is executive editor of the Aiken Standard. Reach him at jboyette@aikenstandard.com or 803-644-2364. To support local journalism, sign up for a subscription. See our current offers Charleston, SC (29403) Today Considerable clouds this morning. Some decrease in clouds later in the day. High 76F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Upstate Editor Eric is the Upstate Editor for The Post and Courier. He's covered and directed news in the region for the past two decades, previously as a reporter for The Greenville News and as a USA TODAY correspondent. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina. PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-13 23:27:11 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 698 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 13, 2026 /WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE:BRBR) between November 19, 2024 and August 4, 2025, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important March 23, 2026 lead plaintiff deadline.SO WHAT: If you purchased BellRing securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the BellRing class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=51444 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than March 23, 2026. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually handle securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved, at that time, the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, BellRing develops, markets, and sells "convenient nutrition" products such as ready-to-drink ("RTD") protein shakes primarily under the brand name Premier Protein. During the Class Period, defendants represented that sales growth reflected increased end-consumer demand, attributing results to "organic growth," "distribution gains," "incremental promotional activity," and "[s]trong macro tailwinds around protein" among other factors. At the same time, defendants downplayed the impact of competition on demand, insisting BellRing was not experiencing any significant changes in competition, and that in the RTD category particularly, BellRing possessed a "competitive moat," given that "the ready-to-drink category is just highly complex" and the products are "hard to formulate." As alleged, in truth, BellRing's reported sales during the Class Period were driven by its key customers stockpiling inventory and did not reflect increased end-consumer demand or brand momentum. Following the destocking, BellRing admitted that competitive pressures were materially weakening demand. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.To join the BellRing class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=51444 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm , on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/ Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.---Contact Information:Laurence Rosen, Esq.Phillip Kim, Esq.The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.275 Madison Avenue, 40th FloorNew York, NY 10016Tel: (212) 686-1060Toll Free: (866) 767-3653Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@ rosenlegal.comwww.rosenlegal.com SOURCE: The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-14 11:36:30 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 855 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 A securities fraud class action has been filed against NuScale executives alleging misrepresentations about ENTRA1 leading to a 12.4% stock plunge.NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 14, 2026 / Leading securities law firmBleichmar Fonti & Auld LLPannounces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE:SMR) and certain of the Company's senior executives for securities fraud after a significant stock drop resulting from the potential violations of the federal securities laws.If you invested in NuScale, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases/nuscale-class-action-lawsuit Key Details of the NuScale ($SMR) Class Action:Lead Plaintiff Deadline: April 20, 2026Alleged Misconduct: Misrepresenting the experience and capabilities of ENTRA1 and its role in developing and commercializing NuScale's nuclear power modulesLargest Alleged Stock Decline: November 10, 2025 - 12.4% Stock DropCourt: U.S. District Court for the District of OregonAction: Contact BFA Law to discuss your rightsInvestors have until April 20, 2026 to ask the Court to be appointed to lead the case. The complaint asserts claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on behalf of investors in NuScale Class A common stock. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and is captioned Truedson v. NuScale Power Corporation, et al., No. 3:26-cv-00328.Why is NuScale Being Sued for Securities Fraud?NuScale is a nuclear technology company. Its core technology is the NuScale Power Module ("NPM"), a small modular nuclear reactor ("SMR") designed to generate energy within a broader power plant. Prior to the start of the Class Period, NuScale established a partnership with ENTRA1 Energy LLC. Under this agreement, ENTRA1 was responsible for constructing power generation facilities incorporating NuScale's NPMs and managing the financing, development, and initial operations of the facilities utilizing the NPMs.NuScale allegedly touted ENTRA1's purported wide-ranging capabilities and deep experience developing power plants. According to NuScale, ENTRA1 is an "independent power plant development platform," "led by an executive team of energy, infrastructure, and finance sector veterans," with the type of experience that is "exactly what is required" to commercialize and deploy NuScale's NPMs.As alleged, in truth, ENTRA1 had never built, financed, or operated any significant project, let alone a project in the complex field of nuclear power generation. Moreover, in contrast to NuScale's representations, ENTRA1 had been organized primarily to support the work of one individual, its principal Wadie Habboush, an investor and entrepreneur.Why did NuScale's Stock Drop?On November 6, 2025, NuScale disclosed that its general and administrative expenses had increased from $17 million in the prior year period, to $519 million during 3Q 2025, due largely to NuScale's payment of $495 million to ENTRA1 for its services. Also on November 6, 2025, under pressure from investment analysts, NuScale acknowledged that ENTRA1 did not have any significant experience building nuclear power projects and admitted that ENTRA1 would not actually be "out there building the power plants" but would serve "to coordinate projects, to bring in partners, to get deals and the partners they bring in that can execute." Following this news, analysts with Guggenheim Securities, LLC published a report stating that ENTRA1 is a "3-year old company that has never built, financed or operated anything" and had just "3 employees and 1 investor," and stated a "more accurate description of ENTRA1 would be that it is an entity supporting the activities of a single individual, specifically Mr. Habboush." This news caused the price of NuScale stock to drop $4.03 per share over two trading days, or more than 12.4%, from a closing price of $32.46 per share on November 6, 2025, to $28.43 per share on November 10, 2025.Click here for more information: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases/nuscale-class-action-lawsuit What Can You Do?If you invested in NuScale, you may have legal options and are encouraged to submit your information to the firm.All representation is on a contingency fee basis; there is no cost to you. Shareholders are not responsible for any court costs or expenses of litigation. The firm will seek court approval for any potential fees and expenses.Submit your information by visiting:Or contact:Adam McCall adam@ bfalaw.com 212.789.3619Why Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP?BFA is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It has been named a top plaintiff law firm by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, and ISS SCAS, and its attorneys have been named "Elite Trial Lawyers" by the National Law Journal, "Litigation Stars" by Benchmark Litigation, among the top "500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers" by Lawdragon, "Titans of the Plaintiffs' Bar" by Law360 and "SuperLawyers" by Thomson Reuters. Among its recent notable successes, BFA recovered over $900 million in value from Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors, as well as $420 million from Teva Pharmaceutical Ind. Ltd.For more information about BFA and its attorneys, please visit https://www.bfalaw.com Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.SOURCE: Bleichmar, Fonti, & Auld LLP PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-13 23:02:47 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 434 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 13, 2026 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against NuScale Power Corporation ("NuScale" or the "Company") (NYSE:SMR). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at newaction@ pomlaw.com or 646-581-9980, (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.The class action concerns whether NuScale and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.You have until April 20, 2026, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class if you purchased or otherwise acquired NuScale securities during the Class Period. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com [Click here for information about joining the class action]On November 6, 2025 NuScale revealed that its general and administrative expenses had ballooned more than 3,000% to $519 million during its third fiscal quarter, up from $17 million in the prior year period, due largely to NuScale's payment of $495 million to ENTRA1 Energy LLC ("ENTRA1") in connection with an agreement to develop power plants to provide the Tennessee Valley Authority ("TVA") with up to six gigawatts of new nuclear power generation. As a result, NuScale's quarterly net loss skyrocketed to $532 million, up from $46 million in the prior year period. During a corresponding conference call, analysts pressed NuScale management regarding whether ENTRA1 was sufficiently experienced to own and operate the energy generation facilities contemplated by the TVA agreement. NuScale's Chief Executive Officer further revealed during the call that the agreement between ENTRA1 and the TVA contemplated as many as 72 NPMs, meaning NuScale's milestone payments to ENTRA1 could potentially exceed more than $3 billion.On this news, NuScale's stock price fell $7.57 per share, or 19.97%, over the following two trading sessions, to close at $30.34 per share on November 7, 2025.Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-13 23:03:38 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 801 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / March 13, 2026 / Redwood AI Corp. (CSE:AIRX)(Frankfurt:Y0N, WKN: A422EZ) ("Redwood" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a name change to its proprietary AI-powered chemical synthesis platform. The platform, formerly known as SythesAltzer', has been renamed Reactosphere (the "Software" or "Platform"), a name chosen to reflect the Platform's evolution beyond synthesis route generation into a more advanced intelligence system capable of supporting applications across multiple industries.Originally developed to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to complex chemical synthesis and reaction modeling, the Platform has evolved into a broader architecture designed to support advanced chemistry applications across multiple industries, including life sciences, healthcare, public safety, biosecurity, and strategic defense-related technologies. The Platform integrates chemical intelligence, data-driven modeling, and scalable computational tools designed to assist organizations in addressing complex scientific and operational challenges.As Redwood works to expand the strategic applications of its Platform across areas including public safety, biosecurity, and defense-related technologies, the Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mark R. Dybul as Public Safety & Defense Advisor to the Company.Dr. Dybul is a physician, scientist, and internationally recognized public health leader with more than two decades of experience in infectious disease research, global health policy, and large-scale healthcare program implementation. He served as United States Global AIDS Coordinator under President George W. Bush, where he led the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), one of the largest international health initiatives in history.[1] Dr. Dybul held the rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service and served as Assistant U.S. Surgeon General[2], reflecting his leadership in national and global public health initiatives. He later served as Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, one of the world's largest international health financing organizations dedicated to combating infectious diseases. Dr. Dybul is currently a Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University and has spent more than 25 years working as a clinician, researcher, and global health leader addressing infectious diseases, health systems development, and international health policy.[3] In his role as Public Safety & Defense Advisor, Dr. Dybul will provide strategic guidance to the Company with respect to the potential use cases for the Platform to address challenges relating to global health systems, public health preparedness, biosecurity, global health security, and the intersection of advanced scientific technologies with public safety and broader national security considerations."Artificial intelligence has the potential to play an increasingly important role in addressing complex global challenges across healthcare, biosecurity, and public safety. I look forward to supporting Redwood as it continues to develop technologies that can contribute to innovation across these critical areas," stated Dr. Dybul.About Redwood AI Corp.Redwood AI uses advanced artificial intelligence to accelerate chemistry R&D, with the aim of assisting in drug discovery and development, and furthering defense and safety solutions. The Company combines expertise in chemistry, AI, and manufacturing to streamline drug synthesis and scale-up. Redwood AI's platform enables faster, more efficient development of new therapies and chemistry-driven applications.ON BEHALF OF REDWOOD AI CORP.,"Louis Dron"Chief Executive OfficerFor more information, please contact:Louis DronChief Executive OfficerTel: +1 888 530 8488 investors@ redwoodai.com The CSE and Information Service Provider have not reviewed and do not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.Forward-Looking Statements Caution. This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent they are not historical fact, may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is generally identified by words such as "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "may", "should", "will", "potential" and similar expressions and, in this news release, includes statements relating to the development and potential deployment of the AI-powered Platform, and the expectation that the Software may be utilized for drug discovery or development or to further defense or safety solutions. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on it, as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Forward-looking information inherently involves risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is made as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise such information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.[1] https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/mdybul-bio.html? [2] https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/mdybul-bio.html? [3] https://cghpi.georgetown.edu/profile/the-honorable-dr-mark-dybul/ SOURCE: Redwood AI Corp. PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-14 14:00:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 450 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 14, 2026 /WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, continues to investigate potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Lufax Holding Ltd (NYSE:LU) resulting from allegations that Lufax may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public.SO WHAT: If you purchased Lufax securities you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. The Rosen Law Firm is preparing a class action seeking recovery of investor losses.WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the prospective class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=53703 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@ rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.WHAT IS THIS ABOUT: On January 27, 2025, Lufax filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a current report on Form 6-K. Attached to the current report as an exhibit was an announcement which stated that Lufax's board had proposed to remove Lufax's auditors, and that there was a possible delay in the publication of Lufax's 2024 annual report (which in fact did occur).On this news, Lufax American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") fell 13.8% on January 27, 2025.WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved, at that time, the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. At the time Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm , on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/ Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.---Contact Information:Laurence Rosen, Esq.Phillip Kim, Esq.The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.275 Madison Avenue, 40th FloorNew York, NY 10016Tel: (212) 686-1060Toll Free: (866) 767-3653Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@ rosenlegal.comwww.rosenlegal.com SOURCE: The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. PR-Inside.com: 2026-03-14 01:00:27 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 915 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HONG KONG, HK AND RENO, NV / ACCESS Newswire / March 13, 2026 / Tianci International, Inc. (the "Company" or "Tianci"), a global logistics service provider specializing in ocean freight forwarding, today announced its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2026.Second Fiscal Quarter 2026 Highlights:Revenue increased, quarter-to-quarter, by 87%, as global logistics revenue increased by 22% and was complemented by revenue of $1,315,855 resulting from our initial entry into the market for mineral ores.General and administrative expenses increased from $1,999,225 in the quarter ended January 31, 2025 to $3,794,374 in the quarter ended January 31, 2026. As a result, the Company incurred a net loss of $417,124 in the quarter ended January 31, 2026, an increased loss compared to the quarter ended January 31, 2025.Financial ResultsRevenue from logistics operations for the quarter ended January 31, 2026, which represented 65% of the Company's overall revenue in that period, increased by 22% from the revenue generated by logistics operations during the quarter ended January 31, 2025. However, the cost of that revenue increased by 26% from the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 to the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, as demand for logistics services waned due to concerns about the implementation of tariffs, while shipping companies in the Southeast Asia market increased their pricing in an effort to offset the decline in demand for their services. As a result of the increase in cost of revenue, the Company's gross profit margin attributable to logistics operations decreased from 3.6% in the quarter ended January 31, 2025 to 3.5% in the quarter ended January 31, 2026, and decreased from 5.0% for the six months ended January 31, 2025 to 2.5% for the six months ended January 31, 2026.To reduce the effect of declining demand in the Southeast Asia market, the Company intends to reorient its focus towards long-distance shipping lines, which generally produce higher profit margins. As one particular effort toward that reorientation, the Company has been accumulating an inventory of bulk chrome and manganese ore for the purpose of entering into the global commodity trade arena, and completed its initial mineral sales during the six months ended January 31, 2026. Those sales yielded $1,821,320 in revenue and a gross profit margin of 12.0%. By applying its core resource control capabilities and supply chain integration strengths with an in-house demand for shipping services, the Company looks to release itself from dependence on local demand for shipping services.We recorded a net loss of $417,124 for the quarter ended January 31, 2026, primarily due to a 170% increase in general and administrative expenses arising from most aspects of our operations. Our bottom line net loss for the second quarter of $417,124, therefore, represented an increase of 276% in our quarterly net loss.Our operations during the six months ended January 31, 2026 reduced our cash balance by $1,682,251 to $723,101. In addition to our net loss of $685,998, the greater portion of that cash drain was attributable to the increase of $561,754 in our accounts receivable. At January 31, 2026 our working capital was $2,506,100, a decline of $399,501 during the six months ended January 31, 2026.About Tianci International, Inc.Tianci International Inc., through its subsidiary Roshing, provides global logistics services specializing in ocean freight forwarding, including container and bulk goods shipping. Operating under an asset-light model, Roshing's logistics solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of its customers across the Asia-Pacific, including Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam.Starting in the current fiscal year, Roshing has expanded into global trade of bulk chrome and manganese ore by sourcing high-grade minerals directly from resource-rich regions for resale. Roshing intends to utilize optimized bulk vessel and container shipping, and provide end-to-end supply chain solutions for metallurgical and steelmaking customers.Beyond logistics and mineral sales, Roshing generates revenue from the sale of electronic parts and business consulting services.For more information, please visit the Company's website: tianci-ciit.com Forward-Looking StatementsCertain statements in this announcement are forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on the Company's current expectations and projections about future events that the Company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Investors can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as "approximates," "believes," "hopes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "projects," "intends," "plans," "will," "would," "should," "could," "may" or other similar expressions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. The Company encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results that are discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.For investor and media inquiries, please contact:Tianci International, Inc.Investor RelationsEmail: ir@ rqscapital.com Financial Summary TablesThe following financial information should be read in conjunction with the financial statements and accompanying notes filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 10-Q for the period ended January 31, 2026, which can be viewed at www.sec.gov and in the investor relations section of the Company's website at www.tianci-ciit.com TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIESCONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS(EXPRESSED IN UNITED STATES DOLLARS)January 31,July 31,20262025(Unaudited)ASSETSCurrent assets:Cash723,1012,405,352Accounts receivable561,753Prepayment and other current assets777,767382,554Inventory516,536 The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has introduced stricter BVN-enrollment and data access rules, to prevent suspected fraudulent transactions, taking effect from 1 May. This was disclosed in a statement issued on Friday, titled Addendum to the Revised Regulatory Framework for Bank Verification Number (BVN) Operations and Watch-List for the Nigerian Banking Industry 2021, and signed by Musa Jimoh, Director of the Payment System Policy Department. The CBN said it introduced the Revised Regulatory Framework for Bank Verification (BVN) and Watch-List for the Nigerian Banking Industry 2021, to promote a stable financial system. The apex bank reiterated that enrollment for the Bank Verification Number (BVN) be limited to individuals aged 18 and above, while amendments to phone numbers linked to a BVN will be restricted to a one-time change only. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Financial Institutions are mandated to establish and maintain a temporary watchlist for BVNs implicated in suspected fraudulent transactions reported by a financial institution. A BVN may remain on this temporary Watchlist for a maximum period of twenty-four (24) hours. During this period, the BVN owner shall be contacted to provide clarification regarding the identified transaction(s). Enrolment for BVN is restricted to individuals who have attained the age of eighteen (18) years and above. Amendments to phone numbers linked to a BVN shall be allowed only once, the statement read. The CBN insisted that it maintain an exclusive right to access BVN databases and the right to approve access to the BVN databases by the financial institutions. Access to the BVN databases shall be exclusively granted to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) licensed financial institutions. Notwithstanding this provision, the Central Bank of Nigeria (the Bank) reserves the right to approve access to the BVN databases in extenuating circumstances and in accordance with the provisions of extant laws. This is part of the CBNs recent regulatory amendments in combatting fraudulent activities. On Tuesday, the Bank issued new regulations, Baseline Standards for Automated Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Solution for Financial Institutions in Nigeria, to all financial institutions, in a bid to automatically counter money laundering and terrorism financing. Presco Plc, a leading agro-industrial oil palm company in West Africa, has announced its plan to invest $200 million in Abias oil palm sector. The companys Chairperson, Olakanmi Sarumi, disclosed this on Friday when the companys management and Afrinvest visited Governor Alex Otti of Abia State in Nvosi, Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of the state. Mr Sarumi said the proposed investment would develop oil palm plantations on about 14,086 hectares of a 20,000-hectare concession in Ozuitem, Abam, and Ulonna. Our task from the governor and the state is to establish a mutually beneficial relationship, facilitate land acquisition for Presco Plc, and provide security support to realise this development, he said. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google He also said the project was expected to create over 5,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly, across plantation operations, milling, logistics, and other support services. Mr Sarumi hoped that the initiative would curb rural migration and spur community development. He also said that the investment would boost agricultural output, support small and medium enterprises, and attract downstream industries reliant on palm oil derivatives. Our investment will add multi-billion naira annually to Abia States Gross Domestic Product (GDP) through agricultural output, tax revenues, and multiplier effects across SMEs and local value chains, he said. Mr Sarumi described the initiative as a continuation of the agricultural revolution pioneered by the former Eastern Nigeria Premier, late Michael Okpara, whose administration transformed the region into a leading oil palm producer. He appealed to the Abia State Government to assist his organisation in facilitating the acquisition of the land for the project. He pledged that his company would pay the compensation in accordance with an agreed plan. In a remark, the Group Managing Director of Afrinvest, Ike Chioke, said the visit followed discussions between the Abia State Government and Presco Plc in the first quarter of 2025 under the states Public-Private Partnership framework. Mr Chioke lauded Mr Otti for insisting on a thorough evaluation before any partnership would be finalised and expressed confidence that the engagement would be fruitful. Gov Ottis remarks Responding, Mr Otti commended the company for its thorough due diligence ahead of its proposed investment in the states oil palm sector. He said that the plan aligned with the historic agricultural vision of Okpara, whose farm settlement schemes once made the defunct Eastern Region a national leader in palm oil production. He recalled that the former region achieved national prominence in oil palm output through well-structured farm settlements and pledged to restore Abias lost glory in the sector. He emphasised that the states fertile land and favourable topography make it ideal for large-scale oil palm plantations, positioning Abia as a key driver of agricultural growth, job creation, and economic prosperity. READ ALSO: Otti reaffirms commitment to education reforms for sustainable development Im happy that you went back to the days of Dr Michael Okpara, who set up farm settlements, including the Ulonna settlement. I think 14,000 hectares may just be a start with the quality of our land you are likely to achieve one of the highest yields, the governor said. He confirmed that the Abia State Government was supportive of the investment, highlighting the projects potential to create thousands of jobs and also boost Abias GDP. If you are employing over 20,000 people, directly and indirectly, this will significantly contribute to the economy. Thats what interests me jobs for my people and a positive impact on the GDP, he said. He disclosed that the next step ought to be the drafting and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to move the project towards implementation. The governor further said that the Abia State Government would facilitate the land acquisition and ensure fair compensation to the host communities. (NAN) Salamatu Salihu holds her face in her palms, weeping. Her next words were a quiet and desperate plea for forgiveness. I want everyone to forgive him, said the 70-year-old mother whose son, Idris, had been unmasked as a terrorist collaborator. The last time Mrs Salamatu saw him was early last year, when soldiers stormed their Kemanji village and arrested civilians alleged to have collaborated with Ansaru terrorists, locally known as the Mamuda group. Since that incident, Mrs Salihu, a widow, has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Villagers were reluctant to lead this reporter to her home. The only person who agreed to help did so cautiously, offering only vague verbal directions, rather than personally guiding the way. The hesitation was palpable. Conversations slowed down when her name was mentioned. Some residents either avoided eye contact or walked away; others said they did not want to be seen taking sides. In a community where allegations of collaborating with terrorists can invite hostility either by the military or the insurgents, even a simple act of pointing the way is risky. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google By the time PREMIUM TIMES located her compound on the edge of the village, the isolation surrounding her was visible. Neighbours kept their distance, and children watched from afar. Whatever the truth about her son, Mrs Salihu now lives in social exile, a punishment she described as a test from Allah. This suspicion did not just come from nowhere. It is rooted in the aftermath of the terrorists takeover of the nearby forest reserve, creating new economic alliances. As poverty bit harder and insecurity deepened, the line between survival and complicity blurred for many families living at the edge of the national park. To understand why a mother now sits alone in the village she has lived all her life, one must look beyond her compoundinto the dangerous forest where timber, money and guns reshaped both the landscape and the loyalties of locals who depended on it for survival. Before becoming a park ranger, Idris, popularly known as Idi Gurgu, was a farmer and hunter who knew the forest reserve inside out, according to his mother and other villagers. People are saying that Idi is a terrorist, but that is not true, Mrs Salihu told PREMIUM TIMES, her eyes locked with our reporters. You need to know how the villagers pushed him into that. Because of its dense vegetation and limited state presence, the poorly governed 5,340.82-square-kilometre Kainji forest reserve gradually became a hideout for jihadists and bandit groups, many of whom specialise in kidnapping for ransom. The jihadists established a stronghold in the forest around 2019, steadily spreading their extreme ideology in surrounding communities in Niger and Kwara states. Their relationship with locals remained cordial until early 2025, when they turned hostile, accusing them of aiding a military operation that targeted their enclaves. Before that rupture, the group exploited the Nigerian states inability to adequately protect rural settlements. A review of propaganda audio messages, corroborated by interviews with residents, indicates that the jihadists portrayed themselves as alternative security providers, confronting rival bandits and, in some cases, facilitating the release of kidnapped persons. This opportunistic intervention helps explain Idris emergence as an ally of the terrorists. According to his mother and several residents, including a local chief and a vigilante commander, community leaders approached him at the height of insecurity, urging him to seek the jihadists assistance in confronting bandit groups who were brazenly kidnapping locals. In an audio message delivered in Hausa and his Bokobaru local dialect, Idris recounted how he established his relationship with the Mamuda group, a connection many people in Kemanji now whisper about. Idris said many people now call him a member of the Mamuda group. Yes, it is true, he admitted in the audio, which featured jihadi-themed background chants. The story, he said, began after kidnappers demanded N30 million as ransom for seven people abducted from Kemanji and neighbouring villages. They called me and asked for a way forward, he said in the audio, recalling the meeting with the village leaders. They wanted me to lead a team of vigilantes and a few others who know the forest very well to Mallam Mamudas place. They demanded N30 million ransom, he said. But we went there with Mallam Mamudas boys, rescued the victims, and killed the kidnappers there were 12 of them. Afterwards, the jihadists made him an offer he could not refuse. Mallam Mamuda requested that, since I understand every part of the forest, I should join his team to help rescue kidnapped victims and continue working with them subsequently, Idris recalled. I complied. For Idris, what began as a mission to help Kemanji people gradually pulled him deeper into the forest and into a network whose atrocities have now disrupted peace and local economies beyond his village. His story is that of duty, survival and complicity. His septuagenarian mother maintained that Idris was not a terrorist, even as she pleaded for forgiveness on his behalf. A dangerous pattern From the thick Sambisa forest, long dominated by Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), to Alawa Forest Reserve in Niger State, Nigerias forests have steadily evolved into reservoirs of terror. Across these enclaves, armed groups appear to use a common playbook: embed within difficult terrain, impose control, and lure local populations into their ranks. In Sokoto and Kebbi states, the Lakurawa terror group had taken root in remote communities, blending jihadi ideologies with territorial influence amid governance failure. Security sources have also linked the Sadiku-led Boko Haram faction to recruitment drives that pressure rural youths into auxiliary roles. Also, criminal bandit groups operating across Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina and other northern states have been accused of recruiting residents as informants, food suppliers, or foot soldiers, often by threat of violence. The military continues to launch offensives to dislodge the terrorists from these forests. Many of these operations involve aerial bombardments, ground raids, and clearance sweeps across known enclaves. In several instances, camps were overrun and fighters killed, but the vast terrain and porous borders often allowed remnants to retreat deeper into adjoining reserves or disperse into rural settlements. In early 2025, security authorities issued fresh directives for terror elements to be completely uprooted from the Kainji forest corridors. The operations signalled renewed urgency as the conservation haven had slipped into the control of terrorists too sophisticated to ignore. Long before that order, Kainji forest had already been stripped of much of its rich vegetation amid a tricky system in which terrorists imposed levies on desperate loggers who operated in the forest following the suspension of park services within. Through on-the-ground reporting and satellite imagery analysis, using Google Earth Pro, PREMIUM TIMES found that a massive act of deforestation occurred within Kainji National Park between late 2021 and early 2025. Locals, including insiders and residential park rangers, alleged that the forest depletion occurred under a system in which terrorists imposed levies on loggers who depended on the forest for their livelihood. Into the terror-driven logging Logging around Kainji had been going on before the terrorists infiltrated the forest reserve. It only became a criminal enterprise three years after their arrival, park rangers and local authorities said. Before the Mamuda group came, nobody cut trees without forestry permits from the park, a former ranger, Ba Sani, told this reporter in his Kemanji village. And the national park has never given anyone the clearance to cut trees inside the reserve. But everything changed in 2021, Mr Sani said, recalling how terrorists, in the late hours of 7th March 2021, ambushed a patrolling team of rangers in the Kemanji-Oli camp axis of the forest reserve and killed a man named Alhassan Tanko. That same year, in October, the National Park Service suspended operations in the reserve due to growing insecurity. Even amid the breakdown of oversight, the national park later intercepted six trucks loaded with timber. With the park left unguarded for long, illegal loggers moved in. Their activities, however, soon brought them into conflict with the terrorists, who had already spread across large parts of the forest. After initial clashes, the two sides struck a deal granting the loggers access to the forest in exchange for paying fees to the armed group. The Kainji National Park did not respond to requests for comment on the scale of illegal logging in the reserve and its efforts to curb it. Mohammed Nuhu, the parks spokesperson, said all enquiries should be directed to the National Park Service. The service had not responded to an FOI request sent by this newspaper. In a propaganda audio clip, the leader of the terror group, Mamuda, boasted about giving unhindered access to the forest reserve for logging and other biodiversity-threatening activitiesa type of access he said yan gandu (park rangers) had always prohibited. Idris corroborated this in his audio message and warned locals that a fight against the terror group would be a futile endeavour. Logging and other related activities are prohibited under the National Park Service Act and relevant state forestry laws, except where expressly permitted by park authorities. But for about five years, it has thrived inside the Kainji forest reserve. However, strict rules applied, explained a former insider in a village near the Nigerian border with the Benin Republic. Now posing as an undercover agent, he said he had worked with the loggers just to understand the business and gather information. No more than five peopletwo chainsaw operators, a bush manager, and three of his boyswere allowed per operation, said the former insider, who pleaded anonymity because he currently works with vigilantes and security forces to fight against the armed group. Many residents across communities bordering the forest say the arrangement between the terrorists and some local collaborators became a source of funding for the groups operations. Several locals, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, alleged that money collected from loggers and other individuals seeking access to the forest was used by the insurgents to sustain their operations. That collaboration financed the terrorists activities, one resident said, echoing a widely held belief in the area. Mr Sani, the park ranger who has worked in the area for years, shares this view. He recalled that when the terrorists first appeared in 2019, they were poorly equipped and had limited resources. Others described it as a structured system of levies imposed on those who depended on the forest for their livelihoods, a situation that effectively evolved into what experts now describe as an informal financing network. Taiwo Adebayo, a Lake Chad Basin researcher with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), emphasised that people in local communities may act out of desperation when the state is unable to provide protection. Mr Adebayo described the situation in Kainji forest as the intersection of licit and illicit economy in conflict. In this system, he said legitimate economic activitiessuch as licensed loggingoperate in the same space where illicit actors have gained ground. Even those with proper licenses can find themselves working in environments where the state has limited presence or control, Mr Adebayo said. In those gaps, lawful business activities can intersect with criminal or armed groups. Stressing that this intersection should not automatically be labelled collaboration, the researcher acknowledged that such overlap can unintentionally contribute to the financing, resilience and sustenance of armed groups. For him, the real policy challenge lies with the state. Authorities must block financing channels without shutting down legitimate economic activities or undermining community economic rights, he advised. He noted that measures, such as blanket bans without full territorial control, could backfire. People would still find ways to continue working, potentially creating resentment and opening up recruitment and intelligence opportunities for armed groups, he said. Counterterrorism and counterterrorism financing operations must be organised in a way that protects communities and their economic rights, their livelihood. Data from Global Forest Watch showed an unprecedented loss of tree cover, with 2,017 deforestation alerts in Kainji between 2021 and early 2025. Satellite analysis conducted by this reporter also showed vast areas of forest cleared within the same period. The former insider who refused to meet our reporter in person estimated that the terrorists collected more than N500 million in structured taxes imposed on loggers alone, a figure PREMIUM TIMES could not independently verify. According to him, the weekly tax income ranged from N700,000 to N1.5 million. I cant say about what they got from taxes imposed on fishermen, farmers or hunters, but I knew that they amassed between N700,000 and N1.5 million from loggers per week, he said. The former insider explained that logging crews were issued signed passes stating their entry and exit dates. Overstaying could mean seizure and destruction of equipment, or kidnapping, even death, he added. At the peak of the trade, he said dealers came from across Nigeria and the neighbouring Benin Republic. They worked through bush managers, often former poachers familiar with hidden routes. These intermediaries liaised with a commander identified by multiple sources as Aiman. Access depended on proximity to militant camps: areas too close were denied; distant zones were approved. Some residents initially resisted the large-scale logging, warning that the community could not withstand the environmental and security consequences. Ahmed Usman, a resident and former chairperson of the Kaiama Development Association (KDA), recalled how his association confronted loggers and reported the matter to authorities. We held meetings with the officials of the National Park here in Kaiama, and they told us they were doing their best, Mr Usman said. We wrote letters to the Federal Ministry of Environment and copied the National Park Service, including security agencies. But Mr Usman gave up the fight after he was assaulted twice by those he described as hired thugs collecting tolls from timber-laden trucks. The quiet arrest The first visible disruption of the network came far from the forest. It was on a Friday in March 2025 when soldiers quietly walked into a congregation observing Jumaat service in Kemanji and arrested Suleiman Salihu in his white mosque security outfit. The arrest was calm, almost unnoticed, Umar Mohammed, the head of the local vigilante in the village, told PREMIUM TIMES. Mr Salihu was a hunter and a farmer before he ventured into the logging business, his wife, Salamah, told PREMIUM TIMES in their home in Unguwar Zabarmawa in Kemanji. His logging endeavour was a rough one, his eldest son Jaafar interjected, recounting when one Ba Gado, alongside another person, met him at our farm around 2023. We were together with him on the farm the day when they came, Jaafar recalled. They stepped aside and had a conversation, and my father immediately left the farm for the forest reserve. Mr Salihu would not return from that trip for four days. Terrorists had kidnapped him and three other people he went to the forest with. They would not be released until a ransom of N400,000 was paid, said Jaafar. At the time, we didnt know he was in partnership with Ba Gado, Jaafar said, adding that the ransom was raised by the family alone. While many people wondered why Mr Salihu was arrested, the message was clear to his allies, including Idris and five other persons who fled the village. While the destination of others remains unknown, many villagers believe Idris is in the forest with the terrorists. Subsequent arrests were made after security forces interrogated Mr Salihu in Ilorin, Kwara State, according to intelligence sources and community leaders. Among those arrested were sawmill owners, including Ba Gado, believed to be Mr Salihus partner. Muhammed Zikki, the village head of Kemanji, said the arrests were based on local intelligence. I dont know if they are terrorists or terror collaborators, Mr Zikki said. What I know is that they were intermediaries. Soldiers later brought Mr Salihu to Kemanji to lead them to the terrorists enclave. The aftermath of that operation was more violent attacks. Mr Zikki said the terrorists believed the villagers had invited the soldiers and began targeting them in reprisal attacks. The campaign of terror Between 2021 and early 2025, the Mamuda group launched deadly attacks on communities in Kwara and Niger states, and parts of northern Benin. Last year, the group carried out several violent attacks on villages like Karonji (also known as Duruma), killing locals and destroying properties. In Dekera, a village in Niger State, the group killed the village head after accusing him of colluding with security forces. Locals monitoring their movements told our reporter that the group was also responsible for several attacks in the northern Benin Republic, including the raid on Kalale on 10 September 2025 and the 27 July 2025 attack on a church in a town near Kalale, kidnapping six worshippers, including a member of the local Catholic community. The group demanded 10,000,000 CFA as ransom for the Christians abducted in Benin, a local source in Karonji, a Kwara village less than a kilometre from Benin, said. In a coordinated counter-terrorism operation in mid-2025, Nigerias security forces captured two leaders of the group and linked them to Ansaru, otherwise known as Jamaatu Ansarul Muslimina fi-Biladis Sudan, an al-Qaeda affiliate. The terror leaders Mahmud Usman (Abu Baraa) and his deputy, Mahmud al-Nigeri, also called Mallam Mamudawere arrested following months of intelligence gathering and surveillance operations that were hailed by officials as a major breakthrough in dismantling their network. The two men had been on Nigerias most-wanted list for years and were accused of coordinating sleeper cells, financing terrorist activities, recruiting fighters, and orchestrating violent attacks, according to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. They face a 32-count terrorism charge, including those related to terrorism, financing it through kidnapping and robbery, and plotting violent operations across several states. In September 2025, Mr Usman was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to illegal mining charges that allegedly funded arms purchases and other terror operations. His deputy pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Authorities linked the group to several high-profile attacks, such as the July 2022 Kuje prison break in Abuja that freed scores of terrorists. They were also tied to decades-long kidnappings and armed robberies used to fund their activities. While illegal logging formed part of the groups economic ecosystem, it has not featured among the formal terrorism charges brought against the Ansaru leaders. Tracing the logs One of the final stages of a supply chain that begins deep inside the forest is freshly sawn logs, scattered around sawmills in the heart of Kaiama town. Those were woods from the national park, said a member of a Local Advisory Committee (LAC) for Kainji National Park, Yakubu Musa, darting his eyes toward the timbers strewn across four large sawmills. Near these sawmills, empty timber trucks sat idling in the dust. The trucks, he said, are no longer as busy as they used to be. The sawmills operate in close proximity, with the rasp of blades tearing through the air as workers cut and shape the trees into planks. The trees, mostly sourced from a protected forest, were being brazenly processed in the open. By the time the logs arrive in Kaiama, their violent journey has already been laundered. The sawmills get busy as long trucks wait to transport the sawn logs. The woods usually get transported down to Lagos or Cotonou (Benin) from where they would be shipped overseas, Mr Musa, the LAC member, said. Many locals corroborated him. Data from the website of the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that Nigeria typically records large exports of wood. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, the country exported wood valued at N65.85 billion. Analysis of the data shows that countries in the fold of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) accounted for 14.15 billion of the total exports. Further review shows that the majority of the wood was exported to neighbouring countries such as Benin and Togo. While Benin was identified as the top destination for Nigerias wood exports, receiving N29.83 billion worth of the product, Togo followed with N19.32 billion in imports. Asian and European countries accounted for the rest, with the latter importing products worth N102.21 million, while the former imported products valued at N94.80 million. This report was commissioned with support from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) under a journalism support initiative funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy Iran has called for justice and lasting peace for Palestinians as the world marks Quds Day, observed annually on the last Friday of Ramadan. Irans Ambassador to Nigeria, Mahdavi Raja, made the call on Friday in Abuja during an event organised by Irans embassy with the Al-Huda Foundation. Mr Raja expressed condolences over the loss of Iranian citizens, including military personnel and civilians, in what he described as recent acts of aggression against Iran. He said the victims sacrificed their lives in defence of the nations independence, dignity and security. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Speaking on Quds Days significance, the envoy said the event reminded the world of the need for justice and solidarity with Palestinians. According to him, the Palestinian question has remained unresolved for decades due to occupation, violence and persistent humanitarian challenges. He noted that developments in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem reflected the wider humanitarian consequences of the conflict. Mr Raja described Quds Day as an opportunity for the international community to renew its commitment to justice, human rights and peaceful conflict resolution. The Palestinian people should determine their future and live in their land with freedom, dignity and security, he said. The ambassador also stressed that Iran supported regional security based on cooperation, mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. He, however, added that every nation had the right under international law to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens from aggression. Also speaking, a public policy analyst, Ebenezer Oyetakin, urged nations and individuals to continue speaking out against injustice and supporting humanitarian causes. Mr Oyetakin cited the example of Nelson Mandela, noting the late leader was once labelled a terrorist before gaining global recognition for ending apartheid. He urged people of conscience worldwide to continue raising their voices in defence of justice and human dignity. Chairman of the Al-Huda Foundation, Mohammad Zubair, said Quds Day highlighted the importance of solidarity with Palestinians. Mr Zubair called for unity among people of different faiths and backgrounds in advocating peace, justice and respect for human rights. He added that sustained global engagement and dialogue remained essential to achieving a just and lasting resolution to the conflict. (NAN) The Nigerian government says it remains committed to strengthening maternal and newborn healthcare services following the successful delivery of quadruplets at a federal hospital in Ogun State. The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare made the pledge on Friday after medical teams at Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Abeokuta, handled a complex delivery involving a woman referred to the facility while already in labour. In a statement posted on its X account on Friday, the ministry noted that the delivery involved quadruplets born to Mufiat Olateju, who was referred to the tertiary health facility in Abeokuta during labour. Medical teams at the hospital reportedly managed the high-risk birth and stabilised both the mother and the newborn babies. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, upon receiving a briefing on the situation, directed the management of FMC Abeokuta to ensure that the mother and the babies receive comprehensive medical care, monitoring and support to safeguard their wellbeing, the statement reads. With the directive, the hospital commenced appropriate medical care as well as providing counselling and psychosocial support to the family. Commendation Mr Salako commended the professionalism of the medical team involved in the delivery, noting that managing multiple births such as quadruplets medically demands and requires specialised care and monitoring. He also used the opportunity to emphasise the importance of early and consistent antenatal care for all pregnant women. Regular antenatal visits enable health professionals to detect and manage potential complications early, improve pregnancy outcomes and ensure safer deliveries for both mothers and babies, he said. He noted that cases such as this highlight the critical importance of early antenatal registration and routine pregnancy monitoring, which help health professionals detect multiple pregnancies early and plan safer deliveries for both mothers and babies. Pregnant women are therefore encouraged to register for antenatal care early at recognised health facilities and maintain regular contact with qualified health professionals throughout their pregnancy. he advised. Broader maternal health concerns While the ministry highlighted the successful delivery, Nigeria continues to face one of the worlds highest maternal mortality burdens despite ongoing health reforms. According to reports, Nigeria ranks among the countries with the highest number of maternal and newborn deaths globally, accounting for about 14 per cent of global maternal deaths, even though the country represents only about 2.6 per cent of the worlds population. Reports also indicate that more than 20,000 maternal, neonatal and under-five deaths were recorded between January and September 2025, highlighting persistent gaps in access to quality healthcare. Health experts often link the high mortality rates to delays in accessing quality maternal care, shortages of skilled birth attendants, weak referral systems and limited access to emergency obstetric services, particularly in rural communities where many women still deliver outside formal health facilities. However, a 2025 health sector report indicated that maternal deaths recorded in health facilities declined significantly with 50 per cent following expanded access to skilled maternity care and emergency obstetric services across the country. Commitments The Ministry noted that postpartum counselling, including voluntary family planning services, remains an important component of maternal health care, helping families make informed decisions about birth spacing and overall family wellbeing. It added that it remains committed to strengthening maternal, newborn and child health services nationwide through improved health systems, skilled healthcare personnel and expanded access to quality care across all levels of the health sector. The Ministry continues to expand access to maternal and newborn care services across Nigeria as part of ongoing efforts to reduce preventable maternal and infant deaths, the statement reads. A Consultant Family and Lifestyle Medicine Physician, Moyosore Makinde, has advised adults aged 18 and above to get seven to nine hours of restorative sleep daily for optimal health. Ms Makinde, also President of the Society of Lifestyle Medicine of Nigeria (SOLONg), gave the recommendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos. She spoke while commemorating the World Sleep Day, observed annually on 13 March. She emphasised the importance of adequate sleep in maintaining overall wellbeing, productivity, and long-term physical and mental health. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google The 2026 World Sleep Day, themed Sleep Well, Live Better, is dedicated to raising awareness about sleeps critical role in human health and encouraging individuals to adopt healthier sleep habits. Ms Makinde explained that recommended sleep duration varied according to age, noting that while adults required fewer hours, infants and children needed longer sleep periods for proper development and overall wellbeing. Citing World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulations, she recommended seven to nine hours of restorative sleep for adults above 18, explaining that infants and children required significantly longer sleep duration. She decried the high level of sleep deprivation among the populace, noting many people failed to get adequate sleep daily, a situation she warned could negatively affect health, safety and wellbeing. Ms Makinde said the fast pace of modern life often left little time for rest, urging Nigerians to deliberately prioritise sleep by creating time for proper rest, relaxation and recovery daily. She attributed sleep deprivation to multiple factors, including health challenges, lack of time, social media addiction, poor sleeping environments, unhealthy sleep positions, and demanding daily schedules aimed at survival. According to Ms Makinde, prolonged sleep deprivation increases risks of accidents, judgment errors, workplace mistakes, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, overweight, and certain cancers including breast and prostate. Sleeping well in order to live better is not a myth. Sleep remains one of the most powerful yet often neglected pillars of health and wellbeing in modern society. To maintain good health, adults should have seven to nine restorative hours of sleep per day. Infants require up to 16 to 17 hours of sleep, while pre-school and school-age children need up to 13 hours and 12 hours respectively for proper brain development, Ms Makinde added. Importance of adequate sleep According to her, sleep is as important as the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. It is a natural state of rest and a period when the body repairs itself physiologically, restoring energy, strengthening immunity and supporting overall bodily functions. Amid the hustle and bustle of work, study and business, particularly in Lagos, Nigerians need to prioritise sleep. In doing so, we are also prioritising our health, she said. Contributing, a psychiatrist and therapist, Maymunah Kadiri, described sleep as an integral part of mental well-being, stressing its critical role in maintaining psychological balance. Ms Kadiri, also Medical Director of Pinnacle Medical Services, explained that good sleep improve concentration, enhanced brain performance and contribute positively to overall cognitive functioning and emotional stability. She noted that adequate sleep support cognitive processes and help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, making it an essential component of maintaining good mental health. According to her, healthy sleep goes beyond hours spent in bed, noting that it involves adequate duration, good sleep quality that is uninterrupted and refreshing, and a consistent sleep schedule. Sleep significantly benefits mental health. During a good nights sleep, the brain gets rest and all the nutrients it needs, she said. A person who enjoys long-term good sleep develops improved stress resistance. Brain function improves, and the risk of cognitive disorders is significantly reduced over time. Sleep has a direct impact on mental health and its quality. It helps process emotions and alleviates stress as well as negative feelings, Ms Kadiri said. (NAN) The United States has confirmed the death of all six crew members in an aircraft that crashed in Iraq. All six crew members aboard a US KC-135 refuelling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased. The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace on March 12 during Operation Epic Fury, the US Central Command wrote on X. PREMIUM TIMES reported the crash of the aircraft, which is used to refuel fighter planes mid-air, as the US continues its war on Iran. While the US insists the aircraft was not brought down, an Iran-linked Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility for shooting down the plane on Thursday. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google In its Friday post on X, the US insisted the plane was not shot down. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the aircraft was not lost to hostile or friendly fire. The identities of the service members are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified. This incident increases the death toll of US soldiers in the war to at least 13. The majority were killed by an Iranian strike in Kuwait. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the bodies of the soldiers were flown to the US shortly after. Mr Trump, as the commander-in-chief of the US military, presided over the arrival ceremony of the slain soldiers and described their deaths as a very sad day for the Americans. A week ago, three US fighter jets were downed in Kuwait. The US blamed the 2nd of March crash of the fighter jets on friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defence. It said, During active combat, US Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defences. All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in stable condition. Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defence forces and their support in this ongoing operation. Meanwhile, US facilities in the Gulf states continue to be targeted. Waves of Iranian drones and missiles continue to target Gulf countries. In Oman, two people were killed by debris after the downing of a drone in the Sohar province on Thursday. Another two were killed in Kuwait. The Saudi Defence Ministry also said its air defence shot down dozens of drones in different regions of the country. In Bahrain and Oman, fuel tanks were hit. Global oil prices have fluctuated wildly this week, and Brent oil is now trading above $100 a barrel, up from below $80. The war, which began with joint Israeli-US strikes on Iran at the end of February, has led to the death of more than a thousand people and disrupted the lives of millions of others. The majority of the victims have been Iranians. At least 15 villagers were killed on Friday when terrorists opened fire on residents harvesting cashew nuts in Ojantele community in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. Daily Trust reported that residents said the victims had gone to gather fallen cashew nuts in the farm after an overnight rainfall when the attackers struck. Witnesses who spoke anonymously for security reasons said the victims, mostly women and youths from nearby communities, including Asaba and Akpete, were harvesting cashew nuts in the Ogbaulu area when the terrorists suddenly began shooting. A resident who spoke to journalists in Makurdi by telephone said the attackers shot indiscriminately at the villagers. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google At least 15 bodies have been recovered so far, the source said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. The resident added that 11 other victims sustained injuries during the attack and were taken to a hospital in Ugbokpo, the headquarters of Apa Local Government Area. Some villagers also reported that several residents remain missing after the incident, including a woman who was allegedly abducted. Residents alleged that the assailants arrived with a large herd of cattle and began shooting sporadically as villagers returning from their farms fled for safety. The chairman of Apa Local Government, Adams Ochega, confirmed the attack in a telephone conversation but said he had yet to receive full details because he was away on official duty at the time. As of the time of filing this report, the spokesperson for the Benue State Police Command, Udeme Edet, had not responded to calls and text messages seeking comment. Concerns over farming season Residents said the attack has heightened fears among farming communities as the planting season approaches. A community member who asked not to be named for safety reasons said many villagers are now reluctant to return to their farms. The rainy season is approaching and people should be preparing their farms. But many are afraid to go to the bush because of these attacks, the resident said. Another local farmer said the continued violence could worsen food insecurity in the area. We depend on farming for survival. If people cannot go to their farms, hunger will follow, the farmer said. Pattern of violence The latest incident comes days after another deadly attack in Kwande Local Government Area of the state. On 6 March, suspected armed attackers killed at least 13 people in Tyungu Jam and Mbaav communities in Yaav and Mbadura council wards of Kwande. Governor Hyacinth Alia condemned that attack, describing the killings as barbaric, senseless and unacceptable, and directed security agencies to intensify efforts to apprehend those responsible. READ ALSO: Morticians absence halts burial of 13 Benue attack victims Security experts warn Security analysts say the recurring attacks on rural communities in Benue are linked to a mix of armed banditry, long standing farmer herder tensions, and weak security presence in remote settlements. According to analysts, many farming communities remain exposed because they are located far from major security formations, making it easier for armed groups to strike and withdraw without immediate resistance. They also note that attacks targeting farmers during harvesting or planting periods have become increasingly common in parts of the state. Such incidents, they warn, threaten local livelihoods and could disrupt food production in Benue, widely regarded as Nigerias food basket. Benue has witnessed repeated attacks on rural communities in recent years, leading to deaths, displacement and growing fears among farmers across the state. The war between the United States and Israel against Iran entered its fifteenth day and third week today (Saturday). Strikes are intensifying, casualties rising, with the majority of them in Iran. More than 1,400 people have been confirmed dead in the war. PREMIUM TIMES brings you major updates on the war on its fourteenth day. Trump on Irans Kharg Island US President Donald Trump, on Friday, said the US totally obliterated every military target on Kharg Island. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Kharg Island is a small Iranian island in the Persian Gulf that is believed to handle about 90 per cent of Irans crude exports. Mr Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the US will attack the oil infrastructure next if Tehran continues blocking ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. He stated that the strikes did not touch oil infrastructure on the island. Still, he noted that should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he would reconsider this decision. Iran threatens retaliation However, Iran, in response to this, has threatened to hit oil infrastructure owned by companies linked to the US, should its energy infrastructure be attacked. CNN quoted the Iranian state media, which reported that Irans Armed Forces Unified Combatant said that oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that cooperated with the US would immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes. Earlier, the secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, warned the US against escalating the war by attacking the countrys energy system. His statement was in response to US President Donald Trumps threat to take out Irans electricity within one hour. Mr Larijani said Iran would retaliate by plunging the entire region into darkness should this happen. Attack on US embassy in Iraq Iraq reported on Thursday that a missile struck a US helipad in Baghdad. The attacks came after the US issued a level 4 security alert, warning employees that the embassy is susceptible to attack from Iran-aligned militias. Al Jazeera reported that smoke was rising from the building in Baghdads Green Zone. 100 children killed in Lebanon The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli strikes have killed more than 103 children in Lebanon. The ministry also reported that a total of 773 people have been killed since Israel began to attack the country as a response to Hezbollahs missile attack on 2 March. About 1,933 people have also been wounded, with 326 of them being children. Casualties in Iran rose to at least 1,444 on Friday. The victims range in age from eight months to 88 years old. France, Italy, China in talks with Iran over oil passage France and Italy have initiated talks with Tehran to ensure the safe passage of their ships through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a report by the Financial Times. Separately, Reuters reported that France is also working to assemble an international coalition to help secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilises. The report cited two French officials familiar with the plan. China is also in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage. CNN also reported that Iran is weighing a plan to allow a limited number of oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz if the cargo is traded in Chinese yuan. The strait remains one of the worlds most critical energy chokepoints. In 2024, about 6.2 per cent of crude oil and 8.7 per cent of liquefied natural gas imported from non-EU countries passed through the passage, according to the Germany-based CESifo research network. Six US soldiers dead Six American soldiers were killed on Friday after an aircraft crashed in Iraq. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the aircraft is a refuelling aircraft used to refuel fighter jets mid-air. All six crew members aboard a US KC-135 refuelling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased. The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace on March 12 during Operation Epic Fury, the US Central Command wrote on X. This adds to the seven soldiers earlier killed by Iranian strikes in Kuwait, raising the number to 13. The US insisted that the aircraft was not brought down, but an Iran-linked Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility for shooting down the plane on Thursday. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the aircraft was not lost to hostile or friendly fire, CENTCOM said. Two soldiers are feared dead following a violent clash between youths and security operatives in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State, the police have said. The clash occurred on 11 March between youths of Isabang and Alesi communities, triggering a security operation that left several people shot and communities briefly on edge, Punch newspaper reported. According to preliminary information released by the police in the state, the incident stemmed from a dispute involving a miner identified as Ibrahim Musa and youths at a village checkpoint located in a disputed area between the two communities. How the clash began Police spokesperson in the state, Eitokpah Sunday said the miner was allegedly assaulted and his mined minerals seized by the youths. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Preliminary information indicates that the incident followed a dispute between a miner, Ibrahim Musa, and some community youths at a checkpoint within the disputed area between Isabang and Alesi communities, Mr Sunday said. The miner was allegedly assaulted and his mined minerals seized, after which he reported the matter to soldiers stationed around Ochon. Confrontation with soldiers Police said soldiers who attempted to arrest the suspects encountered resistance from youths in the community. In the course of attempting to arrest the suspects, some youths reportedly resisted and blocked the access road, leading to a confrontation during which four persons were shot, Mr Sunday said. According to him, two persons were shot dead, while two others sustained injuries and were taken for native treatment. There are also reports that two soldiers may have lost their lives during the incident, he added. The police said security operatives have since moved into the area to prevent further escalation of violence. We have deployed our personnel and tactical teams to the area, and normalcy has been restored, the police spokesperson said. He added that authorities were working with community stakeholders to maintain peace. Investigation into the incident is ongoing, and the Command is working with relevant stakeholders to ensure peace in the affected communities. Police said further details will be provided as investigations continue. The United Arab Emirates has disclosed that Nigerians are among the 141 people injured in Iranian strikes on the country in the past two weeks. The UAE Ministry of Defence, in a statement on X on Saturday, said several foreign nationals, including Nigerians, sustained varying degrees of injuries during the attacks. At least six other people have been killed in the strikes on the UAE. Although the ministry did not provide information on the number of Nigerians injured, it noted that they were among the 141 foreigners who suffered minor to moderate injuries. It stated that these incidents were recorded among residents and workers from several countries. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google The UAE, particularly Dubai, is a popular destination for Nigerian tourists. Aside from Nigeria, nationals affected include those from Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. It also identified nationals from Bahrain, Comoros, Turkiye, Iraq, Nepal, Oman, Jordan, Palestine, Ghana, Indonesia and Sweden. These attacks have resulted in 6 fatalities of Emirati, Pakistani, Nepali and Bangladeshi nationals, it added. The UAE, alongside other Gulf states, were drawn into the war after Irans retaliatory strikes targeted US bases across the Gulf. At least 13 American soldiers have been killed in the war. Apart from US bases and interests in the Gulf, Iran has also fired missiles and drones at Israel, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds of others. In Iran, over 1,400 people have been killed and thousands of others injured. Three weeks into the war, the Gulf states remain caught in the crossfire. Targeted strikes are intensifying as casualties increase across the Gulf. PREMIUM TIMES reported that Iranians strikes have affected ports, hotels, oil facilities and apartment buildings in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. In its recent statement, the ministry said the UAE air defences have so far intercepted 294 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1600 UAVs from Iran. UAE air defence systems on 14th March engaged 9 ballistic missiles and 33 UAVs launched from Iran. It described the attacks as blatant Iranian aggression. The ministry further noted that the country remains fully prepared and ready to deal with any threats, and will firmly confront any attempts to undermine State security in a manner that ensures the protection of its sovereignty, security and stability, and safeguards its national interests and capabilities. Nearly six years after he was accused of stealing N20 million belonging to the Akwa Ibom State judiciary, an accountant with the state judiciary, Iniobong Essien, has been discharged and acquitted by a State High Court in Uyo. Delivering judgement on 18 February, Justice Bassey Nkanang ruled that the prosecution failed to establish that Mr Essien fraudulently took the money, according to a report published by Crystal Express, a newspaper in Akwa Ibom. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google The judge ruled that suspicion and administrative negligence cannot serve as substitutes for proof of criminal intent. Mr Essien, an accountant II with the state judiciary, had faced a two-count charge of conspiracy and stealing in connection with the theft of N20 million withdrawn from Zenith Bank in February 2020. The case, filed on 18 August 2020 and marked HU/182C/2020, alleged that Mr Essien and others, who are still at large, conspired on 14 February 2020 to steal funds belonging to the Akwa Ibom State Judiciary. Prosecutions case During the trial, the prosecution, led by state counsel Akaninyene Akpan, argued that the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal and movement of the money pointed to criminal intent to steal. The first prosecution witness, Udofot Etukudo, then chief accountant of the judiciary, told the court that two cheques were issued on 13 February 2020 for the withdrawal of N20 million for official expenses. Mr Etukudo said Mr Essien obtained approval to request N50,000 to hire a bullion van and police escort to transport the cash safely, but failed to go to the bank that day despite holding the cheques. According to the prosecution, he instead went to the bank alone the following day and transported the money in his private Toyota Camry, a move they argued violated treasury guidelines on the conveyance of large cash. Another witness, Godwin Akpan, who served as the chief security officer of the judiciary at the time, told the court that when Mr Essien returned to the judiciary headquarters, the cash kept in the cars boot had disappeared. He testified that there were no signs of forced entry into the car, prompting suspicion that the theft may have been staged. Defendants counter-argument Mr Essien, defended by his lawyer, Dominic Okon, denied any involvement in the theft of the money. He insisted that he was a victim of circumstances. Testifying in his defence, he told the court that the approved funds meant for hiring a bullion van were never released to him, forcing him to use his personal car to transport the cash. Two other defence witnesses, both judicial staff members, introduced a crucial twist to the prosecutions narrative. Ime Inim, a clerical officer, testified that she saw unidentified men carrying bags from the boot of Mr Essiens car on the day of the incident and assumed they were authorised to offload them. Another witness from the internal audit unit, Udeme Obong, corroborated the account, saying he also saw unknown persons removing bags from the vehicle before any alarm about missing money was raised. The prosecution did not discredit the witnesses nor present evidence to contradict their testimony. Court judgement In his judgement, Justice Nkanang said the central question before the court was whether the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Essien fraudulently took the N20 million. He noted that criminal offences could be proved through eyewitness testimony, confessional statements, or circumstantial evidence. The judge said the prosecution relied solely on circumstantial evidence and failed to establish a chain of facts strong enough to link the defendant directly to the theft. ALSO READ: JUSUN chapters withdraw from planned federal judiciary workers strike He held that the testimony of the defence witnesses, who said unknown persons were seen removing bags from the vehicle, created reasonable doubt about who actually took the money. There is no evidence whatsoever, direct or circumstantial, from which the court could infer that the defendant planted those men, the judge said. The court ruled that the possibility that other persons not connected to the defendant stole the money could not be ruled out. Justice Nkanang further held that since the prosecution failed to prove the substantive offence of stealing, the allegation of conspiracy could not stand without independent evidence of an agreement to commit the crime. He discharged and acquitted Mr Essien on both counts. Negligence noted Despite the acquittal, the judge criticised Mr Essiens conduct in handling the funds. He said the defendant acted recklessly by delaying the bank visit, using his private car to transport such a large sum and leaving the money unattended in the vehicle. Such actions, Justice Nkanang said, could attract administrative or disciplinary sanctions but did not amount to criminal stealing. Organisers of the protest against poor power supply in Anambra State scheduled for 14 March have announced the suspension of the action till further notice. Osita Obi, coordinator of Electricity Consumers Rights Network in Anambra, announced the suspension of the protest at a news conference in Awka on Friday. He was joined at the conference by Tony Erike and Nonso Okpara, representatives of the consumer community. Mr Obi said it had become necessary to suspend the planned protest due to the volume of pressure and threats against him and other members of the organising team. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google He said responses from their various engagements with the Anambra State Government, the police, and the State Security Service pointed to security concerns, and that they had no choice but to back down. The protest against the poor electricity supply in Anambra, planned for 14 March in Awka, will no longer hold as scheduled. This is in response to the concerns raised, and we are shelving the protest. We had a series of meetings with the Anambra State Government, Police Command and the Department of State Services, and they all raised security concerns. I have received not less than 157 phone calls, I was even threatened that I will be held responsible for whatever will happen if anything goes wrong, he said. Mr Obi, who regretted the suspension of the protest, called on electricity customers not to relent in their demand for quality service delivery. He encouraged customers to attend the town hall meeting organised by FirstPower Electricity Distribution Company on 18 March. PREMIUM TIMES reported earlier that the police in Anambra had urged the organisers of the planned protest to engage in dialogue with the FirstPower Electricity Distribution Company Ltd rather than resort to protest. The electricity company has appealed to electricity consumers to bear with it over the poor power supply in the state, saying the problem is not its fault. Whenever national electricity generation declines, the amount allocated to every distribution company across Nigeria automatically drops. Nigeria has recently been experiencing a major reduction in electricity generation due to a severe shortage of natural gas supply to thermal power plants, which produce the bulk of electricity on Nigerias national grid. This was worsened by the disruption caused by an explosion on the Escravos-Lagos gas pipeline in December last year, an incident that affected the operations of several gas-fired power plants, Izunna Okafor, head of communications at FirstPower, said on Thursday in Awka. (NAN) Nigerian troops operating under 34 Artillery Brigade have reopened LiluEketutu Road between the boundaries of Anambra and Imo states, shut for three years due to activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The troops, in collaboration with personnel of the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, the State Security Service, the Nigeria Police, and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, also destroyed IPOBs bomb factory in Imo. This is contained in a statement issued by Olabisi Ayeni, acting deputy director, Army Public Relations, 82 Division Nigerian Army, on Friday in Enugu. Mr Ayeni, a lieutenant-colonel, noted that the operations, conducted in the OrsuEketutu Mother Valley and OrsuIhiteukwa general areas, were part of ongoing efforts to eliminate Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted by criminals. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google He said that the operations were also meant to facilitate the safe return of residents who were forced to abandon their homes due to the activities of IPOB and its armed affiliate, Eastern Security Networky (ESN). According to him, in one of the operations, troops operating under 34 Artillery Brigade conducted a joint clearance operation along the LiluEketutu Road in the OrsuEketutu Mother Valley area of Imo on 6 March. The road, which serves as a strategic route that functions as the communitys lifeline, enabling the flow of people, goods, and services for surrounding communities, had been abandoned for over three years. This is due to persistent threats and attacks by IPOB/ESN militants. During the operations, troops discovered IED planted at different areas along the road. The IEDs were successfully disconnected and safely recovered by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) specialists, preventing potential casualties and restoring access to the route, he said. Mr Ayeni said that in a related operation, on 11 March, troops conducted clearance operation in OrsuIhiteukwa area; clearing suspected IED locations along key routes to enhance security and enable displaced inhabitants to return safely to their homes. He said, During the operation, several IEDs were detonated along the route of advance. Despite the series of explosions, troops maintained operational momentum and discovered an IPOB/ESN IED-making factory within the area. The facility was thoroughly exploited, leading to the recovery of several items including Biafran flags and insignia, several rounds of 7.62 mm NATO ammunition and pipes used for priming IEDs. Other items recovered included pistol magazines containing rounds of ammunition, double-barrel guns, CCTV cameras, as well as multiple clips and electrical wires suspected to have been used in the fabrication of explosive devices. The army spokesman said that the EOD teams discovered many other IEDs concealed within the area, and that the explosives were carefully disconnected, recovered, and safely destroyed. He said that the Nigerian Army was committed to sustaining pressure on criminal networks threatening peace and security across Imo and Anambra states and the entire South-east region. Members of the public are requested to continue providing timely and credible information to security agencies, as community cooperation is vital to dismantling criminal syndicates and restoring lasting peace. Operation UDOKA is committed to protecting law-abiding citizens, securing lives and property and completely reinforcing regional stability, he said. (NAN) The Abia State Government says 6,381 confirmed glaucoma cases have been recorded in the state from September 2024 to date. Betty Emeka-Obasi, administrator of the Abia Eye Health Management Bureau, disclosed this on Thursday in Umuahia during the World Glaucoma Week 2026 symposium. The symposium, themed Glaucoma-Free World: A Shared Responsibility, aimed to raise awareness and encourage collective action against glaucoma. Ms Emeka-Obasi said the actual number of cases was likely higher because many people remained undiagnosed. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google She described glaucoma as a leading cause of irreversible blindness in Nigeria, affecting millions, with Africa carrying the highest global burden. Ms Emeka-Obasi attributed the problem partly to illiteracy and quackery, urging stakeholders to work together to tackle the silent epidemic. She said the bureau had upgraded four public eye health centres and served more than 20,500 patients, and added that the bureau had conducted over 13,500 free eye screenings across the state. According to her, more than 2,000 sight-restoring surgeries have also been carried out. She said 10 vision centres had been established within primary healthcare centres to improve access to eye care. Ms Emeka-Obasi said Governor Alex Otti of Abia signed an executive order establishing the bureau in July 2024 to prevent avoidable sight loss. The governor, represented by Health Commissioner Enoch Uche, highlighted the states efforts to improve eye health services. He said the government was upgrading eye care facilities and providing free screening services. According to him, the administration is also working to ensure that facilities for glaucoma screening and treatment are accessible. In a keynote address, Bernadine Ekpenyong, a doctor of optometry, said glaucoma remained the leading cause of irreversible blindness in Nigeria. Ms Ekpenyong, a professor at the University of Calabar, said risk factors included ageing, heredity, diabetes and high blood pressure. She stressed the need for early detection and regular eye examinations, particularly for people above 40. The event organised by the bureau brought together researchers, clinicians, policymakers, development partners, and religious and traditional leaders. Highlights included prizes for students from various schools who excelled in glaucoma essay and fine art competitions. (NAN) Participants at a policy dialogue have called for stronger measures to increase womens participation in politics, warning that Nigerias democracy will remain incomplete if women continue to be marginalised in decision-making spaces. The dialogue, themed Democracy and the Voices of Women: From Voice to Power, was organised by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation to commemorate International Womens Day 2026 in Abuja. This years celebration, marked globally on 8 March, highlights the contributions of women and renews calls for gender equality. It focused on the need to translate womens participation in politics from symbolic representation into real political influence. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Speaking during a panel discussion, the National Chairperson of the Labour Party, Nenadi Usman, said women in Nigerias political system are often limited to ceremonial roles, particularly during election campaigns, rather than being allowed to participate meaningfully in decision-making. Mrs Usman, a former minister of finance and one-time senator who represented Kaduna South, said women are frequently visible only during campaign periods when parties require them for mobilisation activities such as singing and dancing. The kind of voices that are being heard are usually during campaigns. That is when women are called upon to sing and dance or mobilise support. Often, the only visible woman among a group of men is the women leader, she said. According to her, women must be given more opportunities to represent themselves politically rather than having others speak on their behalf. She argued that women already demonstrate leadership capacity within families and communities through the roles they play in raising children, managing households and mentoring younger generations. If women are trusted enough to raise children and shape their character, then we clearly have the capacity to lead. Mothers teach leadership in everyday life, responsibility, patience and discipline, she said. Mrs Usman also attributed the slow progress in womens political representation partly to a lack of solidarity among women, noting that men often unite politically even across age differences. Men stick together. A man can relate easily with younger men politically. But many older women rarely mentor or work closely with younger women. We need to change that, she said. She recounted her experience during a previous senatorial primary election in which two male aspirants stepped down and mobilised their supporters for another male candidate when it appeared she might win the contest. That kind of alliance among women is rare. If women across different parties can sometimes unite to support one candidate, our voices will become stronger, she added. Mrs Usman further pledged that the Labour Party under her leadership would remove financial barriers for women seeking elective positions within the party. We want a situation where women who want to contest elections do not have to spend huge sums just to obtain party tickets. Women should simply register and contest if they are popular and have support, she said. She also highlighted the challenges women face in balancing political leadership with family responsibilities, noting that women often juggle public roles with domestic obligations. Also speaking during the panel session, the spokesperson for the House of Representatives of Nigeria, Akin Rotimi (APC, Ekiti), represented by his legislative aide, Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq, said the current House leadership has introduced measures aimed at improving gender inclusion within parliamentary structures. Mr Taiwo-Sidiq said the House incorporated gender inclusion into its legislative priorities through a dedicated agenda within its legislative framework. When the House was inaugurated in June, it dedicated an entire legislative agenda, Agenda Six, to issues of inclusion. That shows from the outset that inclusion is a key priority, he said. According to him, the current assembly is the first to create two separate committees dedicated to women-related issues, the Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development and the Committee on Women in Parliament. He noted that most female lawmakers in the House currently occupy leadership positions within committees. Out of the 17 women in the House, 15 of them are either committee chairpersons or deputy chairpersons. The two who are not yet in such roles joined through the August bye-elections and will likely be assigned positions once they settle in, he said. He added that the House is also considering several legislative proposals aimed at strengthening womens political participation, including the proposed reserved seats for women in parliament. Mr Taiwo-Sidiq also referenced a bill on independent candidacy sponsored by Mr Rotimi, explaining that the proposal would allow individuals to contest elections without relying on political parties. The importance of independent candidacy is that where political parties shut women out or internal party crises disrupt opportunities, a qualified woman can still contest elections based on her popularity and merit, he said. He disclosed that the bill has already passed second reading in the House and will be considered during the ongoing constitutional amendment process. In her keynote address, human rights activist Ene Obi expressed concern over Nigerias poor record in womens political representation, describing the country as ranking near the bottom globally in terms of female representation in governance. ALSO READ: Nigerian govt to host Health Financing policy dialogue in September Mrs Obi said that although women constitute nearly half of Nigerias population, their presence in political decision-making institutions remains extremely limited. Women make up about 49.3 per cent of the population, yet their representation in political institutions is very low. When decisions are made, the table is overwhelmingly male, she said. She traced the trend in female representation in the National Assembly since Nigerias return to democracy in 1999. According to her, the Senate had only three female members out of 109 in 1999, while the number rose to nine in 2007 before declining again to four women in the current Senate. In the House of Representatives, she said female representation has fluctuated over the years, with the highest number recorded in 2007 when 27 women were elected. In the current National Assembly, there are only 17 women out of 360 members in the House of Representatives. The numbers have been moving between three and five per cent, which is extremely low, she said. Mrs Obi argued that such limited representation affects the ability of women to influence policies, particularly on issues affecting women and girls. She also stressed the need for greater mentorship for young girls and more training for female politicians to improve their visibility and communication in public and media engagements. The activist commended the Speaker of the House, Abbas Tajudeen, and the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, for supporting legislative efforts aimed at improving womens representation, particularly the proposed reserved seats bill. She noted that the gender equality legislation had struggled for years without progress but said the current efforts offer an opportunity to make significant change. They have to conclude what they have started by voting on the bill. Increasing womens representation is essential for strengthening democracy, she said. Mrs Obi also urged participants to reflect on the roles women play within families and communities, arguing that societies depend heavily on womens contributions despite their exclusion from political decision-making. Women organise communities, sustain families and support the informal economy. Yet when it comes to decision-making spaces such as the National Assembly or state assemblies, women are hardly present, she said. She added that improving womens participation in governance would not only promote fairness but also strengthen democratic legitimacy in the country. The Plateau State High Court in Jos has struck down the two-year tenure of elected local government chairpersons in the state, ruling that it violates the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Delivering judgment on Friday, the Chief Judge of Plateau State, David Mann, held that the two-year tenure provided under state laws and guidelines of the Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission is inconsistent with Section 7(1) of the Nigeria Constitution, which guarantees a democratically elected local government system. The court consequently declared that elected council chairpersons in the state are entitled to a four-year tenure. Mr Mann said the shorter tenure undermines constitutional provisions governing grassroots democracy and cannot stand. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google I therefore grant a four-year tenure to elected local government chairmen in the state, aligning their tenure with the broader constitutional expectations for democratic governance at the grassroots level, he ruled. READ ALSO: Plateau State urges collective action to tackle insecurity at Senate public hearing The judgement comes two days after the electoral commission announced adjustments to the timetable for the 2026 local government elections, including an extension of the period for political parties to conduct primaries. According to the commissions secretary, Pam Davou, campaigns will end at midnight on 7 September 2026, ahead of the elections scheduled to hold on 9 September across the states 17 local government areas. Voting is expected to take place between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. A man has accused police operatives in Rivers State of assaulting him and forcing him to transfer N444,000 from his bank account to them after a late-night checkpoint stop. The man, Miracle Ejiofor, made the allegation in a Facebook post on Friday, where he shared photos showing bruises on his head and hands and a screenshot of an alleged transfer of N444,000 to a Point of Sale (POS) account belonging to Chizoma Anthony. As of Saturday morning, the post had attracted over 700 comments and more than 160 shares, sparking outrage among Facebook users. The incident In his post, Mr Ejiofor said the incident occurred shortly after he left his estate to buy petrol for his car and generator. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google I never want(ed) to make this post here because I dont want my mom to see it and start thinking, worrying, or crying, he wrote. According to him, he was returning home around 12:30 a.m. when he was pulled over at a police checkpoint near his residence. They asked me to stop, I did, and they asked for papers (car particulars), I showed them. They asked for other things, I gave them. Now, about to leave, they said I should come down (from the car), that my car is a stolen car, then one of the officers slapped me twice because I was trying to explain. He said the officers then handcuffed him and forced him into their vehicle. They brought two different handcuffs and cuffed my hands then they pushed me into a blue Sienna and one of them took my keys and drove off. Alleged beating and forced transfer Mr Ejiofor alleged that the officers drove him to Atali town in Igbo Etche, where they searched his phone and demanded access to his bank account. They started searching my phone, and all they saw was just iPhones and nothing incriminating. Then they started searching my bank account, but I didnt want to open it, so they started beating me mercilessly. Then I saw blood gushing. He said he eventually opened the account after the alleged assault. That was when I opened the account, and they sent my 444k to a POS account, and they drove me back to Obiri Ikwerre flyover and gave me my car keys. According to him, valuables were also missing from his car when it was returned. When I checked my car, theyd already stolen all the cash in my car plus other important stuff. He described the experience as cruelty meted down on me. When contacted, the police spokesperson in the state, Grace Iringe-Koko, said she was not aware of the incident but promised to investigate it and provide an update. I will find out because I dont have any report like that. Somebody can go to Facebook and write something. He is supposed to come to the police complaint unit. Ill find out because I have no report of such, Ms Iringe-Koko, a chief superintendent of police, told PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday. Recurring extortion allegations There have been frequent allegations of extortion and abuse by police officers in Nigeria. In February 2024, PREMIUM TIMES reported that the police detained officers accused of extorting N30 million from a victim. Also, in February 2024, an officer was dismissed for extorting $3,000, while another officer faced sanctions over an alleged N2.4 million extortion, this newspaper reported. The police authorities earlier this year removed a Divisional Police Officer accused of extorting N2.5 million from a woman. The wives of five engineers abducted over four years ago in Ebonyi State have petitioned President Bola Tinubu, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, requesting their intervention in the matter. The engineers, Nelson Onyemeh, Ernest Edeani, Ikechukwu Ejiofor, Samuel Aneke and Stanley Nwazulum, all employees of NELAN Construction Ltd., were reportedly abducted in November 2021 by armed men while supervising the Abakaliki Ring Road project in Ebonyi State, a project financed by the African Development Bank. They have not been seen since then. In the petition written by the families lawyers, CNO Attorneys and dated 10 March, the women Patricia Onyemeh, Lovett Edeani, Ifeoma Ejiofor, Esther Aneke and Nwazulum asked the federal government to compel the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigeria Police Force to account for the missing engineers and intensify efforts to determine their fate. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google They also demanded a comprehensive investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the abduction. They said they had endured years of uncertainty over the disappearance of their husbands, who were consultants supervising the road project. According to the petitioners, the security agencies have failed to provide any clear information about the whereabouts of the engineers despite the passage of several years since their abduction. They also alleged that the investigation into the case suffered a setback after an officer of the SSS, Victor Onyesom, who was handling the case, was allegedly removed from the probe without formal notice. They claimed his work laptop, which contained investigative materials, was seized by the agency at the height of the investigation. Our Clients lament helplessly that till date, nothing meaningful has been heard about the whereabouts of the victims who are husbands, fathers and breadwinners in their respective families, instead, innumerable intrigues and conspiracies including a sudden unlawful dismissal of the investigation officer of the Department of Security Services (DSS), one Mr. Victor Chijioke Onyesom without a letter of dismissal, alongside confiscation of his laptop by the security service at the peak of the investigation, the petition read. They argued that the continued failure to resolve the case undermines Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, which places the security and welfare of citizens as the primary purpose of government. Providing background to the case, the petitioners said the five engineers were abducted in the Effium community of Ebonyi State in November 2021. They alleged that tensions had developed between the lead consultant, Nelson Onyemeh, and the administration of former Ebonyi governor David Umahi over the terms of the consultancy contract for the road project. According to the petition, the projects funding arrangement with the African Development Bank limited the involvement of the state government in the financial management of the contract. The petitioners said disagreements arose after the state government allegedly attempted to alter the project terms and proposed that another firm take a leading role in the consultancy. They claimed the NELAN consultants rejected the proposal, a development they said triggered hostility between the parties. The petition further alleged that during the early stages of the investigation, the then-governor publicly announced during a state executive council meeting that the engineers had been killed and buried in a forest by local fighters, even though the police and SSS were still investigating the abduction. The families questioned how the governor obtained such information before the conclusion of the official investigation. They urged the president and the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure that those responsible for the abduction are identified and prosecuted. They warned that continued inaction could force the families to organise protests to demand justice. They emphasised the emotional toll on the families, noting that the missing engineers were fathers and primary breadwinners whose absence had left their households in prolonged distress. The petitioners urged the federal government to launch a fresh and comprehensive investigation through the security agencies to determine the fate of the missing engineers and bring those responsible to justice. The petition was also copied to Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo, Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah, all members of the National Assembly from Enugu State, and the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission. Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang presented brand new Exceed VX sportutility vehicles to firstclass traditional rulers to mark his 61st birthday, amid unheeded calls from some communities for the government to accord priority to basic social infrastructure, such as school buildings. The state government disclosed the vehicle presentation in a statement issued on Thursday by Gyang Bere, Director of Press and Public Affairs to the governor. Mr Bere said the SUVs were given to members of the Plateau State Council of Chiefs and Emirs to enhance their mobility and underscore the role of traditional institutions in local governance. According to the statement, the event at the Old Government House in Rayfield, Jos, was part of activities marking the governors birthday. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Exeed VX is a premium SUV manufactured by Chery Automobile, a major Chinese automaker. What was done and why Governor Mutfwang described traditional rulers as part of the critical leadership structure of modern society. He said the gift was conceived in collaboration with the 17 local government councils. There is no gainsaying the fact that our traditional rulers have become part of the critical leadership structure of modern society, the governor was quoted as saying. He noted that the presentation represented the first phase of broader efforts to improve chiefs welfare, and that arrangements were being made to establish a dedicated maintenance facility for the vehicles at a mechanical workshop the government plans to revive. The Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Ephraim Usman, said the gesture reflected the administrations commitment to repositioning traditional institutions. He pointed to progress in resolving longstanding chieftaincy matters, filling vacant stools and selecting district and village heads with minimal litigation. Jacob Gyang, chairperson of the Plateau State Council of Chiefs and Emirs, thanked the governor for the recognition, urging further attention to the welfare of all traditional rulers and quicker resolution of vacancies. Costs and scrutiny Listings for Exeed models on the automotive price tracker show an approximate Nigerian price of about N51 million for an Exeed VX. Using that figure as a rough benchmark, 17 such vehicles cost slightly over N870 million. A resident who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES, but asked not to be named for fear of being targeted, questioned the spending priority. If you look at the cost of just one of those vehicles, that money can build a proper school for this community, the resident said. Our children are learning inside mud huts. Now the rainy season is setting in, and those structures cannot withstand the rain. The children will struggle to learn in those conditions. Recently, a community leader in Langtang South, Vincent Bulus, appealed for the construction of a primary school in Tanbol Sabongida Ward. Mr Bulus described how children were forced to walk long distances and how the community attempted to build temporary classrooms from mud. A photo shared with PREMIUM TIMES shows residents of Tanbol Sabongida Ward in Langtang South Local Government Area working together to expand learning space at the Tanbol Sabongida Community Primary School, where pupils currently rely on makeshift mud classrooms. In the image, several men are seen moulding and stacking mud to construct a round hut that will serve as a classroom, while women fetch and pour water used to mix the mud, a traditional building method in many rural communities. Children and other villagers stand nearby observing the work. Another resident who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES, but asked not to be named for fear of being targeted, said the school currently has only one classroom block, forcing the community to improvise learning spaces for the children. The school is already in bad shape. There are no proper desks for the pupils, and the classroom cannot contain all the children, the resident said. That is why the community decided to mould mud and build round huts so the children can at least have a place to sit and learn. Broader context Plateau States 2026 budget sets total expenditure at N917.91 billion, with allocations guided by the Plateau State Strategic Development Framework (PSDF) across three main pillars: Peace, Security, and Good Governance; Sustainable Economic Rebirth; and Physical Infrastructure Development. Within this framework, the education sector was allocated N91.30 billion, making it the third-largest budget item after Water, Sanitation, and Energy (N107.08 billion) and Works and Transport (N92.71 billion). Health received N88.36 billion, while Agriculture and Rural Development received N48.01 billion. The budget is expected to be financed through recurrent revenue (N443.11 billion), capital development funds (N311.89 billion), and external aids and grants (N62.51 billion). The education allocation aims to cover all levels of the sector, from primary to tertiary education, though the breakdowns have not yet been published. Compared with UNESCOs recommendation of 1520 per cent of public expenditure, the N91.30 billion represents roughly 10 per cent of the total budget, suggesting that the education sector is not given adequate attention in line with international investment standards. Critics say meeting the standards requires Nigerian authorities to stop extravaganzas and commit state resources to addressing peoples most important needs. The Lagos State Government has announced the resumption of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise nearly a decade after the programme was suspended. Residents across the state will be expected to clean their surroundings, clear drainage channels in front of their homes and dispose of waste properly as part of efforts to improve environmental hygiene and tackle persistent waste management challenges. In a statement on Saturday, the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, disclosed the development, noting that the exercise will officially resume on 25 April. I am pleased to inform all Lagosians that the monthly environmental sanitation exercise will resume effective Saturday, 25th April 2026, holding on the last Saturday of every month from 6:30 a.m to 8:30 a.m., Mr Wahab said. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google He added that residents are expected to participate actively by cleaning their immediate environment and ensuring proper waste disposal. During this period, residents are enjoined to clean their surroundings, clear drainage channels in their frontages, and dispose of waste properly as a civic responsibility, the commissioner said. Government warns of strict enforcement Mr Wahab urged residents to see the sanitation exercise as a shared responsibility necessary for maintaining a healthy urban environment, stressing that the state government would enforce compliance. This exercise is a collective responsibility and a vital part of our commitment to a cleaner, healthier, and flood-resilient Lagos. And it shall be backed with the full enforcement weight of the Lagos State Government, he said. According to him, the decision by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, to revive the sanitation culture reflects a bold step toward restoring environmental discipline across the state. Let me formally say this and say it boldly. Mr Governor and his deputy are taking a very audacious step. For those who dont know, before 2016, we had a culture that emphasised cleanliness as next to godliness, Mr Wahab said. The commissioner explained that Lagos residents previously observed monthly environmental sanitation as a routine civic responsibility. Once every month, we took our time to clean up our surroundings and then keep them sparkling. However, for some years, we stopped it, he said. He noted that the absence of the exercise over the years has contributed to mounting environmental pressures, including indiscriminate waste disposal and blocked drainage systems. Now, waste and environmental challenges have become existential issues for us as a state. It has taken us over a year to debate, discuss and agree that it is time to reintroduce the monthly environmental sanitation, Mr Wahab added. Appealing for public cooperation, he urged Lagos residents to devote at least a few hours each month to maintaining environmental cleanliness. Its a plea that it is time for us to give up just one or two hours a month. In our marketplaces, we observe environmental cleanliness every Thursday. But this time we are saying that as a state, let us sit back once a month and observe the cleanliness of our environment as we used to before 2016, he said. Background Monthly environmental sanitation was previously observed across Lagos State on the last Saturday of every month, during which residents were expected to clean their surroundings while movement was restricted for several hours. However, the exercise was suspended in November 2016 after the state government announced the cancellation of the monthly sanitation day following a meeting of the State Executive Council. In a statement at the time, the then Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, said the decision was taken to review environmental laws and procedures to address the growing challenges of managing a rapidly expanding megacity. The government also argued that restricting movement for several hours was no longer appropriate for a commercial hub like Lagos, where residents needed to pursue economic and entrepreneurial activities. He noted that the state had grown rapidly into a megacity with a population exceeding 20 million people, creating complex environmental management challenges that required modern regulatory approaches rather than periodic lockdown-style sanitation exercises. READ ALSO: Court remands teenager for allegedly raping a minor in Lagos The Lagos State government at the time said the policy shift would be accompanied by reforms aimed at strengthening environmental regulations, improving waste management systems, developing modern landfill facilities and promoting voluntary compliance with sanitation laws. Despite those measures, PREMIUM TIMES had reported poor waste disposal, blocked drainage systems and flooding risks that have persisted in several parts of the state. It has renewed calls for stronger community participation in environmental sanitation. Operatives of the Agunechemba, a vigilante group in Anambra State, have arrested another popular native doctor in the state over alleged ritual practices. The native doctor, Johnpaul Ezenagu, popularly known as Muo Mmili Afuluanya, was arrested on Thursday in Nnewi, a community in Nnewi North Local Government Area of the state. The latest development came weeks after a high court in Awka sentenced another popular native doctor in the state, Chukwudozie Nwangwu, to 12 years imprisonment for similar offences. Video clip PREMIUM TIMES gathered that, upon his arrest, the native doctor claimed he offered sacrifices only at a river in the area and that he could invoke the river goddess to appear as a crocodile. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Following his claims, the Agunechemba members took him to the river and asked him to invoke the river goddess to appear. This newspaper obtained a video clip which showed the native doctor attempting to invoke the goddess at the river on Thursday. With a small bell in his left hand and a shekere in the other hand, Mr Ezenagu beckoned to the goddess unsuccessfully as the armed vigilante operatives watched on. When the operatives, after some minutes, instructed the native doctor to stop because he had failed, he obeyed but complained in hushed tones that the goddess might have declined to appear because he did not invoke her with a chicken. Why the arrest Speaking to reporters at the river, General Commander and Coordinator of the vigilante group, Ken Emeakayi, said the native doctor was arrested for carrying out ritual sacrifices at the river in violation of the states Homeland Security Law. As you can see here. Here is the river where he makes sacrifices. He brings young men and women to this place, bathing them in this river with a promise to make them get rich quickly, Mr Emeakayi said. Bathing people in a public river is, on its own, an offence against the Homeland Security Law. The commander, who is also special adviser to Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State on security, said they equally have video evidence showing that the native doctor had been throwing ritual items into the river. We will hand him over to the police for further investigation and possible prosecution, he added. Native doctor speaks Speaking to reporters, Mr Ezenagu appealed to Governor Soludo to forgive him, stressing that he was unaware that performing sacrifices in rivers in the state is illegal. But now that I have realised, I promise that I will never practice or make such a mistake again by going to a river to make such a sacrifice, he said. Soludo reacts Reacting, Mr Soludo said his government began to fight ritual practices in Anambra because they threatened to change the states and regions value system and identity. He spoke on Friday in Awka during the 2026 Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Anambra State Chapter. The governor argued that some native doctors and clerics in the state were deceiving people, mostly youth, by claiming they could become instantly wealthy without working. If you go to some churches, some pastors they need to help us. They promise people that if you take olive oil or if you engage in strange prayers and claim that you can be wealthy without work, he said. He said while he acknowledges that there is freedom of religion and worship in Nigeria, there is a difference between traditional religion and what he termed criminal idolatry. Background In January 2025, Governor Soludo signed the Anambra State Homeland Security Bill 2025 into law. The law, aside from creating the Agunechemba vigilante group, banned the making of charms for the commission of crime and the performance of sacrifices along roads in the state. It was targeted at native doctors who prepare charms for criminals terrorising residents of the South-eastern state. The legislation outlawed the practice of Oke-Ite and Ezenwanyi for the purpose of wealth accumulation through supernatural means. It imposes a sentence of six years imprisonment, N20 million, or both for defaulters upon conviction. The legislation seeks to check growing insecurity in the state. Few ideas in religious history, however, have exercised as much influence or provoked as much debate as the belief that a particular people were uniquely chosen by God. For centuries this doctrine has shaped theology, politics, and identity across the world. It lies at the heart of the biblical narrative and continues to echo in modern political rhetoric, particularly in the United States, where support for Israel is frequently justified by reference to what politicians and religious leaders call Judeo-Christian values. If one were to ask an American evangelical or a Nigerian Christian why their support for Israel is often unwavering and unconditional, the response would likely be identical. Many would point to biblical passages that describe Israel as Gods chosen people and conclude that support for the modern state is therefore a religious obligation. Some go further, warning that failure to do so risks inviting divine repercussions. Should one assume that such convictions are confined to the fringes of Christian thought, that assumption would be mistaken. Ted Cruz, the ranking senator from the state of Texas, stated in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson that his primary goal in the US Senate is to be the strongest defender of the state of Israel. His reasoning was simple. Those who defend Israel, he argued, will be blessed; a claim that implicitly suggests the reverse may also hold true. Few ideas in religious history, however, have exercised as much influence or provoked as much debate as the belief that a particular people were uniquely chosen by God. For centuries this doctrine has shaped theology, politics, and identity across the world. It lies at the heart of the biblical narrative and continues to echo in modern political rhetoric, particularly in the United States, where support for Israel is frequently justified by reference to what politicians and religious leaders call Judeo-Christian values. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google At first hearing, the phrase appears conciliatory, evoking the image of a shared moral inheritance linking two closely related religious traditions. Yet, beneath its reassuring simplicity lies a profound theological tension that is seldom examined with sufficient rigour. The central confession of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is Lord and the Son of God. In Christian scripture, especially in the New Testament, salvation and access to God are said to come through Christ and not any other means. At the same time, many who affirm this belief speak of an unbroken spiritual alliance between Christianity and Judaism. Yet, Judaism does not accept Jesus as the Messiah or as divine. This tension raises a fundamental and unavoidable question. If Judaism rejects the very claim that defines Christianity the divinity of Jesus Christ how can the two traditions honestly be said to share foundational similarity? This question is not merely academic. Across the worlds major religions, there is broad agreement on basic moral principles such as justice, compassion, honesty, and care for the vulnerable. The real divisions, therefore, lie not in ethics but in the structure of belief, the nature of God, and the means by which humanity is reconciled to the divine. The phrase Judeo-Christian values often serves as a cultural shorthand, rather than a precise theological description. Judaisms sacred canon is the Tanakh, whose foundational section is the Torah, containing the first five books of the Old Testament. Christianity, however, incorporates these texts as the Old Testament but adds additional writings that reinterpret them through the life and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. For Jewish theology, the Christian claim that Jesus is divine conflicts with the strict monotheism that stands at its centre. In that sense, the theological divide between the two traditions is not a minor disagreement but a fundamental difference. Yet, both traditions inherited a powerful idea from the Hebrew scriptures that continues to shape religious imagination the notion that the ancient Israelites were Gods chosen people. Some scholars suggest that the biblical language of chosen-ness has often been misunderstood. In their interpretation, election does not mean privilege but responsibility. Within the Hebrew scriptures, Israel is frequently portrayed as chosen, not for comfort but for a demanding role. The community is tasked with preserving monotheism and bearing witness to moral law in a world dominated by many gods and competing traditions. This concept appears in passages such as the covenant narratives in Genesis and later declarations in Deuteronomy, where the descendants of Abraham are described as a people set apart. Within the biblical story, this chosen-ness is not framed primarily as a claim of racial superiority but as a covenantal relationship; a mutual agreement between God and a particular community. History, however, suggests that religious ideas rarely develop in isolation from the circumstances of the people who hold them. The Israelites understanding of their covenant matured during periods of profound crises, particularly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire and the exile that followed in the sixth century BCE. Faced with the collapse of their kingdom and the loss of their temple, the community confronted a theological dilemma. If they were truly chosen by God, why had catastrophe overtaken them? Their answer was both creative and psychologically powerful. They concluded that they had not been abandoned but were being disciplined. Their suffering was interpreted as divine correction for violating the covenant. This reinterpretation transformed national tragedy into moral meaning. It preserved identity, restored hope, and allowed the community to endure exile without losing its sense of purpose. In this way the doctrine of chosen-ness functioned not only as a theological claim but also a narrative of survival. A similar pattern can be seen elsewhere in religious history. When early Christian leaders gathered during the fourth century at the Council of Nicaea, they sought to resolve intense disputes about the nature of Jesus and his relationship to God the Father. The gathering produced what came to be known as the Nicene Creed, an effort to articulate a common understanding of Christian belief by affirming that the Son is of the same essence as the Father. Yet, even this historic council did not settle the matter once and for all. Differences in interpretation persisted and continued to shape the development of Christian traditions. Some strands of theology within the Eastern Orthodox tradition emphasised distinctions within the Godhead in ways that differed from later dominant formulations in Western Christianity, which stressed the full equality and co-eternity of the Father and the Son. The episode illustrates a recurring truth of religious history. Councils may establish doctrine, but they rarely eliminate theological diversity. This history reminds us that sacred texts and doctrines often emerge through communal deliberation. Faith traditions may preserve spiritual inspiration, but they also bear the imprint of human interpretation. The Bible itself reflects this long and complex process. The Christian canon did not arrive as a single volume descending fully formed from heaven. It was assembled gradually over centuries through theological debates and ecclesiastical decision-making. Different communities accepted different texts before eventually arriving at a broadly recognised collection of writings. Even after the canon took shape, the text continued to evolve through translation and editorial influence. The well known King James Version of the Bible, commissioned in the early seventeenth century by King James I of England, was not simply a neutral translation. Like all translations, it reflected the political, cultural, and theological environment in which it was produced. One of the most striking examples of how scripture could be shaped by historical circumstances is the so-called Slave Bible used in the British Caribbean during the era of plantation slavery. In this edited version of the scriptures, passages that spoke of liberation and resistance were removed or heavily redacted. Stories such as the Israelites escape from bondage in Egypt were minimised because slave owners feared they might inspire revolt. The intention was unmistakable. The text was designed to encourage obedience, rather than freedom. Recorded in Platos Apology is Socrates famous observation that the unexamined life is not worth living. For people of faith, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or adherents of other traditions, this insight carries a quiet challenge. The examination of belief should not be feared as heresy. When pursued with humility and honesty, it can become one of the most meaningful paths toward deeper understanding. Acknowledging such episodes does not invalidate the spiritual meaning believers find in scripture. It simply reminds us that what is today called the Bible has also been transmitted, translated, and sometimes altered within the currents of human history. Seen in this broader context, the doctrine of a chosen people invites deeper reflection. If God is understood as the creator of all humanity, the idea that one ethnicity or nationality enjoys permanent divine preference raises philosophical questions. Does divine partiality align with the notion of a just and universal creator? Some scholars suggest that the biblical language of chosen-ness has often been misunderstood. In their interpretation, election does not mean privilege but responsibility. Within the Hebrew scriptures, Israel is frequently portrayed as chosen, not for comfort but for a demanding role. The community is tasked with preserving monotheism and bearing witness to moral law in a world dominated by many gods and competing traditions. Understood in this way, chosen-ness becomes less about favouritism and more about vocation. Even so, the tension between ancient theological language and modern ethical sensibilities remains. In a world of many cultures and many faiths, the idea that God permanently favours one group over others sits uneasily beside the moral intuition that all human beings possess equal dignity. Reality often complicates the narratives that emerge from theology. Contrary to popular assumptions, Christians do not necessarily enjoy greater security in regions associated with biblical history. In recent years, church leaders and international observers have reported incidents of harassment and vandalism directed at Christian clergy and institutions in parts of Jerusalem. At the same time, it is an interesting demographic fact that some Muslim majority countries, including Qatar, host larger Christian populations than exist within Israel itself. Such realities resist simple civilisational categories. They remind us that the relationships between religion, politics, and culture are far more complex than slogans or alliances suggest. Recognising this complexity does not require believers to abandon their faiths or sacred texts. Rather, it encourages a more thoughtful engagement with religious history; one that appreciates both the spiritual insight contained in scripture and the human processes through which that scripture has been transmitted. Perhaps the deeper lesson lies here. The enduring power of religious ideas does not depend solely on whether they originated through revelation or historical consensus. Their strength lies in the meaning they offer to humanitys search for purpose, belonging, and moral direction. But when those ideas are invoked to justify political positions or cultural hierarchies, they deserve careful reflection. Faith, after all, should illuminate the human condition, rather than obscure it. The question of whether God keeps favourites among His children may ultimately tell us as much about human hopes and fears, as it does about the divine itself. Recorded in Platos Apology is Socrates famous observation that the unexamined life is not worth living. For people of faith, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or adherents of other traditions, this insight carries a quiet challenge. The examination of belief should not be feared as heresy. When pursued with humility and honesty, it can become one of the most meaningful paths toward deeper understanding. Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Maam, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released. He can be reached through: [email protected]. The leading international leaders of hypocrisy and deception, with headquarters in Western Europe, are as they historically do, teaching lessons they themselves will neither take nor accept. Iran has since February 28, 2026, been under waves of relentless attacks by the United States, US, and Israel with children and adults, citizens and leaders, being dispatched with detached limbs and body parts. Rather than at least call for a halt to these barbaric attacks that ultimately endanger humanity, these self-acclaimed international leaders of human rights and international law, are engaged in sterile debates. They ask whether Iran has a right to self-defence, including the right to attack the rat holes in neigbouring countries called military bases from which some of the attacks are being staged. For the avoidance of doubt, Iran, in accordance with Section 51 of the United Nations Charter, has a right to self-defence. It states unequivocally: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google The right to self-defence is not limited or qualified. It extends to the right to attack those aiding the attackers. It is like armed robbers, sheltered by your neigbours, attacking your home, killing your family members and some people preaching that your right to self-defence does not extend to attacking the enemy foxholes provided by your neigbours. Africans say before you go about pricking people with needles, first prick yourself to feel the pains, then conclude if it is an acceptable behaviour. If the US, for instance, were under attack by some members of the international community like France and Britain using military bases in neigbouring Canada and Mexico, will any intelligent person debate why the US would be attacking these neigbours? The US would not allow even the deployment of missiles near it not to talk of military bases. When in October 1962, Cuba decided to arm itself with missiles supplied by the defunct Soviet Union, President John Kennedy decided to go to war and even use nuclear weapons unless the missiles were removed. He declared that the supply of Cuba with the missiles are flagrant violations of the requirements for international peace and freedom which may lead to the outbreak of a nuclear holocaust. As Africans say, the cow is merely being courageous, the knife is not good on the neck of anyone. In other words, as Jesus Christ admonished in Matthew 7:12: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. I tend to be a pacifist, but I am a follower of Malcolm X who taught his followers: Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. The anarchism being championed by the US and Israel as evidenced by their crude invasion of Iran, which is turning the world upside down, is already attracting huge followership. Not unexpectedly, Western Europe is one of the major disciples of a new World Disorder. Announcing the continents decision to join the descent into anarchism, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on March 9, 2026, declared: We will always defend and uphold the rules-based system that we helped to build with our allies, but we can no longer rely on it as the only way to defend our interests or assume its rules will shelter us from the complex threats that we face. As expected, the US-Israeli attacks are widening conflicts around the world even if there are no direct links. For instance, some European countries have deployed to Cyprus, claiming they have the duty to defend that divided nation. Their claim is that a drone hit Britains Akrotiri air base in the country. Turkey which is not involved in the US-Israel-Iran conflict, responded by sending six F-16 fighter jets and air defence systems to the country to counter the Europeans. Although a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, like the European countries involved, Turkey announced more military arsenal will be deployed if necessary. Meanwhile, some sense of messianism has crept into world politics with Trump assuming he can appoint leaders of countries. After murdering Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Iranian leadership voted to replace him with his 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Khamenei, Trump announced he would not only reject the new leader, but that he has to be involved in deciding the new leader. He said: Khameneis son is unacceptable to meWe want someone that will bring harmony and peace to IranThey are wasting their time. Khameneis son is a lightweight. The US, Israel and their allies have never hidden the fact that their goal is to destroy the Iranian Revolution and return the country to the puppet state it was under the brutal Sha regime. To achieve this, they are ready to break up the country and turn it into a failed state as was done to Libya. Another fallout of the attacks against Iran is the situation in the Strait of Hormuz which is virtually closed. Some 2025 per cent of global oil or about 21 million barrels per day, and some 20 percent of universal liquefied natural gas pass through the strait. So, whatever affects it, automatically affects oil and gas supplies. There have been suggestions that warships can escort ships through the strait. This is myopic. First, with some 120 ships that daily passed through it, there was already congestion. Secondly, how many warships would be needed to escort say five ships, and at what cost? In any case, the reason for the problem transcends Iran blocking or mining the strait as claimed. The fact is that it is a war zone and no insurance company will insure ships under such circumstances. So, until peace returns, the world energy sector will be troubled. But that does not appear to be the headache of Trump. He actually celebrates the Hormuz Strait problem. He said on his Truth Social platform: The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. Therefore, the longer the problem persists, the better for the US economy. But we need to pity Trump. He is focused on changing or taking over the leadership of other countries, too myopic to see that his own country also needs leadership change if there is to be peace in the world. Africans say when you are digging a hole for your enemy, do not let it be too deep, so in case you fall in, you can have the chance of crawling out. Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author. The Solution Innovation District (SID), run by the Government of Anambra State, Nigeria, and Dhahran Techno Valley Holding Company (DTVC), a leading science and technology hub based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration in research, innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialisation. The agreement, signed during a high-level innovation engagement in Beijing, marks the beginning of a strategic partnership designed to accelerate innovation-driven economic growth across Africa and the Middle East. A statement issued on Friday by Dr Law Mefor, the Commissioner for Information, Anambra State said that under the MoU, both parties will collaborate in key areas, including: Startup & Venture Acceleration joint accelerator programmes and venture-building initiatives in sectors such as energy, sustainability, and emerging technologies. The commissioner listed other areas covered by the deal to include Co- Investment and Business Development, development of frameworks to co-invest in high-potential startups and transformative technologies. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google It equally encompass knowledge sharing and industry engagement, exchange of expertise, best practices, and insights to drive R&D and commercialisation. Also covered by the MoU under networking and collaboration platforms are creation of opportunities for startups, investors, researchers, and industry leaders connection. In the areas of events and knowledge exchange the collaboration covers co-hosting of international summits, workshops, and B2B meetings to foster global innovation linkages. Speaking on behalf of SID, Chinwe Okoli, Chief Executive Officer of SID and Special Adviser to the Governor of Anambra State on Innovation and Business Incubation, emphasised the significance of the partnership: This collaboration represents a major milestone for Anambra State and Nigerias innovation ecosystem. Our partnership with DTVC reflects SIDs commitment to building strong international linkages that accelerate technology development, commercialisation, and sustainable growth. By collaborating with DTVC, we are creating opportunities for startups, researchers, and industry players to collaboratively develop solutions that tackle global issues and promote inclusive economic growth. Together, we will empower innovators and entrepreneurs to scale solutions with global impact, she added. On his part, Mohammed Abusharifah, Chief Executive Officer of DTVC, underscored the alignment with DTVCs mission to advance global technology partnerships: DTVC reaffirms its commitment to accelerate the journey of ideas from lab to market by bridging world-class research with entrepreneurial spirit. Our partnership with SID will create a bridge for an increase in the flow of talent, expertise, and investments between our two innovation hubs. This MoU underscores the shared vision of both parties to foster innovation ecosystems that not only benefit their local communities but also contribute to global knowledge exchange and economic advancement, he remarked Solution Innovation District (SID) is an initiative of the Government of Anambra State, Nigeria, dedicated to fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological commercialisation. SID catalyzes startups, researchers, and industry leaders, driving inclusive economic transformation in the region. Dhahran Techno Valley Holding Company (DTVC) based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a premier science and technology hub focused on R&D collaboration, technology commercialisation, and industry partnerships. Through its ecosystem, DTVC empowers startups, accelerates innovation, and supports the growth of sustainable economies by providing access to funding, mentorship, and networking opportunities that facilitate the development of new technologies and business models. An environmental activist and a public health advocate have questioned the transparency and effectiveness of Nigerias biosafety regulators oversight regarding the safety and regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The environmental and health experts, who both work with the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), say the regulatory framework overseen by the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has failed to adequately address fundamental issues surrounding the safety, environmental impact, and economic implications of genetically modified crops being introduced into Nigerias food system. In a joint statement forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES on 9 March, the environmental activist, Nnimmo Bassey and the public health scientist, Joyce Brown, argued that the growing scepticism among Nigerians stems largely from what the duo described as a lack of transparency and independent scientific evidence supporting the safety of GMOs approved for use in the country. Mr Bassey and Ms Brown said that while the regulator insists Nigeria is regulating GMOs rather than experimenting with them, the absence of publicly available peer-reviewed risk assessments raises fundamental questions about biosafety oversight. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google One of the key questions the Nigerian government, through the NBMA, is yet to answer is where the results of long-term and independent risk assessments, including feeding tests, are that confirm the safety of the approved GMO products, the statement said. Nigeria has approved several genetically engineered crops for commercial planting and others for food, feed and processing. But the critics argued that information about the scientific evidence used to justify these approvals is not publicly accessible. They warned that the current approach risks turning Nigeria into a laboratory, where citizens unknowingly become test subjects for genetically engineered foods. Debate over food security Supporters of GMOs often argue that the technology is necessary to feed Nigerias rapidly growing population. However, Mr Bassey and Ms Brown said this claim ignores evidence suggesting that genetically engineered crops do not necessarily produce higher yields than conventional varieties grown under similar conditions. They also questioned the economic motivations behind the push for biotechnology in agriculture, suggesting that multinational seed companies and other commercial interests may be driving policy decisions. The debate has also drawn attention to the experiences of cotton farmers who adopted genetically engineered varieties. According to the advocates, farmers who planted Bt cotton for several years reported in 2024 that the crop had not outperformed conventional varieties and had instead contributed to soil degradation. Bt cotton is a genetically modified pest-resistant variety that produces its own insecticide. It is derived from the soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). They attributed this to toxins produced by the genetically engineered plant, raising questions about the environmental sustainability of the technology. Control of seeds Another issue fuelling mistrust, the duo said, is the control of genetically modified seeds and intellectual property rights associated with them. They warned that genetically engineered crops could contaminate indigenous seed varieties through cross-pollination, potentially threatening Nigerias biodiversity and farmers ability to save and reuse seeds. Mr Bassey and Ms Brown argued that Nigeria, which they say is a centre of origin for cowpea, should adopt restrictions on genetically engineered crops, as in 2024, when a court in Mexico imposed an indefinite ban on genetically engineered corn, citing risks of imminent harm to the environment. The advocates also criticised the lack of mandatory labelling for foods produced from genetically modified ingredients. They said the absence of clear labels prevents consumers from exercising their right to choose what they eat and undermines accountability in the food system. The duo said a survey conducted by HOMEF between 2018 and 2023 identified more than 50 processed food brands on Nigerian supermarket shelves that could contain genetically modified ingredients, including cereals, vegetable oils and cake mixes. They urged the government to halt the approval of new genetically engineered crops until an independent review of existing approvals is conducted. They also called for stronger investment in agriculture, including improved extension services, better infrastructure and enhanced support for smallholder farmers. According to them, addressing insecurity, low agricultural funding and poor rural infrastructure would be more effective in tackling food shortages than relying heavily on genetically engineered crops. They advocated a shift toward agroecology a farming approach that emphasises ecological sustainability, indigenous knowledge and shorter food supply chains. GMOs attempt to address the symptoms of deeper problems in our food system. The ecological, health and economic risks may ultimately outweigh the benefits, they said. A member of the House of Representatives, Clement Jimbo, has denied allegations that he plans to defect from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), describing the claim as malicious and false. Mr Jimbo, who represents Abak/Etim Ekpo/Ika Federal Constituency of Akwa Ibom State, was reacting to a post by a Facebook user which alleged that the lawmaker had concluded plans to join the ADC. In a statement posted on Facebook on Friday, Mr Jimbos media office said the claim was malicious and libelous and aimed at misleading the public. Reaffirms loyalty to APC The statement stressed that Mr Jimbo remains a committed member of the ruling party and has continued to participate in party activities. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Mr Jimbo remains a committed and loyal member of the APC. Only recently, on 3 March 2026, he led APC delegates from Abak Local Government Area to participate actively in the State Congress of the Party held at the Uyo Township Stadium. Does this look like the action of a man plotting to abandon his party? The statement also challenged the author of the Facebook post to present evidence supporting the allegation. Mr Jimbo has never held any meeting with officials of the ADC nor has he initiated or entertained any discussion whatsoever regarding defection. The purveyors of this falsehood should be bold enough to present evidence of such a meeting if it ever occurred. Ahead of party activities According to the statement, the lawmaker is currently mobilising support within the APC ahead of key party events. It said he is engaging delegates for the APC Zonal Congress scheduled for 25 March and the National Convention slated for 2728 March in Abuja. The media office argued that it would be illogical for the lawmaker to abandon the party he helped strengthen while it was in opposition in Akwa Ibom. A man who invested so much energy, time, and political capital in the party cannot logically be expected to abandon it at a time when it is consolidating its gains. The statement accused the author of the post of attempting to tarnish the lawmakers reputation ahead of the 2027 elections. It urged the public to ignore the allegation, describing it as a fabricated tissue of lies, a blackmail from the darkest part of hell. Orji Uzor Kalu, the senator representing Abia North, has dismissed speculation of a rift within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State. Mr Kalu spoke on Friday while addressing supporters at his residence in Igbere, Bende Local Government Area of Abia, stressing that the party remained united. He said party members were more united than ever and determined to deliver the state for President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general elections. The senator urged party members to remain peaceful and law-abiding in their political activities. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google Mr Kalu, a former governor of Abia, denied any disagreement with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, over the control of the party structure. The deputy speaker of the House of Representatives has an ambition to contest the Abia governorship in 2027. Senator Kalu explained that his absence from the partys recent state congress was due to an important engagement at the National Assembly in Abuja. According to him, the APC was well-prepared for future elections and confident of winning all elective positions in Abia. There is full reconciliation in APC, and anyone who dislikes it can move to another party. APC will produce all House of Assembly members, House of Representatives members, the three senators, the governor and the president. We are not leaving any position. In 2023, we did not secure enough votes for the president, but by 2027, we must unite and show commitment to deliver Abia for him. Some people travel to Abuja telling the president that the APC is divided, but that is not true. I have assured the president that we will deliver him and the entire APC in Abia, he said. Mr Kalu also restated his support for state policing, noting that he had advocated the initiative since serving as governor in 1999. Meanwhile, the senators younger brother, Mascot Uzor Kalu, has reaffirmed his ambition to contest the Abia governorship election on the APC platform in 2027. He urged party members to remain committed, expressing confidence that the APC would reclaim the state in the next election. Other party stakeholders also expressed optimism about the APCs readiness to take over Abia in 2027. (NAN) NEW YORK and NEW ORLEANS, March 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors with substantial losses that they have until May 1, 2026 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE: APO) ("Apollo" or the "Company"), if they purchased or otherwise acquired the Company's securities between May 10, 2021 and February 21, 2026, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. KSF Speed Speed What You May Do If you purchased securities of Apollo and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-apo/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by May 1, 2026 . About the Lawsuit Apollo and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. The alleged false and misleading statements and omissions include, but are not limited to, that: (i) the Company's leadership figures, including defendants Marc Rowan and Leon Black, frequently communicated with Jeffrey Epstein in the 2010s regarding the Company's business; (ii) as a result, the Company's assertion that Apollo Global had never done business with Jeffrey Epstein was untrue; (iii) because of the entanglement between Apollo Global's leaders and Jeffrey Epstein, the harm to the Company's reputation was more than a mere possibility; and (iv) as a result, the Company's statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all times. The case is Feldman v. Apollo Global Management, Inc., et al., Case No. 26-cv-01692. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nation's premier boutique securities litigation law firms. This past year, KSF was ranked by SCAS among the top 10 firms nationally based upon total settlement value. KSF serves a variety of clients, including public and private institutional investors, and retail investors - in seeking recoveries for investment losses emanating from corporate fraud or malfeasance by publicly traded companies. KSF has offices in New York, Delaware, California, Louisiana, Chicago, and a representative office in Luxembourg. TOP 10 Plaintiff Law Firms - According to ISS Securities Class Action Services To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner [email protected] 1-877-515-1850 1100 Poydras St., Suite 960 New Orleans, LA 70163 CONNECT WITH US: Facebook || Instagram || YouTube || TikTok || LinkedIn SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC NEW YORK and NEW ORLEANS, March 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors with substantial losses that they have until March 23, 2026 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE: BRBR), if they purchased or otherwise acquired the Company's securities between November 19, 2024 and August 4, 2025, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. KSF Speed Speed What You May Do If you purchased securities of BellRing and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-brbr/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by March 23, 2026 . About the Lawsuit BellRing and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On May 6, 2025, the Company disclosed that "several key retailers lowered their weeks of supply on hand, which is expected to be a mid-single-digit headwind to our third quarter growth," and that "[w]e now expect Q3 sales growth of low single digits." On this news, the price of BellRing's shares fell $14.88 per share, or 19%, from $78.43 per share on May 5, 2025, to close at $63.55 per share on May 6, 2025, on unusually heavy trading volume. Then, on August 4, 2025, post-market, the Company reported its fiscal 3Q 2025 financial results, disclosing a disappointing new 2025 sales outlook, stating "BellRing management has narrowed its fiscal year 2025 outlook for net sales to [a] range between $2.28-$2.32 billion," due to "several other competitors" gaining space to sell their products with a large retailer and that "it is not surprising to see new protein RTDs enter[ed]" the convenient nutrition market. On this news, the price of BellRing's shares fell $17.46 per share, or nearly 33%, from $53.64 per share on August 4, 2025, to $36.18 per share on August 5, 2025, on unusually heavy trading volume. The case is Denha v. BellRing Brands, Inc., No. 26-cv-00575. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nation's premier boutique securities litigation law firms. This past year, KSF was ranked by SCAS among the top 10 firms nationally based upon total settlement value. KSF serves a variety of clients, including public and private institutional investors, and retail investors - in seeking recoveries for investment losses emanating from corporate fraud or malfeasance by publicly traded companies. KSF has offices in New York, Delaware, California, Louisiana, Chicago, and a representative office in Luxembourg. TOP 10 Plaintiff Law Firms - According to ISS Securities Class Action Services To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner [email protected] 1-877-515-1850 1100 Poydras St., Suite 960 New Orleans, LA 70163 CONNECT WITH US: Facebook || Instagram || YouTube || TikTok || LinkedIn SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd (LSE:RBW, OTC:RBWRF, FRA:RR1) this week highlighted the potential of its Uberaba project in Brazil, after a recent economic assessment indicated the development could replicate the success of the companys Phalaborwa rare earths operation. Chief executive George Bennett said the project stands out because it avoids many of the challenges associated with conventional rare earth mining. Instead of extracting material from hard rock or clay deposits, the company plans to recover rare earth elements from phosphogypsum residue produced during phosphoric acid manufacturing. Bennett explained that the material is generated as part of ongoing fertilizer production, creating what he described as a live feed source of feedstock that could support operations for more than three decades. The residue also contains rare earth grades above 0.5% total rare earth oxides (TREO), which he noted compares favourably with many ionic clay deposits. According to Bennett, the absence of traditional mining activities removes a number of risks typically associated with rare earth developments. Bennett joined the Proactive studio about the economic assessment, here we take a closer look at what was said. Proactive: George, very good to speak with you. Your shares hitting an all time high this morning after that economic assessment suggested Uberaba could replicate the success of Phalaborwa. What makes this project so attractive from a cost and margin perspective? George Bennett: Well, thanks for having me this morning, Stephen. Yes, I'm very pleased to see our shares hitting an all-time high. And yes, definitely the Uberaba project not could, but it will replicate the success that we see at Phalaborwa. Similar to Phalaborwa, we are extracting rare earths from waste residue called phosphogypsum as a result of phosphoric acid production in Brazil. The beauty about this project is that it's a live feed. In other words, the phosphoric acid production facilities are still ongoing for another 30 plus years. So this is a very long-life project, with the average grade of the rare earths in the phosphogypsum at above 0.5% TREO. When you compare that to ionic clay projects it is a significantly higher grade, with very easy processing and effectively no mining costs. We dont have to drill and blast, haul, crush or mill ore. This material comes straight from the phosphoric acid plant feed into our rare earth processing extraction plant. Proactive: How does that change the economics and the risks then, George, compared with traditional rare earth mining? George Bennett: Most traditional rare earth mining projects have geological risk and mining risk, and then a whole series of processes before you even begin extracting rare earths. Rainbow starts with a direct acid leach, then goes into a continuous ion exchange circuit and finally solvent extraction, similar to what we are doing at Phalaborwa. Because we avoid the mining stage, many of the typical risks are removed. Thats what allows our EBITDA margin to sit at around 6970%, with very low operating costs compared to other rare earth projects. Proactive: George, you're partnering with Mosaic, a major global fertilizer producer. What does their involvement bring in terms of expertise, infrastructure and speed to development? George Bennett: I'm very proud that we are partnering with a global fertilizer business. Mosaic is the number two fertilizer company in the world and a multi-billion-dollar business. The project will move into a pre-feasibility stage and then into a joint venture following a positive outcome. The proposed structure would see Mosaic holding 51% and Rainbow 49%. Mosaic brings an established site in the sugarcane belt of Brazil. It is a brownfield location with existing infrastructure and many reagents already permitted. The site is already fenced and prepared, similar to Phalaborwa, and that greatly shortens the permitting timeline. Proactive: How do you see Brazil emerging as a rare earths producer? George Bennett: Over the last 12 months Brazil has been recognised as a potentially significant supplier of rare earth metals to western markets. The United States has shown interest in aligning with Brazil to help develop an independent rare earth supply chain outside China. Brazil is emerging as a reliable supplier of these materials for western supply chains. Proactive: You mentioned the next step is a pre-feasibility study. What milestones should investors watch for? George Bennett: The next milestone will be the start of the pre-feasibility study, which the teams at Mosaic and Rainbow have already begun preparing for following the economic assessment. Well announce the formal start shortly, followed by the results of the pre-feasibility study and any further process improvements for the Uberaba project. Proactive: Well I hope to continue to keep us updated with your progress. Rome Resources Plc (AIM:RMR, FRA:33R) this week outlined a new strategic move to expand its exploration footprint into Canada, securing an option agreement over 109 square kilometres of early-stage mining claims in New Brunswick close to the historic Mount Pleasant deposit. Speaking to Proactive, chief executive Paul Barrett said the move reflects the companys continued focus on tin and associated critical minerals while maintaining its core exploration programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The licences cover the Three Lakes and Schoullar Mountain projects, which sit within a geological system known for tin mineralisation as well as metals such as indium and tungsten. Barrett explained that the regions geology was a key driver behind the decision to secure the option. Barrett said the New Brunswick opportunity represents a high-grade tin play within the Appalachian geological system, where several tin-bearing granites have already been identified. Importantly, the nearby Mount Pleasant deposit remains a major reference point for the region and hosts significant indium and tungsten resources. Proactive: Paul a very good morning, Rome Resources has built a story around tin exploration in the DRC. So why are you now expanding into Canada? And what opportunity did you see there that was too good to ignore? Paul Barrett: Yes good morning Stephen. Well tin is the key word in all this and we are driven primarily by the geology and the commodities. This tin play in New Brunswick is pretty high grade and it also comes with additional minerals that are really high on the critical list such as indium and tungsten. So we thought it was definitely worth having a look at. Clearly, we're still drilling away in DRC and we're still getting tin intercepts, so that remains our primary focus to get that monetised and to create value for shareholders. But looking forward, because this is really early exploration and there are no drilling plans yet, it's something we will add to the pipeline of critical minerals projects for us. Proactive: Paul, the licences sit close to the historic Mount Pleasant deposit and have already shown tin grades at surface. What makes the geology here particularly exciting for your team? Paul Barrett: The interesting thing is it's part of the Appalachian system and there are a lot of tin granites around. There are some tin-lithium systems, but this is a tin-tungsten-indium play which makes it quite compelling. Mount Pleasant itself is currently the largest indium deposit in the US and one of the largest undeveloped tungsten deposits. We have picked up acreage right next door along the southern end of a granitic volcanic system associated with an ancient caldera. The granites and mineralisation are linked to this system in several ways. We've picked up ground to the east along a big trend on the next granite which has seen some good tin and tungsten as well. We think its a play that has legs. Mount Pleasant is well known and important, but its not going to be the only deposit in the play. Proactive: The option gives you exposure to more than 100km for a relatively modest upfront cost Paul. Is this essentially a low risk way to test a potentially high impact discovery? Paul Barrett: Thats absolutely right. By keeping the cost low we can put most of the investment into the ground, which is the way we like to do it. We will assimilate the data and carry out fieldwork this year to understand the structure and geology, with a view to potentially drilling next year. Its a relatively slow burn and it wont impact what were doing in the DRC. The prospector we optioned the land from will do most of the work initially, so it wont distract us from our main focus. But its a really compelling play. New Brunswick also recently announced a new critical minerals strategy which is very pro-mining, so its a good place to be. Great Southern Copper PLC (LSE:GSCU, FRA:E9E) this week reported further high-grade copper results from drilling at the Mostaza discovery within the Cerro Negro project in Chile, as the company continues to expand the scale of the mineralised system. In an interview with Proactive, chief executive Sam Garrett said the latest drill hole returned grades of up to 6.55% copper alongside strong silver values, describing it as another very good drill hole for the company. Garrett explained that the intersection is particularly significant because it represents a step-out roughly 400 metres south of earlier drilling, confirming that mineralisation continues along the Mostaza fault trend beyond the historic Mostaza pit. He said the results reinforce the companys geological interpretation, noting that the same style of mineralisation seen in earlier holes is also present in the latest drilling. Garrett told Proactive that the results demonstrate consistent geological architecture between the new hole and previous drilling beneath the Mostaza pit, increasing confidence that separate mineralised zones could eventually be linked. Proactive: Sam, very good to speak with you. This latest drill hole hits up to 6.55% copper and also strong silver grades. How significant is this result for the Mostaza discovery? Sam Garrett: Good morning Stephen and good morning everyone. This is another very good drill hole for the company. It is significant in that it confirms the step-out about 400 metres to the south of recent drilling and results in holes 33 and 36. It confirms that the company is still seeing the same style of mineralisation along the Mostaza fault trend that has been drilled beneath the Mostaza pit. So it is very significant. Proactive: The hole was drilled 300 metres from the historic mine and is still hitting mineralisation. What does that tell you about the scale of the system? Garrett: It tells us that the company is on the right track to increasing the scale of the system. The next step is to infill between that zone and the mine and also drill beyond it. What is critical is that the zonation of mineralisation seen in hole seven and hole 42 is consistent with the zonation seen in the Mostaza pit. That suggests the architecture is the same, which increases confidence that the company can link the two zones together and hopefully extend the mineralisation further south. The grades remain very high and there are also broad zones of lower grade material up to around 20 metres thick. Overall the results indicate the exploration program is progressing in the right direction. Proactive: Youre seeing copper, silver, lead and zinc in stacked zones. How does that change your understanding of the geology at Cerro Negro? Garrett: This hole confirms the geological architecture previously reported in holes 33 and 36 drilled beneath the Mostaza pit. Every hole provides new information. When the company saw the strong lead and zinc values it reviewed earlier drilling, including hole seven, and confirmed those anomalies were present there as well. This is encouraging because it suggests a consistent system, although it has been structurally disrupted by faulting and diking. The key point is that the company is seeing the same geological architecture in new holes drilled about 300 metres south of the Mostaza pit, and mineralisation now extends over about 400 metres of strike. Proactive: What are the key goals for the fully funded Phase 4 drilling program? Garrett: The company will continue drilling mineralisation further south where it extends beneath shallow cover. If that proves successful it becomes very exciting because it suggests the system could extend much further. The company will also carry out infill drilling between hole 42, hole seven and the Mostaza pit. Ideally the company could demonstrate mineralisation over a 400 to 600 metre trend or potentially longer, connecting towards mineralisation already identified at surface across a two kilometre trend. At this stage the results suggest the exploration program is heading in the right direction. Proactive: Sam, I hope youll continue to keep us updated with your progress. Thank you very much for your time. Solvonis Therapeutics PLC (LSE:SVNS) CEO Anthony Tennyson talked with Proactive about the companys decision to select SVN-114 as the lead candidate in its post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) discovery program and the opportunity the therapy could present if successfully developed. Tennyson explained that the decision followed pharmacological studies conducted by Evotec, which showed that SVN-114 provides balanced modulation across several important neurological systems. According to Tennyson, the compound influences serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline receptors, which are all associated with mood, emotional processing and social behaviour. These systems play a significant role in the brain mechanisms involved in PTSD. He said the results were reviewed by the companys scientific advisory committee, led by Professor David Nutt, which agreed that SVN-114 should be progressed as the lead candidate in the program. Tennyson explained that PTSD is a complex disorder involving multiple interconnected brain systems rather than a single pathway. The CEO highlighted the scale of the market opportunity, noting that PTSD affects more than 20 million people across the US, the UK and key European markets, while treatment options remain limited. Tennyson said: If compounds like SVN-114 can demonstrate meaningful clinical benefits, then there's obviously a substantial opportunity to improve outcomes for patients and also to create value for the company and very importantly, for shareholders. SVN-114 comes from a novel chemical series discovered by Solvonis and is supported by composition-of-matter patents, providing a strong intellectual property foundation for future development. The company is now focused on completing the remaining preclinical work required to support clinical development while pursuing non-dilutive grant funding in the UK and US. Proactive: Very good morning, Anthony. You've selected SVN-114 as the lead candidate for your PTSD discovery program. What convinced you to select this compound? Anthony Tennyson: Thank you. Good to talk to you, Stephen. The decision was driven by pharmacological data generated in studies conducted on the companys behalf by Evotec. SVN-114 demonstrated balanced modulation of the serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline receptors targeted in the program. That profile suggests the compound can influence the brain systems involved in emotional processing and social behaviours, which are essential to the effective treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Following review of these results, the companys scientific advisory committee, led by Professor David Nutt, agreed to select SVN-114 as the lead candidate for the PTSD program. Proactive: SVN-114 works across serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline pathways. Why is targeting these systems important when treating PTSD? Anthony Tennyson: PTSD is a complex brain disorder involving several interconnected brain systems rather than a single pathway. Serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline all play important roles in regulating mood, emotional processing and social behaviour. By modulating these mechanisms, the aim is to help patients process traumatic experiences more effectively and engage more successfully in therapy. Importantly, SVN-114 emerges from a novel chemical series discovered by Solvonis, which represents a differentiated approach to addressing trauma-related psychiatric disorders. Proactive: PTSD affects millions of people worldwide but treatment options remain limited. If the program progresses successfully, how significant could the commercial opportunity be? Anthony Tennyson: PTSD affects more than 20 million people across the US, the UK and key European markets, yet pharmacological treatment options remain limited and outcomes are often inadequate. This creates a significant unmet medical need. If compounds like SVN-114 demonstrate meaningful clinical benefits, there is a substantial opportunity to improve outcomes for patients and create value for the company and shareholders. The compound comes from a novel series discovered by Solvonis and the company has filed composition-of-matter patents, providing a strong intellectual property foundation to support future commercial opportunities. Proactive: Now that you've identified the lead candidate, what are the key steps to move SVN-114 toward clinical trials? Anthony Tennyson: The focus now is to progress the remaining preclinical work required to support the clinical development of SVN-114. Consistent with the companys disciplined and capital-efficient R&D model, Solvonis will pursue non-dilutive grant funding in both the UK and the US to help advance the program. Proactive: Anthony, thank you very much for your time today. NO INVESTMENT ADVICE The content on this Site is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a personal recommendation, an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities, or any other regulated activity. It should not be relied upon as the basis for any investment decision. Before making any investment decision, you should: Read the relevant prospectus, term sheet, subscription agreement, or other offering documentation in full Consider whether the investment is suitable for your individual circumstances, financial position, and objectives Seek independent advice from an appropriately qualified financial adviser Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments can fall as well as rise. You may not recover the amount you invest, and in some cases you may be required to pay more. In exchange for publishing services rendered by the Company on behalf of Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd named herein, including the promotion by the Company of Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd in any Content on the Site, the Company receives from said issuer annual cash compensation of typically up to $25,000. Northstar Gold Corp. (CSE:NSG) CEO Brian Fowler talked with Proactive about new drill results from the companys Cam Copper Mine, located on the Miller Copper Gold Property near Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Fowler discussed the outcome of a recently completed seven-hole, 1,200-metre drill program designed as an infill campaign to test the down-plunge extension of the projects Number Two Zone. The program returned several encouraging intercepts, including 3% copper, nearly six grams per tonne gold, 23 grams per tonne silver and 0.5% molybdenum over three metres. Fowler noted that these results came from drilling at depth, approximately 50 metres below a previous high-grade intercept, and point to stronger mineralization deeper in the system. The company is now working on a geological model that will be provided to Micon International Limited, which will prepare a resource estimate and NI 43-101 technical report. These results will also feed into analysis by Novamera, supporting Northstar Gold Corps surgical mining initiative at Cam Copper. Proactive: Welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now is Brian Fowler, CEO of Northstar Gold Corp. Brian, its great to see you again. How are you? Brian Fowler: I'm well thanks. Hope you're good too. Doing very well. You and I spoke back in December when you were beginning a seven-hole drill program, essentially a definition drilling campaign. Youve now received the results. I imagine youre pleased with what you're seeing at the Cam Copper Mine. Absolutely. In late December we completed a seven-hole, 1,200-metre drill program. It was an infill program testing the down-plunge extension of our Number Two Zone at the Cam Copper Mine on the Miller Copper Gold Property, about 18 kilometres southeast of Kirkland Lake. This morning we announced the drill results, and were very pleased with some of the high-grade intercepts encountered at depth. That includes about 3% copper, almost six grams gold, 23 grams per tonne silver and half a percent molybdenum over three metres. Thats pretty astounding and highly unexpected, but well take it. What stands out most to you the copper numbers, the gold numbers, or the combination? Its really the combination. The drilling indicates mineralogy thats higher temperature than what we previously intercepted. Prior to this, our best intercept was 14.8% copper over 2.5 metres. This new hole was about 50 metres below that. It indicates were clearly on a very fertile structure in this VMS system. The down plunge is showing excellent continuity and is actually getting larger at depth. We think we may just be tapping the core of something big. What happens next with these results? Well complete our geological model and provide that to Micon International Limited, our consortium partner in the surgical mining initiative. Micon will prepare a resource estimate and NI 43-101 technical report. That will allow Novamera to apply its analysis and develop economic projections. It also supports our efforts to obtain a mining permit and potentially begin a surgical mining program at Cam Copper as early as next year. Are you considering additional drilling in the Number Two Zone? Absolutely. The system remains wide open. While were focused on advancing the surgical mining initiative, this intercept shows mineralization improving with depth. It suggests the potential for something larger that could eventually support more conventional underground mining. Quotes have been lightly edited for style and clarity If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Washington, March 14 : The Pentagon is sending additional Marines and warships to the Middle East as tensions rise in the Strait of Hormuz following Iranian attacks on maritime traffic and regional targets, according to media reports citing unnamed US officials. Fox News reported that the Pentagon is deploying the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, along with a Marine Amphibious Ready Group and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, to the region. Around 2,500 Marines and 2,500 sailors are expected to be part of the deployment, according to Fox News, which cited a US defence official. The USS Tripoli is currently stationed in Japan and could take about one to two weeks to reach the Middle East and link up with other American military assets already deployed in the region, the report said. The move comes as Iran has been threatening maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and launching attacks on neighboring Gulf states, raising concerns about the security of global shipping lanes. The New York Times reported that about 2,500 Marines aboard as many as three warships are heading to the Middle East from the Indo-Pacific region as Iran increases attacks around the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment will reinforce US forces already stationed in the region. According to the report, the Marines will join more than 50,000 American troops currently deployed across the Middle East. Officials have not publicly detailed how the additional forces will be used once they arrive in the region. Responding to questions about the deployments, a Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on operational specifics. "Due to operational security, we do not discuss future or hypothetical movements," a Pentagon spokesperson told IANS. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most strategically important maritime routes. It connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and is a critical corridor for global energy shipments. Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes through the narrow waterway aboard large tanker vessels, according to widely cited industry estimates. Any disruption to shipping in the strait can have immediate effects on global oil prices and energy markets. US officials have also indicated that American naval forces could escort merchant vessels through the strait if attacks on commercial shipping intensify, a measure the US Navy previously used during tensions with Iran in the late 1980s. Washington, March 14 : Senior US Senate Democrats have sharply criticised the Trump administration's decision to pause sanctions on Russian oil, warning the move could enrich Moscow while doing little to ease rising energy costs for Americans. US Senator Mark R. Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the move followed what he described as the economic fallout of the administration's war with Iran. "Trump's war of choice with Iran has come with immeasurable cost to American lives with 13 servicemembers killed and hundreds more injured and passed enormous costs on to working families," Warner said. He said the administration had failed to anticipate major consequences of the conflict, including disruptions to global oil supply. "Critically, the Trump administration failed to anticipate or plan for many of the inevitable consequences of this attack including the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has cut off 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas supply," Warner said. He added that energy prices had surged in recent weeks. "Over the past two weeks, gas prices have skyrocketed more than 60 cents a gallon, spiking prices at the pump and increasing costs for flights, groceries, and more." Warner said the administration's decision to pause sanctions on Russian oil would have little impact on prices but could boost Moscow's revenues. "Trump's decision to pause sanctions on Russian oil will barely make a dent in skyrocketing gas prices, but will enrich Putin as he wages his bloody war against Ukraine," he said. "Particularly given Russia's close relationship with Iran, this short-sighted giveaway to Putin strengthens our adversaries, undercuts Ukraine's fight for freedom, and leaves American families footing the bill with higher prices." Other senior Senate Democrats also voiced concern about the decision. Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Elizabeth Warren, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the move could benefit Russia financially. "President Trump's decision to provide sanctions relief to Russia is yet another example of how Putin has been one of the prime beneficiaries of President Trump's poorly conceived and executed war against Iran," the lawmakers said in a joint statement. They said the decision could generate significant new revenue for Moscow. "Russia is reportedly providing Iran intelligence to target and kill US servicemembers and the Trump Administration's response has been to loosen pressure and help facilitate a windfall of $150 million each day for its war machine." The senators also questioned whether the administration followed congressional requirements regarding sanctions policy. "This action also raises real concerns about the Treasury Secretary's shifting explanations for his use of sanctions authorities and whether the Trump Administration is again flouting the requirement under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act to notify Congress before relaxing sanctions on the Kremlin," they said. "The deliberate skirting of Congress raises serious questions about whether the Administration is seeking to avoid triggering privileged votes of disapproval on sanctions relief for Russia and avoid accountability for his gift to Putin." They also referenced earlier testimony by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. "Just last month, Secretary Bessent testified under oath that Treasury's sanctions on two Russian oil companies were so significant that they made up for the Trump Administration's abandonment of all regular sanctions targeting for a year," the statement said. "Now, he wants us to believe that relaxing those very same sanctionsas well as sanctions on a range of other Russian entities like additional oil majors, traders, intermediaries, and shadow fleet operatorsis a 'narrowly tailored' action, even as it helps those entities score windfall profits." The lawmakers said the Treasury Secretary should testify before Congress to explain the decision. "Secretary Bessent needs to testify because Congress and the American people deserve immediate answers." -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Washington, March 14 : The US Senate paid tribute to Indian-American businessman and philanthropist Sunil Puri, with Senator Dick Durbin recalling his journey from a young immigrant arriving from India with little money to a civic leader who helped transform Rockford, Illinois. Durbin announced Puri's passing on the Senate floor and described him as a powerful example of the American dream. "Mr. President, when I think about the American dream, I think about my friend Sunil Puri," Durbin said. Puri immigrated to the United States from India in 1979 at the age of 18. Durbin said he arrived in Rockford "with little more than hope, tenacity, and $150 in his pocket." Over the next four decades, Puri became a leading businessman and philanthropist in the city. "Yet, over the span of four decades, he became one of Rockford's leading businessmen and philanthropists," Durbin said. Durbin recounted how Puri left Mumbai for Rockford in hopes of studying at Rockford College, now Rockford University. During his college years, Puri worked several jobs to support himself. "Through hard work, dedication, and many odd jobs, including cleaning bedpans and laying concrete, Sunil put himself through school," Durbin said. Durbin also highlighted the role of the local community in helping Puri succeed during those early years. "The citizens of Rockford opened their arms to Sunil, and in return, Sunil would spend the next four decades repaying the favor," he said. After graduating with a degree in accounting, Puri founded First Rockford Group, later known as First Midwest Group, a real estate development company involved in numerous redevelopment projects in the city. Durbin said the firm helped transform neglected properties into productive spaces. "They have turned abandoned and forgotten buildings into thriving restaurants, offices, and warehouses," Durbin said. He said the company's investments helped drive economic growth and job creation across the region. "First Midwest's investments in Rockford have breathed new life into the city, driving economic growth and creating jobs for thousands of Illinoisans," he said. Beyond business, Durbin noted Puri's extensive charitable work in Rockford. Inspired by a lesson from his parents, Puri often spoke about the importance of giving back. "'Water the flowers where you smell the roses,'" Durbin said. Puri donated millions of dollars and contributed significant time to community initiatives. His philanthropy helped fund several major projects, including the Keeling-Puri Peace Plaza, the southeast Rockford YMCA branch and the Salvation Army Puri Family Disaster Services Center. Durbin also noted Puri's advocacy for stronger ties between the United States and India. He said Puri was "a passionate advocate for improved US-Indian relations" and traveled to India with Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to support expanded engagement between the two countries. New Delhi, March 14 : US tech giant Meta Platforms is reportedly considering another large round of layoffs as it seeks greater operational efficiency with more spending on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. A Reuters report, citing people familiar with the matter, said that internal discussions have considered cuts of up to 20 per cent or more of Metaas workforce, or 16,000 employees based on the companyas headcount of nearly 79,000 at the end of December. While Meta's spokesperson Andy Stone described the report as "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches", the report said that no final decision has been made about the scale or timing of the layoffs. The report claimed that senior executives have signalled potential workforce reductions to other leaders and asked teams to assess how operations could be streamlined. At the reported scale, the move would be Metaas largest restructuring since the company cut over 21,000 jobs collectively in 2022 and 2023 in a costa'cutting drive. The reported layoffs come as CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushes the company to compete more aggressively in generative AI space. Morgan Stanley in a recent report had suggested that long-term impact of AI on jobs may be less severe than many expect. According to the report, while some roles will be automated, most workers are unlikely to be permanently left behind. Instead, many are expected to shift into new types of jobs, including roles that do not yet exist. The bank said artificial intelligence will change the nature of work rather than eliminate it entirely. Several tech industry leaders have said that most whitea'collar roles that rely on computers could be automated within the next 12 to 18 months US tech giant Oracle plans to cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs to expand its AI dataa'centre capacity, while Amazon recently announced lay off 16,000 employees as part of its AI restructure plan. a"IANS aar/na Chennai, March 14 : The Central Board of Film Certification has now cleared director Midhun Manuel Thomas's eagerly awaited Malayalam film 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1', featuring actor Jayasurya in the lead, for release with a clean 'U' certificate. Actor Jayasurya took to his Instagram page to share the news. He wrote, "AAD'U' !Aadu 3 censored with a Clean U. Enter a new world on #March19. #ReleasingWorldwide." It may be recalled that the makers of the film had only recently dismissed rumours of the film's release being postponed. Production houses, Friday Film House and Kavya Film Company, which are producing the film together, had issued a joint statement in this regard. In their statement, the production houses had said, " 'Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1' has been crafted with immense love, laughter, and a deep sense of gratitude for the audience who embraced the 'Aadu' franchise and transformed it into a cult classic it is today." They further said, "Over the past few days, we have been closely monitoring global developments. We know many of you have reached out with concerns regarding a potential postponement of our release. After careful consideration of various factors including the vital need for our industry to thrive during these challenging times - we are glad to confirm that Aadu 3: One Last Ride, Part 1 will release in theatres worldwide on March 19, 2026." The makers had gone on to say that the journey of bringing this film to life had not been without its set of challenges. However, they pointed out that through the challenges, the passion of their team and the constant support of audiences had kept them moving forward. "In times like these, we believe storytelling has the power to bring people together. The 'Aadu' franchise has always celebrated friendship, joy, chaos, and the healing power of laughter. We stand for peace, love, and happiness, and hope stories continue to unite us all," the makers had said. "We extend our sincere thanks to the media fraternity for their continued support.We look forward to welcoming you and your loved ones back to cinemas to experience this ride on a brand-new canvas with a fresh take on the genre," they added. For the unaware, 'Aadu 3 : One Last Ride, Part 1' will, apart from Jayasurya, also feature actors Vijay Babu, Sunny Wayne, Vinayakan, Saiju Kurup, Dharmajan, Harikrishnan and Bhagath Manuel. Directed by Midhun Manuel Thomas, the film has cinematography by Akhil George and music by Shaan Rahman. Background score for the film is by Dawn Vincent and editing in by Lijo Paul. Patna, March 14 : One of the parameters to measure the success of a government depends on how far its policies are able to benefit people at the grassroot level. The Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme is one such example. Launched in June 2020, the PMFME scheme focuses on the growth and formalisation of micro food units across the country. The scheme is part of the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan' and supports the Vocal for Local vision in the food processing sector. It provides financial, technical and business assistance to entrepreneurs for setting up new units or upgrading existing ones. The scheme aims to make micro enterprises more competitive, bring them into the organised sector and unlock new growth opportunities. Veeru Rajak, a beneficiary from Sheikhpura in Bihar, told IANS, "With this loan granted under the PMFME scheme, I started my mushroom business, and now I can sustain my family through this. My children are now receiving a good education, and about 10a"15 people are also working here." Speaking about his business, Rajak said, "After growing the mushrooms, I supply them throughout the city. I also sell it directly in the vegetable market." He further added, "Earlier, I used to do small jobs at my house, but I was not able to make ends meet with that. I built this business of mine after taking the loan granted by the government. Now I am happy with my work and also getting a good income, and I can take good care of my family." Rajak also appealed to the government to make more people avail this benefit. "It is a good scheme of the government. I thank the government for this and also appeal that it let more people benefit through this loan, which will also increase their sources of income," he said. The scheme further aims to provide direct support to 2 lakh micro food processing units through credit-linked subsidies. It also seeks to create common infrastructure and strengthen institutional support to drive faster growth in the sector. It follows the One District One Product (ODOP) approach to scale up procurement, services, and marketing. States identify products, with priority on perishables such as fruits, vegetables, spices, fisheries, and traditional foods like honey and turmeric. Support is focused on processing, storage, branding, and reducing wastage. Through its ODOP focus, common infrastructure, skill training, and access to credit, the PMFME provides small entrepreneurs with the tools to grow and compete. By reducing wastage, improving value addition, and promoting branding, the scheme not only boosts farmers' and producers' incomes but also creates jobs and supports rural development. New Delhi, March 14 : The government has amended rules governing minimum public shareholding for large companies by introducing a tiered structure that allows large firms to offer a smaller portion of shares to the public during IPO, and do staged increases to the 25 per cent level. The amendment links minimum public offers to a companyas posta'issue capital at the IPO price. Companies with posta'issue capital above Rs 1,600 crore but up to Rs 4,000 crore must offer shares worth at least Rs 400 crore to the public. Companies with posta'issue capital above Rs 4,000 crore but up to Rs 50,000 crore will be required to offer at least 10 per cent of their shares at listing and must raise public shareholding to 25 per cent within three years, in a manner laid out by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). For companies with posta'issue capital between 50,000 crore to Rs 1 lakh crore, a minimum public offer equivalent to Rs 1,000 crore in value and at least 8 per cent of each class of shares; those with capital between Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 5 lakh crore must offer shares worth at least Rs 6,250 crore and maintain a minimum public shareholding of 2.75 per cent at listing. Companies with posta'issue capital above Rs 5 lakh crore have to offer shares worth at least Rs 15,000 crore and a minimum public shareholding of 1 per cent at the time of listing, the statement noted. Under the revised framework, companies with posta'issue capital of up to Rs 1,600 crore will be required to offer at least 25 per cent of each class of equity to the public similar to the current norm. The changes were notified, through the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Amendment Rules, 2026 was issued by the Ministry of Finance under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. Irrespective of company size, firms are required to at least offer 2.5 per cent of each class of equity or convertible securities to the public, the statement said. At the time of listing, if the public shareholding is below 15 per cent, the company must raise it to at least 15 per cent within five years and further to 25 per cent within ten years of listing. a"IANS aar/na Islamabad, March 14 : Several international press freedom organisations have written to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, expressing serious concern over the escalating harassment, arbitrary arrests, and deportations of Afghan journalists living in exile in Pakistan. In a joint letter to Sharif, the organisations, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Free Press Unlimited (FPU), said that Afghan journalists who fled Afghanistan to escape persecution by the Taliban regime are now being targeted in Pakistan. According to the signatories, the crackdown by Pakistani authorities is unfolding amid escalating military tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan and has reportedly intensified since Islamabad described the situation as an "open war" on February 27. "Over the past week, multiple Afghan journalists living in exile in Pakistan have reportedly been arrested and placed in detention centres. These arrests add to the 20-odd cases documented since the beginning of 2026. Even more concerning, at least six journalists supported by RSF have been forcibly returned to Afghanistan in the last 15 days, bringing the total to nine since January this year," read the letter. "The risks they face upon return to Afghanistan are acute and foreseeable. In this context, deporting Afghan journalists amounts to exposing them to retaliation, arbitrary detention, and worse," it added. The organisations called on the Pakistani government to take immediate and concrete steps to end the repression and uphold its responsibilities. They urged authorities to immediately halt the arbitrary arrest, detention, harassment, and forced deportation of Afghan journalists in Pakistan. The group also called for respect of "the principle of non-refoulement and ensure that no journalist or media worker is returned to Afghanistan when they face a risk of persecution, torture, or other serious harm." They also urged the release of all detained Afghan journalists who have been held solely in connection with their immigration status or identity as Afghan nationals. Highlighting the grim situation, the groups called on the Pakistani government to "provide a temporary protection framework for Afghan journalists awaiting resettlement to third countries, including clear guidance to police and local authorities to immediately end the severe harassment, extortion, and unlawful detention of journalists across Pakistan, particularly in the Islamabad region." Washington, March 14 : The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) rejected China's "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress", and called for global action against what it described as the "broader system of Chinese imperialism and colonial domination". Washington, March 14 (IANS) The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) rejected China's "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress", and called for global action against what it described as the "broader system of Chinese imperialism and colonial domination". According to the ETGE, the law adopted on Thursday by the National People's Congress of China on March 12, though framed as promoting "ethnic unity," establishes a legal framework to forcefully impose Han Chinese identity, language, and culture over non-Chinese peoples, in direct violation of international prohibitions against racial discrimination. These "draconian policies", it said, are textbook examples of "imperialism, fascism, and racism, codifying systematic genocide and colonial domination" under the guise of "ethnic unity." "The law mandates the expansion of Mandarin Chinese across education, media, and public life, while suppressing the use of Uyghur, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages. It also enforces policies of forced assimilation, Chinese settler colonialism, and demographic engineering, including organised population transfers, state-directed settlement programs, and government-coerced inter-ethnic marriages, intended to weaken and eliminate non-Chinese peoples in their homelands," the ETGE stated. According to the exiled authorities, the policies adopted by the Chinese authorities "meet the criteria for genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide". Condemning the legislation, it further noted that any actions deemed to "damage ethnic unity" are criminalised under "vague and sweeping provisions" of law, subjecting peaceful expression of ethnic and cultural identity, beliefs, religious practice, and cultural preservation of non-Han peoples to severe punishment. "Religious institutions are forced to follow the Chinese Communist Party's policy of Sinicisation, putting faith, worship, and religious life under direct state control and systematically eroding the freedom of belief for Muslim, Buddhist, and other communities," the exiled group added. According to the ETGE, the newly passed legislation also extends Beijing's transnational repression by asserting jurisdiction over acts committed outside China that allegedly undermine "ethnic unity," creating an additional mechanism to intimidate diaspora communities, activists, scholars, and journalists who expose Beijing's "colonial and genocidal policies" abroad. "This law is a weaponised blueprint for erasing non-Chinese peoples. The people of East Turkistan, Tibet, and Southern Mongolia face systematic destruction of their identity, language, faith, and very existence. The international community cannot stand idle while colonialism and genocide are codified into law," said Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security of the ETGE. The exiled Turkistan leaders called on the international community to impose targeted sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for these "systematic policies of racism, colonialism, and genocide, while countering Beijing's transnational repression". They further urged global actors to ensure accountability for "genocide and crimes against humanity", uphold the right to national self-determination, and support the "complete decolonisation and restoration of independence for colonised peoples" under United Nations principles. Thiruvananthapuram, March 14 : With Assembly elections in Kerala drawing closer, the Congress party is witnessing intense activity as leaders and aspirants line up to secure party tickets. Though the Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule next week, party offices in Thiruvananthapuram and New Delhi are already buzzing with activity. Aspirants have stepped up lobbying efforts, making a strong push to stake their claim for seats in the upcoming elections. As the countdown to the polls begins, the familiar pre-election drama within the Congress has once again taken centrestage -- a spectacle political observers say is almost as predictable as the monsoon. In the Kerala unit of the party, the process of candidate selection often resembles an open contest rather than a quiet, closed-door exercise. From senior leaders to relatively new faces, many have publicly expressed their ambitions, leaving party workers both amused and anxious. Among those staking claim for tickets are former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president and Lok Sabha MP K. Sudhakaran, along with leaders such as Deepthi Mary Varghese, Babu Divakaran, former Speaker N. Sakthan and former Deputy Speaker Palode Ravi, besides several others waiting patiently for their turn. The stakes are significant. The Congress currently has 22 MLAs in the 140-member Assembly, but that number is expected to change this time. Senior leader K. Babu has already announced his retirement from electoral politics, while Rahul Mamkootathil has been expelled from the party. In the coming election, the Congress is expected to contest around 90 seats, leaving the rest to its allies in the United Democratic Front. The seat arithmetic has triggered intense lobbying, with hopefuls pressing their claims publicly -- sometimes even before the party leadership has formally begun discussions. Attention has now shifted to New Delhi, where senior leaders are reportedly working to finalise a candidate list that would create the least possible friction within the party -- a task easier said than done. However, a senior Congress leader appeared unfazed by the current buzz. "In Kerala, if things are quiet in the Congress, that is when we should worry," he remarked with a smile. "When everyone speaks at once, it only means the party is alive. Eventually, the dust settles and we fight the election as a united team." Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition V. D. Satheesan on Saturday urged the media to wait for the official announcement of candidates. "Please allow us to decide at least who the party's candidates are. Our list will be ready and published soon after the elections are announced. When the media prepares its own list and puts it out, how can I comment on it? Our final list will be cleared and announced by the party high command," Satheesan said. For now, however, the dust -- and the debate -- continues to swirl within the party as the state heads towards the Assembly polls. Chennai, March 14 : Wishing director Lokesh Kanakaraj a happy birthday, Telugu star Allu Arjun on Saturday expressed the hope that the coming year for the ace director would be one that would bring him euphoria, joy, peace and positivity. Taking to his X timeline to pen the greeting, Allu Arjun, who will be seen acting in Lokesh's direction soon, wrote, " Wishing a very Happy Birthday to my dear director @Dir_Lokesh garu. May this year bring you euphoria, joy, peace, and positivity. Have a wonderful year. Excited for the #AA23 #LK7 journey ahead." For the unaware, Lokesh Kanakaraj is to direct Telugu star Allu Arjun's 23rd film, tentatively being referred to as #AALoki. The film is also being referred to as #AA23 #LK7. Well known production house Mythri Movie Makers is producing this film, the music of which is to be scored by one of the country's top music directors, Anirudh. Mythri Movie Makers too took to its time to greet Lokesh Kanakaraj on his birthday. The production house said, "Happy birthday to the sensational @Dir_Lokesh. Wishing you a blockbuster year ahead and, as always, STRIVE FOR GREATNESS.-Team #AA23." It may be recalled that Allu Arjun had expressed excitement about his film with Lokesh even when it was announced. Allu Arjun had, on his Instagram timeline then, said, "I SAY 23. Goin' on a spree. Low-Key G.Locked in mentally. Thatas a guarantee !Excited about the new journey with the Maverick @lokesh.kanagaraj garu and at last with brother @anirudhofficial. Canat wait for this one. #AALoki #AA23 #LK07 @mythriofficial" Lokesh Kanakaraj, for his part, wrote on X, "Blessed with the best @alluarjun #AALoki. Looking forward to kicking off this journey with you sir. Let's make it a massive blast. Once again with my brother. @anirudhofficial #AA23 #LK7 @MythriOfficial" This will be the third major project that Allu Arjun will be embarking upon. He already has at least two other magnum opus projects for which audiences are eagerly awaiting. The actor will be seen in the third instalment of the blockbuster franchise 'Pushpa', which is being directed by ace director Sukumar. Apart from this, Allu Arjun is also working on his film with director Atlee, being tentatively referred to as AA22 X A6. A22 X A6 is among the most eagerly awaited films in the industry. It may be recalled that the makers had, in June last year, welcomed actress Deepika Padukone onboard the film's unit. Sun Pictures, the production house producing the film, had then shared a video of Atlee meeting Deepika Padukone and narrating the script to her. A clip they had released then gave a glimpse of Deepika Padukone's motion capture portions in the film. The visuals gave the impression that Deepika Padukone was to play a queen, who would ride a horse and wield a sword in the film. -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Mumbai, March 14 : Actor Anup Soni and his wife, actress Juhi Babbar Soni marked their wedding anniversary by sharing a series of romantic pictures. Taking to their social media account in a joint post, the couple, who tied the knot in 2011, are celebrating 14 years of togetherness this year. Sharing glimpses from their journey together, the couple captioned the post as, "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US". The pictures capture several beautiful and memorable moments from their travels and personal life. One picture shows the couple posing casually outdoors with Anu holding an ice cream and Juhi standing besides him. Another picture features them enjoying a cosy dinner together while the other picture shows both of them seen enjoying a gondola ride through scenic waterways. Another picture from indoors shows Anup standing besides Juhi with his arm around her shoulder posing romantically for the camera. The final click features them seated at a table, smiling warmly for a selfie while enjoying drinks. For the uninitiated, Anup Soni and Juhi Babbar got married on the 14th of March 2011 in a private ceremony attended by close friends and family members. On the professional front, Anup Soni has built a long and successful career across television, films and theatre. He has appeared in several projects including Balika Vadhu, Sea Hawks, and films such as Fiza and Raaz. The actor also gained immense popularity as the host of the crime-based television series Crime Patrol. Talking about Juhi Babbar, she is the daughter of veteran actor Raj Babbar and theatre personality Nadira Babbar, is also the sister of actor Arya Babbar. She began her film career with movies such as Kash Aap Hamare Hote and Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar. Apart from films, Juhi has been deeply involved in theatre and has performed in numerous stage productions. IANS rd/ New Delhi, March 14 : India's major office markets remain among the most costacompetitive in the AsiaaPacific region, with midaspec office interior costs averaging $449 per square metre in Bengaluru, Mumbai and DelhiaNCR, a report said on Saturday. New Delhi, March 14 (IANS) India's major office markets remain among the most costcompetitive in the AsiaPacific region, with midspec office interior costs averaging $449 per square metre in Bengaluru, Mumbai and DelhiNCR, a report said on Saturday. The report from property consultancy Knight Frank said basic fitout costs across leading Indian markets average $264 per square metre, while high or premium specifications are benchmarked at $838 per square metre or Rs 75,312 per square metre. "India's competitive labour costs, established contractor ecosystem and domestic sourcing capabilities continue to keep workplace build-out costs significantly lower than several regional markets, strengthening the country's appeal for multinational occupiers expanding technology operations and Global Capability Centres across key office hubs," the report noted. Reinstatement costs remain low at about $30 per square metre, providing occupiers greater flexibility at lease exit. The firm noted that despite chances of regional fitout costs rising by 25 per cent over the next 12 months, India continues to offer occupiers a cost-efficient workplace development environment. The firm compared costs across 23 cities in Australasia, East Asia, Southeast Asia and India for Q4 2025 and found that competitive labour costs, established domestic supply chains and lower compliance-related expenses enable occupiers to deliver high-quality workplaces at relatively modest capital outlays in India compared with other Asia-Pacific markets, the report noted. At a regional level, Singapore ranks as the most expensive city for office fit-outs, reflecting higher labour costs, limited contractor capacity and stringent sustainability standards. "As occupiers focus more on efficiency, flexibility and employee-centric design, India's ability to combine scale with cost discipline will continue to support long-term corporate expansion," said Shishir Baijal, International Partner, Chairman and Managing Director, Knight Frank India. Across Asia-Pacific, green building certifications, energy monitoring, and tighter material compliance are raising baseline fit-out costs, the report noted. The property consultancy estimated that the Design & Build (D&B) delivery model can compress project timelines by 20-30 per cent compared with traditional sequential delivery, a significant consideration for occupiers in fast-moving sectors. IANS aar/uk New Delhi, March 14 : A political controversy erupted on Saturday over remarks by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Kanshi Ram, also known as Bahujan Nayak, with leaders from the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress exchanging sharp reactions. Notably, Gandhi said on Friday that if former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were alive today, Bahujan leader Kanshi Ram would have been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Congress leader made the remarks while addressing a programme organised in Lucknow on the occasion of Kanshi Ram's birth anniversary. Reacting to Gandhi's remarks, Samajwadi Party MP Virendra Singh said Kanshi Ram's contributions should not be viewed through a partisan lens. "Do not divide Kanshi Ramji's contributions in terms of political parties. Kanshi Ram gave strength to the marginalised communities and inspired them to fight for the rights guaranteed to them in the Constitution. He guided society to move beyond inequality and achieve equality, which is why the marginalised communities regard him as their mentor. His legacy cannot be forgotten," Singh told IANS. SP spokesperson Ashutosh Verma said the origins of regional parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party were linked to the political circumstances created during Congress rule. "If Congress leaders understand where the BSP and SP originated, they will find the answers to these questions. Because of the flawed policies of the Congress, parties like the BSP and SP came into existence," Verma said. He added that when people with a caste-hierarchy mindset within the Congress sidelined backward classes, Dalits and minorities, leaders like Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav stepped forward to represent those sections of society. Meanwhile, BJP leaders also criticised Gandhi's remarks. BJP MLA Raj Sinha said there was no need to pay attention to what Rahul says. "If he were there, this would have happened all this is nonsense talk. This can only be Rahul Gandhi's thinking," Sinha remarked. BJP MP Manan Kumar Mishra also took a swipe at the Congress leader, saying that statements made without thought do not hold much significance. Amid the criticism, Congress defended Gandhi's statement. Party spokesperson Surendra Rajput said Gandhi had acknowledged Kanshi Ram's stature. "Rahul Gandhi clearly said that if Kanshi Ram had been around in Jawaharlal Nehru's time, he would have been the Chief Minister of some state," Rajput told IANS. Responding to a post by BSP chief Mayawati on X, Rajput also criticised her. "Mayawati is worried because the Bahujan mission is not falling into her trap. Mayawati, who sold the Bahujan mission, should not advise the Congress party today, especially not the kind of knowledge she is acquiring from WhatsApp University while being in the company of the BJP," he said. The exchange of remarks has intensified the political debate around Kanshi Ram's legacy and the role of different parties in representing marginalised communities. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Patna, March 14 : A stray bull triggered a brief security scare on Saturday during the visit of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to Begusarai, where preparations were underway for the landing of his helicopter as part of his ongoing Samriddhi Yatra. According to officials, the helipad area had been fully secured in advance with bamboo barricades, and entry was restricted to authorized personnel only. Despite these precautions, a stray bull suddenly entered the restricted zone, triggering chaos and panic at the site. When police personnel attempted to drive the animal away, the bull began chasing them, forcing officers to run for safety. Several policemen fled the area to avoid being attacked, while the animal continued roaming around the helipad for some time. The situation briefly spiraled out of control as the bull moved freely inside the barricaded premises. Police officers managed to avoid the animal with great difficulty, and calm returned only after the bull eventually moved away from the area. Fortunately, the helicopter carrying Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had not yet landed at the helipad when the incident happened. However, a number of NDA leaders and senior officials from the police and administration were present at the venue at the time. The unexpected intrusion raised questions about security arrangements, as the restricted area had already been sealed before the Chief Ministeras arrival. The incident left officials and leaders present at the venue visibly shocked, as a stray animal managed to enter a high-security zone prepared for the Chief Ministeras visit. Normalcy returned only after the bull left the premises and security personnel regained control of the area. Nitish Kumar is currently on the third phase of Samridhi Yatra in Bihar. He has scheduled programs in Begusarai and Sheithpura districts where he will inaugurate and lay the foundation stones of multiple projects. After visiting these two districts, Nitish Kumar will return to Patna in the evening. New Delhi, March 14 : A message from US President Donald Trump expressing admiration for India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was read out at the India Today Conclave 2026 by American far-Right activist and Trump loyalist Laura Loomer on Saturday. In the message, the US President reportedly conveyed his affection for India and hinted that he plans to visit the country again in the near future. Loomer, known for her controversial remarks and strong support for President Trump, told the audience that she had spoken to the US President shortly before appearing on stage. She then read out what she described as Trump's message to the people of India. "I spoke to President Trump on the phone about an hour ago. I will read you exactly what he said to me. He said, 'I love India, please let them know that I love Modi, I love Indian people. Prime Minister Modi is a fantastic leader and a good friend of mine. Please let the people of India know that I will come to India someday soon for another visit'," Loomer said. Her remarks drew attention at the conclave, where global political issues and international relations were among the key topics discussed. Loomer also reiterated that President Trump considers PM Modi a close friend and praised the strong relationship between the two leaders. President Trump and PM Modi have shared a high-profile political partnership over the years, highlighted by large public events and diplomatic engagements. One of the most notable moments came during President Trump's visit to India in 2020, when he attended the massive "Namaste Trump" event in Ahmedabad alongside PM Modi, addressing tens of thousands of supporters at the Narendra Modi Stadium. The two leaders have frequently praised each other publicly, emphasising cooperation in areas such as trade, defence, and strategic partnerships between the United States and India. Loomer, a prominent voice within President Trump's political support base, has often been associated with the MAGA movement and has gained attention for her outspoken views on immigration and international politics. Her reading of President Trump's message at the India Today Conclave has once again spotlighted the close personal rapport between the US President and PM Modi, while also raising expectations about a possible future visit by Trump to India. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Mumbai, March 14 : Bollywood superstar Ajay Devgn, on the 14th of March, wished ace filmmaker Rohit Shetty on his birthday with a special social media post, further calling for a "dhamakedaar" celebration in the director's signature style. Sharing a reel on his social media account, Ajay posted a picture of himself standing alongside Rohit Shetty, where they are seen posing together. The reel also features a short action montage from Rohit Shetty's films, showing one of his trademark cinematic moments of cars exploding, flipping through the air and dramatic action sequences. Theaw particular action sequences have become synonymous with the director's style, over the years. Along with the post, Ajay wrote in the caption, "@itsrohitshetty ka birthday hai, dhamakedaar toh hona hi chahiye. Happy Birthday Rohit! Have a blast." Talking about Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty's equation, the two share one of the most successful actor-director collaborations in Bollywood. The duo first teamed up for the action film Singham, which released in 2011 and went on to become a massive box-office success. The film introduced Ajay as the fearless cop Bajirao Singham and laid the foundation for Rohit Shetty's popular cop universe. The two reunited for Singham Returns, the sequel that released in 2014. Apart from the cop franchise films, Ajay Devgn has also been a key part of Rohit Shetty's hit comedy franchise Golmaal. The actor starred in several instalments of the series including Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006), Golmaal Returns (2008), Golmaal 3 (2010) and Golmaal Again (2017). Ajay and Rohit have been friends from decades, and often are seen sharing fun posts about each other on social media. IANS rd/ -- Syndicated from IANS Mumbai, March 14 : Actress Aditi Bhatia paid a visit to the Mahakal Temple, Ujjain, seeking blessings from Lord Shiva after the release of her movie "The Kerala Story 2". Calling her religious visit "surreal", Aditi shared that the last few weeks have been an emotional whirlwind for her. "There has been so much love, so many messages, and such powerful reactions from people that I honestly feel overwhelmed with gratitude. I felt a very strong pull to come here, to Mahakal, to just bow my head and say thank you." Aditi stated that being in this sacred space was a reminder for her of how everything happens with divine grace. "As actors we work hard and give our heart to a story, but the way audiences embrace it is something beyond us. Standing here today, I feel incredibly blessed and grounded. There is a deep sense of peace and magic in the air here in Ujjain it's a feeling that is difficult to explain, but you feel it the moment you step into Mahakal's presence." She revealed that she simply prayed for strength, gratitude, and guidance for her journey ahead. "I'm so thankful for the past few weeks and for every person who supported the film and my work. Today I simply wanted to offer it all at Mahadev's feet. The feeling truly is magical. Har Har Mahadev." In another update, a few days back, Aditi used social media to express her gratitude to the entire cast and crew of "The Kerala Story 2". "A film is the sum of so many unseen hands working with heart. Grateful for this wonderful crew who made every day on set special. I learnt so much & will always hold this journey so close to my heart. Thank you for everything", her post on Instagram read. --IANS pm/ -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Moga : , March 14 (IANS) In a major show of strength in Punjab's Moga, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday appealed to the people of the state to give one chance to the BJP to serve them. Donning a turban, Home Minister Shah, who reached Killi Chalan village near here for the party's 'Badlav Rally' to sound the poll bugle, said many chances were given to the Congress, the Akalis and AAP and "give one chance to BJP, and it will bring change in Punjab". A confidant Shah said the party got 19 per cent of the vote in the 2024 elections, a clear indication to form the next government in Punjab too. He indicated that the BJP will go solo in Punjab in the next Assembly elections. Saying the people are fed up with the corruption and misgovernance of the AAP government and seek change, the Home Minister said the BJP would form the government in Punjab on the pattern of Odisha, Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Uttarakhand. "Now is the turn of Punjab," he said. "The Aam Aadmi Party came to power promising change, but I want to ask the leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party -- What is your Chief Minister doing? Wherever Arvind Kejriwal has to go across the country, he travels by plane at the expense of the Punjab government, while the Chief Minister here has done nothing else," he alleged. Shah said the AAP had promised 25 lakh jobs, a drugfree Punjab and minimum support price (MSP) for all crops, but failed on all counts. "This is a government of broken promises, neckdeep in corruption and indulging in scams. It can never do any good for Punjab," he said. He further alleged that the Punjab government had been reduced to an "ATM" for Arvind Kejriwal. "If anyone can stop the drug trade, it is only the BJP," he said. Beginning his address with religious and patriotic slogans, Shah paid tributes to Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, on his 350th martyrdom anniversary. He said the BJP always approaches the people of Punjab as "younger brothers" and seeks their blessings. Stating that the BJP would contest the 2027 elections to form the government, Shah appealed to mothers, sisters and elders to strengthen the party. "If anyone can free Punjab from drugs and provide employment to the youth, it is only Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP," he said. Citing the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the decline of Naxalism, Shah said a "doubleengine government" was needed in Punjab to eliminate drugs and ensure development. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed The Australian digital signage startup that grew to thousands of active licenses by doing one thing the hardware giants can't: staying small on purpose. Fusion Signage MD and Co-Founder James Ingram wants to partner with Samsung and other panel makers. That's a simplified way to explain the whole strategy. That distinction sounds like corporate politeness, but it's the core strategy behind Fusion Signage, the Australian-born digital signage platform that now runs 19,500 active licenses, adds roughly 4,000 a year, and does it all with 13 employees. No venture capital hype. No global expansion roadmap pinned to a boardroom wall. Just a relentless focus on making screens work for small businesses across Australia and New Zealand. "We don't really care one way or the other where the customer goes. We just care that they get the right solution for them with the right company." The video interview on which this article is based is embedded below, as is the rest of this article please read on! The Origin: A Philips Distributor With a Problem Fusion Signage exists because somebody else's software was painful. Back in 2017, a Philips distributor approached Ingram's existing business - Prendi - a systems integrator he'd founded in 2012), because the free software bundled with Philips commercial screens wasn't cutting it. Ingram looked at the crowded digital signage market and asked the obvious question: why would anyone need another platform? The answer came down to two words: simplicity and cost. "A lot of our competitors are enterprise," Ingram says. "They have features that go 10, 15 pages, and the average receptionist or marketing manager doesn't need all that. So we just said, well, let's just carve out our own little place here. Image, video, screen. Keep it simple." That philosophy hasn't changed in 9 years. What's changed is how many people want it. This infographic created by Gemini Nano Banana 2 based on this article, which continues below, please read on! The Numbers That Matter Here's a stat that should make every SaaS founder pause: across 5,500 customer accounts, Fusion Signage averages 5 support tickets per day. That's a ratio most software companies would frame, print, and hang above the CEO's desk. It's also the direct result of a product that was sanded down to its essentials rather than bolted together from feature requests. The company brackets its offering into 3 license types (basic, advanced, pro) so enterprise features don't clutter the interface for a fish and chip shop running a single screen. You pay for what you need. The buttons you don't need don't exist in your dashboard. "Doesn't matter whether you've got 1 screen or 100 screens or 1,000 screens, you still need it to be simple." 13 People vs. 270,000 Samsung employs 270,000 people. Entire divisions focus on signage software. Their Magic Info platform can handle point-of-sale integration, scheduling, remote management. Fusion Signage has 3 people in its support team. So how does a company that could fit into a single meeting room hold its own? Two mechanisms. First, a reseller network of 150+ partners across Australia that sells and supports the product on the ground. That keeps headcount low while maintaining national reach. Second, a deliberate decision to partner with hardware manufacturers rather than fight them. "They just want to sell the screens," Ingram says. "They do care about licenses, but they probably care less about that compared to actually providing the hardware solution." The manufacturers benefit too. Working with third-party software vendors like Fusion lets them show customers they care about choice and avoid lock-in. It's a quiet, symbiotic arrangement that works precisely because Fusion stays in its lane. Hardware Agnostic: The Real Moat Samsung's software runs on Samsung screens. LG's runs on LG. If you buy into one ecosystem and later hit supply issues (or just don't like the new models), you're stuck. Fusion Signage doesn't care what's behind the glass. Samsung, LG, Philips, Sony, Sharp, Mitsubishi, LED walls, projectors: plug in a simple media player and Fusion Signage runs on all of them. That hardware-agnostic approach turns what could be a weakness (no proprietary hardware) into the company's strongest selling point. For a customer with 800 screens across multiple locations (Pie Face, for instance), the ability to mix and match hardware without switching software platforms is the difference between flexibility and a procurement headache. Building With Customers, Not For Them Fusion Signage built custom point-of-sale integrations for Grilled and Nando's through Redcat, and for Retail Food Group through Task. Drive-through menu boards that update in real time from the POS system. None of that was on a product roadmap. A customer showed up with a need, and Fusion built it alongside them. "We didn't charge for that because we felt it was going to be beneficial for a lot of our other customers as well," Ingram says. And he was right. Other QSR brands followed once the integration existed. "We're a small business. We can't do everything and we don't want to do everything. We don't want to manufacture hardware, we don't want to do a POS system. But we want to partner with people that do." The latest move: a Zapier integration that connects Fusion Signage to over 7,000 applications. Ingram admits they don't even know what all the possibilities are yet. They're stepping in cautiously, testing the waters, watching what customers actually use before building deeper. That restraint is deliberate. Every new feature carries the risk of bloat, and bloat is the thing Fusion Signage was designed to replace. The AI Question (and the 10,000 Bottles of Water) AI-powered drive-through ordering is already being trialled by major QSR chains, with voice models running on cloud backends collecting orders and (theoretically) personalizing upsells based on customer history. Ingram sees the potential. A system that recognizes a returning customer's licence plate, recalls their previous orders, and triggers a targeted upsell on the menu board. Fusion wouldn't need to build the AI; it just needs to receive the signal and change the content. "As long as we can plug into that system, there's no reason why we can't do it," he says. But he's cautious. Someone still has to build the decision matrix. AI can suggest, but a slippery slope exists where content changes in ways nobody intended. "I think it was 10,000 bottles of water got ordered or something," he laughs, referencing one of the more spectacular early AI ordering failures. "It's teething issues. But people just want to place an order and eat their burger. Come on, what are we doing here?" "Test it, but let's be a bit reasonable with it." SOC 2 and ISO 27001: The Paperwork That Opens Doors Fusion Signage is days away from SOC 2 attestation, with ISO 27001 following a few months later. For a 13-person company, that's a serious operational lift. The trigger was practical. At Integrate (Australia's premium digital signage expo), larger prospects kept asking the same question: are you SOC 2 certified? Are you ISO? "I was always of the belief that we just wouldn't even have been considered," Ingram says. "They'd go to our website, not see SOC 2 or ISO, and we wouldn't even get the phone call." The process took 18 months. The team (Ingram calls out Sean, Rod, and Ben by name) learned it from scratch. Most competitors only have SOC 2. Fusion Signage is getting both. But here's the part that reveals the company's character: Ingram doesn't care if it lands a Fortune 500 deal. "I just want to make sure that the platform is as stable for the fish and chip shop down the road as it is for someone with 1,000 screens." The Fortune 500 Dilemma Big enterprise deals are tempting. They're also dangerous for a company Fusion's size. One recent prospect would have required a year of dedicated development. Fusion looked at it and asked the honest question: do we want to sacrifice everything we're doing to accommodate this one customer? The answer, for now, is no. "We still also want to focus on the small businesses," Ingram says. The company is building a Fusion Signage Academy, a structured training and certification program for resellers, complete with a platinum tier for partners who complete all the modules. It's an investment in the channel, not in chasing whales. That said, Fusion Signage isn't ignoring enterprise entirely. They're building API integrations that let larger customers bypass Fusion's interface altogether and plug into the platform through other products. The flexibility goes both ways. Remote-First, and the 20-Minute Demo That Changed Everything COVID stripped away the $70,000-a-year office and the interstate roadshows. What replaced them was better. Video calls meant Fusion Signage could demo 5 or 6 prospects in a single day, back to back, from anywhere. The demo itself runs 20 minutes, start to finish. "Everyone at the end was like, wow, that is really easy. And I'm done, move on." Resellers going through hard times during lockdowns needed cost-effective products to sell. Fusion Signage signed a wave of new partners, trained them quickly (the product is simple enough that training is fast), and never looked back. The remote culture stuck. Birthdays off. Haircuts at 2pm. Groceries whenever you want. "You're people too. Live your life, don't just live work," Ingram says. "As long as you get the job done, really don't care." The AR Wild Card When Apple released the Vision Pro, Ingram had a moment of genuine worry. He watched someone walk into a cafe wearing the headset, menu boards projected through AR, floating in space where physical screens used to be. "I was looking at that going, uh oh." But then he thought about posters. When digital signage first appeared, everyone predicted the death of printed posters. They're still everywhere. Technology rarely eliminates the thing that came before it; it just adds another layer. "Not everybody's going to want to wear Google Glasses or put the contact lens in or be wired in 24/7," he says. "As a small business, we're happy kind of where we sit." That said, if Google (or anyone else) wanted to pipe Fusion Signage content through AR glasses, Ingram's open to the conversation. He just won't bet the company on it. The Wozniak Moment Before Fusion Signage existed as a real business, Ingram was pitching his systems integration company at an awards ceremony called Talent Unleashed. Steve Wozniak was on the panel. After the pitch, someone asked the question that changed everything: "How do you scale your business?" Ingram looked around. Everyone else on stage had software products with infinite scalability. He had a services business that needed to find customers one at a time. But he also had this small thing called Fusion Signage, already selling a few licenses on the side. "That one pivotal question was, how do you scale this? And before that point, I'd never even thought of us as an agency." He pivoted. Pushed the software product hard. Built from there. "Find a product that's scalable if you can. If it costs a dollar a day and people need it and they don't have a problem paying it, you've got yourself a really good business." This infographic created by Gemini Nano Banana 2 based on this article, which continues below, please read on! The Quiet Ambition Fusion Signage doesn't want to conquer the world. It wants to put a digital screen in every one of Australia's 2.9 million small businesses. That's not small thinking. It's focused thinking. And in a market where every hardware manufacturer is trying to own the full stack (panel to pixel), Fusion's bet is that the company controlling what's on the screen will outlast the company controlling the glass. Industry reports project global digital signage will grow by another $5 billion. Ingram doesn't look at global numbers. He looks at the shop down the road that hasn't gone digital yet and asks: could we help them make even a dollar more per day? "I hate the word entrepreneur," he says. "I always thought I was a business person. I don't like to talk about it. I just like to go and do." 19,500 screens suggest the doing is working just fine. The video interview above has been embedded here too, for your convenience - please do watch! Islamabad, March 14 : Pakistan is using its counter-terrorism department to tighten the noose around the local Shia community, arresting dozens of Shia student protesters and charging them with terrorism. Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (PoGB), where Shias form the majority population, has long witnessed such actions with the secret service agencies framing the community as a national threat, a report has highlighted. According to a report in the Global Strat View, the Pakistani military orchestrated the first Shia-Sunni clash in PoGB after occupying the region in 1947 to garner support among the local Sunni minority and consolidate its authority. Since then, it said, "hundreds of native Shias" in PoGB have been "slaughtered or displaced by the army and its proxy terrorist groups." The latest military onslaught on Shias in PoGB on March 1 left 14 civilians dead and 60 injured, including eight boys under the age of 15. "This happened when Shias were protesting the assassination of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. Pakistan's military blamed residents for setting fire to military offices, schools, and offices. In an interview with a journalist in Islamabad, a Shia leader said that military personnel shot and killed four women in front of him," the report noted. Highlighting that PoGB remains under curfew , he said, "Life has become unbearable during Ramadan because individuals must fast while being denied access to fuel, food, water, and electricity. Thanks to Pakistani corruption and mismanagement in Gilgit, residents have access to water and electricity for a few hours every three days. As Ramadan begins, prices of food and beverage items in Pakistan skyrocket. In comparison, in India, vendors cut food prices during Ramadan to make life easier for Muslims in Ladakh and Kashmir." The report noted that, similar to earlier attacks, the latest Shia massacre in PoGB had been preplanned. "Millions of Shias demonstrated on the same day in Indian Ladakh and Kashmir, but no one was killed. The difference is that India embraces the Shias of Ladakh and Kashmir as its own citizens, while Pakistan continues its presence as an illegal occupier and coloniser of Gilgit Baltistan," it added. The report alleged that Pakistan's Shia "extermination policy" has turned the local people of PoGB into a minority. "On the other hand, the Shia population in Ladakh has increased from 40 per cent to 46 per cent in recent decades. There have been no attacks, targeted executions, or accusations of blasphemy, treason, or terrorism against Shias in Ladakh," it mentioned. Asserting that Pakistani military policies fueled resentment among locals and a growing desire for liberation, the report said tens of thousands of people are currently on the streets of PoGB "wishing Pakistan's Army Chief, General Asim Munir, death." Seoul, March 14 : The presidential Office of South Korea's National Security denounced North Korea's launches of ballistic missiles on Saturday as violating UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, calling for a halt. The office issued the message after holding an emergency security assessment meeting shortly after North Korea fired around 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea. "The latest ballistic missile launches by North Korea constitute a provocation that violates UNSC resolutions, and we call for an immediate halt," the office said in a press release. The office also reported details of the missile launches and Seoul's countermeasures to President Lee Jae Myung, it said. Attended by officials from the defence ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the meeting examined the repercussions of the latest missile launches on South Korea's security and necessary countermeasures, also calling for thorough contingency readiness at home, reports Yonhap news agency. The North fired the missiles at around 1:20 p.m. from Sunan, near Pyongyang, with them flying some 350 kilometres. The South Korean military, together with the United States, is currently analysing the details about the missiles' specifications. The launches mark the first ballistic missile test since the North's last launch on January 27. The rare launch of about 10 missiles at once appears to be a reaction to the annual springtime military exercise between Seoul and Washington, the Freedom Shield, which began Monday for an 11-day run. Meanwhile, the South Korean and US militaries staged joint river-crossing drills in the border county of Yeoncheon on Saturday as part of their annual key springtime exercise aimed at enhancing interoperability between the allies. The field training coincided with North Korea firing around 10 ballistic missiles toward the East Sea earlier in the day. The North's missile launch came in an apparent muscle-flexing against the Seoul-Washington joint military exercise. The training took place on the Imjin River in Yeoncheon, located about 50 kilometres north of Seoul, involving some 200 pieces of equipment, including KM3 amphibious bridging vehicles and ribbon bridge systems, according to the armed services. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed March 14 : Noida: Uttar Pradesh is rapidly emerging as one of the countrys leading hubs for investment and infrastructure development. In this direction, a significant strategic partnership has been established between Noida International Airport and the rapidly growing airline Akasa Air. Under this partnership, Akasa Airs first Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility will be set up within the premises of Noida International Airport. This state-of-the-art MRO center will create a comprehensive network for aircraft maintenance, repair, and technical services, providing a new boost to Indias aviation sector. Due to the investment-friendly policies and improved infrastructure development under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the confidence of global companies in Uttar Pradesh continues to grow. The MRO facility being developed at Noida International Airport will play a key role in establishing the state as a new hub for aviation, logistics, and high-tech industries. This partnership between Noida International Airport and Akasa Air will not only enhance the countrys aircraft maintenance capacity but will also prove to be a major step toward making Uttar Pradesh a leading center for aviation maintenance and technical services. With the development of this MRO facility, airlines will be able to access high-quality maintenance services within the country itself, which will reduce operational costs as well as turnaround time. The establishment of this advanced MRO facility will generate large-scale employment opportunities in the region and provide local youth with skill training in aviation technology and aircraft maintenance. At the same time, the project will accelerate the regional economy and promote industrial development. This initiative aligns with the vision of the Government of India and the Government of Uttar Pradesh to develop Noida International Airport as one of the countrys leading MRO hubs. It will enhance Indias self-reliance in aviation services and strengthen its competitiveness at the global level. The Chief Executive Officer of Noida International Airport, Christoph Schnellmann, said, Akasa Airs decision to establish its first MRO facility at Noida International Airport reaffirms the vision of developing the airport into a world-class aviation hub. He added, This partnership will strengthen Indias MRO capabilities and create new opportunities for employment and skill development in the region. Akasa Air Founder and Chief Executive Officer Vinay Dube said, Considering the rapidly growing aviation market in India, developing strong domestic MRO capabilities is extremely important. This partnership with Noida International Airport is an important part of Akasa Airs long-term growth strategy and will help make Indias aviation sector more self-reliant. Dhaka, March 14 : The most unexpected outcome of Bangladesh's August 2024 'Gen-Z' revolution has been an Islamist resurgence, with a few in the country expecting that radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami would make history by emerging as the country's main opposition after securing a third of the votes in the February 12 elections, a report detailed. The student-led uprising had ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, under whose government Jammat had been banned. Emphasising that Jamaat staged its comeback by focusing on issues beyond its traditional Islamist platform, a report in The Economist said, "Under its current leader, Shafiqur Rahman, it plays down its religious roots and presents itself as the anti-establishment. Jamaat also has history to atone for. In Bangladesh's war of liberation in 1971, it fought against independence from Pakistan. And, though it is more than 90 per cent Muslim, Bangladesh has a proud tradition of moderate Islam and secular politics." According to the report, Jamaat's calculated move was in campus politics, where its student wing won all the big student-union elections in 2025. Rather than delivering religious discourses, the party's campus activists ran study sessions, organised welfare groups, fixed broken fans in the dorms, and, in one recent example, staged a 'hijab rally' at Dhaka University, which drew many women with no Islamist sympathies. "The Islamic headscarf has become a cool, countercultural expression of identity," the report noted. It further said, "Jamaat forged an electoral pact with the Gen-Z revolutionaries' new, amateurish party, prompting an exodus of its star candidates. At the election, only six students won seats in parliament. But Jamaat achieved a political facelift, placing itself on the winning side of a popular uprising." One challenge for Jamaat, it said, is split between moderates and hardliners, compounded by the unpredictability of its party chief, Rahman. "Wandering off-script, Rahman can provoke Bangladeshi women to take to the streets, as when he explained that biological imperatives like breastfeeding made it hard for women to become political leaders (a surprise in a country that has had female Prime Ministers for decades)," the report noted. Highlighting the vagueness of the party's agenda, it further said, "Jamaat dreams of winning the next election. Asked what it would do then, Rahman answers in boilerplate centre-right dogma: help businesses; tailor education to labour-market needs; and put the screws on corrupt or partisan bureaucrats. Rahman insists that Sharia, to which Jamaat is in theory committed, is simply about 'justice, welfare and restraint of power'. Such vague principles are hard to argue with which may be the point. What kind of Bangladesh Jamaat would really build, perhaps God only knows." March 14 : Guwahati/Lucknow: Prime Minister Narendra Modi released 22nd installment of 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme' from Guwahati during his two-day visit to Assam. Under this installment, funds were transferred through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the bank accounts of 9.32 crore farmers across the country. More than 2.15 crore farmers from Uttar Pradesh also received significant relief, with 4,335.11 crore transferred directly to their accounts. It is noteworthy that 'double-engine government' led by Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been consistently working to increase farmers income and dignity. As a result, farmers in Uttar Pradesh have received more than 99,000 crore so far under the 'PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme'. Under the scheme, Uttar Pradesh remains the state with highest number of beneficiaries in the country. Before the release of 22nd installment, farmers in the state had already received 94,668.58 crore through 21 installments. With the addition of 4,335.11 crore in the latest installment, total assistance has increased to 99,003.69 crore. Nearly 23% of total beneficiaries in the country are from Uttar Pradesh, highlighting states significant participation in the scheme. Under the 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme', an eligible farmer family receives 6,000 per year as financial assistance. This amount is transferred in three equal installments of 2,000 each directly into farmers bank accounts through DBT. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the scheme on 24 February 2019 from Gorakhpur. Since then, it has become a crucial financial support for crores of farmers across the country. With continuous efforts by Modi-Yogi government, benefits of scheme are reaching an increasing number of farmers, strengthening both their income and dignity. CM Yogi expresses gratitude to Prime Minister Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for releasing the 22nd installment of 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme'. In a post on his official X handle, CM stated that Prime Ministers commitment to farmer welfare has once again brought confidence and support into the lives of crores of farmers. Under this installment, more than 18,640 crore has been transferred directly to the bank accounts of over 9.32 crore farmers, including more than 2.15 crore farmers from Uttar Pradesh. He added that this initiative is an important step toward making farmers lives easier and strengthening agriculture. March 14 : Lucknow: While inaugurating the second phase of the ambitious Green Corridor Project on Friday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath deserves congratulations for the initiative. Under the Chief Ministers leadership, development is no longer limited to paper but is clearly visible in the lives of the people of the state. This project will ease transportation for nearly 1.5 million residents of Lucknow and help reduce traffic congestion." Expressing gratitude to the state government, he said, "About 7,000 crore is being spent on constructing the 28-km Green Corridor from IIM Road to the Outer Ring Road. While building this corridor, more than 150 trees that came in the way were not cut down but were transplanted elsewhere, setting an example of environmental protection." The Defence Minister added, "Land belonging to the Army was also used in the Green Corridor project. Both the civil and defence sectors worked together on the project. There were certain challenges regarding land allocation, but they were resolved through mutual coordination. When civil and defence institutions work together, the pace of development multiplies." Rajnath Singh said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, discussions about Lucknows development along with its cultural heritage are taking place across the world. He added, "Indians living abroad are often amazed when they visit Lucknow and see its transformation. When I meet people of Indian origin abroad, they frequently praise the citys development." UNESCO has granted Lucknow the status of a Creative City of Gastronomy, meaning the city has also become a leader in the field of cuisine. It is a matter of pride that Lucknow has secured a place among the worlds renowned culinary destinations. He added, "The city is now counted among the most livable cities, with modern facilities for residents. Under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the double-engine government has transformed Uttar Pradesh." The Defence Minister said that Yogi Adityanath is popularly known as 'Bulldozer Baba.' By taking action against mafia and criminals and demolishing illegal properties, land has been freed and utilized for development works. A bulldozer does not only demolish structures but also prepares the ground for development. He added, "Soon, once the 62-km Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway is completed, people will be able to travel to Kanpur in just 35 to 45 minutes. This expressway will mark a new chapter in Lucknows infrastructure development." Rajnath Singh further said that the electric vehicle plant of Ashok Leyland in Lucknow is generating employment for thousands of people while also promoting environmentally friendly transport. Uttar Pradesh has also established a Defence Corridor with several defence facilities. Now, the integration and testing facility of BrahMos Aerospace will also be set up in the state. He said, "During Operation Sindoor, it was seen how BrahMos missiles created devastation in terrorist camps in Pakistan. The response delivered by BrahMos has made terrorists think many times before attempting any attack on India. Lucknows role in strengthening the nations security infrastructure fills me with pride. The city contributes soldiers and resources for the security of the nation, and the people of Lucknow have sent a Member of Parliament who is working for national security." The Defence Minister also said that along with development, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is giving equal emphasis to cleanliness across Uttar Pradesh. Arrangements have been made for door-to-door garbage collection. Lucknow is setting benchmarks in cleanliness, and the sewage system is also being improved. In Swachh Survekshan 2025, Lucknow secured the third position in the entire country. He added, "An MoU has also been signed between the School of Planning and Architecture and the Lucknow Development Authority to prepare a master plan for Lucknows development. This will enable scientific urban planning for the city. On the lines of the National Capital Region, a State Capital Region is also being developed around Lucknow, for which credit goes to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath." Lucknow was historically known as Lakshman Nagari, and the Chief Minister has enhanced the pride of the citys residents by preserving its cultural heritage while accelerating development. Rajnath Singh added that during his recent visit to Singapore and Japan, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wore his traditional saffron robes and maintained the same lifestyle and food habits as in India. He remarked that some people change their ways when they go abroad, but Yogi Adityanath did not change his identity and instead strengthened the saffron identity even further. He added, "The experiences he has brought back from abroad will help accelerate Lucknows development. Japan is known for its advanced technology, which will benefit urban planning and development in the city." Thiruvananthapuram, March 14 : The Kerala government's shift in stance on women's entry into the Sabarimala temple has triggered a sharp political confrontation between the ruling CPI(M) and the Opposition, with both sides accusing each other of political opportunism ahead of the Assembly elections. Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan alleged that the state government altered its position purely with the election in mind. Speaking to the media in Ernakulam on Saturday, Satheesan said the government had now effectively come around to the same position that the Opposition had taken earlier on the sensitive issue. "The government is now taking the very stand that the Opposition had adopted earlier on women's entry at Sabarimala. Yet they continue to attack the Opposition and claim that we created trouble and lost in court," he said. According to him, the government had previously projected itself as the champion of progressive values, citing the 'Women's Wall' campaign, while branding the Opposition as reactionary. "Now, with elections approaching, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his colleagues are retreating from their earlier stand," Satheesan said. He also raised concerns over the progress of the investigation into the alleged Sabarimala gold theft case, claiming that the probe had failed to make headway. "Most of the accused have secured bail, and the Special Investigation Team has not even been able to file a preliminary charge sheet," he said, adding that there was widespread apprehension that the case might be closed without a conclusion. Meanwhile, CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby defended the government's revised stance, saying it was taken after considering prevailing public sentiment. The Left government had earlier attempted to implement the order of the Supreme Court of India permitting women's entry, he said, noting that the verdict had initially received broad political support, before some later changed their position. Baby pointed out that the Supreme Court itself had now decided to review its earlier judgment and that the government's current position reflected the mood of the society. "The party may have its own views, but it does not insist that the government must implement them exactly. Decisions are taken after assessing the larger social situation," he said. He added that decisions on matters relating to temple customs should ideally involve scholars familiar with religious traditions as well as social reformers, citing the expert committee associated with the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple as a possible model. Jammu, March 14 : Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, V.K. Saxena, on Saturday welcomed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) decision to revoke the National Security Act (NSA) detention of climate activist, Sonam Wangchuk, adding that all issues could be resolved amicably through dialogue and engagement. The office of Ladakh L-G posted on X, "Hon'ble Lt Governor, Shri Vinai Kumar Saxena has welcomed the decision to revoke the detention of Shri Sonam Wangchuk and said it was a positive step by the Centre towards fostering an environment of peace, stability and mutual trust in #Ladakh. "Shri Saxena maintained that there is no space for agitation and violence in #Ladakh and all issues pertaining to the aspirations and concerns of the people, would be addressed through dialogue with various stakeholders, community leaders and citizens in #Ladakh". The decision to revoke the detention of Sonam Wangchuk was welcomed by former J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. Addressing a media conference here today she welcomed the MHA's decision, but added that the decision to detain the Ladakh environment activist should not have been taken in the very first place. Sajjad Kargili, leader of the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) that collaborates with the Leh Apex Body (LAB) for Ladakh's demands reacted on X saying, "The revocation of NSA against Shri Sonam Wangchuk is a welcome move. However, our struggle of our legitimate rights continues." He demanded that activists Deldan Namgial and Smanla Dorjey also be released and all charges against those detained on September 24 should be dropped unconditionally. The 58-year-old Wangchuk has been held at the Jodhpur Central Jail in Rajasthan since September 26, 2025, nearly six months after the ongoing protests in Ladakh turned violent in the UT's main city Leh, where four people died and over 160 were injured. The decision on Saturday came while the Supreme Court has been hearing a habeas corpus petition challenging Wangchuk's detention. The government had consistently maintained he "instigated" the unrest. On Saturday, though, it said it needed to release him to ensure peace and an end to "atmosphere of bandhs and protests" in Ladakh. New Delhi, March 14 : In a major breakthrough, the Southern Range of the Delhi Crime Branch has arrested a proclaimed offender allegedly involved in at least a dozen criminal cases, including kidnapping, rape and attempt to murder, who had been evading arrest for a long time, officials said on Saturday. According to police, the accused had been declared a proclaimed offender in an Arms Act case registered at Jaitpur police station in 2020. The accused has been identified as Harish alias Harsh Gupta alias Yadvender alias KD alias Kalu alias Harsh alias Yash Gupta alias Hars, 39, a resident of Badarpur in southeast Delhi. Police said a dedicated team comprising ASI Vijumon, Head Constable Arvind, Head Constable Charan Singh, Woman Head Constable Jyothi and Woman Constable Poonam was constituted under the leadership of Inspector Vijay Pal Dahiya and under the overall supervision of ACP V.K.P.S. Yadav to trace and arrest the absconding accused. Acting on specific secret information on March 13, the police team conducted a raid near Vidya Memorial School in the Molar Band Extension area of Badarpur. "With swift action and strategic planning, the team successfully apprehended the accused, who had been absconding to evade arrest and legal proceedings," a police officer said. Police said the accused had been declared a proclaimed offender in FIR No. 369/2020 under Sections 25/54 of the Arms Act registered at Jaitpur police station. Further verification revealed that the accused is a habitual offender and has been involved in at least 12 criminal cases registered at different police stations in Delhi. His criminal record includes serious offences such as kidnapping, rape, attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, theft and forgery, among other crimes. Police said further legal proceedings in the case are underway. Gandhinagar/Vadodara, March 14 : The construction of a weir across the Mahi river at Poicha village in Vadodara district at an estimated cost of Rs 349 crore is currently underway and is expected to provide irrigation benefits to nearly 29,000 acres of land, the state government informed the Assembly on Saturday. Responding to a question raised by a legislator in the House, Water Resources and Water Supply Minister Ishwarsinh Patel said the project forms part of a series of water conservation initiatives being undertaken by the state government to expand irrigation coverage and improve groundwater availability. Patel said the works are being implemented under broader efforts by the government, led by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, to strengthen water storage infrastructure and increase the irrigation potential across the state. "With the construction of this weir, approximately 29,000 acres of land in the surrounding areas will benefit from irrigation and the groundwater level in the region will rise," the minister said. He said the proposed weir will have a length of 67 metres and a height of 11 metres. Once completed, it will allow water to be stored for a stretch of up to 14 kilometres upstream of the structure. According to the minister, the storage created by the weir is expected to contribute to the recharge of groundwater and support irrigation needs in the surrounding region. The benefits are expected to extend to parts of Vadodara, Kheda and Anand districts. The project is aimed at improving water availability for agriculture in the area and strengthening water management infrastructure along the Mahi river. The government said the structure will help store water during periods of adequate flow, which can support irrigation and groundwater recharge in nearby areas. Officials said such water conservation structures play a role in addressing seasonal water shortages and supporting agricultural activities in regions dependent on groundwater and canal irrigation systems. The Poicha weir project is among the measures being taken to augment water resources and stabilise irrigation in central Gujarat. Amritsar, March 14 : In a major breakthrough, Amritsar Rural Police has busted an ISI-sponsored terror and cross-border arms smuggling module, arresting two accused and recovering a cache of sophisticated weapons, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said on Saturday. According to the police, the operation led to the recovery of one AK-47 rifle along with two magazines and 36 live cartridges. In addition, three sophisticated Glock 9mm pistols were also seized from the accused during the operation. DGP Gaurav Yadav described the development as a significant success in the ongoing efforts of the Punjab Police to dismantle terror networks and curb cross-border arms smuggling activities in the state. Preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused were in direct contact with foreign-based handlers through social media platforms. These handlers are suspected to be operating from across the border and are believed to be linked with Pakistanas Intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Police said the module was not only involved in smuggling illegal arms into India but was also engaged in radicalisation activities. The accused allegedly worked to spread anti-India and anti-police narratives through online platforms in an attempt to influence and recruit vulnerable individuals. An FIR has been registered at the Gharinda police station in Amritsar Rural district under relevant sections of law. Officials said further investigation is underway to establish forward and backward linkages of the network and identify other individuals connected with the module. The police are also examining the digital devices and social media accounts used by the accused to trace their contacts and uncover the larger network involved in the conspiracy. Reiterating its commitment to maintaining peace and security, the Punjab Police said it remains steadfast in its zero-tolerance approach against terrorism, illegal arms trafficking and organised crime in the state. Chennai, March 14 : Tamil Nadu BJP president Nainar Nagenthran has said he is unaware of any discussions between actor-politician Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regarding a possible alliance for the upcoming Assembly elections. Nagenthran made the remarks while addressing a BJP election media training camp held at a private marriage hall in Aminjikarai, Chennai, organised as part of preparations for the forthcoming elections. The event was attended by Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran, state vice-presidents Karunagarajan and Narayana Thirupathy, and former Telangana Governor and former Tamil Nadu BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, among others. Responding to questions regarding speculation about possible talks between Vijay's party and the NDA, Nagenthran said he had no information about such discussions. "I do not know whether the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam has held talks with the NDA. I cannot say whether Vijay is interested in joining the alliance or not," he said. During his address at the training session, Nagenthran advised party leaders and spokespersons to be extremely cautious while speaking to the media and on social media platforms. He noted that political communication had become more sensitive and that even a minor mistake in wording could trigger major controversies. "In the past, people openly spoke about caste, and it remained largely on their lips. Today, caste has moved into people's hearts. Everyone has learned to act according to circumstances. When you speak to the media, you must do so carefully. Even a single wrong word can create a major issue. I myself am an example of that," he said. Highlighting the growing influence of digital communication, Nagenthran said politics in the era of artificial intelligence and social media required disciplined messaging. He urged party workers to strictly follow the narrative provided by the party leadership during the election campaign. He also called upon BJP cadres to actively publicise the achievements and welfare schemes of the party through social media and grassroots outreach. Raising concerns over law and order in Tamil Nadu, Nagenthran said violence against women and the rising use of ganja had become serious issues in the state. He said that the police department functions under the Chief Minister and must take stronger steps to address these concerns. Expressing confidence ahead of the polls, he said the NDA would certainly form a government in Tamil Nadu, though he added that discussions on the exact political combinations were premature. "The DMK government must be defeated, and our campaign narratives should focus on governance failures, law and order, and drug abuse," he said. Saharanpur : , March 14 (IANS) Congress MP Imran Masood on Saturday defended Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha (LoP) Rahul Gandhi's statement on Kanshi Ram, also known as Bahujan Nayak. Notably, Gandhi said on Friday that if former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were alive today, Bahujan leader Kanshi Ram would have been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. LoP Gandhi made the remark while speaking at a programme held at the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan in Lucknow to mark Kanshi Ramas birth anniversary. Supporting Gandhi's statement, Masood told IANS, "Kanshi Ram's politics, Baba Saheb Ambedkar's ideology and mission movement - the work of truly fulfilling that mission was done by the Congress." He added, "By implementing reservation in the country, by giving rights to the oppressed, Dalits, and deprived sections, all this was done by Congress; no one else has done anything." He further asserted that Congress is not using the issue for electoral gains, but it is instead a social movement. During his address on Friday, Gandhi paid tribute to Kanshi Ram, saying he dedicated his life to the fight for equality and social justice for marginalised communities. The Congress leader also acknowledged that the party had failed to fully discharge its responsibilities in the past, which forced leaders like Kanshi Ram to chart their own political path. "If the Congress had functioned effectively at that time, Kanshi Ram would not have needed to wage a separate struggle," he said, adding that Nehru would have ensured that Kanshi Ram rose to the position of Chief Minister. During the programme, a proposal was also passed demanding Bharat Ratna, Indiaas highest civilian honour, for Kanshi Ram. Reacting to the Congress's proposal, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati accused the party of attempting to "exploit his name" despite what she described as its long-standing "anti-Dalit" attitude. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Bagalkote : , March 14 (IANS) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and State President, D.K. Shivakumar, on Saturday said that a meeting will be held in New Delhi with Members of Parliament from the State to discuss the objections raised by Andhra Pradesh over the third phase of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP) and to exert pressure on the Central government. Speaking to reporters in Bagalkote, Dy CM Shivakumar, who also holds the Water Resources portfolio, said the meeting would take place on next March 17 at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi. Dy CM Shivakumar said the State would strongly raise its voice against the stand taken by the Andhra Pradesh government, which has objected to the implementation of the third phase of the Upper Krishna Project, one of Karnataka's major irrigation projects, and has also not cooperated in efforts to prevent wastage of water from the Tungabhadra dam. He said the Andhra Pradesh government had written to the Centre objecting to the implementation of the Upper Krishna Project and the land acquisition process related to it. Following this, the Central government has sought clarification from Karnataka. Dy CM Shivakumar stated that the State was implementing the project in accordance with the tribunal's order to utilise its rightful share of water. He added that works worth about Rs 26,000 crore under the project had already been initiated. He clarified that the Karnataka government was not currently planning to increase the height of the Almatti dam. "We are only preparing to utilise our share of water in accordance with the order issued in 2010. However, the Andhra Pradesh government has raised objections to this as well," he said. The Deputy Chief Minister further stated that nearly 30 TMC of water meant for Karnataka was being wasted from the Tungabhadra dam, and alleged that the Andhra Pradesh government was not cooperating in finding an alternative solution to prevent the wastage. Shivakumar said he would travel to New Delhi on Tuesday along with Ministers H.K. Patil, M.B. Patil and Boseraju to discuss the issue with Karnataka MPs and to mount pressure on the Central government regarding the matter. The third phase of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP-III) in Karnataka is a massive, approved irrigation initiative aimed at raising the Almatti dam's height from 519.6 metres to 524.256 metres. With an estimated cost of Rs 70,000 crore to over Rs 1.22 lakh crore, it aims to utilize 130.90 TMC of water to irrigate nearly six lakh hectares in northern Karnataka. Kolkata, March 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that a change in the government in West Bengal is inevitable now, and that is already written on the walls and in the minds of the people of the state. "The inevitable regime change has been written on the walls and in the minds of people of West Bengal. Everyone is chanting for bringing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in the state. Everyone wants the Jungle Raj in Bengal to end now," the Prime Minister noted, while addressing a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, which marked the end of the "Parivartan Yatra" of the party amid the forthcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal later this year. According to Prime Minister Modi, immediately after coming to power in West Bengal in 2011, Trinamool Congress started nourishing itself by including the most notorious criminal elements of the previous Left Front government within the party. "In this way, Trinamool Congress betrayed the people of West Bengal, who ousted the Left Front and brought Trinamool Congress to power with a lot of hope. Because of this abundance of criminal elements in the state's rules, there is corruption, violence and ghastly crime against women everywhere in the state. Behind every crime, especially in cases of crime against women, there is involvement of any Trinamool Congress leader," he said. However, the Prime Minister said, the day is not far away when there will be rule of law in West Bengal with the BJP coming to power. "Not a single criminal element will be spared. I am telling you that the oppression of the people of West Bengal in the hands of the ruling Trinamool Congress will end shortly. There will be the rule of law and not the law of the ruler in West Bengal. There will be only one place for Trinamool Congress' criminals, which is behind bars," Prime Minister Modi added. He also said that with the state government and the ruling Trinamool Congress constantly encouraging illegal infiltration, the socio-demographic picture in many districts in the state. These illegal infiltrators are becoming a threat to the common people of the state, especially women. But these illegal infiltrators are the dedicated vote banks of the Trinamool Congress, and hence they oppose the process of preparing a clear voters' list," the Prime Minister said. According to PM Modi, the single aim of Trinamool Congress is to work for the development and welfare of the people of West Bengal, and also not allow others to work. "That is exactly why, Trinamool Congress and the state government are opposing implementation of several centrally-sponsored schemes in West Bengal," he said. Mumbai, March 14 : Actress Sanya Malhotra is now a proud house owner. The 'Mrs' actress took to her official Instagram handle and dropped glimpses of the Griha Pravesh pooja for her new house. Wearing a stylish pink saree with silver jewelry, Sanya was seen performing the pooja in the company of her parents and friends. Commemorating the major milestone in her journey, the 'Dangal' actress stated that this house is a reminder that the result of faith and patience can be extremely beautiful. Sanya further said that the trust of her family and friends has been one of her biggest supports during her journey. She wrote on the photo-sharing app, "Har Har Mahadev...Years of dreaming, working, learning and growing. Iss ghar ki har deewar mujhe yaad dilayegi ki patience aur faith ka result kitna sundar ho sakta hai. And through it all meri family and friends ka trust was always my biggest strength. This is more than just a house. Itas a little piece of my journey. Welcome to my ghar. (sic)." Talking about her professional commitments, Sanya will be seen essaying a key role in Anurag Kashyapas aBandar", in which she will share screen space with Bobby Deol for the first time. Premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, the drama has been backed by Nikhil Dwivedi under his home banner Saffron Magicworks. The script for aBandar", based on real-life events, has been provided by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee. It revolves around Samar (Played by Bobby Deol), an aging television star who is having a hard time maintaining his celebrity status. The movie is expected to reach the audience on 22 May. In addition to this, Sanya will also play the female lead in Vivek Das Chaudhary's forthcoming laughter ride, "Toaster", co-starring Rajkummar Rao. Initially slated to premiere on Netflix on 19 August 2025, "Toaster" has not appeared on the platform till now. --IANS pm/ Kolkata, March 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his speech in Kolkata, said that the insult to President Droupadi Murmu during her recent visit to West Bengal was in reality an insult to the entire tribal community of the country, considering that the President herself hails from a tribal background. "The tribal community in West Bengal has always been deprived of its legitimate right to development during the current Trinamool Congress regime in the state. They have always heckled and insulted tribal people. But what they have done now with the President during her recent visit to West Bengal has crossed all limits," the Prime Minister said while addressing a mega rally at Brigade Parade Ground in central Kolkata, which marked the culmination of the party's "Parivartan Yatra" ahead of the Assembly elections in West Bengal this year. According to him, Trinamool Congress is unable to accept the fact that Droupadi Murmu has reached such a position coming from a tribal background. "The President was really sad over the entire development," the Prime Minister said. Last week, there was a serious breach of protocol during the President's visit to Darjeeling district of West Bengal to address the International Santal Conclave. First, the police refused permission for the venue chosen by the organisers at Phansidewa in Darjeeling district and instead allotted a much smaller place at Gossaipur in the same district. Secondly, neither Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee nor any member of the West Bengal Cabinet went to receive her, which was again described as a serious breach of protocol. Even the President expressed displeasure over the development. The Chief Minister, however, countered that the President was "playing into the hands of the BJP". Meanwhile, while addressing the Brigade rally on Saturday, Prime Minister Modi, without naming the West Bengal Chief Minister, attacked her over her recent comments claiming that if the people of a particular community get united, there will be trouble. "Can anyone occupying a constitutional post make such a comment? This was an open indication that a special community will destroy others. The state government has made West Bengal unsafe. Threatening is Trinamool Congress's culture. Fear-mongering is being created in West Bengal, which the world needs to see. They say that those who do not vote for Trinamool Congress are not Bengalis. I am reminding Trinamool Congress that their days of hooliganism are about to end this time. The countdown has begun," the Prime Minister said. Srinagar, March 14 : Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and president of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mehbooba Mufti, on Saturday expressed solidarity with Iran and urged the Centre to revisit its policy towards Iran, while referring to historical links between Kashmir and that country. Addressing the media here on Saturday, Mehbooba Mufti said that a meeting of PDP leaders and former legislators passed a resolution expressing support for Iran and appreciated people in Kashmir for holding peaceful protests in solidarity with the Iranian people. She also appealed to the people of Kashmir to pray for the people of Iran and the Muslim Ummah. She asserted the historical and cultural links between Iran and Kashmir, saying that Islam came to Kashmir through Iran. "We have a deep civilisational and spiritual link between the two regions. Muslim countries should support Iran since conflicts and wars disturb global economic stability," she said. Mehbooba Mufti appealed to Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha to reconsider the arrest of people who participated in the protests against Israel and demanded the release of those still in detention. Referring to the revocation of the detention of activist Sonam Wangchuk, Mufti said the decision was welcome, though such action should not have been taken in the first place, as Sonam Wangchuk had been working on environmental protection issues. She also referred to jailed separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah, saying his daughter had struggled legally for his release. Mehbooba Mufti added that while some people are able to approach courts for relief, many economically weaker prisoners cannot afford legal battles and deserve attention and justice. Earlier this week, she visited the Iranian embassy in New Delhi and signed the condolence book on the martyrdom of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli air strikes on Tehran on February 28. Kollam, March 14 : A notorious gangster who had recently secured bail in a sensational murder case was hacked to death in a dramatic daylight attack on the national highway at Karunagappally in Kerala's Kollam district on Saturday, in what police suspect is the latest chapter in a violent gang rivalry. The victim, Aluva Atul, the prime accused in the murder of Gym Santhosh, was attacked while returning after reporting at the Karunagappally police station as part of his bail conditions. The incident occurred around 11 a.m. near a petrol pump at Puthiyakavu. According to police, a group travelling in a Haryana-registered Innova chased the vehicle in which Atul was travelling and rammed it from behind. The impact forced the car into a trench dug up for ongoing national highway construction. CCTV visuals that later surfaced show four men jumping out of the Innova, armed with machetes and other weapons. The attackers dragged Atul out of the vehicle and hacked him repeatedly in the middle of the busy highway before fleeing the scene. A man who was travelling with Atul, identified as Manu, also an accused in the Santhosh murder case, sustained injuries during the attack. Atul was rushed to hospital in a critical condition but succumbed to his injuries. Police believe the killing was the culmination of a long-running feud between rival gangs in the KarunagappallyOchira region. Preliminary investigations suggest that the attackers were associates of Gym Santhosh and were allegedly seeking revenge for his murder. Santhosh, a notorious but locally influential gangster often described as a "gentleman goon", was brutally murdered inside his house on March 27, 2025. A gang allegedly led by Atul had cut the electricity supply to the house, hurled explosives to create panic and hacked Santhosh to death in front of his mother. Although police later filed a charge sheet in the case, Atul had recently managed to secure bail, reportedly angering Santhosh's supporters. Investigators suspect the attackers had tracked his movements and carefully planned the ambush, knowing he would be visiting the police station. The dramatic killing, carried out in broad daylight under CCTV cameras and close to the police station, has triggered panic among residents. Police have tightened security across Kollam district and launched a manhunt for the attackers. Officials are examining CCTV footage and exploring possible links to organised criminal networks and the narcotics trade, which police believe may be fuelling gang rivalries in the region. Gadag : , March 14 (IANS) Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Basavaraj Bommai said on Saturday that the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has handled the global crisis arising from the war involving the US, Israel and Iran with diplomatic skill, ensuring adequate availability of petrol and diesel in the country. He alleged that the Congress was indulging in politics out of frustration. Speaking to reporters in Gadag, Bommai said there was no problem with the supply of domestic LPG cylinders in the country and added that Karnataka State Food and Civil Supplies Minister K.H. Muniyappa had also clarified the issue. He added that there was a minor issue only with commercial cylinders and urged people not to panic. Bommai said several ships carrying LPG were already on their way to India and added that the Karnataka government must ensure proper distribution and prevent black marketing. "The issue will be resolved within eight days," he added. He noted that India depends on Gulf countries for LPG supply and that gas has to be imported from those regions amid the prevailing war-like situation. Bommai said that due to the diplomatic efforts and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iran had permitted the transport of petroleum and diesel. "Gas shipments are also on the way," he added. Referring to past events, Bommai said the Congress should recall the situation during the Iraq war when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was in power. He noted that at that time the Congress-led UPA government was in office and the then Union Minister A.K. Antony had directed that petrol pumps should not remain open after 8 p.m. "As a result, queues stretching for kilometres were seen in front of petrol pumps," the former Chief Minister said. Bommai added that it had been about 15 days since the current war began but no such situation had arisen in India due to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that domestic gas production had also been increased by about 25 per cent, ensuring adequate supply of petrol and diesel in the country. He noted that the Union government had effectively managed the global crisis and ensured that there was no major disruption, except for a limited issue concerning commercial LPG cylinders. Accusing the Congress of politicising the issue, Bommai said the party was trying to create pressure even at a time when everyone should stand united during a crisis. Referring to developments within the Karnataka Congress, the former Chief Minister noted that senior legislators, including G.S. Patil from Gadag district, had held meetings regarding the state Cabinet expansion and claimed that internal differences within the party were likely to intensify. He also alleged that several Congress leaders themselves were dissatisfied with the State budget presented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and felt they had gained little from it. Bommai alleged that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah often blamed the Centre to cover up his own failures. "The Congress keeps repeating the same allegations to make them appear true. Now they are trying to add the LPG issue as well and make accusations," he said. Moradabad, March 14 : Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government has made sustained efforts to expand healthcare infrastructure, strengthen medical education and improve access to quality healthcare, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare J.P. Nadda said on Saturday. Addressing the convocation ceremony of Teerthanker Mahaveer University in Moradabad, Union Minister Nadda said: "In the last 11 years, India has witnessed a significant expansion of premier medical institutions. The number of All India Institute of Medical Sciences has increased from 6 earlier to 23 today, strengthening tertiary healthcare services and creating new opportunities for high-quality medical education and research across the country." He noted that India has recorded substantial progress in improving maternal and child health outcomes. Citing global estimates, J.P. Nadda said that India's Maternal Mortality Ratio has declined by about 86 per cent, compared to a global reduction of around 48 per cent, reflecting the impact of sustained public health interventions. Speaking about India's efforts to eliminate tuberculosis, he highlighted that India has achieved a 21 per cent decline in TB incidence, which is significantly higher than the global decline of 12 per cent, as reported by the World Health Organization. J.P. Nadda further emphasised that the government has been working consistently to reduce the financial burden of healthcare on citizens. He noted that out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on healthcare has significantly declined from 62.6 per cent to 39.4 per cent, reflecting the government's commitment to making healthcare more affordable and accessible to the people. Highlighting India's progress in strengthening access to timely treatment, the Union Health Minister said that findings from The Lancet show that around 90 per cent of cancer patients in India begin their treatment within 20 days, reflecting improvements in early diagnosis and treatment pathways across the healthcare system. He highlighted the transformative impact of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, describing it as the world's largest health coverage scheme, which provides health coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. J.P. Nadda stated that the scheme has significantly expanded financial protection in healthcare and has benefited over 71 crore people, enabling millions of families to access quality treatment without financial hardship. Addressing the graduating students, the Union Health Minister reminded them that their academic achievements are the result of the collective efforts of parents, teachers, mentors, university staff and institutional support systems. "Behind every degree lies the silent contribution and encouragement of families, faculty members and institutions that guide students towards success," he remarked. He urged the students to carry a strong sense of social responsibility in their professional journeys. "Always remember that society has provided you with the opportunity and the resources to become what you are today. Carry with you the conviction that you must give back to society and work towards the greater good," he added. New Delhi, March 14 : Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said on Saturday that the world is not seeing India merely as a market, but as a decisive partner in building the future. Speaking at an event organised at the Bharat Mandapam, she said, "India is becoming the fulcrum of global transformation through next generation reforms, the startup ecosystem, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies." In a message on social media platform X, Chief Minister Gupta wrote, "Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister @narendramodiji, India has resolved to achieve 'Viksit Bharat 2047'. This is not merely a goal of development, but a vision for a new era grounded in technology, innovation, digital empowerment, and human-centric governance." "Today, India is becoming the fulcrum of global transformation through next generation reforms, the startup ecosystem, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies. We are proud that, under the leadership of the Prime Minister Modi, Delhi is also playing an active role in this journey toward a developed India," she said. "Through policy innovation, technology adoption, and citizen-centric governance, Delhi is preparing itself for the opportunities and challenges of the coming decade. Today, the world is not seeing India merely as a market, but as a decisive partner in building the future," the Chief Minister added. Earlier on Saturday, Chief Minister Gupta continued her initiatives as part of 'Viksit Delhi' and laid foundation stones of several development projects in her Shalimar Bagh Assembly constituency. In a message on X, the Chief Minister said, "Today, the foundation stone was laid for the construction of RCC drains under the New Master Drain Plana"2025 on various roads in the Shalimar Bagh Assembly constituency, as well as for the new construction of a large rainwater drain on K.L. Bagga Marg and Bhagwan Mahavir Marg." "The construction of these new and modern drainage systems will reduce the problem of waterlogging, improve water drainage, and provide significant relief to local residents," she added. She said that to facilitate smoother traffic, a left-turn-free slip road at Shalimar Chowk and U-turn facilities around the Road Under Bridge have also been inaugurated, which will make traffic more organised and seamless. "Additionally, while inspecting the ongoing road construction works in the area, instructions were given to officials to complete all works with high quality and within the stipulated time frame. Our efforts continue unabated towards building a developed, well-organised, and ideal Shalimar Bagh Assembly constituency," CM Gupta added. New Delhi, March 14 : The global energy landscape is becoming increasingly influenced by geopolitical tensions, with supply chains, trade routes and energy markets facing growing uncertainties, experts said on Saturday at a roundtable discussion on the Indo-Pacific held in the national capital. Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Geopolitics and Strategic Studies at the Chintan Research Foundation, Monish Tourangbam, said that interdependence between countries is increasingly being used as a strategic tool. "Definitely, we have also faced a lot of challenges. Interdependence has, to some extent, been weaponised. You can see this in the imposition of tariffs from the US. Additionally, energy demand and supply have become, in a way, beholden to geopolitics. For instance, the dynamics between the US and India regarding Russian energy illustrate this. You can see that these issues are highly interconnected," Tourangbam told IANS. Highlighting the vulnerability of global energy routes, Hyderabad-based Politeia Research Foundation Chairperson, Sanjay Pulipaka, said the Strait of Hormuz has emerged as a critical point in the ongoing geopolitical crisis affecting energy supplies. "Let me, at the outset, congratulate Research and Information System for Developing Countries for organising this wonderful roundtable discussion on the Indo-Pacific. We have discussed many interesting ideas here. One important issue that we need to keep track of is what is happening at the Strait of Hormuz. Today, the Strait of Hormuz has emerged as a bottleneck for energy flows. Of course, the Indian government is doing all it can to ensure relatively easy flow of energy from the Strait of Hormuz," Pulipaka told IANS. The remarks come at a time when the global market is under intense pressure following escalating tensions between the US and Iran, which intensified into an open conflict in late February. The crisis deepened after joint US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets reportedly began on February 28, killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The conflict has severely disrupted global oil markets, creating one of the most serious supply shocks in recent decades. A major factor has been the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime passage through which around 20 per cent of the world's daily oil supply and a similar proportion of liquified natural gas normally pass. At the same time, production and exports from several regional oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait, have been affected by precautionary shutdowns or reduced output. Amid the disruption, Iran has now granted safe passage to Indian-flagged vessels through the Strait of Hormuz despite wider restrictions on global shipping, and an LPG tanker sailing to India crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The development follows a series of high-level diplomatic engagements between India and Iran, including phone conversations between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday to review the rapidly evolving situation in the West Asia region. New Delhi, March 14 : Former India batter Cheteshwar Pujara believes Sunrisers Hyderabad need to address their struggles in away matches despite possessing one of the most destructive batting line-ups as they prepare for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, which will commence on March 28. Pujara pointed out that while SRH have often piled up huge totals at their home ground in Hyderabad, they have found it difficult to replicate the same aggressive approach when playing at other venues. According to him, opposition teams have started identifying SRH's heavy dependence on their top-order batters and use that knowledge to restrict them in away games. "SRH are a very destructive side and score a lot of runs when they play at home in Hyderabad. But away from home, their record is very poor. When they play away matches, they fail to maintain their destructive batting intent," Pujara told Jio Hotstar. "That is because all the teams know that SRH rely on their batting power to set big totals. Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, and Heinrich Klaasen are their main batters. Once they get dismissed, SRH struggles to get going. That is where the opposition teams take advantage and prevent them from putting up big totals. That is something they will have to work on," he added. At the same time, Pujara also praised the opening duo of Abhishek and Head, calling them one of the most destructive pairs the league has seen. "In the last couple of seasons, what we have seen from the openers of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, I can certainly say they are one of the most destructive opening pairs in IPL history. Both are batters who know how to attack from ball one," he said. "SRH has consistently crossed the 250-run mark in the last couple of seasons thanks to them. No other team in the IPL has done that consistently. That is only because of the two openers. Smashing the ball all over the park and doing it regularlysp is what makes them special." "When we talk about aggressive opening pairs in the IPL, the pair of Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli comes to mind. But this duo of Head and Abhishek is even more destructive. No bowler wants to run in and bowl against an opening pair like Abhishek and Head," he added. Meanwhile, SRH had a poor stint in the last season, where they won only six matches out of the 14 they played. Pat Cummins's team finished in 6th position, with their opening duo also struggling for runs. New Delhi, March 14 : The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday reiterated India's call for de-escalation in the ongoing regional conflict while assuring that adequate supplies of crude oil, petrol, diesel and LPG are available in the country. The government also said efforts are underway to safeguard maritime operations and repatriate Indian seafarers from the affected region. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India has consistently called for dialogue and restraint since the conflict began, stressing the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted transit of goods and energy. "Since the outbreak of this conflict, India has consistently called for de-escalation and for all issues to be addressed through dialogue. At the same time, one of our key priorities is to ensure the unimpeded transit of goods and energy," Jaiswal said. He added that India has urged all sides not to target civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, given the wider global impact of the conflict. Jaiswal said India has been in constant communication with key stakeholders in the region. "We have remained in close contact with all important interlocutors, including the Gulf Cooperation Council members, Iran, the U.S. and Israel, at various political and diplomatic levels to underline our priorities, particularly regarding energy security," he said. He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also spoken with several counterparts in recent days, while External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Indian embassies have maintained close coordination with their interlocutors. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said that efforts are being made to assist Indian seafarers and maintain smooth maritime operations. Special Secretary Rajesh Kumar Sinha said that in the past 24 hours, 30 Indian seafarers have been repatriated and transported safely to their respective destinations, taking the total number of repatriated seafarers to 253. He said major ports had accorded priority berthing to six LPG carriers that arrived from various parts of the world. Sinha also noted that the DG Shipping Communication Centre has been operating round the clock and handling a large volume of queries. "Over the past 15 days, the centre has received more than 2,500 phone calls and around 5,000 emails, all of which have been responded to," he said. Providing an update on maritime movement in the Gulf region, Sinha said that two Indian-flagged LPG carriers Shivalik and Nanda Devi had safely crossed the Strait of Hormuz early on Saturday and are now heading towards India. Officials from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas also assured that the country has adequate fuel supplies. Joint Secretary (Marketing and Oil Refinery) Sujata Sharma said India's crude oil supply remains sufficient and refineries are operating at full capacity. "Our crude supply is sufficient, and our refineries are operating at full capacity. There are no dry-out reports at retail outlets, and sufficient petrol and diesel are available," she said, adding that India produces enough petrol and diesel domestically to meet its needs. She said state governments and district administrations are closely monitoring the fuel supply situation. Sharma noted that several Chief Ministers, including those of Haryana and Goa, have already held review meetings with officials. On LPG supply, Sharma said the situation remains stable despite the geopolitical challenges, but warned against panic booking by consumers. "Yesterday, we reported around 7576 lakh LPG bookings. That number has now increased to nearly 88 lakh. This is clearly due to panic booking," she said, urging citizens to book cylinders only when necessary. She clarified that booking restrictions remain in place, with a minimum gap of 25 days between bookings in urban areas and 45 days in rural areas. Sharma also appealed to consumers to use digital platforms for LPG bookings and avoid visiting distributors or standing in queues. "There is no need for panic neither for booking nor for cylinders. Oil marketing companies are delivering cylinders to homes and will continue to do so," she added. Bengaluru, March 14 : The Karnataka BJP on Saturday warned that the inclusion of citizens from Pakistan and Bangladesh in the voter list would pose a serious threat to the country's national security. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly R. Ashoka said that fake votes should not be allowed to be added during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He claimed that many people from Pakistan and Bangladesh had entered Karnataka and warned that if they were included in the voter list, they would effectively become permanent citizens, which could endanger national security. He said the issue had been discussed at a workshop where measures to prevent such entries in the voter list were deliberated. Ashoka added that he had also participated in the workshop. Taking a dig at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Ashoka referred to the Chief Minister's recent remarks in which he described himself as a socialist and said he did not support caste or family politics. Ashoka alleged that despite this claim, Siddaramaiah had appealed to people to politically support his son. "So far people have taken care of him, and now he is asking them to take care of his son. If after a few months he asks them to take care of his grandson too, will this turn into a monarchy within a democratic political system?" Ashoka questioned. He said that in the past kings used to declare their sons as heirs and crown them as princes. "Now the king himself is performing the coronation of the prince," he said, criticising what he described as dynastic politics. Ashoka further said that B.R. Ambedkar had abolished the system of monarchy and introduced a democratic system based on voting. He alleged that Siddaramaiah's remarks went against the principles of Ambedkar and added that leaders should earn their positions through elections rather than promoting their family members. Responding to a question on the misuse of LPG cylinders, Ashoka said the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) had been invoked to prevent misuse and stressed that the state government must take strict action to curb black marketing. He appealed to the public to cooperate during the current situation, which he described as a time of crisis, while accusing the Chief Minister of politicising issues even under such circumstances. Ashoka also alleged that the Chief Minister's camp had been organising dinner gatherings regularly. "This is the information I have," he said, claiming that while ordinary people were struggling, elaborate dinner arrangements were being made within the government. He further claimed that even some Congress leaders were privately expressing dissatisfaction with the state Budget, stating that they had been discussing its shortcomings informally. Paris, March 14 : Drawing attention to the heinous April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, an international civil society group has called for global accountability and stronger action against terrorism at the ongoing 61st of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. Speaking at the session, Yasser Laaroussi of the ECO FAWN Society called on the international community to bolster its response against terrorism and hold perpetrators accountable for attacks on civilians. Laaroussi paid homage to the victims of the terror attack in the Baisaran Valley, calling it a "cold-blooded assault" against humanity itself. "He stressed that deliberately targetting civilians constitutes a grave violation of international human rights law and fundamental humanitarian principles," a report in French digital news platform 'Paris Telegraph' noted. Emphasising that acts of terrorism represent a direct threat to the universal rights to life, liberty and personal security, Laaroussi told UNHRC that terrorism in all its forms is a clear rejection of human dignity and civilised order. "No political, ideological or strategic pretext can ever justify violence against innocent civilians," the Paris Telegraph quoted him as saying. The statement also warned that cross-border backing or tolerance of terrorist groups can escalate threats to international peace and sovereignty. "Calling for international cooperation, Laaroussi urged member states to ensure that impunity does not prevail and to take stronger measures against those who harbour, finance or facilitate terrorist organisations," the report noted. The ECO FAWN Society's intervention, it said, reaffirmed the "organisation's commitment to defending human rights, protecting victims of terrorism and strengthening international accountability mechanisms." According to the report, the organisation emphasised that remembrance of victims killed in deadly terror attacks "must be accompanied by collective international action so that justice, peace and human dignity prevail over violence and extremism." As many as 26 innocent tourists were massacred in the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Pahalgam. This was the deadliest attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, also conducted by Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT). Pakistan-based The Resistance Front (TRF), a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) outfit, twice claimed responsibility for the heinous attack on civilians in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025. The TRF, a proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), has been involved in numerous terror-related activities. Jaipur, March 14 : Acting on a complaint by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), the Rajasthan Special Operations Group (SOG) has cracked a case involving an attempt to steal petroleum products from the IOCL KJPPL (KSPL) pipeline and arrested four accused, including the alleged mastermind. Vishal Bansal, Additional Director General of Police (SOG), Jaipur, said the theft attempt occurred in August 2023 in Ramgarh village under the Sendra police station limits of Pali district. The case was registered at the SOG police station in Jaipur on August 5, 2023, following a report filed by Sher Singh Chauhan, Manager, IOCL, Beawar. According to the complaint, unidentified persons had punctured the IOCL pipeline by welding a valve and flange pipe onto it with the intention of siphoning petroleum products. As the pipeline carries highly flammable substances, the act posed a serious risk of fire and a major accident. Considering the gravity of the case, special investigation teams were formed under the supervision of Paris Deshmukh, DIG (SOG), and led by Shyam Sundar Bishnoi, Additional Superintendent of Police (SOG Unit, Ajmer). During the investigation, the crime scene was examined by an FSL team, technical evidence including BTS data was analysed, and local witnesses were questioned. Based on technical and human intelligence, four accused involved in the conspiracy were arrested and remanded to five daysa police custody. Efforts are underway to arrest another accused, Pankaj Vaghela of Ahmedabad (Gujarat), who allegedly carried out the technical work of puncturing the pipeline. During questioning, it emerged that the main accused, Jitendra Singh Rawat, along with his associates Devendra Singh, Prem Singh and Pratap Sher Singh, had planned to steal petroleum products by installing a valve on the pipeline. Since they lacked technical expertise, they contacted Pankaj Vaghela, who had prior experience in such crimes. Vaghela allegedly punctured the pipeline in an agricultural field in Ramgarh using specialised tools and installed a valve. A pipe was connected to the valve to transfer petroleum into a tanker parked nearby. The accused then concealed the valve by covering it with soil and ploughing the field to avoid detection. However, their attempt to siphon petroleum failed due to low flow in the pipeline. While trying to move the tanker, it got stuck in marshy ground, causing visible disturbance to the field surface, which later raised suspicion. The tampering was eventually detected during routine inspection by IOCL personnel, after which the accused fled their homes. Those arrested include Jitendra Singh alias Jeetu Maharaj (31), resident of Nichla Badiya, Ramgarh Sedotan, PS Sendra, district Beawar; Devendra Singh (32), resident of Ramgarh Sedotan, PS Sendra, district Beawar; Pratap Sher Singh alias Sheru (36), resident of Kesharpura, PS Sendra, district Beawar; and Prem Singh (48), resident of Kesharpura, PS Sendra, district Beawar. ADG Bansal added that one of the accused, Prem Singh Rawat, has previously been charge-sheeted in five criminal cases, including two related to petroleum theft. Further investigation is in progress. Chennai, March 14 : With the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections approaching, political activity in the State has intensified as parties within major alliances begin negotiations over seat-sharing arrangements. In this context, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president M.K. Stalin met Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) president Thol. Thirumavalavan on Saturday to discuss the allocation of constituencies within the ruling alliance. The meeting took place at the Chief Ministeras residence in Alwarpet, Chennai. The VCK is one of the key allies of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance and has been engaged in discussions with the DMK leadership regarding its share of seats for the upcoming Assembly elections. Sources said that preliminary rounds of negotiations between the two parties had already been completed earlier, paving the way for Saturdayas high-level meeting between Stalin and Thirumavalavan. The discussions are part of the DMKas broader effort to finalise seat-sharing arrangements with alliance partners ahead of the announcement of election dates by the Election Commission of India. According to political sources, the DMK initially proposed to allocate six constituencies to the VCK, similar to the number of seats the party contested in the previous Assembly election. However, the VCK is understood to have sought a significantly larger share this time, reportedly demanding up to 12 seats. Negotiations between the two parties are believed to be moving towards a compromise formula. Sources indicated that the DMK leadership is considering offering around eight seats to the VCK as part of the final arrangement. The discussions between Stalin and Thirumavalavan are viewed as a crucial step in finalising the alliance framework. Leaders from both parties are said to be keen on concluding the agreement quickly to enable them to focus on campaign preparations. Political observers note that the VCK, which has a strong presence among Dalit voters and in certain northern districts of Tamil Nadu, remains an important ally for the DMK-led alliance. Sources added that the seat-sharing agreement between the DMK and VCK could be formally announced and signed either later on Saturday or on Sunday. Once finalised, it is expected to provide clarity on the distribution of constituencies within the ruling alliance as parties gear up for a closely watched electoral contest in Tamil Nadu. Kolkata, March 14 : Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, senior Trinamool Congress leaders and state ministers Bratya Basu, Shashi Panja and party MP Saayoni Ghosh held an emergency press conference at Trinamool Bhavan on Sunday and accused the BJP of indulging in vandalism and violence. Speaking at the press conference, state Education Minister Bratya Basu launched a sharp attack on the Prime Minister, saying: "The tone adopted by the Prime Minister while speaking at the Brigade today found its reflection right here in Girish Park. The manner in which BJP workers allegedly unleashed vandalism at Minister Shashi Panja's residence is unprecedented. Was this attack carried out after being inspired and incited by the Prime Minister's words?" He further said, "We have found no precedent in any state where a sitting minister's residence is attacked in this manner, with stones, bottles and shards of glass. At a time when Mamata Banerjee is conveying a message of a peaceful and secular Bengal, the BJP has resorted to such acts just ahead of the elections." Ahead of PM Modi's rally, stones were allegedly hurled at the residence of state minister Shashi Panja in north Kolkata's Girish Park area. Trinamool workers claimed that BJP activists carried out the act while heading towards the Prime Minister's rally at the Brigade Parade Ground. The state minister alleged that she too was injured during the incident. The BJP, however, issued a counter-allegation, claiming that Trinamool workers threw bricks at their activists as they were marching through Girish Park. Shashi Panja, who was present at the spot, recounted her experience. She said: "Today, on their way to the Brigade rally, BJP workers allegedly created chaos right in front of my residence. While our colleagues were putting up flex banners, a group wearing BJP caps -- who were travelling in a bus -- turned violent while chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'." Referring to her injuries, Shashi Panja said: "Whether I am a minister or simply a woman is beside the point. A brick was hurled directly at me and it struck my abdomen. I sustained an injury at the site of a previous surgery. Such actions have no place in democratic politics." In light of the incident, Shashi Panja also raised questions over the Prime Minister's remarks during the rally. Referring to the Prime Minister's warning to "settle scores", she asked: "Is an attack on a state minister an example of that 'settling of scores'? Are you the Prime Minister only of the BJP, or of the entire country?" It has been reported that three Trinamool workers -- identified as Shubham, Souvik and Krishna -- sustained serious injuries during the incident. They reportedly suffered injuries to their chests and heads. New Delhi, March 14 : Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Saturday hailed the discovery of two new species of Lichen moths by country's lepidopterists. In a social media post, headlined 'A milestone in Indian taxonomy!', Yadav said, "In a remarkable development, Zoological Survey of India has announced the discovery of two new species of Lichen moths." "The discovery of Caulocera Hollowayi and Asura Buxa are vital contribution to the documentation of India's moth biodiversity. Research into evolutionarily significant and lesser-known groups like Lepidoptera is essential for understanding ecosystem functioning and air pollution indicator species of Indian Himalaya," said Yadav. He said this success underscores the necessity of sustained taxonomic efforts in biodiversity hotspots like the Himalayas. On Friday, Yadav said that Project Great Indian Bustard (GIB) has entered the fourth year of its captive breeding programme with the hatching of two new chicks at the Conservation Breeding Centre of Rajasthan this week, taking the tally of birds in captivity to 70. The Minister said that under the environmentally-sensitive leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country is well on track to make the project a great success. Yadav shared this development in a post on social media platform X, describing it as another milestone achieved under Project GIB. The Minister said the two chicks hatched at the Conservation Breeding Centre in Rajasthan this week, one from natural mating and the other from artificial insemination. Calling it an important milestone for the species' conservation efforts, Yadav said some of this year's captive-bred chicks will be soft released in the wild, marking a new challenging beginning for the project. He also congratulated the forest officials of the Rajasthan Forest Department for the achievement. Earlier, Yadav stressed the importance of the balanced and sustainable use of natural resources. He noted that ancient Indian traditions have long guided society towards harmony with nature. He cautioned that uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources could lead to a serious imbalance in the ecological system. Yadav further stated that India has consistently raised this issue at the global level and continues to play a proactive role in advancing environmental responsibility. The Minister observed that over the past few years, the Indian Institute of Forest Management has demonstrated outstanding performance, and its students have been securing excellent placement opportunities. Imphal, March 14 : Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh on Saturday assured National Cadet Corps (NCC) cadets that the government is committed to creating an environment where young people can thrive, drawing applause from the audience. The Chief Minister was speaking at a felicitation ceremony for NCC cadets from the state held at the NCC ground at the DM College campus in Imphal. Seven NCC cadets from the state had earlier represented Manipur at the Republic Day Parade and the NCC Prime Minister's Rally held in New Delhi. In his address, Singh said the seven cadets honoured for their achievements had filled the hearts of every Manipuri with pride and joy. "We are here to celebrate a moment of immense pride for the entire state of Manipur," the Chief Minister said, congratulating the NCC group headquarters, Imphal, for their relentless efforts in shaping the future of the state. He added that the cadets are the architects of a new Manipur, one that is peaceful, progressive and prosperous. The Chief Minister inspected a guard of honour. Accompanied by Wing Commander Mutum Sandip Singh, Commanding Officer of the 1 Manipur Air Squadron NCC, he also participated in a flight simulator session at the unit's headquarters. The event was attended by MLA Joykisan Singh, DM University Vice-Chancellor Dr. W. Chandbabu Singh, Brigadier Vikrant Kulkarni, along with NCC cadets, staff and officers. Around 2,000 cadets from hill districts such as Churachandpur and Ukhrul joined the programme through video conferencing. Later, accompanied by MLA Joykisan Singh, the Chief Minister inspected Khunthoknganbi Upper Primary School and Gurukul Hijam Dewan Junior High School in the Thangmeiband Assembly Constituency. He also visited Naorem Birahari College at Khundrakpam to assess the institution's current condition and briefly interacted with the teaching and non-teaching staff. During the day, the Chief Minister also flagged off improvement work on the Imphal-Saikul road stretch from Hundred Flower School to Sagolmang at Khundrakpam and assured the public that the project would be completed at the earliest. The event was attended by Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD) Chongtham Biswachandra Singh, departmental officials and contractors. --IANS sc/pgh Bengaluru, March 14 : Karnataka Labour Minister Santosh Lad on Saturday said that granting four to five days of menstrual leave as a legal mandate may not be practically feasible, echoing concerns recently expressed by the Supreme Court on the issue. In a statement, Lad said he had taken note of the observations made by the Supreme Court regarding menstrual leave for women employees and students. He said the court had pointed out that implementing four to five days of menstrual leave through legislation could pose practical challenges. The minister welcomed the court's appreciation of the Karnataka government's policy that provides one day of paid menstrual leave every month to women employees in both government and private institutions. Lad said the state government had introduced the Karnataka Menstrual Cycle Policy 2025 after holding extensive consultations with experts, employers, industrialists, entrepreneurs, doctors and senior officials. He said the government had carefully examined the advantages and challenges before implementing the policy. Referring to the court's observation that introducing a nationwide law on menstrual leave could reduce employment opportunities for women and potentially create stigma for young women, Lad said the matter required broader discussions among stakeholders and governments. He said opinions from all stakeholders should be gathered before formulating any nationwide menstrual leave policy so that it would be suitable and beneficial for women across the country. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has dismissed a public interest litigation seeking directions to frame a law mandating four to five days of menstrual leave across the country. Taking to social media platform X, Minister Santosh Lad further stated, "The Honourable Supreme Court has dismissed a Public Interest Litigation seeking directions to frame a law providing four to five days of #menstrualleave across the country. "At the same time, it is encouraging that the Court has also appreciated Karnataka's progressive menstrual leave policy, which provides one day of paid leave every month for women employees in both government and private institutions." "While framing the 'Karnataka Menstrual Leave Policy 2025', we held extensive consultations with experts, employers, doctors, industrialists and other stakeholders to ensure a balanced, practical and women-friendly policy. We carefully considered the interests of both employees and employers, reflecting our inclusive approach," he noted. If a suitable policy is evolved at the national level after wider consultations, keeping the interests and dignity of women in mind, it would certainly be welcome, Minister Lad added. Kolkata, March 14 : Two Bangladeshi nationals have been arrested at the India-Bangladesh international border in North 24 Parganas district for allegedly entering the country illegally, a senior district police officer said on Saturday. According to the police, the two individuals were apprehended near the frontier in the Hakimpur border area under the jurisdiction of Swarupnagar Police Station in North 24 Parganas district. The accused have been identified as Vivek Mandal and Nazrul Islam. Police said the two individuals drew the attention of patrol personnel while they were allegedly loitering in the border area late at night. Becoming suspicious of their movements, the police detained them for questioning. During interrogation, the two reportedly admitted that they were from Bangladesh and had crossed the border illegally to enter India. Following the questioning, the Swarupnagar Police arrested them. The arrested individuals were produced before the Basirhat Sub-divisional Court on Saturday. "Two persons have been arrested. They hail from Bangladesh and came to the country illegally. Following questioning, they confessed that they entered the country illegally. Investigation is on," said an officer of the North 24 Parganas district police. Notably, several Bangladeshi nationals have been arrested in West Bengal amid the backdrop of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of the state's electoral rolls. After the SIR process began, it was observed that some Bangladeshi nationals living in different parts of West Bengal without valid documents started leaving the country, police sources said. In fact, as many as 45 Bangladeshi nationals were arrested from the Hakimpur sector alone last year. Since then, several individuals have been apprehended from this border region on multiple occasions. The BJP has been claiming that a large number of Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas have been living in West Bengal after entering the country illegally. The party has demanded the SIR exercise to identify such individuals in the electoral rolls and send them back to their country. Bengaluru, March 14 : The Karnataka BJP on Saturday mocked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, claiming that he has become an "outgoing Chief Minister" and is preparing to resign from his post. Bengaluru, March 14 (IANS) The Karnataka BJP on Saturday mocked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, claiming that he has become an "outgoing Chief Minister" and is preparing to resign from his post. Speaking to the media at the BJP state office, Jagannath Bhavan, in Bengaluru, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council Chalavadi Narayanaswamy said Siddaramaiah has spent his entire life in politics and often states that he will remain in public life as long as he breathes. "Politics has been his life, but what has he given to the people of this state who gave him political life?" Narayanaswamy questioned. Referring to Siddaramaiah's recent remarks seeking blessings for his son, Congress MLC Yathindra, Narayanaswamy said the Chief Minister appeared to be preparing the ground for his son's political future. "He is asking people to bless his son now that his own political career is nearing its end. Instead of speaking for his son, he should have spoken for the people of the state. These are the words of a leader in the final phase of his political life," he said. He further said that the Rajya Sabha elections are approaching and claimed that Siddaramaiah could lose his position at that time. "Until now he had been saying he would remain Chief Minister for five years. Let him say that again now. He no longer has the courage to do so and is instead making philosophical statements. He is pleading that his time is over and that people should protect his son. Soon he will resign from his post," Narayanaswamy alleged. He also criticised Siddaramaiah's claim that he had surpassed the record of former Chief Minister Devaraj Urs. "He may have surpassed the number of years or Budgets presented during Urs' tenure, but he cannot match Urs' contributions to the state. Presenting 17 Budgets may be his record, but the people of this state have gained nothing from it," he said. When asked who could become the next Chief Minister if Siddaramaiah resigns, Narayanaswamy said it was a decision to be taken by the Congress party. However, he alleged that the party would not make a Dalit leader the Chief Minister. "Dalit leaders have been repeatedly denied justice. Even after so many years of Independence, Dalits are being used merely as a vote bank. Siddaramaiah has denied Dalits every opportunity to become Chief Minister," he alleged. He further accused Siddaramaiah of being anti-Dalit, claiming that funds earmarked for Scheduled Castes under the SCSP/TSP schemes had been diverted to fund the government's guarantee schemes. "Even though there is a law stating that SCSP/TSP funds must be used only for Dalits, Siddaramaiah used those funds for guarantees. Even some of his party MLAs had opposed this, but still Rs 15,000 crore was diverted. He has also failed to properly implement internal reservation and is leaving behind more problems," he said. Narayanaswamy also urged the state government to take action against an advertisement on Flipkart offering one litre of milk for Rs 1. He said the advertisement had angered farmers. "No one should create problems for farmers. Such advertisements may be offered for a day as a marketing strategy, but milk cannot be sold at Rs 1 per litre every day. These advertisements mislead consumers and harm farmers. The government must take strict action against such misleading promotions," he said. Kaithal : , March 14 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said that political forces rejected by the people are now attempting to cast doubt on India's Constitutional institutions after losing public trust. Addressing a gathering in Kaithal, the Chief Minister said that those whom the public has "shown the door" are now spreading rumours and attempting to create disorder as they are unable to compete politically. "Sometimes they target the Lok Sabha Speaker, at other times the judiciary or the Election Commission. When they win, they take the credit themselves, but when they lose, they blame constitutional institutions. This selective attitude will not be accepted," he said. "In such a situation, we must work together to ensure that this disorder and anarchy do not spread. We must move forward with the resolve of building an 'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat'. If the nation is secure, Sanatan Dharma is secure, and if Sanatan Dharma is secure, the nation is secure. The two are inseparable," he said. Referring to the global situation, CM Yogi said that conflicts in Gulf nations are likely to cause economic disruptions worldwide, but India continues to move forward on the path of development. "Despite global uncertainties, India is progressing with confidence, driven by the hard work of its farmers and guided by strong leadership. The 145 crore citizens of the country stand united and have full faith in the nation's leadership," he said. Earlier in the day, the Chief Minister attended the 'Athwan Bhandara' (eighth-day memorial feast), 'Deshmel' and 'Shankhadhal' ceremonies organised in memory of the late Brahmaleen Shri Mahant Peer Ganesh Nath Ji at Baba Mukut Nath Math in Soungal village in Kaithal. He offered prayers and paid homage to the departed saint. The Chief Minister also raised concerns over drug abuse, alleging that Pakistan is attempting to spread narcotics in India as part of a larger conspiracy. Addressing a Dharma Sabha, he called upon religious leaders and society to launch awareness campaigns against drug addiction. "Addiction leads to destruction. Any effort to combat it is a service to the nation. Drug traffickers are enemies of the state as they endanger both national security and the future of our youth," he said. The Chief Minister urged religious gatherings and social platforms to play an active role in spreading awareness about the dangers of drugs, adding that India's youth possess immense potential and must be protected from such threats. Gangtok, March 14 : Amid panic buying of LPG cylinders in Gangtok, the state capital of Sikkim, in the backdrop of the war situation in West Asia, Gangtok District Superintendent of Police Mahendra Subba on Saturday appealed to residents not to pay heed to rumours about a possible shortage of LPG cylinders in the district, assuring that supply remains stable and is being closely monitored. Speaking to reporters here, Subba said reports of panic buying triggered by rumours have been circulating among sections of the public. However, he clarified that there is no cause for concern as the government and the police department are jointly keeping a close watch on the availability and distribution of LPG cylinders across the district. The senior police official stated that authorities have already taken necessary steps to ensure that the supply chain of LPG cylinders remains uninterrupted. The Superintendent of Police urged citizens not to resort to panic buying and advised them to rely only on verified information from official sources. At the same time, the police issued a strict warning against hoarding, black marketing or illegal diversion of LPG cylinders. Subba said that anyone found involved in such activities would face strict legal action under the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. He also requested residents to promptly inform the nearest police station if they come across any instance of illegal storage, hoarding or black marketing of LPG cylinders. According to Subba, the Gangtok District Police are in constant coordination with LPG distribution agencies and are monitoring the situation on a regular basis. Officials from refill centres have informed the authorities that the supply of LPG cylinders continues without disruption. Subba added that if any shortage arises, the administration will immediately take steps to address the situation. Meanwhile, police teams have been deployed in different parts of the district to check for possible hoarding of LPG cylinders. Personnel from Sadar Police Station have also been assigned to assist in monitoring activities. Subba said inspections have been conducted at several locations so far, but no evidence of illegal hoarding or diversion of LPG cylinders has been found. Moga, March 14 : Sounding the poll bugle in Punjab, where the Assembly elections are due early next year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday that under the current Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government religious conversions have reached alarming levels. "A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Punjab will bring its first Bill to ban religious conversions," he told a large gathering in Moga that falls in the politically significant Malwa belt which accounts for 69 of the 117 Assembly seats. Making it clear that the era of the BJP playing second fiddle in the state is over, the Union Home Minister said, "Whenever we (BJP) came before you (people of Punjab) in the past, we were the junior political ally. But from today, the BJP begins its campaign to form its own government in Punjab." Donning the Sikh turban, Home Minister Shah promised that the BJP, if voted to power, will make Punjab drug-free within two years. Saying that the AAP government has become an ATM for AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal, the Union Home Minister said, "The AAP formed a government with the promise of a change. But in reality what is the Chief Minister here doing? He is serving as the pilot of Kejriwal, splurging the state's coffers by flying him across India. He has done nothing other than that." "The AAP government promised to give 25 lakh jobs. They (AAP) promised to end the scourge of drugs in four months, build 16,000 government medicine shops, increase widow pension and old-age pension to Rs 2,500 per month, build 16 medical colleges, increase mining revenue by Rs 20,000 crore, promise MSP (minimum support price) on every crop, and give Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victims of the Sikh riots," Home Minister Shah said, adding, "They (AAP) could fulfill none of these promises." "The AAP government here is the government of broken promises and corruption. They are submerged up to their necks in corruption. They can do no good for Punjab. The Chief Minister should be ashamed of his silence in the face of the loot of the coffers of Punjab by leaders in Delhi." Taking another jibe at the Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab government, Home Minister Shah said, "The AAP government has become the ATM of Kejriwal, and this is a mockery of Punjab's honour. Entire Punjab is today struggling with the problem of drugs; law and order has ended; three sarpanches have been killed right at the beginning of 2026; the gangsters are extorting money; and an ASI has been killed right in the police station." Quoting one report, the Union Home Minister said 45 per cent of the heroin trade in India takes place in Punjab alone. "We (BJP) promise you that if you bless us in the upcoming election, then we will free Punjab from the scourge of drugs within two years." Criticising the AAP, the Congress, and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for misleading the farmers about the trade deal signed with the US, Home Minister Shah said, "They are saying that the deal has harmed the farmers. This is a sheer lie. Rather, it is the UPA that agreed to stop paying MSP to farmers in 2013." "The Narendra Modi government has made the biggest buying at MSP from the farmers of Punjab. Along with that, the money reaches the bank account of the farmers within just two days." "During the UPA government the agriculture budget of India amounted to Rs 22,000 crore. But the Narendra Modi government increased it to Rs 140,000 crore. Every farmer is paid Rs 6,000 every year. As many as 13.5 crore people receive funds under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana." "The Congress never bought pulses at the MSP. But we (BJP) arranged for 100 per cent purchase of pulses at MSP through NAFED. We are buying maize at the MSP," Home Minister Shah said. He concluded by saying, "Punjab does not need a Chief Minister, who can make people laugh but someone who can give good governance." New Delhi/Kabul, March 14 : Terming it as another act of aggression by a Pakistani establishment that remains hostile to the idea of a sovereign Afghanistan, India on Saturday severely condemned the latest strikes by Pakistan inside Afghan territory which has led to the death of several civilians and massive loss to local infrastructure. Afghan officials on Saturday confirmed that several civilians have been killed in the Pakistani airstrikes on Friday in Kabul, Kandahar, Paktika and Paktia provinces. "India condemns the air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistanas territory, leading to the death of several civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is yet another act of aggression by a Pakistani establishment that remains hostile to the idea of a sovereign Afghanistan," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries on the recent attacks by Pakistan on Afghanistan. "India reiterates that Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be fully respected," the statement added. Deputy spokesman of the Afghan government, Hamdullah Fitrat said on Saturday that at least four people have been killed and over 25 injured in the Pakistani airstrikes on Kabul. According to the official, besides Kabul, Pakistan also conducted air raids on Kandahar, Paktika, Khost and Nangarhar provinces on Thursday night and Friday. In Kandahar, an oil depot was reportedly targetted. Afghanistan's Ministry of National Defence said on Friday that it has also conducted strikes on Pakistani military centres and installations in Kohat district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in retaliation to the airstrikes launched by Islamabad on Thursday night, which resulted in several civilian casualties on the Afghan side. According to the statement released by Kabul, the military fort in Kohat and the war command centre along the Durand Line were targetted during the strike. In a statement shared on X, Afghanistan's Ministry of National Defence stated, "In response to last night's incursions by the Pakistani military regime, Afghan air forces conducted strikes this morning on strategic military centres and installations of the Pakistani army in the Kohat area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa." Bagalkote, March 14 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Saturday that the state government is committed to addressing regional imbalances in North Karnataka and asserted that the Congress-led state government is one that fulfils the promises it makes to the people. "Guarantees and development given equal priority," he added. He was speaking after laying the foundation stone for the Bagalkote Medical College and Research Institute, inaugurating various development works, and launching the distribution of compensation for lands acquired under the third phase of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP). The Chief Minister also paid tributes to former MLA late H.Y. Meti, who represented the region and recently passed away, and prayed for peace to his departed soul. He said that Meti had played a key role in the establishment of the government medical college in Bagalkote. "The announcement to establish the medical college was made in the 2025 state Budget and the foundation stone was being laid now as part of the state government's development agenda, and not because of the upcoming by-election," he clarified. Siddaramaiah said that since coming to power in Karnataka, the state government has launched several foundation stone ceremonies and inaugurations aimed at developing multiple districts. "The state government intends to establish medical colleges and trauma centres in every district, and steps have already been taken in about 25 districts." He added that a super speciality hospital would also be established in Bagalkote next year. The Chief Minister said allegations by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the guarantee schemes have left no funds for development were far from the truth. "Our (Congress) government is giving equal priority to both guarantees and development. Every year about Rs 50,000 crore is spent on guarantee schemes and so far Rs 1.22 lakh crore has been spent," he added. He alleged that despite being in power for four years in Karnataka, the BJP did not establish a medical college in Bagalkote and accused the party of trying to create divisions between communities. Siddaramaiah said the previous BJP government did not show interest in providing compensation under the Upper Krishna Project, which discouraged farmers from giving their land. He said that the Congress government has now decided to pay compensation in a single instalment. "Funds have been allocated in the current state Budget for land compensation under the third phase of the UKP and additional funds will also be arranged later." Farmers voluntarily giving land will receive Rs 40 lakh per acre for irrigated land and Rs 30 lakh per acre for dry land, he said, adding that the BJP was spreading misinformation about the scheme. The Chief Minister said that Rs 446 crore is being distributed as compensation for 900 acre of land in eight villages that fall under the UKP project area. He reiterated that the Karnataka government always fulfills its promises. He also alleged that despite repeated requests, the Union government has not granted necessary approvals for several irrigation projects in the state, including the Upper Krishna Project and the Mahadayi project. "Our (Congress) government is making every effort to ensure justice for the people of North Karnataka. We are committed to removing the regional imbalance in this region," he said. This photo taken on March 12, 2026 shows the Great Hall of the People, the venue for the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Yan) China has not only turned green concepts into development outcomes but also translated them into the language of law, setting an example for other nations, said Pavel Troshchinsky, head of the Center for Political Research and Forecasting at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences. BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers on Thursday voted to adopt the Ecological and Environmental Code at the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress. As China's second formal statutory code following the adoption of the Civil Code in 2020, the legislation aims to protect the ecological environment and promote green development through the strictest systems and the most rigorous rule of law. Overseas media and experts have closely followed the adoption of the code, calling it a milestone in the evolution of China's legal system and a valuable reference for the international community. They believe it also reflects China's long-term commitment to green transformation and addressing climate change amid a rapidly changing global landscape. This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2026 shows migratory birds perching and foraging in Yugan County, east China's Jiangxi Province. Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake and an extensive wetland, is a vital wintering and stopover site along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang) A MILESTONE IN ECOLOGICAL GOVERNANCE The code aims at safeguarding the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature, thus consolidating the country's theoretical, institutional and practical achievements in ecological conservation since 2012. The legislation marks a "very significant step in the evolution of environmental governance in the country," said Meilleur Derek Murindabigwi, CEO of IGIHE, a leading news and media group in Kigali, Rwanda. "For developing countries, this is an important signal. It demonstrates that rapid economic growth and strong environmental protection do not have to be mutually exclusive." Observers abroad are paying close attention to its concrete provisions. Ado Shaibu, a member of the Tanzanian parliament, noted that the code addresses issues closely related to daily life, including cooking fumes and noise pollution. Nasser Bouchiba, chairman of the Africa-China Cooperation Association for Development in Morocco, pointed to provisions on emerging environmental issues such as electromagnetic radiation and light pollution, calling them evidence of forward-looking legislation. Gerd Winter, emeritus professor of law at the University of Bremen in Germany, said the code brings the environmental impact of consumption patterns into the regulatory framework -- an issue often overlooked in Western development models. Eduardo Tzili-Apango, a researcher at Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, said that at a time when some countries are reverting to high-carbon development paths, China's continued strengthening of ecological and environmental institutions underscores its leading role in global environmental governance. This photo taken on Sept. 20, 2025 shows sheep foraging at a wetland of the Tarim River in Yuli County, Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) A NEW PATH TO GREEN DEVELOPMENT China's green development achievements -- from expanding vegetation around the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang to the ecological recovery of the Yangtze River, as well as the growing presence of new energy vehicles on Chinese roads -- have drawn global attention. The international community hopes the new code can provide valuable reference for other countries' green transitions. Pavel Troshchinsky, head of the Center for Political Research and Forecasting at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said China has not only turned green concepts into development outcomes but also translated them into the language of law, setting an example for other nations. China has also contributed practical environmental technologies to the world. Kenya's The Star newspaper reported that as China strengthens environmental governance, its overseas projects in Africa and other regions will benefit local communities. A commentary on Pakistan's The News International website said the code reflects China's philosophy of harmony between humanity and nature -- pursuing economic growth and public well-being while respecting the environment. Aly Abdel Aziz, an expert at Egypt's Desert Research Center, said China offers a useful reference for countries seeking to balance economic growth, legal governance and sustainable development. For years, the U.S. has felt the impact of ever-rising health care costs while facing decreasing access, affordability, and worsening clinical outcomes, as compared to other countries. Multiple disruptive forces increasingly plague our health care system, our workforce and workplaces, health care facilities, health care consumers, and our economy. 2024 reports continued to confirm these worsening conditions, in what many are calling a failing health care system. Now, recent events highlight an evolving economic non-sustainability crisis further threatening this failing system. These events include: Item 1: In 2025, the U.S. continues to accelerate as the most expensive health care system worldwide, but with the poorest outcomes of any industrialized country. Item 2: A 2025 study notes that now 35 percent of Americans no longer can afford health insurance and cannot access adequate ongoing and preventative health care. This number is estimated by some to further rise to as much as 40 percent in 2026 due to changes in health care access laws. These numbers are just 10 to 15 points shy of half of the entire American population. But Americans still get sick and still need health care (though now even sicker with no ongoing preventative care), but increasingly cannot pay for these urgent/emergent medical bills. Item 3: A 2024 report of 2022-2023 data notes that nationwide, patient collections fell to 47.8 percent. Non-payments are projected to accelerate in 2026, as insurance access and availability worsens. Item 4: Now, the largest single reason for U.S. personal bankruptcy filings is for unpayable medical bills, reported to be upwards of 66.5 percent. These numbers accelerated in 2025 and are projected to continue to worsen. Where does all this lead economically? The crushing burden of almost half of the entire population of this country increasingly unable to pay their medical bills, but still requiring urgent/emergent medical access, is an insurmountable crush point destabilizing our health care delivery system. What business can remain viable when almost half of its customers cannot pay their bills, but is still required, by law, to provide the service anyway? What country can excel or even survive when half of its citizens cannot access ongoing health care and stay well and productive? A bottom line Not addressing this access and affordability issue will lead to, among other things, economic collapse of the system. Are there solutions? There are pathways to repair this system before it fails. One option proposed by many, to better support the economic viability and health of the country, is to insure basic ongoing and preventative health care access for all Americans. This can be done through means other than increasing federal bureaucracy and taxpayer burden. There are many other options also available. Even President Trump has recently weighed in on announcing possible alternatives to Americans current health care access system. What is preventing repair? The biggest single sticking point is continued inaction by our leaders. Addressing health care delivery is a contentious and thorny issue. The current system encourages major stakeholders to oppositionally compete with each other for market share and profit, rather than working to repair the system. This continues while everyone seems to continue to believe that health care delivery is Too Big to Fail, so allowing leaders and other decision-makers to put it off and Think about it Tomorrow, thus not having to face the issue during their term. Meanwhile, our system, our citizens, our patients, our economy, and our country continue to suffer and decline. What happens if we do not act soon The economics of the current system are now unsustainable, and if not addressed soon, will lead to continued accelerations in hospital closures nationwide and further reductions in patient resources and care access, further accelerations in escalating health care costs, and increasing collapse of further parts of the nations health care delivery system. Harry Severance is an emergency physician. Patna, March 14 : Amid rising global tensions involving Iran, Israel, and the US, the district administration in Bihar's Madhubani district, on Saturday, remained on alert over the possibility of a gas shortage. The police have recovered a large number of LPG cylinders from a bicycle repair shop in Tamuriya village. The raid was carried out under the jurisdiction of the Lakhnaur police station after the police received a confidential tip-off. According to officials, the bicycle shop was allegedly being used to stockpile domestic and commercial gas cylinders for black-marketing under the pretext of bicycle sales and repair work. During the raid, police recovered dozens of commercial LPG cylinders and around two dozen domestic cylinders. In connection with the case, police arrested Laxman Mahto, son of Jaynarayan Mahto, a resident of Tamuriya village. Speaking about the case, Subodh Kumar Sinha, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of the Jhanjharpur subdivision, said that the recovered cylinders belong to Hindustan Petroleum. Authorities suspect possible involvement of local gas agency operators in the illegal stockpiling. However, officials said that no gas agency names have been disclosed yet, as the investigation is still ongoing. According to the DSP, the details of those involved will be revealed after the inquiry is completed. Meanwhile, Bhai Virendra, the Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA from Maner, criticised the Bihar government over LPG pricing and supply issues. Speaking at a commemorative event in Rohtas's Akhtiyarpur on the first death anniversary of teacher Jainendra Prasad Singh, Virendra alleged that the current LPG shortage is artificially created. He compared the situation with the time of the 2016 Demonetisation exercise, claiming that while ordinary people faced long queues, some individuals benefited through black-marketing. According to him, a similar situation is emerging now, where LPG cylinders are allegedly being hoarded and black-marketed while the public faces shortages. Virendra also claimed that such a large-scale shortage of LPG cylinders cannot occur naturally, suggesting that the crisis is being deliberately engineered to benefit certain groups. Patna, March 14 : Leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Saturday launched a fresh political attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by displaying a controversial poster in Patna. The poster was put up by Arun Kumar, state general secretary of the party, and Nasima Jalal, general secretary of the minority wing of the RJD. In the poster released by RJD leaders, the BJP was symbolically portrayed as a python, suggesting that the party could "swallow" the Chief Minister's chair in Bihar and weaken its ally, the Janata Dal-United (JD-U). RJD leaders claimed that since 2014 the BJP has expanded its influence not only by challenging opposition parties but also by gradually reducing the political space of its allies. To highlight the accusation, RJD workers included a slogan on the poster: "There is no ally whom the BJP has not deceived." The imagery was intended to criticise what the opposition party claims is the BJP's strategy of expanding its political power at the cost of its alliance partners. Reacting to the poster, RJD spokesperson Ejaz Ahmed alleged that the BJP is focused more on power politics than on public issues. "The policies of the BJP are visible here. In the NDA, there is a race among leaders to hold the post of Chief Minister. BJP is trying to take the Chief Minister's chair into its own hands. BJP leaders are not working on issues of common people; they are only aiming to grab the Chief Minister's post," Ahmed said. The poster campaign comes amid growing political speculation in Bihar regarding leadership within the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The RJD has repeatedly accused the BJP of attempting to expand its dominance within the alliance and potentially sideline its partners. However, leaders from both the BJP and JD-U have previously dismissed such allegations and maintained that the alliance remains stable. Washington, March 14 : Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has warned that actions by President Donald Trump's administration are eroding trust in American institutions, arguing that the politicisation of the Justice Department could have lasting consequences for the country's legal system. Speaking on the podcast 'The Fifth Column', Christie said the most troubling aspect of the current political climate is the damage being done to institutions that underpin the US democratic system. "What he's done with this Justice Department is the single most destructive thing about this administration. I don't think it's even close," Christie said. Christie, who served two terms as Governor of New Jersey and later ran for the Republican Presidential nomination, said the growing perception that prosecutions are politically driven could severely undermine public confidence in the rule of law. "Once you have put in the public's mind that the party of a prosecutor determines how they make their decisions versus the facts, how do you fix that?" he said. According to Christie, restoring credibility to the justice system would take significant time and political effort. "If you have any hope of restoring the Justice Department, it would take two terms to get that done," he said. Christie also said the impact of the current environment is already being felt in the courtroom, where judges are becoming increasingly sceptical of government claims. "Judges are not accepting on face value assertions of facts by the government because of what this Justice Department has done," he said. The former Governor further criticised the political dynamics within the Republican Party, saying many lawmakers support Trump publicly because they fear political retaliation. "It's not as much about Trump," Christie said. "It's about their fear of Trump. And their fear of Trump is not personal. It's political." He said many Republican leaders worry that opposing the President could lead to primary challenges backed by Trump, potentially ending their political careers. "They don't want a primary where Trump goes and endorses somebody else, and they lose their job," he said. "That's what it's all about." Despite his criticism, Christie said he has not yet reached the point where he would leave the Republican Party, although he acknowledged that the party has changed significantly in recent years. "I'm not prepared to do that yet," he said when asked whether he might abandon the party. Christie argued that the party has increasingly become centred around loyalty to Trump rather than consistent political principles. "There are no principles left in my party," he said. "The only principle is Trump." Christie once chaired Trump's presidential transition team in 2016 but later emerged as one of the most outspoken Republican critics of the President. He said the current political moment reflects a broader transformation within the party and the country's political system. Trump remains the dominant figure in Republican politics, reshaping the party around his populist message and personal brand. Christie suggested that the political landscape could change once Trump eventually leaves the stage. "Donald Trump has to leave, and he will leave," Christie said, adding that the transition period could significantly reshape American politics. New Delhi, March 14 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two Head Constables of Delhi Police's Sultanpuri police station while demanding and accepting illegal gratification of Rs 20,000 from a complainant linked to online betting, an official said on Saturday. Head Constables Rajesh and Ajay were booked on Friday on the complaint of Mul Chand, the CBI said. The two were booked by the federal agency under penal provisions dealing with criminal conspiracy and demand of an undu advantage by public servant. A verification report prepared by CBI before filing the FIR said, "During verification prima facie it is established that Rajesh and Ajay, beat staff of the Sultanpuri Police Station, by abuse of their official position demanded illegal gratification/undue advantage (amount is not specified) from complainant Mul Chand to allow him to discontinue his online betting activities." In his complaint, Mul Chand admitted that in the past he was involved in betting activities and wanted to discontinue it but the two policemen threatened him to implicate in a false case. On receiving the complaint, the CBI laid a trap on Friday and caught both the accused red-handed while demanding and accepting the illegal gratification/undue advantage of Rs 20,000 from the complainant. The strict action by the central agency against corrupt public servants underscores its firm commitment to curbing corruption, a statement said. The federal agency said that citizens, who come across instances of corruption or are subjected to demands for bribes by public officials, are encouraged to report such matters. The official statement said that complainants may visit the CBI Building in New Delhi's Lodhi Road, or call on 011-24367887 and mobile number 9650394847 to lodge their complaints or share any relevant information. New Delhi, March 14 : The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has formally notified the restoration of Ex-Servicemen (ESM) status to officers of the Military Nursing Service (MNS), a move that marks a significant recognition of their contribution to the Armed Forces. The decision comes through an amendment to the Ex-Servicemen (Re-employment in Central Civil Services and Posts) Rules, 1979, which now explicitly includes MNS officers under the definition of Ex-Servicemen, the DoPT said in a post on X. The post said, MNS officers, commissioned in the Indian Army, form a vital component of the Armed Forces Medical Services. They serve across Army, Navy, and Air Force medical establishments, providing critical nursing care in military hospitals, supporting operations during emergencies, and attending to casualties in hostile and demanding environments. Their role has long been acknowledged as indispensable, yet the absence of formal parity with other service personnel in post-retirement benefits had remained a point of contention. With the amendment, MNS officers will now enjoy the full spectrum of benefits accorded to Ex-Servicemen. These include age relaxation and reservation in Central government services, educational reservation for their wards, and enhanced career security after retirement. The reform ensures that MNS officers are treated on par with their counterparts in other branches of the Armed Forces, reinforcing both dignity and welfare. The government has underscored that the reform takes immediate effect, reflecting its commitment to the welfare of Ex-Servicemen and recognition of the invaluable service rendered by MNS officers. By restoring their status, the move not only addresses a long-standing demand but also strengthens the morale of serving personnel, assuring them of equitable treatment once they retire. This restoration is more than a bureaucratic correction; it is a reaffirmation of the nationas gratitude to those who have served in uniform, often under extreme conditions, to safeguard lives. For MNS officers, who have stood at the frontline of medical care in war and peace, the recognition ensures that their sacrifices and service are honoured with tangible support in civilian life. The decision is expected to open wider avenues for their re-employment, while also securing educational and social opportunities for their families, thereby weaving their contribution more firmly into the fabric of national service. Jaipur, March 14 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Saturday directed officials to maintain strict vigilance over the LPG cylinder distribution system and ensure prompt action against hoarding and black marketing. Chairing a review meeting at the Chief Ministeras Office, Sharma said there is no shortage of domestic LPG cylinders in the state and that uninterrupted supply is being ensured for common consumers. The Chief Minister emphasised the need to maintain public confidence regarding the availability of LPG. He instructed officials to take immediate action if any irregularity or misuse is detected. Sharma also directed authorities to promptly address complaints received through government helplines 181, 112 and 14435 on a priority basis. He further ordered strict monitoring of individuals spreading rumours or misleading information about LPG shortages and warned that the strictest action would be taken against them. During the meeting, Rajasthan Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Sumit Godara said the state government is closely monitoring the LPG supply chain to ensure smooth distribution. He said the entire process -- from stock availability to final delivery to consumers -- is being tracked, while teams of officials are conducting inspections on the ground and taking action wherever required. A representative of the oil companies, acting as the state-level coordinator, also briefed the meeting on the current stock position and supply of LPG across the state. Several senior officials were present at the review meeting. Meanwhile, the Central government on Saturday said that domestic LPG production has been increased by about 31 per cent as part of measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of cooking gas amid the evolving geopolitical situation in West Asia. The update came during the fourth inter-ministerial media briefing, where officials from the Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, External Affairs, Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and Information and Broadcasting shared updates on energy supplies, maritime operations and the safety of Indian nationals in the region. Officials from the Petroleum Ministry said all refineries in the country are operating at high levels and maintaining adequate crude oil inventories. India remains self-sufficient in the production of petrol and diesel and does not require imports to meet domestic demand, according to officials. They also said there have been no cases of fuel dry-outs at petrol pumps across the country, urging consumers not to resort to panic buying as adequate stocks of petrol and diesel are available. Jaipur, March 14 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on Saturday directed officials and district administrations to ensure effective drinking water management across every village and town during the summer season, stating that the public should not face any water scarcity. Chairing a review meeting at the Chief Ministeras Office on pre-summer preparations, Sharma said officials must strictly monitor the implementation of the stateas summer contingency plan. He instructed departments to complete all preparations -- including the installation of new hand pumps and tube wells and the repair of existing pumps, pipelines and water infrastructure -- before the peak summer months. The Chief Minister warned that no negligence would be tolerated in ensuring uninterrupted water supply. Sharma directed officials of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and the electricity department to work in close coordination. He said all drinking water-related complaints received on the state helpline 181 must be resolved within 24 hours. He also asked officials to reduce supply intervals in areas where drinking water is currently provided once every 48, 72 or 96 hours. Officials informed the meeting that a comprehensive contingency plan has been prepared for both rural and urban areas across all 41 districts. District Collectors presented region-specific action plans, including strategies for canal-fed areas in Bikaner, desert districts such as Jodhpur, tube-well dependent regions like Dungarpur, and tribal and hilly areas in Udaipur. Sharma also announced that the aViksit Grama"Shahari Warda (Developed Villagea"Urban Ward) campaign will be launched on March 19 as part of the stateas development initiatives. The programme aims to prepare development master plans at the Gram Panchayat and urban ward levels. He said the initiative will focus on planned development in areas such as education, healthcare, drinking water, electricity and road infrastructure, while also identifying opportunities for small and micro industries in both rural and urban areas. Highlighting environmental efforts, the Chief Minister said nearly 190 million saplings have been planted across the state over the past two years, while a target of more than 100 million saplings has been set for the current year. He directed officials to identify suitable plantation sites in advance and promote the planting of fruit-bearing trees suited to local ecological conditions, noting that such plantations can support both agricultural productivity and water conservation. The meeting was attended by PHED Minister Kanhaiya Lal, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sumit Godara, Chief Secretary V. Srinivas and other senior officials, while several Divisional Commissioners and District Collectors joined via video conference. Agartala, March 14 : Tipra Motha Party (TMP) supremo Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma on Saturday alleged that there was a conspiracy to split the tribal-based party, which is currently an ally of the ruling BJP in Tripura. Addressing a mass gathering at the headquarters of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) in Khumulwng, Debbarma said that Chief Minister Manik Saha, while addressing a public rally at Dhumachara in Dhalai district, announced that the BJP would field candidates in all 28 seats in the upcoming TTAADC elections. "By announcing that the BJP will contest all 28 seats, the Chief Minister has effectively broken the alliance between the two parties. We are not breaking the alliance; the Chief Minister himself has split it," the TMP chief said. He added that if the BJP fields candidates in all 28 seats, the "Tiprasa people" (tribals) would defeat the BJP in the upcoming polls. "Our aim is to maintain unity among all tribal communities. Among the tribals, there are people who belong to both Christian and Hindu faiths, but we are not doing politics along religious lines. Tribals are very poor and our party is fighting for their economic, constitutional and land rights," said Debbarma, a former royal scion. The TMP chief's remarks came amid media reports that a section of TMP legislators, including a minister, might join the BJP before the TTAADC elections. Chief Minister Manik Saha on Thursday dismissed reports that TMP leader and Forest Minister Animesh Debbarma and a few other party MLAs were planning to join the BJP, calling them rumours. Since 2021, the Tipra Motha Party has governed the politically significant 30-member council, which comprises 28 elected members and two nominated by the state government. In the 2021 TTAADC elections, the BJP contested 11 seats and won nine, while a BJP-supported independent candidate also secured victory. The TMP won 18 seats and wrested control of the council from the CPI(M)-led Left Front. The council covers nearly two-thirds of Tripura's 10,491 sq km area and is home to more than 12.16 lakh people, around 84 per cent of whom belong to indigenous communities. Ahead of the upcoming TTAADC polls, major political parties, including the BJP, its allies Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and the Tipra Motha Party, as well as opposition parties such as the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Indian National Congress, have intensified efforts to consolidate support among tribal voters. The elections to the TTAADC are expected to be held in April. Tribals constitute nearly one-third of Tripura's total population of about 4.2 million, making the upcoming council elections a crucial political contest in the state. The tribal-based TMP, led by Debbarma, has been a junior partner in the ruling BJP-led government since March 2024. After prolonged negotiations, the TMP, then in the opposition, signed a tripartite agreement with the Centre and the Tripura government on March 2, 2024, in the presence of Union Home Minister Shah. Subsequently, the party, which has 13 MLAs, joined the BJP-led coalition government on March 7, 2024, adding a new dimension to the state's political dynamics. Two TMP MLAs -- Animesh Debbarma and Brishaketu Debbarma -- were inducted into the ministry led by Chief Minister Manik Saha. Kolkata, March 14 : The Election Commission (EC), on Saturday, sought a detailed report from the Kolkata Police Commissioner Supratim Sarkar on the Trinamool Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clashes in the city. The EC also sought a report on the attack at West Bengal Minister Shashi Panja's residence in the aftermath of clashes, a senior state government official. The poll panel further sought a detailed explanation as to why central paramilitary forces, which have already been deployed in the state for the upcoming Assembly polls, were not used to control the situation. It may be noted that thirty companies of central police forces have been stationed in Kolkata to maintain law and order ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally, stones were allegedly hurled at the residence of State Minister Shashi Panja in Kolkata's Girish Park area. Trinamool Congress workers claimed that BJP activists committed these acts while en route to Prime Minister Modi's rally at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground. Minister Panja alleged that she, too, was attacked during the incident. The BJP has issued a counter-allegation, claiming that Trinamool Congress workers threw bricks at their activists as they were marching through Girish Park area. The Girish Park area effectively turned into a battlefield over this incident. Immediately following the occurrence, police force from the Bowbazar Police Station arrived at the site along with the Rapid Action Force. While attempting to bring the situation under control, Bappaditya Naskar, the Officer-in-Charge of the Bowbazar Police Station, sustained injuries from bricks thrown during the clash; additionally, several other police personnel were also injured in the incident. Minister Panja, the victim of the attack, said, "Today, on their way to the Brigade rally or rather, the 'B-Grade' rally, BJP workers unleashed a rampage right in front of my home. While our colleagues were putting up flex banners, a mob of goons wearing BJP caps -- who were travelling in a bus turned violent while chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'." Jaipur, March 14 : Two friends were hacked to death with swords in Rajasthan's Udaipur district, while a grocery shopkeeper who tried to intervene was critically injured in the attack, police said on Saturday. Jaipur, March 14 (IANS) Two friends were hacked to death with swords in Rajasthanas Udaipur district, while a grocery shopkeeper who tried to intervene was critically injured in the attack, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday night in Sailana village in the Jhadol region of the district. According to police, Suresh (25), son of Amrit Ahari, and Bhairulal (27), son of Prabhulal Badgoja -- both residents of Richhawar village -- had set out for Sailana on a motorcycle around 8 p.m. when they were intercepted by a group of miscreants riding motorcycles. The attackers allegedly assaulted the two men with swords and other weapons, killing them on the spot. Sumit (30), son of Rupji, who runs a grocery shop nearby, heard the commotion and attempted to intervene. The attackers also assaulted him, leaving him critically injured. Villagers rushed to the spot after hearing the disturbance, but the assailants had already fled by the time they arrived. The injured shopkeeper was taken by ambulance to the Jhadol sub-district hospital and later referred to Udaipur for further treatment after receiving first aid. Following the incident, tension prevailed in the village, and residents staged protests on Saturday demanding the immediate arrest of the accused. To maintain law and order, police personnel from six police stations have been deployed in the area. Baghpura Station House Officer (SHO) Velaram said police teams have been formed to track down the accused and investigations are underway. After receiving information about the incident, Baghpura police reached the crime scene and conducted an inspection. The bodies were later sent to the Jhadol mortuary for post-mortem examination. Police said that the victims were identified with the help of villagers and their families were informed. Officials said the investigation is also examining the possibility of an old rivalry behind the attack. Suresh reportedly worked at a fast-food restaurant in Baghpura. Villagers and family members staged a protest at the crime scene demanding the immediate arrest of the accused. They also sought compensation of Rs 50 lakh each and a government job for the families of the deceased. Additional SP Anjana Sukhwal, Tehsildar Sitaram and DSP Vivek Singh Rao reached the spot and held discussions with the villagers in an attempt to pacify them. However, villagers remained firm on their demands, and the families of the deceased reportedly refused to accept the bodies, stating that they may stage another protest on Sunday. SHO Velaram said several individuals have been named as accused in the case and police teams have been dispatched to different locations to apprehend them. Police personnel from Babalwara, Pahada, Jhadol, Baghpura, Ogna and Falasiya police stations, along with additional forces from the Police Lines, have been deployed in the area. Jhadol DSP Vivek Singh Rao said police teams are actively searching for the accused. Bengaluru, March 14 : FlipKart announced on Saturday that the milk sale for Rs 1 has stirred a controversy in Karnataka. The Karnataka government has sought intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also said that it would approach the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Addressing the media in Bengaluru, Bangalore Urban, Rural and Ramanagara District Co-operative Milk Producers' Societies Union Limited (BAMUL) President D.K. Suresh made the statement in this regard. Suresh emphasised that the FlipKart's move could severely affect the farming community in the state. He also said that a complaint would be filed against Flipkart with the CCI in New Delhi for allegedly offering one litre of milk for Rs 1. He added that he would send an email to Prime Minister Modi seeking intervention in the matter. "Flipkart has come forward to sell one litre of milk for just Rs 1 in its rush to make money. This is an act that could destroy the farming community. The Central and state governments must immediately take action. Otherwise, the situation may lead to protests across the country," Suresh said. He noted that such aggressive competition aimed at capturing the market would eventually hurt farmers. "Nearly Rs 2,000 crore has reportedly been spent on this. It is not appropriate to misuse shareholders' money in this manner," he said. Suresh alleged that the move could weaken long-standing cooperative milk unions that have existed since before independence. "Multinational companies are harming the interests of farmers. FlipKart must clearly state in its advertisement how long it intends to sell milk at such a low price. Flipkart must withdraw from this move which harms the farming community," he said. Suresh added that about 14.5 lakh litres of milk had already been sold under the scheme and that advertisements had been widely circulated. "Public money is being invested to attract customers. The company must disclose how long it plans to continue selling milk at this price," he said. Responding to a query on whether the sales of Nandini milk had declined, Suresh said that there were many companies in the market. "It is not just Nandini milk. Sales in the BAMUL union have reduced by around 40,000 to 50,000 litres. We need to find out since when this decline started," he added. When asked whether other organisations were behind the move, Suresh said information was still being gathered. "I have seen a couple of advertisements. I will also discuss this with officials. It is not right to harm the farming community in the name of business. It is even more concerning if people within the country are doing this," he added. He said that farmers were currently being paid between Rs 38 and Rs 40 per litre for milk. "How can someone sell milk for Rs 1 per litre? We need to know from whom they are procuring milk and where it is coming from," he added. Suresh urged the media to highlight the issue at the national level and stand with farmers. "I call upon farmers to launch protests. The Union government must take precautionary measures," he said. Asked whether farmers should be advised not to sell milk to such companies, Suresh noted that it was difficult to trace the exact sources of procurement. "We do not know from where they are sourcing milk, whether from bulk producers or elsewhere. I am also arranging for samples to check whether milk powder is being mixed. The samples will be tested in a laboratory. If cooperative institutions suffer setbacks, the direct impact will fall on farmers," he said. Ahmedabad, March 14 : With an emphasis on giving greater space to younger leaders in the upcoming local body elections, the Gujarat Congress unit held a series of strategy meetings of its newly formed election committees in Ahmedabad on Saturday. The meetings, attended by State Congress In-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Wasnik, reviewed organisational preparations for the elections, including coordination between various committees, the process of selecting candidates and planning the campaign across the state. According to party sources, the deliberations lasted about five hours, with each committee holding separate sessions. "The meetings were the first since the committees were constituted, and members were given guidance on their roles and responsibilities," a senior party leader told IANS. Party sources said three to four additional meetings are planned in the coming weeks, with the next meeting expected towards the end of the month, while the state leadership will also hold virtual meetings to review preparations. Wasnik said the upcoming local elections were important for the party and that preparations are being carried out through coordinated organisational planning. "These elections are extremely important for the Congress and we will enter the field with a strong strategy through coordination between the organisation, leaders and workers," he said, adding that various committees had been formed across the state to ensure systematic planning. The committees constituted for the elections include the Strategy Committee, Campaign Committee, Programme Implementation Committee, Election Management Committee, Manifesto Committee, Media Committee and Publicity Committee. Apart from the chairman, vice-chairman and convener, each committee will have around 15 to 20 members assisting in coordination and implementation of tasks, party sources said. Discussions during the meetings also included a zone-wise approach to election preparations and a focus on different sectors during outreach activities. Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee President Amit Chavda said the party had also initiated steps to encourage wider participation from society in the elections. "For the upcoming local self-government elections, the Congress has taken a special initiative to encourage good, dedicated and honest people from society to enter politics," he added. Arrangements had been made in metropolitan areas for aspirants to apply through QR codes so that "individuals engaged in public life, those working on people's issues and those wishing to contest elections with the party's ideology could submit applications directly". At the same time, the party organisation is conducting hearings with potential candidates at the city, district and taluka levels in the presence of regional observers. Party sources said the candidate selection process would place significant emphasis on younger leaders, with nearly half of the tickets expected to be allotted to candidates below the age of 50. Mumbai, March 14 : Maharashtra's Minister of State for Home, Yogesh Kadam, clarified on Saturday that domestic consumers need not worry about any shortage of cooking gas following the Central government's decision to halt supplies for commercial purposes. He emphasised that household LPG distribution remains smooth and unaffected across the country. Speaking to news agency IANS, Kadam said that the Centre has directed oil companies to stop providing gas for all commercial uses nationwide due to current global challenges. However, he reassured citizens that adequate stocks are available for home use, with no interruptions expected. "We have sufficient gas in reserve, and there is no reason for anyone to panic. Domestic supply will continue without any break," he said. The Minister urged people to use cooking gas responsibly and avoid wastage. He pointed to the ongoing war in the Middle East as a factor requiring caution, saying that conservation is essential during this period of international tension. Despite the conflict disrupting energy routes for many nations, Minister Kadam highlighted that India's supply chains have remained stable, thanks to strong diplomatic relations maintained by the Union government. Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign policy, the Minister said that India's global standing has risen significantly since PM Modi took office. He credited the Prime Minister for building robust ties with countries worldwide, including Iran, which has ensured continued gas deliveries even amid the crisis. "PM Modi has elevated India's respect on the international stage and forged strong diplomatic connections with every nation. This is why, despite the war, our friendly relations with Iran have kept supplies steady. Just yesterday, a large oil tanker arrived in India," he noted. Minister Kadam added that the benefits of these international relationships are now directly reaching ordinary citizens by safeguarding essential supplies like domestic LPG. He described PM Modi's approach as unmatched, saying no previous Prime Minister has worked in such a dedicated manner to strengthen India's position abroad and protect national interests during tough times. The clarification comes as reports indicate disruptions in commercial LPG availability, affecting hotels, restaurants, and industries in various parts of the country, including Mumbai. The Centre has prioritised household needs, hospitals, and essential sectors while encouraging alternatives for non-domestic users. Minister Kadam's statement aims to calm public concerns and promote mindful consumption to maintain stability until global conditions improve. In February 24, 2022, Andrey Kurkov, one of Ukraines most acclaimed novelists, woke up to the news that Russia had invaded his country. For the next two-plus years, Kurkovwho moved from Russia to Ukraine with his parents when he was two years oldput fiction writing on hold and worked as a journalist and commentator covering the war. In the beginning of the full-scale invasion I took this as my mission, because this was the best I could do for Ukraine, Kurkov says via Zoom from Barcelona, where he was speaking at an event about the conflict. At first, I was upset by my inability to concentrate on fiction, but I couldnt hide inside of a story. I had to be aware of what was happening on the front lines. In 2024, Kurkov returned to fiction and completed The Lost Soldiers, which will be published in May by HarperVia. I was unnaturally excited when I finished it, he says. It was a bit over the top, my state of euphoria. The novel, which is translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk, is the third installment in Kurkovs bestselling Kyiv Mysteries, a surrealist historical crime series set in Kyiv in 1919, when multiple factions were fighting for control of the region. My way back to being a novelist was a very tough experience, Kurkov admits. I have been writing about the war every day. And I turned into a journalist, an essayist, instead of a novelist. Kurkov often writes about Ukrainian life and identity, particularly after WWI and in the post-Soviet era; the impact of war, corruption, and authoritarianism; and the absurdities of the Communist state. Hes the author of numerous novels, including Death and the Penguin; Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv; Grey Bees, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2022; and The Silver Bone, the first installment in the Kyiv Mysteries, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. He has received the Halldor Laxness International Literature Prize and the Prix Medicis etranger, and his books have been translated into more than 45 languages, according to Diogenes Verlag, his Swiss publisher. The Kyiv Mysteries centers on rookie detective Samson Kolechko, whose right ear, which was cut off in an attack by a Cossack fighter, can somehow still hear, and is used by Samson as a surveillance tool in his investigations. In The Lost Soldiers, Samson is tapped to look into the disappearance of 28 Red Army soldiers from a local bathhouse and plants his ear in the clothing of a bathhouse worker to gather information. He eavesdrops on suspects, interviews grumpy locals, and with each step seems to move further from the truth. Along the way, he deals with other, less pressing cases, including the petty theft of canned food, in a city where laws change on a whim, red tape reigns, and everyones a little dishonestand hungry. The novel, which also features Samsons wife, Nadezhda, and his friend, Kholodny, a former priest, has the narrative pull of an Alexander McCall Smith mystery and the dystopian surrealism of a Kafka story. While unpacking the case of the missing soldiers, Samson, who is himself being spied on by the secret police, finds a human bone in an incineratora discovery that takes him on a few absurd detours, revealing the corroding effects of oppression and bureaucracy. Kurkov was inspired to start the series nearly a decade ago, when an acquaintance brought him a cache of original documents from Kyivs Cheka (a predecessor of the KGB), which operated in the city during the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war. I learned a lot about daily life from these files, Kurkov says. And, in a way, it helped me to live in todays Kyiv, because I understand that in spite of all the dangers we have, life in Kyiv in 1919 was much more unpredictable. Every few weeks thered be a new army, with new rules and a list of people who should be arrested or executed. It was very dangerous. Juan Mila, Kurkovs editor, applauds the author for his ability to combine history and mystery in inventive ways. Andrey is incapable of not being original, Mila says. You go from one sentence to the next and theres always a little surprise, always something new. Kurkov was born in 1961 near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and grew up in Kyiv. He wrote his first existential poem, about his lonely pet hamster, at age seven, and kept a collection of cacti, which he grew using seeds bought on the black market. In 1983, he graduated from the Kiev State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, and was employed for a time as a prison warden in Odesa as part of his mandatory military service. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he arranged to have reams of paper shipped to him from Kazakhstan and self-published his books, often selling them in the town square. I made myself an inscription that read I am the author and wore it around my neck, he recalls. During the period when Kurkov was handselling his books, he was also sending query letters to publishers across Europe, with some help from a friend in Poland. In the late 90s, Diogenes Verlag agreed to publish his novel Death and the Penguin, which became an international bestseller. I assume I have the biggest collection of rejection letters in Ukraine, Kurkov says. For years I spent hours preparing synopses and packaging them. Dralyuk, Kurkovs translator, has been bringing the authors books to English readers for a decade and was working on the first installment of the Kyiv Mysteries when Russia invaded Ukraine. I fell in love with Samson, this kind of Candide character, Dralyuk says. Hes working cases that not just reflect the chaos of that time but foreshadow the terrible things to come under Soviet rule: the growth of red tape, the arbitrary imposition of justicejustice only in the eyes, perhaps, of the bureaucrats running the show. Kurkov, whose books are banned in Russia, speaks multiple languages, including German and French, and sometimes gets criticized in Ukraine for writing his novels in Russian, his first language. Im hated by lots of Ukrainian intellectuals, he admits. Russian is considered the language of the enemy. But I cannot write the same quality text in Ukrainian as I can in my mother tongue. In his fiction, Kurkov displays a gift for balancing dark moments with surrealism, magical realism, and black humor. Things never get too bleak in a Kurkov novel, and thats by design. I like dramatic stories, but I dont like the effect they usually have on readers, he says. I dont want my readers to become depressed by the stories I tell. Black humor helps to create emotional distance between unhappy or tragic events and the reader. Im trying always to leave a hope, that something will be better in the future. Elaine Szewczyks writing has appeared in McSweeneys and other publications. Shes the author of the novel Im with Stupid. Disney/Bahareh Ritter By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 03/13/2026 ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. star Taylor Frankie Paul has admitted she doesn't care if people are questioning her intentions for starring on Season 22.Taylor, a 31-year-old mother of three kids, has already amassed more than seven million followers across her social media accounts after creating the #MomTok sensation, and she also stars on Hulu's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which premiered its fourth season on March 12.Given Taylor has also been through a divorce as well as a highly-publicized breakup with ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, many fans have been questioning her motivation for taking on role."I don't really care," Taylor told Us Weekly in a new cover-story interview.Taylor, who wrapped filming late last year, continued, "I didn't have to do this... There was no other reason for me to do this other than I wanted to get outside of Utah and the toxicity that I'm in and venture off and really do something for myself."Taylor insisted starring on wasn't about skyrocketing her fame, gaining more followers, or even getting engaged again."Who gets this opportunity as a single mom to just purely focus on dating and love and yourself? It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity ," Taylor shared."That is why I was there. And anyone that doesn't want to believe that, that's their own issue."Taylor is known for being unapologetically herself, sharing her mistakes and the messy parts of her life.Taylor often opens up about her mental health, and she's a huge advocate of being one's authentic and genuine self.After ABC selected Taylor to star on 's 22nd season in September 2025, the network described her as "raw" in her storytelling, which provides fans with "comedic, heartwarming and bitingly-honest content.""[Taylor] shares the highs and lows of her life with unfiltered candor," ABC said. "With humor, resilience and a fearless openness, she inspires others to embrace life's chaos and own their story."But Taylor's casting has also been met with backlash, as she's not ABC's typical cookie-cutter Bachelorette.Taylor was famously wrapped up in a soft-swinging scandal with her ex-husband Tate Paul in which she admitted to breaking the couple's rules by being more intimate with a man in their Mormon social circle.Following Taylor's May 2022 divorce from Tate -- with whom she shares daughter, Indy, 8, and son Ocean, 5 -- she began dating Dakota.Taylor publicly confirmed her romance with Dakota in July 2022, and then in 2023, she was arrested for assault and other charges stemming from a fight with him.Taylor and Dakota eventually welcomed son Ever True in March 2024, but they broke up before the end of that year.Taylor didn't publicly confirm her split from Dakota until early 2025; however, she admitted on Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" podcast that she hooked up with Dakota following their split.The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' third season showed Dakota and Taylor contemplating a reconciliation last year, but allegations Dakota had sexted Taylor's family friend ruined any chance of that happening.Taylor also accused a former friend of sleeping with Dakota in late October.A teaser for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' fourth season shows Taylor in bed with Dakota shortly before leaving to film 's 22nd season.While some viewers -- and maybe even some of Taylor's 22 bachelors -- didn't think Taylor was ready for , Taylor said "it was a choice" to move on from Dakota."Ready, at the end of the day, is a decision," Taylor told Us."So I made the decision to leave for two months and try. I reassured them that was why I was here."Dakota, for his part, revealed earlier this year that he just wants the best for Taylor and was seeing someone new Taylor also shared that there was something "freeing" about her 22 bachelors being aware of her messy past, even though it meant she didn't always "look the best."Despite going through two very public and highly-scrutinized breakups, Taylor said she still believes in love, whether marriage is in the cards for her again or not.Taylor concluded that she's "happy" after filming , which is set to premiere on Sunday, March 22 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.Interested in more The Bachelor news? Follow our Bachelor Nation News Page on Facebook or join our The Bachelor Facebook Group 'Refiners may soon be forced to adjust operations, curtailing runs as product exports stall and directing output solely to domestic markets.' IMAGE: An LPG gas tanker at anchor as traffic is down in the Strait of Hormuz, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Shinas, Oman, March 11, 2026. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/File Photo/Reuters Key Points Up to 2 million barrels per day of Gulf refining capacity is at risk due to escalating Middle East conflict. India imports about 65% of its LPG consumption, with 80% sourced from Middle Eastern suppliers. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz could force Gulf refiners to cut operations and redirect output to domestic markets. Bahrain and Kuwait face the highest risk as their refining systems rely entirely on exports through Hormuz. Energy infrastructure disruptions have already occurred in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during the conflict. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has put up to 2 million barrels per day (mbpd) of Gulf refining capacity under threat, according to Norway-based energy research firm Rystad Energy. India imports 65 per cent of its total LPG consumption, with 80 per cent of those imports sourced from Middle Eastern nations like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These shipments transit through the Strait of Hormuz, making India's supply sensitive to regional geopolitical tensions. 'As the Strait of Hormuz remains closed in the wake of the US-Iran military escalation, Gulf countries' oil inventory levels are reaching maximum capacity, posing serious challenges for regionally based refiners,' Rystad Energy said in a report. 'Refiners may soon be forced to adjust operations, curtailing runs as product exports stall and directing output solely to domestic markets.' It added that as of now, Bahrain and Kuwait face the highest operational risk due to their export-dependent refining systems that offer zero alternative routes. Gulf Refiners Face Operational Pressure "Production shut-ins and refining cuts will likely continue across the region as the war rages on, threatening 2 mbpd of global oil supply if the strait remains impassable for the next six weeks," said Pankaj Srivastava, Senior Vice President, Commodity Markets - Oil at Rystad Energy. Three key factors, Srivastava explained, will determine the resilience of refining systems across the Gulf -- bypassing the Strait through alternate export routes, the balance of domestic product demand and refining capacity and product exports as a ratio of current refinery runs. Qatar, UAE Facilities Hit By Attacks Most impacts since the start of the conflict have been precautionary or limited in scope. Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait remained operational after debris damage, while Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura -- already offline for scheduled maintenance that began the last week of January -- extended its outage window following drone attacks and a debris-related fire. The most significant operational curtailments were in Qatar, where LNG production ceased at Ras Laffan and Mesaieed, according to Rystad. In the UAE, drones caused a fire at Fujairah storage tanks and ADNOC's Ruwais complex. Although the unit struck has not been disclosed, reports indicate the Ruwais West refinery was taken offline as a precaution, with no injuries. Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff This article was first published 22 years ago You know how it is when you see a good film. You are riveted to the screen, popcorn and samosa forgotten. You are there, in the film, with everything happening on screen. The intermission actually comes as a relief. You return to reality, remember to breathe again, chuck the samosa and stock up on the cold drinks. The lights dim and you are back, engrossed; your face a reflection of the emotions unfolding before your eyes. Post Your Own Review! Write your own review of MSAMD! When the movie ends, you are a bit fuzzy, but quite pleased. As you walk out into the bright sunlight, you don't even mind the slight headache at the sudden contrast from the dim confines of the theatre.This Friday, you decide to watch Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost, starring Abhishek Bachchan and Lara Dutta. The television promos are interesting, the songs have caught your fancy and Lara Dutta looks good! Besides, the film has a very Lagaan-ish look. This is the director's first film, but Apoorva Lakhia seemed like someone who knew his job. After all, he assisted Mira Nair while she was making Kamasutra. He also assisted Ang Lee on The Ice Storm and Andrew Davis on The Perfect Murder. And he assisted Ashutosh Gowariker on Lagaan. When the film opens with Amitabh Bachchan's baritone informing you this is the story of an Indian village that has just received electricity for the first time in its existence, the premise seems interesting. As is the first shot: a group of villagers, some battling the darkness with lanterns, staring up at the camera expectantly. Suddenly, a bulb lights up. There is much jubilation and excitement. Their village finally has electricity. And then, Amitabh informs us, a gift arrives that will affect the lives of every one of the villagers. Cut to Abhishek (Kanji), sitting on the roof of an overcrowded bus, swathed in a blanket, kohl-lined eyes peering intensely at the camera, much like his debut film Refugee. He is on his way to his village after staying in the city for 10 years. The gift he bears is a television set and a dish antenna. He connects it up and, voila, there's a lion roaring regally on the screen as the villagers scramble for safety. As the villagers continue to be obsessed by the seemingly magical television set, Kanji roams the village in the company of his childhool pal Surya (Aditya Lakhia), falls in love with Kesar aka KC (Lara) and has one meeting with the village's Thakur (Yashpal Sharma) that firmly draws the line between hero and villain. Eventually, the battle is fought, recorded by a television camera crew that providentially arrives at the spot. The hero wins, but there is no catharsis. You are wondering: How did so many things go wrong? Let us start with the weak and disjointed script that destroyed what seems to be a potentially funny premise. Or should one talk about the comedy that falls flat as the villagers attempt to ape what they see on television in their real lives? Or about characters that have been etched so thin that you wonder how they actually exist? Or, maybe, we should talk about miscasting. Aditya, who was so endearing as Kachra in Lagaan, is a huge disappointment. His screentime is only slightly lesser than Abhishek's, but he wastes it completely with poor acting. Actors like Yashpal Sharma, Dayashankar Pandey and Akhilendra Mishra, who were so unforgettable as Lakha, Goli and Arjan in Lagaan, are weak caricatures here. Comparisons can be annoying and, in some cases, unfair. In this case, they can't be helped. The film's huge Lagaan hangover works to its detriment. You constantly remember how good that film was as against how shallow this one is. Even the pre-battle song, Jeetenge baazi hum, is not a patch on Lagaan's Baar baar haan. If Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost has a plus point, it lies in most of its foot-tapping song and dance numbers. And in Lara Dutta, who does exactly what a Bollywood heroine is supposed to do: be a fetching distraction. As for Abhishek Bachchan, Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost is not going to provide him with the hit he so desperately needs. You keep seeing his father in the way he acts, and you keep realising the son has a long way to go. When some rediff.com readers were critical of Apoorva's interview that appeared on the site, this is what the young, much-tattooed director had to say. Subject: I blame Abhishek: Apoorva Please try to see the pain one took to make the film. It is definitely going to get nominated for the Oscars you see. However if not an Oscar, a National Award will definitely do good for the whole crew. From the early review it looks excellent Posted by Apoorva Lakhia on 13-MAY-03 Unfortunately, the movie does not live up to that promise. CREDITS Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Lara Dutta, Aditya Lakhia, Yashpal Sharma, Snehal Lakhia (grandfather), Dayashankar Pandey, Akhilendra Mishra, Shubro Bhattacharya (Abdul), with a special appearance by Raageshwari, Chunky Pandey and Rajendra Gupta Director: Apoorva Lakhia Producer: Vishal Nihalani Music: Anu Malik Cinematography: Gururaj R J Post your own review of this film! Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra is a riveting film that successfully captures one of the most celebrated event of the Maratha warrior king's life on screen, notes Ishaan Zore. Key Points Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra is based on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's daring escape from Agra, from under the nose of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who had kept him under house arrest. Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra is two hours and 47 minutes long. The film is a must watch for the way it has handled a historic event. Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra: A king who didn't cower Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra (loosely translates to 'Victor of battlefields' Shivaji Maharaj's Agra visit) is a historical Marathi film based on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's daring escape from Agra, from under the nose of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who had kept him under house arrest. While the film traces the key phases of Chhatrapati Shivaji's strategic military campaigns, political manoeuvering, brilliant planning and execution and the great escape from Agra when the situation gets life-threatening, Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra's heart lies in one of the most dramatic and celebrated episodes in the Maratha warrior's life -- his escape from Agra, highlighting Shivaji's rule as that of a king who didn't lose his presence of mind or cower even under life-threatening circumstances. Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra also glorifies Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his fellow Marathas' many military successes which relied on silent ambushes, speed and guerrilla warfare rather than brute military force. The scenes that take your breath away in Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra becomes riveting when Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj roars in Aurangzeb's court for insulting him by treating him as a mere rebel who had come to surrender at his darbar. Heartbeats further increase when the Maratha king plans his clever escape from house arrest under the nose of Aurangzeb's formidable general Faulad Khan. The scene where Shivaji, along with his eight-year-old son Sambhaji, escapes from Agra, from amid a tight ring of armed soldiers feels like escaping a crocodile's strong jaws just in time. It feels like you almost missed your breath. Convincing characters in Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra Abhijeet Shwetachandra delivers a believable performance as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, and showcases the confident, sharp, and battle-hardened resolve of the warrior king. Director Digpal Lanjekar debuts as Bahirji Naik, the clever boss of the intelligence network of the Marathas, and the backbone of Shivaji's spy system. Strong performances by Ajay Purkar, who plays the undoubtable Tanaji Malusare and Mrinal Kulkarni as Rajmata Jijabai add to the historic narrative. Sameer Dharmadhikari's Aurangzeb stands out for his cruelty and menace. Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra is a must watch Overall, Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra also shines for its excellent cinematography, visuals and sound effects. The songs are electrifying and express the vigour of a person fighting injustice and for Swarajya. At some point, viewers may feel the movie has been overly dramatised showing exceptional action scenes but then these moments become bearable when viewed with the lens of cinematic liberty. The negatives, in my view, are the lack of showcasing of raw, real events that should have accompanied the portrayal of the revolutionary king. Some events and scenes also misguide and take away from real history. Still, Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra is a must watch for its brilliant and balanced handling of a historic event. Ranapati Shivray: Swari Agra Review Rediff Rating: This article was first published 11 years ago Margarita, With a Straw's is admirable in its handling of its protagonist and cerebral palsy, says Paloma Sharma. There is nothing great about Margarita, With a Straw. It is an ordinary story about ordinary people who, surprisingly, face ordinary circumstances. It is this ordinariness that makes the film extraordinary. Margarita, With a Straw looks into the life of Laila Kapoor (Kalki Koechlin), a young woman with big dreams and bigger obstacles -- she suffers from cerebral palsy -- who doesn't let her condition define her. Confined to her wheelchair and largely dependent on her mother, Laila receives a letter of acceptance from New York University, which gives her a chance to venture out in the world on her own and to explore the new world that is slowly opening up inside of her. It is in New York that she meets and rescues a Bangladeshi-Pakistani activist, Khanum (Sayani Gupta), and falls in love with her. Laila's journey of self-discovery and her acceptance of her sexuality causes rift between her and her family. Despite this, Laila does not shy away from seeking what is possibly the hardest thing for a person in her position -- true independence. Margarita, With a Straw is wonderfully liberating in its portrayal of cerebral palsy, choosing to speak of challenges with optimism rather than going down the beaten path of doom and despair. The film also handles intimacy without any romantic illusions, in the sense that it demonstrates how 'normal' desire is, even for the disabled. Simplistic in its cinematography, Margarita, With a Straw features charming frames lit up with an almost dream-like, soft light. Anne Misawa captures the summery outdoors like no other. An iron-clad script provides much delight while Kalki Koechlin and Sayani Gupta's performances are bound to win over even the most cynical members of the audience. However, it would be unfair to bestow disproportionate, though well-deserved, praise upon only the two actresses when the entire cast delivers brilliant performances -- from Laila's first crush, Nima (Tenzin Dalha), to her younger brother, Monu (Malhar Khushu). Shonali Bose returns as writer-director after the Konkana Sen starrer 2005 film Amu (although she did work on her ex-husband Bedabrata Pain's 2012 film Chittagong's screenplay). Bose seeks no sympathy for her disabled protagonist and resists making a martyr out of her. Margarita, With a Straw is a refreshingly, brutally honest film which ends up making the tiny mistake of adding an emotional, cliched ending. Although certain scenes in the film could have been infinitely more powerful had the background score been stronger, one must laud Bose's use of deafening silence and Laila's wails in a scene at the hospital towards the end of the film. Rediff Rating: Image: Kalki Koechlin and Revathy in Margarita, With a Straw This article was first published 18 years ago S achin Khedekar's new Marathi film, Tuzya Mazyat, doesn't quite follow the usual storytelling method. And this is one of the main reasons why it has failed to create an impact. Tuzya Mazyat is produced by Shivajirao Chamkire under the Influx Ideas banner and has been directed by Promod Joshi. Shashank (Khedekar) and Asmita (Mrunal Kulkarni) are a divorced couple. But there is a strong bond linking the two -- their children, Nisha and Shubham. The children stay with their mother and visit their father, who gets married to Radhika (Sulekha Talwalkar), in the weekends . Radhika tries her best to be a good mother to Shashank's children but Nisha cannot accept her. One day, Asmita tells Shashank that she wants to work again, and wants him to take care of the children. Shashank agrees readily, as does Radhika. One day, Radhika spots Asmita with a stranger. The situation takes an ugly turn and Shashank demands an explanation from Asmita. That's when a shocking truth is revealed... The twist, in fact, is so shocking that a seemingly good story suddenly seems to go haywire. The film starts off very well, but the twist stays with the audience until the end. The director plays the emotional card too much -- the entanglement between Shashank and Asmita, Radhika's trauma while trying to balance between her job and family responcibilities, the relationship between Shashank and Asmita. But after the twist, he loses focus. The story is by Shekhar Dhawalikar and Promod Joshi. Shekhar's script and dialogues deserves mention. Sachin Khedekar is brilliant. Mrunal is a seasoned actress, and does well soon. Sulekha portrays Radhika very well too. Child actors, Kaumudi Valokar and Shreyas Paranjpe, are naturals on screen. Asha Bhosle returns to Marathi cinema after almost eight years. Sadly, her songs lack magic. One can say the same about the film. It is good but could have been much better. 'The city was not only a setting but also a major character in Sankar's stories, providing the readers insight into the ever-changing and complex nature of Calcutta,' observes Atanu Biswas. IMAGE: Mani Shankar Mukherjee at the United Nations in New York. Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia Commons Key Points Bengali writer Sankar captured the essence of Kolkata's urban life and societal changes in his novels. Sankar's novel Chowringhee offered a microcosm of Kolkata through the lens of a bustling hotel, later adapted into films. Satyajit Ray adapted Sankar's novels Seemabaddha and Jana Aranya into films, portraying the struggles of urban life in Kolkata. Mani Sankar Mukhopadhay, aka Sankar, a leading Bengali writer whose stories reflected the hopes and moral dilemmas of urban India, passed away on February 20. As Charles Dickens did in 19th-century London, or as in James Joyce's Ulysses, which provided a detailed insight into Dublin, Sankar brought Kolkata (then Calcutta) to life from the corridors of the Calcutta high court to the bustling streets of Chowringhee. A July 2024 paper in the International Journal of Advanced Research showed that, apart from recording the changes in the physical and socioeconomic landscape of Kolkata, Sankar also wrote about colonial heritage, modernisation, social and economic disparities, and human relationships. The city was not only a setting but also a major character in his stories, providing the readers insight into the ever-changing and complex nature of Calcutta. Noel Barwell, the last English barrister practising in the Calcutta high court, employed young Sankar in the 1950s. After Barwell's death, Sankar wanted to commemorate the man who 'thought so well of me'. The tribute, originally serialised in the prestigious Desh magazine, was titled Kato Ajanare. Brilliant but erratic filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak reportedly attempted to adapt it but failed due to lack of finances. One afternoon, during an unexpected downpour, Sankar stood watching the Grand Hotel's neon sign flashing against the colonial buildings of Chowringhee Street. Having witnessed the parade of humanity at the Spencer's Hotel, where Barwell had stayed, he realised that he was acquainted with the inner workings of large hotels, their intrigues, and the hidden scandals. Three years before Arthur Hailey's Hotel, the novel Chowringhee was published. A hotel in Chowringhee became a microcosm of the city. Uttam Kumar acted in the role of protagonist 'Sata' Bose in Pinaki Mukhopadhyay's 1968 adaptation of Chowringhee. IMAGE: Mani Shankar Mukherjee at the United Nations. Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia Commons Chowringhee and its Modern Adaptations Shah Jahan Regency (2019) by Srijit Mukherji is the modern adaptation of Chowringhee. Rather than a remake, it explores the dark, changed, and materialistic world of 2018 Kolkata by reworking the classic tale in a modern-day hotel. 'Reading Chowringhee made me fall in love with the city in an odd way. I rediscovered Kolkata. To me, Kolkata is like the book Chowringhee, Mr Mukherji said. Mrinal Sen's Calcutta Trilogy consists of three politically charged Bengali films. In contrast, along with Pratidwandi, based on a story by Sunil Gangopadhyay, two of Sankar's novels, Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman), were adapted into iconic films by Satyajit Ray in 1971 and 1975, respectively, as part of his Calcutta Trilogy, which portrayed the struggles, compromises, and endless rat races of city life. Sankar's Reflections on Kolkata 'Looking at the wonders in Kolkata, I have come to a conclusion that God may have made beautiful villages but to witness that man can make, one has to visit the cities,' Sankar said in July 2019. 'I was told by an English barrister, Noel Barwell... that the best way to write about Kolkata was to learn -- 'How they live, how they love, how they lie and how they die'. Srijit Mukherji believes that the hero of Chowringhee is not Sata Bose but Kolkata itself. Kolkata is presented in Seemabaddha through the spotless interiors of elite clubs and offices. Sankar portrays Kolkata in Jana Aranya (translated by Arunava Sinha) as: 'The traffic was an alarming snarl of rickshaws, handcarts, buses, trucks, taxis and private cars. The ageing driver of the ancient tram caught in the middle rang the bell loudly in his desperation to get from Lalbazar to Bagbazar... it looked like an enormous yet frail dinosaur from a prehistoric era, banished from its safe haven to the human jungle of Calcutta, emitting howls of helplessness.' The Naxalite movement in the 1970s provided a historical background too. Sankar has portrayed universal archetypes of urban life, long before the term 'urban studies' came into vogue. But what is so special about Kolkata in Sankar's Kolkata? The names of the streets are known, and so is the nature of unemployment. Except for what is portrayed in Jana Aranya, aren't the other characteristics revealed through Sankar's looking glass also present in London, Paris, New York, or any other metropolis? But this is not a limitation of Sankar, only an indication of his wider appeal. Atanu Biswas is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. These are Atanu Biswas's personal views. Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/RedifF Let us start with ourselves. If we can reduce our LPG consumption by half, the problem is solved. Reduce wastage. Alter eating styles. Diversify methods of food preparation, suggests Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd). IMAGE: A man speaks on a phone as he sits on an empty LPG cylinder inside a truck in Mumbai. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters Key Points Escalating US-Israel-Iran conflict has disrupted Gulf oil infrastructure and effectively blocked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Global crude prices have surged past $100 a barrel as oil production in Gulf countries declines amid attacks. India imports over 60% of its LPG demand, with nearly 85% sourced from West Asia, exposing households to supply shocks. A prolonged war could cause up to a 50% drop in LPG availability, forcing households to reduce consumption. Experts suggest rationing LPG use, shifting to electric cooking appliances, and diversifying fuel imports to mitigate shortages. Gulf War 3.0 has entered its 13th day. As West Asia burns and oil infrastructure of GCC countries are hit by Iran, and Iran's own are hit by the US-Israel combine; as the Strait of Hormuz is denied to global traffic, concerns over hydrocarbon shortages skyrocket around the world. Oil production in the Gulf has been cut and the cost of crude has touched $ 100 a barrel and rising. There is no end to the conflict in sight and stances on both sides only seem to be hardening with each passing day. Hormuz Blockade Triggers Oil Shock IMAGE: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz and Iran. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters The much touted regime change in Iran has not happened despite the first rung of its leadership being exterminated. A new supreme leader has been anointed and the IRGC appears to be in control till now. USA and Israel have been taken totally by surprise by Iran's sophisticated missile and drone warfare and its ability to sustain their onslaught. Iran's attacks on US military infrastructure in GCC countries has been a hard punch on the USA's nose. The USA is smarting for revenge and Iran is not about to timidly surrender anytime soon. IMAGE: An LPG gas tanker at anchor in Shinas, Oman. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters Crude Prices Surge Above $100 If this is a likely prognosis, India will face a critical shortage in oil and gas as the conflict prolongs. So will many other countries around the world that depend on West Asian oil and gas. In India's case, LPG is the most critical product that is used in the majority of Indian households and eateries, the shortage of which will have serious effects on the population at large. India imports over 60% of its LPG demand of which 85% is sourced from West Asia. This amounts to about half its domestic consumption. No wonder, it has led to a degree of panic, ably supported by doomsday media. We now have two choices. One, we can whine and blame everyone else for our collective misery. Individuals can blame government, government can blame the war, dealers can blame oil companies, consumers can blame hoarders, the Opposition can make it an election issue, media can go ballistic on public hardship and so on. None of this helps. Why India Faces LPG Risk IMAGE: A man buys induction as the uncertainty in LPG gas booking and delivery, strikes the demand for induction ovens in Kolkata. Photograph: ANI Photo The other alternative is to do a quick reboot, at the individual, collective and institutional levels. The problem statement is that there could be a 50% drawdown in LPG supply in the near future. What can we do to minimise the misery? Let us start with ourselves. If we can reduce our LPG consumption by half, the problem is solved. Reduce wastage. Alter eating styles. Fruits and several vegetables can be eaten raw or with minimum cooking. Diversify methods of food preparation. Use OTGs, microwave ovens, induction cookers, air fryers and other such devices optimally though this could result in a higher electricity bill. Reduce eating out since LPG supply to commercial eateries would be restricted. How Households Can Cut LPG Use IMAGE: Chefs cook biryani in traditional cooking pots on wood fire at an open centralised kitchen at the Arsalan restaurant amid disruptions in commercial LPG supply, in Kolkata, March 13, 2026. Photograph: Sahiba Chawdhary/Reuters As a collective body of people, we should put off large social events and celebrations till supplies normalise. As oil companies we should keep supplies flowing, albeit at a reduced rate. As stockists and dealers, we should desist from opportunism and avoid hoarding or blackmarketing of LPG. As government, we should put measures in place that deter corrupt practices and earn public confidence. If necessary, the Essential Services Maintenance Act should be invoked in respect of supply, stocking and distribution of LPG to provide legal cover against malpractice. Government Steps to Prevent Shortage Government measures should also include diversifying LPG imports and making alternative fuels like coal available in adequate quantities to compensate for the LPG crunch. Electricity tariff rebates should also be considered to provide relief to consumers for increased use of electricity as a result of the LPG shortage. Of course, best diplomatic efforts should be mounted to bring an early end to the war. Adversity has always united societies and brought out the best of the human spirit. This war will also put us to test in different ways. It is time to show strength and character. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd) is a former commander-in-chief of the Indian Navy's Eastern Naval Command. Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff A shocking incident of mass stray dog poisoning in Mancherial, Telangana, has sparked outrage and a police investigation, highlighting the ongoing animal welfare crisis in the region. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Approximately 100 stray dogs were allegedly poisoned in Kishtapur village, Mancherial district, Telangana. An animal welfare activist filed a complaint accusing the village Sarpanch and Gram Panchayath Secretary of orchestrating the mass killing. A police case has been registered under the BNS and Prevention of Cruelty of Animals Act, initiating an investigation into the incident. This incident follows a series of mass stray dog killings in Telangana, with over 1,300 dogs killed in recent months. The killings are suspected to be linked to promises made by elected representatives to address the stray dog population. In yet another incident of stray dog killings, nearly 100 canines were allegedly 'poisoned to death' in Mancherial district, police said. An animal welfare activist, A Goutham, in a complaint to police, stated that on the intervening night of March 7-8 around 100 stray dogs were killed in Kishtapur village. The complainant, working as Cruelty Prevention Manager with the Stray Animal Foundation of India (NGO) accused that the Sarpanch and Gram Panchayath Secretary of Kishtapur village, hired two persons and killed the stray dogs by giving poisonous injections and buried them near a river. Based on the complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections of BNS and Prevention of Cruelty of Animals Act at Jannaram police station against the Sarpanch and Gram Panchayath, police said, adding that further investigation is on. Previous Incidents and Suspected Motives Several incidents of mass killings of stray dogs were reported from different districts in Telangana in January this year and December last year taking the toll to 1,300 following which cases were registered against Sarpanchs, their husbands, Gram Panchayat Secretaries and others based on complaints lodged by animal welfare activists. The killings are suspected to have been carried out by some elected representatives, including Sarpanchs, allegedly to fulfill promises made to villagers ahead of gram panchayat elections held in December last year, to address the stray dog menace. Disclaimer: News content is sourced from the stated source. Headlines, summaries, section headers, and images are automatically generated or selected using AI/algorithms and may not always be fully accurate. Readers are advised to refer to the full article for complete context. Four Assam Congress workers have been arrested for distributing pamphlets accusing Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of corruption, igniting a political firestorm and raising concerns about freedom of speech. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Four Assam Congress workers were arrested for allegedly possessing and distributing pamphlets critical of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Police claim the pamphlets contained 'provocative and inflammatory' allegations that could disturb public order and the electoral atmosphere. The Congress party argues the pamphlets were part of a previously released 'charge sheet' containing allegations of corruption against the state government. Congress leaders have criticised the arrests as undemocratic and an attempt to suppress opposition voices ahead of elections. The police action has raised questions about freedom of speech and the use of law to address political criticism in Assam. Four Assam Congress workers have been arrested for allegedly possessing and transporting "provocative and inflammatory" pamphlets containing allegations against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, with the opposition party questioning the charges and calling the action undemocratic. According to police, the accused were found in possession of posters and pamphlets meant for mass distribution that allegedly contained "provocative, inflammatory and scandalous allegations" under the headline 'Chargesheet against the Chief Minister', which could disturb public tranquillity and the electoral atmosphere. The Congress asserted that the pamphlets contained allegations that were part of a 20-point "charge sheet" released on February 19 by the party's Assam unit ahead of the assembly election. Police said the four were taken into custody after a vehicle carrying a large quantity of printed leaflets was intercepted in the Rukminigaon area here. They are currently in judicial custody. Several provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including Section 152, which deals with acts or speech that endanger India's sovereignty, unity, and integrity, have been invoked in the case, as per the arrest notices served to the accused. PTI is in possession of a copy of the notice. The police said the arrests were made to ascertain the source of printing and financing of the material, as well as the distribution network involved. Congress Response to the Arrests Responding to the development, state Congress media department chairman Bedabrata Bora questioned the charges and asserted that criticism of a chief minister could not be equated with anti-national activity. "The pamphlets in question were part of the 20-point charge sheet unveiled by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra," Bora said. He also questioned the timing of the police action, saying the "charge sheet" had been made public last month, and it was surprising that action was initiated much later if the contents were objectionable. The Assam Congress had accused the state government of corruption, using administrative machinery to intimidate minorities and alleged that the chief minister and his close associates amassed significant wealth - allegations rejected by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. State Congress president Gaurav Gogoi criticised the arrests made earlier this week, alleging that the BJP government was trying to prevent the opposition from taking its charges against the government to the people. Assam Mahila Congress president Mira Borthakur said that if the pamphlets contained any election-related violations, the matter should have been dealt with by the Election Commission of India rather than the police. A Bengaluru school is facing scrutiny after a class one student was allegedly punished by being made to stand in the scorching sun for two hours, prompting a police investigation and raising concerns about child welfare. IMAGE: Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com Key Points Bengaluru school under investigation for allegedly forcing a student to stand in the sun as punishment. Police registered a case under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. Parents allege the school principal acted rudely when questioned about the incident. Bengaluru police urge public not to share videos or information revealing the child's identity. Subjecting children to physical or mental suffering is a punishable offence under Indian law. A case has been registered after a class one student at a private school in the city was allegedly made to stand under the scorching sun for two hours as punishment for arriving late, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred at a school in Yelahanka Attur Layout here, they said. According to Police, the child's parents alleged that for being two minutes late to class, the school authorities made the boy stand in the sun for two hours as a punishment. When the parents questioned the principal about the incident, they complained that she acted rudely and was arrogant. Accusing the school staff of "misbehaviour", they demanded an explanation from the school administration. Social Media Response and Police Action After the incident came to light on social media platform 'X' on Saturday, where a video of the principal being questioned about the act was posted, the Bengaluru City Police responded saying subjecting children to physical or mental suffering is a punishable offence. "We have taken serious note of the incident reported under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, regarding the reported incident where a child was allegedly made to stand under the sun for two hours as punishment for being late. Subjecting children to physical or mental suffering is a punishable offence," the police said in the post. A case has also been registered under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, which prohibits revealing the identity of any child involved in an investigation or case, it said. Police also requested the public not to share videos or information that may reveal the child's identity. Such incidents should be reported directly to the police or child protection authorities, they added. Jamia Millia Islamia has initiated an investigation into a security breach at its girls' hostel after a group of boys allegedly entered the premises and were involved in a brawl, raising concerns about student safety. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) has launched an investigation into an incident involving a group of boys entering the girls' hostel premises. A video circulating on social media shows the boys engaged in a brawl, prompting concerns about security. Students have reported that the boys pushed past girls at the entrance to gain access to the hostel. Student organisations SFI and NSUI have condemned the incident and are demanding a thorough investigation into the security lapse at JMI. The university official stated that the boys did not seem to have the intention of engaging with anyone else, but the university will still look into the matter. A Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) official has said that they will be enquiring into a recent incident wherein a group of boys allegedly entered the premises of the girls' hostel on Thursday night and engaged in a brawl. A purported video of the incident circulating on social media shows a group of boys fighting among themselves, while a security guard tries to rush them outside the premises. The video could not be independently verified by PTI. A university official said, "The main gate is very far from the actual girls' hostel, and as can be seen in the video, the group of boys were probably talking or fighting among themselves. They did not seem to have the intention of engaging with anyone else." The official, however, said that the university will look into the matter. Student Accounts of the Incident According to BA student Sanya, who lives in the hostel, at least five to six boys entered the premises around 9.30 pm on Thursday. "There is no confirmation on whether the group of boys who entered the hostel premises are students or not. A group of girls were at the entrance gate, where they were signing themselves in, when the boys just pushed past them and entered the premises. They were fighting among themselves," Sanya said. Student Organisations Demand Investigation Meanwhile, the JMI unit of Students' Federation of India (SFI) and National Students' Union of India (NSUI) condemned the incident and demanded an investigation. A Hyderabad police constable has been suspended amid allegations of misconduct and a subsequent suicide threat, prompting a police investigation into the matter. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points A Hyderabad constable was suspended for alleged indiscipline and dereliction of duty. The suspended constable accused senior police officials of harassment in retaliation. Police dismissed the constable's suicide threat video as a fabricated attempt to blackmail officials. The constable faced prior disciplinary action for collecting money from roadside vendors and other violations. Hyderabad police claim the constable is spreading misinformation to distort the reasons for his suspension. A constable working in a Women Police Station under Jubilee Hills Zone was suspended on Saturday by Hyderabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar following several allegations of indiscipline and dereliction of duty. He later made harassment allegations against senior police officials, and the police described them as "completely untrue" and "baseless". After receiving the suspension orders, the constable posted a selife video on an instant messaging app stating that he was committing suicide, which the police dismissed as "drama". In the video, the constable is heard saying he was committing suicide due to harassment by his superiors. "To hide his wrongdoings, he (constable) made the video and tried to blackmail police officials", a release from Hyderabad Police said. Police further termed the video as a "fictious drama", adding he is deliberately spreading misinformation. Allegations Against the Constable The allegations against the constable include absence from roll calls, sleeping in the restroom during duty hours, not following the minimum uniform regulations, the release said. It has also come to the notice of police officials that the constable demanded money from the victims who came to the police station for counselling, it said. Despite repeated warnings from superiors, he did not change his behaviour, it further said. The constable was habituated to making allegations against the seniors, it said. He was suspended earlier for "collecting money" from roadside vendors among other allegations, police said. The police release said disciplinary action was taken against him for repeated violation of rules. He is spreading misinformation by twisting the action against him, the release added. A Delhi bike taxi driver has been arrested after a female passenger reported being molested during her ride, highlighting concerns about safety in ride-sharing services. Key Points A bike taxi driver in Delhi has been arrested for allegedly molesting a female passenger during a ride. The woman reported the incident to the police after the driver allegedly misbehaved with her and threatened her. The accused has been identified as Sachin, a resident of Badli village in Delhi, and has been remanded to 14 days of judicial custody. The police have seized the motorcycle used during the ride and are conducting further investigations into the case. The accused was previously involved in a dowry death case in 2011. A 34-year-old bike taxi driver has been arrested for allegedly molesting a woman passenger during a ride in northwest Delhi's Rohini, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred on March 12 when the woman booked a bike taxi through a mobile application to travel from Rohini Sector 15 to Pitampura. In a complaint lodged at K.N.K. Marg police station, the woman was travelling as a pillion rider when the accused allegedly started misbehaving with her near the Sector 13 dividing road on K.N.K. Marg. When she objected to his behaviour, the rider allegedly threatened her not to raise an alarm. The woman was later dropped near FU Block in Pitampura, following which she approached the police with a written complaint, officials said. Based on the complaint, a case was registered on March 14 under sections 74 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 79 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 351(3) (Criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and an investigation was taken up, a senior police officer said. The accused, identified as Sachin, a resident of Badli village in Delhi, was subsequently arrested. The motorcycle used during the ride has also been seized by the police. According to the police, the accused is a Class 10 pass and has been working as an app-based bike taxi driver for the past one year. During verification, it was also found that he had earlier been involved in a dowry death case registered at Samaypur Badli police station in 2011. He was produced before a court which remanded him to 14 days of judicial custody, police said. Passenger Account of the Incident Speaking to PTI, the woman said that the rider initially began speeding within seconds of starting the trip and dismissed her concerns when she asked him to slow down. "He arrogantly told me that he was only driving at 20 kmph and that I could check it myself. But after that he increased the speed further," she said. She alleged that the rider repeatedly applied sudden brakes so that she would bump into him and deliberately drove over potholes at high speed, causing strong jerks. "I asked him several times to ride properly, but he told me to sit quietly and said he knew how to drive," she said. "After some time he suddenly started touching me. When I objected and asked what he was doing, he threatened me and said, 'Sit quietly or I will kill you,'" the woman claimed. She also alleged that the rider deviated from the route shown on the map and threatened her again when she questioned him about it. "I told him that if he did not stop the bike immediately I would jump off. Despite that he kept speeding and abusing me. Finally, when I raised my voice loudly, he stopped," she said. Even after stopping the bike, the rider continued threatening her, she added. The police said further investigation in the case is underway. Delhi Police have arrested a 19-year-old man for a stabbing in Model Town, following allegations of harassment against a woman, highlighting the consequences of harassment and violence in the community. Key Points Delhi Police arrested Shyam Sunder for allegedly stabbing a man in Model Town after a harassment complaint. The accused, Shyam Sunder, had been harassing a woman in the neighbourhood, leading to a confrontation with her family. Shyam allegedly threatened the woman and later attacked her brother, stabbing him multiple times. Police apprehended Shyam Sunder within hours of the incident and he confessed to the crime during interrogation. The accused claimed he attacked the victim in a fit of anger after being confronted about the harassment. Delhi Police has arrested a 19-year-old man for allegedly stabbing a youth in Model Town, after being confronted by the victim's family over harassing a woman in the neighbourhood, an official said on Saturday. The accused, identified as Shyam Sunder alias Shyamlal, a resident of Rajpura Gurmandi in north Delhi, was apprehended within hours of the incident on Friday, they said. According to police, the case came to light after the woman complained that Shyam, who lived in her neighbourhood, had been harassing her for some time and making lewd gestures whenever she passed by. She warned him to stop and threatened to inform her husband and brother if his behaviour continued, the police said. "In response, the accused allegedly threatened the woman that if she disclosed the matter to anyone, he would kill her husband and brother," a senior police officer said. On Thursday at 8.30 pm, Shyam allegedly attacked the woman's brother, stabbing him three to four times before fleeing the spot, the police said. A case was registered under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on Friday, and an investigation was launched, they said. "Based on technical inputs and local intelligence, multiple raids were conducted at suspected hideouts. The accused was eventually apprehended from the Rajpura Gurmandi area," the officer said. Accused Confesses to Stabbing During interrogation, Shyam allegedly confessed to the crime, stating that he had been harassing the woman for a while. When her family confronted him, he developed a grudge against them and, in a fit of anger, attacked the woman's brother with a knife to take revenge. Shyam has no previous criminal record. Further investigation is underway, the police said. Delhi Police have apprehended a 20-year-old youth in Rohini for the alleged murder of a man in Pooth Khurd, revealing a motive of revenge stemming from an old enmity. Photograph: ANI/X Key Points Delhi Police arrested a 20-year-old named Nikhil for allegedly murdering Bhupender in Pooth Khurd. The murder was motivated by an old dispute between the victim and one of Nikhil's associates, Devraj. Nikhil confessed to the crime, stating he and others ambushed Bhupender and opened fire. Police have apprehended a juvenile involved in the crime, while two other suspects are still at large. The incident occurred on Sultanpur Dabas Road in Pooth Khurd, leading to a police investigation and subsequent arrest. The Delhi Police has arrested a 20-year-old youth for allegedly killing a man in a bid to take revenge with his associate over old enmity, an official said on Saturday. The accused, identified as Nikhil, a resident of Pooth Khurd, was arrested from Rohini's Sector-34, they said. The matter came to light when a PCR call was received at Bawana police station reporting that a man had been shot in Pooth Khurd on Sultanpur Dabas Road on March 8. A police team rushed to the spot and found an unconscious man lying near a scooty with a gunshot injury. The victim was identified as Bhupender. He was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him dead, police said. Subsequently, a case was registered under 103(1) (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and provisions of the Arms Act were registered, and an investigation was launched to trace the accused persons involved in the crime. Arrest and Confession Nikhil was arrested from Sector-34 in Rohini and confessed to his involvement during interrogation. He disclosed that on the day of the incident, he, along with his associates Devraj, Sumit and a juvenile, had gone to Raj Vatika in Pooth Khurd, where he and Devraj opened fire at Bhupender. Devraj had a dispute with the victim, and the attack was carried out to take revenge, police said. They said that they have apprehended the juvenile, while the other two accused -- Devraj and Sumit -- are currently absconding. Efforts are being made to locate the accused and arrest them. Police said Nikhil studied up to Class 10 and grew up in Pooth Khurd village. His father works as a labourer in Delhi. A key associate of the notorious Kapil Sangwan gang, wanted for murder and extortion, has been apprehended in Haryana following a tip-off, marking a significant victory for Delhi Police. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Lucky alias Bhawani, a 26-year-old associate of the Kapil Sangwan gang, has been arrested in Haryana. The accused was wanted in connection with a firing case and is allegedly involved in a 2021 murder orchestrated by the gang. Lucky is accused of participating in a daylight murder of a rival gang member in Ujwa village. Police received a tip-off about Lucky's attempt to reconnect with gang members while visiting Ambala jail. Lucky faces multiple charges, including murder, attempted murder, extortion, and robbery across Delhi, Haryana, and Rajasthan. A 26-year-old man, allegedly associated with the Kapil Sangwan gang and involved in multiple criminal cases, has been arrested from the Mahendergarh district of Haryana, a Delhi police official said on Saturday. According to police, the accused, Lucky alias Bhawani, had been absconding from trial in a firing case registered in Delhi's Bijwasan area, and non-bailable warrants as well as proclamation proceedings had been issued against him by a Dwarka court. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Kushal Pal Singh said the accused is a habitual offender and a close associate of the Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu gang. Details of the Alleged Crimes "In 2021, the accused, on the instructions of gang leader Kapil Sangwan, allegedly participated in a daylight murder in Ujwa village in southwest Delhi in which a rival gang member was shot dead," he said. Police said Lucky was also involved in a firing incident in the Bijwasan area aimed at extorting money. The Arrest On March 11, police received information that the accused was visiting Ambala jail to meet his associate, Dharmender Rana, and was trying to reconnect with members of the gang. Acting on the tip-off, the police team conducted raids and eventually traced him to his native village in Mahendergarh district, where he was apprehended, officials said. He was produced before a court in Dwarka and sent to judicial custody. Police said Lucky had earlier been arrested in Delhi and Rajasthan and was released from jail in December 2025. After his release, he allegedly attempted to contact Kapil Sangwan to arrange money and resume gang-related activities, they claimed. Officials said that Lucky is involved in multiple cases, including that of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, robbery and offences under the Arms Act, registered in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan. Pakistan's military intercepted and destroyed Afghan Taliban drones near Islamabad, resulting in injuries and escalating tensions as Pakistan vows to combat terrorism emanating from Afghan soil. Photograph: Ali Khara/Reuters Key Points Pakistan's army intercepted and destroyed Afghan Taliban drones near Islamabad, Quetta and Kohat. Debris from the destroyed drones injured at least four people, including two children. The Pakistani military accuses the Afghan Taliban of targeting civilians to induce fear. Pakistan reiterates its commitment to Operation Ghazab lil-Haq until the Afghan Taliban addresses concerns about terrorism originating from Afghanistan. Flight operations at Islamabad International Airport were briefly affected but later resumed as normal. At least four persons, including two children, were injured when hit by the debris of the Afghan Taliban drones which were destroyed before reaching their targets, the Army said on Saturday. The drones were intercepted and destroyed on Friday in Quetta, Kohat and Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital Islamabad. According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the army's media wing, these attacks were aimed at inducing fear in the public and "remind us of the terrorist mindset which drives the Afghan Taliban". "The drones were intercepted through soft and hard kills and did not reach their intended targets," the military's media wing said. However, the debris from these drones resulted in injuries to two children in Quetta and a civilian each in Kohat and Rawalpindi, it added. "On one hand, the Afghan Taliban project victimhood to garner global sympathy, while on the other hand, they actively target civilians through their terrorist proxies and their drones," it said. The military further said that Pakistan and its Army were aware of the true nature of the Afghan Taliban. "Pakistan's people and its Armed Forces are absolutely clear about the true nature and intentions of the terrorist militia-for-hire that rules Afghanistan," it said. The Army also reiterated that Operation Ghazab lil-Haq will continue until the Afghan Taliban address Pakistan's core concerns regarding terrorism emanating from Afghan soil. "The Armed Forces stand steadfast in the fight against terrorism and its manifestations, like the drone attacks by the Afghan Taliban." "We shall keep defending the people of Pakistan against terrorists and their facilitators and shall not flinch in the face of such provocations by the Afghan Taliban," the statement concluded. Impact on Islamabad Airport The drones, which were destroyed near Islamabad, created momentary panic, and the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said that flight operations at Islamabad International Airport experienced a "brief operational adjustment". However, it deleted the post on X and issued another statement, saying that any news about the closure of the Islamabad International Airport was "baseless". "Flight operations at Islamabad International Airport are continuing without interruption, and all flights are operating according to schedule," it said. "The public is advised not to pay attention to unverified or misleading reports and to rely on official sources of PAA for authentic information." Pakistan's Response: Operation Ghazab lil Haq Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab lil Haq on February 26 in response to attacks by the Afghan Taliban along 53 posts along the border. Relations with the Taliban regime plummeted lower than anyone could have imagined in 2021 when they came to power in Kabul, allegedly with the support of Pakistan. Pakistan's military intercepted and destroyed Afghan Taliban drones targeting civilian areas, escalating tensions and prompting strong condemnation from Pakistani leadership. IMAGE: A child who was injured during an alleged drone attack on a residential house in the Sarah Gharghai area, receives medical aid at the Trauma Centre, in the Civil Hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, on March 13, 2026. Photograph: Naseer Ahmed/Reuters Key Points Pakistan's army intercepted and destroyed Afghan Taliban drones in Quetta, Kohat, and Rawalpindi. Drone debris injured four people, including two children, raising concerns about civilian safety. Pakistan condemns the attacks, accusing the Afghan Taliban of targeting civilians and breaking commitments. Operation Ghazab lil-Haq will continue until the Afghan Taliban addresses Pakistan's concerns about terrorism. President Zardari stated that the Afghan Taliban crossed a 'red line' by targeting civilian areas in Pakistan. At least four persons, including two children, were injured after they were hit by the debris of the Afghan Taliban drones that were destroyed before reaching their targets, the Army said Saturday. The drones were intercepted and destroyed by the army on Friday in Quetta, Kohat and Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital Islamabad. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Army, these attacks were aimed at inducing fear in the public and 'remind us of the terrorist mindset which drives the Afghan Taliban'. "The drones were intercepted through soft and hard kills and (therefore) did not reach their intended targets," the military's media wing said. However, the debris from these drones resulted in injuries to two children in Quetta and a civilian each in Kohat and Rawalpindi, it added. "On one hand, the Afghan Taliban project victimhood to garner global sympathy, while on the other hand, they actively target civilians through their terrorist proxies and their drones," it said in a statement. "Pakistan's people and its Armed Forces are absolutely clear about the true nature and intentions of the terrorist militia-for-hire that rules Afghanistan," it said. Pakistan unleashed military action, codenamed Operation Ghazab lil-Haq (righteous fury), on February 26 after the Afghan side attacked 53 locations on the 2,611 kms long border. Escalating Tensions and Military Response The latest drone attacks come days after Afghan Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob threatened that his country could target Islamabad. On Saturday, the Army also reiterated that Operation Ghazab lil-Haq will continue until the Afghan Taliban address Pakistan's core concerns regarding terrorism emanating from Afghan soil. "The Armed Forces stand steadfast in the fight against terrorism and its manifestations, like the drone attacks by the Afghan Taliban." A local media report on Friday said Pakistani security authorities intercepted and destroyed two explosive-laden drones in the capital Islamabad. However, Saturday's ISPR statement stated one of the locations to be Rawalpindi. President Zardari's Condemnation Meanwhile, President Asif Ali Zardari, strongly condemning drone attacks, said the Afghan Taliban crossed the 'red line' by aiming to target the civilian areas in Pakistan. In a statement, Zardari emphasised that the 'illegitimate regime of Afghanistan installed by terror and brute force continues to renege on its commitments not to provide safe sanctuaries to terrorist groups and now has the audacity to provoke a major military power of the Islamic world'. Zardari said the Afghan terrorist regime 'has crossed a red line by attempting to target our civilians' while Pakistan was engaged in efforts to promote peace and stability in the Gulf region. Relations with the Taliban regime plummeted lower than anyone could have imagined in 2021 when they came to power in Kabul, allegedly with the support of Pakistan. Indian missions remain open round the clock and are constantly working to provide assistance. IMAGE: Smoke billows after debris from a successful interception caused minor damage to the facade of a building according to Dubai Media Office in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on March 13, 2026, in this screengrab taken from social media video. Photograph: Social Media via Reuters Key Points The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that five Indians have died and one is missing in incidents linked to the West Asia conflict. Indian missions in Oman, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates are coordinating with authorities for assistance and repatriation. An attack in Sohar, Oman, killed two Indians and injured 10 others, though none of the injured are in serious condition. Fifteen crew members from the vessel Safesea Vishnu were safely evacuated and are currently staying in Basra, Iraq. Two Indian LPG vessels carrying 92,700 tonnes of LPG have successfully crossed the Strait of Hormuz amid regional tensions following the killing of Ali Khamenei. Aseem Mahajan, Additional Secretary (Gulf) in the Ministry of External Affairs, on Saturday informed that five Indians have been killed and one is missing due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia. He added that Indian missions remain open round the clock and are constantly working to provide assistance. Mahajan made the remarks during an inter-ministerial briefing on recent developments in West Asia in the national capital. He said, "We have five Indians who have lost their lives and one who is missing in an earlier incident. Our missions in Oman, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates remain in touch with the concerned authorities regarding the missing Indian national and for the early repatriation of the mortal remains of the deceased after completing the requisite formalities." He underlined that all support is being provided to seafarers in the region and that the MEA is in close coordination with the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. Indian nationals being assisted: MEA Mahajan added that for places such as Bahrain and Kuwait, from where direct flights are not operating, Indian nationals are being assisted with visa extensions and transit visas to travel to India via Saudi Arabia. He also shared an update on the attack in Sohar city in Oman, which resulted in the death of two Indians and injuries to ten others, adding that none of the injured were reported to be in serious condition. "Our mission has been on the ground and is rendering all assistance and is in constant touch with the concerned Omani authorities, local companies, hospitals, and families of the affected Indians. The Embassy is also coordinating to facilitate the early return of the mortal remains of the two deceased Indian nationals to India," he said. Regarding the Safesea Vishnu incident, he said officials are working for the early return of the 15 crew members who were safely evacuated and are currently staying at a hotel in Basra, Iraq. "They are also working with the concerned authorities for the early return of the mortal remains of the Indian national to India," he added. 2 Indian LPG vessels cross Strait of Hormuz Also at the briefing, Rajesh Kumar Sinha, Special Secretary in the Shipping Ministry, said that two Indian-flagged LPG-carrying vessels -- Shivalik and Nanda Devi -- have transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are now on their way to India carrying approximately 92,700 metric tonnes of LPG. The developments come amid the evolving security situation in West Asia following the killing of Ali Khamenei on February 28 in joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran. In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, disrupting key shipping routes and affecting global energy markets. As the war enters its 14th day, exchanges of fire continue, with threats of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global energy supplies. Meanwhile, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. An Ahmedabad man has been arrested for reckless driving after a shocking video surfaced showing an elderly person clinging to the bonnet of his car, sparking outrage and a police investigation. Photograph: ANI on Twitter Key Points A 29-year-old man in Ahmedabad has been arrested for reckless driving. The incident involved an elderly person clinging to the bonnet of the car. A video of the incident went viral on social media, leading to the arrest. Police are currently searching for the elderly victim involved in the reckless driving incident in Ahmedabad. A 29-year-old man was arrested in Ahmedabad in Gujarat for allegedly driving his car recklessly while an elderly person was clinging on to the vehicle's bonnet in distress, a police official said on Saturday. The incident, a video of which went viral on social media, took place in Nikol area at around 10:30pm on Friday, I-Division Traffic police inspector SI Sumra told PTI. Arrest and Investigation "Driver Harisang Jadav (29), a resident of Krishnapark Society here, was arrested under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Motor Vehicles Act provisions. However, we have not been able to trace the victim as yet," Sumra informed. In the video, the elderly man can be seen trying hard to hold on to the bonnet while the car is being driven recklessly. A tragic hit-and-run accident in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, has claimed the lives of three men riding a motorcycle, prompting a police investigation to identify the vehicle and driver responsible. Key Points Three men died in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, after their motorcycle was hit by an unidentified vehicle. The victims were travelling to a wedding when the hit-and-run accident occurred near Basura village. Police are investigating the incident and attempting to identify the vehicle involved. A case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in connection with the fatal accident. Three men were killed after an unidentified vehicle hit their motorcycle here on Saturday evening, police said. The accident occurred near Basura village in the Rampur Mathura area when Golu (30) and his cousins Kuldeep (27) and Sujit (25) were en route to attend their uncle's wedding, they said. According to police, the unidentified vehicle rammed into the motorcycle from behind. It caused the three riders to be thrown off the motorcycle and suffer severe head and facial injuries. The vehicle fled the spot after the collision. A police team reached the spot upon receiving information from locals and took the injured to the Community Health Centre in Rampur Mathura, where doctors declared them brought dead, a police officer said. Police Investigation Underway Rampur Mathura station house officer Shyamu Kanojia said the three died in the accident. Their bodies have been sent for post-mortem examination, and efforts are on to trace the unidentified vehicle. A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and further investigation is in progress, he added. Following recent air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan, India strongly condemns the actions and reaffirms the critical need to respect Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Key Points India condemns Pakistan's air strikes in Afghanistan, citing civilian deaths and infrastructure damage. The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson calls the strikes 'an act of aggression'. India reiterates the importance of respecting Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pakistan's military conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan amid escalating conflict. India on Saturday condemned Pakistan's air strikes inside Afghan territory, asserting that Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be fully respected. "India condemns the air strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan's territory, leading to the death of several civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. "This is yet another act of aggression by a Pakistani establishment that remains hostile to the idea of a sovereign Afghanistan," he said. Jaiswal was responding to a media query on the Pakistani aerial raid on Afghanistan. "India reiterates that Afghanistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be fully respected," he said. The Pakistani military carried out air strikes inside Afghanistan in the last few weeks amid an escalating conflict between the two sides. Major General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Army, condemned the attack on the vessel, one of the country's newest warships, which occurred while it was returning from a military exercise. IMAGE: Sri Lanka Navy personnel assist Iranian sailors during a rescue operation after responding to a distress call from their vessel, the Iranian military ship, IRIS Dena, while at sea within Sri Lankas maritime search and rescue region, in Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, on March 4, 2026. Photograph: Sri Lanka Navy/Handout via Reuters Key Points Iran's Army chief Amir Hatami warned that the attack on the IRIS Dena warship 'will not go unanswered'. The vessel was allegedly torpedoed by a US submarine near Galle, Sri Lanka while returning from a military exercise. Around 87 sailors were killed out of about 180 crew members, while 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy. Iran called the incident a 'war crime' and cited violations of Geneva Convention II and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314. The Indian Navy assisted rescue efforts by deploying ships and P-8I maritime patrol aircraft in support of Sri Lanka-led operations. Iran's Army chief has issued a stern warning that the deaths of crew members from the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean 'will not go unanswered', as reported by Al Jazeera, citing Iran's state news agency Islamic Republic News Agency. Major General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Army, condemned the attack on the vessel, one of the country's newest warships, which occurred while it was returning from a military exercise. According to the report, Hatami was quoted by IRNA as saying, "The crew of the Dena destroyer had completed a peaceful mission and were targeted while on their way back to Iran." He emphasised that the sailors faced the assault 'despite not being engaged in a direct battle'. Paying tribute to the fallen personnel, Hatami stated, "The name of Dena and the sacrifice of its crew will remain a symbol of courage and dedication in Iran's naval history." Iran mourns IRIS Dena sailors He further affirmed Iran's resolve, adding, "The army will defend Iran's maritime borders and strengthen its naval power with even greater determination." This stance was reinforced on Friday when the Iranian administration released pictures of the coffins of the fallen IRIS Dena sailors. In a post on X, the Iranian Embassy in India stated: 'The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship.' Providing further details on the incident, Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday paid tribute to the sailors killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. Baqaei called the action by the United States a 'war crime' and a violation of international law, underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it. He noted on X that the Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit before it was attacked near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka. US blocked ops to rescue sailors: Iran The spokesperson claimed that the United States deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. He argued that this act constitutes aggression under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 and a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. The IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations. Of the estimated 180 crew members on board the vessel, about 87 sailors were reported dead, while 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. 5 Key Points Irans Army chief Amir Hatami warned that the attack on the IRIS Dena warship will not go unanswered. The vessel was allegedly **torpedoed by a US submarine near Galle, Sri Lanka while returning from a military exercise. Around 87 sailors were killed out of about 180 crew members, while 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy. Iran called the incident a war crime and cited violations of Geneva Convention II and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314. The Indian Navy assisted rescue efforts by deploying ships and P-8I maritime patrol aircraft in support of Sri Lanka-led operations. Earlier, another state media outlet showed a display of part of the IRGC's drone arsenal inside a large tunnel. Coinciding with the release of these visuals, the IRGC confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign. IMAGE: Iranian missiles are seen at an underground of the new 'missile cite' of Iran's Revolutionary Guards naval unit at an undisclosed location in Iran, in this picture obtained on March 15, 2021. Photograph: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters Key Points The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released video footage showing the coordinated launch of a swarm of drones targeting US-Israeli positions. The drone launch is part of the 48th wave of 'Operation True Promise 4', Iran's retaliatory campaign in the ongoing regional conflict. The attack reportedly targeted areas including Galilee, Golan Heights, and Haifa, along with several US bases in the region. According to Press TV, Iran used a mix of Kheibar Shekan and Qadr missiles along with attack drones in the latest offensive. The IRGC claims it has deployed hundreds of missiles and drones since the conflict began and has shot down 114 enemy drones using its air defence systems. New video footage has captured the 'moment Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force launched a swarm of drones at United States-Israeli positions', providing a detailed look at a highly coordinated aerial offensive initiated from a remote desert facility. The visuals, shared in posts on X and Telegram by state broadcasters, show several delta-wing drones positioned along a paved runway under a bright sun. Upon ignition, the drones launch simultaneously, emitting bright orange flashes from their boosters and kicking up dense clouds of dust and sand. As the sequence progresses, the camera captures the drones ascending rapidly into the sky, leaving behind thick white smoke trails. The footage then transitions to show the aircraft flying in a tight formation across the horizon, moving away from the launch site as part of the reported 'swarm'deployment. IRGC releases video of underground drone arsenal Earlier, another state media outlet showed a display of part of the IRGC's drone arsenal inside a large tunnel. Coinciding with the release of these visuals, the IRGC confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign. In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC announced the 'successful execution of the 48th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against Zionist and American targets'. This latest offensive was reportedly carried out in coordination with the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. American bases in Gulf region struck Military officials identified the primary targets within the occupied territories as locations in the northern sector, specifically Galilee, Golan Heights, and the city of Haifa. Several American bases across the region were also reportedly struck. According to Press TV, the 48th wave used a mix of weaponry, including Kheibar Shekan solid-fuel missiles, Qadr liquid-fuel missiles, and attack drones. This followed the earlier completion of the 47th wave, which took place on Friday and targeted strategic locations such as the Negev Desert, including Nevatim Airbase, along with Be'er Sheva and Lod. The IRGC also reported striking Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, described as one of the most important American airbases in West Asia. Press TV added that during the 46th wave, the IRGC used Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Qadr missiles. Since the conflict escalated late last month, the IRGC claims it has deployed hundreds of ballistic and hypersonic missiles along with attack drones. On the defensive front, the Corps said it shot down five aircraft on Friday, including Orbiter-4, Hermes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones. According to military records cited by state media, 114 reconnaissance and combat drones have been neutralised by Irans air defence systems since the start of the conflict. The IRGC also reportedly sent Hebrew warning text messages to residents in the occupied territories, stating: "By the permission of God, we will bring upon you days of darkness in which you will wish for death, but you will not find it." Following this alert, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the nation's first female premier who recently secured a historic landslide victory in the February 2026 general elections, immediately activated emergency protocols to monitor the projectile's trajectory. IMAGE: The Choe Hyon naval destroyer conducts a missile test launch observed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an unknown location in North Korea, March 10, 2026, in this picture released on March 11, 2026 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency. Photograph: KCNA via Reuters Key Points North Korea launched a suspected ballistic missile, prompting an emergency alert from the Japanese government. The administration of Sanae Takaichi activated crisis protocols to track the missile's trajectory. According to the Japan Coast Guard, the projectile was launched around 1.30 pm and likely fell outside Japan's EEZ. Reports from NHK and Kyodo News say no damage has been reported so far. The launch comes amid heightened tensions due to USSouth Korea joint military exercises, and follows a similar North Korean missile test on January 27. Tensions flared in East Asia on Saturday as the Japanese government issued an urgent warning following military activity from Pyongyang. The Prime Minister's Office of Japan, in a post on X, alerted the public to the developing situation, stating: '[Emergency alert] North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile. More updates to follow.' Following this alert, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the nation's first female premier who recently secured a historic landslide victory in the February 2026 general elections, immediately activated emergency protocols to monitor the projectile's trajectory. Takaichi has maintained a robust stance on regional security and the protection of Japanese territory throughout her tenure. Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday that this latest weapons test by North Korea has further heightened security anxieties in the region. No immediate danger to Japanese territory: Report Providing specific timing, the Japan Coast Guard announced at 1.30 pm on Saturday that what appears to be a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea, citing defence ministry information. In response to the launch, the coast guard issued an urgent advisory calling on ships at sea to pay attention to future updates on the situation. According to NHK, the projectile's flight path suggests that the immediate danger to Japanese territory has subsided, as defence ministry officials believe it fell in waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Kyodo News reported that a government source confirmed the projectile had apparently fallen outside the EEZ. Authorities moved quickly to assess the impact of the launch, though no damage due to the launch has been reported so far. US, South Korea holding joint military exercises The activity was also tracked by the South Korean military, which stated that North Korea fired at least one unidentified projectile in an eastward direction. The launch occurred amid heightened tensions as the United States and South Korea continue their annual springtime joint military exercises. To manage the ongoing situation, the Japanese government has convened an emergency response team consisting of officials from relevant ministries and agencies at the crisis management centre in the prime minister's office. As per Kyodo News, this incident follows a similar pattern of military demonstrations by Pyongyang earlier this year. North Korea last fired two ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on January 27, which were also assessed to have fallen outside Japan's EEZ. A jeweller in Haryana has been arrested for his alleged involvement in routing over Rs 250 crore in the IDFC First Bank fraud case, marking a significant development in the ongoing investigation. Key Points A jeweller, Rajan Katodia, owner of Sawan Jewellers, has been arrested in connection with the Rs 590 crore IDFC First Bank fraud case in Haryana. Investigations revealed that over Rs 250 crore was routed to Sawan Jewellers from companies linked to the accused in the IDFC bank fraud. Katodia allegedly facilitated cash conversion services and received a commission, falsely recording gold sales to implicated firms. The investigation has uncovered unauthorised fund transfers to Sawan Jewellers from entities like Cap Co Fintech Services and SRR Planning Gurus Pvt Ltd. This arrest brings the total number of individuals apprehended in connection with the IDFC First Bank fraud case to 12. The Haryana State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday arrested a jeweller in connection with the IDFC First Bank fraud case, with investigators finding that more than Rs 250 crore had been routed to his firm from companies linked to the accused. Rajan Katodia, owner of Sawan Jewellers, was arrested as part of the ongoing probe, and with this, the total number of arrests in the case has reached 12, an official statement issued in Panchkula said. The case pertains to private lender IDFC First Bank, which had disclosed a Rs 590 crore fraud involving certain employees and others at its Chandigarh branch in a set of accounts held by the Haryana government. Details of the Fraudulent Transactions Investigations revealed that an amount exceeding Rs 250 crore was received by Sawan Jewellers from various companies and firms linked to the accused, including Ribhav Rishi, Abhay Kumar, Abhishek Singla and Swati Singla. The statement said the "funds had been transferred into these companies/firms from government accounts through illegal means". Preliminary investigation also found that Katodia allegedly facilitated cash conversion services for the prime accused and received a hefty commission in return. "The accused falsely recorded the sale of gold items to these firms/companies in their books. The accused, Rajan, played a pivotal role in hatching the conspiracy right from the inception of the fraud and actively contributed to executing the crime as part of a premeditated plan," it said. The accused will be produced before a court in Panchkula, and a police remand will be sought for further interrogation. Further Investigation and Entities Involved The investigation also revealed that Sawan Jewellers received funds through unauthorised channels from entities such as Cap Co Fintech Services, SRR Planning Gurus Pvt Ltd and Swastik Desh Project, among others. Earlier, 11 accused, including six bank employees, four private individuals and one government official, had been arrested in connection with the case. Three suspects have been arrested in Maharashtra for an attempted jewellery store break-in, thanks to diligent police work involving CCTV footage analysis and a crucial tip-off. Key Points Three individuals have been arrested for an attempted jewellery store break-in in Palghar, Maharashtra. The suspects were apprehended in Thane following an investigation involving CCTV footage analysis. The attempted break-in occurred in the Naigaon area on March 4. Police used CCTV footage and technical inputs to identify a tourist vehicle used in the crime. Three persons have been arrested in connection with an attempted break-in at a jewellery store in Maharashtra's Palghar district, police said on Saturday. The accused were apprehended from Thane city for the crime that occurred in the Naigaon area on March 4, an official said. Investigation and Arrests "Following the break-in attempt that took place around midnight on March 4, two teams were formed to apprehend the accused," said Pournima Chougule-Shringi, Deputy Commissioner of Police Zone 2 Vasai. Investigators analysed CCTV footage from the area and technical inputs, which led them to a tourist vehicle used in the crime, she said. Acting on a tip-off, the vehicle was intercepted in the Ghodbunder Road area, and the accused, Shafiq Lalan Ansari (36), Mehboob Jani Syed (20), and Shakir Sajid Sheikh (22), all residents of neighbouring Mumbai, were caught, the official said. Amidst rising concerns of potential LPG shortages, authorities in Beed, Maharashtra, have seized a significant cache of illegally stored cylinders intended for black marketing, highlighting efforts to combat supply disruption. IMAGE: Photograph: Manash Das/ANI Photo Key Points Authorities in Beed, Maharashtra, seized 29 LPG cylinders illegally stored for black marketing. The raid was conducted following a tip-off, revealing the cylinders were stored without a valid license. A case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Essential Commodities Act. The action comes amid rumours of LPG shortages potentially linked to the West Asia crisis. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has denied any LPG shortage, accusing the Congress of spreading panic. A joint team of the police and revenue department seized 29 LPG cylinders in Maharashtra's Beed district in the early hours of Saturday, an official said. The raid was carried out at around 1:30am in Shivnerinagar area on Imampur road, he added. "Acting on a tip-off, a team from Pethbeed police station and revenue department conducted a raid. The team seized 29 LPG cylinders stored illegally for black marketing. The total value of the seizure is Rs 73,000. One Ajay Mohanrao Ghodke had stored the cylinders at his residence without valid licence," he said. A case was registered at Pethbeed police station under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Essential Commodities Act, the official said. Action is being taken across Maharashtra amid rumours of LPG shortage due to the West Asia crisis. Government Response to Shortage Rumours Earlier in the day, speaking in Nagpur, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said there is no shortage of domestic LPG, petrol and diesel and accused the Congress of deliberately creating panic with false claims of supply disruption. 'Why are the political leaders saying everything is normal?' IMAGE: LPG cylinders stored inside a godown in Mumbai, March 13, 2026 amid rising demand for cooking gas. Photograph: ANI Photo The general feeling amongst small shopkeepers, vegetable street vendors and food outlets is of unease and they relate the current situation to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Long lines are seen near gas agencies. There is no panic, but everyone is worried about the rising costs of running their homes, restaurants and small businesses. Gig workers have almost disappeared. Some housing societies have pipe gas connections and they strangely were unaware of the ground reality. The middle class who have cylinders at home are rationing their cooking styles, hoping for the war to end. Key Points Small shopkeepers, street vendors, and food outlets report anxiety as LPG shortages disrupt cooking, sales, and daily business operations. Restaurants and food stalls have cut menus, stopped online delivery services, and struggle to obtain commercial cylinders. Migrant workers and small vendors are considering returning to their villages due to uncertainty and rising living costs. Vegetable vendors report declining sales as hotels, cloud kitchens, and small eateries reduce purchases amid fuel shortages. Some workers are resorting to traditional cooking methods like chulhas while others wait for supplies or the war situation to ease. IMAGE: A worker arranges LPG cylinders inside a godown in Mumbai, March 13, 2026 as demand for cooking gas intensifies. Photograph: ANI Photo Restaurants Shut Online Food Orders A widow who runs an eating outlet outside a railway station in Navi Mumbai says, "It will be very difficult for me to pay rent if this gas shortage continues." "We just recovered from the corona pandemic and now this war is happening. I have children and old parents to look after. I am requesting the government to resolve this issue quickly or hotel owners will not be able to continue with their business," she adds. Many students who live in PG accommodation come to eat at her outlet. "We have shut down Swiggy and other online services. We serve just one bhaji and chappati now. "I sometimes cook on the chulha at home and bring the food here. Gig workers will be unemployed since everyone is closing online orders," she says. "I am in a fix -- to keep the shop open or close it," says Alok Yadav, a native of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, who runs a sandwich stall in Navi Mumbai. "Tension bahut hai." IMAGE: People queue for LPG cylinders in Mumbai, March 13, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo Street Vendors Face Falling Sales Shonali, a vegetable vendor in Navi Mumbai, tells me that vegetable sales have gone down. Mukesh, also a native of Bharaich who sells dosa for a living, says he will wait and watch the situation for 15 days. He has a gas cylinder at his Navi Mumbai home, which he shares with five from his village. Hotels Struggle Without Commercial Cylinders The owner of Hotel Pakwan in Navi Mumbai says he will have to shut his restaurant in two days if no solution is found. "Nobody speaks about our problems," he says. "Where are the commercial cylinders? I don't know where the other hotel owners are getting it from." Pakwan has stopped online orders and cut down on its menu. The owner says he will support his staff, provide food and lodging, but paying rent for the restaurant will be difficult. "We managed somehow during corona." "Why are the political leaders saying everything is normal?" he asks. These small eating places have students, bachelors and working women as their customers. Rajendra Prasad, a fruit seller and native of Prayagraj, says he and five from his village will wait for 15 days before taking a decision if they should return home. Khairul, another fruit seller, says there is a shortage of cylinders in his village in Jharkhand, but the villagers have an option to use firewood and coal. He plans to stay put in Panvel, Navi Mumbai, for a few days to check if the situation improves. Some of his friends are staying back and some are going home. Ashwini Raut, a vegetable vendor in Panvel, says she has been cooking on a chulha for the last three days. Middle-class joint families face the brunt because their gas cylinders are used up fast, says Ashwini. Migrant Workers Consider Returning Home Ram Narain, who works as a security guard, will go to his village on the Madhya Pradesh-Uttar Pradesh border if he doesn't get a refill for his small cylinder. He will somehow manage food from restaurants for a month and then leave for home, he says. His colleague Shiv has already left for his home in Prayagraj. "What is the point of having vegetables when we cannot cook them?" asks Humayun, a vegetable vendor from Sahebganj, Jharkhand. "We will wait for some time for the war to end and then decide whether to go back home." Roshan Singh, who owns a security agency, says, six of his staffers have gone home to their villages in north India. Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff Gujarat is addressing a critical child malnutrition issue affecting over 2 lakh children across 20 districts, implementing schemes to provide fortified food and nutritional support to combat the crisis. Key Points Over 2 lakh children in 20 districts of Gujarat are malnourished, with a significant number being underweight or severely underweight. Tribal-dominated Panchmahal district has the highest number of malnourished children, followed by Banaskantha and Kheda. The Gujarat government is implementing various schemes, including providing fortified food in Anganwadi centres and nutritional support for mothers, to combat malnutrition. Schemes like Take Home Ration, Dudh Sanjeevani, and Poshan Sudha are being used to provide supplementary nutrition to children and mothers in Gujarat. While the number of malnourished children increased in some districts, there was an overall reduction of nearly 1.59 lakh such children in the 20 districts over one year. The Gujarat government on Saturday informed the assembly that more than 2 lakh children in 20 out of 34 districts in the state were malnourished and that it was taking various steps to improve the situation. Responding to a set of questions raised by Congress MLAs during Question Hour, Women and Child Development Minister Manisha Vakil informed that out of 2.05 lakh malnourished children recorded in 20 districts, nearly 1.69 lakh were 'underweight', while 36,805 fell in the category of 'severely underweight' as on January 2026. According to data tabled by Vakil, the tribal-dominated Panchmahal district in central Gujarat accounted for the highest number of malnourished children (20,762), followed by Banaskantha (19,391), Kheda (18,590), Sabarkantha (16,588), Dahod (16,388), Chhotaudepur (16,322), Narmada (8,881) and Mahisagar (7,838). While tribal-dominated Tapi district recorded the lowest number of malnourished children (4,424) among these 20 districts, the highly urbanized districts of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar recorded figures of 6,411 and 6,467, respectively. In one year, as many as 1,164 malnourished children were added in Kheda and Chhotaudepur districts. There was also a reduction of nearly 1.59 lakh such children during that period in these 20 districts. Government Initiatives to Combat Malnutrition "The state government is taking various steps to end malnutrition. Fortified nutritious food is provided to children in all Anganwadi centres. Moreover, women receive nutritious food for 1,000 days before and after birth for the sake of the children's health," Vakil told the House. The government also provides supplementary nutrition to the Anganwadi children and their mothers under various schemes, such as Take Home Ration, Dudh Sanjeevani and Poshan Sudha scheme to tackle malnutrition, she added. In a shocking act of revenge, a man in Hyderabad is accused of injecting his former fiancee with HIV-infected blood after their wedding was cancelled due to his positive HIV test. Photograph: Pixabay.com Key Points A man in Hyderabad allegedly injected his former fiancee with HIV-infected blood after their wedding was cancelled. The wedding was called off after the man tested positive for HIV during a pre-marital check-up. The accused reportedly injected the woman in an attempt to force her to marry him. Police have arrested the man and charged him with attempted murder. The woman is currently hospitalised, and an investigation is ongoing. A 24-year-old man allegedly administered HIV-infected blood to a 22-year-old woman when her parents called off her wedding with him after he tested positive for the contagion, police said. The incident happened on March 11, when the accused forcibly injected HIV-infected blood into the victim at her house. According to police, the accused and the victim are relatives and her parents initially planned their daughter's marriage with him. As the man's parents were already affected with HIV, the woman's parents got the man tested for the virus in September last year. Motive Behind the Attack "As he (the man) was found HIV positive during the check-up, the woman's father cancelled his daughter's marriage with him," a police official said, adding the accused resorted to the act thinking that she would marry him and would stay with him forever. Based on a complaint from the woman's father, a case was registered at Pocharam IT Corridor police station against the accused on charge of attempt to murder and he was apprehended, police added. The woman was admitted to a hospital. Further investigation is on. A man and his second wife have been arrested in Lucknow, India, accused of murdering his four-year-old son, with the crime allegedly motivated by a property dispute, sparking a police investigation. Key Points A man and his second wife were arrested in Lucknow for allegedly murdering his four-year-old son. The child's maternal grandmother filed a complaint, alleging the murder was motivated by greed for property. The child's body showed signs of severe abuse, including injury marks, bruises, and burn marks. Police recovered potential weapons from the scene, including a broom, knife, and belt. The arrested couple is currently being interrogated as the investigation continues. A man and his second wife were arrested on Saturday for allegedly killing his four-year-old son in the city's Chowk area, police said. The accused, Bhishma Kharbanda (35) and his wife Ragini Kharbanda (30), were arrested near the Nehru Yuva Kendra based on a complaint filed by the child's maternal grandmother, officials said. According to the police, the incident came to light after Sudha Kashyap, from Unnao, filed a report stating that her son-in-law, Bhishma, informed her on March 12 about the death of her grandson, Arnav. "When the family reached the house in Lajpat Nagar, they found the child's body kept in the veranda. Upon inspection, several injury marks and blue bruises were found across the body, indicating the child had been brutally beaten. There were also burn marks on the feet," a police official said, quoting the complaint. The child's biological mother died a few years ago due to an illness, police said. The complainant alleged that Bhishma and Ragini killed the four-year-old boy out of greed for property. Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered at the Chowk police station. Investigation and Evidence A police team recovered several items allegedly used in the crime, including a broom, a wiper, a kitchen knife, a scale, a belt, and a rope. The arrested couple is being interrogated, and further legal proceedings are underway, police added. A mob attack on Muslim youth preparing to break their Ramadan fast near Pune has prompted a police investigation and raised concerns about communal tensions in the region. Key Points A group of Muslim youth was attacked near Pune while preparing to break their Ramadan fast ('roza'). The attackers allegedly questioned the youth about their presence and attire before assaulting them with weapons. Several youth sustained injuries and were hospitalised following the mob assault. Police have detained over a dozen suspects and are investigating the incident, including potential charges related to rioting and weapons. The incident occurred in the Askarwadi area under the jurisdiction of Saswad police station near a pond. Five persons were injured after a mob assaulted a group of Muslim youth who were preparing to break 'roza' (fast during Ramzan) near Pune, following which police detained over a dozen individuals, an official said on Saturday. The incident took place around 6.30 pm on Friday near a pond in the Askarwadi area under the jurisdiction of Saswad police station, he said. According to the First Information Report, complainant Firoz Javed Sayyed (25) and ten of his friends were getting ready to break their fast when about 100 persons arrived on motorcycles and began questioning them. The persons allegedly asked the youth whether they owned the place, told them to remove their skull caps and demanded to know why they had come dressed in a "particular" manner, the FIR said. The mob then allegedly abused the group and assaulted them using sharp weapons, including a 'koyta' (a sickle-like blade), and sticks, the complainant told the police. "Four to five of the youth suffered injuries and were taken to the hospital. They were subsequently discharged," an official said. A case has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections concerning voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means, unlawful assembly, rioting and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and the Arms Act, he said. Police Investigation and Detentions "We have detained 10 to 15 suspects so far. Multiple teams have been formed to trace other accused," said senior inspector Kumar Kadam from Saswad police station, adding that further investigation into the incident is underway. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accused the TMC of prioritising its vote bank by protecting infiltrators, leading to demographic shifts and marginalisation of Hindus in West Bengal. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Prime Minister Modi accuses TMC of opposing SIR to protect infiltrators for vote bank politics. Modi alleges unchecked illegal immigration under TMC rule has altered West Bengal's demographics. Modi claims TMC policies are deliberately making Hindus a minority in several areas of West Bengal. Modi criticises TMC for opposing citizenship for Hindu refugees for political gain. Modi accuses TMC of undermining constitutional institutions and insulting President Droupadi Murmu. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused the TMC of opposing the SIR exercise to "protect its vote bank of infiltrators", alleging that unchecked illegal immigration under its rule in the state has altered the demography of many areas. Addressing a mega rally at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground, Modi alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government was undermining constitutional institutions and asserted that the "countdown has begun" for its downfall. "The TMC is opposing SIR so that infiltrators can be protected," he alleged. Claiming that infiltration has led to demographic changes in many areas of the state, he alleged that the state's ruling TMC was deliberately pursuing policies that were making Hindus a minority in several areas. "Due to unchecked infiltration, the demography of several areas of West Bengal has changed. The TMC is deliberately making Hindus a minority in many areas," he alleged. Accusations Regarding Hindu Refugees and Citizenship The PM also accused the TMC of opposing citizenship for Hindu refugees for political reasons. "The TMC opposes granting citizenship to Hindu refugees because they do not consider them their vote bank," he claimed. Criticism of TMC's Actions Modi said it was shameful that the TMC was attacking constitutional institutions such as the Election Commission. He said the TMC has crossed all limits by insulting President Droupadi Murmu. "The TMC has not just insulted the President, but it has insulted the country's tribals, the people and the Constitution," he said. The TMC has strongly criticised Prime Minister Modi's claims about West Bengal's development and employment during his rally, accusing him of spreading falsehoods and withholding crucial funds from the state. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points TMC alleges Modi is building a false narrative about West Bengal's development and employment situation. The TMC claims the Centre owes West Bengal 2 lakh crore in dues for various projects. TMC asserts West Bengal has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. TMC criticises Modi for ignoring farmers' concerns and focusing on divisive rhetoric. TMC accuses BJP of attempting to polarise voters with unsubstantiated claims about 'infiltrators'. The TMC on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of building a "false narrative" about employment and the overall situation in West Bengal during his Brigade Parade Ground rally, alleging that he was acting as a BJP campaigner rather than the PM. TMC MP Saayoni Ghosh told a press conference that while Modi claimed to have sanctioned thousands of crores for the state's development, the Centre had actually withheld around Rs 2 lakh crore of dues to the state. "Modiji has claimed he has sanctioned Rs 18,000 crore to Bengal as a 'lollipop'. But in reality, he has blocked Rs 2 lakh-crore dues to the state for various projects, from the 100 days' work scheme to housing for the poor and drinking water supply," she alleged. "While Modi has failed to attend Parliament and address MPs for days, he is attending BJP meetings and coming regularly to the state before elections. He is behaving more as a BJP campaigner than the PM of the country," she claimed. Ghosh also rejected Modi's remarks on employment in the state, claiming that West Bengal has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 3.7 per cent. "BJP-ruled states like Uttarakhand top the unemployment figures," she claimed. She further alleged that the prime minister had ignored the concerns of farmers, noting that he did not visit the site of the farmers' protest near New Delhi in 2022. "The TMC government in West Bengal has provided minimum support price for products like potatoes to help farmers avoid distress sales. His narrative about Bengal falls flat," she said. Accusations of Divisive Rhetoric Minister Bratya Basu alleged that Modi's repeated references to "infiltrators", "Bangladeshis" and Rohingya were unsubstantiated claims. "He failed to explain how many among the 58 lakh names missing from the electoral rolls were Rohingyas or Bangladeshis," Basu said, accusing the BJP of trying to polarise voters. He said the prime minister's speech reflected the BJP's "divisive agenda" to pit communities against each other for electoral gains, adding that the "liberal and progressive-minded people of the state" would not be swayed by such rhetoric. "He is acting more like a BJP leader peddling falsehood than a PM," he said. BJP's Call for 'Parivartan' Questioned Minister Shashi Panja, who was also present at the press meet, questioned the BJP's call for "parivartan", alleging that "hooligans sheltered by the BJP" had attacked her residence with an aim to kill her. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a scathing attack on the TMC, accusing them of insulting President Droupadi Murmu and disrespecting tribal communities during her recent visit to West Bengal. Photograph: Press Information Bureau Key Points Prime Minister Modi accuses TMC of insulting President Droupadi Murmu during her visit to West Bengal. Modi alleges TMC disrespected tribal communities and the Constitution by mishandling the President's programme. The President reportedly expressed displeasure over changes to her itinerary and the absence of state officials. Modi claims tribals, Dalits, and the poor are suffering under the TMC government in West Bengal. BJP intensifies attacks on TMC, accusing them of insulting the first tribal President of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused the ruling TMC of "crossing all limits" by insulting President Droupadi Murmu, alleging that the party had disrespected not only the head of the state but also the country's tribals and the Constitution. Modi's remarks come in the backdrop of the recent controversy surrounding Murmu's visit to north Bengal last week. The President had expressed displeasure over the last-minute change of venue of her programme near Siliguri and questioned why neither Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee nor any state minister was present at the airport to receive her. "The TMC has not just insulted the President, but it has insulted the country's tribals, the people of this country and the Constitution. The TMC has crossed all limits by insulting President Droupadi Murmu," Modi said while addressing a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground here. The PM said the President had come to the state to participate in a Santhal tribal festival, but the programme was "mishandled" by the state government. Modi's Criticism of the West Bengal Government Launching a blistering attack on the state government, Modi alleged that tribals, Dalits and the poor were the worst affected under the present dispensation in West Bengal. "Under this ruthless government, the most tormented today are the Dalits, Adivasis and our poor brothers and sisters here. The injustice done to the Adivasi community is not hidden from anyone. But now, the TMC government has crossed all limits," he said. "Just a few days ago, the President of our country, the esteemed daughter of the Adivasi community, Honourable Droupadi Murmu Ji, came to Bengal. She was to participate in the sacred festival of the Santhal Adivasi tradition, but this ruthless government, steeped in arrogance, not only boycotted that programme but handed it over entirely to utter chaos," he said. "Because a daughter of the Adivasi community holds such a high position, the TMC folks could not accept her honour," Modi alleged. Stressing that the alleged disrespect to Murmu amounted to an insult to millions of tribals and women, Modi said the people of West Bengal would hold the TMC government accountable for what he described as an affront to the Constitution and to Babasaheb B R Ambedkar. Alleging atrocities against marginalised communities, the Prime Minister claimed that tribals and Dalits in the state had faced several forms of injustice. "We all know the kinds of atrocities that have been unleashed on the tribals and Dalits in the state," he said. The issue triggered a political storm in the state, with the BJP stepping up its attack on the TMC ahead of the assembly elections, accusing the ruling party of insulting the country's first tribal President, a charge the Trinamool Congress has strongly denied. Two Mumbai youths were scammed out of 23.43 lakh by a con artist promising fake jobs at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), highlighting the prevalence of employment fraud. Key Points Two youths in Mumbai were cheated of 23.43 lakh with promises of jobs in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The accused claimed to be a BMC staffer and promised supervisor posts in the water department. Victims were given fake BMC joining letters and identity cards to gain their trust. The accused issued cheques that bounced when the victims demanded their money back. A police case has been registered, and an investigation is underway. Two youngsters were cheated of Rs 23.43 lakh with the promise of jobs in Mumbai's civic body, a police official said on Saturday. Complainant Chandra Kishore Prasad (26), a UPSC aspirant living in an MHADA transit building in Kandivali West, has claimed he was introduced to the accused Himanshu Mohan Mishra by his friend Adarsh Shobhnath Yadav, the Kasturba Marg police station official said. "Mishra, claiming to be a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation staffer promised to secure two supervisor posts in the civic water department. He assured the victims that the jobs were guaranteed if they paid money and also promised to refund the amount if the employment did not materialise," he said. "Trusting him, Prasad paid the accused in instalments transferring around Rs 12 lakh via bank and giving Rs 1 lakh in cash. The accused allegedly handed over a fake BMC joining letter and identity card to gain his confidence. Another youth, Shobhit Premnarayan Tripathi, was also cheated of Rs 10.43 lakh by the accused with the same modus operandi," he said. Investigation and Aftermath When the victims demanded their money back, the accused reportedly reached a settlement and issued four cheques worth Rs 22 lakh from his brother's bank account, all of which bounced, the official added. A case has been registered against Mishra and Yadav and further probe is underway, he said. West Bengal leaders Mamata Banerjee and Suvendu Adhikari commemorate the Nandigram massacre anniversary, honouring the victims of the 2007 anti-land acquisition movement and highlighting ongoing support for the state's farming community. Key Points Mamata Banerjee and Suvendu Adhikari paid tribute to the 14 victims of the Nandigram massacre during the anti-land acquisition movement in 2007. Banerjee's government observes March 14 as 'Farmers' Day' in remembrance of the Nandigram martyrs. Suvendu Adhikari honoured the victims, emphasizing that their sacrifices in the fight against forcible land acquisition would never be forgotten. The West Bengal government's Krishak Bandhu scheme provides financial assistance to farmers, sharecroppers, and cultivators. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday paid tributes to the 14 protesters who were killed in firing during the anti-land acquisition movement at Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district on this day in 2007. In her message, Banerjee remembered the victims, saying the soil of Nandigram was soaked with blood 19 years ago. "Immortal martyrs will always remain immortal. Victory to Nandigram," she said, recalling the sacrifices made by the protesters. Fourteen people were killed, and over a hundred others were seriously injured in the incident, which remains one of the bloodiest episodes in the state's political history. She said March 14 is observed as 'Farmers' Day' every year in memory of the martyrs of the agrarian land movement in Nandigram. She described farmers as the "pride of the state" and the "providers of food". Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA from Nandigram, Suvendu Adhikari, paid floral tributes at the martyrs' memorials at Gokulnagar Adhikari Para and Sonachura in Nandigram to honour those who lost their lives in the movement to protect agricultural land. Paying homage, Adhikari said the sacrifices of the martyrs would never be forgotten and described March 14, 2007, as a "cursed day" in the political history of the state. "The sacrifice of the martyrs will never be forgotten. The struggle against subjugation and forcible land acquisition in Nandigram remains in our memory," he said, offering respects to those who died in the movement and chanting slogans in their memory. Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee also paid tribute to the 'martyrs of Nandigram' and shared an image of him offering a floral tribute to the deceased at a memorial in the city. Government Initiatives for Farmers Highlighting state initiatives for the farming community, Banerjee said the government's Krishak Bandhu (New) scheme provides financial assistance of Rs 10,000 annually to farmers, sharecroppers and cultivators. Three suspects have been apprehended in Navi Mumbai after a swift investigation into a Rs 3.6 million jewellery theft, highlighting the effectiveness of local law enforcement. Key Points Three individuals have been arrested in Navi Mumbai for a jewellery theft involving Rs 3.6 million worth of gold and silver. The arrests were made by the crime branch within 24 hours of the burglary in the Kalamboli area. The accused broke into a flat and stole gold, silver ornaments, and cash. The stolen valuables were recovered from the accused, who were apprehended in Daighar village, Thane district. Three persons have been arrested for allegedly breaking into a house and decamping with gold and silver jewellery worth Rs 36 lakh in Navi Mumbai, police said on Saturday. The crime branch made the arrests on March 10 within 24 hours of the burglary that occurred at a residential building in the Kalamboli area, an official said. According to the police, the accused broke into the flat on the evening of March 9 and stole gold and silver ornaments and cash worth about Rs 36 lakh. A case of theft and break-in was registered, and following investigation, the crime branch zeroed in on the trio and apprehended them from Daighar village in Thane district, the official said. The accused, Pawan Rohidas Jadhav (25), Sumit Rohidas Jadhav (22), and Shivaji Jagan Rathod (23), were caught with the stolen valuables, he said. A newlywed bride mysteriously vanished from a bus stop in Moradabad, India, while her husband briefly stepped away to purchase snacks, prompting a police investigation into her disappearance. Key Points A newly-married woman disappeared from a bus stop in Moradabad while her husband was buying her snacks. The incident occurred at Bilari bus station when the couple was waiting for their next bus after visiting the wife's family for Holi. The husband returned from buying fritters to find his wife missing, with no one at the bus stop having seen her leave. Police have registered a missing person report and are currently investigating the disappearance of the woman in Moradabad. In a rather unusual incident, a newly-married woman reportedly fled from a bus stand in Moradabad district in Uttar Pradesh, when her husband had gone to buy 'pakodas' (fritters) for her. According to the police, the incident took place on March 9 at Bilari bus station in Moradabad district, when Pritam Singh from Amroha district went to bring his wife, Rinjhim, back from her maternal home, which she was visiting for Holi. The couple had married in December last year. During the journey, the two got down at the Bilari bus stand to wait for their next bus. Rimjhim (18) then told her husband Pritam that she was hungry and asked him to get her some hot fritters from a stall. Pritam went to buy the snack. But when he returned a few minutes later, he could not find his wife. At first, he assumed she might be close by. But after searching the area and asking people around, he found no trace of her. No one at the bus stand had seen her leave the place. Police Investigation into Missing Woman Bilari Circle Officer Ashok Kumar Singh confirmed the incident and said that a missing report has been registered in this connection. He added that the missing woman is yet to be traced. The commerce minister reassured that the deal is a win-win deal for both India and the United States, saying India has been able to protect all its sensitive sectors like agriculture. IMAGE: US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands as they attend a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, DC on February 13, 2025. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Friday rejected reports suggesting that India is planning to hold off trade deal with the United States for several months. Key Points There is some absolutely baseless report circulating from today morning... which you should trash. There is absolutely no basis in it at all, Goyal said. The Union minister reassured that the deal is a win-win deal for both India and the United States. Commerce ministry officials said India and the United States remain engaged for a mutually beneficial trade agreement, and there is no holdup in bilateral engagement. Speaking at the NXT Summit 2026 in New Delhi, the Union minister said, "There is some absolutely baseless report circulating from today morning... which you should trash. There is absolutely no basis in it at all. We have a very good trade agreement with the United States of America." Piyush Goyal reassured that the deal is a win-win deal for both India and the United States saying, "We have been able to protect all our sensitive sectors like agriculture. India's interests have been safeguarded like no GM products, no rice, no corn, no maize, no soya bean and no dairy or poultry either. It is a very powerful agreement, it is great for both India and America as every trade deal should be." The commerce minister also highlighted how India would gain from the deal in the long run. "The deal also helps us get the best of technologies from America so that we can become the data centre of the world and can have large investments post the successful AI Summit", he said. Earlier, commerce ministry officials said India and the United States remain engaged for a mutually beneficial trade agreement, and there is no holdup in bilateral engagement. The United States and India last month announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. The framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by President Donald J Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains. A joint statement said that the Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone "in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes". Meanwhile, in a fresh development, the Donald Trump administration has initiated fresh investigations into alleged "unfair trade practice" by 16 major trading partners, including India, China, and Bangladesh. The move aims to reinstate tariff pressure following a US Supreme Court ruling last month that declared previous levies illegal. A Jaipur property dealer survived a targeted shooting, prompting a police investigation into a suspected old rivalry. Key Points A property dealer in Jaipur, Kamal Meena, was attacked while driving to a temple. Unidentified assailants in multiple vehicles surrounded Meena's SUV and opened fire. Meena survived the attack by ramming his vehicle into the attackers' and chasing one on foot. Police suspect the shooting is the result of an old rivalry and are investigating the incident. CCTV footage is being reviewed to identify the attackers involved in the Jaipur shooting. A property dealer narrowly escaped after unidentified assailants opened fire at him while he was en route to a temple here on Saturday, police said. The incident occurred near Hatoj Phatak in the Bindayaka area. According to the police, the initial investigation suggests that the man was attacked over an old enmity. The victim, Kamal Meena (38), from Sirsi village, had left his house in a Fortuner SUV for the temple when 10-12 men arrived in three vehicles and surrounded his car near a private school, police said. One of the assailants opened fire at Meena, and the bullet hit the car. During the incident, Meena rammed his vehicle into the attackers' vehicle and also chased one of the assailants who tried to flee on foot, police said. The attackers, however, managed to escape in their vehicles. CCTV footage from the surrounding area was examined to identify the attackers, they added. Prima facie, the firing is suspected to be the result of an old rivalry, the police said, adding that the matter was being investigated. Punjab Police successfully dismantled an ISI-sponsored terror module, arresting two individuals and seizing a significant cache of weapons intended for terrorist activities, highlighting ongoing efforts to combat cross-border terrorism. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Punjab Police busted an ISI-sponsored terror module, arresting two individuals. An AK-47 rifle and three Glock pistols were recovered from the arrested individuals. The accused were in contact with foreign-based handlers via social media and involved in radicalisation. The arms consignment was sent by foreign handlers via Pakistan for terrorist activities in Punjab. Investigations are ongoing to dismantle the entire terror network and establish all linkages. The Punjab Police on Saturday claimed to have busted an ISI-sponsored terror and arms smuggling module with the arrest of two persons. The operation led to recovery of an AK-47 rifle and three sophisticated 9mm Glock pistols. Two magazines and 36 live cartridges were also seized from the duo. Those arrested have been identified as Gursevak Singh alias Suraj, a resident of Attari and Amarjit Singh alias Rohit, a resident of Chheharta. Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused were in contact with foreign-based handlers through social media, DGP Gaurav Yadav said, adding that the module was also involved in radicalisation efforts and the dissemination of narratives directed against the country and the police force. The DGP added that further investigation is underway to establish both forward and backward linkages in this case to dismantle the entire network. Arrests and Weapon Seizure Details SSP, Amritsar Rural, Suhail Qasim Mir said the arrests were made by teams from the Gharinda police station area. Acting on specific intelligences, officials intercepted the suspects near Muhawa village. The SSP noted that the weapon consignment was sent by foreign handlers via Pakistan route. The arms were meant for carrying out terrorist activities in Punjab, the officer added. The Allahabad high court has strongly criticised Uttar Pradesh officials for imposing restrictions on the number of worshippers at a Sambhal mosque, asserting that they should resign if unable to uphold the rule of law and ensure religious freedom. IMAGE: Security personnel deployed outside Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal. Photograph: ANI Video Grab Key Points Allahabad high court rejects UP government order restricting mosque prayer numbers in Sambhal due to law and order concerns. The court emphasises the state's duty to ensure peaceful worship for all communities in designated places. The court states that state involvement is only essential when prayers are held on public land. The court suggests that local authorities should resign or seek transfer if they cannot manage law and order without limiting worshippers. The case involves a petition regarding prayer restrictions during Ramzan at a mosque on Gata No. 291 in Sambhal. Rejecting an order of the Uttar Pradesh government restricting the number of people offering prayers at a mosque in Sambhal district due to law and order issues, the Allahabad high court has said the Superintendent of Police and Collector should either resign or seek transfer if they feel they are not competent enough to enforce rule of law. A bench of justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan observed, "It is duty of the State to ensure that every community is able to offer worship peacefully in the designated place of worship and if it is a private property as already been held by the court earlier to perform worship without any permission from the State." The court was hearing a petition filed by Munazir Khan of Sambhal alleging that he was prevented from conducting prayers during Ramzan on Gata No.291, where according to the petitioner, the mosque exists. "This court has already settled that it is only where prayers or religious functions have to be held on public land or spill over the public property that the involvement of the state is essential and permission must be sought," the court said in its order dated February 27. The state has disputed the ownership of Gata No.291 by saying that this is reflected in the names of Mohan Singh and Bhooraj Singh, both sons of Sukhi Singh, in the revenue records. However, permission was granted only to the extent of 20 worshippers who may offer namaz, whereas the petitioner says a larger number of people may come for prayers as it is the month of Ramzan. Counsel for the State said that on account of perceived law and order situation, such an order restricting number of worshippers was passed. Court's Directive to UP Officials After hearing counsels for the parties, the court said, "It is the duty of the State to ensure that the rule of law prevails under every circumstance. If the local authorities i.e. Superintendent of Police and Collector feel that the law and order situation could arise because of which they want to limit the number of worshippers within the premises, they should either resign from their post or seek transfer outside Sambhal." The court fixed March 16 for the next hearing. Citing 'Iraqi sources,' the report indicated that the mission specifically focused on the electronic detection equipment situated within the diplomatic mission's compound. IMAGE: A view of the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Photograph: Reuters/ANI Photo A 'suicide drone' was used to target the 'radar system' at the United States embassy in Baghdad, according to a report by the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV. Citing 'Iraqi sources,' the report indicated that the mission specifically focused on the electronic detection equipment situated within the diplomatic mission's compound. Key Points 'Iraqi officials,' claimed the missile successfully struck the 'landing area within the compound,' signifying a diversified strike against the US mission. This physical assault coincides with sharp diplomatic rhetoric from Tehran Iranian Parliament Speaker said that Trump was duped by Netanyahu into starting the war and is now acting under his control. In a further escalation of the assault on the heavily fortified site, a missile strike also reportedly targeted the "helipad" at the embassy, as documented by Al Jazeera. According to 'Iraqi officials,' the missile successfully struck the 'landing area within the compound,' signifying a diversified strike against the United States mission. This physical assault coincides with sharp diplomatic rhetoric from Tehran. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has asserted that the Islamic Republic now views the United States and the Israeli regime as indistinguishable regarding the severity of their actions against the Iranian people. In a statement shared on X, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf remarked, "Trump was duped by [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu into starting the war and is now acting under his control." The Speaker further clarified Tehran's current stance, noting that, in light of the "major crime they have committed, Iran no longer makes 'any distinction' between the United States and the Zionist regime." Qalibaf's comments come at a time of intensifying regional conflict, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continuing its series of "successful and decisive waves of unrelenting retaliatory strikes" against what it describes as hostile American and Israeli installations. Regarding the future of the military engagement, the Speaker maintained a firm position, declaring that "the war will continue until the enemy's calculus is altered and they are driven to regret." Mirroring this defiant political stance, the IRGC has confirmed the launch of the 48th phase of its retaliatory campaign, targeting various Israeli and American installations, according to reports by Press TV. In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC announced the "successful execution of the 48th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against Zionist and American targets." This latest offensive was reportedly carried out in coordination with the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah. Military officials identified the primary targets within the occupied territories as being situated in the northern sector, specifically focusing on "Galilee, Golan, and the occupied city of Haifa." Beyond these areas, several "American bases throughout the region" were also struck during this stage of the conflict. According to Press TV, the 48th wave utilised a sophisticated mix of weaponry, including "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles, liquid-fuel Qadr missiles, and attack drones." This follows the earlier completion of the 47th wave, which took place on Friday and targeted strategic locations such as the "Negev Desert, including Nevatim," which is home to one of the largest airbases in the region. Other strikes during that phase were directed at "Be'er Sheva," described as a technological hub, and the city of "Lod." Notably, the IRGC also reported hitting "al-Udaid," identified as the "United States' most important airbase in the West Asia region," located in Qatar. The operation further extended to the "hiding places of the anti-Iran Komala terrorist group," employing both "solid-fuel Kheibar Shekan missiles and liquid-fuel Qadr missiles." Press TV further reported that during the 46th wave, which also occurred on Friday, the IRGC utilised "Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, Emad, and Qadr missiles." Highlighting the impact on the ground, the Corps noted the psychological toll of the strikes, stating, "Siren to siren and a scramble to enter shelters, this is the current state of the Zionists at this moment." Since the onset of hostilities late last month, the IRGC has reportedly deployed "hundreds of ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well as attack drones." On the defensive front, the Corps claimed to have downed five invading aircraft on Friday, including "Orbiter 4, Hermes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones." Military records cited by the state broadcaster indicate that a total of "114 reconnaissance and combat drones" have been neutralised by Iran's "advanced air defense systems" since the start of the aggression. In a final escalation of the psychological campaign, the IRGC has reportedly begun sending Hebrew text messages to residents within the occupied territories. The warning message stated, "By the permission of God, we will bring upon you days of darkness in which you will wish for death, but you will not find it." Political tensions flare in Kolkata as TMC and BJP supporters clash ahead of Narendra Modi's rally, underscoring the intense rivalry before the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections. IMAGE: State minister and TMC leader Shashi Panja speaks to media during the clash between BJP and TMC workers in the Girish Park area, in Kolkata on Saturday. Photograph: ANI Photo Key Points Violent clashes broke out between TMC and BJP supporters in Kolkata prior to Prime Minister Modi's rally. The clashes resulted in injuries to a police officer and a BJP leader, escalating political tensions. Both TMC and BJP have accused each other of instigating the violence, with allegations of stone-throwing and property damage. The incident highlights the intense political polarisation in West Bengal ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. The BJP's 'Parivartan Yatra' aims to mobilise support against the ruling TMC, while the TMC accuses the BJP of disrupting peace. Clashes broke out between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in central Kolkata on Saturday, barely half an hour before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally at the Brigade Parade Ground, leaving a police officer and a leader of the saffron party injured, officials said. Allegations also surfaced that stones were thrown at the residence of West Bengal minister Shashi Panja in the Girish Park area. The violence took place around 5 km from the rally venue as BJP supporters were marching towards the Brigade Parade Ground to attend the prime minister's meeting, which marks the culmination of the party's statewide 'Parivartan Yatra' ahead of the Assembly elections. According to eyewitnesses, supporters of both parties allegedly threw stones at each other and raised slogans, triggering tension in the busy locality. The officer-in-charge of Bowbazar police station, Bappaditya Naskar, was injured while trying to control the situation, police sources said. The BJP also claimed that its north Kolkata district president, Tamaghno Ghosh, and several party workers were injured in the clashes. Ghosh was later taken to a hospital for treatment, party leaders said. BJP leaders alleged that their supporters were attacked without provocation while heading towards the rally venue. "Stones were thrown at us without any provocation. Abuses were also hurled at us," a BJP activist told a Bengali news channel. The party further alleged that several vehicles, including buses carrying supporters to the rally, were damaged in the clashes. However, TMC workers denied the allegations and claimed that BJP supporters first attacked Panja's residence while passing through the Girish Park area on their way to the Brigade rally. Panja claimed that BJP supporters had targeted her residence and damaged window panes. "BJP goons carried out the attack. Buses heading to the Brigade rally were carrying bricks, glass bottles and bombs. They attacked my house on Girish Park main road," the minister alleged. She claimed that trouble began after saffron party supporters tore down posters reading 'Boycott BJP' put up in the area. According to Panja, when TMC workers attempted to put up the posters again, BJP supporters got down from buses and allegedly assaulted them, following which stones were thrown towards her house and window panes were damaged. Rejecting the allegations, BJP leaders claimed that TMC activists pelted stones at their rallyists and buses when they were passing through the area. Some BJP leaders also alleged that the police initially remained 'inactive' as the situation escalated. Police later rushed a large contingent to the spot and brought the situation under control, dispersing the clashing groups. As tension escalated in the locality, many shopkeepers hurriedly downed their shutters. The clashes occurred shortly before Modi's rally at the Brigade Parade Ground, where the prime minister is scheduled to address a massive gathering and unveil development projects worth around Rs 18,680 crore. The rally marks the culmination of the BJP's month-long 'Parivartan Yatra', which the party launched across West Bengal to mobilise support and sharpen its campaign against the ruling TMC ahead of the Assembly elections. Political Context and Implications Political observers said the clashes underscore the intense political polarisation in the state as both the BJP and the TMC seek to consolidate their support base in the run-up to the polls. The BJP, which had emerged as the principal challenger to the TMC in the 2021 Assembly elections, has been attempting to revive its organisational momentum in the state through mass mobilisation campaigns and high-profile rallies by central leaders. The ruling TMC, on the other hand, has been seeking to project the BJP's political campaigns as attempts to import "outsider politics" and disrupt peace in the state. Trump also called upon China, France, and Japan, among others, to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. IMAGE: F/A-18F aircrafts are seen on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz. Photograph: Ahmed Jadallah/File Photo/Reuters Key Points US President Donald Trump said the US and allied countries will deploy warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Trump warned that the US would bomb Iran's shoreline and target Iranian boats if tensions escalate further. He urged countries including China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom to send warships to the region. The Strait of Hormuz carries over 20 million barrels of oil daily, making it one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints. Iranian representative Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi said the conflict has global economic consequences but reiterated that Indian ships would still be allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump said the US and allied countries will deploy warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Trump warned that the US would bomb Iran's shoreline and target Iranian boats if tensions escalate further. He urged countries including China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom to send warships to the region. The Strait of Hormuz carries over 20 million barrels of oil daily, making it one of the worlds most critical energy chokepoints. Iranian representative Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi said the conflict has global economic consequences but reiterated that Indian ships would still be allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz. In the wake of the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf, US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington, DC would send warships, along with other countries, to keep the Strait of Hormuz 'open and safe'. Trump also called upon China, France, and Japan, among others, to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. He said the United States would bomb the shoreline and continually shoot Iranian boats and ships. He made the remarks in a post on Truth Social. Trump said that several countries, in conjunction with the United States, would send warships to ensure the Strait of Hormuz remains open. 'Many countries, especially those affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Irans military capability, but it is easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are,' he wrote. He added, 'Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and others affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat from a nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!' Why Strait of Hormuz is important The United States has long referred to the strait as the 'world's most important oil chokepoint' because of the volume of global energy supplies that transit through the narrow passage. More than 20 million barrels of crude oil pass daily through the narrow channel separating the Iranian coast from Oman. That volume represents roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption and nearly a quarter of all seaborne oil trade. A significant share of the world's liquefied natural gas also moves through the same passage. Iran to allow Indian ships to pass through Hormuz Meanwhile, the representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, expressed concern over the ongoing conflict, saying it had become a global issue due to rising energy prices and broader economic impacts. Highlighting the global implications of the conflict, Ilahi pointed to the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global energy supplies. "Actually, the crisis is not only for Iran, but it is a global crisis. They imposed this war on us, and we have to defend ourselves. We are ready to share our blood for our dignity, for our independence, for our country," he said. "We are not happy with the suffering of other people -- the shortage of gas, petrol, and oil. But we have to defend ourselves. We do not have any other option," he added, urging global leaders to pressure the United States to stop the war. Ilahi reiterated that Indian vessels would be allowed to pass through the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi responded affirmatively, saying, "Of course, yes," when asked whether Indian ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait. He added that the special concessions for India reflected what he described as solidarity among many Indian citizens with Iran against what he termed 'oppression' by the US and its allies. Following the tragic deaths of two senior officials at a Budaun biogas plant, the Uttar Pradesh government has launched a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to ensure a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident. Key Points Uttar Pradesh government establishes SIT to investigate the murder of two senior officials at a Budaun biogas plant. The SIT, led by the Bareilly divisional commissioner, will conduct a detailed and transparent investigation into all aspects of the incident. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath assures swift action and a zero-tolerance policy towards crime, promising strict action against those involved. Security has been strengthened at the biogas plant, including the establishment of a police outpost to prevent future incidents. The Senior Superintendent of Police of Budaun has been transferred, and a new superintendent of police has been appointed. The Uttar Pradesh government has constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the killing of two senior officials at a compressed biogas plant in Budaun, following directions from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. According to an official statement, the SIT has been formed under the chairmanship of the Bareilly divisional commissioner and will conduct a detailed investigation into all aspects of the incident to ensure a fair and transparent probe. The chief minister said swift action had already been taken in the case, and the main accused had been arrested. He added that if the probe reveals any larger conspiracy or involvement of other individuals, strict action will be taken in line with the government's "zero tolerance" policy towards crime and criminals. Authorities have also strengthened security at the plant and established a police outpost inside the biogas plant premises to prevent any such incidents in the future and ensure the safety of industrial establishments, the statement said. Police Transfers and Security Measures Meanwhile, the state government on Friday night transferred the Senior Superintendent of Police of Budaun, Brijesh Kumar Singh, to Lucknow and appointed him as superintendent of police (logistics). He has been replaced by Ankita Sharma, who was serving as the superintendent of police of Kasganj. The transfer assumes significance as it came barely a day after two senior officials of an ethanol plant in Sejni village under Musajhag police station limits in Budaun district were shot dead, with police arresting a blacklisted vendor in connection with the killings. Those killed were identified as Sudhir Kumar Gupta (58), general manager at the facility, and Harshit Mishra (34), assistant general manager. Calls for CBI Investigation Former BJP MP from the Aonla Lok Sabha constituency, Dharmendra Kashyap, has demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the killings, saying the incident raises several serious questions that need answers. The chief minister also expressed condolences to the families of the victims and said the state government stands firmly with them, assuring that every necessary step will be taken to ensure justice. The ship is currently based in Japan and is expected to reach the US Central Command's Area of Responsibility, West Asia, within one to two weeks, as tensions rise near Hormuz. IMAGE: USS Tripoli conducting a group sail during Exercise Iron Fist in the Indo-Pacific around March 1, 2026. Photograph: File Photo/ INDOPACOM The United States is sending an amphibious Ready Group (ARG) led by the USS Tripoli and around 2,500 Marines to West Asia as tensions rise near the Strait of Hormuz following recent attacks linked to Iran, Fox News, citing a defence official, said. Key Points The US is sending an amphibious Ready Group led by the USS Tripoli and around 2,500 Marines to West Asia. According to The New York Times, more than 50,000 US troops are currently operating across West Asia. US Pentagon's want for this new deployment comes amid increasing tensions in and around the Strait of Hormuz. According to the report, the Pentagon is deploying the USS Tripoli ARG, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), part of its own strike group. The ship is currently based in Japan and is expected to reach the US Central Command's (USCENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR), West Asia, within one to two weeks. The Marines will join a large American military presence already in the region. According to The New York Times, more than 50,000 US troops are currently operating across West Asia. US Pentagon's want for this new deployment comes amid increasing tensions in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's recent attacks near the waterway have disrupted maritime traffic through one of the world's most important energy routes. The Strait of Hormuz is considered one of the most strategically important waterways in the world. It connects the Persian Gulf with the northern Arabian Sea and is a key route for global energy supplies. Iran's southern coastline runs along the strait. Ships passing through the waterway are often contacted by Iranian authorities through maritime radio communications when they enter or exit the Gulf. The Strait handles a major share of global oil transport. Around one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the route on large commercial tankers. Recent security concerns have already affected oil shipments in the region. Tanker traffic slowed after strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran in later part of February. The USS Tripoli is part of the Tripoli Expeditionary Strike Group operating under the US Seventh Fleet. The group includes the USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta, along with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The USS Tripoli is one of the largest amphibious assault ships in the US Navy. Nearly the size of an aircraft carrier, the ship can carry dozens of helicopters, MV-22 Osprey aircraft and F-35B Joint Strike Fighter jets, along with more than 1,700 Marines and their equipment. Amphibious ships like the USS Tripoli are designed to operate close to shore and support amphibious operations. They can deploy landing craft and aircraft to move troops and equipment from sea to land, as per the US Navy. As the regional conflict enters its second week with ongoing exchanges of projectiles, the US President had earlier labelled Tehran's leadership as "deranged scumbags". He had also said that it would be a "great honour" for him to eliminate them. President Trump had also asserted that Washington is conducting operations to "destroy the terrorist regime of Iran" through military means. The US spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the world--including India--to buy Russian crude, the Iranian foreign minister said. IMAGE: Tankers sail in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman's Musandam governance, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in United Arab Emirates, March 11, 2026. Photograph: Reuters Key Points Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Saturday criticised the United States over its stance on Russian oil Araghchi said that the US spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia and is now begging the word to buy Russian crude. The Iranian foreign minister also criticised European countries for backing an 'illegal war' against Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said the United States, despite 'bullying India' to end Russian oil imports, is now begging them to buy crude from Moscow, two weeks after its war with Iran. 'The US spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia,' said Araghchi on Friday in a post on social media platform X. 'After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the world -- including India -- to buy Russian crude,' he added. US 'allowed' India to buy Russian oil This comes after, on March 5, the US issued a 30-day waiver allowing India to buy Russian oil, having previously imposed heavy sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. Calling out Europe's stance on the conflict in West Asia, the minister termed the war on Iran 'illegal' and said that Europe thought backing an illegal war on Iran would win US support against Russia. He even termed the current stance of the Trump administration towards the purchase of Russian crude oil as 'Pathetic'. Starting February 28, the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran, which came after days of build-up with US President Donald Trump ramping up the pressure on Tehran to agree to a new deal on its nuclear programme. Iran's retaliation escalated the war to the entire Gulf region. US President Donald Trump said American forces have "totally obliterated" military sites on Iran's strategic Kharg Island in "one of the most powerful bombing raids" in Middle East history and he said the US Navy would soon begin escorting vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump wrote on social media. He also posted what he appeared to be black-and-white surveillance footage showing explosions on the island following the strikes. "Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he added. He warned Tehran, however, that should Iran "or anyone else" do anything to impede shipping through the strait, he would "reconsider" the decision not to destroy oil sites on the island. Iran's Kharg Island is the country's main oil export outlet, serving as the terminal for about 90 percent of its oil exports. It is located about 24 kilometers off the Iranian coast and some 480 kilometers north of the Strait of Hormuz. Hours later, Iranian state media on March 14 confirmed that US forces had struck military facilities on Kharg Island. The Fars news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported hearing more than 15 explosions on the island and said thick smoke was rising from the area. The outlet said the United States targeted military equipment and claimed Khargs air defense systems were not damaged. RFE/RLs Radio Farda has not been able to independently verify the report. The Iranian military had earlier threatened to attack US-linked oil sites in the region if any Iranian energy infrastructure were hit. The developments came as the Pentagon began beefing up its forces in the Middle East, sending a new assault ship with a Marine expeditionary unit aboard after Trump vowed intensified attacks in the upcoming week. Senior defense officials told RFE/RL on March 13 that the Pentagon is sending a Marine contingent -- likely about 2,500 personnel -- aboard the USS Tripoli assault ship. RFE/RL reached out to the White House and was referred to US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East. CENTCOM did not immediately comment. Axios, which also reported the Marine deployment, said the Pentagon is sending the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and guided-missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta to the region along with the Tripoli. "Were going to be hitting them very hard over the next week, Trump said. The president later wrote in another social media post that Iran "is totally defeated and wants a deal -- but not a deal that I would accept." Ready And Willing To Escort Trump earlier said the United States was prepared and willing to escort ships through the crucial Strait of Hormuz to protect them from Iranian attack, a move other Western nations also have said they are contemplating. When asked later when the US Navy would begin escorting tankers, Trump told reporters, "It will happen soon," although he gave no time frame. The US administration is scrambling to stem the surge in global oil prices following the disruptions stemming from the US-Israeli air strikes on Iran, which began on February 28, and Tehrans subsequent retaliatory missile and drone launches on US Gulf Arab allies and other countries. Paris Also Ponders Escort Duty France is also developing plans to form a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilizes, Reuters cited two unnamed French officials as saying. Amid the rise in energy prices, European powers are seeking ways to protect their ships transiting the strait. France has joined Italy in seeking a diplomatic deal with Iran to allow their vessels to safely transit the waterway, one official said. Reuters, citing sources, reported that Iran has allowed two Indian-flagged liquefied petroleum gas carriers to sail through the strait, representing a rare exception to Tehran's policy of harassing ship traffic. Iranian Leaders On The Streets Several senior Iranian officials, including President Masud Pezeshkian, took to the streets of Tehran on March 13 for the annual Al-Quds Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause despite an intense wave of air strikes by the United States and Israel. Striking a defiant tone, judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, national police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, also joined thousands of Iranians in the capital, state TV images showed, as plumes of smoke rose from sites around the city. Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei -- who succeeded his father, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli air strikes -- remained out of sight amid questions about his physical condition. US defense chief Pete Hegseth said Khamenei was likely wounded and disfigured in the air strike that killed his father, and he questioned Khamenei's ability to govern amid the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Early on March 14, large explosions were heard again in central Tehran, although details were not immediately available. US Mourns Deaths Of Plane Crew The United States is also mourning the latest deaths to US service personnel following what appeared to be a midair collision of two KC-135 refueling aircraft over western Iraq. CENCOMM on March 13 said all six crew members had died in the incident, which involved another refueling tanker and did not involve hostile or friendly fire. The incident brought the confirmed number of US deaths in the war to 13, with several dozen reported to be injured, mostly in various Iranian missile launches targeting US military bases in the Gulf region. France also mourned the death of a soldier indirectly linked to the war in Iran. President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that a drone strike killed a French soldier in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region while assisting Iraqi forces on antiterrorism missions. "The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks," he said. The 42-year-old soldier's commander initially said the projectile was an Iranian-made Shahed attack drone. But a military spokesman later said it was "premature" to identify the specific model of drone or launch site, adding that an investigation is ongoing. France is not participating directly in the US-Israeli war effort. Iranian Launches Continue Iran continued to launch strikes against Israel, with the Israeli military saying early on March 14 that "defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat." Turkey reported that an Iranian missile was intercepted by NATO defenses over its territory, the third such incident since the start of the war. Ankara said its "top priority" was to avoid being dragged into the war. "We are acting very cautiously against plots, traps and provocations that seek to drag our country into war," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, pledging an "appropriate and measured" response after the missile launch. "Keeping our country out of this fire pit is our top priority," he said. Blasts were heard, meanwhile, in Qatar early on March 14, with the Interior Ministry saying it was evacuating some key areas. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, RFE/RL correspondent Alex Raufoglu in Washington, Reuters, dpa, and AFP Drone and missile attacks struck targets in Baghdad and the United Arab Emirates on March 14 as the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition continued to ripple across the Middle East, while Tehran said oil exports from its key Kharg Island terminal were continuing despite US strikes there. A drone hit the US Embassy compound in Baghdad early on March 14, Iraqi security officials said, while smoke rose from the Emirati port of Fujairah after debris from an intercepted drone sparked a fire near energy facilities. US Embassy Hit In Air Strike by RFE/RL No media source currently available 0:00 0:00:14 0:00 Amid the regional spillover, Iranian state media reported that crude exports from Kharg Island -- Irans main oil terminal -- were continuing normally despite US air strikes. Irans official news agency IRNA cited a senior provincial official as saying crude exports were flowing uninterrupted from the strategic island terminal despite US President Donald Trumps claims that US forces had "totally obliterated" Iranian military targets there. The strike on Kharg Island marked a major development in the conflict, which began on February 28 after large-scale US-Israeli strikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities. Trump said on the Truth Social platform that US forces had carried out "one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East," targeting military installations on the island while avoiding its vital oil export terminals. The US Central Command later said its forces had struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island while preserving its oil infrastructure. Kharg Island handles about 90 percent of Iran's crude exports, making it one of the most strategically sensitive energy facilities in the region. Trump warned that restraint could end if Iran interferes with shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz. He also said the US Navy would soon begin escorting vessels through the strait. The narrow waterway normally carries about one-fifth of the world's seaborne oil supplies, but tanker traffic has largely halted since the conflict erupted. Attacks Across The Middle East At least 15 people were killed in a missile strike on a factory in Iran's central city of Isfahan on March 14, the Fars news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported. The agency blamed the attack on the United States and Israel and said the factory produced heaters and refrigerators. It added that workers were inside the facility during the strike. The US and Israeli militaries did not immediately comment on the incident. At the same time, despite facing superior US and Israeli military power, Iran has continued retaliatory missile and drone strikes across the Middle East targeting energy facilities and military installations, according to regional officials. On March 14, both Israel's Defense Forces (IDF) and Iranian state media reported that new missile attacks were launched from Iran toward Israeli territory. "The public is asked to act responsibly and follow the instructions -- they save lives," the IDF said in a statement published on Telegram. Elsewhere, smoke was seen rising from the Emirati port of Fujairah after debris from an intercepted drone sparked a fire near energy installations. Authorities said civil defense crews were working to contain the blaze. Some oil-loading operations at the port -- one of the worlds largest refueling hubs outside the Strait of Hormuz -- were reportedly suspended after the incident. Iran's military had earlier warned residents in the United Arab Emirates to stay away from port areas, saying they could become targets. Since the start of the war, Iranian strikes have targeted energy installations across the Persian Gulf, including in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Hamas Urges Restraint Meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas issued a rare appeal urging Iran to refrain from targeting neighboring Gulf states, while backing what it called Tehran's right to defend itself against Israel and the United States. "While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighboring countries," Hamas said in a statement. Hamas -- designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union -- also called on the international community to work towards halting the ongoing war immediately. Missile Interceptions Across the Region The conflict continues to spill across national borders. A drone struck the US Embassy compound in Baghdad early on March 14, Iraqi security officials said, marking the second attack on the diplomatic mission since the war began. Security officials said the drone hit a helicopter pad inside the heavily fortified embassy compound, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. Explosions also rocked several other parts of Baghdad, with strikes targeting the Iran-allied Kataeb Hezbollah group, killing two members including a "key figure," security sources said. It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks. Qatar said on March 14 that it intercepted two Iranian missiles over the capital, Doha, after explosions were heard in the city. Turkey said NATO defenses intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran that briefly entered Turkish airspace. Saudi Arabia reported shooting down dozens of drones launched toward the kingdom on March 13. Energy Shock The war has continued to disrupt energy supplies across the Middle East. QatarEnergy has shut several liquefied natural gas facilities, leaving around 20 percent of global LNG supplies temporarily offline, according to industry estimates. On March 14, Japans industry minister, Ryosei Akazawa, asked Australia to increase LNG production to stabilize global markets. "Affordable and stable LNG supply from Australia is the lifeline of energy security in Japan and this region," Akazawa said. Australia supplies about 40 percent of Japan's LNG imports. Humanitarian Impact Inside Iran, the humanitarian cost of the war appears to be mounting. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says the first two weeks of the war have resulted in at least 4,765 casualties, including deaths and injuries. The figure includes 1,298 civilian fatalities, among them at least 205 children, and 654 civilians injured, according to the monitoring group. HRANA said 5,480 attacks were recorded across Iran since February 28, affecting all 31 provinces and at least 209 cities. The rights group said its figures represent minimum confirmed numbers and could rise as verification continues. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that about 3.2 million people have been displaced inside Iran since the conflict began. Iranian authorities say at least 56 cultural and historic sites have also been damaged, including the UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace in Tehran and parts of Naghsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan. Despite intense bombardment, Irans leadership has signaled it intends to continue fighting. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Reuters, dpa, and AFP TEL AVIV After several twists down a concrete stairwell, a buzzing underground world is revealed. Ambulances unloading patients on gurneys, rows of field-hospital tents, workmen fixing overhead cables, and medical personnel in an array of uniforms. This is the Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in the Middle East, with 11,000 employees, 1,700 doctors, and over 3,000 nurses. And most of it is functioning underground to stay out of reach of Iranian ballistic missiles. This place is not a field hospital. This is the hospital. It is just subterranean, Yardena Koppel, a pediatric doctor, told RFE/RL. Rattling off a list of departments that are, she said, fully functioning, Koppel added: Each area is well-oiled and functions within itself. It's something really incredible, something I've never seen before. The hospital has moved some operations below ground in Israels previous conflicts, but never on such a scale. This location, two stories below ground, is just one of five containing hundreds of patients -- while some sections of the hospital are deemed well-protected enough to keep working in their usual places. Lessons From Last Iran War A hospital spokesman, who declined to be named, told RFE/RL that the 12-day Israeli-US war with Iran in June last year had been a key lesson. At that time, the hospital had two underground locations. After what happened in June, we realized that the missiles are much more dangerous, we started spreading even more, he said, adding the whole move took about 36 hours. Plans to get ready appear to have begun before Israel launched surprise air strikes on Iran on February 28. When the military has an idea that something is in the works, they will tell us like a month in advance to start getting your act together, the spokesman said. Asked if this means that the hospital management knew military action was being prepared as early as the end of January, the spokesman would not be drawn. It wasn't a surprise to us. We saw the incremental... he said, his answer tailing off, before adding: Within a few moments that we knew that something was going to happen, we were told to move. Everything is done in military fashion. We have a list of who gets the priority, who goes down first. On a tour of the facilities, Koppel led us through pediatrics, adult oncology, ophthalmology, and cardiology. Patients lay screened from the bustle behind white curtains. On a monitor, a doctor examined a grainy image of a beating heart. Koppel said the hospital has also had war casualties. This included two men who were badly injured by shrapnel a few days earlier. One of those patients had to have his chest opened, actually in this area, and unfortunately did not survive. The other patient is currently in ICU (also below ground) and is in critical condition, she said. In this war, we have assumed that we are in this indefinitely and we simply cannot perform the procedures that we were doing above ground with the frequency of all the air raids with the same level of safety, Koppel added. In Israel, there are usually several alerts within each 24-hour period, occurring both day and night. Some 900 people have been injured in incidents related to the conflict since February 28, according to emergency services. Most were injured while making their way to shelters. Twelve civilians have died, along with two Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. Israeli civilian casualties are relatively low thanks to the countrys advanced air defense capabilities and extensive network of shelters. More Casualties In Iran In Iran the death toll and the number of injured appear significantly higher, although getting a reliable picture is difficult. US-based monitoring organization HRANA has counted nearly 1,300 civilian deaths in Iran. The Iranian authorities say more than 15,000 people have been injured, but this information cannot be independently confirmed. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has verified 18 attacks on health facilities in Iran since the beginning of US and Israeli air strikes. "Blasts near the Motahari Hospital, in Irans capital, Tehran, reportedly damaged parts of the health facility and forced the evacuation of patients and health staff," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media, also listing other health facilities reportedly struck. The United States and Israeli regime continue their massive attack against Iran and the Iranian people without pause, day and night, Irans ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravana, said in New York on March 10. They are deliberately and discriminately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure across my country, he added, claiming 32 medical and pharmaceutical facilities had been hit. RFE/RL is unable to do its own on-the-ground reporting from within Iran, because the authorities there dont allow it to operate in the country. US and Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that their forces exclusively target military and security infrastructure. However, US officials are investigating whether a US missile accidentally hit a school on February 28, killing at least 175 people, including 168 children, according to local officials. Russian drone and missile strikes killed six people and injured dozens across Ukraine, while Kyiv said it targeted a port and an oil refinery in Russia's southern Krasnodar region. Around 430 drones and 68 missiles of different types were used in the Russian attack, primarily aimed at Kyiv's energy infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on March 14, as his country marked its national volunteer day. "Unfortunately, there have also been strikes and damage to ordinary homes, schools, and civilian businesses," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, urging the implementation of air defense agreements with Ukraine's European partners. The head of Kyiv's military administration, Mykola Kalashnyk, said five people were killed across the region's districts. He also said 15 others were injured. "Three of them are in serious condition, two are currently undergoing surgery," he added. Another person was reported killed in Zaporizhzhya, as local authorities said that at least five other Ukrainian regions were targeted by Russian strikes. Dozens more people were injured, including seven teenagers. A woman living in Zaporizhzhya, near the area hit by Russian forces, told RFE/RL that the strike caught residents off guard. "I was in the kitchen, wanting to bake pastries," she said. "When it hit, the windows in the kitchen, hall, and bedroom shattered. There was noise everywhere. I was injured while running away." Meanwhile, Ukraine's military said on March 14 that it had hit the Afipsky oil refinery and the Kavkaz port in Russia's southern Krasnodar region. The statement added that the strikes caused a fire at the oil refinery and damaged the port. While Russian authorities did not immediately comment on the incident, Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels published user-generated videos that appeared to show explosions and smoke in the area. The attack followed the United States' decision to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian oil to stabilize the global energy markets amid its military campaign against Iran. Kyiv said the move could add around $10 billion to the Kremlin's war chest. With global attention drawn to the widening conflict in the Middle East, efforts to negotiate an end to Russia's war against Ukraine have slowed, leaving the fate of ongoing talks uncertain as fighting along the front line continues. On March 12, both Kyiv and Moscow confirmed that another round of trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine, and the United States had been postponed, while on March 13, Ukraine's military reported 153 clashes along the front lines during the day. "Russia will try to take advantage of the war in the Middle East to cause more destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine," Zelenskyy said on March 14. Additionally, as Kyiv has sought has sought to share its experience intercepting drones with partners in the Middle East, Tehran warned that Ukrainian territory could now be considered a "legitimate target" for Iranian forces. Iran has long been an ally of Russia, supplying it with military equipment and technology in Moscow's war effort against Ukraine. Kyiv earlier estimated that at least 57,000 Shahed drones were used in Russian attacks on the country since 2022. MUSICAL TIME AT SCOIL MHUIRE The Transition Year students at Scoil Mhuire have been busy preparing for their production of The Wiz. The Wiz is a re-imagining of the classic Wizard of Oz and follows Dorothy as she navigates a fantastical Oz to find "The Wiz", her friends, and her way home. Complete with soul, gospel and R&B music it is sure to be a hit with audiences. The final touches and fine tuning have been put in place for what promises to be an exciting production. The students take to the stage over three nights (Wednesday 11th, Thursday 12th and Friday, March 13th) with a whopping 100 students involved in putting the production together. ENERGY MASTER PLAN PUBLIC MEETING Strokestown Town Team, in its capacity as a sustainable energy community, is hosting a public information evening in the Percy French Hotel on Wednesday, March 25th from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. to update all on the progress of the Strokestown Energy Master Plan and to provide free 1:1 clinics for homeowners and information on how you can upgrade your home with grants for energy upgrades. All are welcome! VINTAGE CLUB TABLE QUIZ Mid-Roscommon Vintage Club is holding its first ever table quiz on Friday, March 20th. The quiz will take place in Franks Lounge, Ballybeg and starts at 8.30 p.m.. There will be a cash prize for the winning table and there will also be a table ticket draw for the contestants and a raffle for spot prizes. Entry to table team is 10 per person and teams consist of four per table. Questions will cover a wide range of subjects such as geography, history, science, nature, music, sport, general knowledge and literature. As the quiz is being organised by the vintage club there will be a few questions on vintage vehicles etc. This quiz is a non mobile phone competition where you use your head and not your fingers to gain the answers. Use of phones by contestants will automatically disqualify the team from the contest. You'll be blown away by the Tornado Dance as these students from Scoil Mhuire, Strokestown take to the stage this week with their musical, "The Wiz". SCDA FORTNIGHTLY DRAW Results of the SCDA fortnightly draw held on March 3rd. Numbers drawn - 3, 4,8,1 19. Two Lucky Dip winners - Susan Compton, Clooncagh, and Dermot Foley, Kilmore. Next draw is on Wednesday, March 18th at the SCDA Office. Thank you for your continued support. STATIONS OF THE CROSS There will be Stations of the Cross every Tuesday during Lent, at 3.30 p.m. in Kiltrustan Church. CLOONCAGH NS ENROLMENT Enrolment forms for September, 2026 fr Clooncagh NS are now available. Telephone (071) 96333253 or (085) 8819245 or e mail cllonaghschool@gmail.comfor further information. PRO-LIFE CAMPAIGN The Pro-Life campaign group wishes to thank the parishioners of Strokestown for their generosity at the recent church gate collections. The amount collected totalled 241.30. CRHAS The next monthly lecture hosted by County Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society takes place on Tuesday, March 10th next at 8.30 p.m., at the Cruachan Ai Centre, Tulsk, with Mr Alan Healy, archaeologist, on the topic off Archaeology and Farming: Where Worlds Meet". BEREAVED Mrs Florence McDermott, Cloonfree, Strokestown, has been bereaved by the recent death of her brother, Mr Christy McDonagh, which took place at his home in Springfield, Tallaght, County Dublin. A native of Racecourse Road, Roscommon, he was son of the late Mr Tom McDonagh and of the late Mrs Molly McDonagh. He was predeceased by his brothers, George and Robert. The Funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Marks's Church, Springfield, followed by cremation in Newlands Cross Crematorium. He is survived by his wife, Grainne; son, Noel; grandchild, Callum and his mother, Caroline; brothers, John and Michael; sisters, Catherine, Bridie, Florence, Eva and Dolores; brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, extended family and other relatives to whom deepest sympathy is extended. An chead Pop Up Gaeltacht i gCora Droma Ruisc. Slua mor ann idir og agus aosta. Beidh se ar siul gach Luan i Ti Cryan ar a 8 a chlog. Bigi linn. A large crowd of both young and older attended the first Pop Up Gaeltacht event hosted in Cryans Teach Ceoil in Carrick. It was decided that the event will continue to be held every Monday evening in Cryans at 8 p.m.. All welcome. Pictured seated at front are the organisers Deasun Lyons and Rory Layden with the attendees. Pic: Gerry Faughnan LATE MRS SARAH GILFORD The death took place on February 14th following a long illness of Mrs Sarah Gilford, (nee Treacy) of Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK, wife of the late Mr Peter Gilford, and mother of the late Gemma Louise. A native of Strokestown, she was daughter of the late Mr William Treacy and of the late Mrs Sarah Treacy (nee Dowling), Elphin Street. News of her passing was hared of with deep regret among her relatives, former neighbours and friends. The Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Mary of the Angels' Church, Hooton, on Tuesday, March 17th at 1 p.m., and the interment will follow in Overpool Cemetery. She is survived by her brothers, Michael, Willie, Pat and Jimmy; sister, Mrs Elizabeth Carroll, extended family and other relatives to whom deepest sympathy is extended. . The Month's Mass will be celebrated for the happy eternal repose of her soul at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Strokestown, on Saturday, March 14th at 12 noon. BEREAVED Mrs Marie McDonnell, M.P.S.I., Bridge Street, Strokestown, has been bereaved by the recent death of her father, Mr John Fitzpatrick, which took place at his home at Clonrollagh, Longford. A retired national school teacher, he was predeceased by his parents, John and Annie, sister, Marie, and by his brothers, Eugene and Alfie. Mass of the Resurrection was celebrated at St. Mel's Cathedral, Longford, and the interment followed in Newtownforbes Cemetery. He is survived by his wife, Bridie; daughters, Mrs Jacqueline Muldowney (Bornacoola), Mrs Joanne Quinn (Drumlish), Mrs Yvonne Bennett (Longford), Mrs Sinead Stenhouse (Aberdeen) and Marie; sons, Enda (Dublin) and John (Longford); sisters, Mrs Ann Fadden (Castlebar); brother, Pat (Buffalo, New York); daughters-in-law, Roisin and Caroline; sons-in-law, Paddy, Damien, Craig and Michael; 26 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews and other relatives to whom deepest sympathy is extended. LATE MR RAY KEOGH The death took place recently at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, of Mr Ray Keogh of Derreen, Strokestown. A native of Turin, Mullingar, he was son of the late Mr Patrick Keogh and of the late Mrs Kathleen Keogh. He was educated at the local National School, and the Camillan Monastery, Killucan. He qualified as a chef and his working life brought him to the Greville Arms Hotel, Mullingar, where he met his future wife. They had been married for 45 years. He later worked at the Royal Hotel, Roscommon, the Longford Arms Hotel and the Percy French Hotel, Strokestown. He retired for health reasons and then developed hobbies of jam making and preparation of firewood for sale and remained active up until his sudden passing. He was a popular member of his local community, and he is mourned by his neighbours and many friends. He was predeceased by his brother, Paddy, his sister, Pauline, and by Paddy Mac. The Funeral Mass was concelebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Strokestown, by Father Eamonn O'Connor, P.P., and Canon Ciaran Whitney (Strokestown) and the interment followed in Strokestown Cemetery. He is survived by his wife, Tiney; children, Tara, Shannon, Bernard and Rian; 12 grandchildren, sons-in-law, Stephen (Feeney) and Michael (McGlynn), daughters-in-law, Nikki (Hughes) and Michelle (Shaw); brothers, Gerry, Hugh and Michael; sisters, Martina, Collette and Helen; nephews, nieces, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, extended family and other relatives to whom deepest sympathy is extended. A Williamstown woman is marking the 25th anniversary of her lifesaving kidney transplant with a major fundraiser for the Irish Kidney Association. Teresa Smyth, from Beaugh, received her transplant on January 10th, 2001. Now, as she celebrates the 25th birthday of her donated kidney, she is organising a raffle in the Blue Kuku, Kiltevna, on this Saturday, March 14th. Prizes include a hotel stay, rugby tickets, cash, vouchers and hampers, and donation envelopes are available in local outlets. Teresas road to this milestone has been far from straightforward. In the early 1990s, while in her 30s, she suffered fatigue and high blood pressure. Her kidneys failed in January 1999, forcing her onto dialysis while caring for five young children, the youngest just six. I was ill, but I kept thinking Id go back to work next week. Two years later I was still on dialysis, she said. Teresa Smyth with her daughter Rachel after Teresa won a silver medal at the World Transplant Games in Perth in 2023. A potential transplant in September 2000 fell through, a moment she describes as a major blow. It was an eye-opener for me. I thought Id get the transplant and come home, but the next day I was back on dialysis. Her successful transplant came four months later. The first year was difficult, but she was able to return to work in 2002. Looking back, she stresses the importance of remembering donor families. We were all so excited, but while all that is going on you have to be very aware there is a family grieving the loss of a loved one. In 2023, while planning a visit to her daughter in Perth, Australia, Teresa discovered the World Transplant Games were taking place. She soon became part of the Irish team, competing in three events and winning a silver medal in darts. I met people from across the world with the same storyfrom Germany to India to South Africa. Her decision to take part was a tribute to her donor who had provided her with a new lease of life all those years ago. Marking her 25-year milestone, Teresa chose to give back to the organisation that supported her. Carol Moore, CEO of the Irish Kidney Association, has warned of growing strain on kidney services. We are seeing a growth in the number of people living with kidney disease. Every year we need two new dialysis units to cope with the increase, she said. The biggest worry is that Ireland is going to run out of capacity. We need more awareness. Kidney disease is life changing, and we want to prevent kidney failure wherever possible. The association provides extensive supports including counselling, peer services, assistance for patients who need to travel, holiday homes, and accommodation for families during treatment. Grivita 53 hosts the Eugenio Barba 90 micro-season On his 90th birthday, the founder of Odin Teatret (Odin Theater) chose this independent space in Bucharest for a special meeting with the audience. Eugenio Barba la Teatrul Grivita 53 Ion Puican, 14.03.2026, 14:00 The Grivita 53 Theater hosts, between March 7 and 22, 2026, the micro-season Eugenio Barba 90, an event dedicated to Eugenio Barba, one of the essential figures of world theater. On his 90th birthday, the founder of Odin Teatret (Odin Theater) chose this independent space in Bucharest for a special meeting with the audience, transforming the stage into a place of dialogue, reflection and artistic exploration. The program brings together four performances by Barba three for the adult audience and one dedicated to children and families. Along with the performances, the micro-season includes masterclasses, workshops and a community performance, offering artists and spectators the opportunity to come into direct contact with the practice of anthropological theater and Eugenio Barbas working philosophy. Director Chris Simion-Mercurian, the artistic director of the Grivita 53 Theater, gave us more details about this event: The international program Iconic Personalities is for the Grivita 53 Theater, through the participation of the renowned director Eugenio Barba and the inauguration of this program with the micro Season Barba 90, the inclusion of the Grivita 53 Theater on the international map of theaters. Eugenio Barba has become an ambassador of the Grivita 53 Theater. And through his presence with this micro season, he opens cultural bridges with the most relevant theater spaces in the world. Why did theater creator Eugenio Barba choose to mark this anniversary moment at the Grivita 53 Theater, a new, independent theater at the beginning of its artistic journey? Chris Simion-Mercurian: Eugenio Barbas choice to celebrate his 90 years of life and 60 years of career at the Grivita 53 Theater is, for us, first and foremost, a validation that what we are doing is necessary. Then, the fact that he chose us from many other theaters around the world, which extended him this invitation to celebrate this unique, anniversary moment of 90 years of life and 60 years of career, is both a concrete choice and a symbolic one. Because he says he likes beginnings, he wants to be part of this beginning of the Grivita 53 Theater and believes in the artistic endeavor that we are undertaking. It is a great honor, a great privilege that we have, but also a great responsibility. What does the Barba 90 micro-season program offer for professionals in the world of Romanian theater: The Eugenio Barba 90 Micro Season also contains an educational side. Both the actors from Odin Teatret and the director Eugenio Barba will hold three workshops and three masterclasses. The masterclass held by Eugenio Barba and Julia Varley is focused on fundamental directions and aspects of theatrical anthropology. And this meeting within the masterclass will propose a deepening of the principles underlying Eugenio Barbas method. And essential themes such as the movement and action techniques of the Barba Method, static and dynamic immobility, the directors dramaturgy, the actors dramaturgy, the directors perception, the viewers perception will be addressed. It is a masterclass dedicated exclusively to professionals. It is a space for work and reflection for professionals, regardless of their experience, whether they are students, graduates or experienced actors, professionals who are interested in deepening this theatrical practice created by Eugenio Barba 60 years ago, which has become a theatrical method that we learned about in the history of theater. The workshops within the Eugenio Barba microseason are training workshops and their practice is based on the use of imagination as an essential working tool and an introduction to Eugenio Barbas theatrical technique. The microseason program can be found on the theaters website, grivita53.ro. Chris Simion-Mercurian shared with us how the microseason is built and gave us more details about the opening show: The Eugenio Barba micro-season will be built on four productions of the Odin Theater, which the Grivita 53 Theater hosts. We open the micro-season with the show The Enchanted Violins, a show dedicated to children and families. A show starring Antonia Cioaza and Jakob Nielsen. Antonia is an actress of Romanian origin. She is the only actress from Romania who was accepted into Eugenio Barbas troupe. And we decided to open this season with this show, because in this formula of naive theater dedicated to children, a large part of the theatrical technique that Eugenio Barba transformed into a method can be found. The other three shows dedicated to adults start on March 10. This micro-season and this unique, historical event could not have become a reality if we had not had the support of the Sector 1 City Hall and Raiffeisen Bank as main partners. It would have remained just an idea on paper and would not have become a cultural program so necessary for young people and for all theater lovers. (EE) Romania Ukraine Strategic Partnership Romania and the neighboring Ukraine have become strategic partners. Volodimir Zelenski, primit la Bucuresti de Nicusor Dan / Foto: presidency.ro Bogdan Matei, 13.03.2026, 14:00 Romania and Ukraine have been connected, as of Thursday, by a newly established Strategic Partnership, signed in Bucharest by Presidents Nicusor Dan and Volodymyr Zelenskky. It was the second visit to Romania by the leader from Kyiv, after the one in October 2023. We must not hide it, and say that historically, there was distrust between our countries; this distrust evaporated, I think, at the beginning of the war in 2022, said President Dan. Romania and Ukraine share a border of about 700 kilometers, and after the invasion began, millions of Ukrainian refugees, especially women and children, were received in Romania. 200,000 Ukrainians were in Romania at the end of last year, according to official data provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilots are also training in Romania, which has also given Ukraine a Patriot air defense system. Thursdays discussions between the two heads of state also focused on the joint production of drones in Romania, a field in which, according to military analysts, the Ukrainians, forced by war, have become among the best in the world. President Dan reaffirmed Bucharests diplomatic support for Kyivs admission to the European Union and NATO, as well as for what he called a correct position and support that all these organizations can bring to Ukraine in the war it is waging. Very importantly we talked about the Romanian minority in Ukraine and the openness that Ukraine has, will have, for the Romanian minority. We received guarantees regarding the continuation of the functioning of schools in the Romanian language and for all other rights of the Romanian minority, in accordance with the rights of minorities established by international charters said Nicusor Dan. Volodymyr Zelenskky also signed on Thursday, a decree stipulating the establishment of the Romanian Language Day in his country, on August 31, when it is traditionally celebrated both in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova. Over 400,000 ethnic Romanians live in the neighboring country, mostly in northern Bukovina, northern and southern Bessarabia and the Herta Land, eastern Romanian territories annexed in 1940, following an ultimatum, by the Stalinist Soviet Union and taken over, in 1991, by Ukraine, as the successor state of the USSR. According to the most recent population census, there are about 45,000 ethnic Ukrainians in Romania, almost ten times fewer than the Romanians in Ukraine. Like the other national minorities recognized in Romania, Ukrainians have a representative in the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest. (EE) While multiple possibilities exist, the XEV 9e is likely undergoing component testing or benchmarking in Korea XEV 9e and BE 6 are Mahindras first EVs to be based on the born-electric INGLO platform. These have emerged as bestsellers, propelling Mahindra to the third spot in the list of bestselling electric car brands in the country. In the latest development, the XEV 9e has been spied in Korea on a trailer truck. Lets check out the details. Component testing possibility South Korea is one of the major global hubs for automotive tech and innovation. For XEV 9e and BE 6, the steering and braking systems are sourced from HL Mando. A major global Tier 1 OEM from South Korea, HL Mando supplies various parts to brands like Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Chevrolet, BMW, Volkswagen, Kia, etc. In India, HL Mando operates via a joint venture with the Anand Group. For XEV 9e and BE 6, electronically-actuated brakes are used. These have an ESP module, along with an integrated master cylinder. The entire setup is provided by HL Mando. While a direct link between this test mule and HL Mando cannot be established, the possibility does exist. It could involve the fine-tuning or enhancement of existing components, or the testing of entirely new parts. Mahindra could also be collaborating with other suppliers in Korea. It could be aimed at introducing new features for the XEV 9e or upcoming versions of the SUV. Korea has many options for carmakers for technology partnerships. For context, there is Hanon Systems, which specializes in powertrain cooling, automotive thermal and energy management solutions and EV components. LG Energy Solution is another leading name, one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world. While XEV 9e and BE 6 currently utilize BYD-sourced battery packs, there could be scope for future collaborations. Interestingly, it was reported in 2022 that LG Energy Solution will be supplying battery packs for the XUV400. However, due to supply chain issues, Mahindra later chose to go with Chinese manufacturer Farasis Energy. Benchmarking or international market homologation It is possible that one of the Korean carmakers brought the XEV 9e test mule to Korea for engineering benchmarking. Could be Hyundai and Kia, both of which are heavily focused on boosting their EV portfolio. It is a common practice in the automotive world to acquire competitors vehicles for teardown and analysis. This could be aimed at understanding parts and systems such as battery packaging, power electronics, suspension tuning, software architecture, etc. XEV 9e could also be in Korea as part of its global homologation process. While South Korea is currently not a launch market for Mahindra, testing at an overseas location could still support international homologation. XEV 9e is a global product and is currently exported to only select countries. There are plans to boost exports of the XEV 9e and BE 6 to more overseas markets in the future. Testing in South Korea could be aimed at cold-weather calibration, high-speed testing, regulatory certification and software validation for export markets. A coup in the Caribbean island of Grenada has toppled the countrys controversial Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy. Sir Eric was at the United Nations in New York when he was overthrown. After initially denying anything was amiss, Sir Eric, 56, said the coup leaders had shot dead a soldier and a policeman and taken four hostages, including one of his ministers. He has appealed to the US and British for help in capturing what he described as a small group of Communists. The coup is believed to have been staged by members of the New Jewel party, a left-wing opposition group in Grenadas parliament. Their leader, Maurice Bishop, has been broadcasting regularly on Radio Grenada renamed Radio Free Grenada since the takeover early this morning. Mr Bishop has been appealing to Grenadians to remain calm and has pledged that all democratic freedoms will be fully restored. Describing himself as the new prime minister, Mr Bishop said the national barracks had been taken by force before by peoples revolutionary forces. The police force had surrendered and leading cabinet ministers had been arrested, Mr Bishop added. Grenada, the most-southerly of the Windward Islands, has a population of 100,000. It became independent of Britain in 1974 but is still a member of the Commonwealth. Sir Eric Gairy was appointed premier in 1967 and then prime minister after independence. He was a favourite of US President Richard Nixon but his standing has fallen in recent years after constant allegations of human rights abuses and corruption. Many of the human rights complaints have been laid at the door of Sir Erics personal protection unit, known as the Mongoose squad. Its members were blamed for the death of coup leader Maurice Bishops father during violence on the day the island got its independence. Courtesy BBC News In context Maurice Bishop ruled Grenada for the next four years. His regime forged closer links to Cuba and Russia causing American suspicion. In October 1983 Maurice Bishop was killed by supporters of his deputy, Bernard Coard, who resented attempts to mend bridges with the US. Later that month 6,000 US troops invaded Grenada. Mr Coard and his wife Phyllis were among 19 government and army officials put on trial for the murder of Mr Bishop and ten other people. The Coards and 12 others were found guilty and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. An election held in 1984 was won by the centre-left New National party (NNP) led by Herbert Blaize. The NNP has remained in power ever since it is currently led by Keith Mitchell. Like this: Like Loading... Astronomers have uncovered signs that our Sun may have taken part in a large-scale movement of similar stars that left the inner regions of the Milky Way about 4 to 6 billion years ago. To investigate this possibility, researchers compiled and analyzed an exceptionally precise catalog of stars using observations from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite. Their results offer new insights into how the Milky Way evolved, particularly the formation of the rotating bar-shaped structure located at the galaxy's center. On Earth, archaeology reconstructs the past by studying ancient artifacts and remains. In space, scientists use a similar approach called galactic archaeology to piece together the history of stars and galaxies. Astronomers know that the Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago at a location more than 10,000 light years closer to the Milky Way's center than where it sits today. Evidence from stellar chemical compositions supports this idea, yet the explanation has long puzzled researchers. Observations of our galaxy show a massive bar-like structure in the central region that produces what scientists call a "corotation barrier." This gravitational effect makes it difficult for stars to travel far outward from the galactic center. Studying Solar Twins With Gaia To investigate how the Sun might have reached its current orbit, a research team led by Assistant Professors Daisuke Taniguchi from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Takuji Tsujimoto from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan carried out a large study of solar "twins." These stars share nearly the same temperature, surface gravity, and chemical composition as our Sun. The researchers relied on the Gaia satellite mission, which has collected detailed measurements for about two billion stars and other celestial objects. Using this enormous dataset, they assembled a catalog containing 6,594 solar twins. This sample is roughly 30 times larger than those used in earlier surveys. Age Distribution Reveals a Shared Migration With this expanded dataset, the team was able to determine the ages of these stars with unprecedented accuracy. They also corrected for selection bias that favors brighter stars that are easier for telescopes to detect. When the researchers examined the ages of the solar twins, they found a clear concentration of stars between 4 and 6 billion years old. The Sun falls within this same age range. Many of these stars also appear to occupy similar distances from the galactic center. Together, these clues suggest that the Sun's present location is not simply coincidental. Instead, it likely arrived here as part of a much larger outward movement of stars. Clues to the Formation of the Milky Way's Central Bar The findings provide new information about the Milky Way's structure and history. Under normal circumstances, the corotation barrier produced by the galaxy's central bar would prevent such a large number of stars from moving away from the inner region. However, the situation could have been different if the bar structure was still forming during that period. The ages of the solar twins not only point to when this large migration may have happened, but also suggest the time span during which the galactic bar developed. Why the Sun's Journey Matters for Life The inner parts of the Milky Way are far more hostile than its outer regions. Conditions near the galactic center include stronger radiation and more frequent interactions between stars. According to the researchers, the Sun's movement away from this crowded environment may have helped place our solar system in a calmer part of the galaxy. This quieter region provided conditions that allowed life on Earth to eventually emerge and evolve. This work made use of data products from the European Space Agency (ESA) space mission Gaia and the Two Micron All Sky Survey. It was supported by the Tokyo Center For Excellence Project, Tokyo Metropolitan University, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 23KJ2149 and 23H00132, the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under SPACE-H2020 Grant Agreement Number 101004214 (EXPLORE project). Qura Bar presents SALON DE QURA, launching on 16 March: a museum gallery of taste a new cocktail experience that transforms the bar into a living museum, where flavour becomes colour, aroma becomes movement, and every cocktail is curated as a work of art. At the centre of this world is the Curator Qura Bars spirited alchemist who interprets emotion, memory, and sensation through liquid form. The Curator draws inspiration from the Artist, whose palette of colour, form, and symbolism sets the creative tone. Guiding their journey is the Traveller, forever in search of encounters that linger long after the glass is empty. Together, these three characters form an unbroken narrative: a shared pursuit of beauty, meaning, and expression. Within the Salon, each sip becomes a collaboration, each texture a revelation; the experience of tasting becomes an intimate act of creation. Over time, the Artist, the Curator, and the Traveller reveal themselves not as individuals, but as reflections of one creative spirit moving through different moments of inspiration. Inspired by the quiet path of a curator crossing a museum floor, SALON DE QURA invites guests to explore eight original cocktails, each referencing a distinct artistic discipline liturgy, martial arts, painting, film, music, invention, sculpture and beyond. Every drink is spiritforward yet impeccably balanced, shaped by craftsmanship, research, and imagination. Artistic philosophies are translated into cocktails with the same care one would give to a canvas, a film reel, or a bronze cast. IS Like this: Like Loading... While much of the worlds attention is focused on the Iran war, China is pressing ahead with national priorities that carry global repercussions. That doesnt mean Beijing is ignoring the conflict and its potential impact on energy supplies and geopolitics. But for the worlds second-largest economy, its rivalry with the United States centers on a different contest the race to develop the cutting-edge technologies that will shape the 21st century. That message was reinforced in a five-year plan formally endorsed Thursday by the National Peoples Congress at the end of its annual meeting, the countrys biggest political event of the year. China is doubling down on efforts to transform its economy and place itself at the forefront of technological innovation. State media portrayed the strategy as a stabilizing force in an increasingly uncertain world. A stable and developing China injects more stability and certainty into a world fraught with change and turbulence, the official Peoples Daily said in a front-page column. Other state media echoed the message. The commentaries avoided mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump, whose tariffs and military actions from Venezuela to Iran have unsettled the post-World War II international order. China publicly defends that system while calling for reforms that better reflect the interests of developing nations. Trump is expected to visit Beijing in three weeks for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The Congress also approved three laws, including one governing ethnic minorities. Such votes are largely ceremonial and nearly unanimous, underscoring unity behind the Communist Partys vision. The five-year plan passed with 2,758 votes in favor, one against and two abstentions. We are forging ahead at full speed in building a great country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during the Congress. The plan places technology at the center of Chinas growth strategy. While many economists argue that Beijing should do more to boost consumer spending and reduce reliance on exports, the blueprint emphasizes investment in artificial intelligence, robotics and other advanced industries. Premier Li Qiang set an economic growth target of 4.5% to 5% for 2026, giving the government room to focus on longer-term goals rather than hitting a higher short-term target. On climate policy, the plan pledges to reduce emissions intensity the amount of pollution produced relative to economic output rather than cutting overall emissions. Analysts say the 17% intensity-reduction target could still allow emissions to rise as the economy grows. China already leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions, though officials argue the countrys population and development needs must be considered when judging its environmental record. The Congress also endorsed a sweeping ethnic minorities law emphasizing the creation of a common consciousness of the Chinese nation. Critics say it reinforces a policy of assimilation, while authorities say it promotes unity and shared development. Meanwhile, proposals to improve work-life balance drew significant attention online. Among them were calls to establish a right to rest, including allowing employees to ignore work messages after hours. Economist Yu Miaojie proposed doubling the minimum annual leave from five to 10 days. The popularity of such ideas reflects concerns about Chinas intense workplace culture. Supporters say giving workers more leisure time could also help stimulate domestic consumption. Like this: Like Loading... Iran allows two Indian LPG tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz amid regional conflict. The strait remains open, though security concerns have disrupted some maritime traffic. Iran urges global leaders to pressure the U.S. to end the ongoing war in West Asia. Iran has granted permission for two Indian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tankers to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most crucial energy corridors, Reuters reported. The move comes amid escalating tensions in West Asia that have disrupted shipping in the narrow waterway. Despite security concerns, Irans Supreme Leader representative in India, Dr Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, confirmed that the strait remains open for transit. Iran has not closed the Strait. Some ships are still passing through, though current conditions have made navigation difficult, he told sources. The region has witnessed heightened conflict since February 28, following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that reportedly killed Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran responded with retaliatory attacks against U.S.- and Israel-linked targets in Gulf countries and Israel. The unrest has unsettled maritime traffic and global energy markets, with several vessels unable to pass through the strait safely. Also Read: War in West Asia Disrupts India's Rice Exports Amid Rising Costs Dr Ilahi appealed to international leaders to urge the U.S. to halt the war, highlighting the global impact of the conflict on energy prices. Many people around the world are suffering because of this war. Those who started it must stop it immediately, he said. The approval for the Indian LPG tankers demonstrates Tehrans willingness to keep key maritime routes operational, even as tensions continue in the region. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains critical for global oil and gas supplies, and careful monitoring of the situation is ongoing. In the fast-paced and high-octane environment that is Mumbai, staying still is equivalent to going backwards. As we continue to navigate through 2026, the digital marketplace has evolved from being a secondary storefront to becoming the primary battleground for brand survival. Whether a legacy business in South Mumbai or a disruptive start-up in Andheri, being visible in search engines is the key to your market share. The days of "keyword stuffing" and backlinks are over and have given way to complex algorithms and artificial intelligence. In order to succeed in this environment, businesses are learning that they can no longer do this alone. The need for a professional and experienced SEO Agency in Mumbai has evolved. It is no longer just about being visible for a set of keywords; rather, it is about developing a holistic digital platform that captures and converts. By utilizing high-level AI SEO Services in conjunction with the creative pulse of a Social Media Agency, a brand can create a 360-degree presence that dominates the local and international marketplace. As emphasized by the industry leaders at Bloom Agency, the key to digital dominance in 2026 is the union of technological precision and local market sophistication. In the following guide, we will discuss how a top-notch Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai can change the direction of your business. 1. Bloom Agency: Redefining the Standard for an SEO Agency in Mumbai When it comes to the subject of digital growth in India's commercial capital city, no agency stands above the rest like Bloom Agency. While all agencies promise to deliver "full-stack" solutions, Bloom Agency has perfected the art of performance-driven results. This is because they realize that the city of Mumbai is not a monolith. Rather, it is a city of micro-markets that each deserves a special approach. However, it is the early adoption of AI SEO services that sets Bloom Agency apart from all other digital marketing agencies in the city of Mumbai. Rather than relying on monthly reports to determine what went wrong, Bloom Agency is able to stay three steps ahead of Google's core algorithm updates. This is because, as a top-tier SEO agency in the city of Mumbai, they realize that the "human" is the most important part of any SEO strategy. This is because while the machines are crawling your website, people must love your content. This is exactly why they have partnered with a top-tier social media Agency to ensure that your brand's authority is represented across all touchpoints. This is a level of unity that is simply impossible for competitors to ignore. 2. The AI Revolution: Why AI SEO Services are Non-Negotiable in 2026 We have officially entered the era of the "Search Generative Experience" (SGE). Gone are the days when search engines were merely a collection of links. Today, they are answer engines. If your SEO Agency in Mumbai is not discussing LLMs and Answer Engine Optimization with you, then you are already behind the curve. Predictive Analytics and Real-Time Optimization SEO Services used to be a reactive practice. You optimize a page, wait a few weeks, and then see the results. With our AI SEO Services, the results are instantaneous. An SEO Agency in Mumbai that utilizes AI technology has the ability to monitor billions of data points on a daily basis. This means that if a brand is working with a Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai, then your content is always "fresh" and perfectly aligned with what the algorithm is looking for today, not last month. 3. The Power of a Multi-Channel Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai In 2026, the experience is no longer linear. A customer may find you on Instagram, research your brand on Google, and make a sale after seeing a retargeted ad. This is the reason a linear approach is no longer effective. A brand needs a Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai that can help synchronize the entire experience. The Role of a Social Media Agency in Modern Search Today, "social signals" are a major factor in how a brand ranks on a search engine. When a brand goes viral on social media, it is no surprise to find that the brand also ranks well on a search engine. A professional Social Media Agency helps a brand ensure that it is generating the type of engagement that sends a signal to Google that says "Authority." By partnering with an SEO Agency in Mumbai that has an in-house Social Media Agency wing, a brand is able to ensure that its brand voice is consistent. Whether a customer is consuming a 15-second Reel or a 2,000-word blog post, the "vibe" is the same. 4. Technical SEO: The Foundation of Every Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai You could have the most amazing content on the planet, but if your website is taking three seconds to load on a mobile device in a poorly connected part of Mumbai, your bounce rate will kill your rankings. A leading SEO Agency in Mumbai focuses on the "plumbing" of your website. Core Web Vitals & Mobile First Indexing Mumbai has one of the largest densities of internet users on mobile devices in the world. Any decent Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai will know that mobile first design and fast load speeds are essential for a website. With AI SEO Services, a digital marketing agency in Mumbai can now automate website audits, fixing broken links and images around the clock. This is what allows a leading SEO Agency in Mumbai to keep your website running smoothly even during those peak traffic hours when a major sale or season event is on. 5. Local SEO: Dominating the Mumbai Micro-Markets For many businesses, the goal is no longer to rank in "India," but to rank in "Colaba," "Bandra," or "Juhu." This is a hyper-local approach that only a top SEO Agency in Mumbai can help with. Hyper-Local Intent and GMB Mastery A top-notch Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai understands that the "near me" searches are the highest-intent searches that exist. A top SEO Company in India will optimize your Google Business Profile, your local citations, and ensure that your NAP data is consistent across the web. When paired with a top-notch Social Media Agency that targets local influencers and groups, your business becomes a landmark in the digital space. 6. Content Strategy: E-E-A-T and the Human-AI Hybrid Google's "Helpful Content" updates have made one thing certain: your content must be valuable. While AI SEO Services can aid in that, ultimately, it must feel human. Why Every SEO Agency in Mumbai Needs Storytellers Content is no longer simply about words; it's about "Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness" (E-E-A-T). Every Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai has subject matter experts who can then use these findings generated by an AI SEO Service and craft a compelling story around it. By using a Social Media Agency for distribution, you're creating a loop where your "Expertise" is acknowledged both by users and search engines. This is the gold standard for an SEO Agency in Mumbai in 2026: a mix of AI SEO Services for data and humans for heart. 7. Performance Tracking: Beyond Vanity Metrics The traditional way of an SEO Agency in Mumbai would have been to say, "We rank #1 for a keyword." But for an agency like ours, which is a Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai for 2026, we are not concerned about rankings. We are concerned about revenues, conversion rates, and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Transparent Reports Using AI SEO Services With the help of AI SEO Services, we can now offer our clients a report showing "Multi-Touch Attribution." This means you can see the revenues generated by a particular blog or a social media campaign. This is why you would want to hire a professional SEO Agency in Mumbai rather than an individual freelancer. You are not just paying for SEO Services; you are investing in a growth engine that offers you a transparent ROI. 8. Choosing Your Partner: What to Look for in an SEO Agency in Mumbai There are many agencies around that claim to be the best. However, to get the perfect Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai, you have to look beyond the sales talk: 1. Technology First: Do they use AI SEO Services to get ahead of the competition, or are they still living in 2020? 2. Holistic Approach: Do they have a Social Media Agency team to complement your search marketing efforts? 3. Case Studies: Can they demonstrate success for other brands in the highly competitive Mumbai market? 4. Local Roots: Do they, as a good SEO Agency in Mumbai, understand the culture of the city? Conclusion: Building the Future of Your Brand The digital world of 2026 is a fast-paced, complex, and unyielding environment. For those willing to work with the best professionals in the business, though, it is a world that is full of limitless opportunity. When you select a top SEO Agency in Mumbai like Bloom Agency, you are ensuring that your brand has the backing of the best in AI SEO Services and creative expertise. Don't allow your business to be a "hidden gem" that nobody has any chance of finding. Work with a Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai that has a full grasp of all the different ways that your brand can grow. Need a high-powered Social Media Agency to grow your brand's audience? How about a top SEO Agency in Mumbai that will allow your brand to own the search results? The time for action is now. The future belongs to those who are visible. Make sure that your brand is the first one that your customers see. US deploys 2,500 Marines and the USS Tripoli to the Middle East. Iran's missile attacks, drone strikes, and the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz escalate tensions. US military maintains high activity in the region, with over 15,000 targets struck. The United States is boosting its military presence in the Middle East with the deployment of 2,500 Marines and an amphibious assault ship, USS Tripoli. This comes as tensions with Iran soar, following missile and drone attacks on Israel and Gulf states. Iran has also disrupted the vital Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil shipping route. 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with the USS Tripoli, is now heading towards the region. These troops are trained to respond to crises quickly, such as securing embassies, The, along with the USS Tripoli, is now heading towards the region. These troops are, such as securing embassies, evacuating civilians , or dealing with natural disasters. However, officials have stressed that this deployment does not necessarily mean a ground operation is imminent. Also Read: Iran Allows Indian LPG Tankers Through Strait of Hormuz Amid Tensions In the midst of these tensions, the US Navy has 12 ships operating in the Arabian Sea, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The US Defense Secretary reassured the public, claiming that the forces are actively addressing any threats in the region, including Iran's disruptions to global oil trade. As the conflict continues to escalate, the humanitarian situation in Lebanon worsens, with hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Meanwhile, a US refueling aircraft crashed, increasing the toll on American forces to at least 13 service members killed. Irans new supreme leader released his first statement since succeeding his late father, saying yesterday that Iran would keep up its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors and use the effective closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the United States and Israel. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, who Israel suspects was wounded in the opening salvo of the war, did not appear on camera, and his statement was read by a state TV news anchor. The statement included a vow to avenge those killed in the war, including in a strike on a school that killed over 165 people. The statement signaled a willingness to continue the war that has disrupted global energy supplies, international travel and the relative safety enjoyed by the Gulf Arab states, and which has also exacted a heavy toll on Irans leadership, military and ballistic missile program. Khamenei has not been seen in public since the start of the war. Irans unrelenting attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf had earlier pushed oil back above $100 a barrel, as American and Israeli strikes pounded the Islamic Republic with no sign of an end to the war in sight. Iran is trying to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to halt their bombardment, which began on Feb. 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Irans president said yesterday said its attacks would continue until Iran gets security guarantees against another assault, indicating that even a ceasefire or U.S. declaration of victory might not halt the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump has meanwhile promised to finish the job, even though he claimed Iran is virtually destroyed. Iran-backed Hezbollah militants meanwhile launched some 200 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel while sirens rang out and loud booms from the interception of Iranian missiles could be heard in other areas. Israel launched another wave of attacks on Tehran and in Lebanon, where 11 people were killed. The U.N. refugee agency said up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. It said most have fled from Tehran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas. At least 759,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon, it said. Israels military yesterday warned residents of an even larger area of southern Lebanon to leave their homes. It said they should move north of the Zahrani River, which at its midpoint is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) away from the border with Israel. Iranian officials dismiss any notion of backing down Before Khameneis statement, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate in Irans Shiite theocracy, suggested online that for the war to end, the world would need to recognize Irans legitimate rights, pay reparations and offer guarantees against future attacks. In addition to attacking energy infrastructure around the region, Iran has a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean through which a fifth of the worlds oil is transported. Amid speculation that the U.S. might target Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, Irans main oil terminal, Irans parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf threatened in a social media post that any attempt to take Iranian islands would make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders. With traffic in the strait effectively stopped, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose another 9% to more than $100 a barrel, up some 38% over what it cost when the war started. Prices have swung back and forth in recent days, at one point surging to around $120 a barrel. Iran and Hezbollah launch attacks on Israel It was a sleepless night for many Israelis as Hezbollah launched some 200 rockets at the countrys north and deeper into Israel, according to the Israeli military. The noise was extraordinary, it was really scary, said Naama Porat, a resident of the rural community of Klil, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Lebanese border. As the sound of explosions and interceptions rang out, she dashed with her son to a shelter and spent the night there. No serious injuries were reported, but the extent of the fire shook residents of the north, who have repeatedly been told by their leaders that Hezbollah was dealt a devastating blow in 2024 during its last war with Israel. They have stocks of weapons and it just doesnt end. We dont know how much and what to expect, Porat said. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon that if its government does not prevent Hezbollah from attacking, Israel will take the territory and do it ourselves. Over 20 killed in strikes on Lebanon and Iran Israel, meantime, hit a car in a seaside area of Lebanons capital where dozens of displaced people have been sheltering, killing eight and wounding 31, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said it was not aware of a strike at that location. The Israeli military said it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days. Israel had destroyed the Taleghan 2 site in an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility. The U.S. and Israel say that destroying whatever remains of Irans nuclear program is one of the central aims of the war. They have long suspected Iran seeks nuclear weapons, while the Islamic Republic says its nuclear program is peaceful. In Tehran, security force checkpoints came under attack for the first time on Wednesday night, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. At least 10 people were killed in the suspected drone assaults. Israel and the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment over whether they were behind the attacks. Iran fires at Gulf Arab neighbors Irans latest attacks on its Gulf neighbors flouted a U.N. Security Council resolution approved Wednesday. yesterday, a container ship was hit with a projectile off the coast of Dubai, sparking a small fire, according to British militarys United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center. It said the crew were safe. An Iranian attack sparked a major fire on Muharraq Island, home to Bahrains international airport. Kuwait authorities said an Iranian drone smashed into a residential building, wounding two people, and that a drone attack on Kuwait International Airport had caused damage but no casualties. The UAE said it had activated air defenses twice to protect the futuristic city of Dubai from attacks, and firefighters extinguished a blaze at a tower after a drone hit. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, said it shot down a drone targeting the diplomatic quarter in its capital, Riyadh, and other drones in the east, including at least one trying to target its Shaybah oil field. Following an attack on Iraqs Basra port Wednesday that killed at least one person, officials said yesterday that operations were halted at all the countrys oil terminals. In the UAE, Citibank said it would close all but one of its branches due to an Iranian threat not yet realized to target financial institutions in the region. JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING & NATALIE MELZER. DUBAI, MDT/AP Like this: Like Loading... Advertisement BusinessWorkplaceAI Editorial We need to make AI work for us, not the other way around The Herald's View Editorial March 14, 2026 5:00am March 14, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Artificial intelligence has begun eating its own, with struggling tech companies starting to shed staff in a major shift that targets the professional middle class. Not long ago, these jobs were Australias brave new workplace. Governments urged universities to pursue technical courses for job-ready graduates while students who choose to study degrees that emphasised critical evaluation like humanities and social sciences were actively discouraged by massive fee hikes. But those workers who rode to glory in the height of the tech boom now face the daunting prospect of suddenly becoming surplus to requirements as AI spreads like wildfire and its proliferation erodes profits as investors flee and stock prices plummet. AI: where will it start, where will it end? The dominoes started falling last month when Afterpays parent company Block sacrificed more than 4000 jobs. Australian logistics software company WiseTech, Amazon, Pinterest and Crowdstrike joined the bloodletting. Advertisement Now Atlassian, the Australian-American software company famed for its commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and which specialises in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management, has dumped 1600 workers by email. Related Article Exclusive Supermarkets Woolworths forced to rein in chatbot that claimed to have angry mother Atlassian should have been the litmus test for how big businesses need to be transparent and honest about the impact of AI. Its not coming, its here. But chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes telling his employees, were not replacing humans with AI, while replacing them with AI, does nothing for trust between employee and employer. Not that many years ago, Australians were told just about every company will be AI-led in some way, from simple manufacturing processes and mining to retail, insurance and health. Advertisement Now, as the Heralds Elizabeth Knight noted, the size of the Atlassian cut is sure to frighten many in the already skittish labour market who subscribe to the doomsday dystopian predictions that AI will replace great swaths of workers. AI is accelerating without guardrails, its downsides excused as teething problems: for instance, a tendency to burn through energy like a bushfire plays second place to the fascination with the new. Meanwhile, there is little consideration of handling a large workforce made redundant by technology. But we have been here before. The Australian manufacturing industry and the arrival of computers in the workplace since the 1980s showed how other sectors weathered the arrival of new technology and adjusted. AI is a tool, not a replacement for human work. There needs to be a better understanding that the creators, operators and users are all on the same conveyor belt. People shouldnt be afraid to use AI. In a world flushed with intelligent machines, broad intellectual curiosity will be the difference between being left behind or forging ahead. AI holds the promise of great benefits for productivity and human advancement, especially in science and medicine. Advertisement Either way, the genies not going back into the bottle. The last big tech revolution the internet was resisted before it was embraced and now, for better or worse, we cant imagine life without it. The best way forward is to proceed but with some caution and appropriate guard rails. Jordan Baker sends a newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive her Note from the Editor. Advertisement Exclusive NationalBiodiversity Environmental offsets scheme rife with non-compliance Ben Cubby March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Australias environmental offsets system is rife with non-compliance, with some companies routinely failing to meet their obligations to protect nature, a series of federal government audits have found. The government audited 779 licence conditions across 53 projects last year, including major housing developments, mines, gas fields and road construction, and found 141 cases of non-compliance. Regent honeyeaters have had their habitat bulldozed in NSW under the environmental offsets system. Paul Fahy The majority of the projects audited were found to be non-compliant with their environmental offsets obligations in some way, data published by the government shows. The harder you look, the more you find, said a source who asked to remain anonymous because of their knowledge of the audit work. Advertisement When you drill down into it, there is quite widespread non-compliance, and in some cases the issues have been sitting there unnoticed for years. Related Article Exclusive Biodiversity Completely unacceptable: Environmental offsets scheme riddled with breaches All the projects in the audit had signed up for environmental offsets under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act which permits developers to compensate for damaging the natural environment by paying to protect something of equivalent or greater environmental value in a different place. Offsets can be used only if planners decide that the environmental damage cant be avoided in the first place. While some of the rule breaches detected in the past year related to relatively trivial mistakes, such as incomplete paperwork, others were more serious. Advertisement A mining services company in Queensland, Sojitz Blue, was twice fined for failing to implement its environmental offsets plan, and grasslands it was supposed to be protecting in Queenslands Central Highlands region were found to be overgrown with invasive weeds. Four other projects were subjected to directed variation by Environment Minister Murray Watt, meaning their licences to operate were altered to meet their environmental obligations. The swift parrot is one of Australias 19 critically endangered birds. Andrew Silcocks These included an open-cut coal mine near Singleton in the Hunter Valley, jointly operated by subsidiaries of mining giants Glencore and Peabody, which involved clearing habitat of the endangered birds the Regent Honeyeater and Swift Parrot, and endangered marsupial the spotted-tailed quoll. The high rate of non-compliance suggests there has been no improvement in the use of environmental offsets since former environment minister Tanya Plibersek called the situation completely unacceptable when a series of audits in 2024 found one in seven projects were non-compliant. Advertisement A spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said more resources were now being spent checking environmental offsets, so more breaches were being found. Related Article Updated Environmental protection Albanese strikes deal with the Greens to pass environment protection bill As a result of significant capability uplift and increased resourcing, the department is now conducting more audits, using better tools, and applying more rigorous checks than in previous years, the spokesperson said. A more mature approach to compliance activity is enabling the department to resolve issues earlier and more effectively. The environmental offsets system is about to be subject to a major overhaul, with draft new standards for offsets sent out to stakeholders for review in December. Advertisement The proposed new standards would tighten some criteria for companies seeking to offset environmental damage, but some experts have questioned whether there would be much practical improvement to ecosystems. Compliance is important, but it depends what you are complying with, said Professor Martine Maron of the Biodiversity Council of Australia, an independent group of eminent scientists that called for tighter regulation of environmental offsets in its submission to the review. The question we always need to be asking is: What does this mean for our threatened species are they actually having better outcomes? The fact is that doing really good ecological management and restoration can be very expensive. Its a long-term investment and it takes serious resources. Biodiversity is often seen as something thats not worth investment. We really do need to value this incredible ecological support system of ours. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Advertisement Exclusive NationalNSWDomestic violence Kat endured years of alleged relentless abuse. This threat kept her trapped Clare Sibthorpe March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Warning: Confronting content Blake Hortons alleged wrath knew no bounds. During an argument at a Sydney music festival, he allegedly threw his then-partner *Kat into a metal fence, a tree and the road. As he sat in their car one Christmas Eve and shattered the windscreen, a frightened Kat pulled over and attempted to flee, but was injured after falling onto the ground as he chased her. His alleged offending includes smacking Kats head on a bathtub, causing her to lose consciousness by lifting her off the ground by her throat, and punching and kicking her on several occasions. Blake Horton has been accused of a raft of serious domestic violence offences. Artwork: Aresna Villanueva Advertisement On multiple occasions, he is accused of threatening suicide if Kat left. The 28-year-old is yet to plead to 17 domestic violence charges spanning several years. The harrowing case has sparked warnings that a threat of self-harm is a prevalent coercive control tactic used to manipulate victim-survivors into staying with abusers. It also highlights the urgent need for improved support in the complex space. Its this really complex dance that the perpetrator will lean into to ensure that the victim-survivor is controlled, said Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW) senior policy and advocacy officer Angie Gehle. Youve got a victim-survivor whos effectively been eroded, and her sense of reality actually is manipulated If he threatens suicide, and the worst-case scenario was to happen, she would be the person to blame in her mind. How horrific violence escalated over years Advertisement Documents released by the NSW Supreme Court paint an alleged picture of escalating violence perpetrated by the Port Macquarie window factory worker. He would be set off by texts from other men, or Kats choice to pick up extra work rather than spending time with him. He allegedly refused to take her to hospital when she couldnt breathe, and smashed her phone when she tried to seek help. When she saw a doctor with severe bruising, she lied and said shed slipped. What we found was that sometimes the suicide threats can divert the attention from the perpetrators accountability. Angie Gehle, Domestic Violence NSW Once, as they played cards at a friends grandmothers house, he allegedly yanked Kats ponytail over a disliked joke. After she ran away crying, he apologised, but gave an ultimatum: if she didnt come back, he would kill himself. The victim returned to collect the accused, concerned he would hurt himself, the fact sheet alleges. Advertisement After a separate alleged attack, Horton threatened to kill Kat and himself if she went to police. One night, police responding to a domestic violence incident issued an apprehended domestic violence order to protect Kat. Police say she disclosed the years-long accusations, providing photos, videos, notes and texts. Police arrested Horton on the bulk of the charges in May last year. He has been in custody since. A summary of Blake Hortons alleged offences, according to police During a brawl, Horton choked the victim with his forearm. Horton pulled the victims ponytail, and later punched and split the glovebox of the car. Horton smashed the car stereo and windscreen. He chased the victim, causing her to fall and scrape her limbs. Under the influence of MDMA, Horton hit the victim twice, smashed her phone, and threw her to the ground. Enraged by a text, Horton punched the victim in the face and later choked her until she lost consciousness. During a trip to Sydney, Horton threw the victim into a metal fence (splitting her lip), against a tree, and onto the road. Horton threw a phone at the victims face. Horton punched the victim in the legs, stomach and chest, causing visible bruising. Horton punched the victim in the bathroom, causing her to hit her head on the sink and bathtub, resulting in a pinched nerve. Horton grabbed the victim by the throat during an argument over work shifts. Horton choked the victim, pressed his thumbs into her eyes, punched her ribs, and kicked her while she was on the floor. The Supreme Court earlier heard Horton has a previous domestic violence conviction against Kat. His lawyer argued for the granting of bail, saying the majority of the current charges were a one-on-one type scenario and there may be general difficulties in proving them beyond reasonable doubt at a potential trial. Advertisement Prosecutors asked for the charges to be tried in the District Court due to the lower courts maximum five-year jail penalty. They successfully argued for Horton to remain in custody, raising concerns he would endanger Kat if released and noting his previous failed court appearances. Horton will next face court on March 19. Nearly two in five coercive control victims report self-harm threats: study Kat is far from alone. She is one of the estimated 27 per cent of Australian women who have reported intimate partner physical or sexual violence, according to government figures. She is also one of 39 per cent of women who reported self-harm threats as part of their partners coercive control, according to a 2021 Australian Institute of Criminology study. Advertisement Gehle was not surprised by the figure. As DVNSW prepares its response to a national inquiry into the relationship between domestic, family, and sexual violence (DFSV) and suicide, launched in October 2025, she has noted concerning patterns. What we found was that sometimes the suicide threats can divert the attention from the perpetrators accountability, she said. If those threats of suicide come out, it leads into a presentation of mental health, and it mislabels the victim-survivor, and it completely detracts from the situation around the domestic and family violence altogether. Gehle acknowledged the difficulty in balancing mental health concerns with protecting victims, as suicide ideation could be a legitimate cry for help, calculated manipulation, or both. Advertisement While there was no easy answer, Gehle called for improved early intervention to tackle signs of mental illness. Were working in silos, so somebody who is at risk of violence could potentially go and see their GP and discuss things, but GPs arent skilled to be doing that work, she said. But thats a critical opportunity where they could be reaching out to an [appropriate] service. Gehle said preventative strategies were crucial in working with men and boys because it is incredibly difficult to reverse a crisis point. She also recommended a more integrated risk assessment of victim-survivors across support services, police stations and courtrooms, to determine the timing and context of self-harm threats. Advertisement It could be when shes talking about leaving [or] family court. Sometimes you can track those patterns, and that level of control that the perpetrator is trying to maintain, she said. Ultimately, Gehle noted each survivors experience was unique, and reasons for staying with abusers were complex especially with victim-blaming remaining prominent. She hoped the federal inquiry would improve data collection on domestic, family, and sexual violence-related deaths one piece of the puzzle for which a lot more work needs to be done. The inquiry followed calls from Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek. It will examine suicide risks for all people involved in domestic, family and sexual violence. *Kat is a pseudonym Advertisement Anyone needing support can contact National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732); Lifeline 131 114; Beyond Blue 1300 224 636. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. It is a terrible indictment of parents and society that they have to choose a private school for their child to attend, during high school years in particular (Sarah felt she had years to pick a high school. By year 3, kids were leaving, March 8). Anything will decline if the people do not support it, and the public education system will too. Sadly, if the system is lacking, people blame the teachers. It is not the teachers fault. It is those political decisions made in the past about funding private education and cutting huge resources from the public system by simply insufficient increases in funding and so suppressing their budgets. It is about not listening to those at the coal-face but sowing seeds of distrust in public school teachers through putting more and more stringent demands on them in the way of programming, assessment and the minutiae of tedious record keeping. It is about loading the curriculum with so many extras. It is about not backing up teachers but somehow making them the scapegoats for societys ills when in reality it is society. It is about cutting teachers, particularly support staff. It is sad that despite NSW now putting more money into public schools, they are still not seen as being equal to the private system where the parents have to pay for everything. It is sad for all the great teachers who have fought so hard for better funding and conditions for not just themselves but for their students. It is sad that programs such as The Schools Spectacular and the PSSA will not run if public schools can no longer support them. It is sad as all teachers have to meet the same accreditation standards. Just who will educate all those students who come from families where income cannot pay for the costs of private education? Ask what will happen if it is no longer there? Augusta Monro, Dural The endless argument: Public or private school? iStock The answer to why parents send their children, especially girls, to a private school is always money (they can afford it, so they do). The focus is on an economic divide, and while ever this remains the case, the real reasons will never be addressed and nothing will change to stop the trend or, indeed, make our public education a valued system. Jenny Greenwood, Hunters Hill Day to remember Every International Womens Day, Parnell Palme McGuinness (The Big Lie women tell other women, March 8) comes up with her hyperbolic attacks on what she portrays as the feminist movements agenda to convince women, through lies, that babies, motherhood and monogamy should be shunned. She uses a few quotes from decades ago to prop up her vision of true feminism but no evidence that contemporary feminist writers uphold a model that teaches us to override an evolutionary purpose and desire to have children. Instead of being enraged by women freezing their eggs, she might look to other, more pertinent aspects of our society that International Womens Day addresses, such as gender violence which takes the life of a woman on an almost weekly basis. Jennifer McKay, Ashbury Being a stay-at-home mother of two in the early 70s, I believed I didnt fit the Womens Lib criteria to be a feminist (which seemed to be: get a job, ditch the husband and the kids), but Germaine Greers The Female Eunuch had set alight a fire for womens equality that burns to this day, though now its for much more the Indigenous, the migrant, the disadvantaged. Betsy Brennan, Wahroonga Central casting a pall Remove items from your saved list to add more. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Emergency teams have rescued a woman who went missing while swimming off the Gold Coast on Saturday morning. Reports of a woman struggling in the water near Laceys Lane at Palm Beach were relayed just after 7am on Saturday. Aircraft, surf lifesavers, water police, marine rescue and foot patrols were all involved in the search. Queensland Ambulance Service had paramedics on standby and confirmed the woman, aged in her 30s, was pulled from the water about 9.20am near Burleigh Heads. She was transported to Tweed Heads Hospital in a stable condition. With Alex Condon Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement Updated NationalQueenslandTraffic Passenger dies after car crashes into bridge south of Brisbane William Davis March 14, 2026 10:57am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A A man has died after an early-morning crash into a bridge south of Brisbane. A Toyota ute failed to negotiate the Brigade Drive roundabout under the Pacific Motorway at Eagleby in Logan and collided with its pylons about 1am. Emergency teams were called minutes later, and eight paramedic units were sent to the scene. The Toyota ute hit a pylon under the Pacific Motorway at Eagleby. Google Maps The 24-year-old male driver suffered head injuries and was taken to Princess Alexandra Hospital in a stable condition. Advertisement His passenger, a 23-year-old man, was trapped by his legs and suffered limb, abdominal and head injuries. He was taken to the same hospital in a life-threatening condition but has since died. The Forensic Crash Unit was sent to investigate the cause of the crash. Delays were still reported at the roundabout at 9.30am on Saturday. About two hours after the Eagleby crash, a brown Mazda CX7 collided head-on with a white Kia Sportage on the M1 at Yatala on the Gold Coast. The Mazdas 28-year-old driver was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Advertisement A section of the M1 Northbound was closed temporarily, but traffic had cleared by 9am. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Remove items from your saved list to add more. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. The family member had every reason to worry. Thats a genuine fear for them to have I couldnt guarantee that hes going to be safe. The family members questions weighed heavily on staff, who for more than a decade have sounded the alarm about increasing safety concerns inside the centre overseen by Barwon Health. Bellamy Nieto was found dead in a hospital room in June 2024, days after attempting to end their life in the same ward. How do I know he is safe here? they asked the staff at the psychiatric unit in Geelong. T he scene of a violent death inside the patients room had not long been scrubbed away when a man arrived to be admitted at the Swanston Centre with his worried family member by his side. Staff were doing their nightly checks when they noticed the patient was missing from his room. The centres dated configuration means two patients must share a bathroom, separated only by a flimsy non-locking saloon-style door, which staff said no longer complied with safe design standards. The man who was killed had been admitted to the hospital for relatively minor treatment and placed in one of the Swanston Centres legacy rooms. The two men were sharing a bathroom. In the early hours of February 22, staff found the man on the floor of his room, shards of glass surrounding his body, and the other patient standing over him. Days earlier, a 31-year-old Highton man was killed in his room, allegedly by another patient, who was admitted into the room next door. Barwon Health said it was unable to comment further because the patients death was under police investigation. Staff are feeling very uneasy about how to do their job. Theres a lot of sadness because someones come in for treatment, and he came in for something that could have been done in the community as well. Thats hard to comprehend. I think its been swept under the rug, said one worker who often worried about putting patients in the throes of a mental health crisis in rooms where they had to share a bathroom with another person. Traumatised staff have been left asking the same question: why werent their concerns addressed many years ago? Police swarmed the mental health unit and homicide detectives are investigating the mans death. WorkSafe is also investigating, as is Barwon Health. The 31-year-old was found on the floor of the bedroom, his body surrounded by glass, his neighbour standing nearby. They began a frantic search, but did not have to look far. The reasons were complex and myriad: acute psychiatric illness, people arriving sicker than ever with more complex needs, rising aggression, drug intoxication and withdrawal, overcrowding, restriction of liberties and a dire lack of places to discharge people safely into the community, which was contributing to prolonged admissions in the unit. The alarming classification was the result of soaring episodes of violence and assaults reported inside the unit. Police were braced to make a rapid response whenever they were called. In June 2019, Barwon Health made a submission to Victorias mental health royal commission with a grim admission: conditions in the Swanston Centre were now so dangerous that the University Hospital Geelong had been designated a high-risk public zone by Victoria Police. Homicide detectives are investigating the death of a man at Geelongs Swanston Centre. All incidents are reviewed through established governance processes to identify, assess and respond to any clinical and operational risks, and to support ongoing quality and safety improvements, a spokesman said. Rather than being placed in the Swanston Centres more secure four-bedroom unit, the man was put into the acute ward overnight on June 22, 2019. She had been there less than a week and was adjusting to her new treatment when a young man was admitted for urgent care. Within days of Barwon Healths submission to the royal commission, a 72-year-old woman was admitted to the Swanston Centres 26-bed acute ward to have her medication altered. It also warned workers at the centre were exposed to significant levels of agitation, distress and violence. Increasing levels of violence, especially in inpatient settings, exacerbated by poor early access to services, poor access to intensive supports, and poor infrastructure planning, are significant contributors to poor staff retention, the submission read. Barwon Healths psychiatric services were also struggling to attract and retain psychiatrists, psychologists, allied health workers, occupational therapists and social workers. In the grip of a psychotic episode, the man tore the unit apart. Wielding fire extinguishers and anything else he could get his hands on, he smashed the acute centre up and severely assaulted the woman. Under the centres code black procedures, overnight staff were forced to shelter in a secure room while the rampage occurred. Even worse, the high-risk public zone designation, which was supposed to trigger a rapid response from police was rendered useless because staff couldnt even make a phone call. From the phones that we carry, we couldnt call externally, we couldnt call Triple Zero, the worker said. The attack went on for hours. The 72-year-old woman survived the assault, but suffered permanent injuries and filed a writ against Barwon Health in 2023. That incident shook people up for a while, and it still does, a staff member told this masthead. If someone is that aggressive, were told to retreat and protect ourselves and call for help. A lot of the time you feel awful because youre leaving these other people out there. Obviously, youre telling them to go to their room or get away from the situation, but some people can just get into peoples rooms. The hospital and WorkSafe undertook separate reviews into the security failure and wider the risks that conditions in the Swanston Centre posed to staff and patients. Barwon Health did not answer questions about the review or its resulting actions. However, sources indicate some of the code black response protocols were improved and the layout of the unit altered to make it safer. But staff and the tragic cascade of events after suggest they have made little difference. I feel like theres been an incident or two every year since then, one worker said. So I kind of, unfortunately, expect something to happen every year. A sudden death At 8.15am on April 26, 2021, Allison Naomi Eagle was found dead in her room in the Swanston Centre. The 44-year-old from Leopold was supposed to be discharged later that day following a six-week involuntary admission, her third stay in the unit in a year. During her final admission, Eagle suffered ongoing respiratory issues including sleep apnoea, to the extent that staff were asked to monitor her breathing overnight and watch her chest rise and fall. A forensic pathologist noted that schizophrenia, which Eagle was being treated for, carried an increased risk of sudden death. The antipsychotic medications she was being treated with can also carry a risk of respiratory issues including, in rare cases, fatal arrhythmia. A Barwon Health clinical review concluded the sedatives Eagle was given were consistent with regular practice and had not caused her issues previously. But it also highlighted the need to strengthen several of Barwon Healths processes, including more regular review of sedatives, clearer policies about providing patients with heart scans and clearer rules about overnight monitoring. In his 2024 findings, coroner Paul Lawrie was satisfied Eagle had been provided with appropriate medications at dosages that were within accepted clinical ranges, and found there were no suspicious circumstances associated with her death. I cannot say with sufficient certainty whether the medications administered to Ms Eagle contributed to her death, the coroner found. Whilst the issues identified in the Barwon Health review are not causative, the consequent recommendations are properly directed toward the improvement of clinical practices. I am also satisfied that appropriate steps have been taken to address the issues identified in the review. Investigations probe more deaths In December 2022, another patient took her own life while undergoing treatment in the acute psychiatric unit, though investigations into the incident are continuing and few details have been released. In April 2024, a coronial investigation was launched after another patient a 54-year-old woman was found dead in the Swanston Centre. This, too, is ongoing. A WorkSafe investigation into the death in January 2025 resulted in Barwon Health facing two charges of failing to ensure people other than employees were not exposed to health and safety risks. The case, which is before the courts, continues. A mothers heartbreak The Swanston Centre was supposed to be a place of safety for Lee Johnsons 22-year-old child, Bellamy Nieto, who was suicidal when they arrived at the unit. But Nieto, a biological woman who identified as non-binary, was found dead in their room in June 2024, days after attempting to end their life in the same ward. The family is suing Barwon Health for negligence. When she learnt homicide detectives were investigating the death of a patient, allegedly killed at the hands of another patient last month, Johnson said she and her family were shattered. Lee Johnson, pictured with Bellamy Nietos dog Bluey. Johnson has been left devastated by Nietos death. Justin McManus It is absolutely devastating, she said. I had hoped after Bellamy things would change. The lack of supervision there, and the lack of resolution when theres conflict within that place is directly related to both deaths. It is alleged that Nieto was transferred from a high-observation room near the nurses station to a more isolated room of the unit the evening before they died, after being allegedly robbed, harassed and attacked by another patient. Johnson said she had repeatedly asked that this patient be moved into another ward or kept away from her child. She alleged the patient verbally attacked Nieto several times in front of her. It is also alleged they broke into their room, stole their belongings, including an art journal, and destroyed a handmade card their sister had given them. It broke Bellamy. They were heartbroken they couldnt take any more, Johnson said. Bellamy Nieto. Justin McManus The family also allege observation times were changed from 15 minutes to hourly in the hours before Nieto died. They said this meant Nieto was allegedly left alone for an extended period while they were suicidal. I thought Bellamy was safe. I thought they would protect them, Johnson said. I wouldnt have ever walked out that door at closing time. I would have stayed. I would have been with them if I knew they werent checking on them. Johnson said Bellamy was an incredible, loving, generous person. Johnson said she was speaking out because she never wants another family to experience what she has at Swanston Centre. I hold them directly responsible, she said. I want people to know what happened there and to follow their gut if they have somebody they love in there and say, No, that is not good enough. Its a hellhole Another Geelong woman, whose brother was frequently admitted to the Swanston Centre for mental health issues over several years, said she had repeatedly raised security and privacy concerns with staff. The woman, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons and to protect her brother, said she was alarmed when she observed staff did not always undertake bag checks of visitors. I just felt like there was just a real lack of safety and leadership there, she said. She also alleges that sensitive patient and visitor information was left exposed on the front counter. This masthead has seen documentation of the womans concerns about safety and privacy at the centre, including a written complaint addressed to the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner from 2023. She said the final straw for her family came when her brother, who she described as completely paranoid and grappling with a severe mental health episode, was discharged and put in a taxi without the familys knowledge. Wider issues Forensic psychiatrist Dr Rajan Darjee, who is not personally involved in the Geelong homicide case, said the issues faced by Swanston Centre patients begin well before the acute wards rooms. Alarmed by a rise in the number of homicide cases for which he was being called to provide expert evidence, Darjee last year contacted fellow forensic psychiatrists to see if they were having the same experience of under-treated patients involved in preventable deaths. Their harrowing feedback was overwhelming. It has now led to a more formalised research project to analyse the number of people going through Victorias courts with a psychiatric disorder who have been charged with murder. The work is ongoing, but in its preliminary stages, nine of the states leading forensic psychologists revealed they had been asked to evaluate 39 individuals with psychiatric illness as part of murder defences in 2024 and 2025 alone. Darjee said the cases show a clear trend, with most homicides involving people who had known and long-standing conditions, but who did not get timely or sufficient treatment from overstretched health systems and hospitals. Im sure there were problems in the hospital in Geelong, but even with those problems, this probably wouldnt be happening if we didnt have systemic failures that mean we have lots of untreated people who are not getting the care they require, Darjee said. Then, when they are in hospital, they are very, very unwell and in services that struggle to contain them. These problems occur in a system that is totally unfit for purpose. Its just going to happen again somewhere else. Associate Professor Simon Stafrace, chair of the Victorian branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, described the homicide as a devastating, distressing and an extremely rare event. Its about the worst thing that can possibly happen to have somebody lost in care, he said. My thoughts are with the family of the person who has died and, indeed, with the family of the person who is accused of perpetrating a crime. Stafrace said that while Victoria had striven to improve care for people with mental health issues in recent years, tragedies such as these showed there was still a way to go. One of the most unhelpful conclusions that you can make is that mental health reform is done, he said. When an incident like this happens, we find ourselves asking questions about what could we do better? How do we prevent this from happening again? What does it say about all levels of our system? Police are yet to lay criminal charges over the mans death. The patient accused of killing the 31-year-old man is understood to be too unwell to be interviewed by police. He has been relocated to a secure psychiatric unit at a Melbourne hospital. Swanston Centre staff say the issues impacting mental health patients and services across the state were being magnified within their wards. One mental health worker told this masthead: Its become harder with the new Mental Health Act as well because we are trying to be less and less restrictive, but it puts other people in danger. We try and nurse those [aggressive] people in the high-care area for a bit, but there comes a point where they have to go onto the ward, and you can never fully say that theyre safe around other people. They said staffing shortages and more complex needs of patients were also adding pressure. A spokesman said the government was unable to comment on individual cases and matters under investigation by Victoria Police. This is a deeply distressing incident, the government spokesman said. We send our deepest condolences to the persons loved ones and staff at the centre. But for staff at the Swanston Centre, the devastation and tragedy of what happened in the early hours of February 22 remain raw. Speaking via the Health and Community Services Union, staff who knew the victim say they had been kept in the dark about what happened, compounding their grief. Its like not knowing what happened to a friend and how they died, they said. We get bits of information from other colleagues, and we are left putting pieces together. There is no closure and I believe [thats] why its hard to move forward from. Lifeline 131 114 Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. I was furious, recalled Woodall, an emergency service call taker. My first thought was, Im not insured for people to be on the land. If they [the workers] get injured, Im liable. The man was no stranger to the industry. It was Robert Krnjeta, then director of Ray Whites top sales office in Victoria, Ray White Werribee. Woodall put the buyers name into Google, hoping to find out more about the person she claims was behind the secret works taking place. Lisa Woodall says she discovered this ladder propped against the window of her late parents house when she visited 10 days before settlement. Still, the last thing Woodall expected was to discover someone had already taken possession. A ladder was propped against a broken window and extensive renovation works had begun. The western suburbs property had been on the market for months. After a sale campaign beset by delays and failed offers, she finally had another buyer. A sense that something was awry spurred Lisa Woodall to drive past her late parents house. Krnjeta had been buying bedraggled brick homes in the neighbourhood, giving them a modern facelift, and then quickly selling them again for a tidy profit. Lisa Woodall came across Robert Krnjeta in 2024, not as an agent, but as a buyer of her Wyndham Vale home. My mum would have hated people being in her house without my permission, wrote that homes distressed owner, Rachael ODowd, after she visited the property to find internal works occurring and her mothers filing cabinet in the front yard. This mastheads investigation has also uncovered another alleged case of a property being illegally accessed and renovated before settlement, this time by Roberts younger brother, Ray White Werribee director Alex Krnjeta. The case adds to mounting misconduct allegations against Robert Krnjeta in his dealings with home owners selling deceased estates. The 34-year-old recently defected to rival franchise Harcourts amid claims he secretly purchased two properties he was entrusted to sell, and then flipped them for a profit . George Yacoubian, the agent who oversaw the sale, said he first heard the house had been illegally accessed from Woodalls conveyancer. I thought, Hes trying to get the house completed before he pays for it, Woodall recalled. Photos Woodall took during this visit suggest tradespeople had been working on the property for some time. In the backyard, the base of a large wooden deck had been hammered in place, a new sliding door had been fitted and the cut remnants of a large tree lay on the ground. Maybe I had a feeling, she said of her decision to visit the house on August 30. After two failed offers saw the price drop from $350,000 to $320,000, Krnjeta emerged as the third buyer, signing a contract to buy the home in July 2024. Woodall had been having a tough time selling her property. People later told her they had never seen an unluckier vendor. I was aware of my obligations in relation to pre-settlement access and took steps in July 2024 to formalise arrangements with the vendors representative accordingly, he said. After being contacted by this masthead, Robert Krnjeta said he offered his sincere apologies to Woodall for any distress caused. However, he rejected the characterisation of events put to him. Yacoubian said he had previously suggested Krnjeta apply for a licence agreement a legal agreement between the vendor and buyer when Krnjeta had been in touch and flagged the idea of early access. A deck was being built and trees had been cut down when Woodall visited her house on Melview Drive in August 2024. Hes the director of the company. He knows the legalities, he said. Yacoubian said he immediately called Krnjeta, who told him that he thought it would be OK to start work, given no one lived there. Yacoubian didnt buy his argument. This time the vendor was secondary teacher Rachael ODowd, selling her late mothers home with Ray White Werribee. Less than a year later, another Wyndham Vale property was illegally accessed and work commenced. It is not clear if Woodalls complaints ever made their way to Krnjetas then colleague and younger brother Alex. If they did, they werent heeded as a warning. Robert Krnjeta recently appeared in an Instagram post dining with Tesolin, once hailed as the countrys top agent, but now facing a raft of allegations of illegal conduct , including more than a hundred cases of underquoting. Krnjeta also declined to comment on his association with Josh Tesolin, one of the most controversial figures in Australias property industry. When pushed to provide evidence of any formal agreement to access Woodalls house, Krnjeta declined, saying, I have nothing to add to my statement. The circumstances of that swift sale, as recounted by ODowd, are somewhat unusual. Initially, she was informed that there was a buyer willing to pay $335,000. When a few days later that purchaser pulled out, ODowd was told that another agent at the firm, Alex Krnjeta, had offered to step in and buy the home for the same price, along with his wife. As is legally required, no commission would be required and settlement was scheduled for March 2025. In late February, ODowd visited the house to collect her mothers mail, only to discover, to her horror, that there was no letter box to check. It had been wrenched from the front yard, along with much of the vegetation. Her mothers empty filing cabinet was sitting outside, along with a wall heater. Inside, tradespeople had been busy. Workers had left their ladders, brooms, plasterboard, skirting and buckets behind. For ODowd, the violation was about much more than concerns about insurance and a lack of respect. For many years before ODowds mother had died, she had refused to let anyone in the house, even family. Later, cleaners removing waste from the property were forced to wear biohazard suits as they toiled to stop their skin itching. [My mother] was such a private person, and with her situation, I thought shed just be mortified with whats happened, she said. Alex was happy to just let me pay the electricity and water or whatever else they were using It was just a mess. Rachael ODowd said she was distressed by what she found at her late mothers house. Justin McManus ODowd immediately contacted her conveyancer, who demanded all works cease, but the next day a friend drove past and videotaped continuing works. A ute was in the driveway and a high-vis worker was standing on the roof. How tradespeople accessed the house is unclear. ODowd said she left keys with the selling agent, who denied providing them to Alex Krnjeta. In texts seen by this masthead, the selling agent claimed he was fuming when he found out what happened as he had told Krnjeta to go through [the] proper channels. Property lawyer Freya Southwell said before a settlement is officially complete, or without specific agreements in place, buyers accessing properties are breaking the law. That would be trespass, she said. There was also evidence that tradespeople had been inside ODowds home. Southwell, whose firm Sutton Laurence King Lawyers oversees about 3500 property settlements a year, said builders working on a site without the owners permission may also be breaching their legal obligations. Sometimes a vendor might agree to give a buyer early access through a legal document called a licence agreement. Southwell said these agreements rarely extended to allowing construction works, as the vendor could be left with incomplete or poor-quality modifications if the sale fell through. Southwell said she would always advise her clients against agreeing to building works for this reason. Then there was risk the vendor may not be able to make an insurance claim if something were to go wrong. [For example], if they didnt take out a [building] permit, or they hired people who were not completing the works to the requisite safety standards, and there was a fire because of the works, they may have trouble claiming, Southwell said. Felled trees and plants stacked outside ODowds home. At first, Alex Krnjeta offered ODowd a comprehensive apology for his actions, writing in an email on March 5 that he had been too eager and commenced work without the necessary consents. The property was vacant which led to my actions however, this is not to be seen as an excuse, he wrote. Reflecting on the matter, I understand how this could have put you in an uncomfortable and possibly stressful position, especially considering the sensitivities involved. Krnjeta said as a gesture of goodwill that he was willing to cover any conveyancing costs. The agents tone and story changed when ODowd replied that while she acknowledged his apology, his offer of compensation was insufficient, and she would also be seeking $10,000 for the extra stress and loss that I have incurred. In an email the next day, Krnjeta said he had proceeded with the renovations based on my understanding that there was an oral agreement in place and claimed his actions werent a breach of professional conduct. Alex Krnjeta is now a director of Ray White Werribee. Ray White ODowd reached out to multiple senior Ray White staff and explained the situation, but they replied there was nothing more they could do. As you are aware, Alex has been sympathetic to the situation and has offered to cover the conveyancing costs, wrote Michelle Chick, a director at Ray White Werribee, later that month. With the written apology aswell [sic] as the costs of covering the conveyancing we feel this is a fair outcome. By this point, ODowd had signed a licence agreement that officially allowed Krnjeta and his workers access to the house, but told this masthead she had no other choice. They were spray-painting the roof with no safety gear and zero insurance on the house at that stage, she said. I was so concerned about getting sued for someone getting hurt onsite that I felt pressured to sign a licence agreement in the end. ODowd said her efforts to get Consumer Affairs to take action also fell on deaf ears. While a staff member from the regulator asked her many questions, they indicated no immediate action would be taken. They said, Look, were recording this name, and if this name comes up again, something will be done, she recalled. In retrospect, ODowd wishes she had immediately called the police. Alex Krnjeta, 28, now a director of Ray White Werribee, has been previously recognised as one of the top agents in the group and a rising star. When approached by this masthead about the incident, he offered an apology and confessed to allowing workers to enter the property while it was still owned by ODowd, though he again provided a slightly different version of events. I made a serious mistake, he wrote in a statement. The contract of sale required the vendor to remove rubbish and clean the property prior to settlement, and when I saw that hadnt been done, I wrongly took it upon myself to authorise tradespeople to enter the property to handle that, without waiting for settlement to occur. Ray White Victoria chief executive Domenic Belfiore said he had conducted a review of Ray White Werribees internal processes to ensure that the proper safeguards are firmly in place and promised there would be no repeat of the incident. A Consumer Affairs Victoria spokesperson said the regulator did not comment on individuals, businesses or whether investigations were under way. We take reports of real estate misconduct seriously and will investigate and take action where necessary. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement NationalVictoriaEducation Phantom children, millions lost: How childcare fraudsters are draining the system Nicole Precel March 15, 2026 5:30am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Millions of dollars have been lost to childcare fraudsters claiming government subsidies for fictitious children or care that has not been delivered. Almost 100 people have been successfully prosecuted for childcare subsidy fraud in the past five years at least 24 in Victoria and 66 in NSW. Five people were charged by the federal police in connection with an alleged multimillion-dollar childcare fraud in 2020. AFP More than $484 million from the $13.6 billion childcare subsidy scheme was lost to incorrect payments, including fraud and non-compliance, in the 2023-2024 financial year. Between 2023 and 2024, the childcare subsidy program cost the Australian government $13.6 billion, making it among the top 20 most expensive federal programs. Advertisement In Victoria, between January 2021 and February 2026, eight people were prosecuted by the Australian Federal Police, a further 10 by the Department of Education, and six by Services Australia. In NSW, police prosecuted 57 people, the Department of Education five, and the AFP four. Avinash Singh, a principal lawyer of Astor Legal said childcare subsidy fraud was rampant, with the most common scam being so-called phantom children in which subsidies are paid for children that do not exist. Childcare subsidy fraudsters have drained millions from the system. Matt Willis He said this was usually easy to detect but became more difficult when parents were involved in the scam. This can happen when a parent tells an operator they can use their childrens names to take the subsidy, even though they arent providing care, and the centre then gives the parents a cut. It needs either some sort of reporting or someone to actually be undercover at the childcare centre, seeing that those specific children dont actually attend and dont actually get any childcare, Singh said. That seems to be where a lot of this fraud is morphing into. Advertisement Following horrific child sex allegations that rocked the childcare sector in July last year, major changes have been introduced to try to improve the industry. Related Article Exclusive Education How black market childcare reaches migrant communities, the unvaccinated and the desperate In Victoria, a parliamentary review and rapid review are under way, there has been a shift in the working with children check, and a tightening of market entry requirements, as well as the ability to suspend or cancel child care subsidy payments for serious breaches. However, there is still concern that bad-faith operators are scamming subsidy payments. Singh said the recent amendments still dont really get to the heart of the issue. Due to the number of centres across the country, audits and spot checks are impossible, meaning the regulator must rely on reports or tip-offs. It becomes a bit of a money grab, Singh said. Advertisement A 2024-25 auditor-general report into management and oversight of compliance activities within the childcare subsidy program found it was partly effective, but that there were gaps in monitoring and enforcement not being effectively managed. Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page said the size and scale of the early childhood sector was often underestimated. Nationally, there are more than 16,000 services and over 1 million families. The AFP worked with the Department of Education to seize $5 million in assets from a Perth-based childcare centre, over alleged fraudulent childcare subsidy payments. Page said that while a major crackdown on family daycare schemes had increased scrutiny on approved providers and reduced fraud significantly, the vast majority were doing the right thing. I think strengthening whistleblower protection and investing in a culture of reporting could help to identify fraud or fraud risk, Page said. I also think clearer and stronger expectations on providers will help to eliminate bad actors. Advertisement Services Australia and the Department of Education agreed to the reports findings and recommendations and are implementing them. Related Article Exclusive Melbourne childcare crisis Childcare watchdog had one inspector for every 66 Victorian services In December 2025, Melbourne woman Nuer Deng was ordered to pay $1.7 million to the Department of Education and was sentenced to three years in prison for childcare subsidy fraud for operating a family daycare. Among the charges, Deng claimed for childcare sessions that did not take place, charged inflated fees to a parent, and tried to bribe a Centrelink officer related to a family daycare she operated between 2013 and 2016. The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent said subsidy fraud wasnt simply a matter of individual wrongdoing, but rather a structural problem driven by a market model that has incentivised some providers to put profit over children, and a lack of transparency and accountability. Advertisement She called for a national early childhood commission, as recommended by the Productivity Commission, to set and enforce national standards, strengthen transparency and restore trust. The current market-based approach creates fertile ground for fraud and malpractice, while not-for-profit and community-based services, which consistently deliver high-quality outcomes, are increasingly squeezed out, Dent said. A departmental spokesperson said the Australian government took allegations of fraud and non-compliance seriously and used sophisticated data and intelligence techniques to monitor and prevent fraud. The government has committed more than $221 million over the past three budgets to safeguard the childcare subsidy program and boost compliance. The Commonwealth also invested about $22 million for joint compliance work and monitoring with the states and territories, including extra provider audits, fraud investigations, improved targeting through better data analytics and education and support to the sector. Advertisement Related Article Exclusive Melbourne childcare crisis A little girl was repeatedly raped at family daycare. Her mother says regulators took no action Commonwealth officers are carrying out an extra 1600 unannounced visits each year, with providers facing cancellations or suspensions of subsidies, fines, debts or conditions imposed. Between September 2024 and September 2025, there were 13 child care subsidy approvals cancelled by the Department of Education. Federal Minister for Early Childhood Education Jess Walsh said the government wouldnt tolerate crooks ripping off the subsidy. Those doing the wrong thing should expect to be caught, she said. Walsh said that since Labor was elected in 2022, non-compliant use of the childcare subsidy had almost halved. There are more authorised officers and more unannounced spot checks than ever before, she said. News that Prime Minister Keir Starmer ignored warnings of senior advisers and appointed Jeffrey Epsteins pal Peter Mandelson as Britains ambassador to the U.S. was bad for the embattled leader. It seems unlikely to improve. Starmer continues to weather the fallout from Mandelsons appointment and later sacking but the nearly 150 pages of documents released by his government Wednesday were just a small fraction of the thousands of pages still to come. Its hard to believe that later releases are going to persuade anybody to see the PMs decision in a better light, said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London. Its damning stuff and, if the country werent preoccupied with rather more important Middle Eastern matters at the moment, it might even have hastened Starmers departure. Starmer picked an ambassador tainted by scandal Documents confirmed what was already known: Starmer chose the savvy veteran politician despite a reputation tainted by previous scandals and ties to Epstein. The due diligence checklist released from Mandelsons vetting highlighted in bold letters the red flags Starmer ignored, spelling out where his relationship with Epstein could expose the government to reputational risk. It also spelled out unrelated reputational issues over Mandelsons work in a previous Labour government when he twice had to resign over financial matters and his work at Global Counsel, a lobbying firm he co-founded. In one document, Starmer was warned that making a political appointment to the post was riskier than choosing a veteran diplomat, as is more common in Britain. If anything goes wrong, you could be more exposed as the individual is more connected to you personally, then-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case advised. Starmer fired Mandelson in September after documents showed he maintained contact with Epstein whom he once called his best pal after the financiers 2008 conviction for sexual offenses involving a minor. Starmer says Mandelson misled him about the depth and extent of his friendship with the convicted sex offender. He said he regrets ever giving him the ambassadors job. It was me that made a mistake, and its me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein, and I do that, Starmer said yesterday. Documents released so far have not provided evidence to back up Starmers claim he was misled, in part because police investigating Mandelson requested that correspondence between the prime minister and Mandelson be withheld to protect the integrity of the probe. Mandelson was briefly arrested last month on allegations he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. He has denied wrongdoing and hasnt been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct. Defense lawyer Marcus Johnstone, who is not connected to Mandelson, said civil servants, government lawyers and the police had probably fought a small war behind closed doors before deciding what documents to release. He said that fight will continue as batches of thousands of pages of documents are released in the weeks and months ahead. We need to remember that the files we are seeing today are only the thin end of the wedge on Mandelson, Johnstone said. But we should be under no illusions that what we are currently seeing is anything like the full picture. A question of judgment Despite firing Mandelson in September, Starmer faced new questions about his judgment when a huge trove of files published by the U.S. Department of Justice in January provided more details about Mandelsons ties with Epstein. Opponents and even some members of the governing Labour Party called for the prime ministers resignation. Starmer survived the immediate danger, but his position remains fragile, even though he never met Epstein and is not implicated in his crimes. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer of lying to Parliament about the appointment and suggested Labour members of Parliament reconsider his leadership. It is very clear that he told lie after lie after lie about the appointment of Peter Mandelson, Badenoch said. He wanted to make this all about Peter Mandelson. This is about his judgments. The prime ministers spokesperson Tom Wells said that proper rules were followed in scrutinizing Mandelson, but the vetting process needs to be improved. Crisis is overshadowed by the Iran war Starmer has often appeared more sure-footed on the international stage than at home and that could provide the political cover he needs at this time. He responded cautiously to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran not joining in the airstrikes, which he hinted broke international law, and initially refusing to let American warplanes use British bases. After Iran struck back by firing missiles and drones at neighboring countries, Starmer said U.S. planes could use U.K. bases to strike Irans missile program, but not other targets. Starmers reticence angered Trump, who complained last week that Starmer was not Winston Churchill. But polls suggest his reaction to the war aligns broadly with public sentiment, which is wary of deeper involvement in the conflict. The whole affair, while certainly doing nothing to help him, seems rightly or wrongly pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, Bale said about the Mandelson documents. BRIAN MELLEY & JILL LAWLESS, MDT/AP Like this: Like Loading... Remove items from your saved list to add more. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Taskforces had been launched, with hundreds of millions of dollars being spent cracking down on the illicit tobacco black market across the country. The ABF already knew they had a major problem with illicit tobacco. It was just another crack in the border wall that would soon become a flood. Black market tobacco was filling shops in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Authorities have no idea how many containers of tobacco and who knows what other contraband slipped into the country during that period, like water flowing around a rock. The nations ports had become an open book to them from sheer practice. It was the early 2020s and the Haddara crime family were the top dogs in Melbournes illicit tobacco game, controlling international smuggling routes, a network of retail shops and even a profit share in one of the worlds largest manufacturers of illicit tobacco . The plan was to break the customs search facility, to jam it up with so many shipping containers that the Australian Border Force would be too busy to detect all the other illicit goods flowing through the port. There has been a clear regulatory failure by all levels of government going back a number of years to enforce laws governing illicit tobacco, in particular those governing retailing and distribution. And it was entirely predictable. This is the story of how law enforcement and state and federal governments allowed a well-intentioned health measure designed to stop smoking raising taxes create a black market that has now become a national security problem. Rising taxes on tobacco over several years helped create a black market that became so lucrative that transnational crime gangs battled for control of it. One is led by Kazem Kaz Hamad. It feeds a multibillion-dollar black market that has been injected with so much dirty money that transnational organised crime syndicates have gone to war to control it leading to a nationwide campaign of more than 200 firebombings, a score of shootings, rampant extortion, the death of an innocent woman and even spawned a terror attack . And yet today, Australia is one of the worlds most lucrative markets for illicit tobacco. Smoking rates fell to record lows and the Commonwealth received billions in taxes, making tobacco one of its biggest revenue raisers. At its peak in 2019-20, tobacco excise revenue accounted for $16.3 billion. Forcing up the cost of smoking was originally intended as a health measure that would also deliver a massive win in public health and a financial windfall for the government and both were highly successful. All of them have been essentially undertaken to combat a simple problem the unintended consequences of skyrocketing taxes on cigarettes. Add to that at least 10 specialist anti-tobacco state and federal law enforcement taskforces, including the creation of a dedicated Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner. There have been six separate federal and state parliamentary inquiries into the illicit tobacco market since 2015, including one the second for the Australian parliament that is currently underway. This could be a spot-on assessment of the current state of play in Australias illicit tobacco market except it was written in 2017, not 2026. Yet very little effective enforcement action appears to have been taken. This undermines confidence in the rule of law and provides free rein to organised criminals, a report from the Black Economy Taskforce found. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and the tax per cigarette is $1.52 and packets are now $37 to $55. In March 2017, a single cigarette attracted a tax of $0.61 and a cheap packet of cigarettes cost about $18. I think everyone accepts that there should be properly calibrated annual increases in revenue, but the shock ad hoc increases over and above the calibrated increases, I think, do have the real risk of bringing about the effect of driving people into the illegal tobacco market. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, former chief inspector of constabulary for the United Kingdom, testified before a 2016 Australian parliamentary inquiry that the connection between price rises and criminal activity was self-evident. But, as every government inquiry has shown, there have been multiple warnings about the unintended consequence of steeply raising tobacco taxes the lure it presented to organised crime. Illicit tobacco is now the second most valuable illegal commodity after drugs. It is worth up to $8.5 billion a year to organised crime , including the sale of illicit vapes since 2024. Supply finds a way around whatever obstacles are there with it when theres sufficient demand. We saw this coming a long time ago. I basically argued at the time that it wasnt going to work and that these taxes would backfire, and youd end up with a massive black market and that it would create more problems than it solved, he said. Dr James Martin, associate professor in criminology at Deakin University, said the tipping point was around 2018, after the government had been implementing a series of tax rises of 12.5 per cent each year since 2013. These operations can provide packs of cigarettes for $12 to $25. The tobacco market is now deeply infiltrated by organised crime, with up to 60 per cent of all cigarettes sold in Australia coming from black market sources, according to the Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner . Its a lesson that Australian political authorities are still struggling to understand or accept. At a press conference last year, Minister of Health Mark Butler said Australia was a victim of criminal gangs capitalising on a worldwide glut in cigarette production. The explosion in illicit tobacco was a product of significant oversupply in the world, dumping of this product on every single country around the world by these gangs that are controlling this traffic. But this simply isnt correct. Multiple law enforcement, intelligence and industry sources have described Australias taxation policy as creating the investment capital for the massive growth in organised crime related to the illicit tobacco market. Australia is flooded with illicit cigarettes because Australian criminals are ordering them from the factories where they are made in Dubai, Cambodia and China, a criminal intelligence source said. Bottom line: nicotine addicts will buy f---ing cigarettes. The money that can be made means all the well-intentioned health policies in the world wont stop the flow if the taxes are so high that fortunes can be made. One container of Manchester brand cigarettes bought for $250,000 in Dubai can be sold in illicit shops in Australia for $7 million to $10 million, according to underworld sources. And crime gangs need only one in 30 containers to make it through the ports to turn a profit, according to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. As this masthead has previously revealed, the now top-selling cigarette in Australia the illicit brand Manchester United Kingdom is part owned by the transnational organised crime syndicate run by Kazem Kaz Hamad. More than 4.4 billion Manchester cigarettes were shipped to Asia and onward to Australia in 2023 to 2025, flooding the market with cheap tobacco. The federal government remains steadfast in its refusal to consider a change in excise, with Butler equating it to raising the white flag to organised crime. Budget decisions on tobacco excise over more than a decade have helped spawn a black market. Dominic Lorrimer The illicit cigarettes commissioner Amber Shuhyta a new federal oversight role created in 2024 as the illicit market exploded in size and violence told this masthead there isnt clear evidence that changing excise would reduce the illicit tobacco market. In the case of excise, entering into a price competition with the illicit market could lead to adverse health outcomes, and undo successive generations of government policy to drive down smoking rates. Changing the excise rate would not necessarily deter criminal involvement, for instance, surplus cheap illicit supply means illicit trade can always be cheaper whilst still remaining highly profitable. Australia now finds itself in a catch-22. Former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth has called the effects of the excise a disastrous public health policy. Yet, many public health experts argue that dropping the excise will only further worsen smoking as a health problem. That has left Australian law enforcement to try to stop the flow at the border a policy which has been failing for more than a decade. Stop, seize, repeat In 2013, a federal and state law enforcement investigation on Melbournes waterfront known as Operation Peacham/Farlax intercepted 80 million cigarettes and hundreds of tonnes of tobacco worth more than $67 million. It was then the biggest seizure in Australian history and the tentacles of the Haddara crime family were all over it, according to court documents and police intelligence. The Haddaras were rapidly becoming the main operators in Victorias illicit tobacco market, smuggling in cigarettes from Dubai and China and then distributing to a network of shops that would sell them under the counter to the public. Fadi Haddara in 2024 leaving the Melbourne Magistrates Court. Jason South The bust was heralded as a massive success by Australian law enforcement at the time. Those in the know on the inside were less confident. Industry analysts noted that these seizures did have a temporary impact on the flow of illicit tobacco to the marketplace, however the illicit supply soon returned to previous levels once the investigation had been completed, former ABF commander-turned-private consultant Rohan Pike wrote in a submission to the 2016 parliamentary inquiry into tobacco. At the time in 2013, border authorities were seizing about 200 million cigarettes a year. By 2021, nearly 600 million cigarettes were seized. Still, it was a cause for triumphalism. This increase in illicit tobacco detection rates highlight just how committed the ABF is to disrupting and dismantling the tobacco black market, and the dangerous criminal syndicates who operate it, then assistant minister for Customs Jason Wood said. Australia has one of the strongest regulatory regimes for tobacco in the world, and the high rate of detections by the ABF show the effectiveness of this approach. It was so successful that just two years later, in 2023, more than 1.77 billion illicit cigarettes were seized. In 2025, it was 2.5 billion. Law enforcement and industry sources, who cannot be identified publicly, said ABF and the government had become committed to a failing methodology focused on seizing their way out of the problem for lack of a politically palatable alternative. Even as late as September 2025, the ABF was trumpeting its impact after seizing 30 million cigarettes and 400,000 vapes worth $74 million in an operation in Queensland. In less than a week, the ABF has put a significant dent in two major illicit tobacco networks, ABF acting Assistant Commissioner James Copeman announced to the media. Yet shipping manifests for the illicit Manchester brand obtained by this masthead shows that at almost that same time in a single month more than 500 million illicit cigarettes were being loaded on ships in Dubai to be sent towards Australia. Meanwhile, the Hamad syndicate had also created a lucrative new partnership with a China-based criminal that saw Australia flooded with illegal vapes. This obsession about seizure numbers fundamentally misread the nature of how illicit markets work, according to Deakin Universitys James Martin. Black markets are adaptable. You can damage individual players but you cant damage the market as a whole when it gets beyond a certain scale, Martin said. Once its big, which is clearly the case in Australia, you can count on the fact that therell be more suppliers entering the market and that makes it nearly impossible to disrupt supply. The ABF werent in the dark. They knew from at least 2020 that their methods were not working. By then it had already gotten too big. The tax had risen to a point where it made economic sense for the syndicates to keep expanding and [smoking] had become normalised in the community as well, said a former senior law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the system. ABF realised they were not having an impact. That they were not going to seize their way out of the problem. Those big numbers were not really an indication of success. What impact is there from seizing 10 million sticks? Its just merely numbers. Thats really more speaking to the sheer size of the market than some kind of successful outcome. The result? Weve handed over billions of dollars to organised crime, the source said. A shipping container full of illegal cigarettes at the Port of Melbourne. Joe Armao This was the outcome despite federal government spending half a billion dollars on enforcement measures since 2015 directly on combatting illicit tobacco above and beyond the regular budgets of the ABF, ACIC and Australian Federal Police. ITEC commissioner Shuhyta told this masthead that enforcement serves as an effective disruption tool. Comprehensive effort should focus on the Australian border, in conjunction with law enforcement efforts at the federal and state and territory level, public health measures, and working closely with international partners to disrupt the supply chain. But even as enforcement is continually publicly pushed as a way out of the worsening morass, border authorities were being hobbled by under-investment in an ageing cargo system and lacklustre intelligence capabilities. The reality is that the ABF has a very low strike rate at detecting illicit tobacco shipments, sources say. Officers only checked about 1 per cent of containers in 2023, and those searches were overwhelmingly based on intelligence, rather than being random checks. That figure is down from 5 per cent more than 20 years ago. The vast majority of intelligence is provided through tip-offs by the tobacco industry and international law enforcement agencies. There was also always a litany of other more serious and politically sensitive issues that had to take priority: terrorism, people smuggling, illegal fishing, drugs, firearms. This despite the known connections between tobacco smuggling and how the money it reaped was ploughed back into more serious organised crime. The operation of Australias sea cargo system itself had also become deeply problematic. Michael Outram during an address to the National Press Club in 2024. Alex Ellinghausen When former ABF commissioner Michael Outram was retiring in October 2024, he delivered a pointed critique during an address at the National Press Club. While only mentioning tobacco once, the speech got right to the heart of how federal law enforcement and the governments that have funded it opened the door for the flood of illicit tobacco that has led to the rampant criminality and violence of today. At the time of the Sydney Olympics, our border was highly regarded globally. The Integrated Cargo System or ICS, which handles Australias import and export transactions, was about to be introduced as a world-leading single window system, Outram told the National Press Club. In 2007, a few years after ICS was introduced, Australia was ranked 23rd in the World Bank Trading Across Border index and just over a decade later wed slipped to 106th. Outram declined to comment when contacted for this article. But other sources familiar with ABF operations describe a litany of problems that have gone uncorrected for decades. Weve still got paper-based systems for incoming passengers and incoming sea cargo, which is a massive problem. We have people going through pieces of paper like its 1950, one source said. The fact that were still using X-ray machines in this day and age. Great, they were awesome in 1994. The price tag on bringing the system up to state of the art would cost billions. Meet the new boss This was the state of affairs on the morning of March 24, 2023 the day the tobacco war began. Apart from budget announcements that the federal government was drawing an ever declining chunk of revenue from excise taxes (the federal budget is facing a $67 billion shortfall in tobacco excise in the decade to 2028-29), the widespread availability of illicit tobacco was practically invisible to the public unless you were a smoker. Hundreds, if not thousands, of specialty tobacco shops had opened up and illicit brands like Manchester and Double Happiness were readily available at cut-rate prices. So profitable had it become, that competition was seeing new players push into the market bikie gangs, Middle Eastern and Asian organised crime start-ups, even punters looking to make a fast buck off a quick shipment. In February 2023, the reigning powers in the Haddara crime family called a meeting to set ground rules about prices, supply and who got a piece of the trade. Kaz Hamad, who was on the cusp of being released from an eight-year prison sentence for heroin trafficking, demanded a seat at the table and was refused. What came next was chaos. Dozens of firebombings, shootings and murders. This is what brought the sheer moneyed power of the illicit tobacco market to public attention and brought the chickens home to roost for the government and law enforcement. State police forces were now confronted with a street war over something that had been festering for years without concerted attention by the federal government. Hamad waged a two-year war to gain control of the illicit tobacco market, forming a cartel in early 2025 known as The Commission. In late 2025, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett declared Hamad was a threat to Australias national security as a result of his suspected involvement in illicit tobacco industry, alleged links to serious violence and suspected involvement in the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in December 2024 on behalf of the Iranian government. But the so-called tobacco war would be ended by the same person who started it Hamad. With the Haddaras beaten into submission, the Hamad syndicate seized control of its operations and expanded them dramatically. The AFP has said Hamad runs a nationwide operation, with a presence in five states and one territory. The cartel is strongest in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Hamad was arrested in January in his native country of Iraq, in circumstances that remain a mystery. But its not clear how any of this has affected the supply of illicit tobacco, which is still widely available despite his arrest and a licensing crackdown promised by the Victorian government on February 1. (NSW toughened its laws last year, shutting down more than 50 shops suspected of selling illicit tobacco or vapes, and seizing more than 1.6 million illicit cigarettes.) Seizures are not a success metric, theyre a symptom of a market thats out of control. What matters is the size of the illicit market, the former federal law enforcement official said. Until we see criminals losing market share, not stock, we cant claim progress. In fact, the black market recently got even more profitable for the syndicates. At the start of March, the federal government pushed ahead with its latest scheduled rise in the excise tax, taking it to $1.52 per cigarette. In the wake of Hamads arrest, the tobacco war has also restarted as old rivals and new players compete again for a slice of the market. There have already been more than a dozen firebombings in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland, as well as at least two shootings tied to the violence in Melbourne. Meanwhile, the Australian parliament is now accepting submissions as part of its current Inquiry into the Illegal Tobacco Crisis in Australia. Perhaps the sixth time is the charm. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement NationalWASharks Perth council leads WA charge for shark bite kits on local beaches Indigo Lemay-Conway March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A The first five minutes of a shark bite are considered to be the most crucial, and now one Perth council is looking to install kits to help if the unthinkable happens. The contents of a Community Shark Bite Kit. Community SBK The Town of Cambridge appears set to become the first local government in Western Australia to install 10 Community Shark Bite Kits along its beaches, as early as July. At its February ordinary council meeting, Town of Cambridge councillors voted unanimously to allocate $10,000 in the 2026-27 budget towards the purchase, installation and maintenance of the kits. Danny Schouten created the kit in NSW after his friend, Kai McKenzie, lost his leg to a great white shark while surfing in Port Macquarie in 2024. Advertisement Kai was extremely lucky that the only person on the beach that day was a retired police officer who just happened to be walking his dog and was trained in how to make a makeshift tourniquet, which saved Kais life, Schouten said. There have been countless similar stories over the years, how it was luck or chance that there was a doctor on the beach, or they were able to make a makeshift tourniquet from a bikini top or leg rope. I thought, why is it always left to chance or luck, there are products out there for this exact purpose, so why dont we have the resources and information available and accessible for everyone and anyone to use at any time of the day? The kits include one SOF-T tourniquet, two conforming bandages, two large dressings, an emergency thermal blanket, an emergency whistle, gloves, an amputated parts bag, permanent marker and a card with step-by-step instructions on how to treat a shark bite. Community Shark Bite Kits founder Danny Schouten with friend, Kai McKenzie, who lost his leg to a great white shark while surfing in Port Macquarie in 2024. Community SBK Advertisement Theres no point in them being locked away in a surf club or tower before 9am and after 5pm. We need access to them 24/7, Schouten said. Unfortunately, the truth is accidents will continue to occur, because we are Aussies, we love, live and breathe the ocean. Were not going to stop doing what we love, so we just need to be better prepared in the future. The kits are put together by a team of volunteers and funded through a GoFundMe page. A complete kit costs $250, with a replacement fetching $150. Shark attack statistics Advertisement According to the Australian Shark-Incident Database, there have been 61 shark attacks that resulted in injuries in WA over the past decade, including nine fatalities. The most recent were surfer Steven Payne, 37, who was mauled by a shark in chest-deep water at Whartons Beach east of Esperance on March 10, 2025, and Stella Berry, 16 who was fatally mauled by a suspected bull shark while swimming with a pod of dolphins in the Swan River near the old Fremantle Traffic Bridge on February 4, 2023. The data also showed that of all the Australian states, WA ranked second highest for shark attacks, with NSW coming in at 74 attacks eight of those being fatalities. A Western Australian first While the Town of Cambridge voted to support $10,000 of the 2026-27 budget going towards the kits, it is not guaranteed that the plan will go ahead until the budget is adopted in June. Advertisement However, councillor Georgie Randklev said the installation of these kits were really important. One of the Community Shark Bite Kits in NSW. Community SBK I just hope that you support this motion and that we can start being prepared because the first five minutes of a shark bite is the five minutes that count, she said during the council meeting. Thats why these are really important. Our surf lifesavers are there on some of the beaches, but I timed my kids trying to run to the surf life-saving tower from Floreat Groyne the other day, and it took about 10 to 12 minutes before they arrived back. And, you know, thats just not enough time. Randklev noted that there are over 200 kits installed across the East Coast with another 150 coming thanks to NSW government funding. Advertisement Town of Cambridge mayor Gary Mack said councillors were proud to be the first local government in the Perth metro area to consider the installation of the kits on their beaches. This is a simple, lowcost safety initiative that recognises the reality that when a serious incident occurs, minutes matter, he said. These kits put lifesaving equipment right where its needed, giving anyone the chance to save a life. Our goal is to make sure community safety is never left to chance. Schouten said he was thrilled people were getting behind the kits across the country. Im so stoked [The Town of Cambridge] is on board and hoping more councils in WA follow suit and get them for their beaches, he said. Advertisement SportRacingHorse racing Lazzura delivers unbelievable Coolmore win as J-Mac closes on group 1 record Craig Kerry March 14, 2026 6:06pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A B2B Thoroughbreds Riccardo Surace jnr said it was unbelievable to score a first group 1 in their colours with great friend James McDonald after the champion jockey steered Lazzura to victory in the Coolmore Classic at Rosehill on Saturday. McDonald moved to 128 group 1 wins, now just one behind Damien Olivers all-time record, with a third consecutive victory in the 1500m race for fillies and mares. It was also trainer Chris Wallers fourth Coolmore win in a row. Lazzura, right, wins the Coolmore Classic. Getty Images Lazzura, carrying topweight of 58 kilograms, came from back in the field with a finish down the centre of the track to beat Arctic Glamour by a short neck. Vivy Air was another short neck back in third. It continued a memorable run for the Waller, McDonald and Surace jnr and snr connection, who won the group 2 Challenge Stakes with Generosity last week and have Canonbury Stakes winner Hidrix in the Golden Slipper next week. Advertisement Its hard to fathom, Surace jnr said. James knows the mare, hes done all the work on her. James is a great friend. We all get along like a house on fire, us and the jockeys, and its just unbelievable to do it with friends and Chris. This is the first horse we gave Chris, and shes been unbelievable. Waller said the group 1 Queen Of The Turf or Doncaster loomed as likely next targets for Lazzura. Owners Riccardo Surace jnr and senior either side of James McDonald after Lazzuras win. Getty Images McDonald praised the four-year-old mare, last years Phar Lap Stakes winner, for the gritty effort. She had to break a weight carrying record, obviously Sunline. Shes no Sunline but she tries, McDonald said. Super proud of her, super proud for the connections. They put a lot into the game and they deserve the success they get. Advertisement McDonald, who had six wins last week at Randwick, had four on the day. He also won the Phar Lap Stakes with Sixties, the Magic Night with Pembrey and race two with Tazima. Baker completes double comeback Bjorn Baker believes there is not much between his two Golden Slipper contenders after Warwoven joined Paradoxium in the $5 million race next week with a commanding win in the Pago Pago Stakes (1200m). A long-time favourite for the Slipper, Warwoven went out to $9 and needed a Pago Pago win to qualify for the race after a close fourth in his Skyline Stakes return from a setback two weeks ago. Rachel King took the Sword Of State colt to sit outside leader Star Of Jamaica from a wide gate on Saturday and he took over with 300m to go before beating Outspan by a length. Advertisement Paradoxium, carrying the same colours of Ridgmont Farms Mitch Cunningham, produced a similar performance a week ago in the Todman Stakes to earn his Slipper spot after a battle with illness. King expected Warwoven to improve again. Warwoven salutes in the Pago Pago Stakes. Getty Images He improved massively from the other day, but I still think theres another 10 per cent there, King said. I think theres more under the bonnet, and if he gets challenged, theres more under the bonnet even today, so hes very exciting. Baker was wary of the task ahead of Warwoven to back up next week, but he was happy and relieved with the result. Advertisement It was good to see him back and win that way. Im hoping [for improvement], you never quite know on the back-up, its always a bit of a tricky business, but he couldnt have done much more today, Baker said. Warwoven was into $7 for the Slipper, behind only Annabel and Rob Archibald-trained filly Chayan and Paradoxium ($5). Id say theres probably not too much between them from what weve seen at home, Baker said of his pair. Paradoxium will have a good gallop on Tuesday, he actually galloped on Thursday and I was thrilled with him. Hes definitely improved. McDonald was questioned about his ride on favourite and third-placegetter Central Europe, which shifted in and made contact with High Alert early in the race, but he escaped with a reprimand. McDonald qualified Tony Gollan-trained filly Pembrey for the Slipper a race earlier in the Magic Night Stakes. Advertisement Pembrey had to win to make the Slipper after finishing fifth in the Sweet Embrace Stakes two weeks earlier when stuck behind runners. McDonald this time took Pembrey to the front from a wide gate and she was strong late to beat Lumbini by a length and a half. She was $26 into $15 for the Slipper. Connections Kia Ora look likely to pay a $150,000 late entry fee to get Pembrey into the race. James MacDonald boots home Pembrey to win the Magic Night Stakes. Getty Images It was what we came down here for, to run her in a Slipper, so well see how the week unfolds, Gollan said. It was pretty inconclusive a couple of weeks ago and it was just good to see her rolling along today. Shes still floated a bit but that last half-furlong when she changed on to her fresh leg, she was good through the line and she did everything we hoped she would. Advertisement She looks as though shes got enough left in her to go again in a weeks time. Closer To Free and Music Time have paid a late fee into the Slipper, while Big Sky and Eternal Warrior are out. The Ciaron Maher stable have indicated Tornado Valley will likely miss the race in favour of the Sires Produce. That scenario would leave Michael Freedman-trained Incognito as the last horse into the 16-strong field. Vauban ageing like fine wine Co-trainer Adrian Bott was looking to the Tancred Stakes, a Queensland winter campaign and another Melbourne Cup shot with Vauban after he won first-up for back-to-back Sky High Stakes (2000m). Bott said a run in the Sydney Cup (3200m) on April 11 was unlikely after the Tancred in two weeks. Vaubans last run before Saturdays win was a sixth in the Melbourne Cup, his third attempt at the race. Advertisement A Queensland prep is becoming quite good for these types of horses, a bit older and you just want to space his runs and campaign a bit, Bott said. Hoping to go to the Melbourne Cup again this year. Sixties later won the group 2 Phar Lap Stakes, giving trainer Chris Waller a ninth victory in the three-year-old race, and confirming his spot in the Doncaster Mile, where Rachel King will ride at 49kg. Cristal Clear later won the group 2 Ajax Stakes to book a Doncaster start and give apprentice Braith Nock a stakes level victory. Waller considers stars colliding Trainer Chris Waller said a poor draw, not the presence of Sheza Alibi, will be a bigger factor in whether Autumn Glow runs in the Doncaster Mile. Advertisement Autumn Glow and stablemate Aeliana had exhibition gallops at Rosehill on Saturday ahead of their runs next week in the George Ryder and Ranvet Stakes respectively. Speculation has grown about a clash between unbeaten Autumn Glow and Randwick Guineas winner Sheza Alibi in the Doncaster after co-trainer Peter Moody confirmed his filly would contest the race. Waller said a decision on Autumn Glows next target, likely the Doncaster or 2000m Queen Elizabeth, would be made after the George Ryder. Asked if Sheza Alibis presence would be a factor, Waller said: Not really. My only concern about a Doncaster is if you get a bad draw, luck in running. If you draw 20, its very hard to give it the perfect ride. Advertisement WorldMiddle EastMiddle East at war The Strait of Hormuz has always had a problem. So where are the alternatives? Rebecca F. Elliott and Vivian Nereim March 15, 2026 10:02am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Of all the risks the global energy system has long faced, none was bigger or better known than the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow passageway out of the Persian Gulf is both vital serving as the only gateway to the rest of the world for huge amounts of oil and natural gas and extremely vulnerable to attacks. The Strait of Hormuz is the critical choke-point in the global oil industry. AP But despite being widely recognised as a potential choke point, the strait remains the only way to export most of the energy produced in the region. That has come into sharp relief heading into the third week of the war in the Middle East, as the near-closure of the waterway sent oil prices soaring above $US100 a barrel for the first time in almost four years. Advertisement The reason there is no true alternative comes down to a combination of geography, political tensions and economic competition among the regions oil powers. There have been efforts to circumvent the strait, notably by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the pipelines through those countries can carry only a small fraction of the energy produced in the Persian Gulf. For many other energy-producing countries in the region, the only way to avoid the strait would be to lay a pipeline across a neighbouring country an expensive and politically fraught endeavour. Take Qatar, one of the worlds biggest natural gas exporters. Its only land border is with Saudi Arabia, a country that cut off diplomatic ties and closed that border during a regional spat resolved five years ago. Plus, any pipeline would itself be vulnerable to Iranian attacks. Theres nothing which is totally secure here, said John Browne, a former CEO of the London-based oil giant BP, once known as the Anglo-Iranian oil company. In the end, someone with bad intention can do all sorts of things to oil and gas infrastructure. Advertisement Related Article Middle East at war US-Iran war as it happened: Trump calls on countries to send warships to reopen Hormuz; UN chief urges Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting Some oil analysts also assumed that, if the time came, the United States, which has a keen interest in keeping energy markets stable, would use its military might to keep the strait passable. There always has been the nightmare scenario, but it seemed to be a scenario that was not very likely, said Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian and vice chair of the research firm S&P Global. The diversification or security came from the fact that the consumers would be there to protect the oil. But in this case, the United States, acting with Israel, instigated the conflict by attacking Iran on February 28. While President Donald Trump has floated the possibility of providing US naval escorts for oil and gas tankers, he has not followed through so far. Advertisement With Iran attacking vessels and refineries, oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen to less than 10 per cent of their prewar levels, according to the International Energy Agency. And Qatar, the regions gas-exporting powerhouse, has not been cooling natural gas for shipment since the early days of the war. As a result, oil, natural gas and other commodities are stuck. Some countries are putting more fuel in storage tanks, but those are running out of room. This satellite image provided by Vantor shows damage after a drone attack at Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. AP That is forcing countries to cut back. Within little more than a week, oil production collectively fell by several millions of barrels a day in Iraq, Kuwait, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, according to estimates from the research firm Rystad Energy. All told, countries across the region slashed production by at least 10 million barrels of oil a day by Tuesday around 10 per cent of global supply according to the IEA. Companies are also turning much less oil into fuels like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel as they shut down refineries or operate them at lower levels. Advertisement Related Article Middle East at war Australia taps fuel stockpile in urgent bid to fill shortages and stem panic buying It doesnt matter where the price of oil gets. If you cant sell any oil, you might as well keep it under the ground, said Shwan Ibrahim Taha, chair of Iraqi bank Rabee Securities. The six fossil-fuel-rich countries of the Gulf Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain belong to a loose union called the Gulf Cooperation Council, but cooperation is often lacking. Leaders have talked about building a unified passenger and freight rail system for more than a decade to little avail. Building a shared system for exporting energy would be substantially more fraught and unlikely to surmount political and economic hurdles. In recent years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two most powerful countries in the region, have often been at odds, pursuing different oil policies and backing different parties in armed conflicts around the region, including in Yemen, a poor war-torn country that has a long border with Saudi Arabia and sits at the opening of the Red Sea. More than a quarter of the oil typically exported via the Strait of Hormuz in the form of either crude or fuels like diesel is still able to get out, the IEA estimated. That is because the UAE built a short pipeline from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah that started operating in 2012, circumventing the Strait of Hormuz, though Iran has targeted facilities on both ends. Advertisement The biggest alternative is Saudi Arabias conduit to the Red Sea, which opened in the 1980s during what came to be known as the tanker wars between Iran and Iraq. The pipeline can carry up to 7 million barrels of oil a day. But with 2 million barrels headed to refineries within the kingdom, only about 5 million barrels a day of capacity is available to oil that otherwise would be shipped through the strait, Amin H. Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, said this past week. Foreign workers look at a tall plume of black smoke ascends following an explosion in the Fujairah industrial zone on March 3, 2026. AFP Immediately, as the Strait of Hormuz starts closing, we ramped up production through the East-West pipeline, he said. Nasser separately warned that global oil markets would face catastrophic consequences without access to the strait. Iran has also managed to move some oil through the strait on tankers, frustrating UAE officials. Advertisement How come they are allowed to sell, while we are deprived from selling? asked Nadim Koteich, an Emirati Lebanese commentator who is close to the UAE government. The end result is that someone is picking up the tab from the wars disruptions, and thats us even after the UAE invested in contingency plans, like its pipeline, he added. Loading On Friday (US Time), Trump said the United States attacked military sites on Kharg Island, Irans main hub for exporting oil, but had spared oil infrastructure on the island for reasons of decency. Even if the war ends with a severely weakened Iran, insurgents could emerge to attack shipping through the strait, putting the lives of sailors and valuable ships and cargo at risk. Advertisement Related Article Middle East at war The US-Iran war is making Putin richer and stronger Yemens Iranian-backed Houthi militia has done just that in the Red Sea over the past few years. At relatively little expense, the group was able to significantly disrupt global shipping through that passage to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. How countries respond to the nightmare scenario of a near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as Yergin put it including whether they decide to build more pipelines will depend partly on how long the waterway remains impassable. Even once it becomes safe to sail the strait again, it is likely to take weeks or months for oil production to reach prewar levels, the IEA has said. What people have been warning about has finally happened, said Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum, an oil and gas producer based in the UAE. Well have to see how the world adjusts. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter. Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share More: Middle East at war Iran Trump says war will end when he feels it in his bones Trump is sending an extra 5000 marines and sailors to join troops in the Middle East, saying the war will end when he feels it in his bones. PHILIPSBURG:--- From neglect to nuisance, Member of Parliament, the Honourable Omar E.C. Ottley, says the Minister of VROMIs failure to perform has turned St. Maartens garbage crisis into a national humiliation. He said the present administration has allowed a basic public service to decay into a public embarrassment. For months, the people of St. Maarten have been told about plans, visions, consultations, and reforms, Ottley said. But what they are seeing in real time is a country being buried beneath indecision, disorder, and neglect. A government that once found endless words to condemn its predecessors is now producing even fewer answers while presiding over even greater disorder. The MP was describing developments at the Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment, and Infrastructure (VROMI), with reports reaching the public suggesting that a messy explosion of garbage is imminent. Ottley said the situation at VROMI and the landfill on Pond Island shows a government that has lost its grip on one of its most basic duties: keeping the country clean, orderly, and safe. The Member of Parliament noted that VROMI launched a new tender in late December for garbage collection services for 2026 to 2029, with bids due by January 28. By early February, the Minister reported that 17 companies had submitted bids and that the process would be handled transparently. Yet with the current contracts due to expire on March 31, the public has been left watching confusion grow rather than clarity emerge. Ottley pointed to growing public unease over conditions at the landfill itself. Concerns remain about operational management, machinery servicing, environmental oversight, and the overall lack of urgency at the site. He argued that while the government speaks about long-term transformation and future landfill closure, the current condition of waste management remains alarming. You cannot drape failure in the language of policy and expect the public not to notice the smell, Ottley said. The country is being asked to admire blueprints while living inside the mess. He said the administrations conduct is especially striking because many of the same political figures now in office were among the loudest critics of the former UP/ NA coalition when they were in opposition. Oh, how quickly they forget, Ottley said. When they were on the outside, every delay was incompetence, every misstep was a scandal, and every excuse was unacceptable. Now that they are in the kitchen facing the heat, they suddenly want patience, understanding, and room to learn. Ottley stressed that St. Maarten has experienced civil servants who remain in place regardless of which administration is in office and who carry much of the continuity of government on their backs.You do not have to rely only on your own experience, he said. There are hundreds of civil servants with the knowledge, memory, and practical understanding to help steer these processes properly. They are there whether governments rise or fall. They do the real work. What must be managed more carefully is the role they are allowed to play, and whether competent advice is being heard or ignored.According to Ottley, reports that the contracts may now have to be re-tendered have only deepened public concern that routine planning has turned into yet another scramble. This is not merely a tender gone off course, Ottley said. It is a portrait of a government arriving late to its own obligations and then behaving as though the public should be sympathetic to the delay. He added that garbage collection in the districts has become too visible a measure of failure for the government to spin its way out of. The districts are speaking for themselves. Ottley said. The overflowing bins, the disorder in our communities, the condition of the landfill, and the uncertainty hanging over contractors all tell the same story: this government is falling behind on the basics. MP Ottley is calling for a clear plan to guarantee uninterrupted collection services beyond March 31, and a frank accounting of what has gone wrong. At some point, a government must choose between governing and explaining why it has not governed, Ottley said. The country cannot be expected to live indefinitely on press releases, presentations, and promises, while the streets and the landfill tell a harsher truth. Washington orders some US diplomatic staff to leave Oman Washington, United States, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The United States on Friday told its non-emergency US government employees in Oman and their family members to leave the Gulf country as war rages in the Middle East. The State Department updated its advisory to warn Americans of "safety risks," noting "there has been an ongoing threat of drone and missile attacks from Iran and significant disruptions to commercial flights." Two people were killed by drone in northern Oman, state media reported Friday, as Iran continues its retaliatory attacks on neighboring countries. This month, MGM continues its acclaimed Gastronomic Journey with Star Chef series, further enriching Macaus stature as the Creative City of Gastronomy. Following the success of last years Maritime Silk Road Culinary Art Feast, MGM launches the new chapter of Silk Road Art Feasts in 2026 with elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage. From March to August, renowned chefs from four pivotal cities along the overland Silk Road Chengdu, Xian, Dunhuang and Beijing, will join MGMs culinary team to create an extraordinary dialogue that blends history, intangible culture, and contemporary gastronomy. As Chengdu marks the starting point of the Southern Silk Road, the inaugural chapter is fittingly themed Taste from Chengdu. MGM welcomes the esteemed Chinese Culinary Master, Zhang Yuanfu to Macau, joining hands with Yang Dengquan, Executive Sous Chef of the Michelin-starred Five Foot Road at MGM COTAI, to showcase the essence of classic Sichuan cuisine at Five Foot Road. The journey is enriched with curated tea and whisky pairings, as well as crafted intangible cultural heritage, offering a multi-sensory culinary exploration. Chef Zhang Yuanfu, Provincial Representative Inheritor of Sichuan Culinary Arts and esteemed Chinese Culinary Master, has founded multiple renowned restaurants recognized by the MICHELIN Guide and the Black Peari Restaurant Guide. He has established a studio dedicated to passing on Sichuan culinary craftsmanship, contributing to the innovation and development of high-end Sichuan cuisine. Chef Yang Dengquan, the second-generation inheritor of traditional Chengdu Mansion Cuisine, has led Five Foot Road at MGM COTAI to earn multiple honours, including One MICHELIN Star for three consecutive years, Black Pearl One Diamond, and five-star rating from the Forbes Travel Guide. The two masters each with more than four decades of dedication to the craft come together for an exclusive three-day feast at Five Foot Road. This special menu blends spices of Silk Road and ingredients from Sichuan, combining with Macaus local seafood to curate a heartfelt showcase of classic and finest Sichuan flavours combing with intangible cultures. Guests savour Chef Zhang premium selection of braised fish maw, while Chef Yang presents the Crispy Australian M5 Grass-fed Steak with Sichuan Peppercorns. The duo also presents exclusive four-hands dishes, including Steamed Local Fourfinger Threadfin in Lychee flavour, and Birds Nest Texture Pork Tendon with Diced Fresh Broad Beans. The feast concludes with the dessert, Glutinous Rice Balls with Red Bean Paste and The Chuan Whisky in Osmanthus Sweet Soup, offering a refined modern twist on classic oriental sweetness. The culinary experience is further enriched with elements of crafted intangible cultural artisy including the Shu embroidery, the classic long-spout copper teapot tea art performance an the iconic Sichuan Opera face-changing act. Complemented by a curated selection of Chinese teas and The China Whiskey from Mount Emei. Like this: Like Loading... Two killed in strikes on Iraq capital targeting Iran-backed group: sources Baghdad, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Explosions rocked Iraq's capital Baghdad on Saturday after two strikes targeted the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah, killing two members including a "key figure", security sources said. The strikes are the first in the heart of Baghdad to kill Iran-backed fighters since the start of the Middle East war on February 28, which has not spared Iraq, long a proxy battleground between the US and Iran. "At 02:15 am (2315 GMT Friday), a missile struck a house that was being used by Kataeb Hezbollah," said a security source, adding that "a key figure was martyred," and two members of the group were wounded. AFP journalists heard blasts in the capital followed by ambulance sirens, with witnesses saying they saw smoke rising from the Arasat neighbourhood, where several Iran-backed groups are known to be present. Two hours later, an airstrike hit a vehicle in eastern Baghdad that killed "a member of the Hashed al-Shaabi," another security source said. A Hashed al-Shaabi official told AFP the member killed belongs to Kataeb Hezbollah. The Hashed al-Shaabi, or the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), is a former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular armed forces. It also encompasses brigades from Iran-backed groups, including Kataeb Hezbollah. None of the sources said who was believed to be behind the strikes, and the Kataeb Hezbollah group has not commented. But since the start of the war, several attacks that targeted Iran-backed fighters across Iraq have been blamed on the US and Israel. The US designates several Tehran-backed Iraqi armed groups as terrorist organisations. These groups are also united under an alliance called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which have been claming daily drone and rocket attacks against US bases in Iraq and the region. Qatar intercepts two missiles, evacuates key areas Doha, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Qatar said on Saturday it intercepted two missiles, after blasts were heard in the capital Doha and authorities said they had evacuated some key areas. Interceptors were seen downing two projectiles over the Qatari capital's downtown area and blasts were heard, according to AFP journalists, as Iran presses on with its retaliatory air campaign against Gulf states. The country's defence ministry said in two separate posts on Saturday that its military had "intercepted" a missile attack targeting the country. Earlier, the interior ministry said in a statement it was "evacuating several key areas as a temporary precautionary measure, within the framework of ensuring public safety until the danger has passed". In Doha's central Musheireb district some residents received phone alerts telling them to "evacuate the area immediately... to the nearest safest place as a temporary precaution". Scores of residents and some hotel guests in Musheireb rushed into underground car parks for shelter, an AFP journalist witnessed. Law enforcement were out on the streets and some areas were cordoned off in Musheireb, which hosts a country office for US tech giant Google and the US payments firm American Express. Musheireb also hosts some Qatari government offices. In Lusail, north of Doha, police were also stationed at the entrance of the Qatar headquarters for US technology firm Microsoft. Iran's military said on Wednesday it would launch strikes against US and Israeli economic interests in the region, including banks while an Iranian news agency listed tech giants as possible "future targets". In the al-Gharafa area to the west of Doha, near the US embassy, some residents also received evacuation messages. Authorities had already vacated buildings around the American mission in Doha on 5 March after US embassies across the region were targeted by Iran. The oil-rich Gulf has borne the brunt of Iran's attacks in response to US-Israeli strikes that sparked the Middle East war, with Tehran targeting US assets but also civilian infrastructure. Iranian media reports no damage to Kharg oil infrastructure after US strike Tehran, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 No oil infrastructure was damaged in US strikes on Kharg Island, Tehran's crude export hub in the Gulf, Iranian media reported on Saturday. The Fars news agency, citing sources on the island, reported there had been no damage to oil facilities after President Donald Trump said US strikes had destroyed only military targets. Trump had threatened in a social media post to target oil infrastructure on the island, a crucial hub for Iran, if Tehran continues to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran has, in turn, threatened to target US-linked oil infrastructure. According to Fars, the US operation "tried to damage the army's defences, the Joshan naval base, the airport control tower and the helicopter hangar of the Iran Continental Shelf Oil Company." Kharg Island, a scrubby stretch of land in the northern Gulf around 30 kilometres (19 miles) off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude exports. War in the Middle East: latest developments Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Here are the latest events in the Middle East war: - 'Iran oil infrastructure intact' - Iran's Fars news agency, citing sources on Kharg Island, a crucial hub for Tehran, said there had been no damage to oil facilities after President Donald Trump said US strikes had destroyed only military targets there. Trump had threatened in a social media post to target oil infrastructure on the island if Tehran continues to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran has, in turn, threatened to target US-linked oil infrastructure. - Israeli strikes - The Israeli army told people in an industrial zone in the west of Iran's northern city of Tabriz to leave ahead of military operations on Saturday. "Urgent warning to all people located in the industrial area west of Tabriz," the Israeli military posted on X, adding it would "continue to operate in the area in the coming hours". Meanwhile, an Israeli strike hit an apartment building in a northern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut and targets in the country's south, local media said Saturday. An overnight Israeli strike killed a dozen medical staff at a clinic in south Lebanon, health authorities said earlier Saturday, after Iran-backed Hezbollah's leader Naim Qassem said his group was ready for a long confrontation with Israel. Israeli strikes have killed at least 773 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to the health ministry. - US embassy in Baghdad attacked - A drone struck the US embassy in Baghdad on Saturday, an Iraqi security official said, as an AFP journalist saw smoke rising from the complex. The attack followed strikes targeting the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah, killing two members including a "key figure", security sources told AFP. None of the sources said who was believed to be behind the embassy strikes, and the Kataeb Hezbollah group has not commented. - Trump says Iran 'defeated', wants deal - US President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has been "totally defeated" in the US-Israeli military campaign against the country, despite Iranian officials pledging to continue the fight. "The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, without elaborating. - Hamas plea - Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday called on Iran to refrain from targeting neighbouring countries, while affirming Tehran's right to defend itself against Israel and the United States. "While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries," Hamas said in a statement. Hamas, which fought a devastating two-year war with Israel in Gaza, also called on the international community to "work towards halting" the ongoing war immediately. - Trump says US to escort tankers 'very soon' - Trump told reporters Friday that the US Navy would start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz "very soon" to restore oil exports as he struggles to tackle soaring energy prices. - Qatar evacuates 'key areas' - Qatar's interior ministry said Saturday that it was evacuating a number of "key areas" as Iran presses its retaliatory air campaign against Gulf countries. In Doha's central Musheireb district some residents received phone alerts telling them to "evacuate the area immediately... to the nearest safest place as a temporary precaution". - Iran targets Israel - Iran launched a fresh round of missiles towards Israel, state media reported just after midnight on Saturday in Tehran, but Israeli rescue workers said there were no reported casualties following the strikes. Israel's military said it had identified missiles from Iran and "was operating to intercept the threat," as air raid sirens in multiple areas sent people into shelters. - US reportedly bulking up military presence - The United States appears to be reinforcing its Middle East deployment by sending an amphibious assault ship and Marines to the region, The Wall Street Journal reported. CNN reported that the deployment includes an Expeditionary Unit, which are typically made up of 2,500 Marines and sailors. burs/ach/giv S.Korea says North fires around 10 ballistic missiles Seoul, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 North Korea fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the sea of Japan Saturday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of "terrible consequences" over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington's security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a "clumsy, deceptive farce". Seoul's military detected "around ten ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea at around 1:20pm (0420 GMT)," JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea's name for the body of water. The missiles flew a distance of around 350 kilometres, they said adding that South Korean and US authorities are analysing their exact specifications. The South Korean military is ready to "respond overwhelmingly to any provocation," JCS added. Japan's defence ministry also confirmed North Korea launched multiple ballistic missiles that reached a maximum altitude of about 80 kilometres and fell outside Japan's exclusive economic zone near the Korean Peninsula's east coast. Seoul's presidential Blue House condemned the launches as a "provocation that violates United Nations Security Council resolutions" and urged Pyongyang to immediately stop such acts. It also ordered relevant agencies to maintain heightened readiness, as the launch occurred during the joint US-South Korea military drills. The launches came hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said that US President Donald Trump thinks a meeting with Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un would be "good". Washington has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear programme, but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact. The Trump administration has pushed in recent months to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a possible summit with Kim Jong Un this year, potentially during Trump's visit to Beijing set for late March. Trump said during a trip to Asia in October that he was "100 percent" open to meeting with Kim Jong Un, a remark that went unanswered by the North. After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim Jong Un recently said that the two nations could "get along" if Washington accepted Pyongyang's nuclear status. - 'Terrible consequences' - Analysts said the number of the missiles launched on Saturday was unusual, and that the timing was notable. "Global attention is currently focused on the war in the Middle East and North Korea has historically carried out military provocations when it wants to draw attention to its presence," Hong Sung-pyo, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, told AFP. "And that motive likely underlies this launch as well," he added. Seoul and Washington kicked off their springtime military drills "Freedom Shield" on Monday, which will involve about 18,000 Korean troops and run until March 19. The nuclear-armed North, which attacked its neighbour in 1950 triggering the Korean War, has long described such exercises as rehearsals for invasion. Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong, a powerful confidante of her brother Kim Jong Un, said the joint drills "may cause unimaginably terrible consequences". She went on to say the drills were taking place at "a critical time when global security structure is collapsing rapidly and wars break out in different parts of the world". Pyongyang has condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran as an "illegal act of aggression", claiming it shows the "rogue" nature of the United States. North Korea also recently carried out missile tests from the naval Choe Hyon destroyer, claiming the country was in the process of "arming the Navy with nuclear weapons". "North Korea has been devoting greater resources to its navy, with possible support from Russia. But Kim will have noticed that the US was able to sink most of the Iranian navy within a week," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. "So Pyongyang is likely to conduct tests and issue rhetoric about nuclear command, control, and delivery systems to suggest it could inflict unacceptable harm if its naval forces come under attack." Macron thanks Iraqi PM for 'measures' to safeguard French forces Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he had expressed gratitude to the Iraqi prime minister for taking measures to protect French forces, after a drone strike killed a French soldier in Iraq's Kurdistan region. "Yesterday, I spoke with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani," Macron said on X, writing in French and Arabic. "I thank him for his commitment to getting to the bottom of this attack and to strengthening measures to protect our forces, who are present in Iraq to fight, alongside the Iraqis, against the scourge of terrorism." Arnaud Frion, 42, was killed and six other French soldiers were wounded on Thursday evening in a drone attack in the Erbil region of Iraqi Kurdistan. He is the first French soldier to die since the start of the war in the Middle East. "We will continue our coordination and our efforts to promote the country's stability and sovereignty, as well as regional de-escalation," Macron said. Iraq's prime minister has vowed to prevent further attacks after Frion's death. Macron has condemned the attack as unacceptable, but reaffirmed France's "purely defensive" stance in the conflict. He refrained from attributing the attack, carried out by an Iranian-designed drone, to any specific group or country, or from mentioning a possible retaliation. Without directly claiming responsibility for the strike, a pro-Iranian armed group in Iraq said on Friday it would target French interests in the region. Soldiers from several countries, including Italy and France, are training members of the Kurdish security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan as part of the anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington. Smoke seen rising from direction of UAE energy facility: AFP journalist Dubai, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Smoke was rising from the direction of a major UAE energy installation on Saturday, in what appeared to be the latest strike targeting the Gulf's petroleum facilities -- hours after the US struck Iran's Kharg Island oil hub. Clouds of dark black smoke were seen coming from Fujairah, which is home to a major port where Iranian attacks have already targeted an oil storage and trading hub. The port is also home to a major oil export terminal. Local authorities, in an online statement, said debris falling after a successful drone interception had caused a fire, without specifying the location. The incident comes hours after President Donald Trump said the US military had bombed targets on Iran's Kharg Island -- which handles almost all of Iran's crude exports -- and threatened to hit the island's oil infrastructure. Drone strikes hit the UAE's Fujairah energy installations earlier this month, with falling debris from an intercepted drone sparking a blaze, authorities said. Since the beginning of the war, Iran has methodically targeted the Gulf's major energy installations from Kuwait to Oman. The strikes have mostly hit oil and gas fields or sprawling complexes, such as the massive Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, Ras Laffan gas processing base in Qatar and the complex housing the Ruwais refinery in the United Arab Emirates. Iran has also effectively halted traffic in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane that saw around 20 percent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas pass through its waters before the onset of the war. War in the Middle East: latest developments Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Here are the latest events in the Middle East war: - UAE energy hub hit - Smoke could be seen rising Saturday from the direction of a major United Arab Emirates energy installation, in what appeared to be the latest strike targeting the Gulf's petroleum facilities hours after the US struck Iran's Kharg Island oil hub. An AFP journalist said clouds of dark black smoke were seen coming from Fujairah, which is home to a major port and oil export terminal where Iranian attacks have already targeted an oil storage and trading hub. - Tehran warns UAE residents - Iran's military warned that it considers ports in the UAE to be legitimate targets and urged residents to "evacuate" port areas, in a statement carried by state TV. Tehran "considers it its legitimate right to defend its national sovereignty and territory by striking American enemy missiles located in ports, docks and US military hideouts", the military's central operational command, Khatam Al-Anbiya, said. - France thanks Iraq - President Emmanuel Macron said he had expressed gratitude to the Iraqi prime minister for taking measures to protect French forces, after a drone strike killed a French soldier in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Arnaud Frion, 42, was killed and six other French soldiers were wounded on Thursday evening in a drone attack in the Erbil region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraq's prime minister has vowed to prevent further attacks. Macron also Saturday urged Israel to hold "direct talks" with Lebanon and offered to host the meeting in Paris. - 'Iran oil infrastructure intact' - Iran's Fars news agency, citing sources on Kharg Island, a crucial hub for Tehran, said there had been no damage to oil facilities after President Donald Trump said US strikes had destroyed only military targets there. Trump had threatened in a social media post to target oil infrastructure on the island if Tehran continues to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran has, in turn, threatened to target US-linked oil infrastructure. - Israeli strikes - The Israeli army told people in an industrial zone in the west of Iran's northern city of Tabriz to leave ahead of military operations on Saturday. "Urgent warning to all people located in the industrial area west of Tabriz," the Israeli military posted on X, adding it would "continue to operate in the area in the coming hours". Meanwhile, an Israeli strike hit an apartment building in a northern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut and targets in the country's south, local media said Saturday. An overnight Israeli strike killed a dozen medical staff at a clinic in south Lebanon, health authorities said earlier Saturday, after Iran-backed Hezbollah's leader Naim Qassem said his group was ready for a long confrontation with Israel. Israeli strikes have killed at least 773 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to the health ministry. - US embassy in Baghdad attacked - A drone struck the US embassy in Baghdad on Saturday, an Iraqi security official said, as an AFP journalist saw smoke rising from the complex. The attack followed strikes targeting the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah, killing two members including a "key figure", security sources told AFP. None of the sources said who was believed to be behind the embassy strikes, and the Kataeb Hezbollah group has not commented. - Trump says Iran 'defeated' - US President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has been "totally defeated" in the US-Israeli military campaign against the country, despite Iranian officials pledging to continue the fight. "The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, without elaborating. - Hamas plea - Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday called on Iran to refrain from targeting neighbouring countries, while affirming Tehran's right to defend itself against Israel and the United States. "While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries," Hamas said in a statement. Hamas, which fought a devastating two-year war with Israel in Gaza, also called on the international community to "work towards halting" the ongoing war immediately. - Qatar evacuates 'key areas' - Qatar's interior ministry said Saturday that it was evacuating a number of "key areas" as Iran presses its retaliatory air campaign against Gulf countries. In Doha's central Musheireb district some residents received phone alerts telling them to "evacuate the area immediately... to the nearest safest place as a temporary precaution". - Iran targets Israel - Iran launched a fresh round of missiles towards Israel, state media reported just after midnight on Saturday in Tehran, but Israeli rescue workers said there were no reported casualties following the strikes. Israel's military said it had identified missiles from Iran and "was operating to intercept the threat," as air raid sirens in multiple areas sent people into shelters. burs/giv/ach Son of ousted shah says ready for Iran transition 'under my leadership' Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The exiled son of Iran's last shah who was ousted by the 1979 revolution said on Saturday he was ready to lead a transition "as soon as the Islamic Republic falls". In a message on his social media channels, US-based Reza Pahlavi said he had already been working to select individuals both inside and outside Iran to serve on what he called a "Transitional System". Pahlavi leads one of several opposition movements based outside Iran but his prominence grew after January protests against the clerical system, with some demonstrators calling for a return of the monarchy. Longstanding supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on February 28 in US-Israeli air strikes but after a fortnight of war the clerical system remains in place even if his successor, his son Mojtaba, has yet to make a public appearance. Pahlavi said that Saeed Ghasseminejad, senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the US-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which is staunchly critical of the Islamic republic, had been leading the process to select members of a transitional body. "Capable individuals both inside and outside the country have been identified and evaluated to lead various sections of the Transitional System," he said "The Transitional System, under my leadership, will be ready to assume governance of the country as soon as the Islamic Republic falls, and in the shortest possible time, establish order, security, freedom, and the conditions for Iran's prosperity and flourishing," he added. In a boost to Pahlavi, vast pro-monarchy rallies took place in February in Munich and several cities in North America in the biggest yet such show of support. But he has notably also failed to win recognition from US President Donald Trump, who has never officially met with Pahlavi and repeatedly expressed scepticism over his ability to lead Iran. "They talk about the son of the shah, they talk about other people, but (he) hasn't been there in many years," Trump said this week. Pahlavi was undergoing air force training in the US when his father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted and never returned to the country. Trump has repeatedly referred to Venezuela, where in January US forces captured president Nicolas Maduro, with Washington now working with his former deputy Delcy Rodriguez. But it remains unclear how such a scenario could play out in Iran. "I like the idea of internal because it works well, I think we have proven that so far in Venezuela," Trump said. UAE says consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan targeted for second time in a week Dubai, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The UAE slammed the targeting of its consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan for the second time in a week, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement Saturday. "The United Arab Emirates expressed its strong condemnation and denunciation of the treacherous terrorist attack by a drone, which targeted the UAE Consulate General in Iraqi Kurdistan, for the second time in a week, and resulted in the injury of two security personnel and caused damage to the consulate building," it said. Iraq's Kurdistan regional government later denounced the attack, labelling it "a terrorist act that threatens the sovereignty of Kurdish and Iraqi territory". It urged Baghdad to fulfil its responsibility and put an end to the activities of "armed groups and militias targeting residents" in the Kurdistan region and across Iraq. Iraq, long a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, had said it did not want to be dragged into the war, which began on February 28 when Israel and the US launched strikes against Iran, but it has not been spared. It was drawn into the conflict from the outset, with strikes blamed on the US and Israel targeting Iran-backed groups, which have since claimed attacks on US bases in Iraq, including Kurdistan, and the wider region. On Monday, Kurdish counterterrorism forces said US-led coalition forces had "downed three explosive-laden drones over Erbil", the capital of the Kurdistan region, with one falling near the UAE consulate. Trump urges world powers to secure Iran shipping lane Washington, United States, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 US President Donald Trump urged other nations to help secure a vital shipping lane choked off by the war with Iran that showed no signs of slowing on Saturday as strikes hit the US embassy in Baghdad and a major Emirati energy facility. Two weeks after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the entire Gulf region remained in the grip of a conflict that has sent shockwaves through the global economy. The war has also spilled into Lebanon, where the health ministry says Israeli strikes have killed hundreds, as Israel fought the Tehran-backed Hezbollah once again. Oil prices have surged by 40 percent as Iran has choked off the vital Strait of Hormuz and attacked Gulf energy facilities. Clouds of black smoke rose on Saturday over Fujairah, home to a major Emirati oil storage and export terminal, AFP journalists saw, shortly after Iran's military warned UAE civilians to avoid port areas. Washington's embassy in Iraq was hit by a drone, security sources told AFP, the second time it has been targeted in the war, and the Emirati consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan was also struck for the second time in a week. Having earlier vowed that the US Navy would "very soon" start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump appeared to call for reinforcements on Saturday. "Many countries... will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe," he wrote on Truth Social, saying China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK would "hopefully" be among them. US forces struck Kharg Island on Friday, from which nearly all of Iran's oil is exported, with Trump saying they had "obliterated every MILITARY target", though sparing its energy facilities. Iran had threatened that US-linked oil and energy firms would be "turned into a pile of ashes" if they were hit. The strike on Kharg could be a turning point, with both sides escalating the conflict in a bid to force a surrender, analyst Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins University said on social media. "The end will likely not be Iranian backing off but inflaming the Gulf." - 'Long as necessary' - Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said the strikes showed the war was entering a "decisive phase", though he cautioned it would "continue as long as necessary". Yet, despite facing superior US and Israeli firepower, Iran appeared determined to fight on. Blasts were heard by AFP journalists over Jerusalem after the military detected missiles launched from Iran on Saturday. Qatar evacuated downtown areas and intercepted two missiles, with blasts heard by AFP journalists. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas urged Iran to refrain from targeting Gulf neighbours, many of which have supported its cause. It was a rare breach between the allies, though Hamas affirmed Tehran's right to defend itself. Iran continued to face heavy bombardment with local media reporting strikes in several provinces through Saturday. Israel's military, meanwhile, warned people in an industrial zone of Tabriz in northern Iran to evacuate, signalling an imminent attack. Iran's health ministry says more than 1,200 people have been killed by US and Israeli attacks, numbers that could not be independently verified, while up to 3.2 million people have been displaced, according to the UN refugee agency. Trump described Iran as "totally defeated" and in search of a deal he was unwilling to consider. More than 15,000 targets in Iran have been hit by the US and Israel, the Pentagon said. A report this week said the first six days alone cost the US $11.3 billion, while 13 military personnel have died in the war. - Transition - US media raised the possibility of American troops on the ground in Iran, with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reporting the Pentagon had dispatched the Japan-based amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the region along with around 2,500 Marines. In Iran, the country's rulers appeared intent on showing they would survive the war and maintain control, despite their supreme leader Ali Khamenei being killed on the opening day. Khamenei's son Mojtaba Khamenei was named the new supreme leader, but has been absent from public view and is reportedly wounded. Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran's last shah, said on social media on Saturday that he was ready to lead a transition "as soon as the Islamic Republic falls". But Iran's Revolutionary Guards have threatened a heavy crackdown on any anti-government protests. Thousands were killed during mass demonstrations in January, and a near-total internet blackout has been imposed since the war began. - 'Existential battle' - The war has also sparked another devastating round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Tehran-backed militant group attacked Israel after Khamenei's death and its leader, Naim Qassem, has called the current conflict an "existential battle". Israel has responded with air and ground assaults, killing at least 826 people according to the Lebanese authorities. It has also issued evacuation orders covering hundreds of square kilometres of Lebanon, displacing hundreds of thousands and prompting warnings of a humanitarian disaster. An overnight strike in southern Lebanon killed more than a dozen health workers at a clinic, health authorities said and put the total number of paramedics killed this month by Israel at 31. On a visit to Beirut, UN chief Antonio Guterres said "diplomatic avenues are available" to end hostilities. Turkey says fears Netanyahu might commit 'new genocide' in Lebanon Istanbul, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Turkey expressed deep concern Saturday over Israel's ongoing strikes on Lebanon, voicing fears it could commit "a new genocide" under the guise of fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah. "We are frankly concerned (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is moving toward a new genocide under the pretext of fighting Hezbollah," Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference. "The international community must act as soon as possible in the face of the crimes that Israel continues to commit." Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei during the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Since then, Lebanon's health ministry says Israeli strikes have killed 826 people -- among them 65 women and 106 children -- and wounded another 2,009. Turkey has repeatedly accused Israel of committing "genocide" during its two-year war in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas-run health ministry says more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed. Israel denies the charge. A UN probe in September accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, while rights groups have accused Hamas of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the October 7 attack on Israel. Both sides reject the allegations. Iran envoy says Ukraine support to US, Gulf is a 'joke' Kyiv, Ukraine, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Iran's envoy to Ukraine, Shahriar Amouzegar, dismissed the support Kyiv has offered to the United States and its Gulf allies, as Ukraine advertises its expertise in destroying Iranian-designed drones launched by Russia. Iran has been attacking countries across the region -- including with drones -- in response to US and Israeli airstrikes against Tehran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "As for the actions Ukraine is taking in the Middle East against drones, we essentially consider them nothing more than a joke and a showy gesture," Amouzegar told AFP in an exclusive interview. AFP spoke to charge d'affaires Amouzegar at the Iranian embassy in Kyiv, a partly vacated house near the Ukrainian presidential administration. Kyiv stripped the Iranian ambassador of his accreditation in 2022 and scaled down the mission in response to Tehran's supply of Shahed drones to Moscow. But the embassy continues to operate despite Ukraine fighting off near-daily barrages of Iranian-designed drones launched by Russia, Tehran's ally, throughout the four-year invasion. Ukraine said it had sent seasoned drone experts to Gulf states, which are facing similar threats, a move condemned by Amouzegar. "Unfortunately, Ukraine has now effectively entered a stage of direct confrontation with us; that is, it has placed itself alongside our enemies," he said. He denied that Iran was involved in the Russian invasion, saying that it supported Ukraine's territorial integrity and that Kyiv "played the 'Iran card' in order to obtain more resources from the West". Kyiv has been seeking to trade anti-drone technologies and expertise for conventional air defence missiles, which it urgently needs. US President Donald Trump told Fox News radio that his country didn't need Ukraine's help in drone defence, apparently contradicting statements from Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that the US had asked for help. Kyiv said it had dispatched anti-drone experts who have begun working in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. A Ukrainian team was also in Jordan, a senior official told AFP on condition of anonymity, without elaborating. "Ukraine's presence in this war does not really have any real significance for us. We do not take it very seriously," Amouzegar said. "We are absolutely not afraid of this recent action by the Ukrainian government. We have new technologies and innovations that will neutralise all these efforts," he said. Iran 'not taking responsibility' for missile fire on Turkey: FM Istanbul, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Turkey's top diplomat said Saturday that Iran was denying responsiblity for firing ballistic missiles towards Turkey despite evidence from technical data. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he had spoken with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi after NATO defence systems on Friday shot down another ballistic missile from Iran -- the third in nine days. "Once again, they are not taking responsibility for this incident. They claim they did not order any such attack, nor are they linked to it," Fidan said. "Of course, there is technical data available... and we are discussing the discrepancy between their statements and the reality with them," he said, adding it was being discussed at a diplomatic and military level. Turkey would resist all provocations, but as a nation its deterrence capacities were "extremely strong", he warned, saying: "We always know exactly where and when to use our strength." NATO shot down a first ballistic missile from Iran on March 4, with a second intercepted on Monday, March 9. Iran denied involvement in both. US troops are stationed at two Turkish bases which are key NATO facilities: Incirlik near the southern city of Adana, and Kurecik in central Turkey where they man an early-warning radar system that can detect Iranian missile launches. Trump says other countries 'must take care' of Hormuz Washington, United States, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 US President Donald Trump on Saturday said countries that rely on oil carried through the Hormuz strait should take responsibility for keeping the passage open, with American help. Global oil prices have surged by 40 percent as Iran has choked off the vital sea passage and attacked Gulf energy facilities since US-Israeli strikes launched the war on Iran. "The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both Militarily, Economically, and in every other way, but the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help -- A LOT!" Trump said on social media. "The US will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well. This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be." Trump, who has said the United States will soon start escorting tankers through the strait, added that he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea and Britain would send ships to secure the passage. Iranian strikes have all but halted maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally pass. It is just 54 kilometers (34 miles) wide at its narrowest point. - Reluctant allies - In his posts on Saturday, Trump asserted that Iran's military capability had been eliminated but conceded that it was still able to attack the strait. "It's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are," he wrote. As he urged nations to send ships to the strait, he added that "the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!" On Friday, the US military heavily bombed targets on Iran's Kharg Island, which handles almost all of Iran's crude exports. Trump threatened to also hit the island's oil infrastructure, which was spared in the strikes, "should Iran, or anyone else" interfere with passage of ships through the strait. US allies have been reluctant to provide military support to the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, but they have mobilized warships in response to the widening conflict. On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron visited a French aircraft carrier dispatched to the Mediterranean and said France and its allies were preparing a "defensive" mission to reopen the strait. And on Tuesday, a UK warship left port in southern England en route to the eastern Mediterranean to "bolster British defences in the region" after a drone attack on Britain's Akrotiri base in southern Cyprus. Israel says killed two top Iran intelligence officers in Tehran Jerusalem, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The Israeli military said on Saturday it had killed two senior Iranian intelligence officials in a strike in Tehran, just days after they replaced the former head of the directorate who was assassinated on February 28. Israel said the two men, identified as Abdollah Jalali-Nasab and Amir Shariat, were senior officials in the intelligence directorate of the Khatam al-Anbiya, the Iranian military's central operations command. The pair were killed on Friday, the Israeli military said. They had replaced Saleh Asadi, who served as head of the intelligence department at the Khatam al-Anbiya, after he was killed on the first day of the war, the military said. "Following the elimination of the head of the Intelligence Directorate, Saleh Asadi, during the opening blow of Operation Roaring Lion, Jalali and Shariat were appointed to replace them," the military said. "Both were close to the leadership of the Iranian terrorist regime," it said, adding that the intelligence branch of the Khatam al-Anbiya Emergency Command is responsible for analysing intelligence. "The intelligence is presented to senior officials in Iran's security system during frequent situational assessments, on the basis of which the war against the State of Israel is conducted," the military added. The military says several top Iranian officials were killed in an initial wave of strikes launched alongside the United States on February 28, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei. 'No French plan' to stop war in Lebanon: France Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 France's foreign ministry said Saturday there was "no French plan" to stop the fighting in Lebanon between Israeli forces and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. "France has supported the Lebanese authorities' openness to direct talks with Israel and has offered to facilitate them," said a ministry statement sent to AFP. "But it is for the parties, and only the parties, to set the agenda for these talks," it added. A Lebanese official told AFP Saturday that it was preparing to form a delegation to negotiate with Israel in a bid to stop the war with Hezbollah. Earlier Saturday, US news site Axios cited three sources in a report saying that France had drawn up a proposal to end the war, one that involved Lebanon recognising the state of Israel. Trump urges world powers to secure Iran shipping lane Washington, United States, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 US President Donald Trump urged other nations to help secure a vital shipping lane choked off by the war with Iran that showed no signs of slowing on Saturday as strikes hit the US embassy in Baghdad and a major Emirati energy facility. Two weeks after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the entire Gulf region remained in the grip of a conflict that has sent shockwaves through the global economy. The war has also spilled into Lebanon, where the health ministry said Israeli strikes have killed hundreds of people, as Israel fought the Tehran-backed Hezbollah once again. Oil prices have surged by 40 percent as Iran has choked off the vital Strait of Hormuz and attacked Gulf energy facilities. Clouds of black smoke rose on Saturday over Fujairah, home to a major Emirati oil storage and export terminal, AFP journalists saw, shortly after Iran's military warned UAE civilians to avoid port areas. Washington's embassy in Iraq was hit by a drone, security sources told AFP, the second time it has been targeted in the war, and the Emirati consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan was also struck for the second time in a week. And in Kuwait, the international airport was targeted with several drones "which struck its radar system" but caused no injuries, the Kuwaiti civil aviation authority said. Having earlier vowed that the US Navy would "very soon" start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump appeared to call for reinforcements on Saturday. "Many countries... will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe," he wrote on Truth Social, saying China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK would "hopefully" be among them. He later repeated the call on social media, saying that although the US "has beaten" Iran, countries that received oil via the strait "must take care of that passage, and we will help". - 'As long as necessary' - US forces struck Kharg Island on Friday, from which nearly all of Iran's oil is exported, with Trump saying they had "obliterated every MILITARY target", though sparing its energy facilities. Iran had threatened that US-linked oil and energy firms would be "turned into a pile of ashes" if they were hit, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later repeating the warning and accusing the US of firing rockets at Kharg from its bases in the UAE. He then called on Iran's neighbours to expel American forces, saying the US security umbrella was "inviting rather than deterring trouble". Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said the war was entering a "decisive phase", though he cautioned it would "continue as long as necessary". Despite facing superior US and Israeli firepower, Iran appeared determined to fight on. Blasts were heard by AFP journalists over Jerusalem after the military detected missiles launched from Iran on Saturday. Iran later said it had launched another missile salvo, with the Israeli military saying it had detected the launches. Qatar evacuated downtown areas and intercepted two missiles, with blasts heard by AFP journalists. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas urged Iran to refrain from targeting Gulf neighbours, many of which have supported its cause. It was a rare breach between the allies, though Hamas affirmed Tehran's right to defend itself. Iran continued to face heavy bombardment with local media reporting strikes in several provinces through Saturday, including one on an industrial site in Isfahan that killed 15 people, according to Fars news agency. AFP was not able to verify the toll. Iran's health ministry says more than 1,200 people have been killed by US and Israeli attacks, numbers that could not be independently verified, while up to 3.2 million people have been displaced, according to the UN refugee agency. More than 15,000 targets in Iran have been hit by the US and Israel, the Pentagon said. A report this week said the first six days alone cost the US $11.3 billion, while 13 military personnel have died in the war. - Transition - US media raised the possibility of American troops on the ground in Iran, with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reporting the Pentagon had dispatched the Japan-based amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the region along with around 2,500 Marines. In Iran, the country's rulers appeared intent on showing they would survive the war and maintain control, despite their supreme leader Ali Khamenei being killed on the opening day. Khamenei's son Mojtaba Khamenei was named the new supreme leader, but has been absent from public view and is reportedly wounded. Araghchi insisted on Saturday that "there is no problem with the new supreme leader". Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran's last shah, said on social media on Saturday that he was ready to lead a transition "as soon as the Islamic republic falls". But Iran's Revolutionary Guards have threatened a heavy crackdown on any anti-government protests. Thousands were killed during mass demonstrations in January, and a near-total internet blackout has been imposed since the war began. - 'Existential battle' - The war has also sparked another devastating round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Tehran-backed militant group attacked Israel after Khamenei's death and its leader, Naim Qassem, has called the current conflict an "existential battle". Israel has responded with air and ground assaults, killing at least 826 people according to the Lebanese authorities. It has also issued evacuation orders covering hundreds of square kilometres of Lebanon, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and prompting warnings of a humanitarian disaster. An overnight strike in southern Lebanon killed more than a dozen health workers at a clinic, health authorities said and put the total number of paramedics killed this month by Israel at 31. Late on Saturday, a Lebanese official told AFP the country was forming a delegation to negotiate with Israel but that there was no agenda, timing or location yet decided for any talks. Smoke seen rising from direction of UAE energy facility Dubai, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Smoke rose from the direction of a major UAE energy installation on Saturday, in what appeared to be the latest strike targeting the Gulf's petroleum facilities -- hours after the US struck Iran's Kharg Island oil hub. Clouds of dark black smoke were seen coming from Fujairah, which is home to a major port where Iranian attacks have already targeted an oil storage and trading hub. The port is also home to a key oil export terminal. Local authorities, in a statement, said debris that fell after a successful drone interception had caused a fire, without specifying the location. The incident came hours after President Donald Trump said the US military had bombed targets on Iran's Kharg Island, which handles almost all of Iran's crude exports, and threatened to hit the island's oil infrastructure. Later at night, authorities said they were still battling the fire, adding that a Jordanian national had been injured. Drone strikes hit the UAE's Fujairah energy installations earlier this month, with falling debris from an intercepted drone sparking a blaze, authorities said. Since the beginning of the war, Iran has methodically targeted the Gulf's energy sites from Kuwait to Oman. The strikes have mostly hit oil and gas fields or sprawling complexes, such as the massive Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, the Ras Laffan gas processing base in Qatar and the complex housing the UAE's Ruwais refinery. Iran has also effectively halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane through which about a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally pass. The UAE has been targeted repeatedly with missile barrages and drone strikes, as Tehran unleashed retaliatory strikes across the Gulf after the US and Israel launched a war against Iran. Later Saturday, the UAE foreign affairs ministry slammed the targeting of its consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan for the second time in a week. Iran Guards say targeted US forces at Saudi base with missiles Tehran, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Iran's Revolutionary Guards said late on Saturday they had launched a missile salvo at US forces stationed at a major base in Saudi Arabia's Al-Kharj. The Guards said the Prince Sultan Air Base was being used to equip "F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and is the storage place for fuel tankers". While there has been no immediate confirmation of the attack from Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's defence ministry said earlier it intercepted six ballistic missiles headed towards Al-Kharj. Saudi Arabia has previously said it has intercepted missiles and drones launched at the base during the ongoing Middle East war. Riyadh is a close ally of the United States and hosts a large number of its troops. It has repeatedly been attacked by Iran, including strikes on its massive oil industry, but has so far not deployed its military against the Islamic republic. Saudi authorities have previously condemned Iran's attacks on its Gulf neighbours as "reprehensible". US regulator threatens broadcasters over Iran war coverage Washington, United States, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the "Fake News Media." The president since his first term has derided mainstream media as "fake news" and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -- which oversees US radio, television and internet media -- said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. "The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not," Carr said in a post on X. "Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions -- also known as the fake news -- have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up." Carr's statement did not single out any news outlet, but it included a Trump social media post in which the president called out "an intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media" on five tanker planes hit by Iran strikes in Saudi Arabia. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a US-based free speech advocacy organization, slammed Carr's "authoritarian" warning as "outrageous." "When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong," it said on X. Since Israel and the United States first launched strikes on Iran on February 28, both Trump and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth have regularly swatted down critical stories as "fake news." On Friday both the Pentagon and White House called out broadcaster CNN after it ran a story suggesting Washington had underestimated Iran's ability to disrupt global oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. "This story is 100% FAKE NEWS," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. Carr last year threatened the broadcast license of ABC following comments made by late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel on the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. ABC briefly pulled Kimmel's show after the threats, leading to widespread outcry before it returned to air. US embassy attacked in Baghdad, strikes hit Iran-backed fighters Baghdad, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 The US embassy in Baghdad was hit by an attack on Saturday following strikes that killed three members of a powerful Iran-backed group in the capital, security sources said. Iraq, long a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, was quickly dragged into the Middle East war triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. A cloud of black smoke rose above the US diplomatic mission shortly after the sound of explosions on Saturday morning, an AFP journalist said. Two security officials told AFP the embassy complex was struck by a drone. The US embassy did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment on the incident. It is the second time the US embassy has come under attack in Baghdad since the start of the war. The embassy issued an updated security alert urging citizens to "leave now", but told them not to come to the Baghdad embassy or Erbil's consulate general "in light of the ongoing risk of missiles, drones, and rockets in Iraqi airspace". "Iran-aligned terrorist militias have repeatedly attacked the International Zone" in Baghdad, it said on X. "There have also been repeated attacks in the area around the Erbil International Airport and the Consulate General," it added. Late on Saturday, security sources said a drone attack targeted the Baghdad airport complex, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, but had been intercepted. A source said a crashed drone had sparked a huge blaze outside. Several Tehran-backed armed groups, which Washington has designated "terrorist organisations", allied under an umbrella movement known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, have claimed daily drone and rocket attacks against US bases in Iraq and the region. Since the start of the war, several attacks targeting members of those groups across Iraq have been blamed on the US and Israel. - Leader wounded? - The attack on the embassy took place shortly after two strikes targeted the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah in Baghdad and killed three of its members, including a commander. The first strike hit a house in the Arasat neighbourhood, where several Iran-backed groups have a presence. Two hours later, a second attack struck a vehicle in the Nahrawan district. Security sources initially said two group members had been killed, including "a key figure" in the house, and another in the attack on the vehicle. The death toll was later revised to three, all killed in the strike on the house, a pro-Iranian source told AFP. Kataeb Hezbollah held a funeral procession in Baghdad for three fighters, including commander Abou Ali al-Amiri. Local media reports have suggested that the group's top leader Ahmad al-Hamidawi was wounded in the attack on the house. AFP has not been able to independently verify this information. The pro-Iran source said the strike was a "targeted assassination" attempt. A resident of the Arasat district, told AFP "no one in the neighbourhood knew that the house, which is very modest, was occupied by Kataeb Hezbollah". None of the sources said who they believed to be behind the strikes on the pro-Iranian faction, and the Kataeb Hezbollah group has not commented. War in the Middle East: latest developments Paris, France, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Here are the latest events in the Middle East war on Saturday: - Attack on Baghdad military base - A drone attack late Saturday targeted the Baghdad airport complex, which houses a military base and a US diplomatic facility, two security sources told AFP. The drones "targeted the military base" but were brought down just outside the complex, one source said, while a second source said a crashed drone sparked a huge fire outside. - US base in Saudi Arabia targeted - Iran's Revolutionary Guards said late Saturday that they had launched a missile salvo at US forces stationed at a major base in Saudi Arabia's Al-Kharj. There was no immediate confirmation of the attack from Saudi Arabia, though its defence ministry said earlier it intercepted six ballistic missiles headed towards Al-Kharj. - Hezbollah in 'direct clashes' - Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it was involved in "direct clashes" with Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam late on Saturday, involving "light and medium weapons as well as rocket-propelled projectiles". - Lebanon preparing to negotiate - Lebanon is working to form a delegation to negotiate with Israel in a bid to stop the war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, an official told AFP, though Israel has not committed to the initiative. "Negotiations are on the table and preparations are underway to form a delegation, but... neither the timing nor the location has been determined, with Paris and Cyprus being considered," the official said. - Trump warship call - US President Donald Trump urged countries such as China, France, Japan, South Korea and Britain to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for global oil supplies. "The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help -- A LOT!" Trump said on social media. - Iran strikes Israel - Iran launched a new wave of missiles towards Israel, Iranian state TV reported. - Jordan intercepts missiles - Jordan's military said it had intercepted 79 of 85 missiles and drones launched by Iran at the kingdom. - Supreme leader's health - Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said there was "no problem" with the Islamic republic's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei after US officials reported he had been wounded. - Kuwait airbase hit - Two drones targeted an airbase in Kuwait housing US military staff, injuring Kuwaiti personnel and causing damage, the defence ministry said. - Isfahan strike - A US-Israeli missile attack on an industrial area of Isfahan killed at least 15 people, Iran's Fars news agency reported. AFP was not able to verify the toll. - Turkey missile complaint - Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Iran was denying responsiblity for firing ballistic missiles towards Turkey despite evidence from technical data. - Lebanon 'genocide' fear - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country feared Israel was "moving toward a new genocide under the pretext of fighting Hezbollah" in its ongoing assault on Lebanon. - Ukraine role ridiculed - Iran's envoy to Ukraine, Shahriar Amouzegar, dismissed the support Kyiv has offered to the United States and its Gulf allies in combatting drones as "a joke", in an interview with AFP. - Energy site threat - Iran will target the facilities of US companies in the region if its energy facilities are attacked, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted as saying by state television, after US attacks on military infrastructure on Iran's crude oil export hub of Kharg Island. - Lebanon war toll - Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed 826 people, including 65 women and 106 children, since the start of the latest war with Hezbollah, adding that 2,009 others had been wounded. - UN Lebanon diplomacy - UN chief Antonio Guterres said on a visit to Beirut that diplomatic channels remained open to end the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and urged the international community to support Lebanon. - Hamas appeal to Iran - Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called on Iran to refrain from targeting neighbouring countries, while affirming Tehran's right to defend itself against Israel and the United States, in its first such public appeal to Tehran. - Kharg exports 'normal' - Oil export operations from Iran's Kharg island in the Gulf were "continuing as normal" after US strikes on the crude export hub which caused no casualties, said regional official Ehsan Jahaniyan, quoted by the IRNA news agency. burs/js/jgc He added: Anything we do, we want to target and make sure that we help those most in need, those furthest behind who would be most impacted. In what appeared to be an appeal to the UK and other nations, the US leader added: Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated. Allow Google Search To use the search feature, we need your consent to load Google Custom Search, which may use cookies or similar technologies. Please click 'Allow and Continue' below to enable search. See our privacy policy for more information. Allow and Continue If the SNP is re-elected as polls suggest it will be childcare support would be made available for every child in country, from nine months old through to the end of primary school, by the end of the next parliamentary term. Speaking to the Press Association, he said: When its two in the morning, in the pitch black, in the fog, with the sea smashing the boat around, with your oars going in different directions, when youve been rowing for seven days, two hours on, two hours off, and youre cold its brutal. Amid the ongoing commercial gas supply crisis in the city, the Mumbai police have intensified their crackdown on fuel theft networks, moving against what they describe as an oil mafia operating around refineries and pipelines. Within a fortnight, police have externed 13 alleged members of a fuel-siphoning network, while two tanker drivers have also been identified for attempting diesel theft in separate cases. The action follows an investigation by the RCF police into the illegal siphoning of petroleum products from a pipeline belonging to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). According to the police, the accused had allegedly installed an illegal tap on the pipeline to siphon fuel. The case came to light on November 14 last year when BPCL manager Harpal Gajbhiye lodged a complaint. An FIR was registered under the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Rights of User in Land) Act, 1962. Using technical evidence and confidential inputs, RCF police tracked down the suspects from different parts of Mumbai and adjoining areas. Those identified in the case include Mustafa Ali Khan, Riyaz Ahmed Ayub Mulla, Salim Mohammad Ali Shaikh, Vinod Devchand Patil, Gopal Narayan Jharphale, Vinayak Shrikant Pimpale, Ahmed Khan, Nishan Jagjit Singh, Mahebub Mohammad Shaikh, Maksud Mandar Khan, Nasir Shaukat Ali and Imran Arif Lohar, among others. Police also seized tools used in the operation, including gas cutters, iron clamps and other drilling equipment. Investigators suspect the accused may be linked to a wider network involved in the illegal siphoning and sale of petroleum products. The process of externment has been initiated as we want to dismantle the entire gang, a police officer said. With concerns rising over black marketing and theft of petroleum products amid the current supply disruptions, police across the port zones have stepped up patrolling around refinery areas and pipelines. We are keeping a close watch on history-sheeters involved in fuel theft and conducting regular patrols near refinery zones, the police said. In a separate incident, the Shivdi police registered an FIR after catching a driver allegedly attempting to steal diesel from a tanker on March 13. The accused has been identified as Sanjay Singh. Based on intelligence inputs, we tracked the suspect and initiated legal action after he attempted the theft, a police official said. The Wadala police have also registered a separate case after identifying individuals involved in fuel theft. Investigations in both cases are underway. JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Please enable JavaScript to proceed. A required part of this site couldnt load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser. Saudi Arabia has begun rerouting its oil exports through the Red Sea amid rising tensions around the Strait of Hormuz. AzerNEWS reprts that the move comes as Iran threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz, prompting Riyadh to prioritize shipments through the Yanbu al-Bahr port and the Red Sea route. Recent reports indicate that 11 very large crude carriers (VLCCs) have arrived at Yanbu al-Bahr and are currently awaiting loading. State-owned Saudi Aramco has stated that supplies along this route could reach 5 million barrels per day in the near future. However, local infrastructure has not previously handled such large volumes. By comparison, in March, an average of 2.7 million barrels per day were transported through Yanbu al-Bahr. A Bangladeshi woman allegedly trafficked into India after being promised a job is still waiting to return home nearly two years after her rescue, as procedural delays stall her repatriation. The case reached the Bombay High Court through a petition filed by the anti-trafficking NGO Rescue Foundation seeking permission to send the victim back to Bangladesh. Her story began in a modest neighbourhood in Bangladeshs Munshiganj district, where survival was a daily struggle. After her fathers death, the responsibility of supporting the family fell on her mother, who travelled abroad to work as a domestic help. The young woman was married early to a furniture shop worker, but the marriage soon turned abusive. She was allegedly subjected to frequent violence while her husband accumulated debts and repeatedly pressured her for money. Eventually, he abandoned her, leaving her in severe financial distress. During this difficult period, she was allegedly approached by a woman who promised her work at a beauty parlour in India with good pay. Hoping to repay debts and support her family, she agreed and travelled with agents who illegally facilitated her entry into India. The promise of employment soon collapsed. According to the petition, after arriving in India she was forced into prostitution by the very people who had arranged her journey. Her ordeal came to light during a police raid at a brothel in Mumbai, after which she was rescued and a criminal case was registered at Dahisar police station under provisions relating to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Since June 2024, she has been staying at a protective home run by Rescue Foundation. The woman, who has a six-year-old child in Bangladesh, has expressed a strong desire to return home as she fears her husband is not taking proper care of the child. However, her repatriation has been delayed due to the pending criminal trial in which she is a key witness. While hearing the petition on March 11, a bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata noted that despite an earlier direction issued in October 2025 to record her testimony, the process had still not been completed. Observing that the victim continued to suffer because of lapses by authorities, the court sought an explanation from the Sessions Court administration.The High Court directed the Registrar of the Sessions Court in Mumbai to submit a report explaining why the victims evidence had not been recorded earlier in a case involving serious offences such as human trafficking and provisions of the POCSO law. To expedite the matter, the court ordered the trial court to frame charges by March 13, 2026, and record the victims evidence by March 24 so that her repatriation can be facilitated. Petitioners lawyer Ashley Cusher said, The justice system cannot condition the success of a trial upon the presence or participation of the victim. Justice must depend upon lawful evidence, not the compulsion of the victim. The Army Criminal Investigation Division believes that a retired soldier recently arrested for sexual abuse of children may have additional victims from his time in service. It is asking people to submit any information that could help investigators. A federal grand jury in Arizona indicted Larry Alexander Greenlee Jr. in December on three charges of the sexual exploitation of three children, according to court records. The alleged crimes occurred in 2014 and 2018 in Arizona and California and in 2023 in Japan. The retired sergeant first class is accused of twice transporting someone under 18 years old across state lines with the intent the young person would engage in illegal sexual activity and then for traveling to Japan to have illicit sex with someone under age, according to court records. An attorney was not listed for Greenlee, and he has no upcoming court dates scheduled. Greenlee enlisted in the Army in November 1983 and retired from active duty in December 2003, according to his official service record. His occupational specialties included intelligence analyst and cannon crew member. He deployed to southwest Asia in April 1991 and again in March 2003. After retirement he continued to work as a contractor and a civilian employee of the Army until his arrest in the Philippines. During his military and civilian service, Greenlee was stationed at various locations, including Japan; Germany; England; Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; Fort Irwin, Calif.; and Fort Hood, Texas, according to CID. Investigators believe that additional victims may exist, according to a statement from CID. Army CID requests that anyone who believes they may have been victimized by Greenlee, or who has information related to potential misconduct, contact investigators. Along with the request, CID released photos of Greenlee to show what he looked like at different times in his life. People with information should contact the Army CID Far East Field office by email at FEFOTips@army.mil. Anonymous tips may be submitted at www.p3tips.com/armycid. The information provided could be vital in ongoing investigative efforts. Identified victims may be eligible for certain services and rights under federal and/or state law, according to CID. The two historic American flags that the U.S. Marines raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima are displayed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va. (National Museum of the Marine Corps) The two American flags that U.S. Marines raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima are displayed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., commemorating one of the fiercest battles in World War II. Each year, the museum briefly displays the two historic flags together to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Visitors have a rare chance to see them side by side in the World War II gallery through March 26, the day the battle ended in 1945. The NMMC preserves both historic flags from the battle in its collection, including the first American flag raised atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. The second flag raised later that day remains on permanent display at the museum. It is the first flag that holds greater significance to the Marines and sailors who were fighting on the island that day, said retired Marine Col. Keil Gentry, the director of the museum. During the battle, roughly 70,000 Marines fought for 36 days against the Imperial Japanese Army to secure the island, according to the NMMC. Their victory was first symbolized by the raising of a small American flag atop Mount Suribachi. Its significance was driven home to me earlier this year by an Iwo Jima veteran who witnessed that moment firsthand, Gentry said. He described the cacophony of sound as hundreds of ships across the fleet blasted their horns upon seeing the first flag, signifying another step toward victory in World War II. A larger flag eventually replaced the first. This moment was captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, and the photograph gained worldwide recognition as a powerful symbol of the courage and sacrifice of the Marines. Cargo is offloaded from a C-130H Hercules cargo aircraft during a mission at Baledogle Military Airfield, Somalia, Nov. 24, 2025. (Christian Silvera/U.S. Air Force) Two U.S. Africa Command airstrikes targeted the militant groups al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia this week. An airstrike in the area of the Golis Mountains targeting ISIS-Somalia took place on Sunday, the command said in a Monday news release, while al-Shabab was targeted about 37 miles from Mogadishu on Wednesday. The command did not describe the units involved in either instance, but said the strikes were done in coordination with the government of Somalia. The strikes come as the U.S. expands operations in Somalia, although its presence overall in Africa is diminished compared to several years ago, when it still maintained bases in Niger. Ground was broken at a runway expansion project in January at a strategic base in Kenya used by U.S. forces. The U.S. has been making numerous improvements at facilities used by American troops in Kenya, where military outposts are positioned near the border with Somalia. Plus, strikes in Somalia last December brought AFRICOMs total strikes in the country to a yearly record. Meanwhile in West Africa, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of AFRICOM, said in February that a team of U.S. military specialists has been installed in Nigeria to help that country in its battle against Islamic militants. Stars and Stripes reporter John Vandiver contributed to this report. Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Logan Bonaguidi, right, grades a target during a live-fire exercise aboard America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli on March 12, 2026. (Colten Bradley/U.S. Navy) More than 2,000 Marines and at least one warship are headed from the Pacific to the Middle East, multiple news outlets reported Friday. One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that roughly 2,500 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to deploy. ABC News reported that the deployment will include three amphibious ships. Tripoli has recently been operating with Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, including amphibious transport docks USS New Orleans and USS San Diego, in the Philippine Sea. Tripoli was participating in the three-week Iron Fist exercise in Japan as recently as Monday. The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the news, cited three officials who said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a U.S. Central Command request for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit. The Pentagon did not respond a request for comment. Tripoli would join the worlds largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the USS Abraham Lincoln as part of an armada of American warships, stealth fighters and air defense systems in the region. About 50,000 troops have been deployed. It is unclear what assets are being brought on Tripoli. The 855-foot America-class amphibious assault ship in 2022 set a record when it loaded 16 F-35 fighter jets. The ship can also carry MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors and a variety of helicopters such as the MH-60S Seahawk. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is based at Okinawa. Marine expeditionary units integrate air and ground combat elements into a single force, making it suited for amphibious operations. Aside from the standard tasks such units are trained for, like humanitarian assistance and port seizure operations, the 31st MEU is also trained for limited scale raids and the seizure of maritime platforms, according to its website. The deployment does not necessarily mean U.S. troops will conduct a ground operation in Iran. The deployment comes as concern has grown about global energy prices as fighting disrupts trade through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil exports. CENTCOM on Thursday said it had struck over 90 ships, including 30 minelayers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview Thursday the U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Wrights comments come after a post on his social media account wrongly claimed on Tuesday that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the strait. The Tripoli would not be the only asset sent from the Pacific region to the Middle East. The Pentagon is moving parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system from South Korea to the Middle East, prompting a statement from the South Korean president earlier this week. Operation Epic Fury began nearly two weeks ago when U.S. and Israeli forces struck targets across Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. Thirteen U.S. service members have died during combat operations as of Friday, six of whom died when a KC-135 Stratotanker crashed in Iraq on Thursday. Contributing: Stars and Stripes reporters Seth Robson, Matthew Adams and Alison Bath; The Associated Press. Targets on Irans Kharg Island are struck on Friday, March 13, 2026, in this screen grab from a video posted on X by U.S. Central Command. (U.S. Central Command via X) U.S. forces struck more than 90 targets on Irans Kharg Island on Friday, U.S. Central Command said in a post on X on Saturday, the 15th day of the conflict. The small coral island about 21 miles off Irans coast is the primary terminal through which nearly all of Irans oil exports pass. The post, which included a video montage, noted that strikes hit military targets, like naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, while also preserving the oil infrastructure. A Friday post by President Donald Trump on Truth Social similarly said for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island, but that the decision would be reconsidered if transit through the Strait of Hormuz continues to be threatened. That was followed by a Saturday morning post in which the president said many countries would be sending warships in conjunction with the U.S. to keep the Strait open and safe. Last night, U.S. forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island, Iran. The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites. U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg pic.twitter.com/2X1glD4Flt U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 14, 2026 His post did not offer further details. The president also said Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others affected by the straits effective closure would send ships. He reiterated the call in another post Saturday afternoon that said countries receiving oil through the strait must take care of that passage. Meanwhile, Iran urged people Saturday to evacuate the Middle Easts busiest port and two others in the United Arab Emirates, openly threatening a neighboring countrys non-U.S. assets for the first time as its war with the U.S. and Israel entered a third week. Tehran said the U.S. had used ports, docks and hideouts in the UAE to launch strikes on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Irans oil exports, without providing evidence. It urged people to leave areas where it said U.S. forces were sheltering. U.S. Central Command gave no response to the claim that the U.S. had launched strikes from the UAE. Hours later, there was no sign of an attack on Dubais Jebel Ali port the Mideasts busiest or the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi. But debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hitting an oil facility sparked a fire at the third port, in Fujairah. A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias. Smoke rises from the U.S. embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (Ali Jabar/AP) The Associated Press contributed to this report. The first known drawing of Yosemite Valley, titled "The High Falls, Valley of the Yo Semity, California." -- Library of Congress Photo Yosemite, CA The Library of Congress recently acquired one of the first known drawings of Yosemite Valley, predating paintings and photography that subsequently established the valleys national fame. It is the first known drawing of Yosemite Valley, titled The High Falls, Valley of the Yo Semity, California. According to library officials, Thomas Almond Ayres illustrates Yosemite Falls in June 1855, using graphite, ink, chalk, and charcoal, capturing the magnificence of one of the parks most famous landmarks, rising 2,425 feet above the valley floor, on a single sheet of paper measuring 20 by 14 inches. They added that Ayres drawings of the falls were used to create the first published depiction of Yosemite, shaping how people across the world saw the American West. The companion lithograph The Yo-Hamite Falls, measuring 23 by 15 inches, was published by James Mason Hutchings in October 1855. Hutchings, inspired by an 1851 newspaper account of the Mariposa Battalions expedition, aimed to promote Californias natural wonders. He hired two Miwok guides for his first visit to Yosemite. Designated as a national park by Congress on October 1, 1890, Yosemite was preceded by the preservation of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in 1864 by President Abraham Lincoln. This marked the inception of the national park concept, setting aside land for public recreation and preservation. Today, Yosemite attracts over 4 million visitors yearly. India frees Ladakh activist Wangchuk after 6 months in jail New Delhi, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 India on Saturday ended the preventive detention of prominent Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk, freeing him six months after he was held over protests in the Himalayan region. Wangchuk, 59, an environmental advocate who became a key figure in Ladakh's movement for greater autonomy, was held in September and later charged under India's National Security Act following protests that left four people dead and dozens wounded. New Delhi had blamed the violence on "provocative speeches" by Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike demanding either full federal statehood for Ladakh or constitutional protections for its tribal communities, land and fragile environment. Authorities in the sparsely populated, high-altitude region bordering China and Pakistan, at the time said the order, issued by the district magistrate of Leh, was needed to "maintain public order. Under the stringent National Security Act, a suspect can be detained for up to 12 months without being formally charged. The home ministry said in a statement Saturday it had decided to end Wangchuk's detention "with immediate effect" after "due consideration". It is not clear if the charges against Wangchuk were dropped. Mustafa Haji, a lawyer for the Leh Apex Body -- which spearheaded last year's protests -- said Wangchuk was released from jail in the western city of Jodhpur soon after. The home ministry said it remained "committed to fostering an environment of peace, stability, and mutual trust in" Ladakh and have "meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders". The decision also comes as the Supreme Court continues to hear a petition filed by Wangchuk's wife Gitanjali Angmo, challenging the legality of his detention. The fate of that case remains unclear now that Wangchuk has been released. An engineer by training, Wangchuk is best known for pioneering water conservation projects in the Himalayas. He received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018 for his environmental work and contributions to reforming local schooling in Ladakh. His life and work are said to have inspired a character played by Bollywood star Aamir Khan in the hugely popular movie "Three Idiots". Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government split Ladakh off from Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019, imposing direct rule on both. Ladakh has since called upon New Delhi to include it in the "Sixth Schedule" of India's constitution and have their own local legislature to make their laws and policies. India's army maintains a large presence in Ladakh, which includes disputed border areas with China. Troops from the two countries clashed there in 2020, killing at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. German greenhouse gas emissions virtually unchanged in 2025 Berlin, March 14 (AFP) Mar 14, 2026 Greenhouse gas emissions in Germany were almost unchanged in 2025 with a 0.1 percent decrease compared over the previous year, the environment ministry said Saturday, bemoaning the progress as "too slow". Emissions were equivalent to 649 million tonnes of CO2, worse than those forecast by the expert group Agora Energiewende which anticipated a 1.5 percent drop year-on-year. Despite this, the ministry said it was still possible to achieve the 2030 climate target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent compared with 1990. But emissions would have to "fall by an average of 42 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year" from 2026 onward, more than 40 times the reduction recorded last year. In 2025, Germany's greenhouse gas emissions were 48 percent below the level of the 1990 base year. The ministry said it was "particularly urgent" to reduce emissions in the transport and building sectors to avoid the costly purchase of emission allowances from other EU member states or fines. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, a Social Democrat, nevertheless welcomed the "growing enthusiasm for climate protection technologies" such as electric cars and heat pumps. "And there are more newly approved wind power projects than ever before. This gives hope that progress will once again pick up speed in the years to come," he added. The pursuit of climate targets, a priority for the previous government of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, appears more uncertain under the mandate of conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz. In power since May 2025, the Merz government has instead advocated easing environmental standards. Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice To win a Best Picture Oscar, a film has to have something about it. Only 94 films in history have been given this award. Theyre not voted on by the eccentric members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who pick the Golden Globes, or by specialist groups of critics, but by the roughly 10,000 members of the Academy. That is to say, the choice is made by distinguished figures from within the industry. Sometimes, though, they do still make some baffling choices. By the time the Oscars roll around at the end of the awards process, a herd mentality tends to have set in. When everybody has already voted at all the other awards shows for, say, The Kings Speech or The Shape of Water, the Academy members follow suit. Its rare for a Best Picture winner ever to be a complete surprise. Nonetheless, a few questionable films have stolen glory that rightfully belonged elsewhere. Read below to see the 10 worst winners of Hollywoods most prestigious award. 10. The Life of Emile Zola Prestige counts at the Oscars. That is why a stodgy literary biopic like The Life of Emile Zola somehow won the main award at the 1937 Oscars. Its a solid and worthy piece of work, with a grandstanding performance from Paul Muni (under a lot of whiskers) as the campaigning French novelist. The idea, though, that it is one of the few truly great pictures of all time, as its own publicity suggested, is clearly idiotic. 9. Green Book open image in gallery Viggo Mortensen in Green Book' ( Universal ) Green Book told the true story of an unlikely friendship between a black classical pianist (Mahershala Ali) and his bigoted Italian-American driver (Viggo Mortensen). In an interview with The Independent in 2020, Mortensen argued: Its become a cliche to say, Is this movie going to be the Green Book of this year? Green Book has become a pejorative. He described the criticisms levelled at the film as hurtful, destructive as well as mendacious and irresponsible. Nonetheless, Green Book remains a ignominious winner: trite, saccharine, and problematic. 8. Around the World in 80 Days This was a perfectly amiable big-budget travelogue but you cant help but suspect its Best Picture Oscar was more to do with the marketing and hustling skills of its producer, Mike Todd, than with any brilliance in the filmmaking. It was directed by the Englishman Michael Anderson, previously best known for The Dam Busters, and featured David Niven as the intrepid traveller, Phileas Fogg, who bets he can travel all the way round the world in a little over two months. 7. Crash Paul Haggiss Crash is a decent and well-meaning study of the consequences of racism and violence in contemporary LA. It was independently made and had a large ensemble cast, all giving heartfelt performances. However, Robert Altman had covered similar territory better in Short Cuts and the feeling persisted that it had won the Best Picture award because some Academy voters were determined not to give the Oscar to the gay-themed contemporary western Brokeback Mountain. 6. Chicago open image in gallery All that Jazz: Renee Zellwegger in Kander and Ebb's musical 'Chicago' ( Rex Features ) You rarely win an Oscar without a strong marketing campaign. The now disgraced distributor/producer Harvey Weinstein knew the secrets of getting Academy voters on his side better than anyone else in the business. Whether it was the Blitz-like approach to advertising in the trade press, or the timing of the awards screenings, or the way he kept the films stars in front of the media or his relentless courtship of the Academy members, he was arguably as important to the Oscar success of the so-so musical Chicago as any of the creative talent behind it. 5. A Beautiful Mind Its not bad. Its a love story that touches on mental illness and mathematics (neither usually subjects that Hollywood embraces). Russell Crowe gives a fine performance as John Nash, the Nobel prize-winning boffin with the beautiful but unstable mind. Nonetheless, Ron Howards biopic isnt any kind of classic. It won its Best Picture Oscar in an unusually thin year. 4. Marty Marty, the 1955 winner, isnt even the best version of its own subject matter. This story, scripted by the great Paddy Chayevsky, about an emotionally repressed Italian-American butcher from the Bronx looking for love, had already been made as a live TV drama the year before. In the small-screen version, Rod Steiger gave a superlative performance in the lead role. Ernest Borgnine in the film version cant help but seem like second best to anyone who saw Steiger in the same part. Whereas the puggish Borgnine makes Marty a figure of pity, Steiger turned him into a full blown tragic hero. 3. Out of Africa Youll remember the pink flamingos and all those scenes of beautiful Kenyan landscapes that looked as if they were cribbed from a David Attenborough natural history documentary. You wont ever forget Meryl Streeps eccentric accent as the Danish baroness and author, Karen Blixen (I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong hills). This is mushy stuff, though, and hardly deserving of its Oscar. 2. Braveheart open image in gallery Regardless of how accurate Braveheart was as history, it played into ongoing debates about devolution and Scottish independence ( Rex Features ) This rousing, Scottish-set (but partly Irish-filmed) medieval epic is famous for its scenes of William Wallaces army in blue faces lifting their kilts and baring their bums. Regardless of how accurate this was as history, it played into ongoing debates about devolution and Scottish independence. The film also did its bit for the Scottish tourism business. Mel Gibson knows how to stage a battle scene. Whether that qualifies his film for a Best Picture Oscar is another matter. 1. The Greatest Show on Earth From a vantage point 71 years on, the decision to give the Best Picture Oscar to Cecil B DeMilles circus epic in 1952 is truly baffling. British viewers who have seen it will almost certainly have done so on TV (where its 152-minute running time made it useful for filling in gaps in the schedule). It has a decent cast and some reasonable stunts but Academy voters were surely clowning around when they chose it over other nominees in the same year which have aged far, far better like High Noon and The Quiet Man. Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Ed Balls has revealed he bought flowers for his Good Morning Britain co-host Susanna Reid after kicking her in the head. In January 2024, the popular ITV daytime show was briefly derailed during a segment on plane etiquette, in which Balls and Reid were asked to sit in airplane chairs installed on the set of the show. While discussing whether it was ever appropriate to rest your feet on the chair in front of you, Balls rested his feet on the head rest of Reids seat, colliding with the back of her head in the process. I think weve decided its not OK, Reid responded, while clutching her head. I dont know if I can carry on doing the programme, Im seeing stars! In a new interview with The Telegraph, Balls and Reid discussed the incident. I was cross, Reid recalled. Balls added that he had never sent flowers to a work colleague before, but figured it was an appropriate gesture. open image in gallery 'Good Morning Britain' presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls ( Getty Images ) The incident became a running joke during the rest of the January 2024 episode, with one viewer emailing the show and insisting that Reid sue Balls for damages. Honestly, no lasting damage, Reid said. Although my eyesight did go blurry for about 20 minutes. Balls became a permanent co-host on Good Morning Britain in January, having served as a regular guest host since 2021. That was the same year in which Reids former co-host Piers Morgan famously stormed off the set of the show during a heated discussion about Meghan Markle. Morgan quit the show later the same day. Did I see it coming? No, Reid told The Telegraph. Was it a shock when it happened? Yes. But she added that the pair have since put the incident to bed and remain good friends. I know for a fact he still watches the show because he will text when were on air, she said. open image in gallery Balls and Reid during the bizarre incident ( ITV ) Ballss role on Good Morning Britain has faced some criticism due to his history as a Labour MP (he served as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer until 2015, when he lost his seat in the West Yorkshire county of Normanton), and his marriage to the Labour foreign secretary Yvette Cooper. It is due to this relationship that Balls sits out interviews with Cooper whenever she appears as a guest on the show, though that hasnt stopped occasional criticism over his impartiality towards political guests. In March, the show was plunged into a brief crisis after a fire alarm went off in the studio, forcing it off air 20 minutes earlier than scheduled. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A recall for more than a dozen flavors of cream cheese has been upgraded with the Food and Drug Administrations most serious alert as experts warn of serious adverse health consequences or death. The cream cheese was recalled February 20 out of concern that it may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that can cause serious illness. Several outlets reported Friday the FDA has given the recall a Class I classification. A Class I recall is issued when there is reasonable probability that the product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death, according to the FDA. Fourteen flavors of Made Fresh Salads five-pound tubs of cream cheese have been recalled, including its Whipped Cream Cheese and Vegetable Cream Cheese. open image in gallery A recall for more than a dozen flavors of cream cheese has been upgraded with the Food and Drug Administrations most serious alert as experts warn of 'serious adverse health consequences or death' ( Getty Images/iStock ) Made Fresh Salads said in its recall announcement last month healthy people infected with Listeria may just have short-term symptoms, including high fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea. But the company warned it can have serious and at times fatal effects in young children, elderly people and those with weakened immune systems. Pregnant women infected with Listeria monocytogenes are at risk of miscarriages and stillbirths, according to the recall announcement. The recall was issued after routine sampling found a part of the mixer used to make the cream cheese was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, according to Made Fresh Salads. The company said it has stopped using the contaminated mixer. No illnesses related to the recall were reported at the time of the companys announcement. open image in gallery Over a dozen flavors of Made Fresh Salads cream cheese have been recalled over concerns it may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes ( FDA ) Made Fresh Salads is based on Long Island in New York, where bagels and cream cheese are a delicacy. The cream cheese was delivered to retail stores and distributors in New York City. The recalled product has an expiration date through February 27. Here is a full list of the cream cheese flavors that have been recalled: Apple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Blueberry Cream Cheese Garlic & Herb Cream Cheese Jalapeno Cream Cheese Jalapeno Cheddar Cream Cheese Lox Cream Cheese Scallion Cream Cheese Strawberry Cream Cheese Sundried Tomato Cream Cheese Vegetable Cream Cheese Walnut Raisin Cream Cheese Whipped Cream Cheese Tofu Whipped Consumers who purchased the recalled cream cheese are advised to return it for a full refund. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A federal judge has dismissed a wrongful death and excessive force lawsuit filed by the family of an Alabama man who died in 2023 after being repeatedly shocked with a Taser by police. U.S. District Court Judge Kristi K. DuBose on Tuesday ruled in favor of the city of Mobile and two police officers, concluding the case. Following the dismissal, the federal court unsealed body camera footage related to the incident, which had not been previously released to the public. Jawan Dallas, 36, died on July 2, 2023, after officers deployed a Taser multiple times during an attempt to detain him, an event that sparked protests in Mobile. Judge DuBose noted that a medical examiner determined Dallas primarily died from "acute myocardial ischemia and cardiorespiratory failure caused by mixed drug toxicity including toxicity from the presence of methamphetamine." open image in gallery Jawan Dallas, 36, died on July 2, 2023, after officers deployed a Taser multiple times during an attempt to detain him ( Getty Images ) Unfortunately, Mr. Dallas died from a heart attack approximately twenty minutes after he was handcuffed, DuBose wrote. She wrote that the use of force against Dallas was objectively reasonable. Lawyers for his family disagreed with the decision and said they plan to appeal to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The video evidence is striking. Jawan Dallas endured a taser/drive stun for about 44 seconds, which is longer than the recommended time, and tragically lost his life though he was not the person accused of trespassing, lawyers for the Dallas family said in a statement. The medical examiner found three abrasions on Dallas that were consistent with dry stun injuries and six punctures on Mr. Dallass back, four of which were consistent with deeper Taser probe injuries, according to the Tuesday ruling. Officers approached Dallas after responding to a report of a possible burglary and trespassing at a trailer park. Dallas was in his vehicle. An officer demanded Dallas get out of the car and produce his identification. Dallas appears to tell the officer, Thats illegal. He is then pulled from the car and a scuffle ensues. Please, please, I can't breathe, Dallas is heard saying on audio from the body camera footage. Lawyers for the officers and the city had argued that Dallas resisted arrest. An expert hired by the Dallas family said he was not resisting but reacting to the burning pain from the Taser. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Las Vegas club promoter has pleaded not guilty to DUI and hit-and-run charges from a crash last month near the Vegas Strip that left a woman and toddler severely injured - a horrifying moment that was caught on his Tesla camera. Prosecutors say 28-year-old Gavin Caci was driving a gray 2026 Tesla Model Y around 7:35 p.m. on February 8 when he allegedly veered onto a sidewalk near Harmon Avenue and Audrie Lane, just east of the Las Vegas Strip, and plowed into the family launching a toddler from a stroller. The terrifying moment captured on camera was obtained by 8 News Now, recorded by the drivers own Tesla shows multiple angles as the vehicle drove up onto the sidewalk, slammed into a vehicle, and then struck the three pedestrians, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. A preliminary blood test showed Cacis blood-alcohol level was 0.22 less than two hours after the crash, 8 News Now reported. The legal limit in Nevada is 0.08, which means Caci was nearly three times over the limit. The victims, a family of three visiting from the United Kingdom for a wedding, were walking along the sidewalk when they were struck. open image in gallery Gavin Caci pleaded not guilty Tuesday to DUI and hit-and-run charges stemming from a crash last month near the Vegas Strip that left a woman and toddler injured ( KLAS ) I got thrown into the air, landed on my right side, so suffered some pain from my right elbow, right hip, back, the 38-year-old father told the grand jury, according to transcripts. Prosecutors said a 2-year-old child in a stroller was ejected during the impact and thrown into a nearby pole. By the time Id come back to see my wife, she was lying on the floor not moving, the father continued. She had a humungous lump on the side of her head, bleeding from her head. She was confused. She kept asking me what happened. Wasnt making much sense. Was unable to move. Both the toddler and the childs 32-year-old mother were transported to the hospital with severe injuries. They were treated and have returned home to the UK. The family has since filed a lawsuit against Caci and Tesla Lease Trust, claiming the trust should have known Caci was likely to operate the vehicle in an unsafe or reckless manner. They trust that the justice system will speak for them as the case proceeds, and they believe it is important to allow the facts to be addressed in the proper forum rather than through public commentary, their attorney, Al Lasso, said in a statement. open image in gallery The crash happened on February 8 near Harmon Avenue and Audrie Lane, just east of the Las Vegas Strip, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police ( Google maps ) Meanwhile, Caci is scheduled to stand trial on April 13. He is currently out on $100,000 bail. A judge ordered him to wear an alcohol monitor and remain confined to his home until his trial. On the night of the crash, the club promoter told one of the responding officers that he drank tequila at a nightclub but could not remember which one, according to documents. Its not Cacis first brush with the law. On December 10, 2025, a police officer cited him for speeding on Galleria Drive near Ward Drive in Henderson, according to records obtained by 8 News Now. The officer visually estimated Caci was traveling 70 mph in a 45-mph zone; radar later clocked him at 69 mph. Records show Caci was also ticketed in 2023 for causing a crash and in 2024 for speeding. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A lobbyist and attorney who helped secure a presidential pardon from Donald Trump for a former nursing home operator was arrested Friday in New York, with federal authorities charging him with attempting to extort $500,000 from a former client. Joshua Nass, 34, was taken into custody by FBI agents and is charged with attempted extortion, prosecutors said. If convicted, Nass could face up to 20 years in prison. He was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Saturday. Officials have not confirmed whether the alleged extortion attempt is directly connected to the pardon effort, though court filings suggest that the targets were Joseph Schwartz, who was pardoned last year, and one of his sons. Authorities say Nass tried to force a former client to pay $500,000, claiming it was owed for lobbying services. Court documents which only identify the client and his son as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 state that Nass had agreed to provide lobbying help in exchange for $600,000. The clients son made an initial payment of $100,000, but when the remaining money was not paid, prosecutors say Nass resorted to threats and intimidation to try to collect the balance. As alleged, Nass plotted the violent extortion of one of his own clients and hired an individual to do anything and everything to force the clients son to pay for services, according to Joseph Nocella, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Joshua Nass who is accused of extorting a client had previously lobbied for Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator convicted of a $38 million tax fraud, to receive a presidential pardon from Donald Trump ( Getty Images ) Rather than honestly representing his client, Joshua Nass allegedly chose to shake him down by hiring an enforcer to extort payment, FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle said in a statement Saturday. Nass is accused of recruiting another person to act as an enforcer and pressure the clients son into paying. Nass allegedly gave the person phone numbers and home addresses and told him to visit the sons home to demand the money, according to the FBI. The son reportedly refused and shut the door when the person showed up. Between January 2026 and March 2026, Nass repeatedly contacted another person to plan ways to pressure a former client and his son into paying him money he claimed they owed. Nass and this person discussed physically attacking the son or forcing him into a car with masked men to scare the family into paying, prosecutors say. At one point, Nass allegedly told the person that if the son refused to pay, he could not act like a human being toward him. Nass also allegedly promised to pay the person at least $15,000 for helping with the scheme, giving $5,000 up front and the rest once the son paid Nass, authorities said. A federal lobbying disclosure form filed in January shows that Nass listed Joseph Schwartz as a client for the final three months of 2025. Nass digitally signed the form, which reported that his firm earned an estimated $100,000 during that period for lobbying work, including efforts described as federal presidential pardon advocacy. The disclosure aligns with the fact that Trump pardoned Schwartz in November 2025. Schwartz had pleaded guilty in federal court in 2024 for his role in a $38 million employment tax fraud scheme tied to nursing homes he owned nationwide. Schwartz ran the New Jersey-based Skyline Management Group, which was at the center of the fraud investigation. Nass was arrested outside a New York hotel the same day he was scheduled to meet with the cooperating witness who helped investigators build the case. His attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the Associated Press. The Independent has contacted representatives for Nass through his website, as well as the White House, for comment. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice New photos have been recovered from cameras at Nancy Guthries Arizona home as the local sheriff warns that her kidnapping suspect could absolutely strike again. The 84-year-old mother of Today show star Savannah Guthrie has been missing for more than 40 days and authorities are yet to publicly identify the man they believe abducted her from her home in the affluent Catalina Foothills neighborhood, just outside of Tucson, in the early morning hours of February 1. Early in the investigation, authorities released video of the armed suspect, appearing to tamper with Nancys front doorbell camera the day of her disappearance. Now, several outlets report that new photos have been recovered as authorities try to piece together what happened to Nancy and where she may be. ABC News reported Friday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, that the new photos were taken from motion-activated cameras pointed at Nancys swimming pool, backyard and side yard before the suspected abduction. People were seen in the back and side yards, but nothing was deemed suspicious, according to the sources. open image in gallery New photos have been recovered from cameras at Nancy Guthries Arizona home as the local sheriff warns that her kidnapping suspect could 'absolutely' strike again ( AP ) The cameras didnt catch anything the day Nancy was believed to be taken from her home as she slept, which one source told ABC News was odd. Fox News later reported, citing a law enforcement official, the FBI does not plan to release the new photos yet. In a statement shared with The Independent Friday, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said it continues to analyze various forms of evidence in the Nancy Guthrie case, including material from laboratories as well as images and videos captured by cameras. The department would not comment further on the analysis. The FBIs Phoenix field office told The Independent it does not comment on ongoing investigations. open image in gallery The 84-year-old mother of Today show star Savannah Guthrie has been missing for more than 40 days ( NBC/Today via Reuters ) Also Friday, NBC News correspondent Liz Kreutz asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos on the Today show whether he believes Nancys suspected kidnapper could strike again. "Well, absolutely, absolutely," he said. "I mean, criminal minds are criminal minds." Nanos said authorities believe they know the suspect's motive but wouldnt share details. "We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted, but we cant were not 100 percent sure of that, and so itd be silly to tell people, 'Yeah, dont worry about it. Youre not his target.' No, you could be, Nanos warned. The sheriff said authorities are also looking into a possible internet disruption the day Nancy vanished, telling Kreutz, There was a timeline when things went offline. So were looking into that. Why did that occur? We checked with our power companies. We checked with others in the neighborhood." open image in gallery Early on in the investigation, authorities released video of the armed suspect, appearing to tamper with Nancys front doorbell camera the day of her disappearance ( FBI ) In addition to the combined $200,000 reward the FBI and local officials are offering for valuable information in Nancys case, the Guthrie family is offering $1 million to bring her home. In an Instagram video posted February 24, a visibly emotional Savannah acknowledged that her mother may not still be alive, but said, We still believe that she can come home. Savannahs last post was on March 2. She shared a photo of yellow flowers at a makeshift memorial outside her mothers home and wrote, We feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country. Please dont stop praying and hoping with us, the Today show star wrote. Bring her home. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Virginia man accused of illegally selling the gun used by a former National Guard service member in a shooting inside an ROTC class at Old Dominion University has been arrested. Kenya Chapman, 32, of Smithfield, appeared in federal court Friday after being charged with dealing firearms without a license and three counts of making false statements during firearm purchases, according to the Department of Justice. Investigators say Chapman sold a .22-caliber Glock 44 to Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the Virginia Army National Guard accused of using the weapon in Thursdays attack, killing Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, a military science instructor, and wounding two students, before he was fatally stabbed by another student. Jalloh was prohibited from possessing guns because of his prior felony conviction, according to prosecutors. Despite that restriction, Chapman allegedly sold him a stolen handgun with a partially obliterated serial number just days before the attack, officials said. Chapman faces up to 35 years in prison, if convicted, though a federal judge will ultimately determine his sentence. open image in gallery Kenya Chapman, 32, of Smithfield, Virginia, appeared in federal court March 13 on charges of illegally selling the gun used by the Old Dominion University shooter and making false statements ( AP ) open image in gallery Police investigate the scene where alleged gunman Mohamed Jalloh, a former National Guard service member, shot and killed an ROTC instructor and wounded two students ( AP ) Agents searched Chapmans home Friday and questioned him about the gun, according to court filings. Chapman allegedly first claimed he found the gun in the woods, but later admitted he had stolen it from a car in Newport News about a year ago and recently sold it to Jalloh for $100, prosecutors said. Jalloh was released from federal prison in 2024, about two and a half years early, after completing a drug treatment program, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. He had been sentenced to 11 years in 2017 for providing material support to ISIS. Chapman told investigators he met Jalloh through work and claimed the buyer said he needed the gun for protection while working as a delivery driver, documents allege. Although Chapman was aware that Jalloh had served time in prison, he denied knowing that Jalloh was a convicted felon or about his intentions to use it in the attack, according to investigators. Federal prosecutors say Chapman had previously come to the attention of law enforcement in connection with suspected straw purchases, which are when someone buys guns on behalf of another person who cannot legally acquire them. In 2021, investigators found he had purchased three guns later recovered at crime scenes, including one linked to a homicide, though he was not prosecuted at the time, the affidavit states. If you steal firearms, lie on federal forms, and put weapons in the hands of convicted terrorists, this FBI will find you, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. I want to thank our Norfolk Field Office and partners who continue to work 24/7 to bring to justice those responsible for yesterdays attack. In the meantime, we continue to keep the victims, their families, and the entire Old Dominion community in our prayers. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice NieJohn Woods still remembers the day his family changed forever. In the weeks and months after Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans in 2005, the Woods family was just struggling to survive when another tragedy struck. NieJohn watched his mother break down in tears as she knelt over his unresponsive baby brother, after feeding her child, desperately pumping the infants chest and breathing into his tiny body, trying to bring him back to life. Nearly two decades later, he watched his mother break down again as a Louisiana parole board denied her request for release from prison. I was shocked and angry, he said after watching the hearing over Zoom last month. Tiffany Woods, now 46, has spent nearly 20 years incarcerated for the death of her five-month-old son, Emmanuel, who died of malnutrition after the storm devastated the city and its supply chains. In February, Woods appeared before the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole hoping the hearing would focus on the person she has become after nearly two decades behind bars. Instead, her oldest son said, it felt like the past was on trial again. I went into the parole hearing thinking that parole hearings are conducted to of course determine if an incarcerated person poses a risk to public safety if released from prison, NieJohn said. And to assess her readiness to enter society as a law abiding citizen. But the DA opposition was focused on the past, he concluded. open image in gallery Tiffany Woods is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after giving cows milk to her malnourished baby in 2005. She was up for parole in February 2026, but was denied ( Louisiana Board of Pardon and Parole ) A death during Katrina Baby Emmanuel was born prematurely in 2005 and released from Tulane Hospital just two weeks before Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans, forcing the evacuation of roughly 500,000 people and crippling access to food, medicine and baby supplies. During the parole hearing, Tiffany Woods described the chaotic weeks that followed. She testified that after drinking formula, Emmanuel would throw up in large amounts. When she ran out of government vouchers that provide infant formula for low-income families, she made what she later described as a devastating decision - she diluted cows milk with water and fed it to the baby. He was no longer throwing up the way he did while taking the formula, she said during the hearing. A baby under the age of one year should not be given cows milk, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is because it doesn't provide enough nutrients an infant needs, and it can be hard for some babies to digest the protein and fat in cow's milk, causing belly pain, vomiting and diarrhea. When baby Emmanuel was born, he tested positive for a metabolic deficiency, which makes the body unable to break down certain fats, according to The Marshall Project. A follow-up was scheduled for August 29 the day after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued an evacuation order, and they never made the appointment. Woods admitted she was in survival mode and did not know what else to do to feed the child in the confusion of the evacuation. The baby died from malnutrition in November 2005, according to autopsy results. In 2008, Tiffany Woods and the babys father Emmanuel Scott were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. A second-degree murder charge doesnt require proof that anyone intended to harm him. Brady OCallaghan, who prosecuted the case, argued that the babys parents should have tried to get help. Ms. Woods and Mr. Scott had the complete custody and care of this child, he said. And they watched it die of starvation and dehydration in a city that at that time was doing everything it could to reach out to evacuees and in a place where medical care is available to anyone who needs it. In 2023, Tiffany Woods sentence was reduced to 32 years, making her eligible for parole in 2026. open image in gallery NieJohn was just eight years old when his baby brother died, but he vividly remembers his mother calling 911 ( Provided ) A hearing focused on the past During the February 10 parole hearing, several prison officials and supporters testified on Woods behalf, painting a picture of an inmate who had spent nearly two decades working to rehabilitate herself. While incarcerated at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, Woods completed seminary training and Blackstone Career Education courses for inmates studying paralegal work. She mentors and counsels other incarcerated women and has no disciplinary record. Kristen Thomas, the prisons warden, told the board, She is not a disciplinary problem. We dont have any issues with Tiffany. The entire time that Ive been here with her. She is low risk and low needs. NieJohn believed that was the point of parole - to find people who have been rehabilitated. Instead, he said, the hearing turned back to the crime itself. Leone Fitzgerald, director of the Caddo Parish District Attorneys Victim Assistance Program, who was representing the state, portrayed Woods as a mother who had options but chose neglect. She argued against Woods release as she presented heartbreaking photos of a malnourished baby Emmanuel from 2005. open image in gallery While incarcerated, Woods completed seminary training and Blackstone Career Education courses for inmates studying paralegal work. She mentors and counsels other incarcerated women and has no disciplinary record ( Provided ) Fitzgerald also said her office was getting a little tired of hearing about that (Hurricane Katrina) because, while we dont undermine that, I know it had to be chaotic and stressful and unprecedented, but it wasnt a reason for Miss Woods to not feed her baby, she told the board. While two of the board members voted for Woods to be granted parole, the third, who voted against parole, praised her progress but said she was ultimately swayed by images presented as evidence. Without an unanimous decision required for release, Woods would remain behind bars. Well, I went in there thinking she only needed two out of three votes, but turns out she needed a unanimous agreement in order to be accepted for parole, NieJohn told The Independent after the decision. So I am a bit shocked and angry because one of the parole board members changed her vote based on photos of my dead brother and the DAs opposition, of course. To him, the hearing felt less like a review of rehabilitation and more like a retrial. Like the point of the parole hearing and the point of prison is when a person successfully do those things. You still look at what happened in 2005, he said. Its almost as if, in my opinion, youre being retried in a way. Or at least youre ignoring all the progress or youre choosing to ignore the progress. A family torn apart NieJohn was just eight years old when his baby brother died and he remembers his mother calling 911. So it wasnt as if she just stood there and waited for them to show up, he said. She was trying to bring him back to life. Pumping his heart and trying to breathe life into him. After Tiffany Woods arrest, their family fractured. NieJohn and his younger brother TroyJohn were placed together in a foster home, while sisters Nyla and Elisha were placed in another home. The siblings cycled through foster care and relatives houses. open image in gallery After the babys death, and their moms arrest, NieJohn and his younger brother TroyJohn were placed in a foster home, while sisters Nyla and Elisha were placed in another home. The siblings cycled through foster care for years ( Provided ) So, yeah, the family was completely broken apart, and the state didnt make sure we stayed together as siblings, he said. They painted it as if theyre doing justice for the family in regards to the death of my baby brother, but I feel like the least they could have done was make sure the remaining living siblings were together, you know. She is not the same person Now an adult, NieJohn has served in the Air Force and lives in California. He had hoped his mothers release would allow him to return to Louisiana and reunite their family. I know we all lost something that day, he said. I lost a brother, she lost a son. We were put in foster care. So much happened to us because of this. Our family was shattered. Instead, NieJohn watched his mother collapse emotionally during the hearing as she spoke about Emmanuel. She couldnt even speak and she was very remorseful, he said. And you could see the defeat once she didnt receive all three votes. After the hearing ended, he called her. She feels defeated, he said. It was kind of heartbreaking. Shes devastated. She was saying that she doesnt want to go through that again. She cant take it. open image in gallery In February 2026, Tiffany Woods described the chaotic weeks that followed Hurricane Katrina and how their family fought to survive before the baby died ( Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole ) open image in gallery Two out of three board members voted in favor of parole for Tiffany Woods. She was denied parole by one vote as a unanimous decision was needed. Her next opportunity to go before the board will be in five years, her son said ( Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole ) NieJohn believes his mother has changed and that she should be given another chance. The point of prison, I thought, was to, in a way, rehabilitate you. And I believe she was. I believe she was successfully rehabilitated, he said, and I think my moms character was proven too. That shes changed because the person she is today is not the same person she was in 2005. I mean, even as humans, free humans, Im not the same person that was in 2005, he added. We change for either the better, the worse, but in this case, she changed for the better. For now, though, better wasnt enough and Tiffany Woods remains behind bars. But her son says hes still trying to hold onto hope for both of them. Advertisement BusinessCompaniesAI Opinion Are bots coming for tech jobs, or is it AI-washing? Colin Kruger Senior business reporter March 15, 2026 5:00am March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A The highlight from Australias road to AI job carnage last year was Matt Comyns Commonwealth Bank hitting a pothole and having to reverse call centre job cuts that were meant to have been irreversibly crushed by the rising tide of AI capabilities. There will be no such reprieve for the 300 workers the bank laid off in an announcement last month, as it also unveiled a new plan for helping workers adjust to AI-driven workplace changes. Thousands of tech job losses have been announced by three of Australias most successful startups. Matt Willis But as the Ides of March approached this year, it was some of Australias biggest tech success stories that were ready to give thousands of their employees a bitter taste of AI reality. It started last month with logistics software titan WiseTech announcing that up to one-third of its workforce would be cut. New CEO, Zubin Appoo, declared that the era of manually writing code as a core job activity is over. Advertisement Were halving the human capacity, but were significantly increasing the overall capacity through agentic AI, he said. That same week, Afterpay owner Block unveiled a 40 per cent staff cull around 4000 employees globally, including Australia. Something has changed, Block founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said in a post with all lower-case text, obviously designed to convey that even an eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire understood the gravity of the situation. Mike Cannon-Brookes was a no-show at Melbournes Formula 1 Grand Prix last week, where Atlassian is a team sponsor, as he prepared to cut staff. Alamy Stock Photo Were already seeing that the intelligence tools were creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. And thats accelerating rapidly, he said. Advertisement The clear message is, AI is eating the sort of coders that brought it to fruition. FOBO fear of becoming obsolete because of AI has become a real concern for tech workers. It is a taste of the coming era of what Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei calls a country of geniuses inside a data centre a reference to his prediction that AI models will surpass human cognitive abilities in most tasks by next year. But this week, an ashen-faced Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, had a slightly different take on the theme of AI dominance, as he announced 10 per cent of its workforce, or 1600 workers, are casualties of the AI revolution. Block chief executive Jack Dorsey has cited the rapid progress of AI models to justify the job cuts. AP We fundamentally believe people and AI create the best outcomes. Our approach is not AI replaces people. But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesnt change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does, Cannon-Brookes said. Advertisement His sobering video was the most honest of the three when it comes to stating what was actually driving the job cuts: money. Amodeis country of geniuses inside a data centre is not to blame just yet. Related Article Updated Software Losses growing, staff cut: Atlassians billionaire boss faces his AI test To focus on Atlassian first, the last thing that Cannon-Brookes can afford to admit is that his company is replacing its tech workers with AI. The existential threat that has sent its stock price plummeting over the past year by more than 60 per cent, and slashed billions from his net worth, is the very idea that Atlassians customers will be able to replace their workers with AI and reduce the number of workers who need Atlassians products. In a worst-case scenario, who needs Atlassians tools to track software development if its all done by AI? Advertisement Cannon-Brookes admitted that one of the main reasons for the loss-making Atlassian to cut workers is so it can spend more adapting its products to AI, before AI native rivals eat its lunch. As one tech veteran put it: Atlassian isnt replacing workers with AI. AI-native tools and vibe-coded apps are replacing Atlassian. So, where does that leave WiseTech and Jack Dorseys Block, which aggressively advocated for the idea that AI could make huge swathes of their respective workforces redundant? It may have more to do with how AI is hitting their stock prices. To critics, it is nothing more than AI-washing a term that describes companies that use the new technology to provide cover for cuts to bloated tech workforces. WiseTech co-founder Richard White (left) and CEO Zubin Appoo in November. Sitthixay Ditthavong Advertisement Lets start with Dorseys Block because, well, Dorseys corporate style needs some explaining. Last October, he flew in his 10,000-plus workforce to the mother of all staff parties in California, which was so over the top Block investor and board member Jay Z was on the guest list that its $100 million financial imprint was unmissable in the company accounts. Zachary Gunn, a senior analyst at Financial Technology Partners captured the investor sentiment perfectly when the numbers were revealed in Blocks accounts late last year: Its hard to take a company seriously regarding reaching bottom-line targets when its spending ~$US70m on a large-scale event for employees. Gunns views on the recent job cuts were no less withering. When I look at the overall employee number, this is more about the business being bloated for so long than it is about AI, he said. Advertisement Keep in mind that Elon Musk managed to cut 80 per cent of Twitter (now X) when he acquired the business and Dorsey exited the building. The key numbers at WiseTech are just as important. Related Article Jobs The week AI came for Australian jobs Last year, WiseTech made its biggest acquisition, buying the embattled e2open for $3 billion. A crucial detail is that while the US logistics solutions group was just a fraction of WiseTechs market valuation, it walked in the door with more employees than its new parent. Advertisement Last year, e2open had 3900 staff. WiseTech had 3300 employees in 2024 and the combined group had 7000 when the cuts were announced last month. Cutting 2000 employees from a combined group with a lot of skill overlaps should not raise a sweat whether AI is displacing jobs or not. Even Amodei in his most recent essay on AIs impact said AI is likely not displacing jobs right now. This view is backed by Aussie job search group, Seek. Job ads across the board have been stabilising over recent months, after a long period of slow decline from mid-2022 onwards. There is nothing our data currently shows that points to any specific decline at the role or industry level as a result of AI, a Seek spokesperson said. But Amodei warns that the apocalypse is coming, as per his famous prediction from last year that it will replace entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years. Advertisement Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei has been at the forefront of AI experts warning of AIs impact. Michaela Pollock Previous technology shocks only impacted a small range of human abilities, leaving higher tasks for humans to reach for. This may no longer be the case, he argues. Another way to say it is that AI isnt a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labour substitute for humans, he says. But what will happen to these tech workers who will be the first to find their skills redundant? This week, an alternative AI career path emerged from the worlds largest asset manager, BlackRock, which announced it would invest $US100 million to address the professional shortages in the US, which threaten AIs growth: Electricians, plumbers, ironworkers and heating, ventilation, and cooling systems technicians. Advertisement America needs an estimated $US10 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2033 to modernise ageing systems and build new energy, digital, and AI infrastructure. Capital alone is not enough people are central to building our nations future, BlackRock chairman and CEO Larry Fink said. It sounds a world away from Jay-Z, foosball and free lunches. The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning. Advertisement Eating outRestaurant news Celebrated Melbourne chef dies at 59 Teage Ezard, the chef responsible for venues including Gingerboy and Ezard, was diagnosed with an incurable neurological disease in 2024. Emma Breheny and Roslyn Grundy March 14, 2026 Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Celebrated Melbourne chef Teage Ezard, responsible for venues including Gingerboy and Ezard, has died age 59. He was diagnosed in October 2024 with an incurable neurological disease, multiple system atrophy cerebellar type. The cerebellar type causes poor muscle co-ordination, with symptoms including difficulty chewing and swallowing, changes in vision, and slurred speech. Chef Teage Ezard, pictured in 2017. Simon Schluter Chef and restaurateur Alla Wolf-Tasker (Lake House Daylesford) expressed her profound heartbreak for Ezards wife and family, remembering Teage as a stalwart of a particularly buoyant era in Melbournes restaurant scene. Friend and fellow chef Shane Delia described Ezard as a trailblazer. Advertisement When I started, Teage was the rock star of chefs before there were any celebrity chefs. He cooked without fear, Delia said. Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox. Sign up Ezard began his cooking career in the 1980s with an apprenticeship under Hermann Schneider, who ran the decorated Two Faces for more than 20 years in South Yarra. From that classical foundation, he went on to Fitzroys tiny Guernica in the 1990s before opening his eponymous restaurant in the basement of the Adelphi Hotel on Flinders Lane in 1999. Dishes showcased the beginnings of his signature blend of different Asian influences, such as oyster shooters with mirin and tamari, steamed scallops with green chilli and peanut, and fried pork hock with chilli caramel. Ezard at Adelphi scooped up two Good Food chefs hats upon opening and went on to win Best New Restaurant in The Age Good Food Guide the following year. Advertisement He was an original, says chef Ian Curley (Baix, ex-The European). For all us Britpack [chefs], he was the local who we looked to for what to do. Ezard was named Chef of the Year in the 2003 edition of the Guide, and mentored many of todays leading chefs, including Chin Chins Benjamin Cooper and Jarrod Di Blasi (ex-Izakaya Den). Teage Ezard with his wife Tina in July 2025. Peter Tarasuik Eye-catching Gingerboy arrived in 2006 on Crossley Street, part of Melbournes burgeoning laneway dining, and continued Ezards experimentation with cornerstone Asian ingredients in a style he later described as Australian freestyle. Key dishes included stir-fried stingray with green curry paste and coconut cream, and caramelised wagyu beef cheek with rock sugar sauce. There wouldnt be that sort of modern Australian, pan-Asian cuisine without chefs like Teage, Delia said. Especially in Victoria, where weve made it an identifiable part of our culinary DNA. Advertisement Wolf-Tasker said she first heard about Ezard through Guernica in the mid-90s. I went to see what the noise was about and who this young upstart was and was blown away. Curley says that Guernica under Ezard stuck out like a shining light ... He did really push the envelope. Gingerboy was part of a wave of mod-Asian restaurants in the late noughties. Other career accomplishments include three cookbooks Ezard, Lotus and Gingerboy and restaurants in the Yarra Valley, Sydney and Hong Kong. Advertisement The chef closed his namesake restaurant in June 2020 when the lease at the Adelphi expired and in the midst of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Gingerboy closed in April 2024. Last year, Ezard and wife Tina shared his diagnosis and their experience with the progressive disease in an interview with Good Weekend. The couple established a charity, Combat MSA, to raise awareness and provide support to others living with a diagnosis, as well as their carers. A sold-out fundraising dinner planned for March 24, with food by Andrew McConnell and other high-profile chefs, will likely double as a celebration of Ezards life and legacy. Delia described Ezards illness as devastating but noted: He never pitied himself. He was always positive, even right up to the end. Advertisement Teage Ezard plating one of his best known dishes, pork hock with chilli caramel, at Ezard Restaurant in 2014. Fairfax Media Food writer and former MasterChef judge Matt Preston told Good Food that its rare for chefs to come up with dishes you still remember 30 years later. Teage created three: parmesan olive oil, which he served with bread as a starter, the oyster shooter, and crispy pork hock, which is still in my top 10 Melbourne dishes of all time. Just thinking about that double-cooked, crunchy pork hock makes my mouth water. Guernica, Preston said, helped announce Melbourne to the world as a fine-dining destination. Teage Ezard opened Guernica in the 1990s. Fairfax Photographic Advertisement Former Good Food Guide editor Rita Erlich said Ezards approach to cooking was outward-looking and contemporary. He was very open to outside influences, but always put his own stamp on them. He really understood how flavours went together. Beyond that, Erlich said, Ezard recognised restaurants needed to be consistent, and that great wines and service needed to be part of the picture. Service at his restaurants was always particularly good but without pretension. In 2019, The Age reported some chefs at Ezard and Gingerboy were working many hours of unpaid overtime each week. In response to questions from this masthead over the weekend, the Fair Work Ombudsman referred to a 2020 statement that it assisted employees of Ezard and Gingerboy to recover unpaid wages and entitlements. There was no litigation and no enforceable undertaking. Advertisement Teage Ezard as a young boy. Ezards family referred The Age to a statement they released late on Saturday afternoon, which reads: It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share that our beloved Teage Ezard has passed away after a long and devastating battle with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). For the last couple of years, Teage fought this cruel and relentless disease with the same fierce determination that defined every part of his life To the world, Teage was a celebrated chef and a creative force who helped shape Australian dining for decades. To us, he was so much more; a devoted husband, father, son, brother and friend whose presence, passion and determination touched the lives of so many. Advertisement Chefs posted condolence messages on social media throughout Saturday and Lord Mayor Nick Reece also issued a statement, describing Ezard as a visionary whose creativity reshaped the way Melbourne dined. This story was updated on March 16, 2026 with information from the Fair Work Ombudsman. Advertisement Updated NationalRoyalty Frederik and Mary visit Australias best known landmark Tess Ikonomou and Aaron Bunch Updated March 15, 2026 12:24pm ,first published March 15, 2026 9:59am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Denmarks King Frederik and Queen Mary have ended the first leg of their Australian visit with a sunrise trek to a famous Uluru watering hole. The royal couple woke before dawn on Sunday to walk to Mutitjulu Waterhole in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park with traditional owners. King Frederik X and Queen Mary visit the Muitjulu Waterhole in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Getty Images The culturally significant site is one of the few permanent water sources around the sandstone monolith and a regular attraction for visiting dignitaries. It welcomed the late princess Diana and then prince Charles, now King, during their 1983 British royal tour, as well as the Dalai Lama in 2015. Advertisement Later on Sunday, the royals were welcomed at Government House by Governor-General Sam Mostyn. There was a 21-gun salute, which Frederik and Mary observed from the grounds at Yarralumla. Queen Mary and King Frederik X of Denmark sign the visitors book at Government House in Canberra on Sunday. Alex Ellinghausen King Frederik X of Denmark inspects the Guard of Honour during a ceremonial welcome. Alex Ellinghausen Simeon Beckett, Queen Mary of Denmark, King Frederik X of Denmark and Governor-General Sam Mostyn at Government House. Alex Ellinghausen Frederick and Mary touched down in the red centre on Saturday for a six-day state tour, their first official trip to Australia since ascending to the throne. Advertisement The monarchs made their way into the cultural centre under grey skies for a guided tour and ceremonial dance called Inma that connects traditional custodians, the Anangu, to their ancestors. King Frederik X and Queen Mary pose for photos in front of Uluru. Getty Images Denmarks King Frederik X and Queen Marys six day tour also includes visits to Canberra, Melbourne and Hobart. Getty Images Queen Mary said it was great to be home while snapping pictures at Ulurus sunset viewing site. Weve been so much looking forward to the visit and to start the visit here in the centre of Australia is quite something, she said. Advertisement Denmarks King Frederik X and Queen Mary visiting Uluru. Getty Images Denmarks King Frederik X and Queen Mary are escorted park rangers to view Uluru. Getty Images And to experience Uluru for the first time and to meet with the Anangu people and hear a little bit about their spiritual and cultural connection to the lands. Its been a really great start to what will be an exciting visit here. The royals will head to Canberra on Sunday for more activities, including a 21-gun salute at Government House and a dinner hosted by Governor-General Sam Mostyn. The pair will also meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his wife Jodie Haydon, before departing for Melbourne and Hobart. Advertisement The royal visit aims to deepen trade ties between Queen Marys adopted and home countries, with a focus on clean energy. Denmarks King Frederik X and Queen Mary are entertained by a ceremonial song and dance at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre at Uluru. Getty Images King Frederik X and Queen Mary at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre. Getty Images Their delegation includes Denmarks deputy prime minister, ministers for foreign affairs and climate and more than 50 Danish companies. Frederik and Mary were proclaimed Denmarks king and queen in a ceremony attracting wide fanfare in January 2024. Advertisement The event marked their 20th year of marriage. Loading Mary Donaldson and Frederik met in a chance encounter at a Sydney pub during the 2000 Olympic Games. Then aged 28 and working in marketing, the future queen had no idea she had crossed paths with Denmarks party-boy crown prince. The last time the royals visited Australia officially was 13 years ago. This is their fourth tour together. Advertisement They are likely to spend time in Tasmania with Queen Marys relatives, including her elderly father John Donaldson. King Frederik and Queen Marys four children, Crown Prince Christian, 20, Princess Isabella, 18, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine,15, are unlikely to join their parents on the tour. AAP Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share More: Royalty Queen Mary King Frederik Uluru Advertisement PropertyNewsVictoria residential property Inside the stunning homes three Melbourne architects designed for themselves Emily Power March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Architects dedicate their careers to designing for others. But when the tables turn, and they conceive their own home, it may become a testing ground, a theoretical display or an example that clients want to emulate. For architect Martin Friedrich, designing his newly listed family home at 58A Champion Street in Brighton brought his philosophies to life, but within reason. Although the townhouse reflects his and wife Claire Friedrichs tastes and design language, they considered what would make it sellable. Its market driven; we wanted to have the elements that people have in a private house, he says. When creative freedom meets this practical nous, the outcome can be inspirational. Its our most successful project in some ways, and weve had a lot of clients who have said, Absolutely, were having one like this, Martin says. The couple are selling the sculptural, four-bedroom property, named The Atrium House, through Kay & Burton. Its striking internal atrium is a calling card for clients of Martin Friedrich Architects. Its become a major part of what we do now putting a central atrium in houses, Martin says. Advertisement The atrium is visually spectacular, and connects family members wherever they are in the home. Because the heart of the house is the glazed atrium, really were all together, Claire says. We can always see each other. Martin and Claire Friedrich in their Brighton home. Simon Schluter Martin examined how lighting would play off the atrium. We didnt want to use down lights, so we created LED lights that wrap around the walls, he says. I went to the house when it was just at frame stage with my associate, and we covered the walls at night in paper and stuck the LED lights at the top, and we experimented to see how they would work. The Friedrichs have decided to sell. Simon Schluter Advertisement We knew we created something really special. Related Article Victoria residential property How much it costs to live in the best city in the world Kay & Burtons Matthew Pillios is guiding $5.7 million to $6.25 million for the property. He says prospective buyers are drawn to the cachet and quality of buying an architects own abode. There have been a lot of fans who wanted to come and see it for inspiration, he says. Its got people talking. They say, Weve always wanted Martin to build us a house, but now we can actually buy his house. There is an element of fascination and satisfaction when architects flip the brief onto themselves. Advertisement Feras Raffoul, principal of FGR Architects, has proposed an all-stone kitchen to past clients, but they hesitated because they wanted to see a precedent. Now, they can experience it in his family home, Concrete Curtain at 27 Jackson Street in Toorak, which is on the market through Marshall White. The kitchen is an edge-to-edge study in the beauty of Aquarzo quartzite. When we push the realms of architecture and interiors and present those to clients, they say, I like the idea, but have you done that before? Raffoul says. Now, it is a signature item. Feras Raffoul at home in Toorak. Timothy Kaye Concrete Curtain was a finalist at the 2023 World Architectural Festival Awards. It is the second home Raffoul has designed for himself but the first alongside his wife, architect Sarah Chang-Raffoul. Youre able to refine it because then there are two sets of eyes, he says. We looked at each other about three months after we moved in, and decided we wouldnt do anything differently. Advertisement The home takes its name from the columns that veil the facade for privacy. The concrete throughout is a blend of white and grey and so instead of leaning severe and dour, its graceful and warm. The interiors have surprised people, Raffoul says. The mindset is that concrete is brutalist, but weve been able to use that product to provide a very soft, calm and elegant outcome. Related Article Victoria residential property The gentle yet profitable solution to Melbournes housing crisis What weve done internally has really changed peoples viewpoint. However, the value has not been in creating a showpiece, but in understanding how the design functions, especially with two young children. Presenting something like this is one part, but living in it for the last three years and using it day in, day out, thats by far the most important, Raffoul says. I feel that architecture has gone down a path where everyone looks at a product and judges it purely on its visuals. No one really understands how well that architecture is behaving for the occupants. For me, that is very high on the agenda. Advertisement Marcus Chiminello, of Marshall White, is handling the sale, with a guide of $12.5 million to $13.5 million. Chiminello says it is where design and liveability unite. It pairs a striking concrete facade with light-filled interiors and refined natural materials, creating a home that feels both architecturally significant and wonderfully comfortable to live in, he says. Architects are natural problem solvers. Jos Tan took a conundrum and designed the Mary Poppins carpet bag of urban homes. Jos Tan designed a Brunswick West home. Jason South Tan and his partner were house hunting and dismayed by poor-quality inner-city housing. Melville, their three-bedroom Brunswick West property, was a response. The home is set on a small block. Jason South Advertisement The three-storey home, finished in 2023, packs plenty on a 90-square-metre site. The principal of Tan Architecture did not stray far from his usual design process because budgets, constraints and opportunities are a typical playbook. The home includes a rooftop deck, two living areas, two bathrooms and a study. A dedicated bike garage, behind a galvanised steel door that opens onto the street, was a particular desire that Tan incorporated. The bike garage. Jason South I think just about every house Ive lived in in the past never had any real consideration given to bike storage, he says. Tan was conservative with materials and tones, to ensure long-term enjoyment. I liked the idea of keeping things neutral and simple, and then letting our lives fill in the colour and the texture, he says. Advertisement Designing for himself meant faster decisions. Sometimes even on the fly, which was quite important during construction, he says. However, collaborating with a client was an aspect he keenly missed. I enjoy that process of incorporating their ideas and their tastes into the project, Tan says. Often, that produces delightful results one that is greater than the sum of its parts. Property listings 110 LPG cylinders seized across Nagpur division Staff Reporter : In a drive to curb black-marketing of domestic LPG cylinders amid rumours of shortage, the Food and Civil Supplies Department conducted inspections across the Nagpur division and seized 110 cylinders during a special enforcement operation. Vijayalakshmi Bidari, Divisional Commissioner, informed that a total of 163 LPG distributors and gas godowns were inspected across all districts of the division under the supervision of district collectors. The cylinders and related materials worth Rs 1,07,926 were seized during the operation. The enforcement drive was launched following rumours of LPG shortage linked to the ongoing conflict in West Asia and concerns over possible diversion of domestic cylinders to commercial establishments. According to officials, the highest number of inspections were carried out in Gadchiroli district where 70 distributors were checked. In Bhandara district, 37 distributors were inspected, while 17 were inspected in Gondia. In Nagpur district, the District Supply Office inspected 19 locations and the Food Grain Distribution Office inspected three locations. Wardha district recorded 15 inspections, while two surprise raids were conducted in Chandrapur district. Anil Bansod, Divisional Supply Commissioner, said that five offences were registered during the operation and one person was arrested. Two cases were registered Contd from page 1 in Chandrapur district, one in Gondia and two by the Nagpur District Supply Office. Monitoring commercial LPG use Officials said the administration is also closely monitoring the use of commercial LPG cylinders to prevent misuse of domestic cylinders meant for household consumption. In Nagpur district, the administration has deployed 14 special monitoring teams across various talukas to check hoarding and black marketing. These teams are inspecting commercial establishments to ensure that domestic cylinders are not being used illegally. Authorities said the monitoring has been intensified to prevent panic-driven hoarding and diversion of LPG supplies. Special district committees formed To ensure uninterrupted LPG supply and maintain coordination during any potential crisis, the State Government has decided to form special committees at the district level. These committees will include the District Collector, Superintendent of Police, District Supply Officer and officials from State-owned oil companies. Divisional Commissioner Bidari appealed to citizens not to believe rumours linking the conflict in West Asia to shortages of LPG or other essential commodities. She urged residents to avoid unnecessary crowding at gas agencies and warned that panic-driven hoarding could create artificial shortages. Panic, confusion prevail among LPG consumers n Business Reporter While panic and confusion among LPG consumers in the city continued on Friday, cylinders were being sold in the black market at inflated prices. The domestic category 14.2 kg LPG cylinders were reportedly sold at a premium of Rs 400-500 in many parts of the city. According to the sources, there is a huge demand for LPG cylinders from small eateries, dhaba and restaurant owners. In many parts, these commercial category consumers are buying residential category cylinders. For the fourth day in a row, the on-line booking systems of all the oil marketing companies remained non-functional and the frustrated consumers were seen visiting gas agencies. Long queues of consumers was also visible at some of the godowns of gas agencies. Citizens were spotted carrying LPG cylinders in their cars, two-wheelers and bikes. Interestingly, many customers visiting the gas godowns managed to get the refill after spending three to four hours. In the meanwhile, most of the gas agencies in the city once again claimed they have sufficient stock of residential category LPG cylinders. Some of the gas agencies are accepting refill booking through whatsapp giving respite to the consumers. One of the dealers told The Hitavada that his agency is receiving sufficient stock from the oil marketing company. We are delivering nearly 20-25 per cent more cylinders for the past three to four days. However, its demand has gone up by 60-80 per cent, he said. The agency owner also said that the shortages are particularly hitting restaurants and commercial establishments and not the residential consumers. agarwalas: Two Worlds One Vision By Aasawari Shenolikar : Tourism and real estate - two sectors that are worlds apart. Yet, the Agarwala family, in a relatively short span of time, has successfully carved a niche for themselves, and at present have a strong presence in both the segments. Today, when one mentions Tathastu, it is Anil Agarwala who immediately comes to mind. And when the conversation shifts to SDPL Pvt Ltd, the focus naturally turns to Gaurav Agarwala. The fields are definitely diverse, but the family functions as a cohesive unit. So, if Anil Agarwala is speaking about the tourism sector, he can just as easily field questions on infrastructure and real estate. The same ease is evident when Gaurav discusses hospitality. During an engaging conversation on The Hitavada's The People Mic with Aasawari Shenolikar, Deputy Editor & Digital Head, Anil Agarwala, Founder of Exotic Hospitality Pvt Ltd., talked extensively about the tourism in Central India. Meanwhile, Gaurav Agarwala, Director at SDPL Pvt Ltd, spoke with Vikas Vaidya, Principal Correspondent, about the changing landscape of real estate in Nagpur. Entering the tourism sector was not by choice - it was by chance, says Anil, narrating an interesting anecdote about how the journey began. By sheer quirk of fate, this chance turned out to be a defining moment, giving birth to Tathastu Resort at Pench National Park. Today, the company operates resorts under the Tathastu brand in some of Central Indias most sought-after wildlife destinations -Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, Satpuda National Park, Kanha National Park and Bandhavgarh National Park. And we are now scouting remote locations in Melghat Tiger Reserve and surrounding forest areas to lay a foundation there too. After that, perhaps we will look at other parts of the country, says the self-confessed jungle lover, who has laid down strict sustainability norms for all his properties. Sustainability, in fact, forms the backbone of the Tathastu philosophy. Comfort and convenience of the visitors is our top most priority; along with this we have also ensured that while designing the properties the natural environment is undisturbed, states Anil Agarwala. He also apprises that local communities are involved in the operations at the resorts, creating employment opportunities, and artisans from nearby villages are encouraged to showcase their craft - ensuring that local culture finds a place within the tourism experience. India, with its extraordinary wealth of heritage, monuments, forests and history, could have been a tourists' delight. But the country has yet to realise its full tourism potential, feels Anil Agarwala. Safety, he says, remains a major concern. Tourism is heavily promoted by word of mouth. Unfortunately, incidents like thefts or crimes against tourists create a negative perception. The way we treat visitors sometimes leaves much to be desired, he says candidly. Equally important, he adds, is the need for a mindset shift when it comes to preserving our heritage. India, he believes, has all the ingredients to become a global tourism hub - provided private players are encouraged to invest in improving connectivity, sanitation, accommodation and infrastructure around tourist spots. And Exotic Hospitality Pvt Ltd., is doing its bit - by putting India on the global tourism map. On the other side of the familys business spectrum lies real estate - an area where Gaurav Agarwala has been closely involved with the citys growth story. According to him, the past decade has been particularly transformative for Nagpur. Thats because the State Government, the Central Government and city authorities were on the same page. Their vision was aligned, he notes. Having worked in this sector, I can say with confidence that Nagpur is ahead of many comparable cities. Much of the credit goes to visionary leadership that pushed for development. Infrastructure projects - including the expansion of roads and the introduction of the Nagpur Metro - have played a major role in reshaping the city. Equally significant, he says, has been the speed at which projects have been cleared and executed. The result is a city that is not only more liveable but also increasingly attractive to people from surrounding districts. With global companies now making inroads into the city, new opportunities are opening up across sectors. For SDPL, the turning point came in 2017 with the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. That was when we entered the EWS housing segment, Gaurav says. Today, we can say with satisfaction that we have delivered more than 3,500 homes - 1BHK and 2BHK units - to economically weaker sections. For many families, it was the realisation of a lifelong dream. Foresight, he believes, has been the companys biggest strength. When the flyovers on Amravati Road were announced, we invested in land along that stretch. We then developed premium housing societies with modern amenities - but priced them at nearly half of what buyers would pay in the citys prime localities. With improved connectivity, the so-called city centre is just an eight minutes drive away. The projects offered upper middle-class buyers premium living options without the premium price tag. Their project in Wadi, he points out, is already a complete sell out. Identifying areas that are poised for growth because of upcoming infrastructure and investing there early has been a strategy that has consistently worked for the company. Gaurav also believes strongly in approaching challenges with solutions rather than criticism. He cites his involvement in revisiting the UDCPR mandate that required housing complexes to install solar heaters. Given Vidarbhas climate, he argued that solar energy systems would be far more effective. The argument was logical, and eventually the policy was modified, he says. For home buyers, he offers a word of caution. While the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has brought in much-needed transparency, buyers must still carefully examine the credentials of the builder. Buying a home is a once-in-a-lifetime investment for many families. Due diligence is essential, he advises. He also recommends opting for a home loan even if one has the resources to pay outright. Banks conduct rigorous legal checks before approving loans. That itself acts as an additional layer of security for the buyer. Transparency, he emphasises, remains a core value for SDPL. Their worlds might be different - the vision is the same - transforming Central Indias future. All this and much more can be watched on The Hitavadas YouTube channel - @TheHitavada1911. n HC gives Govt 5 weeks to submit Union Carbide factory soil, groundwater assessment plan JABALPUR : The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday gave the State Government five weeks to submit a plan for assessment and remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater in and around the defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. At least 5,479 people were killed and thousands were maimed after highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal in the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984. A division bench of Justices V K Singh and A K Nirankari took on record an affidavit filed by the State Government that sought more time to submit the plan. In its affidavit, the State Government said that a meeting was held on March 3 with the Additional Chief Secretary of Health and other officials to invite organisations capable of carrying out such assessment and remediation. In this meeting, discussions took place on various issues, including the assessment of remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater, detoxification and decontamination of the corroded structure of Union Carbide plant, and time-bound remediation of site. A decision was made to initiate the process and issue a short tender for these works from the empanelled list of 'reference organisations' prepared by Central Pollution Control Board under Environment Protection (Management of Contaminated Sites) Rules 2025, the State Government said. The court is hearing a clutch of petitions aimed at making the area pollution-free. Rachna Dhingra of NGO Bhopal Group for Information and Action, who attended the hearing, told PTI the state government was supposed to provide the plan on Friday but couldn't and requested an extension. Minister Rakesh Singh graces procession on 1010th birth anniv of Maa Karma Devi Staff Reporter : A grand procession was taken out in the city on the occasion of 1010th birth anniversary of Bhakt Shiromani Maa Karma Devi, revered deity of Sahu community and an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna. Thousands of devotees, including women, elders and youth participated in the procession. State Public Works Department Minister Rakesh Singh along with MLA Lakhan Ghanghoria, Mayor Jagat Bahadur Singh, Dinesh Yadav and Ravikiran Sahu flagged off the procession after ceremonial worship and aarti of Maa Karma from Malviya Square. Addressing the gathering, PWD Minister Rakesh Singh said Maa Karma Devi symbolises devotion, love and service for humanity. Though she was born in the Sahu community, her life and devotion have inspired people across society. Referring to the well known story associated with her offering of khichdi to Minister Rakesh Singh graces procession on 1010th birth anniv Lord Krishna, he said her firm devotion showed that God values sincere love more than rituals and formalities. Programme convenor Ravikiran Sahu said Maa Karma Devi holds a special place in the faith of the community. According to tradition, she used to prepare khichdi with devotion and offer it to Lord Jagannath. Her deep devotion is reflected in the saying, Maa Karma ka bhaat, jagat pasare haath. Colourful tableaux depicting the life of Maa Karma, along with themes based on Lord Jagannath, Lord Shiva, Sher dance and traditional performances such as Masane ki Holi and Dul-Dul Ghodi were the highlight of the procession. A 65-member dhol-tasha troupe from Nagpur added to the festive atmosphere. Abha Deepak Sahu, Kailash Sahu, Pradeep Sahu, Advocate Arjun Sahu, Shrikant Sahu, Rameshwar Sahu and others participated in the event. Man booked for hindering Government work... Engineer Dinesh Pal, where they engaged in heated arguments regarding electricity disconnection and threatened to lodge a counter complaint. Mukherjee alleged that the accused intentionally created obstruction in official work, abused Government officials and issued life threats, leaving him shocked and apprehensive about his safety. Acting on the complaint and evidences, including a video CD and copies of electricity bills, Omti Police registered a case under Sections 132, 296(a) and 351(2) of BNS and started investigations. Superintending Engineer, City Circle, Sanjay Arora informed that the company has issued a notice to consumer after it was found that multiple domestic electricity connections were installed at a single residential premises, which is against the prescribed rules. According to notice issued to Chandrakant Singh for four domestic electricity connections 1886002361, 1886000385, 1883000829 and 1886001782 have been installed within the same premises. The department has asked consumer to submit documents within three days if electricity usage at the premises is being carried out separately by different occupants. Documents required include property registry papers, partition deed, rent agreement, Samagra ID, gas connection documents, or other relevant proof of separate occupancy. Mark Rankin, professor of English at James Madison University, will speak on William Tyndales English New Testament and its Influence on the English Language as Candler School of Theologys 2026 Morgan Forum keynote lecturer on Thursday, April 2. Hosted by Candlers Pitts Theology Library, the Morgan Forum seeks to engage the public in better understanding the long and complex process that resulted in the Bibles English translation. The event is named for the librarys J. Michael Morgan English Bible & Psalmody Collection, a unique collection made up of more than 5,500 volumes of English Bibles and other related literature that ranges as far back as the 16th century to today. The collection highlights the importance of the English Bible to the church and the world. This years forum centers on That the scripture should come to light: William Tyndale and 500 Years of the English New Testament, with Rankins lecture highlighting the impact of Tyndales translation of the English New Testament. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Rankin has published widely on English Reformation literature and culture and the history of reading in the early modern era. He was principal investigator for a major National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarly Editions and Translations grant on The Independent Works of William Tyndale. His current projects include an edition of William Tyndales The Practyse of Prelates, under contract with Catholic University of America Press. Dr. Mark Rankin is one of the worlds foremost scholars on William Tyndale, says Richard M. Bo Adams Jr., the Margaret A. Pitts Distinguished Director of Pitts Theology Library and associate professor in the practice of theological bibliography. As we mark the 500th anniversary of the first printed English New Testament, Dr. Rankin will help us understand the impact William Tyndale has made not only on the text Christians read but the English language as a whole. We look forward to Dr. Rankin exploring how much of our language, including phrases we use in different contexts, are the creation of this one man who rarely receives the credit he is due. In addition to Rankins lecture, the forum will also feature presentations from the 2025-26 Morgan Fellows. Made up of current students from Candler and Columbia Theological Seminary, where collection donor Michael Morgan served for many years as organist, Morgan Fellows engage in original research on items in the collection. During the forum, they present their findings. Their research will also be published as a digital exhibition on the librarys Digital Collections site. This years Morgan Fellows are: Ayodele John Alonge, Master in Practical Theology student, Columbia Theological Seminary Sergio Gabriel Chois, Master of Theological Studies student, Candler School of Theology Kwon Hosey, Master of Divinity student, Columbia Theological Seminary, and a graduate of Candlers Master of Theological Studies program Tina Linne Willoughby, Master of Arts in Religion and Leadership student, Candler School of Theology At Pitts, our mission is not only to preserve and collect treasures from the past, but to make sure that new generations are learning from them, says Adams. The Morgan Forum continues that work, demonstrating the value of collecting and studying these treasures from the past while continuing the educational endeavors that defined Michael Morgans work. The 2026 Morgan Forum will be held on campus and via livestream. Advance registration is needed for either option. Schedule of events 1-2:15 p.m. (Rita Anne Rollins Building, Room 252) Presentations from the Morgan Fellows 2:15-3:15 p.m. (Candler Atrium) Reception and gallery exhibition 3:15-4:15 p.m. (Rita Anne Rollins Building, Room 252) Lecture by Mark Rankin: William Tyndales English New Testament and its Influence on the English Language Register to attend in person or online. Despite the United States allowing the transit of Russian oil, the European Union has no plans to change the price cap imposed on Moscows crude. AzerNEWS reports that Siobhan McGarry stated at a briefing that sanctions against Russia and the oil price cap remain fully justified and will continue to be enforced. She noted that the mechanism has helped limit Russias energy revenues while maintaining stability in global oil markets. McGarry emphasized that Washingtons temporary exemption for transit Russian oil does not alter EU policy, describing the U.S. decision as a limited, time-bound exception. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also stressed in her March 11 speech to the European Parliament that returning to Russian energy resources would be a strategic mistake for the EU. Some circles propose abandoning our long-term strategy in the current crisis and returning to Russian fossil fuels. This would be a strategic error, she said. The same stance has been echoed by the United Kingdom. On March 13, UK Energy Secretary Michael Shanks stated that despite tensions in the Middle East and around the Strait of Hormuz, London does not plan to ease sanctions on Russian oil. In a social media post following the meeting, Goyal said the discussions focused on strengthening the India-Korea economic partnership and exploring opportunities to expand trade and manufacturing. "Held a meeting with Mr. Yeo Han-Koo, Trade Minister, Republic of Korea. We had constructive discussions on strengthening the India-Korea economic partnership. Also discussed ways to deepen trade, encourage greater manufacturing and exports from India, and unlock new opportunities for our businesses," Goyal said in the post on X. He added that both sides reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing investment, expanding supply-chain collaboration and working towards a more mutually beneficial trade relationship. India and the South Korea share longstanding historical and cultural ties spanning over two millennia. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1973 and have since steadily strengthened their economic engagement. According to data from the Department of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the bilateral trade between India and Korea stood at USD 26.89 billion during FY25. South Korea is also a significant investor in India. The Republic of Korea is India's 13th largest foreign direct investment (FDI) investor from April 2000 to March 2025, with total investments amounting to USD 6.69 billion. Key sectors that have attracted investment from Korea include metallurgy, automobile, electronics, prime movers, machine tools, hospitals and diagnostic centres. As economic cooperation between the two countries continues to expand, bilateral trade between India and South Korea is expected to reach USD 50 billion by 2030. India's exports to Korea stood at USD 5.82 billion during FY25, with the country exporting around 3,200 commodities to the Korean market. Major exports from India to Korea include engineering goods valued at USD 2.6 billion, petroleum products worth USD 964 million, organic and inorganic chemicals worth USD 730 million, other items valued at USD 205 million, and drugs and pharmaceuticals worth USD 187 million during FY25. (ANI) VMPL New Delhi [India], March 14: The International Ambassadors Summit 2026, by the United Nations Consultative and Observer Status organization, the World Association for Small and Medium Enterprises (WASME), and supported by NBCC (India) Ltd., a public sector government enterprise, was successfully held at NBCC Commercial Towers, New Delhi. The summit was organized under the theme "From Diplomacy to Development: Embassies and Businesses Enabling Global Cooperation." The summit witnessed participation from diplomats, policymakers, and business leaders representing more than 40 nations, including 17 Heads of Missions, making it one of the most significant diplomatic-economic engagements focused on MSME collaboration, global partnerships, and international business cooperation. In his Welcome Address, Dr. Sanjiv Layek, Executive Secretary, WASME, highlighted the growing role of economic diplomacy in enabling global trade, innovation, investment flows, and MSME-led development. The Opening Remarks were delivered by H.E. Prof. (Dr.) K. C. Jankee, President, WASME, followed by the Inaugural Address by Shri K. P. Mahadevaswamy, CMD, NBCC (India) Ltd. The summit featured Country Presentations by Ambassadors and senior diplomats, who showcased their nations' business ecosystems, trade opportunities, and investment priorities. The event also included a High-Level Panel Discussion exploring the role of diplomacy as a catalyst for economic growth, cross-border collaboration, and sustainable development. The event was supported by strategic partners NBCC (India) Ltd., Heylin Spark, Athena Ventures, and OSEL, reinforcing strong collaboration between diplomacy, industry, and enterprise. Heylin Spark, a global PR, marketing, and brand strategy firm, played a key role as the PR and Marketing Partner in the success of the International Ambassadors Summit. Founder & CEO, Shubham Sharma, in his special address and vote of thanks, emphasized the importance of global cooperation and collaborative partnerships in driving meaningful international dialogue and sustainable global development. Among the distinguished special guests was Dr. Basant Goel, CEO & Founder of Goel Medicos, widely known as the "Blood Man of India." Dr. Goel has transformed Goel Medicos from a local pharmacy into a nationally recognized symbol of philanthropy, spearheading record-breaking medical camps and promoting affordable healthcare initiatives across communities. The summit also featured insightful sessions and panel discussions with eminent speakers including Shishira Bhowmik, CEO & Founder, The Gut Odos; Aviekal Kakkar, Principal Auditor, FSSAI; Rohan Shah, International Athlete & Social Activist; and Manish Kumar Agrawal, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer, Office Solution AI Labs. One of the key highlights of the summit was the felicitation of over 30 distinguished business leaders for their outstanding contributions to innovation, enterprise growth, employment generation, ethical leadership, and international leadership excellence. - Aviekal Kakkar, Principal Auditor, FSSAI -- Outstanding Leadership in Food Systems Assurance - LibertasPro -- Innovation Excellence in Blockchain Ecosystem Development - Naveen Kumar Saraswat, National President, All India Drinking Water & Sanitation Employees Federation, National Association for JJM SBM-G Consultants (Ministry of Jal Shakti) -- For Excellence in Political Leadership & Governance - Govind Prasad, Chairman, Siddharth Jan Sewa Trust -- Excellence in Social Work - Dinesh Rajpurohit, Chairman, Eleanor Industries Pvt. Ltd. -- Excellence in Aluminium Extrusion - Devendra Jain, Chartered Accountant -- Excellence in Insolvency & Corporate Revival - Dr. Vishnu Modi, Astrologer & Vastu Consultant, Vishnu Modi Consultant -- Excellence in Astrology & Vastu Sciences - Sanam Kapoor, Partner, Playright Sourcing -- Outstanding Excellence in Women Entrepreneurship - Harita Mehta, Advocate, Mehar Legal Services -- Woman Changemaker of the Year in Law & Social Justice - Dr. Rishi Mudgil, Founder, Agrit Bharat Initiative -- Excellence in Geopolitical Thought Leadership - Saurabh Kumar, CEO & Founder, Shiksha Nation -- Excellence in Online Education & Learning Innovation - Sandip Paul, Founder, Easy Access Services -- Excellence in Government to Citizen Services and Thought Leadership - KIET University -- Excellence in Technical Education, Private University in India - Vishal Popat, Founder, Travel@7thGear -- Emerging Leader in Holiday Home Management - Kishor Kumar, Managing Director, National Balgandharva Kala Academy Pariwar -- Excellence as Iconic Educationist and Social Activist - Prashant Kaushik- Excellence in IT Industry - Dr. Ranjana Rajora Sharma, Creative Author & Educationist -- Excellence in Education and Transformation Leadership - Rajiv Kumar Gupta, President, Cain Technology -- Excellence in Cyber & IT Industry - Rakesh Prajapati, CEO & Founder, SVP Infotech -- Excellence in IT Industry - Meena Sharma, Principal, Great India Public School -- Excellence in Value-Based & Cultural Education - Sakshi Mehta, Director, EEU Education Ltd -- Excellence in Global Student Mobility & University Partnerships - Dr. Sourabh Nagpal & Dr. Poonam Monga Nagpal, Directors, Matrix Dental and Skin Lounge -- Excellence in Comprehensive Dental & Cosmetic Care, Delhi NCR - Amit Singh, Founder and Visionary, AVatara Defence Pvt Ltd -- Excellence & Innovation in Defence Technologies - Umakanta Pani, Managing Director, CRAPTS -- Excellence in Road Safety - Kapish Singh Sanga, Investment Banking Analyst, Bardi Co. -- Excellence in Global Investment Banking & Capital Markets - Dr. Devi Santosh Kumar Karakavalasa, Founder & CEO, R&D Ideal Bridge Pvt Ltd -- International Visionary Leader in Entrepreneurial Transformation - Dr. Raju Akurathi, Co-Founder, R&D Ideal Bridge Pvt Ltd -- Excellence in Leadership for Sustainable SME Growth - Gralit India Biotech Pvt Ltd -- Excellence in Hospitality and Corporate - Amit Kumar Singh, Senior Correspondent, Sudarshan News -- Excellence in Journalism (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.) Call for Just and Fair Delimitation Weed out the infiltrators | It should be obvious to all, particularly to Delhi and Imphal. The Campaign for Just and Fair Delimitation (CJFD) is intent on making its stand that census and thereby delimitation, should come only after an exercise to weed out the illegal immigrants is conducted, is heard. This sounds perfectly logical and reflects the reality, a reality which has compelled the Government of India to fence the porous Indo-Myanmar border and more strictly regulate the Free Movement Regime (FMR). Check incursion from across the border and while the two indigenous groups of people, the Meiteis and the Nagas, have cried foul against the incursion from across the border and have backed the call to update the NRC, it stands that the Nagas are up against the border fencing at areas which they claim are their ancestral lands. The fencing would cut off the same stock of people living on either side of the border, is their line of argument and while it is acknowledged that the Nagas are not known to be a wandering tribe or a migratory group of people, the reality facing them should not be missed. What is happening at Litan and in some areas along the Ukhrul-Kangpokpi border should be clear to all and it was with a reason why The Sangai Express had on more than one occasion referred to the write up by a young Naga researcher on how the number of Kuki-Zo MLAs have increased over the years since 1972 while the number of Naga representatives has gone down. In short, it has always been the Nagas, as a community, which is the first to be affected due to the gradual incursion from across the border. This point should be acknowledged for if census is taken as it is now, then the possibility of many of those who have entered illegally, being counted as citizens of the land cannot be wished away. This is the number one point in the stand of the CJFD. The need to look at it from a broader canvass cannot be over emphasised. If delimitation is carried out now, without weeding out the illegal immigrants, and the ST seats is increased from say 20 to 25, does this guarantee that the new addition of five seats will mean a hike in the number of Naga MLAs or from some other community ? It should also not be forgotten that the 40 seats which are there in the valley are open seats, meaning anyone can contest and get elected from these seats, while in the case of the seats in the hill areas, they are reserved. Not even Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Congress leader Rahul Gandhi can contest from any of the 20 seats. Things should be clear and the stand of the CJFD should be understood in the correct perspective. Just and Fair, these are the two key words. It is up to the Government and its think tank to decide what mechanisms ought to be put in to weed out the illegals and only bonafide citizens are given the right to decide who should represent them either in the Assembly or Parliament. And communities which are indigenous to the land should have no complaints against this. In fact all should join hands to mark, identify and weed out those who entered illegally but are today enjoying all the perks and benefits of bonafide citizens of the land. What is happening at Litan and the surrounding areas should be more than a lesson for the people of the land and if corrective steps are not taken up now, then what may happen in the coming decades is something that needs no specialised knowledge to understand. It should also be made clear that the campaign for just and fair delimitation is a drive not for the benefits of only the valley Constituencies but is an effort to ensure that the Assembly seats of Manipur are meant only for the genuine citizens of the land. This much must be made clear to everyone so that mischief makers are not given any room to create misunderstanding amongst the people. Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand has put it on record in the Assembly that delimitation will come about only after the SIR exercise is conducted, but it should be kept in mind that SIR may not exactly be the mechanism to weed out illegal immigrants. Voting rights should be given only to genuine citizens of the land and not those who may have entered the land during the Burmanisation programme of Ne Win in 1967. PNN Gurugram (Haryana) [India], March 14: The SGT College of Pharmacy and the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research at SGT University successfully organised Pharma Anveshan 2026, a national confluence of academia, industry, research, and innovation in pharmacy, sponsored by the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI). The event was held at the university campus. The programme was organised on the occasion of National Pharmacy Education Day, commemorating the 124th birth anniversary of Prof. Mahadeva Lal Schroff, widely regarded as the 'Father of Pharmacy Education in India.' The event was centred around the theme "Future Pharma Ecosystem: Fostering Synergy among Academia, Industry, Research, Regulatory and Practice." The event was graced by Dr. Montu Kumar M. Patel, President of the PCI, who attended as the Chief Guest. Other distinguished dignitaries included Lalit Goel, Drugs Controller, Food and Drug Administration, Government of Haryana; representatives from State Pharmacy Councils from the state of Haryana and Delhi, pharma academicians, and industry leaders. The inaugural session began with the ceremonial lighting of the lamp, followed by the launch of the PCI achievement booklet. Prof (Dr.) Atul Kumar Nasa, Pro-Vice Chancellor, SGT University, stated in his inaugural address, 'I always say I am a pharmacist' because pharmacy plays a crucial role in healthcare. For students, it is a profession that combines knowledge, service, and endless growth opportunities. Highlighting the role of the pharmaceutical sector during the pandemic, he remarked, During the COVID-19 pandemic, when most sectors were shut, the pharmaceutical industry continued working relentlessly to ensure the availability of life-saving medicines and vaccines. This dedication truly demonstrated the invaluable role pharmacists play in safeguarding global health." Dr. Patel highlighted the national outreach of the initiative and said, Through 25 Pharma Anveshan programmes organised across India, we aim to create awareness among students about the vast career opportunities in the pharmaceutical sector and the government's initiatives to keep pace with this rapidly evolving field. The platform also enables students to interact with industry experts, gain valuable insights, and bridge the gap between academia and industry." He further added, " The PCI is actively strengthening pharmacy education and practice through skill development programmes, curriculum reforms aligned with the National Education Policy 2020, technology-driven inspections, and initiatives such as GPAT scholarships, national exit examinations, and clinical pharmacy training, ensuring pharmacists in India are well-equipped for the evolving healthcare ecosystem." Addressing the students, Lalit Goel said, Earlier, only 17 medical devices were covered under regulatory rules, but with the new Medical Device Regulations, more than 5,000 devices are now included in different categories. This expansion highlights the tremendous growth and career potential of the medical devices industry and the scope for pharmacy students in medical devices. A key highlight of the event was a panel discussion featuring eminent experts from the pharmaceutical industry and academia, moderated by Dr. Vijay Bhalla, Registrar, SGT University. The panel deliberated on emerging trends, regulatory developments, and the role of innovation and collaboration in shaping the future of the pharmaceutical sector. The event also included "Chaai Pe Charcha," an open interactive session that enabled meaningful interaction among industry representatives, academicians, and students. A parallel principals' meeting with representatives from the PCI and state pharmacy councils facilitated discussions on strengthening pharmacy education and regulatory coordination in the Delhi-NCR region. Participants also showcased their research and innovation through poster presentations, patents, and innovation displays, highlighting novel ideas and technological advancements in pharmaceutical sciences. The valedictory session concluded with oral presentations, prize distribution, and a vote of thanks, celebrating the contributions of students, researchers, and industry partners. Through Pharma Anveshan 2026, SGT University reaffirmed its commitment to promote academic excellence, innovation, and collaborative engagement to strengthen the future of pharmacy education and professional practice in India. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.) Every working morning, roughly 93 lakh people squeeze into Mumbai's suburban trains, a number so staggering that the network is fast approaching one crore daily riders. On the city's busiest recorded day, January 5, 2026, Central Railway alone ferried 72.18 lakh commuters, and Western Railway moved 52.07 lakh. If you have ever taken a suburban train on a weekday in Mumbai, you know that it is the lifeline of Indias financial hub, and that it needs a plan to tackle this surge. The railways now have a detailed answer. In a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question on Friday, Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw laid out the full scope of India's investment in Mumbai's suburban network, across three phases of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). Big numbers for Mumbai suburban rail Three successive phases of MUTP have together committed 52,724 crore to expand Mumbai's rail infrastructure. MUTP-II (8,087 crore), MUTP-III (10,947 crore) and the ongoing MUTP-IIIA (33,690 crore) together cover new rail corridors, additional platforms, pit lines and stabling yards across the city. The push in capacity is headlined by the procurement of 238 new rakes, each with 12 cars fitted with doors, unlike older open-door rakes, sanctioned under MUTP-III and IIIA at a cost of 19,293 crore. The procurement process has been initiated, informed the minister. These will add thousands of seats daily to a network that, according to Central Railway's own data, already runs 1,820 suburban services per day, including 94 air-conditioned local services. New lines and corridors The infrastructure buildout includes 12 specific line additions and extensions. Among the most significant: a 26 km Borivali-Virar 5th and 6th Line (2,184 crore), a 64 km Virar-Dahanu Road 3rd and 4th Line (3,587 crore), a 7 km Goregaon-Borivali Harbour Line extension (826 crore) and a brand-new 29.6 km Panvel-Karjat suburban corridor (2,782 crore). A new elevated 3.3 km Airoli-Kalwa link (476 crore) will connect the Harbour Line to the trans-harbour zone, long demanded by commuters from Navi Mumbai. Infrastructure works at stations are also underway, including additional platforms at Jogeshwari, Dadar and Kalyan, and new stabling lines at Virar, Dahanu Road and Mira Road to house the incoming fleet. Safety on track, but gaps remain The railway minister informed the Parliament that Consequential Train Accidents (CTA) have fallen 90 per cent from 135 in 2014-15 to just 14 so far in 2025-26. Moreover, the Accident Index improved 73 per cent from 0.11 in 2014-15 to 0.03 in 2024-25. The anti-collision Kavach Version 4.0 has been commissioned on 1,452 route kilometres on the high-density Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors, with 4,154 locos equipped and 8,570 km of optical fibre cable laid. In FY 2025-26 up to January, Central Railway's suburban network alone carried 120.19 crore passengers, up from 118.79 crore in the same period the previous year. With Mumbai's suburban population continuing to grow, and Metro lines carrying only around 9 lakh daily (nowhere near enough to absorb the overflow), the MUTP pipeline is the best hope for the city's commuting millions. During Operation Sindoor, India's numerous allies remained silent while Pakistan received help from three nations, according to Major General Bagga. The moral of the story is that rising powers like India cannot rely on other nations for help during emergencies and must have in-house solutions ready, he said. Major General Bagga was speaking at the International Conference on Composite Materials and Technologies, organised by Ahmedabad University. "India had 190 friends, but not a single one spoke for it, while Pakistan had three allies who delivered loads of ammunition to it during the operation... A rising power will never have people holding its hand. Every power that has risen has done so because of internal strength," Bagga was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. "We are a rising power, and no rising power has ever made friends. We will get help from nowhere. So, the solutions have to be found in-house," he added. Operation Sindoor was launched on 7 May 2025, in retaliation for the 22 April Pahalgam attack, leading to the decimation of terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan. The three allies that came to Pakistans aid were Azerbaijan, Turkey, and China, who reportedly provided not just intelligence but material support to Islamabad. "We need to sit and decide how to secure this nation. And whatever the composite of the material is, the solutionso be it. I am very optimistic that a solution will be found in-house. Atma Nirbharta will be a success, and India will be Vikasit Bharat in 2047," he added. Bagga pointed out that modern warfare has evolved into a multi-domain format, significantly changing the nature of the battlefield. "When you go on the battlefield, you are required to survive, and then you are required to fight. The whole character of battle has changed. Earlier, there were just three domainsland, sea, and air. Today, warfare has gone into multi-domain with the inflow of cyber, surveillance, information warfare, and electronic warfare, and the nature of warfare is ever-expanding," he said. For survival, he noted, the first priority is material that can withstand the kinetic assault of the enemy. He highlighted India's diverse terrainsfrom deserts to rainy forests and sub-zero temperatures in the Himalayasnoting that the Army's material requirements change across these fronts, posing a challenge to survivability. Bagga said that researchers from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and various industries produce materials that allow the Army to survive. "We don't have the technology to reproduce tank engines and aircraft engines. We don't have a close-quarter battle weapon. And therefore, if India has to become Atma Nirbhar by 2047, security is of prime importance. We need to secure our nation, empower our armed forces, and invest in them," he said. Even as the defence forces of the US and South Korea are conducting their annual springtime exercises involving thousands of troops, North Korea fired nearly 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea on Saturday. The move, which could be perceived as a show-of-force signal, also comes amid the escalating war in the Middle East, and reports that the US has redeployed some air-defence assets from South Korea to support operations against Iran. The annual springtime exercise of the US and South Korea, called Freedom Shield (FS), one of the two command post exercises that the two countries hold, started on March 9 and will continue till 19. The other exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, is held in August. The missiles were fired from an area near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, without mentioning how far the missiles flew. ALSO READ: The deadly $4,000 weapon: How Iran's Shahed-136 is disrupting defence systems and redefining warfare economics The missiles landed in waters outside the country's exclusive economic zone, Japan's defence ministry said, reported news agency PTI. The provocative move comes amid the rapid expansion of North Koreas nuclear weapons programme in recent years, including systems capable of threatening US allies in Asia and long-range missiles that could potentially reach the the US, heightening security concerns in South Korea. The military has intensified surveillance and remains on high alert for potential additional launches, while closely coordinating and sharing information with the US and Japan, North Korean officials stated. For more defence news, views and updates, visit: Fortress India North Korea has long claimed joint USSouth Korea military drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has often used such drills as a pretext to escalate its own military demonstrations and weapons tests. In previous years, North Korea has carried out multiple salvo launches of missiles and artillery, describing them as simulations of nuclear strikes against targets in South Korea. Earlier, according to a report by news agency AP, Col. Jang Do-young, public affairs director of South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said the Freedom Shield will not include scenarios simulating a response to a North Korean nuclear attack, but will feature training designed to deter nuclear threats. Kolkatas Brigade Parade Ground turned into a saffron sea of people as Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched a chord with his supporters at the finale of BJPs two-week-long Bengal Parivartan Yatra. However, PM Modi carefully steered clear of directly lashing out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, lest TMC used it against the BJP as insulting a lady CM. Anirmam Sarkar, or a government without Mamata or love, was the message. Trinamool Congress (TMC) has called everyone coming for this rally a thief, but the people of Bengal know who the real thief is. The government is anirmam, knowing they are losing ground, said PM Modi. Women empowerment Mentions of cut money, scams, lack of development and jobs for the youth have been made, while the BJP is also increasingly focusing on the women empowerment message along with women's safety. Newspaper advertisements focussed on Bikoshito Bangla, Bikoshito Bharat, which is PM Modis vision to empower women. TMC has a strong women voter base with a woman CM at the helm, which the ruling party cashes in on. The BJP wants to break that image in the minds of women voters and make them look at the saffron party and PM Modi as their mascot for women's safety. Modi reminded the crowd of the 2024 land grabbing and exploitation of women case of Sandeshkhali, along with the government-run RG Kar rape of an on-duty trainer doctor, assuring his supporters that the guilty would not go scott free. Here the anirmam government shields rapists and saves the accused, he said. I assure women of this land, give BJP a chance, women will be safe and the accused will be in jail. It is Modis guarantee. The PMs emphasis on the disrespect of women moved towards President Draupadi Murmus recent visit to Siliguri in North Bengal for a programme by the tribal community, where the venue was shifted and no one from the state government was present to receive her as per protocol. Our President, daughter of the Adivasi community Draupadi Murmu, had come to Bengal. She was to participate in a programme for Santhals. But in her arrogance, didi did not just disrespect the chair, but created an atmosphere of insult. Because one Adivasi daughter is at such a top post, TMC could not accept that. Draupadi Murmu who is known for her silence, had to raise the issue herself, said the PM. TMC has to remember this: they not only insulted Draupadi Murmu, but also crores of Adivasis. They have insulted crores of women. They have insulted the respect of Bengal. They have insulted the strength of India, they have insulted the fabric of India, they have insulted Babasaheb Ambedkar. They (TMC) will get a response from the people of Bengal; the anirman government will get the response, said the PM while using strong words to hit out at Mamata on her soil. TMC-BJP clashes, attack on minister Sashi Panjas house BJP supporters have alleged that stones were pelted on their buses at Girish Park in central Kolkata, attempting to stop them from going to the rally. The incident left BJP supporters with minor injuries. The TMC sharpened its attack on BJP, alleging that the saffron party supporters had vandalised Women and Child Development Minister Dr Sashi Panjas house, which is in the same area. Buses carrying outsiders, miscreants and BJP supporters hurled bricks, glass bottles and bombs at my house which on the main road at Girish Park, said Dr Sashi Panja. Do not lie to the people. This incident was pre-planned. And I will file an FIR against it. You were planning to kill. Every bus had such weapons, and they attacked us while they were going to the rally," Dr Panja added. The BJP rally saw a huge turnout from its supporters, who were calling for parivartan (change), including other aspects like removal of infiltrators while also being careful to show their support to Hindu migrants who are not in the infiltrator category. Election dates are to be announced soon by the Election Commission of India for five states going to polls in about a month from now. Notably, both the TMC and BJP are raising the stakes for what is seen as a high-voltage election. The government, on Saturday, dismissed claims that Iran had launched "a heavy strike" on an Indian-flagged oil tanker allegedly called the Oil Brothers Kraft. The video of the alleged attack on the Indian-flagged tanker went viral amid reports of Tehran attacking vessels attempting to pass through the Hormuz Strait, which it officially closed as a part of the ongoing chaos in the Gulf. The account that had reposted it, titled 'Iran Press', had even claimed that the Indian vessel had taken "significant damage". Several handles are circulating a video on social media claiming that #Iran launched a heavy strike on an Indian oil tanker.#PIBFactCheck: This claim is fake. This video has been created using AI technology. Please remain vigilant. Do not forward such sensational pic.twitter.com/tUSInW03q2 PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) March 14, 2026 "This claim is fake. This video has been created using AI technology," the Press Information Bureau (PIB) wrote in an X post on its fact-checking account. Notably, THE WEEK could not find the Oil Brothers Kraft on any AIS tracking websites. Besides, the Iranian ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, even confirmed on Friday that Indian-flagged vessels would be allowed to cross the embattled Hormuz Strait without harm. "Yes, because India is our friend. You will see it within two or three hours. We believe that Iran and India share common interests in the region," Fathali said. AIS data shows that the attacked bulk carrier 'Mayuree Naree' is among the 22 vessels that the Deendayal Port is expected to handle over the weekend. (deendayal port 22 vessels dpa, hormuz strait iran us war israel, maritime news cargo record)https://t.co/BGDzajgUhA THE WEEK (@TheWeekLive) March 13, 2026 "As ambassador in India, I say that the government of India in this situation, after the war, helped us in different fields," he added. As a result, two Indian-flagged oil tankersthe Shivalik and the Nanda Devicarrying approximately 92,700 metric tonnes of LPG have safely transited the Hormuz Strait, and are expected to reach India on March 16-17. This comes after the crude oil tanker Shenlong on Wednesday became one of the first vessels to successfully cross the Hormuz Strait, carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura Port to the Mumbai Port. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit West Bengal on Saturday to launch a series of development projects worth approximately Rs 18,680 crore in Kolkata, ahead of the states assembly elections scheduled for April-May. Modi's visit comes amidst a politically charged atmosphere in the state, following the publication of the electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The ruling Trinamool Congress has raised concerns over what it claims is a mass deletion of voters from the list. During his visit, Modi will address a BJP rally at Kolkatas iconic Brigade Parade Ground, marking the conclusion of the party's statewide 'Parivartan Yatra' ahead of the polls. The yatra, seen as the BJP's largest mobilisation effort in recent years, began on March 1, a day after the revised electoral rolls were published. Covering nearly 5,000 km, it criss-crossed 237 assembly constituencies across the state. The BJP, which made significant gains in the 2019 and 2021 elections as the main opposition party, is now aiming to oust the Trinamool Congress from power. Reports suggest that the party plans to take a more strategic, Bangla-centric approach rather than going after every seat in the upcoming elections. The Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule next week. The SIR process has become a political flashpoint in the state, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staging a dharna against the exercise, accusing the Election Commission of being influenced by the Modi government. Official data released on February 28 reveals that 63.66 lakh namesaround 8.3% of the electoratewere removed from the voter list following the SIR revision, reducing the state's voter base from 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore. Additionally, more than 60.06 lakh electors have been classified under the "under adjudication" category, meaning their eligibility will be determined through legal scrutiny in the coming weeks. Among the major projects Modi will inaugurate on Saturday are several National Highway initiatives, spanning over 420 km and valued at approximately Rs 16,990 crore. The prime minister will also inaugurate and lay the foundation for multiple shipping and port-related projects. In the railway sector, Modi will flag off the Purulia-Anand Vihar Terminal (Delhi) Express and inaugurate six redeveloped railway stations under the Amrit Station Scheme. PNN New Delhi [India], March 14: Goenka Jewellers is one of the leading brands in lab-grown diamond jewellery in India. In the ever-evolving luxury jewellery landscape, Goenka Jewellers emerges with the perfect blend of timeless elegance, sustainability, and modern technology. Goenka Jewellers is set to open another store in Kolkata by March 20, 2026, to provide an indulging experience to all the customers with their stunning lab-grown diamond jewellery. Goenka Jewellers is dedicated to offering lab-grown diamonds crafted from CVD techniques at the most affordable prices. For many years, they have been working tirelessly to educate their buyers about the lab-grown diamond jewellery at pioneering stores in Kolkata and Delhi. With this experience, they are set to open a new store in Kolkata to offer an indulgent and informative shopping experience. With skilled artisans and modern technologies, Goenka Jewellers' lab-grown diamond earrings jewellery is a regal and sustainable choice. Goenka Jewellers takes pride in offering 1-carat to 18-carat lab-grown diamond jewellery, with personal customizations. In addition, they also specialize in solitaire diamond jewellery. By choosing them, you are choosing sustainability and elegant designs at affordable prices. At their global website and physical boutiques, they offer special customization for each piece, so you can flaunt pieces crafted to your preference. Their extensive, stunning collection of lab-grown diamond jewellery includes: 1.Lab-Grown Solitaire Diamond Jewellery 2.Lab-Grown Diamond Earrings 3.Lab-Grown Diamond Necklaces 4.Lab-Grown Diamond Rings 5.Lab-Grown Diamond Bangles 6.Lab-Grown Diamond Bracelets 7.Lab-Grown Diamond Pendants With the profound understanding, Goenka Jewellers offers 100% exchange offers and a lifetime warranty. They do not just offer a safety net for a lifetime, but also an IGI and GIA certificate for each piece of lab-grown diamond jewellery. About Goenka Jewellers Goenka Jewellers was founded in 2006 by Ashok Goenka and Arpan Goenka. Earlier, it was known as Goenka Jewellers Private Limited, but later transitioned to a proprietorship structure. Goenka Jewellers serves customers worldwide through its website and offers a real experience at physical boutiques in Kolkata and Delhi. Along with their pioneering stores, they are set to open another in Kolkata on March 20, 2026, at Camac Street, Kolkata, West Bengal. Contact Information Company Name: Goenka Jewellers Contact/Helpline Number: +919830096144 / +919830252262 Email ID: sales@goenkajewellers.com Website: https://goenkajewellers.com/ (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.) Stunning his friends and foes alike, Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has announced the details of the Musi River embankment and beautification project on March 13 in a gathering of city public representatives, officials, leaders of construction companies, and dozens of journalists at the 'Musi Invites' event in Hyderabad. In his passionate one-hour speech, the CM touched upon different aspects, mostly the disputes, of the project and explained how this project could change the face of Hyderabad and serve as a tourism and investment magnet. Musi is a river formed after the merger of Musa and Esa streams at Langar Houz in Hyderabad. Musa originates in Ananthagiri Hills and Esa in Parigi Hills. They fill the Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar lakes developed by Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam the seventh, before merging and forming the Musi River. Then Musi cuts the Greater Hyderabad region into two parts. The current issues the river is facing is severe pollution and lack of deep-enough flow path and supporting embankment. Due to these issues, the river causes floods and has also become a cesspool. Going by the publicly available data, this could become the longest urban river embankment project in the world once completed. The full project targets the entire 55 km stretch of the Musi River flowing through Hyderabad (from upstream reservoirs like Osman Sagar/Gandipet and Himayat Sagar to downstream areas near the Outer Ring Road junction). Presently, the Ravi River embankment project (46 km) in Lahore, Pakistan, stands as the worlds longest. The Sabarmati Riverfront project is being extended from present 11 km to 38 km. CM Revanth Reddy has visited the iconic Thames in London, the Singapore River project in Singapore, the Sumida River embankment in Tokyo and Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul and sent official teams to study the granular details of their infrastructure. The CM has spoken about the historical necessity to embank the river that often causes severe flooding and turn it into a clear flowing water body from its current state of an unrecognisable cesspool. In 1908, the Musi floods killed more than 15,000 people. The then ruler Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam the seventh, built the Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar to contain water flowing from Musa and Esa streams. When a king could think about Musi more than a century ago, why cant we do it today? Its high time we act and save the river for our own sake, he appealed. Revanth Reddy made it clear that no family would be left uncompensated. He informed that all the 10,000 families were enumerated, houses were being allocated, and all the compensation that they should get would be given. We are working on their livelihood opportunities. Why cant the opposition parties suggest to us what should be done for these families? he questioned. Without naming the parties, he blasted the Bharat Rashtra Samiti and the BJP for blindly opposing the project. He stated that the developed Musi riverfront would change the face of Hyderabad city, attract daily visitors and tourists and transform the city into an investment magnet. He questioned the BRS and the BJP to spell out their reasons for the opposition to the project. We have studied similar projects across the world. Called the global tenders to select top-class consultants to advise on construction and financial models. We are working on relocation and rehabilitation of the families living in subhuman conditions. Your ideas are most welcome, tell me what should be done, he explained. Revanth Reddy challenged the opposition leaders to live on the Musi banks if they think poor families should live there. I will provide container houses with all the facilities. I dare these leaders to live with their family members for three months, he said, adding that these families have been suffering from health issues and the lack of basic infrastructure. Before the chief ministers speech, Musi Riverfront Development Corporation Managing Director E.V. Narsimha Reddy made an elaborate presentation for about 90 minutes, touching upon hydrology of the river, global benchmarks of urban embankment, flood management and east-west mobility corridor, among other topics. Narsimha Reddy showed the flood simulations how the proposed embankment could stabilise the flow. We are 100 per cent preparing the banks to face the highest flood possibilities. The height of the banks is designed for one in 10 years, he said. To ensure the year-long flow, the MRDC is going to revive 1,000 lakes in the city and link them to the Musi River. As the lakes overflow, they release water to the lake next in the chain and finally they join the Musi, he shared. The embankment would have only public spaces and roads, as per the recommendations of the Central Water Commission. The 55-km banks would have a six-lane road on one side and a service road on the other side. This road decreases between the upstream and downstream sections based on terrain and urban needs. The project is being implemented in five phases, with Phase 1 focusing on a 21-km stretch (approximately 9.5-11.8 km from Osman Sagar/Gandipet to Bapu Ghat and 9.2-11.5 km from Himayat Sagar to Gandhi Sarovar, converging at Bapu Ghat, where Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were placed in 1948, along with another 10 cities. This phase includes key components like river cleaning (sewage interception and no inflows), silt and debris removal, hydrology-based riverbed profiling, flood mitigation walls/embankments, slope stabilisation, public promenades, parks, recreational spaces, heritage tourism, 24x7 economic zones, mobility enhancements (east-west corridor), sustainable urban integration and a proposed 123-ft Mahatma Gandhi statue. The tentative cost for Phase 1 is estimated at Rs 6,5007,000 crore (excluding land acquisition and Transferable Development Rights costs; Gandhi Sarovar component worth Rs 200250 crore and statue worth Rs 7075 crore, which is less than 2 per cent of total). Funding includes in-principle approval from the Asian Development Bank for around Rs 4,100 crore (final approval pending), with implementation via public-private partnership mode and global tenders. Land acquisition has begun in key areas, tenders have been invited for rejuvenation works. The overall vision positions Musi as a model for global urban riverfronts. Actor Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) on Saturday rejected speculations about a possible alliance with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections. "There's no scope for an alliance with the NDA. We have already made it clear that the BJP is our ideological enemy," TVK's Joint General Secretary C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar told PTI. Later, in a statement, Kumar appealed to party members not to believe the "rumours" and go by the official announcement of the party. "Various news stories are being spread daily through the media and social media concerning the TVK, based on speculation, aiming to divert everyone's attention from people's problems," he said. His remarks came amid reports suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party has been trying to reach out to Vijay in an effort to bring TVK into the NDA fold. Last week, Tamil Nadu BJP spokesperson ANS Prasad had urged actor Vijay to join the NDA, cautioning that a split in anti-DMK votes could pave the way for the ruling party to retain power. "TVK leader Vijay claims his goal is to block the DMK. If this is genuine, he must align with the AIADMK-BJP alliance," Prasad had said. "Beyond power, seats, or the Chief Ministers post, the focus should be on rescuing Tamil Nadu and ensuring the wrong person does not come to power." BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran, however, remained evasive on Saturday when reporters asked him whether talks for an alliance with the TVK were on. "You are worried about the alliance, and I am concerned about the people's issues, especially the failure of law and order in the state and lack of safety for women," he said. The 234-seat Tamil Nadu Assembly will go to the polls in the first half of 2026. While the DMK-led alliance is set to promote its "Dravidian Model 2.0", the BJP-AIADMK alliance is determined to reclaim power. The entry of Vijay's TVK into the electoral race is expected to make the contest a three-way battle. In the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, the DMK-led alliance emerged victorious, winning 159 seats, with the DMK itself crossing the halfway mark by securing 133 seats. The AIADMK, on the other hand, won 60 seats, while its alliance partner, the BJP, secured just 4 seats. When debris from a successfully intercepted aerial threat, widely attributed to Iran by UAE air defence sources, struck the facade of a building in central Dubai near the DIFC Innovation Hub on March 13, 2026, it did way more damage than it seemed. Investors and market watchers around the world saw cracks in the image that Dubai had spent two decades carefully polishing... an image of an unbreachable, neutral financial sanctuary in a turbulent neighbourhood. The incident was part of a wider and unprecedented wave of missile and drone strikes across the UAE, triggered by escalating US-Israeli military operations against Iran. Dubai's air defence systems successfully intercepted the incoming threat, but falling debris caused minor damage to the facade of a building in central Dubai's financial district, near the DIFC Innovation Hub. For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East Eyewitnesses confirmed debris fell on the Innovation Hub building specifically, sending thick black smoke rising close to the iconic Burj Khalifa. Authorities confirmed no injuries were reported at either the DIFC or an adjacent Dubai Marina site, where a second debris incident occurred the same morning. For global investors and the roughly nine million Indians living and working across the Gulf, it might have hit closer to home than it seems. DIFC is not just any other business park. By the end of 2025, it hosted 8,844 registered companies, generated revenues of $581 million, and was home to 500-plus wealth and asset management firms, a 35 pr cent jump in just one year. Its tenants include marquee names like Citi, PIMCO, Warburg Pincus, and Allianz Trade. Financial services firms hosted in DIFC account for 52 per cent of all FDI flowing into Dubai. When DIFC sneezes, global capital catches a cold The financial fallout of the Middle East crisis had already begun before the March 13 strike. On March 11, firms including Citi, Deloitte, and PwC reportedly evacuated their DIFC offices after Iran's joint military command explicitly threatened to target banks and financial institutions linked to US and Israeli interests. This came a week after the UAE Capital Markets Authority took the extraordinary step of shutting both the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) on March 2 and 3, halting trading in assets worth over $1.1 trillion in combined market capitalisation. When markets reopened on March 4, the DFM General Index dropped approximately 4.7 per cent, its steepest single-day fall since May 2022, while the ADX benchmark slumped around 3.6 per cent. Blue-chip stocks, including Emaar Properties, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, and Air Arabia, all fell. The India connection Indian buyers reportedly account for 2030 per cent of prime Dubai residential property purchases, and HNIs, family offices, and startup founders have parked billions in Dubai real estate and financial instruments. Disruption to DIFCs operational ecosystem risks triggering capital reassessment, property transaction freezes, and turbulence in the remittance flows that many Indian families depend on. In a recent post, Gulf expert Cinzia Bianco from the European Council on Foreign Relations did not mince words. She said, "This is Dubais ultimate nightmare, as its very essence depended on being a safe oasis in a troubled region. There might be a way to be resilient, but there is no going back." This is Dubais ultimate nightmare as its very essence depended on being a safe oasis in a troubled region. There might be a way to be resilient but there is no going back. pic.twitter.com/Wr7aMdWJMO Dr. Cinzia Bianco (@Cinzia_Bianco) February 28, 2026 Dubai's government has maintained a firm "business as usual" posture, with DIFC confirming full operational availability. The UAE attracted $33.2 billion in FDI in 2025 and welcomed approximately 9,800 new millionaires in the same year. That extraordinary momentum is now facing its stiffest geopolitical test, and the world is watching whether the safe haven holds, or whether the smoke over the skyline marks a permanent shift in where global capital chooses to call home. Amid intensifying tensions in West Asia, the United States on Friday launched large-scale strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, destroying the key military targets. The island, often referred to as Iran's 'crown jewel', serves as a crucial hub in the country's oil export network. The US strikes, President Donald Trump said, had targeted only military installations and avoided the island's energy facilities. Trump, however, warned that if Tehran continues to disrupt the smooth passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, oil reserves in the island could be the next targets. Trump publishes strike footage from Kharg Island. Iran's crown jewel is now completely defenseless and Trump is making sure Tehran sees the footage. The message couldn't be louder: open Hormuz or the oil terminals are next... pic.twitter.com/4ZmeXotTjm Acharya Chanakya (@Darkologyy) March 14, 2026 Iran has issued a retaliatory warning, stating that such an escalation would lead to a wider conflict, as it would be forced to target energy infrastructure belonging to regional oil companies that cooperate with the US. Where is Kharg Island? Located 16 miles (26 km) off Iran's coast, roughly 300 miles northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, Kharg Island is a strategic terminal in the northern Gulf. The island is considered Iran's 'oil lifeline'. It functions as the export terminal for 90 per cent of Iran's oil shipments. Large tankers carry oil to the island and then export it through the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. If access to the island is cut off, it would significantly impact the economy of the Islamic Republic. Why Kharg Island is important to Iran According to a 1984 declassified CIA note, the island's oil facilities were the 'most vital' part of Iran's petroleum system, crucial for the country's economy and its war campaign against Iraq. The pipelines connected to the island are also linked by sea to several of Iran's biggest oil and gas fields. According to reports, the crude oil reaches the terminal from offshore fields: Aboozar, Forouzan and Dorood. From there, it travels through an underwater pipeline system to processing plants on land before being stored or shipped to international markets. The island also houses three major energy facilities run by the Iranian oil ministry. According to the New York Times, one of the major facilities is Falat Iran Oil Company, which produces 500,000 barrels of crude oil daily. The island also houses the Kharg Petrochemical company, along with a large installation used to store and export oil and liquefied natural gas. According to experts, an offensive against the islandwhich is also home to a civilian populationcould drive global oil prices even higher. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening, at a Press Conference: "Citizens of Israel, my brothers and sisters, We are in historic days, days that will be recorded in the annals of Israel. In Operation Roaring Lion, our roar is growing stronger. pic.twitter.com/wtxqrHoPzM Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) March 12, 2026 Iranian propaganda machinery on social media had claimed that they avenged the murder of their Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by taking out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This narrative gained some traction as Netanyahu was missing from action for some time, unlike his ally Donald Trump, who appeared before cameras on a regular basis. In parallel, there were theories that Netanyahu had survived Iranian strikes but needed medical attention for his injuriesforcing him to take a break from media briefings. Yet others claimed that he flew to the safety of Germany when Iranian ballistic missiles started humming over the Tel Aviv skies. For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East Amidst the pro-Iranian rumour-mongers claiming to have assassinated the Israeli PM, the man returned before the world in the flesh. Netanyahu on Thursday demanded the Lebanese government take your fate into your own hands and disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah group; otherwise, Israel would have to do it. Factoring in security concerns, local media claimed he addressed the press virtually. On Zoom, he reportedly reiterated that it was necessary for the USIsraeli coalition to strike Iran, as they were getting closer to developing nuclear weapons. Speaking about removing the Mullahs from power in Tehran, Netanyahu said his government is making things easier for the people to topple the theocratic authoritarians. However, he was not certain if the people were up to the challenge, as ultimately, the regime should be ousted from within the country's borders. We will create optimal conditions to do this, including airstrikes as we did yesterday, as we are doing these days, to try to give [the Iranian people] the space needed to take to the streets. We are delivering crushing blows to the Revolutionary Guards and the Basijtheir street forces, their checkpointsand more is yet to come, the Times of Israel quoted him as saying. I do not deny it: I cannot say for certain that the Iranian people will bring down the regime, Netanyahu reportedly added. US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) had conducted large-scale bombings on Irans Kharg Island, destroying all military targets. Trump further warned that the US might target Irans oil infrastructure on the island if Iran continues its attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island, often referred to as Iran's "Crown Jewel", serves as the main export terminal for 90% of the country's oil shipments. The island is 16 miles (26 km) from Iran's coast, about 300 miles (483 km) northwest of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran continued to export crude oil while other producers in the Gulf halted their shipments due to fear of Iranian attacks. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island... Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we pic.twitter.com/2iEzCOyA3P The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 13, 2026 Trump said he chose not to strike the islands oil infrastructure at the time, but warned that he would reconsider the decision if Iran or any other party interfered with the "free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz." "Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack --There is nothing they can do about it!" Trump added, reaffirming that Iran would not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons or pose a threat to the US or the Middle East. "Iran's Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what's left of their country, which isn't much!" he added. In response, Irans armed forces declared that any attack on the country's oil and energy infrastructure would be met with counterattacks targeting the energy infrastructure of oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region. According to reports, Trumps warning and Irans counter threat could further roil markets already dealing with what the International Energy Agency has called the biggest oil supply disruption in history. A fire has broken out in the UAEs Fujairah port, Emirati media confirmed on Saturday. The incident occurred after the debris from a successful drone interception fell onto the site. There have been no injuries reported in the incident. Some of the oil loading operations in the ports outside of the Strait of Hormuz have been suspended after the drone attack on Saturday, sources told Bloomberg. Details of the damage incurred during the incident have not been made public. Bloomberg News earlier reported that some oil-loading operations in the port of Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, had been suspended after a drone attack and fire. The port is located in the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz, making it a vital energy hub. It is connected to Abu Dhabis oil fields via the ADCOP Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline. About 1.8 million barrels of crude oil are exported daily through this route to Asia and Europe. The attack on Fujairah port is likely Irans response to the US bombing on Kharg Island, Irans largest hub for crude oil and petroleum products. Iran had warned that it would strike US-linked energy facilities in the region in response. On Tuesday, ADNOC, Abu Dhabis state oil giant, shut its Ruwais refinery in response to a fire at a facility within the complex following a drone strike. Irans Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, sharply criticised the United States over its stance on Russian oil, claiming Washington is now "begging" nations worldwide, including India, to buy crude from Moscow. In a post on X, Araghchi wrote, "The US spent months pressuring India to halt oil imports from Russia. After just two weeks of conflict with Iran, the White House is now begging the worldincluding Indiato buy Russian oil." The minister also targeted European countries, accusing them of supporting the "illegal war" against Iran in hopes of gaining US support against Russia. "Europe thought backing the illegal war on Iran would earn US favor against Russia. Pathetic," he said. The U.S. spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the worldincl Indiato buy Russian crude. Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win U.S. support against Russia. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/fbkrXpXa9P Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 13, 2026 Global oil prices have surged following Irans disruption of shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation against the joint US and Israeli strikes. On Friday, Trump warned of targeting Iran's oil infrastructure if Tehran continued to target ships in the strategic passage. In response, Iran warned that any such attacks would trigger counterstrikes on energy infrastructure and companies linked to the US. Meanwhile, Iran has granted two India-flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Irans Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Tehran would ensure secure transit for vessels bound for India, citing the longstanding friendship and shared interests between the two nations. As Iran blocks the worlds most important choke point for oil, the United States is deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East. Reports indicate that between 2,500 and 5,000 additional US Marines and sailors are being sent to the region along with amphibious warships, including the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, to provide the administration and field commanders with a wider array of military options to target Iran and to open up the Strait of Hormuz. By threatening the shipping lanes, Iran seeks to add to the economic costs on the United States and its allies and force an end to the war. The Trump administration might consider using the newly arriving assets to escort oil tankers. Marine Expeditionary Units are among the most versatile formations in the US military. Designed to be rapidly deployable, they are often the first forces sent into a crisis zone to establish staging areas for larger follow-on deployments. Their training emphasises expeditionary warfare, crisis response and evacuation operations from dangerous or contested environments. Although President Donald Trump has rejected immediate plans to deploy special forces inside Iran to secure the countrys remaining uranium stockpiles, he has not ruled out the possibility of putting American troops on the ground as the conflict evolves. At some point we might be, Trump said, suggesting that the option remains under consideration if the situation deteriorates further. The deployment of additional troops comes as the United States and Israel continue an intense bombing campaign against Iranian military infrastructure. Roughly two weeks into the operation, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said coalition fighter jets had already struck more than 15,000 targets across the country. According to the Pentagon, the sustained air campaign has severely degraded Irans conventional military capabilities. American officials claim that Irans navy, air force and air defence networks have been largely neutralised, while its ability to launch missiles and attack drones has been reduced by more than 90 per cent. Coalition strikes are also targeting Irans defence industrial base in an effort to prevent the country from rebuilding its weapons production capabilities. Military planners argue that destroying manufacturing facilities, storage depots and logistics hubs will limit Tehrans ability to replenish its arsenal even if hostilities subside. Highlighting the scale of the campaign, Trump said the US carried out yesterday one of the most powerful bombing raids in Middle Eastern history on Kharg Island, which he described as the crown jewel of Irans strategic infrastructure. According to the president, every military target on the island was destroyed during the strike. Trump added that the United States deliberately avoided attacking Kharg Islands oil infrastructure for what he described as reasons of decency. However, he warned that the restraint could be reconsidered if Iran continues to interfere with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict has nonetheless inflicted casualties and broader geopolitical consequences. Thirteen American service members have been killed, including six Air Force crew members who died when a refuelling tanker crashed over western Iraq during combat operations. Inside Iran, authorities say more than 2,000 people have been killed, including over 170 young students reportedly killed in a missile strike on an elementary school, which the Pentagon says it is investigating. The US has also offered a $10 million reward for information on Irans new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is reportedly injured and in hiding. Meanwhile, the war has severely disrupted global oil supplies, pushing crude prices above $100 a barrel. The International Energy Agency says the two weeks of fighting have caused the greatest disruption to the global oil supply in world history, forcing the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Russian oil. This policy shift has drawn sharp criticism from European allies and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who argue that lifting sanctions will boost Russian aggression and fail to solve the fundamental price problem. In the first week of March, Iranian drones carried out strikes that rattled the US-led technology ecosystem. The drones targeted three Amazon Web Services data centrestwo in the UAE and one in Bahrainmarking the first time that major cloud infrastructure anywhere in the world had been physically targeted in a military conflict. According to the company, the attacks caused structural damage and disrupted power delivery to critical infrastructure. AWS said it was working quickly to restore services in the affected areas but cautioned that recovery could take time given the nature of the physical damage involved. For latest news and analyses on Middle East, visit: Yello! Middle East More importantly, the company advised customers using its services in the region to back up their data and potentially migrate workloads to alternative AWS facilities elsewhere in the world. Customers should enact their disaster recovery plans, recover from remote backups stored in other regions, and update their applications to direct traffic away from the affected regions, it said. Historically, data security meant protecting systems from hacks. The Iranian strikes, however, demonstrate that the physical location of the cloud itself can be a critical vulnerability. Notably, between 2021 and 2024, the Gulf statesespecially the UAE and Saudi Arabiaattracted some of the worlds largest hyper-scalers with a combination of land concessions, energy subsidies and highly generous tax policies. Several experts now say that when these sites were planned, the possibility of physical risk to such infrastructure was largely absent from the calculations. Irans strike appears to have shattered that assumption, exposing the vulnerability of the Gulfs digital infrastructure and the services built on it. The Iranians, in effect, appear to be targeting American cloud providers and data centres in the Gulf as extensions of US-linked military infrastructure. Incidentally, the attack has triggered a shift in thinking within the data industry, forcing companies and governments to reconsider the physical security and geopolitical exposure of the infrastructure that underpins the global cloud. From Indias perspective, the episode is being seen as a wake-up call to classify and harden data centres as critical national infrastructure rather than treat them merely as real estate or commercial warehouses. Countries like Singapore have already moved towards critical information infrastructure" designations to protect their digital economies. Experts say securing such facilities would require steps such as mandating military-grade perimeter defences and integrating them with state police and National Security Guard rapid-response protocols. This would inevitably increase capital expenditure for data-centre operators, but the government could offer security subsidies or tax breaks to offset these additional costs. Some experts also argue that new data-centre approvals should include geopolitical resilience auditsassessing a sites proximity to high-value military targets and its distance from hostile borderstaking into account the increasingly volatile global security environment. India has already begun pushing hybrid models: global cloud services for non-sensitive workloads and sovereign Indian clouds for strategic sectors such as banking, healthcare and government. The current moment may provide an opportunity to accelerate that approach. The Gulf conflict has also sparked quiet discussions about a possible data-centre exodus towards India. Since 2020, more than $14 billion has been committed to data-centre development in the country, with another $2025 billion expected by 2030. India has several advantages, including relatively lower construction costs and the presence of submarine cable infrastructure connecting the Gulf to Mumbais landing stations, which could support such migration discussions. Nevertheless, India will have to address concerns around power reliability and water stressboth critical for large-scale data-centre operations. Future planning will also need to consider site selection carefully, including the physical proximity of facilities to potential conflict zones in the event of geopolitical tensions with neighbouring states. Air India and Air India Express will operate a total of 80 scheduled and non-scheduled flights to and from the West Asia region on March 14, the airline said. According to a press release, the two carriers continue to operate their respective scheduled services to and from Jeddah and Muscat on March 14, operating a total of 10 flights to and from Jeddah and Air India Express operating 8 scheduled flights to and from Muscat. Additionally, Air India will operate one round-trip from Delhi and two round-trips from Mumbai to Jeddah. Air India Express will operate one flight each from Kozhikode and Mangaluru to Jeddah and back. Air India Express will also operate its scheduled services to Muscat, including one round-trip each from Delhi, Kochi, Kozhikode and Mumbai. In addition to the scheduled services, Air India and Air India Express would operate a total of 62 non-scheduled flights to and from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, subject to the availability of slots and other prevailing conditions at the departure stations at the time. These flights are being operated with the requisite permissions from the relevant Indian and local regulatory authorities. All Air India flights to and from North America, Europe, Australia and other regions continue to operate per schedule. "Guests booked to travel on any of the routes where Air India group's scheduled services remain temporarily suspended may conveniently rebook to a future date at no additional charge or opt for a full refund," the release said. Air India guests are advised to raise their rebooking or cancellation requests on the airline's website. Air India Express guests booked to travel from any station in the UAE can conveniently rebook their flights without additional charges on Air India Express' additional commercial flights operating from any UAE station to any destination in India. "Air India and Air India Express are proactively reaching out to impacted guests using the mobile numbers registered with the airline to provide rebooking options. Guests are requested to ensure their current and active mobile numbers are updated with the airline to receive these important notifications," the release stated. Air India group is exploring every opportunity to operate additional ad-hoc flights to and from destinations in West Asia. (ANI) Imagine two very smart neighbours, living far apart, deciding to share notes, tools, and ideasnot to compete, but to protect the same home. That is exactly what happened at the beginning of March 2026, when India's space agency ISRO and Europe's space agency ESA shook hands on a fresh agreement. The agreement is about checking each other's satellite data for accuracy, testing space instruments together, and doing joint science studies. In simple words, both teams will now cross-check their space homework to make sure the information coming from satellites about our Earth, its land, rivers, air, forests, and oceans is fully correct and trustworthy. This friendship is not new. India and Europe have been working together in space since 1978that is, almost 50 years. It was renewed in 2002 and has grown stronger since. ESA's ground stations helped India's Chandrayaan Moon missions and the Aditya L1 solar probe reach their targets safely. In return, ISRO's own deep space antenna has helped ESA's missions too. Real friendship always goes both ways, and this partnership is a beautiful example of that. However, why should ordinary people care about satellites and space data? In plain language, satellites are like giant cameras and sensors floating above us in space, watching our Earth around the clock. They can spot a flood forming days before it hits a village. They can see if crops are healthy or dying due to drought. They track cyclones moving towards coastlines and warn fishermen to return home early. They measure air pollution floating over our cities. For a farmer in Vidarbha or a fisherman in Tamil Nadu, this data is not just science; it is life-saving information that arrives in time. India, today, operates a strong fleet of working Earth observation satellites. Cartosat-3, with its sharp sub-metre resolution, enables detailed 3D mapping and coastal studies. Resourcesat-2 and 2A provide essential data for agriculture, land use, forestry, water resources, and drought monitoring. RISAT-1A uses radar imaging that works in all weather and even at night, supporting crop monitoring, flood mapping, and soil studies. Oceansat-3 tracks ocean colour, wind, and wavesdirectly helping fishermen, climate scientists, and monsoon forecasters. These satellites are working every single day, silently, for the benefit of every Indian, remarked space analyst Girish Linganna. The biggest and most exciting current mission is NISARa joint satellite built together by India's ISRO and America's NASA. It was declared fully operational in January 2026, with its very first pictures capturing the Godavari River Delta. Think of NISAR as a radar eye in the sky that can see through clouds, rain, and complete darkness. It can detect movement of land and ice surfaces down to the centimetre, helping with disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, and farm management. By February 2026, NISAR data was already being used to create soil moisture maps across central India and the Indo-Gangetic plainsreal data, already helping real farmers on the ground. On the European side, ESA is bringing powerful new tools. One of the most exciting is a satellite called FLEX. Think of it this waywhen plants are healthy, they glow very faintly during photosynthesis, the process by which they make food from sunlight. This glow is invisible to our eyes, but FLEX can detect it from space. This tells scientists whether forests and crops are healthy or under stress from heat and drought. FLEX is expected to launch in 2026, and with ISRO and ESA now working as partners, India too will benefit from this extraordinary plant-health data. Another important ESA mission called BIOMASS, launched in 2025, measures how much carbon our forests are storing, critical information in the fight against climate change and the protection of forests worldwide, explained Linganna. ISRO is also working towards sending Indians to space through the Gaganyaan mission, and ESA is supporting this by providing tracking antennas to monitor the spacecraft during flight. This is a true partnership going beyond paperwork into genuine action. But what does all of this mean for the common people? It means weather forecasts will get more accurate. It means coastal communities will receive earlier and better flood and cyclone warnings. It means farmers will know in advance if their crops need extra water or care. It means our forests will be better protected and our seas better monitored. Eleven Indian nationals have been charged with scheming to carry out a staged armed robbery at stores as part of a visa fraud scheme in Massachusetts, US. Attorney Leah Foley said the conspiracy was planned to allow store clerks to claim they were crime victims on their immigration applications. Those who were charged include: 39-year-old Jitendrakumar Patel, residing in Marshfield, 36-year-old Maheshkumar Patel, residing in Randolph, 45-year-old Sanjaykumar Patel, residing in Quincy, 40-year-old Dipikaben Patel, who has since been deported, 52-year-old Rameshbhai Patel residing in Eubank, Kentucky, 43-year-old Amitabahen Patel, residing in Plainville, 28-year-old Ronakkumar Patel, residing in Maryland Heights, 36-year-old Sangitaben Patel, residing in Randolph, 42-year-old Minkesh Patel, residing in Perrysburg, Ohio, 42-year-old Sonal Patel, residing in Perrysburg, Ohio, and 40-year-old Mitul Patel, residing in Worcester. Jitendrakumar Patel, Maheshkumar Patel, Sanjaykumar Patel, Amitabahen Patel, Sangitaben Patel and Mitul Patel were arrested in Massachusetts and released following an appearance in federal court on Friday. Rameshbhai Patel, Ronakkumar Patel, Sonal Patel and Minkesh Patel were arrested and made their initial appearances in Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio. They will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date. Federal officials said that all of the accused resided in the US illegally. Authorities said that the scheme began in March 2023, when Rambhai Patel and his co-conspirators staged six fake robberies at convenience stores, liquor stores and fast food restaurants so that victims could apply for the U non immigration status. A U Visa is available to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and who have been helpful to law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity, the U.S. attorneys office said in a release. The scheme would involve the robbers" threatening the store clerks with apparent firearms, taking the cash from the register and fleeing. The interaction would be caught on surveillance video. Then the victims would wait five or more minutes to call the police to report the staged crime. The victims would then use the incident to write off on their U non-immigration status visas that they were victims of a violent crime. The people who were the victims' are also accused of paying Rambhai Patel to participate in the scheme. Rambhai Patel, who was the organiser, also paid the store owners to use their stores for the staged robbery. Both Rambhai Patel and the getaway driver have been previously convicted. The 11 charged in this case were either accused of arranging to set up the robbery or were paid to participate as a victim. The charge of conspiracy to commit visa fraud is awarded a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of upto $250,000. The real identity of the popular street artist known as Banksy might have been finally revealed. A team of journalists in Reuters has claimed that the graffiti artist is Bristol native Robert Gunningham. Gunnigham had changed his name after his initial exposure, the agency report claimed. The revelation came from his arrest in New York in 2000 for graffiti on a billboard. Police records showed that a handwritten confession was signed by a Robert Gunningham. In 2008, The Mail reported his name to be the suspect. According to Banksys former manager Steve Lazarides, the then decided to kill his past. "Robin Gunningham doesn't exist. The name you mentioned is the one I killed years ago," said Banksy's former manager, Steve Lazarides. The artist who gained worldwide recognition with his politically charged graffiti and striking public works had carefully protected his identity for decades. The confirmation that he had a new name, David Jones, reportedly came from Ukraine. In October 2022, a series of Banksy graffiti works appeared in the country. The same month, a man by the name of David Jones had crossed into Poland. He travelled with Massive Attack frontman Robert Del Naja, who was assisting the artist. The choice of the new name is likely motivated by secrecy. In 2017, there were 6,000 David Joneses in the UK. Banksy's lawyer, Mark Stevens, had asked Reuters not to publish the investigation, citing a threat to the artist's safety, but the agency decided that the public interest in a figure of such magnitude outweighed it. Banksy is known for his distinctive stencil-based graffiti. His works have appeared on buildings in public spaces in London, New York, Paris, and Bethlehem. His artworks have often become cultural landmarks and attract large crowds. Stepehdns Banksys longtime lawyer had said that the artist disputes parts of the investigative reports by Reuters. He told reporters that Banksy does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct. Stephens also highlighted the importance of protecting the artists anonymity, explaining that the creator has faced serious risks in the past. [Working] anonymously or under a pseudonym serves vital societal interests, he said. It protects freedom of expression by allowing creators to speak truth to power without fear of retaliation, censorship or persecutionparticularly when addressing sensitive issues such as politics, religion or social justice, he said. Banksys official company, Pest Control Office, had declined to comment on the reports, stating simply that the artist has decided to say nothing. Pope Leo XIVs visit to Algeria is planned for April 2026. This will be the first visit by a Roman Pontiff to the country, marking a shift in the Maghrebs diplomatic stance. The government is promoting the event as a celebration of interfaith solidarity and civilisational dialogue. However, critics see this event as highlighting a more complex institutional reality. The visit brings attention to the growing contradictions between Algerias international diplomatic ambitions and its restrictive domestic laws regarding non-Muslim minorities. From a geopolitical perspective, the Algerian government is leveraging the upcoming Papal visit to enhance its moral authority and project an image of stability and tolerance. Algiers has faced ongoing scrutiny from various international observers, including the UNHRC, for shutting down Christian churches. An invitation from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Pope Leo XIV to visit is an effort to restore its reputation among the Global North. By hosting the Pope, Tebboune seeks to distance himself from the domestic policy of Islam homogenisation. The government is working hard to promote pluralism. However, the reality of upholding a 'security-first' approach toward indigenous religious movements continues to be seen as a national threat. Mahin Siddiqui The September 2006 Ordinance (Ordinance 06-03) lies at the centre of multiple domestic conflicts. This ordinance governs all non-Muslim religious activities. It requires licensing for religious, educational, or social events. One of the most contentious issues is that it criminalises anyone attempting to proselytise Muslims. Conversely, Article 51 of the Algerian Constitution guarantees freedom of worship, making the 2006 Ordinance a significant administrative barrier. Additionally, non-Muslim worship is only allowed in buildings officially authorised by the state. Unfortunately, the issuing authority (National Commission for Non-Muslim Worship) has remained inactive. The Eglise protestante d'Algerie (Protestant Church of Algeria, EPA), as an indigenous body, still considers its member churches illegal due to a legal vacuum. The closure of nearly 47 Protestant church buildings has resulted in a landscape with no churches for Protestants. Moreover, in a recent legal case, Pastor Youssef Ourahmane and other EPA leaders were convicted of conducting unauthorised worship. This sharply contrasts with the state-supported grandeur of the Catholic Churchs public cathedrals, while minority religious leaders face criminal charges. The reason for the crackdown on the Protestant community is that they are mostly native Algerian converts from the Kabylie region, while the Catholic population primarily consists of expatriates. The Catholic Church holds a special position within the Algerian state. The country's dual strategy allows for the toleration of Catholic churches, as they are considered foreign entities that do not threaten the Arab-Islamic nationalist identity. The demographic difference is clear regarding Protestant Christian identity as a native. The state perceives them as neo-colonial interference.' The Popes visit could be very risky, as it might legitimise selective pluralismcriminalising indigenous Christianity while respecting foreign Christians. The significance of this particular Papal visit lies in the Augustinian heritage, which can serve as a tool for soft power. Pope Leo XIV is an Augustinian, as he was a member of the Order of Saint Augustine, and the Popes journey to ancient Hippo (modern-day Annaba) aims to revive the spiritual and intellectual roots of Latin Christianity. Additionally, enabling spiritual tourism to the ruins where Saint Augustine preached could have economic benefits. However, making spiritual tourism a reality presents risks of duality. The state is taking a pragmatic approach to faith, adopting a museological strategy that suppresses the living practitioners of faith while simultaneously celebrating and commercialising the dead saint of 430 AD (the death of Augustine of Hippo). The Papal visit to Algeria could be very significant. One potential outcome is whether Pope Leo XIV will focus his diplomacy on challenging the restrictions imposed by the discriminatory 2006 ordinance. Or will this visit be purely symbolic? The success of the visit can only be gauged by the reopening of closed churches or even the reopening of Caritas Algeria. Either this Papal visit will mark a breakthrough for religious freedom, or it will be just a superficial effort to conceal increasing religious intolerance in the country. The author is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Two labourers, a husband-wife duo, died on the spot and two others were injured when a newly constructed wall collapsed at a construction site in Pimpri-Chinchwad, officials said. The incident occurred on Saturday at the Jyotiba Nagar area of Talwade in Pune, where around 16 construction labourers were working. According to officials, a newly constructed wall collapsed after being hit by a JCB machine, trapping five workers under the debris. Two labourers, identified as Sachin Shankar Rathod and his wife Komal Sachin Rathod, died on the spot due to severe injuries. Sadashiv Agale, the owner of Induction thermal treatment company, had given a contract to contractor Deepak Devaji Jadhav for the construction of a brick wall compound on the open plot of his Company. Accordingly, Deepak Jadhav brought Sachin Shankar Rathod, his wife, Komal Sachin Rathod, Manohar Bhiku Chavan, his wife Geeta Manohar Chavhan and two other labourers from the labour checkpoint. Manohar Bhiku Chavan and his wife are slightly injured and have been admitted to Unicare Hospital in Dehugaon. Meanwhile, the bodies of both the deceased have been sent to YCM Hospital for autopsy and further procedure. Geeta Chavhan, an eyewitness who was also injured in the incident, recounted the tragedy when the wall collapsed upon them. "While we were working inside the pit plastering the wall, the JCB came to collect mud, and because of the JCB's impact, the wall collapsed upon us. One labourer was standing outside. Two labourers died on the spot because of serious injuries. My husband and I were injured in this incident. The workers working inside the company came to rescue us and took us out. Both the husband and wife died on the spot while I saw them," Geeta said. (ANI) Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy lauded Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for agreeing to provide over 100 acres of land at Bapu Gandhi Sarovar in Hyderabad, where Agniveers are currently training. He said that the training camp will be shifted to make way for the Musi River rejuvenation project. Speaking during a presentation on River Musi Rejuvenation (Phase-I) at Taj Krishna in Hyderabad, the Chief Minister said the Defence Minister has prepared to give 100-plus acres in Bapu Gandhi Sarovar, where the Agniveer training camp is currently located, and they have decided to shift. "Today, I want to appreciate my army people and my defence minister. He has prepared to give 100-plus acres in Bapu Gandhi Sarovar. Agniveers are training there. They have decided to shift their Agniveer training camp to some other place, and they are giving a hundred plus acres for this Gandhian ideology, where the Musi is going to come up," said Reddy. The Chief Minister also addressed concerns about the rehabilitation of people affected by the Musi River rejuvenation project, assuring them that the government will identify suitable locations within their Assembly constituencies and construct homes for them. "All these people of ours here make a living by doing odd jobs; if they are relocated far away, it will become very difficult for us- it will cause us great hardship. We took their suggestions into account. In the coming days, we will identify suitable locations within that Assembly constituency--specifically in the areas adjacent to the Musi River--and we will find land and construct homes for those people," said Reddy. The Chief Minister emphasised that the government will not abandon the affected residents and assured them of comprehensive help. "Why would we abandon them on the streets? We are their family. It was because of their support that I became the Chief Minister. I did not become Chief Minister to cause them sorrow or to inflict harm upon them. They are my people. They offered their prayers for me. That is precisely why, within just two years, I have achieved success as Chief Minister," said the CM. He said he holds no enmity with the poor and understands their hardships. "Why on earth would I attempt to cause them harm? What enmity do I have with them? What grievance could I possibly hold against the poor? I do not reside in grand bungalows or sprawling farmhouses. I, too, move around among the public, and I always live in close communion with the poor. I can truly understand their hardships and the very beat of their hearts. My entire administrative machinery stands ready to assist them. Our MLAs, our ministers, and our officers--everyone is prepared. Whatever their needs may be, we will ensure they are met," Reddy added. Reddy, while addressing criticism about focusing on real estate, said it will create employment for lakhs of workers and bring investment to the state. "People say Reddy only thinks about real estate. Yes, I definitely think about it. Lakhs of workers will get jobs. Investment will come. Why not do real estate, pharma, IT, tourism? All this is the government's responsibility. These people forget. My thinking is with the poor," he said. The Musi River rejuvenation project is a major initiative of the Telangana government that aims to restore the river ecosystem, improve flood management, and develop public spaces along the riverbanks. The proposed Gandhi Sarovar project is expected to be one of the first components implemented under the broader riverfront development plan. (ANI) Assam Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Dilip Saikia said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit reflects his affection for the state, with the distribution of funds under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi and schemes worth around Rs 50,000 crore. Speaking to reporters here, Saikia said, "The Prime Minister has come today with a lot of love for Assam. The distribution of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi (funds) and schemes worth around Rs 50,000 crore. Whenever the Prime Minister comes to Assam, he comes with a big package. His dream of making a developed Assam is a symbol of his love." His remarks came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday released the 22nd instalment of the PM-KISAN scheme to over 9.3 crore farmers across the country, under which eligible farmers receive Rs 2,000 directly into their bank accounts. Addressing an event where he unveiled projects of Rs 19,480 crore in the poll-bound state, PM Modi slammed the Congress, accusing it of a "lack of commitment to the nation" and said it "remains focused on spreading misinformation and falsehoods". "Just a little while ago, a message has reached the accounts of millions of farmers that the PM Samman Nidhi has been deposited. These are the same farmer brothers and sisters, most of whom did not have a mobile phone or any account in a bank before 2014. Today, more than Rs 4.25 lakh crore have been deposited in the accounts of millions of such farmers so far," he said. Specifically, around 19 lakh farmers in Assam have received nearly Rs 8,000 crore to date. "This is something even the developed nations of the world cannot match. With one click, money reaches crores of farmers directly," he stressed. Due to inclement weather, PM Modi laid the foundation stone for development works in Kokrajhar via video conferencing. He expressed apologies for not being able to visit in person and acknowledged the contributions of personalities like Bodofa Upendranath Brahma and Roopnath Brahma. He affirmed, "It has always been my endeavour to repay this debt by serving you and developing this region." (ANI) All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Akbaruddin Owaisi has written to Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, highlighting that several promises made to minorities in the Congress manifesto (Abhaya Hastham) remain unfulfilled even after two years of the government being in power. In a post on X, Akbaruddin Owaisi said he has written to the Chief Minister seeking implementation of the promises without further delay. "I Have Written To The Hon'ble @TelanganaCMO Highlighting That Several Promises Made To Minorities In The #Congress Manifesto (#AbhayaHastham) Remain Unfulfilled Even After Two Years. The Government Must Honour Its Commitments And Implement These Promises Without Further Delay," Akbar Owaisi posted. In a letter dated March 5, addressed to the Telangana Chief Minister, the AIMIM leader congratulated Reddy on Congress completing two years in power. "In this backdrop, I think it is time for us to take a look at the implementation of the Congress manifesto for 2023 Assembly polls in the State. I would like to confine myself to the promises contained in the Abhaya Hastham Manifesto with reference to Minority Declaration, Six Guarantees and Manifesto Highlights," Owaisi said. He said a cursory look will show that, except for only two promises, all other assurances in the Minority Declaration and Minorities Welfare Highlights are yet to be fulfilled. "Even as the minorities in the State are expectantly awaiting the implementation of these promises, there is virtually no word from the Government on the status and time-line for the implementation of these promises," he said. Owaisi highlighted that the Minority Declaration talks about financial upliftment and empowerment of minorities, but only the Caste Census has been conducted, though after overshooting the six-month deadline. "Follow-up action is yet to be initiated for ensuring fair reservation for all the backward classes, including the minorities, in government jobs, educational institutions and government welfare schemes," he said. The second major promise relates to enhancing the minorities welfare budget to Rs 4,000 crores and introducing a dedicated minorities sub-plan to ensure optimal budget allocation and utilisation. "However, no action has been initiated on introduction of minorities sub-plan though two financial years are over and we are going in for the third budget of the Congress government," Owaisi wrote. He also highlighted that the promise for the provision of Rs 1,000 crore annually for a subsidised loaning programme for jobless minority youth and women remains unfulfilled. On education and employment equity, Owaisi pointed out that while the Congress manifesto promised to introduce Abdul Kalam Taufa-e-Taleem scheme to provide financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to minority Ph.D scholars, Rs one lakh for completing post-graduation, Rs 25,000 upon graduation, Rs 15,000 for intermediate and Rs 10,000 to students passing 10th grade, there is no word as to when this will see the light of the day. He said the Sikh Minority Finance Corporation was yet to be established, and vacancies in all the minority institutions, such as the Waqf Board, Minorities and Christian Finance Corporations, the Haj House, and the Urdu Academy, remain unfilled. "There is no action to conduct Special DSC for recruiting Urdu medium teachers," Owaisi said. On religious rights and culture, he said the monthly honorarium for Imams and Muezzins has not been raised to Rs 12,000 per month, and no action is taken to extend this scheme to Khadims of Dargahs, Pastors of Churches and Granthis of Gurudwaras. "We are yet to see action on amending the Telangana Minorities Commission Act. Similarly, no action is visible for reclaiming the encroached wakf properties and for protection of Muslim graveyards and Christian cemeteries," he said. Owaisi noted that under the infrastructure and welfare sector, action is taken to fulfil the promise for the provision of house sites and Rs 5 lakh assistance for the construction of houses to minority communities, also under Indiramma Indlu housing scheme. "However, the minorities are awaiting the enhancement of assistance under Shaadi Mubarak scheme to Rs 1.6 lakh for newly-wed couples," he said. He also highlighted that the Congress manifesto promised promotion of inclusivity and growth, including revitalisation of SETWIN for skill development training and transformation of Quli Qutub Shah Urban Development Authority (QQSUDA) to develop infrastructure in the Old City of Hyderabad. "All in all, most of the promises remain on paper as firm action is yet to be initiated with a definitive time-frame for implementation of these assurances," Owaisi said. The AIMIM leader concluded by expressing hope that the Congress government will initiate steps at the earliest to fulfil the promises in its manifesto, especially the Minority Declaration, to ensure that the state progress card is quite impressive before the Congress seeks another term in the next Assembly elections in 2028-29. (ANI) Amid concerns over LPG supply in parts of the state, Himachal Pradesh Education Minister Rohit Thakur said there was no shortage of LPG for the Mid-Day Meal scheme in schools, adding that the state government has made adequate arrangements to ensure uninterrupted cooking of meals for students. Speaking to ANI here, the minister on Friday said the overall LPG supply situation in the state was currently under control, and authorities are closely monitoring the availability of essential commodities. "There is no shortage of LPG for the Mid-Day Meal in schools. Adequate arrangements have already been made to ensure that meals for children continue without any disruption," Thakur said. He added that the state government, along with concerned departments and supply agencies, is holding regular review meetings to monitor the situation and ensure that the supply chain remains smooth. "The situation is under control at present. Our officers and all concerned agencies are aware of the developments, and review meetings are being held regularly. So far, the impact has not reached us, but we are keeping a close watch," Thakur said. The minister noted that since LPG and fuel supplies are linked to crude oil imports, the government is also monitoring international developments closely to assess any potential impact on supply. He further warned that strict action would be taken against hoarding or black marketing of LPG or other essential commodities. "The government is vigilant, and if anyone is found involved in hoarding, strict action will be taken," he said. Thakur added that the administration is making efforts to ensure that the entire supply system works effectively on the ground so that people do not face unnecessary inconvenience. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the assassination of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. (ANI) Forgive us for noticing this South Kansas City drama . . . But it's actually a bit life affirming and merits a quick look . . . Here's an online call to action that REALLY reveals local educators investing a great deal in the success of students . . . Check-it: "A Facebook post about a nearly empty Ruskin High School auditorium for a play helped bring out a large crowd Friday night for the play. "The theater director's photo of a nearly empty auditorium on opening night went viral and helped fill the seats for students who had spent eight weeks preparing for their show." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . . Ruskin High School theatre director asks community to fill empty seats Ruskin High School's theatre director is asking community members to fill empty seats. Developing . . . Intrepid Travel has confirmed that it will be resuming its Egypt tours. The company previously chose to temporarily halt the Egypt tours due to the conflict in the Middle East. Intrepid to Resume Egypt Tours According to Travel Weekly, Intrepid's president of the Americas, Leigh Barnes, said "Being able to return to Egypt means visitors can experience an incredible destination while helping bring much-needed income back to the guides, small businesses and families who rely on tourism." With the present threat of flight cancellations, Intrepid said that those who cannot make it to Egypt due to war-related cancellations will receive a 100% credit for their land trip, according to TravelPulse. On the other hand, those who had cancelled their trips will have the opportunity to rebook a trip to another destination. They will likewise either receive 100% for the value of the land portion or request a refund with 20% unrecoverable costs. Those who are entitled to a full refund are those who are under package regulations in the regions of Europe, Middle East, and Africa. How About Tours for Oman and Jordan? Unfortunately, Intrepid's Oman and Jordan tours, which have also been paused, will not resume alongside the Egypt tours. According to Intrepid, tours for Oman and Jordan remain suspended until at least April 15. Affected customers have the option to rebook to another destination, receive full credit, or get an 80% refund. Projections indicate that nearly 70% of the worlds population will live in cities by 2050. While this growth presents significant opportunities for innovation, economic development, and social transformation, it also poses serious challenges for the urban environment, he said. He emphasized that housing remains at the center of the global agenda. Housing is not just physical infrastructure; it forms the foundation of human dignity, well-being, economic opportunity, and sustainability, Guliyev said. He added that addressing these challenges requires strong international cooperation. We are convinced that housing and urban development issues are not only technical matters but strategic priorities that demand solutions at the highest level, Guliyev concluded. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Etihad Airways flight EY-262 from Abu Dhabi to Bengaluru safely arrived at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru despite the concerns about air travel due to the war situation involving Iran in the Middle East. Due to the rising war tensions in the Middle East region between Iran, the US, and Israel, an atmosphere of concern has developed among Indians living in that region. Passengers who arrived at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru from Abu Dhabi said that the situation in the UAE was comparatively better than in Kuwait and Bahrain.However, they also expressed fear that if the war continues in the coming days, it could affect the lives of Indians working in the Middle East. They expressed hope that the conflict will end soon and that everyone will be able to live peacefully.A passenger from Abu Dhabi said there was no problem and the government was very helpful and supportive. "There is no problem actually, but in Abu Dhabi and Dubai it is. But the government are very helpful and supportive. We are working in the healthcare department, and it is running very smoothly. Personally, the current situation is okay now," the passenger said. Another passenger urged people not to follow fake news on social media and said not to panic, as all things are under control. "No need to panic. All things are in control. I think I need to follow genuine sites and genuine news instead of following fake news on social media. Try to see what the government is giving the updates and all. Especially the Dubai government and the Abu Dhabi government. They are giving day-to-day updates. Follow that. There is no panic. Everything is going normal," the passenger said. Another passenger dismissed reports circulating on Indian media and social media about attacks on Dubai landmarks and urged people not to believe any fake news. "Especially in Indian media, showing that Burj Khalifa has been hit, some walls have been hit and all. It's all fake news. Don't believe all those things. Whenever there is an interception, there is something, debris, and all falling down. There will be some smoke out of it. That's happening. And because of that, only some minor injuries are happening. Otherwise, things are normal. Business is working normal. The office is normal. You can see the people in Dubai, you know, malls, everything. So everything is normal," the passenger added. A special flight from Abu Dhabi has arrived at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi as well, bringing home citizens stranded due to the ongoing West Asia airspace crisis. A passenger, Shamsher Khan, at Delhi Airport, said they were informed by the local government in advance to move to safe zones and refrain from venturing outside in Abu Dhabi. "I have come from Abu Dhabi. We have been living there for 2 years. Given the current atmosphere of conflict, specifically the drones being launched from Iran towards Abu Dhabi, we are informed in advance to move to safe zones, remain inside our rooms, and refrain from venturing outside. The local government is handling these issues," said Khan. Another passenger, Rashi, who arrived on a special flight from Abu Dhabi at IGI Airport, said the situation is not very bad in Dubai as the drones flying in the sky are being intercepted. "The situation is not very bad in Dubai. There are problems in some places. Our flight was also on time. There are some drones flying in the sky, but they are being intercepted," said Rashi. Another special flight has arrived from Abu Dhabi at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. A passenger at Hyderabad Airport said the situation is absolutely normal in Abu Dhabi as the administration there is protecting very well. "I went there three months ago. The situation is absolutely normal. There is nothing to worry about. The administration there is protecting us very well," said the passenger. Meanwhile, a special flight from Dubai carrying Indian nationals has arrived at Cochin International Airport (CIAL) in Kerala as well amid the ongoing West Asia airspace crisis. (ANI) BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan (MFA) has expressed condolences to Ethiopia following devastating landslides and floods that have caused numerous deaths and injuries, the publication of MFA on X says, Trend reports. We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of lives and many injuries caused by the devastating landslides and floods in Ethiopia. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones, to the Government and people of Ethiopia, and express our solidarity with people affected by this disaster. We wish a swift and full recovery to the injured, the publication reads. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Azerbaijan has demonstrated a high level of readiness to host the Thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), said Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, Trend reports. Speaking at a briefing in Baku dedicated to WUF13, Espinosa highlighted Azerbaijans hospitality, organizational capabilities, and the rich history and culture of Baku during a briefing ahead of the forum. I have personally witnessed Azerbaijans warm hospitality, its strong organizational capacity, and the wealth of history and culture in Baku, which gives me full confidence that the World Urban Forum will be a success, she said. KHOJAVAND, Azerbaijan, March 14. Families who arrived in Khanoba village, Khojavand district, have been presented with the keys to their apartments, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The keys were presented to 25 families sent to the village. 13:38 The first group of former IDPs has reached Khanoba village in the Khojavand district, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The group consists of 114 people, including 25 families. The families who returned to their homeland were met by the Special Representation of the President of Azerbaijan in the Aghdam, Fuzuli, and Khojavand districts, officials of the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, and employees of the Restoration, Construction, and Management Service in the Aghdam, Fuzuli, and Khojavand districts. 12:21 The first group of former internally displaced persons (IDPs) has been sent to Khanoba village in the Khojavand district within the framework of the ongoing Great Return to the liberated territories in accordance with the instructions of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The group consists of families who temporarily settled in various parts of the country, mainly in hostels, sanatoriums, and administrative buildings. The former IDPs returning to the native village thanked President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva for their comprehensive care. They also expressed their gratitude to the brave Azerbaijani Army, heroic soldiers and officers who liberated the lands from occupation, and prayed for mercy on martyrs who sacrificed their lives on this path. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 13. The presentation of the second edition from the series Azerbaijans School of Self-Sacrifice titled On Guard of Security took place at the Natavan club of the Azerbaijan Writers Union, Trend reports. The project is dedicated to the Day of Employees of Azerbaijans national security bodies, which is celebrated annually on March 28. The book series is devoted to people whose lives and service have become a vivid example of devotion to the Motherland, courage and self-sacrifice. The event opened with the national anthem of Azerbaijan, and the bright memory of the martyrs was honored with a minute of silence. The evening was hosted by Secretary of the Azerbaijan Writers Union, poet and translator Salim Babullaoglu. The authors of the book are writer-publicists and veterans of the special services Elshad Hasanov and Azer Hajibeyli. The editor of the publication is Adil Yahyayev, a member of the Organization of Veterans of the Armed Forces, War and Labor of the Republic. It was noted that the authors are united not only by many years of service in the security bodies, but also by their sincere dedication to preserving historical memory. Elshad Hasanov has nearly thirty years of service behind him, while Azer Hajibeyli has about twenty-five years. After completing their professional careers, they continue to serve the Motherland with their words and pen, forming a productive creative partnership. The first book in the Azerbaijans School of Self-Sacrifice series was dedicated to the life and service of one of the first professional operational officers of the national security bodies of independent Azerbaijan Aydin Rahimov. The new edition continues this important mission, telling about people whose fate was inseparably linked with the protection of the state. The content of the book On Guard of Security reveals its main idea, while the artistic design of the cover symbolically reflects its meaning. The image of a fighter of the invisible front, the symbolic unity of the sword and the pen, as well as the crescent and the eight-pointed star in the center of the composition create an expressive and profound image conveying the spirit of service to the Motherland. The book contains articles dedicated to important pages of Azerbaijans history and the formation of the national special services. The publication features materials about outstanding personalities, including Mammadguseyn Asadov, Nadir Hasanov, Jabir Babayev, Ilgar Guliyev, Nobel Muradkhanov, Seyfulla Gasymov, Aydin Rahimov and Aziz Rasulov. Their life paths, professional mastery and devotion to duty serve as an example for new generations. Speakers at the event emphasized the special role of national leader Heydar Aliyev in the formation of national personnel of the security bodies and in the development of the professional traditions of the countrys special services. It was noted that such projects are of great importance for preserving historical memory and popularizing the names of people who stood and continue to stand on guard of the Motherland with honor and dignity. The presentation of the book took place in an atmosphere of deep respect for people who devoted their lives to protecting the state. Participants of the evening expressed confidence that the Azerbaijans School of Self-Sacrifice series will continue to be expanded with new editions telling about the heroes of the invisible front and passing their invaluable experience and spiritual heritage to future generations. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Tourism, ICT, culture and energy are among the sectors with the greatest potential for cooperation between Azerbaijan and Egypt, Egypts Former Minister of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat told Trend on the sidelines of the 13th Global Baku Forum, themed "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition". She noted that the sides have discussed cooperation in the cinema industry, as well as in higher education, including collaboration with Al-Azhar University through student exchange programs between Egypt and Azerbaijan. Al-Mashat also praised Azerbaijans achievements in the oil sector and said cooperation could expand in energy. Were very impressed by the work thats happened in Azerbaijan in the oil sector. Egypt is also doing a lot in oil and gas, and theres going to be cooperation in that sphere as well, she added. The former minister also highlighted growing collaboration between the two countries in global initiatives and international forums. Egypt hosted COP27, while Azerbaijan hosted COP29, which contributed to closer cooperation on climate-related issues. She noted that Egypt hosted the World Urban Forum in 2024, while Azerbaijan is expected to host the next edition later this year, opening further opportunities for technical cooperation between the two countries. Commenting on the Baku Global Forum, Al-Mashat said the platform plays an important role in bringing together leaders and experts from around the world to address shared global challenges. It is very important to see people with different experiences from different parts of the world having the same ideas and pushing the same message. International cooperation is needed, she said. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan - Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, Hikmet Hajiyev, has discussed the TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) project during a meeting with Ambassador, European Union (EU) Special Representative for Central Asia Eduard Stiprais, the publication of Hajiyev on his social media account says, Trend reports. The Azerbaijani official noted that fruitful discussions were held on regional cooperation, especially connectivity opportunities, as well as the Trans-Caspian project. The presidential assistant pointed out that, taking into account Azerbaijan's full membership in the Central Asian Consultative Council, there are significant opportunities for cooperation within this format. On August 8, 2025, following the results of a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint declaration on ensuring peace between Baku and Yerevan and establishing transport links between the main part of Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. This project was named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. An exchange of views on comprehensive strategic cooperation between Azerbaijan and China has been held during meeting of Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan - Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev with former Special Representative of the Chinese Government for European Affairs, former Chinese ambassador Wu Hongbo, the publication of Hajiyev on his social media account says, Trend reports. The presidential assistant noted that the meeting discussed key developments in the region. "This was a valuable dialogue that reflected the depth of our bilateral relations," the publication highlighted. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Azerbaijan has established a temporary customs control zone at the Baku Olympic Stadium to manage goods entering the country for the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), Trend reports. This was reflected in the report on the Cabinet of Ministers activities in 2025, which was discussed at a plenary session of the Azerbaijani Parliament. The measure is intended to streamline customs oversight and speed up the clearance of equipment and materials brought into the country for the international event scheduled to take place in Baku. Details of the arrangement were included in a report on the activities of the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan in 2025 that was discussed during a plenary session of the Parliament of Azerbaijan. The report also outlined broader efforts to upgrade border and customs infrastructure across the country. Project documentation has been prepared for the construction of the South-Astara state border checkpoint, and land designated for the facility has already been acquired, with work underway to change the lands official use. Authorities are also acquiring land to reconstruct and expand infrastructure at the Red Bridge border crossing. Plans have been prepared for the Alat state border checkpoint and submitted through the electronic construction portal of the State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture of Azerbaijan. An additional 20 hectares of land has been allocated at the site to accommodate import and export terminals. Construction of the passenger crossing line at the Lekin border checkpoint has been completed, while work is continuing at the Julfa customs post after project documents for finishing previously incomplete structures were prepared and approved. Authorities also completed construction work on unfinished structures at a TIR parking facility near the Sadarak customs post. Renovation and reconstruction projects are underway at the administrative building of the Main Customs Department for Air Transport, alongside the construction of temporary storage warehouses at the Sumgayit Customs Department and planned major repairs at the New Sangachal and Yevlakh customs posts. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. According to the NATO Partnership for Peace Programme between Azerbaijan and NATO, a Level 1 Evaluator Training Course 49 was held as part of the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC) programme, Trend reports, citing the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. The course, organized at the War Games Center of the National Defense University, brought together 22 participants from Azerbaijan and 30 instructors and attendees from NATO and partner countries. Throughout the course, various theoretical and practical activities were conducted both individually and in group formats. The main objective of the course was to certify qualified military personnel to evaluate units and subunits declared to the Alliances Pool of Forces. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Through our organization, we work to promote inclusiveness and sustainability in urban development. Yet, significant gaps remain in many countries, highlighting the complexity and scale of the challenge, said Benedetto Zacchiroli, Chair of UNESCOs International Coalition for Inclusive and Sustainable Cities and President of the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism, Trend reports. Speaking on the topic during a panel titled "Global Collaboration in Housing Perspectives for WUF13" at the XIII Global Baku Forum, Zacchiroli stressed that there is no single universal model for addressing these challenges. Networks operating at different levels must remain flexible and provide effective support when needed. Programs like those in Thailand reach 90,000 families, including providing housing opportunities for 1,500 families living in informal settlements. Such initiatives also help address issues in the rental market, including rent control and protection against unfair evictions, he said. He emphasized that inclusive policies should benefit all segments of society, including migrants, people with disabilities, youth, and marginalized communities. The main goal is to ensure that everyone has access to housing rights, he noted. Zacchiroli added that UNESCOs approach is not about penalizing cities. Rather, it is about guiding them toward creating more inclusive and equitable living environments. Currently, around 3 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions, many of them children and youth. This reality highlights the urgent scale of the problem. That is why collaboration and sustained dialogue are essential. The question is not just where to start. Even if it means starting from the last stage of the process, action must be taken. Our fundamental duty is clear: no one should be left behind, he concluded. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice, Sanjay Shirsat on Friday said that a decision has been taken to induct eligible persons from the family of the deceased in atrocity cases involving Scheduled Castes and Tribes, particularly in cases of murder or death related to atrocities, into government service under the Social Justice Department. He informed that there are approximately 889 pending cases of atrocities against Scheduled Caste and Tribe citizens, of which 144 cases are related to tribals. The government is serious about this matter, and if injustice occurs, a case will certainly be registered; however, the government will also take appropriate decisions to ensure that innocent persons are not falsely implicated. Earlier, on March 5, he praised Shiv Sena for nominating Jyoti Waghmare, a Dalit woman from Solapur, as their candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections. Shirsat said the nomination of a woman without a political background reflects a major decision that will be appreciated across the state. "Eknath Shinde has given a Rajya Sabha nomination to a woman who has no political background, an ordinary woman. I think this is a very big decision, and all the women of Maharashtra will welcome it, and everyone should think the same. We welcome it," Shirsat said. (ANI) BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. A comprehensive government-wide approach is needed to address the housing issue, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Romania, Ana Birchall, said at the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition", Trend reports. "Housing policy isn't just about building houses. It's linked to employment, social policy, the economy, and demographics," Birchall noted. She recalled her experience developing support programs for young families, implemented during her time in government. "If someone doesn't have a job, they can't buy a home, but to get a job, they need experience. But how can a young person who just graduated from university gain experience? That's why we introduced volunteering and internship programs that count as professional experience. With experience, people could find a job, and with a job, they could afford to buy a home," she said. According to her, only then young people can plan starting a family and having children. "That's why housing policy must be considered as part of a broader social and economic strategy," Birchall emphasized. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Governance can be adapted with artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology, but the process must be continuous and incremental, Minister of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan Rashad Nabiyev said at the panel discussions on "Digital futures: AI, Governance and ethics of innovation" as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition", Trend reports. According to him, the main problem is a matter of time. "If we regulate innovation for a long time, we can destroy it. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the critical point. These conditions must also be created for other segments of society. It's important to develop a roadmap, define requirements, and continuously improve the legal regulatory framework. Azerbaijan is quite courageous and constantly learning. We observe everything in practice," Nabiyev explained. He noted that we signed a document that assesses the opportunities for further development, taking into account previous mistakes. "We are trying to harmonize the goals and objectives arising from our political culture. This allows us to eliminate some obstacles. We have found a fairly successful option. This is a regulatory framework. A framework for governance in the field of education and the economy is created, as well as conditions for self-development and knowledge acquisition. When such an appropriate regulatory framework is in place, the government has the tools to manage the process and at the same time can build an appropriate ecosystem for society," the minister added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel KHOJAVAND, Azerbaijan, March 14. Families who arrived in Khanoba village, Khojavand district, have been presented with the keys to their apartments, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The keys were presented to 25 families sent to the village. 13:38 The first group of former IDPs has reached Khanoba village in the Khojavand district, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The group consists of 114 people, including 25 families. The families who returned to their homeland were met by the Special Representation of the President of Azerbaijan in the Aghdam, Fuzuli, and Khojavand districts, officials of the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, and employees of the Restoration, Construction, and Management Service in the Aghdam, Fuzuli, and Khojavand districts. 12:21 The first group of former internally displaced persons (IDPs) has been sent to Khanoba village in the Khojavand district within the framework of the ongoing Great Return to the liberated territories in accordance with the instructions of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. The group consists of families who temporarily settled in various parts of the country, mainly in hostels, sanatoriums, and administrative buildings. The former IDPs returning to the native village thanked President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva for their comprehensive care. They also expressed their gratitude to the brave Azerbaijani Army, heroic soldiers and officers who liberated the lands from occupation, and prayed for mercy on martyrs who sacrificed their lives on this path. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The task ahead is not only to adopt laws, but also to ensure transparency on artificial intelligence (AI), President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Tulia Ackson said at the panel discussions on "Digital futures: AI, Governance and ethics of innovation" as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition", Trend reports. The time has come to create an environment that will satisfy consumers and promote growth, she noted. According to her, the tools used and developed should be accessible to everyone in most cases: "We have adopted a resolution as an alliance. In that resolution, we point out the current gaps. We reveal the impact of AI on human rights and democracy. The task before us is not only to pass laws, but also to solve the problem of ensuring transparency. We would like the supervisory bodies and institutions to achieve this. This issue is not only about the work done by the government. The private sector can also contribute by participating in parliamentary sessions. Such forums bring us together and set specific tasks for us. We strengthen interparliamentary cooperation on issues relevant to the country. At the same time, the private sector can also express its views on people's problems," she added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Majority of people fear impact of artificial intelligence (AI), President and Founder of Women Political Leaders, Vice-President of the European Parliament (20092011), Member of the European Parliament (20042014) Silvana Koch-Mehrin said at the panel discussions on "Digital futures: AI, Governance and ethics of innovation" as part of the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition", Trend reports. She noted that if there are innovations, there should be regulatory boundaries and limits related to them. According to him, the power of technology has a significant impact on society. "Since the first genetic modification was possible, we have had concerns; there has been a sense of fear and hesitation. Can we act within this framework at all? We can talk about the 'gold standard' of the European Union (EU) regarding AI. The majority of citizens (about seventy percent) are afraid of the impact of AI. On the other hand, this technology is presented as a means of innovation. The EU intends to apply the highest safety standards. When the system is strong, responsibility also increases. People have the opportunity to control the actions of AI by controlling it. However, the EU doesn't fully agree with this and believes that there is already excessive regulation. Our view is that a strong commitment can only arise when there are firm commitments to the management of AI. The conditions for transparency in the environment and the labor market can be increased through AI. However, in terms of energy, AI is expensive. Any company that wants to do AI in the EU must agree to the regulation. Ultimately, we know that overregulation can destroy innovation, but there shouldn't be chaos either," she added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Azerbaijan plays an important global role by providing a platform for discussing key international issues, acting UN resident coordinator in Azerbaijan, Igor Garafulic told Trend on the sidelines of a briefing dedicated to the Thirteenth Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13). According to him, holding the forum is of great importance for the international community, as it creates a space for dialogue on the most pressing urban development issues. "This conference is very important for the UN system because it gives the entire world the opportunity to discuss the priorities of each city. Today, many key issuesemployment, housing, decent workare directly linked to urban development," he noted. Garafulic emphasized that in the current circumstances, it is especially important to maintain platforms for international dialogue. "The world now needs much more conversation than war," he said. He also noted Azerbaijan's role in advancing the global agenda, recalling that the country has already hosted major international events. "This isn't a one-off initiative. Azerbaijan already hosted COP29, and I see hosting the World Forum as a continuation of that workproviding a space for discussing important global issues. Therefore, Azerbaijan plays a truly significant role on the international stage," Garafulic added. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to have a profound impact on human behavior in the future, said Asmitha Satyarthi, CEO of the Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion, Trend reports. Speaking at the panel Digital Future: AI, Governance, and the Ethics of Innovation during the XIII Global Baku Forum, Satyarthi highlighted the growing influence of AI on social interactions, noting that today, 88% of young people communicate more with ChatGPT than with their peers. This gap between people can isolate individuals, with repercussions for workplaces and the environment. We need to address this now. These are strong signals; something is amiss, and we must identify it, she said. Satyarthi warned that AIs biased influence could affect millions, describing it as a societal virus. She emphasized that compassion must guide responses to AI challenges. Compassion is not optional; it is the essential tool. Regulation alone is insufficient. Education and a thoughtful approach must underpin our efforts. With AI, a compassionate approach can support us, otherwise we risk a severe crisis. We must begin addressing this today, Satyarthi said. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Serious efforts are undertaken to implement the Trans-Caspian pipeline route, European Union (EU) Special Representative for Central Asia Eduards Stiprais said at a special session of the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition" today, Trend reports. "Our relations with China are close, depending on the current situation. There are issues where our interests overlap. In particular, regional security, stability, and transport connections are areas where we have common interests," he noted. According to him, although there is no complete agreement on all issues, cooperation is being carried out in these areas. "We are making serious efforts to implement the Trans-Caspian pipeline route. This route can provide access from the West to Central Asia. Chinese partners are implementing projects more to the east. They are working on pipeline projects extending through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the Fergana valley, and this line may later continue towards Turkmenistan. Thus, in the future, access to the coast of Azerbaijan may also be created. Tajikistan has a special role in this process. Security issues in Tajikistan are of serious concern, especially due to threats coming from Afghanistan. The de facto authorities there are either unwilling or unable to fully ensure security on the border. The presence of several thousand terrorist groups from abroad poses a real threat to the region. Therefore, the disruption of this security balance also poses a great risk to Europe," he added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Over the past decade, Germanys Monforts has delivered multiple complete finishing ranges to Turkmen textile enterprises, Thomas Paffgen, Area Sales Manager at Monforts, told Trend. According to him, these projects have included MONTEX stenter lines, MONFORTEX sanforising systems and THERMEX continuous dyeing technologies installed within large-scale textile complexes. Most recently, we have supplied a number of MONTEXCOAT machines. Thomas Paffgen indicated that the importance of these deliveries lies not only in the quantity of machinery supplied but also in their role within Turkmenistans vertically integrated textile production chain, covering all stages from cotton preparation to final finishing. "The significance of these deliveries lies not simply in the number of machines supplied, but in the role they play within the production chain. Turkmenistans textile sector is structured around vertical integration - from cotton preparation and spinning through weaving or knitting to final finishing. Finishing technology determines dimensional stability, shrinkage control and colour consistency, all of which are essential for export markets, particularly in home textiles such as bed linen and towelling," Paffgen said. The Manager noted that in recent years, the focus in the sector has shifted from increasing capacity to consolidating quality, with attention to process optimisation, energy efficiency and product consistency. "Many of the installations supplied earlier are now operating at a mature stage, and the focus is on process optimisation, energy efficiency and product consistency rather than purely adding new throughput," he added. Monforts is a German company specializing in the design and manufacturing of high-tech equipment for the textile industry. Founded in 1884, it is one of the leading suppliers of finishing systems for textile mills worldwide. The company offers solutions for fabric finishing, such as stenter machines, sanforizing systems, and continuous dyeing, aimed at improving product quality and enhancing production efficiency. Monforts is also actively involved in developing sustainable technologies, such as energy-efficient and resource-conserving fabric processing methods, and has strong connections with major global textile manufacturers. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, March 14. Uzbekistan has explored the potential expansion of its exports to Belarus, which could encompass construction materials, electrical equipment, light industry goods, and food products, Trend reports via the Uzbek Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This issue was addressed during a meeting between Davron Vakhabov, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan, and Vladimir Orlovsky, Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus, held as part of Vakhabovs official visit to Belarus. Throughout the discussions, the parties underscored the importance of enhancing cooperation in these key sectors. They also emphasized the need to simplify logistics and customs procedures to facilitate the growth of bilateral trade. Following the meeting, the parties reached a consensus to continue their joint efforts in fostering trade and economic collaboration between Uzbekistan and Belarus. They also agreed to explore new export opportunities and strengthen the business ties between their respective countries. Meanwhile, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Belarus increased by 25% in 2025, reaching nearly $1 billion. In February 2026, contracts worth almost $110 million were signed during the official visit of a Belarusian government delegation to Uzbekistan, underscoring both countries intention to further expand economic cooperation. Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati advised the followers and supporters of Bahujan Samaj Party's founder Kanshi Ram to "stay alert" against Congress, stating that it was their "anti-Dalit mindset and mentality" that led to the creation of BSP. Mayawati also said that Congress never accorded due respect to Bhimrao Ambedkar and neither declared a single day of national mourning upon the passing of Kanshi Ram. This comes as Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi attended a birth anniversary programme of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram in Lucknow on Friday. "As is well known, the Congress Party, during its many years in power at the centre, never accorded due respect and honour to the messiah of Dalits and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, the most revered Baba Saheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, nor did it bestow upon him the title of 'Bharat Ratna.' So how can this party now honour the respected Shri Kanshiram Ji with this title?" Mayawati said in a post on X. "It was this very Congress Party, while in power at the centre, that did not even declare a single day of national mourning upon the passing of these (the respected Shri Kanshiram Ji), nor did the SP government in U.P. at that time declare any state mourning. Similarly, numerous organisations and parties formed by the Dalit community, which have fallen into the hands of other parties, are always engaged in exploiting his name for their gain," she added. Mayawati saw Congress's actions as "tactics" to weaken the BSP party. "Now, all these parties are constantly employing all sorts of tactics to weaken the BSP party founded by the respected Shri Kanshiram Ji. Therefore, his followers and supporters must always remain vigilant against them. They must especially stay alert to the Congress Party, due to whose anti-Dalit mindset and mentality the BSP had to be created in the first place," she said. She further appealed to the party workers and supporters to join i the programs organised by BSP on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Kanshi Ram. "At the same time, on the occasion of the respected Shri Kanshiram Ji's birth anniversary tomorrow, March 15, 2026, party members must ensure the success of all programs of the party he founded, the BSP, across the country, including in U.P.--this is the appeal," she said. Rahul Gandhi at the birth anniversary programme honoured the legacy of Kanshi Ram and said, "If Jawaharlal Nehru were alive, then Kanshi Ram would have been a chief minister from the Congress." In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj Party with the objective of uniting the Bahujan Samaj, comprising Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Religious Minorities, into a formidable political force. He remained steadfast in his commitment to the cause of social transformation and economic emancipation. He tirelessly mobilised support among the Bahujan communities, inspiring millions to join the movement for equality and justice. (ANI) BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) is in talks with Azerbaijan over financing the reconstruction of the Karabakh irrigation canal, Trend reports. This was reflected in the report on the Cabinet of Ministers activities in 2025, which was discussed at a plenary session of the Azerbaijani Parliament. The report on the activities of the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan for 2025, discussed during a plenary session of the Azerbaijani Parliament, notes that agreements were signed in November 2024 with the Islamic Development Bank Group during the 29th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) for the Construction of the Main Irrigation Canal from the Maiden Tower Reservoir project. The project is the first initiative in Azerbaijans territories liberated from occupation to be financed by an international financial institution with a state guarantee. Under the plan, a $96.4 million loan agreement was signed on November 14, 2024, with the IsDB to fund the construction of the main irrigation canal from the Giz Galasi Reservoir. The project aims to improve water supply across 252,000 hectares in the Jabrayil District and Fuzuli District regions and bring 12,620 hectares of new irrigated land into use. At the same time, negotiations are underway with the IsDB Group on financing another major infrastructure initiative, the $436.3 million Reconstruction of the Karabakh Irrigation Canal project. The project is designed to irrigate nearly 115,000 hectares of farmland and improve drinking and household water supply in nine districts of the Karabakh region and surrounding areas, including Mingachevir, Yevlakh, Goranboy District, Barda District, Aghjabadi District, Aghdam District, Tartar District, Beylagan District, and Imishli District. Authorities expect agreements on the project to be signed during the IsDB Groups annual meetings scheduled to be held in Azerbaijan in 2026. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Oil facilities on the Kharg island in Bushehr Province, located in southern Iran, haven't been damaged, and the activities of companies on the island continue, Deputy Governor of Bushehr Province Ehsan Jahanian told local media, Trend reports. According to him, some military facilities and the airport were damaged in the U.S. and Israeli military airstrikes on the island last night. However, no casualties were recorded. Jahanian said that Iran's crude oil export from the Kharg oil terminal is currently continuing in full. Since no concrete agreement was reached in negotiations between the United States (US) and Iran over the nuclear program, the US and Israel began military airstrikes against Iran on February 28. In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military facilities located in countries across the region, starting the same day. On the first day of the air strikes against Iran, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking military officials were killed. On March 8, Irans Assembly of Experts elected Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei as Irans third Supreme Leader by majority vote. From March 1 through March 5, the confrontation expanded further, affecting several countries across the Middle East. According to information, the U.S. side suffered losses of 8 dead and more than 140 wounded. The ongoing conflict has significantly threatened the regions energy infrastructure and maritime transport. Oil prices have surged on global markets due to heightened security tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, prompting several countries to advise their citizens to leave the region. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, March 14. Turkmenistan and Russia discussed key aspects of their deepened strategic partnership, Trend reports via the Russian MFA. The talks were held during a meeting between Turkmenistans Ambassador to Russia Esen Aydogdyev and Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin. During the meeting, the sides exchanged views on key areas of Turkmen-Russian cooperation and further development of bilateral relations. Both sides expressed a desire to fully realise the potential of the deepened strategic partnership between Moscow and Ashgabat and to coordinate their efforts on the international stage. Earlier, Turkmenistans Ambassador to Russia Esen Aydogdyyev and Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of Russia Konstantin Kosachev discussed the development of a strategic partnership. The meeting centered on strengthening interparliamentary relations, which are increasingly viewed as a pivotal mechanism for enhancing bilateral ties. Both parties acknowledged the steady expansion of cooperation not only in the economic domain but also in the humanitarian and political spheres. Additionally, the conversation included a review of Turkmenistans program for assuming the CIS chairmanship in 2026. The Russian side commended Ashgabats proposed concept, describing it as both substantive and comprehensive. Kosachev reaffirmed the Federation Councils full support for Turkmenistans initiatives, both bilaterally and within the framework of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly. Russias backing of Turkmenistans CIS programs is widely regarded as a crucial element in fostering regional stability and integration. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The housing crisis is directly linked to climate risks and urban resilience, requiring a comprehensive global approach for its solution, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), told Trend on the sidelines of the 13th Global Baku Forum on "Bridging Divides in a World in Transition". According to her, billions of people worldwide live in dangerous housing conditions, which increases their vulnerability to climate shocks. "The world cannot function peacefully when 300 million people are homeless, 1.1 billion live in slums, and approximately three billion people live in unsafe conditions without access to basic services," Espinosa noted. She emphasized that the housing problem requires long-term planning, investment, and well-thought-out public policy. "Housing is not only a human rights issue, but is also an issue closely linked to the climate crisis. It's impossible to create resilient cities prepared for climate shocks if there is a housing crisis," said Espinosa. According to her, resilient cities require not only housing but also access to safe water, healthcare, education, and basic infrastructure. Espinosa pointed out that Azerbaijan's hosting of the COP29 climate conference, as well as the upcoming World Urban Forum reflect the interconnection between the climate agenda and sustainable urban development. "It's crucial to integrate climate action with housing solutions, as without a comprehensive approach, it's impossible to effectively combat poverty, inequality, and the impacts of climate change," she added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel WASHINGTON, U.S., March 14. North Coast Communications can play a critical role in strengthening business ties between the United States and Azerbaijan, David Silverman, president and founder of the strategic communications firm, told Trend on the sidelines of the U.S.Azerbaijan Trade and Business Conference. The event, held on March 10, marked the 30th anniversary of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) in Washington. Based in Washington, D.C., North Coast Communications specializes in Asia and Central Asia markets, offering tailored consulting, media support, and market entry strategies to promote regional business interests in the U.S. and vice versa. Since launching my firm in 2020, our team members have worked extensively across Asia, including Central Asia and the Caspian region. I have never seen such strong mutual interest between the U.S. and this region, Silverman said. Azerbaijan, in particular, stands out as a connectivity hub and a center for regional stability and energy. A strong, engaged Azerbaijan is vital for both the United States and the region, and its position as a gateway for Central Asias engagement with the West cannot be overstated. He highlighted the firms role in facilitating cross-border business engagement. We help Azerbaijani industries and companies access the U.S. market, providing them with a trusted partner in Washington. At the same time, we connect U.S. businesses and investment capital to opportunities in Azerbaijan, Silverman noted. Emphasizing the broader regional significance, he added: Central Asian countries are excellent partners for the United States and for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijans strategic position enhances these partnerships, and North Coast Communications is uniquely positioned to bridge business opportunities between the U.S. and this dynamic region. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Azerbaijan expressed its support for brotherly Turkiye for the successful holding of COP31 and will continue cooperation in advancing the climate agenda, Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, COP29 Lead Negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev said at a briefing held at the Non-Aligned Movement Youth Organization headquarters, Trend reports. The deputy minister noted that the COP process is one of the most inclusive platforms in the United Nations system, and this process brings together not only government representatives, but also civil society, academic circles, youth, and other stakeholders. "By hosting COP29 in November 2024, Azerbaijan has organized one of the most important international events in the history of its independence. According to him, the results achieved are remembered as a significant milestone in the COP process. High-level champions play an important role within the COP, and their activities complement intergovernmental negotiations with the contributions of non-state actors," he emphasized. Rafiyev also touched upon the preparations for COP31 in Turkiye, noting that Samet Arvas, a high-level champion of this event, has extensive experience in the climate field and is already actively collaborating with various stakeholders. "Turkiye's Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, is actively leading the preparations as the designated President of COP31," he added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Kazakhstan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), setting the direction of cooperation for 2026-2029, backed by $5.4 billion in indicative financing, ADB President Masato Kanda wrote on his social media account, Trend reports. "This reflects the scale of our shared ambition, promoting regional cooperation, building resilience to natural hazards, and reducing regional disparities," he noted. Kanda also announced the signing of a loan agreement that will translate the partnership into concrete investment in the transport sector. The project will support the construction of a 102-kilometer bypass in southern Kazakhstan, aimed at strengthening the countrys trade and transport links across the region. "These agreements translate partnership into action, and action into impact. ADB remains committed to working closely with Kazakhstan as we advance sustainable and inclusive growth together," he wrote. During his visit to Kazakhstan, Kanda met with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin, who also serves as ADB Governor for Kazakhstan. As part of his regional visit, the ADB president is also scheduled to visit Tajikistan and Georgia. In 1994, Kazakhstan became the inaugural Central Asian nation to join the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Since then, the Bank has played a pivotal role in advancing the nation's development, providing both sovereign and non-sovereign financing, along with advisory services on public-private partnerships, technical assistance, and knowledge-driven solutions. The Banks key areas of engagement encompass public sector governance, transportation infrastructure, financial systems, and the promotion of renewable energy. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, March 14. Kazakhstan has completed the evacuation of its citizens from the Middle East region, Trend reports citing the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. In total, 10,275 citizens of Kazakhstan have been returned to the country. The evacuation was carried out through various routes, including both air and land transport. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan expressed gratitude to government agencies and international partners for their support in ensuring the safe return of Kazakh citizens to their homeland. Since no concrete agreement was reached in negotiations between the United States (US) and Iran over the nuclear program, the US and Israel began military airstrikes against Iran on February 28. In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military facilities located in countries across the region, starting the same day. On the first day of the air strikes against Iran, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking military officials were killed. On March 8, Irans Assembly of Experts elected Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei as Irans third Supreme Leader by majority vote. From March 1 through March 5, the confrontation expanded further, affecting several countries across the Middle East. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Since February 28, 112 people have been killed in Irans western Kurdistan province following a series of US and Israeli airstrikes on the country, Babak Hodayi, Director of the Kurdistan Provincial Office of Irans Emergency Organization, told reporters, Trend reports. Hodayi noted that the attacks have also left 969 people injured. Five victims remain in intensive care, while 27 are receiving treatment in hospital wards. Since no concrete agreement was reached in negotiations between the United States (US) and Iran over the nuclear program, the US and Israel began military airstrikes against Iran on February 28. In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military facilities located in countries across the region, starting the same day. On the first day of the air strikes against Iran, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking military officials were killed. On March 8, Irans Assembly of Experts elected Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as Irans third Supreme Leader by majority vote. Between March 1 and March 5, the confrontation expanded further, affecting several countries across the Middle East. According to reports, the US side suffered losses of 8 dead and more than 140 wounded. As a result of the conflict, the regions energy infrastructure and maritime transportation have also come under serious risk. Due to heightened security tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, global oil prices have surged sharply, and several countries have urged their citizens to leave the region. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The Iranian military continues to launch drone attacks against various targets in Israel, the army confirmed, Trend reports. According to the statement, Iranian forces today struck Israels Aman Security Service, its cyber operations division, and areas housing Israeli fighter jets using drones. Since no concrete agreement was reached in negotiations between the United States (US) and Iran over the nuclear program, the US and Israel began military airstrikes against Iran on February 28. In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military facilities located in countries across the region, starting the same day. On the first day of the air strikes against Iran, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking military officials were killed. On March 8, Irans Assembly of Experts elected Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as Irans third Supreme Leader by majority vote. Between March 1 and March 5, the confrontation expanded further, affecting several countries across the Middle East. According to reports, the US side suffered losses of 8 dead and more than 140 wounded. As a result of the conflict, the regions energy infrastructure and maritime transportation have also come under serious risk. Due to heightened security tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, global oil prices have surged sharply, and several countries have urged their citizens to leave the region. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Congress MP K Suresh on Friday criticised the Pinarai Vijayan's Left Democratic Front (LDF) over their U-turn, opposing the entry of young women inside Sabarimala temple, saying that it is a way to appease the voters ahead of the Assembly elections. Speaking to ANI, Suresh said that initially, former Chief Minister of Kerala, VS Achuthanandan, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that women should be allowed to enter the Sabarimala temple. "The CPM-led government, when Achuthanandan was the Chief Minister in Kerala, changed their own affidavit stating that young women can also enter the Sabarimala temple. That is totally objectionable because the Oommen Chandy government gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that in Sabarimala temple, there is a custom, there is a ritual," he said. He further added that when the Pinarayi Vijayan government came to power, they again filed an affidavit similar to Achuthanandan's affidavit. As a result, the LDF performed poorly in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. "When the Pinarayi Vijayan government came to power, the Supreme Court asked them to comment on the entry of young women in the Sabarimala. At that time, they changed the affidavit given by the Oommen Chandy government and gave the same affidavit as that of Achuthanandan. Then, the Kerala Government of Pinarai Vijayan implemented the Supreme Court judgement. The judgement stated that on the basis of the State Government's affidavit, young women can enter Sabarimala. That decision led to agitation from Hindu organisations, including the Nair Service Society and political parties, resulting in violence, arrests, and resistance from devotees. In the 2019 elections, the LDF was badly defeated; out of 20 seats, they lost 19. Now, in a complete U-turn, the Pinarayi Vijayan Government opposes the entry of young women--simply to appease voters ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. Why did they change their statement? Because of the Assembly elections. After elections, they may again change," he said. It is noteworthy that the entry of young women aged between 10 and 50 was not allowed traditionally. Only girls below puberty and women over 50 were allowed to enter. On April 7, a nine-judge Bench will begin hearing the review of the 2018 five-judge Bench's verdict in the Sabarimala case. The SC Bench had then held that prohibiting women between the ages of 10 and 50 years from entering the Sabarimala Temple violated Article 25(1) of the Constitution. (ANI) BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. The U.S. military carried out a powerful strike on military facilities located on Irans Kharg Island, U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on the social network Truth Social, Trend reports. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every military target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island.," the U.S. President wrote. BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 14. Israel destroyed several Hezbollah command centers in Lebanon and Beirut yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) stated, Trend reports via the Times of Israel. The IDF said that operatives at the targeted centers were planning attacks against Israel. Since the recent escalation began, the military has struck over 110 Hezbollah command sites, the IDFs press service added. Since no concrete agreement was reached in negotiations between the United States (US) and Iran over the nuclear program, the US and Israel began military airstrikes against Iran on February 28. In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military facilities located in countries across the region, starting the same day. On the first day of the air strikes against Iran, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking military officials were killed. On March 8, Irans Assembly of Experts elected Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as Irans third Supreme Leader by majority vote. Between March 1 and March 5, the confrontation expanded further, affecting several countries across the Middle East. According to reports, the US side suffered losses of 8 dead and more than 140 wounded. As a result of the conflict, the regions energy infrastructure and maritime transportation have also come under serious risk. Due to heightened security tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, global oil prices have surged sharply, and several countries have urged their citizens to leave the region. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel . . . . The state government has issued a notification making the Marathi language a compulsory subject in schools of all mediums and under all management boards across the state. Strict action will be taken against schools that violate this rule, School Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse informed the Legislative Assembly. Minister Bhuse was responding to a question raised by MLA Haroon Khan in the Assembly. Bhuse said that according to the government notification issued on March 1, 2020, Marathi has been made a compulsory subject in schools of all mediums and under all managements in the state. In some international or national boards, Marathi must be taught either as a "second language" or a "third language". He clarified that under no circumstances can Marathi be excluded. Responding to the complaint raised by MLA Haroon Khan regarding a particular school, Bhuse said the Education Department will immediately conduct an inspection of the institution. If it is found that Marathi is not being taught there, the school will be made aware of the legal provisions, and necessary action will be taken. The minister further said that the rule of teaching Marathi in schools is not limited only to government schools but also applies to private, unaided, and schools affiliated with foreign boards. Since Marathi is the official language of the state, it is essential that the new generation learns it and contributes to its preservation, he said, adding that the state government will not make any compromise on the issue. Schools that are not teaching Marathi will be instructed to implement the rule, and institutions that fail to comply with the order may have their recognition cancelled, Bhuse clarified. MLAs Atul Bhatkhalkar and Amit Deshmukh also participated in the discussion on the issue in the Assembly. (ANI) Soldiers of the 77th Separate Airmobile Naddnipryanska Brigade of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stormed a position held by Russian invaders in Bohuslavka, Kharkiv region; four of them surrendered. According to Ukrinform, the 77th Separate Airmobile Naddnipryanska Brigade reported this on Facebook and released a video of the combat operation. Paratroopers from the 2nd Aeromobile Battalion of the 77th Separate Airmobile Naddnipryanska Brigade of the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out decisive assault operations on one of the front lines and advanced directly to the enemys position, the statement reads. During close combat, Ukrainian troops forced the Russian occupiers to lay down their arms. As a result of the operation, four Russian servicemen were taken prisoner, the military reported. Another Russian invader who resisted was neutralized on the spot, the military added. As noted by the 77th Separate Airmobile Naddnipryanska Brigade, the prisoners will be added to the exchange pool and will serve as further proof that Russian units are losing control of the situation even at their own positions. As reported by Ukrinform, in the Pokrovsk sector, fighters of the 3rd Operational Brigade named after Colonel Petro Bolbochan Spartan of the National Guard of Ukraine captured 25 Russian invaders during the month. A Russian Shahed-type attack drone crashed in Moldova during Russia's overnight strike on Ukraine, prompting condemnation from the Moldovan authorities. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Moldova, the incident occurred overnight on March 14 in the eastern part of the country and involved a violation of Moldova's airspace by a Shahed-type UAV, Ukrinform reports, citing NewsMaker. The ministry described the incident as "a violation of Moldova's sovereignty and a threat to national security." "Moldova strongly condemns such actions, as well as the war of aggression unleashed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which brings only losses and destruction while directly threatening regional security and the safety of Moldovan citizens," the ministry said, adding that authorities are closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with relevant services. Read also: Poland scrambles fighter jets amid Russian missile attack on Ukraine Earlier on March 14, the Moldovan Border Police reported that a drone had been detected in the country's airspace overnight. Officials said they were inspecting the area where the UAV may have crashed. According to Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities, the drone was flying in eastern Moldova toward the villages of Ucrainca in Moldova and Novosilka in Ukraine before disappearing from radar. Ukrainian border guards said the UAV vanished in the Cimislia district near the village of Troitcoe. Earlier, Ukraine's air defense forces reported intercepting 460 Russian aerial targets since the evening of March 13, including 58 missiles and 402 drones of various types. Photo for illustration purposes Irans 'Mosaic Defence' and Fourth Successor Models As US-Israel versus Iran conflict intensifies, Irans decentralised 'Mosaic Defence' and 'Fourth Successor' layered leadership models ensure military operations persist despite leadership losses. In the ongoing war against Iran by US and Israel two terms which have gained prominence are Mosaic Defence model of war tacticsand Fourth Successor model of leadership, both of which have shown the success of the Iranian regime in the war, so far. As US-Israel versus Iran conflict intensifies, Irans decentralised Mosaic Defence and Fourth Successor layered leadership models ensure military operations persist despite leadership losses. The world first heard the term in Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchis post on X on March 1, when he wrote, .. decentralised Mosaic Defence enables us to decide whenand howwar will end. Two key pillars of Irans strategy were put forth here: first, observing and adapting to US military weaknesses, and second, complete decentralisation of its command and control to ensure resilience and continuity in the event of decapitation strikes. Mosaic Defence The decentralised defence strategy referred to here by Araghchi, dubbed Mosaic Defence, seeks to neutralise the impact of US or Israeli strikes that target its leadership or command-and-control and ensure continuity in the face of any decapitation strike. Sometimes referred to as salami slicing tactics, this approach extends to Irans goal to bleed the US and Israel economically, in an effort to bring the war home to their respective populations and ensure that the war remains unpopular domestically for Tehrans foes. Irans defence doctrine playing out in real-time since the start of Operation Epic Fury has been decades in the making and was cemented by the 1980-88 IranIraq War as well as the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon during the Civil War, both of which were formidable in shaping how Iran and its primary proxy group, Lebanese Hezbollah, view the current fight. Further, this three-pronged defense doctrine evolved further in 2005, when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), under the supervision of General Mohammad Jafari, announced its model of mosaic defense essentially a decentralized command-and-control system. In an analysis by Dr Michael Connall, an Iranian military culture expert, this strategy led directly to the restructuring of the IRGC command and control architecture into a system of 31 separate commands, which could launch an insurgency in the case of an invasion and which would make any attempt at degrading Irans defense exceedingly difficult. According to a report by the RAND Organisation, Iraqi forces in 2003 were paralysed by a command structure that was highly centralised around Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This, according to the report, prohibited both the regular Iraqi Army and the Republican Guard units from coordinating with each other, while officers at the Division and Corps level could not conduct even basic manoeuvres without Saddam's approval. The 2010 report notes that the rapid defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime made Jafari and other Iranian officials realise the need to ensure that the IRGC and the regular Iranian armed forces (the Artesh) could operate independently without interference and not fall apart upon losing contact with the higher command. According to the RAND Organisation, Iran's Mosaic Doctrine was first formulated in 2005, when Jafari, as the director of the IRGC's Center for Strategic Studies, identified two critical threats to the regime of the Ayatollahs, those being, "a foreign attempt to foment a 'soft revolution' through support of Iranian NGOs and activists and a US military attack that could topple the regime." Iran started implementing the doctrine in 2005, accelerating after the appointment of Jafari as the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC in 2007. A 2010 US Institute of Peace report confirms the same. According to a report by the Soufan Centre, the strategy of the Mosaic Doctrine emphasised layered, distributed defences to exploit Iran's geography, rugged mountains, vast interior, dispersed population centres, and enable prolonged resistance against superior invaders. The core innovation was restructuring the IRGC into 31 semi-autonomous provincial commands (one per province). Each command operates as a self-contained entity with independent headquarters, command-and-control nodes, missiles, and drone arsenals, integrated Basij militia units, fast-attack naval flotillas, intelligence assets, stockpiled munitions, and pre-delegated authority for contingency operations. After assuming IRGC command in 2007, Jafari oversaw its full implementation, integrating Basij forces into the IRGC and enhancing asymmetric capabilities. This decentralisation, approved under the late Supreme Leader Khamenei, allowed local commanders broad freedom of action to execute broad objectives without real-time central oversight. This echoes mission-type tactics, like the German Auftragstaktik Doctrine, which, according to research by the US Naval Institute, gives subordinate officers freedom to act as they see fit, so long as they meet pre-defined objectives given by their superior officers. In practical terms, the military is designed to keep functioning even if the head of the system is removed. The Fourth Successor leadership model Meanwhile, Iran has also developed a layered leadership system designed to prevent a power vacuum in wartime. The concept, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Successor, ensures that multiple levels of leadership are ready to assume authority if senior figures are killed in a conflict. Iranian planners have long expected that in a war with powerful adversaries like the United States or Israel, top leaders could be targeted. This could include the supreme leader and the first few figures in the succession line. To prevent disruption, the state maintained a deep hierarchy of leadership so that power can pass down several levels without interrupting governance or military command. Under Irans political system, the Assembly of Experts is responsible for selecting the supreme leader. If the sitting leader dies or becomes incapacitated, an interim leadership council can temporarily perform the responsibilities of the office while a permanent successor is chosen. A version of this arrangement was briefly seen after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. During that period, a three-member council that included Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior officials handled the duties of the leadership until a new supreme leader was appointed. The Fourth Successor idea builds on this mechanism. It ensures that additional figures are prepared to assume authority if the supreme leader and the immediate replacements are eliminated. This layered system is meant to guarantee that the state, especially its security and military apparatus, continues to function regardless of leadership losses. Overall, the current confidence of the Iranian leadership could be attributed to the success of its Mosaic Defence and Fourth Successor leadership models, about which its adversaries had no operational idea. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language to Translate in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Maharashtra colleges violating girls fee waiver scheme to face action In a stern warning to the colleges in Maharashtra denying admission to girl students under the state's fee waiver scheme, the government said affiliation of such institutes could be cancelled. Mumbai: In a stern warning to the colleges in Maharashtra denying admission to girl students under the state's fee waiver scheme, the government said affiliation of such institutes could be cancelled. Replying to a discussion during Question Hour in the Maharashtra Assembly, Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil said that some colleges were asking students to first pay the fees and then claim reimbursement after the government releases scholarship funds. If any college refuses admission to eligible girl students on the grounds of fees, we will not hesitate to initiate action, including cancellation of affiliation, the minister said. Stating that the decision taken two years ago to waive tuition fees for girls pursuing professional courses was a revolutionary step aimed at boosting womens participation in higher education, Patil said the government has made it mandatory to appoint a nodal officer in every college to ensure proper implementation of the fee waiver scheme, according to the news agency PTI. The minister said the scheme has already resulted in a sharp increase in enrollment of girl students in colleges. The number of girl students has increased from 85,068 in the 2023-24 academic year to 1,15,800, registering a rise of about 41 per cent, he said. Simplified Scholarship Application Process Patil also said the government is working to simplify the scholarship application process and reduce documentation requirements on the MahaDBT portal. The number of documents required for scholarship applications has been reduced from 17 to eight, while efforts are underway to further streamline verification procedures, he said. He added that the state government is prioritising the timely disbursal of scholarships and reimbursements to colleges. Scholarships will be treated with priority, similar to salary payments, so that students do not face difficulties, Patil said. The minister said that students who do not get hostel accommodation are eligible for a monthly allowance of up to Rs 6,000 to support their stay. "Earn and Learn initiative" Patil also informed the House that the government is considering expansion of the earn and learn initiative under which students can work in college libraries, laboratories or campus activities and receive a stipend of around Rs 2,000 per month. He said the government is also setting up around 40 facilitation centres across the state to help students fill scholarship applications and resolve issues related to the process. The minister urged legislators to inform the government about institutions violating the scheme so that immediate action can be taken. Patil also said that a specific category for orphan students will be added to the MahaDBT (Maharashtra Direct Benefit Transfer) portal to ensure they receive reservation benefits and full fee waiver in higher education, according to The Times of India. The BJP-Eknath Shinde Sena government in Maharashtra had launched the girls fee waiver scheme few months before the 2024 Assembly Elections, a week after announcing the Ladli Behna Yojna for women. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language to Translate in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic Ahead of his 'Badlav Rally' in Moga, Punjab, Union Home Minister Amit Shah cornered Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's government, referring to it as a "remote-controlled" government, while criticising it for the law and order and development in the state. In a post on X, Amit Shah stated that the people of Punjab want a change from the AAP government, as he criticised the government over the handling of the state affairs. "Every person in Punjab wants change. Because the sacred land of Punjab, renowned for its youth, farmers, and hardworking people, has been drowned in corruption, drugs, and crime by the AAP-Da government. In the remotely controlled AAP-Da government, law and order and development are nowhere to be found in Punjab," Amit Shah said. "Today, I am eager to connect with the sisters and brothers of Punjab at the BJP 'Badlav Rally' in Moga," he added. The rally comes to sound the bugle for the BJP's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. The 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election marked a major shift in the state's political landscape, with the Aam Aadmi Party securing a sweeping victory. Held on February 20, 2022, for all 117 seats, the results declared on March 10 gave AAP 92 seats, far above the majority mark of 59. The ruling Indian National Congress suffered a heavy defeat, winning only 18 seats, while the Shiromani Akali Dal managed just 3 seats, and the Bharatiya Janata Party won 2. Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a nearly seven-hour-long core committee meeting ahead of the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections at the party's former national president JP Nadda's residence, during which more than a hundred seats were discussed. BJP national president Nitin Nabin, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party's West Bengal unit president Samik Bhattacharya, Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar, BJP national general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal, BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, MP Biplab Deb and many more prominent leaders were present at the meeting. According to the sources, the leaders discussed more than a hundred seats for the candidate list. They also discussed election strategy, campaigning, roadmap, slogans, and other aspects of the upcoming polls. The BJP is intensifying its efforts to challenge the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, with the party finalising its candidate list and election strategy for the crucial state polls. West Bengal is scheduled to hold elections for its 294-member Legislative Assembly later this year. (ANI) Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Saturday alleged that the BJP government was "sacrificing" Indian agriculture for their "own self-interest" as he accused them of evading his questions on Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the interim trade agreement with the US. Rahul Gandhi, in a post on Facebook, expressed dissatisfaction with the answers by Bhagirath Choudhary, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, to his unstarred questions in the Lok Sabha. "In the Lok Sabha, I asked the government a direct question: Why has the promise of a statutory MSP--calculated at C2+50%--made to farmers in 2021, not yet been implemented? Evading a direct response, the government merely reiterated its existing MSP policy," Rahul Gandhi said. "The government also admitted that it exerted pressure on states to discontinue MSP bonuses--a move it sought to justify, without any logical basis, in the name of "national priorities," he added. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02gKGraWscW6UjTf7xzDKvPQdQM9jTWZnvGtzhxTYYtHnLsVqPhudXmbTo4yWrU3Ual&id=100044282536870&sfnsn=wiwspwa&mibextid=6aamW6&_rdr On his questions whether India's commitment to reduce "non-trade barriers" with US affect the India's policies on genetically modified crops, MSP and public procurement, Rahul Gandhi said that the government "evaded" that question as well, criticising their approach towards farmers. "Another critical question arises: the trade agreement with the United States speaks of reducing 'non-trade barriers." Does this imply an intent to undermine the MSP mechanism and government procurement? The government is evading this question as well. The Modi government not only refuses to honour the promises made to farmers, but it is also prepared to sacrifice Indian agriculture for the sake of its own self-interest," he said. "We will continue to raise our voices--both inside and outside Parliament--to defend the rights of farmers and to protect the MSP," he added. Rahul Gandhi has constantly targeted the central government over the deal, predicting that the deal will be "devastating" for the agriculture sector. India and the United States had on February 7 announced that they had reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (Interim Agreement). Key terms of the Interim Agreement included India eliminating or reducing tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products. It said the United States will apply a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 per cent under Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025, as amended, on originating goods of India, including textile and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber, organic chemicals, home decor, artisanal products, and certain machinery. (ANI) WASHINGTON When Professor Tamas Horvath, chair of Yale School of Medicine's comparative medicine program, learned that hiring a single international scholar would now cost his department $100,000 in federal visa fees on top of an already strained budget he reached a straightforward conclusion: "Our department is not in the position to finance such applications." It was a quiet admission with sweeping implications. Horvath's predicament is playing out at universities from New Haven to Gainesville, from Seattle to Austin. The Trump administration's second-term campaign against American higher education encompassing immigration restrictions, DEI bans, funding freezes, and deportation of student activists has set off a chain reaction that is reshaping who gets hired, who gets funded, what gets taught, and who dares to speak. The scope of the transformation is without modern precedent. In little more than a year, the administration has paused or terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in university research grants, launched investigations into dozens of institutions, imposed a $100,000 fee on foreign faculty hires, and moved to deport noncitizen academics and students it deems ideologically suspect. The result is a higher education sector in the grip of institutional anxiety and, critics warn, intellectual retreat. The $100,000 Wall: Shutting Out Global Talent At the heart of the administration's immigration pressure on campuses is a September 2025 presidential proclamation that added a $100,000 fee to every new H-1B visa application a program that universities have long relied on to recruit international faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and scientists. The fee multiplied costs that previously ran under $4,000 per petition by roughly 25 times overnight. The consequences have been immediate and far-reaching. Yale alone sponsors more than 200 international tenure-track faculty and research scientists under the H-1B program annually; more than 90% of its H-1B holders are postdoctoral associates described by university officials as "critical to the university's mission of research and teaching." David Vasseur, chair of Yale's ecology and evolutionary biology department, told the Yale Daily News he is "concerned about the additional cost this will add to recruiting international scholars in these already fiscally challenging times." The American Immigration Lawyers Association called the fee "exorbitant" and unconstitutional, arguing that only Congress holds the power to set visa fees. Jeff Joseph, AILA's president, said the measure "effectively shut out teachers, non-profits, researchers, rural doctors, clergy, and other professionals" and would "undermine innovation and prevent businesses both large and small from accessing the talent they need." Britta Glennon, who studies global innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, put it plainly: universities will be forced to hire "only the best U.S." candidates regardless of whether a more qualified international scholar exists. The fee has now become a catalyst for broader action at the state level. Florida's Board of Governors voted 14 to 2 in early March to impose a one-year freeze on H-1B hiring across the state's 12 public universities, effective immediately through January 2027 a move championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. Texas Governor Greg Abbott followed with his own freeze through May 2027. A federal appellate court is now weighing whether the $100,000 fee constitutes a lawful exercise of executive authority or an unconstitutional tax but universities cannot wait for that verdict. "It's also a restriction on academic freedom," said Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University. "It's telling departments: here's a group of scholars who are off-limits to you, even if they're doing research or teaching in areas that are really important for your students." Hiring Freeze: The Research Engine Slows The visa crisis compounds a broader hiring slowdown that preceded it. The administration began pulling millions of dollars from elite universities in 2025, initially citing allegations of antisemitism on campuses. Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins were among the first targets. The loss of funding triggered hiring freezes at top research institutions and led to thousands of layoffs at Johns Hopkins University alone. Mike Gavin, president and CEO of the Alliance for Higher Education, described the damage in direct terms: "The quality is not at the same level in the states that are imposing different kinds of restrictions on academic freedom and also diversity, equity, and inclusion. So the retention of quality scholars and the attracting of that has been not great." Foreign professors face particularly treacherous terrain. A recent federal lawsuit alleges the First Amendment rights of noncitizen academics have been violated by an administration policy barring researchers who study fact-checking and social media on the theory that such work could lead to censorship of Americans. Foreign-born faculty have self-censored or been barred from re-entering the country, according to the suit. Social media screening for H-1B applicants was expanded in December 2025, with immigration officials now scrutinizing the online profiles of visa applicants prompting universities to advise international scholars to carefully audit their digital presence. "There are certainly challenges attracting international academics," said one senior university administrator who spoke on background. "Some of that is driven by concerns about U.S. politics more broadly, but a lot of it is driven by the H-1B visa issue if it costs $100,000 to hire a person, there are other candidates who could potentially be hired for that money instead." Even some schools that reached settlements with the administration to restore funding have not seen a corresponding recovery in hiring. The institutional caution has taken on a life of its own. DEI: The Dismantling Continues Parallel to its immigration offensive, the Trump administration has waged a systematic campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on college campuses and in February 2026, it won a major legal victory in that fight. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction that had been blocking two executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI practices in higher education, ruling that the groups challenging the orders including the American Association of University Professors and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education lacked standing on one provision and were unlikely to succeed on the others. The ruling gave the administration renewed authority to pursue its anti-DEI agenda. The administration had issued its first anti-DEI executive orders within the first two days of Trump's second term, directing federal agencies to eliminate any "equity-related" grants or contracts and requiring federal funding recipients to certify they do not operate programs promoting DEI. Since then, the federal government has cancelled vast numbers of diversity-related research grants, threatened to pull funding from noncompliant universities, and established a dedicated portal for reporting DEI programs in schools. The Department of Education sent letters to universities warning of funding cuts for DEI programs that persist. Multiple red states enacted outright DEI bans. Some academics have quietly removed words like "equity" from federal funding proposals to avoid rejection. Even in liberal-leaning California where courts ultimately ruled against several administration DEI measures educators acknowledged that the campaign had chilled behavior well beyond what any court order required. "One of my concerns is that the strategy of the Trump administration is to disrupt and instigate a sense of conflict within local communities," said John Rogers, a professor at UCLA's School of Education. "The administration's campaign has had a major effect on the landscape of higher education, even in California." Some universities capitulated without legal compulsion. Brown University settled with the administration in July 2025, agreeing to adopt the administration's definitions of "male" and "female" and remove race as a consideration in admissions in exchange for restored research funding. "Woke is officially DEAD at Brown," Trump posted on social media after the deal. The "Trump Did It" dynamic institutions using the administration's directives as cover for reversals they were already inclined to make has become a defining feature of the moment. As legal scholar Jonathan Turley observed, many administrators "did not want to risk being tagged by the far-left mob for taking meaningful action" on campus unrest. The election, he argued, gave them political cover to act. Targeting the Scholars Themselves Beyond policies, the administration has targeted individual academics and students. The deportation of Mahmoud Khalil a lawful permanent resident and 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian encampment leader became a flash point. The administration invoked a rarely-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allowing deportation of noncitizens deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy, regardless of lawful status. Lebanese Brown University professor Rasha Alawieh was deported despite a court order. Over 300 student visas were revoked in 2025 alone, with the administration targeting those it accused of supporting Hamas or engaging in antisemitic activity. A "catch and revoke" strategy emerged, with federal agencies monitoring international students' social media for what the State Department termed "terrorist sympathizing" activity. The chilling effect has extended far beyond the individuals directly targeted. Faculty unions report widespread self-censorship among noncitizen academics. Conference participation by international scholars has declined. Some foreign researchers have chosen Europe or Canada over the United States. "If they realize that there is no opportunity for them to make a life here and work here, they might as well go to Germany, Japan, the UK," said one university professor, reflecting a fear voiced by administrators across the country. The Administration's Defense The Trump administration has been unapologetic. Department of Education press secretary Savannah Newhouse said the administration is "carrying out a clear mandate from parents: get politics and DEI out of classrooms, cut federal administrative bloat, and ensure education dollars are spent directly on student achievement." Ellen Keast, the department's press secretary for higher education, outlined the administration's vision going forward: universities should "continue to make progress in aligning programs with workforce needs, expanding high-ROI pathways for students, and reducing costs by cutting unnecessary administrative bloat." Supporters argue that elite universities had long been insulated from accountability, tolerating campus unrest and ideological conformity while receiving billions in federal funding. The H-1B fee, proponents say, protects American workers from wage suppression and visa exploitation. What Comes Next Higher education advocates are pressing universities to fight back more forcefully in 2026. "One of the lessons is that universities should invest in strong legal and policy teams and build contingency plans for sudden retaliatory shifts," said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. "Last year, many campus leaders thought if they kept their head down and minded their own business, they wouldn't be attacked. But that wasn't the case." Ray Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School, framed the choice starkly: "The right thing to do is to stand up for academic freedom and the values that the American university is supposed to stand for." The long-term consequences remain uncertain. Scientists warn that funding cuts and immigration restrictions are already damaging the U.S. research enterprise. Many have said they are considering leaving the country. The National Science Foundation, NIH, and major research universities have all flagged talent loss as an existential concern. What is not uncertain is the scale of what has already happened. In just over a year, the Trump administration has altered the hiring practices of major research universities, dismantled diversity programs built over decades, targeted individual scholars for deportation, and imposed costs on international recruitment that some institutions simply cannot absorb. Whether the courts, Congress, or a future administration ultimately reverse those changes, the professors who were not hired, the researchers who left, and the students who chose other countries will not easily be recalled. American higher education's greatest competitive advantage its ability to attract the world's best minds is being tested in ways that will take years to fully measure. Delhi Police arrested a proclaimed offender and the shooter of the Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu gang at Mahendergarh in Haryana on Wednesday. According to the Delhi Police, the accused, Lucky alias Bhawani, was absconding from trial and had an active Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) issued against him by a Dwarka court. Lucky was previously involved in a daylight murder case in Ujwa village, Delhi, and is a henchman for the notorious Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu gang. He was also involved in an extortion-related firing incident in the Bijwasan area. After being released from jail, he resumed contact with associates of the Nandu gang. Consequently, the Special Staff of Dwarka District were tasked with monitoring recently released criminals and individuals associated with various gangs. On March 11, the team received information that Lucky, a sharpshooter for the Nandu gang, was frequently visiting Ambala Jail to meet his associate, Dharmender Rana. Reports indicated that the accused was residing in his native village and planning to resume gang-related activities. Acting on this intelligence, the police team tracked him to Mahendergarh, Haryana. Based on human intelligence, the Delhi Police apprehended Lucky. Proceedings under Section 84 of the BNSS had been initiated against him by the court in connection with the Bijwasan extortion firing case. The accused was subsequently produced before the court and was sent to jail. Meanwhile, in a separate development, the Proclaimed Offenders (PO) Cell of the Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS) in the West District of Delhi Police on March 13 arrested a proclaimed offender in a burglary case. According to police, a special team of the PO Cell AATS/West was constituted to trace and arrest proclaimed offenders. On March 8, the team launched an operation to trace a proclaimed offender in a burglary case registered in 2020. The accused had been declared a proclaimed offender by the JMFC-06 Court at Tis Hazari Courts on September 27, 2025. During the operation, the team received a secret tip-off that the accused was present in the JJ Colony Sawda area. Acting on the information, police laid a trap and apprehended the accused. The arrested accused has been identified as Junaid, alias Junny. Police said the accused was previously involved in eight criminal cases. (ANI) American University of Rome Students Partner with Magliano Sabina to Put a Hidden Gem on the Map Magliano Sabina is a medieval hilltop comune in northern Lazio, perched above the Tiber Valley on the border with Umbria, surrounded by olive groves, vineyards, and open countryside. It has ancient roots, a skyline of medieval palazzos and piazzas, and a table that includes some of central Italy's finest extra virgin olive oil, local wine, and the Mazzafegata, a signature pork sausage unique to the area. Until now, putting itself on the international map has remained an opportunity yet to be fully explored. That is changing. Mayor Giulio Falcetta has enlisted a promising ally: a team of students from the American University of Rome, who travelled north last week for an in-person meeting with the mayor as part of a collaboration aimed at repositioning Magliano Sabina as an international tourism destination. A Town Worth Staying In Magliano Sabina's location has historically worked against it. Conveniently close to the A1 Autostrada del Sole, which links Milan to Naples via Bologna, Florence, and Rome, and within easy reach of both Lazio and Umbria, the town has long served as a stopping point rather than a destination. Visitors have tended to pass through for a day or two, drawn by the surrounding countryside and the villas that dot the Sabine Hills, without spending meaningful time in the town center itself. Mayor Falcetta wants to change that. His target is an average stay of three to four nights, long enough for visitors to eat well, walk slowly, and understand what makes Magliano worth the detour. The initial focus will be on younger travellers and students, positioning the town as an accessible and affordable retreat from Rome. Real Students, Real Stakes The collaboration is part of the American University of Rome's Real Projects programme, which places student consultants inside actual organisations to work on genuine challenges alongside the people responsible for solving them. There are no hypothetical case studies here. The students work directly with Mayor Falcetta, learning the town's history, its ambitions, and its constraints, before designing a strategy they will formally present to the municipality. One early idea with particular promise centres on Ecostello Magliano Sabina, a former monastery now operating as a hostel run by the local government. The students are developing a concept for a structured weekend retreat, using the Ecostello as a base and anchoring the experience in the town center: food and bar tours, cooking classes hosted by local nonnas, and the kind of unhurried immersion that turns a short visit into a lasting memory. Mayor Falcetta has spoken warmly of the partnership. "As an administration, we are honoured to be collaborating with the American University of Rome," he said. "Meeting students from all over the world, pursuing different but complementary fields of study, gives our town a remarkable opportunity in terms of analytical capacity and development guidance. In this second phase, we will focus on identifying our tourism target by analysing the needs we can address through our hospitality offer. We are increasingly convinced that choosing to work with this prestigious university was the right decision." First Impressions The students' visit to Magliano Sabina left a mark. The images they had seen online, they noted, had not done the place justice. After an opening meeting at city hall, where Mayor Falcetta offered a deeper portrait of the commune and its community, the group spent the afternoon exploring on foot. They were joined along the way by Marcello, a local who took it upon himself to guide them through the town with the easy generosity that seems to characterise the place. The day ended at Hostaria Un Altravolta, a family-run restaurant where a meal of fresh local food made the project feel less like an assignment and more like a beginning. For Scott Sprenger, President of the American University of Rome, the visit encapsulates exactly what the programme is designed to produce. "The Magliano Sabina collaboration is exactly the kind of real-world engagement we want for our students," he said. "Working with a municipality on a tourism strategy allows students to apply what they learn in the classroom while building the practical skills, contacts, and professional confidence that will shape their future careers." A Model Worth Watching The partnership between Magliano Sabina and the American University of Rome is a small project with implications that go beyond tourism. It offers a working model for how municipalities, particularly smaller ones with limited marketing resources, can engage with academic institutions to access fresh thinking and international perspectives. For the students, it is the rare opportunity to do work that genuinely matters to real people in a real place. For Magliano Sabina, it may be the start of the recognition it has long deserved. Bisian Abdulkader, the professor leading the project, puts it simply. "In Real Projects, I see students grow through experiential learning as they develop applied research capabilities, critical thinking, and the ability to work with external stakeholders in real-world settings," she said. "Bringing together academic rigor and practical relevance is never simple, but that is precisely what makes the experience so meaningful. The greatest reward comes when graduates tell me that Real Projects were pivotal to their careers and to their ability to translate knowledge into professional practice." Attendees at the Index Gallery in Waterford Library were invited to consider how limited our view of things like home and maps may be. The theme of the evening was Coastal Cartographies where ecologists, design students and artists all worked together to create a living map of Waterford. That word home can convey that sense of place, that sense of connection but it can also be connected with upheaval and displacement; it all depends on your personal narrative. Explained Joy Rooney, a lecturer and researcher in design in SETU. Maps fascinate me. said Tasneem Khan, founder of the School of Ecology and Art. She believes they are a way of expressing what we care about. If you care about borders and politics, you will make a map that really defines those. If you care about exclusion, you will make a map that puts you at the center. But if you care about stories, memory, ecology, you might make a map about what's missing. The project What was supposed to be a single event for science week turned into a five month long endeavour to map Waterfords coastline. Each group (consisting of TY students, charity organisations and local residents) was given a journal and responded to prompts as they walked around the area and listened to experts in history, geology and ecology. They then compiled sound recordings, photographs and journal pages and handed it all over to artists from Street Art Inc. The artists, Adela Passas and Cormac Dillon, then analyzed all of the material and from that, they created two living maps. The sculpture is a 3D map that brings together the stories and observations of these community groups into one physical object. The sculpture features outlines of boats, clouds and animals. Each outline has a particular story or significance to the coast of Waterford. The great auk, for example, is featured. A penguin-like bird which is now extinct. The last one in Ireland was seen off the coast of Waterford. As well as the sculpture, Research Ireland, S.E.A. School, Street Art Inc. and SETU have teamed up to create a digital, interactive map of Waterford. We tried to document little snippets of everything we did on those walks. The sounds we recorded, the things we saw, peoples impressions and we plopped on each site. And now weve opened it up for anyone to add to. You can see the sculpture and exhibition in the Index Gallery in Waterford Library and you can view the interactive map by following this link. As part of the government's St. Patrick's programme, forty representatives of the State will be visiting 50 countries worldwide to "promote Ireland, Irish values and Irelands interests across the world. This year, Taoiseach Michael Martin will be travelling to Washington DC to meet US president Donald Trump. He will also be visiting Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Tanaiste Simon Harris will be visiting Paris and London. Waterford Ministers Mary Butler and John Cummins will both be on visits overseas this year, to engage with "political, business, civil society, cultural and diaspora leaders." Minister Butler, Government Chief Whip and Minister of State at the Department of Health, will be visiting Portugal and Spain. John Cummins, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, will be in Scotland and the North of England. Speaking on the global visits, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Helen McEntee, said: The theme for St. Patricks Day 2026 will highlight Irelands place in the world as a small, open trading economy. It will reflect our economic success, built on openness and strong partnerships, and Irelands long-standing commitment to multilateralism. The 2026 St. Patricks Day programme will place a stronger emphasis on trade and investment. Ministers will promote trade, investment, tourism, and international research and education partnerships in priority locations, including high-value, new and emerging markets. Ahead of Irelands Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of the year, Ministers travelling within Europe will also engage with counterparts on preparations for the Presidency and underline the importance the Government places on shaping EU policy and decision-making. Advertisement CultureMoviesOscars Could a careless sound bite derail Timothee Chalamets Oscar bid? Michael Idato March 13, 2026 8:30am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A A week is a long time in Tinseltown. Just ask Timothee Chalamet who has, in the short space of seven days, gone from a movie leading man with Oscar buzz to an artistic pariah whose mockery of ballet and opera has turned the arts world on its head and drawn criticism from around the world. What is at stake is Chalamets chances at winning the best actor Oscar at Mondays Academy Awards, for which the odds have been for most of the past three months largely in his favour. Hes already won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice award, and the Oscar, for a time, seemed inevitable. Timothee Chalamet with his Golden Globe. Will he win the Oscar? At this point, who knows? WireImage Now, after a careless remark that no one cares about ballet and opera what began as some bad weather on social media has turned into a full-blown cyclone which, this weekend, is threatening to make landfall. In real terms, the risk to Chalamets Oscar for his lead role in Marty Supreme is minimal. The clip featuring the offending remarks surfaced on Thursday, March 5 (US time) the same day that the final round of Oscar voting closed. Advertisement There are random factors in play: how many Oscar voters had voted by then, how many were yet to vote, and how many of those yet to vote might have seen the Chalamet headlines before voting closed at 5pm the same day. The likely answer is few. But the larger danger is what follows. The remarks have ricocheted around the world, sending the arts world into apoplexy and most ballet and opera company directors into paroxysms of anger. The result? A throwaway remark that will now likely haunt Chalamet, at least for the foreseeable future, and confound efforts by his PR machine to control the message. Timothee Chalamet with (left) Netflix boss Ted Sarandos and (centre) his mother, former ballet dancer Nicole Flender. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Worse, credit for the momentum behind fellow nominee Michael B. Jordan, who will almost certainly win the best actor Oscar this weekend, will be unfairly credited to the notion that Chalamets remarks cost him the award, rather than the fairer observation that Jordan earned the Oscar off the back of a stunning performance. Exhibit A: Jordan won the best actor award at last weekends Screen Actors Guild awards, a key Oscar indicator. So, how did this all start? Back in February, Chalamet was on a panel with actor Matthew McConaughey at the University of Texas at Austin, in which the topic shifted to the financial challenges facing cinemas. In a town where Paramount is about to swallow Warner Bros, it sounds a reasonable question. Advertisement I admire people, and Ive done it myself, who go on a talk show and go, hey, we gotta keep movie theatre alive, Chalamet told McConaughey. I dont want to be working in ballet or opera, or you know, things where its like, hey, keep this thing alive, even though its like, no one cares about this any more. To his credit, he immediately recognised the risk. All respect to the ballet and opera people out there, he said. I just took shots for no reason. Timothee Chalamets extraordinary award season run has hit a bump. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP For context, in a clip from 2019, which has resurfaced following the scandal, Chalamet refers to both ballet and opera as a dying art form, while promoting the David Michod film The King. Which turns a lazy sound bite into something more substantial. And that might have been the end of it, except that last Thursday (US time), the February clip surfaced on social media platforms around the world, with the intimidating energy of a headline unlikely to fizzle out quickly. Advertisement Related Article Opinion Performing arts Timothee Chalamet says nobody cares about opera. Opera Australia would like to thank him Alex Budd Opera Australia CEO There is a case to be made that Chalamet is right. Ballet and opera are indeed forms of art which depend, in many instances, on either government funding or wealthy patronage. Around the world, without public money, ballet and opera might indeed wither on the vine. But heres the thing: film and TV are just as vulnerable to the same subsidy economics. Mainstream Hollywood blockbusters might look like self-funding cash machines, but out here in the real world in Australia, Canada, the UK, France, Italy and dozens of other countries the local film and television industries live on the same government subsidies that ballet and opera do. Ever heard of Screen Australia? Screen NSW? VicScreen? Theres a long list. Telefilm Canada. The National Film Board of Canada. The British Film Institute. Frances Centre National du Cinema. Italys Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo. Even in the United States, emerging and independent cinema depends on entities including the Sundance Institute, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the organisation behind the Oscars and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The response from Chalamets peers has been loud. Oscar-winning actress and The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg: When you crap on somebody elses art form, it doesnt feel good. American ballerina Misty Copeland: He wouldnt be an actor and have the opportunities he has as a movie star if it werent for opera and ballet and their relevance in that medium. Advertisement Related Article Film awards The Oscars race has been blown wide open by this unexpected win Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis: Im sure he regrets the comment because you cant throw those art forms under a bus. Theyre too important. Mezzo-soprano and three-time Grammy winner Isabel Leonard: To take cheap shots at fellow artists says more in this interview than anything else he could say. Perhaps the longest shadow, however, is cast by the smallest of footnotes to this story: Chalamets grandmother Enid Flender, mother Nicole Flender and sister Pauline Chalamet were all ballet dancers who trained or performed with the New York City Ballet. And Chalamet himself attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia performing arts high school in New York, which has its own symphony orchestra, and a curriculum that includes opera and classical ballet. Which means, whatever you might think of him, and no matter how loudly or long the contretemps lasts, next time he goes home for the weekend hes likely got an appointment with his mum and the wooden spoon. Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter. Advertisement LifestyleBeautyFashion retail Her only regret: Jo Malone sued for using her own name on perfume James Warrington March 13, 2026 6:01am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A American cosmetics giant Estee Lauder has sued Jo Malone for breach of contract after the perfume tycoon used her own name on a new line of fragrances. Malone sold her eponymous perfume brand to Estee Lauder in 1999, along with the rights to use her name in any future business. The US company has now filed a lawsuit against Malone, her new company Jo Loves and the clothing retail chain Zara. It alleges trademark infringement and passing off, where a business misrepresents its goods or services as being those of a competitor. Jo Loves founder Jo Malone at Chiswick restaurant in Sydney. Nikki Short The lawsuit, which was first reported by The Financial Times, relates to a range of perfumes launched last year in collaboration with Zara. A description of the fragrances on Zaras website describes them as created by Jo Malone CBE, founder of Jo Loves. Advertisement Malone has described selling the rights to her name as her only regret, adding that she still struggles to come to terms with the decision. The entrepreneur stepped down as creative director of the company she founded in 2006 following a battle with cancer. She set up Jo Loves, which makes perfumes, candles and body lotions, in 2011. Related Article Trends How do you start a business when somebody else owns your name? Use your nose An Estee Lauder spokesman said Malone had agreed to clear contractual terms blocking her from using her name in certain commercial contexts, including the marketing of fragrances. The company told the FT: Ms Malones use of the name Jo Malone in connection with recent commercial ventures goes beyond that legal agreement and undermines Jo Malone Londons unique brand equity. Advertisement We respect Ms Malones right to pursue new opportunities. But legally binding contractual obligations cannot be disregarded and when those terms are breached, we will protect the brand that we have invested in and built over decades. Malone is not the only cosmetics entrepreneur to sell away the rights to her own name. Bobbi Brown sold her namesake company to Estee Lauder in 1995 and has since launched a new brand called Jones Road. Handbag designer Kate Spade legally changed her name to Kate Valentine after selling her intellectual property rights to Liz Claiborne. The lawsuit against Malone, Jo Loves and Zara comes a month after Estee Lauder filed a lawsuit against Walmart accusing the US supermarket giant of selling counterfeit Clinique, Aveda and Tom Ford beauty products. The cosmetics giant described Walmarts behaviour as extreme, outrageous, fraudulent ... despicable and harmful. Advertisement Walmart said it had zero tolerance for counterfeit products. Telegraph UK Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday. Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share More: Fashion retail Trends Advertisement LifestyleHealth & wellnessAgeing The difficult people in your life are ageing you, new study suggests Kathleen Felton March 13, 2026 4:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Spending time with a difficult person can affect your mood in the moment. But over time, these challenging social interactions might also have a detrimental effect on your physical health, possibly making you age faster, new research suggests. A study funded by the US National Institute on Ageing and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the health impacts of hasslers people the researchers defined as those who create problems or make life more difficult. While positive relationships have long been linked to healthier, longer lives, hasslers seem to have the opposite effect, increasing chronic stress and elevating epigenetic biomarkers associated with ageing. The study also found that some people are more likely to report knowing hasslers, including women and those in poorer health. We asked experts to explain the phenomenon and share what you can do to prevent these types of relationships from chipping away at your health. Hasslers are more likely to be family members than friends. Getty Images Advertisement How social ties affect ageing Having a strong social network is known to offer protective benefits as you age, including lowering the risk of cognitive impairment and mortality. Friendships may even help to slow ageing on a cellular level, some research has shown. But not all social ties are supportive, says Byungkyu Lee, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University and lead author of the study on hasslers. Related Article Friendship Love a chat with your barista? You could be feeding your social biome For example, some friendships might be ambivalent, meaning they cause problems or create stress but also provide positive things such as support and companionship, says Brea Perry, associate director at the Irsay Institute for Sociomedical Sciences Research, professor of sociology at Indiana University at Bloomington and a study co-author. Others are pretty much exclusively stressful. Those less-positive relationships may function as chronic stressors, so having those people around you actually makes your life really challenging, Lee says. To understand how negative relationships might affect biological ageing how quickly your cells are ageing, which doesnt always align with a persons chronological age Lee and his colleagues collected data from more than 2000 individuals in a health survey conducted in Indiana. Advertisement Participants answered questions about their social relationships during the previous six months. Then they answered follow-up questions, including how often that person hassled them, caused problems or generally made their lives more difficult. Participants were also asked to self-rate their overall health. They gave saliva samples too, which researchers analysed for DNA changes that signify biological ageing, allowing them to compare the ageing rates of those who had hasslers in their networks with those who did not. Researchers found that for every additional hassler that participants regularly interacted with, the pace of ageing increased by 1.5 per cent. In other words, instead of ageing one biological year per calendar year, a person with at least one extra hassler would age about 1.015 years during the same time. Even small effects in terms of biological ageing can accumulate, Perry says, which can contribute to the earlier onset of chronic disease, she adds. Women typically have more hasslers than men, researchers found. iStock These effects were especially pronounced for participants who reported having two or more hasslers in their orbit. Advertisement This study does not prove cause and effect. We do not know whether hasslers actually cause people to age, Lee says. What we observe here is a kind of association between having hasslers and the rate of ageing. Why some people are more hassler-prone The study authors found that certain groups were more likely to report hasslers in their networks. Women typically had more hasslers than men, a result that is not completely shocking, says Debra Umberson, a sociology professor and director of the Centre on Ageing and Population Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin, who wasnt involved in the study. It adds to what we know about men and womens relationships, she says. Existing literature suggests that men and women may experience relationships differently. For example, women tend to be disproportionately affected both positively and negatively by things that are happening in relationships and by their relationship with other people, Perry says. So it wasnt that surprising to us that women might have more people who cause problems in their lives, in part because they are probably more likely to perceive the problems that others are having and to feel them and to sort of take those on as stress, Perry says. People in poorer health were also more likely to have hasslers, as were study participants whod had adverse childhood experiences. If a person has health challenges, its possible they may feel hassled by those around them regulating their health, Perry theorised. They may need caregiving, for example, and so those kinds of relationships can become sort of one-sided and difficult to negotiate. Advertisement Related Article Health These five health issues affect women more than men. Heres how to combat them Individuals who experienced a difficult childhood tend to be more vulnerable to chronic stressors and to negative life events, and so they may be more vulnerable to hassling, Perry says. Any relationship can feature periods of frustration. Yet some types of social connection may be more hassler-prone: We found that a lot of these hasslers are family members, Perry says. Those are people who are embedded in your life in ways that are difficult to escape or difficult to kind of renegotiate. Among families, parents and children were more likely to be hasslers than partners or spouses. With non-kin relationships, people reported that co-workers, roommates and, to a lesser extent, neighbours were more likely to be hasslers than their friends. Like family members, these groups often involve obligation and navigating shared spaces, the authors noted. How to protect your health against hasslers Advertisement The obvious advice, Lee says, is to consider relationships carefully, avoiding hasslers whenever possible and cutting ties if you feel like someone is adding lots of negativity and stress to your life, though that can be an incredibly difficult decision. In reality, extracting yourself from every hassler relationship is probably not possible. You may feel obliged to maintain certain connections, such as with family members, Lee says. Other relationships might add some positives to your life in addition to a degree of hassle. (Thats the definition of relationships, they have hassle, right? I mean, you can get support and love from them, but they all come with hassles, Umberson says.) Focusing on positive relationships can help to create an emotional buffer between yourself and a hassler. Getty Images When youre around a hassler, limiting the amount of time you spend with that person or considering therapy to improve difficult aspects of the relationship might be worthwhile, Perry says. I think for me, boundary setting is important, she says. As soon as you recognise that someone who is a hassler has these negative biological consequences for you, set limits on the effort youre putting into that relationship. Planning self-care activities before and after hassler interactions may also reduce stress and help you externalise conflict, Perry adds. Make sure, too, to create plenty of social buffers by consistently investing in relationships that do provide support, Lee says. If you have enough non-hasslers in your network or environment, there might be some kind of calming effects on your ageing, he says. (Though researchers did not specifically investigate this.) Advertisement Thats especially critical because strong companionship is associated with so many protective health benefits. To me, one of the more striking things as somebody who studies this [topic] is social isolation, Umberson says. Last year, the World Health Organisation published a global report highlighting the effect of isolation on health and wellbeing and linked loneliness to 871,000 deaths each year. Its just very important to have relationships, Umberson says. I wouldnt want to overlook that part of it. The Washington Post Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday. Advertisement LifestyleLife & relationshipsHome accessories Jasons vintage sofa can cost up to $7000. He found it in a pile of rubbish Courtney Thompson March 14, 2026 2:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A As a child, Jason Mumford, now 30, would spend weekends with his mother trawling through junk piles and op shops for treasures to decorate their home. Growing up not so wealthy, we definitely could never afford expensive furniture, so my mum was very good at being resourceful, Mumford says. I remember people coming around, probably judging its tired facade, and then theyd walk in and be shocked because the interiors were full of personality, and very curated with some really lovely, unique pieces. For Mumford, a designer who lives in Randwick, his upbringing spurred a lifelong obsession with interiors and, specifically, pieces that sit at the intersection of striking design and accessibility; items others might discard without realising their potential value. Jason Mumford at this vintage furniture store, Two Hands Collect, at Mitchell Road Antiques, with a number of his vintage IKEA finds, such as the Storvik Rattan armchair by Carl Ojerstam. Jessica Hromas Which is how he found himself preoccupied with vintage IKEA furniture. It all started with the Niklas shelves, modular shelves I just became really obsessed with. Theyre from the 80s, but they were made up until the late 90s, says Mumford. Advertisement Mumford found the original IKEA catalogues from his and his partners birth years, as well as one from 2000. Jessica Hromas They were in the background in Seinfeld episodes and theres an episode of Friends where theyre literally building the shelves. So they were a bit familiar, and theyre also super practical for apartment living because theyre very adaptable. Theyre a bit of a lifetime piece. The typical Niklas shelving system will have three ladders you then hang shelves on. Mumford estimates since he started collecting vintage IKEA six years ago, hes amassed as many as 30 ladders. I probably have the largest collection in Sydney. Mumford has since accumulated a number of vintage IKEA finds, even catalogues from his and his partners birth years. Hes not the only collector whos realised the worth of vintage IKEA. Today, its not uncommon to see the Niklas shelves listed for upwards of $2000 (though if youre lucky, you can find them for free through unsuspecting sellers on Facebook Marketplace). Advertisement For the past two decades, mid-century modern furniture has enjoyed a revival, and among valuable pieces designed by Europes most recognised designers, vintage IKEA has become highly sought after. Related Article Sunday Life Home feeling boring? These bold touches will bring it to life For a long time, IKEA was synonymous with poor quality, and when the history of Scandinavian design was discussed, IKEAs products were simply left out, explains Andreas Siesing, a Swedish design historian and IKEA expert. When the enthusiasm for retro and vintage furniture from the 1950s and 60s grew rapidly in the early 2000s, IKEAs models followed suit. IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, with an ethos of democratising design. In 1948, he launched a furniture range, wanting to make functional, stylish pieces available for everyone. In the first half-century of IKEAs existence, the quality and design were impressive. There was likely greater scope to make purchasing decisions based on pure instinct Ingvar Kamprads own so the range is more eclectic and, for better and worse, less considered, Siesing says. As the company grew, except for one-off collaborations with certain designers, the style became simpler and quality waned as pieces were made for the mass market. Advertisement Collectors have realised those early items are worth the hunt. In 2021, a world record was set when the Cavelli armchair from the late 1950s was sold at the Stadsauktion Sundsvall auction for 151,000 SEK ($23,000), making it the most expensive piece of IKEA furniture ever. Its one of the rarest collectors items because they were made in very limited numbers, but also due to the chair being constructed with teak (the most popular wood in Scandinavia at the time) and its Italian-style design. Matthew Sullivan with some of his vintage IKEA pieces, including the Anne Nilsson-designed glassware, IKEA PS 2014 On the Move side table designed by T. Richardson, C. Brill & A. Williams, Ola Wihlborg Postmodern PS Series Bowl (yellow) and easychair Vago, designed by Thomas Sandell. Wolter Peeters Matthew Sullivan, 53, has been collecting furniture for more than 25 years and runs his own business through Silverfox Vintage in the Blue Mountains. A few years ago I saw something on Facebook Marketplace and I thought, Shit, thats really interesting. I looked at it and I realised it was IKEA, says Sullivan, who buys and sells mostly 80s, 90s and early 2000s IKEA. Sullivan notes that many people who come to him looking for vintage IKEA are younger generations wanting the pieces they had in their bedrooms as kids, such as the IKEA Skojig Cloud Lamp from the 90s. They see and recognise those items from their childhood, so there are all sorts of different eras and layers to it. Advertisement Northcote health worker Con Skordilis, 55, has been collecting vintage IKEA furniture for the past decade and similarly noticed an uptick in interest. Its becoming a bit more mainstream now, says Skordilis, who prefers post-modern pieces of vintage IKEA. People are realising how important it is and prices have gone up. Its more difficult to find these days, whereas in the past people just used to throw things out. Con Skordilis collected of vintage IKEA includes the PS Nybygge 2012 shelves in his kitchen, the 1970 Mila chair, and the 2002 Jonisk lamp (rear). Justin McManus One of Mumfords greatest finds the Moment sofa designed by Niels Gammelgaard, which can now fetch up to $7000 was almost garbage. I found it on a street bounty group, he says. They werent even taking a photo of the lounge, they were just taking a photo of the rubbish pile, and I drove an hour and a half to go and get this thing out of the junk. Its super sleek and sexy by this amazing designer, and its quite rare. It wasnt sold for a very long period in Australia, so theres not a whole lot of them floating around. Advertisement Every collector has their own white whale of vintage IKEA. Sullivans is the 1993 Vilbert chair by Verner Panton. Skordilis and Mumford both love the 1970s Impala sofa by Gillis Lundgren. Siesing says the 70s-era pieces are particularly noteworthy because IKEA was small enough to leave plenty of room for experimentation; the furniture on offer was inventive and remarkably varied. For budding collectors, the advice is to hold on to items you have, and keep an eye out for designs that could be worth something in years to come. Prices will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. Interest is growing at what feels like an explosive rate, says Siesing. Fascinatingly, there is still much left to discover. Many vintage models have yet to appear at auction. Vintage IKEA has a bright future ahead of it. Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami celebrated the traditional folk festival Phool Dei with his family at the Chief Minister's residence on Saturday. On the occasion, he extended his greetings and best wishes to the people of the state. His wife, Geeta Pushkar Dhami, was also present. The festival was celebrated with great enthusiasm and according to traditional customs. Children dressed in traditional attire placed flowers and rice on the doorstep of the house and prayed for everyone's happiness and prosperity. They also sang traditional folk songs. The Chief Minister welcomed the children and presented them with gifts. The Chief Minister said that the festival of Phool Dei reflects the rich folk culture, traditions, and respect for nature in the state. He added that the festival marks the arrival of spring and conveys a message of nature's beauty and renewed energy in life. "It also reminds people to always express gratitude to nature," CM Dhami added. He further said that the folk culture and traditional festivals of Uttarakhand are part of the state's cultural heritage, and preserving them is a "collective responsibility of everyone". He emphasised that such festivals should be celebrated with enthusiasm so that they "reach future generations and keep the state's folk culture alive" The Chief Minister added that the festival of Phool Dei, which conveys the message of gratitude toward nature, welcoming the spring season, and preserving folk culture, inspires people to stay connected with their roots and introduce future generations to these invaluable traditions. CM Pushkar Singh Dhami also participated in the 119th All India Farmers' Fair and Agricultural Industry Exhibition being held at Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (ANI) Advertisement NationalGender equality Opinion Matt Canavan wants more Australian babies. But Australian women might just say no Virginia Haussegger Canberra writer and an academic advocate for gender equity. March 13, 2026 12:52pm March 13, 2026 12:52pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Have you noticed when men call on women to make more babies, they gird themselves with male myths? Women whove lived in that highly masculinised, mythologised past that younger men want to bring back would laugh in their face, given half a chance. And if there is one thing anti-abortion, pro-breeders hate more than childless women, its women who laugh at them. When new Nationals leader Matt Canavan spruiked his vision to manifest a hyper Australia this week, insisting we need to make Australia the country it was in the past, the forefathers over his shoulder were all smiles. Canavans chosen backdrop was a photo gallery of National Party grandees. All 15 of them: white, male and neatly pressed in suit and tie. Each captured in an olde-worlde hue because although Australia got colour TV in 1975, the Nats prefer black and white. Australian-made babies: just what Matt Canavan ordered. Joe Armao For those afraid of the future, binaries are comforting. Canavan called on women to effectively get on their backs we need more Australian babies code for not immigrant babies, but Aussie ones. This is not about the past. Or truth. This is about Canavans far-right version of the past. A place designed and led by men. Advertisement Its about patriarchy. And power. Who has it, who keeps it and whose place in the world is being reassigned. Which right now is women: the would-be, should-be breeders. The gender currently letting the country down, as our fertility rate drops to a record low of 1.42 children per woman. Related Article 'I am not in breach': Matt Canavan says he will take fight over section 44 to High Court Its hard to know exactly which generation of the past Canavan is referring to. Is it his past? Unlikely, as he was a kid in the 1980s when young women like me became the biggest cohort to get university degrees, outpacing our male peers. (We were the first post second-wave feminism data point to prove men had a problem: women were outsmarting them.) Is it John Howards past? Everyone was supposed to be relaxed and comfortable back then. But we know they werent. Is it his mums past? Also unlikely, as she longed to connect to her Italian parents European past, as we learnt when her well-intended efforts embroiled her son in a parliamentary dual citizenship fiasco in 2017. Perhaps the glorious age Canavan hankers for is that postwar period when Australias fertility rate soared, peaking in 1961 at 3.5 babies per woman. Birthing well above replacement level of 2.1 babies, the 50s and early 60s were a golden time for men handing out cigars as women pushed out babies. Advertisement There were no anguished discussions about childcare, or paid paternity leave, as neither were needed. Thanks to the marriage bar, working women were sacked when married and sent home to play wife. It was a time when the law insisted men were paid more than women, who were banned from most of the interesting work anyway. A time when women couldnt get a bank loan, much less buy a house. Related Article COMMENT Opinion The forgotten milestone that shows how far Australian women have come It was a time when Catholics like the Canavans practised the Billings method of natural contraception and bred like rabbits. It was a time when a family friend, a mother of nine, sought advice from her parish priest about how to stop falling pregnant, only to be scolded and told she must not deny her husband. It was a time when real men earned the family income, and proper women cooked, cleaned, and cared for everyone, while morphing into domestic doormats for men to walk over. Horrified by todays increasingly muscular gender backlash, Elizabeth Reid remembers Australia in the 1950s and 60s as a dreadfully demeaning time, when women were forced to shrink. Appointed womens adviser to prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1973, Reid fixated on helping women liberate themselves not only from domestic slavery and drudgery, but from the shackles of sexism and female oppression. Advertisement We women were invisible except as sex objects and homemakers, she says. Related Article Fertility Birth rate hits record low as parents continue to put off having children So, is this the golden past Canavan is calling Australia to return to? Is he echoing the state-sponsored, out-loud-and-proud misogyny of Trumps America? Stopping short of calling for Australia to be great again, he certainly appears to be parroting the US Project 2025 playbook. Gleefully following its song sheet about restoring the traditional family as the centrepiece of American life. But Canavan understands the power of localism. He has his own spin on the MAGA noise. He wants to Australianise it with Aussie jokes and barbecues. Oi, oi, oi! Is it any wonder young Australian women arent having babies? For many, finding a man unsullied by the manospheres misogynistic ideology is hard enough. Then theres the existential crisis at their door. Advertisement Related Article Good Weekend Never in her wildest dreams did Ita imagine her career would go the way it did It might take eternal optimism to bring a child into a world spinning on the whim of narcissistic authoritarians who preach joy in violence and war. Where a childs safety is impossible to guarantee. A world that is badly overheating, burning, flooding and erupting; where a few tech-bro megalomaniacs, with eye-watering wealth, control much of the information you see and read. A world in which you cant ever imagine owning a home. A world in which the cost of petrol, bread and milk is about to spin out of control. The past is an easy country to promise when the truth is heavily redacted. And babies are born wearing cashmere booties. Virginia Haussegger is a freelance journalist and adjunct professor at the University of Canberra. Her new book is Unfinished Revolution: The Feminist Fightback. Advertisement NationalVictoriaCourts ACM chairman Antony Catalano checking into rehab after assault charges Cameron Houston and Ashleigh McMillan Updated March 14, 2026 2:27pm ,first published 8:57am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Prominent media owner Antony Catalano has been charged with assault and accused in court of dragging a woman around an apartment by her hair and ankles, before swinging a clothes iron at her head. The woman sustained a fractured coccyx during the alleged attack by the 59-year-old, who was granted bail on Friday evening at a hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court. Antony Catalano is charged with assaulting a woman in Melbourne. Jesse Marlow Catalano, the co-owner and chairman of Australian Community Media (ACM), is facing charges of assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill, according to a report by the ABC. He was placed on an immediate leave of absence until this matter is resolved, ACM general manager Tony Kendall told staff on Saturday. Advertisement In a statement later on Saturday, Catalano said he was profoundly sorry for his actions. He said he had been struggling with significant mental health and substance abuse issues and would immediately check in to a rehabilitation program, while taking six months off work. I am deeply ashamed and humiliated. I know that my actions have caused hurt and concern for others, including the woman involved, my family, friends, colleagues and the many people connected to the businesses I have been privileged to lead, he said. Two sources, who asked not to be named, told this masthead that police attended the Saint Moritz building in St Kilda on Thursday evening, where Catalano owns the penthouse he purchased for $30 million in 2019. On Friday evening, a police investigator asked magistrate Rohan Lawrence to deny bail for Catalano, alleging the prominent businessman posed an unacceptable risk of further offending and fleeing Victoria. The accused dragged the victim to the laundry area where he grabbed a clothes iron and held it towards the victims head, causing the victim to grab onto the iron herself, according to a police summary read in court. Advertisement Catalano refused to comment on Saturday morning when this masthead approached him as he returned to the St Kilda complex. Loading The police investigator told the court the woman sustained a fractured coccyx and had spent several hours in hospital following the alleged assault. The entire incident was captured by CCTV cameras, with Catalanos barrister Jason Gullaci, SC, conceding there was no doubt his client had made physical contact with the woman. Theres still a few moving parts about exactly what happened, how it started, how it moved out to the area where the CCTV footage is inside, how it then manifested in relation to what happened in that hallway, he said. Advertisement Gullaci said a claim by the woman that Catalano forcefully swung the iron at her head was not included in the written police summary presented to court. Before granting bail, Lawrence, the magistrate, described the evidence as relatively strong and said a jail term was possible if the charges were proved, according to the ABC report. Catalano was not required to enter a plea, given the early stage of the case. This masthead has contacted Victoria Police for further detail on the incident. The court had been told Catalano recently experienced a mental health episode at his waterfront residence in Wategos Beach in Byron Bay and was admitted to a psychiatric ward last month after using drugs. Advertisement It is believed approximately three days ago at his property in Byron Bay, the accused himself called police because he believed he was seeing people emerging from the woodworks around his property, the officer testified on Friday. Originally a property reporter with Fairfax Media, Catalano rapidly ascended to become Domain Group chief executive in 2015 before abruptly departing from Fairfax in 2018, when he said he wanted to spend more time with his family. However, in 2019, he splashed $125 million to buy Australian Community Media, the publisher of major regional newspapers including The Canberra Times and Newcastle Herald and 160 regional mastheads. Widely known in media and property circles as The Cat, the 59-year-old has extensive business and real estate interests across the nation, including the $30 million St Kilda apartment and a $7 million penthouse on Mount Buller. He also has a stake in famed Byron Bay resort Raes on Wategos, although he is not involved in the businesss operations. However the past 12 months have been turbulent for Catalano, who has four children with wife Stephanie and five other children with two previous partners. Advertisement He only recently reconciled with his 40-year-old wife last month, following a trial separation. Editor's pick Good Weekend She nearly quit the pool at 14. Now, Mollies the face of a new Australian era In March last year, he was spoken to by police officers from Byron Bay over a public altercation with celebrity jeweller Giovanni DErcole near Wategos Beach. No charges were laid over the incident. Sources close to Catalano said he was also deeply traumatised by the sudden death of close friend and prominent Byron Bay restaurateur Kim Stephen. Australian Community Media and his online property business View Media Group have both struggled in response to a slump in advertising, while his long-term business partner Alex Waislitz recently agreed to a $325 million settlement with his former wife, Visy heiress Heloise Pratt. Advertisement Catalano has also struggled to find a buyer for his St Kilda penthouse, which was put on the market last year with an asking price of $36 million. The price was slashed to $29.95 million last month, when Catalano blamed Melbournes soft real estate market on the high-taxing Victorian government. His penthouse on Mount Buller has also failed to find a buyer with a price guide of $9.25 million. Despite the mounting pressures, several sources close to Catalano said he had not curbed his enthusiastic partying. The problem for Cat is he carries on like a 30-year-old, but hes almost 60. At some point something has to give ... and Im not sure Byron has been that good for him. Hes surrounded by too much temptation, said a Melbourne businessman who had been friends with him for almost 30 years. In his statement, Catalano said: Those close to me have been urging me to seek professional help for some time and there have been interventions by close family and friends. I regret not heeding their advice and I continued to believe I could hide my mental health issues. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement PoliticsFederalNational security Opinion Matt Canavan has done in an hour what Angus Taylor failed to do in a month Peter Hartcher Political and international editor March 14, 2026 2:00am March 14, 2026 2:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A When the world is falling apart, must Australia fall apart, too? Pauline Hanson hopes so. After 30 years of efforts to drive racial and religious division, she is closer than ever to establishing hate politics at the centre of Australian affairs. Now that shes consistently polling more strongly than the Coalition, Liberal leader Angus Taylor cravenly courts her support instead of confronting her agenda. Asked whether hed ever use Hansons language that there are no good Muslims, Taylor replied absolutely not before going on to say that he has many good Muslims in his electorate, a version of some of my best friends are Muslims. He then turned attention to the ISIS brides. Bad Muslims, get it? Illustration by Simon Letch Notably, Taylor did not disown Hanson or the race politics she plays. Notably, the Coalition he leads did not support the other parties in the Senate censuring Hanson for seeking to vilify Muslim Australians. Notably, he has kept open the option of directing voter preferences to One Nation. But, this week, the countrys newest political leader gave Taylor a lesson in leadership. Matt Canavan was elected to lead the National Party on Wednesday morning. In his first hour in the job, he managed to do something that Taylor has failed to accomplish in his first month. Advertisement He recognised Pauline Hanson as the enemy, not the friend, of the established parties of the right. And the enemy of Australian cohesion. Im very concerned concerned that the identity politics of division that weve seen on the left is creeping into the right now, Canavan said in his first remarks as Nationals leader. I was very critical of Paulines comments dividing Australians and different groups, suggesting there are no good people in certain groups of Australians. I totally reject that. For emphasis, Canavan repeated: I totally reject that. Related Article Political leadership From Marxist to rebel to leader: The making of Matt Canavan Hanson had told us recently that there are no good Muslims. Canavan: Were all Australians. What unites us as a country is more than what divides us, even when we have robust debates. We are a wonderful country with wonderful people of different backgrounds. That was blow No.1. Followed immediately by a second: Pauline has been in politics for more than double the time I have been, and I struggle to point to a single dam, a single road, a single hospital that Pauline has delivered in Australia, Canavan said. I can point to swaths of those things from the work Ive done with Michelle Landry, Colin Boyce Nationals members of federal parliament and others in central Queensland. Advertisement Canavans immediate goal was political. The Nationals, like the other parties, are contesting a byelection in the federal seat of Farrer in southern NSW on May 9. At the moment, One Nation is leading, according to the only poll published to date. Canavan wants to stop its momentum and win some votes back. He knows he cant do that by pandering to Hanson. Why would anyone vote for a party thats trying to be a Hanson lite? Surely, youd vote for the real deal, instead, and cast your ballot for One Nation itself. You might think this is entirely obvious. But it wasnt obvious to Canavans predecessor, David Littleproud, the disastrous Nats leader who twice broke the Coalition apart before resigning this week rather than deal with the consequences of the byelection. And, evidently, its not obvious to Taylor. The surest way to differentiate yourself in politics is to pick a fight. The Coalition is always ready to pick a fight with Labor and the Greens on its left flank. But now that the Coalition is under siege from One Nation on its right, it needs to pick a fight there, too. Otherwise, its undifferentiated. And if youre undifferentiated, whats the point of voting for you? Taylor has yet to vindicate his partys faith in electing him leader. He is, so far, an identikit politician, nice hair and an empty suit, casting about for a purpose. What does he believe in? So far, all we know is that he believes in fiscal rules, and that he does not believe in ISIS brides or expensive petrol. Advertisement Advertisement Its plain that we need a reliable supply of petrol to remain a functioning economy. A reliable supply of social trust and goodwill is just as vital to a functioning society and to effective security. To abet racial or religious conflict is to damage national security. Related Article Opinion Gender equality Matt Canavan wants more Australian babies. But Australian women might just say no Virginia Haussegger Canberra writer and an academic advocate for gender equity. This is not to defend the level of immigration in the post-COVID years. Immigration is a question of management and always open to debate; hate-mongering is a question of principle and never a ground for legitimate politics. Hansons reply to Canavans criticism: Canavan joins the likes of the ABC, The Guardian and left-wing fact-checkers who have started a war against One Nation to try and tear us down. A bit precious? Canavan thought so: Maybe Pauline can give it, but she cant take it. Welcome to politics, Pauline. Social unity South Australias Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas this week was bold enough to call it patriotism is a form of national resilience. As the Ukrainians show us, day in and day out. Resilience is very much in vogue. Advertisement Canadas Mark Carney described a rupture in the world order. In this world, Australia needs to invest more energy and attention in its resilience. We learnt a lot about our vulnerability to supply chain interruptions during the pandemic, but we seem to have remembered very little. Peter Dean says we live in a TikTok world. We are focused on the contemporary crisis for fully 30 seconds before our attention is diverted to the next reel, only to be shocked when the crisis returns in a more savage form, posits the Australian defence strategist and historian. Australias prophet on a resilience agenda was the late Liberal senator Jim Molan. He spent years campaigning within the Coalition and he badgered Scott Morrison endlessly to create a national resilience strategy. It was in vain. Even after COVID, Australia has no resilience strategy. In 2023, Molan said: The things that worry me most are liquid fuels, of which we have very little in the country because we depend on open supply chains. We have fragility in our energy supplies to our factories and our people (and) we import an awful lot of our fertiliser, therefore our food production will drop and the impact of no diesel on our food production is terrifying. Morrisons one concession to Molan was to create a national oil reserve. Alas, the oil was to be held in the US. It was a measure of Australian complacency. The Albanese government abandoned that idea and instead applied a minimum fuel stockholding obligation. Importers and refiners are required by law to keep a national total of 3 billion litres of diesel and 1.5 billion of petrol. This has the virtue of being held on our continent rather than another. But its still only about a months supply. Unfortunately, its now exposed as being inadequate. Molan, three years ago, said: We are woefully unprepared for a regional war in relation to the resilience of our nation. Advertisement It turns out that it doesnt take a regional war. Australian resilience, apart from its test at the hands of One Nation populism, is being stressed by a medium-sized war far from our region. Angus Taylor is in a poor position to criticise the government. He was the Morrison government minister who proudly assigned Australian reserves to the safekeeping of the US. The Iran war revives the priority of a national resilience strategy. So that the country has the fuel, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals and other commodities to survive sudden interruptions. But there is no more precious commodity than social resilience. The rupture is in its very early days. Australia needs to work actively to avoid rupturing itself. Peter Hartcher is political editor. Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter. Advertisement InspirationAustria If you only see one thing in Vienna, make it this Anthony Dennis March 15, 2026 2:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Here I am on my second visit to Vienna, and first and foremost on my must-see list is not the Austrian capitals Schonbrunn Palace, St Stephens Cathedral or even the Belvedere Museum but The Third Man. Schonbrunn Palace, the former main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, is a prime attraction in Vienna. Alamy The Third Man? Its not a Viennese landmark as such to be ticked off, but the classic film noir set in the rubble-strewn, intrigue-riven aftermath of World War II Vienna. Over the years, the film has topped many exhaustive lists of the greatest ever British movies, including most recently, a top 50 by that nations Telegraph newspaper. [The Third Man] is pure cinema, into which we sink every time like a beloved armchair, writes the Telegraph. The intrigue and depth of [the film] are sensational. Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man, the classic film noir that was shot in Vienna. Alamy Advertisement Nearly eight decades after its release, the film still resonates among movie buffs and visitors, like me, to Vienna, with the local Viennese tourism industry itself continuing to profit handsomely from the movies global cult following, including twice-weekly screenings at a central city cinema. Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now. A poster for The Third Man, consistently rated by critics as the all-time greatest British film. Alamy Shot on location in the Austrian capital in the late 1940s, and based on a skilful screenplay by British novelist Graham Greene it concerns Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), an American pulp fiction writer and his troubled, if not tortured, friendship with black-market trafficker Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Lime invites Martins to join him in Vienna but spoiler alert soon after Martins arrives his shadier-than-he-ever-realised chum dies in mysterious circumstances. Aside from seeing The Third Man on the big screen in the city in which its set (more about that later), one of Viennas most popular guided tours is themed on the gripping chase scene from the film sorry, spoiler alert, again in which Harry Lime is pursued through the capitals intricate and forbidding early-19th century sewer system. On the tour which runs Thursday to Sunday, every hour from 10am to 8pm, May to October participants, equipped with safety helmets and headlamps, venture seven metres below ground via the original spiral staircase used by Lime in the film. Advertisement Orson Welles as an on-the-run Harry Lime in a scene depicting the Vienna sewers. Alamy Further afield is the Viennese fun fair Prater Park, which serves as another key location. Its there, close to the Danube River, that Martins and Lime conduct a tense, if not chilling, conversation inside a vintage ferris wheel cabin. It comes yes, another spoiler alert after the shadowy Lime seemingly rises from the dead. While the compelling interior sequence on the Ferris wheel was filmed in a London studio, the actual Prater Park and exterior of the ride appear in the movie. That was despite the fact the Hollywood studio that bankrolled the film wanted it to be shot not in Vienna at all, but at the Shepperton and Worton Hall Studios in England. The historic and still functioning Ferris wheel in Viennas Prater Park. Getty But, rats, while I came across Prater Park and its Ferris wheel on my previous visit to Vienna, on this occasion Im in town too briefly to take to its sewers, with the city a stop on a 15-day Intrepid escorted journey between Paris and Istanbul. Advertisement However, I do have a free night, time enough to sneak in an actual showing of the film, which screens twice a week at the Burg Kino cinema in the attractive Opernring district of the city. The movie house is around the corner from the Vienna State Opera House and the capitals most well-known hot dog stand. And, as luck has it, one of those screening days is when Im in the city. A waxwork depiction of Orson Welles as Harry Lime at the Vienna museum of Madame Tussauds. Alamy While the film is renowned for its memorable performances, its black-and-white, mostly night-time cinematography and its portrayal of postwar Vienna, its Anton Karas infectious zither theme music thats alone worth the 10.50 admission price. Sadly, the modernised Burg Kino is a little prosaic compared with its namesake and still operational Apollo Kino cinema where The Third Man had its Austrian premiere in 1950. But viewing the film on the silver screen in a proper cinema sure beats streaming it back in my hotel room. Advertisement After 104 minutes The End appears on the big screen, though its not the end of my Viennese homage. An essential companion to any screening is a pre- or post-film repast at the historic Cafe Mozart, only a short walk from the cinema. Cafe Mozart was a favourite haunt of actor Orson Welles and director Carol Reed during filming. Alamy Cafe Mozart a classic Viennese coffee house dating to 1899 and renowned for The Legend, a Viennese schnitzel served with golden brown parsley potatoes, leaf salad, cranberry jam and lemon wedge features briefly in a scene from the movie. Except, that is, it was actually shot at another establishment down the street, though the real Cafe Mozart was a frequent haunt of Orson Welles and Carol Reed, the British director, during filming of what was to become a cinema classic. Although Cafe Mozart survives in its original grand form, I notice that it rather incongruously shares a kitchen with wait for it a garish Australian-themed pub thats part of the same building. Oh well, not to worry. As I tuck into my order of The Legend, Im happy to have savoured the screening of The Third Man. Alls Welles that ends well. Advertisement THE DETAILS TOUR Intrepids 15-day small group (up to 12 people), fully guided Express to the Orient: Paris to Istanbul from $6995 a person, flights not included. Singapore Airlines operates flights from Sydney and Melbourne via Singapore to Paris and Istanbul. See intrepidtravel.com; singaporeair.com SEE Viennas Burg Kino screens an English-language version of The Third Man each Sunday; the film screens in English with German subtitles every Tuesday. See burgkino.at; wien.info/en The writer travelled as a guest of Intrepid and with the assistance of Singapore Airlines. US President Donald Trump has not asked Australia to send a warship to the Strait of Hormuz as he seeks to rally a multinational coalition to protect the global oil trade, and any such request would probably be greeted warily by the Albanese government. As the war between Israel, the US and Iran enters its third week, the regime in Tehran is digging in for a long fight. And oil prices are surging as the key trade route remains effectively shut down. A Thai cargo vessel on fire in the Strait of Hormuz, reflecting the danger of Iranian attacks. AP Trump used a social media post on Sunday to list countries, including China, that he believed should send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to protect oil tankers from Iranian attacks. Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara said on Saturday that LPG cylinder shortage is a nationwide issue and cited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurance that supplies are on the way, with ships coming in from Iran. "The shortage of commercial cylinders is throughout the country...The Prime Minister and the central government have assured us that they will supply. Already, two or three ships have started from Iran. I think one ship has already reached. The other two ships are on the way...," Parameshwara told ANI while reassuring the people that relief is on the way. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attacked the opposition over their sloganeering and protest in Lok Sabha on issues concerning LPG supply, saying it is taking irresponsible positions instead of standing together with the government in the interest of the country. Sitharaman, who was replying to debate on supplementary demands for grants (second batch 2025-26), said it is ironic that even while she is speaking about how the Government is preparing itself to face unexpected events, including supply chain disruptions and issues related to LPG due to the situation in West Asia, the Opposition is not willing to listen to the reply. She further accused the opposition of pursuing its own political agenda and adopting irresponsible positions regarding the West Asia crisis. "Instead, they prefer to pursue their own agenda. I would like to make it clear that because of developments taking place abroad, several challenges are emerging for our country. The question before us is how we should face these challenges, how we should arrange the necessary funds to deal with them, and how we should remain prepared. When the Government is taking many such steps to ensure preparedness, it is unfortunate that the Opposition, instead of standing together in the interest of the nation and giving confidence to the people, is taking irresponsible positions. Such conduct should be condemned," she said. "...Are the Opposition members suggesting that in times of unforeseen challenges, should the government not create a fiscal buffer or equalisation fund of Rs 50,000 crores? It is an irony that even when I am talking about how the government is preparing to face any unexpected events, inclusive of supply chain disruptions and LPG, they (Opposition) are not willing to hear the reply. They want to have their own agenda. Sit on the stairs and have chai and talk about LPG. This is our Opposition," she added. Earlier, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas assured that India has adequate availability of petrol and diesel across the country, while the LPG situation continues to remain a "matter of concern" for the government. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the assassination of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. (ANI) LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) An Irish tradition returns to Louisville this weekend. The Ancient Order of Hibernians will host their 53rd annual St. Patrick's Parade in the Highlands neighborhood Saturday, March 14, at 3 p.m. Often called the "people's parade," thousands are expected to line the route that starts at Baxter Avenue and Broadway, and heads down Bardstown Road. More than 100 floats and participants are expected again for this year's edition of the parade. The Hibernians give the money generated by the festival back to the community through its nonprofit, the Hibernian Cultural and Charitable Association, which puts on the annual parade. A St. Patrick's Parade Mass is scheduled for noon Saturday ahead of the parade at St. Brigid Catholic Church on Hepburn Avenue. To learn more and look at a full schedule, click here. You can also follow the parade's Facebook page for updates by clicking here. A list of road closures from Louisville Metro Police can be found below or by clicking here. 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Broadway from Barret Avenue to Baxter Avenue Rubel Avenue from Benton Avenue to Rogers Street St. Anthony Place from Mercy Way to Broadway Payne Street from Bishop Street to West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) Hull Street from Bishop Street to West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) Rogers Street from Bishop Street to West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) Baxter Avenue from Barret Avenue to Highland Avenue Baxter Avenue from Highland Avenue to Hepburn Avenue Bardstown Road from Highland Avenue to Midland Avenue East Breckenridge Street from West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) to Baxter Avenue Christy Avenue from West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) to Baxter Avenue Morton Avenue from West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) to Baxter Avenue Highland Avenue from West Alley (west of Baxter Avenue) to East Alley (east of Baxter Avenue) Grinstead Drive from Baxter Avenue to Cherokee Road Cherokee Road will have one lane of traffic northbound, diverted to Payne Street Alternative Routes Cherokee Road will have northbound traffic to Payne Street which will allow access to Lexington Road to continue to downtown on the east side of the parade route. Barret Avenue on the west side of the parade route will not be affected and traffic will flow normally with no restrictions. Baxter Avenue will have access to Hepburn Avenue on the west side of the route. Copyright 2026 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved. Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia have furnished surety bonds after their discharge in the Delhi excise policy case. The Rouse Avenue court had discharged 23 accused in the Delhi Excise policy case on February 27. Special judge (CBI) Jitendra Singh accepted the Surety bonds of Rs. 50000 each. All other accused persons have also furnished their surety bonds. It is mandatory to furnish a surety bond in the event of discharge or acquittal in a criminal case to ensure the presence of the accused in case an appeal against the order filed. The Rouse Avenue court on February 27 discharged Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha and all other accused persons in the excise policy case. The court said that there is no evidence to proceed further accused persons. However, the CBI has already filed an appeal against the discharge of the accused persons. The High Court had said that it will stay the remarks against the CBI team. While discharging the accused persons, the court pointed out lacunae in the investigation done by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), stating that "there was no evidence against accused Kuldeep Singh, then Deputy Excise commissioner, still he was made an accused by the CBI." Raising questions on the CBI investigation, the court had recommended a departmental inquiry against the investigation officer. The court said to Kuldeep singh "No material found against you. I am surprised why you are implicated." While discharging Manish Sisodia, the court said that the allegations failed judicial scrutiny. "There is no criminal intent on his part. In this situation, the conspiracy theory can not survive against him," the court said. "The central conspiratorial role against cannot be sustained," the court had said while discharging Arvind Kejriwal from the Delhi excise policy case. The court had also made an oral observation that the person holding a constitutional post, his right should be protected from implications without any basis. The court had pointed out that the confessional statement of the star prosecution witness was not filed in the charge sheet. The entire case is based on his statement, but it is not there in the charge sheet. The court also said that Dinesh Arora changed his statement several times, and these statements were also not filed. The court objected to the word South Group. "Who coined this word?", the judge asked, with the court asking, "Could the CBI use this word if this charge sheet was filed in the Chennai Court?" The court also referred to a judgement delivered by an American Court that set aside the conviction over the use of the word Dominican against the accused persons. The court said that every citizen has the right to a fair trial and that the IO should put the facts correctly, that the facts are different from what the witness stated. On February 12, the court had reserved the order after hearing submissions on behalf of CBI and the accused persons, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and 21 others. At the time of filing the case, Arvind Kejriwal was the Chief Minister of Delhi, and Manish Sisodia was the Deputy Chief Minister. The CBI had filed the first charge sheet in 2022, and thereafter, supplementary charge sheets were filed. It was alleged that Rs 100 crore was paid by the south lobby to influence the proposed Delhi excise policy in their favour. In this case, there are 23 accused charge sheeted by the CBI including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha, Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, Mootha Goutam, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gornatla, Rakesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Chanpreet Singh Rayat, Arvind Kumar Singh, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Mathur, P Sarath Chadra Reddy. The CBI had submitted that the offence of conspiracy has to be seen in its entirety. The value of evidence is to be tested at the stage of trial. There is sufficient material to frame charges against the accused persons, the CBI said. ASG DP Singh alongwith advocate Manu Mishra, represented the CBI. It was submitted that there is sufficient material to frame a charge against all Accused persons. Meanwhile, Senior advocate N Hariharan had argued that there is no material to frame charges against Arvind Kejriwal. On January 17, Senior counsel N Hariharan had submitted to former CM Arvind Kejriwal that nothing is incriminating against him, and the charge sheet against him is a cut-and-paste job of the previous charge sheet. Senior counsel had argued that Kejriwal was doing his official duty. There is no link of evidence to show that he asked anyone to take money from the south lobby. Kejriwal was not named in the first charge sheet, nor in the 3 supplementary charge sheet. His name came in 4 the supplementary charge sheet. It was also submitted that the subject matter of the 4th charge sheet is also the subject matter of the previous charge sheets, and that it was a cut and paste allegations against Kejriwal. During the arguments, senior counsel had also addressed the issue of permission for further investigation. Need of further investigation is to be looked into. Further evidence should be such which shows the guilt of the accused, found with permission of the court, senior counsel N Hariharan submitted. It was added that the 4th charge sheet is nothing but repackaging with the intent to implicate a person who was doing his official duty. The court asked the senior counsel to elaborate on the statement of Magunta, who has turned approver. It is alleged that someone asked Magunta to pay money on behalf of Kejriwal. It was submitted that Raghav Magunta was made an approver who was an accsued earlier. Senior advocate had submitted that there is no link which shows that Kejriwal had asked anyone to take money from the south lobby. (ANI) BJP leader K Annamalai accused the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu of spreading panic among the public over fuel supply concerns amid the ongoing West Asia conflict, asserting that India has significantly diversified its oil supply sources and the situation remains under control. Speaking to reporters in Coimbatore, Annamalai said the DMK leadership was attempting to create unnecessary fear despite assurances from the Union government that supplies remain stable. "We strongly condemn the DMK government in Tamil Nadu for creating a sense of panic and fear among our public. DMK has chosen to spread fear and panic," Annamalai said. He referred to assurances given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister regarding the stability of fuel supplies. "Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured in public, especially in the Tiruchirappalli meeting, please don't spread any panic or fear. Everything is under control. The Petroleum Minister in Parliament has assured our people that non-Hormuz oil from 55 per cent has gone to 70 per cent diversification," he said. Highlighting the government's efforts to secure alternative energy routes, Annamalai added, "Two ships have crossed the Strait of Hormuz very safely and they are bringing natural gas to our country. India, under the safe hands of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, no petrol price has gone up after the current war that is happening between Iran, Israel and America." He urged the DMK leadership to cooperate with the Centre rather than create alarm among citizens. "I urge the DMK ministers not to spread panic and fear and to cooperate with the central government to make sure everything goes smoothly going forward," he said. The BJP leader further accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of misusing his position as Leader of Opposition by spreading panic regarding fuel supplies, saying opposition leaders should act responsibly during sensitive situations. "Rahul Gandhi is misusing his privilege as the Leader of the Opposition, is misusing his privilege as the Member of Parliament. The people of our country expect the opposition leader to behave with a sense of decency, to behave with a sense of decorum. The kind of panic he is trying to spread with respect to the gas, petrol is not only condemnable, is making the Congress party in Tamil Nadu to take gas cylinders, come to the road and do protests, when all of us know nothing of that sort is happening," Annamalai said. The BJP leader also criticised the DMK's alliance politics and said the ruling party in Tamil Nadu was prioritising its relationship with the Congress. "They have reduced the seats for everybody just because they want to keep Congress happy that clearly shows DMK is a slave of the Congress party. They want to keep Congress happy. That is the DMK's goal now...I expect a of bickering within the alliance, and we will also see a lot of fractures within the alliance very soon," he said. (ANI) I was intrigued recently to hear that a European Wildcat had been discovered in Ireland. I was thinking to myself, where did he escape from and how might he survive without a mate. Of course, I had only heard half the story and didnt realise that the cat in question was 5,500 years old and only its bones had been found, in a cave in Co Clare. In terms of archaeological finds however, the discovery was significant enough to make the news. While I had to accept that I was never going to meet the cat on my way to school, the fact remains that at one time, the European Wildcat did indeed prowl the ancient woodlands of the Ox Mountain. Felix and Silvester The European wildcat (Felis silvestris) is a small wildcat species native to continental Europe, Great Britain, Ireland, Turkey and the Caucasus. Its fur is brownish to grey with stripes on the forehead and on the sides and has a bushy tail with a black tip. It weighs up to 7.5 kg (17lb). The European wildcat lives primarily in broad-leaved and mixed forests, avoiding intensively cultivated areas and settlements. The northernmost population still exists in northern and eastern Scotland while it is locally extinct in England and Wales. In Ireland, according to recent reports, these cats are first recorded in 3600 BC. They died out by the 18th century, due principally to deforestation. Dario Radley, writing in a recent edition of Archaeology News, suggests that new archaeological evidence and genetic studies confirms that the European wildcats once roamed prehistoric Ireland. Researchers have identified wildcat remains from Glencurran Cave in the Burren, County Clare, dating to roughly 3600 BC. The finding confirms that the species lived on the island more than 5,500 years ago, settling a long-standing uncertainty about Irelands early fauna. This discovery was made through excavations led by Dr Marion Dowd of the Atlantic Technological University. Although small numbers of cat bones have been recovered from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites over the past decades, none had ever been radiocarbon dated. This new discovery provides the first unequivocal confirmation that European wildcats were present in Ireland during the Neolithic period. Radley continues with further details of the recent find. A total of 39 bones from a single adult animal were excavated within Glencurran Cave. The remains did not show any signs of butchery, burning, or other evidence of human activity, and thus, the cat had died naturally. Identification by zooarchaeologist Margaret McCarthy showed that all the bones belonged to a wildcat, and radiocarbon dating carried out at Queens University Belfast confirmed their Neolithic age. History of Cats Prompted by recent developments, now seems like a good time to find out a little more about these cats and, also to see how cats in general came to be domesticated. Jack Tamisiea, writing for National Geographic (2025), helps us to untangle the story of feline domestication but warns that, to date, it has proved tricky for researchers. So far, scientists have focused on Africa and the Middle East, where the wildcats that gave rise to the modern pets are found. Archaeological finds and recent work on ancient genetics have led many researchers to hypothesize that Stone Age farmers domesticated cats nearly 10,000 years ago in the Middle East and brought the rodent-killing kitties along with them as they subsequently moved into Europe. Now, a new DNA analysis of a sprawling set of ancient feline remains reveal that the precursors to modern housecats originated in North Africa and only reached Europe around 2,000 years ago. Cats and Rats Around 10,000 years ago, humans began storing grain. This led to the proliferation and rise in the population of mice and rats. This explosion of mice is believed to have attracted wildcats, bringing them closer to humans for the first time. It also led to their subsequent taming - that cats, that is, not the mice. Cats that were more tolerant of humans were eventually tamed and so the process continued until we arrived at the development of the domesticated cat that we know and love today. Archaeological evidence suggests that cats were commonly found in association with human settlements in the Fertile Crescent by about 3,700 years ago, and they became an official deity (in the form of the goddess Bastet) in Egypt around 2,900 years ago. Thousands of cats were bred near temples in ancient Egypt, sacrificed to Bastet, mummified and buried along with their caregivers so that the person could inhabit the cats body during the afterlife. This suggests the Egyptians were actively breeding cats. By 2,000 years ago, there was increasing evidence of cats spreading throughout Europe, most likely linked to shipping and maritime trade. Cats have been the objects of curiosity and mystery since ancient times. The Fairy Cat Cat folklore varies globally, often associating them with a paradoxical mix of luck, danger, magic, and the supernatural. Across cultures, cats have been linked to deities like the Egyptian goddess Bastet, or associated with witchcraft and the devil in European traditions. Common themes include their connection to the spirit world, their magical abilities, and their role as either omens of good or bad fortune. Cats hold a prominent place in Irish folklore. Here too they are associated with both good fortune and supernatural powers. They are linked to the otherworldly, with figures like the Cait Sith, a large black fairy cat with a white spot, and monstrous wild cats in ancient legends. Shannon Sinn in an article, The Cat in Celtic Lore, gives examples of the many characteristics that made cats the objects of curiosity and mystery. There were many opportunities to divine the future by observing a cats actions. If it washed itself rain was coming. If the cat jumped over food being prepared it was said that the person eating it would themselves conceive cats. A cat crossing the path of a bride, or anyone on New Years Day, was considered unlucky for it warned of negative future events. If the cat crossed the path of a sailor, on the other hand, it was considered to bring good luck. In the construction of new houses in medieval times, it was not uncommon to place a dead cat in the walls. They were sometimes placed there with a dead rat alongside. This seems to be based on a belief that the presence of the cat (despite it being wifeless), as a warning or a deterrent to any mouse or rat who might fancy taking up residence with the new owners. What is it about a cat that seems to embed itself in our imaginings? Maybe its their mysterious ways, their nature to adapt and survive in any given situation. Is it the cats reluctance to give up its wildness or is it our human need to demonise that which we do not fully understand? Regardless, there is lots more to know about cats and their place in our lives and I hope to come back to that at a future date. As the Centre revoked the detention of Sonam Wangchuk with immediate effect, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor welcomed the decision and urged the Supreme Court to evolve a strict norm for maximum periods of detention permissible without trial. In a post on X, Tharoor criticised the "indefinite detention" without trial, calling it an "undemocratic practice from the colonial era" which he said has no place in a mature democracy. "Delighted that the Centre has revoked Sonam Wangchuck's detention, but 169 days seems to have been an inordinately long time. The @SupremeCourtGOI needs to evolve a strict norm for maximum periods of detention permissible without trial. Indefinite detention is an undemocratic practice left over from the colonial era. It has no place in a mature democracy," he said. The government has decided to revoke the detention of Sonam Wangchuk with immediate effect by exercising the powers available under the National Security Act (NSA), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Saturday. MHA said the government remains committed to fostering an environment of peace, stability, and mutual trust in Ladakh so as to facilitate constructive and meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders, and that the decision to revoke Wangchuk's detention has been taken in furtherance of this "objective and after due consideration". It further said that the government has been actively engaging with various stakeholders and community leaders in Ladakh with a view to addressing the aspirations and concerns of the people of the region. However, the MHA pointed out, the prevailing atmosphere of bandhs and protests has been detrimental to the peace-loving character of the society and has adversely affected various sections of the community, including students, job aspirants, businesses, tour operators, tourists and the overall economy. "The government reiterates its commitment to providing all necessary safeguards for Ladakh. It remains hopeful that the issues concerning the region will be resolved through constructive engagement and dialogue, including through the mechanism of the High-Powered Committee as well as other appropriate platforms," added the MHA. In the backdrop of the serious law and order situation that arose in the peace-loving town of Leh on September 24, 2025, Wangchuk was detained on September 26, 2025, under the provisions of the NSA pursuant to an order issued by the District Magistrate, Leh, with a view to maintaining public order. Wangchuk has already undergone nearly half of the period of detention under the said Act. Earlier, on February 26, the Supreme Court scheduled the final hearing on a plea challenging climate activist Sonam Wangchuk's detention under the National Security Act for March 10. The Court also questioned whether his speeches and social media posts could legitimately be interpreted as provocative and linked to the Leh violence of September 24, 2025. (ANI) A man thought he was going to die when his brother-in-law sliced open his arm with a Stanley knife as he slept. Patrick McDonagh, aged 31, of Cherry Trees Lane, Hemel Hempstead in the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm. The injured party, Christopher Lawrence, aged 31, of Luton in the United Kingdom, and his assailant were in Castlebar for a funeral when the attack occurred on June 2, 2022. The court heard that hours before McDonagh had threatened to cut the injured party from toe to throat outside a shop in Castlebar. Mr Lawrence was staying in a house at Riverdale Court. He was asleep in bed when McDonagh and his wife (the victims sister) turned up at the property at 4.30am. McDonagh went upstairs and used a Stanley knife to cut the injured partys arm to the bone as he slept. Mr Lawrence awoke to find McDonagh standing over him with a knife as his arm bled profusely. McDonagh fled the house and Mr Lawrence was later found collapsed in the street after he contacted the emergency services. The injured party required surgery and was hospitalised for a number of days. He sustained nerve damage and cut tendons He has lost feeling in one of his fingers and only has 70-80% mobility in his hand. In his victim impact statement, Mr Lawrence stated that he believed he was going to die. I genuinely thought I was a dead man, he said. The victim said he is constantly in fear and continues to suffer from flashbacks of the incident. McDonagh was arrested at the time but left the jurisdiction while on bail. A warrant for his arrest was issued in July 2022 and he was arrested in the UK on May 1, 2025. He has remained in custody both in Ireland and the UK since that date. McDonagh unsuccessfully contested his extradition back to Ireland with the process taking nine months. He has five previous conviction, all of which occurred in the UK. McDonaghs mother-in-law Winnie Lawrence, who is the mother of the victim, appeared in court in support of her son-in-law. She said there was a family feud which stemmed from her daughters refusal to agree to an arranged marriage. She said her daughter ran away with Patrick McDonagh and it all blew up from there". This was an appalling criminal act, said Judge Eoin Garavan. He said the threats issued by McDonagh showed that this was not some spontaneous act". The judge said Mr Lawrence sustained an enormous, jaw-dropping wound and lost two pints of blood. Judge Garavan said McDonaghs actions were cowardly and it was not a fair fight. He (Lawrence) must have woken up to what was a nightmare, the judge remarked. Judge Garavan imposed a four-year jail term, backdating the sentence to reflect time already spent in custody. Air India and Air India Express will move all flight operations at Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBIA) in Guwahati from Terminal 1 to the newly inaugurated Terminal 2, effective from March 16. The transition will see the two airlines operate 38 daily flights from the new terminal. As per the airline release, it is stated that, "Air India and Air India Express will be operating all their flights to and from the newly inaugurated Terminal 2 of Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati from 16 March." "The first Air India flight to land at the new terminal will be AI879 from Delhi, and the return flight AI880 will be Air India's first departure from T2 Guwahati Airport to Delhi. Air India Express flight IX1517 from Kolkata will be its first flight to touch down at the new terminal, and the same flight's onward journey to Imphal will be Air India Express's first flight to depart from T2, Guwahati Airport," the release said. Air India currently operates two daily return flights between Delhi and Guwahati, while Air India Express connects Guwahati with 17 daily flights to Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur, and Kolkata. The release further mentions that, "The ground teams of Air India and Air India Express will extend all support and assistance to the guests at the new terminal." The LGBIA airport connects 21 domestic destinations and three international routes, including Bangkok, Paro and Singapore and currently handles more than 130 aircraft traffic movements (ATMs) daily. The additional capacity is expected to strengthen Guwahati's role as a regional hub linking the North-East with mainland India and Southeast Asia. Designed by internationally acclaimed Indian architect Nuru Karim, the terminal draws inspiration from Assam's kopou phool (foxtail orchid) and incorporates more than 140 metric tonnes (MT) of bamboo. Architectural references to Assam's bholuka bamboo craftsmanship and the bamboo-based structural traditions associated with the Apatani tribe of Arunachal Pradesh reflect the wider cultural fabric of the North-East. The design received the International Architecture Award 2025 for integrating regional identity with contemporary infrastructure. The airport is operated by AAHL through its subsidiary Guwahati International Airport Limited (GIAL). AAHL also manages airports in Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Mangaluru. (ANI) With only two days left for the Rajya Sabha elections, Congress MLA from Cuttack-Barabati, Sofia Firdous, has expressed concerns over internal communication within the party and the decision-making process regarding support for candidates. Speaking on the issue, Firdous said she was unaware of the reasons behind some Congress MLAs from Odisha being sent outside the state ahead of the elections. She stated that she had not been contacted or informed about any plan to travel to Bengaluru or any other location. "I don't know about it because nobody contacted me regarding going to Bengaluru or anything related to that. So I cannot comment much on that matter," she said. Firdous also pointed out that Congress MLAs were not consulted before the party decided to support a Rajya Sabha candidate. According to her, since MLAs are the ones who cast votes in the Rajya Sabha elections, their opinions should have been taken into consideration. "If our opinions had been sought, we could have sat together and discussed what decision would be right or wrong. But no consultation was done with us," she said. Commenting on the political situation in Odisha, Firdous alleged that the weakening of the Congress in the state since 2000 was largely due to the role of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). She claimed that the BJD had often supported the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at various levels. "The BJD has always been clear in its stand and has supported the BJP at many levels. Whether in the Assembly, Lok Sabha, or Rajya Sabha, their MPs have often backed the BJP in voting and other matters," she alleged. She also criticised the idea of aligning with BJD, stating that Congress workers and leaders had faced political harassment over the years. According to her, joining hands with such a party would not make sense for Congress. Firdous added that if the party had fielded an independent candidate and discussed the decision collectively with MLAs, it would have maintained their dignity within the political process. However, the MLA emphasised that her primary focus remains on her constituency and its development. "My focus is on my constituency. The people who voted for my father earlier and now have voted for me expect development work. I am committed to working for them," she said. (ANI) Congress MP Mukul Wasnik on Saturday backed the opposition's notice seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Speaking to reporters, Wasnik said that the functioning of the Election Commission at present is questionable, whereas the opposition MPs were not being allowed to speak in the parliament, due to which a no-confidence motion was brought against Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. "You all have seen how the Parliament works in the past few days. The opposition moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker because the opposition MPs were not allowed to speak inside the House. The way the Election Commission is working in the country is questionable," Wasnik said. Trinamool Congress MPs on Friday submitted notices in both Houses of Parliament seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, sources said. According to sources, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariats are currently examining the format of the notices. The submissions are under scrutiny, and if found to be in accordance with the prescribed format, the respective Houses will accept the notices of the resolution seeking the Chief Election Commissioner's removal. Speaking over the issue, TMC MP Saugata Roy said that the procedure of removing a CEC is similar to a Supreme Court judge. He mentioned that signature of atleast 100 Lok Sabha MPs and 50 Rajya Sabha MPs is mandatory if a motion is to be brought against the Chief Election Commissioner. The TMC MP added that the notice of his party is in accordance with the law, and a committee should be formed to investigate the issue. "As per the Constitution, the procedure to remove the CEC is similar to that for removing a Supreme Court judge. At least 100 Lok Sabha MPs and 50 Rajya Sabha MPs must sign... As per the rules under the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, if found in order, a three-member committee will be formed, and that committee will decide whether discussion will be done on this or not... Our notice is in accordance with the law, and a committee should be formed. The main allegation is that he has disenfranchised people; many names have been removed from the voter list. This is completely wrong," Roy told ANI. A total of 128 opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha and 63 MPs in the Rajya Sabha have signed a motion seeking the removal of the CEC Gyanesh Kumar, sources in the Trinamool Congress said yesterday. The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only through the same procedure and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court, as stated in Article 324(5) of the Constitution. The motion must be signed by 100 members in the Lok Sabha or 50 members in the Rajya Sabha. (ANI) President Diaz-Canel admits to talks with the US government, March 13 [Photo: Screenshot of Cubavision] Cubas President Miguel DiazCanel has publicly confirmed for the first time that his government is engaged in ongoing talks with the Trump administration on the genocidal US fuel blockade that is starving the island. Speaking from the headquarters of the Communist Party of Cuba, DiazCanel said the discussions are aimed at finding solutions, through dialogue, to the bilateral differences that we have between the two nations, and claimed they are being conducted on the basis of equality, respect for the political systems of both States, sovereignty, and selfdetermination. There was no attempt to explain how equal footing is possible when, as he admits, for more than three months no fuel ship has entered the country. He added: We are working in very adverse conditions, with an immeasurable impact on the life of all our people. The announcement confirms weeks of hints and boasts from US President Donald Trump that he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been in contact with Havana over a possible deal. The acute energy and social crisis on the island produced by Washingtons punitive embargo was dramatically escalated after the US kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, severing a key oil lifeline, and a subsequent threat of third-country tariffs against other oil suppliers. DiazCanel acknowledged that in this period of extreme tension a window has opened for dialogue. In reality, this means negotiations over the terms of Cubas capitulation to US imperialism. DiazCanel described the process as very sensitive, outlining three axes: identifying bilateral issues that require solutions; determining the willingness of both sides to adopt concrete measures for the benefit of both nations, and identifying areas of cooperation to confront threats and guarantee security and peace. The deliberately vague language conceals the basic framework: Washington is strangling Cuba and offering marginal relief in exchange for deep economic, political and security concessions that would turn the island into Washingtons semiprotectorate and a forward operating base for US operations in the region. A revealing gesture toward Washington was Havanas announcement Thursday that it will release 51 prisoners following Vatican mediation, a move clearly intended as a down payment in the talks. But, even more significant is DiazCanels declaration on Friday that the regime is awaiting the arrival of agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Were waiting for a possible visit of FBI experts to participate in the clarification and the investigations with personnel from our Interior Ministry, he said. The investigation in question concerns the February 25 armed speedboat incursion in which 10 CubanAmericans, whom Cuba accuses of planning terrorist acts, engaged in a shootout with border guards one nautical mile off the northern coast, leaving five assailants dead and the rest wounded and captured. DiazCanel himself described it as an armed infiltration financed from US territory, but said Havana immediately notified Washington, which responded with keen interest via diplomatic channels. The Trump administration has openly praised Cubas collaboration. This constitutes an extraordinary act of political prostration, exposing the Cuban governments decadeslong claims to be an implacable opponent of US imperialism as a fraud. Since the early 1960s, Cuban officials have denounced terrorist campaigns launched from Florida by CIAconnected exile organizations, including the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner and the 1997 hotel bombings linked to Luis Posada Carriles. Yet nearly 20 years have passed since the last confirmed FBI visit to the islandan early2000s trip related to those hotel bombings. Now, under conditions of a USengineered fuel siege, the same agency is being welcomed back as a partner in security. The outlines of what Washington seeks are clear. Last Sunday, USA Today cited administration sources stating that Trump is preparing an economic deal with Cuba. According to the report, discussions have included an offramp for President Miguel DiazCanel, the Castro family remaining on the island and deals on ports, energy and tourism, though details remain secret. In other words, the US ruling class is exploring how to best restructure Cuban capitalism to secure its strategic interests: turning the islands ports, energy infrastructure and tourism sector over to US corporations while maintaining some layer of the current ruling elite as local managers. In the bargain, the aim is to eradicate Russian, Chinese and even European influence on the island. The Cuban government recently pushed through its latest and broadest set of pro-business reforms that expand the role of the private sector and foreign investors. Trump greeted DiazCanels press conference by reposting an article about the talks on his social media platform, underscoring the importance he attaches to the negotiations. At the Shield of the Americas summit in Miami on Saturdayattended by farright leaders like Argentinas Javier Milei and Ecuadors Daniel NoboaTrump declared: Cubas in its last moments of life as it was. Itll have a great new life, but its in its last moments of life the way it is, adding that Rubio could easily clinch a deal. The cynicism of Trumps denunciations of Cuba is staggering. The same administration that rails against Havana rains down death and chaos across the globe, from the annihilation of Iran and the bombardment of Venezuelan and Caribbean fishermen to the deployment of militarized police and troops against protesters in US cities, where demonstrators are beaten and killed with impunity. Trump himself has been transparent about the predatory nature of his aims. After previously promising a friendly takeover of Cuba, he recently added: It may be a friendly takeover; it may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldnt matter because theyre down to, as they say, fumes. He stated, nonetheless, that his focus must remain on Iran for now: Our focus right now is on Iran, and well do that. I would say, what will you do, take about two days off, Marco? Maybe an hour. Hell take one hour off, and then hell finish up a deal on Cuba. The island is being treated openly as a piece on the chessboard in a wider war for global hegemony. Nor is this policy confined to Republicans. Beyond ritualized calls for sovereignty, there is bipartisan agreement in Washington on starving Cuba into accepting capitalist modernization. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, considered part of the partys progressive wing, wrote approvingly on X: A deal would allow American and Cuban entrepreneurs to invest in Cuba and help Cuba recover and modernize economically. In plain language, this means restoring Cuba as a playground for US and expatriate capital, with the Cuban workers and youth left to face mass poverty, precarious work and gutted social services. DiazCanels admission of talks comes in the context of mounting discontent at home. Fortythree days have passed since Trump declared a national emergency targeting Cuba. In the past week, nearly daily protests have broken out among university students in Havana and in several working class neighborhoods over blackouts and suspended classes, as well as the lack of medicines and basic foodstuffs. A young worker in Cuba recently told the WSWS: The protests are not as many nor as big as the media says, and they are concentrated in the capital (at least on this occasion I havent heard of anything else). No, they are not rightwing groups or manipulated. I think there have been very few of those and not recently. The only concrete protest has been that of university studentsa peaceful sitin on the steps to show their discontent with a critical educational situation. There were not many; people are quite afraid to protest after the political prisoners of July 11. The rest are neighborhoods that have spent many hours without electricity, going hungry, without water, with the little food they have spoiling without refrigeration. Its the most spontaneous thing you can imagine. They are just people who cant take it anymore; the police always contain them quickly. The Cuban government has responded to these small mobilizations with a large deployment of security agents in uniform and plainclothes as intimidation. The recognition of talks between Havana and Washington reflects the fact that neither side wants a genuine popular upsurge on an island just 90 miles from the US coast that could destabilize their plans to restructure Cuban capitalism in the interests of finance capital. These developments confirm the perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International: the Castroite regime represents not a deformed workers state or socialism but a radical variant of bourgeois nationalism. Confronted with Washingtons intransigent hostility to even the most minimal reforms, it was driven to nationalize industry and turned to the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy for support, subordinating itself to its perspective of peaceful coexistence with US imperialism. The Stalinist bureaucracys restoration of capitalism and dissolution of the Soviet Union severed the islands main economic lifeline. This was only partially offset by Venezuelas supply of cheap oil, which now too has been cut off, tightening Washingtons longstanding blockade to the point of economic strangulation. Cubas Castroite leadership has sought to maintain its rule by courting foreign capitalist investment, encouraging the development of a private sector and always seeking an accommodation with US imperialism. These policies have gone hand-in-hand with the exclusion and repression of independent working class political activity in the name of national unity behind the state and a rejection of any revolutionary appeal to the working class in the US and globally. The working class in the US and internationally must defend Cuba against US imperialism, but this does not mean subordination to the policies of the bourgeois nationalist regime in Havana. The way forward lies in the building of a revolutionary socialist movement among Cuban workers and youtha section of the International Committee of the Fourth Internationalthat fights to link consciously with the struggles of workers across the Americas and the world. Digging out from mudslide in Peruvian highlands [Photo: andina.pe] Peru is reeling from an intense wave of heat, torrential rains, landslides and river floods that have already claimed 68 lives and affected nearly 200,000 people in barely three months. While families dig through mud and debris for survivors, the countrys Congress debates anything but the crisis. The disaster has exposed once again how a corrupt ruling oligarchy and its political representatives are unable and unwilling to protect the lives and welfare of the masses of Peruvian working people. The capital, Lima, is enduring an unprecedented heatwave. February brought 18 straight days of recordbreaking temperatures, soaring above 34.5 C (94 F)a full seven degrees above normal, according to the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service (SENAMHI). Streets melted in the sun, while thousands in Perus interior faced flash floods and mountain avalanches. The phenomenon fueling this destruction is El Nino Costero 2026, a recurring warmwater current originating near Ecuador. Fishermen named it El Nino centuries ago because it appears around Christmasa nod to the Christ Child. But this years version, scientists warn, is intensified by global warming, turning what was once a cyclical weather pattern into a climate emergency. Past episodes have left deep scars: the 1982-83 El Nino leveled whole villages; the 1997-98 wave killed more than 500 people; and the 2017 Coastal El Nino left much of the country buried under mud. Yet despite those repeated lessons, Perus political class has done almost nothing to prepare. After decades of warnings, there is still no comprehensive emergency management plan. Flood defenses, earlywarning systems and adequate urban drainage remain unfinished or nonexistent. Observers say the real reason is political: at least 60 percent of Perus lawmakers are currently under criminal investigation for corruption, influencepeddling or document forgery. Coastal El Nino 2026, in effect, strikes a country whose government has spent more energy defending corrupt politicians than building its future. Some analysts have described the damage as statemade. Laws passed after the 2017 disaster were either poorly executed or left to gather dust. The government, dominated by business elites in Lima, remains fixated on pleasing international investors while ignoring rural and working class Peruvians. For those outside the capital, the message is bitterly clear: They dont give a damn. From late 2025 through February 2026, 68 people have died. Victims include a school principal drowned when his boat capsized on the Picha River, and a nationalpolice officer swept away while trying to rescue a stranded dog on the Rimac River. On February 22, a searchandrescue helicopter crashed in Chala (Arequipa), killing all 15 aboard. Damage assessments are staggering: nearly 1,000 homes destroyed, more than 5,000 made uninhabitable, 6,000 hectares of farmland lost. Economists estimate total costs at 291 million soles (roughly $US 84 million). Meanwhile, inequality has deepened. Perus business and banking elite rely on private hospitals and schoolspaying up to US $2,000 a month for each childwhile public services for workers and small farmers crumble. The poor pay the price of elite misrule in both health and housing. Limas minimal rainfall led successive governments to ignore the need for proper sewage and drainage systems, not just in the capital but across the coastal region. When the rains arrived, streets turned to rivers and towns into lakes. The floods have also sparked disease outbreaks, as stagnant water breeds mosquitoes and bacteria. With no effective containment plans, the government bears direct responsibility for the mounting death toll. The authorities had ample warning. After the 2017 tragedy, Congress authorized funding for prevention projects. But in a country that has seen eight presidents in 10 years, followthrough was nonexistent amid unending scandal and mounting crises. According to SENAMHI, March will bring even higher temperatures, with some days surpassing 30 C (86 F) and suffocating humidity. Highland regions above 2,800 meters can expect hailstorms, while areas above 3,800 meters may see snow, lightning, and winds of up to 35 km/h. And yet, key floodcontrol works remain unfinished or delayed, particularly in Piura, Tumbes and other northern cities where working class and migrant families build homes along riverbanks. Every year the pattern repeats: disaster, deaths, outrage, pledgesand then silence. Urban planning failures have compounded the crisis. Housing developments expand haphazardly onto swamp lands and dry riverbeds, while corruption stalls rebuilding efforts. Much of the nations infrastructure is simply too old or poorly built to withstand the onslaught of a changing climate. The problem isnt nature, says one Lima engineer quoted by local media. Its negligence. Experts warn that a future super El Nino could eclipse even this years devastation, fueled by rising ocean temperatures, denser populations, and decaying public works. For now, Perus response remains reactive, not preventivesending aid only after rivers overflow. The cost, human and economic, continues to mount. While Lima and Callao are gripped by rising violence from extortion gangs, much of Peru faces a fight against the forces of natureand the apathy of those in power. Billions of soles promised for disaster prevention have yet to materialize on the ground. Each new emergency exposes the same vicious circle: corruption breeds incompetence, incompetence breeds tragedy, and tragedy becomes normalized. Until that cycle is broken by a revolutionary movement from below, every new El Nino will find the same old Peruunprepared and riven by social inequality, with the working population paying for the criminality and indifference of the capitalist ruling class and its imperialist patrons. ICE agents take a worker from inside the Amazon facility in Hazel Park, Michigan, February 2, 2026. [Photo: Detroit Metro News] At least 60 Amazon Flex delivery drivers have been detained by ICE across southeast Michigan, Peoples Assembly Detroit is reporting. One person from the group has told the WSWS that while fullscale workplace raids are not being carried out inside Amazon facilities, drivers are being pulled over as they arrive for their shifts. On several occasions, cars loaded with packages have been left in the street after workers were seized by ICE. Amazon Flex drivers are gig workers, similar to Uber and Lyft, who deliver Amazon packages from their private vehicles. According to data from the Pew Research Center and consulting firm McKinsey & Company, nearly half of gig workers are immigrants, although this number is even higher in some cities. The Independent Drivers Guild reports that up to 90 percent of gig workers in New York City are immigrants. It is believed that between 3.5 and 4.5 million immigrants are employed in app-based work such as Uber, DoorDash, Lyft, GrubHub, Instacart or Amazon Flex. The seizure of Flex drivers is a calculated attack on the entire working class, not just immigrants. Detroit, the historic center of the American car industry and home to large Arab and Muslim communities, is increasingly in the crosshairs of Trumps immigration gestapo. Autoworkers at General Motors Factory Zero in the enclave of Hamtramck were outraged last month when masked ICE began pulling over motorists outside of the factory. On March 1, Amazon Flex driver Maria Zambrano was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Southeast Michigan. She is the partner of fellow Flex driver Edwin Vladimir Romero, who was also seized by ICE at Amazons Hazel Park facility on February 2, along with coworker Angel Junior RinconPerez. On March 2, a GoFundMe was launched to support Maria Zambrano and Edwin Romero and their family. Veronica Rodriguez, who started the appeal, emphasized that both workers have lawful status in the US. They have no criminal past and worked hard to pay their bills. They have lawful legal status in the US, she says on the GoFundMe page. More than half of ICEs approximately 70,000 detainees nationwide face no criminal charges at all. Excerpt from Edwin and Maria's gofundme page [Photo: Veronica Rodriguez] Rodriguez cited a recent letter from Maria: Edwin is a hardworking and quiet man. He has always been responsible and very devoted to his family. He is the main provider for our household and also financially supports his mother, who depends on him. Since his detention, our family has been going through a very difficult time, both emotionally and financially. My husband is not a criminal. He is a family man who came to this country seeking safety and an opportunity to work and provide for his family honestly. His absence has affected us deeply. We only ask that his character be considered and that the impact his detention is having on his family be taken into account. On February 2, ICE agents tracked Romero and co-worker Angel Junior Rincon-Perez to the Hazel Park facility and arrested them on site. Both men hold valid Michigan licenses and work authorization. Both are under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Yet, they were dragged away in front of their coworkersworkers who watched as agents chased one driver from the parking lot into the building. Amazon security gave ICE full access to the warehouse, citing a supposed security breach. The brief lockdown that followed turned the workplace into a trap for immigrant workers. Both men fled instability in Venezuela in 2023, have asylum requests, and scheduled court hearings. Rincon-Perez is the main breadwinner for a family with several children. He was taken into custody on his way to return an undeliverable package to Amazon. In a letter to the Detroit ICE director, his partner Franyl Huerta wrote, I beg you, from the bottom of my heart, to please give Angel the opportunity to see his family again, as he is a good father, a good son, and a good brother. He is only looking for a better future for our family, as it is the foundation of our home. After their arrest, Romero and Rincon-Perez were transferred to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, the largest ICE detention complex in the Midwest, with an 1,800bed capacity. The facility, operated by private prison conglomerate GEO Group, held roughly 1,400 detainees as of February 2026, while GEOs nationwide ICE business helped drive a surge in profits to $254 million in 2025, up from $32 million the previous year. Families and advocates describe conditions at North Lake that include expired food, delayed medical care, prolonged isolation, and onerous bonds of $15,000$40,000, sums that are cruelly designed to prevent working-class families from freeing their loved ones. On December 15, Nenko Stanev Gantchev, 56, detained at North Lake died in custody, likely from medical neglect. He was one of four immigrants to die in custody in one week. There have been other raids at Amazon facilities nationwide. A local TV station reported on one case in Pico Rivera, California, where a driver was chased, thrown to the ground, and detained. NBC reported federal agents detaining multiple drivers in Washington DC, with community videos showing agents grabbing drivers off the street while working. Similar incidents have also been documented in New York. The New York Times reports that Amazon managers have received centralized guidance to flag workers whose parole, TPS, or other documents were affected, giving them a few days to produce new proof or be suspended and terminated, which immigrant advocates see as an extension of the Trump administrations mass deportation efforts. Amazon is deeply enmeshed in the infrastructure of state repression. The Hazel Park raid exposed how quickly company security collaborates with federal agents, transforming the workplace into a hunting ground for immigrant workers under the guise of exigent circumstances. Moreover, Amazons vast surveillance and data systems, from warehouse access controls to delivery routing algorithms, are directly compatible with the needs of immigration enforcement. The companys heavy reliance on contractors and gig workers, many of them immigrants, provides ICE with a concentrated pool of vulnerable laborers who can be detained at or near their jobs with minimal logistical effort and maximum terroristic impact on the broader workforce. More ICE attacks in Michigan In Michigan, ICE has intensified operations not only at Amazon facilities but also in workingclass neighborhoods, schools and daycare centers, deliberately spreading fear among immigrant families. Construction workers have been snatched on their way to job sites, as in the case of a Detroit resident Marty, who was grabbed en route to work on December 6. He was shipped to North Lake despite valid identification and family ties. In recent weeks, there have been multiple arrests in Ypsilanti, including four individuals seized near schools, and a brutal snowbank arrest of worker Byron Martinez in Grand Rapids. Alcides Caceres, a 23-year-old Detroit worker and business owner, was picked up on January 8. A Cass Tech alumni and Wayne State University graduate, he is DACA eligible and has no criminal record. He has been held by ICE ever since. Protests continue across Southeast Michigan against these fascistic attacks. One of the most recent took place on Wednesday against a proposed ICE administrative office in Southfield. On February 23, an estimated 700-800 people rallied against a proposed detention center in Romulus. Hundreds more have protested in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, and Detroit, as well as numerous smaller Michigan cities. Students have walked out across the state, demanding ICE Out, including at Cass Tech, Royal Oak, Plymouth-Canton, Birmingham, Community High School-Ann Arbor, the International Technology Academy in Pontiac, and more. While local Democratic politicians, including Michigan state senators Stephanie Chang and Mary Cavanagh, have issued letters urging ICE to release Romero and Rincon Perez, and a few city councils have passed resolutions formally limiting cooperation with ICE, the Democrats insist that the only real way to fight Trump is to get people to vote for the Democrats. They aim to conceal the bipartisan framework and funding of border security and law enforcement that has erected and funded ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Customs and Border Patrol. A real fight must be organized by the working class, including autoworkers, educators, healthcare workers, Amazon workers, postal workers, technology workers and other sections of the working class. It is the working class that has the power to halt production and stop the operations of ICE and Trumps Gestapo agents. Workers in the United Auto Workers and other unions should demand mass meetings in every local to pass resolutions rejecting any collaboration with ICE agents, as Amazon did when it opened its doors for two Amazon Flex workers to be seized in the plant. Workers should prepare strike action in response to any effort to seize their coworkers, and the unions must be committed to the defense of workers and youth. Police stand guard in front of a Tesla dealership as protesters attend the Tesla Takedown Global Day of Action, in Berlin, Saturday, March 29, 2025. [AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi] In the works council elections that took place between 2 and 4 March at Europes only Tesla Gigafactory in Grunheide near Berlin, the IG Metall union suffered a crushing defeat. Despite massive efforts on the part of the IG Metall, and with major media attention, only 31 percent of the workforce voted for the IG Metall Tesla Workers GFFB slate. The union will take only 13 of the total of 37 seats in the new works council. The remaining 24 seats fall to non-unionised lists. The most seats, 16, were won by the Tesla-steered Giga United list, led by the current works council chairwoman Michaela Schmitz. The Polish Initiative list, which ran for the first time, received 3 seats. The IG Metall had firmly expected to receive over 50 percent of the votes and thus be able to take over the chairmanship of the works council. After the 2024 works council election, the IG Metall still formed the largest group but did not have a majority of the seats. In the run-up to the works council elections, leading business-friendly media such as finance daily Handelsblatt and leading news weekly Der Spiegel wrote of a struggle over direction. Der Spiegel even spoke of a culture war in which the libertarian Silicon Valley spirit clashes with the decades-old co-determination tradition of German industry. These publications jumped to the aid of the IG Metall because they take the view that uncontrolled class conflicts in large corporations can be prevented only through the well-established integration of the trade unions. But the days of social partnership and social compromise belong to history. Across the entire auto industry, top corporate management has declared war on the workers. Instead of social partnership, class struggle is now the order of the day. But the IG Metall and its works council reps cannot and will not wage this struggle because their existence is based on class collaboration. The crisis, in which there is nothing left to distribute, drives them to swear allegiance to the corporate bosses and the state. If opposition and resistance arise within the workforce, which must necessarily be directed against the treacherous union bureaucracy, the IG Metall apparatus suppresses this rebellion with mafia methods, as at Bosch in Schwabisch Gmund. In the election campaign at Tesla, the IG Metall list itself came under fire. The IG Metall district manager for Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony, Jan Otto, spoke of attacks by management and an exceptionally unfair election campaign. Tesla management, led by plant manager Andre Thierig, railed against the IG Metall and even indirectly threatened to halt further plant expansion. Managements influence was far-reaching: threats were made at works meetings, in one-on-one conversations with superiors, and in continuous propaganda over the plant radio in the toilets. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who supports Trump and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and who engages in union-busting in his US factories and constantly violates labour law, personally interfered in the Tesla works council election in Grunheide and threatened to freeze investments if the election did not turn out in his favour. The scandal at a works council meeting, where Tesla accused an IG Metall secretary of making a secret recording, was a transparent provocation. Tellingly, the two sides reached a settlement before the case reached the labour court. These undemocratic attacks on the part of Tesla management must be rejected on principle. It concerns the right of the workers to elect the representatives of their choice without threats and blackmail from management. Had there been an independent rank-and-file action committee in the plant, it would have protested against the undemocratic interference in the election and against the witch-hunt of colleagues on sick leave and demanded the convening of an extraordinary works meeting. It would have insisted that management, and, in particular, plant manager Andre Thierig, keep out of the election and commit in writing to stopping its unlawful behavior. The IG Metall and its otherwise vociferous district manager Jan Otto undertook nothing of the sort. They did not defend workers democratic rights. They did not even try to mobilise the workforce against these blatant attacks. Jan Otto even ruled out challenging the election. A legal solution was not a priority for him. We have to clarify this morally, he announced. The dead end of the co-determination tradition To be blunt: had the IG Metall won a majority on the works council at Tesla, it would not be a victory for the workforce. Assuming Musk would agree to a social partnership, the IG Metall would eat out of his hand, establish its hated mafia methods at Tesla, and suppress any independent resistance. The IG Metall apparatus acts as an extended arm of the corporations throughout the entire auto industry. Tesla workers have noticed this too. They have followed the endless mass dismissals and wage cuts agreed to and enforced by IG Metall works council reps. Precisely in large auto corporationssuch as VW, Mercedes and Boschwhere powerful and well-paid IG Metall bureaucrats call the shots, an ongoing jobs massacre is currently taking place, without any resistance whatsoever from the IG Metall. If the IG Metall were indeed a representative of workers interests, it would have had plenty of opportunity at Tesla over the last four years to mobilise the workforce, composed of workers of many nationalities, against Musk. It would also have reached out to workers at the other Gigafactories in the US and China and advocated a global unification of autoworkers with the aim of breaking the power of the corporation. But instead, the IG Metall categorically rejects such a perspective. It strives to secure its privileged existence with majorities in works councils and well-rewarded supervisory board posts. It sees its traditional task as ensuring peace and order in the factories, acting as company police. The fact that the majority of the workforce voted for the company-steered Giga United list, and nine other more or less Tesla-friendly lists, testifies to disorientation and a lack of perspectivea result of the fact that an independent and powerful representation of the workforces interests has not yet been built. Among the 107 candidates on the IG Metall list, the majority of whom are workers with a migrant background, there are quite a few who stood for sincere reasonsout of a lack of alternatives or ignorance of the long history of betrayal and sell-outs by the IG Metall. Musks exploitation can only be effectively fought through independent self-organisation in rank-and-file action committees, combined with a socialist perspective. That is the task of the hour. When union district manager Jan Otto now talks big at a press conference and suddenly discovers that Musk is a capitalist who is hollowing out a piece of democracy by dint of money, he makes himself look ridiculous. With this fake scolding of capitalism, he is in reality only complaining that Musk does not want to become part of theas he sayspractised co-determination tradition in which trade union bureaucrats like him sit on the supervisory board as reliable co-managers. It is barely four years since the huge Tesla Gigafactory in Grunheide was ceremoniously opened by Elon Musk. The then-chancellor, Olaf Scholz (SPD), and economics minister, Robert Habeck (Greens), showered Musk with praise and honour. The IG Metall announced that it had every interest in seeing this plant flourish and have lasting success. During these four years, the conditions of exploitation have become ever more extreme, as documented in the media. A former shift supervisor, for example, told Stern magazine: People are being burned up at Tesla. At times, one in two members of my team was off sick. But there were no significant protests from the IG Metall, let alone strike action. The IG Metalls main demand is for a collective agreement, which could exist only with an IG Metall majority on the works council, and which would then apply only to union members. On a flyer with which it is trying to recruit members, the IG Metall compares the collective agreements that once applied at Mercedes in Berlin-Marienfelde many years ago with the conditions at Tesla. Wages at Tesla are apparently somewhat lower, but this conceals the fact that the IG Metall has also agreed to cuts in real wages and further reductions in the wage structure at Mercedes in recent years. Even more serious is the decimation of jobs for which the IG Metall works council at Mercedes in Marienfelde is jointly responsible. Under the slogan Transformation instead of closure, the IG Metall agreed to a staff reduction from 3,000 to 1,800 employees. Job cuts at Tesla The IG Metall has also accepted job cuts at Tesla from 12,400 to 10,700 over the last two years without a fight. Tesla has been struggling with sales problems since 2024. In 2025, the Grunheide plant, the only one in Europe, was operating at less than 60 percent capacity. Nevertheless, profits slumped only slightly, because productivity was increased through further automation and the cutting of 1,700 jobs. Over 1,000 temporary workers had to leave in the last two years. Musk announced a 10 percent jobs cut in 2024; in Grunheide it was 14 percent. In 2025, Tesla sold 9 percent fewer cars worldwide; on the Chinese market and in Europe, sales figures literally collapsed, in some cases by 40 to 50 percent. This was not least a result of Musks fascist tirades and his support for Trump and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The IG Metall is, of course, aware of all this. It specifically employs a team of several people for Tesla in its Berlin office. Yet even during the works council election campaign, it did not comment on the connection between Musks methods of exploitation and current political events in the US. It did not say a word about the fascist witch-hunt against migrants and the murder of US citizens by the ICE immigration Gestapo, the assault on Venezuela, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the criminal war against Iran. Yet Musk is one of the driving forces behind Trumps plans for war and dictatorship. As head of the DOGE rationalisation authority, he was responsible for mass dismissals in the public sector. It is not only at Tesla, where these questions virtually impose themselves, that the IG Metall remains silent. Throughout the entire auto and metal industry, its officials suppress the highly explosive political questions about the links between war, rearmament, mass dismissals and social devastation. The reason for this is simple: the IG Metall and all other trade unions stand politically on the side of the government and Chancellor Merz, support their war policy and defend the corporations national profit interests, in which they are embedded. This is where the circle of the co-determination tradition closes. A workforce that is as internationally diverse as that of Tesla underscores the international character of the working class and the necessity of joint action. Employees from 150 nations work in the Grunheide plant. Over 2,000 people commute across the border every day from nearby Poland. There are hundreds of workers of Turkish and Arab origin. Not a few have fled from war and crisis zones. The national phalanx of government, corporations and trade unions requires an international response from the working class. Struggles must not get bogged down at the national level. In the global auto industry, supply chains and production are intertwined across borders. There is no such thing as a German or American car. Musks exploitation can be effectively fought only through independent self-organisation in action committees, combined with a socialist perspective. We call on the Tesla workers in Grunheide: Participate in building an independent action committee to unite globally with your colleagues. Get in touch with us. Send a message on Whatsapp to +49 163 3378340. On Thursday, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, a former member of the Virginia National Guard, carried out an attack against members of the US military on the Old Dominion University campus in Norfolk, Virginia. Police arrive outside Old Dominion University's campus after reports of an active shooter on Thursday, March 12, 2026 in Norfolk, Virginia. [AP Photo/John Clark] According to reports, Jalloh entered a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) class, yelled Allahu Akbar, and began firing. Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, professor of military science and chair of the Armys ROTC program at the university, was killed in the shooting, while two other student military officers were hospitalized with injuries. Jalloh was killed during the attack after ROTC cadets rushed him, with multiple outlets reporting that he was stabbed by a cadet as others tackled and subdued him. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh Jalloh was attending online classes at the university. It remains unclear as of this writing whether he deliberately targeted Shah, who joined the Army in 2003 and deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the US invasions. Shah logged more than 1,200 flight hours, including over 600 combat hours in Iraq as a helicopter pilot. The shooting prompted a massive police response. Classes for the universitys roughly 24,000 students, nearly 30 percent of whom are affiliated with the US military, were canceled for the remainder of Thursday and Friday. Many questions remain following the shooting, including the role of the FBI in Jallohs earlier case. Prior to Thursdays attack, Jalloh served time in federal prison after pleading guilty in October 2016 to attempting to provide material support to ISIS. The plea resulted from a roughly five-month FBI sting operation. According to court documents, Jalloh made contact with someone connected to ISIS in early 2016, who then introduced him to a person who turned out to be an FBI informant. The informant later claimed that during discussions Jalloh spoke about purchasing a weapon that he said he would use in an attack similar to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The informant encouraged Jalloh to send $500 to an FBI-linked account, which he did. During the proceedings, Jallohs attorney, Joseph T. Flood, argued that his client was not an initiator and that it was the informant who repeatedly pressed him into actions he had declined. There are points throughout this where [Jalloh] says no. He gets off the truck. Im not going to do that, Flood said. CHS1 (Confidential Human Source 1) is pressing him to take part in an operation. He says no. After pleading guilty, Jalloh was sentenced in February 2017 to 11 years in federal prison. Despite the terrorism conviction, he was released in December 2024, more than two years early, after completing a drug-treatment program while incarcerated. Following his release, Jalloh was placed on supervised release requiring regular reporting to a US probation officer, restrictions on travel, and a prohibition on possessing firearms. Despite being under federal supervision, Jalloh was able to acquire the rifle used in Thursdays attack. On Friday, the FBI, which has already opened a terrorism investigation into the shooting, announced charges against Kenya Chapman for dealing firearms without a license. Authorities allege that Chapman stole the rifle and later sold it to Jalloh. Even as authorities have yet to explain how a man previously convicted in a terrorism case, released early from federal prison and placed under supervision, was able to obtain a firearm and carry out the attack, leading Republican officials have already seized upon the shooting to promote anti-Muslim agitation and advance legislation targeting Muslim organizations and broader democratic rights. One of the more fascistic statements came from Senator Tommy Tuberville, who wrote on social media: I dont give a rip about being politically correct. Innocent Americans are being gunned down in the streets almost daily by Radical Islamists whose religion teaches them its righteous to kill Christians. I wont be silenced about this. President Donald Trump listen as Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Washington. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein] Prior to the shooting, Tuberville reposted an image from a far-right account juxtaposing photographs of the September 11 attacks with a Ramadan gathering hosted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, declaring that the enemy is inside the gates. Republican Congressman Andy Ogles (Tennessee) issued a series of posts portraying Muslims as enemies of the United States. He followed that up with tweets declaring, Islam is conquering America. They HATE our country and want to erase every trace of Christianity in it. In another post he declared: Two Muslim terrorist attacks yesterday! Michigan and Virginia. Name? Mohammed. I TOLD YOU SO!!! Republican Florida Congressman Randy Fine, an ardent Zionist and supporter of the Gaza genocide, went further, posting: We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational. Fine has a long record of fascistic and genocidal statements, particularly targeting Palestinians. He has previously said there are no innocent Palestinian civilians, and last May he called for using atomic weapons in Gaza: The Palestinian cause is an evil one We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here. These overtly racist and genocidal comments have not drawn any rebuke from Republican leadership in Congress. When asked repeatedly by reporters whether he would denounce the remarks, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer declined to answer. Speaker Mike Johnson has likewise remained silent. Politico reported Friday that attempts to solicit comments from Senate Republican leadership on Tubervilles post, including Majority Leader John Thune, Majority Whip John Barrasso and Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton, likewise went unanswered. The Republican reaction to the Old Dominion shooting follows a series of similar episodes in recent weeks in which Republican officials and right-wing commentators have attempted to attribute acts of violence to radical Islam or foreign adversaries, without evidence. After a mass shooting in Austin, Texas on March 1 that killed several people, Republicans and conservative commentators immediately suggested the attack was linked to Islamic extremism or retaliation connected to the war with Iran. Similar claims were advanced following an attempted bombing case in New York City this past Saturday, which Representative Ogles used to post a series of statements declaring that Muslims dont belong in America. The anti-Muslim agitation is not limited to incendiary rhetoric on social media. Sections of the Republican Party are advancing concrete measures aimed at criminalizing Muslim organizations and restricting basic democratic rights. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has moved to block public funding for Muslim schools while allowing other religious institutions to receive state-backed vouchers. Earlier this month Abbott declared on social media: Theres no school choice for schools with ties to organizations that have connections to terrorism. I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations. Texas will not fund schools with ties to terrorism. The policy has already been challenged in court. A Houston-area father, Mehdi Cherkaoui, filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit against the states $1 billion voucher program after the Houston Quran Academy Spring, where his children attend school, was excluded from the program. Reporting by Hearst Newspapers found that not a single Muslim school had been approved for the statewide voucher system, even as other religious schools were included. According to the lawsuit, the exclusion was not based on any evidence of unlawful activity by specific institutions, but rather on categorical presumptions that Islamic schools are suspect and potentially linked to terrorism by virtue of their religious identity and community associations. Socialists oppose the diversion of public funds to private and religious schools through voucher programs, which undermine public education and funnel the wealth created by the working class to the elite and connected institutions. That principled opposition, however, does not diminish the discriminatory character of Abbotts policy. The exclusion of Muslim schools while Christian and other religious institutions continue receiving state subsidies demonstrates that the program is being used to target a specific religious minority. Even within the framework of a voucher system, the selective treatment of Muslim institutions represents a blatant attack on freedom of religion and the First Amendment. Similar measures are being advanced in Florida. State lawmakers recently approved legislation granting Governor Ron DeSantis sweeping authority to designate organizations as domestic terrorist groups. Under the legislation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will be empowered to label groups as terrorist organizations without requiring criminal charges. The bill also targets college students who promote such groups, a category broadly defined to include statements or actions that support, approve or encourage an organizations activities. Students accused of such conduct could be expelled from public universities and required to pay out-of-state tuition. Civil liberties advocates have warned that the measure creates a mechanism for political repression and could be used against Muslim organizations, pro-Palestinian groups and political activists more broadly. A federal judge previously blocked an executive order by DeSantis attempting to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a terrorist organization, ruling that the action likely violated constitutional protections of free speech. The combination of inflammatory rhetoric and legislative initiatives reveals a coordinated effort within sections of the ruling class to revive forms of political repression that target religious minorities while establishing precedents that threaten the democratic rights of the entire working class. The campaign to exploit the Old Dominion shooting to demonize Muslims and expand state repression is part of the ongoing effort of the Trump administration, backed by the financial oligarchy, to establish dictatorial forms of rule. The politicians whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria domestically are the same forces backing genocidal wars that have devastated millions across the Middle East and threaten nuclear catastrophe. Both of the big business parties in the United States continue to support Israels genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, the war against Russia in Ukraine and the illegal war on Iran. While some Democratic leaders have begun to issue occasional criticisms of the most openly racist statements, they continue to collaborate with Republicans in funding the military and intelligence apparatus and expanding the powers of the police state. The defense of democratic rights cannot be entrusted to either of the two parties of American capitalism. Both defend a system increasingly reliant on war abroad and repression at home. The fight against religious persecution, censorship and state repression must be taken up independently by the working class. Workers of all backgrounds and beliefs have a common interest in defending democratic rights and opposing attempts by the ruling class to divide the population along religious and national lines. BP Whiting In a powerful 98.3 percent no vote, refinery workers in Whiting, Indiana near Chicago rejected BPs last, best and final offer in voting Thursday. More than 94 percent of the more than 800 United Steelworkers 7-1 members voted, a turnout the union local president called unprecedented. The contract would have led to 100 fewer union workers and wider use of contract workers, $8-$10 hourly wage cuts, the closure of the environmental department, attacks on seniority, and implementation of AI with no job protections. Worst of all, the contract would have lasted 6 years, removing the facility from the national pattern bargaining timeline and creating a precedent for the companies to divide and conquer workers one refinery at a time. Since the last contract expired on January 31, BP and United Steelworkers Local 7-1 have kept the Midwest's largest refinery operating on 24-hour rolling contract renewals. A company spokesman said BP would continue to negotiate. It should have been 100 percent! one BP Whiting worker told the WSWS. Expressing frustration with the USWs delays in calling workers out, he added: I am guessing we will go out soon but I think that will be forced by a lockout rather than a walkout on strike. Another BP Whiting worker said: A strike will show we arent taking it lightly. They want to seriously cut wages, cut jobs, put operations on a tier and cause more OT. Enough is enough. They are going to treat us with dignity or they are going have to stop bluffing and be ready for an all-out war! He continued: We arent just fighting for the USW. We are fighting for all the other unions out there holding on by a thread. BP thought we would be the whipping dogs. They werent prepared for the little guys to stand up to them. The resounding no vote was met with vocal support and encouragement from nearby steelworkers and community members. One Hammond, Indiana steelworker said, Don't give them an inch! Great job BP brothers and sisters. Steelworkers commenting on Facebook news media posts wrote, Local 1011, right next door. Stay strong, fight hard!!! and USW 1010 member. Stay strong guys, standing in solidarity with yall. Were next for negotiations. God bless us all. Need for rank and file initiative There is enormous support for the Whiting workers struggle. But rejection of the agreement alone is not enough. The resounding no vote must become the starting point of a broader movement uniting Whiting workers with the 30,000 refinery workers covered by the USW national agreement, and the tens of thousands of contractors working in refineries across the US. The attack on Whiting is a test case for the entire industry and its 30,000 USW members. If BP succeeds here, every oil company will follow the same playbook. But the USW bureaucracy has deliberately allowed Whiting workers to be isolated despite the national implications of the struggle. Across the rest of the industry, it is rushing to impose the national pattern agreement announced last month. That deal provides wage increases of just 15 percent spread over four years, contains no meaningful improvements to safety and includes no protections against job losses through automation. Moreover, it lets companies continue working refinery employees to the bone as sweeping technological changes that threaten thousands of jobs are being prepared. The pattern deal itself was reached in open defiance of the clear instructions given by the membership when it voted on the National Oil Bargaining Program last year. The WSWS has also characterized it as a war contract, since it would provide for labor peace at precisely the point when the oil and gas companies stand to make gangbuster profits from rising oil prices due to the Iran war. This is why the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees calls for this fight to be transformed into a common struggle of refinery workers everywhere, drawing behind them workers in other industries. This unity can only come from initiative taken by workers themselves. Whiting workers can establish a rank-and-file committee to organize the struggle, independent of the USW apparatus. This committee should reach out directly to refinery workers at other plants, share information about the contract fight and prepare coordinated action to defend wages, safety and jobs throughout the industry, up to and including nationwide strike action. The central task facing Whiting workers now is uniting across plants, breaking the isolation of their struggle by BP and the USW apparatus. A rank-and-file committee should establish lines of communication with refinery workers across the country, as well as with the steelworkers throughout northwest Indiana and workers across the broader Chicagoland region. There is clearly widespread sentiment for united struggle, as the outcome of this fight sets the precedent for steelworkers whose contracts expire later this year. Every refinery worker has a direct stake in defeating BPs demands. The proposed agreement contains attacks on a scale without precedent in recent decades. On Thursday, March 5, light rail services in Sydneys CBD were suspended after a fire broke out on the roof of a tram during morning peak hour. The incident is only the most public in a series of technical failures that have plagued the light rail network in Australias largest city, highlighting the deterioration of safety and infrastructure under successive Labor and Liberal-National governments. Fire on roof of Sydney light rail tram at Surry Hills, March 5, 2026 [Photo: X/@MC84au] The tram halted at the Chalmers Street stop, outside Central, Sydneys busiest train station, after staff became aware of the blaze. Emergency services attended around 8:20 a.m. and light rail operations did not resume until the afternoon. Photos and eyewitness accounts on social media reveal that the vehicle was already on fire before it left the previous stop, Surry Hills. Reddit user uhmatomy wrote: I was there. Big BANG and some pops and flames far bigger than [those in the above photo] as it left the platform. It literally caught on fire seconds before leaving the Surry Hills stop and went down the hill. X/Twitter user Michael Cooper posted photos showing fire and smoke emanating from the tram roof at Surry Hills and wrote that: We were all banging on the drivers cubicle trying to tell him but he ignored us and continued on to Central. Coopers comment, and the fact that the tram continued on to Central, strongly suggest that the driver was not alerted to the malfunction by any warning lights or alarms built in to the vehicle, although the fire and smoke were already substantial enough to be spotted by passers-by. Services were initially suspended between three stops only, before the entire central Sydney and eastern suburbs L2 and L3 lines were stopped as a precaution given recent similar events, private operator Transdev told Sky News. These unspecified recent similar events were further alluded to by Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) Divisional President Peter Grech, who blithely declared it was the third tram fire in a week. Calling for an urgent investigation, Grech declared: Without immediate action, theres a real risk to commuters and light rail workers. What happened today raises real concerns about whether the fleet is being properly maintained. The RTBUs response poses obvious questions: Why did the two previous incidents (about which no further detail is forthcoming) not raise real concerns? Had this highly public incident in the heart of Sydney not happened, would the RTBU leadership have said anything at all about light rail fires? How many more fires and other safety incidents has the union covered up? Even based on what has been publicly reported, Sydneys light rail system has a grim safety and reliability record: In April 2020, there was an explosion at the Randwick depot after a trams batteries overcharged and blew off the compartment cover. The Office of Transport Safety Investigations (OTSI), the NSW transport investigator, concluded in December 2020 that among the contributing factors were software data corruption and that neither Alstoms validation processes nor fault monitoring processes were sufficient to detect it. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, a national investigative government body, stated in the final investigation report that it was satisfied that the safety actions taken by Alstom will reduce the risk of this safety issue. In September 2021, cracks were identified in the wheel arches of the entire 12-tram fleet operating the Inner West Light Rail Line or L1. The OTSI investigation published in 2025 determined contributing factors to be inadequate maintenance and insufficient proactive inspections of the underframes, despite there being knowledge of similar fractures identified in overseas vehicles and considering the risk of LRV derailment due to a fractured underframe. In December 2024, the opening of the Parramatta line, known as L4, was delayed due to problems in overhead wiring which incidentally revealed that half the networks fastening joints were defective and required replacement, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A video posted on Reddit in July last year shows a light rail tram at Randwick stop with smoke coming from its roof and fire services attending. Grechs talk of immediate action is nothing more than empty bluster. In the face of real risk to passengers and workers, the RTBU is ensuring workers stay on the job, maintaining business as usual for Transdev and the state Labor government. Rather than a fight by workers to demand safe conditions, the union is promoting illusions in an investigation, to be conducted by Transport for NSWi.e., managementand the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR). Such investigations are invariably protracted whitewashes, covering up the responsibility of private operators, governments and the unions in presiding over unsafe conditions. At the end of last year, a government-commissioned inquiry into Sydneys public rail network revealed that incidents, defects and delays were at their highest levels in a decade, largely due to deteriorating infrastructure and unresolved maintenance backlogs. In May 2025, a preventable wiring breakage cut power to a train pulling into Homebush stationa key transfer junctioncausing major disruptions across the Sydney train network for two days. The Independent Rail Review found that transport workers tools to detect faulty wiring were insufficient. On the same day as the light rail fire, Minister of Transport John Graham announced the deployment of new wire-checking technology. In other words, seven months after the inquiry into a crisis caused by government neglect in the first place, new technology is issued, while staffing, salaries, maintenance, other equipment and the public transport budget as a whole continue to be attacked, and vital public services are increasingly privatised. The Sydney light rail network operates under public-private partnerships between the NSW government and private consortia. Lines L1, L2 and L3 are operated and maintained by the ALTRAC Light Rail consortium, which includes Transdev and Alstom. The L4 is run by a separate consortium. In Sydney, the light rail, Metro, bus and ferry services have been handed over for profitable exploitation, leaving only the heavy rail passenger transport system in public hands. The decades-long program of privatisation, begun in NSW under the Carr Labor government, has been carried out around Australia by both Labor and Liberal-National administrations and enforced by the RTBU and other unions. Light rail workers and passengers cannot rely on appeals to the state Labor government, the so-called safety regulators or the RTBU to deliver a safe and reliable public transport system. These are the very organisations that have overseen the years of underfunding, inadequate maintenance and privatisation responsible for the dire conditions that exist today. New independent fighting organisations and leadership must be built: Rank-and-file committees run by and for workers. Through these committees, light rail and other transport workers, together with broader layers, can take up a fight for staff and passenger safety, as well as decent wages and conditions. This struggle is inseparable from the fight against privatisation of vital infrastructure, including transport, hospitals and schools, and against capitalism itself, under which public services that are essential to daily life are subordinated to the priorities of profit, not safety or social welfare. Recent remarks by US actor Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme) suggesting that opera and ballet were obsolescent art forms reveals something about the crisis and decline of culture more broadly. Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme Chalamet, who has been nominated for the Best Actor at this years Academy Awards scheduled for March 15, made his ignorant comments a few weeks ago at a town hall featuring actor Matthew McConaughey and sponsored by CNN and Variety. I dont want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where its like, Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore. All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there, Chalamet said as the crowd at the event laughed along with him. Chalamets statement went viral on social media, and provoked an immediate backlash. Some noted the fact that the actors mother, grandmother and sister had all had professional ballet careers, dancing with the NYC Ballet. The Metropolitan Opera and other companies, including Londons Royal Ballet and Opera, highlighted the fact that their performances are attended by thousands. Some companies sarcastically invited the actor to sample their offerings. Well-known award-winning actor and comedian Whoopi Goldberg, on the television daytime talk show The View, put Chalamet in his place, rejecting his half-apology: Be careful, boy Dont apologize when youve insulted. It doesnt sound right. You cant say, Oh, this is dumb, no disrespect. Thats absolute disrespect. Another host on the program quite accurately described Chalamets remarks as vapid and shallow. He might just as well have dismissed Shakespeare, Beethoven or any number of other giants of civilization. Chalamets appearance with his former co-star on the 2014 science fiction film Interstellar was part of an expensive and intentionally antic and attention-getting campaign being waged by the producers of Marty Supreme as part of the annual Oscars season culminating in the television broadcast of the awards ceremony. It is somewhat in keeping with the film itself, which, as we noted, called attention to style rather than substance, was characterized by a frantic pace at the expense of more serious concerns, and above all held up the title character as a kind of role model for a dog-eat-dog capitalism that was taken for granted. It appears Chalamet has taken on a bit too much of his unpleasant characters hardboiled, thoughtless personality and approach. In the days approaching the announcement of the Oscar winners, there has been some idle speculation as to whether Chalamets comments might backfire, alienating some Academy voters and costing him the Best Actor Award. In fact, voting on the awards closed on March 5, before his remarks were widely publicized. In any event, more important issues are raised. The performing arts in America, including ballet and opera, are facing an undeniable and serious crisis, but it is not because no one cares, as Chalamet flippantly observes. There are many thousands of creative artists and performers who are intensively engaged with these art forms. There is an audience, and a far greater potential audience. The crisis has to do both with content, not of the art forms themselves, and the state of American social life. Leontyne Price at the Met Opera (metopera.org) Both ballet and opera are hundreds of years old. They have endured through the development of new content, which reflects changes in social life in the final analysis, content that has driven the continuous development, renewal and transformation of the forms. To the extent that the art forms have something to say, something to offer that connects with the living experience of the audience, they will attract a following. The WSWS has often addressed this cultural crisis, most recently in connection with the deepening fiscal crisis of the biggest arts institution in the US, the Metropolitan Opera. As we noted at that time, The growing political reaction that has engulfed American society over the past half-century has taken a devastating toll on culture. The assault on living standards, the decimation of public education, the relentless coarsening of public lifeall have contributed to a growing indifference toward the arts. The indifferenceor active hostilitycomes from the top, from a ruling class that imprints its values, its priorities, on all of culture. What the oligarchs require is repression, austerity and war. There is less and less room for celebrating and developing the cultural conquests represented on the opera stage and at the ballet. Education that goes beyond the surface appearance to learn from and develop the cultural heritage of humanity has been cut to the bone. It is both a wonder, and a testimony to the potential, that under these circumstances there is still a hunger for the fine arts and the performing arts. New York City Ballet in Amsterdam with George Balanchine [Photo by Kroon, Ron / Anefo / CC BY 3.0 The first half of the 20th century saw a flowering of many of the art forms. Opera did not attract audiences of the same size as film or popular music, of course, but it was still widely celebrated and widely presented even on prime-time American television. In the past half-century in particular, however, the growing crisis of the profit system has created all the conditions for the rapid decline of culture: the encouragement by turns (or simultaneously) of a bland conformity and a degraded backwardness, alternating with special effects and spiced up with identity politics. The elevation of the bottom line as the determining factor in what gets funded and produced, the glorification of competition and the encouragement of tribal divisions over race and gender to obscure the fundamental issues of inequality and the class struggleall this is what finds its limited but nevertheless revealing expression in the comments of Chalamet, who, unfortunately, seems to enjoy pandering to the lowest common denominator rather than using his talent to tap into more significant, humane and universal issues. The renewal of social struggle will create the conditions for new content and the development of art forms, including opera and ballet. Masses of working people will turn to the past conquests of humanity and will in that way develop these cultural conquests as well. Amid commercial LPG gas constraints, the hotel industry in Manali and Shimla has initiated alternative arrangements to ensure that tourism remain unaffected. A joint meeting regarding this issue was held at the office of the Manali Hoteliers Association, attended by representatives from the Shimla Hotel Association as well. Mohinder Seth, President of the Shimla Hoteliers Association, stated that gas supplies have been disrupted due to ongoing West Asia conflicts and global geopolitical conditions, an impact that is being felt across the entire country. As Himachal Pradesh is a prominent tourism state, the hotel industry has requested the government to ensure the availability of commercial gas; however, the situation has yet to return to normalcy. He noted that the hotel industry is adopting alternative measures to resolve this issue. Many hotels in Manali have begun utilising electric furnaces, induction cooktops, and other electrical appliances. Additionally, furnaces powered by diesel and kerosene are also being employed. According to Roshan Thakur, President of the Manali Hoteliers Association, several hotels have also started purchasing tandoors (traditional clay ovens), as firewood is readily available in Manali. This ensures that there will be no disruptions in food preparation. Reassuring incoming tourists, the Association affirmed that there would be no shortage of food availability in Manali. Electric ovens are already being utilised for items such as baked goods and pizzas. Furthermore, a streamlined menu has been curated, featuring Indian and Chinese cuisines that can be easily prepared using these alternative cooking methods. He added that not only hotels, but also restaurants and dhaba operators are adopting these alternative solutions. Hoteliers in Manali are operating with full preparedness to ensure that this crisis does not adversely affect the tourism industry and that tourists do not face any inconvenience. The President of the Association stated that it is difficult to predict how long the war will last; therefore, all hotel operators have been advised to make preparations in advance. Additionally, continuous contact is being maintained with the government and local gas suppliers to find a permanent solution to the LPG supply issue. Amid global energy supply disruptions triggered by the ongoing conflict in West Asia, the Union government has invoked the Essential Commodities Act to prioritise domestic LPG supply, reserving higher allocations for households, hospitals, and essential services while restricting commercial distribution in several regions. (ANI) The state of Texas carried out the execution of Cedric Allen Ricks on the evening of Wednesday, March 11, putting him to death by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit penitentiary. He was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. local time after receiving a dose of the sedative pentobarbital. Ricks was the second person executed in Texas this year and the sixth in the United States. Cedric Ricks. [AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice] Ricks, 51, had been on death row since his conviction in 2014 for the killings of Roxann Sanchez and her eight-year-old son, Anthony Figueroa, in Bedford, Texas, a suburb in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, in May 2013. His execution proceeded despite serious, unresolved constitutional questions surrounding the conduct of his trial, questions that the courts refused to examine on their merits. Prosecutors unlawfully excluded jurors Central among the legal challenges raised by Ricks attorneys was the allegation that prosecutors had unlawfully excluded minority jurors during his trial in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Notes prosecutors kept during jury selectionnot obtained until 2021showed that prosecutors singled out minority jurors for exclusion. This evidence formed the basis of an appeal that was denied by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024. The legal precedent at issue is Batson v. Kentucky (1986), in which the Supreme Court ruled that removing jurors based on their race is unconstitutional. Ricks attorneys argued in their petition to the Supreme Court that Ricks had already suspected during the trial that the state had singled out minority jurors. Despite the late-discovered prosecutorial notes lending credibility to that suspicion, no court agreed to examine the substance of the claim. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ricks final application for a stay of execution on the day of his death. That application sought to overturn a March 4 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which had denied his request for a stay on procedural grounds without reviewing the merits of the case. That the highest court in the land allowed a man to be executed while a credible racial discrimination claim went unexamined speaks volumes about the rush to execution in present-day America. A separate appeal, also denied, raised constitutional concerns about Ricks having appeared before the jury in shackles. The Supreme Court had previously denied this appeal in 2025, despite its own previous ruling that presenting a defendant to a jury in shackles can unfairly influence sentencing. At each turn, courts at every level refused to engage with the substance of Ricks claims. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief on procedural grounds; the Fifth Circuit denied his Batson appeal; the Supreme Court denied relief twice. At each stage, the machinery of the state advanced toward execution while substantive constitutional questions were left unaddressed. This is a pattern long identified by death row opponents as one of the most insidious features of capital punishment in America: the procedural labyrinth that exhausts appeals not by resolving them but by foreclosing them. The result is that the state can execute a person while maintaining the fiction that every legal avenue was exploredeven when those avenues were blocked by technical barriers rather than answered on the merits. Ricks, in his final statement in the execution chamber, directed his words not at the court system that had failed him but at the family of those he had harmed. He addressed seven relatives of his victims watching through a glass window and told them he was sorry for taking Roxann and Anthony away from yall, adding that he hoped they could one day find forgiveness. Death sentence commuted in Alabama The same week Ricks was executed, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commuted the sentence of Charles Sonny Burton, a 75-year-old man who had been on death row for more than three decades. Burton had been sentenced to death for the 1991 shooting death of Doug Battle, a customer killed during a robbery of an AutoZone store in Talladega. However, Burton was not even in the building when Battle was shot. Another man, Derrick DeBruce, pulled the trigger after Burton had already left the store. DeBruce had also originally been sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in prison, but he died in 2020 while incarcerated. Burton was scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on March 11, just days after Governor Iveys announcement. The victims own daughter had written to the governor urging clemency, asking how it could legally make sense to execute Burton. Multiple jurors from his 1992 trial also urged that his life be spared, including one juror who wrote publicly that she had been wrong to recommend the death penalty, saying she had not fully understood at the time that Burton was not inside the store when the murder occurred. Ivey, a staunch supporter of capital punishment who has presided over 25 executions as governor, framed her decision in the narrowest possible termsnot as a rebuke of the death penalty but as a defense of its consistency. She said she could not proceed with the execution given the disparate circumstances of the case, and that it would be unjust for one participant in the crime to be executed while the one who pulled the trigger was not. Iveys commutation was accompanied by an assurance to her pro-death penalty supporters that Burton would serve life in prison without any possibility of parole. The response from Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was telling. Rather than acknowledge the injustice, he attacked both Burton and the media for covering the case sympathetically, insisting that Burton bore full moral responsibility for the killing. Marshall claimed Burton had organized the robbery, pointed a gun at a store employees head and distributed the robberys proceeds afterward. His fury at the commutation speaks to a prosecutorial culture that treats the power to execute as an institutional prerogative to be defended, regardless of the proportionality of the sentence. That a governors last-minute intervention was required to prevent what even the attorney generals own office had at one point characterized as an arguably unjust execution only underscores the systemic failures built into the American capital punishment apparatus. Alabamas use of nitrogen gas for executions has already drawn national scrutiny, and the Burton case drew renewed attention to how the felony murder rulestill on the books in 27 statescan result in a defendant being executed for a killing they did not commit and did not intend. It exposes the essential barbarity of capital punishment itself. Eleven executions are scheduled for the remainder of 2026: 4 in Tennessee, 3 in Texas, 2 in Florida, 1 each in Oklahoma and Arizona. The New Zealand pseudo-left group Socialist Aotearoa (SA) organised a public meeting in Auckland on March 11, with the title No War With Iran, ostensibly to oppose the criminal and genocidal US-Israeli war against Iran. Its real purpose was to set a political trap for workers and youth who are looking for a way to fight against the rapidly escalating war, which is part of the violent redivision of the world by US imperialism and its allies. Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, Labour Party foreign affairs spokesman Phil Twyford and Socialist Aotearoas Joe Carolan, addressing the March 11 meeting in Mount Eden, Auckland, No War With Iran. [Photo: Facebook/Socialist Aotearoa] New Zealand, a minor imperialist power allied to the US, supports its wars in the Middle East and against Russia, and is integrated into preparations for war against China, Washingtons main adversary. There is widespread hostility to the National Party-led government, which has endorsed the bombing of Iran and refused to condemn blatant US war crimes including the killing of schoolchildren, the bombing of hospitals and desalination plants, and the sinking of the unarmed navy vessel IRIS Dena. Nor has the government said a word to oppose the ongoing Gaza genocide and Israels invasion of Lebanon. The greatest fear of the ruling class is that a movement against war could develop outside the control of the political establishment. In an effort to prevent this, Socialist Aotearoaa middle-class group with close links to the trade unionsprovided a platform at its meeting for the Labour Party, the Greens and the Council of Trade Unions, with the aim of channeling anti-war sentiment behind these organisations, none of which has any fundamental differences with the governments pro-imperialist positions. Labour Party foreign affairs spokesman Phil Twyford told the gathering that the war against Iran was an illegal act of aggression that would make the Middle East and the world a much more dangerous and chaotic place. He criticised the National-led government for failing to denounce the war and the genocide in Gaza, which he called a massive breach of this idea of a rules-based order. He declared that the governments entire foreign policy since taking office has been about trying to reinsert New Zealand into a military alliance type relationship with the United States. [Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon wants to be, in his words, a force multiplier for a country that is increasingly behaving as a rogue state. Neither SA leader Joe Carolan nor any other speaker pointed out the disinformation and hypocrisy in Twyfords speech. It was, in fact, the 19992008 Labour government of Helen Clark which fully restored New Zealands alliance with the USafter a partial rift in the 1980s when the US objected to NZs anti-nuclear policyby sending New Zealand troops to take part in the criminal US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. The 20172023 Labour Party-led government, which also included the Greens, further strengthened the alliance, including by deploying NZ troops to Britain to provide training for Ukrainian conscripts to fight the US-NATO proxy war against Russia. In 2023, Labours Defence Minister Andrew Little declared that the governments policy was to build a combat-capable, ready force that would be able to play a role should conflict break out in the South China Seai.e., to join a US-led war against China, which US imperialism regards as the chief threat to its global dominance. Labour leader Chris Hipkins, when he was prime minister, also defended Israels bombardment of Gaza. Twyford himself was booed off the platform when he tried to address a November 2023 protest against the genocide, amid chants of Shame on Labour! The Greens co-leader Marama Davidson told the meeting that, as a Maori woman, she had a special understanding of the importance of standing against colonisation and imperialism in all of its forms. She declared that her party stood for non-violence and peace and opposed this unlawful war against Iran, as well as the Gaza genocide. Her speech was no less fraudulent than Twyfords. As a coalition partner in the Labour-led government, the Greens openly argued for greater military spending and backed the NZ support for the war against Russia. Notably, at the March 11 meeting, Davidson did not call for New Zealand to leave the US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance but merely called for a review of that alliance. She also declared she was proud of the New Zealand militarys record of peacekeeping and of having success through deploying those tools. In 2010, the Greens praised New Zealands deployment of troops to Afghanistan by fraudulently calling the brutal colonial occupation a peacekeeping mission. The party also endorsed neo-colonial troop deployments to East Timor in 1999 and the Solomon Islands in 2003 alongside Australian forces. In a brief speech, SAs Carolana former Unite union organiserdeclared that anti-war protests had to be connected to the trade union movement, so that when governments ignore our protests, we use the power that we have to strike, to stop this economic system from working. Carolan is well aware that the union bureaucracy is opposed to mobilising workers against war. The union leaders do not represent workers; they are a parasitic, upper middle-class layer that enforces attacks on wages and conditions and supports New Zealands imperialist alliances. Council of Trade Unions (CTU) President Sandra Grey cynically told the meeting that workers must stand up now and join the peace movement to defend those killed by US military aggression around the world and by totalitarian regimes. The CTU and its affiliates have not lifted a finger to organise any concrete working-class action against the Gaza genocide or the war on Iranno work stoppages, no bans on the transport of military equipment, no industrial action of any kind. Moreover, like Labour and the Greens, the unions have no objection to the militarisation of society. The CTUs biggest affiliate, the Public Service Association, openly supports the governments decision to double military spending as a proportion of GDP in preparation for war against China. Further exposing the pretense that the meeting had anything to do with building a genuine anti-war movement, Socialist Aotearoa also invited Kelby Dayton, a representative of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), to speak. He suggested that New Zealanders should appeal to the Luxon government to stop cosying up to the Trump regime and to withdraw from the Five Eyessomething no capitalist government will ever do. The DSA is an appendage of the Democratic Partythe political instrument of Wall Street and US imperialism. Among its most prominent figures is congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a loyal defender of Joe Biden, who earned the nickname Genocide Joe because of his administrations direct complicity in Israels war of extermination in Gaza. The DSA itself is cosying up to the Trump regime. Its high-profile member, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has publicly pledged to work with the fascist occupant of the White House. Mamdani had a friendly and highly-publicised meeting with the president two days after Trumps State of the Union tirade and as the final preparations were being made by the US war fleet off the coast of Iran to launch Operation Epic Fury. The role of Socialist Aotearoa in organising the Auckland event was to lend the proceedings a left veneer, while providing a platform for the very parties and organisations responsible for militarism and imperialist war. Since it was founded in 2008, SA (which is affiliated with the pseudo-left International Socialist Tendency) has consistently oriented to and campaigned for capitalist parties. It is hostile to the fight waged by the Socialist Equality Group for the independent mobilisation of the working class based on a socialist program. In 2011, SA joined the Maori nationalist and anti-immigrant Mana Party, which it glorified as left-wing and even revolutionary. SA and two other pseudo-left groups, the International Socialist Organisation and Fightback, endorsed Manas alliance with tech multi-millionaire Kim Dotcoms right-wing Internet Party in 2014, with Carolan ludicrously claiming that Dotcom was moving to the left. (Dotcom owns a signed copy of Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf and now regularly posts openly antisemitic statements on X). Mana collapsed after its leader Hone Harawira made racist statements in 2017, calling for Chinese drug smugglers to be executed. Meanwhile, SA openly aligned itself with US imperialism. In 2011, it produced an article claiming that China could invade New Zealand and explicitly calling for a bloc with the US, which it said would deter Chinese aggression and domination. In 2015 and 2016, it organised rallies supporting the war for regime change in Syriaaimed at removing a key regional ally of Iran and Russia, in preparation for the current war. After Manas collapse, SA and other pseudo-left groups promoted illusions in Jacinda Arderns Labour-led coalition government with the Greens and the far-right, anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party. They also backed Labours re-election campaign in 2020. With an election scheduled for November this year, Socialist Aotearoa is once again seeking to divert growing anti-war and anti-austerity sentiment behind a new Labour-Green government backed by the union apparatus. Like the DSA, the ISO and similar pseudo-left groups, SA is rooted in layers of the upper middle class that seek a more comfortable and privileged position for themselves under capitalismincluding within the unions and the political establishment. Its promotion of Maori nationalist identity politics, and its alliances with Labour and the Greens, are aimed at obscuring the fundamental class divisions in society, and blocking any real fight against imperialist war and austerity. A genuine anti-war movement will only be built through a political struggle against all the tendencies represented at Socialist Aotearoas March 11 meeting. The fight against war, social inequality and authoritarianism requires a conscious break from all factions of the bourgeoisie and their middle-class props, and the building of a revolutionary socialist and internationalist leadership in the working class. It will also require a rebellion against the trade union bureaucracy, through the creation of new organisations: rank-and-file committees controlled by workers themselves. We urge all those who agree with this perspective to contact and join the Socialist Equality Group. Elevenlabs AudioNative Player US Marines walk down a removable Trident Pier leading to an American ship docked near an Emirati military base home to a Military Operations and Urban Terrain facility in al-Hamra, United Arab Emirates, Monday, March 23, 2020. [AP Photo/Jon Gambrell] At a Pentagon press conference on Friday morning, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made a chilling declaration. Referring to the Strait of Hormuzthe critical waterway through which one-fifth of the worlds oil supply passes, and which Iran has effectively closed since the start of the warHegseth told reporters, We have a plan for every option here. Were working with our interagency partners. Thats not a strait were going to allow to remain contested or with a lack of flow of commercial goods. This statement, delivered with the sneering belligerence that has characterized Hegseths conduct throughout this criminal war, must be taken as a warning. It can mean only one thing: the Trump administration is preparing the next and most terrible stage of the escalation of the waran invasion with US ground troops to seize control of Iranian territory along the Strait of Hormuz. Hegseths statement came alongside a torrent of language that has no precedent in the public remarks of an American defense secretary. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies, he has declarednot once but repeatedly, as a kind of slogan for the war. He has vowed to hunt and kill the enemy without apology, hesitation, or mercy. He has derided stupid rules of engagement and sneered at Europeans for clutching their pearls. He has described Irans wounded supreme leader, appointed after the murder of his father Ayatollah Khamenei, as cowering underground, adding, Thats what rats do. He has promised death and destruction from the sky, all day long. This is the language of Nazism. It is the language of a regime that glories in violence, that regards the lives of its victims as worthless, and that is preparing the population for crimes of a still greater magnitude. When the self-styled secretary of war openly boasts that the war is being waged without mercya phrase that, under international humanitarian law, constitutes an incitement to war crimeshe is not merely describing what has already been done. He is signaling what is to come. What is being prepared is a ground invasion of Iran. What is implied in Hegseths threats is stated explicitly in a Wall Street Journal editorial, published Thursday, which states that reopening the Strait and reducing Irans veto power over its traffic will now have to be a goal. As a conflict evolves, war aims have to change as well. The logic of escalation This looming crime arises directly from the catastrophic consequences of the miscalculations that accompanied the launching of this illegal war. The architects of Operation Epic Fury believedor claimed to believethat killing Supreme Leader Khamenei, destroying Irans conventional military capabilities from the air, and calling on the population to take over the government would produce the rapid collapse of the Islamic Republic. Regime decapitation would deliver regime change. The war would be over in weeks. Two weeks into the war, the Iranian regime has not fallen. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has not surrendered. Iran has struck back with missiles and drones across eight countries. The new supreme leader has ordered the Strait of Hormuz kept closed. The global economic crisis triggered by the closure of the strait is spiraling out of control, with oil now above $100 per barrel and gas and food prices rising as a result of what the International Energy Agency has said is the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Confronting this catastrophe of his own making, Trump is not retreating. He is escalating. He has demanded unconditional surrender. He has claimed the right to choose Irans next leader. And now his defense secretary is declaring that the strait will not be allowed to remain contestedthe bureaucratic euphemism for a decision to send American soldiers to kill and die on Iranian soil. The drive toward a ground war is being prepared through a steady stream of new deployments. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that roughly 5,000 additional Marines and sailors are being sent to the Middle East, explicitly to provide options for use in the expanding war, according to a US official cited by the Journal, and to prepare the ground for additional deployments. What this invasion would mean Workers and young people must understand clearly what is being prepared. A ground invasion of the Iranian coastline would not be a limited or contained operation. It would be a protracted and gruesome bloodbath. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), in an assessment published on Friday, compared such an operation to the Gallipoli campaign of 1915the catastrophic Allied attempt to force open the Dardanelles by landing British, French, Australian and colonial troops on Ottoman soil. At Gallipoli, the navy could not clear the strait, and the army was sent to do what the navy could not. The result was eight months of slaughter, a quarter of a million casualties on both sides, and a complete Allied withdrawal with nothing achieved but mass death. The defenders, fighting on their own ground, proved impossible to dislodge. The institutes assessment of an equivalent operation at Hormuz is devastating. It would be Gallipoli times ten, with the difference that the Iranians could always pull back to interior lines of defence. The Iranian coastline commanding the strait stretches more than 150 kilometersthree times the length of the Gallipoli peninsulabacked by mountains that offer defensive positions in depth. There is no defensible line that US forces could ever secure, the ASPI wrote. Iran has spent 40 years preparing for this fight. The IRGC has fortified the coastline with anti-ship missile batteries, drone launch sites, mine-laying facilities, and positions for the hundreds of fast attack boats that form the backbone of its coastal defense. It has deployed 20,000 naval troops in the strait region, including 5,000 marines. It has conducted drills specifically rehearsing the repulsion of an amphibious landing. Bandar Abbasthe hub of Iranian naval operations, a city of half a million peoplesits directly on the strait. An American amphibious assault on this coastline would face a combination of mines beneath, boat attacks from the water, and anti-ship missiles and drones from the shore. The soldiers who survived the landing would then face an indefinite ground warIEDs, guerrilla raids, drone strikes, artillery from positions deeper inlandagainst forces that know every ridge, every road and every tunnel, and that can be reinforced from a nation of 90 million people. To hold this coastline would require tens, or potentially hundreds of thousands of troops. The casualtiesin the initial assault, the ongoing occupation, and the inevitable expansion of the operation as each limited objective proved insufficientwould be devastating. They would be measured not in the dozens that have been killed so far, but in the hundreds, the thousandson a scale that the American population has not witnessed since Vietnam. And these would be only the American casualties. The Iranian death toll, which is already in the thousands from the air campaign, including at least 175 children incinerated in a single strike on an elementary school in Minab, would multiply enormously. Hegseth has told us what to expect. No mercy and no quarter. Death and destruction from the sky, all day long. The wider catastrophe A ground invasion would set the entire Middle East ablaze and develop into a global conflict. Israel is already extending the genocide in Gaza into a bombardment of Lebanon, with hundreds killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. The European imperialist powers have sent warships to patrol the Strait of Hormuz. Google Maps image featuring Iran and the rest of Middle Asia. The Strait of Hormuz is between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman south of Iran. [Photo: Google Maps] Iran has struck US bases and allied infrastructure across eight countries. A landing on Iranian soil would trigger intensified ballistic missile attacks on US bases, expanded Hezbollah strikes on Israel, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, and direct strikes on Gulf Arab oil infrastructure that could drive oil prices to $150 or $200 per barrel and plunge the world into recession. And behind all of this lurks the most terrifying danger of all. The Trump administration has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. So-called tactical nuclear weaponsor earth-penetrating bombs like the B61-11, designed for hardened underground targets like Irans buried nuclear facilitiescarry yields of tens or hundreds of kilotons, many times the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. A president who wages war without mercy, whose war secretary boasts of granting maximum authorities to kill, who has shattered every norm of international law and democratic governancethis president cannot be presumed to respect the nuclear taboo that has held since 1945. The use of nuclear weapons, once unthinkable, has become a real possibility in the hands of an administration that treats the lives of Iranians and workers everywhere as worthless and the constraints of law as contemptible. Stop the warbuild the movement of the working class The Democratic Party will not stop this crime. It has funded the war. In February, 21 House Democrats provided the decisive margin to pass a $1.2 trillion government spending billwhich funded the military through September 2026by a vote of 217 to 214, as Trump was surging military assets to the Middle East. The partys leaders have confined their objections to questions of process and protocolthe polite procedural complaints of politicians who share the wars strategic objectives and fear only the political consequences of being associated with its failures. As Drop Site News reported, a substantial number of Senate Democrats believed Iran ultimately needed to be dealt with militarilyThats precisely why they wanted Trump to be the one to do it. The war will not be stopped by the institutions of bourgeois politics, which are complicit in it. It will be stopped by the organized resistance of the working class. The World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International issue this warning and this call: a terrible crime is being prepared. The invasion of Iran will produce carnage on a scale not seen in a generation. It must be stopped. The wars economic consequencessoaring gas prices, rising food costs, the diversion of a billion dollars a day from social needs to the military machinefall directly on the backs of working people. The soldiers who will be sent to die on Iranian beaches are the sons and daughters of the working class. In Iran, a country that has historically been oppressed, those who will be killed while defending their country are the class brothers and sisters of American workers. The connection between the criminal war abroad and the social crisis at home is not abstract. In the months and weeks that preceded the attack on Iran, the Trump administration had flooded cities with ICE agents and murdered American citizens. The escalation of the war against Iran will require an intensification of attacks on democratic rights in the United States itself. All of American society will be subordinated to the demands of war. This will mean a massive assault on social programs and the criminalization of political dissent. There is deep-rooted popular opposition to the war against Iran. This opposition must be organized and politically directed. The WSWS calls on workers to mobilize against the war in your workplaces, your schools, your communities. Form rank-and-file committees independent of the trade union bureaucracy, which has maintained a shameful silence. Link the struggle against war to the fight for decent wages, healthcare, housing and educationthe social rights that are being sacrificed on the altar of imperialist war. Reject both parties of American capitalism, which have demonstrated once again that they serve the interests of the ruling class, not the people. The fight against war is the fight against the capitalist system that produces it. Socialism is not a utopian ideal. It is an existential necessity. A Rouse Avenue court of Delhi on Saturday remanded Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Inspector to 14 days of judicial custody and rejected his bail plea in a corruption case registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The order was passed by ACJM Mayank Goel at the Rouse Avenue Court Complex on March 14 while dealing with applications concerning the accused officer, including the CBI's request for further custody and the accused's plea for regular bail. According to the prosecution, the case was registered against Inspector Deepak Phalswal under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018), based on a complaint filed by Shubham Mishra, a resident of Faridabad. The complaint alleged that on January 22, 2026, the accused Phalswal visited Mishra's residence and informed him that a complaint had been registered against him with the CBI. He allegedly told the complainant that he would have to appear at the CBI office near Lodhi Colony and began threatening and intimidating him. It was further alleged that the accused initially demanded a bribe of 2 crore to settle the matter. When the complainant refused, the demand was gradually reduced. The officer allegedly forcibly took 50,000 from the complainant and later asked him to pay 75,000 every month, stating that either he or someone on his behalf would collect the money. The complaint also states that Phalswal repeatedly contacted the complainant through FaceTime calls, instructing him not to call directly, as such calls could not be traced. During the investigation, Phalswal was arrested on March 10, 2026, and produced before the court the next day. The court had earlier remanded him to police custody till March 13. The CBI submitted that the allegations against the accused are serious and relate to the demand and acceptance of illegal gratification while discharging official duties. It further argued that the investigation is still at a nascent stage, several witnesses are yet to be examined, and crucial evidence is yet to be collected. The agency also expressed apprehension that since the accused is a CBI officer and an influential person, he may tamper with evidence or influence witnesses if released on bail. Counsel for the accused argued that the case suffers from inconsistencies, pointing out that the complaint was dated March 9, 2025, whereas the alleged incident occurred on January 22, 2026. The defence also contended that the accused has no prior criminal antecedents and that the arrest was illegal due to non-compliance with legal requirements under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Supreme Court judgments. The defence further argued that the evidence in the case is largely documentary and electronic, and therefore, there was no possibility of tampering with evidence. After hearing both sides, the court held that custodial interrogation is an important tool of investigation and that the allegations against the accused are grave in nature. Considering the seriousness of the offence and the stage of the investigation, the court observed that releasing the accused on bail at this stage could allow him to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses. "The bail application is accordingly dismissed," the court said while remanding the accused to judicial custody for 14 days till March 28, 2026. The accused was represented by Hemant Shah, Karan Mann, Vikas Malik, Akash Chauhan, Vishal Mann, and Jatin Dabas. During the proceedings, V.K. Ojha, DLA, and Anubhav Shukla, Senior Public Prosecutor, appeared for the CBI along with DSP Anmol Sachan. The court also recorded that the investigating officer's request to correct the complainant's name in the FIR from "Anant Mittal" to "Shubham Mishra" was taken on record as an informational clarification. (ANI) The West Bengal Police Special Task Force (STF) on Saturday apprehended Philip Sangma, a Bangladeshi national, for allegedly helping two accused in connection with the murder of activist Sharif Osman Hadi in Bangladesh. The official stated that the two accused, Faisal and Alamgir, illegally entered India via the Meghalaya border. Philip Sangma, a border tout, had facilitated Faisal and Alamgir's illegal entry into India through the Haluaghat (Bangladesh) - Dalupara (Meghalaya, India) border area in exchange for money. He also admitted to entering India illegally through the same border due to police pressure and staying in different places before attempting to return to Bangladesh. The West Bengal STF said, "The interrogation of Faisal and Alamgir, two individuals arrested in connection with the Hadi murder case, revealed that they had illegally entered India by crossing the Meghalaya border with the assistance of a facilitator named Philip Sangmao, a resident of Haluaghat, Bangladesh. Subsequently, the facilitator himself illegally entered India and went into hiding at various locations." Sangma was arrested in an area near Shantipur Bypass based on secret information. During initial interrogation, he confessed to operating as a border tout and facilitating illegal migrants to cross the border. He was produced before the court today and remanded in police custody for further investigation. Inquilab Moncho convenor Sharif Osman Hadi, who was a prominent figure in last year's 'July Uprising', which resulted in the fall of the former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's regime, was shot in Dhaka's Bijoynagar area. Sharif Osman Hadi was shot at close range on December 12 while travelling in a rickshaw. On December 15, he was airlifted to Singapore by air ambulance for advanced treatment, but later succumbed to his injuries on December 18. Following his death, protests broke out in Dhaka, as the supporters of the Inquilab Moncho called for justice for their slain leader, with the Chief Adviser of the interim Government of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, announcing a national day of mourning on Saturday, December 20. (ANI) Only on a Friday night at Foxwoods could you see Christie Brinkley embracing Johnny Weir and 50 Cent posing for pictures with Martha Stewart. The stars came out to walk the carpet for the opening of The Bedford by Martha Stewart at Foxwoods Resort Casino on Friday. Among the famous faces spotted were model Brinkley, former Olympic figure skater Weir, rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, "Sex and the City" creator Candace Bushnell, journalists Craig Melvin and Lindsay Czarniak, "The View" star Sunny Hostin and "RuPaul's Drag Race" executive producer and judge Ross Mathews. U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Famer Johnny Weir poses with Martha Stewart during the grand opening of The Bedford by Martha Stewart at Foxwoods in Mashantucket, Conn., Friday, March 13, 2026. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media) For Weir, coming to Foxwoods to support Stewart is a way to give back to someone who taught him important life lessons as a kid. Advertisement Advertisement "As a kid standing in front of the TV, Martha Stewart was really the person that taught me about grace and elegance, and I've been forever grateful," Weir said. "To be here to celebrate her new venture is really exciting." Earlier in the day, Stewart cut the green ribbon for the second restaurant in The Bedford by Martha Stewart family, which will open to the public on March 14. "This isn't just a restaurant, it's a story of Martha's iconic 1925 farmhouse, her vision (and) her passion brought to life," Foxwoods President and CEO Jason Guyot said at the ribbon cutting, calling The Bedford a "beautiful jewelry box of a venue." "Every corner of the Bedford reflects something personal, something meaningful from the thoughtful details in the decor to the recipes on the menu. Now it's here for all of us to experience." Model Christie Brinkley and Martha Stewart pose for photos during the grand opening of The Bedford by Martha Stewart at Foxwoods in Mashantucket, Conn., Friday, March 13, 2026. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media) "It's been such a pleasure to be working with Foxwoods over the past couple of years," Stewart said about the restaurant. "To be here, in this particular place in northeastern Connecticut, is a real pleasure." Advertisement Advertisement Plans to bring the restaurant to Foxwoods go back to 2023, when the team at Foxwoods approached Stewart with the idea of opening the first East Coast Bedford, Guyot said, adding that it took the design team months alone to curate the glass in the restaurant to perfect its look. Rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson poses for photos during the grand opening of The Bedford by Martha Stewart at Foxwoods in Mashantucket, Conn., Friday, March 13, 2026. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media) The Bedford by Martha Stewart has reservations open starting on Saturday. The restaurant will be open for breakfast and dinner daily while offering lunch options on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The restaurant will be open for breakfast and dinner daily, while offering lunch options on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The new restaurant joins the recent slate of celebrity-owned restaurants at Foxwoods including Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen and Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's Momosan. This article originally published at 50 Cent, Johnny Weir come out to celebrate Martha Stewart's new Connecticut restaurant. Declyn "Dex" Lauper, the son of legendary '80s pop star Cyndi Lauper, will not serve any prison time related to a 2024 gun charge. Lauper, 72, rose to stardom in the '80s as an MTV staple with hit songs like "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," "Time After Time," and "She Bop." With a slew of awards under her belt, the beloved star continues to perform to this day. But for her son, Dex, 29, things have gotten a bit more complicated as he appeared in court on Friday to face charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. During his court appearance, Dex wore a $10,000 Louis Vuitton jacket, the publication continued. In a video, Lauper stated his luxury wear cost 10 Gs as he passed through metal detectors, the New York Post reported. Advertisement Advertisement Lucky for Dex, the aspiring musician received one year of interim probation for the bust, which came when cops found a gun on him after a friend was shot in the leg in Upper Manhattan on Feb. 7, 2024. If convicted, Lauper would face up to seven years in prison on the firearms charge. However, his plea deal requires him to receive substance abuse treatment and remain arrest-free for one year. What Happened When Dex Lauper Got Arrested? When Lauper was initially arrested on gun possession charges back in 2024, he attempted to use his mother's celebrity to get out of trouble, a previous New York Post article stated. I grew up, my mom is Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Lauper allegedly told a detective, the Post shared. Photo by Bruce Glikas on Getty Images (Photo by Bruce Glikas on Getty Images) Was Cyndi Lauper's Mother in Her Music Video? When it comes to parenting, eagle-eyed fans may remember that Lauper's own mother, Catrine, appeared in one of her most legendary music videos, 1983's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Advertisement Advertisement When her mother passed away at age 91 in 2002, Lauper honored her in a touching Instagram post. "My beautiful Mom has passed," Lauper wrote. "She rocked and wrestled with us and was in a lot of my videos. It was an honor to work with her. I feel so lucky that I got to play with my mom throughout my life, both as a girl and as a woman. She may have left this world, but not without leaving her mark," concluded the note. "Thank you, Mom. I love you." For a fun '80s flashback, check out the video below, and catch a look at Lauper's sweet mom joining in on the fun. Related: '80s Legend Weighs in on Major Rock Hall Nomination This story was originally published by Parade on Mar 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here. NEED TO KNOW JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, for their honeymoon in 1996 When they returned home, JFK Jr. asked the media to give Bessette "all the privacy and room you can" The aftermath of their honeymoon is explored in episode 7 of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette traveled far for their first trip as husband and wife. Episode 7 of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, "The Obsession," sees the high-profile couple return from their two-week honeymoon with matching tattoos (though the couple never got permanent art together in real life) following their mega-private nuptials in Cumberland Island, Ga. Advertisement Advertisement Their honeymoon bliss bubble is quickly interrupted upon their return to reality as a massive crowd of reporters and locals are waiting outside their New York apartment for a chance to see America's former most eligible bachelor with his new bride much like events unfolded in real life. Here's everything to know about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's honeymoon, including what happened when they returned. JFK Jr. and Bessette spent two weeks in Turkey for their honeymoon John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette at Municipal Art Society of New York Benefit. Credit: Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Following their Georgia wedding, the newlyweds traveled to Istanbul, in late September 1996. They stayed there for nearly two weeks and spent some time on a yacht before returning to New York. A friend of JFK Jr. and Bessette's told PEOPLE that they "loved" their honeymoon, and that Istanbul had been a "place they wanted to go" for some time. There were some tourists and media taking photos of them during the trip John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette drive off after he asked the press for privacy for his new bride. Credit: Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty JFK Jr. and Bessette originally planned to announce their nuptials in a press release, after they left Cumberland Island for their honeymoon. Instead, JFK Jr.'s cousin Patrick Kennedy unexpectedly broke the news at an unrelated press conference, before the couple had left for Turkey. Advertisement Advertisement As the press got wind of their marriage and began reporting on it, the frenzy found its way to Turkey. According to Once Upon A Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy by Elizabeth Beller, JFK Jr. and Bessette's honeymoon was "marked by both the media and random American tourists chasing them wherever they went." However, the friend of the couple's told PEOPLE that the people on the yacht "really protected them" and did not sell any photos. There are limited photos of the trip available to the public today. JFK Jr. asked the media for privacy for his new bride when they returned to New York John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette stand in front of their apartment in Tribeca, N.Y., on Oct. 6, 1996. Credit: Jon Naso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Friends of the couple told Beller that despite JFK Jr. and Bessette's honeymoon including a few run-ins with tourists and paparazzi, it was "heavenly" for the most part. But when the newlyweds returned to New York, they were greeted by crowds of paparazzi. Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after, JFK Jr. addressed the media himself, asking them to give Bessette "all the privacy and room you can." JFK Jr.'s former assistant said he was on "cloud nine" after his honeymoon John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette at the second anniversary party of 'George' in November 1997. Credit: Ron Galella Collection via Getty JFK Jr.'s former assistant RoseMarie Terenzio shared in her and PEOPLE editor-at-large Liz McNeil's book JFK Jr; An Intimate Oral Biography that there was a celebratory breakfast waiting on the day they returned from their honeymoon. She said that JFK Jr. "was on cloud nine," wearing his gold wedding band and looking "so grown-up." "I told him, 'You look so old now,' " she recalled. Caroline Kennedy hosted a celebratory dinner party when the couple returned from their honeymoon Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr. Credit: Stephane Cardinale/Sygma via Getty In addition to the breakfast, JFK Jr.'s sister, Caroline Kennedy, held a celebration dinner party for them at her apartment. Advertisement Advertisement The George co-founder's friend Jack Merrill shared in the oral biography that the event was a "classic Park Avenue dinner party." The event included friends who had not been invited to the intimate wedding. But, it did include some touches of their Georgia celebration, as Greyfield Inn owner Gogo Ferguson brought the top of the wedding cake that had been left in the freezer because the newlyweds "wanted to have it for the dinner," as she told McNeil and Terenzio. For more on the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, pick up PEOPLE's special edition, available now on newsstands and here. Read the original article on People The Gist Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's firstborn son Prince Archie arrived on May 6, 2019. The couple's daughter Princess Lilibet was born two years later, on June 4, 2021. Markle has since called motherhood "the greatest privilege of my life." Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's whirlwind romance captivated the world once upon a time, but the real stars of the Sussex family are now, arguably, their two young children: Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. The little ones were born in 2019 and 2021, respectively, shortly after their parents tied the knot in 2018. Meghan has since called motherhood "the greatest privilege of my life." Unlike their cousins Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, Archie and Lilibet are growing up away from the spotlight in Montecito, California. Harry and Meghan relocated to the States after stepping down from senior royal duties in early 2020. Four years later, the proud dad gushed that his kids were "doing great" in a 2024 interview with Good Morning America. Advertisement Advertisement "The kids are growing up like all kids do, very, very fast," Harry added. "They've both got an incredible sense of humor and make us laugh and keep us grounded every single day, like most kids do. I'm just grateful to be a dad." Credit: @meghan As for the duke and duchess, the duo spoke candidly in their Netflix documentary about their parenting strategy, which, Harry said, includes making sure "that we don't repeat the same mistakes that perhaps our parents made." His wife shared a similar sentiment: "There's so much I think from anyone's childhood that you bring with you into the present," she said. "Especially when you're the product of divorce." Ahead, here's everything you should know about Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex, who will reportedly be told about their royal heritage "in due time." Prince Archie of Sussex Prince Archie inspecting a rosebush. Credit: Meghan Markle/Instagram Harry and Meghan became parents for the first time with the birth of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor on May 6, 2019. The Duke of Sussex was immediately smitten: As every father and parent would ever say, your baby is absolutely amazing, but this little thing is absolutely to die for, so Im just over the moon, he told the press. Advertisement Advertisement Archie's first year of life was spent all over the world, as he joined his parents for a royal tour of South Africa, before moving to the United States in the spring of 2020. Since then, the young prince has spent his childhood in Southern California along with his little sister Lilibet. Prince Archie in May 2025. Credit: Meghan Markle/Instagram Though they are committed to maintaining the privacy of their children, Harry and Meghan have shared bits and pieces about Archies major milestones over the years. In an interview with James Corden, for example, Harry revealed that one of Archies first words was crocodile. The proud dad also once told Today show host Hoda Kotb that his son is a curious kid who is always asking, "Why this, why that, why that? (Harry's response: "I give him the most honest answer that I can until he's satisfied.") Archie's curiosity also led to an important conversation between father and son during the 2025 Invictus Games. Speaking in an interview with People, the Duke of Sussex explained that both his kids were "fascinated" by the competitors, all of whom identified as wounded, injured, and/or sick veterans. Its a very interesting conversation to have with your kidsto explain why that person is missing a leg, why that person is missing an arm, why do they look the way they do," he told the outlet. "Its challenging but important. Princess Lilibet of Sussex Meghan Markle with her daughter Princess Lilibet. Credit: Meghan Markle/Instagram After relocating to California, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced the birth of their second child, Princess Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, on June 4, 2021. Lilibet's name pays homage to two royal family members: her late great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II (whose childhood nickname was Lilibet), and her late grandmother, Princess Diana of Wales. Advertisement Advertisement The couple shared the news of Lilis birth through a sweet announcement on the Archewell Foundations website. "She is more than we could have ever imagined, and we remain grateful for the love and prayers we've felt from across the globe, Harry and Meghan wrote. Thank you for your continued kindness and support during this very special time for our family." The Sussexs 2021 Christmas card also made sure to mention the arrival of Lilibet. "This year, 2021, we welcomed our daughter, Lilibet, to the world. Archie made us a 'Mama' and a 'Papa', and Lili made us a family," they wrote. Meghan Markle with her daughter Princess Lilibet. Credit: Meghan Markle/Instagram In the years since, Meghan has gushed about her daughter on Instagram, calling her "our darling daughter" in one post. She also mentioned Lili's dynamic with her big brother during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres. "[He] loves being a big brother," the mom-of-two said of her son. "Everyone talks about what it's like for the second child, but no one talks about the adjustment for the first child when the second one comes along. So I think they have this moment of, 'Oh, this is fun. Oh, this how it is now.'" Prince Harry with his children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. Credit: Meghan Markle/Instagram As for her British roots, Lilibet has visited the U.K. only once. The young princess traveled to her dad's homeland for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022, where she presumably met her great-grandmother and her grandfather, then-Prince Charles, who ascended the throne shortly thereafter. Advertisement Advertisement Back in the States, meanwhile, Lilibet most recently turned four. Meghan celebrated her mini-me's birthday on Instagram, writing, "Four years ago today she came into our lives - and each day is brighter and better because of it." Read the original article on InStyle Robert Irwin knows exactly how to get fans in his feels. While providing an update on his latest venture, the Crocodile Hunter Lodge at Australia Zoo, his video left fans misty-eyed when he revealed the little details that pay tribute to his late father, Steve Irwin. "Today, I wanted to show you a couple of the special ways we've incorporated dad into the lot," he began in the video, shared on his mom Terri Irwin's Instagram page. Advertisement Advertisement He continued, "This was a dream of his to open luxury accommodation at Australia Zoo, and what better way to welcome guests into the lodge than these three trees? These are his," he said, pointing at the tall-standing trees behind him. "These are dad's trees," he noted, adding, "These bottle trees were originally planted by him in the zoo and we moved them here to welcome guests in as the perfect entry statement." He then invited viewers inside to show them the other ways they've "incorporated the Crocodile Hunter into the Crocodile Hunter Lodge." Irwin revealed that the entry doors are made out of the original timber from the original crocodile grandstands that Steve built in the Australia Zoo. The same timber is incorporated in the photo screens, boasting images of some of the classic moments of Steve and the entire Irwin family on "some of the crazy adventures over the years." Advertisement Advertisement "It's a perfect way to welcome our guests in and come through to Warrior Restaurant," he added. Irwin pointed out the Rammed Earth walls within the restaurant, noting that it was important to Steve that this project was "very sustainable," with the conservationist revealing the entire place is made from ram dirt. He saved the best for last, revealing the "best way they've incorporated dad" is in the restaurant's private dining room, unveiling a box that includes some of their incredible steak knives, with all of the timber used for the box and the knife itself coming from the original grandstand wood. "So, when you're using the knives here at Warrior, you're using a little piece of Australia Zoo history and something that was handcrafted by my dad," he explained, adding, "Very special." Advertisement Advertisement Fans loved hearing about how the family is honoring Steve, with one writing, "The look on his face when hes talking about his dad. So wholesome and genuine! Congratulations on the log! " "I love the idea of trees as a legacy so much vision and wisdom in that," another noted, with many others stating, "What a legacy! So beautiful " and "Getting emotional this is so lovely what you did and are still doing for your Dad. Steve was one of a kind, lets keep his legacy alive! ." "Wow so beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes." someone else chimed in. Following his triumphant run on Dancing With the Stars, the 22-year-old hosted Im a CelebrityGet Me Out of Here (Australia), but expressed he was very excited to be heading back home to work on the Crocodile Hunter Lodge. Advertisement Advertisement It has been quite the passion project that weve been working on back home in Australia Zoo, he said. The lodge, an eco-luxury accommodation that opened in 2022 and is nestled in the Australia Zoo, is inspired by his late father and his legacy and love for wild places. Next, Robert Irwin Will Appear on Another Reality Competition Show After DWTSBut With a Twist This story was originally published by Parade on Mar 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here. The leading actor from an Oscar-nominated film just shared the painful reason why he can't attend the 2026 Academy Awards. Michael Buckner / Variety via Getty Images The Voice of Hind Rajab, a 2025 docudrama written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, taking place on March 15. a 2025 docudrama written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, taking place on March 15. Mime Films / Courtesy Everett Collection Related: Answer These 10 Questions And We'll Tell You Who's Your Disney Villain Soulmate The film, which first premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year and was nominated for a Golden Globe in January, tells the story of volunteers of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which is part of the world's largest humanitarian network in Muslim-majority countries. The volunteers receive an emergency call from a 6-year-old girl trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, and she's asking for rescue. Massimo Rosi / Getty Images In the film, the volunteers do everything they can to send an ambulance to her while she pleads on the phone for over an hour. The little girl's name was Hind Rajab. WILLA / Courtesy Everett Collection Advertisement Advertisement The film is based on the real-life child who was reportedly killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City on January 29, 2024. WILLA / Courtesy Everett Collection Actor Motaz Malhees portrays Omar A. Alqam , an emergency operator with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) who stayed in contact with Hind as the PRCS waited hours for Israeli officials to permit them to access the scene to rescue her. Mime Films / Courtesy Everett Collection Related: Can You Score 100% On This Disney Movie Song Lyrics Quiz? The Voice of Hind Rajab is nominated for an Academy Award. I had the honor of playing one of the lead roles in a story the world needed to hear. But I will not be there." On March 12, Motaz shared a lengthy Instagram post explaining why he would not be able to attend the Academy Awards in support of his film's nomination. "Three days left to the Oscars," he wrote. "Our filmis nominated for an Academy Award. I had the honor of playing one of the lead roles in a story the world needed to hear. But I will not be there." Dominic Lipinski / Getty Images, @motazmalhees / Via instagram.com "I am not allowed to enter the United States because of my Palestinian citizenship," he continued. "It hurts. But here is the truth." Juan Naharro Gimenez / WireImage Related: We Finally Know Which Actors Are Returning For The Devil Wears Prada Sequel, So Lets See How Much The Cast Has Changed Since The Original Came Out In 2006 "You can block a passport. You cannot block a voice," Motaz said. While the film includes other Palestinian actors, they have citizenship that allows them to travel to America. Mondadori Portfolio / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images Advertisement Advertisement According to a White House fact sheet , President Trump signed a Proclamation "expanding and strengthening entry restrictions on nationals from countries with demonstrated, persistent, and severe deficiencies in screening, vetting, and information-sharing to protect the Nation from national security and public safety threats." SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images The Proclamation includes full restrictions and entry limitations on individuals from countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, as well as "full restrictions and entry limitations on individuals holding Palestinian Authority-issued travel documents." WILLA / Courtesy Everett Collection Despite Motaz not being able to join his peers at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles, he ended his post with a positive message. "I am Palestinian, and I stand with pride and dignity," he said. "My spirit will be with the Voice of Hind Rajab that night. Good luck to all of you. Our story is bigger than any barrier, and it will be heard," he wrote. Mondadori Portfolio / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images Related: Only True Pokemon Masters Can Correctly Identify All 30 Of These Pokemon In response to Motaz's message, several people have expressed their support, including some celebrities. Actor and rapper Riz Ahmed wrote, " your work in the film and the film itself are both incredible and will live on forever - sending much love and respect." Variety / Variety via Getty Images / Via instagram.com Advertisement Advertisement "You are brilliant, azizam. And this is heartbreaking and unjust," actor and screenwriter Arian Moayed said. CHRIS DELMAS / AFP via Getty Images / Via instagram.com And lastly, actor Khalid Abdalla said, "Your heart is beating across the globe Motaz. It hurts that you can't be there because obviously you should be, but one day the world will honour that absence. We are all so proud of you, your performance and the film. Keep shining bright with that powerful voice of yours. " Frazer Harrison / WireImage / Via instagram.com You Might Like: Reviewers Say These 26 Inexpensive Amazon Pieces Actually Hold Up Over Time You Might Like: 28 "Uncool" Products Under $25 That Will *Probably* Change Your Life Also in TVAndMovies: Here's Your "The Pitt" Character That Matches Your Personality Read it on BuzzFeed.com There's something sublime about a really good ghost story, and I'm pleased to say Never After Dark is a really good ghost story. From House of Ninjas' writer/director Dave Boyle comes a horror thriller that has the slow burn of '70s classics like The Shining and The Exorcist. Like those searing horror legends, Never After Dark also centers its story of supernatural infestation in one location. The forest-bound bed-and-breakfast of Never After Dark might seem an unremarkable space, much like the Overlook Hotel or the MacNeil home at first glance. But as the chilling story develops, its many-windowed exterior grows foreboding, and its wood-paneled interiors slyly sinister, suggesting the presence of something inhuman and dangerous. Within this familiar setting of a remote hotel rotten with dark secrets, Boyle sets loose a strange specter whose ragged breath can be heard on the phone when he's not stalking the halls, his face hanging with gore, its bottom half nothing but a bloody absence. However, in his protagonist, Boyle offers a curious twist, blending the haunted-house archetype of the eccentric medium (Poltergeist, Insidious) with the hard-nosed detective of film noir. Advertisement Advertisement Shogun's Moeka Hoshi stars as Airi, a nomadic clairvoyant who travels Japan making a living by communing with the dead. Each new haunted home is a mystery to be solved. Once Airi knows what the ghost wants, she performs a special ritual involving a candle to pierce the veil between the living and dead, then leads the ghost to their great beyond. But from the start, something is off about this job. A shrewdly paced mystery with mounting horror and gore, Never After Dark is sensationally spooky and devilishly entertaining. Never After Dark is more than what it seems. Deep in the woods sits a long-abandoned hotel that's haunted by an unnerving specter. When Airi pulls up in her beater of a car, she's got with her everything she possesses, meaning baggage physical, emotional, and supernatural. As she is greeted by the hotel's chipper owner Teiko (Tae Kimura) and her openly skeptical son Gunji (House of Ninjas' Kento Kaku, who is also a producer on Never After Dark), neither addresses Airi's teen sister Miku (Kurumi Inagak), who sits in the backseat of Airi's car, her head swaddled in a yellow knitted cap. That's because this girl is a ghost, seen only by Airi and only in reflections. Dont miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google. Working as a ghostbusting duo, their bond brings a levity to Never After Dark. Sure, in front of clients, Airi is professional, listening patiently to the story of a jawless ghoul creeping down the halls at midnight and noon. But when it's just Airi and her sister, there's the breezy energy of a slumber party. Theirs is an easy intimacy, spiked with playfulness as the teen pulls a poltergeist prank or Airi dances to a pop song through the haunted hotel. This subplot energizes the thriller, threading a liveliness in a tale of death, making it fun while frightening. Advertisement Advertisement However, even with such joyful moments, Airi's suffering from mounting ennui. Her life has steadily become all about the dead. She has no home. Her best friend is her ghost sister, and it's hard to meet a potential beau when you're always off to your next seance. Even her hair reveals how this vocation is eating away at her. At a glance, she's a mild-mannered young woman in denim and sneakers who stands out only because of her asymmetrical haircut. Her black hair is long and lank on the left side, a choppy bob on the right. It is nearly chic, but noticeably a bit haphazard. Once we see the ritual, we understand. Communing with the other side demands a sacrifice of hair. So with each session, Airi surrenders a chunk of herself. In this visual clue of a messy haircut, Never After Dark asks what will happen when she's got nothing left? Perhaps no one is so aware as Airi that her time may be running out. Never After Dark is like an enchanting nightmare. Boyle rejects the temptation for jump scares, even when the opportunity for them is obvious. The antagonist ghost may appear abruptly, but never in a frantic attempt to frighten. He silently strides into rooms, or stands quiet in a corner staring hard, or clawing at a wall panel as if scratching for a secret door. These scenes of shrewd practical effects are all chilling because Boyle often frames them in wide shots, creating the sense that this is the ghost in its organic habitat. Dread blooms in this deceptively simple staging, because of how matter-of-fact the ghoul is placed in these spaces. It's Airi who is the outsider, not him. There's the sense that there's no escape from his menace. Bolstering the suspense, Boyle brews a soundtrack of plunking piano keys, whistling flutes, and a shuffling percussion that sounds like footsteps on stairs. A cool color palette leans into the eeriness, a constant reminder of flesh paled by decay. Boyle fills his film with eerie elements that create an electric atmosphere, rich with paranormal possibilities. In this setting, Airi is the eye of the storm, surrounded by the big energies of the cheerful hotelier, a moody teen ghost, and a malicious spirit. She is our conduit to understanding them all, exuding patience, persistence, and pain. Yet as this mystery gets gnarlier, Hoshi capably plays frightened without losing Airi's edge. She is like the gumshoe, rattled but relentless in her mission to uncover the truth and do whatever good she can from there. Advertisement Advertisement This quest leads to a winding climax full of twists and violence, because this medium is no fragile flower. She'll fight with the same passion she brings to dancing, and the result is suffocatingly tense and satisfying. In the end, Never After Dark is a beguiling haunted house tale with tantalizing twists, skin-crawling scares, and a tender tale of sisterhood at its core. Horror lovers should be on the lookout for this one. Never After Dark was reviewed out the 2026 SXSW Film Festival. Mashable and Yahoo may earn commission from links in this article. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday targeted the ruling Trinamool Congress government while addressing a rally in Kolkata and also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of development projects worth Rs 18,700 crore. Meanwhile, ahead of the Prime Minister's rally, clashes broke out between workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in the Girish Park area of Kolkata, involving alleged stone-pelting, with both sides accusing each other of violence. Addressing a public meeting at Brigade Parade Ground, the Prime Minister criticised the West Bengal government and accused it of indulging in appeasement politics. While speaking at the rally, PM Modi said the Trinamool Congress had come to power with the slogan of "Maa, Mati, Maanush," but alleged that the situation in the state had deteriorated due to infiltration, adding that the biggest threat in the state has come to Bengal's "roti, beti, mati." "The TMC came to power on the slogan of 'Maa, Mati, Manush'. Today, that same Maa is weeping, the Mati is being looted, and the Bengali people are being forced to leave Bengal. Due to infiltrators, the biggest threat has now come to Bengal's roti, beti, mati... Infiltrators are being handed control over Bengal's soil, and the result of this is evident to everyone today. Over the past decades, the demography of most areas in Bengal has changed, and Bengali Hindus are being turned into a minority," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister further accused the state government of opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act for political reasons. "Such an open game of appeasement--when it comes to granting citizenship to refugee Hindus, the entire TMC opposes it... They do not consider Hindus as their vote bank, so these people also oppose the CAA so that the names of infiltrators are not removed from the voter list," said PM Modi. The Prime Minister also alleged that Dalits, tribals and poor communities were the worst affected under the current state government and referred to an incident involving President Droupadi Murmu. "In Bengal's ruthless government, the most tormented are the Dalits, tribals, and our poor brothers and sisters here... A few days ago, the President, daughter of the tribal community, Droupadi Murmu, came to Bengal. She was to participate in the sacred festival of the Santhal tribal tradition, but this ruthless government, steeped in arrogance, not only boycotted that program but also handed it over to hooliganism... The TMC people must remember that they have insulted crores of tribals, women; they have hurt the prestige of the country's highest office, they have insulted India's Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar. This ruthless government of TMC will get its answer from the people of Bengal," said the Prime Minister. He also slammed theTrinamool Congress government, saying "the end of the reign of jungle rule in Bengal will come" and stated that there is a voice in every corner of Bengal that the BJP will form the government in the state. Addressing a public meeting at Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, the Prime Minister termed the Trinamool Congress government as ruthless and said, "atrocities of TMC will not be spared". "The countdown has begun for those who brought jungle raj to Bengal. The day is not far when the rule of law will return to Bengal. Whoever breaks the law will not be spared, and the atrocities of TMC will not be spared. No matter how much this ruthless government tries now, it will not be able to stop this storm of change. Maa Durga is with the BJP-NDA," he said. PM Modi accused the Trinamool Congress government of taking steps to prevent people from coming to the rally, stating that, however, the "ruthless government couldn't stop a sea of people". "Even today, the ruthless government has pulled out all its weapons to stop this gathering. To prevent you all from coming, they had bridges closed, vehicles stopped, traffic jammed, BJP flags uprooted, and posters torn down. But the ruthless government, take a clear look: you could not stop today's sea of people," he said. Meanwhile, ahead of the Prime Minister's rally, clashes broke out between workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Trinamool Congress in the Girish Park area of Kolkata, involving alleged stone-pelting. West Bengal Minister Shashi Panja alleged that BJP workers attacked TMC supporters and pelted stones at her residence. The clash resulted in several members of both sides sustaining injuries on arms, legs, and heads. Shashi Panja said, "I was attacked with a brick. BJP is not a goon; it is a murderer. You call them BJP workers; they are murderers. They saw the "Boycott BJP" banner, tore it down, assaulted Trinamool Congress supporters, and did stone-pelting." West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari drew a parallel with the historic "Brigade Rally" held to celebrate India's victory in the 1971 war against Pakistan. Adhikari said the recent rally witnessed an estimated crowd of 8 to 10 lakh people. Speaking to ANI, Adhikari reflected on clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party workers ahead of the Prime Minister's visit, noting that several BJP workers were injured. "After our army's victory in Bangladesh in 1971, a 'Brigade' rally was held at Brigade Parade Ground. Today, breaking all records, another 'Brigade' rally has taken place here. It was attended by 8 to 10 lakh people. Today, the blood of many BJP workers has been shed, and many incidents have occurred," said Adhikari. West Bengal is set to hold elections in the first half of this year, with the main contest set to take place between the Trinamool Congress and BJP. The TMC led by Mamata Banerjee has been in power for the past 15 years, and will have the challenge to hold their baston; on the other hand, the BJP are willing to form government for first time in the state. Congress, Left parties are also in fray for the upcoming West Bengal polls. (ANI) This analysis was originally published before the Oscars, titled If Timothee Chalamet Loses The Oscar, It Wont Be Because of Ballet. Only the title, first, and last paragraphs have been updated to reflect Chalamets loss. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor at the 2026 Oscars for Sinners. Timothee Chalamet, now on his third nomination, lost. And as predicted, the narrative has immediately turned to "Chalamet lost because of the ballet comments" even though the timeline proves otherwise. When a clip of Timothee Chalamet dismissing ballet and opera as art forms "no one cares about" went viral last week, it truly appeared he had shot himself in the non-pointe shoed foot. Advertisement Advertisement The Metropolitan Opera clapped back, the Royal Ballet extended an icy invitation, Saturday Night Live roasted him on Weekend Update. Misty Copeland called out the irony of him asking her to promote Marty Supreme given his dance career ties. By the time the dust settled, it looked like the Best Actor frontrunner had torpedoed his Oscar chances days before the ceremony. Theres just one problem: the votes were already cast. Oscar voting for the 98th Academy Awards closed on March 5, 2026 at 5 PM Pacific Time. The Chalamet clip didn't start gaining serious traction until late that same day, exploding across social media throughout the weekend of March 6-7. By the time opera houses were posting snarky Instagram responses and ballet dancers were making TikToks, all 10,000-plus Academy ballots had been submitted, tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and legally sealed. The controversy that dominated headlines complete with discount codes (the Seattle Operas "TIMOTHEE" promo was particularly pointed) and resurfaced 2019 comments calling ballet and opera "dying art forms" arrived rather late to change a single vote. Earnestness and Early Cracks Timothee Chalamet at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards held at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on February 23, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images) Variety via Getty Images The thing is, Timothee Chalamet just really, really wants this. Advertisement Advertisement Awards strategists have noted for weeks that Chalamets campaign carried a particular intensity. Hes been everywhere every red carpet, every talk show, every interview. At last years SAG Awards, his acceptance speech for A Complete Unknown spotlighted his pursuit of greatness, a comment that, while perceived by many as earnestly transparent at the time, has perhaps worn thin over months of campaigning, however brilliant. To be fair, his resume justifies the ambition. At 30, Chalamet has assembled a filmography reminiscent of Jennifer Lawrences stacked slate in the early 2010s: Call Me by Your Name, Lady Bird, Beautiful Boy, Little Women, Dune Parts One and Two, Dont Look Up, Wonka (alright, this one not so much), A Complete Unknown, and now Marty Supreme. He's worked with Luca Guadagnino, Greta Gerwig, Denis Villeneuve, Wes Anderson, Adam McKay, and Josh Safdie. He's proven range across indie dramas, big-budget sci-fi, musicals, and biopics. But when youre 30 years old with two previous Oscar nominations and a third chance at the trophy, that kind of visible ambition can either inspire voters or turn them off. Lawrence won her Oscar at 22 for Silver Linings Playbook her second nomination and the industry celebrated her youth and hustle. Chalamets carrying that same energy eight years older, and the charm seems to have worn off. Truth is, Chalamets path to the Oscar began to crack well before anyone was talking about Swan Lake. At the BAFTAs, he lost in a major upset to Robert Aramayo for I Swear. Then came the seismic moment at the Actor Awards on March 1, four days before voting closed, when Michael B. Jordan burst into the scene to rapturous applause. Advertisement Advertisement MORE FROM FORBESActor Awards 2026s Snubs And Surprises: Michael B. Jordan Upsets Timothee Chalamet, Rose Byrne Shut Out By Hannah Abraham The Michael B. Jordan Factor Michael B. Jordan at the 32nd Annual Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA held at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Earl Gibson III/Deadline via Getty Images) Deadline via Getty Images By the time final voting opened, the race had already shifted. Jordans Sinners performance a dual role as twin brothers in Ryan Cooglers horror-drama had been building momentum throughout awards season. The film landed a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations. Jordan wasnt only campaigning on his performance; he was also representing a film that the Academy had clearly embraced across multiple categories. MORE FROM FORBES2026 Actor Awards Shake Up The Oscar Race: A Category-By-Category Breakdown By Hannah Abraham Jordans emotional Actor Awards win, cheered on by the entire room and an ecstatic Viola Davis, gave undecided voters a clear frontrunner with four days left to submit ballots. Formerly known as the SAG Awards, the Actor Awards represent the largest voting bloc within the Academy, and actors make up roughly 1,300 of the Academys 10,000 members. Their choices carry weight. Advertisement Advertisement Chicago Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper, who published his predictions after voting closed, noted that Jordan's Actor Awards win came at exactly the right moment: Many of the approximately 10,000 voters wait until the last day or two to cast their ballots. Momentum gained or lost from the Producers Guild Awards and Actor Awards can be a significant factor. The impact was immediate and measurable. On prediction market Kalshi, Chalamets odds dropped from 68% to 51% after the Actor Awards. Jordan surged from 12% to 34%. When the ballet controversy hit over March 6-7 weekend, Chalamets numbers fell further, but the votes were already in. At the time of publishing, Kalshi gives Jordan a 56% chance of winning versus Chalamets 34%. Polymarket tells a similar story: Jordan 57%, Chalamet 33%. The Oscars Decided Sunday US actor Michael B. Jordan accepts the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for "Sinners" onstage during the 98th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 15, 2026. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images When Adrien Brody opened the envelope for Best Actor at the Dolby Theatre on March 15, the audience leapt to their feet. Michael B. Jordan had won. Advertisement Advertisement The winner had been determined by hard, brilliant work on screen, campaign strategy, industry politics, and the ineffable calculus of what voters felt in the moment they filled out their ballots. Jordan appeared stunned as he celebrated with his co-stars and mother before taking the stage. "Man, God is good," he began. "Mama, whats up? Yall know how I feel about my mother." He noted his father had flown in from Ghana for the ceremony, along with his brother and sister. Jordan spoke about "betting on a culture and betting on original ideas and original artistry," called director Ryan Coogler a collaborator and friend, and recognized the black actors who accepted Oscars before him Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, and Forest Whitaker. The win marked Jordan's first Oscar in his first nomination, for his dual performance as twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners. It also made him the first dual-role Best Actor winner in Oscar history. Timothee Chalamets Oscar loss was shaped by a host of forces working together: BAFTA voters choosing Aramayo, Actor Awards voters choosing Jordan, his own campaigns intensity, and the broader question of whether, like Leonardo DiCaprio before him, he will be made to wait years for his coronation. And despite multiple digs about it during the ceremony (the first one from Conan about ten seconds in), the ballet and opera worlds opinions had nothing to do with it. In an exclusive interview with TheGrio, the Grammy-winning artist opens up about identity, burnout, and why getting still might be the most radical move of all Jonathan McReynolds has spent the better part of his career climbing. Hes climbed the Billboard charts with six consecutive #1 hits, climbed the stages of the White House and the DNC, and climbed into the elite ranks of Mensa. And on a recent Zoom call, seated in front of a bookshelf lined with Grammys, Dove Awards, and a row of medals, the accolades quietly confirm it. A year after his 2025 GRAMMY win for Best Gospel Performance/Song, in an exclusive interview with TheGrio, the 36-year-old visionary shares hes less interested in the view from the top and more focused on what happens when you finally decide to come back down. With his upcoming live album, Before You Climb Any Higher, arriving March 27, McReynolds is offering a much-needed perspective shift for a generation defined by the hustle. Hes offering perspective. Advertisement Advertisement Who are you? he asks, pausing on a question that feels deceptively simple. I understand what youre doing, but who are you? That tensionbetween doing and beingsits at the heart of Closer, a live-recorded project rooted in Chicago, his hometown, and what he affectionately describes as a kind of spiritual checkpoint. Chicagos like grandmas house, he explains. You walk back in, and you can tell how much youve grown. Its a fitting metaphor for an artist whose evolution has been as much internal as it has been musical. A new sound, a familiar truth Sonically, Closer stretches McReynolds beyond the guy with a guitar image that first introduced him to the world. This time, he leans into 80s pop textures, acoustic soul, and layered live instrumentation. An intentional blend that feels nostalgic without being stuck in the past. Advertisement Advertisement The inspiration, he says, wasnt deliberate, though. I just woke up thinking about Lionel Richie, he says with a laugh. That spontaneity carries throughout the project, which fuses traditional gospel with global influences that reflect both his evolving sound and his expanding worldview. That perspective shows up most clearly on Aane, a standout track featuring Team Eternity Ghana. The collaboration ties directly to McReynolds dual citizenship in Ghana, something he obtained about two years ago, not as a symbolic gesture, but as part of a deeper commitment to engaging the African diaspora in a meaningful way. Advertisement Advertisement I didnt want to just take it as a vanity thinglike, Hey, Ive got two passports now, he said. I really wanted there to be some cultural exchange. And that exchange was intentional. McReynolds worked closely with Ghanaian musicians, paying attention to the details from sound to language. Even the word Aane, often translated as yes, required care. The way they even look at the word yes is different, he said. I had to run it by them to make sure they were cool with it. In this context, its more than a simple affirmation. It can carry spiritual weight, signaling agreement, reverence, and participation in worship. Advertisement Advertisement What comes through isnt just a blend of styles, but a true exchange. Hes bringing his Church of God in Christ roots into conversation with West African musical traditions in a way that feels expansive. The myth of making it If the album explores closeness to God, McReynolds latest book, Before You Climb Any Higher, released February 2025, pushes that message even further, challenging a generation obsessed with whats next while solidifying his voice as a now best-selling author. In it, he unpacks what he calls the arrival fallacy, or the idea that success will finally bring peace. We think, If I just get to this number, this award, this levelIll be good, he says. But thats just not the truth. Advertisement Advertisement Its a realization hes earned honestly. McReynolds has reached many of the milestones people spend their lives chasingawards, sold-out tours, industry respect. And still, the climb didnt end. Instead, it kept going. The higher we go, the more we forget who we really are, he says. We pick up all these titles and the real you gets left somewhere down there. His solution isnt to stop striving altogether. Rather, its to pause long enough to remember. Thats where the valley comes in. Far from a place of failure, McReynolds reframes it as necessary ground for rest, clarity, and identity, an idea echoed throughout his book, which encourages readers to see lifes slower seasons as essential, not inconvenient. A generation doing the mostand feeling the least If McReynolds sounds like hes speaking directly to a burned-out, overachieving generation, its because he is. Advertisement Advertisement Were doing a lot, he says. I dont think any generation can say theyve done more. But who are we becoming? Its a sharp observation in an era defined by constant output, be it content, careers, side hustles, or visibility. For a generation praised for its productivity, theres also a quiet exhaustion running underneath it all. We dont get to celebrate because we dont stop climbing, he says. Closer is, in many ways, his response to that burnout. A soundtrack for slowing down, reconnecting, and asking better questions. Not Whats next? But Who am I? Beyond the stage Offstage, he lives out this educator mindset as a professor at Virginia Union University. If I could turn every stage into a classroom, I would, he admitted. Advertisement Advertisement That commitment to pouring into the next generation is something he lives. On Closer, he collaborates with Jamal Roberts, the newest American Idol winner, in a moment that feels less like a feature and more like a full-circle connection. McReynolds first met Roberts years ago when he served as a judge on BETs Sunday Best. Roberts didnt win that season, but McReynolds saw something in him early. I told him even then that he had great promise, McReynolds recalled. He just needed to keep growing and now I look up, and hes on American Idol, and dominates. Today, the two share a Grammy-nominated track in Still, a collaboration rooted in mutual respect and growth. Advertisement Advertisement Im really blessed that he always saw me as not one of the judges that didnt allow him to win, McReynolds said. He saw me as one of the judges that wanted him to ultimately win at life. Whether he is mentoring artists through his Life Room Label or teaching spiritual development, he is focused on helping people re-establish their identity. As Closer prepares to drop, McReynolds hopes it serves as a soundtrack for somebody to finally stop climbing and simply start being. You dont got to do all that, he concluded. Why? Because you are already that. More must-reads: When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: John McAfee (via Twitter) I recently watched the Netflix documentary Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, and it's one of the craziest things I've seen in a long time. I've written about McAfee (who died in 2021) a few times over the years, and knew a few things about his chaotic and at times outright criminal life, but this sees filmmaker Charlie Russell and cameraman Robert King following and filming McAfee in 2012 and 2013 as he hides in Belize, escapes to Guatemala, and is deported back to the United States. One of the most eye-popping moments in a documentary full of them comes when the raw footage suddenly segues into a rap music video for a song called The McAfee Effect by the Coin Bros (from 2018). As if that wasn't enough, it soon emerges the video is being filmed at a luxurious property with John McAfee, who among other things we see sitting at a table with endless booze, a huge pile of gold bars, stacks of cash, a handgun, and a large pile of white powder that probably isn't flour. Advertisement Advertisement I couldn't believe what I was watching, and what I was hearing was even more absurd. The song's questionable contention is that the so-called "McAfee Effect" is to be desired in one's life, and to that end it goes through some of the man's greatest hits. The thing is, what in a normal rap song would just be the usual daft boasts are, in almost all cases, true. Here is the video, followed by the lyrics with a few notes about how utterly, utterly bananas McAfee's life was. The lyrics to The McAfee Effect, annotated What you know bout the streets? What you know bout Belize? Fairly simple to start off with: McAfee took a massive hit in the global financial crash of 2008, and emigrated to Belize, claiming he wished to escape US regulations and "materialism." Advertisement Advertisement What you know bout faking your own heart attack just to ditch the police!? A classic: McAfee faked a heart attack while under threat of deportation, forcing his transfer to a hospital. Take everything McAfee says with a huge pinch of salt, but he later explained the incident on X: "Did I really fake a heart attack while in prison in Guatemala?" writes McAfee. "A: Yes. Why? A: I was being deported back to Belize at noon. My lawyers needed until 2:00 to file a stay of deportation. I told them: "Don't worry. Get the Stay. I got the rest." What you know bout privacy? McAfee's fortune began with the antivirus company that bears his name, the slogan of which to this day is "McAfee Protects Your Privacy." Advertisement Advertisement I got a bad bitch on side of me McAfee's love life was as messed-up as all the rest of it, but he was never far away from women and enjoyed playing to that side of his character. This line may also be a pun on his love of dogs, though perhaps I am giving the Coin Bros too much credit there. I got the FBI eyeing me McAfee was indeed investigated by the FBI, and the file is now unclassified and can be viewed here. All of these hackers are trying me Tryna get them a peek, Tryna get all on my Twitter for the coin of the week McAfee ran a "coin of the week" scheme in 2017 on X (then Twitter) which was essentially a "pump-and-dump" scheme. McAfee and his cronies would hoard or launch a crypto shitcoin of some kind, McAfee would use his profile to promote the coin, and then they'd all sell once the price spiked. Advertisement Advertisement McAfee was indicted in the US on fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges in 2021 stemming from these crypto schemes, but died in a Spanish jail three months later. I got China trying to ban every time that I speak McAfee was an outspoken critic of China's crackdown on cryptocurrencies, which is perhaps not surprising given his own activities. "Even the Chinese people are skeptical that China can enforce its Crypto ban," he rather unconvincingly asserted in 2018. "For me, I am certain it cannot." Now we got Trump don't you wish you voted for me This might be the one line of the song I agree with. McAfee made a presidential bid in 2016, looking to become the Libertarian Party's candidate. His platform, such as it was, involved lots of cybersecurity and anti-government stuff: he failed to secure the nomination. The 2016 US presidential election was, of course, won by Donald Trump. Advertisement Advertisement I got An arsenal, an arsenal, a bunch of big guns, drugs, and some cards to pull Cars, hoes with crypto paid in full This all seems fairly self-explanatory. A bunch of hating motherfuckers writing articles about.... Ah yes: the blasted press. Despite living a life straight out of the hedonist's handbook, McAfee was often critical of his own media coverage and the media ecosystem more widely, which he said "manipulated people" whereas he "will not lie to people." Credit: John McAfee (via Twitter) The Chorus We now get to the song's hook, which begins by repeating "McAfee, McAfee, McAfee, John" three times before: Don't fuck with my dogs Don't fuck with my dogs Advertisement Advertisement (Whoa) These lines are unreal when you realise what the reference is. The most controversial incident in McAfee's life occurred in November 2012, when he accused neighbour Gregory Faull of poisoning his dogs. The two had previously had multiple disputes over the dogs' behaviour. The next day Faull was found shot to death, and McAfee was made a "person of interest" in the case, which led to him fleeing Belize for Guatemala. McAfee was never charged with the murder, though in 2019 a Florida court ordered him to pay $25m to Faull's estate in a wrongful death claim. Lord knows how much of that they ever saw. Crypto flipping Advertisement Advertisement (Whoa) In the lab just mixing (Whoa) The crypto-flipping we've already explained. As for the lab mixing in 2012 the Belize authorities raided a compound owned by McAfee, suspecting it of being a methamphetamine lab. No drugs were found, and McAfee claimed he was not manufacturing meth but experimenting with botanical compounds, specifically mentioning an interest in bath salts. He was never charged. You gone see my vision, got hoes shooting at me but they just keep missing McAfee repeatedly claimed that the Belize or US authorities were out to assassinate him, and even claimed that the murder of Gregory Faull could have been a hit aimed at him. In 2019 McAfee said "If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd." Nope, that's not a typo: McAfee used the opportunity to launch another shitcoin called $WHACKD, and shared an apparent tattoo of the logo on his arm. Advertisement Advertisement There is always another layer to the grift. Needless to say, one of the reasons McAfee's death in a jail cell has attracted such scrutiny is this tweet. Second Verse The second verse, sadly, does not offer such rich pickings as the first, though we still somehow reach a point where McAfee promises to eat his own penis: Some people think Im psychotic Im riding in something exotic I got no need for a rubber Im whipping up antibiotics I imagine quite a lot of people thought he was psychotic, and McAfee's lifestyle obviously included expensive vehicles and fast ladies. The last line refers to McAfee co-founding QuorumEx in Belize in 2010, a company that supposedly developed herbal antibiotics. Advertisement Advertisement I only fuck with the crypto I got no need for a pocket I only deal in cryptocurrencies, my good man. Bitcoin 2020 a millie, a millie I hope that you bought it McAfee predicted in 2017 that Bitcoin would reach $1 million in value by the end of 2020. McAfee claimed that, if he was wrong, "I will eat my dick on national television." He was wrong, and reneged on his promise. Sittin in the tub got my girl pouring bath salt Pickin ICOs thats a mutha fuckin cash vault Ridin in the Bentley....burning asphalt Hating on my twitter get a mother fucka black balled I be living like.... McAfee, McAfee, McAfee John Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are a part of the "pump-and-dump" crypto schemes explained above. McAfee was charged by the SEC in 2020 for fraudulently touting ICOs. The Twitter line just refers to the fact that McAfee was block-happy on the platform.. We then get another go-around of the chorus, but no changes to the lyrics. And we're done. All that remains for me to do is recommend the documentary where I first caught a glimpse of this unique cultural production. Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee can be found on Netflix and is an eye-opening glimpse into the life of a clearly remarkable and deeply intelligent, but crooked and insane man. Around that core of raw footage, the documentary mixes in other interviews and footage from McAfee's life, up to and including his death (the film was released in 2022). One of the unexpected stories here is that of cameraman Robert King, who after a long and remarkable career as a war correspondent became director of photography at Vice Media in 2012. Which is why he was chasing a madman around Belize while Vice was simultaneously posting headlines like "We are with John McAfee right now, suckers." King has clearly Seen Some Shit and been right in the middle of horrible conflicts, but at times even he's taken aback by what he's witnessing, while simultaneously becoming further embroiled with McAfee as an associate maybe, at times even somewhere near the line of a collaborator. Towards the end of the documentary it does a great job digging into how King feels about this, and he's a deeply intelligent and articulate individual, someone who is obviously willing to cross lines, and does, but in doing so becomes the story himself: a catastrophic mistake by Vice saw the geodata of a photo of McAfee exposed and, though King and a fellow Vice journalist were blamed by some initially, it later emerged neither were at fault. 2026 games: All the upcoming games Best PC games: Our all-time favorites Free PC games: Freebie fest Best FPS games: Finest gunplay Best RPGs: Grand adventures Best co-op games: Better together The weekend is here, finally, and that means downtime and maybe watching something great on TV. HBO Max is no stranger to premium TV, but there's so much to choose from that finding the right show can still feel like a part-time job. For the weekend of March 13 to 15, skip the scroll with these picks: a globe-trotting freak of a man with even freakier hair, a sprawling dragon-filled fantasy in Westeros, and a dark and satisfying superhero drama unlike any other. Conan O'Brien Must Go From late-night host to world traveler ... sort of If you're a fan of legendary comedian and host Conan O'Brien, or even just a fan of his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, then this off-the-wall travel show, done the way that only Conan can do, will delight you. OK, so it's less of a traditional travel show (you're not going to learn much), but this Emmy-winning show is peak Conan. The gangly comedian sets out on an epic adventure around the world to surprise select listeners of his podcast in their home countries. Advertisement Advertisement Season one's four episodes take Conan to Norway, Argentina, Thailand, and Ireland, where he awkwardly gets to know each listener, mingles with the locals, learns (or tries) local customs, and generally makes a boob of himself. Along the way, Conan also gets some backup from a lineup of great celebrity guests, including Javier Bardem and Taika Waititi. Highlights of season one include Conan dressing up in full Viking garb in Norway and, my favorite, a Muay Thai lesson and scorpion eating in Thailand, all saturated in Conan's self-depracating humor and awkwardness. It's a hilarious fish-out-of-water series, and season two gets even better with Conan visiting Spain, New Zealand, and Austria. Both seasons of Conan O'Brien Must Go are streaming on HBO Max. House of the Dragon It's dragons versus dragons in this Game of Thrones sequel series With only a few months to go before season three of George R.R. Martin's dragon-infested Game of Thrones prequel series on HBO, if you haven't delved into the realm of House of the Dragon yet, you might want to give yourself the time to fully ingest it. Set roughly 80 years before the events of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and roughly 200 years before Jon Snow, House of the Dragon takes place during a brutal Targaryen civil war known as The Dance of the Dragons. And believe me, there are dragons. The conflict, in a nutshell, is a matter of succession. When King Viserys I (Paddy Considine) dies, he controversially names his daughter Rhaenyra (played young by Millie Alcock, and older by Emma D'Arcy) as heir to the Iron Throne. But Viserys' second wife, Alicent (Emily Carey, then Olivia Cooke), and her supporters, believe that their firstborn male son, Aegon, is the true heir. The rift splits the kingdom in two, pitting armies, dragons, and Targaryen relatives against one another in fire-breathing war. House of the Dragon is as epic as it gets on TV, and is a worthy accompaniment to the original GoT universe, with stellar performances for the cast, epic battle scenes, and some fearsome dragon CGI. It's been a critical hit for HBO, with a serious 15 Emmy nominations (with two wins), and an overall Rotten Tomatoes critics' score of 87%. Get ready for season three now. Watchmen A mind-bending but poignant reimagining of a DC Comics classic I remember watching HBO's darkly original mini-series Watchmenwhen it first hit the streamer in 2019, and it was unlike any "superhero" show or movie I had ever seen. From the insanely creative mind of Damon Lindelof, the guy who created/wrote Lost, Prometheus, World War Z, and The Leftovers, among others, Watchmen isn't a reboot of the 2009 film; it's instead something entirely new while being a direct sequel to the original Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 1986 graphic novel. Advertisement Advertisement Set in 2019, Watchmen takes place 35 years after the events of the graphic novel, but moves the action to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in an alternate history, where Robert Redford is president, there's no internet, and a white supremacist group wearing Rorschach masks called the Seventh Cavalry starts targeting police officers. At the center of it all is Angela Abar (Regina King in an amazing performance), a detective who doubles as the masked vigilante Sister Night, hunting down the Seventh Cavalry. Watchmen is a deep tapestry of conspiracy that brings in key characters from the past, and that morphs into a mind-bending race to save humanity. The nine-episode series also features star performances from Jean Smart, Jeremy Irons, Tim Blake Nelson, Don Johnson, and Wonder Man's excellent Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Watchmen was a marvel for HBO, winning a ridiculous 22 Emmys. It currently maintains a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes the hardest part of the weekend is simply deciding what to watch. Hopefully, this shortlist solves that problem. The General Hospital spoilers for Monday, March 16, 2026, focus on Jason and Sonny making a vow while Portia is outraged. And Cody tells Molly where he stands. Key Takeaways Jason and Sonny make a vow as Jason prepares to leave Port Charles. Portia is outraged after suspecting Jordan may also be carrying Curtiss baby, setting off a new wave of pregnancy drama. Cody opens up to Molly about where he stands following her endometriosis flare-up. Tracy has to talk to Laura while Curtis reassures Trina. Promises, Promises Jason (Steve Burton) is saying his goodbyes and is preparing to hightail it out of town with Britt (Kelly Thiebaud) as soon as they get their hands on a dose of her meds. That way, she doesnt have to be dependent on Sidwell (Carlo Rota) and Cullum (Andrew Hawkes), two people who are making Port Charles a bad place for her to be. Advertisement Advertisement He has already talked to Tracy (Jane Elliot), Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn, whos pitching John Oliver as a potential love interest), and Michael (Rory Gibson) about Danny (Asher Antonyzyn). And he made sure to say goodbye to Carly (Laura Wright) and let her know he trusts her, even though she is relying on Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) to help her get Joss (Eden McCoy) out of the WSB. On Monday, he and Sonny (Maurice Benard) have much to discuss. Apparently, they will make a vow. During the preview at the end of GHs Friday episode, Jason warns Sonny, saying, On my way out of town, Im going to eliminate that btard. Whos he talking about? Sidwell? This guy has been a thorn in Sonnys side for a while now. He has also had several wins in a row. Its time for somebody to stop him. Getting rid of Sidwell will instantly lessen the stress of many of Port Charless residents. Pregnancy Chaos It started at the end of Fridays episode. Portia (Brook Kerr) and Jordan (Tanisha Harper) were both at the nail salon Marta & Chloes. Suddenly, Jordan looked queasy, and she raced to the bathroom. Portia noticed that her nemesis looked every bit as nauseous as she looked at that Quartermaine tea party way back when. Advertisement Advertisement Portia quickly jumped to the conclusion that Jordan was pregnant. Look for this particular brand of chaos to continue on Monday, when she will be outraged. If Jordans truly pregnant, this means two women will be carrying Curtiss baby. Portia said it best when she said, You have got to be kidding me. While the drama at the nail salon plays out, look for Curtis (Donnell Turner) to reassure Trina (Tabyana Ali). Something tells us that whatever he reassures Trina about, he wont be able to follow through on it if Jordan is preggers. Seek and Declare Elsewhere, Tracy seeks out Laura (Genie Francis). Hopefully, this will be about the towns Sidwell (Carlo Rota) problem. Obviously, Tracy is unaware of just how compromised Laura is, thanks to Sidwells frame job. But she may look to the mayor for help dealing with the guy who has his hands all over Deception and basically over all of Port Charles. If Tracy and Laura dont discuss Sidwell, then why does the Quartermaine want face time with Laura? Advertisement Advertisement Finally, Cody (Josh Kelly) tells Molly (Kristen Vaganos) where he stands. The two are experiencing another rough patch thanks to Mollys recent endometriosis flare-up. She fainted in front of Cody, resulting in him taking her to the hospital. And ever since, he has tried to hash out his thoughts and feelings about something he barely knows or understands. But now that some time has passed, and hes done his research, he can come up with words that will be exactly what Molly wants to hear. And those words will be supportive and sensitive. READ NEXT This story was originally reported on Soap Hub on March 13, 2026. Add Soap Hub as a Preferred Source by clicking here. Over the past few years, remote work has fundamentally reshaped one of the oldest assumptions about modern life: that where you live must be tied to where you work. For decades, relocating abroad typically meant a corporate transfer, a retirement plan or navigating a complex immigration process. Today, the rise of remote work, digital entrepreneurship and creator-led businesses has dramatically expanded who can realistically consider living overseas. Increasingly, professionals are discovering that their careers are no longer anchored to a single cityor even a single country. That shift is already visible in migration patterns. Recent reporting on where Americans are increasingly relocating abroad currently highlights how housing affordability, lifestyle flexibility and global mobility are reshaping where people choose to live. An alpine village in Switzerland, where small communities like Albinen have offered financial incentives to attract new residents. getty The digital nomad economy is growing just as quickly. Workforce consultancy MBO Partners estimates that roughly 18.5 million Americans in 2025 identified as digital nomads, a figure that has grown more than 150% since 2019 as remote work transforms professional mobility. Advertisement Advertisement A September 2025 Gallup analysis found that roughly one in four U.S. employees now work remotely at least part of the time, a shift that continues to expand the number of professionals able to consider living abroador build location-independent careers as entrepreneurs, creators and digital nomads. As I explored in a recent analysis of countries attracting digital nomads, the growing population of location-independent workers is beginning to influence how countries think about residency, immigration policy and digital nomad visa programs. For remote workers, founders, freelancers and creators whose careers can travel with them, geography is becoming increasingly flexible. A village on the Greek island of Santorini. Some smaller Greek islands have introduced relocation incentives aimed at attracting new residents. getty Across Europe, Asia and parts of the Americas, a growing number of countries and regional communities are experimenting with an unusual strategy to attract new residents: offering financial incentives to move there. Advertisement Advertisement In some cases, the incentives include direct cash grants. In others, they take the form of tax breaks, housing subsidies or startup support aimed at entrepreneurs, remote professionals and digital nomads willing to relocate. For people already considering a move abroador exploring digital nomad visas and other residency pathwaysthese programs are becoming part of a broader conversation about global mobility. Relocation incentive programs are simply the next chapter in that story. Below are eight countries currently offering relocation incentives to attract new residents. Italy Italy has become one of the most well-known countries offering relocation incentives, particularly in small southern villages facing population decline. Advertisement Advertisement Several towns in Calabria launched a program offering up to 28,00030,000 ($30,000+) to newcomers willing to move to villages with fewer than 2,000 residents and start a business. The payments are typically distributed over several years and applicants usually must be under age 40 and commit to living in the town full time. Italy has also drawn global attention for symbolic 1 home programs, where abandoned properties are sold at extremely low prices to attract buyers willing to renovate them. However, purchasers must typically commit to renovation timelines and place deposits to ensure restoration work is completed. Switzerland (Albinen) The alpine village of Albinen in Switzerland launched one of Europes most widely publicized relocation programs. To combat population decline, the town offers 25,000 Swiss francs (about $28,000) per adult and 10,000 francs per child to families willing to move there permanently. Applicants must purchase property worth at least 200,000 francs and commit to living in Albinen for a minimum of 10 years, or risk repaying the subsidy. Advertisement Advertisement The program was designed specifically to attract younger residents and families who can contribute to the communitys long-term sustainability. Japan Japan faces one of the most significant demographic shifts in the world, with rural communities shrinking as younger populations migrate toward major cities. To encourage relocation outside Tokyo, the Japanese government expanded a regional revitalization program that can provide grants of up to 1,000,000 ($6,000$7,000) per child for families moving to designated rural areas. Some municipalities also offer additional housing subsidies or startup support for entrepreneurs launching businesses in rural regions. These initiatives are part of Japans broader effort to rebalance population distribution while revitalizing smaller towns. Spain Spain has experimented with a variety of rural revitalization initiatives aimed at repopulating small villages facing long-term population decline. Advertisement Advertisement In regions such as Asturias and Galicia, local governments and private initiatives have offered housing subsidies, employment opportunities or relocation grants designed to attract new residents and entrepreneurs. In some cases, families are offered subsidized housing or financial assistance to help offset relocation costs. While the specific incentives vary by municipality, the broader goal is consistent: encouraging economic activity and reversing population loss in rural communities. Greece Greece has also introduced several relocation incentives aimed at supporting smaller island communities and rural regions experiencing long-term population decline. On the island of Antikythera, for example, families relocating to the island have been offered housing, land and a monthly stipend of about 500 for several years to encourage long-term settlement. Programs like this reflect broader efforts by Greek authorities and regional development initiatives to sustain small island communities that might otherwise struggle to maintain population levels. Ireland Ireland has launched several initiatives aimed at revitalizing remote coastal communities and offshore islands. Advertisement Advertisement Under the governments Our Living Islands strategy, grants of up to 84,000 (about $90,000) are available to people renovating vacant or derelict properties on certain Irish islands. The program is intended to encourage long-term residency and housing restoration in areas where populations have steadily decreased. The initiative primarily targets property renovation rather than direct relocation grants, but it reflects a broader push to attract new residents to Irelands remote communities. Croatia Croatia has experimented with relocation incentives in smaller municipalities seeking to attract younger residents. Some towns have offered financial assistance covering up to 50% of property purchase costs or grants for home renovations to encourage newcomers to settle in rural areas. The country has also introduced a digital nomad residence permit, allowing remote workers employed abroad to live in Croatia for up to a year. Advertisement Advertisement Combined with relatively affordable living costs and a growing remote-work infrastructure, these policies have helped Croatia become increasingly attractive to internationally mobile professionals. Chile (Patagonia Startup Programs) Chile has taken a different approach by offering financial incentives specifically for entrepreneurs. Through Start-Up Chile, an internationally recognized accelerator program backed by the Chilean government, founders can receive equity-free funding, mentorship and startup support to build companies while based in the country. Funding packages have historically ranged from roughly $15,000 to $80,000, depending on the program track. Although the initiative focuses on entrepreneurship rather than permanent relocation, it has successfully attracted thousands of founders and global startups to Chile. The Reality Behind Relocation Incentives A coastal town in Croatia, where growing digital nomad programs and local relocation incentives are attracting new international residents. getty Relocation incentives can be appealing, but they rarely represent a simple financial windfall. Many programs require commitments such as purchasing property, starting businesses or remaining in the area for several years. Some programs also include age limits or income requirements designed to attract younger residents and entrepreneurs who can contribute to local economic growth. In many cases, the incentives are structured as multi-year grants or subsidies rather than lump-sum payments, ensuring that new residents remain in the community long term. Advertisement Advertisement Still, these initiatives reveal a broader shift in global migration patterns. As populations age and urban centers continue to grow, smaller communities are increasingly competing to attract new residentsand the rise of remote work is making that competition possible. For remote workers, entrepreneurs and creators whose careers are no longer tied to a single location, relocation incentives may simply be one more factor in a much larger decision about where to live. Many professionals exploring these programs are also considering countries that offer strong infrastructure for remote work, vibrant international communities and emerging digital nomad visa pathways. As global mobility continues to expand, the question for many professionals is no longer whether they can live abroadbut which place might offer the most compelling version of daily life. Can you taste the green food coloring? St. Patricks Day celebrations are here, so get out your favorite shamrock attire and check out the Irish-themed festivities Boise has to offer. Here are just a few of the St. Paddys Day events in store around town: A beer sampler awaits delivery to a table at 10 Barrel Brewing in Boise, Idaho. The brewery, which has locations in multiple states, produced just under 1,000 barrels in Boise in 2017, according to head brewer Shawn Kelso. (Statesman file) Whats in store this weekend in Bellingham? In true Irish spirit, Boises bar scene will host several celebrations on the weekend before St. Patricks Day. 10 Barrel Brewing Boise, 826 West Bannock St. in Boise, is the starting point of the Boise St. Patricks Day Weekend Bar Crawl on Saturday, March 14. Checkin lasts from 1 to 6 p.m. Advertisement Advertisement Weekend pub crawl tickets cost $35.78 apiece and include: At least two free drinks or shots Free beads while supplies last Entry fees to participating bars Access to the PubCrawls after-party St. Patricks Day food and drink specials Professional photographer A PubCrawls wristband A digital map of participating venues A pint of Guinness is the drink of the day on St. Patricks Day at area bars. (Chris Butler/Idaho Statesman file) Where can I go bar hopping in Boise? Crawl With US and Voodoo Bar are partnering for a bar hopping event on Saturday, with check-in starting at 4 p.m. Gather your crew, don your green, and get ready for a day packed with good times and great company, the Eventbrite page said. Whether youre sipping on Irish whiskey, clinking glasses of green beer or dancing to festive tunes, this crawl is the perfect way to make the most of St. Paddys Day. Advertisement Advertisement The fun starts at Cactus Bar, 517 West Main St. in Boise. Admission costs $25.49. Heres what you get: No cover fees for participating bars and party venues At least two free drinks or shots St. Patricks Day-themed specials menus Free holiday bead necklaces Free Crawl with Us party cup and bottle opener lanyard A custom badge Access to professional photographers A digital map of participating venues Join the luckiest crawl of the year, Crawl With US said. A DJ spins tunes at Karma dance club in downtown Boise. (Karma/8th Street Social Club) Find St. Paddys Day party deals If you want to take advantage of No Pants Paddys Day Party discounts in downtown Boise, youll have to leave your jeans at home. Whether youre rocking shorts, tutus, or boxers, just wear anything but pants, the Eventbrite page said. Advertisement Advertisement One wristband gets you access to four night clubs on Saturday with drinks and dancing starting at 8 p.m. Amsterdam Lounge : 609 West Main St., Boise StrangeLove and Dirty Little Roddys : 100 South Sixth St., Boise Karma: 800 West Idaho St., Suite No. 200, Boise Admission costs $15 in advance, or $20 at the door if youre wearing pants. People who show up pantsless will pay $15 at the door. The Boise Highlanders play at Tom Graineys, a bar in Downtown Boise, for St. Patricks Day, March 17, 2023. The band includes bagpipes, drums and dancers. (Sarah A. Miller/smiller@idahostatesman.com) Where can I hear bagpipe music in Ada County? Want to hear some bagpipe music this weekend? Keep your tips at the ready. Boise Fire Department Pipes and Drums will parade through venues around Ada County on Saturday. Heres where and when you can catch these kilted firefighters in action: Advertisement Advertisement Alex Borsuk and Matt Hasenohr, of Portland, Oregon, enjoy a run along the Boise Greenbelt Thursday, July 2, 2020. The two said they were passing through Boise and decided to stop for a run and were delighted to learn about the Greenbelt. (Darin Oswald/doswald@idahostatesman.com) Get active at Boises luckiest run in town More than 1,800 local participants of all ages and abilities are expected to participate in the YMCA St. Patricks Day Run on Saturday, according to organizers. Trade your pot of gold for a pair of sneakers, the YMCA said. Youre invited to the luckiest run in town. Runners can sign up for three different races that take place along the Green Belt on Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement The Leprechaun Mile race begins at 9:45 a.m. and will wind through Julia Davis Park. The 5-kilometer race will begin at 10 a.m. in Julia Davis Park and will travel around Ann Morrison Park as well. Those participating in the 5-mile race will begin their trek with the 5-kilometer runners, but theyll break apart after Ann Morrison Park. The 5-mile path will continue on and circle around Kathryn Albertson Park. It costs $40 to enter in the 5-kilometer or 5-mile events, while the Leprechaun mile participation fee is $35. This beloved community tradition directly supports the Treasure Valley Family YMCA and the YMCA Annual Campaign, Griffin Gettman, a YMCA event director, told the Idaho Statesman via email, ensuring that youth, adults, and families can participate in Y membership and programs. Downtown St. Patrick's Day festivities include an official pub crawl. (Alex Couey / Special to the Idaho Statesman) When does Boise pub crawl start on St. Patricks Day? Hosted by PubCrawls, the Boise Official St. Patricks Day Bar Crawl starts at 10 Barrel Brewing Boise on Tuesday, March 17. Check-in begins at 5 p.m. Advertisement Advertisement Tickets cost $30.65 each and cover: Entry fees to participating bars Access to the PubCrawl after party St. Patricks Day food and drink specials Professional photographer A PubCrawls wristband A digital map of participating venues St. Patricks Day is Saturday, which means green beer will flow. (Tim Dorr/Flickr) Search for gnomes at Boise pub At 10 Barrel Brewing Boise, St. Patricks Day festivities include a multi-day pub hunt. From 11 a.m. Friday, March 13, until closing time on Tuesday at 9 p.m., kids can search the pub for hidden gnomes. When your kids spot a gnome in the pub, they can retrieve a prize from the host, the brewery said on Instagram. Admission is free for art and music events at Black Hawk College, Moline. The ArtSpace Gallery at Black Hawk College is exhibiting Imperfect Objects mixed media assemblage by Wayne Bertola through Friday, April 3. Everyone is invited to a closing reception from 4-5:15 p.m. Thursday, April 2, with an artist talk at 4:15 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided. Ode to Memory by Wayne Bertola (Black Hawk College) The ArtSpace Gallery is on the first floor of Building 4 at the Quad-Cities Campus, 6600 34th Ave., Moline. For more information about exhibits in the ArtSpace Gallery, visit here. Advertisement Advertisement The Black Hawk College Jazz Festival will be 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, at United Township High School, 1275 Avenue of the Cities, East Moline. (Black Hawk College) The concert will feature the Iowa Womens Jazz Orchestra with the Black Hawk College Jazz Ensemble and the United Township High School Jazz Ensemble. The Black Hack College Jazz Ensemble will celebrate International Jazz Day at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 30, at Moline Public Library, 3210 41st St., Moline. The Black Hawk College Jazz Ensemble is directed by Corey Kendrick. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. Do you often find yourself wondering what food to cook, how to cook it, and even that dreaded questionhow much of it? Its a daily struggle for all of us, but need not be with our food horoscope. Satisfaction is only a click away! Aries Shout if you must, but make sure you're heard loud and clear today. You'll come across as rude, but you'll get your message across. Drop that approach once outside of the office. You won't get you your New York Reuben and slaw any faster by barking out your order as soon as you walk into the deli, although you'll probably get thrown out right away. Taurus Shopping will be dangerous today; you simply must have all sorts of crap. Come to your senses and use your money sensibly if you must splash out. You'll talk about a fabulous lobster thermador dinner long after you've forgotten about that shiny bauble you threw in a drawer that you'll never see again. Gemini You'll have an opportunity to meet a lot of valuable contacts today, so keep your professional demeanor up. You can let your guard down later at home where no one can see you sprawled out on the couch, spilling beer and Sloppy Joes all over your shirt while watching truck and tractor pull videos. Cancer You'll eschew the ordinary and conservative in favor of wild and raunchy. So splash out tonight, but do it in your own inimitable style. That could mean asking the chef to turn up the heat on a Szechuan garlic chicken dish or eating a hot dog from a street vendor that's been floating in the same water for weeks. Leo Looking at an irritating project from a different angle could finally bring it to fruition. That could take more focus than you've got today, so better give yourself a kick-start. The soothing aroma and flavor of a cup of orange pekoe tea will clear your head, while a sliver of dark chocolate will give you a much-needed sugar rush. Prepare yourself to take on each month with your personalized Monthly Horoscope! Virgo Don't let cold logic keep you from seeing the human side of things. People make mistakes; so help them move on without demeaning criticism. This will make for a happy workplace, and guarantee that no one will throw a plate of fettuccine alfredo in your face during lunch again. Libra Watch who you share your innermost secrets with today; you never know where they might turn up. One person will tell another and before you know it, everyone will know your secret turkey chili and corn recipe and about last week's unfortunate incident. Scorpio Taking risks is not advised so maintain the status quo today. Bad stock tips will make you broke, bungee jumping will make you heave, and eating Japanese sea urchin will make you sick. Stay in the middle to avoid the gambit of emotions, and trade that uni for a tuna on white. Sagittarius The nice thing about busy days is that they're over before you know it. Today will be one of them, and splashing out afterward will be a great end to the week. Meet everyone at a loud Mexican restaurant where the margaritas pour freely, and there's no end to the enchiladas and nachos. Capricorn Your mind may have had enough from a hectic week, and it will shut down sometime around midday. So skip the hot open-face turkey sandwich with mashers lunch today. The onslaught of tryptophan and warm gravy will tax your already weakened brain, and you'll spend the rest of the day sound asleep at your desk. Aquarius Do something unique after work and take the gang to a Cajun restaurant. The zydeco music will get everyone in a swinging mood, as will lots of gumbo, jambalaya and jalapeno cornbread. Toss in a few mojitos and say hello to the weekend! Pisces Today will have two sides: wild and crazy. So expect a roller coaster of emotions and stressful situations. But the day will be over before long, and you'll find yourself at a quiet Italian restaurant, enjoying a fine glass of wine and a plate of osso buco, feeling content and relaxed. Find out what the cards have in store for you with your Yearly Tarot Reading. Editors note: This story was originally published on March 14, 2025. A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives. Nerd alert ... or perhaps its a food alert. Today is March 14, you know 3.14, otherwise known as Pi Day. In a month-day format, (3-14) represents the three digits of the value of . Pi is the mathematical constant of the ratio of any circles circumference divided by its diameter. (Note: Some of us had to look it up.) Advertisement Advertisement According to news reports, the idea of Pi Day originated with physicist Larry Shaw, who organized the first Pi Day celebration at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988. Almost exactly 21 years later, on March 11, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution proclaiming March 14 to be National Pi Day. The resolution encourages schools to teach their students about pi and to engage them about mathematics. Whatever. Its possible most Americans are most interested in the food deals you can get on Pi Day. Like pizza pie. Or cherry pie. The fun facts around Pi Day Its possible, but perhaps not likely, that they have been honoring Pi Day since 1592. According to math folks, the Ultimate Pi day fell on March 14, 1592, at 6:53 a.m., which was the largest correspondence between calendar dates and significant digits of pi since the introduction of the Julian calendar (3.14159265358). Utah Connections Academy's Megan Tahbun looks over at fellow student Aspen Romrell as teachers and students battled it out in a pie-eating contest in celebration of Pi Day on Monday, March 14, 2016. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News In 2019, Google announced that its employee Emma Haruka Iwao had broken the world record for calculating pi, to 31.4 trillion digits. She reportedly did it on Pi Day using Google Cloud. And finally, Albert Einstein, who would revolutionize physics and the human understanding of the universe and would have savored Pi Day was born on this day in 1879 in Ulm, Germany. Advertisement Advertisement In Utah, schoolchildren have enjoyed Pi Day in a variety of ways, memorizing the number and its relation to other concepts, pie-eating contests and efforting a pi paper chain world record. And who can forget pi-dyed shirts? In recent years, the food industry has taken over, offering delightful deals on pies of all kinds. Here are stories from Deseret News archives about Pi Day in all its glory: 1,200-mile calculation give pi a billion digits Japanese researchers set record on value of pi Students get their fill on Pi Day Gallery: Students, teachers dive into Pi Day celebration Students attempt to break pi paper chain world record, run out of time Advertisement Advertisement Math students to raise cash with pi-dye shirts `Pi shows exciting side of math, numbers University of Utah math professor starts international math movement Math + music = a CD for Salt Lake man The Government has notified the Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2026, amending Rule 3 of the Electricity Rules, 2005 relating to Captive Generating Plants (CGPs). The amendments aim to remove interpretational ambiguities, improve ease of doing business for industry, and align the captive generation framework with India's energy transition and industrial growth objectives. According to the Ministry of Power, captive power generation has been a key enabling provision under the Electricity Act, 2003. The National Electricity Policy, 2005, recognised captive generation as an important mechanism for ensuring reliable and cost-effective electricity supply to industry. Captive power has supported industrial growth by enabling industries to mitigate supply constraints and manage electricity cost volatility. Indian industries are increasingly adopting non-fossil fuel-based energy to meet sustainability commitments and reduce costs. In this context, enabling a clear, predictable and implementable framework for captive power generation is critical for enhancing industrial competitiveness and supporting India's long-term economic growth. Encouraging generation closer to the point of consumption also helps reduce transmission losses, improve system efficiency and strengthen grid resilience. The amendments, therefore, seek to provide clarity in the implementation of captive generation provisions while maintaining the statutory safeguards relating to ownership and consumption. The Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2026, have been introduced to provide greater clarity and flexibility in the framework governing captive power plants so that industries can more easily generate electricity for their own consumption. The amendments seek to align the captive generation regime with modern corporate structures and evolving industrial energy needs, particularly as companies increasingly invest in non-fossil fuel-based captive power projects. By clarifying ownership provisions, simplifying rules for group captive arrangements, and establishing a clear verification mechanism, the amendments aim to reduce regulatory ambiguity and disputes. Many provisions in the Rules have been simplified for ease of compliance. A new provision has been added to avoid imposition of charges on the captive consumers by the distribution licensees pending verification of the captive status. Overall, the amendments are expected to promote ease of doing business, enable industries to access reliable and cost-competitive electricity through captive generation, reduce regulatory ambiguities and disputes, and encourage greater investment in captive and non-fossil fuel-based energy projects. The amendments have been finalised after extensive stakeholder consultations. The first key feature of the amendments is Clearly Defined Ownership Requirements. The definition of ownership has been clarified to include subsidiaries, holding companies and other subsidiaries of the holding company of the entity that establishes the captive generating plant. This clarification recognises modern corporate structures where power assets are often developed through group entities or special purpose vehicles. The amendment ensures that legitimate captive investments by corporate groups are not denied captive status merely due to organisational structuring. The second key feature of the amendments is the Uniform Verification Period. Verification of captive status will be undertaken for the entire financial year, ensuring clarity and uniformity in implementation. In cases involving the first or last year of ownership of a captive generating plant, verification may be undertaken for the relevant part of the financial year. The third one is Captive Plants established by the Association of Persons (AoP). The amendments provide greater flexibility in the operation of group captive projects established through an Association of Persons (AoP). Captive users will be able to draw power based on their operational requirements, subject to overall compliance with the statutory ownership and consumption conditions. Consumption exceeding the proportionate entitlement of an individual user will not result in the disqualification of captive status for the plant. However, such excess consumption will not qualify as individual captive consumption but will still count towards the collective captive consumption qualifying requirement of the group. Where a member of the AoP holds 26 per cent or more ownership, the proportionate consumption requirement will not apply to that entity and its entire consumption will be treated as captive consumption. For the purpose of proportionate consumption calculation, a captive user together with its subsidiaries, holding company and other subsidiaries of the holding company will be treated as a single person. The other key feature of the amendments is Nodal Agencies for Captive Status Verification. With effect from 1st April 2026, the State or Union Territory Governments may designate a nodal agency for verification of captive status in cases of intra-state captive consumption. For inter-state captive consumption, verification will be undertaken by the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC). A Grievance Redressal Committee will be constituted by the Appropriate Government to address disputes arising from such verification decisions. The fifth key feature of the amendments is the Treatment of Cross-Subsidy Surcharge and Additional Surcharge. Pending verification of captive status, Cross-Subsidy Surcharge (CSS) and Additional Surcharge (AS) will not be levied if the captive users submit the prescribed declaration in accordance with the procedures issued by the NLDC (for inter-state cases) or the State nodal agency (for intra-state cases). If a generating plant subsequently fails to qualify as a captive generating plant upon verification, the applicable CSS and AS will become payable along with carrying costs. The carrying cost will be calculated at the base rate of the Late Payment Surcharge under the Electricity (Late Payment Surcharge and Related Matters) Rules, 2022. The sixth key feature of the amendments is the applicability of the Amendments. To facilitate smooth implementation, certain provisions relating to proportionate consumption in AoP structures, the verification framework, and the treatment of CSS and AS will come into effect from 1st April 2026. Other amendments will take effect immediately. The seventh is Reform for Supporting industrial growth and clean energy transition. By enabling industries to access reliable and cost-competitive electricity through captive generation, the reforms will strengthen industrial competitiveness and support India's transition towards a sustainable energy future. The reforms also align with the Government's broader vision of energy self-reliance, while supporting India's vision of achieving Viksit Bharat @2047. (ANI) The post Discover the Largest Non-Dinosaur Land Predator to Ever Live appeared first on A-Z Animals. Quick Take Millions of years ago , the earth was ruled by massive animals. Many of these most notable remarkable animals were dinosaurs . Among these ancient formidable animals was a specific non-dinosaur, prehistoric reptile known as Fasolasuchus. Fasolasuchus was covered in bony plates and reached a size of between 24 to 33 feet long. Long before mammals dominated the land and even before the most famous dinosaurs appeared, Earth was home to a wide variety of powerful predators. While dinosaurs often get most of the attention when it comes to giant prehistoric carnivores, they werent the only massive creatures around millions of years ago. In fact, several large non-dinosaur predators once dominated ancient ecosystems, hunting hefty prey and shaping the food chains of their time. Advertisement Advertisement Among these formidable animals was a specific prehistoric reptile. This biggest non-dinosaur land predator was quite powerful. By examining fossil evidence and scientific research, paleontologists have pieced together the story of this incredible hunter. This article takes a deep dive into the remarkable creature, revealing how it lived, what it hunted, and what it looked like. The Largest Land Animals: Dinosaurs iStock.com/Orla (iStock.com/Orla) Dinosaurs were a group of reptiles that lived on Earth for around 180 million years. They appeared roughly 230 million years ago during the Late Triassic period. However, most dinosaurs became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous period, roughly 66 million years ago. Over the years, with the discovery of fossils and traces of life, more than 1,000 non-avian dinosaur species have been identified. Although dinosaurs were believed to be some of the largest land predators, research and findings over the years establish that some dinosaurs were small and feathered, and a few eventually evolved into birds capable of flight. The largest dinosaurs were those with the longest length from head to tail, although gauging the size or weight of dinosaurs was also helpful in figuring out the largest. Dinosaurs had unique appearances: horned, armored, dome-headed, crested, long-necked, and sickle-clawed. Some were peaceful vegetarians, while others were flesh-ripping predators. Also, some dinosaurs were not fully terrestrial; some could move around in bodies of water. Despite this, dinosaurs were still the largest predators to walk the earth. However, other large non-dinosaur land animals also walked the earth long before humans, and the largest of them all was Paraceratherium. Fasolasuchus: The Largest Non-Dinosaur Land Predator Adwo/Shutterstock.com (Adwo/Shutterstock.com) Fasolasuchus tenax is a prehistoric reptile that lived during the Late Triassic period, approximately 230 million years ago. It was discovered in Argentina and described by Argentine paleontologist Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini in 1995. Advertisement Advertisement Fasolasuchus belongs to a group of reptiles called rauisuchids, which were large carnivores that roamed the Earth during the Triassic period. Fasolasuchus was one of the largest members of this group, measuring about 24-30 feet in length and weighing in at a hefty 4,000 pounds! This would make Fasolasuchus one of the largest known non-dinosaur terrestrial predators. One interesting feature of Fasolasuchus is its powerful jaws. The fossilized skull shows large teeth with serrated edges, similar to those found in modern-day crocodiles. This suggests that Fasolasuchus was a fierce predator capable of taking down large prey. While Fasolasuchus was an impressive creature, it is not related to dinosaurs. Instead, it belongs to a group of reptiles called archosaurs, including dinosaurs and their closest relatives. Overall, Fasolasuchus provides another fascinating glimpse into the world of prehistoric life and reminds us just how diverse and awe-inspiring these creatures were millions of years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Fasolasuchus was likely the biggest of the rauisuchians, reaching a size of between 24 to 33 feet long. Saurosuchus, another rauisuchian from Argentina, is estimated to be up to 9m long and could possibly be larger than Fasolasuchus, but without more conclusive evidence, it is impossible to know for sure. What We Know About the Massive Animal Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com (Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com) In terms of appearance, Fasolasuchus likely resembled other large crocodile-like creatures from the Triassic period, with its broad head filled with sharp teeth designed for tearing flesh apart. Its skin would have been thick and scaly like modern-day crocodiles but instead covered in bony plates called osteoderms. Fasolasuchus fossils are fragmentary, so osteoderm patterns are not well known. However, some speculate that Fasolasuchus likely had a unique physical characteristic a single row of osteoderms running down its back. This feature is particularly noteworthy because other rauisuchians typically had more than one row, which provided them with some degree of protection against attacks from other rauisuchians who were attempting to bite their neck or spine. As one of the largest rauisuchians in its ecosystem, Fasolasuchus may not have needed this additional defense mechanism. Its possible that conflicts between different species were rare or non-existent for Fasolasuchus, and it only had to worry about potential challenges from others within its own species, such as contests over carcasses or mating opportunities. Advertisement Advertisement Despite having fewer osteoderms than most of its relatives, Fasolasuchus was still an imposing creature with an estimated length of roughly 2633 ft and a weight exceeding two tons. Its body was well adapted for life on land, featuring four powerful legs that helped it move quickly across the ground and a long tail that aided in balance and stability during sudden movements. Fasolasuchus likely disappeared during the End-Triassic extinction (~201 million years ago) due to ecosystem collapse, volcanic eruptions, and climate change. Other Large Non-Dinosaur Carnivores Piotrus / CC BY-SA 3.0 - Original / License (Piotrus / CC BY-SA 3.0) During the Late Triassic period, there were a few other large carnivorous animals that coexisted with dinosaurs. Among them were phytosaurs, which were crocodile-like predators that could grow up to 20 feet in length. Overall, these non-dinosaur predators played an important role in shaping ecosystems during the Late Triassic period and provided valuable insights into the diversity of life during this time period. Advertisement Advertisement Another notable predator from this time was the Postosuchus, a distant relative of the modern-day crocodile that had sharp teeth for tearing through flesh. They were mostly quadrupedal, though occasionally could rear up. It is estimated to have been around 16-18 feet long and may have preyed on smaller dinosaurs. Overall, these non-dinosaur predators played an important role in shaping ecosystems during the Late Triassic period and provided valuable insights into the diversity of life during this time period. Carnivorous Dinosaurs Daniel Eskridge/Shutterstock.com (Daniel Eskridge/Shutterstock.com) During the late Triassic period, several carnivorous dinosaurs roamed the earth. These included the Coelophysis, Dilophosaurus, and Herrerasaurus. The Coelophysis was a small bipedal dinosaur that lived in what is now North America. It had long legs and a slender frame, making it an agile hunter. The Dilophosaurus was also a bipedal dinosaur but much larger than the Coelophysis. It had distinctive crests on its head. The Herrerasaurus was one of the earliest known carnivorous dinosaurs, living in what is now Argentina. It had large claws on its hands and feet for grasping prey and sharp teeth for tearing flesh. These three species were among the top predators of their time, hunting smaller animals such as reptiles and early mammals. The post Discover the Largest Non-Dinosaur Land Predator to Ever Live appeared first on A-Z Animals. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) A festival celebrating one of Louisianas most iconic dishes is returning to Baton Rouge. The Louisiana Red Beans & Rice Heritage and Music Festival will take place March 2022, at 238 North Blvd in Baton Rouge. Organizers said the event is free and open to the public. The festival was founded by Damon and Tameeka Stewart, who created the event to highlight the cultural importance of red beans and rice, a dish deeply rooted in Louisiana traditions. Advertisement Advertisement Attendees can expect live musical performances, food vendors serving creative red beans and rice dishes, influencer food judges, family-friendly activities and cultural presentations celebrating Louisianas culinary heritage. Organizers said the festival also supports local chefs, artists and small businesses while bringing the community together. Our goal is to bring the community together while honoring the history and tradition of red beans and rice in Louisiana, the founders said in a press release. Making the festival free allows everyone in the community to come out, celebrate our culture, and experience the flavors and music that make Louisiana so special. More information about the festival, including vendor and sponsorship opportunities, is available here. Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. More than 200 high school students are expected to compete in a business strategy competition at UMass Dartmouth. The 13th annual JA Titan Business Challenge, hosted in partnership with UMass Dartmouth, will offer students a hands-on learning experience and a chance to win scholarships, according to a community announcement. The event will take place at UMass Dartmouth March 18. Bristol County Savings Bank is the title sponsor of the event, which is being held in partnership with UMass Dartmouth. Advertisement Advertisement Students from eight schools are expected to participate: Apponequet Regional High School, Atlantis Charter High School, B.M.C. Durfee High School, Bishop Stang High School, Fairhaven High School, Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, New Bedford High School and Taunton High School. UMass Dartmouth During the competition, students will develop budgets, interpret financial reports and learn about pricing, production, capital investments, research and development, marketing and charitable giving. The event is free for students and their schools, according to the announcement. We are deeply grateful to our Title Sponsor, Bristol County Savings Bank, for their generous and steadfast supportboth today and throughout the 13 years since the JA Titan Business Challenge at UMass Dartmouth first began, said Jeffrey Pelletier, president, Junior Achievement of Southern Massachusetts. Since then, more than 2,400 local students have participated in this impactful program that teaches real-world business skills, builds foundational financial literacy skills, and promotes teamwork and collaboration. Bristol County Savings Bank is a tremendous partner for all of Junior Achievements work across Southern Massachusetts and we are looking forward to another exciting student competition at UMass Dartmouth. Advertisement Advertisement "The Bank is proud to support JA and its Titan Business Challenge over the years and help area high school students gain a better understanding of the real world of business and how to compete in it," said Michael Patacao, senior vice president/commercial lending market manager with Bristol County Savings Bank and chair of the Board of Directors, Junior Achievement of Southern Massachusetts, in the announcement. "Each year it is rewarding for our volunteers to feel the spirit of competition and sense of anticipation rise in the room as the teams progress through the final round and wait to hear if their team has best met the challenge. The event is part of Junior Achievements mission to provide young people with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the future. The organization offers in-school and out-of-school programs focusing on financial literacy, career readiness and entrepreneurship. Each year, Junior Achievement impacts nearly 7,000 students across Bristol, Barnstable and southern Plymouth counties. For more information, please contact Pelletier at jeffrey.pelletier@ja.org. Bristol County Savings Bank, a Massachusetts-chartered bank and wholly owned subsidiary of Beacon Bancorp, is a full-service banking institution with about $3.1 billion in assets. Founded in 1846, the bank serves individuals, businesses, municipalities and nonprofit organizations throughout southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This story was created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct. This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: UMass Dartmouth to host high school business challenge NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) Super Sunday is a day of New Orleans culture, celebration and a lively display of creativity and tradition. I get to see all the babies. I get to see all the chiefs, all the spy boys, flag boys, and the Wyoming, and learn and see what type of beautiful work theyve done. Because we are all creators in this culture, Eric Gordon, a spy boy of the Golden Comanche Tribe, said. For Gordon, its a day he looks forward to each year, explaining that each tribe comes together to show off their hard work. Advertisement Advertisement When it comes to his Mardi Gras Indian suits, he works to incorporate the history from the inception of the Mardi Gras Indians when the slaves ran away and met the Native Americans. It gives people a chance to learn more about it. This year, my store is Black Wall Street, which tells the history of Black Wall Street and the things that happened during that time frame. Last year, I talked on Congo Square. And they go home, and they study that. They want to learn our heritage and our culture in New Orleans, Gordon said. Whether its the hand-sewn beaded suits, call-and-response chants or drumming, Gordon said its all rooted in African American resilience, pride and appreciation for one another. Advertisement Advertisement Adding the music helps lead the way. (WGNO/Ashley Hamilton) (WGNO/Ashley Hamilton) (WGNO/Ashley Hamilton) Ive played with just about every brass band. The music lives on through us. The music is a part of New Orleans, a part of New Orleans culture, and we all keep it going, Gordon said. The history of Super Sunday goes back generations. Gordon said nothing makes him prouder than the opportunity he gets to walk the Uptown streets with his sons. As Eron Gordon is always proud to stand next to his father. I get to put my suit on, and all the people can watch me. I get to wear a jacket and my armrest. I like to dance, Eron Gordon said. Though this year is different, as he will be celebrating his father, who recently passed away. Advertisement Advertisement He said, although he isnt here physically, he is spiritually. In the spirit realm, we do this for our ancestors. Anyway, all of this goes back to the history of us. So, now hes with the ancestors. He is one of our ancestors, and we will celebrate him as such. See yall, super Sunday, Gordon said. Super Sunday features three days of events. The Black Masking Indians will kick things off on Friday, March 13, at 6 p.m. at the Council Office on LaSalle Street for the ringing of the peace. They will then head to Dew Drop Inn for a free concert and to unveil this years poster. Super Sunday then kicks off on Sunday, March 15, at 12 p.m. at Al Davis Park at Washington and LaSalle Streets. All of these events are free to the public. Advertisement Advertisement Where Yat this Weekend: Tulane University; Long Beach, Mississippi; Irish Channel; Vieux Carre Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter. Latest Posts Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGNO. Leading up to and including St. Patricks Day, the annual day to celebrate Irish culture, is a super popular time for corned beef, though not Irish, at metro Detroit delis and restaurants. Are you on a quest for sandwiches stacked with layers of tender corned beef or Reuben sandwiches? Lucky for us, metro Detroit is chock full of places some around and family-run for decades that offer a solid line-up of sandwiches piled high with tender corned beef that are hearty and you might have trouble getting your mouth around. At Bread Basket Deli locations, which are franchised, you can order stacked corned beef sandwiches with 4 ounces of meat and up to 1 pound of meat. You can also order special cuts lean, center cut or fatty by request. You will find a plentiful variety of sandwiches from grilled Reuben-style with Russian dressing and those served with a scoop of cole slaw. Advertisement Advertisement More: Our favorite recipe for reuben sandwiches with corned beef leftovers More: How to cook corned beef for St. Patrick's Day: Easy, foolproof recipes Another bonus for metro Detroiters is Detroit hits the trifecta of corned beef makers. Grobbel's, Sy Ginsberg and Wigleys corned beef are all brands that hail from Detroit. While this list is certainly not exhaustive, its a sampling of sandwiches piled high with tender corned beef to sink your teeth in. Expect prices ranging $15 to $22 depending on the sandwich. Bode's Corned Beef House A corned beef sandwich served with chips and a pickle at Bode's Corned Beef House in Plymouth This iconic spot for corned beef has been in Plymouth, just a few blocks from downtown, for six decades. New owners recently took over, remodeling the inside but its famous, tender and stacked corned beef sandwiches made with corned beef cooked in-house are still the star on the menu. On St. Patricks Day they will offer a special menu and its regular menu will not be available. They will serve a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner with carrots and potatoes, plus a variety of its corned beef sandwiches. You can dine-in or carryout from Bodes carry-out station set up outside on Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement 280 N. Main St. Plymouth; 734-453-1883 or bodescornedbeefhouse.com Bread Basket Deli A corned beef Reuben sandwich at Bread Basket Deli in Lincoln Park. This deli with five locations in metro Detroit boasts that they sell tons of corned beef each week. You can order Bread Basket's famed corned beef sandwiches starting at 4 ounces of meat and up to one pound of meat. On the menu is are several variations of corned beef sandwiches. including the Reuben and a combo of corned beef and pastrami. At the Lincoln Park locations is the Double D Challenge, a 7 pound sandwich with 2 pounds of corned beef on 2 pounds of bread and 12 slices of Swiss and loaded with other ingredients. If you finish the sandwich, its on them. Multiple locations; breadbasketdelis.com D Motown Deli The Humdinger corned beef sandwich at D Motown Deli in Detroit. At D Motown Deli you can build your own sandwich with a choice of bread available starting at pound for a small up to extra large with one pound of meat. A variety of corned beef deluxe sandwiches from its traditional Reuben to the Humdinger with Corned beef, Swiss, slaw and Russian dressing. Advertisement Advertisement 3750 Gratiot Ave., Detroit; 313-925-1790 or dmotowndeli.com Franks Deli & Grill A corned beef sandwich at Frank's Deli and Grill in the Eastern Market district. In the Eastern Market area, Franks is from Wigley's corned beef folks. The deli is known as the home of the one-pound, iconic corned beef sandwich along with an array of other sandwiches and wraps. Theres also a pound corned beef sandwich plus a Reuben. Its menu includes salads and breakfast is served all day. 3405 Russell St., Detroit; 313-285-9551 or franksdeliandgrill.com Louie's Ham and Corned Beef Serving breakfast, salads and sandwiches, Louie's is located at Mack and Riopelle on the outskirts of Eastern Market. Louie's Reuben features corned beef with Swiss and sauerkraut on grilled rye. The Louies Delight is corned beef topped with Swiss cheese, coleslaw, and Thousand Island dressing. A combo has stacked pastrami and corned beef on grilled rye. Advertisement Advertisement 3570 Riopelle St., Detroit; 313-831-1800. Mudgie's Deli & Bar A corned beef Reuben sandwich from Mudgie's Deli in Corktown. A highlight at this longtime Corktown spot is its Corned Beef Reuben with tender corned beef topped with Swiss, sauerkraut and 1000 island on grilled rye. Theres also a classic corned beef sandwich with Swiss cheese, and mustard served on rye which can be made vegan. On Mudgie's regular menu is the Barrett sandwich. It's a classic with corned beef, creamy coleslaw, Swiss cheese and Thousand Island on an onion roll. 1413 Brooklyn, Detroit; 313-961-2000 or mudgiesdeli.com Original Bread Basket Deli Original Bread Basket Deli corned beef sandwich. In business since 1968 and started by Earl Mostyn and Ron Forman, the deli is known for its corned beef served on Jewish rye bread. Since its start, the deli has used the same recipes as original owners, according to its website. They use Sy Ginsbergs meats, Superior bakery breads, Topors pickles and Better Made potato chips. Advertisement Advertisement On the delis website they boast that its the delis great food made The Bread Basket one of the best Jewish-style delicatessen restaurants in Michigan. Here, they also sell house-cooked corned beef, roast brisket and pastrami by the pound. This location is not affiliated with the chain of Bread Basket Delis. 26052 Greenfield Road, Oak Park; 248-968-0022 or originalbreadbasketdeli.com Star Deli Star Deli corned beef sandwich special. A metro Detroit mainstay for more than 50 years. Shirah Farber Eurich, the granddaughter of the founder, is its general manager and says shes worked at the deli for 30 years. At Star Deli you can build your own sandwich or choose from one of the delis best sellers like the corned beef with cole slaw. A featured special is 6 ounces of corned beef on rye with coleslaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. When you build your own you can choose between hot or cold corned beef and you can choose corned beef that is regular, lean or fatty. Advertisement Advertisement 24555 W. 12 Mile Road, Southfield; 248-352-7377 or stardeli.net Steve's Deli A stacked corned beef sandwich at Steve's Deli in Bloomfield Hills. This longtime deli is known for its extensive menu that offers a variety of "overstuffed" sandwiches including corned beef. There's a half-dozen corned beef and Reuben sandwiches on its combination menu. Included is the Dinty Moore, which has hot corned beef, lettuce, tomato, Russian dressing triple-decker served on white toast. 6646 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills; 248-932-0800 or stevesdeli.com The Stage Deli Stage Deli corned beef sandwich with cole slaw. In business since the early 1960s, the Stage Deli was founded by Harriet and Jack Goldberg. Known for its corned beef sandwiches. Its sandwich line up includes grilled Reubens to hot corned beef sandwiches stacked high with corned beef. Most are served on Stage rye bread. There's the Russian Reuben with hot pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on grilled pumpernickel. Steven Goldberg is now the owner of the. Its overall menu is vast, offering breakfast, appetizers, salads, sandwiches, soup and entrees. Advertisement Advertisement 6873 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield; 248-855-6622 or thestagedeli.com Vintage House vintage House corned beef sandwich has 10 ounces of corned beef. For more than a dozen years, this Fraser banquet hall and event space has been serving up O'Hara's (a secret family recipe) corned beef sandwiches in the days leading up and including St. Patrick's Day. Owner Anthony Jekielek says its sandwiches have a generous 10 ounces of corned beef (they use a special cut from Grobbels) and are served on a Russian rye bread made for the Vintage House from East Detroit Bakery and Deli. Several corned beef sandwich options are available including a Reuben as well as a corned beef dinner. Carryout is 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday-Monday. From 10 a.m.-8 p.m. St. Patricks Day (Tuesday) is the Vintage House indoor and outdoor (tented) event. 31816 Utica Road, Fraser; 586-415-5678 or vintagebanquetsandcatering.com Wheat & Rye Bar and Grill The Giant Corned Beef sandwich at the Wheat & Rye in Allen Park. With three locations, Allen Park, Romulus and Southgate, this bar and restaurant is known for its big sandwiches, corned beef included, and large portions. The Allen Park location is its longest standing, opening in 1981. Its giant stacked corned beef is served on an onion roll with a pickle. No one leaves without a carry box, manager Lauren James said. Theres also a Reuben on the menu along with a variety of other sandwiches. Advertisement Advertisement Multiple locations; wheatandryebarandgrill.com Wheat & Rye Reuben Panini. Zingerman's Deli Zingerman's Deli Reuben sandwich. The famed Ann Arbor deli's bestseller is its Reuben sandwich. The sandwich has layers of tender corned beef topped with Swiss Emmental cheese, Brinery sauerkraut and Russian dressing on grilled Jewish rye bread. You can also order a Zingerman's Corned Beef Reuben Sandwich Kit from its mail order arm. The kit is sold in various serving sizes and options and includes Jewish Rye, sliced Corned Beef, sliced Emmentaler Swiss cheese, Zingermans potato chips, coleslaw, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, pickles, nut-free Black Magic Brownie Bites. 422 Detroit St., Ann Arbor; 734-663-3354 or zingermansdeli.com This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Where to get corned beef sandwiches in metro Detroit Lazaros Kosmas is among the newest Greek restaurant owners in Polk County, and he's determined to keep the beloved dishes of his childhood on the menu. Kosmas recently purchased The Egg Factory of South Lakeland from Bill and Rosa Gergatsoulis and spent more than two weeks transforming into the Lakeland Diner, at 6960 S. Florida Ave. Former patrons will find a refreshed menu of classic American breakfast favorites, sandwiches and grilled items dished up alongside heritage Greek dishes. Running and operating a diner is simply in his blood, Kosmas said. Advertisement Advertisement "I've had it in my heart since I was young," he said. " My grandfather used to talk to me of his diner, showing me how to do things in the kitchen." On left, Lazaros Kosmas has purchased what was formerly The Egg Factory and transformed it into Lakeland Diner, at 6960 S. Florida Ave., with help of his mother, Sophie, serving classic American fare with a touch of Greek heritage. Now Kosmas hopes to bring the taste of his Greek heritage to Lakeland and Polk County diners, while continuing to offer familiar classic American dishes. "I want to keep a lot of options on the menu, so everyone can be happy," he said. Arriving in Polk from Greece Kosmas said he was born and raised in Karpathos, Greece where he studied statistics. But he grew up listening to stories of his grandparents operating a diner in New Jersey. "I used to cook a lot with my grandma, making a lot of traditional Greek recipes," he said. "I remember myself always being in the kitchen doing stuff and cooking with her." Lakeland Diner owner Lazaros Kosmas has put traditional Greek dishes including gyros and souvlaki platters on the menu, offering diners a taste of childhood favorites. His family owned and operated a cafe and restaurant serving Greek food for many years. There, Kosmas said he worked as a server learning customer service skills and front-of-the-house operations. Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, Kosmas moved to Winter Haven and got his first job through a family friend, Greek restaurateur Manny Nikolaidis, founder and operator of Manny's Chop Houses in Haines City and Winter Haven. He then picked up a second job working mornings at The Egg Factory's location on South Combee Road in Lakeland. Kosmas was with The Egg Factory when it took over The Wooden Spoon Diner, which Manny Roussos had owned and operated at 6960 S. Florida Ave. for more than five years. Working at The Egg Factory, Kosmas said the Gergatsoulis family gave him the opportunity to learn the back-of-house operations, and how to run and handle the kitchen. Then Kosmas was offered the opportunity to purchase The Egg Factory and transform it into something of his own. More than two weeks were spent tearing apart the kitchen, pulling it entirely out to deep clean and tend to maintenance issues, Kosmas said. Fresh beginnings for Lakeland Diner Lazaros Kosmas, owner of Lakeland Diner, has given the restaurant a fresh coat of white and blue paint matching the national colors of Greece, his native homeland. Patrons stepping into Lakeland Diner will notice the restaurant has received an update with a fresh coat of white and bright blue paint, in the colors of Greece's national flag. The decor is a somewhat eclectic mix of artwork that gives a nod to Kosmas' Greek heritage, tribute to Lakeland and its iconic swans and values in fresh, wholesome food. Advertisement Advertisement It's extensive menu starts with classic American breakfast dishes including egg platters (starting at $8.99) to four-egg omelettes (from $10.49) that have been given a fresh twist, Kosmas said. There are still pancakes, waffles and other breakfast dishes that are served all day long. For appetizers, diners can find classic American fare mixed with a touch of Southern in fried green tomatoes ($7.49) and mozzarellas sticks served up with a homemade marinara ($9.99). Kosmas proudly said pasta sauces are made from scratch by the kitchen. For those looking to step away from classic American fare, Kosmas has decided to offer a selection of Greek appetizers and dishes that are likely to be more familiar to Polk residents. There's a simple plate of pita with hummus ($5.99) to stuffed grape leaves, some might have heard called dolmas, served with an in-house tzatziki that's thick, creamy and flavorful. "Tzatziki, I think we have the best in the area," Kosmas said. Advertisement Advertisement Kosmas said he's made a decision to put a variety of Greek gyros and souvlaki platters on the menu (from $13.99), against the advice of other area Greek restaurateurs. His own mother, Sophie, said she fears the homemade Greek dishes can be a lot for the kitchen's staff to handle on top of an already extensive menu. "It can be a lot for the kitchen," Kosmas said. "I think we can handle it." Lakeland Diner is open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with breakfast served all day. This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland Diner serves up heartfelt Greek alongside classic Americana It shouldn't come as a surprise that the majority of Team Delish goes on vacation for the food. Sometimes, though, its not always easy to travel (and eat!) as often as wed like. But we don't let the culinary wanderlust get usdown! One of our great dreams is to visit the Mediterranean, home to many distinct cultures and cuisines replete with lots of seafood, fresh produce, simple preparations, and innovative flavor combinations. While we may not be able to travel to Greece or the Middle East right now, we can let our taste buds experience those different cultures from our own kitchen. Join us in getting inspired by these 32 incredible recipes for your own kitchen journey along the Mediterraneanwe can practically taste the salt air already. Officially, there are around 20 countries that make up the border along the Mediterranean Sea, including the western portion of the Middle East, southern Europe (Greece, Spain, France, and Italy), and North Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria). There are also some outlier countries that sometimes get included, like Portugal, that dont actually touch the Mediterranean, since theyre also largely influenced by the food trends found there. All these countries bring distinct recipes and techniques to the Mediterranean table, so you can enjoy them pretty much for any meal, any day of the week. Kibbeh-Spiced Lamb Skewers Kibbeh is a popular Lebanese dish that gets even easier when served kebab-style. The grated onions in the lamb mixture make for a tender kebab, and the orange zest adds an unexpected flavor combination that accompanies the spiced meat perfectly. Get the Kibbeh-Spiced Lamb Skewers recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: ADRIENNE ANDERSON Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves) Traditionally stuffed with a meat and rice mixture, dolmas can also be made vegetarian (known as yalanc dolma, or fake dolma). Here we stick to rice with lots of herbs and spices, plus some currants for flavor and pine nuts for texture. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves) recipe. PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE Loukoumades These Greek donuts were given to Olympic winners in Ancient Greece. Too bad this isnt a reward anymore! Now they're eaten around special occasion, but we say make these just for fun or to impress your guests at the next dinner party. Get the Loukoumades recipe. PHOTO; ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLIST; TAYLOR ANN SPENCER Harissa Grilled Chicken In the world of powerhouse pantry staples, harissa is a flavor bomb of a condiment native to North Africa. Were no strangers to its magic here at Delishwe've already stirred it into clams and aioli, and used it to spice up turkey breast and meatballsand now were tapping it again for this easy, throw-together marinade for grilled chicken. Get the Harissa Grilled Chicken recipe. PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: BROOKE CAISON Greek Lemon Potatoes Greek lemon potatoesaka patates lemonatesjust might be the ideal way to make potatoes. Crispy yet tender, tangy and bright, these potatoes are the perfect pairing to countless dinner mains. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Greek Lemon Potatoes recipe. Hearst Owned Socca Socca, also known as farinata, is a chickpea flatbread popular in the Mediterranean. This deceptively simple dish is traditionally made with a short list of ingredients: chickpea flour, water, salt, and olive oil. The chickpea flour allows for a crispy exterior and soft center. Plus, its naturally gluten-free! Get the Socca recipe. PHOTO: LUCY SCHAEFFER; FOOD STYLING: FRANCESCA ZANI Gyro Sandwiches Ticket for one to Greece please! What's that? Too expensive? Sigh. We'll have to settle for these epically tasty homemade sandwiches. Pronounced YEE-roh or ZHEE-roh (it rhymes with hero), gyro sandwiches are packed with delicious spiced lamb, crunchy fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and tangy herb-and-cucumber tzatziki sauce. Get the Gyro Sandwiches recipe. PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: LENA ABRAHAM Chicken Souvlaki A classic Greek street food, souvlaki consists of tender pieces of marinated meat that have been skewered (in Greece souvla means skewer) and cooked on a grill. What results is a tender, flavorful main thats perfect to be served alongside veggies for the easiest summer dinner or added to a salad for a healthy lunch. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Chicken Souvlaki recipe. PHOTO: ROCKY LUTEN; FOOD STYLING: TAYLOR ANN SPENCER Chicken Shawarma Sheet-Pan Dinner This chicken shawarma sheet-pan dinner features strips of chicken thigh are marinated in Greek yogurt, cumin, coriander, and paprika, roasted on a sheet pan with red onion, then topped with a bright cucumber-tomato salad and plenty of herby tahini yogurt dressing. Serve with a side of warm pita or a pot of steaming white rice to round things out, and youll have a meal thatll make you actually want to eat leftovers. Get the Chicken Shawarma Sheet-Pan Dinner recipe. PHOTO: RYAN LIEBE; FOOD STYLING: SAM SENEVIRATNE Mussels with Tomatoes & Garlic If you're not a mussels fan, then I can guarantee you've never had them cooked in a garlicky white wine and tomato sauce. In just 45 minutes, you'll have a date night or dinner party-worthy seafood dinner that will impress everyone you serve it to. Serve with some toasty grilled bread (rubbed with garlic if you're feeling extra fancy) and your favorite veggie or carb-y side dish, and get ready to be transported instantly to a seaside getaway. Get the Mussels with Tomatoes & Garlic recipe. PHOTO: BRYAN GARDNER; FOOD STYLING: BROOKE CAISON Nicoise Salad According to food historians, the first Nicoise salad (from Nice, on Frances southeastern coast) contained only tomatoes, olive oil, and anchovies. Over the years, ingredients have been added and subtracted, so we figured wed follow our stomachs and gather some of our favorites: crunchy cucumbers, tender boiled potatoes and green beans, briny black olives and capers, jammy boiled eggs, tuna, and a punch of salty umami a la anchovy fillets. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Nicoise Salad recipe. PHOTO: ANDREW BUI; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE Halloumi Salad We think it's due time that halloumi, the brined Cypriot cheese, got its time in the spotlight. Besides the delightfully squeaky texture (where the cheese curd lovers at?) and the tangy, salty flavor, the high melting point is really what makes this cheese stand outwhen heat is applied, it develops a delicious golden crust that is so delightful in this salad. Get the Halloumi Salad recipe. Andrew Bui Hummus Hummus is one of our favorite dips, made even better by how simple it is to make. Made from blending chickpeas, tahini, and a few other simple ingredients in a food processor, its the easiest last-minute appetizer or satisfying snack to throw together. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Hummus recipe. PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE Pasta Alla Norma Pasta alla Norma is an easy Sicilian pasta dish with pan-fried eggplant, lots of ricotta salata, and a quick marinara sauce. The homemade sauce incorporates the oil that the eggplant is cooked in, which adds incredible flavor and mouthfeel. Get the Pasta Alla Norma recipe. Emily Hlavac Green Shakshuka Originating in North Africa and now strongly associated with Israeli cuisine, shakshuka typically involves cooking eggs in a sauce of tomatoes and red peppers. Ours is mildly spicy, full of flavor, and has perfectly runny eggs. Get the Shakshuka recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE Homemade Pita Bread Pita bread (also known as Arabic bread and Syrian bread) is a yeast-leavened flatbread common in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines. It can be made with or without an interior pocket. Regardless of which route you take, the possibilities are endlessbaked falafel sandwiches, sabich sandwiches, gyro sandwiches... Advertisement Advertisement Get the Homemade Pita Bread recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: LIBERTY FENNELL Scrunch Bread This Turkish borek-inspired bread gets its name from "scrunched"-up layers of phyllo and a spanakopita-esque filling that result in a stunning, pleated spiral shape. Fresh dill, feta, and spinach make it a grand slam you can enjoy any time of day. Get the Scrunch Bread recipe. PHOTO: LUCY SCHAEFFER; FOOD STYLING: LENA ABRAHAM Moroccan Lamb Tagine Tagine refers to both the pot and the stew-like dish that is cooked inside, but don't write off making one if you don't own a tagine pot. We made ours in a Dutch oven, and it came out perfectly! Get the Moroccan Lamb Tagine recipe. Parker Feierbach Homemade Falafel Although nothing's faster than picking up a sandwich from your favorite Middle Eastern, Greek, or Israeli restaurant, we promise that making these falafel balls at home is a cinch. These are herby and savory, and the crispy outside give ways to a perfectly tender and spicy interior. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Homemade Falafel recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE Greek Salad When youre looking for simple, refreshing, and reliable, youd be hard pressed to find a dish better than classic Greek salad. Best part? This Mediterranean recipe only takes 15 minutes to prepare, making it a perfect last-minute addition to any meal. Get the Greek Salad recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING BARRETT WASHBURNE Walnut & Pistachio Baklava Sticky and rich, baklava is a Turkish and Greek dessert made of layered sheets of phyllo dough, nuts, spices, sugar, and/or honey. Our version uses walnuts and pistachios, but feel free to use whichever nuts you like the most. Get the Walnut & Pistachio Baklava recipe. Joel Goldberg Fattoush Fattoush is a very fresh and bright Lebanese salad featuring toasted pita bread, mixed greens, and crunchy veggies (kind of like panzanella, but with pita instead of bread). The best way to mix fattoush is with your hands, so don't be afraid to really get in there! Advertisement Advertisement Get the Fattoush recipe. Erik Bernstein Vegetarian Moussaka Moussaka is a Greek eggplant-based dish that's traditionally made with ground beef. Here, we swapped the meat with lentils to make this an even heartier vegetarian dish. The creamy bechamel sauce on top of this is INCREDIBLE. Get the Vegetarian Moussaka recipe. Parker Feierbach Ratatouille This colorful classic southern French countryside dish is chock-full of healthy vegetables like eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini! Serve with crusty bread to sop up all their yummy juices. Get the Ratatouille recipe. PHOTO: ANDREW BUI; FOOD STYLING: BROOKE CAISON Paella Spanish paella might seem intimidating, but trust us, it's not. Our top tip: Keep an eye on the shrimp and musselsthey could cook in as little as a minute! As soon as the shrimp are opaque and the mussels are open, you're good to go. Advertisement Advertisement Get the Paella recipe. PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: BROOKE CAISON Spanakopita Spinach Pies Spanakopita is a popular savory Greek spinach pie frequently served as cut pieces from a whole slab pie, but we made individual pockets to save you the waiting time between baking, cooling, then slicing. As soon as they pop out of the oven, they're ready to be plated and devoured by your hungry guests, no knives necessary. Get the Spanakopita Spinach Pies recipe. PARKER FEIERBACH Classic Caponata Five cups of this classic Sicilian dish may seem like a LOT, but when you realize it's the perfect condiment, toast-topper, pasta mix-in, and chicken and seafood accompaniment (among many other things), you'll be wishing you made double of this irresistible antipasti. Get the Classic Caponata recipe. Andrew bui Skordalia Skordalia is a Greek dip made from potatoes and walnuts that's smooth and creamy and always a hit. Serve it with toasted pita bread or veggies for a new favorite! Get the Skordalia recipe. Emily Hlavac Green Tabouli Salad This Lebanese (or Syrian, depending who you ask ) salad is sure to improve whatever it's paired with. Bright, fresh herbs get friendly with sweet tomatoes and a sharp lemon dressing to create the salad equivalent of a breath of fresh air. Get the Tabouli Salad recipe. PARKER FEIERBACH Muhamarra Muhammara is a Middle Eastern dip made of roasted red peppers, walnuts, and usually some fresh bread crumbs, which provide a pleasant, unexpected texture. Pomegranate molasses adds sweetness and a little tang, giving the muhammara its trademark flavor. Get the Classic Muhammara recipe. SUZANNE CLEMENTS Kibbeh Saniye This Lebanese dish used to be considered a poor man's food that used the bulgur wheat to make the ground beef go further. Now it's a great main dish (perhaps served alongside some tabouli salad and tahini sauce?) or appetizer! Get the Kibbeh Saniye recipe. Erik Bernstein Pineapple Rum Granita Hailing from Sicily, classic granita ranks among the most refreshing desserts ever. Simple to make and easily modified, its perfect on its own as a light palate cleanser or dressed up with whipped cream and toppings. This pineapple version is big on tropical flavors, with heavy notes of vanilla and toffee thanks to a splash of rum and a scoop of dark brown sugar. Get the Pineapple Rum Granita recipe. Lucy schaeffer You Might Also Like BUCHAREST, Romania, (AP) Pet lovers gathered for the 15th annual Romanian pet industry event in Bucharest. The gathering invited owners to dress their pets in colorful costumes for a lively parade. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors. From ribs and pulled pork to sliced brisket and chicken wings, dozens of Oklahoma chefs and pitmasters cook up some of the best barbecue in the region. But whose is the best? This week, Southern Living named its favorite barbecue joint in every Southern state. This was done through an online third-party survey from July through September, which collected over 17,000 responses. In 2024 and 2025, Oklahoma Joes Bar-B-Cue, a spot originally based in Stillwater and now with multiple locations, known as much for its founder's smokers as it is for its barbecue, took the Southern Living title for the state. Advertisement Advertisement But this year, the Southern Living title for the best barbecue in Oklahoma went to Swadley's Bar-B-Q. According to Southern Living, Swadley's took the top spot for offering plenty of choices for guests, including smoked chicken, turkey, hot links, burnt ends, ribs and brisket, as well as sides like deviled egg potato salad and fried okra. More: Your votes named this restaurant the winner of our Oklahoma's Best Barbecue Bracket In Oklahoma, Swadley's remains embroiled in a lawsuit with the state over the mishandling of six state parks restaurants the company was contracted to run in 2020. Those contracts were canceled in 2022, and a subsequent lawsuit and countersuit were filed by the state and Swadley's. Advertisement Advertisement In 2024, owner Brent Swadley and two others were indicted by the state's multicounty grand jury on conspiracy and fraud charges. That case is also ongoing. Swadley also entered into an operating agreement with Mr. Gatti's Pizza in 2023 to open multiple locations of that chain. However, in August of 2025 several restaurants across the state including OKC, Edmond, Shawnee, Norman, Chickasha, Ada, Lawton, and Duncan locations had been listed for sale by a broker called "We Sell Restaurants," which cited the current owner having "reached their operational capacity.' Who has the best BBQ? Reader's choice bracket In 2023, The Oklahoman hosted a March Madness-style bracket to determine which barbecue joint is our readers' favorite. The most popular pick wasThe Butcher BBQ Stand, 3402 W State Highway 66 in Wellston. Advertisement Advertisement Levi Bouska established Butcher in 2015 as a humble barbecue stand in a converted train car with the help of his father, David, a world-renowned barbecue competition champion. Open only on weekends, there is now more than just the train car and a concrete slab covered by a metal awning. Its fully enclosed with plans to expand, and rarely does the food make it until closing time. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Southern Living named this the best barbecue in Oklahoma. Do you agree? US vice president JD Vance on Friday (local time) said that his country was engaged in a military operation, officially known as 'Operation Epic Fury', to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, while also urging Americans to pray for the troops deployed overseas. While delivering remarks in Rocky Mount, Vance said the objective of the operation was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. "You all know that right now we are engaged in a military operation to ensure, as the President has said repeatedly, that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon," Vance said. He added that previous US presidents expressed similar concerns in the past, but said that Donald Trump had taken concrete steps to ensure that Tehran does not obtain nuclear arms. "That is a simple, simple principle and standard, frankly, every President said that they believed it. Donald J Trump has taken affirmative steps to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon," he said. Vance also acknowledged the risks faced by American troops deployed abroad and called on the audience to pray for the service members. "But we also know that there are a lot of people from the state of North Carolina who are in harm's way right now. And so I want all of us when we go home, we leave this event, I want all of us to say a prayer, not just for the North Carolinians, but for the people of all of our 50 states who put on the uniform and are willing to sacrifice for the safety and security and freedom of the United States of America," he said, urging people to pray for service members from all 50 states who are serving overseas. He said Americans should show support to those "willing to sacrifice for the safety, security and freedom of the United States of America." Earlier, US president Donald Trump told Fox News that he thinks Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was alive but injured. He added that the US was 'decimating' Iran, adding that the Persian Gulf country has been hit harder than anyone else since World War 2. Trump made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on the Brian Kilmeade Show. When asked if he thinks Iran's new supreme leader was alive, Trump said, "He probably is. I think he's damaged, but I think he's probably alive in some form". When asked about his message to Mojtaba Khamenei in the wake of his recent remarks, which hinted towards the continuation of the conflict and the use of the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, Trump told Fox News, "They've been doing a lot of talking, so he's going to have to put up. We'll have to see -- because we are decimating them. We have knocked down most of their missiles, many of their drones, lot of manufacturing areas. We're hitting them harder than anybody's been hit since World War 2. (ANI) Donald Trump is known for his hasty (and frequent) posts on social media. He regularly has midnight meltdowns on Truth Social, has shared back-to-back posts of AI nonsense on the platform, and threatened people hes unhappy with in long-winded messages, too. Health: Dentists Say This Might Be The Most Important Ingredient To Look For When Choosing A Toothpaste But in recent months, select posts have concluded with an oddly formal phrase: Thank you for your attention to this matter. Advertisement Advertisement Its really different than how he typically posts, said Claire Robertson, an assistant professor of psychology who focuses on political polarization and extremism at Colby College in Maine. Robertson added that Trump usually uses morally and emotionally loaded words in his posts (such as hoax and corrupt), which capture attention quickly. Hes still using a lot of the kind of moral-emotional language that we know attracts attention, Robertson said of Trumps social posts as a whole. Negative and moral-emotional language draws in engagement, clicks and sharing in a really polarized way, she added. Once something is more moral-emotional, it tends to travel within a political group rather than between political groups. In other words, these types of posts are designed to get a rise out of people and will often be shared with someone who will get equally as riled up. Health: We Asked Experts Whether Drinking Days-Old Water Is Dangerous And Their Answer Was Surprising But, thank you for your attention to this matter is not negative or moral, so its especially interesting, Robertson said. It doesnt play super nicely with some of the established findings. Its just weirdly formal. Advertisement Advertisement Heres what this phrase and Trumps use of it could say about the president and his communication style, according to experts. Thank you for your attention to this matter is a phrase that asserts control of a situation and its messaging. This type of language is certainly formal; it reads like an email from HR or a warning from a lawyer. But experts say it might also go beyond that. From a clinical standpoint, the repeated use of the phrase thank you for your attention to this matter may read as more than formality. It carries undertones of control and authority, said Shenikka Moore-Clarke, a holistic psychotherapist. Life: Elon Just Couldn't Stop Posting About Trump And Experts Say It's Very Revealing We know Trump is very conscious of wanting to be in control of a situation, noted Robertson, who pointed out that he is known to control handshakes, too, by pulling people hard and slightly knocking them off balance. Advertisement Advertisement A phrase like this might also create an expectation of how folks should engage with these social media posts. For some people, language often becomes a way to manage image and power and to position themselves as the one who sets the terms of engagement, Moore-Clarke explained. This could lead to a specific type of power dynamic in dictating how people should relate to what a person has to say, Moore-Clarke said. Its also a bit presumptive, Robertson added. Its assuming that everyone is giving this attention, Robertson said. Health: If You Listen To This Beloved Type Of Music, You Might Be Experiencing A Reminiscence Bump There isnt room to question what the poster is saying. Its [subtle] but can be read as being controlling, Moore-Clarke explained. Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, while the words thank you are included in this phrase, experts question whether its genuine. Its less about gratitude and more about command, Moore-Clarke said, and its a way of asserting control, implying that readers should comply or take note. In recent months, Donald Trump has frequently closed social media posts with "thank you for your attention to this matter," which experts say is controlling language. Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost. The phrase commands power. The posts that end with thank you for your attention to this matter stand apart from the others in Trumps social media feed, according to Moore-Clakre. It ... comes off as this is something important that you need to pay attention to, so it [kind of] draws you in, Moore-Clarke explained. Life: Psychologists React To THAT Post From Trump About Rob Reiner's Death In more or fewer words, hes telling readers this is something that everyone else needs to think is important, too, she added.I get [the] sense that its strategic and it makes his followers trust him more as a source of power, even if what he had to say is not true or harmful to certain groups. It tends to punctuate more serious posts. With language, sometimes we have certain cues that ... I dont know if this is a scientific term, but often they can be called, micro-cultures, where something means something different in a specific place, Robertson explained. For example, your community may refer to a nearby restaurant as the corner spot instead of its actual name. Advertisement Advertisement In this case, if you follow Trumps social media religiously, its possible that the posts that end in thank you for your attention to this matter may be, for example, more serious than some of his other posts. It might be a signal that this is something that has policy relevance, Robertson said as an example. Its true that this formal ending doesnt often accompany the memes Trump posts criticizing other politicians or a call to buy his sons new book. Instead, thank you for your attention to this matter ends posts in which Trump shares something hes done or something hes ordering others to do, whether thats announcing Casey Means as surgeon general or instructing Democrats to open the government. Trump may be doing this intentionally, but it could also be unintentional. We use linguistic cues all the time when we arent even realizing it, Robertson added. Has anyone ever pointed out that you only call your partner a specific nickname when youre mad? This is an example of that. Advertisement Advertisement At the very least, he doesnt use thank you a lot, said Robertson making this fairly new social media closing even more fascinating. The original version of this story was published on HuffPost at an earlier date. Related... Read the original on HuffPost Pi Day March 14, or 3.14 is here, and for Californians, the math-themed holiday comes with extra local flavor. The celebration was born in California in 1988 at San Franciscos Exploratorium, and today its marked across the state with deep discounts on pizza, dessert pies, and other circular comfort foods. From statewide chains like Round Table and Mountain Mikes to national brands with a major California presence, Pi Day deals are stacking up for Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement Heres what to know about Pi Day and where Californians can score the best food deals. What is Pi? Pi is an irrational number, according to NASA. That means it goes on forever and it never repeats its sequence of numbers. Pi has been calculated to more than one trillion digits. Usually, the approximation of 3.14 is precise enough. Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by the circles diameter. Pi is the same for any circle, no matter how big or small. It is a mathematical constant. Its fundamental for calculating anything that involves circles, curves, or spheres. Its used in geometry, physics, engineering, and even computer science. More Pi Day deals at California-based favorite chains Several chains with a strong California presence are also rolling out Pi Day discounts Saturday: Advertisement Advertisement Round Table Pizza : Royal Rewards members can get a one-topping personal pizza for $3.14 with the purchase of a large or extra-large pizza at participating locations. [dealnews.com] Mountain Mikes Pizza : Mountain Rewards members who buy any medium pizza can add a second medium one-topping pizza for $3.14 on March 14. [qsrmagazine.com] California Pizza Kitchen : CPK Rewards members can get an Original BBQ Chicken, Pepperoni or Traditional Cheese pizza for $3.14 with a $25 purchase on March 13 and 14, excluding Hawaii. [pizzamarketplace.com] Pollys Pies: The Southern California pie chain is offering a free slice of pie for dine-in customers with the purchase of an entree, while loyalty members can get a free slice with no purchase required. [foxla.com] Most offers are valid only at participating locations and may require app-based or loyalty membership sign-ups. Below are some national chains with PI deals. Discover surprise pie flavor at Crumbl Crumbl will feature a bonus pie flavor on March 14 for Pi Day, with flavors varying by location. DoorDash offers Pi Day deals DoorDash is offering customers Pi Day offers from Pizza Hut and Blaze Pizza, according to Food Network. Advertisement Advertisement When you order one medium or large Create Your Own pizza from participating Pizza Hut locations on March 14, you can get one free. At Blaze Pizza, from March 14 through April 6, 2026, when you buy one Simple Pie 11-inch cheese pizza, you get one free from participating locations. From March 14 through April 6, 2026, you can get $4 off eligible Sbarro orders of $20 or more from all participating locations, and DashPass members can enjoy $5 off eligible orders of $25 or more. Indulge with a sweet treat at Burger King At Burger King, Royal Perks members can get a free Hershey's Sundae Pie or Cinnamon Apple Pie with any $3.14 purchase online or via the Burger King app on March 14 for Pi Day, according to The Food Network. 7-11 embraces Pi Day with 3-14 deals At 7-11 for Pi Day, 7Rewards and Speedy Rewards members can get a whole pizza for $3.14 in stores and via the 7NOW Delivery app and at Speedy Cafe locations, a large one-topping pizza is $3.14, March 13-14. 7-Select Snack Pies are $1 through April 28. Grab a BOGO 3-14 Blaze Pizza Blaze Pizza will offer a buy one, get one deal for Pi Day, March 14, according to Food Network. At participating locations, you can buy one 11-inch pizza and get a second or lesser or equal value for $3.14. You can also get a BOGO code to buy one 11-inch pizza and get one free on a future purchase. Is Pi Day a national holiday? Yes, Pi Day is a national holiday, as it was designated by the U.S. House of Representatives when the governing body passed a 2009 resolution recognizing March 14 as National Pi Day. Who started Pi day? The late physicist Larry Shaw started celebrating Pi Day in 1988 at the San Francisco science museum, the Exploratorium, to bring his coworkers together and have fun, according to the museum's website. Advertisement Advertisement He created cute traditions like bringing in a table laden with fruit pies and staging boombox parades while reciting the digits of Pi and singing "Happy Birthday" to Albert Einstein, who was born on March 14. This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California Pi Day deals on pizza and pie for March 14 An investigation is underway after a triple shooting ended with one person dead and two others seriously injured, according to police. The Athens-Clarke County Police Department says the shooting happened in a parking lot in the 400 block of North Jackson Street around 2:30 Saturday morning. Police say three people were shot during the incident. One of the victims died, while the other two were taken to a hospital in critical condition. Advertisement Advertisement Police identified the victim as 22-year-old Clayton Adams, of Hull, Ga. Police have not released the identities or ages of the other two victims who are in critical condition. However, Channel 2s Eryn Rogers spoke to Shanna Duren, who said her son, 20-year-old Landon Skinner, is one of the victims. She said Adams and the other victim were trying to help her son. I call them my heroes, and my heart goes out to their families, Duren said. Im so sorry that they had to endure that. My heart breaks for them. Im thankful. I feel like they helped my son. Shanna Duren, who said her son, 20-year-old Landon Skinner, is one of the victims of a triple shooting in Athens. TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement On Saturday evening, the ACCPD said they arrested Mark Desousa, 22, of Jefferson, Ga., in connection with the shooting. He has been charged with malice murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery. Duren told Rogers she was shocked to hear police arrested Desousa. She said he had been friends with her son for the past six years, even attending the baby shower for Skinners now 2-year-old son. My son worked a business with him. He called me momma, and I thought he was my sons best friend, and that was really hurtful, finding out that was really devastating, Duren said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting with the ongoing investigation. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Two planets crashed into one another in a violent, chaotic collision that astronomers recently witnessed 11,000 light-years away from Earth. The rare cosmic event is not one scientists get to see every day. But thanks to a bit of serendipity, a researcher at the University of Washington looking through old telescope data happened upon the bread crumbs that would lead him to the stunning discovery. A distant star located at a distance equal to nearly halfway from Earth to the galactic center of the Milky Way was displaying short dips in brightness before apparent chaos erupted. Advertisement Advertisement "Right around 2021, it went completely bonkers, study lead author Anastasios Tzanidakis, a researcher at the University of Washington, said in a statement. I cant emphasize enough that stars like our sun dont do that. So when we saw this one, we were like Hello, whats going on here? The phenomenon, which researchers claimed had never before been observed, led them to conclude that what they were seeing was evidence of a planetary collision, according to a study published March 11 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope last observed come 3I/ATLAS on Nov. 30, about four months after Hubble's first look at the interstellar comet. 3I/ATLAS became one of the biggest cosmic stories of the year when astronomers deemed it to be the third-ever discovered interstellar object in our solar system originating from an entirely different part of the galaxy. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on Oct. 2, 2025. At the time it was imaged, the comet was about 19 million miles from the spacecraft. The comet didn't come nearly as close to Earth, when it reached a distance of 170 million miles from our planet on Dec. 19. This image shows the 3I/ATLAS interstellar comet as a bright, fuzzy orb in the center. Traveling through our solar system at 130,000 miles per hour, 3I/ATLAS was made visible by using a series of colorized stacked images from Sept. 11-25, using the Heliocentric Imager-1 (H1) instrument, a visible-light imager on the STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. The colorization was applied to differentiate the image from other observing spacecraft images. Because it's big enough to be deemed a "city killer," asteroid 2024 YR4 became a source of alarm due to the uncommonly high risk it had of colliding with Earth on Dec. 22, 2032. For a time, it was the only object among more than 37,000 known large space rocks with any chance of hitting Earth anytime soon with its probability of impact even rising to a record level of 3.1%.That began to change in late February as more precise observations allowed scientists to effectively winnow down the asteroid's odds of impact to a number so low, it might as well be zero. An exoplanet known as K2-18b achieved a degree of fame in April when a team of astronomers claimed to have found in its atmosphere "the strongest evidence yet" that life exists anywhere else besides Earth. Other scientists have since cast doubt on the findings putting a damper on the notion that humanity finally had proof that we aren't alone in the cosmos. This artist's concept shows what exoplanet K2-18b could look like based on scientific data. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has observed K2-18b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, revealing conditions that could support life on the exoplanet. NASAs Perseverance Mars rover is seen in a "selfie" that it took over on Sept. 10, 2021. Perseverance rover, along with Curiosity, is one of the agency's two car-sized robots exploring the Martian surface for signs that the planet was once habitable. And in September, NASA officials confirmed that one of the rovers finds contained a potential biosignature. A reddish rock nicknamed "Cheyava Falls", with features resembling leopard spots was discovered by NASA's Perseverance rover in Mars Jezero Crater in July 2024, in this handout photograph released on September 10, 2025. The northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, light up the night sky Nov. 11 east of Denver, Colorado. A powerful geomagnetic solar storm in November blasted Earth and created the conditions necessary to reveal the auroras much further south in the United States than is typical. A group of friends take photos of the northern lights Nov. 11 as they appear over Clinton Lake in Lawrence, Kansas. After NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a "severe" geomagnetic storm watch in November, many people in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the U.S., had an extraordinary opportunity to gaze upon some breathtaking red and green auroras in their own backyard. In June, the state-of-the-art Vera C. Rubin ground telescope in Chile unveiled its first stunning images of the cosmos. This particular image combines 678 separate images taken by the observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. 2025 was a year of cosmic discoveries. Here's a look back at 6 1 of 11 NASAs Hubble Space Telescope last observed come 3I/ATLAS on Nov. 30, about four months after Hubble's first look at the interstellar comet. 3I/ATLAS became one of the biggest cosmic stories of the year when astronomers deemed it to be the third-ever discovered interstellar object in our solar system originating from an entirely different part of the galaxy. Here's everything to know about the wild discovery. Astronomers discover evidence of 2 planets colliding 11,000 light-years away By reviewing old telescope data from 2020, Tzanidakis discovered that an otherwise unremarkable star had begun acting strangely. This artistic illustration depicts a planetary collission that astronomers believe occurred in 2021 about 11,000 light-years from Earth. Beginning in about 2016, the star Gaia20ehk in the constellation Puppis in the southern sky underwent three unusual dips in brightness. Investigating further, Tzanidakis concluded that the strange flickering had nothing to do with the star itself. Advertisement Advertisement Instead, "huge quantities of rocks and dust" were passing in front of the distant star while orbiting in the same planetary system intermittently dimming the star's light that managed to reach Earth, according to the press release. Even further investigation revealed something remarkable: the source of that debris was likely remnants of two planets crashing into one another. To reach the conclusion, Tzanidakis and study co-author James Davenport, an astronomer at the University of Washington, used telescopes to examine the fluctuation in not just visible light, but infrared light. That's how the researchers noticed that the invisible infrared light spiked anytime the visible lights flickered, suggesting the material blocking the star was incredibly hot. That could be caused by the two planets spiraling closer and closer to each other, Tzanidakis said. At first, they had a series of grazing impacts, which wouldnt produce a lot of infrared energy. Then, they had their big catastrophic collision." How do planets form? Planetary formation is preceded first by the birth of stars, which form when an accumulation of gas and dust collapses because of gravity. Scientists think that generally what follows is the formation of planets, which emerge from the giant, doughnut-shaped disk of gas and dust that circles young stars, known as protoplanetary discs. Advertisement Advertisement Gravity and other forces cause material like dust, gas, ice or rocky debris to collide in a process that, if gentle enough, binds the matter together so that forming planets known as planetesimals can grow like rolling snowballs. These planetesimals begin to orbit their new star, pushing material out of their way as the star devours nearby gas and pushes more distant material farther away to form additional worlds within the solar system, NASA explains. As common as a process as this likely is throughout the universe, it's rare for scientists to have a front row seat to such a collision, according to the researchers. Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander captures its shadow on the moon's surface after completing a successful landing March 2 near a volcanic feature on the moon called Mons Latreille. The vehicle became the first of two landers manufactured by a U.S. company to reach the moon is 2025 in crucial missions to lay the groundwork for NASA to return humans to the lunar surface in the years ahead. Athena, the lunar lander on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission, captured this image of the moon's surface with Earth seen in the distance ahead of a March 6 landing attempt. While the lander was the second U.S. vehicle to reach the moon within a week, it ultimately landed on its side, which hindered much of its mission. NASA astronaut Suni Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft March 18 following a return to Earth after a nine-month stay at the International Space Station. She and NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore crewed the Boeing Starliner, which had launched in June 2024 on a failed test flight that was meant to return them to Earth a few days later. Butch Wilmore reacts after he and Suni Williams and two other astronauts splashed down March 18 in a Crew Dragon space capsule following their return to earth from the International Space Station off the coast of Florida. The astronauts' extended stay at the orbital outpost dominated the news cycle for months. A SpaceX support team member is seen airborne while working to lift the SpaceX Dragon capsule that returned the Starliner astronauts and two others onto a recovery vehicle following its landing off the coast of Florida. This picture shows the crew of a privately-funded mission known as Fram2, from left to right, mission specialist and medical officer Eric Philips, mission commander Chun Wang, pilot Rabea Rogge and vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen on March 19, 2025 in Hawthorne, California. Launched March 31 from Florida using a SpaceX Dragon capsule, the mission became t first ever human spaceflight over the Earth's polar regions. Pop musician Katy Perry emerges April 14 from Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule in West Texas following a brief flight to the edge of space. Perry was part of an all-women crew that also included broadcast journalist Gayle King that took the ride from Blue Origin's facility called Launch Site One. The high-profile launch attracted plenty of headlines and even drew some backlash from those who viewed the mission as a wasteful publicity stunt. Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket carrying astronauts Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Kerianne Flynn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, and Lauren Sanchez lifts off April 14 from Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas. Blue Origin has since launched five more human spaceflights on the New Shepard in 2025. This photo depicts a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the latest batch of Amazon's broadband satellites on Dec. 16 to low-Earth orbit after launching from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Formerly called Project Kuiper, the venture has since been renamed Amazon Leo. Since its debut April launch, Amazon Leo has deployed 180 of 3,000 satellites planned for its first constellation, which could challenge SpaceX's Starlink. A group of Blue Origin employees with their friends and families gather on the beach in Cape Canaveral for the launch of Blue Origin's second New Glenn rocket in 2025. Following its January debut, the rocket launched for the second time Nov. 13 from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft on their trek to Mars. Darkness falls Nov. 9 as a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket is prepped for its second-ever launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin is developing the towering rocket for heavy-lift missions that could see Jeff Bezos' company compete with Elon Musk and SpaceX. The SpaceX Starship spacecraft sits Oct. 12, 2025 atop the Super Heavy booster before sunrise as preparations continue for its 11th test flight from the company's complex in Starbase, Texas. A SpaceX Super Heavy booster carrying the Starship spacecraft lifts off Oct. 13, 2025, on its 11th ever test flight at the company's launch pad in Starbase, Texas. The launch was Starship's fifth of 2025, and second consecutive successful test flight following a year that was early on marked by explosive failures. SpaceX is developing the rocket for future missions that would help NASA astronauts land on the moon and also potentially transport the first humans to Mars. 2025 spaceflight in photos. See images of Blue Origin, SpaceX missions 1 of 13 Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander captures its shadow on the moon's surface after completing a successful landing March 2 near a volcanic feature on the moon called Mons Latreille. The vehicle became the first of two landers manufactured by a U.S. company to reach the moon is 2025 in crucial missions to lay the groundwork for NASA to return humans to the lunar surface in the years ahead. Crash between planets could shed light on Earth, moon What's more, Tzanidakis and Davenport's research suggests the collision resembles the one that created Earth and its singular moon about four and half billion years ago. That's because the dust cloud orbiting the distant star is about the same distance from the sun to Earth, which would allow the material to eventually cool down and solidify into something resembling our planet and our only natural satellite. Advertisement Advertisement Even more tantalizing, the researchers posit that the discovery could be the tip of the iceberg if more evidence of planetary collisions are out there and some could be worlds that are habitable. There are only a few other planetary collisions of any kind on record, and none that bear so many similarities to the impact that created the Earth and moon," Tzanidakis said in the statement. "If we can observe more moments like this elsewhere in the galaxy, it will teach us lots about the formation of our world. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Astronomer witnesses 'bonkers' collision of 2 planets Residents of a RV park in Clatskanie were evacuated after flooding early Saturday morning, leaving about 200 people displaced, according to Columbia County. Dozens of trailers and vehicles were also damaged. Emergency responders evacuated residents from Rivers Edge RV Park amid the area's rising waters caused by the atmospheric river, breaking a 100-foot section of a levee around the Clatskanie River, according to Corey Padron, director of Columbia County Emergency Management. Our priority is making sure residents are safe and have a place to go, said Padron said in a statement. Conditions may continue to change today, and we encourage residents to stay alert, avoid flooded areas, and follow guidance from local officials. Advertisement Advertisement Clatskanie High School is serving as the primary shelter for the affected residents, the county said, and the city of Rainier and the Rainier School District have offered a location for temporary sheltering for those with RVs. Red Cross Cascades has opened a shelter for those displaced by flooding in the area. It's located at Clatskanie American Legion Hall, 930 Northeast 5th Street in Clatskanie; for updated information, call 1-800-RedCross or download the Red Cross Emergency app. Loved ones seeking information about those displaced may contact Columbia 911 Communications Districts non-emergency line at 503-397-1521. Currently, the Columbia County Emergency Operations Center is at Level 2 for multi-agency coordination, the county said. Tides are expected to return later in the day and could bring higher water levels, with first responders relocating RVs from flood-prone areas as a precaution. Advertisement Advertisement In the meantime, those living in low-lying areas near the Clatskanie River should remain alert for changing conditions, as well as avoid flooded roadways, the county warned. The American Red Cross, Columbia County Community Emergency Response Team, and the Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Department of Emergency Management are helping with sheltering and feeding operations. Crews from the Clatskanie Fire District, Columbia County Search and Rescue, and the Columbia County Sheriffs Office are assisting with evacuations and damage assessments. Even as the weather begins to improve Saturday morning and the rain ends, a flood watch remains in effect through the afternoon, with creeks, rivers and streams still running high. However, forecast models show that another round of rain could return by the middle of next week, according to KGW's Kori Johnson. In the 15 days since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Iran, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is approaching nearly a dozen media appearances, offering his often visceral reaction to the conflict. Gallego, a 46-year-old combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, has emerged as a blunt, clear voice for the Democratic Party on foreign policy, speaking as someone whose own generation experienced the forever wars. There he was on CNNs The Source with Kaitlin Collins saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio was doing CYA and noting that the MAGA base is pissed. There he was sitting down with the AP speaking as someone who lives with PTSD, adding its not been an easy week. And there he was on Derek Thompsons podcast, speaking about going town to town searching for insurgents 21 years ago, but there was no clear direction of what victory looked like, what the end goal was, what was going to be the after-action report on Iraq. Advertisement Advertisement Gallego isnt alone. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy captain who flew combat missions during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, has also racked up a run of high-profile media appearances, as has former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who served in Afghanistan in the Armys 82nd Airborne, went on local radio this week to link Americans affordability woes to the war. In a year after many Democrats pined for a metaphorical fighter, the party is now having a conversation with itself about whether it needs a literal fighter a veteran who can speak with credibility on issues of war and national security. In an interview with POLITICO, Gallego spoke of dodging bullets, IEDs, RPGs, clearing towns and then coming back to the same towns with insurgents and of losing friends and still not understanding what the end goal was the whole time. It leaves a mark on you, and you start seeing it happening again, you know, you don't really think about the politics, Gallego said. You think about the people who are going to be potentially dying. And thats why I think I was not hesitant to speak my mind on that. Advertisement Advertisement Later this month in San Antonio, Texas, Gallego will join VoteVets Action for its third town hall featuring potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, promising fresh voices to the national conversation those who have worn the uniform and served alongside us, who connect with everyday Americans others cant, according to a promotional video. (Theyve also done town halls with Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.) On foreign policy, the Dems need a candidate who is seen as strong/tough not in rhetoric or bravado political platitudes but who conveys a sense of judgement and resolve with which voters connect instinctively, said Doug Wilson, the former assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Obama administration and co-lead of Buttigiegs 2020 foreign policy team. The Iran war underscores the need for such a candidate, Wilson added. Whomever the Democrats select as their nominee could potentially face a Situation Room-steeped ticket deep with national security credentials, including a Marine Iraq war veteran in Vice President JD Vance or Rubio, with his secretary of State experience. Advertisement Advertisement Depending on how the many conflicts the U.S. is engaged in at the moment resolve, that experience could cut against them. But right now, Democrats who can match those bona fides have some currency others without them cant. Thats obviously going to be helpful to them, said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. It's gonna be a big part of what they're talking about for the next little while. But you know, how long does it last? We just don't know, right? In my professional lifetime, foreign policy stuff and national security has mattered in a presidential race once in 2004. Thats it. Otherwise, it comes up, but its not driving the conversation. Some potential Democratic candidates without such credentials have still managed to break through amid the Iran news cycle. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has said the White House has treated aspects of the war as a video game, in a clip gaining traction on X. When American service members killed in action are returning to the United States in flagged-draped coffins, and even more Americans have lost limbs or suffered terrible brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this White House treats war like a game, and its a disgrace, Ossoff said. Advertisement Advertisement When asked whether military service is an essential for the partys eventual nominee, Gallego acknowledged there is a benefit for someone who can speak with that type of credibility. Im not the type of person that's like, you have to be a veteran Iraq War veteran, Gallego said. This is a democracy. Were still one, and theres a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But you know, someone that actually has a nuanced understanding of foreign policy; that doesn't go to the total knee-jerk reactionism that sometimes we see where we go to the point of, you know, isolationism; or the other way, where we go to full neocon. There needs to be a very balanced way to how we approach the world. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO's Playbook newsletter. Delaware State Police identified 27-year-old Elizabeth Draper as the victim of a fatal car crash from March 12. The Frederica woman crashed into a tree after losing control while trying to navigate a curve on Carpenter Bridge Road, east of Jackson Ditch Road, near Harrington. Draper was rushed to a local hospital where she later died. The crash is still under investigation by the Delaware State Police Troop 3 Collision Reconstruction Unit. Troopers ask anyone who witnessed the crash or has any information to contact Master Cpl. J. Lane at (302) 698-8457. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Frederica woman identified in Harrington-area car crash Three more suspected members of what investigators describe as a South American burglary ring were arrested in Fort Bend County last week, according to court documents. Angel Gomez-Velez, Marvin Riascos-Celoria, and Jordy Torres-Corrales were arrested on March 6 after more than a month of surveillance. Records show that Riascos-Celoria and Torres-Corrales are both listed as Colombian nationals in court documents. Advertisement Advertisement The investigation into the three men began Jan. 31 when deputies say they broke into the homes of two next-door neighbors near Fulshear. SEE ORIGINAL STORY: South American theft ring linked to string of break-ins across Houston area, police say Surveillance video led them to the suspects' SUV, and investigators used license plate readers to track them to other Fort Bend County neighborhoods. Investigators say they saw the SUV circling the Fieldstone subdivision on March 4, allegedly looking for new homes to break into. Deputies say the vehicle then met up with another vehicle in the Westheimer Lakes North subdivision for what they describe as more "pre-burglary surveillance." Advertisement Advertisement Two days later, deputies say they pulled both vehicles over and found face coverings, gloves, window punches, pry bars, and screwdrivers inside. Torres-Corrales and Gomez-Vellez were previously convicted of burglary in Harris County in 2022. Court documents at the time said they were working together as part of a burglary ring. Torres-Corrales was sentenced to three years in prison but was paroled after serving only one year, according to court documents. Gomez-Vellez was given five years' probation as part of a deferred adjudication deal, but records show his probation was terminated three years early. All three men are charged with criminal conspiracy - burglary of habitation. For news updates, follow Luke Jones on Facebook, X and Instagram. The Pentagon identified the six service members killed when a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday. Three of the Air Force airmen were assigned to the 6th Air Refueling Wing, MacDill Air Force Base in Florida: Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; and Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky The other three airmen were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio: Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio Advertisement Advertisement The crash, which involved another KC-135 tanker, is still under investigation. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: ISRAEL-US-IRAN-WAR The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace in western Iraq March 12 during Operation Epic Fury, according to U.S. Central Command. The KC-135 aircraft went down at approximately 2 p.m. ET on Thursday when two aircraft were involved in "an incident," CENTCOM said in a brief statement, confirming that "one of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely." "The incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission, and again, was not the result, as CENTCOM has said, was not the result of hostile or friendly fire," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said during a Defense Department briefing on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement The other aircraft involved was also a KC-135 tanker, according to a U.S. official. Iran live updates: Hegseth says US 'decimating' Iranian military, 'dont need to worry' about Strait of Hormuz On Friday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said three of the service members killed were Ohioans deployed with the Ohio Air National Guard's 121st Air Refueling Wing are among the six service members killed in the refueling mission. USAF, Files - PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker flies over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, in an undisclosed location, July 22, 2025. KC-135 aircraft are not equipped with parachutes and do not have ejection seats, which are primarily in fighter aircraft, officials have told ABC News. Advertisement Advertisement Passengers and crew members of KC-135s instead are trained on how to exit the aircraft when it is on land or on water, officials said. According to a 2008 Air Force profile of the tanker crews, the move to get rid of parachutes was made because the tankers "seldom have mishaps, and the likelihood a KC-135 crew member would ever need to use a parachute is extremely low." A 5-year-old boy was killed in Arapahoe County in Colorado, and his 11-year-old brother has been arrested under suspicion of first-degree murder. Arapahoe County deputies responded to a home on South Jericho Street around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, according to Denver7. Little has been shared about the situation, though investigators said they later determined the suspect was the victims 11-year-old brother. A sheriffs office spokesperson has confirmed that the case is now being investigated as a homicide. Advertisement Advertisement The child suspect who has not been publicly identified due to his age was taken into custody at the Marvin W. Foote Youth Services in Centennial, the sheriff's office spokesperson said. Parents Arrested After Malnourished 5-Year-Old Who Weighed 19 Pounds Died: Worst Case of Child Neglect It is not currently clear if the suspect will be charged as an adult. His parents have not been charged in connection to the crime. Our hearts go out to the family of these two young boys and to everyone in our community who is grieving this loss, Sheriff Tyler Brown said about the incident, per Denver7. Cases involving the homicide of children are among the most difficult our deputies and investigators face. Our team is fully committed to a thorough investigation, and we will continue working tirelessly to determine exactly what happened." Advertisement Advertisement The 5-year-old boys cause of death is still under investigation as of time of publication. It is with great sadness that I want to share with you that one of our Kindergarten students has died unexpectedly," Timberline Elementary Principal Mary Bowens said in a letter sent to parents on Wednesday, March 11, per the outlet. "There is currently an active police investigation and law enforcement asked the District not to release the students name." Bowens added that the district would offer additional mental health staff "to support students and staff in processing this loss" beginning on Friday, March 13. Other resources were also made available on the Cherry Creek School District's website. Neighbors that lived near the siblings have been left in shock following the tragedy. Advertisement Advertisement Emily Silengo told CBS News that the situation was "incredibly jarring and shocking and very emotional. She continued, I have a little daughter of my own, and to hear that, I mean, makes me pretty emotional. 15-Year-Old Boy Charged With the Murder of 9-Year-Old Girl Aria Thorpe Weeks After Her Birthday Silengo added that they live in a very safe, very, very family-oriented area. "My heart goes out to the family. I can't imagine what they're feeling. I hope that they get the support that they need," Silengo said. Meanwhile, neighbor Kirby O'Loughlin recalled learning that something had happened at the boys home. I pulled in, I was grabbing dinner, and then I saw two or three cop cars, which is definitely alarming, because we don't usually see cop cars at all in here," O'Loughlin said. "It's definitely a wild sight. I mean, I went to take the dog for a run, and you got cops all looking for evidence and drones. "It's something that you know you would literally, as a parent, is probably your worst nightmare. At least for me, that was my first thought," O'Loughlin added of the situation. China's landmark legislation offers impetus to global green development Xinhua) 09:04, March 14, 2026 This photo taken on March 12, 2026 shows the Great Hall of the People, the venue for the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Yan) China has not only turned green concepts into development outcomes but also translated them into the language of law, setting an example for other nations, said Pavel Troshchinsky, head of the Center for Political Research and Forecasting at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences. BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers on Thursday voted to adopt the Ecological and Environmental Code at the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress. As China's second formal statutory code following the adoption of the Civil Code in 2020, the legislation aims to protect the ecological environment and promote green development through the strictest systems and the most rigorous rule of law. Overseas media and experts have closely followed the adoption of the code, calling it a milestone in the evolution of China's legal system and a valuable reference for the international community. They believe it also reflects China's long-term commitment to green transformation and addressing climate change amid a rapidly changing global landscape. This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2026 shows migratory birds perching and foraging in Yugan County, east China's Jiangxi Province. Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake and an extensive wetland, is a vital wintering and stopover site along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang) A MILESTONE IN ECOLOGICAL GOVERNANCE The code aims at safeguarding the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature, thus consolidating the country's theoretical, institutional and practical achievements in ecological conservation since 2012. The legislation marks a "very significant step in the evolution of environmental governance in the country," said Meilleur Derek Murindabigwi, CEO of IGIHE, a leading news and media group in Kigali, Rwanda. "For developing countries, this is an important signal. It demonstrates that rapid economic growth and strong environmental protection do not have to be mutually exclusive." Observers abroad are paying close attention to its concrete provisions. Ado Shaibu, a member of the Tanzanian parliament, noted that the code addresses issues closely related to daily life, including cooking fumes and noise pollution. Nasser Bouchiba, chairman of the Africa-China Cooperation Association for Development in Morocco, pointed to provisions on emerging environmental issues such as electromagnetic radiation and light pollution, calling them evidence of forward-looking legislation. Gerd Winter, emeritus professor of law at the University of Bremen in Germany, said the code brings the environmental impact of consumption patterns into the regulatory framework -- an issue often overlooked in Western development models. Eduardo Tzili-Apango, a researcher at Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, said that at a time when some countries are reverting to high-carbon development paths, China's continued strengthening of ecological and environmental institutions underscores its leading role in global environmental governance. This photo taken on Sept. 20, 2025 shows sheep foraging at a wetland of the Tarim River in Yuli County, Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) A NEW PATH TO GREEN DEVELOPMENT China's green development achievements -- from expanding vegetation around the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang to the ecological recovery of the Yangtze River, as well as the growing presence of new energy vehicles on Chinese roads -- have drawn global attention. The international community hopes the new code can provide valuable reference for other countries' green transitions. Pavel Troshchinsky, head of the Center for Political Research and Forecasting at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said China has not only turned green concepts into development outcomes but also translated them into the language of law, setting an example for other nations. China has also contributed practical environmental technologies to the world. Kenya's The Star newspaper reported that as China strengthens environmental governance, its overseas projects in Africa and other regions will benefit local communities. A commentary on Pakistan's The News International website said the code reflects China's philosophy of harmony between humanity and nature -- pursuing economic growth and public well-being while respecting the environment. Aly Abdel Aziz, an expert at Egypt's Desert Research Center, said China offers a useful reference for countries seeking to balance economic growth, legal governance and sustainable development. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) LOME, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The 28th Chinese Medical Team on Saturday organized free medical consultations and donated medicines to the Sainte Marguerite Home, a center for vulnerable children in Kara city in northern Togo. A total of 37 children and 10 staff members benefited from the initiative, carried out by the Chinese medical team based in Kara. The team included a surgeon, a traumatologist, a gynecologist-obstetrician, a laboratory technician, a radiologist and an acupuncturist. Xi Gang, head of the medical team, assured the orphanage of the team's readiness to further contribute to improving the children's health care. Essoham Balakiyem Adekpessim, head of the Sainte Marguerite Home, welcomed the free consultations and the donation of medicines. He also praised the health cooperation between China and Togo, saying that such collaboration helps strengthen the health sector for the benefit of disadvantaged populations. US president Donald Trump on Friday (local time) vowed to intensify military strikes against Iran in the coming days, saying US forces have already destroyed 90 per cent of Iran's missiles, according to an interview reported by Fox News. Speaking in an interview that aired on the 'Brian Kilmeade Show', Trump said the military campaign was progressing faster than expected. "We had no idea it would be this far ahead. We've knocked out close to 90 per cent of their missiles," Trump said. The US president said American forces have targeted the majority of Iran's missile and drone manufacturing sites. "We're hitting them harder than anybody's been hit since World War II," he said. While Trump did not provide a specific timeline for the end of the operation, he said the United States has significant military resources available. The president also said Washington is prepared to escort oil tankers through the strategic Strait of Hormuz if necessary amid disruptions to shipping. "If we needed to," the US would escort vessels to protect oil shipments, he said. Trump added that the pressure on Iran would intensify in the coming days. "We've already damaged them so badly it would take years for them to ever rebuild," he said, adding, "We're going to be hitting them very hard over the next week." In a post on Truth Social, Trump also hinted at further military action. "Iran's Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth," he wrote, adding, "We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time. Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today." The United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury after nuclear negotiations with Tehran failed, according to the news report. Earlier, US president Donald Trump told Fox News that he thinks Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was alive but injured. He added that the US was 'decimating' Iran, adding that the Persian Gulf country has been hit harder than anyone else since World War 2. Trump made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on the Brian Kilmeade Show. When asked if he thinks Iran's new supreme leader was alive, Trump said, "He probably is. I think he's damaged, but I think he's probably alive in some form". (ANI) DALLAS A federal jury on Friday convicted eight people on terrorism charges over a shooting at a Texas immigration facility that federal prosecutors tied to antifa, the decentralized far-left movement that has become a target of the Trump administration. One person was also found guilty of attempted murder after prosecutors say he opened fire last summer outside the Prairieland Detention Center outside of Fort Worth, wounding a police officer. The Justice Department called the violence an attack plotted by antifa operatives but attorneys for the accused denied that characterization, saying there were no antifa associations and that it was merely a demonstration with fireworks before gunshots broke out. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of President Donald Trump, presided over the nearly three-week trial in Fort Worth. It was closely followed by legal experts and critics who called the proceedings a test of the lengths the government can go to punish protesters. Advertisement Advertisement FBI Director Kash Patel had said the case was the first time charges of providing material support to terrorists had targeted people accused of being antifa members. Todays verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on Americas streets, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Short for anti-fascists, antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations. Protesters denied having antifa ties Defense attorneys told jurors that there was no plan for violence on July 4 outside the facility in Alvarado. Advertisement Advertisement There were nine defendants on trial in all, eight of whom faced the charge of providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was charged with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He was found guilty of both. Sanchez Estradas attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said he cant believe jurors came to this conclusion. Weinbel said he has deployed as a member of the Army several times in the defense of the U.S. and hed hoped what he sacrificed meant something. But I feel like it turned its back on justice with this. ... The U.S. lost today with this verdict, Weinbel said. Prosecutor Shawn Smith told jurors during closing arguments that the groups actions including bringing firearms, first aid kids and wearing body armor were all signals of the group having a nefarious intent. He said they practiced antifa tactics, and were obsessed with operational security. Advertisement Advertisement Attorneys for the defendants have said there was no planned ambush and that protesters who brought firearms only did so for their own protection. First-of-its-kind case tests First Amendment rights The terrorism charges followed Trumps order last fall to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Those charges did not require a tie to any organization, and there is no domestic equivalent to the State Departments list of foreign terror organizations. Thats in part because organizations operating within the United States are protected by broad First Amendment rights. Critics of the Justice Departments case have said the outcome could have wide-reaching effects on protests. That opposition is something that the government wants to squash so a case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting, said Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group. Trial focused on shots fired outside detention center Attorneys for the defendants have said most protesters began leaving when two guards from the center came outside. That was before any shots were fired. Advertisement Advertisement Prosecutors said Benjamin Song, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist, yelled get to the rifles and opened fire, striking one police officer who had just pulled up to the center. Though it was Song who opened fire, prosecutors charged several other protesters with attempted murder of an officer and discharging a firearm as well but they were found not guilty. The prosecution had argued that from the groups planning, it was foreseeable to those others that a shooting could happen. The officer who was shot, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, testified that when responding to the scene he saw a person clad in all-black with their face covered and carrying a rifle. He told jurors he was shot with a round that went into his shoulder and out of his neck. Songs attorney, Phillip Hayes, told jurors during closing arguments that there wasnt a call to arms before Gross arrived on the scene and aggressively pulled out his firearm. Hayes suggested that Songs shots were suppressive fire, and that the ricochet bullet is what hit the officer. Advertisement Advertisement Leading up to the trial, several people pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists after being accused of supporting antifa. They face up to 15 years in prison at sentencing. Some of them testified for the prosecution, including Seth Sikes, who said he went to detention center because he wanted to bring some joy to those held inside. I felt like I was doing the right thing, he said. MACEDONIA, Ohio (WJW) The State Fire Marshal is investigating after a fire at a Macedonia care and rehabilitation center that left dozens of people needing to be relocated on Friday. Firefighters with the Macedonia Fire Department responded to the call just after 2:30 p.m. at the Avenue at Macedonia Care and Rehabilitation Center on Valley View Road. An employee told 911 dispatch that there was an active fire and they were working to evacuate the facility. Advertisement Advertisement UPDATES: Gas station canopy topples; gazebo lands on home When they got there, firefighters found heavy smoke and fire coming from the roof of the north side of the structure, which investigators said appeared to be above the kitchen and dining area of the building. Avenue at Macedonia staff members were evacuating the 92 residents as firefighters stepped into action. The first arriving engine crew stretched a hose line into the front door of the building through the smoke-filled lobby right below the fire on the roof to look for fire and make sure the area was evacuated, the department said in an evening press release. Advertisement Advertisement Officials said Fridays strong winds fueled the flames, but firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control soon after arriving on the scene. Video: Strong winds damage hangar roof at Hopkins airport There were no reported injuries, but according to the fire department, one person who needed continuous oxygen was taken to a nearby hospital. The State Fire Marshals office determined that the building would need to close and all 92 residents would need to be relocated because of smoke and water damage throughout the facility. The cause of the fire remains under investigation at this time. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. Authorities in Mesa are pointing to DuLance Morin, an Arizona Attorney Generals Office employee, as the suspect in the Feb. 28 shooting death of Maria Lewis. Mesa police said officers found the 32-year-old Mesa woman lying on Morins doorstep with a gunshot wound near Kinetic Drive and Reliance Way. After nearly two weeks investigating the case, local detectives called on the Maricopa County Attorneys Office to charge Morin, 47, with negligent homicide, Mesa police announced on March 13. Advertisement Advertisement Negligent homicide is a Class 4 felony that carries a potential prison sentence of one to nearly four years for first-time offenders. No clear path: What now for Mesa's homeless hotel? Doubts grow as city balks An MCAO spokesperson said that the agency is reviewing the case but couldnt provide a timeline for whether charges will be filed. Mesa polices determination comes a week after the department confirmed that Morin was involved in the case that has since generated attention from Arizona political leaders. Morin has remained on administrative leave from his job as an agent at the Attorney Generals Office, officials there confirmed. Advertisement Advertisement In a prepared statement, Attorney General Kris Mayes expressed confidence in Mesa polices investigation and MCAOs consideration of all the evidence before making any determination. She also expressed sorrow for Lewis, who was a wife and mother of seven children. These are devastating and tragic circumstances that have altered the lives of two families forever, Mayes stated. My thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Maria Lewis as they continue to grieve her loss. She went on to call Morin a dedicated law enforcement officer. My thoughts, she continued, are also with him and his family as they navigate this difficult and uncertain time. Advertisement Advertisement One group supporting Morin is the Arizona Attorney General chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police the states law enforcement union. A March 12 press release from the group stated that it stands in full support of the agent. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AG investigator could face charge in shooting death of Mesa mother BEIJING (AP) Air China will resume flights flying between Beijing and North Korea from March 30, the airline's website said Saturday, after passenger train services running between the two nations restarted earlier this week . According to the website of the stated-owned airline, flights from China's capital to Pyongyang, North Korea's capital will run every Monday until May 18, but would scale down to two Mondays in June. In 2020 with the start of the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic in one of the worlds most draconian COVID-19 restrictions. Two years later, Pyongyang started slowly easing curbs and reopening its borders. Advertisement Advertisement North Korean Air Koryo resumed flights between the two nations capitals in 2023. In February 2024, North Korea accepted some Russian tourists for sightseeing visits, the first foreign nationals to visit the country. That development surprised many observers who thought the first post-pandemic tourists to North Korea would come from China, Pyongyangs biggest trading partner and major ally. North Korea later on also started welcoming other tourists. A potential $500 million windfall is giving the Alaska House of Representatives a headache. On Friday, the Alaska Department of Revenue released a forecast predicting that the state of Alaska will collect hundreds of millions of dollars more oil revenue by June 30 than previously expected. That forecast landed in the middle of an ongoing debate over whether or not to spend from savings to cover almost $530 million in extra expenses, largely added by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, to the state budget since last spring. Advertisement Advertisement The Senate approved a proposal to pay for roughly three-quarters of those expenses and it is now in the state House, awaiting a vote that could come as soon as Monday. Tensions rose on Friday, with no agreement among House lawmakers on how to pay for the proposal. The House is led by a 21-person multipartisan coalition whose members have been urging fast action on the issue. They say it is particularly important to fund $70 million for the states transportation projects to unlock more than $630 million in additional federal funding. Without sure money, majority lawmakers say projects cant go out to bid and construction firms cant make purchasing and hiring decisions. Advertisement Advertisement The construction industry has been lobbying heavily on the issue since before the legislative session began. The majority wants to use the states Constitutional Budget Reserve, a savings account, to provide guaranteed funding. The majority can pass a bill on its own, but it cant spend from savings on its own. It takes 30 members of the House and 15 from the Senate to approve spending from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the states principal savings account. The Senate has already given that approval, but in the House, at least nine members of the 19-person, all-Republican House minority would have to support the majority, and so far, theyre not willing to do that. Advertisement Advertisement Part of that reluctance is because as currently written, the supplemental budget bill allows lawmakers to spend up to $373.6 million from the reserve regardless of whether or not the war-caused bonus becomes real. If oil prices stay high and the reserve money isnt needed, the majority could spend it on other things without further input from the minority. Thats because it takes only 21 votes to advance a budget bill. In a Saturday post to Substack, Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, expressed worries about that prospect. The money would return to the reserve only if it was unspent at the end of the fiscal year. Advertisement Advertisement If lawmakers dont spend from savings and the Iran war ends unexpectedly quickly, causing oil prices to fall, the minority could vote to spend from savings later to fill the gap. The result is an ironic set of circumstances Trump has said that the war will be short, but minority House Republicans action is effectively a bet on a long war. Minority members say theyre being fiscally responsible. So do members of the majority, who add that theres an opportunity cost for any delay Alaska construction companies cant make plans for the summer until they know what projects theyll need to build. Majority members also expressed frustration that the supplemental budget was largely requested by the governor, who they say has been absent in negotiations. Advertisement Advertisement In addition, legislators and Gov. Dunleavy could also find themselves with a problem if oil prices fall after legislators have adjourned for the summer. Legislators typically write budgets based on forecasts from the Department of Revenue, but this years forecast is especially uncertain, the department said. Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, co-chair of the House Finance Committee and a member of the majority, said hes skeptical of banking on the forecast. I have a lot of concern over budgeting based on that forecast, because thats all it is. Its a forecast. Its not realized money, its not money in hand, he said Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Even with this optimistic forecast, you are just barely, maybe able to balance the budget if everything goes perfect. We still dont have additional supplementals, he said, referring to more budget amendments that could be requested by the governor. Schrage said lawmakers will be scrutinizing the forecast in the coming days and weeks, and he said theres still the possibility the Legislature may need to draw from savings. But minority Republicans said they considered drawing from savings fiscally irresponsible. Taking a draw from our savings account to put into the general fund to fund things that were, by all accounts and purposes, able to be funded without it would have been irresponsible, said Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement House Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, R-Anchorage, said shes confident in the forecast projections. Theres some actuals there too. So Im very comfortable with actuals, and I also know, if theres changes, we can come in and we can come in and make them, and make a different vote. Im not as worried about that. Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, expressed frustration at the delay. This is pure politics. We should have had the supplemental budget funded. A long time ago, he said. The House Majority coalition prioritized the funding of the entire package that was proposed by the governor. Every single item came from the governor. And so here we are, you know, in a really precarious state, because were at the point where every week that goes by gets us a week closer to that federal match not being achieved for the summer construction season. Edgmon and other majority legislators have voiced frustration about moving goal posts on the budget bill. While there are more than $530 million in proposed additions, the bill in front of House lawmakers contains only three-quarters of that amount because majority members wanted to attract members of the minority for the savings vote. Advertisement Advertisement The remainder will still have to be addressed later, regardless of what happens in the upcoming vote. Edgmon said its not clear to him what the Republican minority wants in exchange for a budget reserve vote. We dont know what the ask is, he said. But its all about leverage, and unfortunately, its falling on the shoulders of a lot of smaller contractors around the state. As of Friday afternoon, it appeared as if the budget bill was on course to pass, but without approval to spend from savings. If that occurs, the state of Alaska will be in the awkward position of hoping for a war long and difficult enough to keep oil prices high for months. Correction: Rep. Schrage is not affiliated with a political party. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE ALBANY - An Albany woman has been charged in connection with a lottery scam involving a senior in Kentucky, according to the Albany Police Department. Alicia Stanley, 35, is accused of scamming a 92-year-old woman in Glasgow, Kentucky, police stated in a news release. The 92-year-old told the Glasgow Police Department she received phone calls between March 3 and 5 from Stanley stating she had won the lottery, according to the account shared by police. Advertisement Advertisement The senior was told she needed to pay taxes via cashier's checks to receive the lottery winnings, the police explained. She then sent two cashier's checks, for $10,232 and $2,800, to an address in Albany, police said. On March 11, Albany police executed a search warrant at a residence on Lark Drive and arrested Stanley. Police charged her with one count of third-degree criminal possession of stolen property and one count of first-degree scheme to defraud, both felonies. Stanley was arraigned in Albany City Criminal Court and released, police said. She is set to appear in Albany City Criminal Court on March 20. According to the New York Department of State, scammers often target older adults "because they are easy to reach by phone, are frequently home during the day, often live alone and tend to be more willing to talk to strangers than others." Advertisement Advertisement Common scams targeting older adults include impersonations of loved ones who claim to be in trouble and need cash, robocalls offering free medical alert devices and fake prize-winning checks, including lottery winnings that never materialize. The New York State Department of State Division of Consumer Protection advises seniors to stay informed about potential scams, keeping in mind "phone calls can be deceiving" and to use caution when providing personal or financial information over the phone. Anyone who feels they have been the victim of a scam should notify authorities, the division added. This article originally published at Albany woman charged in lottery scam targeting Kentucky senior. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) The American flag was raised Saturday over the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela for the first time since 2019, a move that highlighted the recent shift in relations between the two countries since then President Nicolas Maduro was captured by American troops in January. Though the flag is now waving, the building is undergoing renovations and it remains unclear when it will fully reopen. The move comes after several statements from U.S. President Donald Trump in support of Maduros successor, acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who has tried to keep negotiations open with the American government. Advertisement Advertisement The flag was raised "exactly seven years after it was taken down, the U.S. Embassy team said in a statement published on its social media channels. The American flag being raised drew immediate attention from local residents. Its a good thing, really, what a joy, said Caracas resident Luz Veronica Lopez. Other countries must come back too because thats what we need; progress, to move forward with good relations with the rest of the world, as it should be. Alessandro Di Benedetto, another Caracas resident, noted the positive atmosphere among those witnessing the moment. I found several people here surprised and happy because today they raised the U.S. flag at the embassy, he said. This is positive; this is another step. Advertisement Advertisement Despite the initiative, large chunks of Venezuelan society and the political establishment remain critics of Trump, his decision to forcefully remove Maduro from office and jail him in New York with his wife, and growing U.S. influence in the South American country's oil industry. ___ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america A severe weather outbreak lashed parts of the South, Midwest and East with widespread damaging winds and over 50 tornadoes in a third outbreak in the first half of March 2026. Over a two-day span from March 15-16, over 800 reports of high winds and wind damage generated by severe thunderstorms were received by the National Weather Service from eastern Texas to the Midwest to the East Coast. Among the many cities that reported these thunderstorm winds or damage included Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Nashville, Indianapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. Advertisement Advertisement In Jonesboro, Arkansas, a 75 mph wind gust tore shingles off a roof. In Brookwood, Alabama, one motorist was injured when high winds topped a tree onto a car. Another tree fell on a home in Duval County, Florida due to thunderstorm winds. Winds gusted to 71 mph at Newark and 72 mph at JFK Airport as thunderstorms swept through the New York City tri-state area just after midnight on March 17. The NWS confirmed 51 tornadoes in 12 states in this outbreak, all of which were either rated EF0 or EF1. Seventeen of those tornadoes touched down in Illinois while another eight were confirmed in Missouri. That included an EF0 tornado in the north Charlotte metro area on the morning of March 16, the city's first tornado since Dec. 29, 2024. Advertisement Advertisement (MORE: Outbreak Impacts) Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images There were also more than 60 large hail reports, with tennis ball-sized hail being reported in San Augustine and Nacogdoches Counties, Texas. This severe outbreak was the third in a 12-day span in March 2026. It hit some areas that were also hit by severe weather in one or both of the previous outbreaks from March 5-8 and March 10-12. Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Days after President Donald Trump removed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from her role, another official has now been pushed out of her position. Trump nominated Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, on Thursday to serve as the new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, less than a week after a federal judge ruled that Kari Lake was unlawfully running the agency as its acting CEO without confirmation from the Senate. In a decision released Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth found that Lakes actions from July 31 to Nov. 19 should be considered void. That includes efforts to effectively dismantle Voice of America, which has broadcast news to countries around the world in different languages. Advertisement Advertisement Lake who said the decision will be appealed posted on X that she will now serve as the deputy CEO, writing that she is even more determined to finish the job. She also added that Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, will serve as the acting CEO in the meantime. Weve been so effective over the last year that the Deep State has done everything they can to stop us, including launching malicious lawsuits at me and the agency, Lake said. In another post, Lake called Rogers a First Amendment warrior. Rogers, a self-described free speech activist who is relatively new to government office, has previously represented the National Rifle Association and online censorship of late conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Since joining the Trump administration, Rogers has led the charge in pushing back against European regulations, including the EUs Digital Services Act and Britains Online Safety Act, that U.S. officials have argued are censorship. Advertisement Advertisement The restructuring of the agency comes as Trump announced last Thursday that he would be nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Though Trump said he will begin his tenure on March 31, he will need to be confirmed by the Senate. The president added that Noem will instead become the Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a new U.S. security initiative in the Western Hemisphere. In this new role, I will be able to build on the partnerships and national security expertise, I forged over the last 13 months as Secretary of Homeland Security, Noem wrote in a post on X after the announcement of her ouster. In the lead up to the decision, multiple outlets reported that Trump was discussing Noems future with GOP lawmakers following her heated hearings on Capitol Hill earlier in the week, in which both Republicans and Democrats grilled her on a $220 million ad campaign. Advertisement Advertisement It also followed months of mounting criticism over her leadership of the department, including her handling of the presidents immigration agenda, particularly in Minnesota, and disaster response. Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. WASHINGTON (AP) Anti-Muslim rhetoric from some Republicans in Congress intensified this week against the backdrop of the Iran war, with multiple lawmakers including one who said Muslims dont belong in American society drawing condemnation from Democrats for their remarks but little pushback from GOP leaders. The derogatory language has been percolating among Republican officials for months, often prominent when criticizing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim. But against the backdrop of the Iran war, a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, and attacks at a synagogue in Michigan and a college in Virginia, the tone sharpened this week. The enemy is inside our gates, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville wrote Thursday in response to a photo of Mamdani sitting on the ground during an iftar dinner at New York City Hall. The photo was juxtaposed with a picture of the Sept. 11 attacks. Advertisement Advertisement Hours later, Tuberville doubled down: To be clear, I didnt suggest Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly. The rhetoric intensified Friday as GOP lawmakers responded to the attacks in Michigan and Virginia by urging a halt to all immigration into the United States. Some singled out Muslims specifically. For many Muslims, it's a political moment that carries echoes from the early 2000s, when the 9/11 attacks and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars generated hostility toward Muslim communities in the United States, often accompanied by discrimination and racist violence. When members of Congress speak, its not just words, said Iman Awad, the national director for policy and advocacy for the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action. It shapes public perception. It legitimizes prejudice. GOP rhetoric targeting Muslims spreads online Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles in his social media post stated flatly that Muslims don't belong in the United States. He stood behind it after criticism mounted, later writing that paperwork doesnt magically make you American and that Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back. Advertisement Advertisement Asked about Ogles post on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had spoken to members about our tone and our message and what we say. He said Ogles used different language than I would use, but added that he believes the issue raised by the comments is serious. Theres a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem," Johnson said. "Thats what animates this. Sharia is a religious framework that guides many Muslims moral and spiritual conduct. References to Sharia law have often been invoked by officials to suggest Muslims are attempting to impose religious practices on communities in the United States. Many Republicans point to a Muslim-centered planned community near Dallas as proof of Sharia law though the developers have denied the allegations and said they are being targeted because they are Muslim. Advertisement Advertisement With Johnson not condemning Ogles remarks or to recent comments from Florida Rep. Randy Fine that the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one the anti-Muslim rhetoric grew louder. After the photo circulated of Mamdani at the iftar dinner, several Republicans responded with critical posts. Democrats broadly condemned the GOP messages. Chuck Schumer, the leader of Senate Democrats, called Tuberville's post mindless hate. Islamophobic hate like this is fundamentally un-American and we must confront and overcome it whenever it rears its ugly head, Schumer said. Mamdani in response to Tuberville's post that the enemy is inside our gates" said: "Let there be as much outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as there is when I break bread with New Yorkers. Attacks in Michigan and Virginia spark another wave of rhetoric Federal officials identified a man who rammed his vehicle into a hallway at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, this week as a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon. Officials have said that the man had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Advertisement Advertisement In Virginia, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University before ROTC students subdued and killed him. Court documents showed that he had previously served time for attempting to aid the Islamic State and was released less than two years ago. Some Republican lawmakers claimed vindication for their views. Others pushed for legislation. Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the House GOPs whip, said the security of our nation hinges on our ability to denaturalize and deport terrorists. West Virginia Rep. Riley Moore said he would introduce a bill to denaturalize and deport any naturalized citizen who commits an act of terrorism, plots to commit an act of terrorism, joins a terrorist organization or otherwise aids and abets terrorism against the American people. Similar rhetoric and policy pushes have surfaced before and drawn controversy. Last year, protesters connected to demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas war were arrested and targeted by authorities, including former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the government has sought to detain and deport. GOP leadership offers little pushback Middle East conflicts bringing domestic tensions is nothing new. With the war in Gaza, both Muslim and Jewish communities have faced faith-based discrimination and attacks. Advertisement Advertisement Mamdani said the posts invoking the 9/11 attacks are problematic not just because of the words, but because of "the actions that often accompany them. I think too of the smaller indignities, the indignities that many New Yorkers face, but that Muslims are expected to face in silence, Mamdani said. Of the exhaustion of having to explain yourself to those who are not interested in understanding. Of the men who introduce themselves by their given name only to be called Muhammad for years on end. The stark silence from Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, reflects a broader change in the party. After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Republican President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to explicitly warn against Muslim discrimination. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country, Bush said during the visit, adding: They need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect. Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger dont represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior, Bush said. Missiles were launched from Iran toward the territory of Israel, prompting air defence systems to intercept the threat, the Israel Air Forces (IAF) said on Saturday. In a post on X, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) said missiles had been detected heading toward Israeli territory and that defence systems were activated to counter them. "The IDF has identified that a short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defense systems are operating to intercept the threat. In the last few minutes, the Home Front Command has issued a preliminary directive directly to mobile phones in the relevant areas," the IAF said. The IAF urged the public to follow safety instructions and move to protected spaces when alerts are issued. It also said the Home Front Command had sent emergency alerts to mobile phones in affected areas, instructing residents to remain in protected spaces until further notice. https://x.com/IAFsite/status/2032565132455497940 It added, "The public is requested to exercise responsibility and act in accordance with the directives--they save lives. One must enter protected spaces upon receiving the alert and remain in them until a new announcement. Exit from the protected space will be permitted only after receiving an explicit directive; continue to act in accordance with the Home Front Command's directives." Meanwhile, Iran's state-run broadcaster Press TV reported that Iranian missiles had struck targets in the "occupied territories", including the Nevatim Airbase in Israel. Press TV also reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to have successfully shot down five "US-Israeli drones" over several Iranian cities within three hours using an advanced air defence system. According to Iranian state media, the intercepted aircraft included Hermes UAV, Orbiter 4 and MQ-9 Reaper drones. Press TV further said several drones from Iran had been launched toward the US-Israeli bases in the region. In a separate development, the group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced a reward of 150 million Iraqi dinars for information leading to the killing or arrest of senior US military officials, intelligence personnel, or agents, according to Press TV. Earlier, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that all six crew members aboard the US KC-135 refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq on March 12 have died. (ANI) The April edition of First Friday in downtown Phoenix will look different than usual. Roosevelt Street will not be shut down for foot traffic, and there will be no street vendors during the monthly arts event. Organizers say the change is due to major events downtown, including the NCAA Womens Final Four. Some businesses along Roosevelt Row say they welcome the temporary change. One restaurant worker told 12News they often see more customers when the street is not closed. Some also hope the adjustment will mean fewer unruly crowds that get out of control. Advertisement Advertisement It's getting a little crazy on First Friday now, said Francess Fluellyn, who works at Straw & Wool Hat Company off of Roosevelt. She and manager Asr Rollin said large groups of teenagers and young adults start to show up near the end of the event. We noticed that right around like 9:30, 10 is when the crowds really start coming through, and that's when a lot of the chaos happens, Rollin said. Shortly after Marchs First Friday ended, Phoenix police say a fight broke out around 11:30 p.m. near Roosevelt and 8th Street. Officers used pepper balls after the crowd became disruptive. Moments later, in the same area, police say a teenage boy and an adult woman were hurt in a shooting. Advertisement Advertisement Video taken inside a nearby bar shows customers hiding underneath tables right after those shots were fired. I was up and working when I heard the gunshots go off, Rollin said. Both workers believe these incidents are becoming more common. This started as a family event," Rollin said. "I don't always feel safe during the first Friday experience, especially since I live down here. Earlier incidents have also raised concerns. In January, just after 10 p.m. on First Friday, another shooting near Garfield and 7th Street left a teen seriously injured. A month earlier, in December, after First Friday, police again used pepper balls to break up multiple large fights. Advertisement Advertisement Clarissa West with Stardust & Sage says the incidents are starting to hurt local shops on what is typically one of their busiest days. It's been very unfortunate, West said. It's really the teen and the youth that is partaking in this. Businesses hope steps can be taken so visitors dont have to worry about what might happen. You need to have a chaperone process. Need to make it more family-friendly, and then make sure that curfew is enforced," Rollin recommended. The Phoenix Police Department said in a statement that it regularly works with event organizers and community partners to ensure public safety during First Fridays. A spokesperson for First Friday was also contacted about the recent incidents but had not responded at the time of reporting. Heres what youll learn when you read this story: An archaeological layer in Africa contained over 20 scraps of paper dated to the 16th or 17th centuries, including an order from King Qashqash. It was thought that the king may have only been a legend, but the paper is concrete evidence that the Nubian ruler was real. The kings order is an example of a routine exercise of authority, decreeing the trade of an ewe for textiles. This story is a collaboration with Biography.com. Advertisement Advertisement Until recently, Nubian King Qashqash was only known to historians from a few scattered references, leaving it unclear whether he was an authentic historical figure or a fictional invention. Now, a tiny, age-beaten shred of 500-year-old paper found in northern Sudan has made it clear that Qashqash was entirely real. Archaeologists excavating ruins of the ancient city of Old Dongola, the former capital of the Christian kingdom of Makuria in Nubia, discovered roughly two dozen scraps of 500-year-old paper. One of those scrapsmeasuring a scant 4 by 3.5 inchesoffers an administrative edict from King Qashqash to a subordinate, turning a king known only by word-of-mouth legend and hagiographic texts written long after his reign into a real ruling figure. The find was the focus of a study published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, which combined numismatic evidence, radiocarbon dating, and written sources [to investigate] rulership, social interactions, and Arabization in Dongola during the Funj period, according to the authors. The study highlights the fresh historical evidence for the pre-colonial ruler of Dongola, of which the newly-discovered written order is the centerpiece. Found in the ruins of a structure that was once the residence of a high-status leader, the Arabic document is not exceptional in and of itself, as it simply commanded the exchange of textiles and livestock. What makes it extraordinary is that it was issued in the name King Qashqash. The document reveals that the pre-colonial rulers involvement in governance and micropolitics extended to everyday work. The documentary sources uncovered at Old Dongola, including the kings order, provide invaluable insights into the network of connections in Dongola before the colonial era, the authors wrote. This evidence presents a unique opportunity to explore the linguistic transformations and cultural interactions that have shaped Nubia over time. Advertisement Advertisement The Kingdom of Makuria thrived during the medieval period, leaving a great deal of evidence for archaeologists and historians to study, but the traces of Makurian history grow dim after the 14th century, when decline set in. Oral traditions concerning this time still exist, but the scarcity of empirical evidence from the 16th and 17th centuries left scholars to wonder if King Qashqash was only the stuff of legend. The paper containing the order was undated, but nearby coins and radiocarbon dating of organic matter found in the same archaeological layer helped determine its age. Although the archaeological context suggests a later date, internal analysis and comparisons with other sources indicate that it most likely dates to the late 16th or early 17th century, they wrote, noting that the document could have been written and kept for some time before being discarded in the rubbish layer where it was found. Located near the eastern bank of the Nile, building A.1, known as the House of the Mekk, provides the archaeological context for these lost relics of Nubian history. Located in what was once a citadel, archaeologists believe the transparent size and complexity of the home shows it was owned by a ruler. Along with the more than 20 letters, notes, and legal records found during excavation, the team also uncovered a luxurious assortment of textiles, jewelry, and leather shoes, as well as a dagger handle crafted from ivory or rhino horn, and musket balls. But the star of the show is the order from King Qashqash. Its text indicates that it was written by Hamad the scribe and sent from the king to Khidr, likely a member of his staff. The order instructs Khidr to oversee the receipt of three textile units from Muhammad al-Arab in exchange for an ewe and her offspring. Khidr was ordered to get the ewe from someone named Abd al-Jabir. Advertisement Advertisement The kings order we have discussed here represents a rare instance in which a figure previously confined to the domain of hagiographic literature and oral traditions can be situated within a verifiable historical framework supported by tangible archaeological evidence, the authors wrote. The flip side of the paper has additional text, although damage to the paper makes it difficult to discern. It likely mentioned something about cotton or head coverings. Experts believe the trade of an ewe for textiles was more than a simple economic exchange. It was also a social one, establishing relationships and providing Qashqash with cultural cachet in the form of sought-after fabrics. You Might Also Like When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A panoramic view of Meteor Crater in Arizona. | Credit: Joel Alvarez/Getty Images Arizona's Meteor Crater and other scars leftover from collisions with space rocks continue to serve up their secrets. Meteor Crater formed some 50,000 years ago. It represents the best preserved meteor impact site in the world, measuring some 700 feet deep (213 meters), more than 4,000 feet across (1,219 meters), and 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) in circumference. Advertisement Advertisement Impact features like Meteor Crater continue to be ongoing research sites, generating new data on what happens when objects from the cosmos strike our planet . In fact, a number of competitive grants are being offered to support field research at known or suspected impact sites worldwide. That funding is backing laboratory and computer analysis of research samples and findings, creating new data from digging in on old craters around our globe. Natural laboratory A recurring visitor to the crash site is Dan Durda, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "Meteor Crater is the best-preserved and exposed impact crater on Earth," Durda tells Space.com. "That makes it the perfect natural laboratory for impact crater studies. The crater is still providing new insights every year, so continued studies there are really important." Similar in view is Christian Koeberl at the Department of Lithospheric Researchwithin the University of Vienna in Austria. He chairs the Barringer Crater Company (BCC) scientific advisory committee. The Barringer Crater Company has introduced grants to support students and early career researchers who study terrestrial impact craters, for better understanding of these craters and their formations, and also to encourage students to go into such important research directions. Advertisement Advertisement "Barringer Crater also known as Meteor Crater was one of the first, if not the first, crater recognized on Earth as being of impact origin in the early 20th century," Koeberl tells Space.com. The recognition of impact craters on the Earth is difficult, said Koeberl, because active geological and atmospheric processes on our planet tend to obscure or erase the impact record in geologically short time periods. "Despite limited information about the early impact record we know that impacts had severe effects on the geological and biological evolution on Earth," said Koeberl. For example, a large impact event on Earth marks the transition from the Cretaceous to the Paleogene eras, about 66 million years ago, he added. The most iconic species that has fallen victim to an impact, the dinosaurs, "literally had no chance," Koeberl said. Advertisement Advertisement Read more: 10 Earth impact craters you must see Aerial shot of Meteor Crater aka Barringer Crater, near Winslow, Arizona. | Credit: Chris Saulit/Getty Images High-energy geological event Morphological and geophysical surveys are important for the recognition of anomalous subsurface structural features, Koeberl said, which may be deeply eroded craters or impact structures entirely covered by post-impact sediments. "Detailed investigations involve confirmation of either shock metamorphic effects in minerals and rocks, and/or the presence of a meteoritic component in these rocks. In nature, shock metamorphic effects are uniquely characteristic of shock levels associated with hypervelocity impact," Koeberl said. Impact cratering is a short-time, high-energy geological event in which conditions are created that exceed conditions of nuclear bomb explosions. Advertisement Advertisement These kinds of studies have led to the identification of, so far, of about 200 confirmed impact craters on Earth, Koeberl said. "Impact crater studies have actually grown in importance over the years and are an interdisciplinary effort. We encourage young researchers from all over the world to submit grant proposals," he said. Four heroic dogs have been immortalised in bronze for the first war memorial of its kind in Britain. The National Military Working Dogs Memorial charity has revealed that work on the monument at a pet cemetery in Holywell, north Wales, has now been completed. Started in 2017, the project is the first physical tribute to those dogs that have served in the Armed Forces. The monument features four plinths set around a domed cenotaph, each topped by a bronze statue of a historically significant military dog. Advertisement Advertisement John Ward, 86, who served in the Royal Ordnance Corps and founded the charity, said dogs deserved special recognition for their bravery and camaraderie. He told The Telegraph: As long as man has two legs they will have four legs beside them. The bond between handler and dog is unbelievable. They are never apart they eat, sleep and work together. The memorial has been built to honour all branches of the Armed Forces, with an exemplary dog picked from each. At its northern point is Theo, a former arms and explosives search dog in the British Army. The black-and-white speckled springer spaniel was deployed to Afghanistan at 17 months old and went on to detect 14 improvised explosive devices for the 2 Para Strike Team. Advertisement Advertisement After Theos handler, L/Cpl Liam Tasker of the Royal Veterinary Corps was killed by a sniper in Helmand Province in March 2011, the dog died from a seizure three hours later aged just 22 months. Mr Ward said: He died of a broken heart. They are brave dogs, particularly the springers they have got the nose for it. Theo was awarded the Para Wings by the regiment, who said at the same time: He is one of us. L/Cpl Tasker left behind a handwritten profile of Theos achievements which contributed to the spaniel being awarded a posthumous PDSA Dickin Medal the animals Victoria Cross on Oct 25 2012. Advertisement Advertisement Moving on to Lucky, representing the Royal Air Force on the east plinth, Mr Ward said: Lucky was one of five German shepherds sent to the Malaya Emergency in the 1950s. They were so successful in sniffing out the enemy that the insurgents put a bounty on their heads. Lucky was the only dog to survive. Lucky and the other RAF dogs were attached to Malay Police and British Army regiments such as the Coldstream Guards, Second Battalion Royal Scots Guards and the Gurkhas as they sought to quell the revolt in what is now called Malaysia. Standing on the west plinth is Buster, an RAF Police mascot that completed five tours of duty, including Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Advertisement Advertisement Buster was the only dog to have gone five tours of duty and he never lost a squaddie on any of his tours, Mr Ward said, adding: He was a wonderful dog. The liver-and-white English springer spaniel worked ahead of ground troops to clear a safe passage as well as spending days and nights in the desert searching for hidden ammunition, weapons and explosives. The domed cenotaph and the four statues stand in a pet cemetery in Holywell, north Wales - EG13 Flight Sergeant Michael Will Barrow, Busters handler, later wrote a memoir titled Buster: The dog who saved a thousand lives. In the book, he wrote: Buster saved my life every day we were together. I owe him so much. On returning home, Buster was awarded the lifetime honour of RAF Police Mascot, which came with a ceremonial red and black coat. Advertisement Advertisement The spaniel won the Crufts Friends for Life award in 2012 and would continue to be an ambassador for the RAF, raising thousands of pounds for charity, well into retirement. The south plinth is occupied by Judy, representing the Royal Navy. The liver-and-white pointer received the Dickin Medal and was the only dog to have been registered as a prisoner of war. Mr Ward said: Judy was on HMS Grasshopper when she was torpedoed by the Japanese in February 1942. She was imprisoned in Sumatra, where she used to go and kill rabbits for the prisoners to eat. Pointer found RAF man after surviving sinking Over the three years in captivity, Judy would bark and nip at their captors heels when they attacked the prisoners in the Japanese camp. Advertisement Advertisement Leading Aircraftsman Frank Williams offered the dog his ration of rice and from that day, the pair were inseparable. He smuggled Judy on to a ship and kept the dog hidden in rice sacks as Japanese guards transferred them from the camp. When the ship was hit by a torpedo in June 1944, LAC Williams pushed Judy out of a porthole into a sea of burning oil before scrambling to exit the boat. He searched for Judy for days until, after arriving in a camp in Singapore, he felt a thump between his shoulder blades and turned to see the dog, battered and bruised. Survivors of the sinking later told of how Judy had dived down and helped soldier after soldier return to safety. Advertisement Advertisement At the next camp, Judy would live in the Sumatran jungle by day to evade guards before creeping into the camp at night to be with Williams. Afraid of what would happen to Judy if he died, Williams vowed to stay alive for the dog. After the war, Williams and Judys fellow admirers from the camp sneaked their pet on board a ship returning to Britain and refused to take no for an answer when they were told Judy could not disembark. Judy the pointer received the Dickin Medal, the dogs VC, after surviving a sinking at sea and life in brutal Japanese prison camps - EG13 Judy would later join Williams in Tanzania, where she returned to the jungle to hunt and have a litter of puppies, before dying two years later. Mr Ward, who spent nine years in the Armed Forces travelling across Belgium, Singapore, and Hong Kong, opened a pet cemetery on his return which he has been running for 36 years. Advertisement Advertisement He said he had been approached by Ian Henderson, of the Monuments Men, with the idea to make a memorial to the dogs. The charity set an initial fundraising goal of 150,000 and the work has now been completed in the grounds of the cemetery. Mr Ward said the memorial was not officially completed just yet as they were waiting for a member of the Royal Family to formally open it either this year or the next. Dirk Ward, 63, Mr Wards son, who also served in the Royal Ordnance Corps, said the charity had received a letter of support from the Queen. He added: All these dogs are famous in their own right. Advertisement Advertisement It is incredible what they can do. It is crazy. Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays. The Lieutenant Colonel killed in the shooting at Old Dominion University on Thursday, Brandon Shah, served more than 20 years in the military, including several years at Fort Bragg in NC. Shahs cousin, Twana Atkinson, lives in North Carolina and told ABC 11 in Raleigh that her family is heartbroken, but proud of the life he lived. It was something that was so shocking. I couldnt believe it, Atkinson said. Advertisement Advertisement Shah had returned safely from multiple deployments over his time serving in the military. Atkinson said she could never imagine he would lose his life going to work at ODU. He went and sacrificed his life for this country, and then for him to come back here and lose his life in a senseless act of violence is just a tragedy, she said. A gunman opened fire inside an ROTC classroom at ODU in Norfolk, VA on Thursday, killing 42-year-old Shah, police said. He was a professor of military science. Two others were injured in the shooting. The suspect has been identified as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh. He was a former Army National Guard member who pleaded guilty to attempting to aid the Islamic State terrorist group ISIS in 2016. Advertisement Advertisement The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. The ROTC students who stopped and killed the shooter were praised by the FBI for their bravery. Read more about Shah and his connection to the Carolinas here. WATCH: Problematic motel at the center of new investigation LIMA Saturday will mark two weeks since the start of Operation Epic Fury in Iran, and since its inception, 13 service members have died as part of that operation. While the war has been waged on the air and on the water up to this point, there have as yet been no soldiers deployed to Iran. However, it was fewer than 15 years ago when the U.S. military had troops on the ground in Iraq, just west of Iran, with the military withdrawal not completed until December 2011. As military actions in the Middle East begin to once again dominate the national discourse, what effect is that having on the veterans who were deployed in that area in such operations as Operation Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom? Conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder often followed military personnel back home after their tours were complete, with more than 1.7 million veterans receiving treatment in a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs mental health specialty program in 2017, according to the VA. In Allen County, a variety of programs and initiatives are in place to help veterans on numerous issues, including mental health. As the Allen County Veterans Service Commission has been continuing to help link area veterans with those services, executive director Tamara Wilson has not noticed any change in the number of veterans requesting assistance since the start of the Iran bombings. Advertisement Advertisement I havent seen much change in our office, she said. Our mission is the same, and thats to assist our veterans. Well continue to assist our veterans here in Allen County with filing for their VA benefits, any type of financial assistance that we can help with or, you know, connecting them to other resources such as the VA medical centers and things like that. But as far as any reactions or anything from veterans, I really just cant speak to that. Wilson added that each veterans situation is unique and their responses to events like Operation Epic Fury can be equally varied. Everybody experiences different triggers and different things, she said. So were always ready to connect our veterans to whatever resources are going to be helpful for their particular situation. Finish the job Advertisement Advertisement Vietnam veteran Butch Brewer has been one of the leaders of Vets Helping Vets, a peer support group for veterans suffering from PTSD, for several years, with many participants having been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Since Operation Epic Fury began, the group has met once, and like Wilson, Brewer did not notice any heightened anxiety or consternation among veterans at the meeting. I talked to the vets because I wanted to know, and so far, Ive only got one who said he was against it, he said. What the rest of them are saying, or have said to me, is, I just hope they finish it. Dont stop, because we have been stopped too many times. One of the most demoralizing realities for veterans, according to Brewer, is that going back as far as the Vietnam War, they feel like they were not put in a position to actually win. That withdrawal from Afghanistan [in 2021] really, really tore the guys up, he said. Theres a hell of a lot of resentment in the veteran community for the way that went down. Advertisement Advertisement Brewer also cited examples from other conflicts, including Vietnam, of soldiers feeling like they had their hands tied behind their backs when it came to doing what they had been trained to do. When we first got [to Vietnam], we were told not to load our weapons on guard duty and not to fire, even if they fired at us, he said. Some of these guys [in later conflicts], I am told, were told when they started going out on patrols, they had to count their bullets and when they came back in, if anyone on that patrol had fired a bullet or didnt have the same amount of bullets when they checked in, the whole squad was held and put through the wringer. This is the kind of stuff were hearing from these guys. With that in mind, Brewer said, if this military operation is conducted in such a manner where the objective is achieved quickly and conclusively, it could be a cathartic experience for veterans rather than a triggering one. Get it over with, he said. Get out, and let their people do what they want to do. We have no business [taking over]. I think thats what the majority of us are thinking. You started to do a job. Dont bind their hands behind their backs, which they did, and they still do up until now. Advertisement Advertisement What to watch for and where to go for help When it comes to issues like PTSD or depression, it is important for friends and loved ones to pay attention to veterans, according to Wilson, in order to ascertain when they may need help. See if things are changing with them, she said. Pay attention to their behavior. Make sure that if your loved one is a veteran, theyre connected to their VA benefits. A lot of people arent connected, or they just dont know to make sure they are connected to the VA Medical Center so they can get treatment and get help. Veterans looking to connect with area resources can also contact the county veterans service commission at 419-223-8522. Vets Helping Vets meets at 6:30 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at the service commission, 330 N. Elizabeth St., Lima. To learn more, contact Brewer at 567-242-8371 or Will Thompson at 614-595-1448. Baltimore-area drivers are fed up with the potholes marring the city and regions roadways after a heavy winter weather season. A routine drive to work or the grocery store has become expensive and frustrating. Drivers should not have to be concerned with hitting or dodging potholes, said Owings Mills resident Mercedez Evans, who has cracked two rims over the past six months driving on Reisterstown Road. A short trip could cost you hundreds of dollars in damages. We need to hold local leaders accountable when it comes to maintaining the roads. A 2022 survey from AAA found that Americans spend billions on repairs caused by destructive potholes, with an average price tag of nearly $600. Fourteen percent of the companys calls in Maryland last year were for tire-related issues, including those coming from potholes, though they werent uniquely tracked. Advertisement Advertisement Baltimore City Department of Transportation crews patch potholes every year, prioritizing resident-submitted 311 requests, but filling them is only a temporary fix. While the department smooths out some problem roads more permanently by repaving them, long-term fixes are subject to the citys roads budget, priorities and schedule. Last month, the citys transportation department filled more than 10,000 potholes across about 34,000 square feet of roadway in less than two weeks. Municipal officials acknowledged more work needs to be done, but said theyre moving as fast as they can. Staff from Baltimores transportation department and mayors office asked residents to report potholes through the citys 311 system so crews can respond quickly. Damage to cars caused by potholes can extend past tire damage, including dented rims, damaged wheels, dislodged wheel weights, displaced struts, dislocated shock absorbers, damaged exhaust systems, misaligned steering systems and ruptured ball joints, AAA wrote in a February news release. Baltimore City has paid out an average of about $46,000 every year since 2020 to settle claims of damage from potholes, according to data obtained by The Baltimore Sun. The city received nearly 700 road hazard claims from the start of 2020 through this past summer but ended up cutting checks for only 23% of them. Advertisement Advertisement Baltimore City did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Remington resident Micah Lebowitz unsuccessfully filed such a claim in 2022 after a pothole at the end of I-83 in Baltimore cracked the front passenger rim of his sisters car. After reporting the pothole and submitting photos of it and a copy of the auto shop bill for almost $700, he said the city refused to pay after filling in the pothole. A couple of weeks later, the response was Oh, the pothole got filled. We dont know. We cant help you when the potholes filled,' he said, explaining that the city then couldnt determine how deep the pothole was or if it actually did the damage to the car now that it was filled. Its almost like a hoax, Lebowitz said of the reimbursement scheme. Advertisement Advertisement Cecil County resident Dan Gill got a bent rim from a pothole on Orleans Street. He takes the Moravia ramp from I-895 onto Orleans Street westbound. The ramp itself is so bad. Everyone drives on the shoulder instead of the actual road. Ive reported it through the 311 app three times and all three times it has been closed out as completed, Gill said. Travis Alwine, of Wyndhurst, compared potholes to the bananas that throw cars off course in the video game. He told The Sun that a pothole on Deepdene Road in his neighborhood has exposed metal in it from a sewer pipe. Baltimore is basically a giant, dangerous Mario Kart speedway, Alwine said. Advertisement Advertisement Heavy vehicles, such as construction equipment, can degrade roads more quickly. Asphalt or concrete by nature is flexible, but the weight of these large equipment or vehicles puts immense pressure on the surface, which can lead to stress fractures. Over time, this can cause cracks and even potholes, according to asphalt and concrete construction specialist Wright Construction Company. In the rapidly developing north Baltimore neighborhood of Remington, roads are pocked with potholes. These roads are horrible, Lebowitz said. Though the city responds quickly to fill potholes, he noted the patches are temporary. Is it just for looks? Seems that way because I see them fill it, a couple of days later its gone completely and theres just a pothole again. Baltimore County resident Gabrielle Caggiano commutes into the city for work every day. Though she said the highway and roads near the Inner Harbor are mostly fine, Baltimores back roads are not in good condition. There are tons of potholes. Advertisement Advertisement Though she swerves to avoid potholes when possible, Caggiano said a bumpy ride around Remington doesnt bother her when shes in the neighborhood to see friends. I dont really care as long as it doesnt damage my car, she said. Wynnona Engle-Pratt, president of the Greater Remington Improvement Association, said the city doesnt have the funds necessary for proper road maintenance, making potholes inevitable. While the constant work from BGE is not helping our road conditions, and potholes are inevitable when we have the crazy weather were experiencing this season, the root issue is that potholes are worse on roads that are poorly maintained, Engle-Pratt wrote in a Friday email. Advertisement Advertisement Our city does not currently have the appropriate funding for good road maintenance. We live in a city built for a million with only half that many people as a tax base. Without more residents or more state funding, well never get ahead of the problem, Engle-Pratt said. BGE told the Baltimore Sun that crews often temporarily patch portions of roadway they disturbed, prior to completing a full restoration of the patched area to avoid causing potholes. Over the past 15 years, cuts to Marylands Highway User Revenue program have cost Baltimore nearly $1 billion that would have supported road work, according to city budget data. Without that, the city relied on transportation bonds between 2014 and 2023 while maintenance needs increased. Sun reporter Dan Belson, Matt Hubbard and editors Brian Carlton and Todd Karpovich contributed to this story. Have a news tip? Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@baltsun.com, 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks. Karen Bass and other local mayors joined immigrant advocates and faith leaders at a forum on federal immigration enforcement's impact on the Southern California region. During the town hall, local residents impacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement shared testimonials. The forum was held at the Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum, a building that houses the history of Japanese immigrants in America. Advertisement Advertisement Leaders heard from people affected by federal raids on the local Latino community and called for an end to inhumane enforcement tactics. "The ICE raids are inhumane and simply do not do anything to keep anyone safe," Bass said. San Fernando Mayor Joel Fajardo said: "We've witnessed unspeakable acts -- families being torn apart, communities living in fear, children scared to go to school and uncertain if their parents will return home." "Moments like this require us to speak up together, not as individual jurisdictions but as a region," Mayor Rex Richardson of Long Beach said. The mayors shared data on raids documented in each of their cities. They plan to add that data to Rep. Robert Garcia's growing national database. Following recent attacks targeting Jewish individuals and institutions, the Bay Area's Jewish community is increasing security measures at places of worship and community events. The heightened alert comes after an attack Thursday at a Michigan synagogue and the beating of two Jewish men in San Jose on Sunday. RELATED: Synagogue ramming probed as targeted act of violence against Jewish community: FBI "These horrific incidents are shocking, but they're not surprising anymore," said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council. "We've, for two-and-a-half years, been experiencing this form of collective punishment because of events in the Middle East." Advertisement Advertisement Gregory said the rise in antisemitism in recent years has forced local Jewish organizations to make security a top priority. "I think the Jewish community, by and large, thought our place in society was secure," he said. "We've seen the ways in which antisemitism in both extremes of our politics are seeping into the mainstream." MORE: 'It is antisemitism': Oakland's Chabad Center vandalized twice in 2 weeks Rabbi Avigdor Ashtar, who leads Congregation Anshey Sfard in San Francisco, said protecting his congregation has become a collaborative effort. "We're talking with the local police. We're also talking with the captain. And we're talking with a couple of other Jewish community leaders in the Richmond District and we are helping each other on this matter," Ashtar said. Advertisement Advertisement The San Francisco Police Department said Thursday it is conducting passing calls at houses of worship and deploying both uniformed and plainclothes officers to help ensure safety. MORE: Synagogue ramming probed as targeted act of violence against Jewish community: FBI Despite the increased precautions, Ashtar said he will not allow fear to dictate daily life. "A big part of terrorism is psychological," he said. "It's to make you fear and always look over your shoulder and not live your life because of who you are. And when I think about that, that's the source for me to get my strength." If you're on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi joined a march in Iran to mark the International Quds Day and said that Iran would stand firm and not cower in the face of attacks. In a post on X, Araghchi said, "Proud and honored to have accompanied the Strong and Resilient People of Iran to mark International Quds Day. Iranians will ALWAYS stand firm and NEVER cower before cowardly attacks. Video: Reaction of demonstrators when Tehran was bombed today is nightmare for aggressors." https://x.com/araghchi/status/2032445333989679504?s=20 Thousands of people on Friday gathered in Tehran on the occasion of Youm-e-Quds day and held protest marches condemning the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the joint US-Israel strikes on February 28. Visuals shared by the state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), showed large crowds taking to the streets carrying Iranian flags and portraits of Khamenei while chanting slogans condemning the US and Israel. Demonstrators described the strikes as acts of aggression and voiced anger over the escalating conflict in the region. Youm-e-Quds is an annual international day held on the last Friday of Ramzan to express support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Large rallies are held, usually beginning after the Friday prayers. Iran's first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, established Quds Day in 1979 shortly after the Iranian Revolution to show solidarity with Palestinians and reject Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. It has since become a symbol of resistance, as per Al Jazeera. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also called on citizens to participate actively in Quds Day events, describing the occasion as a symbol of support for the Palestinian cause and oppressed people around the world. In a post on X, Pezeshkian said Quds Day represents solidarity with Palestine and emphasised the importance of public participation in national events. Referring to the country's leadership, the Iranian President said the people's awareness and presence play a key role in ensuring the country's strength and urged citizens to demonstrate unity and resilience through their participation, saying such presence would disappoint Iran's adversaries. "Quds Day is a manifestation of support for the cause of Palestine and the defence of the oppressed peoples of the world. In emulation of the Supreme Leader, who, in his message, emphasised the presence and insight of the people and regarded it as the guarantor of the country's power. I invite the dear people of the country to more enthusiastically than in past days, through their presence in the field, disappoint the enemies of Iran," Pezeshkian said. (ANI) People who live near the Sherwin-Williams Plant in Rochester tell Channel 11 the plant has been giving off a strong smell for years, and its only getting worse. Its awful. Its awful. Nobody wants to smell that, said Sharon Kessler, who lives in Rochester Township, up the hill from the plant on Cleveland Street. The plant makes coatings that are then taken to customers, distributors, and blending facilities. Advertisement Advertisement Kessler describes it as a chemical, plastic smell. Shes lived in Rochester for 12 years, and said in recent years, the smell is stronger and she notices it more often. Sometimes it makes your tongue crawl, and when you smell it, sometimes it shocks your body and makes you feel sick, Kessler told Channel 11s Andrew Havranek. It smells like nail polish remover, said Katrina Warnick. Like acetone, just whatever you would think strong chemicals smell like. Warnick lives right next door to the plant. Not only does it smell outside, but the smell is strong in her own house. One time, it was so bad, she left! Advertisement Advertisement Take the dog, take the kids, we left and went out to Cranberry to my moms, she said. Her oldest son, who is 19, isnt even sleeping in his room. Thats where the smell is the strongest. They have an air purifier in the room, and they say the red air quality light is always on. Hes been sleeping in the hallway for months. Does this have long-term side effects? Is it going to be safe for me to continue to reside here? Warnick said. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said this Sherwin-Williams plant has had three violations in the last five years. The most recent news about the smell. Advertisement Advertisement That most recent violation was on January 30. They also have violations from April 3, 2023, and April 5, 2022. The DEP sent a statement to Channel 11 saying, DEP issued a Notice of Violation to the company on January 30, 2026, for failure to install the thermal oxidizer and to perform stack testing on the facilitys scrubbers. DEPs investigation and follow-up are continuing. DEP does not comment on current investigations or potential enforcement actions. Sherwin-Williams also sent Channel 11 a statement about the complaints. Sherwin-Williams is committed to excellence in Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) and compliance with applicable regulations across our operations. In addition, the Company is committed to being a responsible neighbor and an active partner in the community as demonstrated by our longstanding relationship with the local Rochester community, said Julie Young, Vice President of Global Communications. The Company takes community submitted complaints seriously and works to investigate and resolve them promptly. We are working cooperatively with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) agency to review and resolve any issues that investigations determine to be related to site operations. Advertisement Advertisement Neighbors said something needs to change. If they got a fine, even if they got a $10,000 fine, that would be like me giving you a dollar, Kessler said. This is such, and for such a wealthy company, why dont you take care of this? What is the matter with you? Neighbors are urging others to report the smell to the DEP when they smell it. They are also planning to go to an upcoming township meeting in Rochester. The DEP said, It is helpful to DEP if community members who experience odors report them to DEP as they occur. DEP relies on those reports to determine whether a malodor is occurring in the community and to identify its cause. Complaints can be reported to DEP by calling 866-255-5158 or by reporting online at: https://greenport.pa.gov/obPublic/EnvironmentalComplaintForm/ Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW Students from Global Learning Charter Public School visited the Massachusetts State House to advocate for environmental protection bills, according to a community announcement. The Roots 'n' Shoots Club members met with state Rep. Tony Cabral and a staff member from state Sen. Mark Montignys office. They argued in favor of the Farm to School bill, a bill to strengthen climate education in schools and the Outdoor Air Quality Act. The students joined peers from other schools and supporters of the bills for a rally outside the Statehouse, urging lawmakers to pass the legislation. Advertisement Advertisement Our students had a great hands on experience on how our government works with this visit, said Stephen Furtado, executive director of GLCPS. The Roots 'n' Shoots club raised awareness of our environment and what citizens can do to promote change. We congratulate our students and Ms. Sylvia on their advocacy for change and protection of our environment. Global Learning Charter Public School students in Ms. Sylvias Roots n Shoots Club visited the State House Open to New Bedford residents, Global Learning Charter Public School is a tuition-free public charter school serving 500 students in grades 5-12. It launched in 2002 as a Horace Mann charter school and became a commonwealth charter school in 2006. The school maintains small class sizes to foster a culture of personalization. This approach allows teachers to tailor the curriculum to the needs and level of each student. Global Learning Charter Public School offers an interdisciplinary curriculum that follows and builds upon the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. Students learn to work collaboratively in teams, use technology meaningfully in their coursework, strengthen their communication skills and develop the necessary skills to become engaged and ethical contributors to a global society. Advertisement Advertisement The school also capitalizes on the exceptional resources of the region, such as marine sciences, and ties these resources to the curriculum and instruction. For more information, visit glcps.org or call 508-991-4105. This story was created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct. This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford GLCPS students advocate for environmental bills Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova, whose leading role in the country's mass anti-government protests in 2020 saw her jailed for five years, received Germany's prestigious International Charlemagne Prize on Saturday. Upon accepting the award in the western city of Aachen, Kolesnikova called on Europe to hold fast to its values in the current "time of great uncertainty." Kolesnikova, who was released from prison late last year, was originally awarded the prize in 2022 alongside fellow opposition leaders Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Veronica Tsepkalo for their courage and commitment to democracy and freedom, but was unable to accept it due to her imprisonment. Advertisement Advertisement "It is precisely now that we see what Europe is truly made of," the 43-year-old said in her acceptance speech at Aachen Town Hall. "Not power, not fear, not violence. But people who stand together, people who preserve dignity, people who defend freedom." Sometimes, she said, the "voice of aggression" seems to be the loudest. "Our voices must be stronger." A trained flautist, Kolesnikova was a leading figure in mass protests that erupted after long-time ruler Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in widely disputed 2020 elections. The demonstrations were violently crushed, and thousands of opposition supporters, including Kolesnikova, put into prison. Advertisement Advertisement Following pressure from the US, she was released alongside more than 120 political prisoners in December and has since been living in Berlin. Kolesnikova also used her speech to highlight that more than 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars in her home country, saying she was also "speaking on their behalf today." Aachen Mayor Michael Ziemons recalled how Kolesnikova appeared in court in 2021, forming a heart with her shackled hands. "This heart has become a symbol," he said. A symbol of "the power of human will that does not bow to injustice." The International Charlemagne Prize is intended to honour laureates for services to European unity. Advertisement Advertisement Previous recipients of the award, handed out by the city of Aachen since 1950, include Winston Churchill, pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took home the award in 2025 and former Italian prime minister and ex-head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi is set to receive this year's prize in May. The prize is named after Charlemagne (748-814), whose empire extended over a large part of Western Europe. He often resided in Aachen, which is located near what is now Germany's border with Belgium and the Netherlands. Kolesnikova also gave some insights into her imprisonment, saying she used the time to read over 700 books, including by Shakespeare, Goethe and Hannah Arendt. Advertisement Advertisement "With books, you never feel alone," Kolesnikova told dpa in Aachen. She said she spent some two-and-a-half years in solitary confinement while imprisoned in Belarus and was not allowed any contact with the outside world for about three years. "That means I didn't receive any letters from my family, no phone calls, no parcels. I simply didn't hear anything from my family and friends, and they didn't receive any news from me at all." While she was isolated in prison, the solitude allowed her to focus entirely on her books, Kolesnikova said. "In my mind, in my soul, I wasn't in prison for a single minute; only my body was in the cell. I always felt free, and that helped me to keep going all those years." Maria Kolesnikova, a high-profile figure in Belarus' opposition movement, has said she read over 700 books while she was imprisoned for five years by the regime of long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko. "With books, you never feel alone," Kolesnikova told dpa on Saturday after travelling to the western German city of Aachen to receive the International Charlemagne Prize. She was awarded the prize in 2022 but was unable to accept it at the time because she was imprisoned in Belarus. "It's always a dialogue, a discussion with the authors. You're always in excellent company you have Shakespeare, Goethe, Hannah Arendt." Advertisement Advertisement Kolesnikova, who was released late last year, said she had spent some two-and-a-half years in solitary confinement while imprisoned in Belarus and was not allowed any contact with the outside world for about three years. "That means I didn't receive any letters from my family, no phone calls, no parcels. I simply didn't hear anything from my family and friends, and they didn't receive any news from me at all." A trained flutist, Kolesnikova was a leading figure in mass protests that erupted after Lukashenko claimed victory in widely disputed 2020 elections. The demonstrations were violently crushed, and thousands of opposition supporters, including Kolesnikova, put into prison. Advertisement Advertisement Following pressure from the US, she was released alongside more than 120 political prisoners in December and has since been living in Berlin. While she was isolated in prison, the solitude allowed her to focus entirely on her books, Kolesnikova said. "In my mind, in my soul, I wasn't in prison for a single minute; only my body was in the cell. I always felt free, and that helped me to keep going all those years." Mar. 14ROCHESTER Pop quiz: What is the most expensive place to live in Minnesota? If you said the Twin Cities metro area, you would be ... wrong. It's the Rochester metro area. At least, that is the surprising conclusion from the numbers crunched by the Family Budget Calculator, annually published by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank that looks at rising inequality in the country. Advertisement Advertisement The study looks at a range of factors that make up a family budget, including housing, food, child care, transportation, health care and taxes. It concludes that it would cost a Rochester family of two adults and two children $138,018 to live a "modest but adequate lifestyle." That is $4,000 more expensive than what a similar family would have to pay to afford the same lifestyle in the seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which the calculator estimated at $134,789. Is it believable? Some are not so sure. Rochester's ranking as the most expensive place to live in Minnesota came as a surprise to Brad Trahan, a professional search recruiter with Express Employment Professionals in Rochester. "I think it would surprise most people," Trahan said. Advertisement Advertisement Trahan's company is involved in recruiting people in a range of professions to the Rochester area, and he could recall only a single instance within the last year in which the cost of living caused someone to balk at moving to Rochester. It was a professional from Illinois who considered the move to Minnesota not just Rochester to be more expensive from a cost-of-living standpoint than living in Illinois. Even if the EPI report is true, Trahan said, he doesn't think the cost differential outweighs other factors that make Rochester an appealing destination for prospective newcomers. "When it comes to our educational system, private and public schools, and our public safety, police and fire, even if that number is true that we are $4,000 more, I believe that people are willing to pay that because of the quality of life in Rochester," Trahan said. Grace Pesch, the United Way of Southeast Minnesota's vice president of community impact, was not as skeptical as others might be of the report. She wanted to know more about the methodology and numbers behind the study before saying it was accurate. Advertisement Advertisement "A lot of people are paying an insane amount for child care," Pesch said. "So understanding the methodology is something that would help me to determine how confident I am in those numbers." Two years ago, United Way of Southeast Minnesota released a report that challenged the notion of what constituted poverty under federal law. It described a family of four as needing at least $90,000 to survive and work in Olmsted County, far above the then $28,000 federal benchmark. Pesch said such hard data offers insight into the economic circumstances of area families, but it can only go so far. To get a fuller picture, it needs to be married with the stories of people's lived experiences. "To create this report, it was just looking at the hard data. But there's a lot of nuance in people's lives that a data set can't fully capture," she said. Advertisement Advertisement In a side-by-side comparison with the Twin Cities, according to the EPI study, Rochester is judged to be less expensive in several ways: The cost of housing and child care is cheaper in Rochester than in the Twin Cities. A family of four in Rochester pays $16,000 for housing compared to $20,000 for that same-sized family in the Twin Cities. And food is cheaper in Rochester in relation to the Twin Cities, $12,800 to $14,000. Child care and transportation costs were pretty much even-steven between the two regions at around $31,000. The one area where Rochester rises head and shoulders above the Twin Cities in terms of cost: Health care. In the home of Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center, it costs a Rochester family $22,000 to buy health care, $7,000 more than the $14,000 a Twin Cities family pays, according to the calculator. The cost of living is a little less onerous for a single person living in Rochester than in the Twin Cities, according to the report. That person needs $51,500 to live comfortably in Rochester, while needing $52,700 to enjoy that same lifestyle in the Twin Cities. Advertisement Advertisement The report also makes clear that areas within the seven-county Twin Cities are more expensive to live in than Rochester. The most expensive place? Washington County at $144,800. Other metro areas in Minnesota ranked far below Rochester and the Twin Cities in terms of annual costs. The St. Cloud metro is $123,700, and the Duluth metro area was even cheaper, at $107,700. The report suggests that a family could find plenty of less expensive places around the Rochester area to call home. While it costs nearly $140,000 for a family to live in Olmsted County, Wabasha ($115,656), Dodge ($120,192), Winona ($103,944), Goodhue ($110,423), Fillmore ($109,232), and Houston ($116,949) offer cheaper options. FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) A Bella Vista woman has pleaded guilty to multiple charges after working at a Northwest Arkansas rehabilitation facility using someone elses license and name, according to court documents. Alicia Flanagan, 57, pleaded guilty on March 13 to two counts of practicing medicine without a license and two counts of nonfinancial identity fraud. Alicia Flanagan, 57 (Courtesy: Washington County Detention Center) Washington County Prosecuting Attorney Denis Dean told KNWA/FOX24 that Flanagan was sentenced to six years in prison with three years suspended. Advertisement Advertisement According to an affidavit filed in October 2023, the Director of Nurses for Springdale Health and Rehab called Springdale police to report a previous employee had been practicing medicine without a license. The director received a call from the Arkansas State Board of Nursing and was told Flanagan had fraudulently used the credentials of Alicia Pierce, a Virginia nurse, to get a healthcare job, the affidavit said. The document said Flanagan worked at Springdale Health and Rehab from September 2022 to January 2023. Fayetteville man killed in crash on Interstate 49 in Lowell The board became aware of the situation when Flanagan applied for and worked at North Hills Life Care and Rehab starting on May 4, 2023, using Pierces credentials. Advertisement Advertisement Pierce was contacted by the board, and she said she did not know Flanagan was using her license, according to the affidavit. Flanagan does not have a nursing license, the document said. She went to college for a short time but did not earn a certification or a degree. Detectives with Washington County interviewed Flanagan, who admitted to working at Springdale Health and Rehab without a license. Records from the Arkansas State Board of Nursing showed Flanagan was issued a cease and desist on November 30, 2023, for being an unlicensed practitioner. A warrant for her arrest was issued on Nov. 13, 2023, and it was served on April 24, 2024 according to court records. Advertisement Advertisement Flanagan was officially booked into the Washington County Detention Center on April 25, 2024, jail records showed. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24. Oklahoma Rep. Stephanie Bice (R) said Friday she would not run for the Senate after President Trump tapped Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to run the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and set off a scramble among Oklahoma Republicans. After prayerful consideration, I remain committed to serving the Fifth Congressional District, a place that I proudly call home, Bice said in a post on the social platform X. President Trump needs strong allies in the House and it is my honor to champion policies that better the lives of everyday Oklahomans. In the next few weeks I will file for re-election, and Im excited to continue traveling across the district to share our strong America first agenda. Advertisement Advertisement Chatter built quickly after Trump announced Mullin as a Cabinet pick to replace Kristi Noem at the DHS, with Bice and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) teasing potential bids. Bice, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said earlier this month that she was carefully considering a run. Hern, a wealthy businessman and chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, launched his campaign on Wednesday. The primary election will take place on June 16. Candidates must file to run during the three-day filing period from April 1-3. In the meantime, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has 30 days to appoint someone from Mullins party to temporarily fill the seat after the senator leaves his post, who will serve until a new senator is elected in November, but the appointee must pledge not to run for a full term afterward. Advertisement Advertisement Mullin, who was up for reelection in November, was elected to the Senate in a 2022 special election, defeating a rival Democrat by roughly 27 points in the red state to fill the remainder of former Sen. Jim Inhofes (R-Okla.) term. Trump won Oklahoma by more than 30 points in 2024. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A bomb threat reported on a JetBlue flight headed from Logan Airport in Boston to Vero Beach, Florida, on Saturday afternoon has been deemed not credible, authorities say. Massachusetts State Police said that on Saturday morning, they were alerted by MassPort officials that they had received a phone call from an unidentified person who reported that there was a bomb onboard the flight. Customers sat on the tarmac for almost three hours as authorities investigated the threat. Advertisement Advertisement Troopers assigned to Logan Airport, the Anti-Terrorism Unit, and the Commonwealth Fusion Center worked with our partners in Florida to confirm that the report was NOT credible, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts State Police said. Law enforcement in Florida apologized to customers on the plane and explained to them that although the threat was not viable, they still had to go through the necessary precautions. In a statement, a spokesperson for JetBlue said the plane received taxied to a remote area after landing as a result of a possible security threat. Law enforcement met the flight and cleared the aircraft. The safety of our customers and crewmembers is JetBlues first priority, a spokesperson for JetBlue added. Advertisement Advertisement This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Boston police are looking for the publics help in locating the suspect pictured in surveillance footage from an alleged breaking and entering on 12 Devon Street in Roxbury. According to authorities, around 12:45 a.m. on Friday, officials responded to a radio call for a breaking and entering in the area of 12 Devon Street. When police arrived, they located a victim who stated that an unknown suspect had used a rock to break the front door of the residence. On March 11, the suspect had also allegedly attempted to break into his motor vehicle which was parked across the street. Advertisement Advertisement Boston police are currently investigating, and anyone with information is encouraged to contact (617) 343-4275. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW OMAHA The Honduran janitor who waved a box cutter tool at federal agents during a high-profile immigration raid last year in Omaha was sentenced Friday to 14 months in prison. Marvin Aleman Zepeda, 37, is to be deported to Honduras after he completes his sentence. The sentence by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert Rossiter Jr. follows Aleman Zepedas jury trial conviction last December for resisting, impeding, interfering with or assaulting a federal officer. Federal immigration agents during an Omaha worksite raid June 10. (Courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Aleman Zepeda had been employed at Omahas Glenn Valley Foods since January 2024, according to court records, which said he had no criminal record prior to the conviction related to actions during the June 10 raid, which was the largest immigration enforcement action in Nebraska since President Donald Trump took office a second time. Advertisement Advertisement Nearly 80 workers were detained. Soon after the raid, federal officials announced criminal charges against five people four of them were protesters, the fifth was Aleman Zepeda for encounters with immigration officers during the raid. The operation was described as a crackdown on fraud and the use of stolen U.S. identities to work illegally. To date, available federal court records show only one employee, Guadalupe Cabrera Mejia, sentenced criminally for false representation of a Social Security number. Cabrera Mejia was sentenced earlier this year to one year in prison. Most detained Glenn Valley workers faced civil violations rather than criminal, which put them into deportation proceedings. Several agreed to voluntarily deport themselves, and others have been released on bond while legal teams battle deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said that an administrative civil charge is often a more expedient option, a faster path to deportation. The Omaha raid came as federal agencies were under increased pressure from the Trump administrations mass deportation goals. Advertisement Advertisement In Aleman Zepedas case, evidence established that agents were executing a civil search warrant at Glenn Valley when they found Aleman Zepeda hiding in a crawl space. He refused repeated commands to come out. Agents struck him with tasers in the leg multiple times. They commanded him to show his hands. Instead, a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office in Nebraska said, he armed himself with a box cutter, or utility knife, with an open blade. The Douglas County Sheriffs K-9 dog unit came to the scene, according to the original criminal complaint. The dog was barking and, according to a complaint, law enforcement agents informed Aleman Zepeda he would be bitten if the K-9 had to be used. He then surrendered. The Nebraska U.S. Attorneys Office said the Aleman Zepeda case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and ICE. It said the Douglas County Sheriffs Office assisted in securing him. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Saturday criticised the United States over its stance on Russian oil, claiming Washington was now "begging" countries across the globe, including India, to purchase Russian crude despite earlier pressure to stop such imports. In a post on X, Araghchi said, "The US spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the world--including India--to buy Russian crude." https://x.com/araghchi/status/2032544442503045126 The Iranian foreign minister also criticised European countries for backing an "illegal war" against Iran, claiming they expected American support against Russia in return. "Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win US support against Russia. Pathetic," he said. Meanwhile, Iran has allowed two India-flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers to transit through the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in the Middle East region, Reuters reported, citing four sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Reuters, citing two sources and shipping data from Lloyd's List Intelligence, further reported that a crude oil tanker carrying Saudi Arabian oil is expected to arrive in India on Saturday after having transited the Strait of Hormuz around March 1. Earlier, Iran's Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Tehran will provide safe passage to vessels bound for India through the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia, citing the longstanding friendship and shared interests between the two countries. Answering a question on whether Iran would allow Indian-bound ships safe transit through the Strait, which is one of the critical routes for global energy trade, Fathali said, "Yes. Because India and I are friends. You can see the future, and I think that after two or three hours. Because we believe that. We believe that Iran and India are friends. We have common interests; we have a common fate." He emphasised the mutual responsibility between the two nations, adding, "Suffering of the people of India is our suffering and vice versa. And for this reason, the government of India help us, and we should help the government of India because we have a common fate and common interest." (ANI) NEED TO KNOW A 14-year-old boy has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of his mother Police allege that the boy shot his mother after an argument over a stolen tablet The boy initially claimed his mother died by suicide, police allege, but later admitted to being angry before the shooting, per reports A 14-year-old boy in Wyoming is being charged with the first-degree murder of his mother, according to multiple reports. According to a news release from the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to the 2300 block of Pine Avenue for a report of a 41-year-old female with a gunshot wound to the head on Saturday, March 7. Advertisement Advertisement The woman, later identified by Cowboy State Daily, Oil City News, and Wyoming News as Theresa McIntosh, was unconscious but breathing, with a visible gunshot wound to the back of her head. She was transferred to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) before being life-flighted to UC Health in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she succumbed to her injuries. The juvenile was taken into custody, and initially, Wyoming News reported that he allegedly told the Laramie County Sheriff's Office that his mother had died by suicide. CRMC staff, however, did not find a "contact wound" that would be typical of suicide attempts involving firearms, Wyoming News reported, citing court documents. Advertisement Advertisement At the time of the incident, the only other people in the home were McIntoshs common-law husband and the 14-year-old suspect, Oil City News reported, citing a Laramie County Sheriffs Office affidavit. In court documents obtained by local news outlet Cowboy State Daily, Leone allegedly told investigators that at the time of the incident, McIntosh had been completing a puzzle in his room. That morning, the two had argued over a tablet that McIntosh accused the boy of stealing from a client of her house-cleaning business. The boy allegedly told police that his mother called him names, including "thief." Law enforcement alleges that the suspect stole the firearm used in the shooting a week prior, after he and his mom were reportedly involved in a "big fight" over his math grade, per Oil City News. Theresa McIntosh Credit: Theresa McIntosh/Facebook He was angry right before he shot McIntosh and couldnt tell her how much he hated her because she doesnt understand him, Deputy Miles DePrimo wrote in an affidavit of probable cause, per Cowboy State Daily. He was mad McIntosh was calling him names." Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. [He] has thought about killing McIntosh in the past, specifically when she would make him do things he didnt want to do," DePrimo alleged in the affidavit. Read the original article on People Mar. 13BEMIDJI The Boys and Girls Club of the Bemidji Area has operated a satellite location in J.W. Smith Elementary since the fall of 2023. Less than three years later, that location is at risk, given the potential closure of J.W. as a cost-saving measure for the Bemidji school district. Should the closure come to fruition, how would it affect those students served by the Boys and Girls Club? The story of the satellite location Advertisement Advertisement originated with a grant, awarded to Bemidji Area Schools and the Boys and Girls Club of the Bemidji Area. The $2.7 million grant from the Minnesota Department of Education allowed the Boys and Girls Club to open a 21st Century Community Learning Center site as an after-school operation inside J.W. Smith, alongside the district overseeing similar efforts at Bemidji High School and Bemidji Middle School. "We are thrilled to collaborate with our school district to serve those students who need us most," Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Andrea Kent said at the time the award was given. "We have dreamed of expanding our Club services to another site in our community, and are excited to realize that dream in September 2023." Advertisement Advertisement Kent noted that over 190 unique youth a notable chunk of J.W.'s current student body of 237 have been served since the J.W. expansion, with an average of 70 to 80 congregating at this branch on any given day. Kent added that more than 500 additional youth including neighborhood children utilize the school's playground and track. During a May 2025 site visit with MDE, Kent noted MDE's claim that the J.W. Smith branch was the best 21st Century site that it's seen in the state of Minnesota in eight years. "(The site) is doing exactly what it's meant to do," Kent said. "It is meant to provide reading supports and math supports, social and emotional behavior supports, provide accessible programming, opportunities for a variety of enrichment from awesome partners, provide food resources, and cultural programming." Advertisement Advertisement Kent said that MDE is "in alignment" to renew grant funding through 2029. Should J.W. close, after-school programming for these youth would face uncertainty. The pursuit to shutter J.W. Smith's doors has its own origin story. The district has operated in a structural deficit since 2019, and the board has workshopped a three-year plan to bring its budget into balance. Year one saw approximately $800,000 in reductions, while last year saw roughly $1.5 million. With a projected $3.5 million budget shortfall for the 2026-2027 school year, administration maintains that steeper reductions are needed due to Advertisement Advertisement a combination of unfunded mandates and state pullbacks, costing the district more than $1.3 million a year. Efforts to increase revenues have seen some success. The district saw a roughly $2 million increase in compensatory aid due to an increase in free/reduced lunch applications. Additionally, the district pursued Alternative Delivery of Specialized Instructional Services ADSIS funding, which provided state aid for certain intervention positions. The district has also sought additional revenue, such as Achievement and Integration aid, funding that's given as a means to pursue racial and economic integration, increase student achievement, create equitable educational opportunities and reduce academic disparities. Advertisement Advertisement J.W. Smith was deemed a "racially identifiable school," given that its enrollment of protected-class students well exceeds 20%. J.W. students of color total 82%, with 62% of that number being American Indian. "There's a cultural piece about this school where (students) truly feel a sense of belonging," Kent said. "Taking them from where they love and placing them in different schools, then asking them to still do well in school and still have great behaviors, that doesn't seem like a reasonable ask." The Bemidji Area Schools Board of Education unanimously approved the district's Achievement and Integration funding at its Feb. 23 regular meeting, Advertisement Advertisement securing just under $600,000 for next school year. Despite these cash flows, the deficit remains. According to Superintendent Jeremy Olson, the focus on J.W. Smith's consolidation follows several months of evaluating other options many of which would've produced one-time savings, but no permanent fixes to the funding gap. J.W.'s closure is projected to save the district roughly $1 million a year. Administration has noted several empty classrooms at its other elementary schools, with students being redistricted to Lincoln, Northern and Horace May Elementary, assuming J.W. Smith closes. Declining birth rates and their corresponding K-3 enrollment in the district have served as a rationale for consolidation at the K-3 level. Prior to 2017, the district's Kindergarten classes averaged around 400 students. Since 2017, Kindergarten enrollment has declined and now appears to be stabilizing between 270 and 300. Advertisement Advertisement Roughly 37% of those born at Sanford Health will become students with Bemidji Area Schools. The board has also pointed to J.W.'s status as the district's oldest building being built in 1954 as well as accessibility issues that the building has. "The building has been kept in very good condition," Olson noted. "However, the long-term cost of keeping the J.W. Smith site will continue to increase." Resulting from several conversations with fellow community members in recent weeks, Kent compiled a list of 18 potential revenue strategies as alternatives to J.W.'s closure for school board consideration. Advertisement Advertisement "I know that (the board) is taking this seriously, but I don't think this is their issue to shoulder alone," Kent said. "This is a community issue. This is about investing in our kids for the next generation." Kent recognized that none of the proposed strategies are an "easy fix" to the district's budget woes, and that some may require an extended timeline. Floated in recent months is the potential for a referendum. Kent specifically expressed support for a 2027 referendum vote, noting a higher likelihood of passage in an odd election year as well as doubt for a successful referendum attempt if J.W. Smith closes this year. Advertisement Advertisement "Why wouldn't we give the public another opportunity to maintain the quality of education in Bemidji before deciding on closure and cuts?" Kent asked, adding that the creation of financial and marketing task forces could aid in such an effort. Another revenue strategy includes a half-cent sales tax in city limits, which could produce an additional $1 to 1.5 million a year in direct revenue to Bemidji schools based on city data. Other strategies focus on sponsorships; recruitment strategies to increase enrollment from online and/or charter schools; partnerships with 218 Relocate, the Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce and Visit Bemidji for marketing purposes; and seeking large annual gifts. "A district staff member said to me, 'If only somebody could walk in with $2 million...' And I asked, 'Did any staff or school board ask somebody to walk in with $2 million?'" Kent reminisced. "We need to help and everyone wants to help, but give us mechanisms to help. Ask me to give $100 or $1,000 to the district, and ask our community to do the same. "Dozens of community members have flooded my email and my office in hopes to save J.W. Smith and support continued education there. ... There are so many other professionals in this community that are willing to rally their networks and their agencies, and they're the troops for a better Bemidji." Kent noted that J.W.'s closure and any other future cuts could risk Bemidji's status as a regional hub. Kent hopes that the board and administration use this and other concerns as motivation to pursue additional revenue sources before a final vote for closure takes place. "This is not a situation where there's an 'or' for us. This is an 'and,'" Kent left off. "We are 100% for continuing education at J.W. Smith, and we are 100% for the school district as a whole supporting all kids that go to all Bemidji schools." The Town of Bristol is suing two agencies in U.S. District Court after being denied the most recent inspection report for the Mount Hope Bridge, a major state bridge that connects Bristol and Portsmouth. The town is suing the federal Transportation Security Administration and the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority over the failure to release the report, which was requested after the emergency closure of the Washington Bridge connecting Providence and East Providence. The lawsuit alleges that the two agencies violated Freedom of Information Act laws by withholding the report, and asks the court to order RITBA to produce its findings. The agencies say the report contains "sensitive security information" that needs to be reviewed before it is released. Advertisement Advertisement Bristol Town Administrator Steven Contente said residents who travel the 1929 suspension bridge should have access to the report and that it's a "reasonable" request, particularly given the Washington Bridge closure. "I think that the public has a right to know what the condition is," Contente said. "The Rhode Island Attorney Generals Office has already confirmed that RITBA handled this request appropriately. Since there is pending litigation, we do not have anything else to add," RITBA spokesperson Cara Cromwell said. The Mount Hope Bridge connects the towns of Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island, and Bristol, on the state's mainland. Why the town was denied the Mount Hope Bridge inspection reports According to the complaint, town leaders requested the inspection report following the Dec. 13, 2023, Washington Bridge closure. According to RITBA, the Mount Hope Bridge carries approximately 15,000 vehicles per day via Route 114, and about 7 million trips per year. Advertisement Advertisement On Oct. 2, 2025, they submitted an Access to Public Records (APRA) request seeking the most current report in possession of RITBA regarding the condition and structural viability of the Mount Hope Bridge. On Oct. 17, RITBA denied the request, saying it was exempt from disclosure because it contained sensitive security information. The agency responded that it had sent the report to TSA for review and potential redactions and would produce the report if the federal agency authorized them to disclose "some portion" of the report. The TSA defines sensitive security information as information that would, or could, "assist an adversary who is planning an attack against a transportation system." In addition, the agency provided that safety inspections are generally not deemed as sensitive security information but can be designated as such at their discretion. Advertisement Advertisement On Oct. 31, Bristol appealed RITBAs denial to the office of Attorney General Peter Neronha, which upheld the denial. The evidence shows that even though at least parts of the report may eventually be deemed public, RITBA is required to not disclose the report until TSA has completed its review process, the attorney generals office said in its ruling. The attorney general's office did, however, encourage the agencies to provide the town with copies of the report after they had been reviewed and potentially redacted by the TSA, and the decision emphasized that RITBA pledged to do so once it got approval. Bristol tried to get the report from the TSA as well Town leaders also filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the TSA on Jan. 30 to get the most recent inspection report for the bridge and is suing the agency after claiming it failed to comply with the 20-day deadline to notify about its determination. Advertisement Advertisement TSA failed to make any determination, failed to produce any records, and failed to invoke any lawful extension, lawyer Peter Skwirz wrote. The town accuses the agencies of wrongfully and unlawfully withholding the records. This story has been updated with new information. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Bristol RI says TSA is withholding Mt. Hope Bridge inspection report When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. King Charles III opens Parliament with the kings speech in the House of Lords. | Credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool / Getty Images What happened Britains House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of Parliament, will no longer include hereditary peers under a bill that gained final approval Tuesday night. Under the law, the remaining earls, viscounts and dukes who inherited their seats in the chamber along with their aristocratic titles will leave Parliament for good when the current session concludes this spring. Who said what The law was a priority for Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour Party, and its passage finalizes reforms begun 25 years ago under the Labour government of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. For most of the chambers 700-year-history, only noblemen almost never women and a smattering of bishops served in the House of Lords, until they were joined by politically appointed life peers in the 1950s, The Associated Press said. In 1999, Blair evicted most of the 750 hereditary peers, though 92 were allowed to remain temporarily to avoid an aristocrats rebellion. Advertisement Advertisement The House of Lords can amend but not block legislation from the House of Commons, Reuters said, and under a deal to secure assent, around 15 Conservative hereditary peers will be allowed to keep their seats as newly minted life peers. The Lords plays a vital role in Parliament, but nobody should sit in the House by virtue of an inherited title, Angela Smith, leader of the upper chamber, said in a statement. What next? The bill will become law once King Charles III grants royal assent a formality, the AP said. Starmers government said the legislation was the first step in wider reform to the House of Lords, the only legislative body that still contains a hereditary element other than Lesothos Senate. With more than 800 members, the House of Lords is also larger than any legislative body except Chinas National Peoples Congress. Additional changes will involve members retirement and participation requirements, Smith said. Editor's note: The exact number of Buc-ee's locations receiving an "F" by the Better Business Bureau has changed several times in the days since the first March 11 USA TODAY story. American travelers love Buc-ee's, the Texas-based chain of massive gas station/convenience store travel centers that provide a wide variety of beaver-branded snacks and merchandise and sparkling clean bathrooms. Well, most travelers. Dozens of Buc-ee's locations on the Better Business Bureau website have received an "F" rating as of March 13. The nonprofit consumer organization says it's because it says the cult-favorite chain failed to respond to 88 customer complaints. Advertisement Advertisement Anyone can submit a complaint about a business on the Better Business Bureau website, the same way they can post reviews to sites like Yelp. The oldest of the outstanding complaints stretches back to March 2023. The most recent is from last month. Here's what to know. Did any Florida Buc-ee's get Better Business Bureau complaints? No. To date, no complaints about the two Florida locations in St. Augustine and Daytona Beach have been filed with the BBB. What are people saying about Buc-ee's? Common complaints about specific Buc-ee's locations include issues with the car wash, broken or ineffective merchandise, and erroneous card charges. Several customers also said they filed a complaint on the Buc-ee's website but had not heard anything back from the company. Advertisement Advertisement The BBB said 88 unanswered complaints have been filed against Buc-ee's locations in the last three years. In the last 12 months, 27 complaints were closed, the nonprofit said. Buc-ee's did not immediately respond for comment about the "F" rating when contacted by USA TODAY on March 11. Which Buc-ee's got Fs from the Better Business Bureau? The Buc-ee's locations that received an F rating are in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. How does a business receive an 'F' rating from the BBB? The Better Business Bureau, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide transparency about businesses to the general public, assigns ratings on a scale of A+ to F. Ratings are based on information the nonprofit can obtain about the business, including public complaints, according to the Better Business Bureau's website. Advertisement Advertisement "BBB ratings are not a guarantee of a business's reliability or performance. BBB recommends that consumers consider a business's BBB rating in addition to all other available information about the business," the group's website says. How many Buc-ee's are in Florida? There are two open now, in St. Augustine and Daytona Beach, and at least four more in progress in Ocala, Fort Pierce, Tallahassee, and Port Charlotte. The Fort Pierce location in St. Lucie is slated for a 2027 opening, according to the company's contact page. The Ocala location, which has been in the works for years, is planned for 2028. No dates have been announced for the other Florida spots. What is Buc-ee's? Buc-ee's began in Texas in 1982 and stayed in the Lone Star State for years, but the chain has been making inroads into the Sunshine State and elsewhere. Locations are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and serve as one-stop shops for travelers and locals. Advertisement Advertisement They're known for cheap(er) gas at each location's insane number of gas pumps; a wide variety of hot food, bakery items and fudge prepared on site; a wider variety of store-brand snacks, grocery staples, sauces and an entire wall of jerky; and a large section of home decor, kitchen utensils, clothing, barbecue grills, Florida souvenirs, and more. Buc-ee's was rated by GasBuddy.com as having the cleanest restrooms of any convenience store chain in the nation. In May 2024, USA TODAY's 10Best chose Buc-ee's as the 10th best for both Best Gas Station Brand and Best Gas Station for Food. C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida's service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Floridas best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY. (This story was updated to add new information.) This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Buc-ee's in 5 states get 'F' rating from BBB. What about Florida? Februarys blizzard buried Cape Cod under mounds of snow, but all that frozen precipitation didnt ease the drought that has plagued Massachusetts for two years. Because temperatures remained below freezing, much of that water stayed locked in snow and frozen ground, and on the recent warm days has run off into storm drains rather than soaking into rivers, ponds, and groundwater, according to state officials. As a result, residents on Cape Cod are being urged to conserve water as drought conditions continue across the state. Nantucket has imposed mandatory restrictions and fines for violations. Conditions are listed as normal for Dukes County. This November 2024 photo shows rocks and exposed muck along Mary Dunn Pond in Hyannis where the water's edge had receded eight to ten feet during an earlier drought on Cape Cod. Photo taken Nov. 19, 2024 This drought has been building since 2024, and were still seeing the effects in low streamflow and lower water levels across the state, Rebecca Tepper, secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement. Even though we had a snowy February, it wont be enough to replenish the groundwater after such a long period of drought. Advertisement Advertisement Even when the snow melts, state officials said the two to three feet that fell in some areas during Winter Storm Hernando on Feb. 22-24 amounts to only about two and a half inches of water not enough to fully recharge rivers, lakes, ponds and groundwater after months of below-average precipitation and substantial water deficits. Tepper has declared worsened drought conditions in several parts of the state after a state task force reviewed data from August 2024 through the end of February 2026. As of March 9, Cape Cods status stands at a level 2 significant drought. Nantucket improved slightly from a level 3 critical drought declared in mid-February, but island leaders have placed the island under a mandatory level 2 drought condition. Unlike many parts of Massachusetts that rely on reservoirs or large regional water systems, most towns on Cape Cod and the Islands depend almost entirely on groundwater drawn from local aquifers. That makes the region particularly sensitive to long stretches of dry weather, since rain and snowmelt must seep through to replenish drinking water supplies. Advertisement Advertisement Across Cape Cod, many towns have already imposed restrictions, usually limiting outdoor watering and irrigation to certain days or hours. Nantuckets current restrictions go further, making conservation mandatory and imposing fines for violations. In this November 2024 photo, a water depth marker in Mary Dunn Pond in Hyannis, where the water's edge had receded eight to ten feet, showed a depth of less than four inches. Several regions in the state have worsened from previous drought status. The central and northeast regions are now in a level 3 critical drought, according to the Energy and Environmental Affairs office, while the Connecticut River Valley has moved to a level 2 significant drought and western Massachusetts is now in a level 1 mild drought. For that reason, Tepper said, its important for everyone to be mindful of how we use water. Small actions can help protect our water supply while conditions recover. Cities and towns where significant drought has been declared are being urged to limit outdoor water use, including washing hard surfaces, vehicles and boats. Advertisement Advertisement State officials hope warmer temperatures and rain expected this month could gradually help replenish water systems. Nantucket leaders issued an advisory on March 12 informing residents that, effective immediately, automatic irrigation of any kind, including drip irrigation, is prohibited. Residents may use handled hoses or watering cans only, and must limit washing decks, sidewalks, driveways and streets. Februarys blizzard buried parts of Massachusetts under mounds of snow, including Cape Cod, but a level 2 drought remains. Due to the severity of the drought currently occurring on island, the Nantucket Water Commission unanimously voted to establish fines for those on town water who violate the mandatory use restrictions, according to the March 12 alert. A first offense will result in a warning. A second violation carries a $250 fine, a third a $500 fine, and a fourth offense will result in water service being shut off to the property. Advertisement Advertisement The drought status on Nantucket will be reviewed monthly, officials said. Barnstable County has not issued any new drought advisories since the state agency's announcement, though county officials have continued outreach on groundwater conservation. In the past week, the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment promoted a Groundwater Awareness Week event about Cape Cods aquifer and water resources. Residents saw a presentation The Unseen Lifeline: Groundwaters Role in Cape Cods Ecosystem. The presentation examined how groundwater supports everyday life on Cape Cod, feeding rivers, ponds, wetlands and marshes, coastal waters and estuaries, as well as drinking water supplies. Advertisement Advertisement Under the states drought management plan, agencies will monitor conditions and coordinate with towns, including local boards of health, to track effects, such as private wells running dry. Residents are encouraged to report wells that stop producing water to their local health board. State environmental officials said the Drought Management Task Force will meet again April 7 to reassess drought conditions. Heather McCarron, hmccarron@capecodonline.com, writes about climate change, environment, energy, science and the natural world, in addition to news and features in Barnstable, Brewster and Falmouth. This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Nantucket imposes fines for water use violations as drought continues A Friday night drive went spectacularly wrong (and then some) after a car collided with a fuel tanker on Interstate 471 southbound in Newport, Kentucky, sparking a massive fire and a series of explosions that had witnesses convinced they were watching a Michael Bay film unfold in real life. The crash occurred around 10:10 p.m. near the Memorial Parkway exit. The fuel tanker overturned, its cargo ignited, and before long, emergency dispatch was fielding the kind of call that makes even seasoned first responders do a double-take. According to a local news station, a dispatcher stated: "A tractor-trailer transporting fuel... exploded right across the bridge in Kentucky." Because apparently, just a regular fender-bender wasn't dramatic enough. Multiple Explosions, Big Plumes, and a Heat You Could Feel Witnesses on the scene described the kind of chaos you don't easily forget. Jacob Adams, who watched from nearby, said he lost count of the booms. Advertisement Advertisement "I heard an explosion. Some people say they heard five. I heard way more than that big plumes of ash going straight up in the air," he said. Another bystander admitted they got close enough to physically feel the heat radiating from the blaze. (Spoiler: standing near an exploding fuel tanker is not recommended, no matter how good the content would look.) Flames reportedly traveled through the highway's drainage system all the way into the sewer below because when a fuel tanker decides to go out, it goes out thoroughly. Fire officials, however, said no significant structural damage was reported from that underground adventure. Three Hospitalized, Tanker Driver Released on Scene Image Credit: WLWT / YouTube. Three people from the car were taken to the hospital. Two children, ages 6 and 12, were transported to Cincinnati Children's Hospital with minor injuries, as was an adult woman who was also in the vehicle. Advertisement Advertisement Thankfully, all injuries were described as minor. The 47-year-old tanker driver was treated at the scene and released, which, all things considered, is a remarkable outcome given what his evening looked like. I-471 Shut Down in Both Directions If you were planning to use I-471 Saturday morning, well, adjust your plans. All lanes remain closed as crews work to clean up the aftermath of what can only be described as a very bad Friday night for that stretch of highway. Northbound, the closure runs between Alexandra Pike/US-27 through Memorial Parkway. Southbound, drivers are blocked from Exit 5 (Newport/Bellevue) through Grand Avenue. Inspectors are expected on-site on Saturday to assess structural damage to the road and surrounding infrastructure. Campbell County Emergency Management, state highway officials, and multiple agencies responded to the scene. No word yet on what exactly caused the initial crash but the car community is definitely waiting to hear more information before they pass judgment. Leaked communications have revealed that the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament, has cooperated more closely with far-right parties than previously known. EPP representatives recently used a WhatsApp chat group and held face-to-face meetings with lawmakers from the far right to draft legislation aimed at tightening EU migration policy, dpa has learned. The collaboration centres on a draft law that would enable the deportation of asylum seekers to "return hubs" in non-EU countries. Advertisement Advertisement The proposal successfully passed the relevant parliamentary committee shortly after the secret negotiations, bolstered by votes from the EPP and the far right, including the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD). Manfred Weber, the EPP's chairman and a member of Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU), had given the impression that there was no coordinated cooperation with the far right. As recently as late last year, Weber had stated that a "firewall" was in place to protect European values against those he labelled "enemies" of the European Union. Asked whether Weber knew about the WhatsApp group and the meeting between members of his EPP group and far-right politicians, a spokesman declined to comment, saying internal procedures would not be discussed. Advertisement Advertisement Lena Dupont, a German EPP lawmaker and member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU), sits on the committee responsible for the migration file. She recently told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that "there was no structural cooperation with the AfD and other far-right forces" on the vote. Dupont characterized the vote as an incidental alignment of conservative and far-right camps rather than a coordinated effort. The deal took shape in early March after months of deadlock within the informal pro-European coalition of the EPP, the Socialists and Democrats group, and the liberals in the Renew Europe group. When the Socialists refused to back the "return hub" concept, EPP representatives used a WhatsApp group to pitch the proposal to three right-wing factions, sources told dpa. Advertisement Advertisement The three groups were: European Conservatives and Reformists, which includes lawmakers allied with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; the Patriots for Europe, which includes French politicians from the National Rally of Marine Le Pen; and the Europe of Sovereign Nations, which includes AfD members. How the deal was struck The chats indicate a high level of synchronization. EPP staff incorporated specific amendments suggested by the office of AfD lawmaker Mary Khan, including measures for medical age-testing of asylum seekers. In one exchange, an EPP staffer explicitly noted, "We can support this," in response to a far-right suggestion. Advertisement Advertisement Some politicians made it clear early on that their support would come with conditions. Dutch lawmaker Marieke Ehlers told dpa she had made it known that she would only participate if she could actively contribute to the process. "I will not simply sign on the dotted line," said the politician from the Party for Freedom, founded by Dutch radical-right populist Geert Wilders. Ehlers declined, however, to specifically comment on confidential chats. Shortly after the WhatsApp group was created, the four lawmakers negotiating the bill met in person on March 4. They included Khan, Ehlers, French EPP member Francois-Xavier Bellamy and Charlie Weimers, a Swedish politician that sits with the European Conservatives and Reformists. Advertisement Advertisement Together they drafted a legislative proposal ahead of the committee vote. Following their agreement, participants in the chat exchanged messages of gratitude for the "excellent cooperation," accompanied by applause emojis. Migration proposal gains momentum The committee vote is seen as a breakthrough in the debate over whether EU states could soon establish "return hubs" in countries outside the bloc. Specifically, the regulation would allow asylum seekers ordered to leave the EU who cannot be directly deported to their home countries to be transferred to reception centres outside the bloc. Advertisement Advertisement A vote by the full European Parliament is expected in the coming weeks and is now considered largely procedural. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, a conservative, has been among the strongest advocates of the concept, arguing it would ease pressure on Europe's asylum system. According to the German government, Berlin and four other EU countries have already drawn up a preliminary roadmap for establishing the return hubs. Critics warn the plan could endanger refugees' fundamental rights. Debate over political 'firewall' in Germany The revalation of these contacts could ignite a fresh political firestorm in Germany. Advertisement Advertisement Mainstream political parties in Berlin, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, have pledged to maintain a strict "firewall" against the AfD - meaning zero cooperation on political issues. In early 2025, heated debate erupted after CDU/CSU lawmakers in the German parliament attempted to push through tougher migration measures that passed only because AfD lawmakers also voted in favour. Germanys Social Democratic Party on Saturday called for clarification following the revelations about contacts between the EPP group and the far right. The party's general secretary, Tim Klussendorf, said that Weber must explain himself. Advertisement Advertisement "Should it prove true that EPP members are collaborating directly with the extreme right, including the AfD, in joint chat groups and preparing legislative texts, this would be a scandalous affair," he said. Members of the European Parliament from other parties also reacted with outrage. Erik Marquardt, head of the German Green delegation in the European Parliament, told dpa: Integrating far-right extremists into democratic processes will be the beginning of the end of liberal democracies in Europe. The Iranian administration on Friday released pictures of coffins of fallen IRIS Dena sailors who lost their lives in the attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship. In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in India said, "The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship." https://x.com/Iran_in_India/status/2032516208705286190 Earlier, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, on Tuesday paid tributes to the sailors of IRIS Dena who were killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. He called the action by the United States a "war crime" and in violation of international laws-- further underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it. In a post on X, Baqaei said, "We honour the fallen sailors of the #Dena frigate, martyred on 4 March far from their homeland. The Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit. In a brutal act amounting to a war crime, the United States attacked the vessel near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka and sank it." The post added, "Worse still, the U.S. deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. This act not only constitutes aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (Definition of Aggression), but also a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II (1949) and Additional Protocol I (1977). The Iranian people will neither forget nor forgive this heinous crime." IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels, including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with maritime patrol aircraft such as P-8I aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations. Of the estimated 180 crew members on board IRIS Dena, around 87 sailors were reported dead, while about 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. (ANI) When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A burial of a child with a metal belt over their remains. | Credit: Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Salerno e Avellino Archaeologists in southern Italy have uncovered the graves of two children who were buried wearing large bronze belts nearly 2,500 years ago. The metallic accessories are unusual because they are typically found only in adult male burials from the pre-Roman Samnite culture. During recent work at the site of a former tobacco factory in Pontecagnano, a town in the Campania region of southwest Italy, archaeologists excavated part of an ancient cemetery containing 34 burials dated to the fourth and third centuries B.C., according to a translated statement from the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Salerno and Avellino. Roughly half of the graves contained the skeletons of children between the ages of 2 and 10 years old. Advertisement Advertisement Archaeologists have been excavating at Pontecagnano since the early 1960s, and have revealed more than 10,000 tombs across three cemeteries dated from the ninth to third centuries B.C.). Pontecagnano was first settled in the ninth century B.C. by people from the Villanovan culture , who introduced highly skilled bronzeworking practices to southern Italy. Two centuries later, Etruscan groups transformed Pontecagnano into a commercial hub for Greek, Phoenician and Italian traders. And by the fifth century B.C., the Samnites warlike tribes that lived in the mountains of southern Italy and spoke a language called Oscan had moved into Pontecagnano. The city remained a Samnite hub until the Roman conquest of southern Italy in the third century B.C. The Pontecagnano cemeteries have revealed key information about the Samnites' burial practices. Their graves were organized by family unit, and most took the form of earthen pits covered with a tile roof. Grave goods offered to the dead included a variety of pottery, but some artifacts were gender-specific: Men were buried with warrior-coded artifacts like spearheads, javelins and bronze belts , while women were given rings and brooches. An example of a Samnite bronze belt dating to the late fifth to the early fourth century B.C. These belts, alongside other military equipment, were often buried in the graves of warriors. | Credit: Rogers Fund, 1908; The Met; Public Domain But in the new excavation, archaeologists discovered two children between the ages of 5 and 10 who were buried with bronze belts typical of adult male burials. Archaeologists had previously unearthed at least one additional example a 12-year-old child wearing a bronze belt at Pontecagnano. "It's a find of great significance," archaeologist Gina Tomay told the Italian news outlet ANSA in 2021. Tomay also said that the boy lived in the fourth century B.C. and was buried with ceramic cups to ensure he had food and wine in the afterlife. Advertisement Advertisement RELATED STORIES 'Truly extraordinary' ancient offerings, including statues of snakes and a child priest, found submerged in 'healing' spring in Italy 4,000-year-old footprints near Pompeii show people fleeing Mount Vesuvius eruption thousands of years before the famous one Mythical hellhound and sea-centaurs painted on 2,200-year-old tomb discovered in Italy Experts aren't sure why these children were buried with an accessory typical of a warrior. However, sixth-century A.D. Anglo-Saxon graves of boys buried with belts and other warrior gear in the U.K. may have been placed there to speak of "the men these children might have become ," archaeologists have previously suggested. Excavations are ongoing in various sectors of the town of Pontecagnano due to public and private construction projects, so the overall results of the archaeological work have not yet been made public. The superintendency plans to announce the new discoveries at this important pre-Roman settlement once research is complete. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Getty Images China's central government has warned state enterprises and agencies not to install OpenClaw on office computers this week, according to Bloomberg, as multiple government bodies moved to rein in the Austrian-developed AI agent following a surge in adoption across the country. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB) has also published security guidelines, and the People's Bank of China has added a separate warning on AI in the financial sector, the South China Morning Post reported. OpenClaw, developed by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger, is an autonomous AI agent that automates tasks including email management, calendar scheduling, and travel check-ins. Its adoption in China has been rapid enough to acquire a nickname "raising lobsters," a reference to the app's mascot and Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, and MiniMax have all launched compatible tools. But there are widespread concerns around the fact that OpenClaw requires broad access to user files and can communicate externally, potentially exposing host machines to cyberattack or data leaks if OpenClaw isnt used cautiously. Advertisement Advertisement The NVDB advisory, developed alongside AI agent providers and cybersecurity firms, tells users to run only the official latest version, minimize internet exposure, grant minimum permissions, and guard against browser hijacking. Prohibited practices include using third-party mirror versions, enabling administrator accounts during deployment, installing skill packs that require passwords, and disabling log auditing. The NVDB specifically flagged connecting instant messaging apps to OpenClaw as a risk that could grant excessive read, write, and deletion permissions over files. Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China called at its annual technology conference in Beijing on Wednesday for AI in the financial sector to be managed in a "proactive yet prudent, safe and orderly manner. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology said the day prior that it plans to begin trialing AI agent trustworthiness standards on the likes of OpenClaw starting late March. Curiously, these restrictions sit alongside active policy support for the same technology, with Shenzhens Longgang district currently seeking public feedback on a draft policy offering subsidies of up to 2 million yuan ($289,000) for OpenClaw app developments. "Chinese regulators typically respond with extraordinary speed to threats from emerging technologies, but the rate of adoption of OpenClaw and other agentic tools is still outpacing them," said Kendra Schaefer, partner and director of tech policy research at Trivium China, speaking to Bloomberg. (Refiles story from March 12 to fix typo in headline) BEIJING, March 12 (Reuters) - China passed a law on a "shared" national identity among the country's 55 ethnic minority groups on Thursday, a move critics say will further erode the identity of people who are not majority Han Chinese and risk making anyone challenging that "unity" a separatist punishable by law. Called "Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress", the ethnic minority law aims to forge national unity and advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its core, a draft copy of the law showed. Advertisement Advertisement It was passed at the closing session of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, by 2,756 votes, with three opposing votes and three abstentions, according to a Reuters witness. The law will come into force on July 1 this year, state media reported. Officially, China has 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, dominated by the Han Chinese, who account for more than 91% of the country's 1.4 billion people. China's ethnic minority populations - including Tibetans, Mongols, Hui, Manchus, and Uyghurs - are concentrated in regions that together cover roughly half of the country's land area, much of it rich in natural resources. Advertisement Advertisement The law aims to promote integration across ethnic groups through education, housing, migration, community life, culture, tourism, and development policy, the law said. It mandates that Mandarin is the basic language of instruction in schools, and for government and official business. In public settings, where Mandarin and minority languages are used together, Mandarin must be given "prominence in placement, order, and similar respects," the draft said. "The state respects and protects the learning and use of minority languages and scripts," it added. Religious groups, religious schools, and religious venues must adhere "to the direction of the Sinicization of religion in China," according to the draft. Advertisement Advertisement The law also seeks to ban any interference with marriage choices based on ethnicity, custom, or religion, to enable more intermarriage between ethnic groups. 'INTEGRATE WITH THE MAJORITY' Allen Carlson, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert on Chinese foreign policy, said the law underlined a move towards assimilation. "The law makes it clearer than ever that in President Xi Jinping's PRC non-Han peoples must do more to integrate themselves with the Han majority, and above all else be loyal to Beijing, he said, referring to China by the initials for its official name. Advertisement Advertisement Ethnic affairs are incorporated into China's social governance system, with clauses that include anti-separatism, border security, risk prevention, and social stability. Organisations and individuals outside China that carry out acts against the country "that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic separatism shall be pursued for legal liability in accordance with the law," the draft said. An editorial in state newspaper China Daily said that the law had followed a rigorous legislative process, been through multiple readings and consultations with lawmakers and representatives from ethnic minority communities. "The law stresses the protection of cultural traditions and lifestyles of all ethnic groups... it is misleading to claim that ethnic minorities in China must choose between economic development and cultural preservation," it said. (Reporting by the Beijing newsroom; Writing by Farah Master; Editing by Kate Mayberry) SHANGHAI, March 14 (Reuters) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in a phone call that disputes between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be resolved through dialogue and consultation, not force, the foreign ministry said in a statement published on Friday. Wang urged both sides to remain calm and exercise restraint, hold face-to-face talks as soon as possible, seek an immediate ceasefire and address differences through dialogue, according to the statement. The further use of force would only complicate the situation and intensify tensions, Wang said. Advertisement Advertisement The ministry's statement came after Pakistan on Friday bombed the fuel depot of private airline Kam Air near Afghanistan's Kandahar airport, stepping up the neighbours' worst conflict in years, despite China's efforts to mediate. Wang and Muttaqi also exchanged views on the situation in Iran, the statement said. Wang told Muttaqi, according to the statement, that Beijing is willing to work with the international community, including Afghanistan, to bring peace to Iran. (Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue) By Daniela Desantis and Lucinda Elliott ASUNCION, March 14 (Reuters) - When Paraguayan opposition lawmaker Leidy Galeano returned from an all-expenses-paid tour of six Chinese cities late last year, she was convinced Paraguay risked missing out on major economic gains by sticking with longtime ally Taiwan over Beijing - a message participants on the trip heard repeatedly from Chinese officials. "Everything I saw there, I wanted for my country," said Galeano, a member of the newly-formed Yo Creo party whose senior figures have spoken favorably about China. Advertisement Advertisement This trip and others like it, which people familiar with the visits said were at the invitation of the Chinese consulate in Sao Paulo, offered lavish banquets, stays at luxury hotels and tours of the Great Wall, part of what Paraguayan lawmakers said they saw as a coordinated effort to draw the country away from democratically governed Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory. With just 6.4 million people, landlocked Paraguay is a tiny player on the world stage. But it is Taiwans last diplomatic ally in South America. A switch by Paraguay, one of 12 countries in the world that still recognize Taiwan, would give Beijing a symbolic win in its campaign to isolate Taipei. Its efforts are also a sign of China's intent to cement its influence in Latin America, where U.S. President Donald Trump too is determined to be the pre-eminent superpower. With more than two years left in his term, President Santiago Pena's government has little incentive to shift a Taiwan policy that has long anchored its foreign relations. Beyond that, analysts say the outlook is less clear, with succession battles potentially splintering the ruling Colorado Party or pushing them into alliances with opposition groups historically more open to recognizing Beijing. Pena has publicly reaffirmed support for Taipei. All the Latin American countries that switched from Taiwan to China and fell into the arms of the promise of the Chinese dream - every single one of them is worse off than Paraguay, he said in December on his podcast. Paraguay's presidency did not respond to a request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement The foreign ministry said in a statement Paraguay's relations with Taiwan "are founded on principles and values of freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law." PARAGUAY IS BEING COURTED BY BOTH SIDES China's growing engagement is colliding with steppedup efforts by Taipei and Washington to hold the line. Paraguay signed a defense pact with the U.S. in January, joined Trump's Board of Peace, and participated in a White House critical minerals summit earlier this year. Washington also lifted sanctions on former President Horacio Cartes, who was previously targeted over alleged corruption and is a mentor to Pena, whose term ends in 2028. Interviews with half a dozen participants- including three lawmakers and three journalists who joined the trips - and a Reuters review of travel itineraries show the charm offensive by China in Paraguay has picked up in the past year. A Reuters tally shows at least 19 Paraguayan lawmakers, five journalists and a rising opposition presidential contender have visited China since late 2023, with a sharp acceleration last year and more trips planned for March. Advertisement Advertisement China's foreign ministry, in a written response to Reuters, said siding with Taiwan authorities holds no future, and that a growing number of Paraguayans across different sectors now believe establishing diplomatic ties with Beijing would serve the fundamental and longterm interests of both countries, according to the statement. It denied any lobbying effort, saying peopletopeople exchanges were a twoway effort that do not require anyone to lobby for them. Taiwan's foreign ministry, in a statement to Reuters, said Beijing was attempting to poach its allies and that it was "actively working to maintain ties with all of Taiwan's diplomatic partners." A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Asuncion told Reuters that Washington hoped Paraguayans on official Chinese-guided tours understand the degree of information manipulation inherent in them. Beijings outreach to Paraguay follows a pattern seen across the region. Panama, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua and more recently Honduras all switched recognition after sustained Chinese lobbying and promises of trade and infrastructure. Advertisement Advertisement LAWMAKERS TOURED TECH AND HEALTHCARE FACILITIES Paraguayan opposition lawmaker Roya Torres said Chinese officials used her trip in October 2025 to showcase advanced healthcare services and technology, taking her through treatment centers and highspeed rail stations while hinting that trade and investment could flow faster if Paraguay switched recognition to Beijing. The healthcare visits struck her most powerfully, she said. The contrast with home, she said, deepened her fear that Paraguay was "running out of time" - a message Chinese officials delivered to her repeatedly - and risked being left behind in both cuttingedge medical equipment and access to Chinas market if it maintained ties with Taipei. Paraguay, long counted among South Americas poorer countries, has seen a burst of growth in recent years on the back of beef exports, manufacturing and construction. It secured investmentgrade status in 2024, but entrenched corruption and deep gaps in education and infrastructure spending continue to limit how far those gains spread. Advertisement Advertisement Paraguayans on the trips said invitations were issued by the Chinese consulate in Sao Paulo, though Reuters was unable to independently verify the origin or who funded the trips. The Chinese foreign ministry did not confirm the origin in a response to Reuters. On an October morning last year, Galeano, Torres and other lawmakers spent the night at Beijings luxurious ShangriLa hotel before a packed day of touring the sprawling manufacturing powerhouse of Chongqing and meetings with local leaders, according to an itinerary seen by Reuters. The lawmakers Reuters spoke to described the tours as a rare, unfiltered look at Chinas technological ambition and political confidence. Liberal Party Deputy Billy Vaesken, who spent 15 days in China in late 2024 alongside two ruling Colorado Party lawmakers, said he is now advocating deeper ties with Beijing. Advertisement Advertisement We must not miss our chance, he said, pointing to potential Chinese investment in local infrastructure. Reuters requested interviews with at least half a dozen Colorado Party members, all of whom declined to comment on trips they made to China. Several other prominent opposition members who participated in visits also declined to discuss them. Chinas multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has carved out a growing footprint in South America, more recently with Perus Chancay mega-port, a logistics hub that cuts shipping times to Asia and is fast becoming Beijing's gateway to the region. In Paraguay, the debate is increasingly economic. Its main exports are soy and beef, but it cannot sell directly to China because Beijing refuses to trade with countries that recognize Taipei. Instead, shipments move through Argentina and Brazil, cutting into profits. At the same time, Chinese goods are pouring into Paraguay, with imports topping $6 billion in 2025-a record, official data show. Taipei has helped fund projects including the parliament building and a new university campus under construction. But a report by local research center CADEP found Paraguays ties with Taiwan have delivered only modest economic gains. Public sentiment may also be shifting: a recent poll by consultancy Metro showed rising support for establishing relations with China. Metro declined to comment on who commissioned the survey. Advertisement Advertisement Officials at Taiwans embassy in Asuncion said they too are actively lobbying to counter China through TV appearances and inviting lawmakers from the ruling Colorado Party to Taiwan. Still, Beijing's approach appears to be gaining traction with some. More people in parliament are already looking toward mainland China, said lawmaker Vaesken, who plans to return to China this year. Before long, Taiwan will end up like Hong Kongit will become part of China, be annexed, and Paraguayans will be left with nothing. (Reporting by Daniela Desantis and Lucinda Elliott. Additional reporting by Eli Moreno in Panama City, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Beijing Newsroom. Editing by Cassandra Garrison and Claudia Parsons) Mar. 13MITCHELL The person who spearheaded circulating a petition to bring a land transfer to public vote is considering legal action against the city of Mitchell. "If the city wants a legal fight, I will file suit and I will win," petition leader Boyd Reimnitz Reimnitz told the Mitchell Republic on Friday. Mitchell Mayor Jordan Hanson planned to meet with city staff about the petition. Advertisement Advertisement "We get sued, we just have to go through the legal process," Hanson said. A resident-led referendum to place a Mitchell City Council-approved contract to a public vote was rejected in a 5-3 vote on Thursday, March 5. The petition challenged an agreement to transfer the city's former mobile home park properties to the Mitchell Area Development Corporation for $1, which was approved at the Feb. 2 council meeting and calls for 24 housing units to be built on the property north of Hitchcock Park. The petition received more than the required 499 votes, with 564 verified signatures of an estimated 672 gathered signatures. Council member Susan Tjarks and council president Kevin McCardle stated concerns for the validity of the petition and a fear of the city and council members being personally sued if the referendum was approved at that meeting. The staff agenda request stated that "a special meeting was called for so that council could have the option of placing the ballot on the June 2, 2026 ... if desired ... the City Council will need to decide whether the petition is invalid or valid and, if held to be valid, when to place the matter on the ballot." However, according to a state official, the council has no authority to reject a referendum or to determine its validity, only to set a date for when voters will accept or deny it. Advertisement Advertisement Christine Lehrkamp, the director of elections for the Secretary of State's Office, told the Mitchell Republic on Wednesday, "It doesn't appear that there is anything the council does other than set the date." "That's all that's there in the statute," Lehrkamp said. The process, according to Lehrkamp, is for a finance officer to determine whether there's enough valid signatures, the petition is in the correct form, and then present it to the council. The council then, according to Lehrkamp's understanding of statute, sets a date for voters to decide. Mitchell Finance Officer Michelle Bathke told the Mitchell Republic on Thursday the petition was submitted on Friday, Feb. 27, and she verified the number of signatures over the weekend by Monday, March 2. Advertisement Advertisement When asked if there was anything that stood out to her with the petition as being wrong, different or incorrect, Bathke said, "My job was to verify the signatures." On that Monday, Bathke sent the petition to the city's attorney's office. On Thursday, City Attorney Justin Johnson told the Mitchell Republic his legal problem with the petition was a matter of terminology. Of concern, he said, was the term "residence" instead of "voter registration address" on the petition. "It appeared to me that that was the only difference," Johnson said. "There were three different spots in the form where the terminology changed." Advertisement Advertisement On the resident petition, the word "address" was absent on the residence column, but was stated on the instructions to signers. The South Dakota Secretary of State's pamphlet entitled "How to Circulate a County or Municipal Ballot Question Petition," most recently updated on Nov. 26, 2025, references municipal referendum administrative rules on the state legislature's website and uses "residence address," and the Secretary of State website's downloadable sheet states "voter registration address." In other words, both are available on the state's website. Advertisement Advertisement In addition, petitioners wrote their addresses under the residence column on the 98 petition pages provided to the Mitchell Republic by the Mitchell finance office. Johnson stated, "Administrative rule says that it needs to be on the proper form. That's really all I can say." Johnson did not reach out to the Secretary of State's office on the matter, according to Johnson. State statute lays out what is to be included in a petition, but does not call for a particular legal form to be used, so that the petition must follow a format rather than a form. A downloadable sheet is on the Secretary of State's website, but this has multiple areas for modifying the form for the needs of the petition rather than a strict adherence to a state-prepared form. Advertisement Advertisement In addition, a petition may be "made up" and shall be "liberally construed," according to state statute, meaning that the governing body should go by the spirit of what the petition says, even if poorly written. "I can't really really comment on that, just in the event that there is a lawsuit filed that's an argument that would need to be handled in court. I will say that I don't necessarily agree with the way that the petitioners were framing that statute," Johnson said. Lehrkamp noted the city is or may want to let the courts decide, and something being liberally construed means that petitioners "tried their hardest to put the correct language." Advertisement Advertisement "(Liberally construed) feels like you're giving the benefit of the doubt that there was good intentions behind what was stated on the petition," Lehrkamp said. The council has limited options for setting a date, which includes the date of the next annual municipal election or the next general election, whichever is earlier. The next municipal election is Tuesday, June 2. However, statute allows for the council to order an expedited election to be held on a Tuesday not less than 30 days from the day a council decides to hold the expedited election, as long as this is decided within 10 days of receiving the petition. Furthermore, pending the election, a "governing body may take no action with respect to the subject matter of the petition that would alter or preempt the effect of the proposed petition," according to statute. This means the property would not be able to be transferred or other actions taken that would modify the property until voters decide at the polls. According to Lehrkamp, the only decision that can't be referred to a vote is an administrative decision, which deals with hiring, setting wages or executing previously-approved plans of the legislative body. "But outside of that any other decision by the council can be referred," Lehrkamp said. (The Center Square) - License plate transfers could get a bit easier in Colorado after a state legislative committee approved a bill that would let residents move license plates between vehicles. The Colorado House Appropriations Committee unanimously passed House Bill 26-1053 Friday morning, crossing party lines for the issue. The Motor Vehicle Regulation Administration bill will now head to the full House on March 16 to be read for the third and final time. If passed, it will go to the state Senate for consideration. Upon request of the owner of a motor vehicle, the department may transfer a number plate from one motor vehicle to another motor vehicle if at least one person is listed as an owner on the certificate of title for each motor vehicle, read the bill. Advertisement Advertisement The no-frills bill aims to simplify new vehicle registrations by allowing Coloradans to transfer their license plates over from one owner to the next. License plates are currently retired when a car changes ownership, but the legislation would allow people to apply to keep their existing license plate after purchasing a car. HB 26-1053, was introduced Jan. 14 and is sponsored by Rep. Tisha Mauro, D-46th District; Sen. Byron Pelton, R-1st District, and Sen Katie Wallace, D-17th District. If passed, the license plate change would go into effect Jan. 1, 2028. On Friday, the committee also approved a short amendment to the bill, setting aside roughly $18,000 for the Colorado Driver License, Record, Identification and Vehicle Enterprise Solution (Colorado DRIVES) program. The bill also made a number of other administrative changes, such as excluding professional firefighter license plates from the new transfer rule. While the bill did not specify how much the application to keep a cars license plate after its transfer would cost, the standard Colorado license plate set is currently $7.38. A new Audit Accountability Committee will hold the Oregon Department of Transportation responsible for following through on audit corrections. The Oregon Transportation Commission, ODOT's governing body, approved the committee's creation at a March 12 meeting. Recent internal audits have found issues spotted in audits completed years before and plans to fix them remained unaddressed, sometimes more than a decade later. Advertisement Advertisement Issues with the DMV incorrectly charging for title and registration fees persisted after a 2022 audit. ODOT had taken steps to address only one of the 2022 recommendations and none of the nine issues identified had been solved, a 2025 follow-up found. Another 2025 audit revealed the state had remained out of compliance with some federal requirements for four years and had not fully addressed audit findings from eight years prior. The committee is intended to "ensure that the department takes actionable steps on audit findings in a timely and responsive manner." The group will do that by overseeing plans to respond to audit recommendations and how they are carried out. Advertisement Advertisement The committee will consist of Commissioners Phil Chang, Jeff Baker and a state executive from a different agency. ODOT's director and chief auditor are also directed to attend meetings. "I think this is really important," Commissioner Lee Beyer said. "We have a need to pay more attention to the audit reports and the follow-up," he said. ODOT interim director Lisa Sumption told commissioners that having such a committee is typical for state agencies. "It's just a returning back to basics to have you guys look at these things more," Sumption said. The committee must convene at least biannually and report back to the OTC a few times a year. The group is expected to hold its first meeting in the spring. Advertisement Advertisement Anastasia Mason covers state government for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at acmason@statesmanjournal.com or 971-208-5615. This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon Department of Transportation sets up group to fix known issues A Connecticut man was arrested Friday for allegedly assaulting a border control officer and entering the United States from Canada without notice or inspection on Feb. 22. The U.S. attorney's office in Maine said in a news release it charged 29-year-old Devin Austin Bishop of Manchester, Conn. The criminal complaint alleges Bishop sped across the bridge from Campobello Island, Canada into the U.S. toward Lubec. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the Lubec Port of Entry pursued Bishop, according to the attorney's office. Advertisement Advertisement Bishop got out of his car and allegedly assaulted and resisted the officer during his arrest, the attorney's office said. He grabbed for the officer's gun before it went off. No one was injured during the struggle. A passerby helped the officer arrest Bishop. If found guilty, Bishop faces no more than eight years in prison for the alleged assault and a year for failing to report his entrance into the U.S. For more local stories continue with us on our NEWS CENTER Maine+ streaming app. For the latest breaking news, weather, and traffic alerts, download the NEWS CENTER Maine mobile app. Alabama temperatures were in the 70s on Saturday, but there could be snow on the ground (at least briefly) by Monday morning. The National Weather Service is warning that temperatures will fall off a cliff from Sunday night into Monday morning as a strong cold front moves through. Severe weather will be possible ahead of the front. But behind it will be the chance for a few snowflakes, believe it or not. Advertisement Advertisement North Alabama is the only spot that could see the white stuff. The National Weather Service in Huntsville said those across north Alabama could see light snow flurries behind the front, which will pass through late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Forecasters added that some locations may see minor accumulations up to a tenth of an inch. While it still looks like most of the area will not see any accumulations, some locations could see a dusting to 0.1, especially in the higher terrain. We will continue to monitor forecast trends but have no current plans to issue any winter-weather-related headlines," the weather service said on Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement The weather services snow forecast is at the top of this post, and it shows the areas most likely to see snow will be in northwest Alabama and the higher elevations of northeast Alabama. The rest of the state probably wont get any snow, but it wont miss out on the cold. High temperatures on Monday will not make it out of the 40s across a large part of the state. The southern half of the state will be a bit warmer, with highs in the 50s and 60s expected. Here is the forecast for Monday: Monday night will be very cold statewide, with temperatures falling well into the 20s across the northern half of the state. Advertisement Advertisement Here are the forecast low temperatures for Monday night into Tuesday morning: The cold will continue into Tuesday, with highs only expected to make it into the 40s and 50s statewide. Tuesdays forecast highs: Tuesday night will be very cold, but not as cold as Monday. Here are Tuesdays forecast low temperatures: The weather service expects temperatures to get warmer through the rest of the week, with 70s back into the forecast for much of the state by Thursday. And signs are pointing to the warmer temperatures sticking around. Here is the six- to 10-day temperature outlook from NOAAs Climate Prediction Center: Advertisement Advertisement A large part of Alabama (shown in orange above) will have a 33-40 percent probability of above-average temperatures during that time. The odds will be a bit higher -- 40-50 percent -- for the northwest corner of the state and near-average for the southeast part. Read the original article on al.com. Add al.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. President Donald Trump on Saturday said the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) carried out a massive "bombing raid" on military targets on Kharg Island in Iran, claiming the operation "totally obliterated" every military site on the island. In a post on Truth Social, he said the strike was carried out on his orders and asserted that it was one of the most powerful bombing raids in the region's history. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump said. He added that the United States deliberately avoided striking oil infrastructure on the island. "Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island," he said. Trump also warned that the decision could change if shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. "However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. During my First Term, and currently, I rebuilt our Military into the Most Lethal, Powerful, and Effective Force, by far, anywhere in the World," he said. The US president added that Iran would not be able to stop American military strikes. "Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack --There is nothing they can do about it!" he said. Trump reiterated that Tehran would not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. "Iran will NEVER have a nuclear weapon, nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle East or, for that matter, the World!" He also warned Iran's military and its allies to surrender. "Iran's Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what's left of their country, which isn't much!" he said. Earlier, the United States CENTCOM said B-2 stealth bombers had taken off to carry out a mission as part of Operation Epic Fury, aimed at "eliminating threats" posed by the Iranian "regime" and preventing the Persian Gulf country from rebuilding its capabilities in the future. CENTCOM said the bombers launched to deliver long-range firepower during the operation. (ANI) Macedonia Mayor Nick Molnar tells 3News firefighters managed to put out a blaze at a city nursing home Friday afternoon. The fire broke out at the Avenue at Macedonia Care and Rehabilitation Center on Valley View Road, with Molnar saying high winds in the area made the situation more difficult as large flames shot from the roof. The cause is currently unknown, but according to Fire Chief Brian Ripley, investigators are zeroing in on the HVAC system. No injuries were reported, and staff members are now working to move the 91 residents who were inside to other facilities. Ripley said one resident was taken to the hospital as a precaution due to the "overwhelming" nature of the situation, but is expected to be OK. Advertisement Advertisement Though the fire was extinguished, the building suffered significant water damage. There is not believed to be any ongoing structural danger, however. Along with the Macedonia Fire Department, crews from Northfield and Twinsburg were also among those assisting. The Ohio State Fire Marshal will lead the investigation. Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum and Mayor Andre Dickens gathered Friday to celebrate a 23% decrease in crime in the citys Zone four during 2025. The reduction in southwest Atlanta represents the largest drop of any police zone in the city. The drop in crime coincides with an expansion of the Atlanta Police Department and a significant decrease in citywide youth crime, which fell nearly 60% over the last four years. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Officials delivered the update at a southwest Atlanta restaurant, noting that the historic zone includes neighborhoods such as Greenbriar, Cascade and the West End. Advertisement Advertisement Schierbaum credited the residents of southwest Atlanta for their role in the reduction. According to police data, specific categories of crime saw double-digit declines within the zone. Burglaries fell 16%, while car thefts decreased by 38%. The most significant drop occurred in car break-ins, which went down 41%. Theres one thing I will always say about zone four, you are the community that when you see something, you say something ,and you expect your Police Department to go do something, Schierbaum said. The chief also attributed the success to increased resources and staffing within the department. He noted that the city now has more officers on the street than it did in 2022 and has increased the number of patrol cars available for community presence. Advertisement Advertisement The mayor made public safety a priority. He grew back the police department. We have more officers on the street now than we had in 2022. We have a growing number of patrol cars to be able to be in the community, Schierbaum said. Dickens emphasized that these statistical improvements have a direct impact on the safety of residents. We had one of the highest drops in crime in any city in the nation over the last four years, Dickens said. So these are statistics that matter because lives are on the other side. Police officials also noted that community members helped reduce auto-related crimes by keeping valuables out of sight. By keeping car interiors clear of items in the front and back seats, residents made it more difficult for thieves to obtain stolen property and firearms. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office announced it dismantled a drug trafficking organization in the Grand Park area following a six-month investigation. Six men were arrested during the operation, five of whom are brothers. The investigation began in August 2025 after detectives identified four houses being used to sell illegal drugs. The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office collaborated with federal partners, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to conduct simultaneous raids on all four locations in February. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Advertisement Advertisement Chaun Floyd, 52 and 33-year-old twin brothers Jamon and Jaron Wright were arrested on felony charges as major traffickers. Detectives connected the four identified houses to Floyd and the Wright twins during months of surveillance and investigation. During the execution of search warrants, three other brothers were arrested on misdemeanor charges. Authorities identified them as Ronyeah Wright, 30; Willie Wright, 27; and Ahmed Wright, 26. Law enforcement officials described the operation as a criminal family business and noted that Floyd was a close friend of the Wright family. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Law enforcement recovered 711 grams of powder cocaine, 654 grams of crystal methamphetamine and 9.2 grams of crack cocaine. Officials also seized more than 10 pounds of marijuana. Advertisement Advertisement In addition to the narcotics, detectives recovered nine firearms, one of which had been reported stolen. The search also yielded more than $350,000 in cash, two vehicles and two necklaces valued at $60,000. The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office encourages anyone with information regarding local drug sales to call 904-630-0500. Tips can also be reported anonymously through First Coast Crime Stoppers at one-866-845-TIPS. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. A bill that would regulate crypto ATMs in the state is nearing completion in the West Virginia Legislature. The state Senate on Friday unanimously passed House Bill 5353, which would bring virtual currency ATMs under the purview of the money transmission licensure and create disclosure requirements and daily transaction limitations for customers. The House of Delegates passed the bill earlier this month with a vote of 89-3. The bill also requires written paper receipts of transactions and requires ATMs to allow new customers to cancel and receive refunds for fraudulent transactions under some circumstances, among other things. Advertisement Advertisement AARP West Virginia, the states largest nonpartisan organization advocating for older West Virginians, advocated for the bill. An AARP poll of state voters found that most people support increased regulations for the kiosks. In a statement Friday, AARP state director Gaylene Miller celebrated the bills passage. West Virginians sent a clear message ahead of the 2026 legislative session: they want stronger protections from fraud and scams, Miller said. With the passage of House Bill 5353, the state became the 21st in the country to adopt safeguards against cryptocurrency ATM-related fraud, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Miller said the Legislatures passage of Senate Bill 617, addressing financial exploitation and House Bill 4990, addressing gift card fraud, reflect the Legislatures commitment to protect vulnerable residents. We thank the Legislature for its leadership and look forward to the governor signing these important consumerprotection bills into law, Miller said. On Saturday, the House had yet to concur with changes the Senate made to the bill. If the House concurs, the bill will next go to Gov. Patrick Morrisey for consideration. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE She has been hailed as Denmarks Iron Lady for standing up to Donald Trump during the Greenland crisis. But Mette Frederiksen has always given short shrift to bullies, her older brother has told The Telegraph, as he revealed that the prime minister once broke her nose in a tussle with a group of skinheads. Per Frederiksen, who grew up with Mette in the working-class port city of Aalborg, said he was hardly surprised earlier this year when she forced Mr Trump to back down on his threats to invade Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. Advertisement Advertisement In her teenage years, when we started getting Arab refugees coming to our school, we had a group in Denmark called Greenjackets, with skinny jeans and bald heads, said Mr Frederiksen, a 53-year-old army veteran who works in the defence industry. Some of these Arab kids were getting bullied by them, and she went in between them. As the future prime minister of Denmark confronted the Greenjackets, someone lashed out and struck Ms Frederiksen, then aged 12 or 13, in the face. When she went in between them, they broke her nose, so you can say shes never been afraid to stick her nose out, Mr Frederiksen said with a chuckle, speaking to The Telegraph from a boardroom named after Winston Churchill inside Precision Services, a defence company near Aalborg where he works. Shes always been a fighter. You can still see the little dent in her nose if you look at photos of her, he added. Ms Frederiksen seen here with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, premier of Greenland found her popularity increased with her tough stance on the territory - Geoff Pugh Mr Frederiksen was speaking ahead of a snap election in Denmark on March 24, which his sister has called early to capitalise on a polling boost from her tough stance on Greenland. Advertisement Advertisement The latest surveys say her centre-Left Social Democrats party will win about 22 per cent of the vote, a clear lead that would indicate a comfortable win the elections, enabling her to form the next government. The tale of her stepping in to defend refugees may come as a surprise to British observers of Ms Frederiksen, who will more strongly associate her with Denmarks ultra-tough migration policies. Since taking power in 2019, Ms Frederiksen, 48, has overseen the sternest refugee programme in Europe, with zero tolerance of illegal asylum seekers and a controversial jewellery law that permits the confiscation of a migrants goods to cover their living costs. But Mr Frederiksen said his sisters brawl with skinheads showed that she felt a strong need to tackle injustice, whether it be a US land grab in the Arctic today, or coming to the defence of refugees in the 1980s. When she was eight years old she started gathering signatures for a petition against animal testing because it was a form of animal cruelty, and she wanted my dad to sign it, he said, referring to Flemming Frederiksen, a former typographer and trade union leader. He said no because he supported animal trials for medicine. Advertisement Advertisement A young Ms Frederiksen went back and amended the petition so it only banned cosmetic animal trials, he said, at which point her father signed it an early lesson, perhaps, in steering through legislation with some compromises. Polling suggests Danish voters are poised to re-elect Ms Frederiksen thanks to her stance on Greenland - Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/Getty Images The Frederiksens were raised in Aalborg in the 1980s by Flemming and their late mother Anette, a teacher. Mette relocated to Copenhagen when she got into party politics, while her brother returned to Aalborg after serving as a lance corporal in the Danish army, with tours in Bosnia and Iraq. Earlier this year, when Mr Trump ramped up his threats to take over Greenland, citing national security, Ms Frederiksen insisted it was not for sale. She also said Danish sovereignty of Greenland, which was colonised by the kingdom in the 1700s, would never be up for negotiation. Eventually, a deal was brokered with help from European allies whereby the US would settle for Cyprus-style sovereign bases on Greenland, to address its security concerns about Russia and China. Advertisement Advertisement Ms Frederiksen has said she suspects the issue has not been fully resolved yet and will need to fight Mr Trump again if she is re-elected. Per Frederiksen says his sister always tackles injustice - James Breeden for The Telegraph Her position on Greenland has drawn comparisons in the UK with the original Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, who went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982 to defend the British overseas territory from Argentina. The comparison had never occurred to her brother, but he said he can see the link far away islands that invaders might assume London and Copenhagen would not defend. In the same interview he revealed that his sister has refused to get drunk with him since becoming prime minister because if someone calls [in a crisis], she can hardly say, call me back tomorrow, Im drunk. She takes it very seriously always looking at her phone. Advertisement Advertisement She does, however, enjoy a single glass of Schnapps at Christmas, he said a version, then, of Mrs Thatchers Scotch and soda. Ms Frederiksen also invites her bodyguards into the family home for Christmas dinner, so they dont have to eat alone on patrol. A deal over Greenland was brokered with help from European allies whereby the US has sovereign bases on the territory - Christian Klindt Soelbeck /AFP Now a managing director at Precision Services, a Danish defence company, Mr Frederiksen said he often has to turn away lobbyists and other petitioners trying to gain access to his sister. He finds it somewhat depressing that, once she became prime minister, he was mobbed by people wanting to become his friend. Your real friends dont care what your sister does for a job, he said. The pair have a close relationship but avoid discussing politics, he said, as we dont agree on a lot of things ... so to keep peace at the dinner we say, you have your work, I have mine. Advertisement Advertisement Asked if he feels proud of Ms Frederiksen, he chuckled. Of course, he said, but shes still my annoying little sister. Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays. Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that layoffs could be among the cuts considered amid the current financial climate for the Wright Museum. Detroit The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is seeking $11 million in city government funding due to an "extremely challenging" financial climate, museum leaders told Detroit City Council Thursday afternoon. Currently, Mayor Mary Sheffield has earmarked $2.6 million in funding for the city-owned museum in her proposed budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, which starts July 1. During Thursday's budget hearing, museum officials said they need additional funds for both operating expenses and capital improvements. The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The building, which features a glass mosaic dome, is seen in this aerial view on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. "It is a very challenging environment that we find ourselves in," said Neil Barclay, the museum's president and CEO during a council budget hearing. Advertisement Advertisement Changes in federal funding during the Trump administration and the recent halt in state funding have resulted in the loss of millions that the city-owned museum counted on in previous years. The cultural institution is one of the largest and oldest African American museums in the world, officials said. Another challenge is that a proposed millage vote, which the museum has sought for years to pursue, is trapped in a partisan legal fight in Lansing. During the 2023-2024 legislative term in Lansing, the then Democrat-controlled state legislature approved bills that would allow the Wright museum and the Detroit Historical Society to seek a property tax millage vote in Wayne and Oakland counties. But the potential millage is one of nine bills in limbo after last year's Republican-led legislature refused to send the bills to Governor Gretchen Whitmer to approve and make into law. It was an unprecedented move and the lawsuit battle is ongoing. The case has been appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which has not yet said it would take up the case. Advertisement Advertisement Barclay pointed out that it has until the middle of May to get the potential millage vote on the November ballot. The legislation allows the county commissioners in Wayne and Oakland to create a museum authority in each county that could levy a tax of up to 0.2 mills to generate taxpayer support for the Wright and Detroit Historical Society, which operates the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle. The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The building, which features a glass mosaic dome, is seen in this aerial view on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. If the millage vote is not the November ballot, the next opportunity would be 2028, Barclay said. It's unclear the museum "will be able to maintain current operations through 2028," Barclay said. On Wednesday, officials from the Detroit Historical Society told city council said it is currently operating on a deficit and without the millage vote, reduced hours and other cuts could be made. Advertisement Advertisement Beyond the stalled millage, the Wright and many other cultural institutions have lost funding during Trump administration, which has moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs wherever it can. Barclay said that federal funding once specifically dedicated for Black museums has been eliminated and that federal grants must be rewritten as to not specifically target a specific race. The new federal rules for those grants are "making it challenging, if not impossible, for African American museums, and indeed all museums of a color to apply," he said. The Wright is requesting $3.3 million in operating support and $7.7 million in capital support. The capital support would go mainly to complete a years-long upgrade of the museum's heating and cooling systems. The museum also aims to raise another $9 million through fundraising in the next year, officials said. The latest financial statements, for the year 2024, show the Wright had $20.8 million in annual revenue and $7.2 million in annual expenses. Advertisement Advertisement City Council members expressed support for the Wright museum, with two indicating they will be willing to give more funding. "We love the Wright museum," said Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero, who added she is "grateful that we can move the budget forward so we can discuss how we can help." The nine-member council has until April 7 to make amendments and vote on the budget. laguilar@detroitnews.com This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Detroit's African American museum says fed, state funds drying up LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Nevada DETR has provided guidance for DHS employees and contractors who have been furloughed or are working without pay because of the ongoing federal government shutdown. According to the Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation, impacted Department of Homeland Security employees may be eligible to apply for unemployment insurance benefits to help offset lost wages during the shutdown period. >>Download the 8 News Now Vegas streaming app Advertisement Advertisement Our goal is to ensure that every affected worker has clear information about available resources, DETR Director Christopher Sewell said. We want DHS employees to know that help is accessible and that they should not hesitate to apply if their income has been disrupted. The release provided the following guidelines for unemployment benefits eligibility: Federal employees who have been furloughed may be eligible for UI benefits. Federal employees who are working without pay may also apply; eligibility is determined on a casebycase basis under state and federal guidelines. Federal contractors may be eligible depending on the terms of their employment and loss of income. Final benefit determinations are made after review of each individual claim, consistent with applicable laws and regulations. Impacted workers can file an unemployment claim through Nevadas unemployment portal at this link. Federally furloughed or unpaid TSA workers are waived from work-search requirements. Advertisement Advertisement The release said once the shutdown ends and employees receive back pay, they will be required to repay UI benefits for weeks in which back pay covers the period of unemployment. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) A lingering question from Thursday mornings shooting at Old Dominion University was how the shooter, Mohamed Jalloh, got the gun he used to kill one person and injure two other people. Students render gunman no longer alive after campus shooting that killed 1, injured 2 Friday, the Department of Justice said that a Smithfield man, Kenya Chapman was arrested and charged with selling Jalloh the gun used in the shooting. Court documents indicated Chapman told authorities he met Jalloh at work and said Jalloh told him he needed the gun for protection as a delivery driver. Advertisement Advertisement Chapman admitted to selling Jalloh the gun for $100, this after Jalloh had a previous conviction from 2016 of trying to help ISIS. An affidavit also revealed how Jalloh and Chapman knew each other, along with the events leading up to the shooting. Jallohs phone records show between March 5 and March 12, Jalloh had six phone conversations with Chapman. He even called Chapman the morning of the shooting. Records also show the night before the shooting, Jalloh had spent the night near Chapmans Smithfield residence. 10 On Your Side went to that residence Friday, and met a woman who said Chapman was living with her. She didnt want to go on camera, but talked to us from her apartment window. She said she had no clue Chapman was selling illegal guns. Advertisement Advertisement She said early Friday morning police surrounded her apartment, had everyone exit the home, and took Chapman away in handcuffs. Chapman had previously been investigated for selling firearms illegally. Two of the guns he sold were recovered by police after a Newport News homicide. After that, Chapman was only given a warning about selling firearms illegally. Chapman appeared in federal court Friday and was charged with dealing in firearms without a license in connection with the ODU shooting, and with three counts of making false statements during purchases of firearms. If convicted, Chapman faces up to 35 years in prison. Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. Calls for another Donald Trump impeachment are rising amid midterm election campaigning,the Iran war and low presidential approval ratings. Here's what to know about the odds of impeachment in 2026, midterms and poll numbers. Christian Menefee, is one of multiple Democratic candidates who are running on promises to impeach the president, such as Illinois candidates Mayor Daniel K. Biss, state Sen. Laura Fine, or Kat Abughazaleh, who are calling for articles of impeachment over the war in Iran. Donald Trump was already impeached twice during his first term, albeit acquitted in the Senate both times. While a third impeachment would likely face significant political barriers in the current Republican-controlled House and Senate, the 2026 midterm elections could change that with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats on the ballot in November. Is Donald Trump getting impeached? 2026 Impeachment odds, predictions President Donald Trump is not currently being impeached, despite mounting calls by Democratic lawmakers and Trump opponents. Advertisement Advertisement Impeachment requires a majority vote in the House to approve charges against a government official for treason, bribery or other serious abuse of power or misconduct, and then a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict and remove the official from office. A third impeachment would likely face significant political barriers due to the current Republican-controlled House and Senate at this time. However, a Democratic win in the House in this year's midterms elections, would give them control of one of the congressional branches in government and make it harder for Trump to pass his agenda, result in a likely push back on Republican cuts in social spending or requiring more deals when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling, or pushing for impeachment. According to Polymarket, betting odds show a 14% chance that Trump will be impeached by end of 2026. Meanwhile Kalshi betting odds show a 3% chance he'll be impeached by Jun. 1, 2026; 14% chance by Jan. 1, 2027 and 71% chance by Jan. 1, 2028. What is Donald Trump's presidential approval rating today? Trump's presidential approval rating today is 42.9% versus 54.4% that disapprove, according to RealClearPolling. It declined from an initial high of 50.5% approval and 44.3% disapproval rating when he took office in January 2025, and nearing his recent all-time lows around Feb. 17, 2026, hitting 42% approval and 55.5% disapproval. Trump's first term average approval numbers were 42.8% and former President Joe Biden's overall approval rating was 43.2%. Advertisement Advertisement According to Rasmussen Reports daily polling on March 13, Trump's approval is 44% today, lower than it was prior to the Iran war. The Economist/YouGov poll ending March 9 found a 43% job approval rating versus 54% that disapprove, the same from 43% approval prior to the Iran war. RealClear Polling which takes the average of over 16 pollsters including Reuters/Ipsos, CBS News, Quinnipiac, Harvard-Harris and more, shows Trump's overall favorability is currently at 42.9% as of March 13, down from 43.1% on Feb. 27, prior to the Iran war. When are the midterms? The midterm elections are Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. Who is winning the midterms? 2026 midterm election predictions, odds According to the latest RealClearPolling' generic Congressional voting polls, 47.8% said they'd vote Democrat, 43.1% said they'd vote Republican. In the Polymarket betting odds on who will win the 2026 midterms, 35% favor a Republican win for the Senate and Democratic win for the House. Currently, the Republican party controls both the Senate and the House. Advertisement Advertisement 85% favor a Democratic Party win for the House in midterms 2026 53% favor a Republican Party win for the Senate in midterms 2026 48% favor a Democratic sweep of the House and Senate in midterms 2026 17% favor a Republican sweep of the House and Senate in midterms 2026 Note: Polls and odds are constantly changing. These numbers reflect polling and odds as of 12:30 p.m. Friday, March 13, 2026. Maria Francis is a Pennsylvania-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Donald Trump impeachment odds amid low approval rating polls, Iran war Nearly 500 Indian nationals travelled from Qatar to India and other global destinations on flights operated by Qatar Airways, the Indian Embassy in Doha said in an advisory. In a post on X, the embassy on Friday said the passengers travelled on Qatar Airways flights to Kochi and other destinations. The airline also facilitated the transportation of the mortal remains of two Indian nationals who died of natural causes, along with their accompanying family members, to Kochi on humanitarian grounds. https://x.com/IndEmbDoha/status/2032458948301775090 The embassy said Qatar's airspace is only partially open, resulting in limited flight operations by Qatar Airways. "One flight to Mumbai is planned for operations by Qatar Airways on March 14," the advisory said, referring to Mumbai. It added that Indian nationals wishing to travel from India to Qatar can take Qatar Airways flights that are returning from India to Doha. Meanwhile, the Indian Ambassador to Qatar, Vipul, held another virtual meeting with Indian community organisations to brief them on the efforts undertaken by the embassy to ensure the welfare of the Indian community during the ongoing conflict situation. Around 100 community members attended the briefing, while daily meetings are also being held with apex Indian community organisations. According to the embassy, members of the Indian community expressed gratitude to the leadership and people of Qatar for ensuring the well-being of residents and reiterated that Qatar remains their "second home". The advisory also said that any emergency cases related to travel or other issues can be brought to the attention of the embassy through helpline numbers or via Indian community organisations such as the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) and the Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF). The embassy further noted that the Ministry of Interior has confirmed that the situation in the country remains stable and services across vital sectors continue to operate normally, with Qatari authorities closely monitoring developments. Earlier, passengers stuck in Doha finally reached New Delhi in a special flight being operated amid the prevailing tensions in West Asia. Upon arrival, the passengers shared their relief and expressed gratitude for the support provided by the Qatar authorities during the situation. A passenger praised the Qatar government, saying that it would send an emergency alert during the interception of a missile to ensure citizen safety. After receiving the alert, citizens are supposed to remain inside closed areas. After the interception, another emergency alert is sent to announce that the situation is normal. The limited flight operations follow an escalating West Asia security crisis, triggered by Iranian missile and drone strikes targeting US military bases, embassies, and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf region, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The conflict has caused significant disruptions to global energy supplies, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, where approximately 20 per cent of the world's oil transits. (ANI) Texas Rep. James Talarico is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. While we will wait a couple of months to see who his Republican opponent will be, Democratic leaders have already started strategizing. Talaricos brand is that he is a White religious man. The emphasis on religion is central to his campaign, in which the state lawmaker uses it to justify all sorts of radical policy positions. Democrats are making the same mistakes they have made for years in Texas. While Talarico has a better chance than most to win the U.S. Senate race, I still dont think he is the chosen one for Democrats dreaming of a blue Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Talarico is a radical whom Democrats expect to launder as a moderate. Texas voters will see through such efforts. Democrats think being a White guy makes you moderate Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for Texas, James Talarico, speaks during his primary election night party in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 4, 2026. We saw this approach when Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her 2024 presidential running mate. In the case of Walz, the impression party leaders wanted to give off was that of a typical Midwest suburban dad. In the case of Talarico, it's a young Texan Christian man. Opinion: Texas GOP faces a tough choice if we want to beat Talarico This also isn't the first time Democrats have tried this in Texas. The last time they seriously deluded themselves into thinking they could win statewide in Texas, they ran former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who, at the time, was crowned the savior of Texas Democrats for very similar superficial reasons, despite being rather uninspiring politically. Advertisement Advertisement He came close to defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. O'Rourke was more forthcoming about his radical nature, particularly on guns. Texas State Representatives James Talarico and John Bucy III (D-TX) converse during a session as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, begin returning to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas on Aug. 20, 2025. Democratic Texas State Rep. James Talarico speaks during a campaign launch rally on Sept. 9, 2025 in Round Rock, Texas. Rep. Talarico announced earlier today that he will be running for U.S. Senate in Texas. James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat representing Texas, holds a press conference outside an ICE detention center during a visit as part of his "Take Back Texas" tour, in El Paso, Texas on Feb. 21, 2026. James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat representing Texas, gives an interview aboard his campaign bus parked outside an ICE detention center during a visit as part of his OTake Back TexasO tour, in El Paso, Texas on Feb. 21, 2026. Campaign pins are displayed at a rally for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for Texas, James Talarico, during his "Take Back Texas" tour ahead of the primary elections that will determine his party's nominee for the 2026 midterms, in El Paso, Texas on Feb. 21, 2026. Democratic Texas State Rep. James Talarico speaks to supporters at the Fire Fighters Hall Feb. 21, 2026 in El Paso, Texas. Talarico faces Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in the March 3rd primary. Texas State Representative James Talarico poses for a selfie with Jordan Rhoads on February 26, 2026 in Richardson, Texas. Talarico is facing off against Jasmine Crockett in Tuesday's democratic senate primary. James Talarico delivers his remarks during his campaign rally in San Angelo Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. Talarico is running to be the Democratic PartyOs nominee in 2026 for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican John Cornyn. James Talarico greets supporters onstage at the Brooks and Bates Theatre at the start of his rally in San Angelo Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, speaks during a campaign stop at El Paso's Firefighters Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. Talarico is vying to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, in the November 2026 General Election. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico speaks during his campaign rally Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025 at The Shop Event Venue in Amarillo. James Talarico, a candidate in the Democratic primary for Texas' U.S. Senate seat and a current Texas State Representative, speaks to the Lubbock community at the Historic Watson Building during his Take Back Texas Tour, Feb. 22, 2026, in Lubbock. James Talarico, a candidate in the Democratic primary for Texas' U.S. Senate seat and a current Texas State Representative, speaks to the Lubbock community at the Historic Watson Building during his Take Back Texas Tour, Feb. 22, 2026, in Lubbock. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D-TX) takes part in a campaign event outside Round Rock Donuts on March 3, 2026 in Talarico's hometown of Round Rock, Texas. Texans went to the polls to vote for Democratic and Republican primary candidates ahead of November's midterm elections. Supporters of Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D-TX) cheer when seeing early results on election night March 3, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Texans went to the polls to vote for Democratic and Republican primary candidates ahead of November's midterm elections. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D-TX) speaks to supporters at a campaign event on March 3, 2026 in Talarico's hometown of Round Rock, Texas. Texans went to the polls to vote for Democratic and Republican primary candidates ahead of November's midterm elections. Supporters of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for Texas, James Talarico, watch as primary election results are reported on MS NOW during Talarico's primary election night party in Austin, Texas on March 3, 2026. See Dem.Texas State Rep. James Talarico as he campaigns for US Senate 1 of 17 Texas State Representatives James Talarico and John Bucy III (D-TX) converse during a session as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, begin returning to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas on Aug. 20, 2025. Talarico is not O'Rourke. He has used religion to justify his pro-abortion positions. Referring to racism, Talarico has proclaimed on social media, "White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We dont have to be showing symptoms like a white hood or a Confederate flag to be contagious." He supports Medicare for all and eliminating the filibuster. He has said that there are six biological sexes. None of this is moderate. Advertisement Advertisement Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Democrats let race and gender influence their strategy poorly Talarico may be closer to moderates within the Democratic Party, but none of them have the appeal needed to win statewide in a place like Texas or many other Republican-leaning states, for that matter. Democrats think that traits that they have superficially associated with being right wing, such as being White, a male, being religious, or a nuclear family structure, are enough to appeal to moderate voters. Democrats view of race, gender and other superficial characteristics has led to seriously flawed decision-making. We saw this with the narrative around Harris, the first African American and South Asian American woman to become vice president. Democrats thought for some reason that in order for her to appeal to voters, they needed to balance the presidential ticket by adding a White man. Opinion: Stop having primary elections. They're useless. Advertisement Advertisement That assumption is rooted in an incorrect thinking that Harris unpopularity was because Americans were somehow biased against her because she is a Black woman rather than that her record was horrible, that she wasnt an interesting candidate, and that she was the incumbent from a deeply unpopular Biden administration. Democrats did a similar thing in explaining away former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. There has been all sorts of punditry about how America just wasnt ready for a woman president. However, anyone seriously analyzing that loss can see that Clintons defects as a candidate go far deeper than something as superficial as gender. Democrats are making the same mistakes they have made for years by viewing race and gender as key components of a candidate. The reality is that voters arent going to vote against their policy interests just because someone shares their skin color or chromosomes. Such losses are easily avoided, but it requires Democrats to stop viewing these traits as important and start pursuing the candidates with the most merit. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science. Advertisement Advertisement You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Can Talarico win? This 'moderate' is too radical for Texas | Opinion Mar. 13The Alaska Department of Revenue on Friday projected $545 million in unforeseen revenue to the state through the end of the fiscal year, due in large part to higher oil prices driven by war in the Middle East. In a biannual revenue forecast, the department projected the state will collect $2.7 billion in revenue from oil production and other taxes, up from its December projection of $2.1 billion from those sources. The new projection was released two weeks after the U.S. launched strikes against Iran, launching a widening war in the Middle East that has rocked the global economy and caused oil prices to rise amid a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil exports. Advertisement Advertisement The Department of Revenue in December had estimated oil prices to average $65 per barrel during the fiscal year that ends in June. The actual price through the first eight months of the fiscal year was $67 per barrel, department officials reported on Friday. The department is forecasting that the price will average $91 per barrel for the remaining four months of the fiscal year, driving the average price for the year to $75 per barrel. The department also raised the amount of corporate income tax it expects to collect this year. Compared to revenue in other states, Alaska's revenue, which relies heavily on the price of oil, has long been described as among the most volatile. A change in the price of oil by a single dollar over the course of a year can cause the state's income to fluctuate by tens of millions of dollars. Acting Revenue Commissioner Janelle Earls wrote in a letter accompanying the forecast that it should be viewed with caution. Advertisement Advertisement "As always, it is important to note this forecast represents one scenario within a range of potential outcomes. This is true now more than ever given current world events, and oil prices over the next year could be materially higher or lower than the official forecast," Earls wrote. Despite the uncertainty, Friday's projection is set to have far-reaching implications for lawmakers' budget-crafting process. In addition to updating the forecast for the current fiscal year, the Department of Revenue estimated the state will have $510 million more in oil revenue in the fiscal year that begins in July $2.7 billion compared to a previous projection of $2.2 billion. That is based on a projected average oil price of $75 per barrel in the 2027 fiscal year, up from a previous projection of $62 per barrel. Advertisement Advertisement That added money could increase pressure on lawmakers on how to spend it, who within hours of receiving the forecast on Friday floated ideas for higher Permanent Fund dividends, more education funding and bolstering state savings. Majority lawmakers in the House and Senate have so far called for caution with regard to oil prices and their impact on state revenue. House Speaker Bryce Edgmon highlighted Earls' letter, describing it as "a strong cautionary note that the markets right now are as volatile as they've been in years, perhaps decades." The price per barrel of North Slope crude, which had been hovering around $70 per barrel before the strikes on Iran began, jumped to $96 per barrel as of Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement Edgmon and other legislative leaders say it would be unwise to bank on prices remaining at the current level, given uncertainty over the duration of the war and its impact on global oil supply. "I can't underscore enough that oil predictions are just that they're predictions, at this point. We don't know what's going to happen in the future," Edgmon said. "We don't have that money in the bank yet," he added. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House minority on Thursday urged the Legislature to count on higher oil prices to cover expenses in the current fiscal year, including to subsidize transportation projects and respond to fires and declared disasters. The higher oil prices, minority lawmakers argued in the House, eliminate the need for a draw from savings to cover those costs. Advertisement Advertisement Gov. Mike Dunleavy earlier this year had identified roughly $500 million in supplemental budget items needed for the current fiscal year, including spending to make up for his veto of several budget items in June. If it holds up, the revenue in the updated forecast released by his administration would entirely cover the spending he requested. That forecast came after a day of high tensions in the House as majority and minority caucus members lambasted each other over their differing views on the need to draw from savings in the face of higher revenue. House Republicans reiterated on Friday that they support passing a supplemental budget bill with $373 million in new expenses, without approving a draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, a savings account that can only be accessed with a three-quarters vote. "Taking a draw from our savings account to put into the general fund, to fund things that were by all accounts and purposes able to be funded without it, would have been irresponsible," said Rep. Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican. "I think this conversation should continue Monday." Advertisement Advertisement Edgmon said his caucus maintains the position that "the quickest, cleanest and the most reliable way to get the supplemental budget funded is to take a draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve." If the higher oil revenue forecast prevails, he said, the savings account can be replenished. "The House majority coalition remains firmly committed to getting the supplemental funded and to the governor's desk as quickly as possible, and doing it in a fiscally prudent manner," said Edgmon. Looking to next year's budget, Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, a Palmer Republican, was quick to say that the newly forecasted revenue should be directed to a higher Permanent Fund dividend. Advertisement Advertisement Edgmon said that the majority would wait until later in the session to determine whether higher oil prices continue into the 2027 fiscal year before growing the budget. "We're going to stay the course as we approach the second half of the 2026 session," said Edgmon. "Going into April and May, we will take an account of what the revenue picture looks like at that time, and build a budget around it accordingly." "It's very important that we don't spend money we don't have yet," said Edgmon. Daily News reporter Mari Kanagy contributed from Juneau. At least 41 civilians have been killed, including 18 children, in south-central Myanmar following a week of aerial bombings by the countrys military junta. Pilots in Chinese-made fighter jets flew over the eastern Bago region, dropping bombs on several villages between March 7 and 10, according to the Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN), a local rights group in Myanmar. Among those killed was a pregnant mother. Advertisement Advertisement Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war since the military stormed the capital on Feb 1, 2021 and overthrew a democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The regime has killed at least 7,870 people in the past five years and arrested more than 30,600 others. Almost 8,000 civilians have died since the military coup in Feb 2021 The recent massacre in Bago is the latest in a long list of attacks carried out against civilians in the last five years. These include the Pa Zy Gyi massacre the deadliest since the coup in 2023 when more than 165 people were killed, including children, as well as a previous massacre in Bago in 2021 where more than 80 people were killed. Advertisement Advertisement Approximately 100 regime soldiers arrived in the eastern Nyaunglebin district of Bago Region on March 5, before launching an aerial campaign on March 7. Similar to many of the militarys previous attacks, troops stormed numerous villages and arrested residents, while fighter jets dropped bombs. The National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration established after the coup, claimed that the junta used kamikaze drones and heavy weapons in the recent attacks. The NUG also said that more than 300 civilians were detained, while KPSN reported 160 arrests. All have since been freed, according to the NUG. Advertisement Advertisement Given the mass censorship, electricity cuts and internet blackouts in Myanmar, it can often take days or weeks for news to travel and be verified. Most casualties were reported in Nyaunglebin, but attacks were also reported in several other districts, including Mergui-Tavoy district, where the military used a Chinese-made K8W aircraft to drop four 250-pound bombs on a village, killing four people, including one child, according to KPSN. China has been a key arms supplier to the Myanmar military for decades, equipping it with everything from bombs to aircraft, though Beijing has denied providing support to the regime. The Myanmar military denied the reports, instead claiming that the NUG and armed resistance groups affiliated with the shadow government were responsible for killing two civilians in Nyaunglebin. Advertisement Advertisement Local rights groups have called the militarys latest attacks war crimes and have urged the international community to cut the supply of jet fuel to the junta and sanction the state banks used to purchase fuel and arms. No country is making any new effort at all to try to reduce jet fuel and arms reaching the Burmese military, and the result is more dead children in Burma, said Naw Wahku Shee, the director of KPSN, using the older name for Myanmar. The international community is cutting aid to the people of Burma but doing nothing new to cut off money and arms to the Burmese military, she added. Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays. Mar. 13BAGLEY Emily Thabes, Beltrami County Historical Society executive director, has announced her intent to run for the Minnesota House 2B seat in the upcoming midterm election, challenging incumbent Matt Bliss. "This is about showing up, building trust and honoring the obligations that already exist," Thabes shared in her announcement. "Every community in this district has experienced elders, passionate youth, emboldened changemakers, strategic leaders and everyday working moms and dads with problems that need solving. They deserve a representative who will pay attention, build relationships, remove roadblocks and get work done to the benefit of the greater community and its future generations." Thabes, a Bagley resident since March 2020, is seeking an endorsement from the Beltrami County DFL, which will hold its Advertisement Advertisement endorsement convention on Saturday, March 21. "I've spent my whole life showing up for the communities I'm part of," said Thabes. "Filing for this race is a choice to demand our district's fair share. Neither families, farms nor fish can survive on our current trajectory. Democracy starts locally, and this community needs someone to show up." Thabes listed child care, environmental hazards, poverty, broadband coverage and unemployment rates in greater Minnesota as some of the key topics of concern for the upcoming election. Thabes believes she will address these issues, pointing to her record as Advertisement Advertisement Beltrami County Historical Society executive director. "This district does not have a representation problem; it has a results problem," the release said. Thabes said the job is not to introduce legislation and move on. It is to build the relationships that make things possible, know what funding exists and see the work through. "Thabes has (managed) day-to-day operations, staff and a six-figure exhibition renovation while writing and administering state and federal grants. She has secured more than $500,000 in grants for the organization and oversees ongoing partnerships with the city of Bemidji, Beltrami County, tribal entities, schools and regional community organizations," the release said. "Before moving to northern Minnesota, she led adult services and programming across 42 Hennepin County library branches. She has managed multi-million-dollar budgets and led teams of up to 35 people dispersed across six states." Advertisement Advertisement The release also shares support for treaties signed between the U.S. Federal Government and the White Earth Nation and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, calling them the "supreme law of the land" that must be upheld. Thabes can file for House 2B race between May 19 and June 2. The midterm election is slated for Tuesday, Nov. 3. Roughly 7,450 residents remain without power in southeastern Wisconsin, but crews expect most of those people to be back up by the end of the day, a We Energies spokesman said on March 14. At least 130,000 people in Wisconsin were without power after intense winds blew through the area mid-day on March 13, according to Brendan Conway, a We Energies spokesperson. He said crews from four states have come into Wisconsin or are on the way. We are throwing everything we got at this, Conway said. Advertisement Advertisement He said the crews are working urgently, knowing that a strong winter storm is expected to arrive in Wisconsin on Sunday and last into Monday, bringing ice and snow to a large swath of the state. The National Weather Service is projecting more than two feet of snow to fall in the northern half of Wisconsin, while warmer temperatures will bring a mix of ice and snow with lower accumulations to southeastern Wisconsin. At 9:30 a.m. March 14, there were about 17,000 people without power, according to We Energies power outage map. Milwaukee County had the most outages at roughly 4,600; followed by Waukesha County with 3,000 residents out and Washington, Ozaukee and Racine counties with more than 2,000 out in each county. Advertisement Advertisement Conway said 90-95% of customers should be back by the end of Saturday, adding the last 5% will take the most time because those outages typically affect one or just a few customers. The public is reminded to stay at least 25 feet from downed wires and report them immediately to local law enforcement by calling 911 and call We Energies at 800-662-4797. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: We Energies works to restore power to customers ahead of snowstorm Maryland households will see at least $150 a year in utility bill savings from a package of bills unveiled late this week, the governor and legislative leaders promised Friday. Low-income households could see even greater savings from Utility RELIEF Act, the wide-ranging energy bill that is expected to hit the House floor Monday, with some savings kicking in as early as this summer if the bill passes. Bills are not rising because households are suddenly starting to use more power, Gov. Wes Moore (D) said Friday. They are rising because our people are stuck in a system that is actively working against them. And Im here with all these lawmakers because each and every one of us feel that pain. Because were pissed, and because we know more needs to be done. Advertisement Advertisement Under the Utility RELIEF Act, customers would quickly see sizable reductions to a surcharge that covers the EmPOWER Maryland program, through which Marylanders access energy efficiency upgrades, such as home appliance rebates. The program would be reduced in size for several years. Other decreases would take place quickly, though they wont be a visible line item on customers bills. The package includes a House-passed measure that would ban utility companies from charging customers for supervisor compensation over $285,000, requiring shareholders to shoulder that cost. And it would force companies to eat the cost of membership in a regional grid instead of charging it to ratepayers, saving about $20 million annually. House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince Georges and Anne Arundel) speaks Friday about new energy legislation. She is backed by Gov. Wes Moore (D), left, and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City). (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters) Some changes would take longer to realize. Annually, the bill would send $100 million previously collected from ratepayers and direct it toward auctions for new solar energy and battery storage projects. It would set new restrictions on utility rate increases, and encourage companies to consider alternatives to building new power transmission lines. During his remarks in the State House rotunda on Friday, Moore expressed frustration with Maryland utilities, pointing to his own mothers utility bill, which he said reached $517 in January. Advertisement Advertisement These are Marylanders. They deserve better, Moore said. And all this is being done while energy executives are planning their vacations. In a joint statement Friday, Marylands Exelon utilities Baltimore Gas & Electric, Delmarva Power and Pepco said they will be reviewing the legislation to ensure the proposed measures would not have any unintended consequences for our customers. We ask that legislators work closely with energy industry experts to ensure that none of the measures being proposed would increase customer costs, introduce risks to safety and reliability, or jeopardize economic development, read the statement. Deferring necessary work can lead to more disruptive and expensive outcomes, as Maryland has seen when critical infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate. The annual electricity bill savings could be considerably higher for low-income families, said Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City). He pointed to a plan to put $37 million from a ratepayer-fueled state fund to cap rates for low-income people at 6% of their income. Advertisement Advertisement On the income-eligible individuals, we are talking up to thousands in savings, Ferguson said. Those are the most vulnerable amongst us. They will have significantly higher savings. The money will come from the Strategic Energy Investment Fund, the state fund that has burgeoned in recent years. Utilities pay into it when they do not purchase enough renewable energy to meet state goals. Lawmakers are leaning on the now-massive fund to balance the budget a Senate proposal would pull $292 million from SEIF to balance the budget, mirroring a proposal from Moore. Do you know how to tell that legislation is a good piece of legislation? When all people on all sides are unhappy ... The utilities hate it. The environmental groups don't love it. And I know they're upset. But we must work together. And everyone had to give up a little. We had to compromise to deliver for the people in Maryland. House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel) House and Senate Republicans argued the plan doesnt yield enough savings for ratepayers, and relies too heavily on renewable energy projects to bolster energy supply. Advertisement Advertisement The biggest problem is: Were doing nothing to increase energy generation long-term. Were continuing to say were going to solar power our way out of the energy crisis, said Del. Jason Buckel (R-Allegany), the House minority leader. Republicans have proposed a pause on the EmPOWER program, and a bill that would withdraw Maryland from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate initiative to limit carbon emissions. Theyre reversing their own policies, said Sen. Justin Ready (R- Carroll and Frederick). They may have some relief, but it would be very easy to more than double the kind of relief theyre talking about. Twelve bucks a month, thats great. Were all going to support any kind of ratepayer relief we can, reasonably, Buckel said. But the cost of a Big Mac is not going to change [things]. Advertisement Advertisement It didnt get much air time Friday, but the leadership package also aims to bring energy suppliers back into Marylands marketplace to compete with the utilities, by offering them additional flexibility over current law. They would be able to ink three-year contracts with customers, instead of deals lasting no more than one year, and charge up to 110% of the standard offer service rate charged by utilities. It comes two years after Maryland made significant changes meant to drive away energy scammers that ended up diminishing the market instead, forcing ratepayers to buy their electricity from their local utilities. Environmental advocates are fighting hard against the changes to EmPOWER. They argue that, even though consumers will see a lower surcharge in the short term, bills could increase later on. Thats because there will be less investment in efficient appliances and home weatherization, increasing the amount of energy that homes demand, and possibly requiring the construction of additional infrastructure. There are a lot of great policies in the Utility RELIEF Act. Unfortunately, there are two lines that gut Marylands most successful bill reduction program, said Jamie DeMarco, a lobbyist representing the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Cutting energy efficiency is similar to cutting Medicaid, in that you get savings in year one, but very quickly the entire system ends up costing a lot more. Advertisement Advertisement During Fridays news conference, Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery) defended the three-year cut to EmPOWER, arguing that the program remains in place, and that its programs exclusively for low- and moderate-income Marylanders wont be affected by the cuts. We kept EmPOWER. So, we have made some tweaks to it short-term tweaks, Korman said. But we want to preserve the program, because energy efficiency is incredibly important. It isnt clear exactly how much of EmPOWER will be eliminated by the Utility RELIEF Act, said a policy adviser for the House Speaker, but low-income programs represent about 40% of EmPOWER and those programs will be preserved. Environmental groups fear the cuts would be steep. The utilities wouldnt need to meet as stringent greenhouse gas reduction goals with their EmPOWER programs, effectively shrinking their offerings. The goals wouldnt return to their 2027 level until 2036. On top of that, the utilities would be allowed to count solar projects in their territories toward their greenhouse gas reduction goal, further reducing the amount of home energy efficiency programs they need to provide to the ratepayers. House and Senate Republicans speak with journalists Friday about energy legislation backed by Democratic leadership. The legislation is expected to reach the full House next week. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters) It also isnt clear how the changes could impact energy demand in the future, said a policy adviser to Ferguson, who noted that appliances arent replaced every yearm so, just because an EmPOWER program may be slightly more limited than it was in the past, doesnt mean that homeowners are not going to naturally be replacing those appliances with higher efficiency versions. Advertisement Advertisement A coalition of environmental groups also argued that the bill it not tough enough on data centers. The bill would encourage them to mitigate their power demands, use local workers and pay for their power but it would not set requirements. As House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk said, this bill is not perfect, and we believe it should be strengthened. Intentions to hold data centers accountable are a positive step, but we need firm regulatory requirements to increase transparency, sustainability and accountability for hyperscale data centers, read a statement from Nature Forward and Marylanders for Data Center Reform. Moore also took the opportunity Friday to continue his attacks on PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission operator serving Maryland. He has argued that PJMs procedures stymied the arrival of clean energy projects onto the grid, all while data centers power demand soared. Our regional grid operator will tell you how hard it is to add projects and how hard it is to lower their bills. They will tell you how technical this is and how complicated this is. And heres what I know: The people of Maryland are smart. And we dont want you gaslighting us. Lower our prices, Moore said. Advertisement Advertisement Despite the pushback, House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince Georges and Anne Arundel) was optimistic about the bills chances. Do you know how to tell that a legislation is a good piece of legislation? Pena-Melnyk asked. When all people on all sides are unhappy The utilities hate it. The environmental groups dont love it. And I know theyre upset. But we must work together. And everyone had to give up a little. We had to compromise to deliver for the people in Maryland. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE An Escanaba man has been convicted in the murder in 2023 of a pregnant woman, officials said. Tavaris Jackson, 35, was found guilty of first-degree murder and assault of a pregnant woman, intentionally causing a miscarriage or stillbirth, and using a firearm during the commission of a felony, the Michigan Attorney General's Office said. Authorities said Jackson killed Harley Corwin, 22, of Escanaba on July 3, 2023. She was pregnant at the time of her death; her remains were found in a field in Ford River Township on July 8, 2023. Advertisement Advertisement Jackson is scheduled to be sentenced June 2. He faces up to life in prison for the murder and assault charges. "While no outcome can undo this devastating loss, I am grateful to the prosecutors who helped secure long-awaited justice in this tragic case," said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in a statement. "I hope this verdict provides a sense of closure for Harleys family." Jackson initially was charged by the Delta County Prosecuting Attorneys Office, but the state Attorney General's Office was appointed to the case in August 2023. cramirez@detroitnews.com X: @CharlesERamirez This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Escanaba man, 35, guilty of pregnant woman's murder in 2023 By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS, March 14 (Reuters) - The European Union has extended for six months sanctions against people and entities deemed to be supporting Russia's war against Ukraine after a deadlock due to Hungary and Slovakia maintaining vetoes. The Council, the EU body representing the 27 EU members, said restrictive measures targeting those responsible for undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine had been prolonged until September 15. Advertisement Advertisement The 27-nation bloc did lift the sanctions on two individuals and removed five deceased people from the list. One of the two living individuals removed was Niels Troost, a Dutchman placed on the sanctions list over trading Russian oil, according to an EU diplomat. Some 2,600 individuals and entities are subject to measures, including travel restrictions, freezing of assets and a ban on making funds or other economic resources available to listed individuals or entities. EU sanctions have steadily expanded since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hungary and Slovakia had previously sought to have a number of Russian oligarchs removed from the sanctions list, EU diplomats said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the European Union on Monday to suspend sanctions on Russian energy due to soaring prices, fueled by the war in Iran. Hungary and Slovakia have also taken issue with Ukraine over Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Toby Chopra) Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, the Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, said that the Indian and Iranian leadership held a "good and successful" conversation amid the developing security situation in West Asia. Speaking to ANI about the conflict, he underlined that Iran, while it did not start the war, will sacrifice everything it has for their "dignity and land". Ilahi on Friday said, "Iran did not initiate this war. Iran was engaged in negotiations with the United States and was also pursuing diplomatic efforts. Both delegations were very happy with the progress in negotiation. But it is not clear what happened. Suddenly, the United States, along with the Zionist regime, attacked Iran, and they targeted a lot of civilians in Iran. We hope that we will win in this war, and will sacrifice whatever we have for our dignity and our land." When asked about the conversation between the Indian and Iranian leadership, Ilahi said that it was successful. "This conversation was very good, successful, and I am sure there are a lot of achievements based on that conversation. We sent a lot of reports to Iran that all Indian brothers and sisters, regardless of religion, are supporting Iran, are supporting justice, because this land (India) is the land of justice, wisdom, culture and civilisation. They are students of Gandhi, and Gandhi was just. I'm sure that based on our relationship, cooperation, we will have a lot of achievements and our relationship will be deeper," he added. This comes after External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar held another conversation with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi and discussed bilateral matters and BRICS-related issues. In a post on X, Jaishankar said, "Had another conversation with Iranian FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi yesterday night. Discussed bilateral matters as also BRICS related issues." This was the fourth conversation between the two leaders since the current round of conflict between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. Earlier, when Jaishankar spoke to his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, he discussed the safety of shipping and energy security, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a press briefing. External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the discussion focused on ensuring the safe passage of ships and maintaining stable energy supplies through the region. "EAM and FM of Iran have had three conversations in the last few days. The last one discussed issues pertaining to the safety of shipping and India's energy security. Beyond that, it would be premature for me to say anything," Jaiswal said. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Gulf region amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia, backed by the US, involving Iran and Israel. In a post on X, PM Modi said he expressed deep concern over the escalation of tensions, particularly the loss of civilian lives and damage to civilian infrastructure in the region. He said, "Had a conversation with Iranian President, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, to discuss the serious situation in the region. Expressed deep concern over the escalation of tensions and the loss of civilian lives as well as damage to civilian infrastructure." The Prime Minister also underlined that the safety and security of Indian nationals remains a key priority for the government. He noted that ensuring the unhindered transit of goods and energy supplies is equally important for India. He added, "The safety and security of Indian nationals, along with the need for unhindered transit of goods and energy, remain India's top priorities." The PM asserted that India remains committed to peace and stability and stressed the need for dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. "Reiterated India's commitment to peace and stability and urged for dialogue and diplomacy," PM Modi concluded. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. In a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. "De-escalation and dialogue are the only way out," Guterres said, urging all parties to cease hostilities, uphold international law, protect civilians and return immediately to negotiations. (ANI) ST. LOUIS A former St. Louis building inspector is accused of taking more than $1.6 million in city money and diverting it to companies owned by his wife and sister, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said Adebanjo Banjo Popoola was charged in U.S. District Court to three counts of wire fraud and was taken into custody this week. He made his initial appearance Friday in federal court in St. Louis. Prosecutors claim Popoola used his position in the citys Building Division to take contracts that were meant for repairing and stabilizing aging buildings, and steered the money to two companies connected to his family. Advertisement Advertisement According to the indictment, Popoola had his sister, who lives in Texas and has no construction experience, register a Missouri company called Farst Construction LLC in October 2022. His longtime partner, who later became his wife, formed Premier Finish Contractors LLC in Missouri in February 2021. Federal prosecutors say Popoola sent roughly $1.4 million from the citys Stable Communities STL program to Farst Construction and about $339,500 from the Prop NS program to the company. It also says he caused about $1.3 million from Stable Communities STL and about $1 million from Prop NS to be awarded to Premier Finish Contractors. Investigators say the companies received an unreasonable share of contracts. Of the 59 contracts given out through the Stable Communities STL program, 13 went to Farst and 10 went to Premier, making up of 42% of the programs $7.99 million in awards. Of the 144 contracts issued through the Prop NS program, eight went to Farst and 23 to Premier, representing 24% of the $5.6 million awarded. Prosecutors allege that on multiple occasions, the fake companies did not perform the contracted work, but Popoola falsely certified that it had been done properly to the city comptroller. Advertisement Advertisement Missouri lawmakers consider bill to force insurance companies to cover pediatric disease Authorities say Popoola shared joint bank accounts with both his wife and sister, where city funds were deposited. In one example mentioned in the court documents, Farst Construction got a $29,500 check from the Prop NS program in February 2023. Prosecutors say Popoolas sister immediately wrote herself a $15,000 check from the business account, deposited it into her personal account and then wrote a $10,000 check back to Popoola. After paying subcontractors for some work on stabilization projects, Popoola, his wife and his sister in all reportedly made $1.67 million. Prosecutors say he used the money for expenses like his mortgage payments, car purchases and repairs, travel, gambling at the casino, and a paradise wedding in Hawaii in 2023. Advertisement Advertisement The indictment also claims he falsely stated on city documents that he had no personal interest in contracts in the city. Prosecutors say his wife and sister also signed documents falsely stating that no city officials involved in the projects had a direct or indirect interest in the contracts. The programs involved were funded through federal American Rescue Plan Act funds and city-issued bonds. The case was investigated by the FBI, with help from the St. Louis Comptrollers Office. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. By Steve Holland, Humeyra Pamuk, Parisa Hafezi and Alexander Cornwell WASHINGTON/DUBAI/TEL AVIV, March 14 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago with a massive U.S.-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts. Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until U.S. and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict. Advertisement Advertisement The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring. U.S. strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, the country's main oil export hub, on Friday night underscored Trump's determination to press ahead with his military assault. Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and threatened to step up attacks on neighboring countries. The war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption as maritime traffic has halted in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported. ATTEMPTS TO OPEN LINES OF COMMUNICATION Advertisement Advertisement Oman, which mediated talks before the war, has tried multiple times to open a line of communication, but the White House has made clear it is not interested, according to two sources, who like others in this story were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about diplomatic matters. A senior White House official confirmed Trump has rebuffed those efforts to start talks and is focused on pressing ahead with the war to further weaken Tehran's military capabilities. "He's not interested in that right now, and we're going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there's a day, but not right now," the official said. During the first week of the war, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Irans leadership and military were so battered by U.S.-Israeli strikes that they wanted to talk, but that it was Too Late! He has a history of shifting foreign policy stances without warning, making it hard to rule out that he might test the waters for restarting diplomacy. Advertisement Advertisement "President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated," a second senior White House official said when asked to comment on this story. The Iranian sources said Tehran has rejected efforts by several countries to negotiate a ceasefire until the U.S. and Israel end their airstrikes and meet Iran's demands, which include a permanent end to U.S. and Israeli attacks and compensation as part of a ceasefire. Egypt, which was involved in mediation before the war, has also tried to reopen communications, according to three security and diplomatic sources. While the efforts do not appear to have made progress, they have secured some military restraint from neighboring countries hit by Iran, according to one of the sources. Egypt's foreign ministry, the government of Oman and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment. Advertisement Advertisement POSITIONS HARDEN ON ALL SIDES The war's impact on global oil markets has significantly increased the cost for the United States. Some U.S. officials and advisers to Trump urge a quick end to the war, warning that surging gasoline prices could exact a high political price from the president's Republican Party, with U.S. midterm elections looming. Others are pressing Trump to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic to destroy its missile program and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to Reuters reporting. Trump's rejection of diplomatic efforts could indicate that, for now, the administration has no plans for a quick end to the war. Advertisement Advertisement Indeed, both the United States and Iran appear even less willing to engage than during the opening days of the war, when senior U.S. officials reached out to Oman to discuss de-escalating, according to several sources. One source said Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also sought to use Oman as a conduit for ceasefire discussions that would have involved U.S. Vice President JD Vance. But those discussions have not materialized. Instead, Iran's position has hardened, said a third senior Iranian source. "Whatever was communicated previously through the diplomatic channels is irrelevant now," said the source. Advertisement Advertisement "The Guards strongly believe that if they lose control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will lose the war," the source added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary force that controls large parts of the economy. "Therefore, the Guards will not accept any ceasefire, ceasefire talks, or diplomatic efforts, and Irans political leaders will not engage in such talks despite attempts by several countries." (Additional reporting by Erin Banco, Samia Nakhoul, Andrew Mills, Matt Spetalnick and Alexander Dziadosz; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel) AMSTERDAM, March 14 (Reuters) - An explosion caused minor damage to a Jewish school in Amsterdam early on Saturday, in what the city's mayor described as "a deliberate attack against the Jewish community". The explosion at the school in an upscale residential neighbourhood on the south side of Amsterdam damaged a rainpipe and charred an outer wall. It caused no injuries. Mayor Femke Halsema said the incident was being taken very seriously and would lead to increased security at Jewish institutions. Advertisement Advertisement "This is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community," Halsema said. "Jewish people in Amsterdam are increasingly confronted with antisemitism. This is unacceptable." The school is the only one specifically for orthodox Jews in the Netherlands, and is largely fenced off by a pointed, metal outer wall due to earlier threats. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called Saturday's attack "horrible" and said it understandably caused fear and anger in the Jewish community. "The safety of Jewish institutions has our full attention," he said in a post on X. Advertisement Advertisement Security at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the Dutch capital had already been heightened after an overnight arson attack at a synagogue in the centre of Rotterdam on Friday. In neighbouring Belgium, an explosion caused a fire at a synagogue in Liege on Monday. Concerns about possible attacks against Jewish communities around the world have risen following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and a subsequent response from Tehran. (Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Tom Hogue and Toby Chopra) An explosion at a Jewish school in Amsterdam overnight on Saturday damaged its exterior wall. Police and firefighters arrived at the scene quickly and there were no injuries reported. Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema called the incident a "cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community." "I understand the fear and anger of Amsterdam's Jewish community," Halsema said, adding that "they increasingly face antisemitism and that is unacceptable." Advertisement Advertisement Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called the attack "horrible" and said "there should be no place for antisemitism in the Netherlands." The police said they have CCTV footage of a person placing the explosive device, adding that an investigation has been opened. They are looking for two suspects who appeared to have arrived at the school on a moped before on of them placed the explosive, they added. Israel's foreign ministry also weighed in on X, saying: "In the Netherlands, an antisemitism epidemic is raging." "Where will the next attack be? The Dutch government needs to do much more to fight antisemitism," the ministry wrote. Incident follows other attacks on Jewish institutions Security at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the Netherlands had already been heightened after an overnight arson attack at a synagogue in the centre of Rotterdam on Friday. Advertisement Advertisement The Dutch National Coordinator for Anti-terrorism and Safety said extra measures are being taken in coordination with police in light of other recent attacks throughout Europe this week. Police arrested four young men on Friday on suspicion of setting off an explosion outside a synagogue in Rotterdam that caused a brief fire and damage to the building. A view of the Jewish school in Amsterdam, 16 March, 2026 - Screenshot from AP video 4644787 After the blast, police monitored other synagogues as a precaution and stopped a vehicle near another building driven by someone matching the description of one of the suspects. "It is not yet clear whether the suspects planned to detonate an explosive or set fire to another synagogue as well," police said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Two men were aged 19, one 18 and the fourth was 17 years old, said police, without specifying any motive. Authorities said they were launching a "large-scale investigation into this serious incident" and appealed for witnesses to come forward. An unverified video showing an explosion near a building resembling the targeted synagogue circulated on social media on Friday, which police said they were examining as part of their probe. Related On Monday, an explosion shook a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liege before dawn, causing some damage but no injuries. Advertisement Advertisement It was strongly condemned by Belgian politicians and European Union officials. Belgian authorities said they were analysing a potentially jihadist video claiming responsibility. On Thursday, an unidentified assailant rammed his car into a synagogue on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, sparking a blaze. Security guards opened fire on the attacker, who was killed in the assault. An explosion struck overnight at a Jewish school in Amsterdam in what the citys mayor called a targeted attack against the Jewish community. The blast hit the outer wall of the school, located in Buitenveldert, considered the citys modern Jewish quarter and home to synagogues, religious schools and Jewish restaurants. Police have obtained images of the person who allegedly detonated the bomb, the City of Amsterdam told CNN in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Security in Amsterdam had been heightened following antisemitic incidents in Rotterdam and Liege in neighboring Belgium earlier the same week, the City of Amsterdam statement said. This is a cowardly act of aggression towards the Jewish community, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said there must be no place for antisemitism in the Netherlands. I understand the anger and fear and will quickly engage in talks with the Jewish community. They must always feel safe in our country, he posted on X. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Saturday that he held calls with Dutch Jewish community leaders after the explosions, expressing Israels solidarity with Jews in the Netherlands. Advertisement Advertisement The incident appears to be part of a recent wave of antisemitic violence in Europe amid the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran. On Friday, an explosion at the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands second largest city, sparked a fire at the entrance of a synagogue. Four teenage boys have been arrested following the overnight arson attack, Rotterdam police said in a statement. Police said that that blaze was caused by an explosive device that detonated at the synagogue. The fire broke out for a short time before burning out by itself, police said, adding that no one was injured. The four suspects, aged 17, 18 and 19, were arrested in the vicinity of another synagogue after a vehicle that was driving erratically drew the attention of authorities. Advertisement Advertisement In Belgium, a synagogue in the city of Liege was rocked by an explosion on Monday in what the citys mayor described as an antisemitic attack, according to local media reports. In Michigan in the US, a synagogue was targeted in a car-ramming attack on Thursday. Though the motive in that incident is still unknown, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that theres a clear nexus between the Iran war and the attack, adding its no coincidence the suspect targeted a synagogue named Temple Israel. CNNs Billy Stockwell contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Hours after a censure resolution was introduced, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles announced an immigration bill to make America look like America again by limiting migrants from non-European countries, ending policies that prioritize family reunification, and abolishing the H1-B visa program for skilled workers. In response to a deluge of anti-Muslim comments from Ogles and a bill proposing to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S., Michigan U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar on March 12 introduced a resolution to censure the Tennessee congressman for spewing hatred and bigotry toward Muslim Americans. If adopted, the resolution would also remove Ogles from the Homeland Security Committee. Congressman Ogles' disgusting and bigoted words have no place anywhere in our country, let alone from a member of Congress, Thanedar said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement His words incite hatred against millions of Muslim Americans, he added. They disrespect the values of freedom of religion that our country was founded upon and are fundamentally un-American. Ogles bill would make 'moral character' vetting part of the immigration process Thanedars resolution was filed hours before Ogles introduced a bill titled the ASSIMILATION Act. I am preparing a monumental bill that repeals Hart-Celler, ends the H1-B visa scam, ends chain migration, and creates a whole new character-based system that would make America look like America again, Ogles said. Ogles on March 13 called federal laws allowing immigration from Asia, South America and the Middle East a declaration of war that has allowed foreign troops to infiltrate American communities and schools. Advertisement Advertisement In the early 1900s, federal immigration quotas severely restricted immigration to the United States from outside Western Europe. At the height of the Cold War, Congress passed the Hart-Celler Act, which abolished national-origin quotas that favored Europeans, and prioritized visas for family members of U.S. citizens and highly skilled workers. That resulted in a significant increase in immigrants from Asia, Latin America and Africa. Not only did this legislation declare war on American culture, but it has also been sending foreign troops to every American community to steal their jobs, erase their religion, and infiltrate their schools, Ogles wrote in a social media post. He pointing to terror attacks at a Michigan synagogue and Old Dominion University this week to justify the policy. Advertisement Advertisement If we repeal Hart Cellar, the Islamic reign of terror will end, Ogles wrote. Ogles bill would also create new requirements for character based vetting of immigrants, according to reporting by Fox News. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) speaks during a press conference regarding federal government spending on Capitol Hill in Washington on September 12, 2023. Ogles recently faced calls to resign from Democrats for comments he has made seeking to exclude immigrants, particularly those of the Muslim faith, from American society. Those include in-person interviews to determine "moral character," reviews of immigrants social media, and exclusion for any kind of prior arrest records, including DUIs and domestic violence even without convictions. In various social media posts, Ogles has said: Advertisement Advertisement Ogles touted an A+ score from the Providence Society, an anti-replacement Christian nationalist group that defines Americans as a part of a people with shared history, ancestry and traditions rooted in European Christian civilization. America was founded by and for a specific people and our identity as a people is inseparable from our nation, the groups website states. The group, which does not name any staff on its website and does not appear to have filed taxes, blames immigrants for cultural displacement, economic devastation, loss of identity, and political disenfranchisement. Advertisement Advertisement The group has praised Ogles as one of the best Congressmen in the House, and said that more representatives must follow @repOgles lead or America will fall. Tennessee Republicans, White House silent on Ogles comments So far, no Republican member of Tennessees Congressional delegation has denounced Ogles comments. During a reception in Nashville on March 11, U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps did not answer questions from a Tennessean reporter about Ogles' comments. Van Epps office also did not respond to inquiries on whether he feels Ogles should resign. Representatives of the offices of U.S. Reps. David Kustoff, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais did not respond to questions from The Tennessean. Advertisement Advertisement Ogles is a member of the congressional Sharia Free America Caucus, launched in December, as is U.S. Rep. John Rose, R-Cookeville. A spokesperson for Rose clarified to The Tennessean that Roses participation in the Sharia Free Caucus is in opposition to Sharia Law, not to Muslim Americans. No, Rep. Rose does not believe all Muslims should be banned from American society, the spokesperson said. Americans for Prosperity of Tennessee, of which Ogles previously was executive director and whose grassroots efforts contributed greatly to Ogles election and re-election bids, did not respond to questions on whether the group will withdraw support this year. Advertisement Advertisement Founded by Charles Koch, the grandson of a Dutch immigrant, AFP publicly supports legal immigration and has advocated for religious freedom free from government overreach. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., talks with House Speaker Mike Johnson, right, on Jan. 3, 2025, as they arrive for the first day of Congress at the U.S. Capitol. The White House has not responded to inquiries on President Donald Trump's reaction to Ogles comments. Trump endorsed Ogles 2026 reelection bid. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he would have used different language" than Ogles. Vivian Jones covers state government and politics for The Tennessean. Reach her at vjones@tennessean.com. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rep. Andy Ogles from Tennessee proposes immigration overhaul Denise Amber Lee was in the back of her abductor's car, fighting for her life. Michael King had raped her, blindfolded her and tied her up after kidnapping her from her Florida home in broad daylight. Even so, when King briefly got out of the car, Lee managed to grab his phone and dial 911. "Please. My name is Denise," a frantic Lee told a 911 dispatcher. "I'm married to a beautiful husband, and I just want to see my kids again." Lee's call to 911 was one of four within minutes of each other. Another came from a driver who heard Lee screaming for her life and saw her struggling in the backseat as King drove. The caller stayed on the line for nine minutes, giving a 911 dispatcher real-time updates on Lee's location as police swarmed the region looking for her. Advertisement Advertisement Authorities had everything they needed to save Lee and capture King. But through a series of mistakes and apparent incompetence, 911 dispatchers never got the information to police who were seconds away. Denise Amber Lee is pictured. Lee's body was found two days later, naked in a shallow grave. The 21-year-old stay-at-home mom of two sons had been fatally shot once above her right eye. Now almost 20 years later, Florida is set to execute King by lethal injection on Tuesday, March 17. King's death will bring to a close a case that made national news, exposed the vulnerabilities of the 911 system in Florida and beyond, and led to reform within the industry. "I'm ready for this to be over," Lee's husband, Nathan Lee, said of the execution in an interview with USA TODAY on Friday, March 13. "I dont want to have to think about this guy anymore." Advertisement Advertisement Here's what you need to know about the case, the execution, and more about who Denise Lee was and how her young husband dedicated his life to preventing the kind of failures that cost his wife her life. Who was Denise Amber Lee? Denise Amber Lee was the daughter of a sergeant with the Charlotte County Sheriff's Department, and grew up with a brother and sister Englewood, Florida, just south of Sarasota on the Gulf Coast. She started dating her future husband when they connected while in the same calculus class at a local community college. Nathan Lee said he knew pretty quickly that Denise was the one for him. "Obviously she was beautiful ... She was intelligent, she was really smart, and I could tell she was a little bit goofy, which I really liked," he told USA TODAY. "Once we started dating, I knew really quickly very early. I was pretty sure I met my future wife." Advertisement Advertisement He said it was the way she looked at him. "Like I was the most important person on the planet to her," he recalled. When Denise became pregnant, both their parents wanted them to get married, he said. His proposal wasn't all that romantic but it says everything about how the young couple made sense together. Denise Amber Lee is pictured on her wedding day with husband Nathan Lee. "We were just sitting on our couch in our apartment and I pretty much asked her, 'What are you thinking about the whole marriage thing?'" he recalled. "She was like, 'I'm fine getting married.' And I'm like, 'I'm fine getting married. So we went down to Walmart and got her engagement ring." He said that "it sounds really cheesy, but we didn't care." Advertisement Advertisement "She just wanted to marry me and I wanted to marry her," he said. "We didn't care how fancy it was. She just loved me." Though Denise had wanted to become a lawyer, that took a back burner after the couple married when she was 19 and had their first son, Noah. Their second son, Adam, came about 18 months later. Denise wanted a daughter after that, and was considering a career as a children's speech therapist, something she had become passionate about as she researched why her oldest son was taking a bit longer to start talking. "She loved kids. I dont think she realized how much she loved kids until she had them," Nathan Lee said. "As soon as she held Noah in her arms for the first time, she fell in love. The same with Adam. She was definitely made for it." Denise Amber Lee is pictured holding her youngest son Adam not long before her murder. What happened to Denise Amber Lee? On the afternoon of Jan. 17, 2008, 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee was at home in North Port, Florida, doing what she loved: taking care of her sons, 2-year-old Noah and 6-month-old Adam. Her husband, Nathan Lee, was working one of his three jobs that supported the family. Advertisement Advertisement A man named Michael King was driving around their neighborhood, apparently looking for victims, when he spotted Lee on her front porch, trimming Noah's hair. No one saw what happened, but King was able to kidnap Lee at gunpoint. When husband Nathan Lee arrived home less than an hour later around 3:20 p.m., he found the house locked. His sons were inside, and so were Denise Lee's purse, keys and phone. Knowing something was terribly wrong, he called 911. Denise's sheriff's sergeant father helped deploy a massive police response. Roughly four hours after the kidnapping as police swarmed the area looking for her Denise Lee was able to use King's phone to call 911. Unbeknownst to him for more than six minutes, the line was open and the dispatcher could hear everything. The recording of the call is harrowing and gut-wrenching as Lee sobs and begs for her life. "I just want to see my family. Please let me go," she screams. "God help me!" Advertisement Advertisement For over six minutes, the dispatcher sounds at times indifferent and at times annoyed. She says "Hello" 13 times amid Lee's hysterical cries, and continuously asks for her name, location, what her address is, and how long she's been gone from her home, even though it's apparent that Lee cannot speak freely and even after Lee gives her some of those answers. The dispatcher does not express empathy or offer words of comfort and at one point, she asks Lee if the kidnapper can turn the radio down. About 15 minutes later, another 911 call comes in from a woman named Jane Kowalski, who sees Denise Lee slapping the back window of King's car and hears her screaming for help. For many minutes, Kowalski relays the car's precise location, information that could have led officers straight to her. But 911 dispatchers didn't get the critical information to the many officers frantically searching for Denise Lee. The dispatcher who took the call wasn't entering the information into a computer, which angered her fellow dispatchers, and a dispute among the three is largely responsible for the failure, said Nathan Lee, who later filed a civil lawsuit over the matter that the Charlotte County Sheriff's Department settled in 2012 for $1.2 million. As part of the settlement, the sheriff's office did not admit any wrongdoing. Two of the dispatchers were suspended for a few days, Nathan Lee said. Advertisement Advertisement Before King killed Denise Lee, there was another missed opportunity to save her life. Before Lee's call to 911, King made a stop at his cousin's house and asked him for a gas can, a shovel and a flashlight. Though the cousin saw Lee in the back of the car and heard her holler, "Call the cops," he did nothing as King loaded up the items and then drove away with her. Both the cousin and his daughter later called 911 separately, but it was far too late. The cousin later told police that he thought Lee was one of King's "psycho" girlfriends. He didn't face charges in the case. Nathan Lee dedicates himself to improving 911 industry Today, Nathan Lee runs the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, which is dedicated to improving 911 system across the country. Lee travels throughout the nation and tells his wife's story to dispatchers in hopes that no one goes through what his wife did. Advertisement Advertisement As a result of the foundation's work and lessons learned from Denise Lee's murder, he said a number of states have passed legislation beefing up training requirements for dispatchers. His wife's case is so infamous in the industry, he said that "it's very rare to find a dispatcher that hasn't heard the story." "Trainers and dispatch centers all over the country tell all new hires about Denise," he said, adding that the industry has been very supportive and that dispatchers have some of the toughest and most traumatic jobs in the country. Inciting change has been a comfort amid the sea of grief, Nathan Lee said. Anger over the missed opportunities to save his wife's life was part of her whole family's grieving process, he said. Nathan Lee gives a talk about the importance of empathy and effectiveness for dispatchers answering 911 calls as a photo of him and his slain wife, Denise Amber Lee, is displayed. "You lose someone, and you're already dealing with the loss. And then you add on top of it how she was killed, the horror she went through ... It haunted me for a really long time," he said. "Then you sprinkle on the 911 stuff and all these opportunities where she should have been saved." Advertisement Advertisement Now he knows that countless people have been helped as a result of Denise Lee's story. "She mattered and she's making a difference," Nathan Lee said. "And that's all you can do after this. Just hope that she didn't die in vain." When is Michael King's execution? Florida is set to execute Michael King at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 17, at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. King's attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, citing concerns over how the state is carrying out lethal injections. The state's Attorney General's Office has dismissed their claims as "nothing more than stalling for time." Among the witnesses to King's execution will be Denise Lee's husband, oldest son Noah, parents, brother and sister, according to Nathan Lee, who said he's hoping to feel some relief afterward. "The word 'closure' is thrown around so loosely. You don't get closure in these situations," he said. "The day he was sentenced we were all standing out in front of the courthouse, and we all knew that when this day comes we need to be there. We need to be there for Denise in solidarity." Michael King is currently on Florida's Death Row for the murder of Denise Lee. Contributing: The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, part of the USA TODAY Network Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers cold case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Denise Amber Lee called 911 from kidnapper's car. It didn't save her. For the first time, the family of Carroll County teen Candace Chrzan is speaking publicly about her death, as the man accused in her killing prepares to return to court next week. Don Nunz, Candaces grandfather, gave Channel 2s Brittany Kleinpeter an exclusive look inside his home, showing what the family has been holding onto since her death. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Her letterman jacket is still hanging there, Nunz said, holding back tears as he showed Kleinpeter Candaces room. Advertisement Advertisement For five years, the family has preserved everything she left behind, from her drawings to her belongings, keeping her memory alive. In March 2021, Nunz says his family received the worst news of their lives. Investigators say Candace was shot in the head while friends were shooting targets in a yard. When the gun jammed, another teen, Jeremy Gray, allegedly tried to clear it, and it accidentally discharged, killing her. TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement Gray was initially charged with involuntary manslaughter, but in 2023 the charges were upgraded to murder. Nearly five years after Grays arrest, the case continues. Nunz says he is speaking out now because he believes the investigation was mishandled from the start. If they would have investigated it and looked at it as a homicide and not an accident, they would have found out a lot more. They talked about seeing bruises on her arms. Her brand-new western boots were scrubbed up like she had been dragged on the gravel, he said. Just like the letterman jacket that still hangs in her room, Nunz says he will hold on to every piece of Candaces life and memory until justice is served. Advertisement Advertisement Nunz believes Jeremy Gray is responsible and wants him to spend the rest of his life behind bars. However, he says there is still a possibility Gray could take a plea deal. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m. in front of Judge John Simpson. Officials confirm it will be a non-jury bench hearing. Don says he and other family members plan to be there, filling the courtroom. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] One person was killed and two others were critically injured in a shooting early Saturday in downtown Athens. Athens-Clarke police officers responded at about 2 a.m. on March 14 to a report of a shooting in a parking lot in the 400 block of North Jackson Street, according to Athens-Clarke police. Investigators said three people were shot during the incident. One victim, identified as Clayton Adams, 22, of Hull, died from his injuries. Two others were taken to a local hospital, where they remained in critical condition as of Saturday afternoon, said police. Advertisement Advertisement Police said the investigation is ongoing. No additional details were immediately released. Anyone with information related to the case is asked to contact Detective Paul Johnson at Paul.Johnson@accgov.com or 762-400-7060. More: Walton County man sentenced to 11 years for child porn This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Athens shooting leaves one dead, two critical Tensions flared in East Asia on Saturday as the Japanese government issued an urgent warning following military activity from Pyongyang. The Prime Minister's Office of Japan, in a post on X, alerted the public to the developing situation, stating: "[Emergency alert] North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile. More updates to follow." Following this alert, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the nation's first female premier who recently secured a historic landslide victory in the February 2026 general elections, immediately activated emergency protocols to monitor the projectile's trajectory. Takaichi has maintained a robust stance on regional security and the protection of Japanese territory throughout her tenure. Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday that this latest weapons test by North Korea has further heightened security anxieties in the region. Providing specific timing, the Japan Coast Guard announced at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday that what appears to be a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea, citing defence ministry information. In response to the launch, the coast guard issued an urgent advisory calling on ships at sea to pay attention to future updates on the situation. According to NHK, the projectile's flight path suggests that the immediate danger to Japanese territory has subsided, as defence ministry officials believe it fell in waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Kyodo News reported that a government source confirmed the projectile had apparently fallen outside the EEZ. Authorities moved quickly to assess the impact of the launch, though no damage due to the launch has been reported so far. The activity was also tracked by the South Korean military, which stated that North Korea fired at least one unidentified projectile in an eastward direction. The launch occurred amid heightened tensions as the United States and South Korea continue their annual springtime joint military exercises. To manage the ongoing situation, the Japanese government has convened an emergency response team consisting of officials from relevant ministries and agencies at the crisis management centre in the prime minister's office. As per Kyodo News, this incident follows a similar pattern of military demonstrations by Pyongyang earlier this year. North Korea last fired two ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on January 27, which were also assessed to have fallen outside Japan's EEZ. (ANI) Two groups of killer whales are engaging in a terrifying, bloody cannibalistic war beneath the oceans surface, where gangs of the colossal creatures are attacking and eating each other, scientists say. The ferocious orca war between the resident and transient subspecies is turning the cold North Pacific waters into a virtual bloodbath. Sergey Fomin of Russias Pacific Institute of Geography was the first to discover evidence of a war between the two groups of orcas the males of which can reach 26 feet in length and weigh a massive 12,000 pounds while females can grow to 23 feet and 8,000 pounds. Advertisement Advertisement In 2022, he found the fin of an orca, bloody and ripped with bite marks on a beach and two years later, found another one. Genetic tests confirmed both fins came from the southern resident orcas and Fomin and his associates believe the remains had been chewed and torn off by members of a ferocious transient orca pod. He and his colleagues have written a paper on the findings. Transient orcas are nomadic, and will form into pods to hunt seals, dolphins and other whales. Resident orcas remain in the same large family pod their entire lives, but will sometimes swim off individually to feed and then return to the group. Advertisement Advertisement Experts dont know why the resident orcas form such large family pods and stay with them, but Olga Filatova of the University of Southern Denmark believes it may be for protection. Its quite unique, she admitted, via The Sun. There are not that many species that have something like this. Meanwhile, experts cant explain why if what they suspect is true the two subspecies are attacking and even eating the losers. But Filatova notes that the behavior might just be out of necessity. If they cant find any food, and theres a young tasty resident killer whale alone, why not? Read More From Globe This story Ferocious War Between Two Groups of Killer Whales Turning North Pacific Waters Into a Bloodbath first appeared on Globe. Add Globe as a Preferred Source by clicking here. KANSAS CITY, Mo. A number of Republicans are entering the race for Congress as Show-Me State lawmakers try to change the voter base of the fifth district. Traditionally, it encompasses Jackson County, but a new map passed in September of 2025 drastically alters the map. Michael Smith is a political science professor at Emporia State on the Kansas side, but he lives in KCMO. He would move from the fifth district to the fourth if the map that the Republicans drew stuck. The states supreme court is considering a case that argues mid-decade redistricting is unconstitutional. Independence announces new city manager after national search Advertisement Advertisement The new fifth district would cover some of KCMO south of the river, but the district could now go east into mid-Missouri and grab residents who tend to vote red. Smith lives in West Waldo near Ward Parkway and would no longer be represented by Emanuel Cleaver, whos still running for reelection in his district despite the redraw. Representative Alford, unlike I will say many other Missouri Representatives, holds a lot of town hall meetings, Smith said. If he starts holding town hall meetings in Kansas City, hes going to meet a lot of constituents that are very concerned about ICE raids, very concerned about the war in Iran. When it comes to the Missouri Fifth District, there are a lot of Republicans running so far. The filing deadline does not end until later in March. Sean Smith, Brad Patty, Rick Brattin, Taylor Burks and Brett Hueffmeier have all announced that theyre running in that district so far. Hueffmeier said hed be running regardless of the effort to change the states map. Advertisement Advertisement KC developer claims TIF Commission secretly terminated deal, withheld $1M in funds Of course, it sort of is an incentive knowing that it might, he said. Im from a rural area originally, so I can go out and sort of campaign more easily, but Im determined to represent the city as well, and I would have done that independently if it stayed in the old district. Hueffmeiers our guest on Sundays episode of 4 the People. It airs at 10 a.m. that day. Hueffmeiers interview in its entirety will also air that day. In the fifth district on the Democratic side, Cleavers the only one whos announced that hes running. If the map sticks to what the Republicans did in September, his chances of winning re-election would obviously drop. He first won election to that seat in November of 2004. Hes been the Congressman in the district ever since. Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. Approximately 50,000 TSA officers are continuing to work without regular pay on Saturday, March 14, after Congress failed to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), triggering a partial federal government shutdown in midFebruary. TSA officers missed their first full paycheck on March 13 after receiving partial paychecks on February 28. "These are the people we depend upon to look for bombs and explosive devices on the airplane you're about to get on with your family," former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told CNBC. "They live paycheck to paycheck when they're getting paid. Morale traditionally in TSA is low and now we're forcing them to go to work without being paid at all." Advertisement Advertisement At major airports nationwide, including HartsfieldJackson Atlanta and Houstons Hobby Airport, TSA checkpoint lines stretched past an hour, with some waits exceeding three hours last weekend. Impacts from the ongoing government shutdown at Florida airports have remained limited this week, even as more TSA officers nationwide have resigned or called in sick. Most airports across Florida continue to report TSA checkpoint wait times under 15 minutes. However, travelers at major hubs, including Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Miami, and Tampa, may experience slightly longer delays during peak travel periods. Orlando International Airport (MCO) is preparing for a busy travel weekend, with airport officials expecting more than 600,000 passengers to pass through. The surge in travelers could place additional strain on TSA officers, who have continued working without pay since a partial federal government shutdown began in February. However, an MCO official said in an email that the airport has "not seen a dramatic decrease in the number of TSA agents processing passengers." Advertisement Advertisement "MCOs security checkpoint times may tick upward due to the heavy volume of passengers during this spring break period," Angela Starke, Vice President of MCO Public Affairs, wrote. "The airport expects to have a record number of passengers this weekend. We are asking passengers to arrive at the airport three hours in advance of their flight and to be at the security checkpoint two hours before departure time." MCO said in a release that some of the busiest travel days are coming up this weekend: Saturday, March 14 - 204,852 Sunday, March 15 - 211,973 Friday, March 16 - 205,362 MCO is also hosting a food drive to support TSA officers impacted by the temporary loss of paychecks. Airport officials are asking for donations of nonperishable food items, cleaning and laundry supplies, diapers, pet supplies, and gas or grocery store gift cards. Donations can be brought to: Advertisement Advertisement Orlando International Airport Terminal C Departures curb, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Monday, March 16, and each weekend until further notice Orlando Executive Airport at Rickenbacker Drive, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until further notice What are the current wait times at Florida airports? As of Friday morning, here are the estimated security wait times for Florida airports according to the airports and TSA. Note that TSA estimates may not be current due to the shutdown when the MyTSA app is not updated: Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB): 0-15 minutes Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS): 0-15 minutes Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL): 15-30 minutes Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV): 0-15 minutes Jacksonville International Airport (JAX): 0-15 minutes Key West International Airport (EYW): 0-15 minutes Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB): 0-15 minutes Miami International Airport (MIA): 0-25 minutes Northwest Florida Beaches International (ECP): 0-15 minutes Orlando International Airport (MCO): 0-25 minutes Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB): 0-15 minutes Palm Beach International Airport (PBI): 15-30 minutes Pensacola International Airport (PNS): 0-15 minutes Punta Gorda Airport (PGD): 0-15 minutes Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ): 0-15 minutes Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW): 15-30 minutes St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE): 0-15 minutes Tallahassee International Airport (TLH): 0-15 minutes Tampa International Airport (TPA): 15-30 minutes Wait times will be shorter for travelers with TSA PreCheck, or for families or military members using dedicated lines, where available. How to check TSA wait times Need to know when to be at the airport? There are a few ways to monitor TSA lines in real time. Advertisement Advertisement Airport websites: Some airports post checkpoint wait updates so you can see how the day is going. Airport social media: Follow your airport's social media page. Often, when there are significant delays, the airport will post about it. The MyTSA mobile app: The TSA's free app provides estimated wait times for many U.S. airports based on TSA data and traveler reports, along with other TSA information. However, this information may not be up to date due to the ongoing government shutdown when nonessential services are not maintained. Banners on both the TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection websites warn that, Due to the lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed. 3rd party sites: Several unofficial websites, such as airportinsightfind.com, fly.com, flightqueue.com or tsawaittimes.com, provide estimated wait times based on airport reports and traveler submissions. How much do TSA agents make in Florida, U.S.? TSA pay varies depending on location. For example, higher-cost metro areas pay more than smaller or rural markets. Pay varies further by experience and tenure, as government employees receive increases based on federal pay bands and step increases. Working overtime, night shifts and holidays also increases pay above base averages. Wage average for TSA officers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): United States (national averages) Average hourly wage: $24.54 per hour Average annual salary: $51,040 per year Median annual salary: $50,020 per year Florida (state averages) Average hourly wage: $21.09 per hour Average annual salary: $43,860 per year Why is TSA not getting paid? The TSA staffing crunch comes during a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration. DHS funding lapsed Feb. 13 after Congress failed to agree on immigration enforcement reforms demanded by Democrats, leaving roughly 50,000 airport security screeners working without pay. Advertisement Advertisement Many TSA employees are still recovering from the last two government shutdowns in 2025. TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told Congress this month that about 1,110 TSA officers left the agency in October and November 2025, a more than 25% increase from the same time period the year before. Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Bart Jansen, Irene Wright, USA TODAY You can get all of Floridas best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY. This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: TSA wait times at Florida airports today on busy spring break weekend A Florida cop has been arrested for child abuse and domestic battery after getting involved in a physical altercation with his teenage daughter. Corporal Emmanuel Perez with the Martin County Sheriff's Office has been placed on administrative leave as he's now the subject of an internal probe. Cops in Port. St. Lucie received a call on Wednesday, March 11, from the 47-year-old law enforcement veteran, seeking help with his 15-year-old daughter, who had run off just as he was trying to drive her to school. Advertisement Advertisement The daughters name was not released. Sheriff John Budensiek spoke to reporters Wednesday, and said Perez, an officer, "is held to a higher standard, and we hold him to a higher standard, so he was just letting us know that there were issues on the home front." Florida Parents Arrested After Abandoning Teen for Nearly a Year in Feces-Covered Alabama House Perez's daughter, the sheriff explained, "was trying to go to school, which, I guess today she was not, and he was having issues reeling her back in. The police department showed up out there, helped resolve that issue, got her back in the car." Advertisement Advertisement Budensiek said that Perez drove the girl home instead of to school and another altercation erupted. Police arrived after receiving a second call to find Perez and his daughter on the ground, fighting. She made accusations that he had battered her by pulling her hair and pulling her jacket, Budensiek told reporters. And she had some marks on her. A neighbor next door, according to the report, and I've only read the report, also attested to that. Budensiek said it appears the girl sustained minor scrapes to the abdomen and possibly the arm. Budensiek said Perez has called on the police for help with his child in the past. Advertisement Advertisement He did not elaborate on what those issues may have been. Perez, who was only elevated to corporal last month, always reported the issues as a precaution, according to Budensiek. Budensiek told the media he is the one who ordered an internal affairs investigation into Perez's conduct. I'm going into this [with] eyes wide open, and whatever the facts are, we'll go there, Budensiek said. If the facts are negative to Deputy Perez, then I'll deal with that appropriately, and if they're positive towards him, then we'll deal with that also. Florida Teen Arrested After Allegedly Bashing Mom With a Pork Chop During Drunken Argument Advertisement Advertisement Perez is charged with individual counts of domestic battery, a misdemeanor, and child abuse without physical harm, a felony. It was unclear if Perez has appeared in court to enter pleas to the charges. It was also unclear if he has been barred from having any contact with the girl, and how that might impact his living situation. Information about who his lawyer may be was also not available at press time. If you suspect child abuse, please call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or visit ChildHelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential, and the hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. FMCSA does not publish emergency bulletins for hypothetical problems. When a federal agency puts out a formal, dated, publicly addressed warning that begins with the phrase DO NOT in all capital letters, it is because the behavior being warned against is happening at scale, right now and the agency wants the industry to understand that it is watching and that the consequences are not administrative inconveniences. They are the end of your operating authority. The bulletin published today addresses something that is circulating in corners of the trucking industry with enough frequency to warrant federal intervention: the sale, purchase, and leasing of USDOT numbers and MC operating authority outside of legitimate corporate transactions. If you have seen advertisements offering aged DOT numbers for sale, if someone has approached you about leasing an established MC number to avoid the new carrier probationary period, or if you have considered buying a sole proprietors DOT number when you bought their equipment and routes this bulletin is aimed directly at you. Here is what the bulletin says, why FMCSA issued it today, and why every small carrier needs to understand this issue clearly. What FMCSA Said The bulletins core directive is legally precise, and the precision matters. Advertisement Advertisement A USDOT number is a permanent, non-transferable identifier assigned to a specific legal person. FMCSA compares it to a drivers license or identification card. It belongs to the assigned legal entity forever. It cannot be sold. It cannot be rented. It cannot be transferred to another party through any mechanism outside of a legitimate corporate transaction. The operating authority what carriers know as the MC number, now being folded into the USDOT system under FMCSAs Unified Registration System modernization carries similar restrictions. MC numbers were more commonly transferred under the old Interstate Commerce Commission framework, when operating authority was limited to specific routes and had genuine market value. When Congress deregulated and opened authority to any route nationwide, that rationale for transfer largely disappeared. Transfers still occur in legitimate corporate transactions, but FMCSAs bulletin makes clear that any transfer happening outside that framework including on marketplaces, through private arrangements, or as part of informal business deals will be treated as fraud. The consequence is unambiguous: FMCSA stated it will initiate proceedings to inactivate the USDOT number and revoke all related registrations. That is not a fine. That is not a warning letter. It is the termination of your legal right to operate. The bulletin draws a critical distinction between sole proprietors and corporations, and every carrier needs to understand which side of that line they sit on: Advertisement Advertisement If you are a sole proprietor John Doe doing business as Doe Trucking your USDOT number is your number and only yours. If you sell your business, the buyer does not get your DOT number. They get your trucks, your lanes, your customer relationships, whatever assets are part of the sale. They go get their own USDOT number and build their own operating history from scratch. Nobody can ever become you for purposes of FMCSA registration. If your business is incorporated John Doe, Inc. the USDOT number belongs to the legal entity of the corporation, not to John Doe the individual. If you sell the corporation, the DOT number goes with it as part of the corporate assets, because the corporation is the legal person holding the registration. The new owners need to update FMCSA records immediately to reflect the change in ownership and any related demographic changes. But the number travels with the entity, not with the individual. Understanding which structure your business operates under is not a bureaucratic detail. It determines what is legally possible when you sell your business, take on a partner, or change the structure of your operation. Why FMCSA Issued This Bulletin Today FMCSA does not publish standalone compliance bulletins on routine matters. This one was published today March 13, 2026 and it sits inside a broader, accelerating federal crackdown on what FMCSA calls chameleon carriers: trucking companies that get shut down for safety violations, revoked authority, or enforcement actions, then reopen under a new identity new name, new DOT number, clean record and return to the road as if nothing happened. Advertisement Advertisement The chameleon carrier problem is not new. FMCSA has been tracking it since the early 2000s, when a series of high-profile fatal crashes were traced back to carriers that had previously been forced off the road for safety violations and had simply reincarnated under new registrations. In the years since, federal investigations have found that these reincarnated carriers are approximately three times more likely to be involved in serious crashes than legitimate new-entrant carriers. The pattern is dangerous and persistent. What is new in 2026 is the federal governments intensity of focus on closing the registration loopholes that make chameleon operations possible. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs have made the crackdown on registration fraud a centerpiece of DOTs safety agenda this year. A January news conference outlined the full scope: ending ghost offices by restoring principal place of business enforcement, requiring physical addresses where records can be inspected within 48 hours, expanding Operation SafeDRIVE roadside inspections into more states, shutting down fraudulent CDL training schools, cracking down on non-compliant ELDs, and directly relevant to todays bulletin shutting down chameleon carrier networks that use fraud and shell companies. The catalyst that elevated this from background enforcement priority to front-page agency action was a quadruple-fatal crash in Indiana involving a carrier AJ Partners that Overdrive and other outlets identified as part of a broader network of affiliated entities with undisclosed relationships. FMCSAs investigation into AJ Partners expanded to include several connected companies. The driver had been trained at a CDL school that FMCSA subsequently flagged for investigation. The carrier had affiliations with other entities that were not disclosed to FMCSA as required by law. It was, in a single incident, a convergence of every fraud vector the agency has been trying to close: chameleon carrier structure, fraudulent CDL training, undisclosed affiliations, and an unvetted driver behind the wheel. FMCSA Administrator Barrs directly invoked that crash when announcing the agencys expanded anti-chameleon carrier strategy. The message from federal leadership has been consistent: if you are operating through fraud, registration deception, or shell company structures designed to obscure your compliance history, the agency is looking for you, and it has new tools to find you. Advertisement Advertisement The USDOT/MC number bulletin published today is part of that enforcement surge. It is a formal notice to the market including whatever informal marketplace may have developed for buying and selling aged DOT numbers that FMCSA is paying attention to this specific behavior and will treat it as a revocation-level offense. The Market That Created This Problem To understand why FMCSA had to say this at all, you have to understand what the market for USDOT numbers looks like. A USDOT number with operating history is worth something to certain buyers because of how the freight brokerage and shipper vetting ecosystem works. New carriers entities that have held authority for less than a year, or that have no safety inspection history face meaningful barriers in the market. Many brokers will not tender loads to carriers with fewer than 90 days of operating authority. Some require six months or more. Certain shipper contracts are categorically off-limits to new entrants. Insurance carriers price new-authority carriers higher because there is no inspection history to underwrite against. An established USDOT number with a clean safety record, several years of history, and a respectable CSA score is therefore genuinely valuable. It represents access to freight that a brand-new authority cannot touch. The informal market that developed around this reality offered carriers and individuals the ability to purchase or lease that access effectively buying their way past the new-entrant period and into the load board and shipper ecosystem that established carriers occupy. Advertisement Advertisement This market also serves a darker purpose. A carrier that has accumulated a damaged safety record high CSA scores, out-of-service violations, accident history can use a purchased or leased clean DOT number to misrepresent its compliance history to brokers, shippers, and insurance carriers. The entity operating under the clean number is not the entity that earned the safety record. The safety history those vetting tools are designed to reveal is now completely disconnected from the actual operator behind the wheel. Every shipper due-diligence check, every broker carrier packet review, every insurance underwriting inquiry all of it is being deceived by the purchased or leased identity. For legitimate small carriers who built their safety records honestly over years of compliant operations, this is a direct competitive and safety threat. It is the registration version of what the FedEx bribery case did to the contract award process: it corrupts the information infrastructure that honest operators depend on to compete fairly. A carrier with a clean record earned that standing. A carrier operating under a purchased clean number did not. What the MOTUS System Changes FMCSAs new MOTUS registration system the replacement for its 40-year-old registration infrastructure is specifically designed to make the kind of fraud this bulletin addresses harder to execute. MOTUS began its initial rollout in December 2025 and continues phasing in through 2026. The key changes under MOTUS that are relevant to this bulletin include strengthened identity verification at the point of registration, improved ability to detect relationships between entities through shared addresses, phone numbers, personnel, and other data points, and tighter integration between registration records and enforcement history. Under the old system, an entity could register with minimal verification, and the connections between related carriers were difficult to identify without active investigation. Under MOTUS, FMCSA expects to detect chameleon carrier behavior and undisclosed affiliations at the front door before authority is granted rather than after a crash makes the investigation necessary. Advertisement Advertisement The October 2025 phase-out of standalone MC numbers, under which all operating authority now ties to USDOT numbers in the Unified Registration System, is also part of this strategy. The old dual-identifier system created fraud vectors: carriers could cycle through MC numbers while maintaining a USDOT number, or obtain new MC numbers after prior authority was revoked. Consolidating everything under a single persistent USDOT number makes it harder to separate compliance history from operating identity. For legitimate carriers, none of this creates new obligations beyond keeping your MCS-150 current, ensuring your principal place of business is a real, physical location where records can be produced within 48 hours, and updating FMCSA records promptly when ownership or organizational structure changes. Carriers operating transparently have nothing to fear from a system designed to detect fraud. What Small Carriers Need to Do Right Now Todays bulletin has four practical implications for small carriers and owner-operators: If you are buying a trucking business from a sole proprietor, understand clearly that the USDOT number does not transfer with the sale. You are buying the trucks, the contracts, the equipment, the name if you choose to keep it but not the DOT number. You need to apply for your own USDOT number and operating authority. This is not optional and it is not negotiable. If someone is selling you a package that includes their personal DOT number, that transaction is illegal regardless of how it is structured, and FMCSA will inactivate the number when it discovers the transfer. Advertisement Advertisement If you are buying a corporation, the USDOT number can and should transfer with the corporate entity because the corporation is the legal person holding the registration. However, you are required to update FMCSA records immediately to reflect the new ownership, new officers, and any other demographic changes. Failure to update promptly is a separate violation that can result in proceedings to revoke operating authority. Document the ownership change, update the MCS-150, and keep the paper trail from the transaction available. If you have ever seen or been approached about purchasing, leasing, or renting an established DOT number, the federal position is now formally stated: FMCSA will revoke registrations connected to those transactions. The fact that money changed hands and both parties agreed does not create legal protection. FMCSAs bulletin explicitly states it will initiate proceedings despite the intent of the parties in cases of improper transfers. Good faith is not a defense. If you are operating under a USDOT number that was transferred to you outside of a legitimate corporate transaction even if you did not know it was improper your authority is at risk. This is the most urgent situation. If you purchased what you believed to be a legitimate business but the transaction did not involve a proper corporate structure, consult with a transportation attorney immediately. The exposure here is loss of all operating authority and associated registrations, which means your business cannot legally move freight until new authority is obtained. The Broader Stakes FMCSAs bulletin is one document in a years worth of accelerating enforcement signals. Every fraud mechanism that has corrupted the carrier marketplace over the past decade fake CDL schools, non-domiciled driver fraud, shell company structures, purchased DOT numbers, chameleon carrier reincarnation, ghost offices is now under simultaneous federal attention in a way it has not been before. Advertisement Advertisement The SAFER Transport Act, introduced in Congress and supported by many groups, would take this further: barring anyone convicted of a felony related to freight fraud or transportation theft from obtaining a USDOT number, requiring carriers to report ownership changes within 30 days, and creating automated systems to flag suspicious registration patterns. ATAs CEO Chris Spear said it plainly at the bills introduction: Ruthless and sophisticated criminals are actively exploiting loopholes in USDOTs registration process to steal their identities, capitalize on their good names, and commit cargo theft. Small businesses are not equipped to fight large-scale fraud on their own. That framing matters. The market for purchased USDOT numbers is not a victimless gray area. Every time a non-compliant carrier buys access to a clean safety record, it takes freight away from the legitimate carrier whose record that was, it deceives the broker or shipper relying on that record to make a safety-based decision, and it puts unsafe equipment back on highways from which enforcement was supposed to have removed it. The small carriers who built their safety scores over years of honest operation, who maintained their CSA numbers, who filled out their MCS-150 on time, who operated out of real offices with real records those carriers are the direct victims of the market todays bulletin is trying to shut down. FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said it without ambiguity at the agencys January press conference: If youre not following the rules, were going to put you out of business. Todays bulletin is the written version of that statement, addressed specifically to the DOT number marketplace. The warning has been given. What happens next depends on whether the industry takes it seriously before FMCSAs enforcement actions make the lesson unavoidable. The post FMCSA Just Issued a Bulletin Warning Carriers Not to Buy or Sell DOT Numbers Here Is Why That Warning Exists and What It Means appeared first on FreightWaves. A former Crossville High School teacher with a prior arrest on student sex charges was booked again early Saturday morning -- this time on a charge of second-degree sexual abuse, according to jail records. Billy Carl Jones was arrested on the felony charge, which applies when the victim is between the ages of 12 and 15 and the offender is at least 19 years of age and at least 15 years older than the victim. A conviction carries a sentence of one to 10 years in prison, fines, and mandatory registration as a sex offender. Details surrounding the circumstances of Saturday's arrest were not immediately available, as court records were not yet filed. Advertisement Advertisement FOX54 has reached out to the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office for additional information. Jones has a documented history with allegations of this nature. In 2017, while a teacher, he was indicted by a DeKalb County grand jury on three counts connected to sexual conduct with a student specifically engaging in a sex act, deviant sexual intercourse, and sexual contact with a student who was under the age of 19. Jones was a school employee when the alleged offenses occurred. He was 42 years old at the time. Rather than face trial on those charges, Jones entered into a plea agreement in November 2017, pleading guilty to the lesser charge of third-degree assault. He was sentenced to 12 months in the county jail, suspended to 24 months of unsupervised probation. Advertisement Advertisement As part of the plea agreement, the original indictment was dismissed, and Jones was required to surrender all of his teaching certifications, licensures, and permits issued by the Alabama State Department of Education. That surrender rendered him permanently ineligible to teach in any Alabama public school or to hold any education-related certification in the state. Despite that agreement, Jones filed a petition with the DeKalb County Circuit Court last year seeking to have the hold on his certifications lifted, claiming the underlying case had been dismissed. Court records show he also filed a related petition asking that the surrender order be modified. Those motions were denied. As of Saturday, no bond was set on the new charge. Mar. 13A former police lieutenant is accused of sending intimidating text messages, including a death threat, one day after his probation ended in an unrelated case. Jason L. Etter, 48, of Perry Twp., was charged Friday in Kettering Municipal Court with aggravated menacing and telecommunications harassment, both misdemeanor charges. Kettering police were dispatched around 1:50 p.m. Thursday on a menacing complaint after Etter reportedly sent someone multiple intimidating text messages on Tuesday, according to a statement of facts. Advertisement Advertisement "It was also determined during these text messages Jason Etter threatened to kill another victim," the court document read. Etter previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of aggravated menacing and handling a weapon while intoxicated in Montgomery County Municipal Court Western Division in November 2024. He was off-duty and intoxicated when he pointed a weapon at neighbors for shooting off fireworks during Independence Day weekend, according to court records. In that case, Etter was given a suspended six-month jail sentence for the weapons charge and was placed on community control for two years. According to court records, his probation was terminated Monday. Etter was fired from his position in the Miami Twp. Police Department in August 2024. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Kettering Municipal Court. NEED TO KNOW Former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitted to an affair with her former bodyguard, Matthew Ammel, in a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Ammel's ex-wife Heather Ammel sued Sinema in January under North Carolina's alienation of affection law, arguing Sinema willfully and intentionally seduced her husband of 14 years Sinema's motion argues that because she and Matthew were never involved romantically in North Carolina, she cannot be sued there Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitted to an affair with her former bodyguard, Matthew Ammel, in a motion filed Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Matthews exwife, Heather Ammel. Heather sued Sinema in September 2025 in North Carolina, where the Ammels live, under the states alienation of affection law, which allows jilted spouses to take legal action against a third party for interfering in a marriage. The lawsuit accuses Sinema and Matthew of engaging in repeated episodes of sexual intercourse" while Matthew was married to Heather, and more than $75,000 in damages. Advertisement Advertisement Heather has accused Sinema of willfully and intentionally seducing her husband despite knowing he was married with three children. Heather and Matthew separated in 2024, shortly after he joined Sinemas staff, after 14 years of marriage. Later, in January, Heather filed for divorce. In a sworn declaration on Thursday, Sinema said the relationship between her and Matthew became romantic and intimate at the end of May in 2024. On May 27, 2024, while Mr. Ammel was on a security detail for me in Sonoma, CA, we were physically intimate for the first time, she said. Thereafter, we were physically intimate in mid-June in New York City, NY, in mid-July in Washington, DC, in late-August in Aspen, CO, in lateSeptember in Washington, DC, and in early-October in Phoenix, AZ. But, because Sinema, an independent who represented Arizona in the Senate for six years, and Matthew were not physically intimate in North Carolina, Heather cannot sue Sinema in North Carolina, according to a motion filed Thursday by Sinemas attorney, Steven B. Epstein. It asks the court to throw out the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. Advertisement Advertisement Sinemas motion to dismiss also asserts that 100% of telephone and email communications between herself and Matthew during the time period in which they were involved romantically occurred while Mr. Ammel was physically located outside of North Carolina, disputing the claims in Heather's initial filing. Plaintiff grounds her assertion of jurisdiction on romantic telephone calls and electronic messages she alleges Defendant initiated with Mr. Ammel while he was in North Carolina. The evidence, however, refutes her allegations, the motion argues. During the relevant time period, Mr. Ammel was traveling outside of North Carolina for at least three different jobs all but a few days each month. Defendant documents each telephone call and email communication she had with himnone of which occurred while he was in North Carolina. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Thomas Van Camp, Heathers attorney, did not immediately return PEOPLEs request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement The lawsuit filed in January catalogued other examples that Heather said illustrate a relationship between Sinema and Matthew that exceeded the bounds of a normal working relationship, including an allegation that Sinema once suggested Matthew, an Army veteran, take MDMA on a work trip to help ease his post-traumatic stress disorder. Sinema said she had no recollection of the suggestion in Thursdays declaration. A 2018 House resolution bars members of Congress from having sexual relationships with their staff, but there are no such restrictions in the Senate. Read the original article on People Hours after directing significant airstrikes against military installations on Kharg Island, US President Donald Trump released Video footage of the bombing campaign showing the scale of destructio of Iranian assers and claimed that Iran has suffered a decisive defeat and is now attempting to negotiate a settlement. In a statement released on Truth Social, Trump asserted that the "Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" The President earlier described the operation as "the most powerful bombing raid" in the history of the Middle East, specifically targeting Kharg Island, a critical hub for Iran's oil exports. He claimed that American forces had "totally obliterated" all intended military targets while intentionally leaving the island's energy infrastructure untouched. Located in the Persian Gulf, Kharg Island serves as the primary terminal for Iranian oil and remains a vital component of the country's energy sector. Trump noted that the decision to spare these facilities was based on reasons of "decency", though he issued a stern warning regarding the strategic Strait of Hormuz. He cautioned that any disruption to the free and safe passage of vessels through the strategic waterway would lead him to "reconsider the decision" regarding the island's oil infrastructure. The President had initially announced the offensive late on Friday (US local time), writing that at his direction, the United States Central Command had "totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island." He maintained that while the military mission was absolute in its destruction of defensive targets, the preservation of the oil facilities remains conditional on Iran's future conduct in international waters. (ANI) By Dan Peleschuk KYIV, March 14 (Reuters) - Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing six people and inflicting damage across several regions of the country, Ukrainian officials said. Five of the dead were in Kyiv region outside the capital, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces targeted energy infrastructure, but also damaged residential buildings, schools and businesses. Fifteen people were injured. Advertisement Advertisement Zelenskiy said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included around 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences. Later in the day, the governor of the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, said a residential area of the city of Zaporizhzhia had been hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and injuring three. Reuters Television footage showed emergency crews at work amid piles of rubble and twisted metal. Windows and frames on balconies were smashed. "The second attack was strong. The kitchen window flew out, as did those in the living room and bedroom, everything went into a roar. I ran and got slightly injured," Olha Kiyashko, 65, told Reuters. Advertisement Advertisement "I've got no strength left. They took away our pension years the years we could have lived on, the years we'd planned and counted on. All our health is gone." Saturday's strikes come as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a U.S.-backed peace push in the four-year war, which Kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending. "Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine," Zelenskiy wrote on X. He repeated his call for Kyiv's partners to boost production of air-defence weapons, stocks of which have been diminishing as the U.S. and its allies in the Gulf have fended off Iranian strikes. Advertisement Advertisement 'NO WAY RUSSIA WILL STOP' Russia's winter attacks on Ukraine have left swathes of major cities without power or heating, part of a campaign to weaken resolve as Moscow's troops press a battlefield offensive and demand Kyiv cede more territory in the east. Ukraine's forces have targeted Russian strategic infrastructure such as oil refineries, depots and terminals in long-range strikes. Ukraine's Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were without electricity after the overnight strikes and Russian shelling of frontline areas. "There's no way Russia will stop," said local resident Natalia Fetko, 57, whose building was damaged in the strike. "Nothing is enough for them." Advertisement Advertisement Damage was recorded in four districts outside the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk. Saturday's attack also prompted NATO member Poland to scramble jets to protect its airspace, but no violations were observed, Warsaw's military said. In Moldova, on Ukraine's western border, the Foreign Ministry denounced what it said was an intrusion by a Russian drone into its airspace in a border district, saying Moscow's actions undermined regional security and posed a danger to its citizens. (Additional reporting by Yurii Kovalenko, Serhiy Chaliy and Alexander Tanas; Editing by Toby Chopra, Gareth Jones, Rod Nickel, Ron Popeski and Diane Craft) VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) Three adults, one kid, two dogs and a cat were displaced after a house fire on Sharon Drive in Virginia Beach Saturday morning, according to the Virginia Beach Fire Department. On March 14 at around 1:29 a.m., the department and EMS units were dispatched to a report of a house fire in the 5100 block of Sharon Drive. When crews arrived at 1:36 a.m., they saw heavy smoke and flames coming from the front of the house. Firefighters had water on the fire at 1:42 a.m., marking it under control at 2:02 a.m., and marking it out at 2:25 a.m. Three adults, one kid, two dogs and a cat were displaced due to the fire. The Red Cross is now assisting the family. Advertisement Advertisement No residents or firefighters were injured during the incident. The cause was determined to be accidental, but is still under investigation. Continue to check WAVY.com for updates. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. PARIS/ROME, March 13 (Reuters) - France is pushing on with efforts to put together a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilises, two French officials said on Friday, after a report suggested Paris was negotiating safe passage for its ships. European states have been largely sidelined as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has escalated, with Iran carrying out strikes against Israel, U.S. bases and Gulf states. But with shipping lanes affected and the conflict pushing up oil prices, European powers are trying to work out how to defend their interests. Advertisement Advertisement France has been consulting with European, Asian and Gulf Arab states over the past week with a view to putting together a plan for warships eventually to escort tankers through the strait. "In the current context the conditions don't allow for any mission to deploy forces, but we are initially working on the diplomacy so we can then enter into details and eventually it can become operational," said one official. The Financial Times reported that France and Italy were seeking to negotiate a deal to guarantee safe passage for their ships through the strait. The French presidency did not respond to a request for comment. An Italian foreign ministry source denied the report. Advertisement Advertisement "In their diplomatic contacts, Italian leaders want to favour the conditions for a general military de-escalation, but there is no under-the-table negotiation aimed at preserving only some merchant ships at the expense of others," the source said. CONTACTS WITH IRAN The European Union's main naval activities in the region centre on Aspides, a Red Sea naval mission launched in 2024 to guard vessels from attack by Iran-aligned Houthis. France already provides one warship to that mission and President Emmanuel Macron has said there will be two in total. In all, he said, France will deploy eight warships, its aircraft carrier strike group and two helicopter carriers to the region. Advertisement Advertisement That could ultimately include the Strait of Hormuz to support commercial vessels, Macron said this week. France has maintained direct and indirect contacts with Iran. The presidents and foreign ministers have spoken and Paris has kept its Tehran embassy open. A French official said efforts were focused on the coalition rather than a way of securing safe passage for French ships. There have been discussions with several European partners, India, Gulf Arab states, Canada and others, but nothing is close to being finalised, with India showing some resistance, two diplomatic sources said. "The French want to disassociate themselves from the American approach because at the end you will need to have a minimum approval from Iran," said a European diplomat. Advertisement Advertisement The idea was not to do it by force, which some American officials have suggested, the diplomat said. (Reporting by John Irish in Paris, Chandni Shah in Bengaluru and Angelo Amante in Rome; Writing by John Irish, Editing by Toby Chopra) "The Lebanese government has signalled its willingness to engage in direct talks with Israel," Macron said on social media platform X, adding that "all sections of society must be represented in these talks." Macron said he had spoken to Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and told them that "France is ready to facilitate these talks by hosting them in Paris". "Everything must be done to prevent Lebanon from descending into chaos," Macron added. Advertisement Advertisement "Hezbollah must immediately halt its reckless course. Israel must abandon plans for a large-scale offensive and cease its massive air strikes." Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when the militant group, funded and armed by Iran, attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Friday his group was ready for a long confrontation with Israel. France said it was deeply concerned by the escalation of violence and the displacement of people calling on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and protect civilian populations. Advertisement Advertisement Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced that France was sending 60 tonnes of aid to help with the humanitarian crisis. Diplomatic avenues Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Saturday on a visit to Beirut that diplomatic channels remained open to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah. "There is no military solution, only diplomacy, dialogue and full implementation of the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions. The diplomatic avenues are available, including through my special coordinator for Lebanon... and through key member states," he said. "We are doing everything we can now to bring about an immediate de-escalation and the cessation of hostilities," Guterres told reporters. Advertisement Advertisement Lebanon rocked by Israeli strikes as Hezbollah joins Iran war "My special coordinator is engaging with all actors around the clock to bring the parties to the table and UNIFIL peacekeepers... remain in position," he said, referring to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. He said attacks against peacekeepers and positions were "completely unacceptable and they must stop. They are in breach of international law and may constitute war crimes". Three peacekeepers serving with the Ghanaian contingent were wounded earlier this month in south Lebanon. "My message to the international community is simply step up your engagement, empower the Lebanese state and support the Lebanese Armed Forces to secure the capabilities and resources they need," Guterres said. Decisive phase Israel, which had continued to strike targets in Lebanon even before the war, despite a 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, has launched deadly air attacks, sent ground troops into border areas and issued evacuation warnings that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Advertisement Advertisement On Saturday Israel said the war had entered a "decisive phase", as explosions rocked cities across the Middle East, with strikes on the US embassy in Baghdad and a major Emirati energy facility. Lebanon postpones parliamentary elections due in May by two years Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that the war would "continue as long as necessary". Israeli air and ground assaults have killed at least 826, including 106 children since 2 March, according to the Lebanese authorities. An overnight strike in Burj Qalawiya, southern Lebanon killed a dozen doctors, paramedics and nurses at a healthcare clinic, health authorities said Saturday. During his visit to Beirut, Guterres launched a $325 million (277 million) appeal to support Lebanon as it responds to the unfolding humanitarian crisis. (with newswires) Acton put Ohioans first Re "Ohioans shouldn't trust Acton," March 5: They say that ones perception is ones reality and in this case, my perception is very different than that of the writers. In his letter, Gary James notes that Amy Acton became the face of the states sweeping COVID-19 shutdown, causing businesses and schools to shut down and thusly people to lose paychecks. My perception is that Amy Acton stood right next to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine each and every day sharing gut-wrenching statistics with the citizens of Ohio about an unprecedented pandemic for which there was no textbook to follow. Advertisement Advertisement Both these fine leaders instilled trust and guidance to the people of Ohio during this dark period. Despite all their efforts, between 2020 and 2023 Ohio had 3.45 million cases of COVID and experienced 42,300 deaths. More: I won't trust Amy Acton. She has stolen fair shots from Ohioans | Letters I, for one, am glad for Actons and DeWines leadership. Yes, those days were grueling. Our children missed the schooling they needed. Many lost paychecks and even businesses they built through much hard work. At the end of the day, however, they had their lives and the lives of their loved ones. My vote for governor will go to Amy Acton for many reasons, not the least of which is because of the strong and steady leadership she showed during the COVID pandemic. She put the citizens of Ohio first. Thats who I want in the statehouse. Renee Resnik, Bexley Democrats in the Colorado Legislature have taken steps every year to erode transparency around what they do. But voters this year might get the chance to say, Enough. Repeated efforts by lawmakers to diminish the publics rights under the states open meetings and open records laws have accumulated under Democratic trifecta control of state government. Issue advocates, press groups and members of the public have objected at every turn, but the majority too often behaves as if its entitled to shut the people out of the peoples business. Advertisement Advertisement Sunshine Week, which runs through Friday and is an opportunity for open government advocates to highlight the importance of transparency, is a good time to explore the right to know in a proposed constitutional amendment. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Two years ago, during Sunshine Week no less, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill passed by Democrats that in effect exempted the state Legislature from much of the Colorado Open Meetings Law. Passed as a citizens initiative by voters in 1972, the law according to initiative backer Colorado Common Cause was the first sunshine law in the country. It required state lawmakers and agencies to hold meetings in the open. Lawmakers gave themselves an out. As leaders of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition explained, Senate Bill 24-157 effectively allowed lawmakers to skirt the requirement that their meetings be conducted in the open by allowing them to conduct serial meetings, an endless series of sub-quorum discussions of pending bills and amendments, via emails, text messages, phone calls or in-person meetings, with no public notice, no minutes, no transparency. Advertisement Advertisement When the public has no view of its government in action, its blind to how representatives perform, and its robbed of information thats crucial when it comes time to vote. Lawmakers have taken other actions to obscure the publics view of government. In 2021, they instituted increased secrecy around searches for leaders of public bodies, such as university systems. Last year, they made secret the names of people who file a claim for compensation for damages from wildlife, and they barred from public view the details of lucrative deals between student-athletes and public universities. Some Democrats, particularly Sen. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins, keep trying to the detriment of the public interest to ease requirements in the Colorado Open Records Act CORA which says a person has a right to inspect public records. The people find and declare that Colorado state and local governments have infringed on the fundamental right to know the affairs of government. Ballot Initiative 261 Despite regular pleas from transparency advocates, lawmakers have refused to lower the exorbitant fees government agencies can charge to respond to public information requests. The maximum is $41.37 per hour, with the first hour free. This rate, which could add up to thousands of dollars for some requests, effectively makes public records inaccessible for many people, who might have a critical interest in a police incident, a city council policy that affects their neighborhood, or a state law that regulates their business. Advertisement Advertisement Those and other pleas for transparency that have gone unheeded in recent years find bold and fed-up expression in Ballot Initiative 261, which would insert in the state constitution a fundamental right to know the affairs of government. The people find and declare that Colorado state and local governments have infringed on the fundamental right to know the affairs of government by blocking public access to meetings and records, the initiative says. In a single sweeping act, the amendment would declare any rule or law unconstitutional that conflicts with this new right to know. It doesnt specify which laws it might target, but theres no question a statute like the Legislatures open meeting-skirting law would be vulnerable. The ballot measure was filed by the conservative Independence Institute and the League of Women Voters of Colorado, organizations with disparate political backgrounds that are unified in the belief that open government is necessary for a democratic society. It is scheduled for review and comment during a Legislative Council Staff hearing at 1 p.m. Monday. If state officials determine its eligible for the ballot, the measures backers would need to collect enough voter signatures, and it would require 55% of the vote to pass. Advertisement Advertisement As they did more than 50 years ago, Colorado voters could again with the force of sufficient numbers demand transparency from government leaders who would prefer to work in secret. Editors note: This commentary was updated on March 15, 2026, to correct the date of a hearing for Ballot Initiative 261. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE An online fundraiser has been launched to help the family of the U.S. Army Reserve soldier with Sacramento-area ties who was one of six servicemembers killed this month in a drone strike in Kuwait. The GoFundMe was created to help cover travel and housing expenses for the family of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, a Sacramento native with roots in Elk Grove, according to the fundraisers description. Marzan, an Army veteran of more than 30 years, was assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, Iowa, a logistics command that supports troop operations. He was on his final deployment when he and five other service members were killed at a command center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. The strike occurred the day after the U.S.-Israel assault on Iran began. Advertisement Advertisement Marzan was two months away from returning home to Spotsylvania, Virginia. He is survived by his wife and two children, according to the GoFundMe. He was a lifelong member of the military, a family man and loving father, read a description of the campaign started by Kim Valdez on behalf of Marzans wife, Kim. He lost his life far too young. Friends and family hope to raise $18,000 for the family of Marzan, who was deployed to conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Egypt and Kuwait. The Pentagon announced Wednesday that examiners had confirmed Marzan was among the dead. Last week, members of his family, some of whom live in Elk Grove, flooded social media with messages of love, memories and one of his Elk Grove High School yearbook photos. Also killed in the attack were Capt. Cody Khork, 35; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39; Sgt. Declan Coady, 20; and Maj. Jeffrey OBrien, 45. Jurgen Habermas, one of Germanys most influential modern philosophers and a towering figure in European intellectual life, has died at the age of 96. Habermas died on Saturday in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, his publisher Suhrkamp Verlag told dpa, citing his family. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the country had lost "a great Enlightenment thinker." In a letter of condolence to Habermas' children, Steinmeier wrote that the philosopher "taught us the ethos of democratic discourse and established the emancipation of humanity as an indispensable goal." Advertisement Advertisement Steinmeier added that Habermas made a decisive contribution to the intellectual opening of West Germany after World War II, helping lay the foundations for a consolidated democracy. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his "analytical acuity shaped democratic discourse far beyond the borders of our country and acted like a beacon in a raging sea." Habermas was born in Dusseldorf on June 18, 1929. He studied philosophy, psychology, German literature and economics in Gottingen, Zurich and Bonn. His major works were developed in Frankfurt, where his career began in the 1950s at the Institute for Social Research under philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. Advertisement Advertisement His political theories helped shape Germany's post-War intellectual climate beginning with the publication of "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" in 1962. "The Theory of Communicative Action," published in 1981, is also considered a seminal work of philosophy. Habermas' studies frequently examined the concept of the public sphere and explored the forms of discourse best suited to organizing democratic societies. In 1964, he took over the chair in philosophy and sociology at Frankfurt University from Max Horkheimer, another leading philosopher and sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School. Advertisement Advertisement His inaugural lecture was turned into a book called "Knowledge and Human Interests" and published in 1968. Habermas was a supporter of the mass student protests that rocked West Germany that year, but then rejected what he saw as the radicalization of the movement. Habermas moved to the upscale town of Starnberg near Munich in 1971 where he worked for the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific and Technical World until 1981, the same year he published his magnum opus, "The Theory of Communicative Action." He returned to Frankfurt in 1983 where he remained chair of philosophy until the end of his university career in 1994. Advertisement Advertisement Spending his retirement at Lake Starnberg, he continued to comment on political affairs, sparking controversy when he backed the NATO intervention in the Kosovo war. Habermas was married to historian and teacher Ute Wesselhoeft, who died last year. He leaves behind three children. Gov. Josh Shapiro on Saturday ordered Commonwealth flags on all state facilities, public buildings and grounds across Pennsylvania to remain at half-staff in honor of Pfc. Krystofer Lee Lopez, who died during a training incident earlier this week. Shapiro said the order recognizes Lopezs service and sacrifice after the 18-year-old soldier died March 12 during a training exercise at Letterkenny Army Depot in Franklin County. Pfc. Lopez made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation, Shapiro said in a statement on Facebook. He added that he and first lady Lori Shapiro are praying for Lopezs loved ones and the U.S. Army Reserve community. Lopez, of Biglerville in Adams County, served as a military police officer with the LEAD Directorate of Emergency Services Law Enforcement Division. He was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves and assigned to the 947th Quartermaster Company at Letterkenny Army Depot. Advertisement Advertisement According to depot officials, Lopez was injured during a training exercise Thursday morning and was taken to WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital, where he later died. The incident remains under investigation by the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division. In recognition of his service, Lopez was posthumously promoted to the rank of specialist. ATHENS, March 14 (Reuters) - A Greek-flagged tanker, the Maran Homer, was hit by an unidentified object on Saturday, as it was awaiting orders to enter the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) Terminal at Novorossiysk, its manager Maran Tankers said. The vessel, which was sailing outside Russian territorial waters and expected to receive a cargo of Kazakh crude oil, was hit at approximately 4:35 a.m. local time (0135 GMT). "There were no injuries and the crew is safe," Maran Tankers said in a statement, adding that only minor material damage was noted to the ship's deck and equipment. Advertisement Advertisement The tanker has since departed Novorossiysk, the company said. Kazakhstans energy ministry said no Kazakh oil was on board at the time. The vast bulk of Kazakhstans crude exports flow through the CPC. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Toby Chopra and Louise Heavens) Classical music composers have left an indelible mark on history through their genius and innovation. Among the greatest composers, names like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven rise above others for their profound influence. This article dives into their stories, key contributions, and standout pieces that still captivate listeners today. Who Are Considered the Greatest Composers of All Time? Ranking the greatest composers sparks endless debate, but certain figures consistently top lists based on innovation, emotional power, and lasting popularity. Here are some of the most celebrated classical music composers: Johann Sebastian Bach Baroque master of polyphony and organ works Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Classical-era prodigy with flawless melodies Ludwig van Beethoven Bridge to Romanticism through heroic symphonies Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Romantic ballets with Russian soul Giuseppe Verdi Italian opera powerhouse Richard Wagner Epic opera innovator Frederic Chopin Piano poetry and nationalism Claude Debussy Father of musical impressionism Igor Stravinsky 20th-century rhythmic revolutionary Experts often draw from sources like Classic FM's annual polls, where Beethoven frequently claims the top spot for his transformative role. These classical music composers not only defined their times but also shaped film scores and pop arrangements centuries later. Their works endure because they capture universal human experiences, from joy to tragedy. Contributions from the Greatest Composers Bach's Enduring Legacy Johann Sebastian Bach, born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, embodied Baroque complexity. Orphaned young, he absorbed organ mastery and church music traditions. His counterpointinterweaving melodiesset standards for harmony that influenced generations of classical music composers. Bach's most famous works reveal his brilliance: "Brandenburg Concertos" showcase orchestral dialogue across six vibrant pieces "The Well-Tempered Clavier" explores all major and minor keys through 48 preludes and fugues "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" electrifies with organ flourishes, often evoking gothic atmospheres "Mass in B minor" weaves sacred texts into polyphonic grandeur Mozart's Melodic Magic Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrived in 1756 Salzburg as a child prodigy, touring Europe by age six. His Classical-era outputover 600 piecesspans symphonies, operas, and concertos with effortless grace. Standout works include: "The Marriage of Figaro" comic gem with arias like "Non piu andrai" "Don Giovanni" mixes comedy, drama, and supernatural thrills "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" string serenade charm for evening soirees "Symphony No. 40 in G minor" restless energy "Requiem in D minor" haunting unfinished mass Beethoven's Revolutionary Fire Ludwig van Beethoven, born 1770 in Bonn, defied deafness to forge Romantic paths. His symphonies grew bolder, infusing personal turmoil into music. Iconic pieces: "Symphony No. 5" fateful "da-da-da-dum" motif "Symphony No. 9, Ode to Joy" chorus and orchestra hymn to humanity "Eroica Symphony No. 3" honors heroism on epic scale "Moonlight Sonata" brooding first movement "Pathetique Sonata" storm and solace contrasts Romantic and Modern Masters Among Greatest Composers Tchaikovsky's Russian Soul Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (18401893) infused Romanticism with Slavic passion. Trained in law before music, he crafted ballets that dazzled worldwide. Key works: "Swan Lake" tragedy and transformation through iconic dances "The Nutcracker" "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" holiday magic "1812 Overture" cannons celebrate Russia's victory "Piano Concerto No. 1" horn call to virtuosic heights "Symphony No. 6, Pathetique" profound final sorrow Verdi's Operatic Drama Giuseppe Verdi (18131901) dominated Italian opera. Self-taught in part, he mastered vocal lines demanding powerhouse singing. Famous operas: "La Traviata" poignant love with "Libiamo" "Rigoletto" jester's curse and "La donna e mobile" "Aida" Egyptian grandeur, Triumphal March "Il Trovatore" anvil choruses and gypsy fire A BBC Music Magazinefeature once highlighted Verdi's top operas for their dramatic punch. Wagner's Epic Vision and Chopin's Poetry Richard Wagner (18131883) revolutionized opera with "Gesamtkunstwerk." Leitmotifs inspired modern scores like Star Wars: "The Ring Cycle" 15-hour gods and heroes "Tristan und Isolde" chromatic forbidden love "The Flying Dutchman" ghostly seas "Lohengrin" bridal chorus swan knight Frederic Chopin (18101849) focused on piano expression: "Nocturnes" moonlit reveries "Revolutionary Etude" left-hand fury "Polonaises" patriotic pulse "Ballades" epic narratives 20th-Century Innovators and More Classical Music Composers Claude Debussy (18621918) birthed impressionism: "Clair de Lune" piano moonlight shimmer "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" flute sensuality "La Mer" ocean orchestral waves Igor Stravinsky (18821971) shocked with: "The Rite of Spring" primal Paris riot rhythms "The Firebird" Russian myth blaze "Petrushka" bitonal puppets Other notables: Joseph Haydn "Father of the Symphony," 104 witty works Johannes Brahms Classical form, Romantic depth Antonin Dvorak "New World Symphony" folk fusion Sergei Rachmaninoff virtuosic concertos Gustav Mahler existence-probing symphonies Timeless Appeal of Greatest Composers Today Classical music composers bridge eras, their works streaming billions yearly across platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. From intricate Baroque counterpoint to modernist rhythmic jolts, these greatest composers offer endless discovery for new listeners. Their melodies appear in blockbuster films, video game soundtracks, and even contemporary pop samples, proving music's borderless power. In live settings, orchestras worldwide perform "Ode to Joy" for New Year's celebrations, while ballet companies revive "Swan Lake" season after season. Modern artists remix "Clair de Lune" for chill playlists, and conductors experiment with period instruments to reveal Bach's original sparkle. This adaptability keeps classical music composers relevant amid digital shifts. Accessibility drives the surgefree YouTube performances, affordable streaming subscriptions, and apps that identify symphonies in movies. Families introduce kids to "The Nutcracker" through animated versions, sparking lifelong passion. Whether studying Bach's fugues or unwinding with Chopin's nocturnes, people worldwide tap into emotional reservoirs built over centuries. Explore a symphony or sonata todayfeel history's pulse in every note, connecting past genius to present inspiration. Frequently Asked Questions 1. Who is the greatest composer of all time? Beethoven often tops polls for bridging Classical and Romantic eras with emotional depth, though Bach's technical mastery makes a strong case too. 2. Who are the best classical music composers for beginners? Mozart offers accessible melodies like "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," while Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" provides vivid imagery without complexity. 3. What are Beethoven's most famous works? "Symphony No. 5" with its iconic motif, "Symphony No. 9 Ode to Joy," and "Moonlight Sonata" stand out for drama and innovation. A Youm-e-Quds rally was organised in Islamabad, where participants gathered to express their unwavering support for the Palestinian cause. During the demonstration on Friday, the crowds chanted slogans against Israel, highlighting the ongoing tensions in the region. The event saw significant participation from various political and religious leaders, who joined a large number of citizens to mark the occasion. Speaking at the event, Zahir Shah, one of the participants, emphasised the importance of resisting global powers. He stated that they intended to send a message to America and Israel, asserting that no matter how powerful an oppressor may be, and regardless of the scale of the oppression, it remains essential to speak out against it. Mirroring the demonstrations in the capital, rallies were organised across Karachi and various regions of Sindh to observe Al-Quds Day, Dawn reported. A significant number of demonstrators, including women and children, gathered on MA Jinnah Road on Friday to commemorate the day under stringent security measures. Primarily spearheaded by the Imamia Students Organisation (ISO), the participants marched from the Numaish intersection to the Tibet Centre. At the centre, they were addressed by a broad spectrum of leaders, including Ameen Shirazi of the ISO, Hasan Zafar Naqvi, Nazar Abbas Taqvi, and Sindh Local Bodies Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah. Other prominent speakers included Mairaj ul Huda Siddiqi of the Jamaat-i-Islami and Firdous Shamim Naqvi of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. According to Dawn, those in attendance demanded a robust response from the Muslim world to provide immediate assistance to people in Gaza. The protesters explicitly rejected the "so-called normalisation of terms with Israel" by certain Islamic nations, warning that such diplomatic shifts could result in catastrophic outcomes. The intensity of this year's annual rally, traditionally observed on the final Friday of Ramazan, was marked by intense fervour attributed to the significant escalation of tensions in the Middle East. The demonstrations saw heightened emotions following US and Israeli actions against Iran, including the reported assassination of Ali Khamenei. Consequently, protesters carried banners and portraits of the late leader and the newly elected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Dawn noted that the crowds voiced strong condemnation of what they characterised as ongoing Zionist atrocities within Gaza and the wider Palestinian territories. In his address, Ameen Shirazi asserted that the Zionist state is an "illegitimate colonial project" and urged the international community to commence legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He also questioned the "criminal silence" of global powers and Muslim nations concerning the situation. Adding a visual dimension to the protest, the Palestine Foundation set up a pictorial exhibition to depict the plight of the Palestinian people and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Sabir Abu Maryam of the Foundation told the media that they condemn the silence of human rights organisations regarding the actions of the "Zionist regime" and its allies. As reported by Dawn, the momentum of the movement was evident as similar rallies were held in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, and other district headquarters. In Hyderabad, the Shia Ulema Council (SUC) staged a march to the local press club, while in Sukkur, a grand rally was led by the Al-Quds Committee of Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM). Further demonstrations in Badin specifically protested against alleged attacks on Iran, while in Khairpur and Jacobabad, participants reiterated their support for Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. (ANI) ST. JOSEPH, Mo. It was a successful trip to New York City for members of the Griffon Media team who earned multiple national awards this month. The Griffon Media, a student-led news organization at Missouri Western State University, received three national awards at the College Media Association Spring Convention held in New York City this March. Griffon Media took second for Best News Website in Division III, as well as third for best multimedia package in Divisions II and III. Advertisement Advertisement Kylee Leach earned third in Division II for Best News Photography. The honors, called Apple Awards, recognize the best work from college media across the nation. Griffon Media students Kiana Martinez, a senior graphic design major from Kansas City, Missouri; Kendall Warren, a sophomore applied communication and journalism major from Kansas City, Missouri; and faculty adviser Dr. Luling Huang attended the convention from March 4 to 7. The group organized and presented a session titled Beyond the Questions: Audio and Video Essentials for Interviews. Students also toured the headquarters of Spectrum News and Sirius XM. Doug Turner was planning to hit the gym after taking his dogs on a walk this week near Tingley Beach before a burst of violence upended his evening plans. Turner, who is running for governor, was enjoying the warm weather on Wednesday when he saw a man on a scooter exchange words with occupants of a passing car. Moments later, he heard a pop and turned to see the individual on the scooter heading back toward him. The man said hed been shot, and Turner called 911 after seeing blood starting to pool in his sweatshirt. Advertisement Advertisement It was pretty shocking, Turner said in a Friday interview. Ive been going there for a long time, and Ive never seen anything like that. Turner said he helped assess the mans wound, which he described as non-life-threatening, and waited for emergency responders to show up. He credited Albuquerque Police Department officers and paramedics for their rapid response to the shooting, though an APD spokesman said Friday no arrests have been made in the case. While Turner said he tried to remain calm in the incidents aftermath, he said it demonstrated the need to address public safety issues in New Mexico. Advertisement Advertisement New Mexico has seen its crime rates decrease in recent years, but the prevalence of homicides and aggravated assaults in the state was more than twice the national average as of 2024, according to FBI data. The state also has one of the nation's highest rates of firearm-involved deaths. Turner expressed specific concern about violent repeat offenders being released from jail after state voters in 2016 approved a constitutional amendment overhauling New Mexicos cash bail system. It validates a lot of what I, and many other candidates, have been saying, he told the Journal. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has also expressed frustration about crime-related issues, while accusing judges of failing to keep New Mexicans safe under discretionary sentencing decisions. Advertisement Advertisement But the Democratic-controlled Legislature has rejected proposals to make it easier to hold defendants accused of certain violent crimes behind bars until trial. In addition, studies conducted by researchers at the University of New Mexico have found 82% of people on pretrial release do not commit new crimes. A small business owner who also ran for governor in 2010, Turner is one of four Republicans running in an open contest this year to succeed Lujan Grisham, who is barred under the state Constitution from seeking a third consecutive term. He finished in second place in last weekends state GOP pre-primary convention in Ruidoso, qualifying for the June 2 primary ballot in the process. Dan Boyd covers state government and politics for the Journal in Santa Fe. Follow him on X at @DanBoydNM or reach him via email at dboyd@abqjournal.com. OMAHA A cheaper pint of Guinness, an extraordinary share of Irish descendants and Irish-flavored Google searches helped land Omaha on a Top-10 list of best American cities for celebrating St. Patricks Day. Omaha ranked No. 9 in research by DuelBits, an online crypto casino and sportsbook, which analyzed the 100 most populous U.S. cities against seven different Irish-themed factors. The mission: to find the best places to party on the day commemorating the patron saint of Ireland, who is credited with helping to spread Christianity. Shamrock painted in intersection of ONeill, known as the Irish capital of Nebraska. (Courtesy of Visit Nebraska) The March 17 observance of St. Patricks Day has become a largely secular holiday, but its origins are religious. Christians in Ireland began observing the feast day around the ninth and 10th centuries, according to History.com, which notes that on that day, Lenten prohibitions were waived, people danced, drank and feasted on Irish bacon and cabbage. Traditions later carried over to America, which added modern-day parades, green beer and more. Advertisement Advertisement DuelBits researchers said they looked at various sources to find out whether a city hosts a St. Pattys Day parade, the number of bars per 100,000 residents, the average price of a pint of Guinness, percentage of population with Irish heritage, Irish-themed Google searches per capita, the number of casinos and average hotel prices across the holiday weekend. To be sure, Irish ties in Nebraska extend beyond its largest city, Omaha. The Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature this year proposed a state law to create a Nebraska-Ireland trade commission. Speaker John Arch of La Vista, a city within the Omaha metro area, touted the states cultural and business bonds with Ireland. He made Legislative Bill 1087 his priority bill. The familiar Irish name of State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha is a co-sponsor. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Advertisement Advertisement The DuelBits findings showed Omaha with an overall index score of 7.91 out of 10. That puts Omaha above cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago and Kansas City and below cities such as Las Vegas, New Orleans, Denver and No. 1 Atlanta. Among the researchers commentary about Omahas Irish influence: On Saturday, March 14, Omaha hosts its 148th annual St. Patricks Day parade, which is expected to draw a large crowd. The city reportedly has 19 bars per 100,000 residents, equating to choice for thirsty green beer revelers. Omahans can expect to pay $6.40 for a pint of Guinness, which the researchers said is $2 cheaper than the national average, making Omaha the most affordable city to enjoy a celebratory Guinness in the U.S. Nearly 13% of Omahans have Irish heritage. According to the researchers, which looked at Census data for that tidbit, thats the fourth-highest share of cities the company checked out. Omahans made 90 Irish-themed Google searches per 10,000 residents each month, including whisky, Guinness, St. Patricks Day and flights to Ireland. Top 10 cities to celebrate St. Patricks Day, according to DuelBits. (Courtesy of DuelBits) SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Two weeks into the widening conflict between the United States and Israel and Iran, its become harder to ignore one tragic reality: The countries paying some of the steepest prices are not the ones that started the war. Rather, they tried to prevent it. Fourteen countries have been impacted by this war, seeming to indicate that the U.S. and Israel failed to anticipate or perhaps even ignored Iranian threats to retaliate if attacked. What makes this moment particularly bitter for Gulf leaders is that many spent years trying to prevent precisely this scenario. Those threats have turned into active strikes in the Gulf countries, where people have reported missile strikes in residential and commercial areas and where residents are frequently receiving mobile emergency alert notifications warning them to seek shelter in nearby garages. Gulf leaders in turn are trying to absorb the shock of a war they did not start. Advertisement Advertisement Their choice is difficult: press Washington and Tel Aviv to end the war they began, as it spirals out of control? Or confront Tehran forcefully for targeting their countries in retaliation? @media screen and (max-width: 430px) { #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 p { font-size: 9px !important; line-height: 11px !important; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 .g-pstyle0 { font-size: 13px !important; line-height: 15px !important; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 .g-pstyle1 { font-size: 8px !important; line-height: 10px !important; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 .g-aiPointText p { white-space: nowrap; } } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box, #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box .g-artboard { margin:0 auto; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box p { margin:0; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box .g-aiAbs { position:absolute; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box .g-aiImg { position:absolute; top:0; display:block; width:100% !important; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box .g-aiSymbol { position:absolute; box-sizing:border-box; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-box .g-aiPointText p { white-space:nowrap; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 { position:relative; overflow:hidden; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 p { font-family:'Helvetica Now Display', sans-serif; font-weight:regular; line-height:14px; height:auto; opacity:1; letter-spacing:0em; font-size:12px; text-align:left; text-transform:none; color:rgb(0,0,0); padding-bottom:0; padding-top:0; mix-blend-mode:normal; font-style:normal; position:static; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 .g-pstyle0 { font-weight:700; line-height:22px; font-size:18px; } #g-260313-middleeast-2-cep-Artboard_1 .g-pstyle1 { font-weight:700; height:14px; text-transform:uppercase; } Attacked by U.S./Israel Advertisement Advertisement Attacked by Iran syria cyprus lebanon Iraq Iran israel jordan Bahrain qatar Saudi Arabia uae oman Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW; Data: Institute for the Study of War Since the start of the war, the United Arab Emirates has been targeted with approximately 283 ballistic and cruise missiles and more than 1,500 drones leading to 6 fatalities and 120 injuries from 25 different nationalities. The UAEs Permanent Representative to the U.N. said at a recent news conference that Iran is indiscriminately and deliberately attacking civilian targets. Missile and drone attacks have hit transport networks, airports, commercial ports and energy infrastructure throughout the region, according to reporting from The Guardian. Advertisement Advertisement Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia too have all been targeted by hundreds of missiles and more than a thousand drones. On Wednesday, the international community spoke clearly with a significant vote at the U.N. Security Council. In a legally binding resolution, the council adopted a resolution condemning Irans aggression on its Arab neighbors as unlawful and demanding it stop attacks immediately. Both Russia and China, two countries allied with the regime in Tehran, did not use their veto to block the resolution that critically isolated Iran. The resolution was co-sponsored by a staggering 135 countries, demonstrating a rare sign of global unity and outrage over Irans attacks on its Arab neighbors. For now, Gulf officials Ive spoken to are trying to walk both paths condemning Irans attacks while urging de-escalation across the region despite calls from some American officials trying to drag Gulf Arab countries into this war. Meanwhile, Iran continues to relentlessly target its neighbors. Advertisement Advertisement For decades, the six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council built their prosperity on predictability. They transformed desert coastlines into global hubs of finance, energy, aviation and tourism. Cities like Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi became symbols of a different Middle East one defined less by conflict and more by commerce and connectivity. What makes this moment particularly bitter for Gulf leaders is that many spent years trying to prevent precisely this scenario. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Oman all pursued cautious diplomacy with Iran while maintaining security partnerships with Washington. The goal was simple: keep the region open for commerce and movement while out of another catastrophic war. But geography has its own logic and so too, apparently, do President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who dragged some of the closest U.S. allies into a war they did not seek nor approve. Advertisement Advertisement As the gulf is becoming a battlefield by proximity, ordinary civilians are now paying the ultimate price. None of those killed in related strikes were soldiers. None of them had anything to do with the war unfolding hundreds of miles away. The Gulf states are wealthy. Their militaries are sophisticated. Their skylines symbolize one of the most remarkable economic transformations of the last half century. Their cities are known for financial districts, airports and shopping malls. They are home to millions of expatriate workers and international visitors. They are places that spent decades convincing the world that stability in the Middle East was not only possible it was profitable The gulfs prosperity was built on openness: open skies, open shipping lanes and open markets. Advertisement Advertisement Irans response to America and Israels miscalculated war has now nearly closed all three. Airspace disruptions have forced airlines to cancel or reroute thousands of flights across the region. Ports and shipping routes have been attacked. And the regions most important economic artery the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the worlds oil passes has become one of the most dangerous waterways on the planet, according to reporting from The Guardian. As resilient as it may be, the result is a devastating double blow to the gulfs economic foundation. Oil exports the regions traditional engine of wealth are under pressure as infrastructure and shipping routes come under regular attack. Advertisement Advertisement At the same time, tourism and aviation the pillars of the gulfs economic future are faltering under the weight of war. Hotels are seeing mass cancellations. Conferences and major events are being postponed. Airlines that once carried millions of passengers across continents are rerouting or grounding flights. Wars have a way of collapsing diplomatic ambiguity. If the missiles keep flying and the skies over the Gulf remain contested, it will become much harder to remain neutral. And the countries that spent decades building prosperity on stability may soon find themselves forced to choose how to stop a war they never wanted. Advertisement Advertisement Because the question now facing the gulf is not simply how this conflict ends but for how long they and other countries of the region can live under its shadows. The post Gulf leaders now face the shockwaves of a war they did not start appeared first on MS NOW. This article was originally published on ms.now The ongoing US-Israeli campaign against Iran and Tehran's retaliation has positioned Hamas in a tricky position, having close ties with both Tehran and with actors in the Gulf. Hamas on Saturday called on Iran to avoid targeting neighboring Gulf countries while also voicing support for the Islamic Republics right to retaliate against Israel. In a statement, the terror group condemned what it called American-Zionist aggression against Iran and said Tehran has the right to respond by all available means in accordance with international law. But it also urged the brothers in Iran to refrain from striking nearby states, a notable appeal amid fears of broader regional escalation. Advertisement Advertisement Hamas said stopping the war was in the interest of the region and the wider Islamic world, and called on states and international organizations to work toward an immediate end to the fighting. The group also praised efforts by several countries to prevent the conflict from erupting and to prioritize dialogue and diplomacy, while urging regional states to cooperate to stop the war and preserve ties among themselves. A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location, Iran, March 9, 2016 (credit: REUTERS/Mahmood Hosseini/TIMA) Doha pressures Hamas to condemn Tehran The ongoing US-Israeli campaign against Iran and Tehran's retaliation have positioned Hamas in a tricky position, having close ties with both Tehran and with actors in the Gulf. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post earlier this week, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Qatar was furious with Hamas for refusing to condemn Iranian strikes on its territory. Qatar offered Hamas leadership a safe haven for years, leading the IDF to target Hamas leaders in Doha in September last year. Advertisement Advertisement You can already see the changes happening now, Sa'ar said. Irans inability to financially support Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis is reshaping the situation in many places across the Middle East. Smoke rises after reported Iranian missile attacks, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, as seen from Doha, Qatar, March 1, 2026. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS) Iran and Hamas have a long history of cooperation Hamas has long benefited from financial and political support from Tehran, which has used the group to advance its regional agenda of destabilizing Israel. In November last year, the IDF published what it said was clear evidence of Iran supplying Hamas with financial support. Documents uncovered in Gaza noted Iranian funds being supplied to families of the "dear martyrs in Gaza," while others included details of conversations and discussions that Hamas leaders had about the common interests between themselves and Iran. Advertisement Advertisement Other documents appeared to indicate that Tehran was adopting strategies to provide training and military supplies to Hamas. According to the IDF, Hamas had also expressed a desire for a four-party alliance with Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria in order to coordinate efforts in media engagement, regional politics, and military tactics. This alliance was designed to "launch an attack that surprises the enemy from all sides" in "the war to liberate Jerusalem," read a document shared by the IDF. Israel also uncovered last year an Iranian-directed Hamas network based in Turkey that worked to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the terror group's leaders and members across the region. Amichai Stein contributed to this report. The Cuban government is expected to announce as early as next week economic reforms to allow Cuban Americans living in South Florida and elsewhere in the U.S. and around the world to invest and own private businesses on the island, the Miami Herald has learned. The economic opening comes amid unprecedented pressure by the Trump administration, which has cut off oil supplies to the Cuban government, and ongoing talks between the two countries acknowledged by Cuban leaders for the first time on Friday. The return of the Cuban diaspora is imminent, said one source who is knowledgeable about the expected measures and who asked not to be identified to speak of the sensitive matter. According to the source, the Cuban government is likely to allow Cubans living abroad to own private enterprises the Cuban government has labeled mipymes pronounced mee-PEE-mes the Spanish acronym for micro, small and medium enterprises. Advertisement Advertisement The source said Cubans abroad are also expected to be allowed to invest in the private sector on the island, an idea Cuban Americans have been pushing for many years. The source expressed doubts that the government will quickly implement everything that it has already approved behind closed doors. In Cubas highly bureaucratic system, laws and regulations approved by the government have sometimes taken months, and even years, to be fully implemented. The changes would legalize what has already been happening quietly, the source said, pointing out that many of private businesses on the island that have mushroomed around the country in recent years are financed with capital from relatives in Miami, the home of the largest Cuban exile community in the United States. In a televised press conference Friday, Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged that government officials have been in talks with representatives of the Trump administration, despite earlier denials and deflections. He also struck a conciliatory tone about Cubans living abroad Havanas preferred term for South Florida exiles, though the reference is broader many of whom fled the island because of government repression and lack of opportunities. This area, the relationship with Cubans abroad, is one of the most important and decisive things we have to do, he said. The number of Cubans residing abroad or extending their stay has been growing and is therefore our responsibility as a government to welcome them, listen to them, assist them and provide them with a space to participate in economic and social development. Advertisement Advertisement Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel confirms talks with the Trump administration Diaz-Canel said the countrys vice prime minister, Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, who doubles as minister for foreign investment, will be giving details Monday about measures already approved by the government that would allow Cubans abroad to participate in the countrys economic development. We have conducted an analysis in the political bureau [of the Communist Party] and the government of the country, and I believe that the new actions that will be made will resolve almost all of the concerns raised by Cubans abroad, he said. The economic opening for Cuban exiles comes after President Donald Trump said he wanted Cuban Americans to be able to go back and helped rebuild the country, whose infrastructure is crumbling and which is undergoing a severe economic crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also urged Cuban leaders to make dramatic economic changes as a path forward. Advertisement Advertisement Cuba announces release of 51 prisoners amid increased tensions with the U.S. Obstacles ahead There are many obstacles for the plan to succeed, including existing U.S. sanctions on Cuba and suspicion both in Miami and Havana. For decades, Cuban leaders have viewed Cuban exiles with hostility. But in the past decade, several Cuban Americans who have advocated for more engagement with Cuba have been urging the Cuban government to normalize its relationship with Cubans living outside the island, including in the United States. But Cuban leaders have resisted further economic engagement with the countrys own population living abroad because many are critical of the communist regime and would like to see a democratic transition. Advertisement Advertisement Several activists and members of exile organizations in Miami have been stressing they would not accept anything short of a democratic transition in Cuba, worried that the Trump administration might be prioritizing economic reforms instead. An economic opening without political change is likely to face opposition from local Republican officials and members of Congress. There is NOTHING the regime has that the United States wants, Miami U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, who is Cuban American, said on X Friday. There will be ZERO investment from the US unless there is MAJOR political change on the island. On the Cuban side, after decades of demonizing exiles, it will be difficult for the government to pivot from its own narrative to allow Cubans abroad to return to the island as wealthy investors, while those who remained loyal to the communist system can barely survive. But under Diaz-Canel almost two million Cubans, mostly young and educated, have left the country in recent years, leaving little alternative to the government but to lean on the large Cuban diaspora for capital and expertise. Still, any liberalization comes with many questions, especially regarding which guarantees the government would be willing to provide to assure investors. Those guarantees would require changes to Cuban law, and, ultimately, to the countrys constitution. And without them, several Cuban American businessmen have told the Herald the country is unlikely to receive major investments. Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, an article penned by Cuban-American businessman Hugo Cancio listed the sort of reforms the Cuban government could do to attract investments, including allowing Cubans abroad to own businesses, providing legal protection of private property, full opening of the real estate market and access to land as an economic and financial asset, among several other measures. Cancio owns an online business that delivers food in Cuba purchased abroad by family and friends. Its abundantly clear that Cubans and people of Cuban descent living outside the island have the skills and the business, political and technical expertise, not to mention the extensive financial means, to significantly lift Cubas fortunes, exiles and Cuban Americans say. Anything that Cuba does to move forward is going to require Cubans living abroad, said Joe Garcia, a onetime Democratic congressman from Miami and a former official of the Cuban American National Foundation. The reality is we have this incredible human capital doctors, lawyers, engineers. They are enmeshed in business, politics, the arts. This might be it, he said. I think we have arrived. Advertisement Advertisement But for that to happen, negotiations between Cuba and the United States must first produce solid, reliable legal and political guarantees, Garcia and others say. And that has not been the case in past openings and limited reforms that seemed promising at first but were eventually shut down by the communist government, they note. The proof is in the pudding, said Michael Bustamante, a history professor and chair of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. As we speak, theres no clear, straightforward framework for Cubans abroad to be legal and aboveboard foreign investors in Cuban private enterprises that are otherwise authorized. In fact, in the last couple of years, they made it more difficult for that to happen. Diaspora engagement is important. On the economic front, its absolutely necessary, Bustamante added. But Cuba also cannot bank on just counting on its diaspora as an economic partner without taking into consideration its political voice. There will be limited returns without both of those things over the long haul. Garcia said that doesnt mean that Cuban expatriates should expect to impose master plans from outside. He notes that Cubans on the island have shown time and again they are more than capable of improving their lot once they land in Miami or New York. If you can take all of Hialeah and put it in Cuba, Cuba would work, he said. Miami Herald staff writers Garrett Shanley and Claire Heddles contributed to this story. A powerful storm continues to batter Hawaii, prompting warnings as officials urge residents and visitors in affected areas to stay off the roads and remain indoors during periods of severe weather. The storm, which is expected to last through the weekend, will bring a combination of "significant flash flooding, damaging winds, strong to severe thunderstorms, and snow and ice over the highest Big Island summits," the National Weather Service's statewide forecast said Saturday morning. Advertisement Advertisement Flooding in parts of Oahu forced evacuations Friday, according to the New York Times, while landslides remain a major concern. Public schools on Oahu, Kauai and Maui closed Friday due to the storm, and power outages had impacted 111,000 residents on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island as of noon, Hawaii Electric said. The repairs could take time, officials said, since restoration work can not always be done in stormy conditions. As of Saturday morning, flash flood warnings remained in place for Maui and parts of Hawaii island. The weather service has also issued a flood watch and high wind warning for much of the state, which are expected to expire by Sunday and Monday. A road in Hana, Hawaii, is flooded Friday after days of downpours. (Maui County) In addition to the impact on residents, the powerful storm has hit the tourism industry as visitors head to Hawaii for spring break. Advertisement Advertisement Liana Hong works as a deck hand at Living Ocean Tours, which operates snorkeling, whale watching and other boat tours out of Oahu. She said that while the conditions were improving, the weather had kept the company's boats docked for several days, waiting for the rain and wind to pass. "We're out on the water with our tours, so we've had to cancel a lot of them," Hong said. "I'm sure all the other companies are canceling too. It's definitely affecting a lot of business." This article originally published at Hawaii residents, visitors urged to stay indoors as storm floods roads, cuts power to 111,000. UPDATE : 5 :45 p.m. Hawaiian Electric is advising customers on Oahu and in Maui County to prepare to be without power overnight. The utility company said around 4 p.m. that crews were making progress restoring power to about 121, 020 customers on Oahu, Hawaii Island and parts of Maui County affected by severe thunderstorms and powerful winds, but that some outages may run into Saturday. On Oahu alone, about 115, 300 customers were without power across the island as of 4 p.m. with Hawaiian Electric crews planning to work into the night to restore power as long as weather conditions are safe. Advertisement Advertisement About 4, 500 customers on Maui also were without power and are advised to prepare for what the utility company said could be extended overnight outages due to ongoing hazardous weather conditions and delays until certain roads are reopened to safely address repairs. About 1, 240 customers on Lanai have had power restored after it went out earlier in the day. On Hawaii Island, about 1, 220 customers were without power as of 4 p.m., primarily in Volcano and North Kona and South Kona areas. Overall, Hawaiian Electric has about 310, 789 customers on Oahu, 91, 234 on Hawaii Island and 72, 218 in Maui County. Advertisement Advertisement The company noted that because of the dynamic nature of the storm system, outage numbers have fluctuated as some customers have power restored and more outages occur, sometimes in the same area. Customers can view current outages and report outages on the companys online outage map at hawaiianelectric.com, and on a Hawaiian Electric mobile app. Hawaiian Electric understands that people need to know when their power will be restored and is working to keep outage maps and social media updated with information as it becomes available, the company said in a statement. Our priorities for restoration emphasize safety and essential community services. Restoration also will take place in a manner designed to affect the greatest number of customers first. The company also asks customers who see fallen power lines to report them by phone but to also stay at least 30 feet or more away and assume they are energized and dangerous. Advertisement Advertisement Customers witnessing dangerous situations, such as downed power lines or sparking electrical equipment, are advised to call 911 or Hawaiian Electric toll-free trouble lines at 855-304-1212 on Oahu, 855-304-8181 for Maui County and 855-304-9191 on Hawaii island. PREVIOUS COVERAGE Hawaiian Electric has urged customers in Hawaii Kai and other portions of East Honolulu to prepare for possible extended outages lasting overnight or longer. Meanwhile, the number of customers without power has continued to grow. As of 2 p.m., the count had risen to about 113, 800 across Oahu and 15, 600 customers in parts of Maui County. The utility company said East Honolulu relies on power lines that bring electricity to the area from Windward Oahu, and that two of these lines running along the base of the Koolau range near Waimanalo and crossing over the ridgeline into East Honolulu have been damaged. That has left one operating line to service the area. Advertisement Advertisement If the continued Kona storm damages the remaining line, steep terrain and hazardous weather conditions will make it difficult for crews to safely access the area for repairs and will delay restoration, Hawaiian Electric said. In Maui County, the company said crews are working to restore power in various areas of Maui, Lanai and a pocket area on Molokai. Hawaiian Electrics response may be delayed as crews are not able to make repairs in dangerous weather conditions, the company said in a statement. Hawaiian Electric crews and contractors have been deployed across Oahu, Maui County and Hawaii Island to address outages as the powerful storm system is expected to make its way across the island chain throughout the weekend. All customers are urged to prepare for the possibility of extended outages. 1 :50 p.m. Advertisement Advertisement The number of customers with no electricity has risen to around 110, 000 on Oahu as of about 1 :30 p.m. and is widely spread over most of the island, according to Hawaiian Electric. On Maui, the utility company reported about 7, 200 customers being without power, along with about 1, 240 on Lanai. No major outages with known customers affected was reported for Hawaii island or Molokai. Kauai Island Utility Cooperative reported that 15 customers were without power, down from 18 shortly before noon. PREVIOUS COVERAGE Electricity service has been knocked out around the state amid the Kona storm today, affecting more than 17, 000 customers mainly in several areas of Oahu but also on Maui and Lanai where major outages have also been reported by Hawaiian Electric. Advertisement Advertisement After days of on-again, off-again rain, Hawaii is now also experiencing strong southerly winds as part of the Kona-low system. The National Weather Service predicts maximum sustained winds of up to 40 mph, with stronger gusts as high as 70 mph, especially in down-slope windward areas. Oahu, and Kauai and Maui counties are under a high wind warning until 6 a.m. Sunday. The biggest reported outage for an area as of shortly after 11 a.m. was in Kailua and Waimanalo affecting about 3, 000 customers. In neighboring Windward Oahu communities, power was reported to be out for about 1, 900 customers in Kaneohe and for about 740 customers between Waimanalo and Hawaii Kai. Power also was out for about 1, 400 customers from Kahaluu to Laie. Advertisement Advertisement In Wahiawa, power was out for about 2, 200 customers. In parts of urban Honolulu, about 1, 800 customers from Waikiki to Kahala were without electricity, as were about 1, 500 customers in Kalihi and surrounding areas. West Oahu power outages affected about 1, 700 customers in the Ewa, Kapolei and Makakilo communities. There were also about 400 customers without power in Makaha, Nanakuli and Waianae. On the North Shore of Oahu, about 300 customers were without power in the Kawailoa, Pupukea and Sunset Beach neighborhoods. Hawaiian Electric reported 13 outages on Maui, affecting about 1, 500 customers in Kahului, Wailuku and West Maui. The utility company also said 100 customers on Lanai lost power. Advertisement Advertisement There were no reported outages on Hawaii island shortly before noon, according to Hawaiian Electric. On Kauai, where electricity is provided by the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, only 18 customers were reported to have been without power shortly before noon. RELATED STORIES-------- PATERSON The controversial plan to close four Paterson elementary schools and reconfigure grade levels for four others is facing a growing community backlash, including criticism and questions from the local NAACP. The Paterson NAACP issued a statement saying the districts announcement of the changes was sudden, abrupt, and unexpected. It is being seen as a lack of transparency and the failure of district administration to respond to its constituents: parents, students, residents, the NAACP said. Advertisement Advertisement The civil rights organization said the lack of community participation in the decision has resulted in confusion, frustration, anxiety and trauma. The NAACP asked the district about how the school reconfigurations and closings would impact staffing, district finances and academic programs. Story continues below photo gallery Meanwhile, three state legislators who represent Paterson expressed opposition to the districts plan, and the citys longest-serving school board member is asking the New Jersey Department of Education to investigate whether the closures violate regulations and policies. Closing schools is never good, said Assemblyman Kenyatta Stewart. The schools within the district are not just buildings. They are places where our kids learn and develop. It's where our families use as a safe haven for our kids. Advertisement Advertisement Stewart said closing schools eliminates jobs, lessens learning opportunities and reduces spending. I know districts get funding based on how many kids we have and how many schools we have, he said. I hope this doesn't have a negative impact on the district funding, he said, adding that he respects Paterson Superintendent Laurie Newell and city school board members and expects they will do whats best for our kids. Closing schools is never good, said Assemblyman Kenyatta Stewart. The schools within the district are not just buildings. They are places where our kids learn and develop. It's where are families use as a safe haven for our kids. Senator Benjie Wimberly and Assemblyman Al Abdelaziz also expressed their opposition to the school closures. Wimberly said closing schools would make it harder for Patersons legislative contingent to get funding to replace outdated education buildings. These schools will be closed or have grades changed The schools facing a shutdown after June are Norman S. Weir, Alexander Hamilton Academy, Renaissance School 1, and Young Mens Leadership Academy. Advertisement Advertisement Those are Patersons four choice elementary schools. Weir and Renaissance have been two the districts top three performing K through 8 schools for the past five years. The schools that would have their grade levels changed to fit either K to 5 or 6 to 8 groupings are School 11, 18, 21, and 26. Mayor Andre Sayegh has remained silent on where he stands on the controversial plan ever since Newell announced it on Jan. 23, initially saying he wanted to wait until after he met with the superintendent before taking a position. That meeting has since taken place, according to Sayeghs spokesperson, Diana Nunez. Advertisement Advertisement He is going to meet with school board members and other stakeholders, Nunez said. Sayegh has supported the elections of four school board members who voted in favor of proceeding with the school closure plan, including its strongest advocate, Joel Ramirez, the board president. Ramirez serves as Abdelazizs chief of staff. The assemblyman did not respond when asked if he discussed his opposition to the school shutdowns with Ramirez. Superintendent Newell responds to NAACP critique Paterson Press asked for Newells response to the NAACP. "Paterson Public Schools values our partnership with the NAACP and we take their feedback seriously, said a statement issued in Newells behalf. Advertisement Advertisement The reconfiguration of the elementary schools is focused on providing every student with equal access to a high-quality education," Newell's statement said. "We understand that transitions of this scale can be challenging for families and students. Dr. Laurie W. Newell, the Superintendent of the Paterson Public Schools, looks on during a Paterson Board of Education meeting, Feb 4, 2026, Paterson, NJ, USA. We remain committed to transparency and will continue working with the NAACP and all stakeholders to provide the information necessary to support our students' success, the superintendent added. Several city education officials have said the school restructuring will allow the district to do a better job balancing student class sizes. But the Newell administration has not released any data or reports supporting those assertions. Investigate legality of plan? School board member Kenneth Simmons on March 11 sent Kesha Drakeford, the state education departments executive superintendent for Passaic County, a letter asking for an investigation of the legality of Newells plan. Advertisement Advertisement Simmons said he believes the district failed to comply with state code requirements for school shutdowns. Kenneth Simmons, a commissioner on the Paterson Board of Education, speaks during a Paterson Board of Education meeting, Feb 4, 2026, Paterson, NJ, USA. Our children deserve better than decisions made behind closed doors without proper legal compliance, policy adherence, stakeholder engagement, or board authorization, Simmons said in his letter to Drakeford. The integrity of our public education system depends on adherence to established procedures and meaningful community participation in decisions that affect our schools, he added. A state education spokesman confirmed Drakeford received Simmons request but said he could not comment further. Advertisement Advertisement Paterson Public Schools spokeswoman Aida Rosario said the restructuring is ensuring that students are reassigned to schools with sufficient capacity and that all state requirements are met. Rosario said the district followed all procedures required by the state education department in planning for the changes. She said a district long-range facilities plan adopted in 2021 addressed the discontinuation of Weir and Alexander Hamilton schools. Despite the growing opposition, Newell and Ramirez have not indicated they plan to make any changes in the controversial school plan. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: What NAACP said of disputed Paterson school closure plan Iran's Army chief has issued a stern warning that the deaths of crew members from the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean "will not go unanswered", as reported by Al Jazeera, citing Iran's state news agency IRNA. Major General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the Iranian army, condemned the attack on the vessel, one of the country's newest warships, which occurred while it was returning from a military exercise. According to the report, Hatami was quoted by IRNA as saying, "The crew of the Dena destroyer had completed a peaceful mission and were targeted while on their way back to Iran." He emphasised that the sailors faced the assault "despite not being engaged in a direct battle". Paying tribute to the fallen personnel, Hatami stated, "The name of Dena and the sacrifice of its crew will remain a symbol of courage and dedication in Iran's naval history." He further affirmed Iran's resolve, adding, "The army will defend Iran's maritime borders and strengthen its naval power with even greater determination." This stance was reinforced on Friday when the Iranian administration released pictures of the coffins of the fallen IRIS Dena sailors. In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in India stated, "The pure and honoured bodies of the naval martyrs who lost their lives in the terrorist attack by US forces on the IRIS Dena warship." Providing further details on the incident, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, on Tuesday paid tributes to the sailors killed after the frigate was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. Baqaei called the action by the United States a "war crime" and a violation of international laws, underlining that the Iranian people would not forget it. He noted on X that the Dena had been officially invited by the Indian Navy to participate in a joint naval exercise and a port visit before it was attacked near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka. The spokesperson claimed that the United States deliberately obstructed rescue operations for the sailors. He argued that this act constitutes aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 and a grave violation of the laws of war, including Geneva Convention II and Additional Protocol I. The IRIS Dena sank south of Sri Lanka on 4 March after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle. Following the incident, the Indian Navy deployed vessels, including INS Tarangini and INS Ikshak, along with P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, to assist Sri Lanka-led search and rescue operations. Of the estimated 180 crew members on board the vessel, around 87 sailors were reported dead. Approximately 32 survivors were rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy and admitted to hospitals in Galle. (ANI) The head of Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, vowed on Friday not to give up, saying surrender is not in our vocabulary. In a televised speech, Qassem promised to continue fighting Israel despite escalating attacks and threats against the militia's leadership. Hezbollah is engaged in what he described as an existential battle to defend Lebanon against Israeli attacks, warning that the confrontation could be long and costly. Advertisement Advertisement Surrender is not in our vocabulary. We will continue to defend ourselves in this existential battle, no matter the sacrifices, the militia leader said. Qassem dismissed as "worthless" threats by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to kill him. He said Hezbollah had prepared for a prolonged confrontation and suggested Israel could face surprises on the battlefield. The enemy will see our might on the battlefield." He argued that diplomatic efforts had failed to stop Israeli strikes, which he said had caused deaths, displacement and destruction across Lebanon. According to Qassem, resistance remained the only way to halt the attacks. Advertisement Advertisement The resistance continues, and the word now belongs to the battlefield, he said, adding that Israel had lost the initiative despite its military campaign. Hezbollah chief warns Israel over ground troups Qassem also warned that any Israeli ground advance into Lebanon would be met with stronger resistance, saying the movement would gain ground if Israeli forces pushed deeper into Lebanese territory. He rejected attempts to separate Hezbollah from its support base, saying the Lebanese people backing the group were the people of the resistance. Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in escalating hostilities that have triggered widespread airstrikes and displacement across Lebanon. Advertisement Advertisement Israeli officials say their campaign aims to weaken Hezbollahs military capabilities, while the group says it is defending Lebanon against "Israeli aggression." Qassem on Friday called on the Lebanese government "not to make concessions" and said any solution would require an end to Israeli attacks, a full withdrawal from Lebanese territory, the release of prisoners and the return of displaced civilians. Israel also resolute Meanwhile earlier in the day in Israel, Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to inflict "damage to Lebanese national infrastructure that is used by Hezbollah terrorists." Advertisement Advertisement "The Lebanese government, which misled and did not fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, will pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory, until the central commitment of disarming Hezbollah is fulfilled," Katz said. Israel's military had said earlier Friday that it had attacked an important river bridge used by Hezbollah. "This is only the beginning," Katz said about this. In Lebanon, there are growing concerns that Israel could also target Beiruts airport, which it had bombed during the 2006 Lebanon war. The facility was long considered to be under Hezbollahs influence, though the Lebanese government has been trying to change that. Observers say there has been some progress in this effort. An Israeli message from the sky In an effort to get the Lebanese people to help it push out Hezbollah, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over parts of the Lebanese capital on Friday carrying messages urging citizens to push for the disarmament of Hezbollah, dpa reporters and residents witnessed. Advertisement Advertisement Pamphlets fell over several neighbourhoods in Beirut after Israeli warplanes flew at low altitude and carried out a sonic boom over the city, producing loud blasts that triggered panic among residents. The leaflets addressed "Dear Lebanese citizens" and called on people to "disarm Hezbollah, Irans shield," arguing that Lebanons future should be decided by its own people rather than by outside actors. "Lebanon is your decision, not someone elses," the message read. "Stability is not just a word it is a right for every Lebanese." The pamphlets also warned that the country should not remain "open property to Hezbollahs Iranian weapons" and urged citizens to work toward what the message described as "real change." Hundreds killed, more displaced in Lebanon so far The latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 773 people, including more than 100 minors, with more than 2,000 people recorded injured, according to the Health Ministry in Beirut. Advertisement Advertisement At least 816,000 people around 14% of the population have been displaced in the first 10 days of the escalation, according to official figures cited by Norwegian Refugee Committee (NRC). The number is expected to rise further as Israel continues issuing evacuation warnings and carrying out airstrikes across multiple areas of the country. Israels evacuation orders now cover about 1,470 square kilometres, or roughly 14% of Lebanons territory, including parts of southern Lebanon, Beiruts southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley. Additional warnings issued recently have expanded the number of villages under threat, prompting further movement of civilians. Humanitarian organizations say conditions in shelters are deteriorating as the number of displaced grows. Advertisement Advertisement More than 122,000 people are currently staying in collective shelters, many of them overcrowded. In one school hosting around 1,200 people, an average of 15 people share each classroom, while about 23 people rely on a single toilet. Water supplies are limited and many shelters lack showers and cooking facilities. The violence has disrupted the education of around 1 million children. Lebanon was already struggling with a severe economic crisis and weakened public services, leaving humanitarian agencies warning that the country has limited capacity to absorb a rapidly expanding displacement crisis. NEED TO KNOW Benjamin Fottler, a teacher at Winter Park High School in Florida, was arrested on Tuesday, March 10 Fottler has been accused of hitting Landon Cates with his car and then driving away from the scene on Dec. 11, 2025 Cates, who was 15 at the time of the incident, suffered serious injuries, including a broken back A Florida high school teacher has been accused of fleeing the scene after allegedly hitting a student with his car. On Dec. 11, 2025, Benjamin Fottler, a teacher at Winter Park High School, allegedly struck Landon Cates with his car while the student was riding his scooter near the intersection of Casselton Drive and State Road 436, per WFTV, Fox 35 and 12 News. Advertisement Advertisement More than three months after the incident, Fottler, 49, was arrested and booked on a felony hit-and-run charge on March 10. He has since been released from jail on a $20,000 bond, 12 News reported, citing court records. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Intersection of Casselton Drive and State Road 436 Credit: Google Maps Fottler allegedly contacted the police moments after the incident, stating that he thought he had hit a traffic sign before going on to drop off his child at daycare. I hit, I thought, a sign in the median that damaged my rearview passenger mirror Im sorry, driver-side mirror, Fottler allegedly said in audio obtained by WFTV. My wife just got home from work; she travels the same way that I do she left maybe 20 minutes after me and said that when she was making that turn, there was an ambulance there and somebody had gotten hit. Advertisement Advertisement Orange County Public Schools told Fox 35 that Fottler is not on leave while the crash is under investigation, as the incident occurred while he was not on the job. Cates, who was 15 at the time of the alleged hit-and-run, suffered scratches, bruises and a fractured vertebrae in his back. "Originally, I didnt know my back was broken, the teen recalled to Fox 35. I thought I was fine. That was the adrenaline talking. Right after it went away, I did not feel good. It hurt and it sucked bad." Cates recalled that a bystander immediately rushed to his aid after witnessing the incident. "She was like, 'Oh my God, the dude that hit you just sped off like pedal to the metal' right when he hit me," Cates said. "I cant like run. I cant like bend or twist or do a lot of things. If my back wasnt broken, I could have done this thing where I spend half my time at school and then half my time at a trade school." Advertisement Advertisement Cates mother wrote on GoFundMe that many of their days have been filled with doctor's visits, consultations and conversations surrounding potential surgery. Cates is now warning others to be extra cautious of reckless drivers. "Keep your eyes out for reckless drivers for sure, the teen emphasized to Fox 35. "There are so many accidents, drunk driving, negligence, so much. Read the original article on People The House and Senate need to resolve distinct differences between dueling housing reform bills but consensus is possible, Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill of Arkansas said Friday after the Senate passed its version of the legislation a day earlier. Hill, who sponsored the House version of the bill intended to address concerns about housing affordability, expressed optimism as he and several other congressmen met in Little Rock to discuss financial and management issues that have plagued the citys public housing agency. The meeting of the House Financial Services Committee, which Hill chairs, also included Republican Reps. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, Mike Flood of Nebraska, Troy Downing of Montana and Tim Moore of North Carolina. Advertisement Advertisement Hill authored the initial version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The bill passed both chambers with broad, bipartisan support, but faces an uncertain future due to changes made in the Senate and President Donald Trumps insistence on Congress passing voter ID legislation. While both the Senate and House versions of the bill represent large overhauls of the countrys housing policy and are mostly similar, the Senate version made changes that would prohibit institutional investors from buying single-family homes which Hill said he and other House members want to see changed. Both Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, and I share the goal of having a housing bill this year, Hill said. Many of our common objectives are in both bills, but theres some distinct differences, and I believe we can reconcile those differences before the bill is taken up by the House. Trump has targeted such investors through an executive order, and specifically noted his desire to ban them from purchasing single-family homes in his State of the Union address. Sky-high housing prices driven in part by demand outstripping supply have locked many Americans out of homeownership, with the median cost of a home currently just over $400,000. Advertisement Advertisement The legislation is being considered during a midterm election year where Democrats are focusing heavily on concerns about affordability. Hill is running for reelection in his central Arkansas district against Democratic nominee Chris Jones. Hill said passing the housing legislation would alleviate some of the issues facing the troubled Little Rock Housing Authority, which oversees 1,100 units of public housing and affordable housing and has over 5,500 people on its waitlist. Provisions in the legislation designed to bolster housing supply and increase investment in housing by banks will help reduce the waitlist for public and affordable housing units, he said. Nadine Jarmon, the executive director of the housing authority, said filling currently empty units could take 1,000 people off the waitlist. Little Rock City Director Joan Adcock, who also serves as the city board of directors liaison to the housing agency, pointed to the backlog of people waiting for subsidized housing combined with high vacancy rates in public housing developments as a chief issue that the housing authority needed help solving. Committee members questioned Jarmon and Adcock, as well as housing authority Commissioner Kerry Wright and a representative from the Arkansas attorney generals office, about the mismanagement by fired commissioners and how the agency was working to rectify its issues. Advertisement Advertisement Hill and Wright blamed the Department of Housing and Urban Development for not intervening and conducting stricter oversight, with Wright saying HUD officials during the Biden administration made empty promises that it would help. The situation that we witnessed here in Little Rock, sadly, is not unusual, Hill told reporters after the hearing.Its found in other places in the country, which is why our committee wanted to come here. Hill said the responses the committee members received from Little Rock officials would inform further oversight and possible future legislation. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ALPINE, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) Byways Hospitality has announced it has secured funding to begin the restoration of three historic Big Bend hotels. According to a press release from the company, the Holland Hotel and Maverick Inn in Alpine, and the Hotel Limpia in Fort Davis are included in the restoration budget. The financing, arranged with Peachtree Group and Opportunity Alabama, marks the beginning of the next phase in restoring these hotels. However, the process took longer than initially expected. Byways says it is grateful to the communities of Alpine and Fort Davis for their patience along the way. These hotels have always been more than just a place to stay, said Collin Bibb, co-founder of Byways Hospitality. Its where neighbors meet for a drink or a meal, and where the life of a town quietly passes through the lobby day after day. Advertisement Advertisement Upcoming work will focus on carefully restoring the properties while preserving the hotels lengthy history. The Holland Hotel has historically been referred to as the living room of Alpine, a role it has played in the life and history of the town. These are special buildings in special towns, said Brian Carrico, co-founder of Byways Hospitality. Our goal is to restore them thoughtfully and return them to the level of prominence they deserve within their communities. The company believes that historic hotels can play an important role in the long-term vitality of towns across the Big Bend region. Advertisement Advertisement A great hotel gives travelers a reason to stop and gives a town a place to connect, Carrico said. Alpine and Fort Davis have remarkable histories and strong communities, and were excited to invest in places that help carry that forward. Were told, the road to construction reflects the complexity of restoration. It took a while to get here, Bibb said. But West Texas has always been a place that rewards the patient and the stubborn. Were grateful to finally be at the point where the real work can begin. Construction is expected to begin soon. Restoration work will be phased so the hotels can remain open for guests as much as possible during construction. Byways Hospitality is a Texas-based real estate investment and development company specializing in the restoration of historic hospitality properties. Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin. A horticulturist recently spoke out on Reddit about an alarming encounter they faced over the length of their rewilded grass. "Rewilding" is an idea that's grown more popular in recent years. Alone or with help from companies like Yardzen, property owners replace their lawns with native plants from their area. These native plants are adapted to grow wild in your local climate, so they don't need much additional water or care. They also provide food and shelter for pollinators and other local wildlife, making this an inexpensive, low-maintenance, and eco-friendly landscaping choice. Advertisement Advertisement Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with the rewilding movement, as this Redditor, a horticulturist specializing in habitat restoration, discovered. "[Rewilding your yard] can be done in a number of ways, the easiest being to just let nature take back over," they wrote in a post on the r/NoLawns subreddit. The poster said they kept things tidy by mowing some of the yard to "appease the neighbors," but apparently that wasn't enough. "The neighbors are having a new fence installed," the Redditor wrote, adding that the fencing company took drastic action. "Without my permission, the fencing company clear-cut two of my trees, a mulberry and peach," the Redditor said. When the Redditor asked what the owner was doing, he apparently replied, "If you cared about your yard, that wouldn't have happened." Advertisement Advertisement The conflict only escalated from there. "He flipped out, called me a b**** and other profanities, then had the audacity to call the cops," the Redditor recalled. When the police arrived, the owner even accused the Redditor of trying to assault him. Luckily, the Redditor said they had evidence to back them up: a Ring camera that recorded the whole incident. Still, it was a difficult experience. "My [Ring] camera was recording it all and the cop knew he was quite clearly unhinged," they wrote. "Trying to save the planet sure does come with a lot of opposition." Commenters were outraged by the damage the fencing company caused. "Get an attorney," said one user. "The length of your grass doesn't give him any right to cut down trees on your property." Advertisement Advertisement Another user added, "Also be sure to look up tree laws where you are. In some states you can sue based on the age and other factors." Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more, waste less, and help yourself while helping the planet. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Illustration shows the cosmic origin point of gamma-ray burst GRB 230906A tracked back to colliding neutron stars. | Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./S. Dichiara; IR: NASA/ESA/STScI; Illustration: ERC BHianca 2026 / Fortuna and Dichiara, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds Astronomers have tracked a powerful blast of radiation called a gamma-ray burst (GRB) back to its source, finding a collision between extreme stellar remnants called neutron stars within colliding galaxies. This could reveal more about these extraordinary collisions, thought to be the only events in the universe capable of generating heavy elements like the gold and silver we wear on our fingers and around our necks. The GRB, designated GRB 230906A, was spotted on Sept. 23, 2023, by an array of NASA space telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Hubble Space Telescope. GRB 230906A was tracked back to a neutron star merger within a tiny galaxy that is itself embedded in a river of gas 600,000 light-years long, or about six times as long as the width of our entire galaxy. Advertisement Advertisement Previously, collisions between neutron stars, which are born when massive stars run out of fuel for nuclear fusion and "die" in supernova explosions, had only been observed in medium to large galaxies. Thus, these results show that these merger events between extreme dead stars can occur in more diminutive galaxies "Finding a neutron star collision where we did is game-changing," discovery team-leader Simone Dichiara of Penn State University said in a statement . "It may be the key to unlocking not one, but two important questions in astrophysics." The first conundrum Dichiara refers to, which could be solved by a neutron star merger in an unprecedented location, is the fact that when astronomers trace GRBs back to their points of origin, they often seem to occur away from dense galactic cores where collisions should be more common, and sometimes away from galaxies altogether. The other puzzle relates to the fact that, though neutron star collisions are believed to generate the only environments violent and turbulent enough to forge elements heavier than iron, like gold, silver, and platinum, these elements are often detected in stars that lie far from galactic centers and which should have formed before it was possible to be enriched with such heavy elements. 'A collision within a collision' This neutron star collision was initially detected via GRB 230906A by Fermi, with astronomers then precisely pinpointing the location where the merger occurred using Chandra, Swift, and Hubble. Advertisement Advertisement "Chandra's pinpoint X-ray localization made this study possible," team member Brendan OConnor, of Carnegie Mellon University, said. "Without it, we couldn't have tied the burst to any specific source. And once Chandra told us exactly where to look, Hubble's extraordinary sensitivity revealed the tiny, extremely faint galaxy at that position. We were only able to make this discovery after we put all the pieces together." An illustration shows two neutron stars colliding and merging | Credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva) The stream of gas within which the team discovered the home galaxy of this merger is thought to have been created when a group of galaxies collided hundreds of millions of years ago. This event stripped gas and dust from these galaxies, forming a gas stream and leaving to drift in intergalactic space. "We found a collision within a collision," team member Eleonora Troja of the University of Rome in Italy said. "The galaxy collision triggered a wave of star formation that, over hundreds of millions of years, led to the birth and eventual collision of these neutron stars." The discovery hints that some GRBs appear to originate from beyond the limits of galaxies because their points of origin are actually tiny galaxies that are too faint to be seen. As for the heavy element enrichment of stars that dwell far from the galactic center, the team theorizes highly explosive neutron star mergers like the one that launched GRB 230906A could not only forge such elements but could also disperse them to the very edge of galaxies. The team's research is set to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The Idaho Legislature should consider creating a statewide 911 program to address maintaining the emergency communication system as costs rise and technology ages, according to a new report issued Friday by an independent Idaho watchdog agency. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Most of Idahos 911 centers report that they are under financial strain, including 94% of those serving communities with fewer than 25,000 people, Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations Director Ryan Langrill wrote in a letter accompanying the report. Nearly two-thirds of centers have call-handling equipment nearing the end of life; about the same proportion do not have enough staff to meet their current demands. Advertisement Advertisement On Friday afternoon, the Idaho Legislatures Joint Legislative Oversight Committee released a new report called Challenges Facing Idahos 911 System. The Idaho Legislatures Office of Performance Evaluation conducted the study and published the report, which is available to read and download on the offices website. Tasha Schreiter conducted the evaluation, with assistance from Casey Petti and Rebecca Hoskins all of whom are with OPE. Among the reports findings were that the $1 monthly phone line fee that provides funding for 911 centers has not changed since 1988. The report found many local 911 systems are near the end of their life. The Office of Performance Evaluations, or OPE, is an independent, nonpartisan office of the Idaho Legislature. As part of its mission to promote confidence and accountability in state government, OPE evaluates whether state government programs and agencies are operating efficiently, operating cost-effectively and achieving their intended results. Advertisement Advertisement The OPE report found several challenges for the 911 system in Idaho. Funding challenges Staffing shortages Possible inefficiencies, and Limited statewide oversight. Report: Absence of a a statewide 911 program limits coordination and accountability Oversight of Idaho 911 systems is conducted at the local level, mostly by counties and cities. OPE officials said the Idaho Legislature should consider evolving the Idaho Public Safety Communications Commission into a statewide 911 program. Idaho lacks a statewide 911 program with sufficient authority and capacity to address gaps in oversight of funding, data, standards and long-term planning, the authors of the report wrote. While local control remains central to 911 operations, the absence of a statewide 911 program limits coordination and accountability, particularly as Idaho transitions to (Next Generation 911). Advertisement Advertisement OPE also recommended requiring local governments to report annual budgets and expenditures for emergency communications systems, among other recommendations. Although OPE reported that Idaho has more 911 centers than neighboring states and fewer 911 calls and texts than neighboring states, OPE did not recommend consolidating 911 centers because of high up-front costs, concerns over losing local control and service quality, and due to the need for system redundancy. The report was the second 911-related report the Office of Performance Evaluations has released in recent months. In September, the office released a report recommending that Idaho Legislature stabilize funding as the state transitions to the more modern emergency communications system called Next Generation 911, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations to conduct four additional evaluation reports In addition to releasing the new report on Idahos 911 system, the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee also selected four more topics for the Office of Performance Evaluations to study and report on in the next year. Advertisement Advertisement Those report topics include: A comprehensive evaluation of Idahos Boards of Community Guardians, the guardian and conservator of last resort for vulnerable adults who need a guardian but do not have anyone available. A study examining the factors driving growth in Idahos prison population. An evaluation of Idahos oversight of sexual assault in womens correctional facitlies. The request was inspired by a five-part InvestigateWest series called Guarded by Predators, which documented allegations of rape and sexual abuse In Idaho and reported that sexual abuse in womens prisons goes largely unchecked. A comprehensive study examining the impact of residential development growth on agriculture and infrastructure. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE "Dear citizens, for the sake of your safety and well-being, we kindly request that you immediately evacuate the designated area indicated on the map," the IDF said. The IDF on Saturday morning issued an evacuation order for an industrial area located west of the city of Tabriz, Iran, the military Farsi-language post on X. "The Israeli army, as it has done in recent days in the Tehran region by targeting the military infrastructure of the Iranian regime, will conduct operations in this area in the coming hours," read the warning. "Dear citizens, for the sake of your safety and well-being, we kindly request that you immediately evacuate the designated area indicated on the map," the military said and added, "Your presence in this area puts your life at risk." IDF targets over 150 targets across Iran On Friday, the IDF completed 20 waves of strikes across western and central Iran, targeting over 150 regime sites, including missile sites and launchers, drone facilities, defense systems, and weapons production sites, the military confirmed. Advertisement Advertisement An IDF statement said that the IAF had eliminated several members of the Iranian Basij forces overnight as they operated recently established roadblocks in Tehran. The Basij forces, part of Iran's security apparatus, had led the Islamic regime's deadly crackdown on protesters in January 2026, the IDF noted. Shir Perets contributed to this report. This is a developing story. The Central Tibetan Administration remembered Tibetan monk Jamyang Palden on the anniversary of his self-immolation protest, highlighting the continued calls among Tibetans for religious freedom and the preservation of their cultural identity. In a post shared on social media platform X, the Tibetan government-in-exile paid tribute to Jamyang Palden, a 34-year-old monk who carried out a self-immolation protest on 14 March 2012 in Rebgong, in the traditional Tibetan region of Amdo. https://x.com/CTA_TibetdotNet/status/2032696299640992135?s=20 According to the statement, Jamyang Palden set himself on fire near Rongpo Monastery to protest what Tibetans describe as repression by the Chinese authorities in Tibet. He initially survived the act and was taken to hospital by monks and local residents before being brought back to his monastery. Jamyang Palden later succumbed to his injuries on 29 September 2012.Following the incident, reports indicated that Chinese authorities increased military deployment in the Rebgong area, with heightened surveillance and security measures. The move reportedly led to concerns among local Tibetans about their safety and freedom of movement. The statement said that despite the heavy presence of security forces, local residents gathered near the site of the protest to offer prayers. The gathering later turned into a peaceful demonstration, with participants calling for the return of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, to Tibet. The tribute was shared by the Tibet Advocacy Section of the CTA's Department of Information and International Relations as part of ongoing efforts to remember Tibetan self-immolators and raise awareness about the Tibetan cause. Self-immolation is an extreme form of protest in which a person sets themselves on fire to express strong political or religious opposition. In Tibet, the wave of such protests began in 2009, largely involving monks, nuns and lay Tibetans who say they are protesting restrictions on religious freedom, cultural expression and language under Chinese rule. Many demonstrators have also called for the return of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamshala, India, since 1959 following the 1959 Tibetan Uprising. (ANI) SPRINGFIELD Chicago North Side voters have unfailingly sent Sara Feigenholtz to the Illinois General Assembly since 1994, but the Democratic Party of Illinois has spent nearly $190,000 in the last month to defend the 31-year incumbent from an upstart progressive challenger who was born two years after her first electoral victory. The state partys six-figure expenditure for mailers supporting Feigenholtzs campaign for state Senate began Feb. 13 and is nearly double the amount the party has spent on any other General Assembly candidate since September the next closest being House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch at $95,000, who is running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis on the state central committee. Feigenholtz faces 29-year-old Nick Uniejewski, a former policy analyst for the city of Chicago whos won the support of several progressive organizations. Advertisement Advertisement Senator Feigenholtz is very proud of the broad coalition of Illinoisans supporting her campaign, campaign manager Bella Devens said in a statement. We dont take any votes for granted and will be working around the clock through Tuesday to ensure every single voter can make their voice heard. It is not unusual for the party to invest in an incumbent senators campaign, and were grateful for the support of the Democratic Party of Illinois. Uniejewski said he thinks the partys big spending to help his opponent signals a lack of confidence in Feigenholtzs electoral chances and that the race is representative of elections across the country where Democratic officials are staunchly defending old guard candidates from energetic young progressives. This race is really indicative of where we are in the Democratic Party right now. It is a realignment for what does it mean to be a Democrat? Uniejewski said. And for me, it means fighting a lot harder for our most vulnerable neighbors. Its rejecting corporate money, you know? Its rejecting this outside influence that is just so focused on keeping power, holding seats that theyve held for a long time. Democratic Party of Illinois spokesperson Gwen Pepin said the partys support of Feigenholtz was not spurred by concern that she might lose. Advertisement Advertisement Its less about anxiety and more about educating the electorate on what shes done for the last 15 years, Pepin said. Feigenholtzs lone electoral defeat in her 30 years in politics came at the hands of Mike Quigley in 2009, when she came in third in the Democratic primary for Illinois 5th Congressional District special election. While Feigenholtz has been a mainstay in state politics, this is her first time with a primary challenger in a state legislative race since she defeated long-standing incumbent Democratic state Rep. Ellis Levin for his seat in 1996. The Chicago natives three-decade General Assembly career was mostly spent in the House before she was appointed to replace retiring Senate President John Cullerton in 2020. And this is the first reelection campaign for Feigenholtz since she faced calls to resign in 2024 from some faith groups who called her praise of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a critic of Hamas and Islam, Islamophobic. Advertisement Advertisement Westerners who praise Islam are bootlickers, Yousef said in a 2024 post on X. If they love Islam and Muslims, why dont they move to an Islamic country and stick their heads in the dirt multiple times a day for enlightenment? MHY you are one badass truth teller, Feigenholtz replied. Feigenholtz later deleted the post and apologized, calling her response a mistake. I apologized in 2024 and asked people to not judge me on the worst day in all my time serving. Since then Ive been doing the work to build bridges, Feigenholtz said in a statement Friday. We can only progress toward peace by hearing more than one persons truth. Advertisement Advertisement Beyond the state party, Feigenholtz has also received $31,000 in campaign support from Illinois Senate President Don Harmons Illinois Senate Democratic Fund since October, more than any other candidate hes contributed to. Even without the party support of Feigenholtzs campaign, Uniejewski is lagging behind the state senator in fundraising. According to the most recent quarterly reports published in December, Feigenholtz had $1.2 million in her campaign bank account compared to Uniejewskis $33,600. On Thursday, the Illinois State Board of Elections lifted the cap on contributions for the remaining few days of the primary election after Feigenholtz accrued more than $100,000 in support from three political action committees the Illinois Realtors Fund, the American Future PAC, which is funded by DraftKings and Common Ground Collective, a Chicago progressive issue advocacy organization. Elsewhere in the state, the Democratic Party of Illinois has spent $52,000 supporting Springfield Democratic state Sen. Doris Turner, who won her last general election by 1,400 votes, and another $46,000 to help Northwest Side state Rep. Jaime Andrade, who, like Feigenholtz, faces a young progressive challenger. Advertisement Advertisement Uniejewskis endorsements include progressive advocacy groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Sunrise Movement Chicago. Progressive Chicago Democrats like North Side Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, are backing Uniejewski. So is former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman, for whom Uniejewski worked as campaign manager. Uniejewskis campaign to represent parts of the Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Gold Coast neighborhoods centers around housing and zoning reforms. If elected, he would be the second openly gay state senator in Illinois history behind state Sen. Mike Simmons, who is running for Congress in the 9th District. Feigenholtz backers include a mix of labor groups such as the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the local Teamsters branch, as well as several statewide and local Democrats, including Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky. Tuesdays primary election winner will move on to the November general election, where they will be heavily favored to win the Democratic-leaning district, especially given that no Republicans are running in the primary. The most wonderful time of the year is officially upon us. No, we're not talking about the start of spring, or March Madness. It's the Illinois primary for several key races up and down the ballot, as the midterm elections kick into high gear. With Gov. JB Pritzker set to seek a third term before a potential presidential run, numerous candidates fighting for open seats for the U.S. Senate and the state comptroller's office, along with many others, this year's primary has no shortage of intrigue and high stakes. Advertisement Advertisement Here's a look at what you need to know about statewide primaries before heading out to the polls: What's on my ballot? A wide range of local, state and national races will be on the ballot come March 17, depending on which party you are registered with. Illinois usually has a closed primary, meaning that someone who is registered as a Democrat can vote in the Democratic primary and vice versa. However, one can change their party affiliation when they vote, allowing them to cast a ballot in the other party's primary. This can be challenged by election officials at the polling place and one cannot vote in two primaries at the same time, according to state law. Those looking to get a glimpse of what's on their ballots can check with their local election authority, such as the Peoria County Election Commission or the Tazewell County and Woodford County clerk's offices. Advertisement Advertisement Illinois Senate race: Who is leading in polls ahead of the primary? When is the Illinois primary election? Election Day is March 17, but early voting is underway across the state. Who can vote in the Illinois primary? Those registered to vote in Illinois are allowed to vote in primary elections. As explained above, someone can declare their party affiliation upon going to the polls, meaning that an independent can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primaries. Who's running for governor in Illinois? Pritzker is looking for a third term in office as governor, something not done since James Thompson did it back in 1982. Thompson, a Republican, ended up serving four terms as governor, retiring in 1991. Pritzker's term may not last that long if he decides to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028, something long-speculated about due to his strident opposition to the actions of Donald Trump's second administration. If he wins reelection and serves out his third term, Pritzker will have served 12 years in office, something only Thompson will have surpassed with his 14 years in office. Advertisement Advertisement More: Pritzker talks 2028 presidential run rumors, pension reform during East Peoria stop The governor is the lone Democrat running in his primary unsurprising considering his incumbency and popularity among his own party. He does, however, have a new running mate former deputy governor and former Chicago-based state Rep. Christian Mitchell, who served in the General Assembly from 2013-19, when he was appointed to Pritzker's administration. Mitchell currently serves as the vice president of civic engagement for the University of Chicago. On the Republican side, there is one very familiar face: Darren Bailey, the former state senator from Xenia looking to take a second crack at Pritzker after failing to unseat him in 2022. The conservative firebrand is the clear frontrunner at this point, with an Emerson College poll conducted earlier this year showing him with 34% of the vote and no other candidate with more than 10%. Advertisement Advertisement However, that poll did show 46% of Republican primary voters remained undecided. While Bailey has long been at odds with the city of Chicago even going as far as to support a long-shot resolution to kick the city out of the state in 2019 he is attempting to make inroads in the area this time around, with Cook County Republican chair Aaron Del Mar serving as his running mate. Others running in the primary include: Ted Dabrowski, the owner of the conservative public policy research group Wirepoints and a former banker. He has accused Pritzker of letting the state stagnate during his nearly eight years in office, with a strong focus on affordability and public safety coloring his campaign. Dabrowski's running mate is Carrie Mendoza, an ER physician and anti-trans activist who leads a group called FAIR in Medicine, who opposes diversity initiatives in the medical field. James Mendrick, the DuPage County sheriff. Public safety is a big focus for Mendrick, along with other conservative priorities such as ending sanctuary programs and supporting school choice. His running mate is Robert Renteria, an author, Army veteran and activist. Rick Heidner, a real estate developer and founder of Gold Rush Gaming, a video gambling machine company. Heidner is using his business acumen as a selling point for his campaign, although he has faced criticism for donating to several Democratic candidates before his run for the Republican nomination. Homer Glen mayor Christina Neitzke-Troike is his running mate. Advertisement Advertisement Republicans are fighting an uphill battle in the governor's race. A poll conducted by Chicago-based polling firm Victory Research late last year showed Pritzker with a 20% lead over Bailey in their rematch, with the governor's approval rating at 52%. More: Illinois candidates for governor: Who will take on JB Pritzker? Who is running for U.S. Senate in Illinois? Oh, you haven't seen Raja Krishnamoorthi's ads yet? All joking aside, there is indeed a race for a U.S. Senate seat this year in Illinois, with the Democratic primary garnering the lion's share of attention. While 10 Democrats are technically running for the nomination to replace the retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, there are three clear frontrunners: Advertisement Advertisement Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton, who announced her candidacy just one day after Durbin announced he would be stepping aside. She immediately got Pritzker's support and has the backing of numerous state leaders, such as Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch and Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, along with many liberal legislators like Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Krishnamoorthi, a congressman from the 8th Congressional District, which stretches from the area around Chicago O'Hare International Airport through places such as Arlington Heights, Schaumburg and Elgin. He had already raised around $19 million before he even entered the race and has saturated the airwaves statewide thanks to an aggressive TV ad spend. However, he's gotten criticism for donations to his campaign by people associated with Trump. U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, hailing from the 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from the south side of Chicago all the way down to Danville at its southern end. Kelly has a large chunk of congressmen supporting her and has the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus and U.S. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chris Murphy of Connecticut. More: Meet the Democratic candidates looking to fill Durbin's US Senate seat Krishnamoorthi's massive money edge helped him stake out an early polling lead, with the Emerson poll from January giving him a 21% edge over Stratton and 23% over Kelly, neither of whom had more than 10% of the vote. However, 46% of Democratic voters were still undecided in that poll, and internals of the race released recently by the Krishnamoorthi and Stratton campaigns show a very close race. Stratton's polling, conducted by Public Policy Polling on behalf of the Democratic Lieutenant Governor's Association, show her with a slight margin-of-error lead over Krishnamoorthi. As for Krishamoorthi's own polling, it shows him with double-digit leads over Stratton as Election Day nears. Advertisement Advertisement Other Senate candidates are: Kevin Ryan, Steve Botsford, Jr., Bryan Maxwell, Jonathan Dean, Sean Brown, Awisi A. Bustos and Christopher Swann. On the Republican side, six candidates are running, but former party chair Don Tracy has the advantage here, owing to a large money advantage no one else in the race has raised over $2 million and endorsements from the likes of U.S. Reps. Darin LaHood, Mary Miller and Mike Bost, along with Senate Minority Leader John Curran. Other candidates running on the Republican side of the ballot: Cary Capparelli, Pamela Denise Long, Casey Chlebek, Jimmy Lee Tillman II and Jeannie Evans. More: Meet the Republican candidates going for Dick Durbin's US Senate seat What about the other statewide races in Illinois? Primaries for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and comptroller are also on the ballot. Advertisement Advertisement For attorney general, incumbent Kwame Raoul is seeking a third term in office and has no primary opponents. On the Republican side, three candidates are seeking the nomination: former Chicago alderman Bob Fioretti, private practice attorney JoAnne Guillemette and community advocate Andy Williams. Treasurer Mike Frerichs is also running, with no Republican opposition. Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is seeking a second term in office, running unopposed in the primary. Republicans will choose between Chicago 29th Ward committeeman Walter Adamcyk or Joliet Junior College trustee Diane Harris. Who is running for Illinois comptroller? The most interesting race down ballot may be for comptroller, with well-liked incumbent Susana Mendoza retiring after two-plus terms. Advertisement Advertisement Four Democrats are vying for the nomination, with Mendoza endorsing Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim. However, Pritzker is backing State Rep. Margaret Croke of the 12th Legislative District, located on the north side of Chicago. State Sen. Karina Villa of the 25th Senate District has the backing of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, with suburban State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit also in the running as well. Bryan Drew, an attorney from Benton in southern Illinois, is the lone Republican running. This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Illinois primary election: Key races for governor, US Senate Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the month in which IMPD Sgt. Sara Lamkin resigned. An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer was arrested following an off-duty altercation at a local gym. Taylor Jones, 32, was arrested and preliminarily charged with battery resulting in moderate bodily injury on March 13 after the department said he was involved in an off-duty fight at a Crunch Time Fitness. Advertisement Advertisement A police report listed a fight happening at 10:35 a.m. on Feb. 21 at the gym franchise's 6160 North Keystone Avenue location. Jones was originally listed as the victim, while another man was listed as the suspect. But the department said the IMPD Special Investigations Unit was requested and responded to the scene. Both Jones and the other man had their injuries documented. After speaking with everyone involved as well as witnesses, Jones was moved to administrative duty. Jones surrendered on the evening of March 13. He's been with IMPD for seven years and was recently awarded Medal of Valor, highlighted by the IMPD North District's Facebook page on Feb. 24, three days after police reported the fight. His name was removed from the Facebook post the evening of his arrest. Before IMPD North District's Facebook page changed their post following the arrest, Taylor Jones' original name was listed as getting awarded back in February 2026. Former IMPD officers arrested, acquitted and sentenced Jones is one of several IMPD officers who have been arrested in recent years. Advertisement Advertisement Last month, ex-IMPD officer Kamal Bola, now 36, was sentenced to 72 years behind bars with the Indiana Department of Correction for multiple charges that include child molesting. He was convicted by a Hendricks County jury on Feb. 24. Bola was arrested in 2024 following an initial investigation into allegations that he put up a hidden camera in an underage girl's bedroom. In January, ex-IMPD internal affairs officer Javed Richards sought a plea deal in a federal child porn case. He filed an agreement on Jan. 5 to plead guilty to one count of distribution of visual depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. A plea hearing is scheduled for April. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry (left) sits next to the former Chief of Police Chris Bailey on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry listens to the public's comments on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry speaks Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry speaks Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry listens to the public's comments on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry listens to the public's comments on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry hugs the Chief of the Indianapolis Fire Department Earnest V. Malone on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. See photos of new IMPD Chief of Police Tanya Terry at New Directions Church 1 of 8 IMPD's Chief of Police Tanya Terry (left) sits next to the former Chief of Police Chris Bailey on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, during a meeting with the Public Safety Committee at New Directions Church on 38th St. in Indianapolis. In August of 2025, ex-IMPD officer Paul Humphrey was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl who worked for his lawn care business. Humphrey had been with the department for 24 years before the arrest. After learning about a DCS investigation into sexual abuse allegations, police were called to Humphrey's business for an attempted suicide and found him unconscious in a small room filled with carbon monoxide. He was treated at a hospital before his arrest. In July of 2025, retired IMPD officer David B. McDaniel was arrested in Hancock County after being accused of molesting a child. Indiana State Police investigators were informed about several instances of alleged child sexual abuse that happened several years ago. His jury trial is set for July 21. Advertisement Advertisement Also in July of 2025, ex-IMPD officer Nicholas Cauley was arrested for harassing a woman he had a relationship with through texts, emails, social media and the dating app Hinge. He was charged with official misconduct after allegedly going to her workplace while in uniform and running her license plates through an IMPD computer. His case is pending. In February 2025, ex-IMPD Sgt. Sara Lamkin was arrested for shoplifting at Target and resigned from the department. She pleaded guilty in August 2025 to one count of theft and was sentenced the same month to one year of probation. Jade Jackson is a Public Safety Reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at Jade.Jackson@IndyStar.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Off-duty fight at Crunch Fitness gym leads to IMPD officer arrest SOMERSET, Ky. (FOX 56) An Indian national in Pulaski County was charged after alleged involvement in a visa fraud conspiracy. On Friday, the United States Attorneys Office announced that 11 Indian nationals had been charged in connection with a conspiracy to carry out staged armed robberies of convenience stores to allow all store clerks to falsely claim they were crime victims on immigration applications. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Advertisement Advertisement The following defendants have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, according to the United States Attorneys Office: Jitendrakumar Patel, 39, unlawfully residing in Marshfield, Mass. Maheshkumar Patel, 36, unlawfully residing in Randolph, Mass. Sanjaykumar Patel, 45, unlawfully residing in Quincy, Mass. Dipikaben Patel, 40, deported to India after unlawfully residing in Weymouth, Mass. Rameshbhai Patel, 52, unlawfully residing in Eubank, Ky. Amitabahen Patel, 43, unlawfully residing in Plainville, Mass. Ronakkumar Patel, 28, unlawfully residing in Maryland Heights, Miss. Sangitaben Patel, 36, unlawfully residing in Randolph, Mass. Minkesh Patel, 42, unlawfully residing in Perrysburg, Ohio Sonal Patel, 42, unlawfully residing in Perrysburg, Ohio Mitul Patel, 40, unlawfully residing in Worcester, Mass. On Thursday, the Pulaski County Sheriffs Office said it supported the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kentucky Alcohol Beverage Control, and the London Police Department in locating and securing 52-year-old Rameshbhai Patel. Rameshbhai, who had a Somerset address, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint for conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Rameshbhai Patel (Via Pulaski County Sheriffs Office) Rameshbhai Patel (Via Pulaski County Sheriffs Office) He was reportedly located leaving his apartment and taken into custody without incident. Advertisement Advertisement The United States Attorneys Office said that charging documents alleged that in March 2023, Rambhai Patel and his co-conspirators set up and staged armed robberies of at least six convenience/liquor stores and fast food restaurants in Massachusetts and elsewhere. The staged robberies were reportedly to allow the clerks to falsely claim that they were victims of a violent crime on an application for a U non-immigration status (U visa). A U visa is available to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and who have been helpful to law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity. In the course of the alleged staged robberies, the robber would threaten store clerks and/or owners with an apparent firearm before taking cash from the register and fleeing. The interaction would be captured on store surveillance video. LATEST KENTUCKY LISTS AND RANKINGS: Advertisement Advertisement The clerks and/or owners would then wait until the robber had escaped before calling the police to report the crime. The victims are alleged to have each paid Rambhai to participate in the scheme. In turn, Rambhai allegedly paid the store owners for the use of their stores for the staged robbery. The United States Attorneys Office said the 11 defendants allegedly arranged with the organizer to set up each robbery or paid for themselves or a family member to participate as a victim. The Justice Department said Rameshbhai will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date. Latest central Kentucky weather forecast Advertisement Advertisement The charge of conspiracy to commit visa fraud provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 56 News. An Indiana man stands accused of murder after he beat his girlfriend in the head with the dull end of an ax. Travis Wolfe allegedly killed Kimberly Stewart on the night of Tuesday, March 10. Detectives with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department arrested Wolfe, 45, for murder after Stewarts remains were found in the backyard of her own home. Stewart, 51, was declared dead at the scene. According to police, it was obvious at the scene she had been bludgeoned in the head. Advertisement Advertisement An autopsy determined her death was a homicide from multiple blunt force trauma injuries. Woman Arrested After Hitting Boyfriend in the Skull With a Hammer, Leaving Him to Die at a Church It was a friend of Stewarts who called 911 and alerted Indianapolis Metropolitan Police to her death. He had stopped by around 4:30 p.m. but got no response at the front door and went to work. He swung by after his shift and saw Stewart's dog outside. He walked up to the back gate, which was open, and he tried her phone. He followed the ringtone until he found her body between a wooden fence and an outdoor spa. She was cold and stiff when he went to shake her awake, he told police. Advertisement Advertisement The friend then grabbed Stewarts phone and left the backyard to go call 911. The friend allegedly told detectives that Wolfe had been threatening to kill people a day earlier, and described him as a psychopath maniac, according to court documents shared with Us Weekly. He also allegedly said Wolfe was confrontational with most of his neighbors and mused often about how they were all out to get him. He also is said to have told investigators that Wolfe used methamphetamine and said that he was Stewarts boyfriend. He said he lived in Stewarts garage, and that the two argued all the time. Advertisement Advertisement Wolfe denied having anything to do with Stewart's murder but did acknowledge owning an ax and often carrying it with him. New Husband Watched Over Home Surveillance App as Wifes Ex-Husband Stabbed Her to Death As they were investigating, detectives found a neighbor who said, while loading something into his car, he heard a woman yell and then allegedly saw a man on the ground with a club or hammer swinging toward the ground. The man kept yelling at a barking dog to shut up. Wolfe was arrested on a preliminary murder charge. He also had an open warrant related to an unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon case. He remains in custody, but it was unclear if bond had been granted. Information on his attorney was also unavailable on Friday, March 13. A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hit an oil facility in the United Arab Emirates as the U.S.-Israel war with Iran entered its third week Saturday. Associated Press images showed a column of smoke rising over the embassy compound in the Iraqi capital and a fire in the Fujairah port in the UAE that broke out after what authorities said was a drone interception. A day earlier, President Donald Trump said the U.S. destroyed military sites on an island vital to Irans oil network and warned that its oil infrastructure could be next if Iran continues to interfere with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Advertisement Advertisement Trump said U.S. forces on Friday obliterated targets on Irans Kharg Island, which is home to the primary terminal that handles the countrys oil exports. The speaker of the Iranian parliament had warned that such strikes would provoke a new level of retaliation. Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East. Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf Arab states, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes, even as U.S. and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepened, with nearly 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants and warned there would be no let up. Marines and assault ship will add to US forces Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the Middle East, according to the U.S. official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Advertisement Advertisement Marine Expeditionary Units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians, and providing disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. The Wall Street Journal first reported the new Marine deployment. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well as the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the Marines, are based in Japan and have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing alone near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from the waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. Advertisement Advertisement While the total number of U.S. service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear, Al-Udeid Air Base alone, one of the largest in the region, typically houses some 8,000 U.S. troops in Qatar. US strikes a key Iranian island after Tehran warning The U.S. strikes on Irans Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf targeted military sites but left its oil infrastructure alone for now, Trump said in a social media post. But he warned that if Iran or anyone else interferes with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warned on social media Thursday that attacks on the islands on Irans southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to abandon all restraint, underscoring how central they are to the countrys economy and security. On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat that it will attack the U.S.-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if the Islamic Republics oil infrastructure is hit. Advertisement Advertisement Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned they will target all oil, economic, and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with America. The Iranian joint military command also threatened to attack cities in the UAE, saying the U.S. used ports, docks and hideouts there to launch strikes on the islands, without providing evidence. It called on people to evacuate those areas where it said U.S. forces were sheltering Irans semiofficial Fars news agency said Saturday the U.S. strikes caused no damage to the islands oil infrastructure. The agency said at least 15 explosions followed the strikes, which it said targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar. On Saturday, the U.S. Central Command released a video on X showing the strike and said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and multiple other military sites. Another attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad No one immediately claimed responsibility for the strike on the embassys helipad on Saturday. The sprawling embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias. Advertisement Advertisement There was no immediate comment from the embassy. On Friday, the embassy renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq, warning that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups have previously carried out attacks against U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure, and may continue to target them. US says 15,000 targets struck in Iran since the start of the war Israel earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the last 24 hours, including missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites. In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck more than 1,000 a day since the war began. He also sought to address concerns about the bottling of the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters: We have been dealing with it and dont need to worry about it. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW Iran could launch a drone attack on California in retaliation for strikes against the regime, the FBI has warned. Police departments on the US West Coast are on alert after being told that Tehran could deploy drones from a ship in the Pacific. An alert distributed last month, before the war began, said the Islamic Republic was aiming to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned vehicles against unspecified targets in California, ABC News reported. Advertisement Advertisement The mooted attack echoes drones launched from Russias shadow fleet of oil tankers, which have struck Europes airports and military bases over the past year. Russia was helping Iran with advanced drone tactics it learned from its war in Ukraine to hit bases in the Middle East, it was reported on Wednesday. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said on X that Russia was supporting the regime with drones. It will definitely help with missiles, and it is also helping them with air defence, he said. Russia in constant contact with Iran The Kremlin has previously denied intelligence sharing with Iran but confirmed on Tuesday that Russia is in constant contact with the Iranian leadership. Advertisement Advertisement It added that Moscow is ready to contribute to a return to peace and stability in the region. Mojtaba Khamenei, who was confirmed as the supreme leader of Iran on Sunday, is thought to have been wounded in the air strike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, on the opening day of the war. He has yet to appear publicly, fuelling rumours about his condition. People hold posters of Mojtaba Khamenei and Ali Khamenei in Tehran - Majid Saeedi/Getty Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the supreme leader had Moscows support. He said: We are in constant contact with the Iranian side and with the Iranian leadership. As President [Vladimir] Putin has said, Russia is always ready to do what it can to restore peace and stability in the region. Advertisement Advertisement Despite suffering devastating blows on land, sea and in the air, Iran has continued to claim control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most important shipping lanes. Three ships were hit on Wednesday by unknown projectiles on the route where about one-fifth of the worlds oil and gas passes. A Thai cargo ship was hit while sailing through the Strait of Hormuz - AFP The US has sunk 28 Iranian mine-laying ships after reports that Tehran was seeking to plant explosives along the critical route. However, Washington has refused requests from the shipping industry for escorts through the strait, meaning that it is largely closed. Iran has continued to attack its Gulf neighbours and drones hit several fuel storage tankers at Omans Salalah port on Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement Thick smoke was seen spreading across the port while multiple drones were intercepted and brought down by the countrys air defences. Following the attack, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, the Sultan of Oman, spoke by phone with Masoud Pezeshkian, Irans president, to reaffirm the countrys position of neutrality and express unequivocal condemnation of the targeting of its territory. Last week, Mr Pezeshkian apologised to Irans Gulf neighbours only for the regime to launch fresh attacks hours later. Irans Kamikaze Shahed drones have been causing chaos across the region since the conflict began less than two weeks ago. Advertisement Advertisement A record number made it through the air defences of the UAE earlier this week, it emerged. The crude, low-flying, unmanned aircraft cost as little as $10,000 (7,500) and more than a third of the 26 drones launched at the UAE fell within the countrys territory on Tuesday, compared with just three out of 117 on Sunday, according to the defence ministry. Overall, Gulf countries have been targeted with 950 Iranian missiles and 2,500 drones over the last 12 days. US forces have been unable to locate all of Irans missile launch sites, officials disclosed. Two unnamed military officials told the New York Times that the Pentagon does not have full clarity on its enemys capabilities. Advertisement Advertisement They added that the White House has misjudged how Iran would respond to its strikes. The US president has continued to send mixed messages on the war and its aims, saying there was nothing left to target and he could end the conflict any time, before revealing he was not finished yet. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday night, Donald Trump said the US had won the Iran war but it would stay in the fight to finish the job. You never like to say too early you won. We won, said Mr Trump. In the first hour it was over. Mr Trump commented on the progress of the war at a rally in Kentucky - Reuters He said US forces had destroyed dozens of Iranian naval vessels, claiming that 58 ships had been knocked out during the operation. Advertisement Advertisement Addressing the wider conflict, Mr Trump said: Weve got to finish the job. After Operation Midnight Hammer, we figured thatll be the end of them for a while. But they started again. Thats why we got to finish it. We dont want to go back every two years. Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays. The United States-Israel war on Iran, now in its third week, continues to escalate after US forces struck military targets on Kharg Island, the critical hub through which most of Irans crude exports pass. US President Donald Trump said Washington deliberately spared the islands oil infrastructure but warned that it could be attacked if Iran interferes with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran, meanwhile, has warned that any attack on its energy facilities would trigger retaliation against regional oil infrastructure and US-aligned assets, raising fears of a wider energy and security crisis across the Gulf. Advertisement Advertisement Here is what we know: In Iran Joint attack: Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) earlier said they had launched missiles and drones at Israel in coordination with Tehrans Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. The IRGC said in a statement that the operation was part of their annual al-Quds Day, which is intended to show support for the Palestinian cause. Iranian supreme leader wounded: US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he believes Irans new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is wounded. We know the new so-called, not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. $10m reward: The US Department of State offered a $10m reward for information about Khamenei and other top officials. US attacks on Kharg island: Trump announced that US forces have bombed Iranian military installations on Kharg island, which he described as Irans crown jewel. The island is critical to Irans economy, as approximately 90 percent of the countrys oil exports pass through it before travelling through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Casualties rise: Since February 28, at least 1,444 people have been killed and 18,551 injured in US-Israel attacks on Iran. INTERACTIVE - DEATH TOLL - tracker - war - US Israel and Iran attacks - March 13, 2026-1773404159 In Gulf countries Iranian retaliation: Iran has been launching reciprocal drone and missile attacks against US assets, military bases, and commercial sites across the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia intercepts drones: The Saudi Ministry of Defense said on Friday it intercepted and destroyed six drones, five in the kingdoms eastern region and one over the Empty Quarter desert zone. Qatar: The Qatari armed forces successfully intercepted an incoming missile. Before the interception, authorities issued a heightened security alert to all mobile phones, warning of incoming missiles or drones, and temporarily evacuated certain areas, including parts of Education City. Bahrain: Sirens sounded, and the Ministry of Interior urged all citizens and residents to remain calm and head to their nearest safe place. Oman: Following a recent incident where two people were killed by falling drones in Oman, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq and Qatars Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held a call urging dialogue and regional de-escalation. F1 races cancelled: Formula One races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will reportedly be cancelled or rescheduled as the war engulfs the region. The Bahrain race is currently scheduled for April 10 to 12, and Saudi Arabia a week later. Elevated security threat level alert pic.twitter.com/7uNBOBDqyy The Peninsula Qatar (@PeninsulaQatar) March 13, 2026 In the US Major military deployments: To counter ongoing Iranian drone attacks and regional threats, the US is deploying 10,000 interceptor drones to the Middle East, according to US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Furthermore, US media reports suggest the potential deployment of the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, alongside 2,500 marines, which was reportedly approved by Hegseth. Aggressive rhetoric and bounties: Highlighting the aggressive US stance, Hegseth stated that the US military will show no quarter, no mercy for our enemy, a remark that prompted concerns from Democratic Congressman Eugene Vindman about possible illegal orders. Oil infrastructure spared: While the military facilities were destroyed on Kharg island, Trump said he chose not to strike the islands oil infrastructure for reasons of decency. The island hosts key energy facilities linked to Irans oil export system, including storage tanks, loading terminals and pipelines. Ultimatum over the Strait of Hormuz: In a post on Truth Social, Trump warned that if Iran interferes with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he would reconsider that decision and target the oil facilities. Strategic leverage: Analysts say the bombing signals that the US can cripple Irans ability to attack vessels in the strait while holding back the option of striking oil infrastructure a move that could significantly disrupt Irans crude exports and intensify the global energy shock. Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we pic.twitter.com/2iEzCOyA3P The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 13, 2026 In Israel 7,600 targets: Israels military said it had carried out about 7,600 strikes in Iran and 1,100 in Lebanon since launching its joint operation with the US on February 28. Israel hit: Smoke could be seen rising from two locations around Israels commercial hub Tel Aviv, a journalist with the AFP news agency said, after blasts were heard following a warning that missiles were fired from Iran. In Lebanon Lebanon toll climbs: Israeli attacks have killed at least 773 people in Lebanon since March 2, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said, as Israel pledged the country would pay an increasing price in damage to infrastructure. Attacks on medical workers: Lebanons Health Ministry strongly condemned an Israeli strike on a healthcare centre in Borj Qalaouiye that killed 12 medical staff, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics. UN base hit: Israeli shells struck the headquarters of a Nepalese peacekeeping battalion serving with UNIFIL in the southern Lebanese town of Meiss el-Jabal. Hezbollahs stance: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem stated that his group is ready for a long confrontation with Israel, framing the conflict as a legitimate defence against 15 months of unaddressed Israeli abuses. In Iraq US embassy targeted: Iraq says a helipad at the US Embassy in Baghdad has been hit by a missile. An Iraqi security source tells Al Jazeera the attack on the embassy destroyed the air defence system. Smoke has been seen rising from the site. The sprawling embassy complex, inside Baghdads security Green Zone, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned groups. There was no immediate comment from the US Embassy in Baghdad. Iraq PM, Macron call: Iraqs Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani pledged to prevent attacks after the killing of a French soldier in a drone attack in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Turkiye issues travel advisory: Turkiye has advised its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Iraq as the country is becoming increasingly affected by the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran. Economic effect Global economic effect: The US-Israel war on Iran has prompted a global energy crisis and a surge in oil prices. In response, Canada announced it will release 23.6 million barrels of oil as part of an emergency coordinated effort by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Aviation effect: Major Indian airlines, including Air India and IndiGo, have significantly increased ticket fares to cover rising aviation turbine fuel costs caused by the geopolitical instability. Shifting diplomatic dynamics: Despite the heavy US military presence, an analyst noted that the US is losing diplomatic leverage regarding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Key nations, including India, France, and Italy, are now bypassing Washington and reaching out directly to Iran to negotiate safe passage for their vessels, indicating a shift in who is controlling the immediate crisis. (Al Jazeera) The head of the Iranian parliaments National Security Commission on Saturday threatened to attack Ukraine, claiming Kyiv had become a legitimate target by supplying drone technology to Israel. Ebrahim Azizi justified his warning by citing Article 51 of the United Nations charter, which recognizes a countrys right to individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs. By providing drone support to the Israeli regime, failed Ukraine has effectively become involved in the War and, under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, has turned its entire territory into a legitimate target for Iran, Azizi said in a post on the social platform X. Advertisement Advertisement Azizi did not offer any specific evidence to support his claim, which came as the joint U.S. and Israeli military campaign entered its third week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced earlier this month that the country was sending a team of military specialists to the Middle East to help the U.S. and allies in the Gulf shoot down incoming Iranian drones. The Shahed drones being used in Tehrans retaliatory attacks are the same Iranian-designed systems that Russia, a close ally of theirs, has deployed extensively against Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022. Zelensky noted in a post on X that several countries had reached out for Ukraines help in countering the drone strikes, one of which killed six U.S. servicemembers in Kuwait in the early days of the war. Advertisement Advertisement In just a few days, Iran has launched over 800 missiles of various types and more than 1,400 attack drones. It is Iranian drones and missiles that pose the main threat to free navigation, destabilizing global prices for oil, petroleum products, and gas, he wrote. Ukraine can contribute to protecting lives and stabilizing the situation, Zelensky added. The move came amid reports that Russia was sharing intelligence with Iran on the locations of U.S. ships and aircraft in the region. Russian leaders have denied the claims, according to Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Zelensky told German journalist Gordon Repinski on Thursday that his country sought to sign a big drone production deal with the U.S. but was still awaiting approval from the White House. Advertisement Advertisement We didnt have the opportunity to sign this document yet, he shared on X. I hope that maybe American friends will be closer to this decision now, especially after such challenges as we see in the Middle East. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The spokesperson of Iran's Armed Forces, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, has addressed the leaders of Muslim states, calling for unity against the influence of the US and the Zionists, according to state broadcaster Press TV. In a direct appeal to the leadership of Islamic nations, the Brigadier General stated, "Trust Islamic Republic and its Muslim people, and let us unite for the solidarity of the Islamic world against disbelief, polytheism, and hypocrisy led by the US and the Zionists." These remarks, carried by Press TV, emphasise the General's call for solidarity across the Islamic world to challenge the current global leadership of the United States and the Zionists. This call for regional unity coincides with a significant escalation in military rhetoric. Earlier, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the Spokesperson of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, issued a televised address on Saturday, warning that "America and the Zionists will pay the price for every single drop of unjustly shed blood and the compensation for the damages inflicted." Underlining recent defensive actions, Zolfaghari noted that "two MQ-9 drones in Firuzabad and Bandar Abbas and another aircraft in the sky of Tabriz were intercepted and destroyed by the Sepah's air defence systems." He claimed the total number of drones destroyed has reached 112 aircraft, including combat, reconnaissance, and suicide drones. The military official linked these measures to broader operations by the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Aerospace and Naval Forces of Sepah, and Hezbollah. These actions, conducted under the holy code "'Ya Saheb al-Zaman, may God hasten his relief'", followed the International Quds Day march. During the address, Zolfaghari confirmed that "'Kheibar-Shekan' solid-fuel precision missiles and offensive drones were sent in large numbers towards enemy targets. He stated the "destruction of the northern command infrastructures of the occupying Zionists and the gathering place of American forces" served as primary strategic goals. Specific targets identified included centres in Haifa, Caesarea, settlements of Zariit and Shlomi, and the 'Holon' military-industrial complex. The scope also extended to regional US assets, with the spokesperson claiming gathering places, including 'Al Dhafra' and 'Erbil' bases, were hit following a warning to leave the region. Zolfaghari further asserted the campaign aimed at "hunting down Zionist and American criminal commanders." He claimed that 10 residence points in the occupied territories and 3 gathering places of Americans in the region were precisely targeted. These reported strikes included seven points in Tel Aviv, two in Rishon LeZion, and one in Shoham, as well as US commander locations at the 'King Sultan', 'Victoria', and 'Erbil' bases. Reinforcing this message of defiance, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has unveiled its aerial capabilities within a subterranean arsenal. A report by Mehr News Agency highlighted a collection of drones displayed in a large tunnel under an image of Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei. Vowing the campaign would persist, Zolfaghari declared that "the doors of hell will not be closed until the destruction of the last child-killing criminal." He maintained that victory comes from God, swearing to recover the "blood money" for those killed. (ANI) Rezaei, now a member of Irans Expediency Council, said security in the Gulf and the strait should be managed by the countries of the region themselves,." Former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei reportedly threatened on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen unless the United States withdraws from the Persian Gulf, marking one of Tehrans clearest public warnings yet over the strategic waterway. Rezaei, now a member of Irans Expediency Discernment Council, said security in the Gulf and the strait should be managed by the countries of the region themselves, and argued that regional stability would not return so long as American forces remain in the area. Iranian state-linked outlet WANA cited Rezaei as saying that the strait will not reopen and that restoring normal conditions depends on Irans conditions being met. Advertisement Advertisement Rezaei also said the end of the war lies with Iran, and declared that Tehran would only consider stopping the fighting once Washington compensates Iran for all damage and provides what he called a 100 percent guarantee against future threats. We will consider ending the war only when, first, we receive full compensation for all our damages from the United States, and second, we obtain a 100% guarantee for the future, he said, adding that such a guarantee is not possible without the withdrawal of the US from the Persian Gulf. In televised remarks carried by Iranian and regional media on Friday, Rezaei maintained a defiant tone, saying, We are still winning politically, defensively and economically. He claimed that we have defeated the US and warned US President Donald Trump directly, saying, Mr. Trump, our missiles are unlimited, while your THAAD missiles are exhausted. Rezaei added that Iran would no longer accept a ceasefire on previous terms, saying the conflict would continue until a final outcome is reached. Tehran escalates messaging on Hormuz, broader war The threats came as Iranian messaging on Hormuz hardened more broadly. On Saturday, Irans ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ali Mousavi, was quoted by Iranian media as saying that tensions in the Strait of Hormuz were the result of illegal US-Israeli aggression against Iran, and that Washington and Jerusalem would bear responsibility for any tension or the dire consequences in the region. Rezaei also sought to frame the war as a strategic turning point for the Islamic Republic. After the war, Iran will no longer be like before the war, he said. Iran will have a greater power in the region, adding, The future is ours. The flag of Iran is high. Leaflets dropped by the IDF over Beirut, March 13, 2026. (photo credit: X screenshot/Section 27 (a)) The leaflets included QR codes and references to the IDFs Unit 504, responsible for covert and clandestine operations and often dubbed "the IDF's Mossad. Israel dropped leaflets over Beirut on Friday, urging Lebanese civilians to press for Hezbollahs disarmament in a move that combined anti-Hezbollah messaging with an apparent outreach by an IDF intelligence unit. One leaflet opened with the words O Lebanese! and called on the Lebanese public to disarm Hezbollah, Irans arm, adding, Lebanon is your decision, not someone elses. The message urged civilians not to leave their futures hostage to the weapons of Iranian Hezbollah. Advertisement Advertisement Another leaflet was designed to resemble a newspaper, titled The New Reality in Lebanon. It read, In light of the spectacular success in Gaza, The New Reality newspaper is arriving in Lebanon, followed by the question, Where is our country heading? The leaflets included QR codes and references to the IDFs Unit 504, responsible for covert and clandestine operations and often dubbed "the IDF's Mossad. In one flyer, the text said Unit 504 was working to ensure the future of Lebanon and its people and invited readers who wanted to be part of real change to reach out. The leaflet drop comes as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues to intensify, with Israel pairing its military campaign with increasingly direct messaging aimed at the Lebanese public. The move quickly drew attention in Lebanon for both its political message and the security risks posed by the digital links embedded in the flyers. Lebanese authorities warned the public not to scan the QR codes, saying they could expose users to surveillance, hacking attempts, or data collection, according to Lebanese reports. IDF cccuses Hezbollah of making military use of civilian, medical infrastructure The IDF said on Saturday that it struck about 110 Hezbollah command centers since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion, noting that it has "severely damaged the organizations command and control capabilities, its financial situation, and the weapons in its possession." Advertisement Advertisement The military stated that Hezbollah "systematically embeds its infrastructure within the civilian population across Lebanon," adding to a previous statement that said Hezbollah was making military use of ambulances and medical facilities. The military said it would continue to operate with determination against Hezbollah, accusing the Iran-backed terror group of deliberately attacking Israel on Tehrans behalf. IDF vehicles and tanks are transported on trucks along a road near the northern border with Lebanon, March 5, 2026 (credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90) Israel rejects Lebanese ceasefire proposal On Friday, Israel rebuffed a historic offer of direct talks from Lebanon, deeming it too little too late from a government that shares its goal of disarming Hezbollah but cannot act against the heavily armed Lebanese group without risking a civil war. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed the state's willingness to begin direct negotiations with Israel this week, seeking to secure an end to the conflict that erupted on March 2 when Hezbollah entered the regional war in support of its patron Iran. Advertisement Advertisement Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told the UN Security Council this week that Israel could not negotiate with Lebanon "while rockets are flying into our northern border," adding, "The time has come to decide: will Lebanon stick to declarations or actually act?" Reuters contributed to this report. JERUSALEM, March 14 (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon are expected to hold direct talks in the coming days, their first since the start of the Iran war that has drawn Lebanon deeper into conflict, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter. U.S. President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner will be involved in the talks that may be held in Paris or in Cyprus, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus confidant Ron Dermer leading the Israeli delegation, Haaretz said. The negotiations were expected to focus on ending fighting in Lebanon and disarming the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Haaretz said. Advertisement Advertisement Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost. A man stands atop the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike as a bulldozer clears debris in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar) via Associated Press Hezbollah opened fire on Israel on March 2 saying it was retaliating for the killing of Irans supreme leader at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israel has since launched an extensive bombing campaign against the powerful Lebanese armed group, which has killed more than 770 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, while Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets across the border. Politics: Israels Dangerous War Against Iran Is Escalating With Donald Trumps Tacit Blessing (Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Toby Chopra) Global Updates Read the original on HuffPost According to the report, Israel plans to seize the entire area south of the Litani River and dismantle Hezbollah's military infrastructure, in what officials say would "be like Gaza." Israel is planning a large-scale invasion of southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah's assets south of the Litani River, Axios reported on Friday, citing Israeli and US officials. According to the report, Israeli officials are planning an operation in which the military would seize the entire area south of the Litani River and dismantle Hezbollah's military infrastructure, which would be the largest one performed in Lebanon since the 2006 war. Advertisement Advertisement "We are going to do what we did in Gaza," a senior Israeli official told Axios. According to the report, the offensive was planned after Hezbollah's attack against Israel, where more than 200 rockets were fired against the country in coordination with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). "Before this attack, we were ready for a ceasefire in Lebanon, but after it, there is no way back from a massive operation," the report explained, citing senior Israeli officials. "The goal is to take over territory, push Hezbollah's forces north and away from the border, and dismantle its military positions and weapons depots in the villages," the official said. People stand at the scene where a house was hit by a Hezbollah missile fired toward central Israel, March 12, 2026 (credit: MICHAEL GILADI/FLASH90) IDF holds off on Lebanon invasion as Katz pushes for offensive action The Axios report contradicts statements that the IDF told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, with the military not in favor of launching a full invasion of Lebanon, despite the Hezbollah attack. Advertisement Advertisement Despite Hezbollah firing over 200 rockets overnight (compared to at most 100 per day until now during this conflict) and an increased pace in drone attacks, the IDF still views Iran as the central theater of the current multifront war, with Lebanon being a secondary front mainly to prevent any attacks from Hezbollah and to keep the terror group on its back feet. According to the IDF, the results of air defenses and military coordination versus Hezbollah's larger attack on Wednesday night were mixed. Less than an hour after the IDF told the Post it was not considering a ground offensive, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement that seemed to threaten an imminent invasion. Katz, on behalf of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that he had warned Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that if the Lebanese military did not crack down on Hezbollah rocket fire on Israel, the IDF would launch a larger invasion in Lebanon to bring down the rocket fire. Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report. JERUSALEM (AP) Israel's military on Thursday said it was dropping charges against five soldiers accused of beating and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an alleged assault partially caught on camera. The decision, which came as much of the countrys attention was focused on the war with Iran, closed a flashpoint case that has bitterly divided Israel since the soldiers were arrested in 2024 at the notorious Sde Teiman military prison, prompting anger from members of the far-right government and hard-line ultranationalists who violently overran the prison in protest. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the announcement, while human rights groups accused the military of ignoring one of the gravest instances of abuse in the countrys network of wartime prisons. Advertisement Advertisement Israels military advocate general just gave his soldiers license to rape -- so long as the victim is Palestinian, said Sari Bashi, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, after the case was dismissed. She said the decision was the latest in a long line of actions that whitewash abuses against detainees whose frequency and severity have worsened since Oct. 7, 2023. Netanyahu welcomed the decision, saying that the state of Israel must pursue its enemies, not its heroic fighters. The now-dismissed indictment against the soldiers accused them of an assault that included dragging a Palestinian prisoner along the floor, stepping on him, tasering him, and sexually assaulting him by stabbing him in the rectum. The Palestinian was taken to an Israeli hospital with fractured ribs and a perforated rectum that required surgery before he was returned to the prison. The allegations of abuse at the facility gained steam when, in August 2024, Israeli news broadcast a leaked video of the alleged assault. Advertisement Advertisement The video showed a group of masked soldiers wresting a detainee from the ground, where he and other Palestinians were lying face down and handcuffed in a fenced-in pen, and taking the detainee to an area of the pen they cordoned off using shields. In its Thursday decision dismissing the case, the militarys top legal officers said the charges against the soldiers were being dropped because the video did not show abuse violent enough to merit a criminal conviction and had been improperly leaked to the media. The decision added that the Palestinian victim had since been released back to Gaza, creating an absence of certainty he would be able to testify in a trial. In November 2025, after much speculation about how the leaked video got out, Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi the top legal official in the military admitted that she had approved its release, saying she had wanted to show how serious the abuse was and convince people the military had a duty to investigate. Facing an uproar from Netanyahus government, she abruptly resigned and then disappeared, only to be found phoneless on a Tel Aviv beach after a frantic search by authorities. The phone, believed to hold possible evidence against her, was later recovered in the sea. Advertisement Advertisement The Associated Press investigated allegations of inhumane treatment and abuse at Sde Teiman before the surveillance video. The prison was set up after Oct. 7, 2023, to hold Palestinians rounded up in Gaza during Israels war against the Hamas militant group. The secretive facility quickly gained notoriety as employees and Palestinians freed from detention described scenes of abuse and torture and Israeli rights groups petitioned the countrys top court for it to be shuttered. Israel has long been accused of failing to hold its soldiers accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians. The allegations have intensified during the war in Gaza. Israel says its forces act within military and international law and says it thoroughly investigates any alleged abuses. Since Italy became a country in 1861, there has been a surefire way to know who is and isnt an Italian citizen: look at their parents. The first page of the civil code, published in 1865 as the rulebook to Europes newest country, declared that a child born to an Italian citizen was an Italian citizen. This founding tenet of the Bel Paese now looks set to change ending diaspora dreams of returning to the mother country, and meaning that Italians who move abroad risk denying citizenship to their descendants. Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday the Constitutional Court said it would rule in favor of the government and its controversial 2025 law that restricted citizenship for those born abroad. The law issued last March via emergency decree had been challenged by four judges, who questioned its constitutionality. Now, after the first of four hearings was held on Wednesday, a statement issued by the court indicates it will support the governments position. The Constitutional Court has declared the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Turin court partially unfounded and partially inadmissible, the court announced. It is expected to release a detailed verdict within the coming weeks. The announcement will be a devastating blow for those who believed the court would uphold Italys 160-year history of citizenship by descent, or ius sanguinis. Advertisement Advertisement It was an extremely clear, harsh intervention, so I had a hope that it would be judged in breach of some constitutional points, but that wasnt recognized by the court, professor Corrado Caruso, one of the lawyers who made a case against the new law, told CNN. Italys citizenship rules have been bound up with its diaspora since the country was formed. Previously, Italians who moved abroad could pass citizenship to their children as long as they didnt renounce or lose it, often by acquiring another nationality. What many now see as the country of the dolce vita was once an impoverished nation that, between 1861 and 1918, saw 16 million citizens emigrate for a better life. Many who left out of necessity rather than volition considered themselves Italian for life, and chose to retain their citizenship while living and working abroad meaning that citizenship, along with cultural traditions, was passed down the generations. The Italian Constitutional Court's decision supports a new law introduced last year by the Italian government. - Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto/AP Established in 1865, the principle of ius sanguinis was confirmed in Italys first targeted citizenship law in 1912, which added a clause stipulating that Italians born and residing abroad would retain their citizenship, and then again in a law in 1992. Advertisement Advertisement However, a law introduced on March 28 last year by emergency decree states that only those with a parent or grandparent born in Italy will be recognized as citizens. It also effectively outlaws dual citizenship for the diaspora, as that parent or grandparent must have held solely Italian citizenship at the time of their descendants birth, or at their own death if it came earlier. It was politically huge There have long been complaints on both sides about foreign-born descendants acquiring citizenship. For those born abroad, obtaining recognition is a long and costly process. They must source birth, marriage and death certificates from their ancestors hometowns (which can take years, at a cost of up to 300 euros per document), prove that nobody in their ancestral line lost their citizenship, then win an appointment at their local consulate, where waiting lists can stretch to 10 years if they are able to get a spot on it. Hiring a lawyer to sue the government can speed up the process, but costs can run to the tens of thousands of euros for a family. Advertisement Advertisement Whats more, women were not able to transmit citizenship until 1948, meaning descendants of Italian women who gave birth before then are blocked from recognition. Since 2009 many have successfully sued the state for gender discrimination if they can afford it. They too have now seen the door slammed shut. Meanwhile, Italys regional courts are clogged with thousands of citizenship cases, while consulates are inundated by applications. Between 2014 and 2024, the number of Italian citizens residing abroad increased from 4.6 million to 6.4 million, Italys foreign ministry said at the time of passing the decree. Argentinas Italian consulates processed 30,000 applications in 2024, up by 10,000 from the previous year. The granting of citizenship was perceived as problematic for various reasons, said Caruso, who is a professor of law at Bologna University. There were lots of requests, the consulates couldnt keep up. There was an idea that descendants had tenuous links to Italy over time. They were considered to not take part in civil duties they werent in the country, they didnt pay tax. Whats more, there was a geopolitical question. These citizens could move around the world on their Italian passports, so maybe there was some pressure from Italys historical allies. Advertisement Advertisement I wasnt optimistic about our chances, because I could tell that the government and their lawyers felt extremely strongly about this reform. It was politically huge. So there were interests at stake. Citizenship by descent has not always been so unpopular. At the Tokyo Olympics, 12% of the Italian national team were born abroad, including 10 in the US. And three months before introducing the new decree, Argentinas right-wing president Javier Milei, an ally of prime minister Giorgia Meloni, was granted citizenship by descent on a state visit to Italy. A shrinking population While Italy slams the door on its diaspora, the country continues to deal with a shrinking and ageing population. In 2024, a record 155,732 Italians emigrated, and over half a million residents left the country between 2020 and 2024. Most emigrants left from Sicily, where enterprising local authorities have tried to redress the balance by tempting back Italian descendants from abroad. In Mussomeli, a town known for its one-euro homes project, Argentinian doctors were recruited to staff the ailing local hospital. Such projects will no longer be possible under the new citizenship restrictions. Advertisement Advertisement This has cut loose a vast number of descendants who had requested recognition but hadnt been given an appointment, said Caruso. There is now disparity within nuclear families. One sibling might have citizenship, but another couldnt get the same treatment. Sicily has been appealing to members of the Italian diaspora to return after years of depopulation. - Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images The states legal counsel successfully argued that descendants who had, until now, been considered to have been born citizens, were in fact born with the expectation of citizenship and if they hadnt officially claimed it by 2025, they had a fictitious link with the country and had lost their right to it. Verdicts of the constitutional court cannot be appealed and Caruso was downbeat. I dont want to lose hope, he said. Maybe its not the end of the war but it will be a difficult war. Although the constitutional court still has the two other referrals to consider, he believes that descendants last hope will be at EU courts. Anyone whos already filed their case should ask the judge to refer it to Luxembourg, he said, adding that he did not advise anyone who had yet to file to go ahead. A long battle Not everyone is so downbeat, however. Another citizenship lawyer, Marco Mellone, told CNN that things could still change. Advertisement Advertisement This doesnt mean the new law is 100% valid and forever, he said. There is still space for argument for cases brought by Italian judges to the constitutional court. In July 2025, the constitutional court issued a judgment saying that descendants had a right to Italian citizenship at birth, from birth. They changed their opinion I suppose. It is very weird. Mellone plans to take aim at the new law in his separate April 14 hearing at the Court of Cassation, Italys highest legal authority, whose opinion trumps that of the constitutional court. This is a very sad day for millions of people, but I didnt study law for 25 years to see this kind of thing happen, he said. Descendants were born Italian citizens. If you are a citizen at birth, you have a right that nobody can touch. You cant say, what I said when you were born was not true, youre not an Italian citizen anymore. You cant say, I was joking. This is the first step in a long battle. He advised that descendants with a case already going through the courts should request a postponement until the fall. For those who havent yet filed, he suggested waiting. Advertisement Advertisement With this judgment itll be much more work for lawyers now than before, but Im still confident, he said. A little less confident than last week. But while the battle is lost, the war is not. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Mar. 14The following stories from this week appeared on www.jamestownsun.com and in The Jamestown Sun. The Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corp. Board of Directors unanimously approved on Monday, March 9, the deobligation of Flex PACE funds for 2023, 2024 and 2025. If approved by the Jamestown City Council, the city will get more than $434,000 from 2023 and 2024. Alyssa Looysen, business development director, said JSDC staff saw the amount being deobligated to the city of Jamestown needed to be adjusted. The prior amount was more than $461,000 that the city would receive. Advertisement Advertisement If the Jamestown City Council and Stutsman County Commission approve the deobligation of 2025 Flex PACE funds, the city will get more than $241,000 while the county will receive over $60,000. Looysen said projects approved for Flex PACE funding in 2025 won't be funded for a while. The Jamestown Parks and Recreation Commission unanimously approved on Monday, March 9, advertising for qualified architectural and engineering firms for comprehensive capital improvement planning . A comprehensive planning process indicated that the Jamestown Parks and Recreation District is looking at $33 million in deferred maintenance, said Amy Walters, executive director of the district. Advertisement Advertisement Walters estimated the cost would range between $35,000 to $50,000 for qualified architectural and engineering firms to help with comprehensive capital improvement planning. She said that estimated cost is not in the 2026 operating budget, but the district has about $3 million available through reserve funds and carryover dollars. "We would bring that recommendation then back to you (commission), and we would know a cost before we would enter into a contract," she said. Walters said the committee that worked on the district's comprehensive plan would help with the comprehensive capital improvement plan. A 21-year-old Jamestown woman was arrested Wednesday, March 11, after she Advertisement Advertisement allegedly assaulted a Jamestown police officer , according to Scott Edinger, chief of police. At about 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 11, Jamestown police officers were dispatched to 904 Thomas Ave. for a welfare check. The first responding officer on scene knocked on the apartment door and was met by Emily Leona Sather, who lunged at the officer and punched the officer in the face at least two times, Edinger said. After a short struggle, the officer was able to draw a Taser, subdue Sather and place her in handcuffs, he said. Sather was transported to Jamestown Regional Medical Center by Jamestown Area Ambulance and was later transferred to the North Dakota State Hospital, Edinger said. He said reports are being forwarded to the Stutsman County State's Attorney Office for formal charges. Advertisement Advertisement The officer was treated for bruises and cuts at JRMC and has returned to duty, Edinger said. A 38-year-old Jamestown man is facing a felony charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon after he allegedly punched a woman and cut her face with a knife, according to court documents. Gilbert David Balderas faces formal charges of aggravated assault, a Class C felony, and assault and false information or report to law enforcement, Class A misdemeanors. Balderas is accused of causing bodily injury to another person with a knife, striking the person in the mouth causing a chipped tooth, and giving false information or a false report to a law enforcement officer about the location of a knife on Wednesday, March 11. Advertisement Advertisement Balderas made his initial appearance on Wednesday in Southeast District Court in Jamestown. His preliminary hearing and/or arraignment is scheduled for April 1. Balderas was released from the Stutsman County Correctional Center on Thursday, March 12, on a $500 bond. St. Johns A Hmong refugee detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than five months last year cleared a significant legal hurdle in court Friday in his bid to solidify his legal status in the U.S. Clinton County Circuit Court Judge Cori Barkman ruled an October 2025 pardon handed down by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Lue Yang for a decades-old crime voided his original conviction a court order that should clear Yang's record in the eyes of federal immigration officials. Quoting century-old case law, Barkman noted that a governor's pardon blots out of the existence of guilt and releases the punishment. Advertisement Advertisement "So that in the eye of the law, the offender is innocent as if he had never committed the offense," Barkman said in affirming that Yang's conviction was vacated. "The court feels it is bound by that precedent." With the vacation of Yang's 1997 conviction on Friday, Barkman removed one of the last impediments to Yang's legal status in the U.S., though the judge was clear that her decision was based solely on state law and not the immigration issues surrounding his case. "The pardon gives him the path to become a U.S. citizen in the federal system, and that's why we're here today," attorney Nancy Xiong told a crowd of about three dozen supporters outside the courtroom after Friday's hearing. "Thank you for your support. It's been an emotional roller coaster for all of us." It is still possible that Clinton County Prosecutor Tony Spagnuolo could appeal Barkman's decision to the Court of Appeals. He declined to comment after the hearing. Advertisement Advertisement During the hearing, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Aidan Sprague-Rice argued that the governor's pardon did not vacate the underlying conduct that led to Yang's 1997 conviction, nor did it call into question the validity of that conviction. "It appears kind of transparent that what the defendant is doing here is seeking to use a state judicial process, what were doing, to erase a historical record of misconduct to avoid immigration consequences," Sprague-Rice said. Yang entered the U.S. as a toddler refugee in 1979 after his father, a Hmong soldier, fought on behalf of the U.S. in the 1970s during the Vietnam War. More: Hmong refugee in Michigan remains in legal limbo after pardon stopped his deportation Advertisement Advertisement The Hmong are an ethnic group that migrated from southern China to northern Laos centuries ago. During the Vietnam conflict, the CIA trained thousands of Hmong soldiers to fight against communism and the North Vietnamese in what's known as the Secret War in Laos. Yang's father, who also resides in Michigan, was one of dozens of Hmong soldiers and their families who were given refuge in the U.S. after the war. Years after migrating to the U.S., in 1997, Yang took a plea deal related to a home burglary in which his friends broke into a home while he remained in the vehicle. The second-degree attempted home invasion conviction affected his legal status in the U.S. and a final order of removal was entered in his immigration file in 2002. At the time, Laos would not take Hmong refugees back nor recognize them as Laotian citizens. So Yang remained in the U.S. for more than two decades, meeting quarterly with ICE agents who renewed his work permit for 23 years. He became a leader in Michigan's Hmong community and had his record expunged in 2018, but that state-level expungement was not recognized by the federal government. On the morning of July 15, ICE agents showed up to his workplace in St. Johns to arrest him based on the effect the 1997 conviction had on his status. He remained in detention for more than five months, bouncing between holding sites, while his family and community worked for his relief. Advertisement Advertisement In October, Whitmer pardoned Yang, issuing a "full and unconditional" clemency order that gave his lawyers a real chance to stop his deportation. Federal law provides that deportation for a criminal conviction can be stopped by a gubernatorial pardon. Yang returned home to St. Johns on Dec. 3, but the 1997 conviction remained on his record and impeded his legal status in the eyes of the federal government. Xiong and attorney Greg Przybylo asked Clinton County to vacate his conviction on two grounds: One, in which they argued the governor's pardon effectively vacated the 1997 conviction; and second, in which they cited federal case law that found immigrants who took plea deals without being told of the effect on their immigration status should have those convictions overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that such defendants' ignorance of a plea deal's effect on their legal status amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. But the high court left it to the states to decide whether the 2010 ruling applied retroactively to cases like Yang's that predated the opinion. Advertisement Advertisement The Michigan Supreme Court has never considered retroactive application and Yang's lawyers, with his permission, were hoping to use his case to unlock retroactivity for other Michigan immigrants who took similar pleas and are now facing deportation threats. Yang's lawyers noted in case filings that they had even asked Whitmer to certify the question to the Michigan Supreme Court. The governor does not appear to have done so, leaving the question for Barkman to decide on Friday. Barkman found that a precedent prevented her from establishing the retroactive effect of the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, and instead relied on the governor's pardon to vacate Yang's conviction. There's still a chance the issue of retroactivity could be raised again in Yang's case should it be appealed by Spagnuolo, said Greg Przybylo, one of Yang's attorneys. Or, he said, there are several similar cases in Michigan where attorneys could try to bring a plea to the state high court. Advertisement Advertisement "What we're trying to do is resurrect this argument in the state of Michigan, that it was inappropriate for this decision of the U.S. Supreme Court not to be retroactively applied," Przybylo said. After the hearing, Lue Yang and his wife, Ann Yang, thanked attorneys and supporters the roughly three dozen present in the courtroom and countless others who were afraid to come forward in the current immigration climate. "This sort of time, the support from our allies, our neighbors, our friends, is so important," Ann Yang said. "If we looked in the courtroom today, Lue is loved by many." eleblanc@detroitnews.com Advertisement Advertisement Staff Writer Melissa Nann Burke contributed. Want to comment on this story? Become a subscriber today. Click here. This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan judge voids 1997 conviction against Hmong refugee held by ICE For the fourth time in recent years, legislation that would transfer the ownership of the Shawnee Indian Mission historic site in Johnson County to a Native American nation has stalled out in the Kansas Legislature. This time around, a different tribes request to assume ownership of the present-day Fairway site received a cold reception in Topeka. Senate Bill 518 calls for the Kansas Historical Society to convey the nearly 12-acre site over to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. Sen. Adam Thomas, a Republican who represents Spring Hill, parts of Gardner and Olathe, introduced the bill on behalf of the Prairie Band Potawatomi. Advertisement Advertisement Similar to last years bill, SB 518 would restrict gambling or gaming on the property and require the Potawatomi Nation to provide a report every two years for a 10-year period to the Legislatures joint committee on state-tribal relations regarding rehabilitation efforts on the site and consultation with other tribes impacted by the sites history. This action is essential and an overdue step toward justice, healing and honoring the sovereign relationship between the state of Kansas and Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairman Joseph Rupnick said at a hearing on the new bill earlier this month. That hearing featured a parade of opponents testifying against the bill, including the executive director of the Kansas Historical Society and Johnson County officials. The hearing ended with the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee asking Rupnick to sit down with the Kansas Historical Society to discuss an alternative path forward that would preserve state ownership of the Mission. The bill has not received further attention from lawmakers in the waning days of the 2026 legislative session. Historic ties Originally located near Turner in present day Kansas City, Kansas, the Shawnee Indian Mission moved to present day Fairway in 1839, where a branch of the Santa Fe Trail passed through Shawnee land. Advertisement Advertisement The former boarding school was established by Rev. Thomas Johnson for whom Johnson County is named and housed students from at least 22 tribes, requiring them to perform manual labor and assimilate into white Christian culture. The Mission also served as barracks for Union troops during the Civil War, and a field hospital was set up there during the battle of Westport. Ownership has been a point of tension and debate for several years. Before SB 518, the Shawnee Tribe attempted several times to obtain ownership of the site, claiming that the states ownership has left the three remaining buildings deteriorating, and that the historical interpretation offered in exhibits on site leaves out key pieces to the sites history. Sen.Thomas, who introduced the bill, did not respond to The Stars request for comment about why he introduced the bill or why the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation was selected, instead of the Shawnee Tribe, for ownership. In 2023, when he was a member of the House, Thomas introduced a bill that would have transferred ownership of the site to the Shawnee Tribe. Advertisement Advertisement While the school operated on Shawnee land, its impacts fell on many tribal nations whose families were forcibly moved to Kansas, including the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Rupnick said. Tribal children across the region were taken from their homes, families and forced into institutions where assimilation was prioritized over care. The Shawnee Tribe said in a statement that it fully supports the bill and ownership transfer to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. Those currently responsible for the care and maintenance of this national landmark have failed in their duty to protect this sacred place and have repeatedly demonstrated a hostility to treating it with the respect and dignity it deserves, the tribe said in a statement. Representatives of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation couldnt be reached to comment on the tribes interest in the site nor its specific plans for the site if the bill passes. This is one of several historic buildings at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway. (Star file photo) The apex of history Currently, the Kansas Historical Society owns the site, the city of Fairway oversees its daily operations and The Shawnee Indian Mission conducts fundraising. Its one of 16 historic sites in the state and the second-most visited site in Kansas, with 12,000 visitors per year, according to state data. Advertisement Advertisement The only historic site busier than the Shawnee Indian Mission is the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka. Within the last year, Fairway oversaw completion of new roofs on the north and west buildings, Fairway City Administrator Nathan Nogelmeier said. In the fall of 2025, the historical society earned a $412,500 grant to help open the west building, which has never been open to the public. The foundation is raising money for a local match. To develop more educational opportunities at the site, Nogelmeier said that the city invited more than 80 tribes, including the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, to be a part of the work. Both of those meetings were attended by representatives from the Potawatomi Nation. So, outside of that, we know that some of the Prairie Band Potawatomi members have come to the Mission just on their own to learn about the site, he said. But outside of that, weve had no other formal conversations with the Prairie Band Potawatomi. Advertisement Advertisement Similar to previous bills, Fairway officials remain concerned about public access and accountability for the sites management, Nogelmeier said. This land is important to a lot of people and when you look at the possibility of taking the site out of the publics hands and in a private group, you risk losing that connection, Nogelmeier said. This is considered the apex of history here in the region and that needs to be preserved for everybody to see. (The bill) just reaffirmed there are a lot of different people who believe this is important so why should the state give it to one party? The Shawnee Indian Mission state historic site sits on both sides of the road at 3403 W. 53rd St. in Fairway. (Tammy Ljungblad/tljungblad@kcstar.com) A shared agreement? The question of shared ownership came up during the Senate Committees discussion. Advertisement Advertisement Holly Zane, an enrolled citizen and former general counsel for the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and longtime volunteer at the historic site, said she opposed the bill because no one tribe should be in charge of preserving the sites history and telling its many stories. You think they can rep my history, my culture? They cant. That Mission has not only my history and 24 tribes altogether, Zane Told lawmakers. If you decide to pass this bill, you have victimized us. You have taken our history thats so sacred. Larry Alley, a Winfield Republican who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee asked if the Potawatomi Nation would consider an agreement among the tribes, foundation and Historical Society to give the nations significant space to document your history and maintain that history. Rupnick, the Potowatomis chairman, responded by saying that would be something they would have to try and hammer out. Advertisement Advertisement There has to be some sort of an agreement that makes sure that we are not erased, the sacrifices there were not erased. Part of that was built by our kids backs, he said. Our labor was (what) made those buildings, so we want to make sure that we have a very strong voice in whatever is adopted or pushed forward. A representative for the Kansas Historical Society said Friday afternoon that no such meeting has taken place yet I believe it will happen, but there is no tentative date, said Caryn Kramer, the historical societys executive assistant. TOPEKA Kansas is the only state where eligibility for the Childrens Health Insurance Program is tied to 2008. The government-funded program that provides low-cost insurance for children who dont quite meet Medicaid income requirements is determined by whether a family makes under 250% the federal poverty level from 2008. Yes, 2008 18 years ago. Back then, the federal poverty level for a family of four was $21,200 annually. In 2026, it is $33,000. Advertisement Advertisement Band-Aid fixes over the past few years have addressed the problem, but a bill that secured unanimous 40-0 Senate approval officially ditches the 2008 provision. The House passed an amended version 119-0. The bill changes eligibility to anyone making under 250% the current federal poverty level. Eligibility will therefore expand from a family of four making under $53,000 to under $82,500. As costs continue to rise, this eligibility limit will get progressively lower, and the number of children denied eligibility will continue to grow, placing a burden on our members who see all patients, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, Robert Stiles, CEO of Community Care Network of Kansas wrote in his testimony. As of March 2026, more than 57,000 Kansas were enrolled in CHIP and 15,000 in the Medicare-CHIP hybrid. A majority of children in the United States rely on CHIP or Medicaid at some point before turning 18. Proponents of the bill say this fix has been a long time coming. Advertisement Advertisement Legislation has been introduced to change the 2008 limit since 2022. Most of them never made it out of committee, and the only one that did was never heard by a chamber. Senate Bill 271 is the first to gain momentum and bipartisan momentum at that. Heather Braum, a senior policy adviser at Kansas Action for Children, testified in favor of all the proposals. Multiple bills have been introduced that would address this issue so Kansas families are on an even playing field with every other state in the country so that Kansas children wont fall through the cracks and lose health insurance coverage if this issue is inadvertently omitted from the budget, Braum wrote in her testimony. However, those previous bills did not make it across the finish line. Rep. Suzanne Wikle, a Democrat from Lawrence on the House Health and Human Services Committee said in an interview the top priority for the bill is to ensure it doesnt lose ground. The House committee passed the bill on the same day it was heard. Advertisement Advertisement Proponents said the law is a commonsense fix, especially when data shows that children who have access to health care have a higher quality of life. Data from the federal Head Start program shows they have better school attendance, are more engaged and are better-prepared for school. CHIP is a federal-state collaboration and falls under the KanCare umbrella. The federal government funds the majority of the program. How far CHIP extends is largely up to Kansas. The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee the first of the two committees to hear the bill added an amendment to expand coverage for pregnant Kansas minors. It also added an amendment to make the premium a sliding-fee per child, but that was amended to per family on the Senate floor. The details of the bill are still in flux, and legislative text would be hammered out after it passes the House. The bill had no opponents in either committee hearing. The representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, on Saturday reiterated that Indian vessels would be allowed to pass through the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia. Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi responded affirmatively, "Of course, of course. Yes," when asked whether Indian ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait. When asked to elaborate on the matter, Ilahi said, "I heard that our embassy tried to provide an opportunity for some Indian ships to cross the Strait of Hormuz." The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Due to the conflict in the region, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply. Ilahi further said that the special concessions for India on the passage of vessels were a reflection of the Indian public showing solidarity with the Iranian regime against what he described as "oppression" by the US and its allies. "I can say the majority of Indian people are with Iran. They condemned the oppression. They follow justice. And they don't want war. Even I can say they are against the war," he said. He further claimed that the Iranian leadership had been informed about expressions of sympathy from people in India and said Tehran was mindful of India's energy needs. "They (Indians) show their loyalty to the oppressed people. Even with the children of the girls' school, which is attacked by the United States, they show their sympathy, their solidarity. We informed our people in Iran of the sympathy and solidarity of our brothers and sisters in India. And we said that now also they are suffering from a shortage of gas and a shortage of petrol, and we have to provide for them and help them and support them," Ilahi added. He also noted that the Iranian embassy had attempted several times to assist in resolving the issue for the "dear brothers and sisters in India". Earlier today, two Indian flagged vessels carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were granted transit through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian authorities. One of them is the Shivalik, which, as per the Vessel traffic monitoring site marinetraffic, was last reported to be in the Gulf of Oman and expected to reach its destination by March 21. (ANI) Mar. 13FARGO A woman chosen to lead the Episcopal faithful in North Dakota experienced an abrupt welcome to North Dakota from Kansas in January. Soon after arriving, the Very Rev. Shay Craig had to overcome a few non-spiritual barriers. "I got the flu, and then I got Covid, and then I busted up my knee snowshoeing, so North Dakota is giving me a hard time," she said, with a laugh. Craig is expecting better times ahead, as she becomes the 12th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota and the first woman in the role. Advertisement Advertisement Consecration is set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 14, at Gethsemane Cathedral in Fargo. Bishop Sean Rowe, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church since 2024, will preside. Craig will lead 18 congregations across North Dakota, as well as one across the Red River in Moorhead. She was first selected to a slate of four candidates, and at the Episcopal Diocese convention in the Standing Rock Reservation last October, was elected by a majority of lay and clergy present on the first ballot. Her election also needed the blessing of majorities of standing committees of all dioceses and bishops who have jurisdiction in the Episcopal Church, which meant a short wait. Advertisement Advertisement "There was a little period of time where I was in a cold sweat," she said. Being the first woman in this role in North Dakota is familiar to Craig. She was the first female priest at Christ Cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas in Salina, Kansas, and its first female dean, which is the chief clergy of a cathedral. Her aunt, the late Bishop Judith Craig, was the third female to serve in that role in the Methodist Church. "I've always banged my head against the stained glass ceiling, and I've always found it to be willing to let me in," she said. The Episcopal Church is known, in part, for its progressive social stances, including its view of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants and ordination of women. Advertisement Advertisement "I experience a lot more attention because of the nature of the Episcopal Church than because of my gender," Craig said. She gave an example from the 2025 inauguration of President Donald Trump, when Bishop Mariann Budde directly urged the president to "have mercy" on vulnerable populations. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised near San Francisco, Craig is the granddaughter of western Kansas ranchers and Missouri farmers, according to biographical information provided to The Forum. She was first welcomed into the Episcopal Church in California at age 6, and after college, moved to Chicago, where she married and raised four children. Advertisement Advertisement She earned a Master of Theological Studies in Hebrew Bible from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and was ordained a priest in 2018. Her most recent leadership role was as dean of Christ Cathedral in Salina. Craig is married to John Houston, an assistant general counsel for the Kansas Supreme Court Office of Judicial Administration. Living in Minot, Craig said her objective is to be able to reach any one of the congregations in North Dakota in less than a day. The largest congregations are Gethsemane and St. Stephen's, both in Fargo, and St. John the Divine in Moorhead. There are also strong churches in Jamestown, Bismarck and Grand Forks, she said. Advertisement Advertisement The bulk of her time will be spent with rural churches and those on Native American reservations. "Congregations in the smaller towns are seeking to understand themselves as a resource for their community and as a presence of the Holy One in their communities. That's something that they called me to help them with," she said. All traditional churches are seeing a reduction in resources and members, Craig said, and are seeking answers for how to operate over the next few decades. "These people, these churches, I believe, are uniquely equipped to be those trendsetters in our denomination," she said. ELKHART Melissa D. Kauffman has announced her candidacy for Indiana House District 21, launching an independent campaign focused on restoring trust in government, protecting taxpayers and ensuring elected officials remain accountable to the people they serve. Running on a platform rooted in fiscal responsibility, ethical leadership and term limits, Kauffman said the decision to enter the race came from a deep belief that Hoosiers deserve representation grounded in integrity not politics as usual. Government works best when it answers to the people not special interests, not political insiders and not career politicians, Kauffman said. Im running to bring transparency back to the Statehouse, safeguard taxpayer dollars, and ensure every decision is made with the best interests of our communities in mind. Advertisement Advertisement House District 21 is held by Republican incumbent Tim Wesco. A former Republican now running as an independent, Kauffman describes her campaign as a return to traditional, commonsense values: responsible budgeting, strong oversight, open government and leadership free from conflicts of interest. Across Indiana and here in District 21, families are seeing their utility bills rise faster than their paychecks. At the same time, utility companies continue to pour large amounts of money into political campaigns in Indianapolis. Hoosiers deserve to know that their elected officials are working for the people who pay the bills not the companies sending the campaign checks. Im running as an Independent to bring transparency, accountability, and fair utility rates back to the people of District 21. When utility rates keep going up, Hoosiers deserve representatives who stand with the families paying the bills not the companies raising them. Kauffman said. Drawing from her personal experience as a single parent who understands financial hardship firsthand, Kauffman emphasized that her background gives her a practical perspective many career politicians lack. Advertisement Advertisement I wasnt handed opportunity I worked for it, she said. I know what it means to stretch a paycheck, make tough decisions, and put family first. The people of District 21 deserve a representative who understands their daily realities and will fight for policies that strengthen families not government bureaucracy. Kauffman lives in Baugo Township between Elkhart and Osceola. She plans a public Meet the Candidate event and Listen Tour stop where supporters can sign the ballot petition, learn more about the campaign, become supporters, and have an opportunity to talk about their concerns on April 4, with the location details to be announced by March 28. More information: kauffmanforindiana.godaddysites.com or on Facebook at Kauffman For Indiana. The email is kauffman4indiana @gmail.com. On Friday the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office responded to a welfare check in the Denver area, which turned into a kidnapping investigation. Amber White was arrested and charged with kidnapping after leaving a residence with three juveniles, including a child who did not belong to her. The sheriffs office tracked the suspects movements through surveillance footage and the departments Flock camera system, leading to her arrest at a Motel 6 in Charlotte. Advertisement Advertisement ALSO READ: Man accused of attempting to kidnap girls at Walmart faces multiple charges The child was safely returned to a guardian, and the other two children were released to their grandparents. White is being held without bond back in Lincoln County. WATCH: Calm Eagle Scout outsmarts accused fake cop, escapes kidnapping A powerful Kona-low storm pounded Hawaii on Friday with torrential rain and damaging winds, knocking out power to more than 130, 000 customers and triggering flash flooding across Oahu as rising water behind the Wahiawa Reservoir dam prompted urgent evacuation warnings and fears of catastrophic downstream flooding. A flash flood warning was in effect for Oahu late Friday night, with flood watches continuing statewidethrough today on Kauai, tonight on Oahu, and into Sunday for Maui County and Hawaii island as the system shifts east. Forecasters say additional heavy showers, strong winds and thunderstorms are likely. Oahu could see another 1 to 2 inches of rain, while Maui County and Hawaii island may get 2 to 4 inches more as the heaviest bands slide east through the weekend. Gusts near 70 mph have already toppled trees and power lines. Officials urge residents to stay off roads, prepare to evacuate if orderedespecially downstream of the Wahiawa Reservoirand conserve water amid widespread outages. The storm is expected to begin easing Sunday and really calming down by midweek. Advertisement Advertisement Gov. Josh Green warned conditions could worsen into Friday night. Our state has over 10 inches of rain already, and we could get as many as 6 or 8 inches more in several places, he said. People need to understand that the flooding that were having already could still get worse. Officials are closely monitoring the Wahiawa Reservoir dam, where water levels are rising amid the intense rainfall. As of Friday afternoon, the reservoir was reported at about 82.8 feet. If the level reaches 85 feet, evacuations may be necessary in nearby communities including Haleiwa and Waialua, Green said. At 88 feet, youve got a big problem, the governor said, noting water cannot be allowed to spill over the dam due to potential structural risks. So we have to, long before that, get people out of the area. Advertisement Advertisement Dr. Randal Collins, director of the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management, said the dam would reach failure and breach at 90 feet. There is a risk of dam failure, Collins said in a Friday news conference. A failure could send water downstream fast and lead to catastrophic flooding. The City and County of Honolulu issued an evacuation warning around 7 p.m. for areas below the dam, urging residents to be ready to leaveor to go now if they need more time or feel unsafe. Rising water earlier prompted an immediate evacuation of nearby Otake Camp at 2 :40 p.m. Strong winds, rain Rain totals have already been significant across the islands. As of 7 :45 p.m. Friday, Kauai had recorded an average of about 4.8 inches, while Oahu saw 5.4 inches. On Maui, about 5.3 inches fell in Kula. Officials said that Hawaii island is expected to face the heaviest impacts over the next 48 hours. Advertisement Advertisement More than 10 inches of rain had fallen across parts of the state in 24 hours as of 8 p.m. Friday, with more than 16.31 inches on a summit in Mauirising nearly two inches in just 15 minutesand more than 12.63 inches in Kaala and 10.48 in Maunawili on Oahu. Kauai saw 7.04 inches in the North Wailua Ditch in the same time period. Hawaii island did not see significant rain on Friday, with the majority of the island seeing less than an inch of rain, and the heaviest rainfall at Nahuku with a little more than three inches. Strong winds also caused hazards statewide, with gusts reaching 70 miles per hour in some areas. That does a lot of damage, Green said. So thats dangerous. Advertisement Advertisement National Weather Service meteorologist Cole Evans told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that additional smaller storm systems to the southwest of the state may impact weather Friday evening through today, possibly bringing more heavy showers, strong winds and thunderstorms. Evans said the heaviest rain will move eastward toward Maui County and Hawaii island, but Oahu and Kauai will still see some scattered showers. Officials expect the storm to continue impacting Oahu overnight before shifting toward Maui County and Hawaii island through the weekend, leaving crews to assess damage and begin cleanup afterward. Evans told the Star Advertiser he expects the storm to begin to wind down Sunday before really calming down by midweek. Were still going to see some periods of heavy rain and strong winds, he said. That means flooding is possible, power outages as well, wind damage as well. Stay vigilant and be prepared for the worst. Brown water advisories were also issued on the west side of Oahu on Friday at Nanakuli Beach Park, Makaha Beach Park and Yokohama Bay, according to the Hawaii Department of Health. The agency also issued wastewater discharge advisories along 580 Lunalilo Home Road and 111 California Ave. Advertisement Advertisement The Honolulu Board of Water Supply is urging residents to conserve water and use it for essential uses only, such as drinking, cooking and hygiene due to power outages. Officials said electricity is required to pump water from wells and other sources to reservoirs, and that only the water already in reservoirs is available during power outages. All residents, especially those without power, should keep water use to an absolute minimum and should not fill containers at this time, the agency said. Outages and rescues As of 8 :30 p.m. Friday, the most recent update from Hawaiian Electric, more than 130, 000 customers were without power, including some 123, 000 customers on Oahu, about 5, 000 on Maui County and about 3, 600 on Hawaii island. Hawaiian Electric said crews will continue to work through the night to restore power as long as the weather is safe. Kauai saw far fewer power outages, with just 13 active outages as of 7 :45 p.m. Friday evening, according to the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. Outages also affected Honolulus Skyline, with serv ice temporarily suspended between east Kapolei and Waipahu around 2 :30 p.m. Friday. Advertisement Advertisement All five of Hawaiis commercial airports remain open, but many trans-Pacific flights have been canceled, transportation officials said. At sea, rough conditions prevented cargo vessels from entering port. A ship traveling from Los Angeles was unable to dock at Honolulu Harbor despite assistance from four tugboats and is expected to try again today. Similarly, a Young Brothers cargo vessel heading to Nawiliwili Harbor on Kauai was forced to delay entry due to high winds and wave energy. Emergency responders reported no fatalities as of Friday evening and credited crews with multiple rescues, including nine people pulled from under a bridge near Kaimuki High School when rising floodwater nearly swept them away. Advertisement Advertisement Transportation crews handled roughly 28 storm-related incidents, including about 15 large tree fallssome up to 10 feet in diametereight roadway flooding events and several landslides or debris flows, state Transportation Director Ed Sniffen said. On Kamehameha Highway near Kipapa Gulch, crews cleared debris after a rockfall bent protective fencing designed to catch falling rocks. Floodwaters also damaged a culvert near the H-1 westbound Pali Highway off-ramp, requiring repairs. Officials reminded drivers to treat dark traffic signals as four-way stops. Go slow, Sniffen said. Make sure we leave a lot of room to ensure that you can stop on a dime. Green urged residents to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, noting emergency services can be slowed by flooded streets and dangerous conditions. Advertisement Advertisement EMS is out there working, but sometimes EMS is even delayed when they have to drive through heavy water, he said. The governor also asked residents to reserve 911 calls for true emergencies, as operators have received a surge in calls during the storm. We have plenty of space in our hospitals, Green said. But transport can be difficult with storms like this. Maj. Gen. Stephen Logan said the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and National Guard were fully activated for the storm. About 70 National Guard service members have been deployed so far, with additional personnel available if needed. Tactical vehicles capable of driving through up to three feet of floodwater have been staged across the islands to assist with evacuations and rescues. Weve been preparing for this storm since Monday morning, Logan said on Friday. We are fully synchronized with our federal, state, county and private-sector partners. Ukraine's state oil and gas company Naftogaz, in partnership with the Foreign Ministry, held a briefing for ambassadors of 31 countries on March 14 to share details about the damage to the Druzhba pipeline. The briefing comes amid an escalating dispute between Kyiv and Budapest over the Ukrainian section of the pipeline, which delivered Russian crude to Hungary and Slovakia before it went offline in late January. Ukraine said the pipeline was damaged in a Russian attack, a claim Hungary denies. Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Perebyinis and Naftogaz CEO Serhii Koretskyi briefed diplomats from 31 countries, including Hungary, about the consequences of Russia's Jan. 27 attack, according to a Naftogaz press release. Advertisement Advertisement Specialists from Naftogaz reportedly presented technical information, including materials from the attack site, to provide a "comprehensive picture" of the damage caused to the Druzhba pipeline and its impact on the system's operations. "Restoring such infrastructure is a complex technological process that requires time, specialized equipment, and the continuous work of teams even under constant threat," Koretskyi said. Read also: Ukraine claims successful strike on 2 Russian ships ferrying weapons, equipment through Kerch Strait The briefing follows the arrival of a Hungarian delegation that was sent to Kyiv in search of evidence that the Druzhba pipeline remains operable. The team arrived in Kyiv on March 12, led by Gabor Czepek, the state secretary of Hungary's Energy Ministry. Advertisement Advertisement Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the visit had not been coordinated with Kyiv and that the Hungarian team has no official status or scheduled meetings with Ukrainian officials. In a video conversation between Czepek and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted to Facebook on March 14, the officals admit that the Budapest team was not allowed to enter the Druzhba pipeline to carry out their "inspection." Orban still declared the mission a success, saying the team's arrival "set the machine in motion" and prompted Naftogaz to hold their briefing. "We forced the Ukrainians to take action," Orban said. He then ordered Czepek and his team to return to Hungary. Advertisement Advertisement Orban, widely seen as the most Kremlin-friendly leader in the European Union, has accused Kyiv of deliberately suspending the Druzhba pipeline to "blackmail" Hungary. In retaliation, he has blocked the EU's 20th sanctions package against Russia and the 90-billion-euro ($107-billion) EU loan to Ukraine. Koretskyi said at the briefing that Russia's strike on Jan. 27 caused "significant damage" to the Druzhba pipeline. He also shared additional details about Russia's campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Russia has carried out over 400 attacks on Naftogaz facilities since the start of the full-scale invasion, he said. In 2026 alone, there have already been more than 30 attacks including an overnight missile and drone strike on March 14 that targeted Kyiv and the surrounding region. In his video call with Orban, Czepek admitted that it was a "difficult" night for the Hungarian team in Kyiv, as air defenses repelled Russian attacks throughout the night. Advertisement Advertisement Read also: What Trumps jackpot for Putin move on Russian oil sanctions means Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The Lake City Police Department is investigating a series of scams targeting older women at local grocery stores and bank parking lots. Suspects reportedly pose as church members to gain trust before stealing the victims money. The suspects approach women inside stores or in parking lots to begin a friendly conversation. Once a rapport is established, the suspects claim to have a bag containing a large amount of money and suggest sharing the funds with the victim. The scam continues as suspects convince the victim to travel to a local bank to withdraw cash from their personal account. The victim is then instructed to place their money into a bag with the cash the suspect claims to already possess. Advertisement Advertisement >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< In some instances, a second suspect participates in the encounter and pretends not to know the first suspect. This accomplice reinforces the fraudulent story or acts as a distraction. During the interaction, one of the suspects eventually leaves the vehicle or the scene with the victims money. The Lake City Police Department is currently investigating multiple reports involving this specific method. Investigators believe the suspects are intentionally targeting older individuals in the community. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Police recommend that residents avoid sharing personal or financial information with strangers and decline requests to withdraw money from a bank for someone they do not know. Advertisement Advertisement Officials also advise caution when being approached in parking lots or stores by individuals with stories involving requests for help. Anyone with information regarding these crimes is encouraged to contact the Lake City Police Department at 386-752-4343. Information can also be reported anonymously through the departments TIPS line at 386-719-2068 or Crime Stoppers of Columbia County at 386-754-7099. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. One of the primary benefits of renting over buying a home is the maintenance burden, as landlords are typically responsible for repairs and addressing issues such as recurring flooding. However, an Atlanta man recently encountered the worst of both worlds, according to WSB. Each time it rained in Atlanta, "several inches" of water would accumulate in Ernesto Taylor's apartment. Taylor repeatedly raised the issue with the property management company overseeing his unit, much as a tenant would approach a landlord. Advertisement Advertisement Eventually, the property management company did respond with a termination notice. Taylor told the television station that his repeated requests for repairs went entirely unacknowledged, and he ultimately advised his landlord that the routine indoor flooding was untenable and urgent. "It was when I finally started really saying, 'I cannot wait any longer; it's been three, four months.' That's when I got the sudden letter of termination of lease," he said. Taylor received a letter from Braden Fellman, the property management company handling the Montif by Morningside apartments. It was dated Feb. 10 and terminated his lease effective Tuesday, effectively serving as a 30-day notice to vacate. Advertisement Advertisement WSB contacted Braden Fellman about Taylor's situation and received a statement in response to their inquiry, claiming that the anticipated duration of repairs forced their hand. "In order to complete the repairs in question, the contractor requires that the unit be vacated for an extended period," the company wrote. Sasan Nematbakhsh is a landlord-tenant attorney in Atlanta, and he said the timing of the lease termination letter was at best iffy, given Taylor's repeated, ignored maintenance requests. "Anytime I sense a tenant raises issues of repair, and ultimately, at some point, the landlord [says], 'We've had enough, you need to vacate the premises,' it does raise that suspicion," Nematbakhsh explained to WSB. Advertisement Advertisement Nematbakhsh noted that under Georgia law, landlords aren't required to "provide alternative housing." But Taylor said he wasn't given "any kind of accommodation, any consideration" aside from 30 days to find a new place to live, adding insult to injury because the flooding was his landlord's responsibility to correct, not his. "I need help getting everything out of here, and I need some backpay, some abatement for all of this," he lamented to WSB. Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A Las Vegas woman is accused of stealing personal information and trafficking hundreds of thousands of dollars in SNAP benefits, according to the governors office. Mychelle Lay, 45, faces charges of theft over $100,000, fraudulent acts concerning public assistance, multiple fraudulent transactions through an enterprise or occupation and 11 counts of obtaining and using the personal identity of another to harm or for unlawful purpose. Though the state identified her as Mychelle Lay, 8 News Now reviewed court records that also refer to her as Michelle Finlay. Advertisement Advertisement Caseworks with the Nevada Division of Social Services (DSS) flagged several suspicious cases for review. The investigation expanded to include the Nevada Attorney Generals Office, and officials discovered that the Nevada State Police were also investigating the same suspicious fraudulent activities. In June 2025, NSP Parole and Probation Division officers conducted a home contact on Lay, who was under supervision for possession of a controlled substance and obtaining and using the personal identifying information of another. During the contact, officers found evidence related to fraudulent activity, the state said. An investigation revealed that Lay allegedly created a fake business in Las Vegas that got approved to accept SNAP EBT transactions through a federal process in December 2024. The business began operating in January 2025 and was used to facilitate fraudulent SNAP benefit transactions, according to the state. Lays fake business processed hundreds of thousands of dollars in transactions between January 2025 and September 2025, connected to the fraud scheme. Investigators found evidence that several individual profiles were connected to the fraudulent activity. The exact number is still being determined, the state said. Advertisement Advertisement Potential fraud connected to Medicaid enrollments was identified and officials are working to determine a more precise estimate. One of our caseworkers first identified suspicious activity after noticing multiple benefit applications tied to the same address, said Robert Thompson, Nevada DSS Administrator. Most of the applications were submitted online and were processed in accordance with federal eligibility guidelines. As fraud tactics evolve, DSS continues to evaluate additional technology tools to strengthen fraud detection and protect the integrity of these programs. Lay was arrested on March 13 and was taken to the Clark County Detention Center. She is scheduled to appear in court on Saturday. Individuals who believe they may be victims of identity theft are encouraged to contact the Division of Social Services by visiting a local office, emailing welfare@dss.nv.gov, or calling 702-486-1646 (Southern Nevada) or 775-684-7200 (Northern Nevada). Please note that the DSS call center is anticipating longer-than-normal wait times and appreciates your patience. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Iran on Saturday threatened for the first time to attack infrastructure of a neighboring country, urging people to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that Tehran claimed were legitimate targets because the U.S. military used them for attacks. The escalation sharpened global economic worries as tensions mount around the Strait of Hormuz, a route for about one-fifth of the worlds oil where shipping has effectively ground to a halt. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf neighbors, saying it targets U.S. assets even as airports and oil facilities have been hit or threatened. America and Israel have struck thousands of targets across Iran during the war, now in its third week. Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, President Donald Trump said U.S. forces obliterated military sites on Irans Kharg Island, home to the countrys main oil export terminal. Iranian officials have warned that strikes on its oil infrastructure could trigger further retaliation. Meanwhile, Israels war against Hezbollah has deepened Lebanons humanitarian crisis, with about 800 people killed and more than 850,000 displaced. Here is the latest: US identifies 6 killed in military aircraft crash The U.S. Department of Defense on Saturday identified six service members who died when the military refueling aircraft they were aboard crashed Thursday while supporting operations against Iran. Advertisement Advertisement The service members were Maj. John A. Klinner, 33; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31; Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34; Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, according to U.S. officials. The crash in western Iraq followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in friendly airspace, according to U.S. Central Command. The other plane landed safety. Sirens sound in Tel Aviv Israels military said early Sunday that Iran launched another round of missiles toward Israel. Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and loud booms were heard. At least 15 people killed in a strike in Iranian city of Isfahan The victims were killed in a strike at an industrial area in the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Saturday, according to the semiofficial Iranian news outlets Fars and SNN. Advertisement Advertisement Israels military said it had not targeted the area and the U.S. military declined to comment. Israeli strikes kill 5 in southern Lebanon, health ministry says One strike in the Nabatiyeh district killed four people, including a child, and wounded five others, Lebanons health ministry said. Another strike in the Marjeyoun district killed one person and wounded another. Israeli strikes have killed 826 people in Lebanon, including 106 children and 65 women, since the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2 after Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets toward northern Israel, the ministry said. It added that it also wounded 2009 people. Crew of fatal US military crash included an Alabama father and several from Ohio A pilot from Alabama had just been promoted to major in January and had been deployed less than a week when his refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq this week, killing him and five others, his brother-in-law said Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement Alex Klinner, 33, leaves behind three small children: 7-month-old twins and a 2-year-old son, his brother-in-law, James Harrill, said Saturday while confirming his death. Its kind of heartbreaking to say: He was just a really good dad and really loved his family a lot like a lot, Harrill said. Also on the aircraft was an Ohio man whose loved ones remembered him for his smile, his parents said. The Pentagon hasnt yet revealed the identities of the six, but families have begun saying who died. Drone strike causes a fire at an oil refinery in northern Iraq The drone strike and fire took place at the Lanaz refinery near the city of Irbil late Saturday, two officials from an Iran-backed Iraqi militia group told The Associated Press. Advertisement Advertisement Operations at the refinery were suspended following the attack, according to a Kurdish regional government official. There was no immediate word on casualties or damage. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Drones and missile attacks have repeatedly targeted American interests in Iraq during the war. By Qassim Abdul-Zahra Photos show the impact of the Iran war on tourism in Dubai Dubais typically crowded markets, beaches and waterfront promenades are unusually quiet during what the citys busy tourism season. The Iran war has disrupted air travel across the Middle East, while Iranian drone and missile attacks targeting sites in the United Arab Emirates have dented the countrys image as one of the regions safest destinations. Advertisement Advertisement As a result, some of Dubais most popular tourist areas including the Al Seef waterfront market along Dubai Creek and beaches near luxury hotels, such as the Burj Al Arab have seen far fewer visitors than usual. The photographs in this gallery show scenes of near-empty markets, quiet restaurant terraces and sparsely visited beaches as Dubais tourism sector feels the ripple effects of the wider regional conflict. Read more State Department urges US citizens to leave Iraq now The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has been telling American citizens to leave Iraq since the beginning of the war, but adopted a more urgent tone Saturday and also advised citizens to leave by land since commercial flights were not available. Advertisement Advertisement U.S. citizens choosing to remain in Iraq are strongly encouraged to reconsider in light of the significant threat posed by Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups, the embassy said in a statement. Earlier Saturday, a missile struck a helipad inside the embassy compound, which has been repeatedly struck by Iraqi militias during the war. Israeli soldiers kill 1 person in Gaza Israels army said an alleged militant was killed Saturday after shooting at troops in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. Gazas Health Ministry said Saturday that seven other Palestinians were reported killed in Gaza over the past 48 hours. Militants in Gaza have sat out the current conflict, although more than 650 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory since a fragile ceasefire in October muffled the two-year war with Hamas. Drones hit Kuwaits international airport The drone attack Saturday night hit the airports radar system, Kuwaits Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Flights there have been halted since the start of the war. AP Exclusive: Turkeys foreign minister talks diplomacy as war rages Turkeys powerful foreign minister said Saturday that there is no serious initiative to resume negotiations between the United States and Iran but that he believes Iran is open to back-channel talks. The comments by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview came as Ankara is striving to stay out of the widening war in the Middle East. NATO-member Turkey, which has good relations with both Washington and Tehran, had attempted to mediate a solution between them before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran two weeks ago, triggering the war. Advertisement Advertisement The conditions are not very much conducive to diplomacy now, Fidan said. The Iranians feel betrayed because for a second time they were attacked while in active negotiations with the U.S. over their nuclear program, he said, but added, I think they are open to any sensible back-channel diplomacy. Fidan, 57, served as Turkeys intelligence chief for more than a decade before being appointed foreign minister in 2023. Read more US regulator threatens broadcasters licenses after Trumps Iran complaints Trumps broadcast regulator Brendan Carr responded to a Trump complaint about negative coverage of the Iran war with an X post threatening broadcasters, urging them to correct course before their license renewals come up. Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has previously launched investigations into networks he has said are unfairly partisan, most notably pressuring ABC to take late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air. It was the first time Carr had addressed Iran coverage, although Trump and the White House have sharpened their attacks in recent days against coverage they perceive as being unduly critical or unfair. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not, Carr warned. Irans foreign minister calls on neighbors to expel foreign aggressors Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the call on social media. He also noted Trumps message earlier Saturday urging other countries to send warships to help secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran, and described the president as begging. Israel offers condolences on the deaths of US service members The Israeli military reacted for the first time Saturday to the deaths of six crew members on a U.S. refueling plane that crashed in Iraq. I convey my deepest condolences for the six lives lost, Israels chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said on Saturday during a visit to a logistics center in central Israel. Our partners in the United States are doing unprecedented work in this historic operation, he said. Israel will relax some guidelines for citizens as war enters its third week Israel will partially resume school in some of the more rural areas of the country starting Monday, the first time children will be in class since the war began with Iran. Schools with sufficient bomb shelters can open in rural areas, especially in the south, which has experienced far fewer missiles. Schools are still closed in the more-populated parts of Israels center, as well as northern Israel, which is experiencing heavy bombardment from Hezbollah. Irans top diplomat says the Strait of Hormuz is open It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with MS Now on Saturday. Nearly all shipping is still avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, however, due to security concerns. Araghchi also dismissed claims that Irans new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is seriously injured. They will see soon that there is no problem with the new supreme leader, Araghchi said. He is performing his duties according to the constitution, and he will continue to do that. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia intercept more Iranian attacks Kuwaits armed forces said Saturday evening that the sound of explosions was from ongoing interception efforts, while Saudi Arabias Defense Ministry said it downed three drones over the Kingdoms Eastern Province. There was no immediate word on casualties or damage. Iran launches missiles at Israel Israel said it has detected missiles from Iran aimed at northern Israel and is working to intercept them. Iranians grapple with whether to flee the country because of the war People, mostly Iranians who crossed from Iran at the Kapikoy border crossing, pull luggage in Turkeys eastern Van province, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Murat Kocabas) So far, relatively few people have chosen to leave: The U.N. estimates that only about 1,300 Iranians have fled via neighboring Turkey each day since the war started. Among them was 32-year-old hairdresser Merve Pourkaz, who spoke to The Associated Press while waiting at an alpine border crossing with Turkey. She decided to go after bombs exploded near her house. Others are returning from abroad, heading toward the fighting to protect their loved ones and homes. How can I feel safe in Istanbul when my family is living in Iran during the war? said Leila Rabetnezhadfard, 45, who postponed her wedding to a German university professor to go back to Iran. However, Irans neighbors and Europe are growing increasingly concerned about a possible migration crisis should the war drag on, and are making contingency plans. Read more UK is discussing options to help secure Strait of Hormuz In response to Trumps calls for countries including the U.K. to send warships to help protect the Strait of Hormuz, the Defense Ministry said Saturday: We are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region. It did not provide details. Drones hit a Kuwaiti military base and wound 3 soldiers Three members of the Kuwaiti army sustained minor injuries when two drones damaged the Gulf nations Ahmed Al-Jaber air base on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Kuwaits air defense system intercepted another three drones, and two drones fell outside what the ministry called the threat area and posed no danger. Early in the war, three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire during an Iranian attack. Kuwait is also where six U.S. soldiers were killed in a drone strike on a command center. Visiting Lebanon, the UN chief urges Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in Beirut on Saturday that there is no military solution to the Israel-Hezbollah war and called for diplomacy and full implementation of U.N. resolutions. He urged the international community to step up efforts to end the conflict. Lebanons death toll from Israel-Hezbollah fighting rises to 826 The Lebanese Health Ministry said Saturday that at least 2,009 people have also been wounded since the latest round of fighting began on March. 2. The ministry said the dead include 106 children and 65 women. Trump suggests other countries may provide military support to reopen Strait of Hormuz The president was spending Saturday morning at his golf club in Florida but posted that, Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. But it was not clear if that effort was set to begin or if Trump only hoped it might because he also wrote, Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be threatened by Iran. It was the first time Trump has publicly suggested the U.S. may not be able to reopen the waterway on its own, and without international support. Iran has used the effective closure of the strait to disrupt the worlds energy markets and put pressure on the United States and Israel. A UN peacekeeper is lightly injured in southern Lebanon Apparent fire from a heavy machine gun sparked a blaze at the U.N. peacekeeping force position near the village of Mais al-Jabal, and the peacekeeper was hurt on his way to a shelter. Kandice Ardiel, a spokeswoman for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force, said it launched an investigation and reminds all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of peacekeepers at all times. U.N. positions in southern Lebanon have been hit several times during exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, including on March 6 when three peacekeepers were wounded at a UNIFIL base. Iranian state media urges 3 ports in the UAE to evacuate ahead of potential attacks Mizan, Irans official judiciary news agency, claimed without evidence that U.S. forces are located in the civilian ports of Jebel Ali, Khalifa and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates making the ports legitimate targets for Iranian attacks. The news agency urged people in and around those ports to immediately evacuate, saying the facilities may be targeted in the coming hours. Earlier Saturday, a drone interception sparked a fire near Fujairahs port but there were no casualties, according to the Fujairah media office. During the war, Gulf Arab states have faced seemingly unending and occasionally fatal Iranian drone and missile attacks targeting oil fields, cities and critical infrastructure. Jebel Ali Port in Dubai is the busiest in the Middle East. Two Indian-flagged tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz The two ships were carrying liquefied petroleum gas on their way to India, the countrys Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a briefing Saturday. He did not specify where the carriers Shivalik and Nanda Devi had departed from. The crucial strait has been virtually closed because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Heres why Irans Kharg Island is vital to its oil industry Kharg Island Terminal is the beating heart of Irans oil export system, strategically located in the Persian Gulf. For decades, it has been essential in connecting Irans vast oil reserves with the global market. The infrastructure on Kharg Island is impressive, with massive storage tanks and pipelines built to handle millions of barrels of crude oil daily. Large oil tankers regularly dock there, transporting oil extracted from fields in southwestern Iran. The setup allows Iran to manage its exports efficiently, even when faced with sanctions. Historically, Kharg Island has been through difficult times, including being targeted during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War due to its critical role in Irans economy. Read more about Irans strategic islands Iran launched a wave of missiles Saturday afternoon toward Israel, Irans state TV reported UAE condemns second attack on its consulate in Iraqs Kurdish region The attack wounded two security personnel and damaged the building in Iraqs semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. It was the second attack on the facility in less than a week, the ministry said in a statement. It called on Iraqi authorities to investigate and hold those responsible to account. 2 tankers are loading oil from Irans Kharg Island, a vessel-tracker says According to TankerTrackers, two tankers were loading oil on Kharg on Saturday, hours after the U.S. said it struck Iranian military facilities there. Lebanons Health Ministry says 26 paramedics have been killed by Israeli strikes Another 51 paramedics and medical workers have been wounded since the latest round of Israel-Hezbollah fighting began on March 2. The latest strike on Friday night in the southern village of Burj Qalaouiyah hit a health care center, killing 12 people and seriously wounding one. A search is ongoing for four people who are still under the rubble, the ministry said. The ministry said that Israel has been intentionally targeting medical workers, adding that claims by Israels military spokesman that ambulances are being used for military purposes are pretexts to justify the attacks. Earlier Saturday, the Israeli military Arabic spokesman said Hezbollah is widely using ambulances for military purposes. He said the militant group should stop or the Israeli military will act. UAE reports drone and missile attacks Nine ballistic missiles and 33 drones were fired Saturday toward the United Arab Emirates, the Defense Ministry said. It said the total number of projectiles fired at the country since Feb. 28 included 1,600 drones, 294 ballistic missiles and 15 cruise missiles. The attacks have killed six people and wounded 141 others, it said. Iranian lawmaker says Ukraines drone support makes it a legitimate war target In a post on X Saturday, Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Irans parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, said that by providing drone support to Israel, Ukraine has effectively become involved in the war. He said the entire country became a target for Iran. Iran says US and Israeli strikes damaged about 43,000 residential and commercial units Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said the damaged structures included 36,469 residential units and 6,179 commercial facilities, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Iran hasnt provided any information about military losses and damage. Mohajerani, meanwhile, said the war has taken a heavy toll on women, with 223 women and girls killed and 2,129 others wounded since Feb. 28. She didnt provide an overall death toll, but previously authorities have said that 1,230 people have been killed. Fire breaks out near UAE port after drone interception The fire near Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates broke out Saturday following the drone interception, authorities said. No casualties were reported from the attack, the Fujairah media office said, adding that firefighters were battling the blaze. Associated Press footage showed smoke rising Saturday morning over the facility. Iran says 52 cultural sites damaged in US-Israeli strikes The sites include museums and historic monuments across Iran, authorities said Saturday. The Cultural Heritage Ministry said the latest strikes in the city of Sanandaj in Kurdistan province seriously damaged the Asef Mansion, Salar Saeid Mansion and Khosro Abad Mansion, according to Mizan, the judiciarys official news agency. Some of the sites date back several centuries and are dedicated to Kurdish culture. Frances president says Paris ready to host direct Israel-Lebanon talks President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that he spoke with the president, prime minister and parliament speaker of Lebanon, and that everything must be done to prevent the country from sinking into chaos. Macron added that Hezbollah must immediately halt its reckless escalation while Israel must abandon any large-scale offensive and stop its massive airstrikes. Macron said Lebanese leaders have said they are willing to have direct talks with Israel. The French leader said Israel must seize this opportunity to launch talks to reach a ceasefire, find a lasting solution, and allow Lebanese authorities to fulfill their commitments in support of Lebanons sovereignty. Lebanons President Joseph Aoun said Friday that he expressed readiness to negotiate with Israel but got no response. Lebanon and Israel remain at a state of war since 1948. Iranian official says oil operations are normal on Kharg Island after US strikes Export and import operations, as well as the activities of companies based on the island, are currently ongoing, Ehsan Jahaniyan, deputy governor of Bushehr province, was quoted as saying by NourNews, an outlet close to Irans Supreme National Security Council. Kharg Island is home to the primary terminal that handles the countrys oil exports. Jahaniyan also said that daily life activities were normal, adding that the strikes left no casualties. Early Saturday, semiofficial Fars News Agency reported that the U.S. strikes were limited to military facilities. Dust storm blows over Gaza as people are urged to protect themselves A cloud of orange-tinted, thick dust spread across the Gaza Strip on Saturday as first responders told Palestinians to stay home, especially those with respiratory illness. People were also urged to secure their tents to prevent them from being blown away. Israels war with Hamas has left most of Gazas 2 million residents displaced, living in tents and damaged buildings with little protection from the elements such as rain, wind and sand. Videos on Saturday showed tents flapping and trees swaying as cars drove down dust-filled streets with little visibility. While dust storms occur in Gaza, there hasnt been one this intense in more than five years. Bahrain reports more missile and drone attacks Bahrains Defense Ministry said Iran fired 10 drones and three missiles on Saturday. That has brought the total number of missiles and drones fired at Bahrain during the two-week war to 124 and 203, respectively. Iran threatens to attack UAE cities Irans military command threatened Saturday to attack cities in the United Arab Emirates, claiming they were used by U.S. forces to launch strikes on Irans Abu Musa and Kharg islands. According to Irans state television, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said, without providing evidence, that U.S. forces launched attacks on the Islamic Republic from ports, docks and hideouts within cities in the Emirates. It called on people to evacuate ports, docks and locations where U.S. forces are sheltered in UAE cities. An Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon kills 4 people Lebanons Health Ministry said the airstrike hit an apartment in the southern city of Sidon. It gave no other details. 10 foreigners in UAE are detained over spreading war-related videos on social media The United Arab Emirates has detained 10 foreigners who allegedly posted footage on social media of missile and drone attacks on the county. UAE General Prosecutor Hamad Al Shamsi ordered them to remain in detention over accusations of spreading disinformation, some of which included AI-generated videos of purported attacks on UAE landmarks. He said in a statement that their acts are punishable by imprisonment of at least a year and a fine of at least 100,000 dirhams ($27,230). 6 Iranians from the same family were reported killed in a strike The airstrike destroyed a residential building early Saturday in the western city of Eyvan, the judiciarys official news agency Mizan reported, citing local authorities. The dead included a 6-month-old, it said. At least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran since the war began Feb. 28, according to Iranian authorities. Trump says Iran wants a deal but not a deal I would accept! Trump wrote in a social media post: The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept! Airstrike kills 2 in Baghdad An airstrike hit a house in Iraqs capital, Baghdad, early Saturday, killing at least one person, according to a security official and another affiliated with the Iranian-backed armed groups in the country. The strike in Baghdads Karrada district also wounded two people, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to speak to the press. In a statement, the Iraqi military condemned the strike as a blatant violation of all humanitarian values and a disregard for international conventions. The strike happened before a missile attack hit the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. By Qassim Abdul-Zahra Iranian media reports 15 explosions in Kharg following US strikes Irans semiofficial Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island, earlier hit by U.S. strikes. It said the strikes targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower, and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar, adding no oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack. Aseem Mahajan, Additional Secretary (Gulf), on Saturday informed that five Indians had been killed while one was injured in the conflict in West Asia. He said that the Missions remain open round the clock and are constantly working in all assistance efforts. Mahajan made the remarks during the inter-ministerial briefing on the recent developments in West Asia here in the national capital. He said, "We have five Indians who have lost their lives and one who is missing in earlier incident. Our missions in Oman, Iraq, UAE remain in touch with the concerned authorities regarding the missing Indian national and for early repatriation of mortal remains of the deceased after completing requisite formalities." He underlined that all support is being rendered to the seafarers in the region and the MEA is in close coordination with the Ministry of Ports and Shipping. The Additional Secretary (Gulf) said that for places such as Bahrain and Kuwait from where direct flights are not operating, the Indian nationals are being assisted with visa extensions and transit visas for their journey to India via Saudi Arabia. He shared an update on the attack in Sohar city in Oman which resulted in the death of two Indians and injured 10 others and said that none of them were reported to be seriously injured. "Our mission has been on the ground and is rendering all assistance and is in contant touch with the concerned Omani authorities, local companies, hospitals and families of the affected Indians. The Embassy is also coordinating to facilitate the early return of the mortal remains of the two deceased Indian nationals to India." On the Safesea Vishnu incident, he said that the team has been on the ground for the early return of the 15 crew members of Safesea Vishnu who were safely evacuated and are currently residing at a hotel in Basra, Iraq. "They are also working with the concerned authorities for the early return of the mortal remains to India of the Indian national" Also at the briefing, Rajesh Kumar Sinha, Special Secretary in the Shipping Ministry on Friday informed that two Indian flagged LPG carrying vessels Shivalik and Nanda Devi have transited through the Strait of Hormuz and now are on their way to India with approximately 92,700 Metric Tons of LPG. The developments come amid the evolving security situation in West Asia and the Gulf after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 in joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran. In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, disrupting key shipping routes and affecting global energy markets. As the war enters its 14th day, the exchange of fire continues with threats of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the energy needs of several nations. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. (ANI) NEED TO KNOW At least 80 people are dead and 125 remain missing after heavy rain triggered landslides in the Gamo Zone of Southern Ethiopia May God put the souls of those who died in the accident in heaven, said Tilahun Kebede, president of the South Ethiopia Regional State The Gamo Zone director of disaster response, Mesfin Manuqa, said that one person has been pulled out of the mud alive amid rescue operations At least 80 people are dead an estimated 125 remain missing following devastating landslides in Southern Ethiopia. After a week of heavy rains triggered landslides in the Gamo Zone, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) House of Representatives has declared three days of national mourning in honor of the deceased. Advertisement Advertisement Tilahun Kebede, president of the South Ethiopia Regional State, expressed "deep condolences" for the victims in a statement shared on Facebook on Tuesday, March 10. May God put the souls of those who died in the accident in heaven. I sincerely wish that God gives comfort to all their families and friends," he wrote. I would like to urge the zone administration to continue its support to the affected people and the regional government will provide all the necessary support, Kebede continued. Since it is the rainy season and accidents like this can happen again, I call on the communities living in Degama and Nada vulnerable areas to take necessary precautions." Landslides in Ethiopia Credit: South Ethiopia Regional State Office Of The President/Facebook Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In an update on Friday, March 13, officials confirmed that at least 80 people died in the landslide accident in Laka Kebele of Gacho Baba Woreda and that the search for the remaining people is still going on. Advertisement Advertisement It has been decided that the Ethiopian national flag will be hoisted in all areas, Ethiopian ships, embassies and consulate offices, the office of the president shared following the tragic incident. The parliament has expressed its deep condolences for the accident. The Gacho Baba District communication chief, Abebe Agena, said that most victims were found buried in the mud, according to the Associated Press. While approximately 125 individuals remain missing, per the outlet, the Gamo Zone director of disaster response, Mesfin Manuqa, announced that one person has been pulled out of the mud alive amid rescue operations. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said that around 3,461 people have been displaced as a result of the landslides and are facing a severe humanitarian crisis, as well as extensive damage to property, including completely destroyed houses and fields. Advertisement Advertisement In addition to making "urgent and coordinated efforts to ensure that the displaced receive essential supplies, ISEMCO Chief Commissioner Berhanu Adelo has assured the public that the organization will continue to intensify its monitoring and provide detailed solutions to the relevant parties based on its findings. Read the original article on People Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel has announced the release of 51 prisoners and briefly spoke about the ongoing talks with the U.S. government during a government meeting aired on state TV early Friday. Heres what to know: Could Florida do business with Cuba if the dictatorship ends? Amid diplomatic talks between the United States and Cuba, state lawmakers on Friday passed a bill that contains a free trade provision with the island nation should the regime fall. Advertisement Advertisement The amendment had first appeared in February in the Florida House, where Cuban-American House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican, oversees the chamber. My hope is that the people of Cuba will finally get the freedom theyve craved for so long and Im thankful to President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Marco] Rubio for their bold leadership and commitment to the people of Cuba and the principles of liberty and justice for all, Perez told the Herald/Times in a statement on Friday. Read more here. Alexandra Glorioso Put the matter in Gods hands, vicar says Father Eliosbel Pereira Almaguer, Parochial Vicar at La Ermita de Caridad-Our Lady of Charity National Shrine, in Miami leads a mass, hours after Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel had confirmed that Havana is in the midst of talks with the Trump administration, on Friday, March 13, 2026. (Pedro Portal/pportal@miamiherald.com) Amid a downpour of rain, Father Eliosbel Pereira Almaguer prayed for people living in countries under tyranny and for their leaders to do what is right and just. Advertisement Advertisement Almaguer faced about two dozen parishioners at Coconut Groves Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, the Roman Catholic church named after the patroness of Cuba, on Friday afternoon. After, he told the Miami Herald he hopes the negotiations result in something positive for the people who have suffered under oppression in Cuba. Thats what we wish for, and thats why we pray, Amlaguer said. Almaguer said his message to the Cuban people: Keep their confidence in God. As Christians, we have to ask God when things are not in our hands [and] put the matter in Gods hands. Grethel Aguila Cubans in South Florida skeptical about ongoing talks As news spread Friday that Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel had confirmed that Havana is in the midst of talks with the Trump administration, the mood among many Cubans in South Florida ranged from cautious hope to anger and skepticism. Advertisement Advertisement Cubas confirmation of the talks come as the country faces a profound economic and energy crisis, with widespread blackouts and shortages of food and medicine across the island. Its going to be the same old story, said Guadalupe Varela, 71, who has lived in the U.S. since 1981 and lives in Hollywood. If Diaz-Canel leaves or even if they replace him but keep the same leaders of the regime, the oppression, destruction and poverty in Cuba will remain. The same thing that happened in Venezuela will happen in Cuba: absolutely no change. Read more here. Veronica Equi Brito and Sarah Moreno Take a look at Miamis plan for any significant change in Cuba As the Cuban government engages in negotiations with the Trump administration, the city of Miami said it anticipates potential mass migration and is prepared for large-scale celebrations in the event of a significant change in the government of Cuba. Advertisement Advertisement Miami City Manager James Reyes has told city commissioners that Miamis fire and police chiefs have recently updated plans relating to the challenges presented with the politics surrounding Cuba and the impacts here in the city of Miami. At a city commission meeting on Thursday, Reyes said that earlier this year, he instructed those agencies to refresh their action plans in light of the politics currently playing out in Cuba, particularly on two fronts. Click here to read more. Tess Riski and David Goodhue FBI might go to Cuba for boat crash investigation, Diaz-Canel says FBI experts may travel to Cuba to help with a joint inquiry into the recent deadly shootout out at sea between a Florida-registered vessel and the islands coast guard, Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel said Friday. Advertisement Advertisement Were in waiting for a possible visit ... of FBI experts to participate in the clarification and the investigations with personnel from our Interior Ministry, Diaz-Canel said during a press conference on Friday morning. There is information and cooperation with our American counterparts. The FBI office in Miami declined to comment on the Cuban leaders statement, saying the State Department is handling inquiries on the matter. Syra Ortiz Blanes READ NEXT: Florida boat caught in shootout with Cuban coast guard. Heres where it happened We stand with the Cuban people, Miami-Dade Mayor says Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Friday morning, just hours after Miguel Diaz-Canels televised speech, said in a statement posted on X that Cubas release of 51 prisoners brings relief and long-awaited hope to many families but does not change the fact that people in Cuba are still imprisoned for their beliefs. Advertisement Advertisement True justice will come when no one in Cuba is jailed for demanding their basic rights ...We stand with the Cuban people and with the many families still waiting for the day when Cuba is free and its people can live without fear, Levine Cava said, echoing the sentiment of many others in the community. For generations, the Cuban dictatorship has repressed those who speak out for freedom. Todays announcement that 51 prisoners will be released brings hope to many families. But true justice will come when no one in Cuba is jailed for their beliefs and Cuba is free. pic.twitter.com/wQulszgekd Daniella Levine Cava (@MayorDaniella) March 13, 2026 Michelle Marchante Miamis U.S. Rep Salazar responds to Cubas prisoner release Miami Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar on Thursday night blasted the Cuban government immediately following its announcement of plans to release 51 prisoners as a sign of good will with the Vatican amid ongoing talks with the U.S. The Cuban government, for 67 years, has crushed dissent through tyranny, repression, persecution, and prison for anyone who dares to think differently or speak the word freedom, Salazar wrote on X. Advertisement Advertisement Releasing 51 political prisoners is not justice, she added. Justice is when the last political prisoner walks free. And that will only happen when the longest-running and most brutal dictatorship in our hemisphere falls. For 67 years, the Cuban dictatorship has crushed dissent through tyranny, repression, persecution, and prison for anyone who dares to think differently or speak the word freedom. Releasing 51 political prisoners is not justice. Justice is when the last political prisoner walks Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (@RepMariaSalazar) March 13, 2026 Michelle Marchante Cuba confirms talks with Trump administration Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel said Friday his government is engaged in talks with the United States, confirming earlier reporting by the Miami Herald about the contacts. In footage of a government meeting aired on state television early morning, he said Cuban officials have recently held talks with representatives of the U.S. government. These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between our two nations. International factors have facilitated these exchanges, he said. Crucially, he added, the exchanges have aimed to moved away from confrontation, he added. Advertisement Advertisement Click here to read more. - Nora Gamez Torres Cuba to release 51 prisoners following Vatican talks as U.S. tension rises The Cuban government said Thursday night it is releasing 51 prisoners as a gesture of good will with the Vatican amid heightened pressure from the Trump administration to agree to economic and political changes on the island. In the spirit of good will and the close and fluid relations between the Cuban State and the Vatican, with which communication has historically been maintained regarding the review and release of prisoners, the Cuban Government has decided to release 51 people sentenced to imprisonment in the coming days, a government statement said. Advertisement Advertisement The statement did not include the details of the prisoners who will be released, but said that all have served a significant portion of their sentences and have maintained good conduct in prison. Click here to read more. - Nora Gamez Torres What has led up to U.S. - Cuba talks After cutting oil supplies from Mexico and Venezuela to the island, President Donald Trump has urged Cuban authorities to make a deal with the United States. The Trump administration has been having high-level conversations with several people in Raul Castros inner circle, similar to the discussions held with Venezuelas strongman Nicolas Maduro before he was captured in a military raid earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told the Miami Herald earlier this week. Secretary of State Marco Rubios advisers also met with Raul Castros grandson, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, in Saint Kitts last month. In recent days, Trump has reiterated his belief Cuba was at the end of the line and its government was about to fall. He has also insinuated the United States would take over the island. - Nora Gamez Torres PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Local synagogues are assuring 12 News theyre in close communication with law enforcement after a man attacked a temple in Michigan on Thursday. The FBI is calling the March 12 attack on Temple Israel, a large Reform synagogue just outside Detroit, a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. Meanwhile, leaders in Rhode Islands Jewish community want to put their congregants at ease. I tell people that [the Dwares Jewish Community Center] is probably one of the safest buildings in Rhode Island, said Stephanie Hague, the chief strategy officer for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island. Its not because we want it to be that way, but its what we feel like we have to do to keep the community safe. Advertisement Advertisement Hague said the Jewish Alliance always takes a closer look at security protocols in the wake of attacks on Jewish communities, something the group began to do following the mass shooting at Pittsburghs Tree of Life Congregation in 2018. We do security infrastructure upgrades, but we also provide training for all of the synagogues, Jewish agencies and schools around the state of Rhode Island, she explained. The Jewish Alliance declined to go into detail about the exact security protocols, but told 12 News they change based on the unique needs of each organization and whether there are children in its care. The group also works closely with the Providence Police Department, which told 12 News in a statement that it has increased patrols in the area of synagogues and other places of worship out of an abundance of caution. Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, some congregants at Providences Temple Beth-El with personal connections to Temple Israel in Michigan have expressed fears over the latest attack. Without talking too much about our security plan, we really try to reassure our community that we have a really solid security protocol, Rabbi Sarah Mack told 12 News. Unfortunately, weve become too good at this over the last few years. Both leaders emphasized they are dedicated to making sure everyone in Rhode Islands Jewish community feels safe and free to express their religion. Were not going to run away afraid, Hague said. Were going to be unapologetically Jewish and proud. Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app. Follow us on social media: Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) A suspect from Houston, Texas, was arrested in Baton Rouge after deputies allegedly found him with 21 stolen catalytic converters, according to the Livingston Parish Sheriffs Office (LPSO). The sheriffs office reported Nessiah Daleon Dunham was taken into custody in connection with the theft investigation. A photo of a suspect from Houston, Texas, who was arrested in Baton Rouge after deputies allegedly found him with 21 stolen catalytic converters, according to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office (LPSO). On Thursday, March 12, deputies were called to investigate catalytic converters being stolen from several vehicles in the Juban Road and Buddy Ellis Road area of Denham Springs. Advertisement Advertisement Sheriff Jason Ard confirmed that the investigation led law enforcement to the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. With the help of the Baton Rouge Police Department, LPSO located Dunham. According to Ard, Dunham had several converters inside the vehicle he was driving. Based on the number of converters that were found, authorities believe more victims are possible. Dunham was arrested by BRPD and booked as a fugitive for LPSO. The suspect may face charges in other jurisdictions. The investigation is ongoing. Latest News Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Louisiana First News. A man riding a moped opened fire on a quiet Queens street, shooting a man in the head in front of his wife as he sped by, police and stunned block residents said Saturday. Jairo Javier Vinces-Cobena, 36, was shot on 55th Ave., around the corner from his apartment on 98th St. in Corona, around 7:49 p.m. on Friday, according to law enforcement. I heard pop! pop! pop! It was fast, a neighbor, who would only identify himself as Ray, told the Daily News Saturday. I heard a girl say, Oh, my God! Help! help!' Advertisement Advertisement Once the gunshots ended, residents from all over the quiet block streamed outside to see what happened, Ray, 53, said. It was a lot of people out, he said. The shooter, who was dressed all in black, was last seen speeding down 55th Ave. Vinces-Cobena was shot in the head and repeatedly about the body, cops said. Medics rushed him to Elmhurst Hospital, where he died, police said. There were no arrests and the investigation is ongoing. Vinces-Cobena was shot next to a chain-link fence abutting a factory that dominates one side of the block. On Saturday, a gruesome smear of dark red blood could still be found on the sidewalk, with specks of blood being found near a Citi Bike charging station. Advertisement Advertisement It was not immediately disclosed what sparked the shooting. Vinces-Cobena, cops said, doesnt have a criminal record. NYPD detectives spent Saturday scouring the area for surveillance footage that could help them identify the shooter. His wife saw the whole thing, said Luca Estrella, 42, owner of Estrella Auto Repairs around the corner from the shooting. Estrella said Vinces-Cobena helped out at a pop-up car wash on the block, but a family member who declined to give his name said the victim didnt work there. It was not immediately disclosed if the shooting was linked to the car wash, one of many in the area, according to Estrella. The victim was seen hanging out with car wash workers a few before the shooting. Advertisement Advertisement He was a hard worker, said Estrella, who described Vinces-Cobena as a pretty boy, with his hair always combed to the back. I always saw him like a family man, the repair shop owner said. He always said hello to me. Always shook my hand. A Northshore man accused of driving the wrong way on Interstate 10 in Louisiana and causing a crash that killed a recent college graduate has been arrested, authorities said. Manmeet Singh, 30, was apprehended Friday by U.S. Marshals in Ridgeland, Mississippi, according to Louisiana State Police. The charges stem from a September crash on Interstate 10 in St. John the Baptist Parish. Investigators say Singh drove a GMC Yukon into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a Nissan Altima driven by Patricia Saidu, 21. Advertisement Advertisement Saidu died at the scene, authorities said. Singh was seriously injured in the crash and taken to University Medical Center New Orleans, where he later recovered and was released. Authorities had been searching for Singh since October, when a felony warrant was issued for his arrest. Before the crash, investigators said he was believed to be living in Ponchatoula, Louisiana and working as a ride-share driver in the New Orleans, Louisiana area. Investigators later said Singh disappeared, leaving family behind. Authorities had been exploring whether he may have traveled to California, New York, or New Jersey, or possibly fled the country to India. Advertisement Advertisement Authorities said Singh will be returned to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he is expected to be booked on charges of vehicular homicide, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and driving in the wrong direction. Today, we received a call from the officers confirming that Patricias killer has been caught, her mother, Martha Saidu, 50, said in a statement obtained by our partners at NOLA.com. Our hearts are filled with gratitude because only God could orchestrate such a moment. Saidu had recently graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana with a degree in chemistry and was pursuing a pre-med track. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday said that the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Lavan continues to remain docked at Kochi in Kerala, while non-essential crew members departed India on a chartered flight arranged by Iranian authorities along with other stranded Iranian nationals. Addressing an inter-ministerial briefing on the recent development in West Asia, the MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the flight departed from Kochi and carried non-essential members of the crew of IRIS Lavan, along with several other Iranians who were stranded in India due to widespread flight disruptions amid the conflict. "Owing to the widespread flight disruption, several Iranians were stranded in India. The Iranian authorities arranged chartered flights to take back these stranded nationals," he said. "The flight took off from Kochi and also included the non-essential members of IRIS Lavan, which remains docked in Kochi," Jaiswal added. IRIS Lavan, which took part in the International Fleet Review (IFR) 2026 from February 15-25, was earlier docked in Kochi after developing technical issues. The crew from the Iranian vessel approached India, days before the IRIS Dena incident, which was sunk on March 4 after being struck by a US submarine torpedo approximately 20 nautical miles west of Galle, Sri Lanka. IRIS Lavan was in the region as part of the Iranian naval presence for the International Fleet Review and MILAN 2026. The request from Iran was received on February 28, seeking urgent docking support for the vessel due to technical problems with approval accorded for the docking on March 1. IRIS LAVAN has since docked at Kochi from March 4. Speaking on the wider regional situation, Jaiswal said that since the outbreak of the conflict in West Asia, India has been "calling for de-escalation" and dialogue while emphasising the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted transit of goods and energy supplies. "Since the outbreak of this conflict, besides calling for de-escalation and addressing all issues through dialogue, India has continually emphasised that one of its priorities is to ensure the unimpeded transit of goods and energy," he said. He added that India has also called for avoiding attacks on civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities, noting that the impact of the conflict is being felt globally. Highlighting India's diplomatic outreach, Jaiswal said New Delhi has remained in touch with key stakeholders, including members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Iran, the United States and Israel at political and diplomatic levels to convey concerns regarding energy security. "In the process, the concerns of shipping lines were also addressed. As a result of multiple contacts, some ships destined for India have been able to cross through the Strait of Hormuz," he said. He noted that two Indian vessels, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, have already crossed the strait and are heading towards ports in India, with several other ships in standby. "Several of our ships remain on standby in the Gulf region. We propose to continue to remain in touch and coordinate with all concerned countries for safe and unimpeded transit in an effort to ensure our energy security," he added. On discussions within BRICS regarding the conflict, Jaiswal said that some member countries (Iran and UAE) are directly involved in the situation in West Asia, which has complicated efforts to arrive at a common position. "Some members of BRICS are directly involved in the current situation in the West Asia region, which has impacted forging a consensus on a common BRICS position on the ongoing conflict," he said. He added that as the current Chair of BRICS, India has been facilitating discussions among member states through the Sherpa channel, with the last virtual BRICS Sherpa meeting held on March 12. Jaiswal also said that India continues diplomatic engagements with global partners on the evolving situation. "In the last several days, our External Affairs Minister has had conversations with leaders across the world. He also had a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the ongoing conflict in West Asia," he said, adding that there have also been other high-level engagements with Russia on the matter and other issues. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Due to the conflict in the region, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply. (ANI) PITTSBURGH, Penn. (WPRI) A Pennsylvania man accused of enticing a Somerset child online has been arrested, according to police. The Somerset Police Department received a report in December 2025 that a local child had been victimized by sextortion through the social media platforms Discord and Telegram. Police said the suspect, later identified as 22-year-old Sean Melko, went by the name Ollie and engaged in unlawful online interactions with juveniles in several states. He also allegedly used Amazon to send sexually explicit items to the Somerset childs home. Advertisement Advertisement An undercover detective later began communicating with Ollie while posing as a 14-year-old. During the exchanges, police said Melko sent sexually explicit images and requested, but did not receive, similar content in return. Melko was arrested on March 9 in Pennsylvania on a warrant. Officers also searched his home and discovered additional evidence, which will be prosecuted by Pennsylvania authorities. He will be transported to Massachusetts to face the following criminal charges: Extortion by threat of injury Child in nude, lascivious pose/exhibit Enticing a child under 16 Contributing to the delinquency of a child Five counts of enticing a child under 16 Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app. Follow us on social media: Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. A man in Pennsylvania has been accused of fatally shooting a children's hospital nurse in whats believed to have been a random act of violence just hours after he told police he was being followed. Steve Jahn was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Megan Nieberle, the Chester County District Attorney's Office said in a statement shared via Facebook. Officers first came into contact with Jahn, 44, during a welfare check around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, outside of a local bank, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit viewed by Law & Crime. The responding officer said that Jahn was displaying "frantic behavior, and the defendant said he believed people were following him around. Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, the affidavit noted that he was also carrying a 9 mm handgun at the time of the welfare check. Ex-Boyfriend Allegedly Stalked and Killed Pennsylvania Woman Who Tried to End Their Relationship The responding officers suggested that Jahn go to a hospital to receive care, though noted he would have to surrender his weapons in order to do so. Jahn reportedly said he would drive to the hospital if he had an escort, so officers followed him there. Once he arrived at the hospital, Jahn said the cars in the parking lot were the ones that had been chasing him. He then said he no longer wanted to go inside of the hospital and the officers were required to let him leave. Advertisement Advertisement Two hours after they all left the hospital, officers responded to a car crash just four miles from the hospital. Upon their arrival, they found Nieberle slumped over the wheel with a gunshot wound to the head. She was rushed to the hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead. Nieberle was a nurse at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and police said they believe the attack was random. Investigators spoke to neighbors, who said they saw a man screaming before several gunshots were fired. Officers then reviewed license plate readers and learned that Jahn was in the area at the time of the shooting. Officers found Jahn at a relative's home a few hours later, and the relative said he came inside with a gun and a dashcam from his car before he went to sleep. Advertisement Advertisement Jahn was then taken into custody and cops reviewed the dashcam footage from his car, which showed him ripping down the dash camera as cops approached him for the welfare check. "I ain't playing no more. I ain't playing no more, motherf**kers, he said as a gun was visible in his lap, per the affidavit. Jahn allegedly made several unprovoked statements while in custody, including, "Is she dead, why am I in jail?" The affidavit also stated he allegedly said "none of this f**king happened and that he would definitely be in federal prison if I did this. "I pulled the trigger at the car, I definitely did that but I didn't do anything else, what the f**k? Got me to admit that, can we move on to the next phase?" he allegedly said. Advertisement Advertisement Jahn is currently in custody at the Chester County Jail and is being held without bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on March 23. Jeep Driver Arrested on Several Charges After Threatening Couple Who Passed Him at Stop Sign It is not currently clear if Jahn has entered a plea or retained legal representation. The Chester County District Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to Us Weeklys request for comment. Following Jahn's arrest, his friend told WCAU that he had recently started acting differently after he stopped taking his medication. The friend also noted that had a history of drug and alcohol addiction issues. A Dominican man has pleaded guilty in federal court to distributing methamphetamine in New Hampshire, U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan said Friday. Ariel Castillo-Solano a/k/a Jose Antonio Santiago, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, specifically methamphetamine, Creegan said in a statement. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Samantha Elliot scheduled Castillo-Solanos sentencing for June 18. Advertisement Advertisement According to the court documents and statements made in court, beginning in early 2024, the DEA began an investigation into an unknown individual who was selling multiple-ounce quantities of methamphetamine in the Rochester, New Hampshire area. During the investigation, a DEA cooperating source communicated with Castillo-Solano. At the time, Castillo-Solano, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was using the identity of Jose Antonio Santiago, an American citizen from Puerto Rico, prosecutors said. Between Oct. 21, 2024 and Jan. 10, 2025, the DEA, using a CS and a DEA undercover Task Force Officer, negotiated several sales totaling more than five pounds of methamphetamine from Castillo-Solano, prosecutors said. Advertisement Advertisement Between Jan. 10, 2025 and Jan. 23, 2025, Castillo-Solano arranged to sell the undercover officer an additional 15 pounds of methamphetamine, about 21 ounces cocaine, and 40 grams of fentanyl. They agreed to a purchase price of $69,000, prosecutors said. On Jan. 24, 2025, Castillo-Solano met the undercover officer in a parking lot in Seabrook, where Castillo-Solano stated that his brother, later identified as Joel Castillo-Soto, would be arriving in an Uber to deliver the product, prosecutors said. Thereafter, Castillo-Soto arrived and delivered the methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl to the undercover officer, at which point the DEA arrested both Castillo-Solano and Castillo-Soto. Advertisement Advertisement The charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance carry a sentence of up to 20 years incarceration, not less than 3 years of supervised release, and a fine up to $1,000,000. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A man is suing the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department, claiming officers violently attacked him while he was livestreaming an immigration protest last summer. According to a civil rights lawsuit filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Rodolfo Cano was standing on a public sidewalk near Oakwood Avenue and Western Avenue on June 11, 2025, documenting police activity during protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Video from Cano's livestream shows the scene moments before the video suddenly cuts out. Advertisement Advertisement In the livestream, Cano can be heard saying, "They're using the rubber bullets, which again, if you look around, these are people who just live here. They're not protestors." Minutes later, a marked LAPD vehicle pulls up, and the video cuts out before going to black. The lawsuit alleges officers tackled Cano to the ground and assaulted him. "Officers repeatedly punched Mr. Cano on his head, his face, they struck him in the ribs, in the kidney area, kicked him, placed a knee on his back, and one officer placed his steel-toed shoe on his hand and pressed hard," said Toni Jaramilla, Cano's attorney. Advertisement Advertisement Photos taken after the incident show the injuries Cano says he suffered that night. The lawsuit claims Cano was unarmed, not resisting and did nothing to provoke the alleged attack. It also alleges officers destroyed his recording device and falsely accused him of felony assault on an officer. According to the complaint, that charge was later rejected by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, and no criminal charges were filed against Cano. Cano said he was on his way home from work when road closures rerouted him into the area of the protest. He said he felt compelled to document what he was seeing. "While I did feel it was my responsibility to document the peaceful protest," Cano said. "I didn't expect whatsoever to have to document the criminal activity that was on display by the police. I was shocked by that." Advertisement Advertisement Jaramilla said Cano is a U.S. citizen with no criminal history and was engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment. Cano is seeking damages from the city and the officers involved. When asked for comment, LAPD told Eyewitness News it does not comment on pending litigation. One male was left with a serious gunshot wound to the chest after a shooting near Ann Street and West Bay Street on March 14, according to a press release from the Savannah Police Department. Officers responded to the area around 12:15 a.m. on reports of the shooting. Upon arrival, SPD found the victim with a gunshot wound to the chest, and he was provided with first aid and transported to Memorial Health University Center for further treatment. While at the scene, investigators interviewed witnesses and collected evidence from the scene. The investigation is ongoing. This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah police investigate shooting near Ann Street A man who was allegedly driving impaired when he caused a crash that killed a woman Wednesday has been identified. The California Highway Patrol says 41-year-old Zachary Kinberger was driving a Tesla when it crossed into oncoming traffic on Hwy 180 and hit 34-year-old Misty Lynn's Kia Soul head-on, killing her. Before authorities released Lynn's identity, they had initially reported that the victim was a woman in her 20s. RELATED: Woman killed in crash with Tesla near Dunlap identified Following the crash, Kinberger was arrested and taken to the hospital, where he remains with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Advertisement Advertisement A 21-year-old passenger and two young children were also in the car with him at time. Those three passengers are expected to be okay. The man who was allegedly driving impaired when he caused a crash that killed a woman on Wednesday has been identified. The crash on Wednesday was not the first time Kinberger was arrested for driving impaired. Action News has previously reported on his history of reckless driving, including when he led Fresno Police on a chase in 2015. Police said then that he was under the influence of marijuana and prescription drugs. Those who knew Lynn said her death was senseless and completely avoidable. Advertisement Advertisement "If you take somebody's life, you're not just taking theirs. You're taking everything around them. The people that love them. You take a piece of people. You take a chunk out of everybody's heart that they touched," said Lynn's boss, Gena Lori Marr, through tears. The CHP says Lynn was on her way to work when the crash happened, and was only a mile away from the Bella Brooke Cafe. Lynn's coworkers at the cafe saw traffic from the crash build up all the way back to where they were and were shocked and devastated to learn Lynn had been the victim. "The thing I'm going to miss... Just her in general. I mean, there was nothing about her I didn't like," said Marr. Advertisement Advertisement Marr says everyone who works at the Bella Brooke Cafe is like family. "She treated me like a mom. And I loved her like a daughter." Marr says Lynn was a lover of kids and animals and was trying to become a mom herself. She says Lynn and her fiance started trying to have a baby after she recently earned her Servsafe certification and learning she would be promoted to manager at the cafe. "She really had drive to make her life good. And she was looking forward to it. She just got that Kia car -- not brand new, but brand new to her. She just got it, like, six months ago or so. They were so excited, because they were driving beaters, barely making it here. So she saved enough money to go get a car... and then that's the one that she died in," said Marr. Advertisement Advertisement Marr shared this message for those who drink and get behind the wheel of a car. "If you take somebody's life, you're not just taking theirs, you're taking everything around them," she said. Bella Brooke Cafe in Dunlap will host Lynn's celebration of life Sunday from 5-7 p.m. to raise money for her family. You can also donate here. For news updates, follow Christina Lopez on Facebook, X and Instagram. The 2026 midterm election season is here after several chaotic months during which Utahs congressional district map was thrown out and replaced with a new map chosen by a district court judge. The new electoral boundaries have upended the primary election landscape for Republican incumbents and given Democrats a rare chance to define themselves on the national stage. This week, candidates for Utahs four U.S. House seats officially filed with the state election office. Voters can expect plenty of new names and competitive primary races. Advertisement Advertisement Before the Republican and Democratic parties hold their primary elections on June 23, candidates will participate in nominating conventions on April 25 where delegates will pick a nominee. U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens announced his retirement in March once it became clear that Utahs new map would reduce the number of Republican-leaning districts from four down to three. Rep. Blake Moore will now run in the 2nd District, covering northern Utah; Rep. Celeste Maloy will run in the 3rd, covering eastern and southern Utah; and Rep. Mike Kennedy will run in the 4th, covering parts of central and western Utah. Meanwhile, the new 1st Congressional District, located in the urban core of Salt Lake County, has welcomed a crowded collection of Democratic candidates vying for support in the most competitive Democratic primary in recent history, as well as several Republicans hoping to keep the seat red. Advertisement Advertisement Here are the candidates running in each of Utahs newly redrawn congressional districts: 1st Congressional District Democrats Nate Blouin State senator from Salt Lake City Michael Farrell Tax attorney from Salt Lake City Eva Lopez Chavez Salt Lake City councilwoman Ben McAdams Attorney and former U.S representative Liban Mohamed Worked for Meta and TikTok Kathleen Riebe State senator for Cottonwood Heights and teacher Luis Villarreal Software engineer and political activist Republicans Adam Clayton Candidate from Salt Lake City Stone Fonua Candidate in several elections for different political parties Jonathan Lopez Former Democratic candidate Advertisement Advertisement Riley Owen CEO of Doers Network, intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve Dave Robinson Former candidate for Salt Lake County mayor, homebuilder, landowner representative Libertarian Jesse West Attorney and party volunteer Forward January Walker Previously ran for Congress, cybersecurity executive 2nd Congressional District Republicans Colton Hatch National Guard service member, works for the state pension system Karianne Lisonbee State representative, political consultant Blake Moore Current Utah congressman, vice chairman of the House Republican Conference Democrats Peter Crosby Works in higher education Tyler Farnsworth Mental health nurse practitioner Advertisement Advertisement Jarom Gillins Army veteran and infrastructure maintenance Ian Parrish Works in the auto finance industry Libertarian Daniel Cottam Bariatric surgeon Independent American Carlton Bowen Former American Fork city councilman, candidate in multiple elections Neil Hansen Resident of Bountiful 3rd Congressional District Democrats Steven Merrill Former candidate for state House, programmer Kent Udell Former professor of engineering, worked in energy industry Republicans David Harris Retired two-star general Phil Lyman Former state representative, San Juan County commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Celeste Maloy Current Utah congresswoman, chair of the Congressional Western Caucus Advertisement Advertisement Tyler Murset Built VotingAct, an online platform for voter engagement Constitution Party Cassie Easley Community volunteer and student at Southern Utah University Libertarian Michael Stoddard Orem resident, former candidate 4th Congressional District Republicans Scott Hatfield Author and worked for Utah Department of Corrections Isaiah Hardman Former student Tyrone Jensen Small business owner Mike Kennedy Current Utah congressman, attorney and physician Pasitale Lupeamanu Retired U.S. Marine and Army veteran, president of nonprofit Seth Stewart Volunteer precinct and poll worker, former candidate Democrats Jonny Larsen Marine veteran, University of Utah student Archie Williams Heavy equipment operator Libertarian Taylor Wright Hosts The Saving Humanity Podcast Unaffiliated Steven Burt Attorney (This story has been updated to add new information.) The Green Bay area will be under a blizzard warning from 4 p.m. Sunday, March 15 to 4 p.m. Monday, March 16, according to the National Weather Service Green Bay, as the winter storm we've been waiting for all week will hit overnight on Saturday, March 14, with snow followed by a wintry mix on Sunday, March 15, followed by a return to snow. The forecast has prompted a number of closures and states of emergency by area municipalities. You can find those here. Advertisement Advertisement Here is the latest forecast from March 14 from the NWS: What will be the timing of the snow for Green Bay? March 14-15: Snow is expected to start in the Green Bay area before 5 a.m. March 15, then switch to snow and sleet. Accumulations of 4-8 inches of sleet and snow overnight. March 15: It will switch to a mix of rain, freezing rain and sleet in the morning, then snow and sleet after 4 p.m., with heavy sleet at times and strong winds. New accumulations of 3-5 inches of sleet and snow. March 15-16: Snow, possibly mixed with sleet, resumes about 9 p.m. March 15, with heavy snow at times and high winds, with gusts up to 55 mph. New snow and sleet accumulation of 5-9 inches possible. Snow will continue March 16, mainly before 4 p.m., with strong winds continuing. New snow accumulation of 3-5 inches possible. The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for northeastern Wisconsin starting at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 15. How much snow will Green Bay get this weekend? Green Bay remains in the 12- to 18-inch band. This includes southern part of Door County. To the north in Oconto, Marinette and part of Shawano counties are in the 24-inch range. Fox Cities are in the 8- to 12-inch area. Blizzard warning issued for Green Bay, other northeastern Wisconsin areas The National Weather Service Green Bay has issued a winter storm warning from 7 p.m. March 14 to 4 p.m. March 15 for the following counties: Brown, Outagamie, Kewaunee, Wood, Portage, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago, Calumet and Manitowoc counties. Advertisement Advertisement Total snow and sleet accumulations of 12-18 inches are expected with some ice accumulation between 0.1 and 0.2 of an inch on March 15. The blizzard warning is in effect from 4 p.m. March 15 to 4 p.m. March 16. Wind gusts could be as high as 50 mph, causing blowing and drifting. What makes a snowstorm a blizzard According to NWS, a blizzard lasts for at least three hours and visibility has to fall to just about a quarter-mile or less. Wind gusts have to be over 35 miles an hour. What other impacts are there? With heavy, wet snow, possible icing and high winds, there is always the possibility of falling tree branches causing power outages. Here is the Wisconsin Public Service outage map. Advertisement Advertisement Travel is not advised. "Travel could be very difficult to impossible with potential for whiteout conditions," the NWS says. Check out photos of the Green Bay blizzard in 2018 What is the forecast for temperatures? The temperatures will be around freezing during much of the storm before falling into the single digits March 16. March 14: High 37, low 28 March 15: High 34, low 17 March 16: High 21, low 4 Governor declares state of emergency for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued the declaration Saturday evening. As we prepare for significant snowfall that could impact much of our state, we're urging Wisconsinites to be careful and plan ahead. Make sure you get stocked up on what you need, prepare for potential power outages, and have access to weather information from a trusted source, Evers said. Wisconsinites, as always, are helpers by nature, so please take good care, look out for each other, and take care of one another. The state will continue our work to prepare and stands ready to assist and support folks and local partners across our state. Green Bay weather radar This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Major winter storm forecast for Green Bay area March 14-16 San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones is leading a delegation in Taiwan to discuss the future of advanced manufacturing. Several members of the mayor's newly established Economic Security Advisory Group will join her. The mayor says there's a benefit to partnering with San Antonio. What I have found in speaking with companies is they know Austin, they know Houston, they know Dallas But they dont know San Antonio as well, said Ortiz Jones. They dont know that Austin is 15% higher to do cost of business and San Antonio is 10% lower. So just within 70 miles, you have a 25% delta in cost of doing business on top of what I would argue is a great quality of life that you have here. Among the companies the mayor will be meeting with will be the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which produces advanced chips for industries that include AI. Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, spoke of the recent appointment of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as the Supreme Leader of Iran, praising him for his experience in management and humility. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with ANI. When asked about Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, shared that he has a close friendship with Khamenei. "I have had the privilege to have a very close friendship with him for several years. In his personal life, he is very pure. He never uses anything from the government. He lives in a rented house. He doesn't have a car and bank account." He further noted, "He's very pious. His heart is very pure. In the matters of management, he's very smart. He has a very good experience in management because he was under the supervision of his father and some other responsible officials in Iran. He was my classmate. He's very wise. He's a man of theory. He is very wise and very humble as well." During the interview, Ilahi also reiterated that Indian vessels would be allowed to pass through the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia. Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi responded affirmatively, "Of course, of course. Yes," when asked whether Indian ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait. Ilahi further said that the special concessions for India on the passage of vessels were a reflection of the Indian public showing solidarity with the Iranian regime against what he described as "oppression" by the US and its allies. "I can say the majority of Indian people are with Iran. They condemned the oppression. They follow justice. And they don't want war. Even I can say they are against the war," he said. He further claimed that the Iranian leadership had been informed about expressions of sympathy from people in India and said Tehran was mindful of India's energy needs. "They (Indians) show their loyalty to the oppressed people. Even with the children of the girls' school, which is attacked by the United States, they show their sympathy, their solidarity. We informed our people in Iran of the sympathy and solidarity of our brothers and sisters in India. And we said that now also they are suffering from a shortage of gas and a shortage of petrol, and we have to provide for them and help them and support them," Ilahi added. His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. (ANI) Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has welcomed talks between the United States and Cuba aimed at easing their strained relations, as she condemned the embargo "inflicted on the Cuban people for many years." "How good," Sheinbaum said when asked about remarks made earlier on Friday by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel that Cuban representatives had recently met with US government officials to seek "a possible solution to the bilateral differences that exist between the two countries." "Mexico will always promote peace and diplomatic dialogue, particularly in the face of this injustice that has been inflicted on the Cuban people for many years through the embargo, which has caused a range of problems," Sheinbaum told journalists during her daily press conference. Advertisement Advertisement Under President Donald Trump, Washington has increased economic pressure on Cuba, aiming to cut off the flow of foreign currency and oil to the Caribbean island. Trump has repeatedly said Cuba is on the brink of collapse due to a lack of oil and money, and had claimed that negotiations with Havana were under way. Havana lost a key partner when Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was captured by the US military in early January. Trump later threatened to impose tariffs on Cuba's oil suppliers, prompting Mexico - most recently the island's main provider - to halt deliveries. Asked whether the Mexican government had found a way to get oil to Cuba, Sheinbaum said that "we are looking for different alternatives." The New Mexico Legislature's investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein is being funded by the institutions accused of facilitating his crimes. A newly established "truth commission" is being launched with $2 million drawn from $15 million in previously untapped settlement funds from JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. While the state Department of Justice publicly touted a $4.95 million settlement with Deutsche Bank in 2023, a $12 million agreement with JPMorgan Chase the following year remained largely under the radar. Advertisement Advertisement Records obtained by The New Mexican show the JPMorgan deal included a clause prohibiting the state from issuing a news release or disparaging the bank. The funding is restricted to efforts combating human trafficking. A leading plaintiff's law firm based in South Carolina handled both cases, taking a cut of roughly $2.1 million, records show. That included $1.45 million in the JPMorgan case and around $754,000 in the Deutsche Bank case. The state received $15 million from the settlements, now in the Legislature's hands to spend. Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, the chair of the truth commission, said she learned of the funding stream only recently and saw it as the perfect way to advance an investigation seeking justice for victims who may have been abused at Epstein's Zorro Ranch in southern Santa Fe County. Advertisement Advertisement "What better way to use it than to honor the victims and get this truth commission established?" she asked in an interview Thursday. Still, Romero said, she wants to know more about the wrongdoing at the basis of the settlements. "Its all sealed. That would be something that were likely to open up through our investigation," she said. 'Proud of the settlements' In a 2023 statement on the Deutsche Bank settlement, the state Department of Justice wrote it had an "ongoing investigation into various financial services companies and the role they played in failing to identify the sexual abuse and trafficking of underage girls at Jeffrey Epsteins Zorro Ranch." Advertisement Advertisement Other lawsuits nationally have claimed the banks failed to report warning signs of sex trafficking, including Epstein withdrawing large sums of money. The agreements with the two banks state the funds can be used "solely to fund personnel and other resources for the State of New Mexico to prevent, address, investigate, and prosecute human trafficking." The settlements are not an admission of wrongdoing. The state "fully and irrevocably releases any claims of any kind" related to both banks and Epstein, the agreements state. Epstein, a sex offender and financier with ties to many famous and powerful figures, died in jail in 2019. Advertisement Advertisement Spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez said the state Justice Department "is proud of the negotiated settlements it reached that provide millions of dollars to combat human trafficking in New Mexico and provide critical financial support for new initiatives like the recently established Truth Commission." She declined to answer questions about the details of allegations against the banks. The JPMorgan agreement prohibits disparagement, although the Deutsche Bank one does not. Outside counsel It's not uncommon for state attorneys general to hand off cases to private law firms on a contingency basis, although the practice has at times garnered criticism, as attorneys sometimes coax states to sue and get a big payout, the New York Times reported in 2014. Advertisement Advertisement The New Mexico Justice Department said it wouldn't have had the resources to pursue the case itself. "Despite lacking the in-house resources to staff a team of full-time banking regulation litigators, the NMDOJ was able to retain private counsel on a contingency fee basis, meaning no upfront cost to the State," Rodriguez said. "We stand by that decision and by the recovery of millions of dollars to support survivors and our ongoing efforts to combat human trafficking," Rodriguez added. Alicia Ward, a spokesperson for the law firm Motley Rice that handled the cases, wrote in an email Thursday, "We are pleased to have supported the State of New Mexico in securing settlements from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank to strengthen efforts to combat human trafficking." Advertisement Advertisement Deutsche Bank pointed to a 2023 statement in which it said, "We are pleased to support the Attorney General in this important effort, which reflects our industrys shared responsibility to play an active role in safeguarding the financial system. JPMorgan declined to comment. 'Important to the public' The truth commission, which will investigate Epstein's potential criminal activities in New Mexico, was created during the legislative session that concluded last month and is currently getting off the ground. It is required to issue a preliminary report in July and a final one by the end of the year. Advertisement Advertisement Epstein owned the sprawling ranch from 1993 until his death. In the coming days, Romero said, the commission plans to release a request for proposals for contractors to join the team, including attorneys and investigators. "This is such a big and sprawling case. We want the best of the best, and folks that are really committed to helping with us with this work," she said. Romero hopes to get more information on "the scope of who has been affected" by Epstein in the state, and anticipates the commission will weigh using settlement funds to compensate victims. "I think it's important the public knows where these funds are, what they'll be doing, and certainly under consideration is thinking about victim compensation," she said. Advertisement Advertisement 'Horrific and disturbing acts' Although the U.S. Department of Justice is required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed last year to release the department's files related to Epstein, some have been withheld and others that have been released have been heavily redacted. However, members of Congress can arrange to view the unredacted versions. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan said he saw some of them Thursday. Today made one thing very clear: horrific and disturbing acts occurred on the Zorro Ranch property near Stanley, New Mexico, and more investigations must be conducted to deliver the full truth and long-overdue justice for Epsteins victims," the New Mexico Democrat wrote in a statement. The state Department of Justice has reopened a criminal investigation of Zorro Ranch. It officially launched a search, which includes law enforcement, on Monday with the consent of the owners, the prominent Huffines family of Texas. Donald Huffines is the Republican running for Texas state comptroller. Charges were filed Monday against a Miami County business owner. Matthew L. Schleppenbach, a 51-year-old Peru resident and owner of Schleppenbach Construction, was arrested for Corrupt Business Influence, a level 6 felony that carries a sentencing rage of 6 months to 2.5 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. The probable cause affidavit filed in the Cass County Courthouse on Monday alleges Schleppenbach took payments from several people, then cut off communication before completing the work he was hired to do. Advertisement Advertisement Twenty alleged victims came forward to report a combined loss of $236,504.24 between Nov. 3, 2024 and Feb. 25, 2026. Schleppenbach was arrested on a warrant for probation violation on Dec. 23. He had been on a 730-day probation since pleading guilty to theft in April 2025. Of the 20 alleged victims, four had already filed theft charges in separate counties three were filed in Fulton County and another was filed in White County. The alleged victims are primarily located in Peru and Rochester. One of the alleged victims was a Logansport resident who, according to the probable cause affidavit, paid Schleppenbach $6,000 on Sept. 22 to build a lean to on the side of his barn with an estimated two months project date. Advertisement Advertisement The document says the Logansport resident reached out to Schleppenbach on Dec. 17 to ask for an update. Schleppenbach allegedly responded he was probably a week and a half or two weeks from a start date. Another alleged victim, a Walton resident, allegedly paid $8,716 on Oct. 20 for Schleppenbach to install a new metal roof on her home. They were allegedly told it would be about a month until he would be able to start on the project. Reaching out for updates in November and December, the Walton resident was allegedly told they were next on Schleppenbachs list. On Dec. 17, according to the probable cause affidavit, Schleppenbach told them If I cant get you done next week I will bring your money back. Six days later, the Walton resident requested a full refund. One Galveston resident allegedly wrote Schleppenbach a check for $18,451 on Dec. 4 for a construction project involving their garage. According to the probable cause affidavit, they were told the project would be complete by Christmas. Advertisement Advertisement Checking in on Dec. 16, the Galveston resident didnt get a response back. Reaching out once more, Schleppenbach allegedly confirmed again the project would be completed before Christmas. The probable cause affidavit states no further communication came after that point, no materials were delivered and no work was done. The probable cause affidavit notes several victims were concerned their payments had been used to cover a vacation to Mexico or to construct a Wisconsin lake house. However, the probable cause states, search warrants for social media accounts operated by Schleppenbach and his wife revealed the lakehouses construction and the vacation occurred before the timeframe of the investigation. Schleppenbachs initial hearing was held in Cass County Circuit Court Thursday, two days after the Cass County Prosecutors office moved to add four additional charges of theft. A Middleburg man is in jail after deputies say he traveled to Lake City to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old for sex. The Columbia County Sheriffs Office says Luke Robert Qualls, 24, was arrested Thursday, March 12, after chatting online with an undercover detective who posed as a teenager. Luke Qualls Investigators say Qualls talked for about a week with the detective on social media, sending explicit messages and pictures. Advertisement Advertisement >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< According to deputies, he knew he was supposedly talking to someone underage the whole time. When Qualls drove from Union County into Columbia County, deputies pulled him over and arrested him. Hes now facing multiple charges, including using a computer to lure a child and sending obscene material to a minor. The sheriffs office is urging parents to keep an eye on their kids online activity. Deputies encourage anyone who sees anything suspicious online to reach out to law enforcement. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. NEED TO KNOW Madison Fields, 16, was reported missing by her family on Feb. 16 The FBI Cincinnati, the Colerain Police Department, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation announced on Thursday, March 12, that she was safely found Authorities located the Ohio teen after identifying a suspect, who was taken into custody but has not been officially charged Madison Fields, 16, has been found safe one month after she was reported missing. The Fields family reported the Ohio teen missing on Feb. 16. She was later located in a Florida hotel, the FBI Cincinnati, the Colerain Police Department, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) announced in a news release on Friday, March 13. Advertisement Advertisement She was found after the law enforcement agencies identified a person of interest in her disappearance. The FBIs Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) deployed to the suspects home, but the suspect had fled prior to their arrival, the news release read. Authorities issued an alert for the suspect and his vehicle, which led the FBI Jacksonville to the suspects car in the parking lot of a Palatka, Fla., police station. Law enforcement identified a Florida hotel where the suspect was believed to be, and upon arrival, found Madison there. The suspect was taken into custody, but has not yet been publicly identified by police. No official charges have been announced. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. We are thankful Madison is safe and will soon be back in Ohio," FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie said, thanking the law enforcement agencies for locating the teen. Advertisement Advertisement Colerain Police Chief Edwin C. Cordie III echoed the sentiment and added, We are all relieved that Madison has been safely located. A friend of the Fields family, Alexis Thompson, told WLWT that Madisons father, Tyler Hirn, is thankful that she was OK. He said he didn't even know what part of Florida she was in, but that Madison was safe at this time. You can imagine her family and friends can't wait to get Madison back home to Cincinnati," Thompson said. Thompson said the family is grateful to the Cincinnati community for their prayers. We can't thank you all enough every little detail matters and finally the family and friends can have some type of conclusion I can imagine she's probably overwhelmed and confused as she's just a 16-year-old girl, but I really hope Madison knows how loved she is. Read the original article on People Across Missouri, we believe in something simple. If you work hard, play by the rules, and take care of your neighbors, you should have a fair shot at building a good life. That belief is not complicated. It is not partisan. It is rooted in the way we were raised. That is why I support Governor Mike Kehoes plan to eliminate Missouris personal income tax. For generations, families here have built their lives through steady work. Farmers rise before the sun. Small business owners take risks and sign the front of paychecks. Parents put in long hours so their kids can have more opportunity than they did. In each of these cases, success comes from effort and sacrifice. Advertisement Advertisement Yet our current tax system takes a cut of that effort every time someone earns a paycheck. Before families can decide how to invest in their home, save for college, expand a business, or give back to their community, the state takes a share of what they have worked for. Phasing out the income tax would send a clear message: Missouri respects work. Missouri trusts its citizens and Missouri is ready to compete for families and businesses who want to grow and succeed. When individuals keep more of what they earn, they make decisions that strengthen their communities. They reinvest in local shops. They hire employees. They support churches and charities. They save and plan for the future. Economic growth does not start in Jefferson City. It starts at kitchen tables and storefront counters across this state. This conversation is about more than dollars and cents. It is about the kind of state we want to be. Do we want a system that quietly chips away at every raise and every new opportunity? Or do we want a system that encourages initiative and independence? Advertisement Advertisement Missouri has always been strongest when we trust people to chart their own path. Our communities thrive when government sets clear rules, treats people fairly, and then gets out of the way. Governor Kehoes proposal is a step toward a tax structure that aligns with those principles. It moves us away from taxing productivity and toward a system that supports growth. It reflects the belief that opportunity should be expanded, not limited. Missourians have never been afraid of hard work. Our policies should reflect that confidence. Montana likes to think of itself as rugged, practical, and allergic to nonsense. That makes our parole system such a puzzling outlier. On paper, parole exists. In practice, its mostly decorativelike antlers on the wall or a Dont Tread on Me bumper sticker on a truck that never leaves town. Heres how it works: An incarcerated person follows every rule. No write-ups. No prior convictions. Years of clean conduct. Treatment completed. Job training finished. Therapy attended. Accountability taken. Growth demonstrated. Theyve served well beyond the legally required minimumoften more than 25% of their sentenceand pose no meaningful risk to public safety. The parole board listens carefully and then denies parole because releasing them would undermine the severity of the crime. Advertisement Advertisement Case closed. Mic drop. Analysis complete. Except that analysis already happenedat sentencing. By a judge. With a gavel. Thats when the severity of the crime was weighed and translated into years of incarceration. When the parole board reuses that same factor to deny release, it isnt being tough. Its being redundant. This isnt public safety; its punishment deja vu. A second sentence imposed quietly, without due process. If severity of the crime is always enough to deny parole, then parole doesnt actually exist. Its cosplay. Rehabilitation becomes a prison hobby, like crocheting or lifting weightsparticipation encouraged, results irrelevant. Montana law says parole decisions are supposed to focus on public safety, institutional behavior, rehabilitation, and the best interest of society. Notice whats missing perpetual moral outrage. Severity is static. It never changes. People do. Or at least theyre supposed tounless weve decided growth is a coastal myth. Advertisement Advertisement Some states have figured this out. California and New York, for example, have explicitly moved away from denying parole based on claims that release would undermine the severity of the crime. Instead, theyve updated their laws and regulations to focus on something far more relevant: Who the person is now. Traditionally, parole boards across the country leaned heavily on static factorsoffense severity, victim impact statements, criminal history, and the sentencing judges comments. In the reformed systems, those factors no longer dominate. The focus has shifted to current risk to public safety, documented rehabilitation, age and maturity, changed behavior, and objective risk assessments. New York has even proposed rules requiring parole boards to meaningfully consider youth-related factors and brain development for people convicted at a young age. Thats not softness. Thats competence. Meanwhile, Montana keeps people locked up long past the point where incarceration serves any public safety purpose. Taxpayers foot the bill to warehouse people who are older, lower-risk, and demonstrably rehabilitated. Congratulationsyoure paying premium prices for the illusion of toughness while getting nothing in return. It doesnt make us safer. It just makes us poorer. Advertisement Advertisement And lets be clear about the bigger picture. Putting more people in prison has not made us safer. In 1975, the United States incarcerated roughly 400,000 people. Today, that number is around 2 million. Montana followed the same path: From well under 1,000 incarcerated people in the 1970s to an estimated 3,0003,500 today. If mass incarceration worked, wed be the safest society in human history. Were not. We are wasting millions building and maintaining cages instead of addressing the actual causes of crime untreated mental illness, addiction, homelessness, lack of education, economic instability, and a country awash in guns. None of those problems are solved by keeping a rehabilitated person in prison five or ten years longer than necessary. Heres a fun fiscal fact: Its far cheaper to send someone to college than to keep them incarcerated. Our universities cost a fraction of what we spend per prisoner each year. And as an added bonus, very few people in prison have college degrees. Education may be the single most effective crime-prevention and reentry tool we haveand weve chosen cages instead. Sometimes theres more to a crime than a rap sheet trauma, abuse, addiction, untreated illness. When those issues are addressed, risk changes. Ignoring that isnt toughness. Its laziness. Advertisement Advertisement Its time for the Montana Legislature and Gov. Greg Gianforte to stop playing pretend with parole. Using severity of the crime to deny release after the minimum sentence is lazy, backward, and embarrassingly un-Montanan. If someone has served their time, followed the rules, addressed their issues, and poses no threat today, keeping them behind bars isnt justiceits cruelty masquerading as policy. Send them back to work. Let them pay taxes. Let them support their families. Locking them up instead is a gross waste of money and a national embarrassment for a state that claims to value common sense and self-reliance. Parole should be about who a person is now, not who they were at their lowest moment. Thats not soft. Thats smart. And its long past time Montana acted like it actually believes in second chances. More than 300 political parties and groupings have registered for Haitis upcoming elections after a last-minute rush to beat a Thursday registration deadline. A source with Haitis Provisional Electoral Council confirmed that 320 political parties and platforms registered to participate in the first general elections in 10 years, scheduled for later this summer. But among the major political forces missing from the list that plans to pose candidates for president, parliament and municipal posts is the party of former Haitian President Michel Martelly, and the late president Jovenel Moise. The Parti Haitien Tet Kale, also known as PHTK, did not register to field candidates, party president Line Balthazar confirmed to the Miami Herald. It is one of two well-known political forces absent from the list. The other is Verite, the political platform founded by former president Rene Preval before his death in 2017. Advertisement Advertisement PHTK brought both Martelly and his hand-picked successor Moise to power. The party was also among the groups that recently signed a political pact with interim Prime Minister Alix Didier FilsAime committing to the holding of elections. Its leadership also took part in negotiations with the prime minister over the formation of his new 18-member cabinet as he assumed leadership of Haitis third transitional government since Moises killing. PHTKs absence from the registration list has not gone unnoticed. People will learn why in the future, Balthazar said. The brand has taken a significant reputational hit in recent years. The United States imposed sanctions on several Haitian political figures and business elites, some of whom had ties to the party. Still, few believe the partys supporters wont run, especially since the current law allows most individuals to be candidates, including those who have been sanctioned but not convicted in a Haitian court. Advertisement Advertisement Just last month, Haiti was abuzz with rumors about the possible return of Martelly as a presidential candidate in the election, which still faces security, financial and logistical hurdles as armed groups continue to control neighborhoods where 60% of the electorate reside while over 1.4 million Haitians remain internally displaced. Meanwhile, election officials estimate they will need $240 million to organize the vote. Haitis government has said it can cover half. A final list of approved parties is expected to be published on March 26 by the electoral council, which has stressed the need for political parties to be recognized by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security of Haiti. According to the electoral calendar, voter registration is expected to begin on April 1, the same day the first contingents of soldiers are supposed to arrive in Port-au-Prince as part of the U.S.-backed Gang Suppression Force. Jacques Desrosiers, the president of the electoral council, also announced this week that a team is working to allow Haitians living abroad to vote, and council members are expected to travel to several countries this month to identify locations where ballots can be cast. While both he and FilsAime have touted efforts to make elections possible this year, concerns about trouble ahead are already emerging. Advertisement Advertisement On Friday, political leader and attorney Andre Michel, in an interview on Port-au-Prince based Magik 9, accused some privileged parties close to FilsAime of seeking to replace six of the nine members of the Provisional Electoral Council in order to influence the vote. There are people today who want to break up the electoral council, he said, warning that such a move would create confusion and suspicion over the electoral process and prolong the transition. Elections have to take place as quickly as possible, and we all have to go to the ballot box together. That is the project. Michel said while his group is a signatory on the prime ministers political pact, they hold no posts in the government. The same, he said, cannot be said for supporters of Martelly. The only concern I have is the enormous influence that president Martelly holds in this government, Michel said. Another political force that did not register is Verite. An electoral platform, the group consisted of five different parties and once counted 18 members of the Lower House and three senators among its membership, making it the second-most powerful bloc in the Haitian Parliament after PHTK. Fils-Aime himself twice unsuccessfully ran for the Senate under the Verite banner to represent the West region that includes Port-au-Prince. Following Prevals sudden death, the platform and its other leaders have been embroiled in a legal battle over who controls the movement and its name. The ongoing dispute has effectively left the party without legal standing. Representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi underlined how Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted on having deeper ties with India. He underlined the historic longstanding ties between the two countries and said that Iran does not want to have any conflict or problems in the ties with India. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview to ANI. Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi said, "The friendship between Iran and India is rooted in more than five thousand years. Iranians connected to Indians through cultural, through civilization, through philosophy and spirituality. Late our Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Uzma Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the first book he wrote was about India, and it's in two volume. This means he loved India. And several times he was insisting on the good collaboration, cooperation between Iran and India." He added, "Even his son also, because whenever I was going back to Iran, I was meeting him, and he was insisting on good collaboration with India and was praising the Indians. He was saying: "They are very loyal, they are very honest, they are very kind, they are very smart, they are very good people." Ilahi further told ANI, "So we never want to have any kind of problems in our relationship and friendship, and I'm sure that there is not any conflict and any problem in our relationship which started long ago and it will continue." During the interview, he also rejected the claims made by US President Donald Trump that Tehran is seeking negotiations as the conflict in West Asia escalates, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, the representative in India of Iran's Supreme Leader, on Saturday, dismissed these assertions, saying Tehran is prepared to continue the war "even for five years". Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi firmly denied that Iran currently wants to enter into negotiations with the United States, noting that it was Washington that targeted Tehran in the middle of negotiations. "No. Never ever. Iran never wants at the moment to negotiate with them because they started this war. And we have experiences with them. Two times we were negotiating with them, and they attacked us. They targeted us," he said. Ilahi stated that Tehran would not submit to its enemies and was prepared for a prolonged conflict if necessary. Drawing parallels with the conflict between Iran and Iraq, the representative said that Iran had experience in sustaining a long war. "I don't know any deadline for this war. But what I know is that Iran is ready to continue this war to the end, even for five years. And we have experience in the war. We had eight years of experience of the war between Iran and Iraq at that time. And we are ready. And if you go to the streets of Iran, you will see all the people are there, and they are chanting for retaliation. And they say we are ready to give our blood, but we are not ready to give our land," he said. Ilahi also said Iran had attempted several times to avoid escalation in the region and had urged neighbouring countries to help prevent conflict in the Middle East. "We didn't want war. Several times, we tried to avoid any type of war in the region. Even though we informed our neighbours that they have to try to avoid the region of this war because the region cannot tolerate any more war," he said. His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. (ANI) Nancy Guthries past social media activities have raised eyebrows amid her mysterious disappearance that happened more than a month ago. The missing 84-year-old once claimed in a post thaThird piece pending if availablet her social media account had been hacked and was looking for ways to get it all sorted out. This comes after journalist Brian Entin slammed the FBI for wasting time looking into a claim made by Nancys worried neighbor, who said that some people posing as FBI agents visited her sister and asked suspicious questions. Nancy Guthrie Complained On Facebook About Being Hacked MPI28/Capital Pictures / MEGA An old Facebook post that was shared by Nancy Guthrie has resurfaced, showing the missing matriarch complaining that her account had been hacked for a second time. Advertisement Advertisement According to The Mirror, in the August 26, 2021, post, she wrote, This is the second time Ive been hacked in FB MESSENGER. HOW DO I FIX IT? A friend then offered her a solution by suggesting she change her Facebook password. Nancy was an active user of the platform, often using it to share photos of her children and grandchildren. She also seemed to have taken a liking to baking as she shared photos of her pie and a pineapple upside-down cake. The missing grandmother was also active politically as she seemingly shared content depicting anti-Trump and anti-ICE rhetoric. Her last post on the popular social media platform came on January 27, less than a week before she was abducted from her Tucson home in the dead of night. Journalist Slams FBI For Wasting Time Before Investigating Claim Made By The 84-Year-Olds Neighbor About Fake Agents FBI/MEGA The search for Nancy has now crossed the 6-week mark, yet investigators have yet to make an arrest, nor have they come up with a viable lead. Advertisement Advertisement NewsNation journalist Brian Entin criticized the FBI for wasting time investigating one of Nancys neighbors who spoke up about an uncomfortable encounter her sister had with some people claiming to be FBI. The neighbor told Entin that her sister was worried shed been duped by the man and woman after she let them in, only for them to start asking questions like if she had a pacemaker and also wanting to check her garage before leaving. The neighbors sister then called 911, after which the FBI and the sheriffs office turned up at her house. They ended up spending four hours there, taking fingerprints, they DNA swabbed her, and said, We dont believe these were real FBI agents,' Entin explained. He added, And this was right in the beginning, just days after Nancy went missing. Im surprised I hadnt heard about this until now, but it was a four-hour ordeal. They leave, she goes to bed frightened, thinking, Oh my god, I let these people in my house.' The Sheriff Believes Nancy Guthrie Was Targeted Instagram | Savannah Guthrie Authorities have not officially confirmed a link between Nancys hacked social media account, but Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said that they believe she was targeted, while also warning that the abductor could absolutely strike again. Advertisement Advertisement Criminal minds are criminal minds, he told NBCs Liz Kreutz in a recently aired interview. We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted, but were not 100% sure of that, Nanos continued. So itd be silly to tell people, Dont worry about it. Youre not his target. You could be. The Arizona officer then shared his hopes that the mixed DNA they found would lead them to somebody very soon. Retired FBI Agent Offers Tips On What Law Enforcement Can Do To Ease Their Investigation FBI/MEGA Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer also raised an alarm that Nancys abductor could strike again, as she drew a similarity between the case and the gruesome murders of 4 Idaho students in 2022. Advertisement Advertisement She called it a big issue as Nancy hasnt been seen or heard from till now, despite law enforcement already receiving thousands of tips. Not trying to raise hysteria, just saying that protecting the community seems to be lost in the hubbub, Coffindaffer noted about Nancys neighborhood. She suggested that law enforcement needs to have a brief presser just to let the public know if there are any more details they can offer so the public can assist in terms of a vehicle/time parameters/any other important days to be aware of. Coffindaffer made sure to note how the public is one of LEs best tools when it comes to solving who took Nancy. The Nancy Guthrie Kidnappers Digital Blackout Could Help Crack The Case Instagram | Savannah Guthrie Heather Barnhart, a forensic expert, spoke to Fox News Digital about the suspected kidnappers digital blackout could help solve the case of Nancy Guthries disappearance, noting that the loudest evidence can be the lack of evidence. Advertisement Advertisement Barnhart, one of the experts who probed Bryan Kohbergers phone and helped solve the Idaho Student Murders, used the convicted killers case to explain why its impossible to completely go off the grid nowadays. [Killer Bryan] Kohberger literally created bookends around the crime by turning off his device, Barnhart stated. So in addition to all the clearing and other things that he prepped for to erase his digital footprint, the fact that right before the murder, his phone was turned off, and then within like 40 minutes or so after it was turned back on, kind of gave us that tunnel to look down here. Barnhart further explained that small clues like the suspects phone being switched off, movements, or tower pings can give investigators a clue. If the person prepped, they wouldnt ping that tower, but if they went ahead of time and scoped it out or planned, they would have, Barnhart said. And then you can also look for entry and exit. And then proximity pings, because eventually youre going to turn your phone back on. The Nancy Guthries Chilling Facebook Post About Being Hacked Before Her Abduction Resurfaces first appeared on The Blast (NewsNation) Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., helped rescue 155 Americans stranded in the Middle East but tells NewsNation thousands more need help. Mace and Grey Bull Rescue founder Bryan Stern joined CUOMO on Friday to discuss their efforts to bring Americans home amid conflict in the region. This was about ensuring that Americans made it home, Mace said of her trip to the Middle East. I went there for a South Carolina family first and foremost. I planned to only be there for 36 hours, and in transit on the way over, I heard about Bryan Stern and Gray Bull Rescue and within three hours, Brian was at the border of Israel and Jordan on the way to pick up the last South Carolina family left stranded in Israel. Advertisement Advertisement Live updates: Trump says US struck Irans Kharg Island, warns Tehran on Hormuz I was and still am very concerned about Americans left behind I helped provide a plane from the government and two nights ago we got those folks flown back, Mace added. Despite the nearly 200 individuals brought out of the region, more work needs to be done, according to the pair, with most Americans needing to take commercial flights to return home. The reality of the situation is the airspace is contested, Stern told CUOMO. Top Iranian official responds to Hegseths claim leaders hiding like rats Its getting better every single day, flights are opening up every single day, but we also dont know what tomorrow will bring. We really dont. Advertisement Advertisement One airplane goes down in Ben Gurion (Airport), and thats the end of that story. So people are stuck there. They want to get out, and there simply arent enough options, he added. Mace said there are more than 10,000 Americans in Israel alone. I felt guilty leaving the region yesterday and coming home because thousands of American citizens were still stranded, and that doesnt include Qatar, Kuwait, Doha, UAE and other places, she said. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. NATO has expanded its footprint in the North Atlantic in recent years, two Western officers said. This is partially in response to an increased presence of Russian submarines coming out of Murmansk. NATO allies like to monitor Russian naval activity before reaching the open Atlantic. NATO is expanding its footprint across the Arctic and North Atlantic, increasing patrols and joint operations as Russia's submarine forces grow more active, two Western officials told Business Insider. Across air, land, and sea, NATO's presence and overall activity in the region have more than doubled over the last two to three years, said Vice Adm. Rune Andersen, chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters. Advertisement Advertisement Andersen said that the surge is "partially a response to increased Russian out-of-area deployments with the submarines" and "a need to keep track of that." Russia maintains one of the world's largest submarine fleets, with an estimated 64 active boats. The Northern Fleet, based in the Murmansk region on the Barents Sea, operates dozens. To get from Murmansk to the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, Russian submarines often sail west through the Arctic before turning south and going through the North Sea or the waters in between Greenland, Iceland, and the UK a naval chokepoint known as the GIUK gap. In recent years, Western military officers have increasingly called attention to the growing Russian naval presence specifically its submarines in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, and have stressed the need to monitor this activity to avoid surprises. The Royal Navy tracks a Russian submarine through the English Channel. Royal Navy If the Russian submarines make it out of the relatively "shallow water and out into the deep Atlantic sea, it becomes more difficult once they're out in the really big ocean to track them," said Col. Martin O'Donnell, the spokesperson for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, or SHAPE, which commands all NATO operations. Advertisement Advertisement "Not that they can't be tracked, but the difficulty if you don't pick them up, if you're not sensing, if you're not monitoring things that increases exponentially and poses a threat not just to Europe, but also to the United States in that regard," O'Donnell said. NATO militaries have a range of tools for anti-submarine operations, including frigates, other submarines, helicopters, and other patrol aircraft, and some allies have recently invested in acquiring additional capabilities. Last month, European nations participated in NATO's Arctic Dolphin 26 exercise off the coast of Norway, with defense of the North Atlantic and GIUK gap top of mind. There are, however, other reasons behind NATO's expanded footprint in the North Atlantic beyond just the Russian naval concerns, O'Donnell and Andersen acknowledged. Advertisement Advertisement The back-to-back accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO, which was triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, increased the number of Arctic states within the alliance from five to seven. Helsinki and Stockholm brought more troops, ships, and aircraft into the alliance's Arctic defense. NATO militaries, including the US, use P-8 Poseidon aircraft to monitor Russian naval activity. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Viviam Chiu O'Donnell also said that alliance activity in the North Atlantic has increased since December, when JFC Norfolk NATO's newest joint force command added Finland, Sweden, and Denmark to its area of responsibility. It now leads the alliance's new Arctic Sentry deterrence operation. More generally, there is a greater understanding among NATO states that the North Atlantic and Arctic regions are becoming more strategically valuable, making it critical for allies to maintain a strong deterrent posture there, Andersen said. The region is full of natural resources, and melting sea ice is creating new trade routes. To prevent Russia and China from gaining military and economic influence in the High North to the detriment of alliance states, NATO's leadership wants allies to continue prioritizing Arctic security. Advertisement Advertisement One of the key benefits of Arctic Sentry, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said last month, is that "we now have a one Arctic approach, where allies synchronise activities, enhance and expand regular presence throughout the region." "It is bringing together what you already have, and adding on top, based on a gap assessment, what we need to do more," Rutte said. Read the original article on Business Insider LAS VEGAS (KLAS) More than 6,000 jobs were up for grabs in Southern Nevada Friday at what Clark County leaders said is the largest free job fair in the state. Hundreds of employers met face-to-face with job seekers at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and many of them were ready to hire on the spot, connecting thousands of people with new opportunities. The economy sucks and its crazy right now, said job seeker Rhiannon Perez. Advertisement Advertisement From healthcare to hospitality, recruiters from more than 130 companies were looking to fill thousands of positions. With employment with work hours with income, the challenges that families have, it became really apparent years ago that we needed to start doing something different, said Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson. Gibson said the event is designed to connect people directly with employers, many of whom are ready to hire on the spot with resume reviews. There are people who come who are desperate, there are others who come who are maybe looking for something a little better than what they have, and weve got to be able to accommodate all of them, Gibson said. Advertisement Advertisement Workforce leaders said the demand for workers remains strong across several sectors. Manufacturing is one area seeing major growth. David Rose with HASS Automation said theyre expanding their manufacturing capacity with a second factory in Henderson. As the factory gets closer and closer to opening, probably be looking to hire between 300 and 500 people, Rose said. For job seeker Les Long, events like this offer more than just applications, they offer connections. Job security means a lot, and working different jobs, you meet cool people you never know who you could come across, and that could help you with your end goal, Long said. Advertisement Advertisement Rhiannon Perez traveled hundreds of miles from Reno, hoping to break into the Las Vegas job market. Its hard out here, its hard to get word of mouth its a lot of networking going on. If you dont have things like that, these are great for opportunity to come out here, get your name out, show your face, Perez said. Organizers said this years turnout was record-breaking. More than 6,500 job seekers attended the job fair, including about 375 students from the Clark County School District who were given early access to meet with employers. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. It's not today, but in two weeks. No Kings protests are taking place March 28, intent on drawing a "historic" flood of protestors across the nation in the latest in a series of mass protests against President Donald Trump's "chaos, corruption and cruelty," No Kings organizers said. Over 1,000 No Kings marches are planned, including a massive No Kings NYC protest, five months after a No Kings Oct. 18 protest that drew over 300,000 people to Manhattan and Times Square alone, according to the New York Times. Advertisement Advertisement Around 50 No Kings March 28 protests in New Jersey have been organized, with dozens of locations across North Jersey, Central Jersey, South Jersey, and near Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore. Indivisible, a progressive activist group, 50501 and other organizers have helped launch the third round of No Kings rallies, a slew of anti-Trump protests during the president's second term. The first No Kings June 14 protests drew millions of people during the so-called Trump military parade. Organizers say the nonviolent protests are meant to celebrate free speech, the right to assemble and the First Amendment, while pushing back against the Trump administration's immigration agenda following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minnesota in January. Funding for ICE and Border Patrol have been at the forefront of a bitter impasse on Capitol Hill, with another failed Senate vote this week to reopen the government amid a DHS shutdown. Here's all you need to know about No Kings protest, rallies, and demonstrations near you, including nearly 55 locations in New Jersey. When is the next No Kings rally 2026? The next No Kings protest in 2026 is on March 28, with over 1,000 No Kings marches and protests planned across the nation. Advertisement Advertisement This is the third No Kings protest during President Donald Trump's second term: millions turned out at roughly 2,700 protests on No Kings on Oct. 18. A No Kings June 14 protest drew millions during Trump's birthday that coincided with a massive military parade to celebrate the Army's birthday in Washington DC. What is a No Kings protest March 28? No Kings protests, rallies and demonstrations are planned across the nation on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Organizers are protesting President Donald Trump and his administration, with organizers saying Trump has doubled down on: Sending masked agents into streets, terrorizing communities Targeting immigrant families Profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants Threats to overtake elections Gutting health care, environmental protections and education Rigging maps to silence voters Ignoring mass shootings at schools and communities Driving up costs of living, while providing giveaways to billionaire allies No Kings NYC protest route, time The No Kings protest in NYC starts at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 28, with the NYC protest ending at 4 p.m. ET. The No Kings NYC protest begins at 7th Ave and Central Park South slightly different from the No Kings NYC Oct. 18 march, which started at Father Duffy Square. Advertisement Advertisement The "No Kings NYC" route for March 13 has not yet been listed. Check NoKingsNYC.com for more information or to sign up. No Kings protests NJ; where are March 28 protests in NJ? Over 1,000 No Kings protests are planned Saturday, March 28, 2026, across the US, with over 600 across the Northeast. There are now around 50 protests in New Jersey as of today, March 13: This list will likely continue to grow in the coming days. Check USA TODAY reporting for the latest on the protests. Make sure to check protest times ahead of the event, as some have shifted since our initial reporting earlier this month. What does 'No Kings' mean? The name "No Kings" comes from the organizers' belief that President Donald Trump is ruling the country as a monarch, rather than what a leader of a democracy. Advertisement Advertisement "The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don't have kings, and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty," organizers say on their event pages. Find a 'No Kings' protest near me The biggest "No Kings" protest will be in Minnesota/St. Paul (Twin Cities), Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans. To find "No Kings' locations, head to the No Kings website, where you can input your ZIP code to find a protest near you. Lori Comstock is a New Jersey-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: No Kings March 28 2026 locations, next no kings rally 2026 With severe weather already making its way to the region, fire chiefs and emergency management officials from across North Alabama gathered for a planning and coordination meeting focused on the Alabama Mutual Aid System, known as AMAS. The meeting brought together representatives from some of the region's most active fire and rescue agencies, along with state and county emergency management leadership. Organizers say the session was part of a broader effort to align team goals with those of Alabama EMA as the mutual aid network continues to expand. RELATED: Strong Storms Late Sunday Followed by Sharp Cold Snap Across the Tennessee Valley Advertisement Advertisement Officials say they expect AMAS to see continued growth in the coming years and emphasized that coordination between participating agencies will be critical to the system operating effectively when it is needed most. The spring and summer months historically bring some of Alabama's most dangerous weather, making advance preparation and clear lines of communication between departments a priority. Agencies represented at the meeting included the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, Albertville Fire and Rescue, Arab Fire Department, Boaz Fire and Rescue, Decatur Fire and Rescue, Fort Payne Fire Department, Guntersville Fire and Rescue, Huntsville Fire and Rescue, Madison Fire and Rescue, and the Marshall County Emergency Management Agency. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Drivers are wincing at the quick rise of gas prices over the last two weeks. Travel agency AAA is tracking the spike. This time last year, unleaded was $3.07 a gallon, and diesel was at $3.61. On Friday, the average was $4.89. Diesel prices climb nearly $1 in North Carolina amid Iran conflict They have been insane, Im not even going to lie, said one driver at a Shell gas station on Sam Wilson Road. For this car right here, this is a 2013 Nissan Sentra, and I usually get a full tank of gas for $25, and last week, I had to pay $32 for a full tank. Never in my life have I had to pay $32. Advertisement Advertisement Another driver told us it was beginning to affect his business. We went from 89 to 87, just to save money, he said. Economists say the rise is due to the conflict in the Middle East. The answer is its going to depend upon how long this war lasts. If it lasts only weeks, as the president has indicated he wants it to, then this will be a short-run problem for consumers, said North Carolina State University Economics Professor and William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor Emeritus Mike Walden. One driver says its not affecting him now, but knows hell eventually feel the squeeze. Yeah, I think another $4 would be crazy, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Professor Walden doesnt think prices will get that high, but its not unfamiliar territory. In 2022, the national average topped $5 for unleaded and diesel, in the wake of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Financial advisors say this year, the economy is slightly weaker than normal, but they dont believe indicators will hit the bottom of the tank. While the last three weeks have been a challenge, a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds and cash is holding up against these markets. And as the S&P 500 is just really just a few percentage points off its all-time highs. So while the news cycle is doing very swift because these events are very swift over the long run, the markets continue to perform reasonably well and a diversified portfolio is winning, said Matthew Moore, the Senior Wealth Advisor for HB Wealth. Lets see how these geopolitical in particular matters, but also the economic matters play out before we draw any real long-term conclusions. Moore suggests neighbors try to conserve where they can financially. Advertisement Advertisement Take a step back and make sure that youre in line with your plan that you have in place, and try to be patient, as difficult as that may be, he said. Walden is keeping an eye on the labor market. Businesses are facing a lot of uncertainty. This is another one with the Iran war, but theyre facing uncertainty regarding tariffs. Theyre facing uncertainty regarding AI. And when businesses are uncertain, they likely will not hire as many people. I think thats based on businesses actually being very positive about the economy because they think AI is going to improve their productivity, which means higher, higher profits, Walden said. Neither Professor Walden nor Moore believes a recession is in the near future. They tell Queen City News they expect prices will drop fast once the conflict is over. Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. North Korea fired 10 ballistic missiles early Saturday morning toward the eastern sea. The Office of the Prime Minister in Japan issued an urgent warning telling residents all precautionary measures are in effect. Early reports indicate that no damage has been reported by nearby aircraft or ships. According to The Associated Press, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from the site of Pyongyang's international airport and flew about 220 miles. Advertisement Advertisement On Thursday, South Korean officials met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington. The hope is for renewed diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. Trump is expected visit to China March 31 and South Korean officials hope this may create an opening with Pyongyang. Reuters reported this is the annual week for the United States and South Korea to conduct military drills as well. The outlet reported hundreds of troops conducting river-crossing drills on Saturday. The drills include tanks and armored combat vehicles. The U.S. military has about 28,500 troops and squadrons of fighter jets stationed in South Korea. Officials said Saturday's missile launch is North Korea displaying its anger at the exercises. North Korea has been under multiple United Nations Security Council sanctions since 2006. Advertisement Advertisement Back in January, North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles in response to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung visiting China to meet with its president, Xi Jinping. North Korea reportedly also fired in response to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. Related Links A mystery woman found bludgeoned to death in an abandoned Brooklyn building in 1990 finally has a name, investigators using DNA research to reach back generations and build a family tree that ultimately led to her identification. But now comes the hard part figuring out who murdered 21-year-old Sheila Ramsey. And no one wants an answer more than her son, Rashard Ramsey, now 36 but just eight months old when his mother was killed. Advertisement Advertisement Honestly, its hard to put it into words, the son told the Daily News from Houston, where he lives with wife and two young children. When I found out the news I didnt know how to absorb it. I knew of [my mother] but I never got to know her. I have a few pictures but no recollection of her. Im still trying to sort it out but obviously I want to know who did this to her. The case dates back to Feb. 24, 1990, when, at about 1:30 a.m. a man called 911 and reported that he had slipped into a vacant Bedford-Stuyvesant store on Gates Ave. near Broadway to relieve himself, only to find a dead woman in the basement boiler room. Her clothing was up around her head and she was naked from her shoulders down, said NYPD Cold Case Squad Det. Robert Dewhurst, who at the time was two years away from becoming a police officer. She was face down and she was bludgeoned to death. Advertisement Advertisement The woman, known only at the time as Jane Doe, was killed by blunt force trauma to her head and neck, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. It is not clear if she was sexually assaulted. The murder was the ninth logged at the 81st Precinct that year out of what would be a record 2,262 citywide killings by years end, as the crack epidemic raged across New York. Dewhurst said the case file shows detectives interviewed a number of people with no luck. With no name for the victim, the case quickly turned cold and she was buried later that year at Potters Field on Hart Island. All Rashard Ramsey knew was what his grandmother had told him when he was about nine. Mary Ramsey, with whom he and his mother lived, sat him down and explained how one night he had a fever. His mother left the familys Williamsburg apartment to get medicine, but never returned. Advertisement Advertisement His grandmother also said she had filed a missing person report at some point and that Sheila Ramsey was later declared dead by the state. DNA roadmap The NYPD stayed on the case. A detective took a shot at solving the case in 2007 but no serious leads were developed. Then, in 2018, as the advent of DNA testing to unearth clues to ones ancestry grew in popularity, a California case shed light on a new avenue for investigators. The notorious Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, was busted, due in large part to investigative genetic genealogy, a modern detective tool that helps police identify nameless victims and suspects by first identifying their relatives. DeAngelo in 2020 was sentenced to life in prison for 13 murders and 13 rapes from the 1970s and 1980s. Advertisement Advertisement In New York, the MEs office, working with the NYPD and private labs specializing in genetic genealogy, has helped developed leads for 11 unidentified people, 9 of them murder victims. Most notable among the 9 is the Midtown Jane Doe, who in 2024 was finally identified, 21 years after she was found by construction workers breaking up a concrete floor and some 50 years after she was actually murdered. Think about it in terms of the impact on the families, said Angela Soler, the OCMEs director of forensic anthropology. These are people who have been waiting decades to find out what happened to their loved one and while its a painful realization to know that their loved one is now dead or has been dead this whole time theres also a sense of relief because that question in the back of their mind about where their loved one is and what happened to them has finally been answered. In the Ramsey case, the NYPD in early 2024 decided to try genetic genealogy, the Cold Case unit collaborating with the departments forensic experts. Within about three months, theyd developed a DNA profile for Jane Doe. Advertisement Advertisement Then, working with two private labs that analyze DNA samples from people whove agreed to let law enforcement access their information, a clue to Jane Does family tree emerged. We start looking at their ancestors and build it back as far as we think we need to go, said Sarah Sciortino, a criminalist with the NYPDs Investigative Genetic Genealogy Squad. For this particular case we had to build back to grandparents, great-grandparents, second great-grandparents, that dated back to the late 1800s. Once we build back as far as we need to, we now need to build forward in time and thats referred to as descendancy research. An obituary in Alabama At some point as the investigators followed the genetic trail, signs pointed to Alabama. Advertisement Advertisement The cops uncovered an obituary for a woman named Mary Ramsey Crawford, who was 67 when she was killed in 2014 by a hit-and-run driver. The obituary said she had a son, Rashard Ramsey, and that her daughter, Sheila Ramsey, had died before her. (Rashard was actually her grandson.) I had nothing, Dewhurst said. Now we have a name. Rashard agreed to meet. Dewhurst and his partner flew to Texas on Jan. 12, 2025, meeting him in the middle of cattle country, Marquez, population 198, where Rashard, who repairs and maintains cell phone towers, was between assignments. They swabbed the inside of his cheek and flew back to New York City. Less than two months later, the DNA tests came back Jane Doe was indeed Sheila Ramsey. Rashard is her son, the obituary error notwithstanding. Years after her disappearance, he had moved to Alabama with his grandmother, Mary Ramsey Crawford, whod been killed in the hit-and-run. Advertisement Advertisement Since then, Dewhurst has been able to track down some family members and a family friend, confirming that Sheila Ramsey had left home to buy her son medicine and, perhaps more critically, that she was accompanied by an unknown man. Id like to find out who that man is, he said. Id also like to find out who the father of [Rashard] is. Rashard, in fact, had last year signed up for ancestry.com in an attempt to learn the identity of his father, whom his grandmother had described as essentially absent from his life. Now, hes optimistic his mothers killer can be found. Advertisement Advertisement I do think its possible to solve the case, he said. I watch all those shows. I think thats part of the reason why Im addicted to them, because of what happened to my mother. Lt. Robert Balacki, head of the Cold Case Squad, said the NYPDs embrace of new and ever-evolving technologies makes it increasingly possible to get back in time and solve cases from decades ago. To that end, Dewhurst and Sciortino recently visited the murder scene, now Speed Dry Cleaners, and posted in the window a reward poster featuring a photo of Sheila Ramsey, dressed in the gown she wore to her high school graduation. Now, hopefully, someone will see this and remember something from back then, Dewhurst said. Sheila Ramsey was a good person. Somebody has to know what happened to her. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All tips will be kept confidential. A 37-year-old Oakland woman died while in custody at Santa Rita Jail, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said Friday. Kenyonna Farr was booked into the Dublin jail for a court order violation at around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, the sheriff's office said. On Thursday, deputies took Farr to an area of jail used to transport people to court hearings. But at 7 a.m. that morning, she was found unconscious in her holding cell, the sheriff's office said. Advertisement Advertisement Farr was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital and, once cleared at about 12:30 p.m., brought back to Santa Rita. Hours later, at 3:42 a.m. Friday morning, deputies again found Farr unconscious in her cell. Jailers "immediately" began life-saving measures and requested emergency medical services, the sheriff's office said. But ambulance medics pronounced Farr dead at 4:18 a.m. Friday. Her cause of death will be determined after the completion of an autopsy, which includes toxicology testing, the sheriff's office said. Farr is the 76th person to die in custody at the jail since 2014, according to KTVU, but the first person to die in custody this year. Advertisement Advertisement Last month, 36-year-old Dequita Grace Harrell, also of Oakland, was found dead in the women's restroom of the jail's lobby. She was at the facility to visit an inmate, authorities said. Farr's death has been reported to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, the sheriff's office said, but per state law must also be reported to the California Attorney General's office. This article originally published at Oakland woman dies after three days at Santa Rita Jail. The representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, on Saturday defended Iran's attacks on neighbouring Gulf countries amid the West Asia conflict, saying that the strikes are aimed at US-backed bases used against Tehran and are part of self-defence measures taken by the regime. In an interview with ANI, Ilahi said Iran has been in the region for thousands of years and is compelled to act against attacks originating from foreign bases. He added that the United States has established 33 to 45 military bases around Iran and that Tehran had asked its neighbours not to allow these bases to be used against Iran by the US, but attacks continued. "We were living in this region for more than ten thousand, twenty thousand, one million years. We were in this region. When there wasn't even America yet, we were in this region. And you know America is far from Iran, more than six thousand miles--roughly seven thousand miles. It's far from Iran. Never can America attack us and target Iran from New York, Washington or California. America should use some bases near Iran. Where are these bases which America uses? Exactly. America established thirty-three, and yesterday I heard from some American senators, forty-five bases around Iran," the representative said. "We said to our neighbours before the war that, please, they should not provide American bases, and these bases should not be used against Iran. And they informed us that they will not allow America to use it, and they assured us that they don't want this to happen. But unfortunately, it's happened," he added. Ilahi further claimed that the missiles that struck the Primary Girls' School in Minab, which killed over 180 people, including schoolgirls, came from Bahrain. Earlier, CNN, citing sources, reported that the US accidentally struck the school, relying on outdated data. Responding to questions about civilian casualties, including Indian nationals in the conflict, Ilahi acknowledged the loss of innocent lives but said responsibility lies with those who initiated the war. "Actually, the war is unfair. They initiated the war. I say to the people in the world: they are suffering. Why do the leaders of these countries criticise the war? It is better to ask the aggressors why they initiated it and caused people to suffer," he added. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. The conflict escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint military strikes by the US and Israel, after which Iran, in its retaliation, targeted Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries and Israel, causing disruption in the waterway and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability. Due to the conflict in the region, Iran has virtually closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy supply. (ANI) An offshore wind project targeted by the Trump administration has begun sending power to New Englands electric grid, the developer said Friday. The Danish company Orsted said Revolution Wind is now generating power and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational. Orsted is building Revolution Wind with Global Infrastructure Partners Skyborn Renewables to provide electricity for Rhode Island and Connecticut, enough to power more than 350,000 homes and businesses. Revolution Wind was one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt. Advertisement Advertisement The Biden administration sought to ramp up offshore wind as a climate change solution. But President Donald Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any windmills be built. He has signed a spate of executive orders aimed at boosting oil, gas and coal. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Friday night that Trump reversed course on Joe Bidens costly green energy agenda that gave preferential treatment to intermittent, unreliable energy sources and instead is aggressively unleashing reliable and affordable energy sources to lower energy bills, improve our grid stability and protect our national security. Rogers added in a statement to AP that the administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue. Orsted said that at a time of growing energy demand, Revolution Wind will provide price certainty and stability, citing a preliminary analysis by the state of Connecticut that estimates it will lower wholesale energy costs by about $500 million per year by 2028. Advertisement Advertisement Revolution Wind is adding affordable, reliable American-made energy to New Englands grid, helping to meet growing energy demand and lower consumer costs, Amanda Dasch, chief development officer at Orsted, said in a statement. Chris Kearns, acting commissioner of the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, called the first power milestone a significant moment for the states clean energy landscape. Orsted began construction in 2024 about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the Rhode Island coast. The wind farm has 65 of the 11-megawatt Siemens Gamesa turbines, and more than 1,000 people have been working on it. Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat, said that because this wind energy is directly transmitted off the New England coast, its price will not be at the mercy of uncertain global energy markets. The Iran war is disrupting world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel. Advertisement Advertisement Courtney also said Friday's milestone never would have happened without talented Connecticut building trades workers, who persevered through the Trump administrations illegal halt work orders. The order in December was the second time the administration halted construction on Revolution Wind. Work was previously paused Aug. 22 over national security concerns. A month later a federal judge ruled the project could resume. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Nationally, data center bashing is a bipartisan issue. The backlash is not going away, either. The first time I heard about a data center, it could fit in the space of a couple tractor trailer parking spaces. They looked the part, too windowless boxes with a door for the occasional tender to visit and a vent for the excess heat. There were some parked just outside the Brewery District 20 years ago. Today, even though semiconductors allow more storage to fit in less spaces, data centers have evolved to become land-, water- and electric-consuming massive concrete buildings. Ohio, aided by strong electric infrastructure thanks to our long legacy of manufacturing and a lack of hurricanes, has been an attractive place to locate. Today, there are reportedly 40 of them in New Albany alone. Advertisement Advertisement Far be it for me to pile on the backlash, but here I go. Miller Road is the line of separation between long-standing residential and the data center boom taking over the New Albany community. At left is the Bermuda Drive development and at right is a data center being built so quickly that it does not have real walls, just a tent-like structure surrounding the computer servers. There are no signs denoting which company will be using these servers, but a similar set of buildings in the area has been identified as a Facebook facility. Photographed Friday, April 24, 2026. On Miller Rd. in New Albany, a huge data center is being built so quickly that it does not have real walls, just a tent-like structure surrounding the computer servers. There are no signs denoting which company will be using these servers, but a similar set of buildings in the area has been identified as a Facebook facility. Photographed Friday, April 24, 2026. Five tents holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. A green wooden fence somewhat shields five "tents" holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook that are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. Five tents holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. One of the original New Albany Meta Data Centers on the east side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. The Amazon Fulfillment Center CMH7, 1245 Beech Rd SW, along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. The Google Data Center, 1101 Beech Rd SW, in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. The Google Data Center, 1101 Beech Rd SW, in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. An unmarked data center at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Beech Rd. NW in New Albany, Ohio photographed July 28, 2025. A data center identified on maps as CMH - Newton Campus, 2575 Newton Ct, in New Albany. The complex is at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Harrison Road photographed July 28, 2025. Vantage Data Center, 3475 Horizon Ct., near Jug St. and Beech Rd. NW in New Albany, Ohio photographed July 28, 2025. A data center identified on maps as CMH - Newton Campus, 2575 Newton Ct, in New Albany. The complex is at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Harrison Road photographed July 28, 2025. Jan 18 2023; Plain City, Ohio, USA; The Amazon Web Services data farm on Houchard Road just south of Post Road. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch Jun 13, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Seeminlgly surrounded by electric lines, an electric substation and the new Google data center, a farmhouse sits across Parsons Avenue from the construction of the Google data center. The center is on land that was once the Hartman Stock Farm. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch A new report is out that shows a boom in data center construction in central Ohio over the past 10 years. Facebook, Amazon, Google and other companies have been building them throughout the region. This is the new Google facility between Scioto Downs and I-270 on the South Side. Google's $600 million data center in New Albany, joining fellow tech giants Amazon and Facebook with centers in the Columbus suburb. July 11, 2023; Columbus, Ohio, USA; The new Google data center on the far Southside of Columbus. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch An unmarked data center and electric substation are under construction April 20, 2024. The reconstruction of Jug Street is visible at right. Jan 18 2023; Plain City, Ohio, USA; The Amazon Web Services data farm on Houchard Road just south of Post Road. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch Greater Columbus data centers 1 of 23 Miller Road is the line of separation between long-standing residential and the data center boom taking over the New Albany community. At left is the Bermuda Drive development and at right is a data center being built so quickly that it does not have real walls, just a tent-like structure surrounding the computer servers. There are no signs denoting which company will be using these servers, but a similar set of buildings in the area has been identified as a Facebook facility. Photographed Friday, April 24, 2026. One thought: Is the juice worth the squeeze? The biggest reason for the national backlash is a basic fact: The economic impact of data centers is truly weak. All the think tank studies claiming supply chain and spillover impact Ive looked at never survive a couple questions deep. Benefits to a few. Pain to many others. Not much juice for all the squeeze. More: Data centers in Ohio could lose tax break if lawmakers prevail Theres no reason to incentivize them to come. New Albany has one part of the data center equation right. They impose a payment in lieu of payroll tax that brings in the equivalent from the machines that it would if there were people in those buildings paying wage taxes instead. Rick Platt is President and CEO of the Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority. Second thought: Electricity demand disrupted The Ohio Manufacturers Association is right to point out that data centers, though certainly bringing a larger demand than manufacturers do, are not the ones to blame for the rising power rates. Advertisement Advertisement OMA points the fingers at utilities. The electric rate bidding system favors reporting higher electricity demand than can be proven. The systems to hold monopoly utilities accountable are seemingly broken. To be fair, there are risks. Technology improvements could cut the electricity needs of AI and future data needs. Thus, electric infrastructure investments based on data centers alone as a customer is a risky move to make. The worst thing that could happen? Put the risk of electric growth on stranded customers. Ohios move to deregulate electricity 20 years ago was the right move. Reversing that would be a huge mistake. Mom and pop electricity rate payers shouldnt bear the brunt of risky business decisions. Third thought: Opportunity cost is the biggest issue To me, the biggest issue is one that isnt at the center of the backlash but ought to be. Its opportunity cost. Its asking the question: What alternative opportunity could happen with a data center site, in the long run, that has more economic impact? Advertisement Advertisement Without naming names, heres one example that proves my point: One large data center company sits on 350 acres with 70 jobs paying an average of $75,000 a year. Just 15 miles away that same 350 acres hosts an industrial park with 20 diverse manufacturers employing 2,070 people. The average pay is the same. The difference is 2,000 families with jobs and a community with a more stable, growing tax base. Thats the definition of opportunity cost. Its smart for communities to make informed decisions with future opportunity in mind. Rick Platt is president and CEO of the Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority with over three decades of experience in Ohio industrial development. He is a board member of JobsOhio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: In Three Thoughts, JobsOhio's Platt questions Ohio data center value Oklahoma has set a new record for the most tornadoes ever recorded in the first 70 days of a year, according to preliminary data from the National Weather Service. The unprecedented count follows a series of deadly March storms that swept across the state, killing multiple people and leaving several communities with significant damage. As of March 13, Oklahoma has recorded 22 tornadoes to date in 2026, which passes the 2023 record of 20 tornadoes counted between January and March. Advertisement Advertisement The high totals in 2026 came from five tornado-producing storms, most of which occurred in March. And because some recent storms are still under investigation, the total could rise. More: Is 'Tornado Alley' shifting? What Oklahoma, Midwest data shows A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill Tornado rips through Oklahoma classrooms and homes. See the damage 1 of 23 A tornado touched down Friday, March 6, in Beggs, Oklahoma, leaving two people dead. The tornado also damaged parts of the local school, destroyed a handful of homes and overturned vehicles. Provided by Beggs Mayor Roger Merrill The first came on March 5, which produced seven different tornadoes throughout the northwestern parts of Oklahoma. The strongest of the storms killed two, a mother and daughter, in Major County. The following night, nine storms materialized in the state's northeastern corner around Tulsa. The strongest came with an EF-3 in Okmulgee County, which killed a husband and wife and injured their son and his girlfriend. According to the National Weather Service, 17 tornadoes have been recorded so far in March 2026. Advertisement Advertisement More: 'Prolific' storm kills two, marking Oklahoma's first tornado deaths of 2026 The last time Okahoma recorded 17 tornadoes in March was in 1991, which still holds the state record for most recorded in that month. Oklahoma also recorded high tornado totals in January 2026, where the state's count of 5 tornadoes matches the record first set in January 2023. No tornadoes were recorded in February. The March tornado total could increase, depending on the findings from the weather service's investigation into storms around the state on March 10. At this time, the weather service has confirmed an EF-0 tornado formed 5 miles NW of Tuttle in Grady County. This storm formed at 6:36 p.m. Advertisement Advertisement Officials said there was also damage in Marietta that was produced on March 10, though it was not consistent with tornado-inflicted damage. In Minco, officials are still investigating to see where, or if, a tornado formed. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma sets new tornado record for early 2026 after run of deadly storms A fuze malfunction, the second ever in the models service history, likely caused a M795 155mm artillery round to explode early in a live-fire demonstration at Camp Pendleton last fall, raining shrapnel onto a civilian highway, the Marine Corps found. The Marine Corps released its own internal investigation into the Oct. 18 incident on Friday. The incident last fall saw an artillery shell prematurely detonate over Interstate 5 while Marines carried out a live-fire barrage as part of an amphibious assault demonstration. The event, held as part of celebrations for the Marine Corps 250th birthday, was attended by Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and caused confusion in the hours leading up to it, prompting a last-minute closure of Interstate 5 near the base. In the hours ahead of the celebration, electronic signs set up along the highway dozens of miles from the base warned drivers of Live weapons over freeway as they approached Camp Pendleton. Top Stories This Week News VA invented new reasons to deny GI Bill benefits, lawsuit claims By Patty Nieberg News Senator blocks veterans benefits bill over cost in dollars and cents By Jeff Schogol News Marine Corps swim qualification tests are about to get tougher By Jeff Schogol Advertisement Advertisement The Marine Corps determined the issue was the rounds electronic fuze malfunctioning, although the cause of the malfunction wasnt clear. Per the report, prepared for the commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, the fuze was manufactured to a one-in-a-million defect standard. Six M777 howitzers were set up on Red Beach and crewed by Marines from 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They were set to fire artillery into a training area inside Camp Pendleton, on the other side of the freeway. 120 artillery shells were available for the demonstration, the Marine Corps said, and the rounds were fired over Interstate 5, one of Californias busiest highways and serves as the main route between San Diego and Los Angeles; Camp Pendleton sits between the two cities. An Amtrak train line also runs parallel to the freeway by the base. Investigators couldnt determine what caused the malfunction, but said that the howitzers proximity to one another might have contributed. The six guns fired were closely packed together, placed in a space 165 yards by 165 yards, with two howitzers only 14 feet apart. The report said that several career artillery officers note they have never seen howitzers placed this close together but also acknowledged that there was no restrictive minimum distance of Gun placement in relation to administrative artillery live fire. Additionally, the potential presence of anomalous electromagnetic energy in the vicinity of the artillery pieces might have played a role, although the report did not elaborate on what that meant. The M767A1 fuze is extremely reliable, with only one malfunction in its service history, the report said. That incident happened at Fort Drum in 2017 when the same fuze, mounted to a 105mm M119A3 round, exploded early after hitting something mid-flight. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, reload an M777 lightweight 155mm howitzer during a rehearsal for the 250th Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration at Red Beach combat town, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Oct. 17, 2025. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. Aaron S. Patterson. Experts, including engineers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona in California examined the evidence from the events leading up to the incident. The shell detonated 453 meters above the highway. Shrapnel, including a two-inch-long piece, fell to the ground, hitting a California Highway Patrol car and motorcycle. No one was injured. The two vehicles hit by the raining shrapnel happened to be assigned to Vances security detail; Vance himself was not nearby, instead at the stage where the events speakers were at. Advertisement Advertisement The report also noted that President Donald Trump was originally set to attend the amphibious landing demonstration, which would have necessitated the closure of the highway by Camp Pendleton. However, Vance, a Marine veteran, went instead, which created a possibility of traffic being allowed to pass through. The premature detonation was the culmination of a chaotic period, after the Marine Corps initially determined that no closure was needed following its own risk assessment. The California government decided, after back and forth with the military and federal government, to close 17 miles of the freeway near the base for several hours, out of safety concerns. Those included the direct risk of the artillery and potential risk the sound of the artillery could cause to drivers, startling or distracting them. It was later revealed that Marines fired 30 155mm artillery rounds over Interstate 5 the day prior during a rehearsal, while the highway was still open and cars passed under the arc of the munitions. In the fall, California Highway Patrol said that the Marine Corps did not specify the rehearsal would include live artillery rounds being fired, although the Marine Corps claimed that was announced to California officials. The largest fish in the ocean just reminded us how small our (imaginary) borders really are. A juvenile male whale shark (Rhincodon typus) has completed a historic 746-mile (1,200 kilometer) journey from the clear azure waters of Madagascar to the sparkling turquoise ones of the Seychelles. It is the first documented movement of its kind between the two countries, with researchers from the Madagascar Whale Shark Project and the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles confirmed the match using photo identification. Although the starry constellations that adorn their bodies seem like they are all the same, much like fingerprints, each whale shark has a unique pattern. So by comparing photographs taken off Nosy Be in 2019 with images captured near Mahe in August 2025, scientists verified that it was the same individual. Scientists in Madagascar have been recording whale sharks since 2015. In Seychelles, systematic monitoring began around the same time but was suspended after a marked decline in sightings. Then, in 2023, the sharks began reappearing in Seychelles waters, so surveys resumed and data were compared. In 2015, MCSS suspended its long-term whale shark monitoring programme due to a marked decline in local sightings. With the species reappearance in Seychelles waters in 2023 and the subsequent recommencement of systematic surveys, it is incredibly exciting to document [this transboundary movement of a whale shark for the first time], said Christophe Mason-Parker of MCSS. Whale sharks are listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Although their size can be imposing, these sharks are gentle filter feeders and are surprisingly vulnerable to human pressure. The species as a whole faces a suite of threats: fisheries bycatch, vessel strikes, targeted fishing in some regions, and climate driven changes that alter where plankton blooms occur. In Seychelles, whale sharks have been legally protected since 2003. In Madagascar, there is currently no formal national protection for the species (despite a recent study valuing Madagascar whale shark tourism at $1.5 Million USD amid calls for stronger protections). But the ocean nor a whale shark does not recognise these policy differences; it is doubtful that the young male cruising past dive boats in Nosy Be paused at an invisible maritime boundary before continuing toward Mahe. Yet its survival may depend on what happens on either side of that line. Stella Diamant of the Madagascar Whale Shark Project taking a photo ID shot of a whale shark. Ann Cools The western Indian Ocean hosts significant tuna fisheries, and bycatch remains a persistent threat for large pelagic species. If a whale shark moves between jurisdictions with different levels of enforcement or protection, its risk profile changes mid journey. And while whale sharks have been known to migrate thousands of miles and kilometers in other parts of the world, this is the first verified case of a whale shark moving from Madagascar to another country in the western Indian Ocean, confirming that the animals using these waters form a shared, transboundary population. The single resighting poses more questions than answers, and the team is delving into the data to see if they can come up with some. One pressing question for the researchers is around climate change, which is reshaping where plankton blooms occur. These blooms are what whale sharks follow so if food availability shifts, the sharks will too. Is this a possible reason as to why sightings declined in Madagascar while increasing in Seychelles? Or are there fewer sharks overall in the region? Perhaps whale sharks are adjusting their feeding grounds in response to changing ocean productivity, or redistributing across the western Indian Ocean in response to a combination of environmental cues. Answering these questions will require more than observation alone: it will take coordinated monitoring and new technologies to truly understand what is driving these movements. That said, this does not diminish the power of photo identification. Accessible tools can still produce transformative insights, as has been highlighted here! This discovery underscores the importance of long-term monitoring and international collaboration. Without shared photo-identification databases, this movement would have gone unnoticed, says Stella Diamant of the Madagascar Whale Shark Project. A well maintained database, combined with collaboration between organisations, was key in this discovery. It makes you wonder how many similar journeys are unfolding right now, unrecorded and unseen. The western Indian Ocean is a mosaic of cultures, economies and governance systems, yet its megafauna connects those pieces into a single ecological unit. We manage wildlife according to human boundaries, yet marine species operate on ecological ones. The two countries, with their differing policies, underscore just how fragmented our conservation frameworks can be. Hes oblivious to it, swimming through the blue waters and doing as he pleases, but the young whale shark has become an ambassador for interconnected conservation initiatives for his species in the region. The question now is whether we as a society will respond at the same scale at which he lives his life. For 151 years, the Nebraska Constitution has provided a North Star for our state, a set of guiding principles that transcend political trends, partisanship, scarcity, prosperity and the politicians of the day. Every elected official, from the governor to local village boards, swears to uphold the state constitution when they take office. Its an oath that grounds us in our common ideals and one we have taken solemnly and with reverence. The constitution, emulating that of our great nation, gave the power to tax and spend solely to the legislative branch. It was a masterful move, keeping the most critical functions of our government closest to the people through their direct representatives. Advertisement Advertisement That means that decisions on how the state collects taxes and spends its resources are designed to be considered and deliberative, to weigh competing perspectives from the Panhandle to the Missouri River. When I took an oath to uphold the Nebraska Constitution as I began my service in the Nebraska Legislature, I also knew that I was being asked to make decisions that lasted beyond my time in public service, to ensure my colleagues and I were setting future Nebraskans up for success and continued growth. So, every time I considered major budget changes, I knew I was making decisions that could have consequences for a lifetime. That measured and long-term thinking is needed now, more than ever, in this years state budget debate. With a projected $472 million budget shortfall made more drastic by the meeting of the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board, the executive branch has proposed sweeping cuts to treasured programs and critical services to balance the states budget. Advertisement Advertisement SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE For instance, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, the only public-private cultural trust in the nation, is on the chopping block. Endowments take years to be fully funded, and if the state raids the fund to help balance the budget, it will be at the expense of a major driver of economic development in every single county and legislative district, not to mention a significant enhancement to quality of life in our state. Or look at the Nebraska Environmental Trust, which is funded by proceeds from the state lottery. It was created to preserve and protect our states natural resources, offering competitive grants for projects like grassland preservation, watershed restoration and environmental stewardship. These funds have a purpose, and its not to serve as a general piggy bank. How about the Health Care Cash Fund? It was seeded by tobacco settlement dollars, and Nebraska has been the envy of the nation in using the funds to prevent and treat deadly cancers. Until now, when it has become another fund that can be cut at will. Advertisement Advertisement And lets look at a proposed sweep of the Veterans Aid Fund. The critical lifeline for our brave Nebraskans who have served our country in the armed services provides funds for emergency health care, but a proposed sweep would help fill avoidable general fund deficits. With Nebraskas long-standing commitment to fiscal conservatism, these cuts are not to remove the supposed fat of government spending, but cuts to the muscle and bone of what makes the Good Life. But there is another path. Some of our current budget woes come from decisions made in Washington, D.C., that are cutting into our tax collections to the tune of about $100 million per year. Historically, Nebraska Legislatures have worked to try to make sure that federal tax changes come out in a wash for our state. Its time to consider more independence in Nebraskas tax code, to allow us to chart a more predictable and sustainable path. Advertisement Advertisement Eroding our quality of life, leaving our natural resources to decay, allowing the march of cancer across the state to continue unabated and betraying our brave Nebraska veterans none of that helps grow the Good Life. Forty-nine state senators are being called at this moment to uphold their oath of office, to act with fidelity to our constitution and to exercise the power entrusted to them by the thousands of Nebraskans who voted for them. This is a time for the kind of independence and vision of the future that has defined our state for generations. This is a time for the Legislature to stand for Nebraskans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine has confirmed he has fled the country, revealing he was escaping a military search following a presidential election he claims was rigged. The move comes amid heightened tensions and concerns for his safety. Mr Wine, whose birth name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, had been in hiding since the 15 January vote. Incumbent President Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner with 71.6 per cent of the vote, a result Mr Wine vehemently rejects as fake. Advertisement Advertisement Soldiers reportedly raided his home the day after the election, though he had already gone into hiding, fearing for his life after campaigning for weeks in a helmet and flak jacket at rallies where security forces were a constant presence. Public concern for Mr Wine's safety had mounted over recent weeks, with his whereabouts unknown to the general public. President Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner of the election in January. (AFP via Getty Images) This was exacerbated by repeated threats posted on social platform X by the army chief, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Gen Kainerugaba, the presidents son and widely considered his likely successor, has suggested Mr Wine is wanted for unspecified crimes, despite Ugandan police stating they are not actively searching for him. Advertisement Advertisement The general has previously referred to Mr Wine as a "baboon" and a "terrorist, in a pattern of offensive social media posts he often deletes. In a video message shared on X on Saturday, an unshaven Mr Wine confirmed his departure from Uganda, though he did not disclose his destination. "Fellow Ugandans and friends of Uganda all over the world, by the time you see this video I will have left the country for some critical engagements outside Uganda," he stated. "And at the right time I will come back and continue with the cause. I thank all of you fellow Ugandans who have concealed and protected me for all this time when the regime was looking for me." Advertisement Advertisement He further asserted that security operatives were unable to locate him "because the people have protected me." Mr Wine, the most prominent of seven candidates challenging Mr Museveni, commands significant support among young, urban populations. Many followers are deeply disillusioned with the government over perceived official corruption and a stark lack of economic opportunities. They yearn for profound political change after four decades under the same leader. President Museveni, 81, is set to be sworn in for a seventh term in May, a tenure that would extend his rule towards five decades. While his supporters credit him with bringing relative peace and stability to Uganda making it home to hundreds of thousands fleeing violence elsewhere in this part of Africa critics, including some who were once his close allies, increasingly decry what they describe as a worrying descent into authoritarianism. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has claimed that Ukraine has been "blackmailing" Hungary for 19 days by refusing to resume oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline, adding that Hungarians could send a message to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a planned "Peace March" on Sunday 15 March. Source: Orban in a video address, as reported by European Pravda Quote from Orban: "President Zelenskyy continues to keep the pipeline closed, even though he knows it is vital for Hungary and Slovakia. Our experts have been in Kyiv for several days, but they have still not been allowed access to the pipeline." Advertisement Advertisement Details: Orban also argued that the world is struggling to overcome the oil crisis caused by the conflict in the Middle East and suggested that cheaper Russian oil could help address the problem, but Brussels continues to reject this option. "The Americans have taken steps and started lifting sanctions. But the hysteria in Brussels continues. The European Commission and the German chancellor are still keeping restrictions on Russian oil," he said. Orban also spoke about the "Peace March" planned for Sunday and urged people to take part. "There will be the 'Peace March' tomorrow. I ask everyone to join us. Let us stand up against Ukraine's blackmail. Hungary will not become a Ukrainian colony, Zelenskyy will not be giving orders here," Orban emphasised. Background: A Hungarian delegation arrived in Ukraine on 11 March to assess the condition of the Druzhba oil pipeline. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the delegation had had no official status and no official meetings had been scheduled. A document emerged later confirming that the Ukrainian side had not approved the visit in the format requested by Budapest. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! Oregon Attorney General Rayfield aims to block Trumps latest round of tariffs PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a motion on Friday aiming to block the Trump administration from implementing its latest round of tariffs. Rayfield is leading a coalition of 24 other states in the motion. The motion asks the court for a summary judgement when a legal decision is reached without a full trial, or alternatively, the motion asks for a preliminary judgement which would pause the tariffs as the case makes its way through the court. Oregon families are paying more for groceries and other basic items because of these tariffs, and they shouldnt be, said Attorney General Rayfield. The president doesnt have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs like these, and the courts have already said so once. The focus should also be on getting people and businesses their money back. Advertisement Advertisement DONT MISS: Bynum introduces bill for small business refunds after Trumps reckless tariffs The motion is part of Rayfields second lawsuit against the Trump administration over tariffs. In 2025, President Trump implemented his Liberation Day tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs against nearly every country in the world. This included a 50% tariff against goods from dozens of countries followed by a 10% tariff against other countries, as reported by the Associated Press. Rayfield led the lawsuit challenging those tariffs, with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the plaintiff states. The High Court ruled that the president overstepped his authority as the IEEPA only gives the president the authority to regulate imports when necessary in cases of emergency that pose an unusual and extraordinary threat. Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Eye on Northwest Politics After the Supreme Court ruling, the president announced new tariffs under a different law: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Under this law, President Trump imposed 10% tariffs on most products worldwide in response to trade deficits, as reported by AP. However, Rayfield, and the other states in this latest lawsuit, say these tariffs are also unlawful and filed a lawsuit challenging them earlier in March. According to Rayfield, Section 122 allows tariffs only when there are large and serious balance-of-payment deficits, however, no such thing exists. Rayfield explains that a trade deficit is not a balance-of-payment deficit. Advertisement Advertisement Citizens file petitions to recall entire West Linn-Wilsonville School Board Balance-of-payment is a record of transactions, documenting the flow of money used to make international purchases. A trade deficit is when a country imports more goods than it exports, as reported by CBS News. Fridays motion asks the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York to order federal agencies to stop collecting the latest round of tariffs. The Oregon Attorney Generals Office points to economic analysis submitted to the court that shows state governments in the 24 plaintiff states will pay at least $748 million per year in additional costs because of the tariffs. Advertisement Advertisement Food stamp recipients sue USDA over restrictions on candy, energy drinks Rayfield also points to a recent analysis by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, finding nearly 90% of costs of tariffs in 2025 were paid by American consumers and businesses. The case is pending before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade. The case is led by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. U.S. House committee raises concerns over Oregon Health Plan amid Trumps war on fraud Advertisement Advertisement The case is also joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the Governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania. KOIN 6 News has reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Dolly Parton is taking care of her health as she continues to grieve the death of her husband Carl Thomas Dean, telling visitors at Dollywood recent health concerns had left her worn down and worn out. Dolly Parton is taking care of her health as she continues to grieve the death of her husband Carl Thomas Dean, telling visitors at Dollywood recent health concerns had left her worn down and worn out Dolly, 80, spoke about her wellbeing during a keynote speech on the opening day of the new season at her Tennessee theme park Dollywood on Friday, 13 March. The park is entering its 41st season since opening. Dolly addressed visitors alongside Dollywood Company president Eugene Naughton, explaining she had stepped back from touring while dealing with minor health issues and the emotional impact of losing Carl Thomas Dean, who died on 3 March 2025 aged 82. Dolly had been married to Carl for 58 years. Carl largely stayed out of the public eye during their relationship and rarely appeared publicly with her. Speaking during the address, Dolly said: Ive not been touring, as you know. Ive had a few little health issues, and were taking good care of them, according to footage of the speech shared by WVLT 8. Dolly that grief had taken a toll following Carls death. She said: I just kind of got worn down and worn out, grieving over Carl and a lot of other little things going on. I just got myself kind of where I needed to build myself back up spiritually, emotionally, and physically. But, all is good. It didnt slow me down. During the event Dolly also joked with the audience while standing beside Eugene Naughton, telling fans not to mistake Eugene for a new partner. Dolly confirmed that she is not dating following Carls death. She said: I think Carl Deans waiting for me. If I should show up at the pearly gates with somebody else, he would not like that. Hed be saying, Whos that little pisser? You leave him outside the gates. Carl married Dolly in 1966 and spent decades avoiding publicity, rarely appearing at events with her and remaining largely out of the spotlight. Dolly previously apologised to fans for missing the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Hall of Fame ceremony for Dollywood in November 2025, citing health concerns. She also postponed her planned Las Vegas residency in October 2025 due to an unspecified illness. Earlier in September 2025 Dolly had mentioned she was dealing with kidney stones and announced that the Las Vegas shows would be pushed back by nearly a year while she focused on her health. A source close to Dolly told PEOPLE magazine in a November 2025 cover story that her condition had been improving. The source said: Dolly is getting better every day. She is at home taking care of herself while many friends and family visit her. In true Dolly spirit she has already started decorating for the holidays her favorite time of year. In wake of the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf, US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington would be sending warships along with other countries to keep the Strait of Hormuz "open and safe". Trump also called upon China, France and Japan among others to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz and said that the US would bomb the shoreline and continually shoot Iranian boats and ships. He made the remarks in a post on Truth Social. Trump said that several countries in conjunction with the United States would send warships to ensure the Strait of Hormuz remains open. "Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Iran's Military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are", he wrote. He added, "Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!" The United States has long referred to the strait as the "world's most important oil chokepoint" due to the volume of global energy supplies that transit through the narrow passage. More than 20 million barrels of crude oil pass daily through the narrow channel separating the Iranian coast from Oman. That volume represents roughly a fifth of global oil consumption and nearly a quarter of all seaborne oil trade. A significant share of the world's liquefied natural gas also moves through the same passage. Meanwhile, the representative of Iran's Supreme Leader in India, Abdul Majid Hakeem Ilahi, on Saturday expressed concerns over the ongoing conflict, stating that the conflict was not only affecting the people of Iran but had also become a global concern, citing rising energy prices and wider economic impacts. Highlighting the global implications of the conflict, Ilahi pointed to the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit for global energy supply. He said disruptions in the region were affecting many countries through shortages of gas, petrol and oil, but maintained that Iran had no option but to defend itself. "Actually, the crisis is not only for Iran, but it's a global crisis. And they imposed this war on us, and we have to defend ourselves. We are ready to share our blood for our dignity, for our independence, for our country," he said. "We are not happy with the suffering of other people--the shortage of gas, the shortage of petrol, the shortage of oil. But we have to defend ourselves. We don't have any other option," he added, urging global leaders to pressure the United States to stop the war. He reiterated that Indian vessels would be allowed to pass through the strategically significant Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia. Speaking in an interview with ANI, Ilahi responded affirmatively, "Of course, of course. Yes," when asked whether Indian ships would be allowed to pass through the Strait.When asked to elaborate on the matter, Ilahi said, "I heard that our embassy tried to provide an opportunity for some Indian ships to cross the Strait of Hormuz." Ilahi further said that the special concessions for India on the passage of vessels were a reflection of the Indian public showing solidarity with the Iranian regime against what he described as "oppression" by the US and its allies. "I can say the majority of Indian people are with Iran. They condemned the oppression. They follow justice. And they don't want war. Even I can say they are against the war," he said. (ANI) PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The Oregon Department of Justice has elected to not seek further appellate review against a DEA special agent accused of running a stop sign and hitting and killing a Salem cyclist nearly three years ago. In March 2023, officials said Samuel Landis was driving a pickup truck down a street in Salem while conducting a federal drug investigation when he hit a cyclist, Marganne Allen, 53. Allen suffered critical injuries and later died at the hospital. In August of that year, a Marion County grand jury charged Landis with criminally negligent homicide. Advertisement Advertisement Increasingly concerned: Marion County DA launches probe into Oregon State Hospital However, Landis requested the case be moved to federal court based on a claim of federal immunity. Once moved, the federal U.S. District Court dismissed the charge, ruling that Landis actions were within the scope of his federal employment and reasonable under the circumstances, which entitled him to immunity from state prosecution, according to a release from the Marion County District Attorneys Office. The Marion County District Attorneys Office then appealed to the ODOJ, which appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court to overturn the dismissal for the charge against Landis in April 2025. That December, the Ninth Circuit also found that Landis acted within the scope of his authority and was entitled to immunity from prosecution for the death of Margane Allen, the DAs Office said. Advertisement Advertisement The DAs Office further noted the ODOJs decision to not seek further review was over the risk that a potential ruling by the Supreme Court would make it harder not easier to hold people accountable in future cases. Marganne Allens death was a tragic loss for her husband, children, other family members and our community, Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson said. While we respect the legal process and the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it is nonetheless disappointing that the criminal charge cannot proceed and there will be no justice for the family. Our hearts go out to the family of Marganne Allen, and to everyone who loved her, Attorney General Dan Rayfield added. The Oregon Department of Justice pursued extraordinary avenues to hold Mr. Landis accountable for her tragic death filing actions in federal courts that are rarely used, arguing before the Ninth Circuit not once but twice, and seeking reconsideration when that court ruled against us. While this case is at an end, we remain committed to fighting for justice for every Oregonian. You can read the following statement on the decision from the family of Marganne Allen below: Advertisement Advertisement Allen Family StatementDownload Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. A federal bill seeking to change voting standards across the country faces sharp opposition from some Oregon leaders. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, and county and nonprofit leaders rallied against the SAVE Act at a Portland library on Friday. The SAVE Act seeks to add strict ID and name requirements nationwide and require states to turn over their voter rolls to the federal government. Advertisement Advertisement Republicans have argued it would make voting more secure. They have also proposed ending mail-in voting nationwide as part of this package. Wyden, Read and others said it would disenfranchise millions of voters who don't have easy access to a passport, a birth certificate, or an ID that matches their maiden or married name. "I am fighting every single day in the United States Senate to make sure this bill dies the death that it richly deserves," Wyden said. Wyden said Oregonians have securely voted by mail for more than 30 years. He said adding costs for people to locate or produce new forms of identification in order to register to vote represents a "phenomenal headache" that would reduce voter turnout. Advertisement Advertisement RELATED: Judge blocks Trump executive order that would have disrupted voting by mail in Oregon, Washington "The Constitution is clear: the president doesn't have the authority to set the time, place and manner of elections only Congress and the states do it," Wyden said. "This [bill] is dead set on suppressing the vote here in Oregon and nationwide." Read, the man in charge of Oregon's elections, said the bill would harm voting rights. "When more voters can hold politicians accountable, government works better," he said. "This so-called SAVE Act... they say it's about election security. I came here to tell you it is not about that, it's about putting new barriers between eligible American citizens, voters, and the ballot box." Advertisement Advertisement RELATED: Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez among 4 Democrats who voted for the SAVE Act Read said claims of widespread non-citizen voting are provably false, and he said his office audited past elections to find an inconsequential number of wrongly accepted ballots that were mostly a result of "clerical errors." Out of 60.9 million ballots case in Oregon over 20 years, Read said, his office found 38 cases of unlawful votes. "That is not a crisis. It's not even really a rounding error," he said. RELATED: Oregon DMV finds more cases of people being registered to vote despite not showing proof of citizenship Advertisement Advertisement He added that President Donald Trump's recent comments that the SAVE Act would "guarantee the midterms" showed the administration's true priorities. "There are not supposed to be any guarantees about the elections not for Democrats, not for Republicans, not for presidents," Read said. "The voters decide, and that is the point of democracy." Alongside Multnomah County leaders, a few nonprofit leaders shared their opposition to the bill. "This idea of the SAVE Act is a solution searching for a problem," said Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland. "It's a fear tactic to make Americans believe that something is going on behind their backs that really isn't happening at all." Advertisement Advertisement The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House last month, but Republican lawmakers have said it currently doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate. Wyden said he believes he and his Democrat colleagues have a "decent shot" of shutting down the bill. Meanwhile, Trump has threatened that he wouldn't sign any legislation until it passes. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read denounced what they described during a Friday press conference as President Donald Trumps latest attempt to undermine Oregonians right to vote. Trumps Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show an ID when casting their ballots. The bill has passed the House of Representatives, but stalled in the Senate, prompting Trump to announce he would refuse to continue signing bills until the Senate passes it. Wyden said Friday he believes fellow Democrats have a decent shot of shutting down the bill, but will need to pull out all the stops to do so. Advertisement Advertisement Donald Trump said he was doing this for one reason, and it had nothing to do with democracy: He thought this was the only way he could win, Wyden said. I think weve got a real shot at winning, but you dont give up on this for five minutes, ever. While Trump has framed the bill as necessary to prevent voter fraud, Democrats including Read and voting rights advocates said it creates an extra barrier that would disenfranchise legitimate voters from casting ballots. They said it will disproportionately impact married women whose names may not match their birth certificates, parents who dont have time to vote in person, low-income voters who cant afford passports, and rural voters who may have to travel for hours to cast a ballot. Latest local politics stories Advertisement Advertisement Read said his office has reviewed 20 years of Oregon ballots and found only 38 cases of unlawful votes. This is not a crisis, he said. Its not even really a rounding error. So if this problem doesnt exist, that supporters claim is the reason for the bill, we have to ask, why are we trying to create barriers that would stop Americans from voting? He also said the bill will impose massive costs on the states by requiring them to hand over sensitive voting information, further expose election workers to violence and harassment and put voters at risk of cybersecurity threats to their personal information. Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president of the Urban League of Portland, said the act is seeking to steal your constitutional rights to the ballot. Advertisement Advertisement The idea of the SAVE Act is a solution searching for a problem. Its a fear tactic to make Americans believe that something is going on behind their backs, she said. Dont take the easy way out because things are easy for us in this state when it comes to our right to votepay attention to whats at stake, not just for Oregonians, but for all Americans. Read the original article on oregonlive.com. Add oregonlive.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. Oregons top election official and senior U.S. senator warn that congressional Republicans efforts to end mail-in voting and impose strict voter ID requirements are voter suppression tactics disguised as election integrity. At a news conference Friday in North Portlands Albina Library, Sen. Ron Wyden and Secretary of State Tobias Read, both Democrats, raised alarms about the SAVE Act. Its a priority for President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, who have introduced several versions of the measure in recent years. The most recent, a House amendment to an unrelated Senate bill, passed the House earlier in February and is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate next week. Read said the bill would create chaos for election workers and disenfranchise millions of voters in the runup to a federal midterm election thats expected to go poorly for Republicans. He added that it would saddle states with massive costs in the middle of an election year, requiring them to remake voter registration systems. Advertisement Advertisement All of this while doing nothing to address the actual threats to our elections cyber security and misinformation and the violence and harassment that election workers are facing in the real world, he went on. Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read (right) at a news conference with Nkenge Harmon Johnson (center), president and CEO of Urban League of Portland and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (left) at a news conference at the Albina Library in Portland on Friday, March 13, 2026 warning voters about election supression. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Wyden vowed to fight the bill in the Senate, where its expected to get a vote next week, and he and Read vowed to protect Oregons decades-old vote-by-mail system. Wyden in 1996 was the first federal official to be elected entirely by mail ballots. By the 1998 primary election, Oregon became the first state to have more ballots cast by mail than at polls, and a ballot initiative to move to 100% mail-in voting passed later that year. Oregon became the nations first all vote-by-mail state in 2000. The measure isnt expected to pass the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats but it takes 60 to end debate and reach a vote on most legislation. President Donald Trump at a GOP conference in Florida Monday said he wont sign any new legislation until the SAVE Act passes, adding that passing it would guarantee the midterms. What a staggeringly brazen disclosure, Wyden said. Weve never had a president of the United States of any party say something like this. Advertisement Advertisement Wydens latest warning comes on top of concerns shared earlier this week that wide-scale changes to when the U.S. Postal Service collects mail and postmarks envelopes could also jeopardize voters in Oregon and other states. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX What is SAVE? Under the SAVE Act, people registering to vote would have to present documents proving citizenship such as a passport or birth certificate to an official at an elections office. The bill would impose criminal liability on officials for accepting invalidated forms of ID. Only about half of Americans have a passport, and election experts say the move would disenfranchise many women voters who changed their names after marriage. Advertisement Advertisement Most Oregon voters today register to vote online with a drivers license or at the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. Since 2016, the state has automatically registered adult citizens to vote when they obtain or renew drivers licenses or state ID cards at the DMV, and the number of registered voters rose to more than 3 million in the near-decade since the law took effect. This is truly God awful for millions of married women whose current name doesnt match their birth certificate or passport before their marriage. What a phenomenal headache its going to be if they (Republican lawmakers) get away with that, Wyden said. Voters mailing in ballots would also need to send proof of ID when they request a mail-in ballot and when they return the ballot. The bill would invalidate high school and college IDs as forms of identification voters can use at polls. It would also require states to regularly turn over voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. Justice Department last year sued Oregon and several other states who refused to turn over voter rolls to the federal government, and a federal judge ruled in January that Oregon didnt have to share that information. Advertisement Advertisement Republicans supporting the bill have said its necessary to stop non-citizens from voting. Read refuted this as a solution looking for a problem. There is literally no evidence that this is a problem that is affecting any outcomes, any elections. Non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare, Read said. A 2020 analysis by Oregons Legislative Fiscal Office found the states justice department obtained just 38 criminal convictions for voter fraud across 20 years of votes and nearly 61 million cast ballots. It showed an effective 0.0000006% rate of voter fraud in Oregon elections during the past quarter century. That is not a crisis. Its not even really a rounding error, Read said. How Oregonians can make sure their May primary and November general election mail-in votes are counted, according to the Secretary of States Office: 1) Drop your ballot in an official drop box. Advertisement Advertisement 2) If mailing a ballot back, send it a week or more before the election. If you cant do that or get the ballot to a drop box, go to a post office and ask an employee for a hand postmark. The Postal Service has assured us they will do that, and that will give us a much better chance of being able to count your ballot, Read said. 3) If you have questions about your registration status, or are unsure if your information such as address is accurate and up-to-date, reach out to your county election clerk. The heroes of democracy are the 36 county clerks and elections directors around the state, Read said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE OXFORD The Oxford Countyowned airport near Oxford Plains Speedway has hired an engineering firm to plan an extension of its 2,997foot runway in an effort to attract larger aircraft. Last month, the Oxford County Board of Commissioners selected Hoyle Tanner, a structural engineering firm with offices in New England and Florida, as the Oxford County Regional Airports oncall consultant for the next five years. In an email, Oxford County Administrator Zane Loper said the county sought bids earlier this year from airport engineering and planning firms before selecting Hoyle Tanner. Advertisement Advertisement The hire contributes toward funding and the availability of federal grants to improve our airport, Loper wrote, calling it an important step in the airports continued growth. Stacie Haskell, senior project assistant at Hoyle Tanner, said the firms first task will be updating the airports master plan and evaluating the feasibility and justification for extending the runway. The updated plan will also outline what facility or terminal improvements may be needed to support increased air traffic. The firm has a previous relationship with the airport: Hoyle Tanner served as the airports consulting firm between 2021 and 2026. Haskell said the airports management staff has already made significant improvements in aircraft support and traffic. The airport now offers fuel and maintenance services and flight instruction. Advertisement Advertisement She said Tony Carter, the airport manager, has tripled the number of based aircraft at the facility and recently oversaw renovations to the terminal. Hes really done some great things there, Haskell said, and the activity at that airport has really increased. Carter said that, when he stepped in his role in 2021, the state of the airport was bleak. There was no vision for the airport whatsoever, he said. When I came there, being a pilot, I had visions on what it needed to become a sustainable airport. Tony Carter, who manages the Oxford County Regional Airport, stands recently in front of a private airplane near the facilitys runway. Photo by Jon Bolduc. The first step was applying for and receiving a Federal Aviation Administration grant to renovate the old terminal and replace the incandescent lighting system with LEDs. Advertisement Advertisement Next came repairing the heating system and installing a fire alarm system. We put heat in there was no heat, he said. All the boilers had burst because the pipes froze when it wasnt being occupied, so we lost our boilers and everything. Carter said growth has not slowed since. The interior of the terminal has been redone, and the building now has a new pilot lounge, new flooring, energyefficient doors and new heat pumps throughout. Looking ahead, projects that could further boost the airports growth include expanding hangar space. The airport now has three companies Flight School 207, Mosier Aviation and Max Arrow operating there, up from the single business before Carter took over. Advertisement Advertisement Everybody was asking, We need hangars, hangars, and if I had built hangars, there would be more planes showing up at the airport, Carter said. An employee works on a private airplane recently at the Oxford County Regional Airport in Oxford. Photo by Jon Bolduc. Haskell said a runway extension would also enhance the airports ability to accommodate business jet traffic. She added that extending the runway would open the door for more visitors to reach Oxford County. More landing capacity would also help tourism take off in Oxford County. Haskell said the airport hosts latesummer flyins that bring hundreds of visitors and aircraft to the region. With a short runway, youre limited in the types of aircraft that can land, Haskell said. And, as you know, Oxford County has a lot of regional development theyve got the casino and the racetrack. Advertisement Advertisement Its a gathering place and an active gateway to the county. A longer runway contributes to the local economy and helps reinforce the airport's role in southwestern Maine. Carter said he sees Oxford Countys airport the same way as a driver of tourism and a draw for new business. A larger runway, he said, would open the door for small jets, charter flights and more businesses and delivery services to use the airport as a hub. I want to be a home base for the smaller aircraft in the state of Maine, he said. A workshop is being held March 20 to educate business owners about Pennsylvania's Neighborhood Assistance Program, which offers tax credits to companies that support charitable organizations. The event, hosted by Rep. Chad Reichard, R-Franklin, will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Greater Waynesboro Chamber of Commerce, 118 Walnut St., No. 111, Waynesboro, according to a community announcement. Madra Clay, the central regional director with the Department of Economic and Community Development, will lead the discussion. The program incentivizes businesses to contribute to nonprofit organizations by offering tax credits of up to 65% for their contributions. Advertisement Advertisement Pennsylvanias Neighborhood Assistance Program is a great opportunity for businesses to support projects that strengthen our communities while also receiving a meaningful tax credit, Reichard said in the announcement. This workshop will help local business owners better understand how the program works and how they can partner with nonprofits to invest in initiatives that make a real difference in our neighborhoods. Eligible projects must serve distressed areas or support neighborhood conservation, according to the announcement. The projects must fall under one of the following categories: affordable housing programs, community services, crime prevention, education, job training or neighborhood assistance. To register, call Reichards office at 717-749-7384 or email jpeters@pahousegop.com. This story was created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at https://cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct/. This article originally appeared on Waynesboro Record Herald: Pa. event explains business tax credits for nonprofits Pakistan's president on Saturday issued a warning to Afghanistans Taliban government over drone attacks. President Asif Ali Zardari said that Afghan Taliban had "crossed a red line" by launching drone attacks on Pakistani territory. Pakistan will not tolerate its civilians being targeted, the president said. On Friday, the Afghan Taliban launched drone attacks which the Pakistani military said were "rudimentary." Advertisement Advertisement The attacks mark an escalation of the conflict, which had recently been largely limited to border clashes. The Pakistani militarys media wing ISPR said that the drones were intercepted and did not reach their intended targets. At least four people, including children, were wounded by falling debris. The military said that its ongoing operation will continue until the the Afghan Taliban address Pakistans core concern with respect to terrorism originating from Afghan soil. The fighting between the now neighbours began at the end of February. Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harbouring militants who carry out attacks in Pakistan - a charge Kabul denies. Advertisement Advertisement Several rounds of talks mediated by Qatar and Turkey and China aimed at easing tensions have failed to produce breakthrough, so far. This week, initial mediation efforts began, with China's special envoy for Afghanistan holding talks in both capitals. By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees said a travel ban imposed by the Trump administration is preventing him from attending this weekend's Academy Awards, whose nominees include a movie in which he has a starring role. "The Voice of Hind Rajab," a film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024, has been Oscar-nominated for best international feature film. Advertisement Advertisement Malhees, who plays the role of a call center operator attempting to help her, said he cannot attend the Academy Awards show, known as the Oscars, because he has been barred from entering the U.S. "I am not allowed to enter the United States because of my Palestinian citizenship," Malhees said on Instagram, adding "it hurts" he would not attend the Oscars. In a December proclamation restricting entry of foreign nationals, President Donald Trump said he had "determined to fully restrict and limit the entry of individuals using travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority." The proclamation restricting entry of people from some countries cited security reasons and went into effect on January 1, according to the State Department's website. Advertisement Advertisement The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The movie was spurred by an incident in which five of Rajab's family members and two ambulance workers who went to save her were also killed by Israeli fire. Israel says the incident is under review. Malhees says the film's other Palestinian cast members have citizenship that allows U.S. travel but he only holds a Palestinian passport. Trump has also attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian voices from the United States. On Friday, an immigration judge ordered the release of Leqaa Kordia, who lost over 170 family members in Gaza and has been detained for a year. Two previous orders have not led to her release. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non, Stephen Coates and Tom Hogue) COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) Yesterday, WRBL introduced Columbus woman, Sue Lacy, who found herself on the banks of the Sea of Galilee in Israel when Israeli and U.S. forces attacked Iran. Sue was among a delegation of 115 women who had traveled to the Holy Land and suddenly found themselves stranded when the missiles started firing. Now, we bring the story of how they got back home. Nothing will test your faith any more than suddenly being thrust into a war zone. That was the fate of Sue Lacy and over 100 women with the Eagles Wings delegation who were on day three of a ten-day tour of Israel when the war with Iran started. Advertisement Advertisement The heavens above their hotel in Capernaum were lit up with fireworks as sirens wailed and explosions echoed through the hillside. RELATED: Columbus Woman Safely Home from Israel Lacy said, We were told that the airport had closed. Some of the young ones on our trip came up to me and said, Mrs. Sue, why havent they taken us to the airport already? This is what we were toldthe least safe place in Israel for us, anybody to be is the Tel Aviv airport. So they said, honestly, we were at the safest place. Their Harp of David Hotel became their refuge, with the basement serving as their bomb shelter. Advertisement Advertisement We were in a cocoon right where we were, and we felt safe. We had no idea how long we would be there. It turned out that we would be there another solid three days, Lacy said. Those next three days became blessed times of bonding. Lacy said, We spent so much time in prayer and worship and just singing and being together and just enjoying one another, getting to know one another. One specific prayer was for those in charge of their ladies group. Lacy said they prayed for their team leaders. We asked God to give them wisdom to understand things going on around us so that we would know when we were safe to leave, she said. Advertisement Advertisement That day finally arrived. They were informed that the plan was to take them by bus to Cairo, Egypt. Their exodus out of Israel took them from the Sea of Galilee down to the Jordan River where they saw where Jesus was baptized. They went all the way down to the Dead Sea on what was called the Kings Highway. Some four hundred miles and two days later, their three-bus caravan arrived in Cairo. That night Eagles Wings had a river cruise planned for them on the Nile River. Lacy recalls an Egyptian man who was singing karaoke suddenly started belting out the popular Frank Sinatra hit, New York, New York. When he got to start spreading the news, Im leaving tonight, Lacy said their group was screaming and hollering and clapping because they were leaving that night headed for New York! Lacy made it back home late on March 4, 2026. After having some time to reflect on what had just happened, she shared from her heart. Advertisement Advertisement We just felt like we were so honored. We were overwhelmed and overcome. We still are. And you know, I dont ever want to forget what God allowed me to be a part of. It was humbling, exciting, awakening, and empowering. It was amazing, Lacy said. If you missed the first story on Lacys trip to Israel, you can read Columbus Woman Safely Home from Israel. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) As President Donald Trump threatens to block all legislation unless his voting reform bill passes Congress, Oregon leaders are warning that the bill could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country and do away with Oregons system of voting. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which passed the U.S. House in February, has several provisions with strict proof-of-citizenship requirements. The bill would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote by presenting a passport, birth certificate or ID. The bill would also require voters to present an ID when casting a ballot. Some Republicans have argued that the bill will make elections more secure and will do away with non-citizen voting. But some Democrats say the bill will suppress eligible votes rather than make elections more secure. Advertisement Advertisement U.S. House committee raises concerns over Oregon Health Plan amid Trumps war on fraud On March 9, President Trump pushed for the bill at the GOPs annual issues conference in Florida, saying the bill will help keep Republicans in office, as reported by The Hill. It will guarantee the midterms. If you dont get it, big trouble, Trump said at the conference. The people are demanding it. Every time I go out, save America! Save America! We want the SAVE America Act! Thats all they talk about. They dont talk about housing. They dont talk about anything. Thats what they talk about. And if you send it up there, you will win the midterms and you will win every election for a long time.' On Friday, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) and Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read led a press conference with several civil rights-focused nonprofits, including the Urban League of Portland, the Center for Womens Leadership and All Families Oregon, warning Oregonians about the bill. Advertisement Advertisement Portland dad sues landlord after finding mouse in infants mouth The only thing Donald Trump designed this bill to save is Republicans who prop him up in Congress, Wyden said at the press conference. If he wanted to celebrate this years 250th anniversary for the Declaration of Independence, hed be acting to encourage voting in the fall. But the reality is, he knows his mismanagement and mayhem that made him the Republican brand about as popular as King George in July of 1776 so, instead he is declaring an all-out assault that is dead-set on suppressing the vote here in Oregon and nationwide and were here to say Oregons not going to let him get away with it,' Wyden added. In particular, I want people to know that as one of your United States senators, I am fighting every single day in the United States Senate to make sure that this bill dies the death that it richly deserves, the senator vowed. Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Eye on Northwest Politics During the press conference, Wyden laid out three casualties the SAVE America Act would bring arguing it would gut the vote-by-mail system and would create hurdles for Americans to register to vote, including shelling out $165 for a passport. Oregons senior senator then noted the impact the bill would have on American women whose names do not match on their identifying documents if they adopted their partners last name in marriage. It is particularly horrendous, truly-God awful for millions of married women whose current name doesnt match their birth certificate or passport before their marriage. What a phenomenal headache its going to be if they get away with that, Wyden said. Advertisement Advertisement I feel really bad: Woman charged in Elephants fire was trying to stay warm A third major casualty, that I care so much about, would be the sacrificing of Americans privacy. Thats because in addition to voter suppression, the needless scheme would provide incentives for states to submit their voter registration lists and voter data to the federal government. Can you imagine that? Handing our data over to Donald Trump? Wyden questioned. The Constitution is clear, the president doesnt have the authority to set the time, place and manner of elections, Wyden said. Only Congress and states have the power to do it. And we have a rich tradition of showing the country how to do vote-by-mail. Reassuring Oregonians that the vote-by-mail system is safe, Wyden explained, Im the nations first United States senator elected by vote-by-mail, Im a Democrat. The second United States senator elected by vote-by-mail was a Republican, Gordon Smith. Advertisement Advertisement Oregon DOJ elects to not seek further review against DEA agent accused in death of Salem cyclist Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read also warned against the SAVE Act, emphasizing that Oregons vote-by-mail system is safe and that the president does not have the power to control the way elections are performed. 250 years ago, our founders fought a revolution so that people, not kings, could choose their leaders. They built a constitution that put the power of elections in the hands of states and people because they had just defeated a king and know exactly what happens when power is put in one place, Secretary Read said. And ever since then, this country has moved forward by expanding the right to vote, not by making it harder because every time we make it easier and more convenient for people to hold the powerful accountable, we get closer to that more perfect union and we get closer to that dream of liberty and justice for all. That is the promise of this country. Here in Oregon, we take that promise really seriously. Think about what weve done here, you can vote from home, you can vote on paper every ballot is paper you can use machines that are tested publicly and repeatedly, you can make sure that every election is audited because thats what we do in this state. And what we know is when more people participate, democracy is stronger. When more voters can hold politicians accountable, government works better, Read emphasized. Advertisement Advertisement USA Today names this Portland music fest among top 10 in US This so-called SAVE Act, that some politicians are pushing in Oregon, they say its about election security. I came here to tell you it is not about that. Its about putting new barriers between eligible American citizens, voters and the ballot box, Read warned. It would require people to produce a passport or birth certificate or citizenship papers just to register to vote. That might sound simple until you remember that millions of Americans dont have easy access to that paperwork. It might be lost, its expensive to replace it or it might be locked away in some safe place a long way from where you are, think about people who head off to college or move and have left that in a safe deposit box or with their parents or something, Read said. The result is that a lot of Americans will be denied their legal, constitutional right to vote. Vanishingly rare While some Republicans say the SAVE America Act will secure elections from non-citizens voting, Read argues that non-citizen voting is already rare and has no impact on the outcome of elections. Advertisement Advertisement The supporters of this bill claim that it is necessary to stop non-citizens from voting. But there is literally no evidence that this is a problem that is affecting any outcomes, any elections. Non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare, Read claimed. Man accused of Salem gas station burglaries also nabbed steaks from Rudys Steakhouse, officials say When it happens, it is the result of clerical errors and again it has not affected the outcome of any single election. Here are the numbers: in Oregon, we reviewed 60.9 million ballots over about 20 years they were casted and we found 38 cases of unlawful votes. 38, that is not a crisis, its not even really a rounding error, Read said. An investigation by the Associated Press into voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election also found voter fraud is rare. Advertisement Advertisement An Associated Press investigation that explored every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump found there were fewer than 475 out of millions of votes cast. That was not nearly enough to tip the outcome. Democrat Joe Biden won the six states by a combined 311,257 votes, AP reports. So, if this problem doesnt exist, that supporters claim is the reason for this bill, we have to ask why are we creating barriers that would stop Americans from voting? Read questioned. Well, give the president credit, he recently said the quiet part out loud, and I want to be clear, he said the SAVE Act will guarantee the midterms. Read added, think about that for a minute, because in America, theyre arent supposed to be any guarantees about elections, not for Democrats, not for Republicans, not for presidents. The voters decide and that is the point of democracy. Estimated completion date for upgrades to Abernethy Bridge could be pushed back Advertisement Advertisement As President Trump pushes Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) faces a challenge to get the bill through the Senate without support from Democrats. Thune has been facing pressure from President Trump and House Republicans to sidestep Democratic opposition through the use of a talking filibuster, which would force Democrats to speak continuously on the Senate floor to delay the bill. Once they cede the floor, Republicans could pass the measure with 51 votes, The Hill reports. However, Thune has previously said a talking filibuster is much more complicated and risky than people are assuming at the moment, and has opted to advance the bill through regular order, The Hill adds. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KOIN Morning Digest When asked during Fridays press conference if Democrats have a chance to block the bill from passing, Wyden said there is a decent chance. I think weve got a good shot at winning because John Thune, the Republican leader is all but saying he cant get it done right now. Now, hes still waiting to see if Donald Trump can crank something up and do it but I feel better today than I did a couple of days ago, Wyden said. Also, hes very concerned that he wont be able to control amendments to the bill. And in the Senate, particularly right now, there are a bunch of Republicans who want to run on some of these amendments so, I think weve got a fair shot, a decent shot, but were going to have to pull out all the stops, Wyden warned. Portland-area homeless shelter provider announces closure after whistleblower complaint While the president has also threatened to issue an executive order, to implement elements of the SAVE Act, Tobias Read said he is prepared to challenge the voting reforms. It was only a year-plus ago that the president put forth a different executive order on the subject of elections, seemingly forgetting the oath he took in front of all us. The Constitution says very clearly, Article 1 Section 4, that states run elections, not presidents, Read said. So, the State of Washington and the State of Oregon took him to court on that executive order and we won, the Oregon Secretary of State explained. If he does that again, we will take him to court again and we will win. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that security and stability in West Asia depend on cooperation among regional countries, noting that the presence of the US, along with its allies, has brought no peace or stability in the region. In an interview with Xinhua, Baghaei said Iran remains determined to defend itself against what he described as aggression by the United States and Israel as the conflict escalates in the region. Calling the US-Israel attacks on Iranian territory a violation of international law, the Iranian spokesperson said such actions constituted a breach of peace and could not be justified under any legal framework. "This act of aggression cannot be justified by any argument or rule of international law. It is a breach of peace, and the Iranian nation is resolute to defend itself as long as it takes," Baghaei told Xinhua. He also criticised statements made by US authorities, claiming they lack credibility. "No person of common sense regards American authorities' statements and remarks to be trustworthy, as they are not stable, change their words and make contradictory remarks about each and every topic of international relations," he said, as quoted by Xinhua. Baghaei asserted that Iran did not initiate the conflict and alleged that the United States had entered the war by choice, possibly influenced by Israel. "We did not start this war. It was the U.S. war of choice. They were dragged into this war, perhaps by Israel, out of their miscalculation that they could easily make Iran surrender," Baghaei said. Referring to Iran's nuclear programme, the spokesperson reiterated that Tehran's atomic activities are peaceful and accused the United States and Israel of spreading misinformation about possible weaponisation. He further emphasised Iran's intention to strengthen ties with countries in the Persian Gulf and neighbouring regions, stating that long-term security and stability depend on cooperation among regional states. "Our intention is to strengthen our relations with each and every state in the Persian Gulf region and our neighbouring countries," he said, as quoted by Xinhua, adding that the security and stability of the region are very much dependent on cooperation among the regional countries. Baghaei added that Iran holds no hostility towards countries in the region, but said American military bases located around Iran were being targeted because they were being used to carry out military operations against the Islamic Republic. According to the Iranian spokesperson, regional countries are increasingly recognising that the presence of US military forces has not contributed to peace and stability. He also accused the United States of disrupting international trade through unilateral sanctions, describing Washington's actions as "lawless and rogue, which pose a serious danger to international peace and security." (ANI) JOHNSTOWN, Pa. Pennsylvania enacted a law in 2024 that was intended to keep local pharmacies open by improving the transparency and accountability of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Even with Act 77 passed, Martellas Pharmacy, based in Johnstown, was dealt a blow last August that legislators blamed on one of the nations largest PBMs, Express Scripts, which removed Martellas from its client network. PBMs are middlemen in the pharmacy industry supply chain that control pharmacy networks accessible to patients of health plans. The largest PBMs are also vertically integrated with their own affiliated pharmacies, giving rise to conflicts, opponents say. Advertisement Advertisement About a month after Express Scripts terminated Martellas seven locations from its network of pharmacies serving UPMC and Highmark drug plans, legislators began developing further legislation to support local chains. State Rep. Jim Rigby, R-Ferndale, began working on possible legislation that would ban PBM-affiliated pharmacies from operating in the state. An October email that Rigby shared from a senior policy analyst for the House of Representatives suggested that would be an uphill battle. We have been told there is no desire to revisit the PBM or pharmacy issue so soon after Act 77 PBM Reform Act was enacted last year, as most of its provisions do not become effective until January 1, 2026, the analyst said in the email. Advertisement Advertisement Gone out of business Even as provisions of Act 77 have begun to go into effect this year, theyre showing to lack effect in communities such as those served by Martellas Pharmacy, legislators said. For example, part of the law requires PBMs to show annual changes to the number of pharmacies in a PBMs network, any reduction of pharmacies within a specific geographic location, and the removal of any pharmacy chains serving multiple locations. But that requirement doesnt begin until April 1, when PBMs will file their first pharmacy network adequacy reports to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Advertisement Advertisement The reports are required to show the number of pharmacies in a PBMs network, as well as the type whether they are affiliated with the PBM. PBMs issue credentials to pharmacies to fill prescriptions for patients of health plans, and the PBMs reimburse pharmacies for the cost of prescriptions. The fairness of those reimbursements for non-affiliated pharmacies in PBM networks is slated to come under scrutiny by the law. However, at least 190 pharmacies have closed since the passage of Act 77 in 2024, according to the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association. Those closures would not be represented in those first network adequacy reports required of PBMs, nor would those reports show PBMs contract terminations with pharmacies, including Martellas Pharmacy a decision made last year by Express Scripts. State Rep. Marla Brown, R-Lawrence, told The Tribune- Democrat she has met with Martellas Pharmacy owners and intends to propose legislation revising Act 77 to require PBMs to include information about their pharmacy networks and pharmacy reimbursements starting from the date of the laws passage in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement It would give us a broader picture of the situation, because we would have a record of all those pharmacies that have gone out of business since the law was passed and the issues that caused it, she said. A little bit of fight Preferential reimbursement for PBM-owned affiliate pharmacies has been reviewed recently in Pennsylvanias neighboring state of West Virginia. On March 2, the West Virginia insurance commissioner issued an order and a $1.5 million fine against Express Scripts for findings that included the PBM reimbursing its affiliate pharmacies more for the same prescription drug than non- affiliate pharmacies within the PBM network. Advertisement Advertisement Last year, Express Scripts termination of Martellas Pharmacy from its network after years of continuous credentialing was met with a surge of support for the family-owned pharmacy chain. State legislators have proposed an array of PBM reforms beyond Act 77. The current composition of Pennsylvanias legislature, with a Democratic majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate, might indicate a challenge for bills to gain steam. But pharmacy benefit manager reform is an area where both parties have shown agreement. As Rigby, with the Republican minority in the House, worked on a bill to ban PBM- affiliated pharmacies from operating in Pennsylvania, a Democratic colleague, state Rep. Danilo Burgos, of Philadelphia, introduced a bill that would achieve the same goal. Advertisement Advertisement I sit in the minority, so its hard in the minority to get a bill run, Rigby said, but since there was one already coming out by a Democrat, I thought he had a better chance of it going than I would. At least if we run with Burgos bill, it gives us a little bit of fight. However, Burgos House Bill 2050 to ban PBMs from acquiring or holding pharmacy permits has remained in the early stages of the legislative process since November, the Pennsylvania General Assemblys website shows. Too much power Rigby suggested there may be wariness regarding the bill as an ongoing quarrel in Arkansas plays out over the same issue. Advertisement Advertisement Express Scripts and CVS-owned Caremark Rx filed lawsuits last year claiming that Arkansas law banning their affiliated pharmacies violates federal law and the Constitution. All arguments in the federal court case have been presented, and the debate is awaiting a decision, a spokesman for Arkansas attorney general told The Tribune-Democrat. While Rigby continues on that legislation, an array of proposals aimed at reining in PBMs control over pharmacy contracts have been proposed in the past month. State Rep. Frank Burns, D-East Taylor Township, has begun gathering co-sponsors in the House for legislation that would reduce the contractual power held by PBMs in the states Medicaid system. State Sens. Wayne Langerholc, R-Richland Township; Judy Ward, R-Blair; and Pat Stefano, R-Fayette, have proposed legislation that would grant the Office of Attorney General authority to review all contractual renewals and terminations between pharmacies and PBMs to assess the impact on local communities. Advertisement Advertisement Stefano, whose district encompasses all of Bedford County and parts of Fayette and Somerset counties, indicated he had knowledge of another pharmacy in his district whose contract was terminated by a PBM, similarly to Martellas. The PBM reforms proposed by lawmakers are no guarantee of a quick remedy, Stefano said. All I can say is there is too much power in these PBMs with no transparency, he said. A pedestrian was struck and killed by a vehicle on Route 1 south near Collins Avenue in Saugus last night, according to authorities. Massachusetts State Police say preliminary information indicates that a vehicle traveling in the left lane struck a pedestrian who appeared suddenly and without warning. The driver remained on scene and is cooperating as part of the ongoing investigating. The victim, identified as 53-year-old Brian McDonald, was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries where he later died. Massachusetts State Police said they offered their sincere condolences to Mr. McDonalds loved ones. Advertisement Advertisement This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Most mornings, I walk across a university campus in Baghdad where students hurry to class inside buildings that were once part of Saddam Husseins palace complex. On their way, they pass marble corridors and courtyards that, not so long ago, were symbols of power rather than places of learning. Today those same buildings house classrooms, laboratories and lecture halls. What were once halls of dictatorial power during a past era have become places where students debate ideas, work through difficult problems and prepare for careers. Where authority once flowed from fear and command, it now grows from knowledge and inquiry. It is a striking transformation, one that captures something important about Iraq today. A new university comes to life The American University of IraqBaghdad exists because of the vision of its founders: the Saihood family, Iraqi business leaders who made the decision to invest in their own country and its future. Advertisement Advertisement Building a university of this scale would be ambitious anywhere in the world. Doing it in Iraq requires an even deeper commitment. Yet this family believed in the value of an institution that could educate a new generation of leaders and professionals, and they chose to act on that belief. From a distance, daily life on campus might look familiar to anyone who has spent time at a university. Students move between classes with backpacks and laptops in hand. Faculty members meet with advisees. Research projects are underway in laboratories and offices. Conversations spill out of classrooms and into cafes and common spaces. Optimism amid broader tensions Yet in recent weeks, as regional tensions have risen and headlines have been filled with reports of missile and drone activity across the Middle East, many friends in the United States have asked me the same question: What is it actually like to live and work here right now? Advertisement Advertisement The honest answer is that the situation is serious, and we watch it carefully. But daily life, especially on a university campus, continues with a sense of purpose that may surprise people following events from afar. Our students are overwhelmingly Iraqi. They come from Baghdad and from cities across the country. Many represent different religious, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. What they share is a determination to build a better future for their country. Many of them have grown up during years of instability. Yet they arrive on campus with a sense of optimism that is hard to miss. Students of The American University of Iraq, Baghdad, stand together during the first graduation for the school in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, May 24, 2025. | Hadi Mizban, Associated Press For them, education is not an abstract exercise. It is a practical path toward rebuilding institutions, strengthening the economy and connecting Iraq to the wider world. A high privilege of my life My own path to Baghdad came after spending many years working in American higher education, including leadership roles at Utah Valley University and Southern Utah University and later as president of Snow College. Those years in Utah shaped much of my thinking about education and public service. Advertisement Advertisement But throughout my career, I have also lived and worked in this region, and I have long felt drawn to the role education can play here. In some ways, that connection began much earlier. I grew up in Saudi Arabia, where my parents were educators. Living there as a young person was a formative experience. Watching my parents devote their lives to education in another part of the world left a deep impression on me, and it sparked a lasting interest in the Middle East and its cultures. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to live and work in several countries in the region, including Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Moving between the United States and the Middle East has been a recurring part of my professional life, and in many ways, my current role in Baghdad feels like a continuation of that long journey. In more than 30 years as an educator, I have never held a position that feels more consequential. There are moments in a career when an opportunity feels less like a job and more like a responsibility. For me, serving here in Baghdad increasingly feels like one of those moments. Iraqi commitment to education Since arriving in Iraq, I have had the opportunity to meet with the countrys president, the prime minister and several senior government ministers. They lead different institutions and hold different perspectives, yet their message is remarkably consistent: Iraq needs this university. Advertisement Advertisement They see institutions like the American University of IraqBaghdad as essential to educating the next generation of leaders, professionals and innovators who will guide the country forward. Part of my role involves speaking to audiences back in the United States and reminding them why Iraq still matters. Iraq is a country with a deep and noble history. Its stability and success matter not only to Iraqis but also to the broader stability of the region. Student safety as top priority Of course, leadership in this environment requires constant attention to safety and risk. Our campus maintains a professional security operation with trained personnel, controlled access points and active monitoring systems. We also remain in close coordination with trusted partners and regularly review our procedures. For obvious reasons, we do not discuss every operational detail publicly. But the guiding principle is straightforward: Our first responsibility is to protect the people who study and work here. Advertisement Advertisement At the same time, we try to preserve continuity in the life of the university and make decisions calmly rather than reactively. Recent regional tensions have required careful attention. There have been missile and drone interceptions in the broader Baghdad area, particularly around Baghdad International Airport, which lies not far from where many members of our campus community live. When events like that occur, they are taken seriously. At the same time, the day-to-day reality often looks quite different from the way the region appears in international headlines. The work of education continues Most days in Baghdad feel remarkably normal. Traffic moves steadily through the city. Shops are open. Families gather for meals in the evening. Students attend class, prepare for exams and talk with one another about their plans for the future. Shiite pilgrims make their way to the shrine of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a key Shiite saint, for the annual commemoration of his death in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. | Hadi Mizban, Associated Press People follow the news carefully, but they also continue with their routines. Iraqis have lived through years of uncertainty, and that experience has produced a resilience that outsiders sometimes underestimate. Advertisement Advertisement On campus, we try to maintain that same steadiness. We monitor developments closely and communicate regularly with students, faculty and staff. When necessary, we make adjustments whether that means building flexibility into the academic calendar or preparing contingency plans. But the central mission remains the same. The work of education continues. A stunning transformation One of the most memorable moments I have experienced since coming to Iraq occurred during our first student graduation ceremony. Families filled the campus on the grounds of Saddam Husseins former palace complex once symbolizing fearful, authoritarian power. On that evening, it felt like something entirely different. Parents and grandparents watched with pride as their sons and daughters crossed the stage to receive their degrees. You could see the emotion on their faces. Advertisement Advertisement Standing there, it was impossible not to reflect on what the place had once represented and what it represents now. A site that once embodied control and intimidation had become a place of learning and opportunity. Watching those young Iraqis graduate felt like a moment of redemption. It was a reminder that the next generation is reclaiming its future and writing a different chapter for their country. The future in our students faces When Americans read about the Middle East, the region can sometimes appear as a series of crises unfolding on a map. Living here reminds you that it is also home to millions of ordinary people who are simply trying to build stable lives, educate their children and contribute to their communities. As a city with a deep cultural history, Baghdad is often viewed through the lens of its past. Yet the city also has vibrant neighborhoods and a young population eager to connect with the world. Lights are projected from former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's al-Faw Palace in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, May 24, 2025, now the location of The American University of Iraq, Baghdad. | Hadi Mizban, Associated Press Universities like ours are part of that story. They represent an investment in Iraqs future built on education, dialogue and opportunity. Advertisement Advertisement For those of us who live and work here, that future is visible every day in the faces of students on campus. In classrooms that once stood inside palaces of power, young Iraqis are quietly shaping what their country will become next. Walking across campus in the early morning, watching students hurry to class, it is hard not to feel that something important is happening here. Pittsburghs police chief is reacting to Channel 11s exclusive report about the decision to fire a police officer involved in a high-speed chase. Chief Investigator Rick Earle broke the story earlier this week that Chief Jason Lando wanted a different disciplinary action, but was overruled by the public safety director. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Public Safety Director overrules chief, calls for city officer involved in chase to be punished Advertisement Advertisement The chief says he stands by his decision to call for a two-day suspension, but the public safety director has moved to fire the officer. Dramatic surveillance video shows the SUV crashing and rolling on Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg last November. Four cars were hit by the speeding SUV and nine people were injured. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> 9 people injured in large crash in Wilkinsburg after driver flees police 11 Investigates learned exclusively that a Pittsburgh police officer who stopped the car minutes earlier for an illegally tinted window and then chased the vehicle for a short time after the driver took off was given a five-day suspension pending termination by Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams. Advertisement Advertisement On Friday morning, Lando defended his decision. I made the decision I felt was appropriate in the moment based on my comments with the officer and thats really all I can comment on, Lando said. Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams has declined to comment. So has the union that represents the officer. Sources tell 11 Investigates that officers are not allowed to chase for a vehicle code violation and they say even though the officer broke off the chase, he continued driving at a high rate of speed without his lights and sirens. The executive director of the citizen police review board, Beth Pittinger, says the message from the public safety director is loud and clear. Advertisement Advertisement I think what were hearing is, look, our standard is higher, the expectation is there and you will reach it, Pittinger said. Sources tell 11 Investigates that the officer presented his case at a hearing before the public safety director. The director now has two weeks to decide whether to uphold the firing or reduce it. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW GOSHEN A national organization dedicated to providing a safe and comforting home to children awaiting placement in the foster care system is finding support from Elkhart County residents. Isaiah 117 House provides physical and emotional support in a safe and loving home for children awaiting placement, organizers said. It gives a comforting, safe home where children can be brought to stay until they are placed with a foster family. The organization gets its name from the Bible verse Isaiah 1:17, Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. Advertisement Advertisement Area resident and Isaiah 117 volunteer Becky Burt said she heard about the organization through her friend, Shayne Cripe, because Cripes sister was volunteering at the house in Boone County, Indiana. Burt, Cripe and two other couples who meet together for prayer talked about starting an Isaiah 117 house in Elkhart County. After about six months or so of prayer, we decided that yes, this is something that we would like to do, Burt said. So, in August of 2023, we actually put in an official application to have an Isaiah 117 house here, and we just followed their process. The process of applying for an Isaiah 117 house started with an interview with the four people involved with the process, including Burt and Cripe. The organization had to look at the numbers of children removed from their home to see if Elkhart County even needed a home, Burt said. She said two of the people in the group had to go down to Elizabethton, Tennessee, to meet with the leadership team. The Isaiah 117 leadership team determined that Burt and Cripe would be the faces of the local Isaiah 117 house in the county, she said. Burt said the two of them went down to Tennessee again for a training. Advertisement Advertisement Between June 2024 and June 2025, the organization went on a sabbatical where it did not open any new homes, Burt said. She said the prayer group kept meeting and asked God to reveal what he wanted them to do. Over time, it became apparent to the group that bringing an Isaiah 117 house to the county was the answer, she said. The Lord calls us to be his hands and feet, Burt said. He calls us to step into the dirty and step into places where people wont step into. Our team, we met once a month during that one-year sabbatical. There were a few months that maybe it was every other month, but really for a couple of years, we tried as best we could to meet every month. The Ace Hardware in Middlebury has a little prayer room. Its a little cabin. Its open to the public to go in and pray. Its a rustic little cabin. We would meet there many months. Thats where we would meet. The Elkhart County Isaiah 117 house will be the 60th unit, across 13 states in the Midwest and the South, once completed, Burt said. It will be the 10th house in Indiana. Seven of the 10 houses are completed and three others are in various stages of building, she said. Isaiah 117 House was founded by Ronda Paulson in February 2017. Paulson speaks to audiences about her story of how God put it on her heart to start Isaiah 117 House. She recently spoke to a local audience at Maple City Chapel for a fundraiser for the Elkhart County Isaiah 117 House on Feb. 19. Advertisement Advertisement Our homes provide more than belongings, Paulson said to the audience at Maple City Chapel. They provide a safe place for a little girl to try to process something a little girl should never have to process. Thats what we want for the children of this community, but were going to need a Carter County, Tennessee, kind of moment. We need everybody just to give of what they have, so that we have a little white house with a red door. The Elkhart County Isaiah 117 House monthly meetings are held at Ivy Tech on C.R. 18 in their community room, Burt said. They meet 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the second Monday of each month. Burt said people can follow the Elkhart County Isaiah 117 House on Facebook by searching for Isaiah117houseelkhart. She also said that people can request via email to have either her or Cripe speak to a church, civic or business group about the Isaiah 117 House. More information is available at isaiah117house.com. The post Polar Bears Are Coming Closer to Peopleand its Not Due to Hunger appeared first on A-Z Animals. Quick Take Sea ice loss brings polar bears and people closer, raising encounter odds. Not every bear near town is starving; many remain in fair condition. Human choices often predict whether encounters become conflicts. Smarter, community-led management can support both safety and bears. Polar bears depend on frozen ocean surfaces more than any other land predator. The ice functions as a platform where they hunt seals, their primary source of energy. Bears often wait beside breathing holes used by ringed seals, striking when the seal rises for air. During spring, young seals provide especially high-fat meals that allow bears to build necessary body reserves. Advertisement Advertisement Frozen ocean surfaces also serve as travel corridors across the Arctic. Bears move long distances across this shifting landscape while searching for prey or potential mates. When ice persists through much of the year, many animals remain far from towns or industrial sites. Encounters between people and bears under those conditions tend to occur only when hunters, researchers, or tourists enter remote bear habitat. In years with longer ice seasons, bears can remain offshore for extended periods, reducing the chance of meeting humans. How Shrinking Sea Ice Alters Daily Patterns Over recent decades, the Arctic has experienced a steady decline in seasonal sea ice. Warmer temperatures cause earlier break-up in spring and delay the return of ice in autumn. As a result, bears in several regions must spend longer periods on land waiting for ice to reform. In western Hudson Bay, this shift has lengthened the time bears remain ashore compared to several decades ago, during which ice was more prevalent. Polar bears depend on sea ice for their hunting strategy and to get across vast stretches of water. Andrewfel/Shutterstock.com (Andrewfel/Shutterstock.com) Longer ice-free seasons change how often bears and people share the same coastline. Studies combining satellite sea ice records with wildlife monitoring show that visits to human sites increase during years when bears remain on land for longer stretches. In other words, the amount of time spent away from sea ice strongly predicts how frequently bears pass near buildings, camps, or research stations. The trend does not necessarily mean that all visiting bears are weak or starving. Often, it simply reflects that animals are present on land for more days each year, increasing the chance of overlap with human activity. Why Starvation Does Not Explain Every Encounter For many years, media reports have framed polar bear encounters as the result of desperate animals searching for food. While hunger can influence behavior, recent research suggests it is not the main driver behind most visits to human infrastructure. Scientists analyzing photographs from remote camera stations in western Hudson Bay evaluated the body condition of hundreds of bears recorded between 2011 and 2021. Advertisement Advertisement Most individuals fell near the middle of a standard five-point body condition scale rather than at the lowest level associated with severe starvation. At the same time, the number of visits increased in years when the ice-free season lasted longer. These findings suggest that proximity, not widespread starvation, often explains why bears appear near camps or settlements. If bears spend more time ashore, they simply have more opportunity to wander past human locations. Hunger may influence what a bear does once it arrives, yet it does not appear to be the main factor drawing them there in the first place. Encounters and Conflicts Are Not the Same Understanding polar bear behavior requires distinguishing between encounters and conflicts. An encounter occurs whenever people and bears come close enough to notice one another. A bear walking past a building, leaving tracks near town, or exploring a shoreline camp all count as encounter. Arctic tourists encountering a polar bear from the safety of a tundra buggy. aceshot1/Shutterstock.com (aceshot1/Shutterstock.com) A conflict involves injury, death, or aggressive intervention such as hazing or relocation. The factors that turn a routine sighting into a dangerous situation are often complex. Body condition can play a role because animals under nutritional stress may take greater risks. However, human behavior also matters. Poorly secured garbage, stored meat, or fish remains can attract curious animals and create situations where bears associate people with food. Preparation and local practices strongly influence outcomes. Communities that maintain strict waste management and respond quickly to approaching bears often reduce the likelihood that encounters escalate into attacks or lethal control actions. Knowledge Shared by Northern Communities Indigenous peoples and northern residents have observed polar bears for generations. Their knowledge provides insight that complements scientific monitoring. In many Arctic settlements, people report that bears are appearing near town more often in recent decades. Yet these observers frequently note that visiting animals do not always look weak or malnourished. Advertisement Advertisement Local experience highlights how bear movement follows coastlines, rivers, and traditional travel routes. Some communities observe that bears pass through certain areas at predictable times of year while moving between feeding grounds and denning areas. These observations match the idea that increased overlap with human spaces results mainly from longer periods spent on land rather than universal starvation. Observations of Inuit people of polar bear behavior is a significant part of scientific data-gathering. AJR_photo/Shutterstock.com (AJR_photo/Shutterstock.com) When researchers compare camera data with local reports, they often find close agreement. That overlap strengthens confidence in the broader conclusion that changing sea-ice patterns influence how frequently bears and people share the same landscape. Attractants Created by Human Activity While environmental change explains why bears reach coastal settlements more often, human food sources strongly affect where they linger. Garbage dumps, fish waste, dog yards, and improperly stored meat can draw bears into town limits. Once animals discover easy meals, they may return repeatedly. Wildlife agencies across the Arctic have worked with communities to reduce these attractants. In some regions, waste is stored in reinforced buildings designed to keep bears out. Patrol teams monitor bear movement near towns and drive animals away before they become accustomed to feeding near houses. Advertisement Advertisement These efforts show measurable results. Communities that secure garbage and remove strong food smells report fewer dangerous interactions. Managing attractants becomes more important as bears remain on land for longer periods each year, since animals fasting during summer may investigate any unfamiliar scent. Polar bears prowling around a dump, looking for an easy meal. Vladimir Melnik/Shutterstock.com (Vladimir Melnik/Shutterstock.com) Technology Used to Monitor Polar Bears New monitoring tools allow researchers to study polar bears without capturing or disturbing them. Motion-triggered cameras placed near research camps or coastal sites record each animal that passes through. The photographs provide clear evidence of timing, body condition, and behavior. Researchers combine this information with satellite observations of sea ice formation and break-up. By linking the two datasets, scientists can examine how environmental change influences bear movement. For instance, visits to camera stations can be compared with the number of days that have passed since ice break-up in a particular year. This method creates a long-term record that would be difficult to obtain through traditional fieldwork alone. Remote cameras have already documented hundreds of bear visits in western Hudson Bay, allowing scientists to examine patterns across an entire decade. The approach helps identify connections between ice conditions, bear presence on land, and the timing of encounters with people. Communities Living Closest to Polar Bears For residents of Arctic towns, polar bears are not distant symbols of environmental change. They are powerful predators that sometimes pass close to homes, schools, and workplaces. Communities such as Churchill in Canada or coastal villages in Alaska face the challenge of protecting people while respecting the ecological and cultural importance of bears. Advertisement Advertisement Local authorities often maintain patrol teams that monitor bear activity during periods when animals gather along the shore. Education programs teach residents how to store food, travel safely, and report sightings quickly. Some towns also operate temporary holding facilities where bears can be kept before relocation. Polar bear safety is a significant concern in northern communities. CherylRamalho/Shutterstock.com (CherylRamalho/Shutterstock.com) These measures require coordination between local governments, Indigenous organizations, and national wildlife agencies. The effort reflects a practical reality. As environmental conditions change, human communities must adapt their safety strategies while maintaining coexistence with one of the Arctics largest predators. Rethinking the Image of a Problem Bear Public discussion often portrays problem bears as thin, starving animals driven by desperation, but recent evidence suggests the picture is more complex. Many bears photographed near human infrastructure appear to be in average physical condition rather than close to starvation. Healthy animals sometimes approach buildings simply out of curiosity or because their usual travel routes pass nearby. Younger bears exploring new territory also show up frequently in monitoring camera footage. Of course, none of this reduces the risk a large predator poses. In fact, a healthy adult polar bear is likely more powerful than an undernourished polar bear. However, understanding that not every visiting bear is starving helps wildlife managers focus on prevention, such as managing food attractants and monitoring bear movement, rather than assuming every encounter reflects a crisis. The post Polar Bears Are Coming Closer to Peopleand its Not Due to Hunger appeared first on A-Z Animals. With all eyes on West Asia as the US and Israel unleash devastating air strikes on Iran, another deadly conflict is already well underway: the political crisis in Haiti. According to a new report by Human Rights Watch and flagged by ABC News, drones controlled by Haitian security forces and private military contracts have killed at least 1,243 people between March 1, 2025 and January 21, 2026. Though the ongoing drone attacks are said to be part of a protracted campaign to reign in gang activity, there are at least 17 children counted among the dead, as well as 43 adults who are confirmed to have been civilian non-combatants. As the chaos of the skirmishes has mostly unfolded over the densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince, the number of innocent victims is only likely to increase both as civil society groups gain a fuller accounting of the civilian dead, and as further violence rocks the Caribbean city. Advertisement Advertisement Since 2025, Human Rights Watch found, authorities in Haiti or their mercenaries have resorted to using manually-operated quadcopter drones equipped with explosives to target suspected militants. A reported 139 armed drone attacks have taken place over the past year, the most lethal of which claimed 57 lives. Dozens of ordinary people, including many children, have been killed and injured in these lethal drone operations, said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch in the report. Haitian authorities should urgently rein in the security forces and private contractors working for them before more children die. Per the report, evidence shows Haitian police repeatedly attacking vehicles as well as groups of people with suicide drones. While some of the targets of these attacks are armed, Human Rights Watch found no evidence of drone attacks on people that pose an immediate threat to civilian lives. These videos bolster the impression that many of the drone attacks are attempts to target and extrajudicially kill people, rather than a law enforcement response that might justify the deliberate, lethal use of force, the report reads. Advertisement Advertisement Since August of 2025, Blackwater founder and prominent Donald Trump donor Erik Prince has helped deploy hundreds of private mercenaries to Haiti, Al Jazeera has reported. In addition to supplying personnel, Prince has acted as a key advisor to the drone assassination task force responsible for the devastation, which has drawn condemnations from human rights groups for suspected violations of international law. Blackwater is a private military company responsible for the Nisour Square Massacre in Iraq, a shooting which left 17 civilians dead. (The four contractors responsible were pardoned by Trump during his first stint in the Oval Office.) Evidently, Prince is now exporting that same carnage to Haiti this time with drones furthering a history of heavy-handed US meddling in the affairs of the beleaguered Caribbean nation. More on drones: SpaceX Angling for Military Contract to Produce Drone Swarms WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Wichita police say a Newton man is dead after he was struck by a car in south Wichita on Wednesday night. Shortly before 10 p.m., police were called to a crash at Lincoln and Topeka streets. KHP: Kansas teens crash stolen car fleeing from officers When they arrived, they found a car that had crashed into a parked vehicle and a man lying in the street. Tyrone Carter, 55, was pronounced dead at the scene. Advertisement Advertisement Police said Carter was walking in the street when he was struck by a white Ford Focus, driven by a 21-year-old Wichita man. The driver then struck a parked car. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition by emergency medical services. Police think alcohol and speed were factors in the crash. The driver is under police watch and custody and will be booked into the Sedgwick County Jail once he has been released, according to the Wichita Police Department. Police said they will seek a charge of second-degree murder. But the case is still under investigation, and no charges have been filed. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news by downloading our mobile app and signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track 3 Weather app by clicking here. To watch our shows live on our website, click here. Advertisement Advertisement Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) The driver who was seriously hurt in a single-vehicle crash on Wednesday, March 11, in East El Paso, has been identified by the El Paso Police Department. 1 person seriously hurt after crash in East El Paso Police identified the driver as 43-year-old Norma Garcia. Norma Garcia. Photo courtesy of GoFundMe As KTSM previously reported, the crash happened shortly before 3 p.m. at the Lee Trevino exit 30. The El Paso Fire Department said one person, later identified as Garcia, was transported with serious injuries. Advertisement Advertisement A post on social media circulated saying that the object that flew through Garcias windshield was an axe. El Paso Police have come out to say that it was not an axe, but a metal rod. The family has started a GoFundMe for Garcias medical expenses. According to the family, Garcia is in critical condition. As of reporting, no charges have been filed. This is a developing story and will be updating you once we learn more. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. The second repatriation flight carrying 177 Indian nationals departed from Beirut, Lebanon, for New Delhi on Saturday amid the escalating tensions in West Asia. In a post on X, the Indian Embassy in Beirut said the flight was arranged by the employer company of the passengers and that the mission remains committed to assisting Indian nationals in the country. "The second repatriation flight, arranged by their employer company, carrying 177 Indian nationals, departed Beirut today for Delhi. The Embassy of India in Beirut wishes them a safe journey; the Team India in Beirut remains committed to extend best possible assistance to Indian nationals in Lebanon," the Embassy stated in its post. Earlier, on March 11, the first batch of 177 Indian nationals was repatriated to Delhi on a charter flight arranged by their employer company. According to the embassy, the group was seen off at Beirut International Airport by India's Ambassador to Lebanon, Noor Rahman Sheikh. "The first batch of 177 Indian nationals, being repatriated to Delhi in a charter flight arranged by their company, was seen off by Ambassador Noor Rahman Sheikh at Beirut International Airport. The Embassy of India in Beirut stands committed to extending best possible assistance to Indian nationals in Lebanon," the embassy said in an earlier post on X. Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Qatar today issued an update regarding travel arrangements for Indian nationals amid the evolving regional situation. In a post on X, the embassy said that Qatar Airways operated two flights to India on Saturday, one each to New Delhi and Mumbai, enabling around 850 Indian nationals to travel out of Qatar on these and other flights. It added that Qatar Airways has announced one flight to New Delhi for March 15 and three flights to India for March 16, including services to New Delhi, Mumbai and Kochi. The embassy also said that Indian nationals in Qatar have the option of travelling to Saudi Arabia before flying to India, noting that Indian carriers have increased flights from Saudi Arabia to India. The mission further stated that it continues to operate three 24x7 helplines for Indian nationals and advised people to follow all guidelines issued by Qatar's Ministry of Interior and other authorities. (ANI) A woman was taken into custody for an evaluation after allegedly threatening a teen with two knives in East Brookfield, according to Massachusetts State Police. According to authorities, the K-9 Unit, Air Wing, and Special Emergency Response team helped locate the female suspect believed to armed with the knives. Police were able to locate the woman at approximately 11 a.m. and detained her for the purposes of an evaluation. Advertisement Advertisement The incident is under investigation at this time. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A teen reported missing from Ohio has been found safe in Florida, according to the FBI. Madison Fields, 16, had been missing since February 13, and the Colerain Township Police Department arrested a man in connection with her disappearance, Us Weekly previously reported. We are thankful Madison is safe and will soon be back in Ohio, stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie. I want to thank all the law enforcement agencies involved for their relentless work to find Madison. Advertisement Advertisement We are all relieved that Madison has been safely located, stated Colerain Police Chief Edwin C. Cordie III. Colerain Police and our partners never gave up hope that she would be found. I am thankful for the hard work of our officers and detectives and the support of the community. The successful rescue of this teen is the product of strong law enforcement partnerships and underscores the vital role of Endangered Missing Child alerts, added Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. When a child is reported missing, law enforcement uses every tool at their disposal and leaves no stone unturned. Missing Indiana Teen Hailey Buzbee Believed Dead, Man She Met While Gaming Online Arrested Fields was located after the Colerain Police, BCI, and FBI identified a person of interest in her disappearance who lives in Tennessee. Advertisement Advertisement The FBIs Hostage Rescue Team was deployed to the suspects home, but the suspect had fled prior to their arrival, according to an FBI press release. "Law enforcement was then able to identify a hotel in Florida where the suspect was believed to have been staying," reads the release. "An alert to law enforcement was issued to be on the lookout for the suspect and his vehicle. That vehicle was located by FBI Jacksonville and local police in a parking lot in Palatka, Florida. Madison was then found safe at the local hotel." South Carolina Teen Mackenzie Dalton Found Safely, Mystery Man Busted for Lying The suspect was taken into custody and "more details on the charges" he will be facing "will be released in the near future," the release explained. Advertisement Advertisement The news comes after a New York man who had "previous interactions" with Madison was indicted on federal sexual exploitation charges. On Thursday, March 12, Kyle Lawrence, 43, was charged with transportation with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and transportation of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. It was unclear if he has entered pleas to those charges, and attempts to reach his lawyer were unsuccessful Friday, March 13. If you know of a young person who is being exploited or are the victim of a crime, you are urged to report it to your local FBI field office by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. Tips can also be left at tips.fbi.gov KANSAS CITY, Mo. A popular fast-food restaurant in the Northland is nearing a re-opening after a car crashed into it back in January, injuring the restaurants owner. In-A-Tub provided an update via Facebook on Saturday, saying that the restaurant is hoping to reopen in early April. The post also shared that the owner, Andrea LaMunyon, is doing well and continuing to heal. Kansas Citys Snake Saturday parade celebrates with kicks and kilts Advertisement Advertisement The initial crash happened on Jan. 20 around 4 p.m., when a pickup truck suddenly accelerated and drove through the side of the business after pulling into a parking spot, the Kansas City Police Department reported. The crash left the owner with injuries, and she was taken to the hospital for surgery. She suffered a serious ankle injury and a spiral fracture in her hip. I wont show you the inside of the building, but if you saw it, youd be forced to wonder if somebody wasnt watching over some people, her brother, Aaron Beeman, said. Because that truck, when you see it on the video, was only in as far as the nose. That truck made it almost all the way into the building and that gentleman driving it backed back out and its really fortunate that nobodys dead, including my sister. Advertisement Advertisement In-A-Tub first opened in 1951, becoming a staple in the community on Northwest Prairie View Road. What to know if youre celebrating St. Patricks Day in Westport this weekend Just remember us, well be back, come shop, Beeman said. Come buy tacos again when were open, Beeman said back in January. Now, it appears he was correct; on Friday, In-A-Tub received permit approval to begin work on the kitchen and a new Coke machine has been delivered. Click here to learn more about In-A-Tub. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. President Donald Trump has endorsed Republican Congressman Kevin Hern for U.S. Senate, a nod that could clear the field in the days-old race for Sen. Markwayne Mullin's seat. Trump said Hern did a "tremendous job" in the U.S. House advancing his administration's agenda and that he expected him to do the same in the Senate. The endorsement landed two days after Hern entered the race and one day after the president met with Gov. Kevin Stitt. "Kevin Hern will be an outstanding Senator, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" Trump wrote late Friday, March 13, in a post on his social media site Truth Social. Advertisement Advertisement Speculation about who could be elected as Oklahoma's next senator has been circulating since March 5, when Trump announced he was appointing Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Trump's backing so early in the race is likely meant to warn off any other serious GOP contenders. The president is exceedingly popular among Republican voters in Oklahoma. In his Truth Social post, he called Oklahoma a "wonderful state" and noted he won all 77 counties the past three presidential elections. Trump's early endorsement could also help him focus on more hotly contested races ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans are trying to retain their majority in the Senate, where Mullin was viewed as one of Trump's closest allies. The president stands to gain another loyalist with his endorsement of Hern. Hours before Trump offered his endorsement, two other potential challengers Stitt and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice both announced that they would not seek the post. Advertisement Advertisement The governor will still have to choose someone to complete the final months of Mullin's current term before voters select a full-term replacement in November. People watch the video monitor outside the Senate as Sen. Adam Pugh talks about SB 1546 at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. A group of people surround the state seal on te ground floor at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. A group of people stop to look at "Pro Patria" by Thomas Gilbert White on the 4th floor at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Rep. Mickey Dollins leans against a wall while talking on his phone on the 4th floor at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. A man stops to say hello to Rep. Mickey Dollins on the 4th floor at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Rep. Mickey Dollins visits in the hall outside of the House of Represenatives at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Oklahoma Historical Society Exec. Dir. Trait Thompson gives a tour at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The painting behind them is "Pro Patria" by Thomas Gilbert White. Oklahoma Historical Society Exec. Dir. Trait Thompson gives a tour at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The painting behind them is "Pro Patria" by Thomas Gilbert White. Don Spencer, OK2A, outside the House of Representatives, at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Two men look up at the dome from the ground level by the state seal at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Se. Carri Hicks visits in the Senate lobby at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Sen. Chuck Hall visits in the 4th floor rotunda at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Medical personnel fill the halls of the fourth floor of the Oklahoma Capitol during Immunization Day sponsored by Oklahoma Alliance for Healthy Families, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. People stand in front of the portrait of Will Rogers by Charles Banks Wilson on the 4th floor at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. A woman wears a tee shirt that questions covid deaths at hospitals at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. See inside the Oklahoma Capitol 1 of 15 People watch the video monitor outside the Senate as Sen. Adam Pugh talks about SB 1546 at the Oklahoma Capitol, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Stitt and Trump met in Washington, DC on Thursday, March 12 to discuss the opening. Stitt said after the meeting that he would wait to name his pick until after Mullin's Cabinet appointment is confirmed by his fellow senators. Under state law, the person Stitt chooses cannot run in the subsequent election for the seat. Political insiders believe Stitt's short list includes oil magnate and Trump megadonor Harold Hamm or communications executive Dustin Hilliary, who is also one of Stitt's advisers. Advertisement Advertisement More: Gov. Stitt meeting with President Trump as he mulls Senate pick Hern held a news conference at the state GOP headquarters in Oklahoma City on Thursday, March 12, to launch his new campaign. When asked at the time whether the president was backing his race, he wouldn't say. Instead he touted his close ties with Trump and said his voting record aligns with the president. Hern reported having $2.2 million in cash in his campaign account as of December, according to the Federal Election Commission. He is Oklahoma's wealthiest member of Congress with an estimated net worth of $110 million, according to Quiver Quantitative, an investment research website. Hern built his fortune operating McDonald's franchises. He has been in the U.S. House since 2018, representing parts of eastern Oklahoma. (This story was updated to add new information.) This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Trump backs Kevin Hern to replace Markwayne Mullin in U.S. Senate President Donald Trump's approval rating has slightly dipped in most polls this week as the war in Iran intensifies and as midterm election campaigning unfolds. American involvement in the 2-week-old Iran war deepened this week after the U.S. sent a 2,500-strong Marine expeditionary force to the Middle East. The total number of United States military casualties was 13 as of March 13, according to officials. More than 1,200 civilians have been killed in Iran under U.S. and Israeli air strikes, according to Iranian human rights organizations. In Lebanon, more than 600 have died in widening Israeli attacks on the militant group Hezbollah, displacing hundreds of thousands of people as explosions rocked Beirut's densely packed city center, USA TODAY reported. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speak to reporters as Trump arrives at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on July 1, 2025. President Trump is visiting a migrant detention center in a reptile-infested Florida swamp dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." Surprise ICE center: DHS taps 'Alligator Alcatraz' company to run Surprise ICE center Amy Clay, an independent Seminole protests in the rain at the entrance to the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It is being transformed into a detention center that is known as aOAlligator AlcatrazO. President Donald Trump made a visit with Governor Ron DeSantis and others to the site. Media, protestors and supporters gathered outside the entrance. President Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visit a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Scenes as media and others gather awaiting President Donald Trump's visit to the immigration detention center known as OAlligator AlcatrazO at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 1, 2025. Scenes from the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It is being transformed into a detention center that is known as OAlligator AlcatrazO . President Donald Trump made a visit with Governor Ron DeSantis and others to the site. Media, protestors and supporters gathered outside the entrance. President Donald Trump speaks with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as they tour a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Scenes from the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It is being transformed into a detention center that is known as OAlligator AlcatrazO. President Donald Trump made a visit with Governor Ron DeSantis and others to the site. Media, protestors and supporters gathered outside the entrance. President Donald Trump (2R), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (L), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (R) tour a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Florida National Guard members sit at the entrance as President Donald Trump visits the immigration detention center known as OAlligator AlcatrazO at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 1, 2025. Mandatory Credit: Jonah Hinebaugh-Naples Daily News President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (not pictured) walk through a medical facility section as they tour a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (C), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (2R) tour a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tour a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Scenes from the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It is being transformed into a detention center that is known as OAlligator AlcatrazO . President Donald Trump made a visit with Governor Ron DeSantis and others to the site. Media, protestors and supporters gathered outside the entrance. President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Toilets and beds are seen inside a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Beds are seen inside a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, as President Donald Trump tours the facility in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump supporters gather at the entrance of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. It is being transformed into a detention center that is known as OAlligator AlcatrazO . President Donald Trump speaks as US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (L) looks on after touring a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Donald Trump speaks after touring a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. Trump tours 'Alligator Alcatraz' immigration detention center in Florida Everglades 1 of 21 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speak to reporters as Trump arrives at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on July 1, 2025. President Trump is visiting a migrant detention center in a reptile-infested Florida swamp dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." Surprise ICE center: DHS taps 'Alligator Alcatraz' company to run Surprise ICE center While the war unfolds, Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville launched anti-Muslim verbal attacks against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as some fellow congressional Republicans endorse similar rhetoric, saying "Muslims don't belong" in the U.S. Advertisement Advertisement In other international news, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel confirmed his government is holding talks with the Trump administration, in the latest sign that the communist-run nation is open to signing a possible historic economic deal with the United States. "These conversations have been aimed at seeking solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences that exist between our two nations," Diaz-Canel said. Here's what to know about Trump's approval rating, including how they are decided and how Trump's ratings compare with his first term and past presidents. What is Donald Trump's approval rating? Here are the latest approval ratings released about Trump's administration: Advertisement Advertisement Real Clear Polling's average of polls from Feb. 21 to March 12 shows a 42.9% approval and 54.4% disapproval rate. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from Feb. 28 to March 1 reported that 39% of those surveyed gave him a favorable approval rating of his performance in office and 60% gave an unfavorable rating. The New York Times daily average of polls showed a 41% approval and 55% disapproval as of March 13 A poll from the Associated Press and NORC showed 36% approve and 62% disapprove of Trump. The Economist shows that 40% of people are favorable of Trump and 56% are unfavorable of him, according to the latest update from March 13. Rasmussen Reports poll from March 13 showed 44% approval and 54% disapproval of Trump. The American Research Group poll from Feb. 23 showed 36% approve and 62% disapprove. How does Trump's approval rating compare with his 1st term? Trump had a final approval rating of 34% when he left office in 2021. His approval average during his first term was 41%. How does Trump's approval rating compare with past presidents? Joe Biden - 40% Donald Trump (first term) - 34% Barack Obama - 59% George W. Bush - 34% Bill Clinton - 66% George H.W. Bush - 56% Ronald Reagan - 63% Jimmy Carter - 34% Gerald Ford - 53% Richard Nixon - 24% Are presidential approval ratings accurate? Data agency Gallup notes that these approval ratings are a "simple measure, yet a very powerful one that has played a key role in politics for over 70 years." Advertisement Advertisement A presidents approval rating reflects the percentage of Americans polled who approve of the presidents performance. Anything can impact a president's rating, such as legislation passed, actions and elections. According to ABC News, an approval rating doesn't just represent how well the administration is doing for the general public, but could determine the outcome of an upcoming election for a politician or how much they get done during their time in office. While these ratings are easy to understand, Quorum says some analysts believe they are not as useful as they once were due to extreme partisanship and the polarized political climate. Presidential approval ratings have always been partisan, with members of the presidents party offering more positive assessments than those in the opposing party, according to the Pew Research Center. But the differences between Republicans and Democrats on views of the president have grown substantially in recent decades. USA TODAY Network reporter Maria Francis contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Donald Trump's approval rating dips in the latest polls We have a long-duration precipitation event heading toward the Great Lakes. Get ready for significant amounts of precipitation. Here are some of the basic details on this storm. I would call this a meaningful or even a memorable storm for some of us, as it will likely have a zone of very heavy snow, an ice storm zone and maybe a line of severe thunderstorms. Two pieces of strong upper-level energy are going to merge right over Michigan. When this happens, precipitation can last two days. This will be the case with the coming storm. Advertisement Advertisement The precipitation starts Saturday night and early Sunday morning, then continues, often times heavy, through Monday night. The storm should be over around sunrise Tuesday. Here is the surface weather forecast from 1 a.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. Tuesday. Yes, the purple color will likely end up as a stripe of heavy freezing rain and sleet, resulting in an ice storm. storm Here are the zones of weather. For the southern half of Lower Michigan, you stay in the warm sector of the storm until Sunday night. Occasional showers and thunderstorms will occur Sunday and Sunday night, then snow showers will fall Monday and Monday night. There could be a line of severe thunderstorms as the strong cold front moves through Sunday night or Monday morning. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) already has an area targeted for possibly severe thunderstorms. The graphic below gives us a great idea of where the rain-to-freezing rain line may set up, from around Ludington to Alpena. All areas south of that line could warm into the 60s Sunday, and have thunderstorms. Its the kind of set-up that can produce tornadoes. severe wx Unfortunately, there looks to be a significant ice storm zone, where one-half inch of ice to as much as one-and-a-half inches of ice could accumulate. This amount of ice accumulation will cause widespread power outages. Advertisement Advertisement Heres the total freezing rain accumulation forecast as of this Friday afternoon. The zone could still shift north 15 to 25 miles. If that happens, the southern edge, to just rain, shifts north, and the northern edge with its heavy ice, would also shift north. So still monitor MLive.com/weather for updates and changes. These changes could still be very significant at any location. Im showing you the most reliable model for placement and precipitation type. It might be an inch too heavy on ice accumulation. Lets hope so. This storm also has the ability to do as this forecast shows, accumulating over one inch of freezing rain. freezing rain This means a zone from the Traverse City area to Charlevoix to Grayling and Gaylord and into northeast Lower Michigan could have a devastating ice storm with over one inch of ice accumulation. The models may be combining sleet with freezing rain, which certainly would be better than all freezing rain. This is the zone that will have to be watched. In the far northern part of Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, the precipitation should be all snow, and very heavy. The National Weather Service in Marquette is starting to talk about a record snow. I dont have a number of inches for that record snow, but its heavy. Advertisement Advertisement Heres the total snow forecast. Ignore the exact numbers at exact locations for now. If some rain and sleet and freezing rain mix in on the southern edge of the snow(likely), those areas will get lesser snows. snow The entire Upper Peninsula should get between 20 inches and 30 inches of snow. Far northern Lower Michigan should get 10 inches to 20 inches of snow. It may be hard for Traverse City to get 11 inches of snow, just based on the idea that Sunday and Sunday night should be freezing rain, sleet and rain. How do you respond to this storm system? Travel on Saturday, before the precipitation gets started. The southern half of Lower Michigan will even be okay to travel Sunday, except for the chance of a line of severe thunderstorms. Temperatures will soar into the 60s Sunday from Saginaw southward. Advertisement Advertisement Sunday, Sunday night, Monday and Monday night will not be safe to travel in northern Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Southern Lower Michigan will get into the snow showers by Monday, and roads could get slick. Tuesday will have improving road conditions, as the precipitation should end around sunrise. It will take until Wednesday afternoon before northern Michigan warms above freezing, getting rid of any ice on the back roads. This is a complex storm system that is still just developing. Do expect some shift possibly in the zones of weather I just wrote about. I dont expect a shift south, but there could be a slight shift north. Stay updated at MLive.com/weather. Heres a short video explainer of the coming storm. Read the original article on mlive.com. Add mlive.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. OCEANPORT, N.J. (PIX11) If a few New Jersey lawmakers have their way, the people of the State could decide whether casinos could be coming to racetracks like Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands. Earlier this year, Democratic State Senator Vin Gopal helped to introduce legislation that proposes an amendment to the state constitution authorizing the legislature to establish casino gaming at Monmouth Park and Meadowlands racetracks. Discover more local reporting on our homepage Advertisement Advertisement The amendment would then be submitted to the people of New Jersey for a vote. Republican Assemblyman Don Guardian, who is the former mayor of Atlantic City, says having casinos in North Jersey would hurt people and jobs in his City. To think there would be any advantage for the State is a bit foolish, said Guardian. If youre going to open up casinos in Freehold, in East Rutherford, youre going to close three or four casinos in Atlantic City. It was a decade ago that New Jersey voters overwhelmingly decided not to allow casinos outside of Atlantic City. Attorney and former State legislator John Wisniewski says Atlantic City used to be the only place you could go to a casino outside of Las Vegas, holding a captive market. Advertisement Advertisement Since that time, its eroded, said Wisniewski. You can go to casinos in Pennsylvania, you can go to casinos in New York State, you can go to casinos in Delaware, so that regional draw has gone. New Jersey really needs to think about how to reconstruct that business model. Because narrowly confining it to one city is not a long-term recipe for success. Across the Hudson River, the New York State Gaming Commission awarded casino licenses in December to three New York City applicants, including a proposed Ballys in the Bronx. There will be people who will just look at the economics of their time and say, I can go into the city, I can go gaming for an afternoon and be back home for dinner,' said Wisniewski. Senator Gopal, in a statement to PIX11 news, said the legislation would support things like property tax relief and would designate revenue towards Atlantic City tourism. Expanding high quality casinos to our horse racing facilities is a major step forward for New Jersey. said Gopal (D-NJ 11th District). We have the opportunity to compete with the increase in gambling venues in Pennsylvania and New York, and potentially generate more than half a billion dollars in revenue for our State. Advertisement Advertisement According to the States legislative calendar, the bill has not yet been scheduled for discussion. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) The SAVE America Act, a federal bill backed by President Trump, is stirring debate in Washington. Supporters say it protects elections, but opponents believe its a political power play that could make voting harder for millions of Americans. What the SAVE America Act Would Do The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act would require Americans to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. Advertisement Advertisement Under the proposal, election officials would need to verify citizenship using documents such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization certificate. The legislation would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which currently allows voters to register by swearing they are U.S. citizens. The measure also would end mail-in voting almost entirely, with exclusions for sick voters, military personnel or travel. Trump has backed the legislation in the wake of his claims that the 2020 presidency was stolen from him. Were not going to let them cheat like they did in a certain election that we wont talk about, Trump said in remarks Thursday. Advertisement Advertisement Despite the presidents claims, data has shown there were very few instances of election fraud over the last decade. There have been 138 proven cases since 2017 according to the Heritage Foundation. The conversation on the SAVE Act arises as the U.S. is in the middle of the primary election season. Critics of the SAVE Act believe the president is worried about losing Republican seats. All 435 districts in the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), said to not let the name of the bill fool you on the Senate floor Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement The SAVE America Act would not protect our elections, Durbin said. Instead, it would make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote. Illinois Secretary of States Office accepting applications for annual summer job program Critics Raise Concerns Critics say the SAVE America Act will make voting more difficult if Congress decides to pass the bill. This law would essentially disenfranchise all of those people in the service of simply salvaging the presidents wounds from the 2020 election, Ed Yohnka of ACLU of Illinois said. This isnt a good policy and its not one we should adopt. Advertisement Advertisement Yohnka also said hes not just worried for voters, but election officials. Under the SAVE Act, violators could be subject to hefty fines and serve up to five years in prison. Yohnka said the penalties may promote people to do their job incorrectly in fear of jail time. The incentive is always going to be to say no to people rather than yes, because the person doing the registering risks the possibility of a criminal sentence, Yohnka said. When you create a system where the incentives are to suppress the vote, youre going to end up suppressing the vote. Yohnka pointed to a Kansas proof-of-citizenship voter registration law as proof the proposed measure wouldnt work. Advertisement Advertisement In 2011, the state passed legislation with similar guidelines for proof of citizenship for voters. In 2018, a federal judge ruled this measure violated federal law, and the decision was held up by the U.S. Court of Appeals Truth Circuit the same year. IDOT releases new map of Route 66 to celebrate highways 100th year Impact On Illinois Critics of the SAVE Act also worry the legislation will affect local and state elections. The SAVE Act is just the latest attack on voting rights, creating unnecessary barriers to the ballot box, Citizen Action Illinois said in a statement to WCIA 3. Some barriers opposers have brought up are last names being changed for women upon marriage, and the lack of access to the required documents needed to register. Advertisement Advertisement Only 48% of Americans held a passport in 2024 according to the Department of State. Ryan Tolley, executive director of CHANGE Illinois, said the federal government should be providing ways to help bring in more voters. I think its our duty as an organization and just as a country to give the people the tools and resources they need to get out to vote, Tolley said. Tolley is also worried the measure would create what he calls a two-track system between federal elections and state local elections. With Illinois primary elections happening Tuesday, Tolley said a measure like this could create chaos. Advertisement Advertisement If it were to pass and be signed into law today, every local election authority would not be able to cope with the requirements that they would now be required under federal law to do for election, Tolley said. Illinois has seen a decrease in voter turnout in recent primary election years. In the 2024 primary election, about 19% of eligible voters submitted a ballot. That was a slight drop from the 2022 primary election, with about 22% of voters submitting a ballot. Southwest Airlines to discontinue service to OHare Airport Next Steps for the SAVE America Act On Feb 11, the SAVE Act passed the House with a 216-214 vote. Advertisement Advertisement However, it currently faces a challenge in the Senate, with an ongoing filibuster. On Wednesday Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), flipped on the senate filibuster. The move gives way for a simple majority to pass the SAVE Act but will still face strong opposition from Democrats. Yohnka said meetings with Durbin suggest there are not enough votes to overcome the filibuster, hinting that the bill is unlikely to pass this session. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. A week after uninterrupted nightly blackouts, Cubans in Moron, a city in central Cuba, took to the streets banging pots and pans Friday night chanting Down with communism as some of the protesters broke into the local Communist Party building and tried to set it on fire. At least one person was appeared to have been shot, apparently by Cuban police, videos posted on social media show. Moron , ciego de Avila Cuba , ahora mismo pic.twitter.com/DN6dMRWH9y Yudiel Delgado (@YudielDelgado) March 14, 2026 The videos show residents walking and at times running through the streets of Moron, in the province of Ciego de Avila, shouting anti-government slogans in the middle of a blackout late night Friday and early morning Saturday, lit up by the occasional portable lamp or the light on their phones. Advertisement Advertisement One video shows demonstrators gathered around a police station while the police officers stand guarding the buildings entrance. Several videos show men throwing a sofa and other furniture from the upper floor of the local Communist Party building. People then burned them in a bonfire on the street. At least two video shows people trying to set the building on fire. In one of the videos a woman can be heard yelling Burn it!, followed by an expletive. In a longer video shot from a closer angle, protesters are seen throwing furniture and documents from the Communist Party building into the bonfire. One protester wrapped himself in a Cuban flag and later climbed into a nearby pole waving it. One person is heard yelling, Burn it, referring to the flag, but another quickly replied: No, don't burn it because thats ours, thats our freedom. Cubanos destruyen la sede del Partido Comunista. Moron, Ciego de Avila. pic.twitter.com/U0h7zcgLQX Yusnaby (@Yusnaby) March 14, 2026 Then in a chilling turn, two men set fire to palm branches and threw them into the building, while people nearby chanted Freedom. Thats when one single shot can be heard on the video, followed by someone saying, They hit him. Someone, unclear whether a man or a boy, is seen fallen on the pavement and people quickly gathered around him, then carried him away to seek help. A few frames in the video show the person bleeding in one leg. Advertisement Advertisement They shot him, one man is heard saying. And they say they dont shoot people, the man added in reference to Cuban authorities. The man later said police officers had been hiding nearby. Moron, Cuba (Google Maps) The video does not show the exact moment in which the person was shot nor who did it. It is not clear from the videos if the person shot is an adult or a minor. A second video shows the person who was shot with an improvised tourniquet on his right leg being carried away on a motorcycle. On Saturday morning, the local state newspaper, Invasor, said authorities were investigating the vandalism. At midnight on Saturday, a group of people, mostly residents of the El Vaquerito neighborhood, marched through the streets of Moron, in the northern part of Ciego de Avila province, protesting primarily the electricity situation and access to food, the newspaper said in a publication on Facebook. Advertisement Advertisement What began peacefully, and after an exchange with local authorities, escalated into vandalism against the headquarters of the Municipal Party Committee. A smaller group of people threw stones at the buildings entrance and started a fire in the street, burning furniture from the reception area, the story added. Preliminary reports, based on social media posts, indicated that other establishments were also damaged, including a pharmacy and a Tiendas Caribe store. The official media outlet reported that five people were in custody. It did not mention the person shot but added that one individual who had fallen while intoxicated was being treated at the Roberto Rodriguez General Hospital. The events in Moron cap a week in which Cubans around the country and especially in Havana have been staging cacerolazos, as the banging of pots is known all across Latin America, demonstrating against the government and their living conditions. Just on Friday morning, Cubas leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, had called on the population to be more understanding and not blame the government for the blackouts, which he said were the result of President Donald Trumps blockade of oil supplies to the island. Advertisement Advertisement Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel confirms talks with the Trump administration Blackouts have long been a problem in Cuba, which has a crumbling energy infrastructure and had been reselling subsidized Venezuelan oil for cash before Trump halted oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico to press the government to negotiate changes to its economic and political system. On Friday, Diaz-Canel finally admitted in a nationally televised appearance that the two governments are engaged in talks, after initially denying it. But he did not speak of significant changes nor mention any plan to improve the current situation. Under his government, Cubas economy has hit rock bottom and a humanitarian crisis was already raging when the cutoff of oil supplies left the country without fuel. Cuba announces release of 51 prisoners amid increased tensions with the U.S. Advertisement Advertisement In the past, the Cuban government has cracked down on protesters and hundreds of people are still imprisoned for demonstrations like the one that took place in Moron. Cuban laws severely punish any criticism or protest against the government. Amid talks with the U.S., the Cuban government said that as a gesture to the Vatican it would release 51 prisoners, several of whom are believed to be protesters who took part in islandwide demonstrations on July 11, 2021. Puterbaugh Upper Elementary students greeted visitors from Ireland Friday and offically kicked off a pen-pal program that will teach not only McAlester students, but also those theyre writing to overseas. Students at Puterbaugh Upper Elementary received the opportunity to write to students in Midleton, Ireland, because of McAlester Association for Global Interconnections Sister Cities program. Puterbaugh Upper Elementary Principal Kathy Hunt said the school sent 18 class letters to begin the relationship between McAlester Public Schools and Midleton, Ireland. Advertisement Advertisement Every class is writing a letter to share with the people in Midleton, Hunt said. The letters cover a list of things to have students thinking about themselves and the community they have grown up. They will describe themselves, what is special about McAlester and ask questions they have for those in Midleton. Each class is assigned a different aspect of what makes McAlester and Oklahoma special. The kids have researched different things about our town. One is telling them about how it was founded. Another one is telling us how were the Buffaloes. In other ones, explaining our state flag, Hunt said. Everyone is doing something different, just describing either our town or our state. Advertisement Advertisement Hunt thinks it is important for students to learn about their town and state and understand what makes it special. I hope that well find these children writing about and telling about their town and it instills a sense of pride, when you stop and take time to think about what you do have in your town, she said. A lot of kids, they dont know that the Masonic Temple is one of a kind, or they dont know whats special about the fact that the oil and gas industry are our beginnings. I hope a sense of pride in community and self evolves. She wants students to see the impact the Choctaw Nation has all over the world and what they experienced while on the Trail of Tears. She said Native Americans lost their homes, went hungry and lost what was familiar to them on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. She said the Irish went through something similar as they went hungry and were poor, having to immigrate to America to have the chance to survive. Advertisement Advertisement The Choctaws were so kind that they gathered up money they didnt have and sent it to help them in their time of need, Hunt said. Another thing she wants to accomplish with the program is for the students to learn the art of letter writing. Its an art that we dont often think of since we send texts and emails, but letter writing is a wonderful way for kids to communicate, Hunt said. With letter writing comes the excitement of getting a response after waiting for so long. However, Hunt said they do not plan to only communicate through letters, but would love to expand to Google Meets and FaceTime to meet with their pen-pals and also send videos and pictures. Advertisement Advertisement When she taught fourth grade, her class had a pen-pal from Grand Island, New York, for 20 years. She wants to do some things she did with that pen-pal in this program. We used to, my fourth graders, would take videos and send VCR tapes back and forth, Hunt said. She said people want to know what their pen-pal looks like, and that was a way they did it back then. Although right now it is currently a class effort, she said if students are interested in receiving their own personal pen-pal, then the program is open to the idea of doing it. They just want to establish it as a program first and see where it goes. Advertisement Advertisement Hunt said they plan on continuing the program for as long as Midleton wants to write back. The visiting Irish delegation picked up the letters from Puterbaugh Upper Elementary when they visited McAlester Friday. Hunt said the students and faculty had surprises for the delegations visit. An art teacher created a replica of the statue that honors the Choctaw Nation for helping Midleton during the potato famine. A student greeted the Irish delegation in Choctaw and made a Choctaw vest to wear when meeting them. The McAlester Public Schools Native American Club presented Choctaw regalia to the Irish delegation. Advertisement Advertisement Cllr. Rory Cocking, Cork County Councillor for the Midleton Electoral Area, which is part of the East Cork Municipal District, presented local jerseys from Midleton. He asked for it to be displayed with the replica for the Choctaw statue. Hunt said they are excited about this opportunity to be part of the pen-pal program and thinks it brings excitement to school. This, to me, is what education and school is all about, Hunt said. Fun learning experiences that connect the kids to each other and to the world. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that two senior Iranian intelligence officials were killed in a targeted airstrike carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in Tehran. In a post on X, the IDF said, "ELIMINATED: Abdollah Jalali-Nasab & Amir Shariat, senior intelligence officials of the "Khatam al-Anbiya" Emergency Command. The two senior commanders were key figures in the Iranian intelligence community and close to the leadership of the Iranian terrorist regime." https://x.com/IDF/status/2032858899355673007 The IDF identified the officials as Abdollah Jalali-Nasab and Amir Shariat, describing them as senior intelligence figures in Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command. According to the Jerusalem Post, the IDF said the strike was conducted with precise guidance from Israeli Military Intelligence. According to the IDF, the two men had recently been appointed as acting replacements in the intelligence division after their predecessor, Saleh Asadi, was killed during the early phase of what Israel calls Operation Roaring Lion. The Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command is responsible for gathering and analysing intelligence for senior officials in Iran's security establishment, assessments that help shape the country's military decision-making against Israel, according to a news report by The Jerusalem Post. Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said the operation was part of a broader campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure. According to The Jerusalem Post, since the start of the campaign, hundreds of Israeli Air Force aircraft have struck hundreds of targets linked to the Iranian government across Iran, Defrin said. He added that the operation began with a surprise attack after Israeli military intelligence identified two gathering points in Tehran where senior Iranian security leaders had assembled. The reported strike comes a day after the Israeli military said it had completed 20 waves of attacks against more than 150 Iranian government targets, in what appears to be an escalating effort to disrupt Iran's command and intelligence networks, according to The Jerusalem Post. Earlier, the IDF said its joint military operations with the US against Iran in the Middle East will continue until an "existential threat" to Israel is eliminated. Speaking in an interview with ANI, IDF spokesperson Lt Ben Cohen said Israel is prepared for a prolonged operation if required, stressing that the objective is to neutralise Iran's military capabilities that threaten Israel and the wider region. "I'm not going to give any specific timeframe, but I'll tell you that we're going to keep going until we know that we've taken away that existential threat," Cohen said. Cohen noted that while Israel generally seeks to avoid prolonged conflicts, operations against Iran's military infrastructure could take time due to the scale of the threat. (ANI) MOSCOW, March 13 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin discussed measures to protect Russia's critical infrastructure with his Security Council, the Kremlin said on Friday, after intensified Ukrainian attacks that hit a major military plant among other targets. Putin asked Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev and Construction Minister Irek Faizullin to report on the proposed measures in his opening remarks, with the rest of the meeting not made public. Ukraine said on March 10 that it had used British Storm Shadow missiles to hit a factory that produced semiconductor devices and integrated micro chips for missiles in the city of Bryansk, just over 100 km (60 miles) from Ukraine's border. Advertisement Advertisement After the attack, which killed six people, some Russian war bloggers expressed bewilderment that such a crucial site for meeting Russia's battlefield needs had not been evacuated during four years of war and was operating within reach of Ukrainian missiles. On February 25, Ukrainian drones hit a chemical plant owned by fertiliser producer Akron in the town of Dorogobuzh, knocking off about 5% of Russia's fertiliser output just before the supply crunch caused by U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. Russia's defence ministry said on Thursday that Ukraine had attempted to attack a pumping station operated by gas giant Gazprom that exports natural gas via the TurkStream subsea pipeline to European customers, but that the attack was foiled. On March 2, Sheskharis, a major oil terminal on Russia's Black Sea coast, suspended loadings following a Ukrainian drone attack that injured five, damaged 20 buildings and set a fuel terminal on fire. Advertisement Advertisement Amid the stepped-up attacks, Russia has slowed down or turned off mobile internet in Moscow and some other major cities as part of what the Kremlin described as security measures. Although such outages have become common across Russia during the war in Ukraine, Moscow has not previously experienced them on such a scale since the war started, with millions of people losing access to popular services such as maps or taxi hailing applications. (Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) The attack came after a missile was intercepted on its way to Doha, Qatar, on Friday night, with the country evacuating certain areas as a precautionary measure. A missile struck a helipad in the US embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday, Reuters reported, citing two Iraqi security officials. There was a column of smoke rising over the compound on Saturday morning, the sources said. Qatar intercepts missile aimed at Doha as explosions are heard in the city A missile was intercepted on its way to Doha, Qatar, on Friday night, according to a statement by the Qatari Defense Ministry published on X. Advertisement Advertisement "The Ministry of Defense of the State of Qatar announces that armed forces intercepted a missile attack which targeted the State of Qatar," the statement read. Explosions were heard in Doha, Qatar's capital, according to witnesses at the scene cited by Reuters. A Qatar flag in front of the Doha skyline on September 20, 2025. (credit: XRONX X LIFE/Shutterstock) Qatar evacuates certain areas of the country, Interior Ministry says According to a statement from Qatar's Interior Ministry, the Kingdom was evacuating certain areas of the country as a preemptive measure to ensure the safety of its citizens. "The Ministry of Interior announces that the relevant authorities are evacuating a number of specified areas as a temporary precautionary measure, in the interest of public safety until the threat has subsided," the ministry announced. "The Ministry urges everyone to rely on official sources for information and to adhere to the issued instructions," the statement added. Reuters contributed to this report. A Steller sea lion was seen lounging at Pier 39 on Friday morning, a rare visit from a near-threatened species whose usual range is near Alaska. The Steller was pictured looming large beside a raft of sea lions within eyeshot of the Pier 39 viewing spot. The pier's harbormaster, Sheila Chandor, said the massive sea lion "hauls out at K-Dock every few years." "He's an incredible sight," she said. Advertisement Advertisement The Steller sea lion is among the largest members of the "eared seal" family, which includes all sea lions and fur seals, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Stellers are about twice the size of the California sea lions that usually hang out at the pier, and the species can reach 9 to 11 feet in length and weigh up to 2,500 pounds. The species was once found in abundance throughout the northeast Pacific region, according to NOAA, and Indigenous peoples and settlers hunted them for their meat, hides, oil and other products. But due to unexplained widespread population decline in Alaska, the Steller sea lion has been listed as a species under threat of extinction since 1990. Advertisement Advertisement Their populations have decreased by about 77% to 81% from the 1970s to the early 2000s, according to NOAA. This article originally published at Massive Steller sea lion seen lounging at S.F.'s Pier 39. ST. GEORGE, Utah (ABC4) On Friday, the Utah State Bar presented a statewide survey on how often legal professionals face threats, intimidation or violence. In 2006, the Utah State Bar conducted the first survey in the nation that examined threats and violences directed at members of a state legal profession. That survey found that 46% of respondents had receiving threats or violence in their career. Now, two decades later, the Utah State Bar has conducted a similar study and presented the findings during a conference on March 13. Advertisement Advertisement For 2026, in the first two months. There have been 230 investigations of 176 threats on 151 different judges, said Stephen Kelson, one of the main researchers behind the 2006 and 2026 survey. The survey results indicated that there has been a drop in threats made online or through inappropriate communications, but there has been a significant increase in direct threats, according to Kelson. He added that, since 2023, there have been over 100 threats to Utah courts, six swatting incidents, an incident in which private information was doxxed or released publicly, and a security breach. Police investigate possible threats at Salt Lake City courthouse Advertisement Advertisement There are threats that are taking place with our Utah courts and there have been, just in the last couple days, this [survey] doesnt include those, Kelson continued. The point being is that while the Utah profession has not suffered a life taking event in many years, it doesnt mean that threats and violence just arent frequently occurring. According to Kelson, legal practitioners in family law, criminal prosecution, and criminal defense typically see the highest number of violent threats. However, members of every legal practice reported receiving violent threats. Kelson says public trust in legal professionals has decreased significantly, which could be a factor in the increase in threats. He said, The legal profession, including the judiciaryover the last 20, 25 years, has been considered in low regardAlso, politics appears to be having an effect. Based on survey results, 5% of Utahs legal professionals have definitively been on the receiving end of threats of violence or actual violence, though Kelson says that number could be higher, because only about 12% of all legal professionals in Utah responded to the survey. Advertisement Advertisement Suspect in Taylorsville shooting charged, has connections to Taliban Gang Additionally, some practitioners may brush off threats or dont report them to avoid potential controversy. Kelson said, An issue that comes up with threats and violence in the legal profession is that its not talked aboutand it generally comes down to that, one, you dont want that out there. Theres a fear or a concern that you dont want to be that practitioner, because maybe it has a stigma to it. At the conclusion of his presentation, Kelson asked who in the audience had received threats, by a raise of hands. While not everybody raised their hands, nearly two dozen individuals did, including Kelson. While investigating and prosecuting threats is up to law enforcement, Kelson says the legal field needs to acknowledge the potential danger that their professionals face. Advertisement Advertisement How to make ABC4 your preferred news source on Google We need to recognize it. It is affecting attorneys well-being here in the state of Utah. And as well, if its affecting the well-being, it means its affecting the practice, how attorneys are performing their jobs, which means it can have a direct effect upon the access to justice for the public, he said. Elizabeth Wright, the executive director of the Utah State Bar, added, We want judges to be able to make decisions based on the law and facts in front of them and not be worried. that if they rule a certain way or rule against certain individuals that their family can be threatened. So, the recommendation is going to be in regard to we need to educate our legal community of how to address this, prepare themselves, and so they can avoid the threats and violence and make sure its not going to happen to them, Kelson continued. its going to be through training and also to look at to help them be self-aware and recognize if theres a real threat what can they do to protect themselves and those around them. Advertisement Advertisement Joseph DeGolyer contributed to this article. Latest headlines: Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. A Seattle man, who said that he hoped President Donald Trump would kill all trans people, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for a violent attack on a transgender woman in the citys University District. Prosecutors said the case illustrates how harassment can quickly escalate into bias-motivated violence. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter. On Friday, Andre Karlow was sentenced in King County Superior Court after a jury convicted him of second-degree assault and committing a hate crime for attacking Andie Holcepl last March. Prosecutors argued the assault was fueled by hostility toward Holcepls gender identity. Advertisement Advertisement Holcepl testified that she was walking through Seattles University District on March 27, 2025, heading to the Seattle Mariners opening day game, when she encountered a group of men that included Karlow, according to The Seattle Times. What began as verbal harassment quickly turned violent. Related: RFK Jr.'s HHS investigates Seattle Children's Hospital over youth gender-affirming care Related: Seattle police arrest 23 during anti-trans rally clashes in LGBTQ+ neighborhood Prosecutors said Karlow shouted insults and called Holcepl a drag queen. When she tried to record the harassment on her phone, Karlow punched her in the mouth, setting off a group assault. Witnesses said Holcepl was punched and kicked while assailants shouted anti-transgender slurs. She suffered broken teeth, facial injuries, and a brain bleed before escaping into a nearby restaurant for help. Advertisement Advertisement Although multiple men were involved, investigators identified Karlow as the primary aggressor. Jurors concluded the assault met Washington states legal definition of a hate crime, which requires proof that a victim was targeted because of a protected characteristic such as gender identity. Prosecutors told the court that the violence reverberated beyond the immediate victim. Assistant prosecutor Yessenia Manzo said attacks like this one validate the fear many transgender people feel about being targeted in public spaces. She also quoted a recorded call Karlow made from jail. If I didnt hate trans people before, I do now, absolutely. I think that Trump should kill them all. Get them out of here. They're weird," he said. Advertisement Advertisement The University District assault was not the only case tied to Karlow. In 2024, he punched a transgender Sound Transit fare ambassador who asked him to verify his fare at a light-rail station. In that case, a jury convicted him of fourth-degree assault but did not reach a verdict on a hate crime charge. Related: Arsonist Behind Fire at Seattle Gay Bar Pleads Guilty to Hate Crime Related: Man sentenced to life for hate-crime murder of trans woman Dime Doe During sentencing proceedings, Seattle ABC affiliate KOMO-TV reported that Karlow appeared largely remorseless, at times resisting court instructions before ultimately complying. Advertisement Advertisement The judge sentenced Karlow to an 84-month prison term for the attack. Karlow also received a shorter sentence in the earlier assault case. This article originally appeared on Advocate: Remorseless Seattle man sentenced in hate crime beating of trans woman RELATED A surprising statistic emerged from this years Iowa Cancer Registry report: Iowa farmers who participated in a long-running national health study had 13% fewer expected cancers when compared to the states total population. Theyre among a group of people who are arguably the most highly exposed to pesticides so most people would think, 'Oh, gosh, they must have a higher cancer rate,' said Mary Charlton, a University of Iowa professor of epidemiology, who co-authored the Cancer in Iowa report, released Friday, March 13. But cancer is so complicated, and there are many things that go into it, including lifestyle factors like smoking and drinking, which farmers do less than the state's overall population, Charlton said in an interview with the Des Moines Register. Iowa farmers in a long-term study had 13% fewer overall cancers than the rest of the state, a new report shows. Farmers also benefit from the healthy worker effect, in which people with physically demanding jobs like farming tend to be healthier than the general population, she said. Advertisement Advertisement A less encouraging statistic from this years report: The rate of new cancers, as opposed to recurrences, among young adults in the state those from 20 to 39 years old ranks second highest nationally, behind only West Virginia's. The rate of new cancers in young adults for 2018 to 2022 was 7.5% higher than the rate from 2008 to 2012. That is considered significant. Dr. Mary Charlton, professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health and director of the Iowa Cancer Registry, speaks during a presentation on Iowa's cancer rates at the Lucas Building on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026 in Des Moines. Researchers were unable to say why the new cancer rates increased for young adults. Michele West, a University of Iowa associate research scientist, said in an email it will require additional research to find an answer. Fortunately, Iowa has a high proportion of cases diagnosed at an early stage, when cancers are more treatable, West said, and the Iowa group's mortality rate is comparable to that for the U.S. as a whole. Advertisement Advertisement Overall, Iowa continues to have the second-highest rate of new cancers nationally after Kentucky and is one of only three states, along with West Virginia and Utah, with rising new cancer rates. Iowans are expected to be diagnosed with 21,700 new, invasive cancers this year, with 6,400 residents expected to die, according to the reports estimate. The number of cancer survivors in Iowa is expected to grow to 175,290, the report says. Iowa farmers, spouses had some cancers more than state The Iowa Cancer Registry, which tapped the national Agricultural Health Study, reported that the spouses of Iowa farmers had 10% fewer overall cancers than the state's population as a whole. About 89,000 farmers and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina participate in the ongoing Agricultural Health Study. The analysis looking at farm and statewide cancer rates used data from 1994 to 2015. Advertisement Advertisement The researchers determined how many cancer cases would be expected among participating Iowa farmers and spouses if they developed cancer at the same rates as other state residents. It then compared the expected number to the number of cancers found in its study group, adjusting for age and gender. The Cancer in Iowa report said farmers in the state had fewer cases of colon and rectal, lung, bladder and other cancers, but more cases than expected of prostate and lip cancers. Iowa farmers' spouses had fewer cases of colon and rectal, lung, bladder, pancreatic and cervical cancers than other Iowans but had more melanoma and thyroid cancer, the report said. The report said Iowa farmers and spouses were less likely to smoke and drink than the general state population, although a higher proportion of farmers used smokeless tobacco. Advertisement Advertisement A higher percentage of Iowa farmers and spouses were considered overweight or obese, based on data from 1995 when compared to the general population. Since then, the report noted, Iowa's overall obesity rate has nearly doubled to 40%. Over the Agricultural Health Study's 32 years, 11,347 cancers have been diagnosed in the participating farmers, including 6,478 in Iowa, and 5,254 in the spouses, including 3,436 in Iowa, the Cancer in Iowa report said. What does the report say about nitrates, other environmental factors? Des Moines Water Works chemist Lisa Morarend demonstrates a nitrate test at Des Moines Water Works Fleur Drive Treatment Plant on June 24, 2025, in Des Moines. While high nitrate levels in drinking water are linked to some cancers, Charlton said more research is needed to quantify the impact of agriculture-related risk factors such as nitrates and pesticides. A separate group Charlton belongs to recently released a report looking at key drivers of cancer in Iowa. The researchers told Iowa lawmakers Wednesday that legislation raising taxes on tobacco and establishing pesticide monitoring could help lower the states high cancer rates and provide more information on its causes. Water flows from pipes into a stream head in Sac County in a photo taken Dec. 19. The pipes are part of a drainage district that diverts water from farm fields via tile lines. Des Moines Water Works officials tested the site and found high concentrations of nitrate. Charlton told the Register the group will next "layer in environmental data and some genetic information thats available... to really try and incorporate different types of risk factors into the models. Advertisement Advertisement She said reporting pesticide use, similar to a system in California, would help research. "I think it's a really important gap," Charlton said. "People want to know what they're exposed to." The Cancer in Iowa report noted that researchers have found 12% of Iowa private well users had nitrate levels in their drinking water above the federal limit of 10 milligrams per liter. Unlike public water systems like Central Iowa Water Works, which provides drinking water to 600,000 Des Moines-area residents, private well owners are not regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, the vehicle for rules like the nitrate limit. Advertisement Advertisement While municipal water systems are regularly monitored, only about 80% of the Iowa farmers in the Agricultural Health Study are estimated to have ever tested their private wells for nitrates. Theres a good chance that people are just testing their wells every once and awhile, when they should be testing them on a regular basis, Charlton said, adding that Iowa has a program that allows for free testing. One analysis using the agricultural health data shows nitrate levels above the federal standard were associated are increased risk of prostate cancer, a particularly aggressive disease," the cancer report said. And another report suggested that risk of ovarian cancer increased with higher average nitrate levels in drinking water, it said. The report said that "determining whether an exposure causes cancer requires multiple types of studies. ... A single study alone is usually not enough." Advertisement Advertisement Iowans are understandably concerned about environmental risk factors, and we hope this report provides helpful context while reinforcing the need for more research, Charlton said in a statement. The Iowa Capital Dispatch contributed to this report. Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Cancer Registry reports unexpected cancer rates in Iowa farmers Voters in the Republic of Congo will choose their next president on Sunday, although longtime leader Dennis Sassou Nguesso is likely to be elected unchallenged, analysts say. The central African nation, which has been led almost continuously by Nguesso for more than 40 years, is one of the most politically repressive in the world, with Freedom House giving it a 17 out of 100 rating for freedom. The country is Africas third-largest oil exporter. It sells between 236,000 and 252,000 barrels per day, alongside copper and diamonds. Advertisement Advertisement Congo is also highly biodiverse. Sprawling expanses of tropical rainforest in the country form part of the Congo Basin the second-largest rainforest network in the world after the Amazon. The Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the north is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is home to elephants, endangered lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees. Still, the country of 6 million people is racked by economic woes. Corruption and mismanagement, analysts say, contribute to Congo being 171st of 193 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index. A fractured political opposition, meanwhile, has only allowed Nguessos governing Congolese Labour Party (PCT) to consolidate power over the years, although a newcomer is raising hopes. Heres what we know about Sundays polls: Supporters of outgoing President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is running for re-election, take part in a campaign rally before the March 15 presidential election, in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, March 7, 2026 [Roch Bouka/Reuters] When do polls open? Polls will open on Saturday, March 15, between 6am (05:00 GMT) and 6pm (05:00 GMT). More than 2.6 million people are eligible to vote; that is, they are more than 18 years old and have been registered. Advertisement Advertisement Voter turnout in 2021 during the last election was 67.70 percent according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Authorities have announced that borders will be closed during voting. Candidates with an absolute majority usually win the elections, or in rare cases, a run-off will be called between the two top polling candidates. Presidential terms in Congo are for five years. While the constitution had previously allowed a maximum of two terms and an age limit of 70, those were removed in 2015. Frances President Emmanuel Macron speaks with President of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso during the signing of a letter of intent by Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, Congolese minister of international cooperation and promotion of partnership, and Frances Delegate Minister for Francophonie and International Partnerships Thani Mohamed Soilihi at The Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on May 23, 2025 [File: Thomas Samson/Reuters] Whos running? Dennis Sassou Nguesso: The 82-year-old was first elected to office in 1979 and led the country for 12 years under a one-party state. He lost elections after opposition lawmakers voted to introduce a multiparty system. On his second attempt in 1997, he seized power in a bloody civil war and has remained in office since. He is Africas third-longest serving ruler. Advertisement Advertisement Nguessos legacy has been one of gross underdevelopment and corruption, said Andrea Ngombet, the exiled founder of Sassoufit, a group advocating for Nguessos exit. In 2015, Nguesso pushed through a controversial referendum that reset presidential term limits from two to three. It also completely removed age restrictions, allowing him to run for the fifth consecutive time in 2021. A strong hold on the countrys judiciary and the Independent National Electoral Body (CENI) has helped secure Nguessos hold, analysts say. His strategic international alliances, from Beijing to Moscow to Paris, have ensured foreign investments and boosted his influence, according to Ngombet. However, since 2013, France has launched investigations into his familys numerous assets in Europe and the US under pressure from civil society. French authorities seized property belonging to his son, Denis-Christel Sassou Nguesso, in 2022. Melaine Deston Gavet Elengo: At only 35, Elengos candidacy has caused ripples. The oil sector engineer leads the Republican Movement and is the youngest contender in the race. Although a first-time presidential candidate, Elengo appears to be pulling an unusual amount of interest as he presents himself as a departure from the old system. His campaign has emphasised a government built on transparency, an independent justice system, and inclusive development. He could secure at least 20 percent of the vote, signalling a generational shift, Ngombet said. Advertisement Advertisement His unique advantage lies in the unspoken support from UPADS dissidents frustrated with the boycott, he added, referring to the opposition party, Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS), which boycotted the March 21, 2021, presidential election over concerns of integrity. UPADS is doing the same this year but has called on its supporters to go out and vote according to their conscience. Elengo is also closely allied with political heavyweights like the opposition Union of Humanist Democrats, founded by the popular opposition figure, late Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who came second in 2016. A man walks past a campaign banner of presidential candidate Destin Gavet, before the presidential election scheduled for March 15, in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, March 11, 2026 [Roch Bouka/Reuters] Joseph Kignoumbi Kia Mboungou, 73: The veteran lawmaker is the leader of the political party The Chain and represents the southwestern Lekoumou department. He has run several times in the past without much success, with his 2021 bid resulting in just 0.62 percent of the vote. Mboungous campaign promised political change and an economy that diversifies from oil, while reducing poverty. Uphrem Dave Mafoula, 43: The economist is leader of the The Sovereigns party. He is making his second bid for the top post after running as the youngest candidate in 2021 and securing just 0.52 percent of the vote. Mafoulas goal, he says, is to implement governance reforms, create jobs, and reduce inequalities. Advertisement Advertisement Vivien Romain Manangou, 43: The independent first-timer is a university lecturer campaigning on institutional reforms, improving public finances, and promoting national unity. Mabio Mavoungou Zinga, 69: Running under the opposition coalition Alliance party, the retired customs inspector and former member of parliament promises to tackle corruption and free jailed opposition leaders. Its his first bid. Anguios Nganguia Engambe, about 60: The president of the Party for Action of the Republic is running for his fourth time as presidential candidate. In 2021, he won only 0.18 percent of the vote. This time, he has pledged to bridge political divisions in the country and foster better political participation. Which opposition leaders have been targeted? Several opposition leaders are either jailed or have fled into exile. Some are: Advertisement Advertisement Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko,78: A former chief of the army and an adviser to Nguesso, who turned against the president and ran for elections in 2016. He called for protests after the results showed that he won 13.74 percent and placed third. He was arrested afterwards on charges of undermining state security and was in 2018 sentenced to 20 years in prison. Andre Okombi Salissa: a one-time leading member of the governing Congolese Labour Party, and a former minister, Salissa also switched to the opposition in 2016 to contest the polls. He was arrested shortly after, also on security charges. In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years of hard labour. What are the key issues? Poverty despite oil riches Analysts have long warned that a lack of economic diversification hurts the countrys prospects. As Africas third-largest oil producer, Congo earns more than 80 percent of its export revenue from oil, according to the World Bank, making the economy vulnerable to shocks. Government investment in hydrocarbons has only intensified in recent years. In 2015, authorities aimed to boost daily output to 500,000 barrels of oil per day within three years. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and export also began in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Despite this, around half the population lives below the poverty line. Most live in the main cities of Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire where access to electricity and roads is available but dismal. The situation is even worse in rural areas, analysts say. While the population is young, with nearly half under 18, job creation is weak. Many young people with degrees have to turn to menial work for survival. The unemployment rate hovers at approximately 40 percent, with inadequate electricity being one of the major barriers for business, according to the World Bank. Forests and agriculture Before it began extracting oil in the 1970s, agricultural produce and timber were the biggest revenue generators in Congo. However, Congo has become reliant on food imports amid the shift to oil. Advertisement Advertisement Although the country has up to 10 million hectares (24 milllion acres) of arable land, only a small percentage is being cultivated, and thats mostly for low-yield subsistence farming. The government has touted plans to boost cassava, maize, sorghum, and soy farming, along with developing fisheries and poultry. Meanwhile, deforestation in the Congo Basin, which encompasses parts of Congo and five neighbouring countries, nearly doubled between 2010 and 2020, compared to the previous decade. Political freedom and post-Nguesso race Protests are rare in the country as authorities dont provide permits and respond with violence when demonstrators gather, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. Advertisement Advertisement Opposition members are routinely jailed. Nguesso appoints national judges himself, meaning the judiciary is not independent. Many Congolese expect Nguesso to win Sundays elections, so much attention is now on who will likely take over leadership in the country in the coming years. Analysts say an intense succession race is already brewing behind the scenes. Denis-Christel Nguesso, the presidents son and minister of international cooperation, is the clear favourite, but he faces challenges from the presidents nephew and Head of National Security Jean-Dominique Okemba. The Nguessos cousin, Jean-Jacques Bouya, who is currently the minister of planning and works, is another contender. Members of Kentuckys Republican-led General Assembly vowed Friday to override Gov. Andy Beshears veto of legislation that would allow federal tax breaks for donations to private school scholarships. Beshear on Friday vetoed House Bill 1, which would allow Kentucky to enroll in the Education Freedom Tax Credit Scholarship program. The program, which was part of President Donald Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would allow people who donate to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs, to take tax deductions of up to $1,700. Advertisement Advertisement The bill figures in Kentuckys ongoing debate over charter schools, and it would shift the authority to opt in to the federal program from Beshear, a Democrat, to Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican. Beshear said he was standing with Kentuckians, who he said have clearly indicated that public dollars should only be used for public education. Adams responded to Beshears veto message on the social media platform X with a simple statement: Fine. Ill sign it. The bills sponsor and co-sponsor, Rep. Kim Moser and Rep. T.J. Roberts, said in a statement that the veto is a shameful disservice to Kentucky students and families in public, private, and home school settings. Advertisement Advertisement The measure would allow Kentucky students to benefit from scholarships funded through a federal tax credit without costing the Commonwealth a single dollar, Moser and Roberts wrote. Because Kentuckians can already donate in other states and receive the same federal tax credit, the Governors veto effectively sends Kentucky dollars to educate students elsewhere instead of helping families here at home. Is the Governor really so tone deaf that he doesnt recognize this as an opportunity? We continue to hear from public school board members and superintendents who are excited about the potential benefits. By blocking this program, the Governor is once again standing in the way of a policy that empowers parents and expands educational opportunities for children whether through tutoring, school supplies, or other academic resources. Hes also blocking the possibility of catalyzing schools of innovation and creativity. Instead of supporting families, he doubles down on misinformation in a blatant attempt to score political points. Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg, said the legislature would override the veto, and he said the bill passed with bipartisan support because members recognized the simple question before us: Should federal education tax credits claimed by Kentucky families benefit Kentucky students, or those in other states? Advertisement Advertisement He said the program would cost taxpayers nothing and that the governors veto amounts to rejecting additional federal education resources that could benefit students across the commonwealth. Governor Andy Beshears veto message misrepresents what House Bill 1 actually does, Givens wrote in a response. This legislation does not spend a single dollar of Kentucky tax revenue, does not reduce SEEK funding and does not divert state education dollars. It simply allows Kentucky to participate in a federal program so that charitable donations supported by a federal tax credit can benefit Kentucky students instead of students in other states. HB 1 begins the process to offer this school funding opportunity to Kentucky taxpayers, teachers and, most importantly, students. If Kentucky refuses to opt in, our taxpayers can still claim the credit, but their donations will flow across state lines to support education elsewhere. HB 1 prevents that and keeps those opportunities here at home. Federal funds resulting from HB 1 can support a wide range of educational needs for students in public, private or homeschool settings, including tutoring, technology, books and special needs services. This is about expanding resources for students, not taking anything away from our public schools. Advertisement Advertisement Six neighboring states Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia have opted into the program, Caleb Brown, CEO of the nonprofit Bluegrass Institute, said in a statement. Governor Beshears veto of a scholarship tax credit program today is a clear example of a politician protecting entrenched special interests at the expense of young people across the commonwealth, Brown wrote. He said the bill would allow Kentucky families to access scholarships for K-12 education funded by private donations that qualify for a federal tax credit at no cost to Kentucky taxpayers. The governors decision to block that opportunity reflects a philosophy that treats the education establishment as an end, not a means to serve Kentuckys young people, Brown wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Cant wait to override this veto! Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, a Republian who represents the 6th District, said in a post on X. This is a brilliant federal program that will serve ALL students! KY voted loud and clear for Trump and for policies like this that will further strengthen education. The KY Senate is in full support! Rep. Susan Witten, a Republican who represents part of Jefferson County, said the bill had received bipartisan support from legislators who worked in education. Every former and current educator in the General Assembly, Republican and Democrat, voted YES to HB1, she wrote in a post on X. They understand these are FEDERAL tax credits that will only HELP Kentucky kids, in public AND private schools. When JCPS creates their SGO, I will gladly donate $1,700 to it. Advertisement Advertisement The bill passed the House 79-17, with one abstaining, and the Senate passed it 33-5. Sen. Keturah Herron of Louisville was the lone Senate Democrat who voted for the bill, and in the House, Democrats Rep. Tina Bojanowski, of Louisville, and Rep. Matthew Lehman, of Newport, voted in favor. Adam Hope, communications director for the Republican Party of Kentucky, issued a statement Friday afternoon on behalf of the GOP, saying that Beshear vetoed HB1 to appease the radical left that opposes empowering parents and students. HB1 doesnt take a single dollar from state funding, the statement reads. Its a federal tax credit that will help get more resources to the people who need them most. This veto is pure politics and shows how little this Governor cares about Kentucky families. Meanwhile, Morgan Eaves, executive director of the Kentucky Democratic Party, praised Beshear. Advertisement Advertisement Attacks by the GOP. A full court press by the Wall Street Journal editorial board. None of it can sway @AndyBeshearKY from whats right. And from what KY voters want, Eaves said in a post on X. Fine. Ill sign it. https://t.co/unkru6i8FC Michael Adams, KY Secretary of State (@KYSecState) March 13, 2026 Cant wait to override this veto! This is a brilliant federal program that will serve ALL students! KY voted loud and clear for Trump and for policies like this that will further strengthen education. The KY Senate is in full support! https://t.co/wjd6jlVOgU Lindsey Tichenor KY Senate 6 (@tichenor4ky) March 13, 2026 Attacks by the GOP. A full court press by the Wall Street Journal editorial board. None of it can sway @AndyBeshearKY from whats right. And from what KY voters want. https://t.co/Ev0JJZ9z1x Morgan Eaves (@MorganEavesKY) March 13, 2026 Every former and current educator in the General Assembly, Republican and Democrat, voted YES to HB1. They understand these are FEDERAL tax credits that will only HELP Kentucky kids, in public AND private schools. When JCPS creates their SGO, I will gladly donate $1,700 to it. https://t.co/LjtBBe92pn Susan Tyler Witten (@catfaninthevill) March 13, 2026 Advertisement Advertisement Kentucky Supreme Court rules GOP-backed charter schools bill unconstitutional WASHINGTON Sen. Mike Lee has been marshaling an online army to pressure fellow Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping bill to rewrite election laws across the country, which President Donald Trump has declared his No. 1 priority. It is testing the relationship between Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who is seeking to balance the demands of the president and passions of the GOP base with the unforgiving realities of the Senate. Next week I will be bringing the SAVE America Act to the floor, and well be having a full and robust debate, Thune said Thursday on the Senate floor. I cant guarantee an outcome on this legislation. I can guarantee you that we are going to put Democrats on the record, that they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues. Advertisement Advertisement Early next week, Thune plans to bring up the House-passed version, which was structured as a message to allow the Senate to begin debate with 51 votes. A GOP leadership aide said the Senate will engage in days of extended debate on the bill, giving senators ample chance to speak on it and force Democrats to defend their opposition, while considering amendments sought by Republicans. The process could extend into the following weekend and beyond, the aide added. But in the end, it will take 60 votes to cut off debate. As a result, some Republicans say it has no viable path to Trumps desk. There isnt any strategy, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters. Theres a 0% [chance] of this succeeding. People on my side of the aisle and people at the far right of the political spectrum are trying to swing for the fences, and theyre not going to succeed, said Tillis, while adding that he supports the legislation on the merits. And were not going to have more states with more voter ID, which is what I want. In the process, we are setting up vulnerable Republicans for a more difficult environment than they already have. Advertisement Advertisement Some Republicans are frustrated that Trump is so fixated on an election bill that wont pass and wish hed put the same amount of political capital into moving bills to lower the cost of living ahead of the midterm elections, when their majorities in Congress are on the line. This is frustrating, but its also a regular occurrence, one House Republican in a competitive re-election race told NBC News, speaking freely about frustrations with their own party on the condition of anonymity. Congress just needs to keep moving forward with bills like the housing one and others that help with affordability. Why the bill is unlikely to pass The math isnt on the GOPs side: They have 51 votes in favor of the bill, but face a 60-vote threshold to pass it. And they have no chance to get there, as Democrats unanimously and firmly oppose it. Supporters of the SAVE America Act have floated two approaches to get around the 60-vote rule. Both are likely to fail. Advertisement Advertisement The first idea is the talking filibuster under current rules, which Lee, R-Utah, has called for. Proponents cant point to any example of this tactic working unless at least 60 senators vote to cut off debate and allow for final passage, which Democrats have made clear they wont do. And attempting it could lead to days or weeks of debate, going through the night, where the minority Democrats would have a huge advantage: They just need one senator to hold the floor to give speeches of infinite length, and can rotate between their 47 members. Republicans, however, would need 51 of their 53 senators to be on or near the floor at all times, and all hours or the day, for a quorum. Otherwise, one Democrat could just adjourn the Senate and end the talking filibuster. Its a waste of time, Tillis told NBC News. I dont think its going to result in an outcome. And if you take a look at the chances of success versus the probability of failure, its not even close. Tillis also warned that Democrats could offer unlimited amendments at a simple-majority threshold, some of which could put politically vulnerable Republican senators in a bind. Advertisement Advertisement Do you really think if youre targeting Susan Collins, or some of our most at-risk people, and she has to vote against something thats politically problematic, that theyre going to be able to explain, well, it was just a motion to table? he said, referring to the Maine Republican who is one of the GOP's most vulnerable senators up for re-election this fall. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also conceded that pursuing a talking filibuster is unlikely to work for the SAVE America Act. Its almost impossible to pass it that way, he said. The second idea is to trigger the nuclear option and change the rules of the Senate with 51 votes to weaken or abolish the legislative filibuster. Trump has championed this idea. Advertisement Advertisement But hes vastly outnumbered. Only a few Republicans have endorsed that idea, like Johnson and Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. Thune told reporters there are not even close to enough votes in the Senate to nuke the filibuster. And many Republicans are dug in against a filibuster rule change including Tillis and Collins, as well as Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. There are plenty of other senators who support the SAVE America Act on the merits but arent willing to dispense with the filibuster to pass it. Many Republicans believe that the 60-vote hurdle benefits conservatives in the long-run, by empowering them to block Democratic priorities the next time they are in the minority. Advertisement Advertisement Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said the first priority is to get 60 votes, but that appears difficult. The fallback is to attach the SAVE America Act to a must-pass bill," in the hopes Democrats would go for it, but Democrats could block that, too. Beyond that, if we can do the talking filibuster, thats great," Scott said. But notably, even Scott declined to endorse a filibuster rule change. I think we have to figure out how to get it done, he said. I dont want to make a decision yet. GOP warnings Retiring Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., supports the SAVE America Act, but said it would be wiser for Trump to just narrowly focus on voter ID provisions, which have more widespread support. The bill also requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, which Democrats argue is unnecessary since non-citizen voting is already illegal and rare and would just end up disenfranchising American citizens with added burdens. And Trump has suggested that Republicans add even more contentious issues, like banning transgender people from women's sports. Advertisement Advertisement Theres dreams, and theres then reality, Bacon told NBC News. The smart plan is to focus on voter ID. And have a plan to make housing more affordable. Hes still fixated on 2020, Bacon added of Trumps relentless focus on the SAVE America Act. Trump has not posted about the Senates major, bipartisan bill to address housing costs and shortages since it passed on Thursday. But he has repeatedly posted about the SAVE America Act. He also appears to be withholding his endorsement in a key Texas Senate race over the issue and has threatened to not sign any other bill until Congress passes the voting restrictions. Murkowski is a rare Republican senator who opposes the SAVE America Act, arguing that her party has long purported to be against federal mandates for states when it comes to their elections. Advertisement Advertisement She added that she worries that Trump is setting himself up to falsely claim the 2026 elections were rigged if the SAVE America Act fails and Republicans lose. If youre suggesting now this is March that If my bill doesnt pass, something that I want doesnt pass, somehow or other, elections in the country are rigged?' Why am I concerned that that might be the strategy?" Murkowski said. Because I think that we saw this suggestion back in 2020 that if, if President Trump didnt win, it was because the election was rigged because people were cheating. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Revolution Wind is officially live. rsted announced Friday that the Rhode Island-based offshore wind farm is now delivering power to New Englands electric grid. Revolution Wind, located about 15 miles east of Block Island, is expected to supply enough electricity to power more than 350,000 homes and businesses in Rhode Island and Connecticut once its fully operational. The power generated by the 704-megawatt wind farm will be made available through fixed-price, 20-year agreements with energy utilities in both states, according to rsted. Advertisement Advertisement Though rsted stressed that the wind farm will produce energy year-round, it will have a particularly strong output during the winter months, which is when energy prices typically spike in New England. This comes after the Trump administration suspended the leases for five offshore wind farms being built along the East Coast, including Revolution Wind, due to security risks identified by the Pentagon. Revolution Wind filed a lawsuit in response, calling the suspension arbitrary and capricious, and a judge allowed construction to resume on the wind farm a month later. Revolution Wind is adding affordable, reliable American-made energy to New Englands grid, helping to meet growing energy demand and lower consumer costs, rsteds Amanda Dasch said. Built by local, highly skilled union workers, Revolution Wind is a testament to states tapping their energy resources to strengthen regional energy security and contribute to American energy dominance. By producing more power here at home, we reduce dependence on imports, create local jobs, and support long-term economic growth, she continued. Advertisement Advertisement In a statement, Gov. Dan McKee applauded the milestone, noting that it marks an important step forward for Rhode Islands energy future. Offshore wind is part of our states all-of-the-above energy strategy, one that strengthens our energy supply and supports long-term reliability for residents and businesses, McKee said. McKee said Revolution Wind is 93% complete and remains on track to be fully operational later this year. The wind farm consists of 65 11-megawatt turbines, and its construction created more than 1,000 jobs. We will see this project through to the end for the benefit of Rhode Islands families, workers, and businesses, McKee said. This is our energy, our future, and we will get it done. Advertisement Advertisement Rhode Island Energy President Gregg Cornett said the wind farm will provide price stability and expected savings to its customers. At a time when resources are needed more than ever, this project adds important diversity to our energy mix and contributes added capacity to support the reliability our customers expect, particularly during periods of high demand, Cornett said. Chris Kearns, acting commissioner of the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, said the state has contracted 400 megawatts of the wind farms overall capacity, with Connecticut contracting the remaining 304 megawatts. This is a significant moment for the states clean energy landscape over eight years in the making, Kearns said. Revolution Wind will provide a valuable new resource to our energy system, deliver important emission reductions and further diversify our state and regions energy generation portfolio. Advertisement Advertisement Senator Sheldon Whitehouse applauded the announcement. Clean, affordable energy from Revolution Wind is officially on the grid. When Rhode Island families pay their utility bills, they will be grateful to rsted and the resilient union workers who got this project over the finish line. Power from Revolution Wind will make our grid more reliable in the winter and reduce Rhode Islanders energy costs for years to come, he said in a statement. Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app. Follow us on social media: Advertisement Advertisement Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. At least 17 vessels have been attacked in key Middle East shipping lanes over the past two weeks amid the ongoing conflict, according to a report by CNN citing data from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). The attacks have occurred in and around the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman since March 1, the news report said. At least one person, an Indian national, has been killed as a result of the attacks, according to UKMTO and India's embassy in Oman. According to CNN, two tankers were struck by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz on March 1, while another tanker was hit while docked in Bahrain. A fourth tanker, MKD VYOM, was struck in the Gulf of Oman, killing one person. A fifth vessel was also attacked when a projectile detonated in proximity to it in the Persian Gulf. On March 3, two vessels anchored in the Gulf of Oman were struck by projectiles, while a drone was also sighted near a bulk carrier and impacted the water nearby, UKMTO said. Explosions were reported onboard two vessels on March 4 in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, while another projectile detonated around one nautical mile from a drifting vessel in the Persian Gulf. On March 6, a tug vessel in the Strait of Hormuz was struck by projectiles. The following day, March 7, an offshore drilling rig in the Persian Gulf was hit by a drone, causing injuries and prompting the evacuation of personnel. On March 10, a vessel in the Persian Gulf was struck by a projectile, causing possible structural damage. A container ship, Mayuree Naree, was struck by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11, while three other vessels in the Persian Gulf were also hit the same day. On March 12, another container ship in the Persian Gulf was struck by a projectile that caused a fire onboard, according to UKMTO. Meanwhile, an advisory issued by the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC) in coordination with UKMTO warned that the regional maritime threat level remains "critical" in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. https://x.com/UK_MTO/status/2032866722881933582 The advisory covering the period from March 1 to March 14 said the security environment continues to be marked by persistent disruption, navigation interference and a pattern of kinetic strikes. It said more than 20 maritime incidents involving commercial vessels and offshore infrastructure had been confirmed during the period. The report also highlighted a dramatic collapse in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important oil transit chokepoints. According to the advisory, the waterway historically sees around 138 vessels transiting daily, but current observations suggest traffic has dropped to about two vessels per day. The advisory noted that attacks are no longer selectively targeting Western-owned ships but instead reflect a broader campaign of maritime disruption affecting vessels of all types and nationalities. Among the recent incidents highlighted in the advisory was the attack on the Fujairah oil terminal within the last 24 hours, indicating that port infrastructure and bunkering facilities are now being targeted. It also cited several major incidents during the period, including the strike on MKD VYOM on March 1 that resulted in a fatality, a projectile strike on tanker STENA IMPERATIVE in dry dock in Bahrain, and a drone attack on the ARABIA III offshore drilling rig on March 7 that injured personnel. Two tankers, SAFESEA VISHNU and ZEFYROS, were also struck on March 11 during ship-to-ship transfer operations in the northern Arabian Gulf, while the vessel SOURCE BLESSING was hit by a projectile near Jebel Ali on March 12. The advisory further warned of widespread electronic interference affecting navigation systems, including GNSS and GPS spoofing and jamming. AIS anomaly detection has recorded hundreds of vessels appearing to travel at "impossible" speeds exceeding 30 knots or showing false positions, such as appearing on land. While the interference has been most intense in the Arabian Gulf, the report said similar disruptions have also been observed extending toward the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The situation is also having significant economic and operational impacts on global shipping. War-risk insurance premiums have surged, and underwriting conditions have tightened, while disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are pushing up freight rates and bunker fuel prices and affecting supply chains for energy products and fertilisers, the advisory said. The report urged mariners to avoid predictable movement patterns, minimise time spent anchored or docked, and verify navigation data through radar, visual bearings and manual plotting to counter GPS interference. It also warned crews to treat any suspected projectile or debris as unexploded ordnance and maintain safe distances from naval vessels to prevent misidentification. (ANI) A Rocester woman died Thursday after her vehicle overturned in a water-filled ditch in Fulton County, according to a press release from the Fulton County Sheriffs Office. Fulton County emergency personnel were dispatched to the area of County Road 300 North and County Road 600 West at approximately 3:25 p.m. on a report of a vehicle overturned. Upon arrival, first responders located the driver, identified as Linda Migonis, 79, of Rochester, deceased at the scene. Advertisement Advertisement A preliminary investigation conducted by the Fulton County Sheriffs Office indicates that Migonis was operating a 2015 Fiat northbound on County Road 600 West, south of County Road 300 North. For reasons that remain under investigation, the vehicle left the east side of the roadway and overturned in the ditch. Family members informed investigators that Migonis had been missing since late in the afternoon on Wednesday. The investigation remains ongoing; however, foul play is not suspected at this time. Agencies assisting at the scene included the Indiana State Police, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Aubbeenaubbee Township Fire Department, Rochester Fire Department, Parkview EMS, and the Fulton County Coroners Office. Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated. Russia launched an overnight missile and drone attack against Ukraine in the early hours of March 14, with explosions reported in multiple regions, according to local authorities and monitoring channels. Explosions were heard in Ukraines capital Kyiv at around 3:10 a.m. local time, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground, as Ukrainian air defense systems engaged incoming targets. Advertisement Advertisement At roughly the same time, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said Russia was attacking the capital with ballistic missiles and urged residents to remain in shelters until the air raid alert is lifted. In Kyiv Oblast, at least two people were killed and five others injured during the overnight attack, Regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said. Two people were killed and four injured in the Brovary district, while another person was injured in the Vyshhorod district, according to the governor. In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Russian strikes injured four civilians, including two children, according to Regional Military Administration head Ivan Fedorov. Advertisement Advertisement A private house in the city was damaged and caught fire following the attack. A 35-year-old woman, a 40-year-old man, a 16-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old boy were injured, officials said. Monitoring channels also reported that Russian naval vessels capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles had entered firing positions in the Black Sea. Shortly afterward, Ukraines Air Force reported launches of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea. The missiles later entered Ukrainian airspace through the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, according to monitoring data. Russia also deployed Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers overnight, launching additional cruise missiles from the aircraft, Ukraines Air Force said. Advertisement Advertisement Ukrainian authorities also warned of cruise missile threats targeting several regions across the country, including Kyiv, Cherkasy, Sumy, and Chernihiv oblasts, among numerous others. Air raid alerts were issued across large parts of Ukraine as air defenses continued to intercept incoming aerial threats. Information regarding casualties, damage, and the full scale of the attack is still being clarified. Read also: Ukraines Tomahawk hopes fade further as US depletes stockpiles in Iran Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Scientists have discovered a new species of giant prehistoric crocodile that would have weighed half a tonne, grown up to 15ft in length and likely terrorised our ancestors as they roamed the African landscape. With a prominent lump on its head, this giant relative of modern-day crocodiles patiently lurked in rivers and lakes to attack human ancestors over 3 million years ago. It has been named Crocodylus lucivenator, or Lucys hunter, as it would almost certainly have preyed upon the extinct hominid species Australopithecus afarensis one of the best studied ancestors of modern-day humans, thanks to the immaculately-preserved, 3.2 million-year-old skeleton known as Lucy. Advertisement Advertisement It was the only crocodile in a landscape covering an expanse of shrubland and wetlands pocked with rivers in modern-day Ethiopia. The crocodile grew to maximum lengths of between 12ft (3.5m) and 15ft (4.5m), and adults weighed between 270 kg (600 lb) and 590 kg (1,300 lbs), according to the study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Being an ambush predator akin to modern-day crocodiles, Lucys hunter would have waited for its prey while submerged in water, poised to spring on those who came for a drink, scientists say. It was the largest predator in that ecosystem, more so than lions and hyenas, and the biggest threat to our ancestors who lived there during that time, said Christopher Brochu, an author of the study from the University of Iowa. Advertisement Advertisement Its a near certainty this crocodile would have hunted Lucys species. Whether a particular crocodile tried to grab Lucy, well never know, but it would have seen Lucys kind and thought, Dinner, Dr Brochu said. 'Lucy's hunter' illustration (Tyler Stone/University of Iowa) Researchers identified the new species based on museum specimens kept in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in 2016. They then analysed 121 catalogued remains, including skulls, teeth, and parts of jaws, representing dozens of individuals. One of the specimens had several healed injuries on its jaw, suggesting it had tussled with one of its peers. I was just blown away because it had this really weird combination of character states, Dr Brochu said. Advertisement Advertisement The extinct crocodile had peculiar physical traits, including a large hump in the middle of its snout, similar to what is found on the American crocodile but not seen with the Nile crocodile in Africa. Scientists suspect the hump was used by male crocodiles to attract a mate. You see this in some modern crocodiles, Dr Brochu explained. The male will lower his head down a little bit to a female to show it off. The fossils were excavated from the Hadar site in the Afar region of Ethiopia. During the Pliocene, Hadar was composed of a variety of habitats alongside its lake and river systems over space and time, including open and closed woodlands, gallery forests, wet grasslands, and shrublands, said Christopher Campisano, another author of the study. Interestingly, this crocodile was one of only a few species that were able to persist throughout, Dr Campisano said. OKLAHOMA CITY A bill advancing through the Legislature aimed at removing sexually explicit books from schools could take the Bible off of library shelves and would be a nightmare to navigate, critics said. Senate Bill 1250 creates a process where a parent or guardian could seek to remove books deemed offensive from the library shelves of public and charter schools, but not private schools. It would financially penalize schools who fail to comply. The measure would prohibit school libraries from making available to youth any materials containing or depicting obscene material, sexually explicit content (or) nudity, according to the measure. Advertisement Advertisement Parents or guardians would be allowed to report suspected violations to the schools governing body, which must conduct an investigation. The reporting party could appeal to the Oklahoma State Department of Education. If the agency finds a violation, the school will receive a 5% reduction in state funding, according to the measure. Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, said when she was in school, a friend was being sexually abused by an uncle. It was not until her friend read The Color Purple that her friend realized it was wrong. The Pulitzer Prize winning book is about a girl who is beaten and impregnated by her father. Advertisement Advertisement Our kids are exposed to things constantly inside and outside of school, Kirt said. Are we going to make them be sealed in a hermetic bubble until they are 18? The measure will create a red tape nightmare where parents with an ax to grind can run a district through constant complaints, she said. Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, the author, said although there is already a process in place to keep sexually-explicit content off school library shelves, the existing procedures are not adequate. He said there are hundreds of examples of those books remaining on library shelves, but did not state any specific examples. He said the Bible is not one of the books to which he was referring. Advertisement Advertisement Its important that we do something about this, and I think the magnitude of this problem is encapsulated by a quote by Leonardo da Vinci, who said, Its easier to resist at the beginning than it is at the end. Hamilton said regrets that it has become a partisan issue. Critics of the measure warned that the Bible contains sexual content, which some might find objectionable. Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City, said that within a month of the bills passage, districts will be dealing with complaints about the Bible. You can say my intent is not that, but it doesnt matter the intent, Mann said. Its how the bill is written. Itll be used. Itll be a battle for the next year. Advertisement Advertisement Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, in a debate for the measure, read passages from a library book in which the author described graphic sex acts. He was interrupted by the presiding officer who said such graphic descriptions were not allowed. Deevers said the passages like that tempt young minds toward sexual immorality which the Bible commands us to flee. They plant seeds of lust and shame and confusion and objectification of women and men and premature sexualization that can scar our souls for years, Deevers said. Children are not equipped to filter this kind of material. Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, said parents who want their children to read the books in question can buy them for their children. She said the measure would protect schools, parents, teachers and librarians. The measure passed by a vote of 39-8 and heads to the House for consideration. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE A Russian Shahed-type attack drone violated Moldova's airspace on March 14 during the latest large-scale overnight strike against Ukraine, the country's Foreign Ministry said, calling the incident a "serious breach of sovereignty." The violation occurred as Russia launched at least 430 drones and 58 missiles at Ukraine in the early hours of March 14, according to Ukrainian authorities. Moldovan and Ukrainian officials said the drone flew over eastern Moldova toward the villages of Ukrainka and Novosilka before disappearing from radar. Advertisement Advertisement The incident underscores the growing risk of spillover from Russia's full-scale invasion into neighboring countries, including Moldova, which borders both Ukraine and Romania. Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi condemned the breach, saying Russia's war against Ukraine threatens regional security and the safety of Moldovan citizens. "We strongly condemn the violation of Moldova's airspace by a Shahed-type drone this morning," he said. "Russia's war against Ukraine threatens regional security and the safety of our citizens." It is the latest in a series of reported airspace violations linked to Russian strikes on Ukraine. Advertisement Advertisement In a previous incident on Nov. 26, Moldovan authorities summoned Russia's ambassador Oleg Ozerov after another drone entered Moldovan airspace during a mass Russian attack. Footage published by Moldovan media outlet NewsMaker showed an intact drone placed outside the Foreign Ministry building in Chisinau as part of a symbolic protest. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova a small landlocked country has faced mounting security and political pressure that authorities have linked to Moscow. Read also: Iran is building shadow state inside Georgia. I was interrogated for saying so Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Photos: Logansport High School reunification drill Logansport High School students gathered in the bleachers overlooking the schools swimming pool when, suddenly, a burst of vapor erupted. Cass County Dispatch sent out two fire trucks and an ambulance. Thankfully, there wasnt any real emergency. Nobody was hurt. The burst of vapor was planned. LHS Reunification Drill 13 A burst of fog is released in the Logansport High School swimming pool as the school's reunification drill begins Thursday afternoon. Advertisement Advertisement Logansport Community School Corporations Superintendent, Michelle Starkey, explained each building in the school system practices reunification drills once a year. Leading up to this years reunification drill, they decided to invite local first responders to run their own drills at the school. The majority of students filed onto buses and were transported to Ivy Tech Community College. Four students stuck around to give the practicing first responders victims to look for. It wasnt long until the sirens drew near. Flashing lights and brightly colored trucks pulled up behind the school. Members of the Logansport Fire Department donned ventilator masks and led students in the Century Career Centers fire rescue program up toward the doors. The four students who were meant to play injured greeted the rescue party. They quickly learned they were supposed to be hidden somewhere in the schools hallways, and were led to their hiding places. Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, a member of the Logansport Police Department informed other first responders there was a strong chlorine smell coming from the pool area anyone who was going into the school should be prepared to face chlorine gas. Receiving word that the students were properly stashed away, the firefighters entered the building looking for survivors. Two teams split into different directions. One checked the Berry Bowl, nurses office and nearby restrooms. Speaking into their radio, members of the Logansport Fire Department communicated that their part of the search came up empty after a brief moment, another call came back over the radio requesting all hands on deck from the countys first responder agencies. LHS Reunification Drill 5 Advertisement Advertisement Century Career Center students in the Fire and Rescue program search the nurses office on Thursday during a drill that simulated a chlorine gas leak at the school. The team that had searched the Berry Bowl scrambled over toward the pool. There, they found the last survivor and helped load them onto a board. They hoisted the survivor up and carried them outside to an ambulance. A car tried pulling up behind the school to pick up a student. First responders rushed to shoo them away. It wasnt part of the drill. Bill Huffer, North Hazmat Specialist for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, pointed out those sorts of things happen in real life emergencies. Advertisement Advertisement They later learned of another real-life obstacle that affected the drill; a train delayed school buses on their way to Ivy Tech for reunification. The Career Center students prepared a decontamination area equipment they had been introduced to for the first time that morning while a hazmat team suited up. LHS Reunification Drill 6 Century Career Center students in the Fire and Rescue program wash hazmat equipment in a decontamination area outside Logansport High School during a drill on Thursday that simulated a chlorine gas leak. Huffer went to check on the fog machine by the schools swimming pool he wanted to make sure the simulated chlorine gas was thick enough to disorient the hazmat team, but not so dense that they would be at risk of falling down the steep stairs leading down to the pool. Advertisement Advertisement A group of students who were practicing swimming lessons separate from the drill shrieked with excitement as the fog dispersed throughout the room. Carefully, and lugging a cart in tow, the two-person hazmat team entered the school. They found their way to the swimming pool, where a fresh burst of fog was let out. Huffer warned them about the steep stairway down toward what was meant to be a busted chlorine canister. LHS Reunification Drill 4 A hazmat team prepares to enter Logansport High School during a drill on Thursday that simulated a chlorine gas leak. The drill brought together several local first responder agencies. Advertisement Advertisement One of the swim lesson students shouted out Weve got a 23-19, referencing a scene from Disneys Monsters, Inc. The duo in hazmat suits traversed the stairs carefully down into the fog. They were able to seal the busted canister in seconds. They did good very quickly, Huffer said, following them out of the building. The Career Center students helped wash the hazmat suits in the decontamination area. In real life, Huffer explained, the emergency response would follow with making sure first responders were alright medically and the building would be aired out and inspected before students and faculty would be given the go-ahead to return. Advertisement Advertisement The drill was over, though. Rick Bair, who teaches the Career Centers Fire and Rescue program, said he was impressed with how well the students did during the drill. Despite their unfamiliarity with the decontamination equipment, they were able to set it up in eight minutes. I was really happy with the way they did it, Bair said. During the first responders debriefing, department heads discussed what could have gone better. Rocky Buffum, director of Cass Countys Emergency Management Agency said he would have liked the hazmat team sectioned off from the fire department and ambulances it would help break the scene into different divisions and prevent clutter. Advertisement Advertisement Several department heads also addressed difficulties in communication lines. The departments used a different channel than normal out of concern people listening in on police scanners would think the hullabaloo was a real emergency. They went over how communications would be established during an actual emergency. Department heads also addressed one student who walked out of the school and stood by a tree. The student had been instructed to walk past everyone and ignore any instructions. Few people paid attention to him, which could have been a problem in an actual emergency. Department heads acknowledged, though, that his calmness made it seem like he had been separate from the drill. Huffers sole critique was that the fire department could have been slightly quicker loading the victim onto the stretcher. He told the team they did well, he just would have liked to see it work out as more of a snatch-and-grab. Sherry Fagner, a member of the Red Cross and the Local Emergency Planning Committee, said she was impressed with the thought that went into the planning and training prior to the drill. Advertisement Advertisement She was especially impressed with the Career Center students. Thats probably one of the best practices Ive seen in the state, Fagner said. Over at Ivy Tech, Superintendent Starkey helped sign out the last student to get picked up. She said the drill went well overall and was looking forward to going over the schools debriefing. She noted it was good to confirm a teacher without proper identification wasnt able to ride along with a student in an ambulance, nor were they able to approach the student at the hospital. Were thrilled with how this all went today, Starkey said. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) on Friday told comedian and HBOs Real Time host Bill Maher that he refused to take any of your bait in speculating on his chances of running for president in 2028. Twice did Maher suggest Shapiro was running while interviewing him about his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light. The host first asked the governor about what is the story with always writing a book when youre running for president? Shapiro said he merely wanted to write about the goodness of working people in his state, a message he said other politicians should share. Maher, after Shapiro talked about his successes as governor, later quipped, Sounds like youre well on your way to the nomination. Advertisement Advertisement I refuse to take any of your bait here, Shapiro replied sternly but with a smile. The Pennsylvania Democrat is among several names floated as possible contenders in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. Shapiro was one of former Vice President Kamala Harris choices for a running mate before she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Accusations about Shapiro and the Harris campaigns exchanges involving the vice presidents home and Shapiro being asked if he was an agent for Israel have been aired in public since her defeat by President Trump. Shapiro has also been vocal, like other Democrats, about his support for Israel, particularly following Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the Israeli Defense Forces bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Protests supporting the Palestinians on college campuses spread across the country in 2024. Advertisement Advertisement Shapiro previously called it absolutely unacceptable when universities did not protect their Jewish students. During that same time, however, he urged the University of Pennsylvania to disband a protest encampment that he said was a threat to campus safety, which drew sharp criticism from student activists supportive of the Palestinian people. He later wrote in his book that when he was being vetted as a possible running mate for Harris, he was asked if he would ever apologize to pro-Palestinian demonstrators for condemning their actions. No, I said flatly, he recalled. Shapiros support could conflict with Democratic views toward the Jewish state. Gallup found last month that 41 percent of Americans say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, with 65 percent of Democrats who say they feel this way. Pennsylvania voters are also mixed at the prospect of Shapiro being a good president. A Quinnipiac University poll released last month found that 40 percent of Keystone State voters think he would be good in the role, while 43 percent dont. Advertisement Advertisement Democrats largely liked the idea, with 69 percent supporting him, but independents were notably split, with 44 percent saying he would not be a good president. Only 32 percent differed and said he would be a good president. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. 35-year-old Tiffany Mercado was in handcuffs and a green jumpsuit when she appeared in a Fresno County Courtroom early Friday morning. This, her first appearance since she was arrested for driving intoxicated through a stop sign in Parlier and killing 15-year-old Juliani Moreno earlier this week. She pleaded not guilty to the added charge of D-U-I that was tacked onto the other charges from the District's Attorney's Office. Advertisement Advertisement This comes as authorities reveal they believe Mercado was high from inhaling an air duster. Mercado's extensive criminal history dating back to 2011 in Southern California was brought to the forefront inside the courtroom. Action News has learned Mercado was on supervised parole at the time of this deadly crash. The San Bernardino DA, Jason Anderson, tells Action News he believes she shouldn't have been released as she only did about 30% of the time she was sentenced to for a violent robbery case dating back to 2024. Anderson has prosecuted Mercado several times and sent her to prison twice. Advertisement Advertisement He believes this tragedy was preventable, claiming she should've been behind bars. "She was sentenced in April 2024 to 6 years in prison. She didn't even do two years of it," says Anderson. Back in 2024, Mercado pleaded no contest to second-degree robbery of a liquor store in Fontana. But was released in January of this year and placed on community supervision. The DA says this because of department of correction's rules and credit she earned from classes. "Unfortunately, the paper commitment, which, if she had done her full-time, she would've been in custody and not been out on the streets up in Fresno," says Anderson. Advertisement Advertisement In court, new revelations. Prosecutors telling the judge Mercado was going up to 100 miles an hour when she ran through the intersection. They also revealed investigators found a half used air duster can in her trunk, they claim she tried to hide it after the crash. "Inside of that can is an intoxicating substance called difluoroethane, which is used for huffing or intoxicating," says Steve Ueltzen, Fresno County Persecutor. Action News cameras captured the moment Mercado wobbled through a sobriety test on scene. Authorities say she did admit to huffing in her past but denies she did that night. Advertisement Advertisement Anderson, pointing the blame now at the Department of Corrections, arguing this case is another example that their rules are too lenient. "From our standpoint, we're angered because we don't believe this person should've been free from custody and there's a cost in the fact from every one of these lousy decisions that is made within CDCR," says Anderson. We did reach out to the Department of Corrections for comment but have not heard back. If convicted of these new charges, Mercado could be facing 26 years in prison. For news and weather updates, follow Brisa Colon on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Nancy Guthrie has been missing for six weeks and sadly the investigation surrounding her disappearance is no closer to producing an official suspect. However, local authorities now say they may have a motive. The sheriff leading Guthries case recently shared that he and other members of the sheriffs department believe they know why the 84-year-old was kidnapped on February 1. Sheriff Leading Nancy Guthrie Investigation Says Authorities Know Why She Was Abducted FBI/MEGA Sheriff Chris Nanos of the Pima County Sheriffs Department recently shared in an interview with NBC News, that he and other members of the sheriffs department believe they know why Guthrie was kidnapped from her home. Advertisement Advertisement We believe we know why [the kidnapper] did this and we believe that it was targeted, but were not 100% sure of that, Nanos said on Thursday, March 12. So itd be silly to tell people, Dont worry about it. Youre not his target. You could be. Dont think for a minute that because it happened to the Guthrie family, youre safe. No. Keep your wits about you. Speaking about the details of a possible motive, Sheriff Nanos stopped short of sharing them publicly. I think its come out from day one, he told NBC News. I think day one, we had some strong beliefs about what happened and those beliefs havent diminished. Im not going to get into those theories. We have our beliefs. Everybody else has theirs. Former FBI Agent Believes Kidnapper In The Case Could Strike Again MPI28/Capital Pictures / MEGA Per the New York Post, former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer shared her belief that Guthries kidnapper could strike again before he is ultimately captured by authorities. Advertisement Advertisement There is a kidnapper (at least 1) and a potential murderer (maybe more) on the streets, Coffindaffer said. Yes, this seems to be a very targeted abduction (like the Idaho murders), but you still have an individual(s) capable of extreme violence on the loose. Coffindaffer noted that the grim nature of her opinion may cause panic, but pointed out that the community at large should be aware of potential danger. Finding Nancy alive was objective 1. Objective 2 was getting an abductor (and likely murderer) off the streets, she said. Will this person(s) strike again? This is a big issue. Crime Expert Suspects Nancy Guthrie Was Wrapped Up During Kidnapping Instagram | Savannah Guthrie Per Parade, former FBI agent Maureen OConnell said during a recent appearance on the Brian Entin Investigates podcast, she believes Guthrie was wrapped up in something and carted away. Advertisement Advertisement I doubt that she walked out because there were no voids, she said. So, lets say the pattern of the blood is concentrated here, but the sphere is this big, its round, you would have a void here from one foot or from another foot or from something. There dont appear to be any voids. So for me, it was in my mind shes wrapped up in something, and theyre carrying her out, OConnell added. Savannah Guthrie Recently Visited The Today Show For The First Time Since Her Mother Disappeared MEGA According to The Hollywood Reporter, Savannah Guthries March 5 visit to the Today show set was filled with emotion, as the co-anchor saw the shows staff for the first time since her mothers disappearance. During the unplanned visit with the shows staff, Savannah reportedly thanked them for caring about my mom as much as I do, among other kind words. Advertisement Advertisement I wanted you to know that Im still standing, and I still have hope and Im still me. I dont know what version of me that will be, but it will be, she continued. Savannah also used the impromptu meeting to confirm that she will indeed return to the show, as the investigation into her mothers disappearance continues. I have every intention of coming back. I dont know how to come back, but I dont know how not to. Youre my family and I would like to try, she said, per the outlet. Although She Visited The Set, Savannah Guthries Return Date To Today Has Not Been Confirmed ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA Per PEOPLE, during Savannahs March 5 visit she reportedly stopped by the studio to be with and thank her Today colleagues, a show spokesperson said via statement, according to the outlet. Advertisement Advertisement Although her visit to the show does not mean that a return date for Savannah has been set, she will reportedly be back on-air at some point. While she plans to return to the show on air, she remains focused right now supporting her family and working to help bring Nancy home, the statement continued. The Sheriff In Nancy Guthrie Case Says Authorities Know Why She Was Kidnapped first appeared on The Blast Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lieutenant Ben Cohen on Saturday described Hezbollah as an "Iranian terrorist proxy", and said that all cards were on the table to stop the Lebanese militant group from moving forward with their "terrorist agenda". When asked about whether Israel plans to launch a ground invasion in South Lebanon, Lt Cohen told ANI that the current security situation must be understood in the context of past events. He recalled Hezbollah joining Hamas in an attack against Israel on October 8, 2023. "To understand the situation in Lebanon, you have to understand the history. And the history in this regard starts - we're talking about October 8th, 2023. Then, too, a different terrorist organisation, Hamas, launches an attack against Israel, and Hezbollah decides to join. On October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah decided to join, Israel made the difficult decision to evacuate over 60,000 civilians in the north and remove them from their homes, you know, and it took a very long time until they could come back. We understand that we can't live in a reality where terrorist organisations are threatening our civilians inside their homes," he said. In order to push back the Hezbollah, Lt Cohen said that Israel has taken a "forward defensive posture" with its forces moving hundreds of meters from the border with Lebanon to protect Israeli civilians so that Hezbollah can't fire those rockets. "What we do over the first week of this war is we establish what we call a forward defensive posture. It's not a ground invasion, all right? It's Israeli forces that have moved hundreds of meters from the border with Lebanon in order to protect Israeli civilians so that those Hezbollah terrorists can't fire those rockets, those anti-tank missiles at Israeli civilians, and so that we can protect ourselves wherever we need to. As it goes for future operational plans, I obviously won't go into any specifics, but you know, all cards are on the table. We understand that we can't allow for Hezbollah to be with weapons right on our borders and to continue to move forward with their terrorist agenda," he said. Lt Cohen called Hezbollah a terrorist proxy of Iran and added, "I want to make the story of Hezbollah very clear. All right, you have an Iranian terrorist proxy. Over the last year, Iran has funded almost a billion dollars into the Hezbollah terrorist organisation. We didn't fire at them first, you know. We opened an operation against Iran, and then they started firing hundreds of rockets and UAVs at Israeli civilians." His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf. Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) said that under the direction of military intelligence earlier this week, it struck and eliminated Sham Abd al-Karim Yassin, a key commander in Hezbollah's communications unit and the Palestine Corps of Iran's Quds Force. As this happened, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem asserted that his organisation was prepared for a "long confrontation" with Israel, as Israeli authorities warned that Lebanon would face an "increasing price" through extensive damage to its national infrastructure, according to a report by The Times of Israel. The conflict intensified on Friday following Hezbollah's decision to target Israel in retaliation for the killing of the Iranian former supreme leader in joint strikes. In his second televised address since the hostilities began, Qassem described the situation as an "existential battle, not a limited or simple battle," adding that his forces have "prepared ourselves for a long confrontation" and that the Israeli military "will be surprised on the battlefield". Israel Katz, the defence minister of Israel, issued a stern warning following a military assessment, stating that the Lebanese government would be held accountable for failing to disarm the group. According to The Times of Israel, Katz warned that the state would "pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory" until military commitments were fulfilled. Military data cited by The Times of Israel suggests that the IDF has conducted over 1,100 strikes in Lebanon, targeting command centres and "rocket and missile launchers". (ANI) RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema acknowledges having a romantic relationship with a member of her security detail that began while she was a lawmaker, according to legal documents. But she also contends she shouldn't be subject to a lawsuit by the man's ex-wife who blames Sinema for the marriage breakup. The North Carolina federal court litigation seeks financial damages from Sinema, who represented Arizona in the U.S. House and later the Senate for one term that ended early last year. Heather Ammel contends in a lawsuit that she and husband Matthew had a good and loving marriage and genuine love and affection existed between them before Sinema interfered, pursuing him despite knowing he was married. Advertisement Advertisement In a signed March 7 declaration attached to a lawsuit motion filed this week, Sinema said her relationship with Matthew Ammel became romantic and intimate at the end of May 2024 and physically intimate over the next several months in California, New York, Colorado, Arizona and Washington, D.C. The Ammels separated in November 2024, the lawsuit said. North Carolina is one of a handful of states that allow jilted spouses to sue for alienation of affection to seek damages from a third party responsible for the breakup of their marriage. Sinema's declaration rejects allegations by Heather Ammel that Sinema made phone calls and sent internet communications to her husband with the knowledge that he was physically present in North Carolina and at times with his wife and the couple's children. Sinema did send Matthew Hamel a message while he was in North Carolina after he had already found a new place to live and when the marriage was already over, Sinema attorney Steven Epstein wrote in asking the lawsuit be dismissed. Sinemas conduct related to her romantic relationship with Mr. Ammel does not connect her to North Carolina in a meaningful way, Epstein wrote Thursday, adding that no jury would believe that the one message had any bearing on the destruction of marital love and affection. Advertisement Advertisement Sinema's head of security hired Ammel after he retired from the Army in 2022, according to the lawsuit, and in early 2024, Heather Ammel discovered messages between Sinema and her husband on the Signal messaging app that were of romantic and lascivious natures. That summer, Matthew Ammel stopped wearing his wedding ring and Sinema gave him a job on her Senate staff while he continued to work as her bodyguard, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit was initially filed in September in North Carolina state court, but it was moved to federal court in January. Sinema declined to seek Senate reelection in 2024 following a term in which she left the Democratic Party to become an independent. She now works for a Washington-based legal and lobbying firm. Pennsylvanias WellSpan Health will open a new small-format hospital off Interstate 83 just past the Maryland state line later this month, offering a new source for 24/7 emergency care for residents in northern Harford, Carroll and Baltimore counties. WellSpans new Shrewsbury Hospital is one of three small-format hospitals the health care provider is opening this year in the greater York and Harrisburg areas. Families no longer have to travel long distances or navigate busy highways to get emergency care. More access to efficient emergency medicine is now right where it belongs and conveniently located along the busy and growing I-83 corridor, said Dr. Nicholas Bertoni, the hospitals medical director, in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement First responders in Carroll and Harford counties are calling it a welcome addition to help relieve transport times for emergency medical calls. When the Shrewsbury Hospital opens, it will provide a closer medical facility to our calls within Lineboro and Manchesters outlying areas, said Carroll County Department of Fire and EMS Director Michael Robinson. These units frequently provide mutual aid into [Pennsylvania,] so their closest facility may become WellSpan Shrewsbury Hospital. A medic crew from Harford Countys Norrisville took part in the Shrewsbury ribbon-cutting Wednesday. Norrisville Volunteer Fire Company said on Facebook that the hospital promises to revolutionize local healthcare. With transport times of under 20 minutes for most of [the fire companys] primary response area, this hospital will offer our community unparalleled convenience in medical care, the fire company wrote. Advertisement Advertisement At 18,000 square feet, the Shrewsbury Hospital seems to sit somewhere between a typical urgent-care clinic and a larger hospital campus. It offers an emergency department and will be open around the clock. It will have 10 inpatient beds and offer diagnostic tests like ultrasounds, X-rays and laboratory services. But it will be just a small fraction of the size of, for example, the UM Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Aberdeen, which is about 130,000 square feet. The WellSpan Shrewsbury footprint is about half the size of Sinai Hospital in Baltimores new emergency department alone. Similar to the 2-year-old Aberdeen hospital, WellSpan Shrewsbury will not feature surgery or more complex health care. Patients with complex, acute care needs and patients who need surgery will be assessed and transferred to another WellSpan hospital to receive a higher level of care, the hospital system said. The small-format or micro-hospital trend seems to be picking up steam. The Wilmington-based ChristianaCare, which took over Elktons Union Hospital in Cecil County, opened one micro-hospital last year and plans to open another this year. Advertisement Advertisement Carroll medic units currently take patients to four Pennsylvania hospitals, in addition to Carroll Hospital Center, Robinson said. The choice of hospital is based on the patients location and, sometimes, the patients choice. Patients can also be taken to Pennsylvania when [Carroll Hospital Center] has a long wait time and is on a reroute status where ambulances bypass that hospital due to patient overload. Andrew Doyle, spokesperson for Harford Countys Volunteer Fire and EMS Association, said via email: The addition of a hospital adjacent to our northern service area provides several options for both our EMS crews and patients. We will be able to balance system impacts and transport times in the interests of our patients and EMS service. We welcome the opportunity to partner with WellSpan on this achievement. The Baltimore County Fire Department said its EMS bureau plans to tour the new hospital March 20. Advertisement Advertisement We look forward to transporting low acuity patients [who need less complex or urgent care] as necessary, the department said in an email Friday. Have a news tip? Contact Bryna Zumer at bzumer@baltsun.com, or on X as @brynazumer. SOUTH CAROLINA (WSPA) A trio accused of a $1.8 million wire fraud and money laundering scheme were sentenced to federal prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. Officials said the operation was devised between between June 2020 and January 2022. Authorities said the ringleader, 54-year-old Jonathan Wade Sumter, would send in applications to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) to get funding for fake or defunct companies, including: Advertisement Advertisement Living Water Outreach High Consulting Lyons Transport GSM Home Care Challenge Consulting Omni Holdings Sumters twin brother, Jason Elijah Sumter, and Gerothia McCullough were also involved in the operation. Once the loans were funded, officials said the three would split the money between them. The case was investigated by the Small Business Administration and the investigators with the Internal Revenue Service. Jonathan Sumter was sentenced to 80 months in prison with a three-year period of court-ordered supervision. His sentence will be served at the same time as the 92-month sentence he is serving for a 2023 conviction for health care fraud. Additionally, he was ordered to pay $1,802,741 in restitution. Advertisement Advertisement Jason Sumter was sentenced to three years in prison, ordered to pay $739,786 in restitution, and forfeited a property in Orangeburg County McCullough, officials added, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, ordered to pay $478,366 in restitution, and forfeited a 2018 GMC Canyon. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS. MOUNT VERNON/EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) Friday the 13th can cause anxiety for many, but for a few companies are taking the opportunity to put a more positive spin on this stressful date. In Evansville, Crescent City Tattoo holds a flash sale every Friday the 13th. Customers are able to choose a design from an established list and pay a discounted price. Crescent City owner Ian Campbell says these flash sales do big numbers for them, the most recent one breaking records. Advertisement Advertisement I dont see us ever skipping it, says Campbell. We like doing it. It spans anywhere from 40 to 80 people. Last time was a record-breaking event in February. Some customers admitted they see the 13th as a good day as it comes with great deals. Ive never been superstitious on Friday the 13th, but I think its celebratory every time, says customers Danny & Melanie. Im always excited for it and we always love a good deal. So yeah, its both a little bit of both worlds. Another organization to hop on the train is the Newlife Rescue and Adoption Center. All black dogs and cats are $13 to adopt. The center says this is the first time it is doing a sale like this as there is a high number of animals in need of forever homes. Advertisement Advertisement Michele Rickert & Tiffany Jarvis: They just dont go towards the black ones for some reason, and I dont know that that would be the reason, but I know for cats for sure, says Michele Rickert & Tiffany Jarvis. I think its superstitious. Everyone wants to stay away from the black cats, and we have a lot. We have a lot of great, great cats, but a lot of black cats that are really sweet. Thanks to this promotional deal, New Life has gotten one dog adopted. All cats are also available. The next Friday the 13th will take place in November. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). Events planned on the grounds of the Montana State Capitol requiring a permit are no longer allowed on weekends following a change in February. The change, which says permitted events are only allowed on weekdays between 7:00am and 6:00pm, excluding holidays, was apparently a financial move. The department made this change in order to be a better steward of taxpayer dollars, which are used to support events at the Capitol, Janna Williams, a spokesperson for the Department of Administration, wrote in an email. Advertisement Advertisement The DOA looked at policies in other states to inform the change, she added. The policy was thoroughly vetted by department attorneys to ensure the policy is constitutional and does not infringe upon the First Amendment, Williams wrote. The permit changes were first reported by the Montana Free Press. While anyone can walk into the Capitol building, there are certain rules for having an event both inside and outside at the complex. According to the states rulebook, events requiring a permit are, A public event that utilizes state resources, requires set up of any structures, materials, displays, or requires clean-up, and must be approved by the General Services Division. Advertisement Advertisement People are still allowed to gather after hours or during the weekends, Williams wrote, but events with set-up require a permit. People are free to assemble on the Capitol grounds after hours and on weekends without a permit from the General Services Division, Williams wrote. However, any event that requires the set-up of equipment, such as a stage, or utilizes State resources, including personnel, such as law enforcement, requires a permit. Any organization or citizen planning a gathering should contact the General Services Division for guidance. Any gathering must also follow local ordinances as well. Additionally, the rules set a priority order for who can use Capitol grounds. The Governors Office, Legislature and State agencies have priority to hold functions in State buildings and on State grounds, the states event guidelines say. GSD may cancel or adjust the time of a permitted event in the Capitol or on Capitol grounds should a conflict occur. Advertisement Advertisement The new permitting rules come after multiple large No Kings rallies by pro-Democracy organizers calling attention to actions the Trump Administration has taken, such as deep cuts to federal employees, trampling of civil liberties, and immigration practices. The events have drawn record participation across vast swathes of urban and rural America and the next No Kings rally is set for March 28. Indivisible Helena, an organization that has planned those rallies in Montanas capital city, is still expecting to have an event at the Capitol, with some changes. Those events have included speaker systems, staging, generators and tabling by numerous organizations. Even though this puts an incredible damper on our freedom to assemble and freedom of speech, we are pivoting and making sure we still serve this rally as best we can, said Barbara Barnes, who is on the Indivisible Helena steering committee. Advertisement Advertisement Barnes said she worries most about those with mobility issues. Previously, there was the ability for those in wheelchairs to quickly be dropped off near reserved seats, using a parking lot adjacent to the capitol building. The population that is going to be hurt and impacted the most by this are people with mobility issues, Barnes. That, to me, is heartbreaking. Barnes said they were informed around the time of their last event in October that a new policy was in the works. The new policy officially went into place on Feb. 23, 2026 with Williams adding, it followed a robust legal review and analysis of policies in other states across the nation. Barnes said they contacted the GSA in February. At the time they did, she said, it hadnt been published yet. Advertisement Advertisement It wasnt yet available to read, but it was in place, and we were not going to be allowed to pull a permit, Barnes said Friday. Security hadnt been a problem either, Barnes said. Off-duty Helena police officers were hired for the No Kings rallies, and a large team of trained, clearly marked crowd-control personnel also worked previous events. The Montana Highway Patrol, which provides security at the Capitol, has also been good to work with, Barnes added. When asked if Highway Patrol approached DOA regarding any potential issues, Williams directed the question to them, though added, However, DOA does contract with the Montana Highway Patrol for events, once again underscoring why the new policy will allow the Department to reduce costs to taxpayers. Clean-up didnt seem to be a problem either. Advertisement Advertisement We have been, by all reports, one of the best users of the Capitol grounds, Barnes said. We dont leave any even a tiny bit of garbage behind. Barnes said theyre planning on using a truck, have people working on audio, and while tabling wont be happening, an effort is underway to create a booklet with information about local organizations. The organization approached the idea of reimbursing the state for usage of the grounds, but Barnes said that didnt go anywhere. No Kings rallies in Helena have consistently drawn more than 1,000 people to Capitol grounds. With several highly publicized federal law enforcement killings in Minnesota, the U.S. engaged in an unpopular and increasingly deadly conflict with Iran, as well as economic insecurity, events around the country are expected to draw large numbers of protestors. State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, faces a challenge in the March 17 Republican primary from John Hauge of Mount Zion. Halbrook has served in the Illinois General Assembly once before as a Republican Representative in 2012. The Illinois District 107 seat is the only elected office Halbrook has held. I think it was just a desire to learn more, learn the personalities, and it kind of became trying to elect people that would make for better governments, said Halbrook in an interview. The goal was to protect taxpayers, and thats been my theme: Im here to protect my taxpayers. Advertisement Advertisement Halbrook, his Freedom Caucus colleagues and others on his team are spreading Halbrooks message of conservatism and common-sense policy, and they believe that message should continue which is why Halbrook is running for re-election. I think that myself and my Freedom Caucus colleagues along with others want to continue to move that ball downfield to move policy and talk about policy that makes Illinois a good place to live and raise a family and grow a business, said Halbrook. Halbrook believes Springfield wants to increase the size of the state government. He understands theres a certain size of government thats needed, but he, personally, supports more limited government. If the government were to grow, it would have a direct and negative impact on taxpayers, says Halbrook. Advertisement Advertisement Part of protecting taxpayers is to make sure that theyre getting the government that theyre paying for, or theres not more government than we need that is too costly, said Halbrook. Over the past few years, Halbrook has honed in on certain energy policies. It started in summer 2021 when the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) came to fruition. CEJA provides provisions to cease carbon emissions from the energy sector and the transportation sector. Through CEJA, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has created rebate programs and grants for electric vehicles and charging stations. The Illinois EPA also oversees the phasing-out of power generated through fossil fuels. Regulating fossil fuels raises prices for both consumers and business owners, says Halbrook. He advocates for bills that: remove state regulations for nuclear production, repeal CEJA, cease the premature closings of coal and natural gas plants, and remove emissions caps that are in place. Advertisement Advertisement Until we have a clear path to where the majority party wants to go with alternatives, closing natural gas and coal electrical production prematurely without having a clear path to the future, well, the proof is in the pudding, said Halbrook. Weve seen these spikes in energy prices last summer, and were going to see them again this summer. In the summer of 2024, Halbrook created a YouTube channel and began posting short videos three to four minutes to connect to a larger audience. In July 2024, his channel had 97 subscribers. Now, it has over 2,300. He encourages people to set up an appointment to visit Springfield when the General Assembly is in session, as well as participate in his Paige for the Day Program, which allows guests to shadow Halbrook when the General Assembly meets. The program lets visitors be on the House floor with Halbrook during a General Assembly session. I think its really important for people to come to Springfield and spend from a few hours to the day, and were happy to help coordinate their day, said Halbrook. I want to stress if you have an interest in it its a unique opportunity to be right there in the middle of the action. To check voter registration status, locate polling places and find more information on voting, visit effinghamcountyil.gov/county-clerk/elections. A Georgia state senator announced on Friday that she is resigning her seat. State Senator Nabilah Parkes (D-Duluth) says she told Governor Brian Kemp that Friday would be her last day in the state Senate. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Parkes resignation comes with just under three weeks remaining in the session of the Georgia General Assembly. Sine die, which marks the last day of the session, is scheduled for April 2. Advertisement Advertisement However, Parkes had some choice words for the Republican leadership at the Georgia State Capitol. "As I wrote in my letter to Gov. Kemp: unfortunately, the legislature, under this Republican leadership, is a place where good ideas go to die," she wrote in a statement. There is no word on who will fill Parkes seat for the remainder of the session. TRENDING STORIES: Parkes is currently running for Lieutenant Governor alongside fellow Democrats Josh McLaurin and Richard Wright. Advertisement Advertisement The race for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor is much wider, with seven candidates in the running. They include David Clark, Greg Dolezal, Steve Gooch, John Kennedy, Brenda Nelson-Porter, Takosha Swan and Blake Tillery. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] GOSHEN Mayor Gina Leichty has named Andy Stephenson as the next chief of the Goshen Police Department, selecting a veteran law enforcement leader with more than three decades of experience in policing, training and leadership development. Stephenson will succeed Chief Jose Miller, who is retiring in June 2026 after decades of service to the department and the Goshen community. Chief Miller served this department and community with unwavering dedication for decades, and Goshen is stronger because of his leadership, Leichty said. We are grateful for the foundation he built and for the officers and staff who continue that work every day. Advertisement Advertisement As the department prepares for its next chapter, Leichty said, Stephenson brings extensive law enforcement experience and a leadership approach that positions the department for continued growth. Andy Stephenson has established a remarkable record of strengthening community safety through effective policing, strong team leadership, and a deep commitment to recruiting and developing officers, Leichty said. Stephensons career spans more than 30 years of law enforcement across jurisdictions in Indiana and North Carolina. He began his law enforcement career in Bloomington, Indiana, with the Indiana University Police Department, where he rose through the ranks from cadet to captain during a 22-year tenure overseeing patrol, investigations, training and community outreach operations. He later served as chief of police at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, leading a department of approximately 70 sworn officers while overseeing police operations, emergency management, and public safety programs. Advertisement Advertisement As chief, Stephenson established a nationally recognized police academy and officer development program designed to strengthen recruitment, training, and leadership development for law enforcement agencies. Most recently, he directs law enforcement training for the University of North Carolina System, overseeing professional development programs supporting more than 560 sworn officers across 16 public universities. Recruitment and officer development Leichty said Stephensons leadership in creating an award-winning regional police training academy during his tenure as a police chief was a distinguishing qualification in the selection process. Advertisement Advertisement Departments everywhere are facing challenges with recruitment and retention, Leichty said. Andy didnt just talk about those challenges; he helped build a model that supports officers throughout their careers while strengthening departments across an entire region. That kind of experience will be incredibly valuable for Goshen and for our public safety partners across northern Indiana. Stephensons experience building collaborative training and leadership development programs, Leichty added, will create meaningful professional growth and regional partnership opportunities for Goshen officers. Leichty also emphasized the departments strong leadership that is already in place. Our division chiefs, assistant chief and command staff possess deep experience and commitment to this community, she said. Andys background in recruitment and officer development adds another important dimension that will strengthen the department. Advertisement Advertisement Stephensons official start date as the City of Goshens 23rd police chief will be May 1. He will work alongside Chief Jose Miller during a transition period designed to ensure continuity of leadership before assuming full responsibilities following Millers June 12 retirement. Stephenson said his career has centered on helping departments grow stronger from within while deepening their connection to the communities they serve. Supporting officers and helping police departments have a positive impact on the quality of life in their communities has been a passion of mine throughout my career, Stephenson said. Im honored by the opportunity to serve the Goshen community and work alongside the dedicated officers and public safety partners who help keep this city safe. Selection process Advertisement Advertisement Leichty said the decision followed a thorough selection process that included input from both the department and broader community. Selecting a police chief is one of the most significant responsibilities entrusted to a mayor, Leichty said. We saw exceptional leadership from the candidates who stepped forward. Their professionalism, dedication, and deep knowledge of this community reflect the strength of the Goshen Police Department, and that strong foundation allowed us to focus on what additional experience would best position the department for the future. The process included interviews with all candidates, input from department personnel, conversations with community stakeholders, and extensive reference and background checks with agencies where candidates previously served. This decision requires deep trust from both the department and the community, Leichty said. Im grateful to every candidate who stepped forward, the community members who helped inform this process, and especially the officers and staff of the Goshen Police Department who serve the residents of this city each day. Details regarding Stephensons swearing-in ceremony and a public introduction to the community will be announced closer to his official start date in May, the city said. A police pursuit in West Virginia ended in tragedy Thursday afternoon when a fleeing driver in a stolen SUV slammed into another vehicle on Interstate 64, killing a 52-year-old woman who had no connection to the chase. Authorities say the suspect, 22-year-old Joseph R. Elswick Jr., attempted to outrun deputies in a stolen 2025 Jeep Cherokee before losing control after driving through spike strips deployed by law enforcement. The crash killed Angela Born, a Kanawha County resident known locally for operating a strawberry farm and bed-and-breakfast property. According to the Putnam County Sheriffs Office, the incident began around 2:37 p.m. when deputies received a report that Elswick had stolen his grandmothers Jeep Cherokee and her purse. Investigators reported that the grandmother also warned deputies that Elswick might have been armed. Law enforcement located the SUV roughly ten minutes later and attempted a traffic stop, but the driver refused to pull over and accelerated away, initiating a high-speed pursuit through multiple roadways in the region. Authorities reported the chase escalated quickly as the stolen Jeep accelerated to speeds approaching 120 miles per hour. Deputies continued tracking the vehicle as it moved toward Interstate 64 eastbound near Milton. The pursuit transitioned onto the interstate, where officers attempted to bring the situation to a controlled stop by deploying spike strips near mile marker 34. Advertisement Advertisement Investigators determined the Jeep struck the spike strips at highway speed. Despite the tire damage, authorities say Elswick continued attempting to flee as the SUV traveled another half mile along the interstate. With the tires compromised, control of the vehicle deteriorated rapidly. Law enforcement reported that the suspect ultimately lost control of the Jeep in active traffic. The fleeing SUV then collided with a vehicle driven by Angela Born. The impact was severe enough that Borns vehicle caught fire following the crash. Emergency responders arrived on scene, but Born was pronounced dead at the location. Officials confirmed she had been traveling normally on the interstate when the fleeing vehicle entered her path. The crash immediately transformed what began as a vehicle theft and police pursuit into a fatal incident involving an uninvolved driver. Authorities identified Born as a longtime member of the community and the operator of a strawberry farm and bed-and-breakfast property in Kanawha County. She was also the mother of six children, according to local officials familiar with her business and family. Law enforcement officials placed responsibility for the fatal crash squarely on the driver who initiated the chase by fleeing in the stolen SUV. Investigators reported that Elswicks decision to run from deputies at extreme speeds created the chain of events that ended with the fatal collision. The pursuit, which unfolded in the middle of the afternoon on a busy interstate corridor, left little margin for error once the suspect lost control of the vehicle. Advertisement Advertisement Elswick survived the crash and was taken into custody following the incident. Authorities charged him with aggravated vehicular homicide and fleeing with reckless indifference. Investigators indicated additional charges could be filed depending on the results of pending toxicology tests and the continued review of evidence related to the pursuit and crash. The collision also triggered intense reaction across the community and online platforms where video of the aftermath circulated shortly after the incident. Many commenters expressed anger and frustration over the circumstances surrounding the pursuit and the spike strip deployment on an active interstate. Several individuals questioned whether the tactic should have been used in traffic conditions where other drivers were present. Online discussion quickly focused on the danger posed by a vehicle traveling at triple-digit speeds with damaged tires. Many observers pointed to the reality that tire failure at highway speeds can severely reduce steering and braking capability. When that loss of control occurs in traffic, the risk to other drivers rises sharply as vehicles struggle to maintain stability. Community members familiar with the area also weighed in on the debate, saying the crash has become a topic of discussion across town. Residents reported that locals have been questioning whether the timing and location of the spike strip deployment increased the risk to surrounding drivers on the interstate. Others said the primary issue remains the suspects decision to flee at extreme speeds in a stolen vehicle. Advertisement Advertisement Regardless of the debate surrounding the tactics used during the pursuit, investigators have made clear that the criminal act that triggered the incident began with the theft of the Jeep and the decision to run from law enforcement. Authorities reported that once Elswick accelerated away from deputies and reached speeds near 120 miles per hour, the situation escalated into a dangerous pursuit that unfolded across public roads. Fatal crashes during police pursuits remain among the most dangerous scenarios for both officers and the public because they involve high speeds and unpredictable driver behavior. In this case, investigators determined the suspect continued attempting to escape even after the vehicles tires were damaged, leading directly to the loss of control that caused the deadly collision. The investigation into the crash remains active as authorities continue reviewing evidence from the pursuit and collision scene. Officials are also examining video footage and witness accounts from drivers who were traveling on Interstate 64 at the time of the crash. Elswick remains in custody facing multiple felony charges tied to the incident. Court proceedings are expected as prosecutors pursue the aggravated vehicular homicide case connected to Borns death. Authorities confirmed the investigation remains ongoing as they continue documenting the full sequence of events that unfolded during the pursuit and crash. Source Join our Newsletter, follow our Instagram page, and connect with us on Facebook. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) West Michigan was hit with strong winds Friday, knocking out power to thousands and bringing down trees and power lines. Windy conditions in the Grand Rapids area on March 13, 2026. Outage numbers climbed steadily through the morning. More than 50,000 customers statewide were without power at the outages peak, the Consumers Energy power outage map showed. Strong winds Friday with rain, snow mix At its peak, nearly 11 counties in West Michigan the following counties had at least 100 Consumers customers without power. Advertisement Advertisement Inside woodtv.com: Consumers Energy power outage map In response, Consumers said it was sending 450 crews around the state. We appreciate our customers patience as this storm delivers high winds this morning, and well be working to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, the utility said in a statement Friday morning. DOWNED TREES CAUSE DAMAGE Three people were trapped inside a Wyoming mobile home after high winds took down a large tree, crushing the center of the Timmins Street SW residence. No one was injured, the Wyoming Fire Department told News 8. First responders had to cut out a window to free the people stuck inside. A tree fell into a home in Wyoming, trapping three people inside. (March 13, 2026) A tree fell into a home in Wyoming, trapping three people inside. (March 13, 2026) Wendy Devries showed up to another home in Wyoming, her sons, after a large tree fell in front of it. With a chainsaw, a group started cutting the tree into movable pieces. Advertisement Advertisement My son and his wife are both at work and so we just thought we would pop over to see what we can do to help him out, Devries explained. The tree took out parts of the fence and caused minor damage on the roof, but no one was hurt. Download the free Storm Team 8 weather app POWER LINES Hundreds of Consumers Energy crews are ready across the state if more power lines are impacted. Theyll have poles and wires and all the materials they need with them on site so when an outage happens theyre already there with all the materials they need so they can eliminate trips back and forth to try and get power back on more quickly, Matt Johnson, a Consumers Energy spokesperson, said. Advertisement Advertisement Out of state resources are also available. Were watching the weather just as closely as you and your viewers are to ensure we have our people in the right place to again, make an impact as quickly and safely as we can, Johnson said. If you see a downed power line, assume its energized and stay at least 25 feet away. You should report it by calling 911 and then Consumers Energy at 800.477.5050. Downed power lines were reported in Barry County and Calhoun County, shutting down roads. A downed tree in the area of Byron Center Avenue and Newport Street on March 13, 2026. (Courtesy Steve Haskill) In Byron Township, a downed power line closed the southbound Byron Center Avenue entrance ramp to westbound M-6, the Michigan Department of Transportation reported. Advertisement Advertisement Farther north, in the area of Byron Center Avenue and Newport Street just north of 28th Street in Wyoming, a large tree went down, initially blocking part of the road. The Kent County Road Commission says you can report road emergencies, like fallen trees or debris that prevents safe travel, by calling 911. ReportIt: Send us your photos The road commission worked all night to clear debris from the roads, it said. That work was set to continue throughout the day as windy conditions persist. News 8s Katherine Wilkison contributed to this report. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. Amid the developing security situation in West Asia and the Gulf in the wake of the conflict in Iran, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lieutenant Ben Cohen said that it was necessary to take measures against the "terrorist regime" of Iran. He said it was imperative not only to diffuse the "ticking time bomb" but to remove it altogether. When asked about the "end game of Israel" and when the war would end, Lt Cohen told ANI, "Our goal is to take a ticking time bomb and not just to diffuse it and wait for them to ignite it again. It is to remove the bomb altogether. We cannot live in a reality where we have a terrorist regime that yells 'Death to America', that yells 'Death to Israel', and that takes the necessary measures in order to try to make that vision a reality. We can't allow for it to happen." He added that Iran was targeting sites across the region, which was not only harming the regional partners but also the people of Iran. "The Iranian terrorist regime is not only targeting us. They're destabilising their entire region. They fired at 12 countries in the region, including in Europe. They're firing ballistic missiles at civilian infrastructure not only in Israel, but in countries all along the Gulf. And they've shown very clearly that their vision is one of an extremist Islamic terrorist organisation whose goal is to destroy the lives of others and to destabilise the region while advancing itself - by the way, not for its people, but only for its leadership as their people suffer in congruence to the Gulf states, to Israel, to the United States," Lt Cohen said. Lt Cohen said that the operations would continue until the goal is reached. "We're going to keep operating as long as we have to in order to remove that existential threat. This is a military operation with a clear goal, and we can't give up until that goal is achieved." When asked about how the casualties are rising across the region, including the death of school children in Minab, Iran, Lt Cohen said that the IDF and US armed forces look at the loss of every civilian life as a tragedy and that they investigate them. He called Iran a "terrorist regime with terrorist tactics". "There's one thing that's very different between the Iranian terrorist regime and between the IDF and the United States Armed Forces hand in hand, and that's the way that we look at civilian life. I really mean it when I say that we look at every loss of civilian life as a tragedy. We investigate every strike, and we take a lot of actions in order to mitigate harm to civilians - whether it be early evacuation, intelligence, precise strikes and precise munitions, and a lot of other methods that we use in order to mitigate harm to civilians. The Iranian terrorist regime, on the other hand, we have explicit intelligence that shows that they not only don't care that civilians get hurt, but they're also trying to hurt civilians. They're a terrorist regime with terrorist tactics," Lt Cohen said. "There are civilian losses of life on all sides. We do our best to mitigate it. We put a lot of effort into that. We see every loss of civilian life as a tragedy, and I think that's the main difference when you're talking about, you know, a story of good versus evil," he added. His remarks come amid the developing security situation in West Asia, where US-Israeli strikes resulted in the assassination of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The current round of conflict in West Asia, which started on February 28, has witnessed fighting between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed serious concern over the escalating crisis in West Asia, warning that the situation poses a major threat to global peace and security. Earlier in a post on X, Guterres said the unfolding conflict has caused immense suffering for civilians and urged all sides to move towards de-escalation and dialogue. Calling for an immediate end to hostilities, the UN chief emphasised that diplomacy remains the only viable path forward. (ANI) A storm in Springfield ripped the roof off Jims Tire Center, leaving live wires sparking and knocking out power to tens of thousands of residents. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Springfield Fire Division Chief Jacob King told News Center 7 he is coordinating with utility providers to address the fire hazard at the shop. TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement The windstorm caused significant structural damage to the local business. The roof of Jims Tire Center was cracked into pieces and completely torn away during the height of the storm. Springfield resident Diane Jones was nearby when the storm hit. Jones said she was asleep when the winds reached their peak and tore the roof from the building. I was just taking a nap and woke up to a loud bang, and I was so scared. Thought it was thunder, Jones said. Looked outside and it was the roof. Jones also expressed concern for the business owners and the people employed at the shop. I dont know what theyre gonna do for the damages, Jones said. Hopefully they can get back and running. Advertisement Advertisement News Center 7 reached out to the tire shop for comment, but didnt hear back. At the height of the storm, nearly 80,000 AES customers lost power. AES Ohio reported that crews and contractors are working to restore service to those affected across the region. Due to the extent of the damage, we advise customers to anticipate a restoration process that may take several days. Some outages are complex and require multiple repairs before service can be safely restored. In addition to our local crews, mutual aid crews from other utilities will be assisting with restoration efforts, an AES spokesperson said. Advertisement Advertisement Despite the structural damage to the tire center and other areas, Jones said she was glad no one was injured in Springfield. Ill remember this for the rest of my life, Jones said. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Recent polls show that more Americans are in favor of the U.S. military actions against Iran since the conflict began. A Washington Post poll that asked 1,005 respondents regarding the U.S. military campaign against Iran found that 42% of Americans support the action, while 40% oppose it, and 17% remain unsure. In comparison, when people were asked shortly after the strikes began on Feb. 28 if they supported President Trump ordering airstrikes against Iran, 39% supported the effort while 52% opposed them and 9% were unsure. Advertisement Advertisement Fox News reported an even split among Americans regarding U.S. military action against Iran, with 50% in favor and 50% opposed. While analyzing the two polls, CNN reported that the Fox News poll may have yielded different results because the question did not mention Trump. CNN also said that five of seven high quality polls, including one of its own, showed that most Americans oppose the Iran conflict. Fox News discovered that 51% think Trumps handling of Iran has made the U.S. less safe, while 29% say the president has made the U.S. safer. By 53% to 46%, more Americans think the military actions will not contribute to the long-term security of the U.S., the Washington Post found. Advertisement Advertisement A Quinnipiac University poll reported that 47% of voters believe the Iran conflict would make the U.S. less safe, while 34% said it will make America more safe. More on Politics Read the original article on MassLive. Add MassLive as a Preferred Source by clicking here. With the arrival of milder weather and longer daylight, here it comes: loud, late-night outdoor parties, leaf blowers and lawn mowers at the crack of dawn or late into the evening, power tools and engines revving. It's enough to drive some folks nuts. But what can you do about the nuisance? Can I sue my neighbor? There is indeed a legal path. Delaware law defines a noise disturbance as any sound that endangers health or safety, disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities or threatens property value and environmental integrity. But these are open to nuance, and often cities or communities have their own codes on quiet hours and decibel limits, which your neighbor may not be in violation of. A neighborhood near Magnolia in 2024. More: Law aimed at your neighbor's dog who barks, and barks, and barks What steps can I take? These are the steps you can take. Advertisement Advertisement File a complaint with local police or code enforcement. Authorities may issue citations. Repeated violations can lead to fines. File a lawsuit in small claims court. You can seek monetary damages or request an injunction that orders the neighbor to stop the noise. Documentation like police reports, written communications asking the neighbor to stop, recordings and witness statements will be helpful. Before filing a legal complaint, you could report the nuisance to a property manager or landlord, if applicable. They can serve as a mediator. You could also avoid the legal process by first having a calm and tactful discussion with your neighbor. Sometimes that's all it takes. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Can I sue noisy neighbors in Delaware? TAYLORSVILLE, Utah (ABC4) The suspect in a shooting at the Taylorsville State Liquor and Wine Store has been formally charged with attempted murder. 23-year-old Tyler Traveon Mhaka, also known as Taliban Tiny, has been charged with attempted murder (first-degree felony) after allegedly shooting an individual inside the Taylorsville State and Liquor Wine Store, following a road rage incident. On February 26, an unidentified individual was stopped at a red light at 3500 South and 2700 West, waiting to turn right, when the driver of the car behind him, later identified as Mhaka, kept honking. Advertisement Advertisement Previous Coverage: Two injured, including suspect, after active shooter situation in Taylorsville The initial driver could not turn right due to pedestrians and reportedly flipped off Mhaka after he kept honking. When it was clear, he proceeded into the liquor store parking lot and began walking toward the liquor store. As he was walking, Mhaka reportedly pulled up and started firing his gun, hitting the individual in the back and the arm. Mhaka then followed him into the liquor store, actively firing. An officer with the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS) discharged his own firearm inside the store, shooting Mhaka. Ultimately, Mhaka was detained and taken to the hospital for medical treatment, as was the victim. Advertisement Advertisement We made eye contact with this guy: Witnesses speak after Taylorsville shooting According to court documents, Mhaka is a documented Taliban gang member. The Taliban Gang is not associated with the terrorist organization known as the Taliban. According to the Salt Lake County District Attorneys Office, there is a local gang in Utah called the Taliban Gang. There is also a Taliban Gang based in California that is not associated with Mhaka or the Utah gang, according to the FBI. Due to family ties in the Middle East, prosecutors are asking that Mhaka be held without bail. The Salt Lake County District Attorneys office confirmed that Mhakas connection to the Middle East has been brought up due to his potential flight risk, not due to any potential connections with any organization in the Middle East. Advertisement Advertisement Mhaka is reportedly still in the hospital, and his initial court appearance has not yet been scheduled. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Latest headlines: Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Now that coins featuring new, temporary designs to commemorate the United States' 250th birthday have been in circulation for some time, some Americans are raising their eyebrows at one coin in particular: the dime. The U.S. Mint said the new designs would be made for just one year, to mark the country's semiquincentennial (250th anniversary). They include depictions of significant historical events and symbols since the nation's founding in 1776. There's a Mayflower Compact quarter, a Revolutionary War quarter, a Declaration of Independence quarter, a U.S. Constitution quarter and a Gettysburg Address quarter. The dime, called the "Emerging Liberty Dime," will temporarily replace the coin featuring former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Absent from the back of the coin is the olive branch representing peace, which did not go unnoticed by many social media users. Renewed attention came amid President Donald Trump's war against Iran. Advertisement Advertisement "The designs on these historic coins depict the story of Americas journey toward a more perfect union, and celebrate Americas defining ideals of liberty," U.S. Mint Deputy Director Kristie McNally said in a statement when the coins were announced. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach holds the last penny stamped at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. The last penny stamped at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach stamps the last penny at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach holds the last penny stamped at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. A planchet sits in the press to be the final penny stamped at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. The dies used to press the last pennies sit on display at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Equipment used in the pressing of pennies at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. The dies used to press the last pennies sit on display at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. The dies used to press the last pennies sit on display at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. A stray penny sits next to machinery at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. A U.S. Mint employee places the last penny to be struck into a coining press, ending 232 years of penny production in the United States, at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2025. Blank pennies await pressing at the United States Mint ahead of U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach's visit to strike the final five circulating one-cent coins or pennies, ending 232 years of penny production in the United States, at The United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2025. U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach and Norman Patterson, Division Chief of the Coining Division at The United States Mint, pose for a photo with the last struck penny, marking the end of 232 years of penny production in the United States, at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2025. U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach and Kristie McNally, Acting Director of The U.S. Mint, pose for a photo with the last struck penny, marking the end of 232 years of penny production in the United States, at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2025. One last press for the penny: U.S. Mint turns currency into collectors treasure 1 of 21 Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach holds the last penny stamped at the US Mint on November 12, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beach pressed the final pennies at an event held at the facility. The pennies pressed bear a special 'Omega' and will not be put in circulation, but will be auctioned off. Here's what we know about the dime design: What does the new dime look like? The temporary dime design features the face of Liberty on the front, and a variation of the eagle that appears in the Great Seal of the United States. The front design features "a determined Liberty as the winds of revolution waft through her hair," according to the U.S. Mint. "With steadfast resolve, she faces the tyranny of the British monarchy. Her liberty cap bears stars and stripes, at once a symbol of our burgeoning Nation and a reference to early American coinage." The front of the temporary "Emerging Liberty Dime" features the face of Liberty. This design replaces the Roosevelt dime during the United States' commemoration of its 250th anniversary in 2026, according to the U.S. Mint. Usually in the seal, the eagle clutches an olive branch and arrows in its talons, but in the new dime the eagle holds just arrows and has an empty second claw. Advertisement Advertisement The bald eagle's soaring comeback: From near extinction to official US bird The back of the temporary "Emerging Liberty Dime" features an eagle clutching arrows and the phrase "Liberty Over Tyranny." This design replaces the Roosevelt dime during the United States' commemoration of its 250th anniversary in 2026, according to the U.S. Mint. The Roosevelt dime, which has been circulated since 1946, features his profile on the front and a torch, olive branch and oak branch on the back to represent liberty, peace and strength. The U.S. Mint will resume production of the Roosevelt dime in 2027. Did Trump send a message by removing the olive branch? The act to introduce commemorative coins for the 250th anniversary was passed by Congress and signed by Trump a week before he left office at the end of his first presidential term in January 2021. But the specific designs for the now circulating dimes were reviewed and finalized in 2024, according to records of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which was established in 2003 to advise the treasury secretary on coin themes and designs. The front of the dime was designed by Esao Andrews, and the back with the eagle and arrows was designed by Eric David Custer, a medallic artist. Advertisement Advertisement Potential designs for the dime were reviewed in July 2024 and the reverse design with the eagle and arrows was voted for and officially recommended in October, before Trump's reelection, the records show. Notably, the recommendations made by the committee for the semiquincentennial quarters did not come to fruition. Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent nixed the more diverse proposed quarters (which included the themes of the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement and women's suffrage, according to records from the committee's meetings). According to the U.S. Mint, the symbolism of the bird clutching arrows on the back of the dime is meant to represent "the American Revolution and the colonists fight for independence." Custer, a Pennsylvania native, told Spotlight PA that his design takes inspiration from the Great Seal's eagle. It's meant to symbolize the colonists before and during the American Revolution, he told the outlet. He left out the olive branch as a symbol that the colonists had not yet reached peace. The eagle's open claw shows that they were waiting for it, he told Spotlight PA. Advertisement Advertisement Trump's influence on coins is being felt in other ways. The Treasury Department is planning to also unveil a $1 coin featuring the president's face, breaking with tradition not to have coins depicting living presidents. More: Donald Trump wants his face on a $1 coin. Will it happen? The history of the dime The dime has been around since 1796, but it has come a long way since then. Once small silver coins, dimes have gone through several redesigns. Liberty appeared on dimes in various forms up until 1946, when the Roosevelt dime was produced. The Roosevelt dime will again be produced in 2027. The Roosevelt dime design was decided shortly after the former president's death in 1945. Advertisement Advertisement "The dime was a logical choice for honoring Roosevelt because he supported the March of Dimes, a program that raised funds for research to find a cure for polio. He contracted polio when he was 39 years old," the U.S. Mint said. Since 1965, the dime hasn't had any silver in it and is instead a copper-nickel clad. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dimes with no olive branch circulate amid Iran war. Is it a message? Texas regulators approved a prohibition on sales of smokable THC products that starts March 31. The Texas Department of State Health Services finalized the permanent rules after a public comment period ended on January 26. The measures bar stores from offering any smokable forms of THC, including hemp derivatives, but permit edibles and infused drinks. Officials concurred with 21 of the dozens of comments submitted. Among those rejected: requests to exclude THCA, or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, from the total THC definition or smokable ban. THCA converts to a psychoactive substance when burned and previously evaded marijuana restrictions through a loophole. Advertisement Advertisement Retailers and manufacturers of consumable hemp products will face higher fees, though they are reduced from the initial proposals. Annual retail fees will rise to $5,000 per location from $150. Manufacturers must pay $10,000 per facility, up from $250. Thousands of stores hold licenses to sell hemp products statewide. Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on September 10 directing the changes, including minor protections and limits on sales locations. The order followed a legislative push to ban THC products outright. Abbott vetoed Senate Bill 3, backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Patrick called THC products poison and held press conferences accusing companies of marketing to youth. Brisk temperatures gave way to sunshine as 4,000 marchers made their way down South Street for Morristowns annual St. Patricks Day parade, cheered on by an even larger crowd of residents and visitors. Longtime volunteer Michael Bannon, a Roxbury resident who has helped organize the parade for 35 years, led the procession as this years grand marshal. "My No. 1 job as grand marshal is to ensure we have good weather," Bannon joked before the parade. "Depending on the weather and how good a job I do, we will have between 50,000 and 75,000 people." Advertisement Advertisement Along the route, families dressed in green lined the sidewalks and children sat along the curb watching pipe bands, dancers and community groups pass. Spectators stood several rows deep along parts of South Street, many waving Irish flags as the bands marched past. Story continues below photo gallery Music highlights included traditional Irish bands including the Rory O'Moore Pipe Band of Roxbury and high school marching bands from Morristown, Madison and Wallington. Traditional Irish dancers joined the bands along with scouting groups, community groups, civic and cultural organizations, fire companies and a variety of colorful floats and displays. Cash and coin donations were tossed by the crowd onto a large Irish flag held horizontally by volunteers. Advertisement Advertisement Why Morris County will spend $85M to expand historic county courthouse With financial support from prime sponsor CIE Tours and other benefactors, the organization covers all parade expenses, including police overtime and cleanup. It also supports a variety of charitable organizations, including the Market Street Mission in Morristown, St. Peter's Orphanage in Denville and the Morris County Interfaith Food Pantry, based in Morris Plains. The parade committees have donated more than $600,000 to various organizations since the tradition began, organizers say. Mar 14, 2026; Morristown, NJ, USA; Morristown St. Patrick's Day parade on South Street. Excluding a handful of weather- or COVID-related disruptions, the parade has marched every year since 1979, when it was started in Wharton by the Irish American Association of Northwest Jersey. In 1991, the association partnered with the Friendly Sons of St Patrick of Morris County to move the parade to Morristown, where it has been held ever since. Advertisement Advertisement The move was a nod to Morris Countys history and the town's proximity to Jockey Hollow, part of Morristown National Historical Park, an encampment site for George Washington's Revolutionary Army. One of the first St. Patrick's Day parades in the United States took place during that encampment's hard winter of 1779-1780. According to historical records, Irish soldiers fought on both sides of the war, but more sided with the American forces. Washington ordered work parties to cease for one day so about one-quarter of his army could celebrate its Irish heritage. Staff writer David Zimmer contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Morristown St. Patrick's Day Parade draws thousands Another storm system could bring thunderstorms, damaging winds and accumulating snow to parts of the Chicago area this weekend. The National Weather Service issued a Wind Advisory for Will, Kankakee, Livingston, Lake (Ind.), Jasper, Porter and Newton counties from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Boone County is under a Winter Storm Watch from 10 p.m. Sunday to 7 p.m. Monday. Wisconsin's Walworth, Kenosha and Racine counties are under Winter Storm Watch from 4 p.m. Sunday to 7 p.m. Monday. Advertisement Advertisement Parts of the Chicago area fall under a Level 1 or Level 2 risk of severe weather on Sunday. Storms are possible in the midday hours and could stick around into the early evening. There is a small risk of tornadoes, mainly south and east of the city. Between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Sunday, the main concerns are small hail and gusty winds. But a line of storms that will move rapidly across the area between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. poses the biggest threat. Winds will be gusty with a few peak gusts to 45 mph, mainly south and east of Chicago. Sunday night into Monday morning, rain is expected change into snow. Snow showers are expected between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. with gusty winds continuing. Advertisement Advertisement Some accumulation will be possible, especially for the west and northern parts of the area. Amounts will range from about 1 inch south to as much as 4 inches north. This comes after at least three people died when strong storms hit the Chicago area on Tuesday. A husband and wife were found dead at their Lake Village, Indiana home, which was hit by a tornado. An Army veteran was found dead in Aroma Park, Illinois tornado wreckage. Kankakee County community rallies around neighbors impacted by tornado damage The Fun Hub bar has turned into a location for anyone looking for assistance in Aroma Park. And just days after powerful tornadoes left destruction in their wake, people in that Kankakee County community came together to help their neighbors in need on Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement The Fun Hub bar has turned into a location for anyone looking for assistance in Aroma Park. Amanda Jolly is the manager. She and Allie Brooks organized a relief effort that took off quickly. "I was taking to her, and I was like, we have food. Why don't we cook it tomorrow and hand it out to the community, the people who need it, because I didn't want it to go to waste," Jolly said. Brooks says she took to social media to ask any who could to pitch in whatever help or supplies they could. And, she says, the outpouring of support is humbling. "It's hard, but we are so fortunate that we are able to serve the ones who have been directly affected. I have some damage, she has some damage, but nothing compares to if you actually drove around to see the pure devastation in Aroma," Brooks said. Advertisement Advertisement And in Kankakee, the organization Still I Rise did its part to meet the needs of people affected by the tornado there by hosting an emergency community giveaway. "Today, we were able to give away clothing items, hygiene items, boots, just much needed items to help those in need," said Still I Rise Executive Director Tocarra Robinson. The American Red Cross is moving its shelter that is being used to help the storm victims. It was at Kankakee Community College, which is expected to reopen on Monday. On Sunday, the Red Cross is planning to move the shelter to Redeeming Life Ministries on Waldron Road. It is available to anyone who needs help. Advertisement Advertisement Strong wind gusts followed that storm system, damaging buildings and downing trees and power lines in the north suburbs on Friday. Looking ahead, temperatures on Monday will be quite cold with highs only in the 20s and windchills down around zero. Tuesday will be another very cold day with windchills starting below zero. Air temperatures may be in the single digits on Tuesday morning. The area will start to warm up later in the week, but there will be a chance for some more snow showers on Wednesday morning. Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Saturday criticised the United States' regional security role, saying Washington's security umbrella has failed to protect countries in West Asia. In a post on X, Araghchi said, "Touted US security umbrella has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble." https://x.com/araghchi/status/2032872630236152139 "US is now begging others, even China, to help it make Hormuz safe," he added. Araghchi also called on neighbouring regional countries to remove foreign "aggressors". "Iran calls on brotherly neighbours to expel foreign aggressors, especially as their only concern is Israel," he said. Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that Washington would be sending warships along with other countries to keep the Strait of Hormuz "open and safe". Trump also called upon China, France and Japan, among others, to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz and said that the US would bomb the shoreline and continually shoot Iranian boats and ships. He made the remarks in a post on Truth Social. Trump said that several countries in conjunction with the United States would send warships to ensure the Strait of Hormuz remains open. "Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Iran's Military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are", he wrote. He added, "Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!" (ANI) For the Persian Gulfs oil-rich and mostly cosseted residents, Irans pummeling has been as unexpected as it has been terrifying. Many expats have beaten a retreat home, as Iran launched missile and drone salvos, tearing up airports, apartment blocks and oil terminals. For the people of the tiny nation of Kuwait just 50 miles across the sea from Iran the conflict is a re-awakening of a decades-old nightmare when it found itself at the heart of the first Gulf War. In Kuwait City, at the northern end of the gulf, Khalid Al-Ozaina, a sprightly 70-year-old fisherman, squints into the warming sun as he recalls Iraqi dictator Saddam Husseins invasion of the country on August 2, 1990. That was the last time we were banned from fishing, he says. Advertisement Advertisement Around him hundreds of pleasure boats from the fishing club he runs sit high and dry, marooned on the dock. Wistfully he stares out over the marinas deceptively calm waters, longing to get a rod in his hand again. Are things as bad as they were back then? he asks. No they are not, but it is dangerous he admits Irans missiles and drones make sure of that. Husseins war was so brutal its legacy became fused into Kuwaits modern DNA, intertwining its destiny with the United States as much as with its near neighbors. Kuwaits calculus changed when the Iraqi dictators elite Republican Guard troops swarmed across the border. Within two days, Hussein had total control of his tiny southern neighbor and its vast oil fields. It shocked the world, sending gas prices soaring, and began the ugliest era in Kuwaits history. Advertisement Advertisement During seven months of occupation and barbaric repression, thousands of Kuwaiti troops and civilians were killed. Hussein, previously considered a close ally of the US, had claimed Kuwaits oil as his own. His troops were ultimately driven out by a massive 39-nation coalition totaling more than half a million troops, that became known as Gulf War One or Operation Desert Storm. It was launched from Saudi Arabia and led by US President George Bush. As Iraqi troops fled coalition forces, they torched Kuwaits oil fields. Black smoke and sticky dark rain smothered the country. It was so bad legendary Texan oil well firefighter Paul Red Adair was called in to battle the infernos and cap the wells. Part of that wars legacy was the US setting up several large military bases which Iran has attacked in this war, killing six US military personnel. Four Kuwaiti forces have also been killed, as well as an 11-year-old girl who was killed by falling shrapnel from an Iranian drone while asleep in bed. Many more civilians have been injured. Advertisement Advertisement The crucible of this war will be the narrow Strait of Hormuz, about 500 miles southeast down the gulf from Kuwait, and Irans Kharg Island just 130 miles away. Mourners take part in a funeral ceremony for three Kuwaiti soldiers in the Sulaibikhat area of Kuwait City on March 3. - Jaber Abdulkhaleq/Anadolu/Getty Images At their closest points Kuwait is just 50 miles from Iran. Every Kuwaiti knows tankers in and around the countrys waters will be in Irans crosshairs, as well as its oil facilities on land. In 1991 Kuwaits wealth was saved and the country prospered. Kuwait and its neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council have tapped their oil wealth to attract international investment, used to build gleaming glass-and-steel cities for their growing and thriving populations. Ironically, it is their oil wealth that makes the Gulf states such easy prey for Irans pressure campaign against US President Donald Trump. Irans logic is simple: the higher oil prices are, the greater Americas economic pain, and the quicker Trump will get out of the war. Advertisement Advertisement Irans missile barrages are also designed to send a message to its Gulf neighbors: their investments are precariously vulnerable to Tehrans pernicious whim. Iran hopes that will lead them to pressure Trump directly to end this conflict sooner rather than later. But Iran may have miscalculated the resolve of its neighbors. Khaled Al-Rashid, a 66-year-old retired air traffic controller, enjoying a spring evening in Kuwait Citys ancient souk says this war isnt as cataclysmic as the conflict in the early 90s. Now its only missiles, and the Kuwait air defense intercepts 98% of them, he says. It seems to be a view shared by many Kuwaiti families thronging the busy, brightly lit streets, gazing into store windows looking for family gifts for the coming Eid holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan, or relaxing in the many outdoor cafes with friends, smoking shisha, supping on minted tea, or sharing some Arabic mezza. The Iranian regime believes the Gulf states can influence the US, Al-Rashid says. This is why they are attacking us. This is why they target (oil facilities) to increase oil prices so Europe too can pressure the US. Advertisement Advertisement But, he says, thats not going to happen. They can fire more missiles but that wont destabilize us. Even so, as Ramadan reaches its festive conclusion this coming week, the Kuwaiti government is tempering expectations of a quick end. It has banned concert performances and wedding celebrations during the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday, citing security fears around large gatherings. Many Kuwaitis, while resilient, fear the war could drag on for months. Al-Ozaina, the fishing club president, reckons it could last six, even seven months, while former air traffic controller Al-Rashid has this salutary message: This is a war Kuwait has no interest in and would not benefit from Whoever confronts Iran will lose. CNNs Sarah El Sirgany contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Several tornadoes touched down in Ohio during severe storms on March 11, 2026, destroying buildings and uprooting trees, the National Weather Service confirmed following damage surveys on Thursday, March 12. The storms also spawned twisters across in the Midwest, including in Indiana and Illinois, and are being blamed in two deaths in Indiana. In Ohio, tornadoes struck two western counties, Shelby and Auglaize, roughly 90 miles from Columbus, according to the NWS office in Wilmington, Ohio. Additionally, a microburst was confirmed in Upper Sandusky in Wyandot County, roughly 65 miles north of Columbus, according to NWS Cleveland. Advertisement Advertisement Here are the details on Ohio's tornadoes. Tornadoes devastate the Midwest: See photos of damage Tornadoes touch down in Shelby, Auglaize counties in Ohio The first tornado in Ohio touched down at 10:17 a.m. March 11 north of the village of Anna and south of the village of Botkins in Shelby County, according to NWS Wilmington. It cut a 1.9-mile path 60 yards wide in the three minutes it was on the ground. The NWS rated it an EF-0, with peak winds speeds of 80 mph. This tornado destroyed two barns and lifted the roof off a third. It damaged a garage and snapped or uprooted trees. The second tornado in Shelby County touched down at 10:18 a.m. just north of Anna and lifted at 10:22 a.m., cutting a 3-mile path 50 yards wide. The NWS also rated it an EF-0, with peak wind speeds of 80 mph. This tornado overturned an RV and two semi trailers. It damages properties, blew the shingles off a house and garage, destroyed an outbuilding and downed trees. Advertisement Advertisement The third tornado struck in Auglaize County west of St. Johns and south of Uniopolis at 10:22 a.m. and stayed on the ground for one minute. It cut a path 0.57 miles long and 40 yards wide. The NWS rated it an EF-0, with peak wind speeds of 85 mph. It heavily damaged at least three outbuildings. No injuries or fatalities were reported in any of these tornadoes. The National Weather Service suspect tornadoes struck northeast Illinois, causing damage as warnings and severe weather impact local communities. Microburst hits Upper Sandusky in Wyandot County A swath of straight-line winds hit the north side of Upper Sandusky at 11:08 a.m. and ended two minutes later, according to NWS Cleveland. The winds cut a 4.5-mile path 1,000 yards wide and injured two. The NWS estimated peak wind speeds at 85 mph. The microburst, a column of fast-moving sinking air within a thunderstorm, flipped a semi tractor-trailer on US Route 23, brought down powerlines and uprooted a large tree. It damaged barns, the roof of a business as well as a garage door and windows of another building. Advertisement Advertisement Tornado watch vs. warning: What's the difference? What to know How are tornadoes confirmed? After suspected tornadoes are spotted, crews from National Weather Servic survey possible tornado damage in person. The pattern of damage, not how much damage was caused, determines whether it was a tornado, according to the weather service. For tornadoes, with their violently rotating columns of air, damage often has a chaotic appearance, with larger uprooted trees often crossing each other. Weather service surveyors often look at larger uproots of trees to get a true idea of where the wind was blowing from. What's the difference between a tornado and a microburst? The National Weather Service defines a microburst as a localized column of sinking air within a thunderstorm. Wind speeds in microbursts can reach up to 100 mph or higher, which is equivalent to an EF1 tornado. Winds this high can cause major damage to homes and other structures and level hundreds of trees. Advertisement Advertisement Again, the weather service looks at the pattern of damage to determine a microburst. Damage from a microburst looks flattened out, with trees pointing in the same direction or fanning out from one another. How are tornadoes rated? The Enhanced Fujita Scale classifies tornadoes into the following categories: EF0: Weak, with wind speeds of 65 to 85 mph EF1: Weak, 86 to 110 mph EF2: Strong, 111 to 135 mph EF3: Strong, 136 to 165 mph EF4: Violent, 166 to 200 mph EF5: Violent, greater than 200 mph This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: National Weather Service confirms tornadoes in Ohio. Here's where OGDEN, Utah (ABC4) A former tow truck driver has been found guilty of negligent homicide after unsecured construction equipment fell off his truck and killed a father and daughter in July 2024. On July 6, 2024, a tow truck was heading eastbound in Ogden Canyon when a bulldozer fell from the back of the truck around milepost 8 in the canyon. The bulldozer fell on a westbound SUV that had five occupants. Two of the occupants were fatally injured and the other three were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The deceased individuals were later identified as Richard David Hendrickson and his daughter, Sally. Advertisement Advertisement Previous Coverage: Utah CEO, daughter identified as victims of fatal Ogden crash Hendrickson was the CEO and president of Utah-based company Lifetime Products, and the company was the one to identify the victims. 53-year-old Michael John Love, the tow truck driver, was arrested and charged with two counts of manslaughter (second-degree felony), aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury (second-degree felony), obstruction of justice with second or third-degree felony conduct (third-degree felony) and obstruction of justice (class A misdemeanor). According to Loves arrest documents, Love had secured the bulldozer with one small chain on the back and a tow-hook winch on the front, which law enforcement described as, wholly inadequate for retaining the weight of the dozer in place. FILE Wreckage of crash killing Utah CEO and daughter in Ogden Canyon (Courtesy of Utah Dept. of Public Safety) Photos of the fatal crash. Courtesy: Utah Department of Public Safety Advertisement Advertisement Additionally, the dozer was reportedly 4,300 pounds over the weight limit for Loves tow truck. Court documents also state that Love had lied to investigators following the incident, claiming that he had more chains securing the bulldozer than he actually did and that the victims vehicle had struck his before the bulldozer came loose. Tow truck driver accused of lying to police after deadly crash killed Ogden CEO, daughter: Documents Loves jury trial started on March 5. On March 13, the jury came back with a verdict. While they found Love not guilty of manslaughter, they did find him guilty of negligent homicide in relation to Richard and Sallys deaths. They also found him guilty of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury for injuring one of the other occupants and guilty of both counts of obstruction of justice for adding chains to the tow truck and lying to investigators following the accident. Advertisement Advertisement Notably, this crash prompted significant conversation about Ogden Canyon and road safety. In September 2025, the Utah Department of Transportation permanently restricted drivers with loads longer than 50 feet in Ogden Canyon. UDOT to restrict drivers with loads longer than 50 feet in Ogden Canyon Following this announcement, UDOT Region one Senior Communications Manager Mitch Shaw referenced the July 2024 crash and stated that, despite the incident being a result of an unsecured load, it was one of several crashes that prompted them to take a closer look at canyon safety and conduct a modeling study. The study indicated that, its physically impossible to travel up the canyon without encroaching on the opposite lane with trucks over 50 feet, according to Shaw. Advertisement Advertisement Loves sentencing is scheduled for April 21, 2026, at 3:30 p.m. Latest headlines: Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating a crash that killed two people in Lebanon on Friday night. Troopers were dispatched to State Route 741 near milepost 6 in Turtlecreek Township around 10:00 p.m., according to a spokesperson. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: Advertisement Advertisement During the initial investigation, a 2019 Tesla Model 3, operated by 17-year-old Dylan Sougstad from Cincinnati, was traveling south on SR 741. A 2020 GMC Terrain, operated by 53-year-old Chasity Smith, from Trenton, was heading north on SR741. The Tesla crossed over the center line, striking the GMC and then traveling off the west side of the roadway. Both Sougstad and Smith were pronounced dead at the scene. SR 741 between Hamilton Road and State Route 63 was shut down for several hours for cleanup and removal. The crash remains under investigation. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Several of Matt Horns barbecue restaurants in Northern California have closed and now trouble may be brewing at his new Fresno location. Some employees at the Fresno Horn Barbecue have quit. They allege their paychecks have bounced repeatedly, they have been paid in cash or asked for their Venmo or Zelle app info to get paid. And several are still fighting to get paid for their last paychecks. At least two have filed claims with the state for unpaid wages. Advertisement Advertisement The troubles come just seven weeks after the Fresno Horn Barbecue opened, and follow a history of unpaid wage claims and lawsuits at Horns other restaurants in recent years. A representative of Horn told The Fresno Bee that the payment difficulties in Fresno are temporary because the restaurants opening was delayed. The restaurant was spending money without taking any in, said Seneca Scott. The workers will get paid, he said in a phone call. An emailed statement from Horn Barbecue read, in part: Horn Barbecue acknowledges that the delayed opening of our Fresno restaurant created financial challenges that led to payroll delays for some employees. We take this matter seriously and are actively working to resolve outstanding payments as quickly as possible. Two of Horns restaurants remain open The Fresno Horn Barbecue is one of two of Horns restaurants that remain open today, with the Horn Barbecue in downtown Oakland. Advertisement Advertisement Horn, a Fresno native, was considered a rising star in the foodie world in recent years. He made headlines with a James Beard Award nomination. He also had the first-ever Black-owned barbecue restaurant in the country to receive Michelins Bib Gourmand award. He was named one of Food & Wines Best New Chefs in 2021 and featured in Forbes Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Fresno restaurant was a homecoming. It opened in January in Granite Park, near Ashlan and Cedar avenues to long lines for weeks. Unpaid wages But not everything went smoothly from the start, say at least two employees and another who spoke off the record. Advertisement Advertisement Jonathan Franco of Fresno, 51, was hired as dishwasher in February. He also would bus tables and cut up vegetables. His first paycheck bounced, he said. When I got back to work, other people were saying that their checks bounced, too, he said. Managers were asking workers for mobile payment account information, such as Zelle or Cash App, to pay them, he said. He waited a week and when managers said they didnt know when he was going to get paid, he quit. He was eventually paid with a cashiers check, but said he is still owed for his last two weeks of work. Years before applying to Horn Barbecue, Franco had been having medical problems. A bad case of COVID-19 followed by several blood clots led to spotty employment and moving in with his parents. He was hoping the job at Horn would be stable income and a fresh start. Advertisement Advertisement My intention is not to bash Horn, but to get reconciliation, he said. All these people were just in dire need of work and trying to do their best to make this company work. Hes in the beginning stages of filing a claim for unpaid wages with the Labor Commissioners Office. In the meantime, hes landed a job with a new restaurant scheduled to open later this month. It was a similar story for Santino Capps, 19, of Fresno. He got hired in early January for his first job as a cashier, busser and server of sides such as mac n cheese. The first time when we got our checks, it bounced on me and I had to get it in cash, he said. Advertisement Advertisement I thought, OK, things happen; we just started. But then it happened again and again and again. Only one paycheck went through properly during his time there, he said. Recently, when he inquired about a bounced check, he said he was told to pass along his information so he could get paid via Zelle. After three days of reminding the person, he was paid, he said. He quit after that, but said he is still owed at least 20 hours of pay. Horn Barbecue also pools its tips from customers. That means everyone, including cooks and bussers, gets a share. Capps is waiting for that portion of his pay, too. In the meantime, hes thinking of applying at The Cheesecake Factory. Advertisement Advertisement At least two other people in the Fresno area have filed claims for unpaid wages. One was filed March 9 and is in the beginning stages. The other was filed Oct. 21 of last year and is being investigated. The office does not share the amounts owed or any other information. Seven other claims two in Sacramento and five in Oakland are still open. Four other claims against Horns companies have been closed or settled. Said Franco: Im all for people trying to succeed in California, but when you have a history of doing this and repeating yourself and knowing youre doing it, its wrong and needs to be brought to light. Delayed opening Horns representative said the restaurant was supposed to open in July instead of its official opening in late January. Advertisement Advertisement Due to permit delays in the city, just a lot of unexpected back and forth. They were burning a lot (of money) without opening their doors, Scott said. Those delays led to a loss of income, he said. The Bee documented some of those delays in August, when it reported that Horn Barbecue was listed as one of 10 businesses on a facility closures report posted by the Fresno County health department. According to the report, the restaurant was closed due to remodel. At the time, Horn said some final plan requests related to the bar and kitchen areas were being addressed. Horns statement to The Bee on Thursday, which can be read in full below, continues: Our team members are the heart of this restaurant, and we remain committed to stabilizing operations and honoring our obligations while continuing to serve the Fresno community. Like many independent restaurants, opening a new location can come with unexpected challenges. Our focus now is clear: addressing outstanding obligations, supporting our staff, and continuing to build a restaurant that Fresno can be proud of. Advertisement Advertisement Scott noted that the business environment in California is very challenging right now for everyone. Were confident hell right the ship, he said. Horns restaurants Fresno native and acclaimed barbecue chef Matt Horn checks on barbecue meats on the smokers at Horn Barbecue on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. But even if Fresno thrives, Horns barbecue empire in Northern California is not what it once was. His original Oakland location of Horn Barbecue was destroyed in a fire in 2023 and is being investigated as arson. Another Horn Barbecue has since opened in Oakland on the site of Horns spinoff restaurant, Mattys Old Fashioned. The Elk Grove Horn Barbecue closed in January when the landlord repossessed the space for unpaid rent. Horn was evicted from his Lafayette restaurant though he has insisted it will reopen, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Advertisement Advertisement West Oaklands Kowbird, a hot chicken sandwich restaurant, also closed last year. The Kowbird inside a food hall in Las Vegas also closed. According to reporting by the Chronicle in 2024, Horn has faced more than $500,000 in lawsuits and wage claims. Statement from Horn Barbecue Horn Barbecue acknowledges that the delayed opening of our Fresno restaurant created financial challenges that led to payroll delays for some employees. We take this matter seriously and are actively working to resolve outstanding payments as quickly as possible. Our team members are the heart of this restaurant, and we remain committed to stabilizing operations and honoring our obligations while continuing to serve the Fresno community. Like many independent restaurants, opening a new location can come with unexpected challenges. Our focus now is clear: addressing outstanding obligations, supporting our staff, and continuing to build a restaurant that Fresno can be proud of. Horn Barbecue earned national recognition for its dedication to craft and community. The restaurant received a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation, and Chef Matt Horn has been recognized as a Food & Wine Best New Chef and was a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. Bringing Chef Horns vision back to his hometown of Fresno marks an exciting new chapter. We look forward to welcoming the community to experience the barbecue and hospitality that have made Horn Barbecue one of Californias most talked-about destinations. Lunchtime visitors check menus while waiting in line outside Horn Barbecue in Fresno's Granite Park shopping center on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. The long-anticipated barbecue restaurant opened on Tuesday, Jan. 20. (CRAIG KOHLRUSS/ckohlruss@fresnobee.com) A federal judge has sided with U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Columbus, in her efforts to learn more about the Trump administration's plans to temporarily close the Kennedy Center for a "complete rebuilding." Beatty serves in a congressionally appointed role on the center's board, which President Donald Trump has sought to transform during his second term. In February 2025, he appointed all new members to the board of trustees, which voted Dec. 18 to change the name to The Trump Kennedy Center. Its legal name remains the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, unless Congress formally changes it. Beatty sued the Trump administration over the new name in December. She previously said that the vote to change the name happened with inadequate notice and that she was repeatedly barred from speaking during the meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Trump announced Feb. 1 on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the center would shut down for two years for construction. Many performers canceled scheduled appearances in protest of Trumps changes. A U.S. District judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration March 14 to share documents about the shutdown and allow Beatty to participate in a March 16 board meeting. U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty speaks during a Jan. 19 event in Columbus. On March 14, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide Beatty more details about his plan to close the Kennedy Center and let her participate in a March 16 board meeting. Beatty said in a statement shared by Democracy Defenders Action, a nonprofit advocacy organization, that Trump does not have the authority to make sweeping changes to the center. No president has the authority to shut Congress out of the governance of the Kennedy Center, much less unilaterally rename or demolish it, Beatty said. We will not stand by while an important part of our national heritage is jeopardized, and I intend to make that clear at next weeks board meeting. Advertisement Advertisement Anna Lynn Winfrey covers the northwestern suburbs for The Columbus Dispatch. She can be reached at awinfrey@dispatch.com. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Trump admin ordered to let Joyce Beatty join Kennedy Center meeting Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Friday took action to hit back at two of the Trump administrations top antagonists: Oil supply disruptions brought on by the war in Iran and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Wright issued an order paving the way for a company operating off the California coast to restart an oil pipeline that state officials have kept offline since 2015. The Energy Department framed it as a way to ease reliance on oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil tanker traffic that the war has choked off. Today, more than 60 percent of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz presenting serious national security threats, the department wrote in its announcement. Wright said in a statement that the move would strengthen Americas oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness." Advertisement Advertisement Wright's directive invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that gives the president broad powers over domestic industry in the interest of national defense. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier Friday that delegated some of his authority under the law to the energy secretary, opening the door to Wrights move. Newsom was quick to push back against the Trump administrations justification. Donald Trump started a war, admitted it would spike gas prices nationwide, told Americans it was a small price to pay, and now he's using this crisis of his own making to attempt what hes wanted to do for years: open Californias coast for his oil industry friends so they can poison our beaches, Newsom said in a statement. He called the attempt to restart the pipeline illegal and said that it wouldnt lower prices by a cent due to the fact that oil prices are set on the global marketplace. In overriding California's authority over a pipeline system that connects a trio of offshore platforms to the California coast, Wright is also bringing the full powers of the federal government to bear against California in an escalating conflict over whether oil producers should be allowed to expand drilling off the Golden State coast. Advertisement Advertisement The pipeline owner, Texas-based Sable Offshore, appealed last year to Trumps National Energy Dominance Council for help securing federal permits to transport its oil to market in a bid to get around state regulators, who had raised environmental concerns. Bringing Sables oil to market wont come close to making up for the supply disruptions caused by the war in Iran, according to Ryan Cummings, chief of staff of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. While the nearby oil will provide a more profitable supply to Golden State refiners, we shouldnt expect that to really flow through to consumers in any meaningful way in California, and certainly not in the United States, Cummings said. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has already sued the U.S. Transportation Department over its December move to assert jurisdiction over Sable's pipelines. Wright's order sets the stage for more legal clashes between California and the White House. Advertisement Advertisement California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our $51 billion coastal economy, Newsom said. The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders, and we will see them back in court. Wrights directive is a lifeline for Sable, a company whose stock price had plummeted at the end of last year amid the barrage of regulatory setbacks. Its share value rose significantly after a Department of Justice opinion on March 3 signaled that the company might benefit from a presidential intervention. Company representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Sables pipeline system has been shut down since it was responsible for a major 2015 oil spill in Santa Barbara County, while owned by a different company. Sable purchased the three offshore platforms, the pipelines and an onshore processing facility in 2024 and has been working to restart the operation ever since. But the company has run afoul of state and local agencies in the process. The California Coastal Commission fined the company $18 million, accusing it of defying orders to stop work on its pipeline. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Sable in October alleging water discharge violations, and the Santa Barbara County District Attorney filed criminal charges against the company in September alleging environmental violations. Advertisement Advertisement In December, the U.S. Transportation Departments Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration wrested oversight of Sables pipelines from the California Fire Marshal and approved the companys restart plan. California Attorney General Rob Bonta then sued the federal pipeline regulator, challenging the move in a case that remains ongoing. A California judge last month ruled that Sable still needed a waiver from the state fire marshal before restarting the pipeline, citing a federal consent decree in the wake of the 2015 spill. President Trump is asserting executive authority to demand the controversial resumption of offshore oil drilling along California's coastline as gas prices soar amid the ongoing war with Iran. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order giving the Department of Energy the ability to use a Cold War-era law known as the Defense Production Act to accelerate oil and gas development. Energy Secretary Chris Wright quickly responded with an order directing Sable Offshore Corp. to restore operations of the Santa Ynez Unit, which includes offshore oil rigs in federal waters and a network of pipelines that run along the Santa Barbara County coast and inland. "Todays order will strengthen Americas oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness," Wright said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the action as "an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting." Newsom said Trump started a war knowing it would increase gas prices nationwide, and is now using the conflict as a pretext to "open Californias coast for his oil industry friends so they can poison our beaches." He pledged to take legal action against the move. Representatives for Sable did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Read more: How the spike in gas prices is jolting California's giant economy Advertisement Advertisement Friday's announcements seek to make good on previous threats from the Trump administration to force the resumption of offshore oil drilling in California. They also follow more than a year of effort from Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. to revive dormant oil infrastructure along the Santa Barbara County coast. Environmental organizations, residents and state political leaders have strongly opposed such resumption, citing potential dangers to ocean health. Sable has faced particular backlash over its efforts to restart a pipeline that ruptured in 2015, sending 100,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean and devastating marine life in one of the biggest oil spills in state history. Once fully online, Sable's Santa Barbara County facilities could produce around 50,000 barrels of oil a day, replacing nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month, according to the Department of Energy. Still, this represents a drop in the bucket compared with the estimated 20 million barrels a day currently held up by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz in response to ongoing American and Israeli attacks. Advertisement Advertisement "The reality is that restarting the Sable project would produce nowhere near enough oil to lower the skyrocketing gas prices families are facing," U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) said in a statement. "[Trump's] reckless war is causing immense damage, and jamming the Sable project through is a hollow solution." Wright on Friday said resuming offshore drilling was necessary to address "supply disruption risks caused by California policies that have left the region and U.S. military forces dependent on foreign oil." He denounced "decades of radical state policies" that he said were driving a decline in domestic oil output, and called California's reliance on overseas oil a national security threat. He also said that restoring Sable's operations will create hundreds of jobs and generate millions in economic activity. Read more: Gas prices soaring, Trump administration sets stage to OK controversial offshore oil plan Advertisement Advertisement Critics of the resumption say that Americans will see no direct price benefit from a limited increase in domestic oil output, noting that U.S. oil is sold to the highest bidder worldwide and not at a discount for Americans. When crude oil prices rise, American crude oil sells at the same elevated global price. Two weeks into the Iran war, crude oil has reached $100 a barrel, and the average price of gas in California has topped $5.40 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Assn. Talia Nimmer, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, decried Trump's executive action as a "revolting power grab by an extremist president." "Trump is misusing this Cold War-era law just to help a Texas oil company skirt vital state laws that protect our coastline, and Californians will pay the price, Nimmer said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement Read more: Trump wants oil drilling off the coast of California. But does anyone else? The Defense Production Act, invoked by Trump on Friday, gives the president broad power to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense or emergencies. It was used by former President Biden to help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and by Trump last year to ramp up domestic mineral production. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice released a legal opinion stating that the act could be used to give the federal government authority to plow past the California laws impeding Sable from resuming production. Sable is still awaiting approval from the California Coastal Commission and California State Parks. The company purchased the closed Santa Barbara drilling facilities from Exxon in 2024 and began efforts to resuscitate the drilling infrastructure, which have been met with a series of lawsuits. Advertisement Advertisement Read more: How grand plans to restart oil drilling off Santa Barbaras coast hit Californias green wall Environmental groups have challenged the Office of the State Fire Marshal's issuance of waivers to pipeline safety requirements for Sable, and also won a preliminary injunction last July after taking legal action following Sables May announcement that it had resumed oil production from one of three offshore platforms. The oil company has been cited by the Coastal Commission for unlawful work in sensitive coastal habitat, sued by the California attorney general and faced criminal charges from the Santa Barbara district attorney for alleged unlawful discharge into waterways. In January, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration, alleging it overstepped its regulatory authority to restart pipelines tied to Sable's Santa Barbara drilling operations. Advertisement Advertisement Federal regulators are also investigating whether Sable improperly shared investor information, according to Bloomberg. Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The Donald Trump administration has sued the state of California, led by Governor Gavin Newsom (D), over the latters emissions goals. State Specific Mileage Requirements In an official statement, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said the administration was suing the California government for imposing an illegal electric vehicle (EV) mandate on the automotive industry. The agency added that the government was doing so by enacting state-specific mileage requirements, adding that Federal law prohibited individual states from adopting emissions norms. Advertisement Advertisement I was proud to stand alongside President Trump to unveil our plan to eliminate the Biden-Buttigieg EV mandate, Duffy said in the statement, adding that Newsom was determined to the Democrat's radical EV fantasy. Don't Miss: He also took to the social media platform X on Thursday to slam Newsom. The Trump Administration WILL hold California accountable for OUTRAGEOUS attempts to push an ILLEGAL EV mandate onto Americans, he said, quoting a post from the Department of Justice. He added that the administration will deliver on the promise of affordable cars to Americans. The Trump Administration WILL hold California accountable for OUTRAGEOUS attempts to push an ILLEGAL EV mandate onto Americans @TheJusticeDept @USDOT@POTUS understands that FREEDOM means AFFORDABLE CARS and @USDOT will DELIVER for the people of this GREAT country https://t.co/Gfpi2PTfiT Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) March 12, 2026 Department Of Justice, NHTSA Criticize California Meanwhile, the DOJ, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, also criticized the California government. Oppressive, expensive electric vehicle mandates drive up costs for American consumers and violate federal law, she said in the statement released by the department on Thursday. Trending: Before the IPO: How One Company Quietly Locked Up 500+ Iconic Character Rights On the other hand, NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison also hailed the lawsuit. This litigation will help automakers design and produce cars and trucks to meet one federal fuel economy regulation, he said, adding that the previous Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations were mistaken to enable California to set its own backdoor fuel economy policies. Californias EV Push The news comes as California has been bullish on all-electric mobility. Newsom had earlier outlined a $200 million EV incentive program targeting first-time EV buyers as a point-of-sale rebate. The program required automakers participating in the program to match the incentive amount offered to customers. Advertisement Advertisement California had also surpassed 2.5 million EV sales since Newsom took office in 2019 and highlighted a 300% surge in EV adoption in the state since 2019. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) had also hailed Canadas deal with China that would see 49,000 EVs enter the country at a reduced tariff rate. See Also: This Under-$1 Pre-IPO AI Company Is Still Open to Retail Investors Learn More Trumps Anti-EV Stance Trumps anti-EV stance was outlined by the White House, which earlier announced a relaxation of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The move was hailed by Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley. Trump also doubled down on his criticism of pro-EV policies by the previous Biden administration, calling the admins CAFE standards ridiculous and criticizing Bidens war on internal combustion engines. Duffy, on the other hand, had said that there was a backdoor EV mandate in the U.S., while also touting affordability due to Trumps policies. Iran War Leads To Gas Price Surge However, gasoline prices in the U.S. have risen. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slammed the conflict in Iran, adding that the war would hit Americans hard at the pump. Advertisement Advertisement Rising gas prices have also affected drivers on the Uber Technologies Inc. and the Lyft Inc. platforms, with gasoline owners reporting that they were rationing trips to save on fuel costs. Read Next: Its no wonder Jeff Bezos holds over $250 million in art this alternative asset has outpaced the S&P 500 since 1995, delivering an average annual return of 11.4%. Heres how everyday investors are getting started. Photo courtesy: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock.com Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Advertisement Advertisement Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga: This article Trump Administration Sues Gavin Newsom's California Over Emissions Goals, Sean Duffy Decries 'Illegal EV Mandate' originally appeared on Benzinga.com March 13 (UPI) -- A State Department official was barred Friday from going to Brazil because of a proposed visit to jailed former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for plotting a coup four years ago. The official, Darren Beattie, was approved for a visa to attend a critical minerals summit next week, but his visa was pulled because the meeting with Bolsonaro was determined to be outside his diplomatic authorization, Brazil's Supreme Court ruled Thursday, Bloomberg and The Guardian reported. After the ruling, current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered his government to revoke Beattie's visa entirely, at least partially because U.S. President Donald Trump denied Brazilian health minister Alexandre Padilha a visa and revoked visas held by his wife and daughter. Advertisement Advertisement "That American guy who said he was coming here to visit Bolsonaro, he's been barred from visiting and I have forbidden him from to Brazil so long as they don't free up the visa of my health minister, which has been blocked," Lula said Friday. Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence after he was convicted for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula. The charges were based on Bolsonaro's supporters storming government buildings in January 2023 -- a plan that had started in 2021, before the 2022 election -- in an effort to prevent Lula from taking office. Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said that although Beattie's visa application included the minerals summit and meetings with other Brazilian officials, he only asked for the other meetings after asking for the Bolsonaro visit. Advertisement Advertisement Trump and many within his administration, including Beattie, have been critical of the Brazilian Supreme Court and the country's officials for jailing Bolsonaro on the coup charges. "It should be noted that a visit by a foreign state official to a former president in an election year may constitute undue interference in the internal affairs of the Brazilian state, Vieira told the Supreme Court. Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro, who is the son of the former president, are currently locked in a close race for Brazil's presidency after a poll found them tied for the first time with 41% of participants, which would lead to a runoff election. The Brazilian presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 4, and a runoff would be Oct. 25. Venture capitalist David Sacks, who is President Donald Trumps AI and crypto czar, warned of potentially catastrophic consequences if the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continues. In an episode of the All-In podcast on Friday, he said we should probably find the off-ramp, noting Irans military has been devastated. This is a good time to declare victory and get out, and that is clearly what the markets would like to see, Sacks added. Advertisement Advertisement But he said theres a faction within the Republican Party and elsewhere who wants to escalate the war, send in ground troops, and seek regime change. In fact, Trump initially pointed to regime change when the war started two weeks ago, but has since downplayed it. Meanwhile, he ordered the U.S. military to attack Irans top oil-export node, Kharg Island, and send 2,500 Marines from Asia to the Middle East. The White House didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. Sacks flagged concerns of a tit-for-tat escalation spiral in Iran that could see both sides targeting each others oil and gas infrastructure. Advertisement Advertisement By that point, resuming energy flows by reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed, wont matter because restarting oil and gas production wouldnt be possible, he said. An even worse scenario could unfold if desalination plants are destroyed, Sacks warned. They provide most of the regions fresh water and have already been targeted. If you see that type of destruction continue, you could literally render the Gulf almost uninhabitable, he explained. I mean youre not going to have enough water for 100 million people, and human beings just cannot survive very long without water. So that would be a truly catastrophic scenario, and were talking about destroying the Gulf states economically and then also from a humanitarian perspective. While Israel isnt as vulnerable, Sacks also pointed out the country has been hit hard by Iranian attacks, adding that Israel could just be destroyed or very large parts of it if the war drags on for weeks or months. Advertisement Advertisement In a scenario where Israel is facing such a serious threat, that raises the risk of it escalating the war even further and perhaps contemplate the use of nuclear weapons, he said. So theres a lot of scenarios here, a lot of really frightening scenarios about where escalation could lead, Sacks continued. And even though the United States is a much more powerful country than Iran, they essentially have a dead mans switch over the economic fate of the Gulf states and even potentially beyond that. Given the horrifying directions that further escalation may produce, he said its time to look at de-escalation, which could entail a ceasefire agreement or negotiated settlement. The comments come amid reports that some administration officials are also pushing Trump to seek an off-ramp to the war as the recent spike in oil prices raises political risks. Advertisement Advertisement Sources told Reuters that economic advisers and officials have told him that rising gasoline prices could quickly erode already-weak domestic support for the war. More hawkish voices, however, are urging Trump to continue and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He is allowing the hawks to believe the campaign continues, wants markets to believe the war might end soon and his base to believe escalation will be limited, a Trump adviser told Reuters. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com A leadership shake-up is underway at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a controversial year marked by political clashes, artist boycotts and major changes to the historic arts venue. Ric Grenell, a close ally of Donald Trump, is stepping down as president of the Washington, D.C., venue, the White House confirmed this week. On social media, Trump announced that Matt Floca, the centers vice president of facilities operations, will take over the role pending board approval. Grenell was appointed in early 2025 after Trump moved to dramatically reshape the institutions leadership and direction. Since then, the center has faced mounting backlash from artists and arts organizations who accused the administration of politicizing what had long been considered a largely bipartisan cultural institution. Advertisement Advertisement During Grenells tenure, the center underwent sweeping changes, including a controversial rebranding that added Trumps name to the venue alongside that of former President John F. Kennedy. The move sparked criticism from lawmakers, cultural figures and members of the Kennedy family, some of whom questioned whether the renaming had legal authority without congressional approval. Start your day with essential news from Salon. Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course. The upheaval also triggered high-profile cancellations. Several performers and productions pulled out of scheduled appearances at the venue in protest of the changes, contributing to broader tensions within the arts community. Grenell defended the overhaul as part of a broader effort to reshape programming and address what he described as financial mismanagement under previous leadership. Trump praised him for overseeing what he called a transition period at the center. Advertisement Advertisement The leadership change comes as the Kennedy Center prepares for a major renovation project expected to close the complex for roughly two years beginning this summer. The post Trump ally out as Kennedy Center president appeared first on Salon.com. President Donald Trump tore into the media over coverage of Air Force refueling planes reportedly hit by an Iranian missile strike at a Saudi Arabian air base. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (in particular), and other Lowlife Papers and Media actually want us to lose the War, Trump wrote Saturday morning on Truth Social. Their terrible reporting is the exact opposite of the actual facts! Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost. President Donald Trump called the media "sick and demented" over a report that didn't differ that much from his own account of events. Nathan Howard via Getty Images The presidents post took aim at what he called an intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media about the aircraft. Advertisement Advertisement In actuality, the Base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not struck or destroyed, he wrote. Politics: Mark Kelly Blasts Hegseth For Promising 'No Quarter' To Iranians With 1 Prescient Callback The Wall Street Journal had reported Friday that five tanker planes had been struck and damaged by Iran at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, citing U.S. officials. Notably, the Journal did not state that the planes were destroyed, but in fact wrote that the planes were damaged but not fully destroyed and were being repaired. On Truth Social, Trump said four of the planes had virtually no damage and that the fifth had slightly more damage but would be back in the air shortly. Advertisement Advertisement He then called members of the media truly sick and demented people who have no idea the damage they cause the United States of America. Related... Read the original on HuffPost President Donald Trump made the odd declaration that Iran can continue to assail oil tankers no matter how badly defeated they are in a rant that seemed intended to reassure. As the second week of the Iran war comes to a close, 13 U.S. servicemembers have been killed, a preliminary military investigation has determined the US is responsible for the strike on an elementary school that killed at least 160 children, and attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have exacerbated surging prices and roiled the stock market. But Trump and his administration have kept up a steady drumbeat of attacks on the media for reporting on the full effect of the war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth complained last week that reporting on troop deaths is intended to make the president look bad, and this week loudly demanded positive coverage from a patriotic press corps. Advertisement Advertisement Trump has been especially sensitive about the attacks on oil tankers, which reporters like Maggie Haberman and others have noted do not appear to have been successfully prepared for. In a Truth Social post Saturday morning, Trump simultaneously said the attacks will continue no matter what, but also that we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!: Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Irans Military capability, but its easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! President DONALD J. TRUMP The post came amid news of attacks on the US embassy in Iraq and an oil facility in the UAE. The post Trump Declares Iran Can Attack Oil Ships No Matter How Badly Defeated They Are In Attempt at Reassuring Rant first appeared on Mediaite. President Trump has decided who he would like to see replace Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), his pick to become the next Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, in the Senate. Trump offered Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who launched a bid for the seat this week, his endorsement in a Truth Social post on Friday, calling Hern a true friend of MAGA. Kevin is strongly supported by the fiercest MAGA Warriors in Oklahoma, and the most Highly Respected Leaders in the United States Senate! Trump wrote. As the Chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, Kevin is doing a tremendous job advancing our AMERICA FIRST Agenda. Advertisement Advertisement Kevin Hern will be an outstanding Senator, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! he added. Hern became the first candidate to formally announce a campaign to succeed Mullin on Wednesday, saying in a launch video that he wanted to ensure Trump has a loyal ally in the upper chamber. He echoed that sentiment in a post thanking Trump for his support on the social platform X on Friday. [Trump] has delivered strong leadership for our country, and Im proud to stand with him to secure our borders, strengthen our economy, support our men and women in uniform, and restore the American Dream for hardworking families, Hern wrote. Ive fought to advance the Presidents America First Agenda in the House, and Im eager to continue to be an ally for him in the Senate. Advertisement Advertisement Trumps decision to fire Kristi Noem from DHS and tap Mullin as her replacement created a vacancy in the Senate, where Republicans hold only a slim majority. The seat will not be permanently filled until after the November election, but Oklahoma law allows Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) to appoint another Republican to temporarily serve until then. That appointee is barred from running for the office in the next special or general election, however. Another candidate who floated the possibility of entering the race, Oklahoma Rep. Stephanie Bice (R), said Friday that she had decided not to run. President Trump needs strong allies in the House and it is my honor to champion policies that better the lives of everyday Oklahomans, she wrote on X. In the next few weeks I will file for re-election, and Im excited to continue traveling across the district to share our strong America first agenda. Advertisement Advertisement Shortly after making the announcement, Bice also earned an endorsement from Trump. Thank you to Highly Respected America First Congresswoman, Stephanie Bice, of the Great State of Oklahoma, for deciding, because of her love for her Constituents, and for America, itself, to run for Re-Election to Congress, where she will continue to do a tremendous job serving the people of Oklahomas 5th Congressional District, who have benefitted greatly from our Republican House Majority! he wrote on Truth Social. The primary election is scheduled for June 16. Candidate filing for federal offices is open April 1-3 in Oklahoma, according to the State Election Board. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Earlier this month, 36-year-old Texas state representative James Talarico won the Texas Democratic primary for US Senate over Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Austin American-Statesman/Hearst / Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images Talarico, who is open about his Christian faith and often speaks about how it shapes his public service, ran his campaign on a message centered on unity, compassion, and understanding. He frequently framed his political views through the teachings of Jesus, arguing that faith should call people to care for others and seek justice. During the campaign, he emphasized the importance of listening to people with different viewpoints and working across the aisle to find common ground, rather than leaning into partisan rhetoric. That message gave him broad appeal among rural and Latino voters , who came out to vote for him in large numbers. Danielle Villasana / Getty Images Following his victory, Republicans were quick to attack Talarico and whip up faux outrage. As well as Donald Trump, who many pointed out seemed particularly rattled , taking to his social media site, Truth Social, to write about him: "We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively!" Related: "Who's Gonna Tell Him": This Fox News Host Tried To Drag Gavin Newsom, And It Backfired In The Funniest Way Earlier this week, new polling showed that Talerico leads both John Cornyn, 4443, and Ken Paxton, 4745, his two opponents who are still running for the Texas Republican primary nomination, in a Senate race poll. John Moore / Getty Images Advertisement Advertisement Well, it seems like that polling might have freaked out Trump because he called into the Fox News Radio program, The Brian Kilmeade Show, to essentially crash out over him. Trump melts down over James Talarico: Hes so woke, h-hes grossly incompetent Hes such an insult to Jesus pic.twitter.com/VnT3BHIab9 Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) March 13, 2026 Fox News Audio/ @HQNewsNow / Via Twitter: @HQNewsNow When Kilmeade pressed on which Republican nominee he would endorse for the Texas primary run-off, Trump went on a ramble about Talarico, saying, "The good news is that their candidate is whacked out, with his six different forms of gender. And all the things that I saw The insult to Jesus. I mean, such an insult to Jesus. This guy is whacked-out. He so woke. Hes so woke, h-he's grossly incompetent," in between nonsensically bringing up Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Austin American-Statesman/Hearst / Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images Of course, people online were quick to see through what they viewed as a smokescreen. Saying it's not only clear that Trump and his allies increasingly recognize that Talarico could pose a real political threat and potentially flip a seat, but also the hypocrisy in him saying that Talarico is an insult to Jesus: Related: People Just Noticed What Trump's FBI Director Secretly Wrote On A Note To Himself During A Hearing, And They Can't Stop Laughing Advertisement Advertisement Related: Erika Kirk Was Asked If She Plans To Endorse JD Vance For President In 2028, And Things Got A Little...Awkward Advertisement Advertisement Related: Hillary Clinton Just Hit On One Of Donald Trump's Biggest Insecurities With Three Words Alright, now I want to hear from you! With the new polling, do you think James Talarico actually has a real shot at flipping a Senate seat in Texas? Or do you think the state is still too red for a Democrat to pull it off right now? And do you agree that Trump is really telling on himself in these latest rounds of insults thrown at Talarico? Let us know what you think in the comments below!!! Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images Advertisement Advertisement More on this You Might Like: 27 Dresses From Amazon So Pretty I Just Had To Tell You About Them You Might Like: No, Its Not Photoshop, These 39 Beauty Products Are Just *That* Good Also in In the News: JD Vance Made A Really Gross Joke Involving His Own Penis, And Usha Vance's Face Has Me On The Floor Read it on BuzzFeed.com Pete Hegseth has used a press conference at the Pentagon to criticize journalists over their coverage of the war in Iran, at one point proposing alternative TV headlines. The US defense secretary claimed Iran had been left without a functioning air force, navy or missile defense network after 13 days of strikes, and said the combined US-Israeli air campaign had hit more than 15,000 targets since the war began. What should the banner [on TV] read? he said. How about Iran increasingly desperate? Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, Donald Trump has warned that Iran could be hit hard in the coming days, as the US president described the leaders of the Iranian regime as deranged scumbags. Here are the key stories at a glance. Hegseth attacks media coverage of US attacks on Iran Pete Hegseth on Friday again claimed the US military campaign against Iran has been an unprecedented success, using a Pentagon press conference to accuse journalists of downplaying Washingtons supposed gains on the battlefield. Read the full story Trump calls Iran leaders deranged scumbags as Middle East violence spirals Donald Trump has said Iran will be hit very hard in the coming days, describing leaders of the regime as deranged scumbags who it was a great honor to kill, as Tehran residents reported relentless bombing and violence continued to spiral across the Middle East. Advertisement Advertisement The US presidents comments, which signaled an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign, came as Israeli and US warplanes launched successive waves of attacks on the Iranian capital and elsewhere on Friday. Read the full story ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony US immigration agents in Oregon used a custom-made app to identify neighborhoods and people to target, and had daily arrest quotas they sought to meet during operations, courtroom testimony has revealed. Read the full story Judge orders ICE to release Minneapolis man after 50 days of unlawful detention A federal judge ruled on Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker who has been unlawfully detained for 50 days. Advertisement Advertisement Read the full story Seven in 10 Americans say Trumps tariffs caused higher prices Seven in 10 Americans say Donald Trumps tariffs have led to them paying higher prices, according to an exclusive new poll for the Guardian. The Harris Poll survey presents Republicans with a major problem in the battle for the upcoming midterm elections. The majority of all voters (72%) believe Trumps tariffs have had a negative rather than a positive impact and 67% said tariffs arent the right solution for improving the economy. Read the full story US airports ask for donations for unpaid TSA staff A rising number of US airports are asking for donations to support employees affected by the partial government shutdown with airport security officials missing their first full paychecks Friday. Transportation Security Administration employees have been working in airports around the US without pay since a shutdown began in February after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a funding agreement. Advertisement Advertisement Read the full story Judge blocks justice department from subpoenaing Fed chair Jerome Powell A federal judge on Friday blocked the justice department from serving subpoenas to the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, in an inquiry purported to be about the management of the central banks renovation. Read the full story What else happened today: Catching up? Heres what happened Thursday 12 March. President Donald Trump, hoping to prevent a Democrat from representing him in Floridas statehouse, has endorsed the Republican running for the seat in a special election this month even though the candidates home is not in the district and he recently moved his voter registration to a cheap beach motel to satisfy state law. Trump won House District 87 by 11 points in 2024, but Democrats, powered by antipathy to Trump, have been showing up in droves in otherwise low-turnout contests. Politics: Two Weeks Into War With Iran, Trump Has Been Knocked Back On His Political Heels The result has been a run of successes around the country in special elections, with wins in seats even redder than the one containing 1100 S. Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, Trumps official residence at his Mar-a-Lago country club. Advertisement Advertisement I feel very encouraged, Democratic nominee and political novice Emily Gregory said, rattling off figures showing that Democrats, who are handily outnumbered in the district by registration, have thus far returned more mail ballots than Republicans. State Democrats suspect that even Gov. Ron DeSantis knows that his party could lose that seat, which is why he postponed calling a special election for it for two months after the vacancy happened. A lawsuit filed by Gregory and the ACLU forced his hand. DeSantis office did not respond to a HuffPost query about the delay. Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost. Emily Gregory, the Democrat running in Trump's home House district in Florida, said his Mar-a-Lago residence is "not a friendly door" to knock on. via Associated Press State legislative races are usually about local issues, which in Florida right now include a windstorm property insurance crisis and increasingly unaffordable housing. Yet Trump may have helped make this special election about himself by endorsing Republican Jon Maples even before Januarys primary. Advertisement Advertisement Jon is a very successful Businessman and Civic Leader, who is known and loved, and also endorsed by so many of my Palm Beach County friends, Trump wrote. Politics: Republican Randy Fine Wins Special Election Against Josh Weil In Floridas 6th District Maples, though, was not even registered to vote in the district at the time of Trumps Jan. 6 endorsement. The 43-year-old former member of the Lake Clarke Shores town council did not respond to HuffPost queries. Lake Clarke Shores, south of West Palm Beach, is where the 2,500-square-foot home he and his wife bought nine years ago is located and which receives a homestead exemption property tax break. That, however, is a mile and a quarter west of the House District 87 boundary. His voter registration now shows that he lives in a motel in Palm Beach Shores, 15 miles to the north. Records obtained by HuffPost under the state public records law show that he registered to vote at the motel address on Jan. 12 too late to vote for himself in the Jan. 13 primary for which Trump offered his endorsement and which he handily won. Advertisement Advertisement The motel does not publish its rates on the internet and calls to its listed phone number went unanswered. Its one reviewer on Yelp gave it only one star, citing previous infestations of termites and flies, while noting that the maintenance man does substances all day starting in the morning with a neighbor. Politics: David Jolly Takes Bid For Governor To Reddest Stretches Of Increasingly Red Florida HuffPost could not independently verify the complaints cited by the reviewer. In any case, it is unclear whether Maples actually lives there. Florida requires him to live in the district on Election Day, which in this case is March 24. Advertisement Advertisement One prominent Florida Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Maples is in the process of buying a home inside the district but acknowledged that public records would not yet reflect this. He added that Trump endorsed him because Maples had been a delegate to the 2024 RNC convention. Gregory, who is 40 and runs an exercise business that caters to new mothers, said she has focused on cost-of-living concerns she hears about while campaigning and has thus far knocked on 1,000 doors to turn out Democratic supporters. She has not tried a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Thats not a friendly door, she said. Politics: Ex-GOP Congressman David Jolly Announces Run For Florida Governor, As A Democrat The district favors Republicans by registration by about 10 percentage points, but nearly a third of voters are registered as not affiliated with either party. I think that the independent is a left-leaning independent in this district, she said. Advertisement Advertisement Trump, a native of New York City, is no stranger to Democratic lawmakers, who dominate state legislative and congressional seats in that city. Trump himself donated freely to Democrats prior to running for president in 2016, although he has said he did so in order to make them do as he wanted. With a turnout of perhaps 20% expected, it is unclear who will win in two weeks, although state vote tracking figures show that Democratic voters have returned just under 1,000 more ballots by mail than Republicans as of Friday. Its also unclear whether Trumps endorsement which Maples does not even mention on his website will help or hurt Maples, given Trumps increasing unpopularity. Politics: Secretary Of Defense Hegseth Promises Iranians No Quarter A War Crime I think, in this moment, Trumps endorsement is Kryptonite, said Nikki Fried, the Democratic state party chair. Advertisement Advertisement As to Maples living outside the district, thus far it does not appear to have arisen as a campaign issue. Gregory joked that after the March 24 election, it wont be an issue at all, because she intends to win. As I have told Jon, he doesnt need to worry about it, she said. Political Updates Read the original on HuffPost The lack of interest from the US and Iran suggests both sides are in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump's administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago with a massive US-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts. Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until US and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict. Advertisement Advertisement The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring. US strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, the country's main oil export hub, on Friday night underscored Trump's determination to press ahead with his military assault. Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and threatened to step up attacks on neighboring countries. The war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption as maritime traffic has halted in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported. Satellite imagery from an alleged Israeli strike on the bunker where Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is being guarded. (credit: FAIR USE UNDER ISRAELI COPYRIGHT LAW, ARTICLE 27A) Attempts to open lines of communication Oman, which mediated talks before the war, has tried multiple times to open a line of communication, but the White House has made it clear it is not interested, according to two sources, who, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak freely about diplomatic matters. Advertisement Advertisement A senior White House official confirmed Trump has rebuffed those efforts to start talks and is focused on pressing ahead with the war to further weaken Tehran's military capabilities. "He's not interested in that right now, and we're going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there's a day, but not right now," the official said. During the first week of the war, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Irans leadership and military were so battered by US-Israeli strikes that they wanted to talk, but that it was Too Late! He has a history of shifting foreign policy stances without warning, making it hard to rule out that he might test the waters for restarting diplomacy. "President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated," a second senior White House official said when asked to comment on this story. Advertisement Advertisement The Iranian sources said Tehran has rejected efforts by several countries to negotiate a ceasefire until the US and Israel end their airstrikes and meet Iran's demands, which include a permanent end to US and Israeli attacks and compensation as part of a ceasefire. Egypt, which was involved in mediation before the war, has also tried to reopen communications, according to three security and diplomatic sources. While the efforts do not appear to have made progress, they have secured some military restraint from neighboring countries hit by Iran, according to one of the sources. Egypt's foreign ministry, the government of Oman, and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment. Positions harden on all sides The war's impact on global oil markets has significantly increased the cost for the United States. Advertisement Advertisement Some US officials and advisers to Trump urge a quick end to the war, warning that surging gasoline prices could exact a high political price from the president's Republican Party, with US midterm elections looming. Others are pressing Trump to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic to destroy its missile program and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to Reuters reporting. Trump's rejection of diplomatic efforts could indicate that, for now, the administration has no plans for a quick end to the war. Indeed, both the United States and Iran appear even less willing to engage than during the opening days of the war, when senior US officials reached out to Oman to discuss de-escalating, according to several sources. Advertisement Advertisement One source said Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also sought to use Oman as a conduit for ceasefire discussions that would have involved US Vice President JD Vance. But those discussions have not materialized. Instead, Iran's position has hardened, said a third senior Iranian source. "Whatever was communicated previously through the diplomatic channels is irrelevant now," said the source. "The Guards strongly believe that if they lose control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will lose the war," the source added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary force that controls large parts of the economy. "Therefore, the Guards will not accept any ceasefire, ceasefire talks, or diplomatic efforts, and Irans political leaders will not engage in such talks despite attempts by several countries." March 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday called on nations to send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for shipping as Iranian forces continue their retaliation campaign amid U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the strait, a narrow passage of water between Iran and Oman. Tehran's ability to stop shipping through the channel could give it enormous leverage over the U.S. and its allies. "The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help A LOT!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well." Advertisement Advertisement In an earlier post on Saturday, Trump predicted that "Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe." Trump wrote that he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others would send ships to the area. "In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water," he wrote. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether any countries had agreed to send ships. Advertisement Advertisement Western nations have bolstered their military presence in the eastern Mediterranean during the conflict in Iran, focusing on the security of Cyprus after an Iranian-made drone hit a British military base on the island on March 2. Britain is also exploring additional options for deployments to the Gulf after Iran stepped up attacks on vessels, defence minister John Healey said on Thursday. The British government is talking to allies and partners about "a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region," a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said on Saturday. The French Navy is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict. France has been consulting with European, Asian and Gulf Arab states over the past week with a view to putting together a plan for warships eventually to escort tankers through the strait, French officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Trump said on Thursday the U.S. was willing to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz to protect them from Iranian attack, as his administration searches for ways to ease high oil prices fuelled by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. (Reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Toronto and Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Toby Chopra, Sergio Non, Rod Nickel) President Donald Trumps invocation of the 25-year-old bombing of an American warship as part of his justification for launching a massive bombing campaign against Iran could hamper long-running Pentagon efforts to finally bring the alleged terrorists accused of perpetrating the terror attack to justice. On two occasions over the nearly two weeks since the Defense Department launched Operation Epic Fury against targets across Iran, Trump has claimed Tehran was responsible for the October 2000 bombing of U.S.S. Cole, a grisly attack that killed 17 U.S. Navy sailors and left 37 others injured. When he announced the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign in the early hours of Feb. 28, Trump claimed Tehran knew and [was] probably involved with the Cole attack, and he repeated the allegations during a press conference on Monday when he insisted that Iran had been involved very strongly in the attack. Advertisement Advertisement Yet according to the very government he leads including a blue-ribbon commissions report on the attacks and filings by military prosecutors seeking to convict the alleged perpetrators Iran wasnt involved at all. And thats a key detail, because as Trump recklessly tosses out allegations about the Cole, he is also assisting in the defense of the very al-Qaeda terrorist who is awaiting trial for allegedly planning it. The U.S.S. Cole bombing was the worst attack on an American warship since 1987 (US Navy) According to the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States better known as the 9/11 Commission the attacks were planned and carried out by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent who joined up with al-Qaeda some time between 1996 and 1998 in Afghanistan, allegedly reporting only to the groups leader, Osama bin Laden. The commissions report states that al-Hashiri proposed attacking American warships in late 1998, with bin Laden, a Saudi construction scion who was the groups main financier, giving his approval and providing funds for the operation. After bin Laden allegedly suggested that al-Nashiri look for targets in the Port of Aden on Yemens southern coast, al-Nashiri unsuccessfully targeted the American destroyer U.S.S. The Sullivans 10 months before the successful attack on Cole. Advertisement Advertisement He was captured by the Central Intelligence Agencys Special Activities Division in 2002 as part of the U.S. effort to round up high-level al-Qaeda operatives, and he was moved to the U.S. military brig at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay four years later. The 61-year-old accused al-Qaeda operative is still at Guantanamo, where the U.S. has housed many of the alleged terrorists captured during the early years of the Global War on Terror. He is set to face trial in June before a military commission, which in 2011 formally accused him of three criminal law-of-war violations, conspiracy and terrorism charges stemming from the Cole attack. So when the President of the United States twice declared that Iran not al-Qaeda or any of its members had masterminded the Cole bombing, al-Nashiris legal team took notice. Allison Miller, the lead attorney responsible for defending the accused terrorist operative, told The Independent in an email that Trumps comments impact our defense. Advertisement Advertisement Weve requested additional information from the government regarding the intelligence information that supports President Trumps now repeated claims that Iran is responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole, she added. Because Trumps claim is at odds with the specific accusations the government has made against al-Nashiri in charging documents, the new accusations against Iran could, in theory, serve as a defense for the accused al-Qaeda operative. The Cole bombing claimed the lives of 17 American sailors (US Navy) Its not clear why Trump decided to include the Cole attack among the litany of grievances hes routinely recited against Tehrans government as hes sought to justify a war that has upended financial markets and sent oil prices soaring as Iran has moved to choke off the Wests oil supply by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most commercial traffic. The federal government has never linked Tehran with the bombing, though a 2015 court decision handed down in Virginia as part of a lawsuit by the family of one bombing victim suggested that Irans government had been complicit in the attacks by allowing al-Nashiri to travel freely through the country when transiting between Afghanistan and Yemen. Miller, his attorney, told The New York Times last week that her client has never been to Iran. Advertisement Advertisement But regardless of its veracity, Trumps claim that Tehran was behind the bombing contradicts decades worth of evidence gathered by federal investigators and could imperil the Defense Departments attempt to prosecute al-Nashiri for the attack. According to the commissions charging documents, he allegedly acquired the boat and explosives used in the attack, rented property to surveillance the harbor, modified the boat to turn it into a bomb, and sent the two suicide bombers out in it to attempt to sink the U.S. destroyer. Kind of thing that I think would have stuck out in my mind The strike on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which left a 3,200 square foot hole in the ships port side as it was making a refueling stop in Yemens Aden harbor, was the deadliest strike against an American warship since an Iraqi jet fired two anti-ship missiles at an American frigate, U.S.S. Stark during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. It was one of several terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin Laden during a three-year period leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Advertisement Advertisement The charging documents and 9/11 commission report both go into detail about al-Nashiris preparations for the attack and his association with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. Nowhere in the documents is the Iranian government mentioned. Morris Davis, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who served as the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions from 2005 to 2007, told The Independent in a phone interview that he had no recollection at all of there being any mention of Iran in any documents or evidence relating to al-Nashiri. That's the kind of thing, too, that would have been a pretty significant detail that I think would have stuck out in my mind, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Davis, who resigned as the head of the military commissions prosecution team rather than use evidence obtained through the use of torture, noted that it would have been highly unlikely for Iran to play any role in any al-Qaeda plot. Not only was al-Qaeda led by citizens of Saudi Arabia a rival power to Iran but Davis pointed out that the bin Laden-led organization was made up of Sunni Muslims who would not have wanted any association with the Shiite cleric-led Iranian government. He also told The Independent that were he al-Hashiris lawyer, hed have already filed a motion to compel disclosure of whatever evidence Trump was citing when he claimed Iran was responsible for the Cole attack. If you've got the president, who is the ultimate authority over the military commissions, stating as a fact that Iran was involved in the Cole bombing and your client is facing a murder trial, I would make the government state that the evidence exists or admit that the president was mistaken, he said. Advertisement Advertisement My guess is he pulled this out of his hat as some additional justification for attacking Iran. But to my knowledge, there's no evidence to support his assertion. The former Air Force Judge-Advocate also warned that Trumps comments could potentially blow up the years of work that has already been done to prepare for al-Nashiris trial because the statements could be exculpatory or prejudice the jury of military officers who will ultimately determine al-Nashiris guilt by linking him to a country with which the United States is now at war. It's an aggravated case to begin with, from the fact that we lost service members, but linking him to Iran just makes it worse. So he potentially taints the jury pool by making irresponsible statements like that, Davis said. By Jaidaa Taha, Maya Gebeily, Emily Rose and Jarrett Renshaw DUBAI/JERUSALEM/PALM BEACH, Florida, March 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump urged other nations to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, after Iran threatened escalation across the Middle East to retaliate for Washington's bombing of its main Gulf island energy hub. Tehran's ability to stop shipping through the strait, a major channel for oil and gas shipping, could give it enormous leverage over the U.S. and its allies. Advertisement Advertisement "The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help A LOT!" Trump wrote in a social media post. "The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well." As the war entered its third week, Iran projected defiance after U.S. forces hit military sites at Kharg Island, the Gulf outpost that handles 90% of Iranian oil exports. A drone attack had already disrupted a United Arab Emirates energy hub, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad warned U.S. citizens to leave Iraq and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps urged the U.S. to move industries out of the region. Since Israel and the United States began attacking Iran on February 28, the war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption, pushing up global prices. At least 15 people were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday. Advertisement Advertisement The Israeli military did not immediately comment. Some oil-loading operations have been suspended in the UAE's Fujairah emirate, a global ship-refueling hub, industry and trade sources said on Saturday. The emirate's media office said a drone was intercepted, but civil defence forces as of late Saturday were still trying to put out a fire caused by falling debris. An Iranian military spokesperson called on people in the UAE to evacuate ports, docks, and "American hideouts," saying U.S. forces had targeted Iranian islands from those areas. 'BOMBING THE HELL OUT OF THE SHORELINE' Advertisement Advertisement Trump was spending the weekend at his Florida club. In an earlier post on his Truth Social platform, he anticipated that many countries would send warships to allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world's oil. He said in his post he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others would send vessels. "In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water," he wrote. There was no immediate indication of plans to do so by any of the countries. French officials said on Friday their government was pushing on with efforts to assemble a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilizes. Advertisement Advertisement A British Ministry of Defence spokesperson said on Saturday: "As weve said previously, we are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region." While Trump made his appeal mostly to traditional U.S. allies, historically neutral Switzerland distanced itself from any involvement. The Swiss Federal Council said it rejected two U.S. requests to allow reconnaissance aircraft to fly through Swiss airspace on Sunday en route to Iran, although approval was granted for a maintenance flight and two transport aircraft. Trump had threatened to strike the oil infrastructure of Kharg Island unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. He said on Friday the U.S. had "totally obliterated" military targets there, not energy assets. U.S. Central Command later said it hit more than 90 sites on Kharg, including naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and other military targets. Advertisement Advertisement Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaced his slain father, has said the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed. Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi dismissed speculation from U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that Khamenei was wounded and likely disfigured. "There is no problem with the new supreme leader. He sent his message yesterday, and he will perform his duties," Araqchi told MS Now. Khamenei has not appeared in public, instead issuing a statement on Thursday read by a television presenter. IRAN ACCUSED UAE OF HARBORING SITES FOR U.S. ATTACKS Iran played down the extent of the damage on Kharg Island while threatening to step up its use of more powerful weapons, accusing the UAE of harboring sites for U.S. missile attacks and warning that parts of that country are legitimate targets for retaliatory strikes. Advertisement Advertisement Araqchi said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities and warned it would target U.S. companies in the region or companies in which the U.S. had shares. The UAE's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to the Iranian accusation that the attack on Kharg Island came through the UAE. Nine ballistic missiles and 33 drones were launched from Iran towards the UAE on Saturday, the Ministry of Defence said. Iran warned residents to leave areas near Jebel Ali port in Dubai, Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi and the UAE's Fujairah port and said it was targeting branches of U.S. banks in the Gulf. Advertisement Advertisement Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, is the outlet for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE's Murban crude oil a volume equal to about 1% of world demand. Resentment had already been mounting in Gulf Arab capitals at being drawn into a war they neither initiated nor endorsed, but are now paying for economically and militarily, regional sources have told Reuters. Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said in an X post on Saturday: "The Iranian strategy, which reflects its inability to confront U.S. and Israeli strikes by targeting Arab Gulf states, reveals a military impotence, a moral bankruptcy, and a political isolation." (Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Steve Gorman, Simon Lewis, Stephen Coates, Matthias Williams and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by William Mallard, Jon Boyle, Rod Nickel and Sergio Non) MEMPHIS, Tenn. Two people have been arrested after being accused of scamming victims to hire certain legal services and charging them thousands of dollars without providing services, according to the Shelby County Sheriffs Office. Deputies say they received a complaint about an active scam on March 9. WREG spoke with a Memphis woman in February who warned people about the scam. Officials say victims paid for legal services they never received and later discovered they had been scammed by someone pretending to be a lawyer. Advertisement Advertisement WREG spoke with two women who both had relatives in jail, and they said scammers preyed on them while they were trying to get their loved ones out. Memphis mother loses $1,000 to scammer acting as an attorney Nobody has $1,000 sitting in their back pocket just to willy nilly give it away. Youre taking rent money, their food money, things like that from people. Thats selfish, thats just evil, said Tonya Sanders, a scam victim. Detectives say they determined 41-year-old Candice Eddins was responsible for the scam and was working with someone inside the jail, later identified as Derrick Thomas. Candice Eddins (Shelby County Sheriffs Office) Eddins was arrested on Thursday, March 12 and charged with impersonating a licensed professional and theft of property $2,500 $10,000. She was released from jail on a $75,000 bond. Advertisement Advertisement Thomas is also charged with impersonating a licensed professional and theft of property $2,500 $10,000. According to jail records, Thomas has been housed in the Shelby County Jail since June 2025 after he was arrested on 20 outstanding warrants from Arkansas, according to official records. He is being held in jail on a $750,000 bond. Derrick Thomas (Shelby County Sheriffs Office) Both Eddins and Thomas are scheduled to be in court Monday morning. Deputies say if anyone believes they were a victim of this scam, or any scam similar, to contact (901) 379-7625 to report it. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. On February 20, 2026, Ukraine launched a coordinated missile strike using six FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles against targets deep inside Russian territory. This turbofan-powered cruise missile is being produced by Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense startup company. The Flamingo has a reported range exceeding 1,000 kilometers, a maximum speed of approximately 900 km per hour, and a 1,150 kg payload capacity. It is designed to fly at low altitudes to reduce radar detection and is guided by satellite-aided inertial navigation. As the system moves into sustained operational use, its combination of extended reach, sizable payload, and coordinated salvo employment will reshape Ukraines strike campaign by stretching Russian air defenses and enabling integrated missile and drone attacks that increase the likelihood of target destruction. Ukraines Recent Usage of the Flamingo Fire Point began developing the Flamingo in coordination with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense following Russias full-scale invasion in 2022. Although partner nations have supplied cruise missiles such as the British Storm Shadow, those systems were delivered in limited quantities and often subject to externally imposed restrictions. The Flamingo program reflects Ukraines broader effort to rapidly expand its defense industrial base by leveraging smaller technology firms and nontraditional manufacturers. In parallel, Ukraine has developed long-range strike drones and short-range ballistic missiles, several of which have reached technical maturity and are now employed regularly in its strategic strike campaigns. Ukraine reportedly first launched the Flamingo in May 2025 as part of an initial combat trial. Its first widely reported operational use came on August 30, 2025, when Flamingo missiles struck facilities linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in occupied Crimea. On September 23, 2025, four Flamingos hit the SKIF-M aircraft production facility in Belgorod, a site involved in Russian fighter jet manufacturing. Later, on November 14, 2025, Ukraine again used Flamingo missiles in concert with drones to attack a marine oil terminal in Crimea, as well as air defense installations and command posts in the Zaporizhzhia region. Screen capture from video posted on social media reportedly showing the launch of a Ukrainian FP-5 "Flamingo" cruise missiles fired towards the Votkinsk missile production plant in Votkinsk, Russia on 20 February 2026 Social Media Capture Ukraines most recent strike occurred on the night of February 20, 2026, and marked its most ambitious operation to date. Ukrainian forces launched six FP-5 Flamingos at targets in both Russia and Crimea. Videos released on social media show the cruise missile launching in an open field from a temporary metal scaffold. Ukraines Armed Forces General Staff confirmed a strike on the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant, a key center for ballistic missile and strategic weapons production located roughly 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The operation also damaged the Kapustin Yar missile test range in the Astrakhan region and an FSB facility near Armyansk in occupied Crimea. Despite Russian air defense efforts, satellite imagery confirmed that four of the six missiles struck their intended targets. Advertisement Advertisement The deployment of Flamingo missiles reveals three general trends. First, the salvo size has increased from isolated launches to coordinated volleys of four to six missiles. Second, the target distance has expanded, with the most recent strike reaching deep inside Russia. Third, the missiles effectiveness appears to be improving, as multiple missiles have penetrated Russian air defenses and struck intended targets. Together, these shifts indicate a maturing deep strike capability with greater reach and a higher probability of mission success. Implications of the Flamingo Entering the Ukrainian Arsenal Ukraine has demonstrated that once a system reaches sufficient technological maturity, it can rapidly scale production, as seen in the expansion of its domestic drone sector. Rather than waiting for a flawless design, Ukraine fields systems that are operationally viable and then iteratively improves them to counter evolving Russian air defenses. The recent Flamingo strike suggests the system has reached that threshold and that Ukraine will likely expand production and fully integrate it into its long-range strike arsenal. Additional foreign investment and technical cooperation will accelerate further improvements in range, guidance, and production capacity. In late 2025, Denmark agreed to produce the solid rocket fuel for the cruise missile through a Danish subsidiary of Fire Point. More recently, the United Arab Emirates state-linked defense group EDGE has reportedly prepared to acquire a significant minority stake in Fire Point in a deal valued at approximately $760 million, signaling growing Middle Eastern investment and strategic interest in scaling production and advancing the systems technology. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second right, Fire Point Director Yehor Skalyha, left, Co-founder and Chief Designer Denys Shtilerman, second left, and Chief Technology Officer Iryna Terekh, right, speak next to a Flamingo missile during a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The introduction of the Flamingo significantly expands Ukraines ability to strike targets deep inside Russian territory, undermining Moscows strategy of moving ammunition depots, research facilities, and production plants farther into its interior beyond Ukrainian strike capabilities. By relying on distance as protection, Russia could avoid deploying additional air defense systems to these sites and instead prioritize coverage closer to the front. This approach became increasingly important as Ukraine targeted and degraded Russian air defense systems over the course of the war, reducing the number of operational assets. As the Flamingo enters broader use, Russia will have to redistribute its limited air defense systems, potentially leaving other locations exposed and creating new targets for Ukraine, many within range of its strike drones. Advertisement Advertisement Further, as Ukraine ramps up production of the Flamingo, it can integrate the missile with long-range drones as part of large-scale, coordinated strike packages. This approach, used by Russia and more recently Iran, is designed to stress air defense networks by presenting simultaneous threats with different speeds, altitudes, radar cross sections, and flight profiles. Slower drones can trigger radar activation and draw interceptor fire, while faster, low-flying cruise missiles arrive during the engagement cycle, reducing reaction time and increasing the likelihood that some weapons evade interception and reach their targets. For targets under 500 kilometers, this approach can be augmented by Ukraines Sapsan short-range ballistic missile, which adds a high speed, steep trajectory threat that further compresses defensive decision timelines. More broadly, when this war of attrition began four years ago, it favored Russia, which entered the conflict with a larger military and a more advanced arsenal. However, Ukraines ability to rapidly design, test, and scale new technologies has steadily eroded that advantage across multiple domains. In the strategic strike domain, Russia initially held a clear edge, fielding systems ranging from Geran drones to hypersonic missiles. The domestically produced Flamingo helps narrow that gap by enabling Ukraine to conduct complex strikes against targets deep inside Russia. Rather than serving as just another weapon in Ukraines arsenal, the Flamingo has the potential to change the dynamics of the war. The United Nations secretary-general says the Lebanese people have been dragged into war, and has called for an end to the fighting, as Israel keeps up its assault on several areas of the country. The south [of Lebanon] risks becoming a wasteland. Southern Beirut, which is under sweeping evacuation orders by Israel, risks being bombed to oblivion, Antonio Guterres said at a news conference in Beirut on Saturday. There is no military solution, only diplomacy. Guterres is visiting the country to launch a flash appeal for $325m to support the 800,000 plus people who have been internally displaced since Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war on March 2, when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the US-Israeli killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Advertisement Advertisement Asked by Al Jazeeras Bernard Smith whether Israels forcible evacuation orders, now covering 14 percent of the country, were consistent with international humanitarian law, Guterres said: Whatever does not create enough security for civilians inevitably becomes in violation of international humanitarian law. The Israeli army has issued sweeping evacuation orders to residents of south Lebanon and Beiruts southern suburbs as it hammered the areas, killing a family of four in the southern city of Sidon and one person in an attack on a residential building in Bourj Hammoud, located east of Beirut, on Saturday. Guterres said that a UN special coordinator was engaging with all actors around the clock to bring the parties to the table and that peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force remain in position, warning that attacks on the latter were completely unacceptable. Talks with Israel The UN chiefs visit came as high-level Lebanese consultations took place to form a negotiating delegation for talks with Israel. Advertisement Advertisement An official source told Al Jazeera Arabic that a delegation is expected to be formed at ambassadorial level in preparation for any possible negotiations, with the likely venue being Cyprus, although Lebanon was said to be open to any European capital. The source said the Lebanese presidency was working to ensure representation of all Lebanese factions in the delegation, but that Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament, was demanding a ceasefire before negotiations, which have been welcomed by Europe, with no response as yet from Washington. Israels Haaretz newspaper reported that US President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner would be involved in the talks that could be held in Paris or in Cyprus, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus confidant Ron Dermer leading the Israeli delegation. The negotiations were expected to focus on ending fighting in Lebanon and disarming the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Haaretz said. Advertisement Advertisement Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron said the Lebanese government was ready to engage in direct talks with Israel and offered to host negotiations in Paris, warning that everything must be done to prevent Lebanon from descending into chaos. Speaking from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeeras Nour Odeh said that Israel had no concerns that it would face pressure about its operations or its plans for Lebanon. Incidentally, she said, the Israeli cabinet was planning to meet on Saturday night to discuss a possible ground invasion and the occupation of southern Lebanon 10 percent of it, all the way to the Litani River. Odeh noted that Israel in 1978 had mounted a similar campaign, named Operation Litani. When it withdrew from its positions in June 1978, it handed self-imposed power to the South Lebanon Army, a Christian client militia. Advertisement Advertisement Separately on Saturday, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam hosted a number of former prime ministers at his residence in downtown Beirut, including Najib Mikati, Fouad Siniora, and Tammam Salam, according to Lebanons National News Agency. Following the meeting, Siniora delivered a statement on behalf of the group condemning the intensifying, unprecedented Israeli attacks on Lebanon. He accused Israel of committing humanitarian war crimes, including killing civilians, mass displacement, and the destruction of homes and livelihoods particularly in southern Lebanon and Beiruts southern suburbs. A new genocide Israel kept up strikes on Lebanon on Saturday as the Ministry of Public Health reported that the death toll from Israeli strikes had reached 826 since March 2, with more than 2,000 people wounded. Advertisement Advertisement At least 65 women and 106 children have been killed by the Israeli strikes, said the ministry. The death toll also includes 31 paramedics. Lebanese health authorities said an overnight Israeli strike killed 12 doctors, paramedics and nurses working at a healthcare centre in the southern town of Burj Qalawiya. The Israeli army said on Saturday that a day earlier it struck Hezbollah operatives who were bringing rockets into a weapons depot in Majdal, about seven kilometres (four miles) from Burj Qalawiya. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned that Israel would act in accordance with international law against any military activity by any Hezbollah use of medical facilities or ambulances. Advertisement Advertisement A Hezbollah official said that the group was not using ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes. So far, Israel has not provided any proof it is doing so. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference on Saturday that Israel could be committing a new genocide, referring to the killing of at least 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and fears of a possible Israeli ground invasion in Lebanon. Melania Trump described herself as a visionary while outlining her achievements during a Womens History Month event at the White House. Melania Trump described herself as a visionary while outlining her achievements during a Womens History Month event at the White House While her US president husband Donald Trump, 79, looked on, Americas first lady, 55, delivered the remarks during a Womens History Month gathering at the White House. During the event she highlighted several of her professional roles and projects, including the documentary film Melania, which chronicles the 20 days leading up to Donalds second presidential inauguration. Her film premiered in cinemas on 30 January and Melania said she had played a central role in the projects production, including shaping its creative direction, acting as a producer, overseeing post-production and managing its marketing campaign. Speaking at the event, Melania reflected on the work behind her career and the process she said had led to her achievements. She said said: As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather takes shape after a long and sometimes challenging process. Melania added: Often alone at the top, I follow my passion, listen to my instinct, and always maintain a laser focus. In solitude, my creative mind dances, filling my imagination with originality. Attention to detail, demanding schedules, and multi-tasking are everyday realities when building towards success. That principle resonates across all my roles, as a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist and entrepreneur as well as with my new film where I shaped its creative direction, served as a producer, managed post production and activated the marketing campaign. The documentary Melania has received mixed reactions since its release. According to the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, the documentary held an 11 percent approval rating among critics as of Friday, 13 March, rising slightly from an earlier rating of 8 percent. Audience responses on Rotten Tomatoes have differed sharply from critics reviews. The film has received positive ratings from 98 percent of verified audience users on the site. When unverified audience ratings are included, the approval score falls to 32 percent. A spokesperson for Rotten Tomatoes previously told People the gap between critics and audiences marked the largest such split recorded on the review platform. During the White House event, Melania also spoke about the role curiosity plays in her work and outlook. She said: Curiosity is a core value that keeps me ahead of the curve. Melania added she believed that curiosity begets knowledge. Before handing the podium to Donald, Melania addressed women attending the event and those watching the remarks. She said: To all of the young women, entrepreneurs and future leaders: Make time for yourself, educate yourself daily and spread your passion. Be courageous and take risks, advance your profession through inspiration, be a bold chief executive while keeping your family, if you choose so, at the center of your nation's future. After Melania concluded her speech, Donald addressed the audience and praised his wifes achievements. Donald said: Shes terrific and a big success I dont know, maybe shes getting a little too big for the White House so I have to think about it. Donald later addressed women more broadly during his remarks. He said: We love women. Women are the whole deal, okay? Haredi women assist other like-minded women in joining the military, with exciting new avenues of exploration, and without compromising their way of life Meet the haredi women helping others like them join the IDF while maintaining their values, serving their nation, the community, and their families. Maybe its something about the name, but there seem to be a lot of Estis (short for Esther) doing groundbreaking work in Israel. Each in her own way, these women continue the work of Queen Esther, getting involved where and how the community needs them even at personal risk. At Purim time, during the war to bring down the oppressive Iranian Islamic regime and for International Womens Month, Im pleased to introduce you to another Esti: Esti Solomon. Advertisement Advertisement Solomon is the latest haredi woman Ive had the privilege to interview who is making waves to further her community, via her ATIDA (her future in Hebrew) organization. Not everyone loves what Solomon is doing, however, and like the other women active in her community, she has her share of detractors. Paving a fresh path Solomon helps integrate haredi women into the army. Her work has drawn the attention of fanatics paid to make trouble for those widening the path on which haredim in Israel tread. Theyve held screaming protests in front of her home. Theyve plastered pashkevelim (posters) warning against her and her work along city streets. Theyve tried to get her canceled. You see, in a world where the IDF is seen as the anathema to the haredi lifestyle, integrating haredi women into its ranks is heresy of the highest order. Posters in Beit Shemesh decry the enlistment of haredi women, as it turns them secular. (credit: YAAKOV LEDERMAN) But that lifestyle also dictates that the wife is the earner in the home while her husbands days are dedicated to learning Torah. It further includes having many children. Thus, demand for well-paying jobs is high among haredi women. This means women are being trained in hi-tech, computers, and programming. For Solomon, connecting hard-working, intelligent haredi women with the IDF was an answer to multiple needs. Not only would it bring professional haredi women to the IDF for stable, high-paying work, but it would also connect haredi women to other parts of Israeli society, which are often pitted against one another. Advertisement Advertisement Solomon said that embarking on this unforgotten path stemmed from her love of Am Yisrael and the opportunity to build bridges of trust in the people of Israel through complementary needs. Over 600 ultra-Orthodox women join IDF hi-tech units When it began in 2017, the Haddasim program consisted of 13 women employed by the Air Force. Now, thanks to ATIDA, the NGO that Solomon established in 2020 with Moshe Morgenstern, a lawyer and deputy mayor of the majority haredi city of Bnei Brak, over 600 women are working in hi-tech units, with a projected 800-plus by the end of 2026. ATIDAs mission is to strengthen the economic well-being of haredi society by empowering women with advanced technological careers, enabling them to integrate into Israels defense hi-tech sector while preserving their religious values and cultural identity. To accomplish this, ATIDA places a strong emphasis on skill development, comprehensive training, social and cultural integration, and the creation of pathways to success. Advertisement Advertisement Because haredi women seek rabbinic approval to work in certain arenas, it also meant bringing the haredi rabbinic world to sit with the IDF, learn about the program, discuss the needs of the women, and see just how far the IDF was willing to go to integrate and make them feel welcome. It turns out to be quite far. The program includes cultural bridge-building through adapted work environments and IDF sensitivity training, and diverse teams. Participants undergo months of intensive professional training designed to bridge the gap between their academic studies and the highly specialized demands of Israels defense technology ecosystem. Upon completion, they are placed in technological roles across the defense establishment for contracts lasting up to three years. In the current cohort the programs fifth 180 women are integrated into units. More than 1,200 candidates have already applied for the sixth cycle, with the selection process beginning this March. At the conclusion of the selection period, approximately 200 additional women are expected to join the program, expanding placements to new technological campuses across the country and creating new opportunities for women from Israels southern region. 'Haredi women fear loss of way of life, not war' For the first time, women will serve in the IDF tech campus in Beersheba. As a general rule, Solomon said, The ultra-Orthodox love the nation of Israel, but they are terrified of their children becoming non-religious. To integrate their beliefs and their service, the women receive halachic guidance when operational needs require work on Shabbat. The program works with both the IDF and rabbinic authorities to ensure its success. Advertisement Advertisement ATIDA recruits, trains, and places haredi women in IDF hi-tech positions. Their joint venture with the government and the IDF creates unprecedented opportunities for economic advancement among haredi women. Placed in strategic units with a three-year contract, women work among different IDF units across Israel. The women work in units of the IDF, such as the Air Forces Ofek 324 & 108; Intelligence Corps units, including 8200 and 81 (the special operations technology unit); the Ground Forces Technology Division; the Communications Corps; the Home Front Command; the Manpower Directorate; and in IDF-designated projects at Elbit Systems. Units are spread across the country, from the Intelligence Corps in Safed and naval bases in Haifa to the Center. They include Galilot 8200; Ramat Gan Unit 81 and Sapir Unit; ICT Corps in the triads; the Ground Force in Tzrifin and Tel Hashomer; Home Front Command in Ramle; Palmachim; and the Military Intelligence Department in Jerusalem Command. Promoting workforce success The program promotes womens success in the workforce. Instead of making NIS 7,000 a month, salaries can reach up to NIS 40,000 a month. They can support their family and pay taxes instead of living on welfare, said Solomon. Though 73% of ATIDA participants were raised in poor neighborhoods, 100% of ATIDA graduates are employed. Their average starting salary is NIS 25,000. I asked Solomon if the women from her program were involved in the current Iran war. Dozens of women from the program are involved in the current operations. They received rabbinic permission to be on duty on Shabbat. A number of them knew about the operations and were a meaningful part of them. Our staff is working with them throughout, meeting their religious needs, providing food, and obtaining approvals. In the Air Force, intelligence, Home Front Command, and cyber units, the women and the program coordinators are all proud to be part of defending Am Yisrael. Advertisement Advertisement In fact, as we went to press, a message came to Solomon, one of positivity and praise for her program participants. On Shabbat morning, as Operation Roaring Lion began, many soldiers were called up to the IDF central command. The first to show up were the ATIDA women, no questions asked, ready to serve. Since then, they have contributed to key intelligence that was presented to the head of IDF intelligence. Their activity was carried out with full rabbinic guidance and approval, given the clear halachic imperative of pikuach nefesh saving lives. Haredi women taking on such sensitive and heavy security responsibilities is giving hope for a larger future haredi integration into the IDF, said the commander of the base, expressing deep emotion at seeing Jewish unity and shared purpose. You are doing something historic here. For those on the outside, these statements and the reality they describe can be hard to believe. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that two female soldiers were chased down the streets of Bnei Brak in what looked like a scene from a horror movie. An ultra-Orthodox woman stands on a street with children in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem in February (credit: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP via Getty Images) The soldiers had been visiting another soldier as part of their duties when a rumor was spread that they were there to give draft notices. Advertisement Advertisement In minutes, the streets were filled with screaming haredi men and boys, and the young women had to be extracted under armed guard. Riots, fires, and arrests followed. The government, outside of platitudes and weak condemnations, is doing nothing to addressthe massive chasm that exists between the haredi population and wider Israeli society. It takes a village It seems, once again, the work is left to the women to complete. Perhaps, God willing, through this program and others like it, the disdain and deep ignorance the two segments of society often have for each other can be diminished. And perhaps the baby steps can be seen in what a haredi man who learns full-time said to his wife, who works in the intelligence unit 8200 school, which was closed due to the war: I will stay home with the children. Your work is more important at the moment than mine. Youre defending Am Yisrael. I can learn at home while watching the children. In this month of Adar, leading up to Nisan, miracles starting with the hidden and ending with the revealed are the norm. May we see them in our time. OAK CREEK, WIs. (WFRV) An apartment complex in Wisconsin sustained damage from a crash on Saturday morning, with multiple residents displaced. According to the Oak Creek Fire Department, the accident was reported at 130 West Rainbow Ridge, with one vehicle crashing into a building. Why emergency weather alerts continuously show up on a television broadcast Officials say the vehicle that struck the building was unoccupied, but that another vehicle that crashed into it was occupied, with one sustaining minor injuries. Advertisement Advertisement According to the release, residents of two units are displaced. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. Popular Avondale bar and grill, Parkside on Fifth, will be closing its doors for good in two weeks. According to an announcement Friday, the restaurant will close on March 27 since opening in 2022 under owner Tim Burt. Parkside on Fifth is house inside a historic building built constructed in 1895 with a view of Avondale Park. The upscale bar offers an array of cocktails as options in tandem with a menu of starters, meals and sweets. Advertisement Advertisement Burt said he will be focusing his energies toward his other business in Greensboro, a west Alabama town home to about 2,100 people. Im excited to focus on my latest adventure Mockingbird on Main, Burt said. Thank you for your many years of support and please come see [Parkside on Fifth] the next few days. Read the original article on al.com. Add al.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. US-127 to close Monday for rebuilding project that will last until November LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) The Michigan Department of Transportation is set to launch a major rebuilding project on US-127 in Lansing next week, a months-long effort that will narrow lanes, close ramps and likely slow traffic on one of mid-Michigans busiest corridors through the fall. MDOT says work will begin Monday, March 16, on US-127 between Lake Lansing Road and I-69 in Ingham and Clinton counties, rebuilding the freeway from just south of Lake Lansing Road north to the I-69 interchange. The agency says the project is designed to improve the roadways geometry, safety and overall traffic flow. US-127 to close Monday for construction until November. (Google Maps, overlay by Brad LaPlante) The work will include pavement repairs using concrete rubblization with a new asphalt overlay, as well as bridge improvements, upgraded drainage, new signs, intelligent transportation systems and fresh pavement markings, according to MDOT. Advertisement Advertisement The stretch of US-127 slated for construction runs through or near Lansing, East Lansing and DeWitt, serving commuters, freight traffic and regional travelers. MDOT describes that portion of the freeway as a significant local and national trade corridor and says the upgrades are aimed at increasing safety and mobility for drivers who rely on it daily. Single-lane closures and ramp closures will be in place throughout the project, and drivers should plan for delays, MDOT warns. Lanes will be closed at various points to give crews room to work and to protect both workers and motorists, a step the department calls necessary for this type of reconstruction. The project is expected to run through mid-November 2026. MDOT says the total investment, based on economic modeling, is projected to directly and indirectly support about 2,481 jobs over the life of the work. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News. By Jonathan Stempel March 12 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out much of an injunction that had blocked California from enforcing a state law meant to shield children from social media and other online content that could harm them mentally or physically. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the trade group NetChoice was unlikely to prove that the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act was unconstitutional on its face, violating the First Amendment rights of members such as Amazon.com, Google, Meta Platforms, Netflix and Elon Musk's X by turning them into censors. Advertisement Advertisement California has said the 2022 law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom would serve its compelling interest in protecting children from bullying, harassment, sexual exploitation and other harms. Circuit Judge Milan Smith wrote for a three-judge appeals court panel that it was reasonable for businesses to expect children to access their online platforms, adding that the California law applied "evenhandedly" by covering platforms "likely to be accessed by children." The Pasadena, California-based panel also said NetChoice was unlikely to show that requiring businesses to estimate the ages of child users was invalid on its face. It nonetheless agreed with NetChoice that the law's restrictions on businesses using personal data that could harm children's physical health, mental health or well-being, and employing "dark patterns" to collect that data, were too vague to be enforced. Advertisement Advertisement The law defines "dark patterns" as user interfaces designed or manipulated to subvert or impair user autonomy, decision-making or choice. NETCHOICE TO PRESS OPPOSITION California had been appealing a March 2025 injunction by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, California. The appeals court had partially upheld an earlier injunction by Freeman against the California law in August 2024, before NetChoice brought its facial challenge. It returned the case to Freeman for further proceedings. Paul Taske, a lawyer for NetChoice, in a statement said "We look forward to making a full showing and striking down Californias Speech Code permanently. Advertisement Advertisement Rob Bonta, the state's attorney general, called Thursday's decision a "critical win" in making social media safe for children. "Let me be clear: our kids safety cannot wait, and we wont let tech giants profit off our children," Bonta said in a statement. The California law also required businesses to create reports about their online platforms' threat to children, and take steps before launch to reduce the risks. Civil fines could reach $2,500 per child for negligence and $7,500 per child for intentional violations. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, William Maclean and Aurora Ellis) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Iran urged people Saturday to evacuate the Middle East's busiest port and two others in the United Arab Emirates, openly threatening a neighboring country's non-U.S. assets for the first time as its war with the United States and Israel entered a third week. Tehran said the U.S. had used ports, docks and hideouts in the UAE to launch strikes on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Iran's oil exports, without providing evidence. It urged people to leave areas where it said U.S. forces were sheltering. Hours later, there was no sign of an attack on Dubais Jebel Ali port the Mideasts busiest or the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi. But debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hitting an oil facility sparked a fire at the third port, in Fujairah. Iran says the US attacked from close to Dubai Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told MS NOW that the U.S. attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island from two locations in the UAE, Ras Al-Khaimah and a place very close to Dubai, calling that dangerous and saying Iran will try to be careful not to attack any populated area there. Advertisement Advertisement U.S. Central Command said it had no response to Irans claim. A diplomatic adviser to the UAEs president, Anwar Gargash, said on social media the country has the right to defend itself but still prioritizes reason and logic, and continues exercising restraint. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Arab Gulf neighbors during the war, but it has said it was targeting U.S. assets, even as hits or attempts were reported on civilian ones such as airports and oil fields. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the country obliterated military sites on Kharg Island and that oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with ships passage through the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of global oil supplies usually transit. Irans parliamentary speaker has said strikes against the countrys oil infrastructure would provoke a new level of retaliation. Advertisement Advertisement Araghchi told MS NOW that the strait was closed only to those who are attacking us and their allies. As global anxiety soars over oil prices and supplies, Trump said Saturday that he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and others send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and safe. Britain in response said it was discussing with allies a range of options to secure shipping. Araghchi, in a social media post, urged neighbors to expel foreign aggressors" and described Trump's call as begging. Iran repeats threat against US-linked oil assets On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat to attack U.S.-linked oil, economic and energy infrastructures in the region if the Islamic Republic's oil infrastructure is hit. Advertisement Advertisement Irans semiofficial Fars news agency said the Kharg Island strikes caused no damage to oil infrastructure. It said they targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar. U.S. Central Command said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and other military sites. Israel earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the past 24 hours, including missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites. Another attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias. Advertisement Advertisement The State Department again warned citizens in Iraq to leave now, and by land since commercial flights were not available. It noted that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups may continue to target" U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure. Meanwhile, Lebanons humanitarian crisis deepened, with over 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Marines and an assault ship will add to US forces A U.S. official said Friday that 2,500 more Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli were being sent to the Middle East, adding to the militarys largest buildup of warships and aircraft in the region in decades. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Marine Expeditionary Units can conduct amphibious landings but also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and providing disaster relief. The deployment doesnt necessarily indicate that a ground operation will take place. The Wall Street Journal first reported the Marine deployment. Advertisement Advertisement The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, in the Arabian Sea. The total number of U.S. service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear. US identifies 6 killed in military aircraft crash The U.S. Department of Defense on Saturday identified six service members who died when the military refueling aircraft they were aboard crashed Thursday while supporting operations against Iran. The service members were Maj. John A. Klinner, 33; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31; Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34; Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, according to U.S. officials. Advertisement Advertisement The crash in western Iraq followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in friendly airspace, according to U.S. Central Command. The other plane landed safety. ___ Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, Magdy from Cairo and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press reporters Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem; Sally Abou AlJoud, Kareem Chehayeb and Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Will Weissert at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; Tia Goldenberg in Washington and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed. A partial government shutdown. A war in Iran. Warnings about sleeper cells. And in the middle of it all: Americans left to wonder if their travel plans are safe. Those concerns were echoed in part by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who told CNBC the nation is operating in a "heightened security threat environment because of the fact that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism." Meanwhile, Transportation Security Administration officers charged with screening airline passengers for security threats are working without pay another potential worry for air travel security. Advertisement Advertisement Johnson didn't say travelers actually are at a higher risk. But he is among experts raising a number of concerns, including "lone actors inspired by terrorist organizations." Travel news: Why traveler anxiety is 'up a notch' this spring break season Though the potential targets are not limited to air travel and some experts say the risk to aviation remains low, Johnson said threats could come at a time when TSA is under "a tremendous amount of stress." Roughly 50,000 TSA officers are working without regular pay after Congress failed to pass funding for DHS, which oversees TSA, sparking the partial shutdown in mid-February. TSA officers missed their first full paycheck March 13 after receiving partial checks on Feb. 28. Advertisement Advertisement "These are the people we depend upon to look for bombs and explosive devices on the airplane you're about to get on with your family," Johnson said. "They live paycheck to paycheck when they're getting paid. Morale traditionally in TSA is low and now we're forcing them to go to work without being paid at all." The Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the White House, where an official speaking on background said the entire administration is closely monitoring all intelligence and remains vigilant to deter potential threats if they arise. Travelers and staff walk through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on March 13, 2025. US airport security officers missed their first full paycheck Friday as a partial funding shutdown of the government approached the one-month mark, with no breakthrough in a congressional standoff that is beginning to disrupt travel across the country. The risk of terrorism has risen due to Iran war, experts say Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago who compiled the first database of suicide attacks around the world after the terrorist hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, told USA TODAY the threat of terror campaigns would grow in the coming months. Pape said threats would escalate since the start of the war through the economic shocks to the oil supply and leading toward the growing expectation of terror attacks. Advertisement Advertisement The longer this war goes on, the greater the risk, Pape said. Thats what the Trump administration has bitten off. Pape, who continues to track terror at the University of Chicagos Project on Security and Threats, has a Substack called The Escalation Trap warning about the implications of the Iran war. He said a core driver for terror campaigns is when the attacker believes a foreign government is trying to change the attacker's political system, such as with Israels control over southern Lebanon or the U.S. strikes on Iran. More: Trump tells TSA agents to 'go to work' amid partial shutdown You put those two things together, its hardly a surprise we have a series of seven or eight events since Saturday Feb. 28, Pape said, such as the shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, and the attack on a Michigan synagogue. The full dangers will start to materialize in the coming months, if it goes on. Advertisement Advertisement Jeff Price, an aviation security expert who is a professor at Metropolitan State University in Denver, said the threat of domestic terror attacks from Iran is absolutely higher because of the war. The war in Iran can inspire attacks from people who may have been on the brink of committing a terrorist act, and the war emboldens them to finally crossing that line, Price told USA TODAY. The war motivates sympathizers, lone actors and groups already in the U.S. to conduct retaliatory attacks against government agencies, major infrastructure, and other targets of opportunity. Elizabeth Stephens, managing director of Geopolitical Risk Advisory, agreed that the risk of an increase of threats across the country from "lone wolf" actors have risen due to the conflict in Iran. If they attack, she said these perpetrators are likely to use guns or improvised explosive devices. "The potential for suicide bombers coming from Iran is high now, because that's one way in which they can effectively attack the U.S.," Stephens said. Advertisement Advertisement More: US is 'on top' of possible Iran sleeper cells, Trump says. What are they? Security officials say lone wolf terrorists are a perennial concern because of the difficulty identifying and thwarting someone acting on their own to hurt Americans. Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, Florida, was suspected of links to the Islamic State after he killed 49 people and injured 53 others in an Orlando night-club shooting on June 2, 2016. Mateen worked in security and the FBI had investigated him in 2013 for making inflammatory comments at work. In 2014, he again came to the FBIs attention because of an association with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria that year, but the relationship was determined to be minimal. The attack in Florida came after a husband-wife shooting team unleashed a hail of gunfire in San Bernardino, California. Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik had a new baby girl and lived in a prosperous community. But they stockpiled guns, ammunition and bombs before shooting 14 people to death and wounding 20 others at a holiday party Dec. 2, 2015, at a center for developmentally disabled people. An FBI member works on the site after the Michigan State Police reported an active shooting incident at the Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, U.S., March 12, 2026. Iran has long targeted the US, but fear of 'sleeper cells' is rising Iran and its network of proxies have targeted the United States for decades, according to George Washington Universitys Project on Extremism. Iranian assassinations date to the 1980 killing of a dissident in Bethesda, Maryland. Advertisement Advertisement In more recent years, Iran targeted U.S. diplomats and high-ranking officials. Tensions escalated after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on Feb. 28. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth told reporters March 2 the military is prepared for terrorists who might try to attack the United States. He said the Iranian regime seeks to export that ideology and try to sow terror. Were ready for that, Hegseth said. Weve seen those types of folks before and the American people can rest assured that were vigilant on that. President Donald Trump told reporters March 9 in Miami that Iran has also been trying for a long time to activate so-called sleeper cells of long-dormant terrorists hiding in the United States. Trump urged Democrats to reopen DHS because the partial shutdown hinders the governments ability to combat terrorists. Advertisement Advertisement We know a lot about them, but the shutdown doesn't allow us to do what we have to do, Trump said. Sleeper cells dont have to be highly organized to be successful, Price said. Sleeper cells are definitely a concern, Price said. Even loosely organized small ad hoc groups can get their act together enough to attempt an attack. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents check in passengers at a security checkpoint at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas on March 10, 2026. Airports across the United States are feeling the strain of a partial government shutdown causing a shortage of travel safety agents, leading to extended travel delays for air passengers. Threat to aviation is 'very, very low,' some experts say The funding lapse at DHS has raised concerns about aviation safety as TSA staffing shortages and absenteeism loom and airport security lines stretch longer. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media that "300 [TSA] officers quit" amid the funding lapse. Advertisement Advertisement While the lack of funding for TSA is a concern, the probability of an attack on a U.S. airport or airplane, particularly from a lone wolf actor, is still "very, very low" considering the high level of sophistication needed to get past security, Stephens said. "Staff shortages and long lines and low morale always increase risk, but they're increasing it by a fraction of a percent because the security at U.S. airports is of such a high standard," said Stephens. "But to me it seems nonsensical that a government wouldn't pay its security staff." Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, echoed that sentiment saying he is confident that TSA could handle any potential increase in threats to air travel. Shahidi said TSA has greatly strengthened its screening process in recent years and the technology, procedures and protocols in place aren't going to change because of the partial shutdown. If less officers show up for work, he said it will slow down that process and could even lead to flight cuts like those seen during the government shutdown in late 2025. Advertisement Advertisement TSA previously told USA TODAY "travelers are facing TSA lines of up to nearly 3 hours long at some major airports, causing missed flights and massive delays during peak travel." But the delays won't make passengers less safe, according to Shahidi, who recently traveled through the Atlanta airport, one of the major hubs that has reportedly seen wait times exceed an hour during peak periods. "It's going to create inconvenience for the passengers and delays and that's certainly a concern," Shahidi said. "But from a safety perspective, we don't really see an issue there." Other experts weren't so sure. Price said the risk toward aviation is greater because of the symbolism, potentially generating a massive response on the traveling public. A bad actor could, for example, "effectively shut down the US aviation system with a bag full of burner phones by calling in bomb threats all day long," Price said. TSA not getting paid represents a significant risk to the traveling public, Price said. When security personnel are worrying about where their next meal will come from and how they will take care of their family, they arent thinking about their job. Contributing: Zach Wichter, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are flights safe? Terror concerns grow amid Iran war, TSA shutdown. By Nate Raymond BOSTON, March 13 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked U.S. President Donald Trump's administration from ending legal protections next week that have allowed nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued an order postponing the March 17 effective date of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants. Advertisement Advertisement Burroughs, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, cited the "weighty" consequences that would result if she did not act now to pause the end of TPS for the Somalis while their lawsuit continues. "Plaintiffs aver that if Somalia's TPS designation is allowed to terminate, over one thousand people will face 'a myriad of grave risks,' including detention and deportation, physical violence if removed to Somalia, and forced separation from family members," the judge wrote. She administratively stayed the effective date and set a schedule so she could resolve the Somalis' request for a longer-term block of DHS' action "as quickly as possible." DHS did not respond to a request for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Temporary Protected Status is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Trump, the DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking numerous legal challenges. Burroughs ruled as the administration continues to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether it will lift lower-court orders in two other cases that have blocked it from ending TPS for over 350,000 Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia's conditions had improved, despite ongoing fighting between Somali forces and al-Shabaab militants. Four Somalis and the advocacy groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans sued, arguing the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda. Advertisement Advertisement They said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions. They pointed to a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as "garbage" and "low IQ people." (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Franklin Paul, Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot) By Ryan Patrick Jones March 13 (Reuters) - The United States is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information about senior Iranian military and intelligence officials, including its new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. The reward targets 10 officials associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the State Department website. The military force, created after Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, is loyal to the supreme leader and tasked with protecting the Shiite clerical establishment. Advertisement Advertisement Mojtaba Khamenei recently succeeded his father, Ali Khamenei, as Iran's supreme leader after the elder Khamenei was killed along with several other top Iranian officials in joint U.S. and Israeli strikes that began on February 28. The younger Khamenei, believed to have been injured in the strikes, hasn't been seen publicly since, although he released his first statement on Thursday. In addition to the supreme leader, the U.S. is seeking information about Iran's security chief Ali Larijani, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and two officials in Khamenei's office. Larijani appeared Friday in videos verified by Reuters alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attending a rally in Tehran, despite an assertion by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iran's leadership was "cowering" underground. The reward website also lists four other officials, including the IRGC commander and secretary of the defense council, but doesn't include their names or photos. Advertisement Advertisement "These individuals command and direct various elements of the IRGC, which plans, organizes, and executes terrorism around the world," the State Department said. The Revolutionary Guards could not be immediately reached for comment on Friday the weekly day of rest in Iran. Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. has designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, accusing it of being responsible for attacks that have killed U.S. citizens. Washington has also accused Iran of orchestrating assassination plots against President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials in retaliation for the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Iran denies being a sponsor of terrorism. Iranian officials routinely dismiss U.S. terrorism allegations as baseless political attacks, arguing Washington raises such claims to justify pressure campaigns or sanctions. (Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Ethan Smith) By Lisa Baertlein LOS ANGELES, March 13 (Reuters) - Two explosive-laden, unmanned boats rammed the Safesea Vishnu tanker in an Iraqi seaport on Wednesday, sparking a fiery blast that engulfed the vessel's port side in flames and left crew only seconds to react, according to an early assessment conducted by the vessel's U.S. owner and operator. "After speaking to the surviving crew members, the attack appears to have been deliberate and calculated," New Jersey-based Safesea Group said in a statement. Advertisement Advertisement At least 16 tankers and other vessels have come under attack in the Gulf during the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Hundreds more have dropped anchor due to Tehran's threat to attack vessels in or near the Strait of Hormuz, which is used to transport roughly one-fifth of the world's oil. The Marshall Islands-flagged Safesea Vishnu was anchored at the Iraqi port of Khor Al Zubair and engaged in ship-to-ship loading of 53,000 metric tons of naphtha at the time of the attack. The vessel's 28 crew members, without time to deploy lifeboats, jumped into the water to escape the burning vessel. One died; the remaining 27 crew are safe and receiving assistance from the Embassy of India in Iraq, Safesea said. The tanker is reported to be listing in the water, and a salvage team has been sent to stabilize the ship and make sure the surrounding marine environment is safe. The attack must serve as a wake-up call for governments, maritime authorities, and the international community, Safesea said. Advertisement Advertisement "Commercial shipping lanes cannot become battle zones," it said. The Malta-flagged Zefyros was the other ship involved in the transfer. A projectile struck that vessel during the Wednesday night assault, its Greece-based manager said on Thursday. All 23 crew on the Zefyros were safely evacuated. Some 20,000 seafarers aboard vessels operating in the region face "a dangerous and highly uncertain security situation," according to the World Shipping Council. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the United States is prepared to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz when necessary, but so far the U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, according to sources familiar with the matter. (Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; editing by David Gaffen) By Luc Cohen NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuters) - Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro should not be able to use Venezuelan government funds to defend himself against U.S. drug trafficking charges, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday, noting that Washington has not considered him the legitimate leader of the South American country for years. Last month, Maduro's lawyer Barry Pollack urged U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the indictment against Maduro because the Treasury Department had without explanation revoked an exemption to U.S. financial sanctions on Venezuela that had allowed the South American country's government to fund his defense. Advertisement Advertisement Pollack argued that the revocation interfered with Maduro's right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He said that "Venezuelan law and custom" dictate that the government pay the expenses of the president and his wife. An official in Venezuela's attorney general's office said in a court filing last month that the government was prepared to pay. In urging Hellerstein not to dismiss the indictment, prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office on Friday said the initial exemption was an "administrative error." The prosecutors said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would still be allowed to use their personal funds for their defense. Flores' lawyer, Mark Donnelly, had also asked Hellerstein to dismiss charges against her over the funding of her defense. Advertisement Advertisement "While both defendants claim that they are entitled to funds under the Venezuelan constitution ... both defendants also surely knew that the U.S. Government did not consider them to hold legitimate positions," prosecutors wrote, noting that one purpose of the U.S. sanctions was to drive Maduro and Flores from power. The Venezuelan communications ministry, which handles all press queries for the government, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Maduro and Flores were captured on January 3 in a U.S. military raid on their Caracas home. Both have pleaded not guilty and are jailed in Brooklyn pending trial. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Hellerstein is expected to consider the legal fees dispute during a court hearing on March 26 in Manhattan. The U.S. accuses Maduro, a socialist who took office in 2013, of rigging his re-election votes in 2018 and 2024, which he denies. Maduro's former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been running Venezuela since his capture. A State Department official said in a March 11 court filing in a separate case that the U.S. recognizes Rodriguez as Venezuela's sole head of state. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Tom Hogue) The US Army has sent 10,000 Merops interceptor drones, which have proven effective in combat in Ukraine, to the Middle East. Source: US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll in an interview with Bloomberg, as reported by European Pravda Details: Driscoll said the AI-enabled Merops drones were dispatched within five days of the start of the US-Israeli operation against Iran on 28 February. Merops drones were developed by Project Eagle, a defence company backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and were sent to Ukraine in 2024, where they proved their effectiveness. Advertisement Advertisement Each Merops drone costs around US$14,000-15,000, though Driscoll said larger orders could reduce the price to about US$3,000-5,000 per interceptor. They are cheaper than Iranian Shahed drones, which cost at least US$20,000 each and are being extensively used against the United States and its allies in the region. Quote from Driscoll: "We're actually on the better end of the cost curve there. So each time Iran launches one that we are able to take down, they are losing a meaningful amount of money." Details: The deployment of interceptor drones that have been combat-tested in Russia's war against Ukraine comes as US President Donald Trump insists that the US does not need Ukraine's help to shoot down Iranian drones. Advertisement Advertisement Wider use of Merops drones could make a big difference to US and Israeli armed forces, which have been forced to rely on Patriot and THAAD air defence systems. Missiles for these systems can cost over US$4 million each. The US Army is also using Bumblebees quadcopters that are fitted with explosives and designed to track enemy drones and collide with them. This system, manufactured by Perennial Autonomy, has also been tested in Ukraine. Background: Earlier, Romania announced plans to use Merops systems to counter Russian drones. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon! SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A U.S. warship that previously called San Diego its home port has been deployed to the Middle East along with roughly 2,500 Marines, the Associated Press reported on Friday. The USS Tripoli (LHA-7) and other amphibious assault ships have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, AP stated, citing images released by the U.S. military. San Diego-based ships played key roles in Operation Epic Fury Advertisement Advertisement The news comes as the latest development in the U.S. military plans against Iran in response over rising tensions in the Middle East. Earlier this week, Tripoli along with USS San Diego (which was homeported in San Diego from 2012 to 2024) and USS New Orleans (homeported in San Diego from 2007 to 2019) were reported to have been operating in the Philippine Sea following a brief visit to port in Okinawa, Japan. According to the AP, the move increases U.S. military forces in the Middle East but does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place at all. History of USS Tripoli The ship is the third U.S. Naval ship to carry the name USS Tripoli. It was named in honor of the U.S. Marine Corps victory against Tripoli during the First Barbary War in 1805, according to the U.S. Navy. Advertisement Advertisement The first USS Tripoli (CVE 64) served during World War II and the second to bear the name, USS Tripoli (LPH 10), served during the Cold War. The current USS Tripoli (LHA-7) was delivered to the Navy in February of 2020 and commissioned on July 15 that same year. Its home port shifted from Pascagoula, Miss. to Naval Base San Diego in September of 2020. Tripoli left San Diego for her maiden deployment on May 2, 2022. In 2025, the ships home port was shifted to Sasebo, Japan, where it has since been part of efforts to strengthen U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region. It switched places with USS America (LHA-6), which now calls Naval Base San Diego home. Other San Diego-based warships in Middle East Since the attacks on Iran began on Feb. 28, several military ships homeported in San Diego have contributed heavily to the U.S. operations. Advertisement Advertisement The USS Abraham Lincoln, whose home port is Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, departed from San Diego in November for an Indo-Pacific deployment. However, it was redirected to the Middle East in January, as reported by the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI). On Feb. 28, CENTCOM released photos of USS Spruance homeported at Naval Base San Diego supporting Operation Epic Fury by firing a missile from an undisclosed location. USS Pickney (DDG-91), which also calls Naval Base San Diego its home port, was deployed separately to the Middle East. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. With Vice President JD Vance sidelined since the start of the Iran war, President Donald Trump has been heaping praise on another Republican as a potential White House successor. The Hill reports that when Trump gave his first press conference after launching military strikes against Iran, he blew by Vance and instead singled out Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio is doing a great job, Trump enthused. I think hes going to go down as the greatest secretary of State in history. Hes been successful no matter where hes been. Advertisement Advertisement Vance is the poll favorite to win the 2028 GOP nomination for president, with Rubio usually second. But the veep has apparently been pushed to the side lately because of his previously stated opposition to having the U.S. engaged in foreign wars. It was said that while he didnt outright oppose the Iran strikes, he intently questioned the need for them. When asked at the press conference whether he and Vance disagreed on any points related to the conflict, Trump replied: Hes philosophically a little different from me. Over the course of the rest of the roughly 30-minute press conference, the president never mentioned Vance directly by name again. Advertisement Advertisement Rubio, meanwhile, has become a top go-to troubleshooter for Trump in the presidents second term. Its quite a swing for Rubio, the former U.S. senator from Florida. Rubio ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries and was belittled by the future president as Little Marco. But now Rubio is front and center, also serving the administration as the acting national security advisor. He also earned kudos from Trump following the administrations military actions against Venezuela. Rubio also made a well received speech at the Munich Security Conference. Trump had not formally anointed a White House successor. He at one point did say that a 2028 GOP ticket of Vance and Rubio would be unstoppable. Advertisement Advertisement Trump knows this is playing in the backdrop, and hes struggling with it, one Republican fundraiser told The Hill about the White House succession sweepstakes. Thats why he keeps asking people what theyre thinking. Read the original article on silive.com. Add silive.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here. Washington Countys auditor says he cant meet the deadline commissioners and Machias Savings Bank have agreed to for completing 2023 and 2024 audits and has given his notice. In February, when Washington County paid its overdue 2025 tax anticipation note, the bank agreed to issue a 2026 TAN for $7 million, to be delivered in two payments. The first, for just under $5 million, has already been paid to the county. The second, of $2 million, will be available on July 1 as long as the county meets multiple terms and conditions, including delivery of its audited financial statements for 2023 and 2024 by June 30, 2026. Advertisement Advertisement That is also the deadline set by the bank for the county to hire a full-time financial director. In his notice of withdrawal, auditor Stephen Hopkins, a certified public accountant based in Scarborough, wrote based on my completion of prior fiscal year audits, I dont feel that I would be able to complete both of these audits by this agreed upon deadline. The shortest period of time hed spent on any previous audits has been seven months, Hopkins said. Hes already committed to completing overdue 2021 and 2022 audits for the Unorganized Territory, and couldnt begin work on the countys 2023 and 2024 audits until the UT work is done. This would not leave a reasonable period of time to complete the two county audits before the June 30 deadline, Hopkins wrote, exercising an option under his contract with the county to give his notice of withdrawal. Advertisement Advertisement Hopkins recommitted to finishing the UT audits and offered to prepare an audit documentation binder with information he has gathered on the countys most recent 2022 audit, along with any other material he has, including financial statements. At the commissions regular meeting on Thursday, commissioners accepted Hopkins notice and asked County Manager Renee Gray to draft and post a request for proposal seeking a new auditor. Machias Savings Bank has asked that the countys 2025 audit be complete by June 1, 2027. We agreed to follow the conditions set by the bank, Chairman David Burns said. We agreed to do that and intend to follow through. Advertisement Advertisement Commissioners hope to open responses to the RFP when they meet next month, leaving a little over two months to meet the banks terms. The finance director position has been posted and commissioners also hope to have some applications to consider next month. As part of their continuing work to better organize the countys finances, commissioners adopted a policy, as recommended by Hopkins, requiring department heads to keep a recording of all capital assets valued at $5,000 or more that have an estimated useful life of more than one year. These recordings will be included as part of the countys annual financial statements going forward. Commissioners also repealed a policy that had previously allowed departments to carry over unspent funds on the same line item into a new budget year. Repealing the policy, which was adopted in 2020, ends the practice of automatic carryover for all departments. Advertisement Advertisement In other business, commissioners signed a letter to be sent to the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary and to Washington Countys legislative delegation asking for more judge time for rural counties. The countys sole designated judge is retiring this year and no replacement has been assigned. Just before signing the letter, Burns said Washington County deserves the same access to judge time as more populous counties, and that the lack of attention is straining resources in the countys district attorneys office. Commissioners also conducted a public hearing on an ordinance that would restrict the weight of vehicles on posted roads to 23,000 pounds, matching the same restriction in state law. The county has posted roads in the past, but never had an ordinance to enforce the weight limit. Advertisement Advertisement This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here. For more local stories continue with us on our NEWS CENTER Maine+ streaming app. For the latest breaking news, weather, and traffic alerts, download the NEWS CENTER Maine mobile app. West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey is honoring slain National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom today in Charleston. The governor will present her, posthumously, with the West Virginia Distinguished Service Medal. Beckstrom was shot, along with West Virginia National Guard Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, in Downtown DC near the Gallaudet Metro station. Beckstrom died shortly after being shot. Wolfe is undergoing a long, arduous recovery process. President Donald Trump represented both of them with the Purple Heart medal during his State of the Union address. The man suspected of shooting them, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, faces an array of charges, including first degree murder while armed (premeditated), assault with intent to kill while armed, transportation of a firearm & ammunition in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a felony; and four counts of possession of a firearm during crime of violence or dangerous offense. By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - White House AI czar David Sacks said on Friday the U.S. should "declare victory and get out" of its war on Iran, a rare instance of a prominent figure in Donald Trump's administration calling for an exit from the Iran conflict. Here are some details: * "This is a good time to declare victory and get out,"Sacks, Trump's crypto and AI czar, said in an appearance on the"All-In Podcast." * Sacks said the U.S. had degraded Iran's militarycapabilities. * "I agree that we should try to find the off-ramp," headded. * "If escalation doesn't lead anywhere good, then you haveto think about, well, how do you de-escalate? De-escalation, Ithink, involves reaching some sort of ceasefire agreement orsome sort of negotiated settlement with Iran," he said. * The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran andits ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, have responded with strikes onIsrael and other countries in the Middle East. * The war has shaken global markets and raised oil prices. * Iran's U.N. ambassador says over 1,300 people have beenkilled in Iran in U.S. and Israeli attacks. Israel says 12people have been killed in Israel by Iranian attacks. The U.S.military says seven of its members have been killed. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by William Mallard) Morocco will host the ninth joint ministerial meeting between the Kingdom and the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in a decision announced during the eighth edition of the forum held via videoconference. The GCCs invitation reflects a deliberate recognition of Moroccos expanding diplomatic role and its deepening strategic partnership with the Gulf bloc. The meeting brought together Moroccos Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccan Residents Abroad, Nasser Bourita, alongside GCC Secretary General Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi and foreign ministers and senior representatives from all six Gulf member states. During the session, Gulf foreign ministers praised the depth of bilateral relations and highlighted Moroccos sustained efforts, under King Mohammed VIs leadership, to strengthen Arab solidarity and elevate the strategic partnership between the two sides to its highest levels. The decision to hold the next ministerial round in Morocco was framed as an expression of the Gulf states confidence in the Kingdoms leadership and a testament to the fraternal ties that define relations between the two parties. The Morocco-GCC relationship has grown considerably in recent years, spanning investment, energy, food security, and diplomatic coordination. Moroccos hosting of the upcoming ninth session signals a further institutionalization of that partnership, with both sides committed to sustained dialogue on shared regional and international concerns. No date or venue for the ninth meeting has yet been officially announced. March 13 (Reuters) - Following through on an old threat, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a vital waterway that normally carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes. As oil markets worry about a global energy crisis, the United States has said it may consider escorting vessels through the strait, which could prove very hard to secure - something Yemen's Houthis proved in disrupting Red Sea shipping last year. About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the strait, where traffic has dropped by 97% since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began on February 28, according to United Nations data. WHY HAS IRAN CUT OFF THE STRAIT NOW? When a commander in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned in 2011 that cutting off the strait would be "easier than drinking a glass of water", the threat to the strait had already been made many times before. Advertisement Advertisement In the years since, the Guards have continued to warn they could close it, including during tensions over sanctions and Iran's nuclear programme in 2016 and 2018 and during Israeli and U.S. strikes in June last year. Analysts have always regarded the closure of the strait as a measure of last resort because of the long-term strategic changes it might prompt among Iran's enemies, and the potential for retaliation against its own energy sector. The attack on Iran starting on February 28 with the killing of its supreme leader has changed that equation. Iranian officials describe the war as existential and with the Guards increasingly taking charge of strategy. Several ships were hit in the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating U.S. Iran and Israel strikes across the Middle East. WHAT IS AT STAKE? The narrow passage of water between Iran and Oman that links the Gulf with the Gulf of Oman is the only sea exit for oil- and gas-producing countries such as Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Advertisement Advertisement Oil prices briefly climbed to their highest level since 2022 on Monday. High oil prices could trigger another cost-of-living crisis, as happened after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the United Nations. A prolonged conflict could also cause a fertilizer shock, risking global food security. About 33% of the worlds fertilisers, including sulphur and ammonia, pass through the Strait, according to analytics firm Kpler. An extended war could fuel fears of a global economic crisis similar to those that followed the Middle East oil shocks of the 1970s. WHY IS THE STRAIT SO HARD TO SECURE? Shipping lanes are just two nautical miles wide and ships must make a turn opposite Iranian islands and a mountainous coast that provides cover for Iranian forces, according to shipping broker SSY Global. Advertisement Advertisement Iran's conventional navy has largely been destroyed but the Guards still have plenty of options including fast attack craft, mini submarines, mines and even jetskis packed with explosives, said Tom Sharpe, a retired Royal Navy commander. Tehran has the capacity to produce around 10,000 drones a month, according to the Centre for Information Resilience, a non-profit research group. Escorting three or four ships a day through the strait would be feasible in the short-term using seven or eight destroyers providing air cover, and would depend on whether the risk from mini submarines has been reduced, but doing so sustainably for months would require more resources, Sharpe said. Even if Iran's capacity to deploy ballistic missiles, drones and floating mines were destroyed, ships would still face a threat from suicide operations, said Adel Bakawan, Director of the European Institute for Middle East and North African Studies. Advertisement Advertisement If the war does continue for weeks, some kind of escort will come together, said Kevin Rowlands, Editor of the RUSI Journal at the Royal United Services Institute. "The world needs oil to flow through from the Gulf, and so there is planning ongoing to put protection measures in place, he said. WHAT HAVE THE US AND OTHER COUNTRIES PROMISED? President Donald Trump said on March 3 that the U.S. would provide protection through the strait for oil tankers, but there have already been attacks and very little is getting through. He also said he had ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation to provide insurance and guarantees for shipping companies. Advertisement Advertisement French President Emmanuel Macron said several European countries, India and other Asian states were planning a joint mission to provide protection. But he said such an operation could happen only once the conflict ends. France is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spoken to the German and Italian leaders about options to provide support for commercial shipping in the strait, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. "We're looking at a range of options there," General Caine told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday without providing details. WHAT HAPPENED IN OTHER SHIPPING CHOKEPOINTS IN THE REGION? Yemen's Houthis, a group allied with Tehran but with a far smaller military arsenal at their disposal than Iran, managed to shut down most traffic passing through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait on its way to the Suez Canal for more than two years despite protection provided by U.S. and European Union-led forces. Advertisement Advertisement Most shipping companies are still using a far longer route via the southern tip of Africa. Danish shipping company Maersk had said it would begin a staggered return to the Suez route from January. An EU-led force has been more successful at countering piracy off Somalia's coast, but that has been against forces far less well equipped than Iran's Revolutionary Guards. ARE THERE ANY ALTERNATIVES TO USING THE STRAIT? The UAE and Saudi Arabia have sought to find ways to bypass the strait by building more oil pipelines. But those are not currently operational and an attack on an east-west Saudi pipeline by Houthi militia in 2019 showed those alternatives were also vulnerable. Advertisement Advertisement (Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou and Kate Holton, Writing by Charlie Devereux and Angus McDowall, Editing by Timothy Heritage) This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Why is it so easy for Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz? Authorities are searching for the man involved in the attempted kidnapping of a woman in southeast Fresno. Police say the victim agreed to meet the man on social media Thursday just before 10 p.m. in the area of Willow and Cesar Chavez. The victim reportedly got into the suspect's car and began talking when the man pulled out a knife and threatened her. Officers say the two got into a struggle before the suspect restrained the woman and drove off, but the victim managed to escape by jumping out of the moving car near Cedar and Tulare. The woman suffered minor injuries. Police have not yet identified the suspect. BURLINGAME, Calif. (KRON) Burlingame parents are seeking justice for their 4-year-old son, Ayden Everest Fang, who was killed outside a poke restaurant by a chain-reaction crash. The boys parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against the driver, the City of Burlingame, an 11-year-old electric bicycle rider, and the bicycle riders parents. This tragedy was preventable on multiple levels. Ignoring basic safety caused this result, said the Fang familys attorney, Niall McCarthy. Ayden was playing with a friend outside Truffle Bar Restaurant in downtown Burlingame, with the friends father standing nearby, when an out-of-control SUV fatally struck the boy and crashed into the restaurant on August 8, 2025. Ayden Everest Fang (Photo courtesy Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy) His horrified parents, Ming Fang and Ting Ting Liu, rushed out of the restaurant and found their beloved son deceased. A 6-year-old girl, who was also struck on the sidewalk, survived. Advertisement Advertisement The wrongful death lawsuit details a chain of events leading up to the tragedy. At 6:20 p.m., a 19-year-old woman was driving a Mazda SUV and attempting to pull out from a city parking lot onto Donnelly Avenue. She was an inexperienced driver, and her view of oncoming traffic was obstructed by a vehicle parked at the driveway. At the same time, an 11-year-old boy was traveling eastbound on Donnelly Avenue on a Class 2 electric bicycle while carrying his 10-year-old sister as a passenger. An 11-year-old driving an e-bike and having a passenger were both prohibited by the e-bikes user manual, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy law firm wrote. A memorial for Ayden Everest Fang in Burlingame is seen on Aug. 11, 2025. (KRON4 Photo) According to the lawsuit, the boy failed to activate his brakes and his e-bike collided with the rear drivers-side door of the SUV. The driver reacted by accidentally hitting her accelerator instead of the brake pedal. Her SUV accelerated across the roadway onto a sidewalk, ran over Ayden, and slammed through the front of the restaurant, the suit states. The crash resulted from multiple preventable failures, the law firm wrote. Advertisement Advertisement The e-bike riders parents should have known that their son was incapable of safely operating it on city streets, attorneys wrote. The 19-year-old woman had limited driving experience when her parents allowed her to drive the SUV, the lawsuit claims. She also used a prescription drug that impairs judgment, especially when driving, the suit states. No criminal charges will be filed against the teen driver, prosecutors said. The San Mateo County District Attorneys Office concluded that evidence gathered from the investigation was not sufficient to prove a vehicular manslaughter charge to a jury. Ayden Everest Fang (Photo courtesy Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy) Aydens parents legal actions in civil court seek to hold defendants named in the lawsuit accountable for alleged negligence, as well as prevent another tragedy. Advertisement Advertisement Ming Fang said, Our sincere hope in bringing this case is that we will make our community safer for other families. A vehicle that blocked the SUV drivers view was legally parked on a public street within a spot that should have been removed by the city, the suit claims. The parking spot allegedly created dangerous visibility conditions. The lawsuit states, Aydens death was preventable. Each of the defendants had a role in causing this life-ending event. The city was on notice that this specific driveway on Donnelly was the source of multiple near-misses and posed a threat to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians on Donnelly and the sidewalk. Ayden was a bright student and the youngest to enroll in his Montessori school. He loved reading, singing, painting, and spending time with his family and classmates. A Little Free Library was created in Burlingame in memory of Ayden Fang. (Photos courtesy GoFundMe) The boy had started the Burlingame public librarys 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten reading challenge, and he had just finished his first 100, according to his family. Ayden never had a chance to turn in his list of completed books. His grieving family created a Little Free Library on Donnelly Avenue near where the boy died. Advertisement Advertisement Little Aydens sudden death sent shockwaves through a tight-knit community. Hundreds of community members and police officers attended a vigil in Burlingame last year to honor his life and memory. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. CHEYENNE Joseph Kibler, a Cheyenne man running for governor of Wyoming, has changed his party affiliation again after leaving the Republican party in November to run as a write-in independent. Now, he is running as a candidate with the Constitution Party. He said he sees this move to run with a third party as a challenge to the chokehold major political parties have over Wyoming and across the nation. Advertisement Advertisement Certainly, the one thing that hasnt changed on this journey as Im running for governor is my principles and my core beliefs, said Kibler, who first announced his gubernatorial run last August. Nothing has changed there. He characterized his time as an independent as a necessary step back to determine the correct path forward for a campaign built on constitutional and conservative values. Joshua Shimkus, chairman of the Constitution Party of Wyoming, welcomed Kiblers move to his party. Shimkus wrote in a news release that Kiblers experience is becoming common in the state as former Republicans increasingly feel the party no longer upholds the constitutional principles they once championed. Kibler, a former firefighter and current web design business owner who moved to Wyoming from California in 2020 to seek greater liberty, has leveraged the fact that he is not a career politician throughout his campaign. Advertisement Advertisement The Constitution Party The Constitution Party was founded in 1990 as the American Taxpayers Party and changed its name to the Constitution Party in 2000. The platform advocates for a strict interpretation of the Constitution and more power for states. One of the partys most famous politicians was former Republican and party cofounder Howard Phillips. He ran three presidential campaigns in 1992, 1996 and 2000, receiving less than 1% of the vote each time. Kiblers decision to join the Constitution Party came after he took a deep dive into the partys platform, which he said mirrored his own campaign priorities. Advertisement Advertisement I looked at the core principles of life, liberty and integrity as it pertains to the Wyoming Constitution Party, Kibler said. I said, Well, OK, I know that aligns with my principles. Kibler added that the partys stances on constitutional amendments, big government, executive orders and corruption were virtually identical to the message he has been delivering on the campaign trail. However, he remained cautious about trading one party machine for another. One of the things I wasnt going to do if I was going to ... change parties ... is I wasnt going to compromise my principles, and I didnt want another party ball and chain, he said. I want to be able to be an individual candidate. Political views Advertisement Advertisement Kiblers political views show a tear it down to the studs approach to governance, he said. He is an advocate for the abolition of property taxes, which he has labeled criminal, and instead proposes a tiered approach to rolling out tax cuts while finding alternative revenue sources, such as expanded mineral production and tourism. According to the Constitution Partys website, its platform supports the replacement of the current tax system of the U.S. government (including income taxes, payroll taxes and estate taxes) with a tariff-based revenue system supplemented by excise taxes. On education, Kibler, a homeschool father, believes the current system is legislated into oblivion, advocating for a large reform of American education systems. He also opposes school vouchers, arguing it is unconstitutional to use public funds for private or home education, even though he would personally benefit from such a program. The party platform maintains that the federal government has no authority to mandate policies relating to state education. Advertisement Advertisement His energy policy focuses on Wyomings traditional strengths, supporting oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear energy, while remaining skeptical of wind and solar power due to availability and financial concerns. This aligns with the broader Constitution Party identity, which rejects the notion of man-made climate change or that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Also in line with the Constitution Party, Kibler takes an anti-abortion position. 2026 election Kibler is optimistic about the viability of a third-party run, citing a 2026 Gallup poll showing that 45% of Americans now identify as independents. Advertisement Advertisement Americans are ready to have different options right now, today, he said. The majority of those conversations with people in Wyoming are We need a different option. He argued that the Constitution Partys approach of less is more will resonate with voters. Were going the other direction like a freight train off a cliff. And weve got to start having this conversation and start doing it, he said. The Constitution Party of Wyoming is expected to hold its convention in early June to officially select its nominees. For Kibler, this second party change is less about having a spot on the ballot and more about finding a home for a movement he believes is necessary to save the states future. Advertisement Advertisement Kibler is one of only two non-Republican candidates for Wyoming governor at this point. The other candidates currently in the race are Democrat Gabriel Green, and Republicans former state House speaker and current state Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette; 2022 Republican candidate Brent Bien, and current State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder. Incumbent Gov. Mark Gordon will complete his second of two consecutive terms next year and has not announced any further political plans. Could this be one travel trauma too many? This weekend, hundreds of the time-rich, cash-rich cohort who bankroll much of the UK travel industry are converging on Sri Lanka for a midnight plane to Stansted on Sunday night. One couple, Jeff and Wendy Spencer from Surrey, will have overstayed their planned trip by 12 days by the time they step onto the chartered Spanish aircraft for the 10-hour flight to Essex. They will get back sooner than John and Sian Parker from North Wales, who are locked in limbo in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Weve just been left to our own devices, says Ms Parker. Advertisement Advertisement Their airline, Etihad, hopes to fly them back on Tuesday after more than a week of on-and-off communications. But the couple acknowledge they are in a relatively good situation. We keep telling ourselves: thank God were not in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, Ms Parker says. The first casualty of war is tourism. Within hours of the first US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Tehran was dispatching missiles and drones laden with 90kg of explosives to try to hit key economic infrastructure in the UAE and elsewhere. Departing soon? Sian and John Parker, from North Wales, who are currently stranded in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta (Simon Calder) Dubai, seen for decades as a safe and serene haven offering guaranteed sunshine and indulgence, now finds itself on the Foreign Office no-go list, along with Abu Dhabi, just down the road in the UAE, and Doha in Qatar. Advertisement Advertisement In a normal fortnight, seven million passengers would fly to, through or from the key Middle East hubs. Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways have long offered an aviation superhighway to British holidaymakers: connecting cities across the UK with destinations in Asia, Australasia and Africa. That role has come to a sudden halt, with attention now on getting stranded travellers where they need to be. Emirates and Etihad are selling commercial tickets, which is one reason the UK government and British Airways are no longer putting on evacuation flights from Muscat in Oman. But the market reveals a safety premium of around 200 per cent. Flights from Australia and Asia to the UK that do not involve a stop in the UAE or Qatar are typically selling for three times the fare with a Gulf connection. Passengers are prepared to pay dearly to avoid the apprehension of a change of planes in a location that the FCO warns against visiting. From Melbourne to London next weekend, for example, Etihad has a one-way fare as low as 462. Shenzhen Airlines not everybodys top choice for so long a journey is just over three times as much. Carriers including British Airways, Lufthansa of Germany and Singapore Airlines have added flights from East Asia specifically to cash in on the strong demand from fearful and distressed passengers. These companies will naturally say they are providing a sought-after service for people who want to bypass the Middle East. An Emirates Airbus A380 passenger aircraft prepares for landing at Dubai International Airport in Dubai on 8 March 2026. The US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 26 February, sparking swift retaliation by the Islamic Republic, which responded with missile attacks across the region. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images) (AFP/Getty) That reality will not have gone unnoticed by the aviation and tourism industries in the Gulf. They are faced with seeking to rebuild a previously well-tuned and highly profitable travel industry in a location that the world now realises is close to a temperamental and unpredictable state. Advertisement Advertisement The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates the conflict has cut international visitor spending across the Middle East by at least US$600m (450m) per day mostly lost air fares and hotel bookings, but also dining and shopping, which normally employ a vast number of people. Restoring confidence among British travellers matters hugely for Dubai, which was, until the end of February, the worlds largest international aviation hub. The UK is the third-biggest market, after Saudi Arabia and India, for DXB. Rapid reinstatement of flying is also crucial for Britain. Those A380 superjumbos bring in tourists and business travellers to the UK, and crucially connect to the world to regional cities including Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow. When Tunisia and Egypt were put on the no-go list because of terrorist attacks, the ban on organised tourism lasted for years and caused immense social and economic harm. But travel insiders expect the warning for the Gulf states is likely to be lifted in days after a ceasefire. Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the damage is spreading according to Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership a consortium of more than 700 UK agents. During and after past crises, a significant number of British tourists have demonstrated that they have no qualms about visiting parts of the world recently in the firing line (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Our travel agency partners are seeing a slowdown in demand for parts of the Eastern Mediterranean over the Easter window, particularly Cyprus, Turkey and Egypt. But, she says, the appetite for holidays is undimmed: People are continuing to plan and book travel for Easter. Mainland Spain, the Canary Islands, Portugal, France, Greece and Italy are all proving popular, and cruising is emerging as a strong alternative. During and after past crises, a significant number of British tourists have demonstrated that they have no qualms about visiting parts of the world recently in the firing line as long as the price is right. Advertisement Advertisement Steve Heapy, chief executive of the UKs leading tour operator, Jet2, told travel agents: Were speaking to hotels and trying to get special offers for Cyprus and Turkey. It might not make much difference now, but as soon as the war is over, well see a sharp spike in bookings. The airline part of his operation is insulated from the oil price surge due to judicious hedging. UK travellers seeking longhaul destinations, though, will need to adjust to higher fares. Carriers face longer routings due to airspace closures. Capacity is likely to shrink, even when the Gulf airlines return to full strength. And airlines will be able to extract a premium for both non-stop flights and connecting trips that do not involve the Middle East. People will think, maybe Ill fly Singapore Airlines next time, says Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler. He believes the tourism industry in the Gulf could be hit for the next one to five years because of the Iranian action: There you are in your five-star hotel in Dubai, and suddenly the reception desk downstairs is taken out by an errant drone. Julia Lo Bue-Said says winners already beginning to emerge: The Caribbean is seeing a notable spike in bookings from travellers who might otherwise have headed to the Middle East. Advertisement Advertisement Back in Jakarta, John and Sian Parker are preparing for a journey that will see them spend a couple of hours in Abu Dhabi on route to Manchester. Id like to have got home to get back to normal life and get on with work, said Mr Parker. But things are what they are and we hopefully well go on Tuesday. His wife, Sian, is not looking forward to the stopover. I must admit Im a bit apprehensive, but its something youve just got to get on with. History suggests British travellers will do just that. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A YouTuber who shot and killed a couple on the Las Vegas Strip during a livestream panicked in the aftermath and acted in self-defense after a previous beating, his attorney said amid a request to release him on $100,000 bail. Manuel Manny Ruiz, 42, also known as Sin City Manny, is accused of shooting and killing Rodney Finley, 44, also known as Finny Da Legend, and his wife, Tanisha Finley, 43, near the Bellagio Fountains on June 8, 2025. Last summer, a Clark County grand jury voted to indict Ruiz on two counts of murder with the use of a deadly weapon. Ruiz has pleaded not guilty. The confrontation stemmed from a beef between the two YouTube streamers, Metro police said. Advertisement Advertisement Due to the murder charges, several judges have denied Ruiz bail. A death review committee within the Clark County District Attorneys Office determined that prosecutors will seek the death penalty should a jury convict him, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported last year. Manuel Manny Ruiz, 42, also known as Sin City Manny, appears in Las Vegas Justice Court on July 3, 2025, to request a new attorney to represent him. (KLAS) Ruizs public defender has since filed paperwork with the court, asking a judge to set bail at $100,000. In the days after the shooting, Ruiz turned himself in to Henderson police and told detectives he acted in self-defense. In a court hearing last summer, Ruiz turned to 8 News Nows camera and proclaimed: Im innocent. Rodney Finleys livestream captured the shootings. The video shows Rodney Finley adjusting the camera. About 20 seconds later, a man police identified as Ruiz appears to struggle with Tanisha Finley before the shooting is captured on video, according to prosecutors. Advertisement Advertisement The shootings came more than a year after Ruiz filed a police report with Metro police, claiming the Finleys battered him on Fremont Street, documents said. On Halloween 2023, Ruiz said he was at the Fremont Street Experience when Tanisha Finley hit him with her selfie stick and with closed fists to his face, according to a police report. The report said Rodley Finley also physically pushed him too. Police located no weapons on either Rodley Finley or Tanisha Finley after the June shootings. In court documents, Ruiz claims he saw Rodney Finley going for a gun after Tanisha Finley began dancing in front of [Ruizs] face. Believing that Mr. Finley was going for a gun, Mr. Ruiz tried to stop him by drawing his own firearm (which he possessed lawfully as a concealed weapon permitholder) and opened fire; when it appeared that Mr. Finley was continuing to move, Mr. Ruizs CCW and self-defense training to eliminate the threat led him to aim higher, his attorney wrote. In the next moment, Mr. Ruiz saw Ms. Finley holding a shiny black object, which he believed was a gun, so he shot her. Panicked, Mr. Ruiz fled, leaving behind his gun as well as some of his clothing across the street. In the aftermath, police said Ruiz left behind a trail of items, including a hat discarded in a trash can at the Paris Las Vegas. Police also believe he ditched the murder weapon, cramming it into a nearby fence. Advertisement Advertisement Ruizs public defender adds that his history with post-traumatic stress disorder informed his reaction to the threat he perceived, mentioning a stabbing attack when Ruiz was 23. Ruizs trial was scheduled for August. Murder trials in Clark County are often delayed for months, if not years. A judge was scheduled to hear arguments for bail on Thursday, March 19. While Nevada has the death penalty, the state has not put a person to death since 2006. Murder cases in Nevada often end in plea deals and no trial, which result in life sentences without parole. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. PARIS (AP) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that the U.S. 30-day waiver on Russian oil sanctions amid the Iran war is not the right decision and wont help bring a stop to Russias more than 4-year-old invasion of Ukraine. This easing alone by the United States could provide Russia with about $10 billion for the war, Zelenskyy said. This certainly does not help peace. I believe that lifting sanctions will, in any case, lead to a strengthening of Russias position. It spends the money from energy sales on weapons, and all of this is then used against us, Zelenskyy said at a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to Paris. Advertisement Advertisement Therefore, ultimately lifting sanctions only so that more drones will later be flying at you is, in my opinion, not the right decision, he said. The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday a 30-day waiver on Russian oil sanctions. The step aims to free up Russian cargoes stranded at sea and ease supply shortages caused by the Iran war. Analysts say that spiraling oil prices due to Persian Gulf production blockages are benefiting the Russian economy. Moscow relies heavily on oil revenue to finance its invasion, and sanctions were a growing handicap. U.S.-mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv that seek to stop Europes biggest conflict since World War II are on hold due to the Iran war, though they could resume next week, according to Zelenskyy. Advertisement Advertisement Macron noted that broad sanctions on Russia still stand despite the temporary U.S. waiver. U.S. waivers announced in recent days are limited and taken on an exceptional basis, Macron said. It does not broadly or permanently roll back the sanctions that they themselves decided to apply, he added. German leader says US sanctions waiver for Russian oil is wrong German Chancellor Friedrich Merz adopted a more critical stance. He said Friday that a meeting earlier this week of heads of state and government from the Group of Seven industrialized democracies discussed with U.S. President Donald Trump the issue of Russian oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. Six members of the G7 expressed a very clear view that this (waiving of Russia sanctions) is not the right signal to send, Merz said during a visit to Norway. We learned this morning that the U.S. government has apparently decided otherwise. Once again, we believe this is the wrong decision. Advertisement Advertisement Merz added: There is currently a price problem, but not a supply problem. And in that regard, I would like to know what additional motives led the U.S. government to make this decision. Ukraine offers its drone expertise Ukraine has become one of the worlds leading producers of drone interceptors, and Kyiv is offering its expertise to the United States and its Gulf partners for the war in the Middle East, hoping to receive in return the high-end weaponry it cant manufacture at home. But Trump spurned Ukraines offer of assistance to the U.S. in comments aired Friday. No, we dont need their help on drone defense, Trump told the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Radio. Zelenskyy had said on Thursday that Ukraine is awaiting White House approval for an agreement on producing battle-tested drones. Advertisement Advertisement In Paris, he said Kyiv had received a request for drone combat assistance from Washington. The cause of the discrepancy between the leaders' comments was not immediately clear. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has received requests from six countries for help with drones. It has already sent expert teams to three countries, he said, without naming them. Zelenskyy noted that providing interceptors was not enough to help fight drone attacks. The Ukrainian military has expertise in deploying the systems, he said. There must be proper, systematic work with radars and with the entire air defense system, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine is ready to share this experience for the sake of the security of those partners who are helping us. Advertisement Advertisement ___ Novikov contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Kostya Manenkov in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report. ___ Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine NEED TO KNOW Zohran Mamdani reportedly backed out of an interview with CBS News after a social media post by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss On Feb. 28, Weiss shared a social media clip that condemned Mamdani's statement on the war in Iran and added a "fire" emoji The New York City mayor reportedly saw Weiss' post as the 'nail in the coffin' following critical coverage of him by her media outlets New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani reportedly backed out of a planned interview with CBS News over concerns about the coverage, with the alleged "nail in the coffin" being a social media post by network head Bari Weiss. Vanity Fair reported on Thursday, March 12, that Mamdani was making plans for a sit-down interview with CBS Sunday Morning's Robert Costa. The mayor was reportedly hesitant, however, due to critical coverage he'd received from The Free Press, the staunchly pro-Israel digital news outlet run by Weiss, who is also CBS News' editor-in-chief. Then she allegedly made things worse. Advertisement Advertisement On Feb. 28, President Donald Trump announced "Operation Epic Fury," the U.S. and Israel's "massive and ongoing" military action in Iran. Mamdani issued a statement condemning the attack hours later, saying in part, "Today's military strikes on Iran carried out by the United States and Israel mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace." CBS News contributor Masih Alinejad, who was born in Iran, issued scathing criticism of Mamdani's statement in a segment that aired later the same day, saying, "Mr. Mamdani, you are more than welcome to come to one of my safe houses." (The Department of Justice found in October 2025 that the Iranian government sent two paid assassins to kill Alinejad for her dissident journalism, which fueled her condemnation of Mamdani's statement.) "Where were you when they sent killers here in New York City? You were crying for your aunt because she has stopped using the subway for simply- - in an illusionist statement you made, saying she didn't feel safe, for wearing a hijab. Really? I stopped using subways because of the would-be assassins being sent to beautiful New York City by the Islamic Republic," she said. "I know maybe you and many other people, they hate President Trump," Alinejad added. "But believe me, this is not the right time to shift your hatred and your anger from President Trump to the people of Iran, innocent people. We are better allies to you, America, compared to these backward mullahs." Advertisement Advertisement Weiss reposted a clip of Alinejad's comments on her personal X account and added a "fire" emoji, which is often used to show agreement for a statement. A source told Vanity Fair that was the "nail in the coffin" for Mamdani. Credit: barrie weiss/instagram "Bari and her people have a clear ax to grind with him," a former CBS producer also told the outlet. "It's not just Zohran. It's really hard now to get people to come on CBS." The mayor's office did not immediately respond when PEOPLE reached out for comment. Paramount Skydance bought The Free Press in October 2025 and installed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, despite her lack of experience in broadcast journalism. Advertisement Advertisement She faced scandal just two months later, when she abruptly pulled a planned 60 Minutes segment that reported on Venezuelan men who were deported by the Trump administration to a notorious El Salvador prison. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. The segment, titled "Inside CECOT," was removed just hours before broadcast, with a CBS News spokesperson writing in a press release at the time that the story needed additional reporting and would air at a future date. However, longtime correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi sent a private email about the segment to her fellow 60 Minutes staffers, which was later obtained by multiple media outlets. Advertisement Advertisement In it, Alfonsi said she learned that Weiss had spiked our story, calling the decision not an editorial decision" but "a political one." "Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices," Alfonsi wrote, according to the outlets. "It is factually correct." In a statement, Weiss characterized the decision as a routine newsroom judgment call. Read the original article on People The U.S. military bombed more than 90 military targets on Kharg Island late Friday, going after the small island off Iran's coast where most of the country's oil is exported from. Israel said Sunday it hit targets across Iran again, saying its military has now carried out more than 7,000 strikes since Feb. 28. President Trump said forces "totally obliterated every military target" but left oil infrastructure on the island intact. He threatened to reverse that if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Trump also told NBC News late Saturday that he had heard that Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, may "not be alive," saying, "If he is, he should do something very smart for his country and that's surrender." Iran's foreign minister said Sunday the strait is "open to everyone, except American ships and those of its allies." In practice, that changes little because Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other U.S. allies account for the bulk of non-Iranian oil moving through the waterway. The IRGC also warned the United Arab Emirates that American military positions in the country are "legitimate targets." Advertisement Advertisement An Iran-backed militia struck the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad late Friday, the second time the compound has been hit since the war began. The embassy urged all Americans to leave Iraq immediately on Saturday. The State Department also ordered nonessential staff and families to leave Oman after Iranian strikes hit targets in the country. Five American refueling aircraft were damaged in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, according to the Wall Street Journal. No one was killed. The military identified the six service members killed when a KC-135 refueling plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday. The crash was not due to hostile fire. At least 13 American service members have now been killed since the war began. Gas prices have risen to a national average of $3.70 a gallon, according to AAA, up more than 25% since the war started. More than 1,444 people have been killed in Iran since Feb. 28. In Lebanon, 850 people have been killed. At least 12 people have been killed in Israel. Moroccan researchers have unearthed the fossilised remains of a previously unknown dinosaur species in the eastern region of Tendrara, a discovery described as unprecedented for the area and scientifically significant, according to the Faculty of Sciences at Mohammed I University in Oujda. The discovery was made by a team of Moroccan scientists working in collaboration with foreign researchers. A university source told SNRTnews that the dinosaur lived more than 100 million years ago, reinforcing evidence that eastern Morocco was home to multiple dinosaur species tens of millions of years before the Late Cretaceous. Researchers have been working at the Tendrara site for years, gradually collecting the dinosaurs bones using specialised extraction techniques. According to the Moroccan team, the specimen belongs to a herbivorous dinosaur family, adding a new dimension to Moroccos paleontological record, which has often centred on carnivorous species. The bones are being cleaned, catalogued, scanned and reconstructed in university laboratories. Support Local News Reporting in the Yakima Valley To support timely fact-based Yakima Herald-Republic reporting like the piece above, you can use one of the convenient options below. Donations through this system are tax deductible. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close The Association of Victims of Terrorism of the Canary Islands (ACAVITE) has organized lately a ceremony in honor of 300 Canary Islanders (miners & fishermen) killed by the Polisario terrorist group. The ceremony, held on the occasion of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism, was marked by wreath-laying and moments of silence in the presence of officials from the Government of the Canary Islands, the Consul General of Morocco, representatives of victims associations and Spanish military personnel. The bereaved families are still waiting for justice to be served by holding the Polisario killers accountable for their crimes. The families of the 289 victims say they have suffered immeasurable loss, grief, physical and emotional harm from Polisario terrorist acts. The Association of Victims of Terrorism of the Canary Islands is a Spanish non-governmental organization founded in 2006. It demands justice, recognition, and reparation for Canary Island civilians (mostly fishermen) killed or kidnapped by the Polisario militia, funded, armed and sheltered by the Algerian regime. The association accuses the Polisario of targeting Spanish fishing vessels of operating in the waters between Moroccan Sahara and the Canary Islands. ACAVITE has launched legal actions in Spain for the trial of Polisario leaders, particularly Brahim Ghali, for genocide, murder, and crimes against humanity. Morocco has been elected by acclamation in The Hague to the Presidency of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on behalf of the African Group, for a one-year term starting on 12 May. This election, in the person of Mohamed Basri, Moroccos Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to the OPCW, follows the unanimous support expressed by the Group of African States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention for the Moroccan candidacy, as well as by all members of the Executive Council. Moroccos presidency of this central decision-making body reflects the kingdoms continuous commitment to the noble objectives of the Convention and its sustained cooperation with the OPCW. This is illustrated by the organization in Morocco of several pioneering conferences as well as numerous regional training sessions aimed at strengthening the capacities of experts, first responders, military personnel, and law-enforcement representatives from African countries on topics such as chemical safety and security, the peaceful uses of chemistry, and the fight against chemical terrorism. This election also demonstrates the recognition by OPCW member States of Moroccos major role, constant commitment, and active contribution to the work of the Organizations various bodies. Morocco, which has been designated for the second time to assume the Presidency of the Executive Council following a previous term in 2021-2022, has held several positions of responsibility within OPCW bodies. These include the Presidency of the Conference of the States Parties, the OPCWs supreme body, in 2017-2018, the Vice-Presidency of the Executive Council on behalf of the African Group for 2025-2026, as well as the Vice-Presidency of the Conference of the States Parties in 2023-2024 and 2025-2026. As the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW, with its 193 Member States, oversees the global endeavour to permanently and verifiably eliminate chemical weapons. Since the Conventions entry into force in 1997, it is the most successful disarmament treaty eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Morocco signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993 and ratified it in December 1995. Since then, Morocco, which has never possessed chemical weapons, has fulfilled all its obligations under the Convention while remaining a strong advocate for the peaceful use of chemistry. U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have introduced the Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act of 2026. The move comes as the U.S. House of Representatives is considering a bipartisan bill tabled last June by Republican Joe Wilson (South-Carolina) and Democrat Jimmy Panetta (CA) for branding the Algeria-backed Polisario militia as Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Senator Cruz said: The Iranian regime is trying to turn the Polisario Front into the Houthis of West Africa and use them to undermine the national security of the United States and our allies. The Polisario Front is working with Iranian terrorist groups, receiving drones from the IRGC, and moving weapons around the region on behalf of the Iranian regime, added Mr. Cruz, noting that the bill will ensure that Americas most powerful anti-terrorism sanctions can be used to counter those threats. Once the Polisario Terrorist Designation Act is secured, the Algeria-backed armed group and its leaders will be cut off from access to the global financial system, international travel, and the resources they rely upon to conduct their terrorism acts. Senator Cotton said: the Polisario Front is a terrorist organization that openly supports Iran and Hezbollah. Designating these terrorists as such is long overdue. For his part, Sen. Scott said that the Polisario Fronts ties to adversaries like Iran and its cooperation with Iranian-backed terrorists like Hezbollah must be confronted. I am so proud to join Senator Cruz on this bill to ensure the United States has the tools to fully investigate these terrorists and hold those involved accountable, he added. At the US House of Representatives, H.R. 4119 bill introduced by Rep. Representatives Joe Wilson and Jimmy Panetta has gained the support of Congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida), Jefferson Shreve (Indiana), Randy Fine (Florida) Lance Gooden (Texas), Pat Harrigan (North Carolina) Zachary Nunn (Iowa) , Don Bacon (Nebraska) and Claudia Tenney (New York). More Congressmen and Senators are expected to join in the whirlwind gathering force against the Polisario and its sponsors, especially Algeria at the U.S. Congress. Danish tug owning group Svitzer has announced supporting container ships at the Tanger Med II terminal with five ASD tugs with 90 tons of bollard pull Svitzer Al Hoceima, Svitzer Chefchaouen, Svitzer Tanger, Svitzer Tetouan and 2025-built Svitzer Ouezzane. The leading harbor and terminal towage provider also owns three pilot boats at Tanger Med II Svitzer Oued Aliane, Svitzer Oued Martil and Svitzer Oued Rmel. For Svitzer, the region is important because we are supporting customers who need safe and predictable towage in sites of strategic importance for both energy supply and global trade, said Svitzer managing director for the Middle East and North Africa cluster, Karim Cordahi. Our focus is straightforward: build strong local crews, maintain disciplined ways of working, and deliver reliable performance for the ports and terminals we serve, he added, noting that this means clear procedures, drills and training, well-maintained equipment and close co-ordination with the port community. Svitzer Company provides marine support services. It offers towage and associated marine services such as berthing and unberthing, escort towage, manoeuvring, firefighting, line handling, jetty and buoy maintenance, waste management, ice breaking, oil boom deployment, and emergency response services. As the war in Iran spills over into other parts of the Middle East, energy experts expect the price of several oil and gas products to soar over the coming months, driven by shortages. This will likely affect flight prices, with several airlines warning of anticipated price hikes. It could lead to a travel slump, as consumers wait for prices to fall again. Australias Qantas Airways, Scandinavias SAS, and Air New Zealand are three of the airlines to have already announced airfare hikes in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The airlines cited the abrupt spike in the cost of fuel driven by the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran as the reason for the move. Jet fuel prices rose from between $85 to $90 a barrel before the attack on Iran to as much as $150 to $200 a barrel this week. This has led several airlines to reconsider their financial outlooks for 2026, as the uncertainty makes it impossible to predict where the price of fossil fuels will go in the coming months. The war in Iran has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade corridor connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The strait is considered a chokepoint, as there are few alternative options for energy transportation, beyond some limited pipeline networks in the region. The dramatic reduction in the transport of fossil fuels through the strait, which is said to have created the biggest oil supply disruption in history, has driven oil and gas prices up sharply in recent weeks. An SAS spokesperson told Reuters, Increases of this magnitude make it necessary to react in order to maintain stable and reliable operations, adding that the airline has implemented a temporary price adjustment. Some airlines will be more affected than others by the increase in jet fuel prices. For example, several Asian and European airlines, such as Lufthansa and Ryanair, have oil hedging in place, meaning that a part of their fuel supplies is maintained at a fixed rate. However, some companies are concerned that even the hedged fuel reserves may be at risk. Finnair hedged more than 80 percent of its first-quarter fuel purchases and now worries that the fuel may no longer be available if the conflict continues. Some major jet fuel producers, such as Kuwait, have already been forced to reduce production and export quantities in recent weeks. Another challenge that is driving airfares up is the closure of several airspaces because of the ongoing conflict, which has affected several Asia-Europe routes. Some airlines have been forced to open alternative flight routes for passengers to reach their destinations. Pilots have also been forced to reroute to avoid the Middle East conflict, while capacity on popular routes has rapidly increased. Absent near-term relief, airlines around the world could be forced to ground thousands of aircraft while some of the industrys financially weakest carriers could halt operations, Deutsche analysts were reported to have said in a note to clients. Meanwhile, some companies, such as British Airways, are confident that they can maintain their current ticket prices in the near-term until more is known about the mid- to long-term impact of the conflict. However, British Airways has cut certain routes due to continuing uncertainty, such as its seasonal flights to Abu Dhabi. The uncertainty means that several airlines, across Asia, Europe, and North America, are seeing their shares plummet. Lorraine Tan, the director of equity research, Asia at Morningstar, stated, The issue for the airlines now is that travel demand may be curtailed as costs become prohibitive for leisure travellers and as some companies start to limit business travel due to the uncertain outlook." On Monday, during a party conference in Florida, U.S. President Trump announced, We have already won in many ways, but we havent won enough, in reference to the war in Iran. Trump says. The president added, We go forward more determined to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all. Trumps speech, as well as mixed messages from the president to several media outlets, have caused greater uncertainty, as there is no clear timeline for the conflict or an idea about when it might end. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has already caused significant energy supply chain disruptions, which have driven oil and gas prices up. Meanwhile, uncertainties about when the U.S.-Israeli intervention in Iran will come to an end have led stocks across a range of industries to fall sharply. While many airlines attempt to weather the storm, it is likely that we will see significant price increases in airfares in the coming months. By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Olivia Munn says advice from Shannen Doherty helped shape how she approached her own breast cancer battle, telling an audience in Los Angeles the late actor urged her to be so aggressive in confronting the disease. Olivia Munn says advice from Shannen Doherty helped shape how she approached her own breast cancer battle, telling an audience in Los Angeles the late actor urged her to be so aggressive in confronting the disease Olivia, 45, spoke about the guidance she received from Shannen during Los Angeles Magazines The L.A. Woman Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Friday (13.03.26), where Olivia was honoured as Woman of the Year. Olivia said she and Shannen developed a close relationship in the months before Shannen died in July 2024 aged 53 after a long battle with breast cancer that had metastasised to her bones and brain. During the event, Olivia reflected on her diagnosis, her treatment journey and the advice she received from Shannen. Olivia also used the occasion to encourage women to take the Tyrer-Cuzick breast cancer risk assessment test a screening tool used to calculate a womans five-year and lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. The event audience included Jennie Garth, Corinne Foxx, Jane Seymour and Olivias close friend Jessica St. Clair. Speaking during the event, Olivia recalled advice Shannen had given her while she was navigating her diagnosis. She said: She said to me having gone through this she said just be so aggressive, according to remarks delivered during a conversation with Los Angeles Magazine editor Jasmin Rosemberg. Olivia also told the audience she viewed herself as fortunate to have had the opportunity to fight the illness. She said: I dont look at cancer like, I cant believe I went through this, its really unfair. Theres no place in my mind and my energy to think about how things are unfair. I just think thank God Im one of the lucky ones. During the luncheon Olivia described her diagnosis and the steps that followed after screening tests earlier in her journey. She said she had received a clear mammogram and ultrasound in January 2023 and had tested negative on a genetic mutation test, but the Tyrer-Cuzick risk assessment showed a 37.3% lifetime risk of breast cancer a result considered high risk. After undergoing an MRI in April she learned she had Luminal B breast cancer in both breasts. Olivia said she underwent five surgeries as part of her treatment, including a lymph node dissection, nipple delay procedure, a double mastectomy with reconstruction, an oophorectomy to remove her ovaries and a partial hysterectomy. Her surgeries concluded in April 2025. Reflecting on the experience, Olivia said: I used to be really tough and I felt like any fight that came my way I would take it. I would not shy away from confrontation. She continued: What I realized since having cancer is that, I have this armor on. I think a lot of women, we need to protect ourselves with this big heavy armor and I looked at this mountain that I had to climb and I was like, I cannot climb a mountain this high holding all this extra weight, so I had to drop it. Olivia said reaching the other side of the experience changed how she viewed vulnerability. She said: Im so much stronger the more vulnerable I am and Im able to carry that with me every day. She added: We really dont know our courage and bravery until its put to test and now I know that I have it in me. I know I can take on anything. Olivia, who shares two children Malcolm, 4, and Mei, 1 with her husband John Mulaney, 43, also said she is working with Senator Mark Kelly, 61, to advocate for making the lifetime breast cancer risk assessment test standard care. She said: I dont feel that its fair for women to always have to know about the things they need to ask their doctors to do. Olivia had previously thanked Shannen for supporting her during her illness while speaking at the Hollywood Creative Alliances Astra TV Awards in June 2025. After Shannens death in July 2024, Olivia wrote on social media: Just a couple of months ago, she asked how I was doing and if she could do anything for me. True to form, Shannen was offering me her support even though she was in the final stage of fighting this horrific disease. Since coming into power in January 2025, United States President Trump has pursued an energy policy centred around fossil fuels. As part of his plan to expand U.S. oil and gas production, Trump has made it easier to attain licences to dig for fossil fuels on federal land and has reopened several regions to exploration. One such region is Alaska, where new exploration had previously been restricted due to environmental concerns. However, during the recent sale of oil and gas leases in Alaska, there was little interest in the region, suggesting that Trump may not be able to reinvigorate all areas of the U.S. fossil fuel market. In January last year, President Trump signed an executive order entitled Unleashing Alaskas Extraordinary Resource Potential. Trump pointed out the vast, largely untapped energy resources that Alaska owns, suggesting that exploiting the resources could be key to driving down energy prices, reducing import dependence, and creating jobs. The Trump administrations aim was to reverse the punitive restrictions implemented by the previous administration that specifically target resource development on both State and Federal lands in Alaska. The executive order stated plans to lift the halt on fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and prioritise the development of Alaskas LNG potential. Last summer, President Trump called for at least four lease sales within the refuge, over a 10-year period. Then, in October, the Trump administration finalised plans to open the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies looking to conduct exploration projects. This was made possible after, in March last year, a federal judge said the Biden administration did not have the authority to cancel the leases. U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the October plan, which would allow for lease sales within the refuges 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, an area which is deemed sacred by the Indigenous Gwichin. Environmentalists have widely criticised the Trump administration for disregarding the ecological importance of the region, which they say could be destroyed by launching new oil and gas activities. Drilling in the Arctic and Alaska is viewed as a high-risk undertaking, which is likely to involve decades of work and billions of dollars of investment, at a time when the future of oil and gas demand is uncertain. The senior manager of The Wilderness Society in Alaska, Meda DeWitt, said that Trump is placing corporate interests above the lives, cultures and spiritual responsibilities of the people whose survival depends on the Porcupine caribou herd, the freedom to live from this land and the health of the Arctic Refuge. Despite the ongoing criticism over the opening of oil and gas licenses in the region, this March, the Trump administration held the first of six offshore oil and gas auctions it has planned for Alaska between now and 2032, covering more than 1 million acres. However, the auction did not receive any interest, with no bids made for new offshore oil and gas exploration opportunities in Alaskas Cook Inlet. At this time, no bids have been received, the Interior Departments Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) stated on its website. In accordance with OBBBA, we will continue to hold leasing opportunities for Cook Inlet so that industry has a regular, predictable federal leasing schedule that ensures we achieve President Trump's American Energy Dominance Agenda." Matthew Giacona, the acting director of BOEM, released a public statement following the failed auction stating, Even when a sale receives no bids, maintaining a transparent, congressionally mandated schedule keeps Cook Inlet opportunities available for future investment, strengthens national readiness and supports Alaskas role in meeting Americas energy needs. Meanwhile, Cooper Freeman, the Alaska director of the environmental group the Centre for Biological Diversity, said, This is a huge embarrassment for Trumps Alaska fossil fuel fantasy. In addition to environmental concerns, energy experts cite the dwindling resources in the basin as a reason for the lack of interest. In addition, retrieving gas has become more difficult and expensive, which has deterred companies from investing. The investor response seems somewhat ironic after all the work the Trump administration has put into reopening Alaska for development, given that the Biden administration has previously highlighted a lack of interest from the industry in 2022, a statement that Republicans in Congress at the time criticised widely. However, the Republican Senator of Alaska, Dan Sullivan, blames years of regulatory uncertainty, outside environmental activism, and outright hostility to resource development under the Biden administration, for the lack of interest. The next auction in the Cook Inlet is scheduled for March 2027. Despite strong criticism of the Biden administrations move to protect environmentally important parts of Alaska by restricting oil and gas exploration, the Trump administration has so far garnered no interest in the region since opening it up for new activities. Environmentalists will likely see the lack of interest in the recent Cook Inlet auction as a win, although it is still uncertain whether future auctions could attract investors. By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com This week, Zimbabwe took a historic step to protect its own value chains from external exploitation by fast-tracking a ban on raw lithium exports, effective until further notice and the impacts have been widespread both domestically and abroad. The February 25 ban was immediate and unexpected, as were its impacts on global battery supply chains and local mining operations. Originally, the export ban was planned for January 2027, with the intent of incentivizing the local processing and refining of lithium instead of leaving value additions and their associated profits to importing nations. Zimbabwe is the largest producer of lithium in Africa, and has some of the largest proven lithium reserves in the world, according to figures from the US Geological Survey (USGS). Africa is rich in resources central to the clean energy transition. While this opens up a world of opportunity for many developing economies around the continent, it also comes with significant tradeoffs, including energy autonomy and the ability to keep the profits from African primary resources within Africa, where they are sorely needed. African leaders are faced with a dilemma accepting international investment in exchange for exporting energy resources needed within Africa, or taking the much more difficult, costly, and time-consuming option of building up homegrown value chains. Unfortunately, Zimbabwes surprise ban has had some unintended negative consequences on the ground. "Regrettably, in the period following that announcement, we witnessed an unprecedented and unacceptable scramble," Zimbabwe information ministry's Nick Mangwana said in a statement on social media. "Instead of preparing for value addition, some actors engaged in a frenzy of mining activity, seeking to extract and export as much raw lithium as possible before the deadline," he went on to say. Related: Trumps Secret Weapon in the Rare Earth War According to a report from Africa News, some insiders also report that large quantities of lithium have been "illicitly stockpiled in a neighbouring country." Mangwana has denounced this tactic as a "plunder" of Zimbabwe's "economic future". The move has also had immediate ramifications for Chinese battery manufacturers and global lithium-ion battery value chains, especially already-volatile EV markets. Historically, most of Zimbabwes lithium exports have gone to Chinese markets, and the South African nation has become a critical supplier to Chinas lithium ecosystem according to Business Insider Africa. For China, which dominates global lithium processing and battery manufacturing, the policy shift represents a direct supply shock, the Business Insider report states. Despite its midstream dominance, China remains dependent on imported hard-rock spodumene concentrate, sourced largely from Africa and Australia, to feed its vast refining capacity. China has been working hard to establish dominance in clean energy supply chains in emerging economies for years now. Influence in developing countries rich in primary energy manufacturing materials is a central pillar of Chinas energy security strategy and its mission to become the worlds first electro-state as well as the center of gravity for global energy markets. The spread of Chinas influence has been rapid, extreme, and shadowy across the African continent. A 2025 report from the China Global South Project (CGSP) revealed that in the years between 2020 and 2024, Chinese companies and financiers have been involved in 84 energy projects across the continent, with a combined capacity of more than 32 gigawatts enough electricity to light up over 135 million urban African homes, or more than half a billion rural homes, every year, CGSP summarizes. But exporting all that potential to China presents a huge issue for Africas energy future. Today, approximately 600 million people in Africa lack access to electricity, and the continents energy demand is expected to increase by a factor of three over the next decade as sub-Saharan Africa grows, develops, and industrializes. Meeting projected demand will require power generation capacity to increase tenfold by 2065. Some critics argue that Zimbabwes decision to try to homeshore value chains has come too late, but the move is in line with a much larger shift in global geopolitics. While China maintains a commanding position in refining and battery production, upstream resource holders are increasingly asserting leverage, reports Business Insider Africa. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The United States and Iran are fighting not just because of their differences, but also because of their similarities. Both countries see themselves as exceptional civilizations shaped by religion and sustained by a sense of victimhood. Each believes it has been repeatedly wronged by the other and is therefore acting defensively. This mutual narrative has become one of the most powerful forces shaping U.S.Iran relations. Both nations interpret the relationship through different historical starting points. Because their memories of the conflict begin at different moments, each country tells a story in which it is primarily the victim and the other the aggressor. The American Narrative Many Americans view the conflict as beginning with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis, when Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans for 444 days. The crisis severed diplomatic relations and cemented Irans image in the United States as a hostile revolutionary state. In this narrative, Iran subsequently became a destabilizing actor that supports militant groups and threatens American allies in the Middle East. From Washingtons perspective, sanctions, military pressure, and containment policies are defensive responses to an ideological regime that defines itself in opposition to the United States (but is not a physical threat to the homeland.) The Iranian Narrative Irans narrative usually begins earlier, with the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh, a populist figure, had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company after it refused to allow Iran to audit its books. The CIA and Britains MI6 supported a coup that removed him from power and restored the Shah, who fled to Italy at the outbreak of unrest. For many Iranians, this event demonstrates that the United States was willing to overthrow Irans democratic government to protect its geopolitical interests and control Irans patrimony. The Shahs subsequent rule, which was described by Amnesty International as having the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid mechanism of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief, reinforced the belief that the United States sought to dominate Irans politics and economy. Related: Little-Known US Company Lands Important Pentagon Contract in Rare Earth Race Other events deepened this perception, including U.S. support for Iraq during the IranIraq War, the 1988 shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 that killed 290 civilians, and decades of economic sanctions. From Tehrans perspective, the United States appears as an imperial power determined either to control Iran or to overthrow its government. The Power of Victim Narratives Mutual victim narratives reinforce the conflict. Each side interprets its own actions as defensive and the others as aggressive. Sanctions, proxy warfare, missile programs, and military strikes are all framed as necessary responses to the other sides hostility. Because both countries believe they have been repeatedly wronged, trust is extremely low. Diplomatic openings are fragile because leaders on both sides expect deception or betrayal. Compromise can appear politically dangerous, since concessions may be interpreted domestically as surrender. This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing cycle. One side takes a coercive step; the other interprets it as confirmation of its victim narrative and retaliates; both sides then feel further justified in their actions. In short, each country believes it is playing defense. Key Events That Reinforced the Cycle Several major events since 1953 have reinforced these mutual narratives and deepened the conflict. The 1953 Coup The CIA and MI6 supported the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh after he nationalized Irans oil industry. For Iran, the coup demonstrated that the United States would intervene to control the countrys resources and political direction. American policymakers at the time largely saw the operation as a Cold War measure intended to prevent possible Soviet influence. Today, the coup receives little attention in American discussions of U.S.Iran relations, which often begin with the 1979 revolution. The Iranian Revolution (1979) The revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah and established the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Many Iranians saw the revolution as liberation from dictatorship and foreign influence. In the United States, however, the fall of the Shah marked the loss of a key regional ally and the emergence of a hostile revolutionary regime. The Hostage Crisis (19791981) Relations deteriorated sharply when Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Americans viewed the crisis as a violation of international law and a national humiliation that influenced the 1980 presidential election. Many Iranians justified the seizure to prevent another foreign-backed coup. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed in 1980. The IranIraq War (19801988) When Saddam Husseins Iraq invaded Iran, the United States eventually tilted toward Baghdad. Washington provided economic assistance, dual-use technology, military intelligence, and other support. In Iran, this reinforced the belief that the United States was backing an aggressor. Iraqs use of chemical weapons against Iranian forces, which killed or wounded 50,000, strengthened the perception that Western powers tolerated attacks on Iran. American policymakers, however, largely saw their support for Iraq as a way to prevent Iranian revolutionary expansion in the region. Iran Air Flight 655 (1988) In July 1988, a U.S. Navy cruiser shot down an Iranian passenger aircraft, killing 290 civilians. Iran viewed the incident as reckless or deliberate killing of civilians, particularly because the ship was later revealed to have been operating in Iranian territorial waters. The United States described the event as a tragic mistake during a tense naval confrontation. The Axis of Evil Speech (2002) In 2002, President George W. Bush labeled Iran part of an Axis of Evil alongside Iraq and North Korea. The statement reflected American concerns about Irans support for militant groups and its suspected pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. In Iran, however, the speech angered both reformists and hardliners, especially because Tehran had recently cooperated with the United States against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Post 9/11 Cooperation and the Missed Opportunity (2003) After the September 11 attacks, Iran quietly assisted the United States in operations against the Taliban. In May 2003, Tehran sent Washington a proposal through the Swiss ambassador outlining a possible comprehensive settlement of disputes between the two countries. Iran signaled willingness to provide nuclear transparency, cooperate against terrorism, pressure Hezbollah to become a political organization primarily, and accept the Arab League framework for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. In return, Iran sought sanctions relief, security guarantees, and recognition of its regional interests. Washington did not pursue the proposal, in part because many officials believed Irans revolutionary government might soon weaken or collapse. Related: Six Stocks That Could Soar in an Era of Regional Instability The Nuclear Agreement (2015) In July 2015, the United States, Iran, and several world powers reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Iran saw the agreement as evidence that diplomacy could improve relations with the West. Critics in the United States argued that the deal did not sufficiently restrict Irans regional activities. U.S. Withdrawal from the JCPOA (2018) In 2018, the United States withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions. In Iran the decision reinforced the belief that Washington could not be trusted to honor international agreements. Supporters of the withdrawal in the United States argued that the deal was inadequate (then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called it "the worst deal ever negotiated") and strengthened Irans regional influence. Trumps abandonment of the JCPOA probably reminded Iran of its bad investment in the Eurodif uranium enrichment consortium based in France. The Shahs government invested $1.18 billion for 10 percent of the project, but Europe reneged on deliveries of nuclear fuel after the Shah was ousted, and Iran was repaid its investment in 1991 after a court battle. The Killing of Qasem Soleimani (2020) In January 2020, the United States killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq. Washington justified the strike as a response to attacks on American personnel in the region, though the extent of Irans involvement is credibly disputed. In Iran, the assassination was widely viewed as the illegal killing of a national figure and a major escalation in the conflict. It was Soleimani who had suggested a reconsideration of our relationship with the Americans before he was undercut by Bushs Axis of Evil speech. Soleimani was carrying an Iranian response to a message from Saudi Arabia that Iraq had relayed. According to Iraqs prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, Trump asked him to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which likely fed Iranian suspicions that Trump used diplomacy as a distraction from a looming attack. (Not the only time, as we have since learned.) The U.S.-Israeli attacks (2025, 2026) In June 2025, Israel attacked Iran, killing Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists, amid diplomatic dismissions and, days later, the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and obliterated the nuclear program in Trumps words. Iran counterattacked, and days later, the U.S. brokered a cease-fire that was requested by Israel. In February 2026, the U.S. and Israel again attacked Iran as diplomatic discussions were underway, killing Irans supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Iran responded with missile strikes against Israel and U.S. military installations in the region, and one day later Trump signaled interest in a cease-fire. Iran replied, nothing doing and pressed the attack. Trump then hinted at introducing ground troops and hinted the U.S. might use Iranian Kurdish militias to topple the government. Trump then demanded Irans unconditional surrender. At the time of the February attack, Iran was not planning to strike U.S. forces in the region, as was admitted by the Pentagon after hostilities began, and it was offering concessions that were objectively better than the JCPOA, which Trump renounced in 2018, most likely because it was secured by his hated predecessor, Barack Obama, not because it was deficient. A Long Shadow of Conflict Over the decades, the confrontation has included proxy conflicts, sanctions, covert operations, and occasional direct military clashes. Events ranging from attacks on American facilities in Lebanon in the 1980s to cyber operations, sanctions, and regional proxy struggles have reinforced the adversarial relationship. The quiet and not-so-quiet war included the bombing of the Marine barracks and the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon (1983); kidnapping and killing of a CIA station chief in Beirut (1984); Operating Praying Mantis, U.S. attacks on Iran oil facilities (1988); abandonment of the Iran-Conoco deal to develop offshore oil fields (1995); the Khobar Towers bombing (1996), assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists (since 2010, likely at the hand of Israel and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq but likely with approval by the U.S.), and U.S. sanctions against Iran (1979-2026). Despite periodic attempts at diplomacy and the election of reformist presidents, each new crisis tends to reinforce the historical narratives both sides already believe. And while each side has legitimate grievances about the other, Iran and America can take some helpful steps on their own: Iranians can stop the Death to America rants that just make it easier for the War Party and Israel, and Americans can crack open a history book to learn the root causes of the current conflict are the 1953 coup and the Pahlavi regime that was installed by Washington. The ongoing war between the U.S./Israel, and Iran will eventually end, but in the meantime, it will feed the fires of mistrust between Tehran and Washington, making ending the conflict harder than starting it. Conclusion The U.S.Iran conflict persists not only because of strategic disagreements but also because both countries interpret their toxic relationship through narratives of grievance and self-defense. If each side sees itself primarily as the victim, compromise will continue to be risky. Without a shift in these underlying narratives, periods of diplomacy will remain fragile and temporary. By James Durso for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com By Pacific Legal Foundation, Press Release, Pasadena, California; March 10, 2026: A California first-grader who was punished for drawing an innocent picture for a classmate scored a major victory today when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that elementary school students have First Amendment rights. The student, a minor going by the initials B.B., challenged the Capistrano Unified School District after her school principal forced her to apologize, banned her from giving drawings to classmates, and excluded her from recess for two weeks over a picture she drew inspired by a class lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. Todays ruling affirms what should be obvious: Students dont lose their constitutional rights just because theyre young, said Caleb Trotter, Senior Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. The Constitution protects every students right to free expression. No child should be punished for expressing a well-intentioned message to a friend. In 2021, after a class lesson about Martin Luther King Jr., B.B. drew a picture of herself and her friends holding hands, writing Black Lives Mater and any life on the drawing. She gave it to a classmate as a gesture of friendship. The school principal told B.B. the drawing was inappropriate and punished herwithout notifying her parents. B.B.s family did not learn of the incident until a year later. The Ninth Circuit vacated the district courts judgment, which ruled that school administrators have unchecked authority to punish student speech. The appellate court sent the case back for further proceedings. The court held that schools bear the burden of proving any restriction on student speech is reasonably necessary. The decision ensures that young students retain their constitutional right to free expression. Pacific Legal Foundation represents B.B. free of charge. The case is B.B. v. Capistrano Unified School District, et al. By Lars Larson NW and national radio host, The Northwest Nonsense: One of the most familiar billionaire names here in the Pacific Northwest is packing up and moving thousands of miles away. Howard Schultz took a tiny Seattle coffee shop and grew it to more than 40-thousand Starbucks worldwide. Schultz and his wife have lived in the Northwest for decades and by their own account, they love it here. This morning, on Linked-in they announced theyre leaving. The reason? The unrelenting greed of the government. Both Oregon and Washington have state budgets that grew more than 100 percent in the last decade. Now, I dont know about YOU, but my paycheck aint growing ten percent a year. So, did the state government decide to limit its own spending to make life easier for citizens? Perish the thought. Washington has a massive new millionaires tax that comes on the heels of the biggest tax hike in history and with the government warning theyll be short of cash again by next year. So, Howard and Sheri Schultz of Starbucks are decamping for a Miami Penthouse that cost a cool 44 million bucks. If that sounds like a lot, it most certainly is. But without even knowing Howards finances, Ill bet moving out of the new Evergreen State Tax Hell likely saves the Schultz family at least that much. My question for you, when Governors Kotek and Ferguson tax all the billionaires and millionaires out of the Northwest, who do you think theyre coming for next? Thats the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. Im Lars Larson Polar air out Arctic air in: Winter not yet over for Yucatan Peninsula Riviera Maya, Q.R. Winter is not quite over yet for the Yucatan Peninsula. As Polar air cold front 40 leaves, it will be replaced by Arctic air, cold front 41. Mexicos meteorologists say cold front 41 will enter north and northeastern Mexico starting Sunday night. Strong wind gusts are expected around the Peninsula along with rain as it enters the region early next week. Cold front 40, which was stationary over the Yucatan Peninsula, is slowly moving off. Not far behind is a mass of Arctic air, cold front 41. A mass of Polar air hovered over the peninsula March 13, 2026. On Saturday and Sunday, an upper-level trough will move over the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. Interacting with a low-pressure system over the peninsula and southeastern Mexico, it will produce showers and heavy rain in these regions. Meanwhile, a dry line will develop over Coahuila, interacting with the subtropical jet stream, generating strong winds with possible dust devils in northern and northeastern Mexico. Additionally, a southerly wind event is expected in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, the National Meteorological Service (SMN) reported. On Sunday night, a new cold front (No. 41) will enter northern and northeastern Mexico interacting with a trough in the middle and upper levels of the atmosphere and with the polar and subtropical jet streams generating strong gusts of wind in the aforementioned regions, as well as rain and showers in Tamaulipas. During Monday, the cold front 41 and its associated Arctic air mass will move over the Gulf of Mexico coast, so a drop in temperature is expected in much of the country (except in the west, south and southeast). Probability of showers and heavy rains are likely in the northeast, east and southeast including the Yucatan Peninsula. Torrential downpours are forecast for Puebla and Veracruz and intense downpours in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco. The arrival of cold front 41 will also include an intense Norte event with gusts of 100 to 120 km/h in Tamaulipas and Veracruz, with gusts of 80 to 100 km/h in the Isthmus and Gulf of Tehuantepec (Oaxaca and Chiapas), according to the Servicio Meteorologico Nacional (SMN). Gusts of 50 to 70 km/h are expected in Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatan, in addition to high waves along the coasts of these states. There is a possibility of snow or sleet on the peaks of Pico de Orizaba, Cofre de Perote, Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl, Sierra Negra, Nevado de Toluca and La Malinche. During the forecast period, low pressure channels over the interior of the country, coupled with atmospheric instability and the entry of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea will cause scattered showers and thunderstorms in states of the northeast, west, center and south of the country. The heat wave will prevail in Jalisco (south and southwest), Colima (east), Michoacan (central and southwest), Guerrero (central and south), Oaxaca (south and east) and Chiapas (west), while on Sunday, the heat wave will end in Durango (west), Sinaloa (central and south) and Nayarit (west). Search continues for source of oil slick contaminating Mexican beaches Pajapan, Veracruz Environmental authorities are moving forward with their investigation into the oil slicks that continue to contaminate Mexicos beaches. Mexican authorities have been in search of the source of the leak since March. At least 16 beaches in the states of Tabasco and Veracruz have been affected. Fishermen in the Gulf have also reported oil at sea that has splashed onto their vessels. On Friday, the Mexican government said they are coordinating actions to address the presence of hydrocarbons on beaches in the Gulf of Mexico. Blobs of oil began appearing on beaches March 1, 2026. The Unified Command Center in Veracruz, along with authorities from Tabasco and Veracruz, is conducting hydrocarbon containment operations. Analysis of currents and winds continues to strengthen containment efforts for the oil slicks detected along the coasts of Veracruz and Tabasco. In a statement, the Federal Attorney Generals Office for Environmental Protection reported that the Mexican government is maintaining inter-institutional coordination efforts to address the presence of hydrocarbons detected on beaches in Veracruz and Tabasco. These efforts are being carried out through the Unified Command Center in Veracruz, with the participation of the Mexican Navy (Semar), Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Civil Protection, the Agency for Safety, Energy and the Environment (ASEA), the Federal Attorney Generals Office for Environmental Protection of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), the State Attorney Generals Office for Environmental Protection, the Port and Fishing Community, and in coordination with the authorities of Tabasco and Veracruz. Environmental inspectors continue to search for the source March 12, 2026. Due to weather conditions and variations in ocean currents, oil slicks have been detected on beaches in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in the areas of Alvarado and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, as well as along the coast of Tabasco. In the case of Dos Bocas, the spills spread is evolving differently than initially predicted for this scenario. Following the initial reports received in early March, ASEA technical staff conducted verification tours of port facilities and coastal areas. During these inspections, no leaks were detected at terminals or nearshore infrastructure, however, hydrocarbons with varying degrees of weathering were identified along some stretches of beach. Barriers were placed at-sea to help contain the slick. March 2, 2026. To strengthen monitoring and containment efforts, reconnaissance flights have been conducted using aircraft and surface maritime patrols, along with the use of drones, satellite mapping, and studies of ocean currents in the ports of Alvarado and Coatzacoalcos, and along the Tabasco coast. These actions allow for the assessment of the potential spread of the contaminant and the establishment of containment and mitigation measures. Even though the recent incidents involving hydrocarbons have not been linked to Pemex operations, the company immediately initiated containment and cleanup efforts at sea by deploying its vessel Oil Rec, installing booms, and carrying out recovery operations that helped control the spread of the oil slick. Additionally, Pemex, in coordination with Semarnat, Semar, Profepa, and Conanp, implemented beach cleanup brigades with the support of fishermen, local authorities, and communities in the region. In the municipality of Alvarado, Veracruz, the Navy Plan was activated and, in coordination with government authorities, brigades were established for beach cleaning, the installation of containment barriers and assistance to the fishing community. Cleanup efforts continue into the second week of March 2026. In addition, Profepa is conducting complementary inspection visits to those carried out by ASEA with the aim of strengthening investigations and determining responsibilities in accordance with current environmental legislation. The source of the contaminant is still being evaluated. According to the oceanographic models currently being analyzed, the hydrocarbon appears to be flowing from the sea toward the coast. Personnel from Semarnat, Semar, Profepa, Pemex and ASEA remain deployed in the affected areas of Veracruz and Tabasco and will conduct further monitoring visits to follow up on the actions taken to assist the affected fishermen. Environmental cleaning crews are seen collecting washed up oil along a beach in Veracruz March 5, 2026. Once the source of the pollutant has been identified, the authorities will proceed in accordance with applicable legislation to sanction the responsible company and ensure the repair of the environmental damage. The Government of Mexico reaffirms its commitment to maintain permanent monitoring and to implement all necessary actions to contain this event and protect marine ecosystems and coastal communities, particularly fishermen and women. Steven Spielberg has poked fun at Timothee Chalamet for his comments about ballet and opera. Steven Spielberg has weighed in on Timothee Chalamet's comments about ballet and opera The Marty Supreme actor has come under fire for suggesting that "no one cares" about the art forms but the legendary filmmaker has suggested that he wants them "to go on forever" as they are similar to movies. Speaking about the importance of cinema at the SXSW festival in Texas, Spielberg said: "For me, the real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark place where all of us are strangers. "At the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with, or into the nighttime with. And there's nothing like that. It happens in movies, and in concerts. And it happens in ballet and and opera, by the way." As the audience cheered, the Jaws director said: "And we want that to be sustained. We want that to go on forever." Chalamet recently joked that both opera and ballet are dying out during a CNN town hall conversation with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey. The 30-year-old star said: "I admire people (saying), 'Hey, we gotta keep movie theatres alive. We gotta keep this genre alive.' "And another part of me feels like, if people want to see it - like Barbie, like Oppenheimer - they're going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it. "I don't want to be working in ballet or opera where it's like, 'Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore' - all respect to the ballet and opera people out there." The Dune's star comments were met with a backlash from the ballet and opera communities, with legendary Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli inviting the actor to one of his concerts so he can understand the appeal of the art form. The 67-year-old tenor said in a statement to People: "I am convinced that a sensitive performer like Timothee, who understands the power of emotions, may one day discover that opera and dance draw from that very same source. "Should he ever be curious, I would be happy to welcome him as a guest at one of my concerts. "Sometimes it only takes a few minutes of hearing this music live to understand why, after centuries, it continues to be loved all over the world." China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT) has issued a warning about the security risks stemming from the use of OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot), an open-source and self-hosted autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agent. In a post shared on WeChat, CNCERT noted that the platform's "inherently weak default security configurations," coupled with its privileged access to the system to facilitate autonomous task execution capabilities, could be explored by bad actors to seize control of the endpoint. This includes risks arising from prompt injections, where malicious instructions embedded within a web page can cause the agent to leak sensitive information if it's tricked into accessing and consuming the content. The attack is also referred to as indirect prompt injection (IDPI) or cross-domain prompt injection (XPIA), as adversaries, instead of interacting directly with a large language model (LLM), weaponize benign AI features like web page summarization or content analysis to run manipulated instructions. This can range from evading AI-based ad review systems and influencing hiring decisions to search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning and generating biased responses by suppressing negative reviews. OpenAI, in a blog post published earlier this week, said prompt injection-style attacks are evolving beyond simply placing instructions in external content to include elements of social engineering. "AI agents are increasingly able to browse the web, retrieve information, and take actions on a user's behalf," it said. "Those capabilities are useful, but they also create new ways for attackers to try to manipulate the system." The prompt injection risks in OpenClaw are not hypothetical. Last month, researchers at PromptArmor found that the link preview feature in messaging apps like Telegram or Discord can be turned into a data exfiltration pathway when communicating with OpenClaw by means of an indirect prompt injection. The idea, at a high level, is to trick the AI agent into generating an attacker-controlled URL that, when rendered in the messaging app as a link preview, automatically causes it to transmit confidential data to that domain without having to click on the link. "This means that in agentic systems with link previews, data exfiltration can occur immediately upon the AI agent responding to the user, without the user needing to click the malicious link," the AI security company said. "In this attack, the agent is manipulated to construct a URL that uses an attacker's domain, with dynamically generated query parameters appended that contain sensitive data the model knows about the user." Besides rogue prompts, CNCERT has also highlighted three other concerns - The possibility that OpenClaw may inadvertently and irrevocably delete critical information due to its misinterpretation of user instructions. Threat actors can upload malicious skills to repositories like ClawHub that, when installed, run arbitrary commands or deploy malware. Attackers can exploit recently disclosed security vulnerabilities in OpenClaw to compromise the system and leak sensitive data. "For critical sectors such as finance and energy such breaches could lead to the leakage of core business data, trade secrets, and code repositories, or even result in the complete paralysis of entire business systems, causing incalculable losses," CNCERT added. To counter these risks, users and organizations are advised to strengthen network controls, prevent exposure of OpenClaw's default management port to the internet, isolate the service in a container, avoid storing credentials in plaintext, download skills only from trusted channels, disable automatic updates for skills, and keep the agent up-to-date. The development comes as Chinese authorities have moved to restrict state-run enterprises and government agencies from running OpenClaw AI apps on office computers in a bid to contain security risks, Bloomberg reported. The ban is also said to extend to the families of military personnel. The viral popularity of OpenClaw has also led threat actors to capitalize on the phenomenon to distribute malicious GitHub repositories posing as OpenClaw installers to deploy information stealers like Atomic and Vidar Stealer, and a Golang-based proxy malware known as GhostSocks using ClickFix-style instructions. "The campaign did not target a particular industry, but was broadly targeting users attempting to install OpenClaw with the malicious repositories containing download instructions for both Windows and macOS environments," Huntress said. "What made this successful was that the malware was hosted on GitHub, and the malicious repository became the top-rated suggestion in Bings AI search results for OpenClaw Windows." Steven Spielberg believes in aliens and has warned "we are not alone on Earth". Steven Spielberg believes in aliens The 79-year-old filmmaker's upcoming movie Disclosure Day is about UFOs and while he "doesn't know" for sure if extra-terrestrials exist, he has a "very strong suspicion" that they do, and he was thrilled when former US President Barack Obama recently declared aliens are "real". Speaking during The Big Picture with Steven Spielberg Live conversation at SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, on Friday (13.03.26), he said: I dont know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now and I made a movie about that." Of Obama's recent comments, he admitted his first thought was: Oh, my God, this is so great for Disclosure Day! He added: And two days later, he stepped it back to to say what he believed was in life in the cosmos which, of course, everybody should believe in. "Because no one should ever think that we are the only intelligent civilization in the entire universe. So Ive been thinking as a kid that we were not alone. So that just goes without saying. The big question is: Are we alone now? And have we been alone over the last 80 years? Have we been alone over the last few thousand years? The Close Encounters of the Third Kind filmmaker would love to meet an alien one day. He said: I made a movie called Close Encounters of the Third Kind I havent even had a close encounter or the first or second kind! Why havent I seen anything? Half of my friends have seen UFOS or UAPs. Wheres the justice of that? If youre listening out there Im not afraid of any aliens. I have no fears about that whatsoever. "I think our movie does take into consideration that social dislocation that could occur. If it was announced there is interaction [with aliens] that have been going on for decades, its going to cause a disruption in a lot of belief systems. But I dont think it is a lethal disruption at all. Obama - who served two terms as president between 2009 and 2017 - caused a stir last month when he insisted aliens are real and the first question he asked following his election victory was related to beings from outer space. During appearance on the No Lie With Brian Tyler Cohen podcast, Obama said: "Theyre real. But I havent seen them. Theyre not being kept at ... Area 51. Theres no underground facility - unless theres this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States." Cohen then asked the former politician: "What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?" and Obama replied: "Where are the aliens?" After the interview was published, Obama shared a clip showing him talking about aliens on his Instagram page and made an attempt to clarify his answers. Obama wrote: "I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since its gotten attention let me clarify. "Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good theres life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances weve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!" Obama was touching on long-running conspiracy theories which suggest the US government has been aware of alien life for decades and evidence has been stored at the Area 51 military base in Nevada. Spanning the Florida and Mississippi coastlines, Gulf Islands National Seashore is 160 miles of natural barrier islands, historic military sites, sugar white beaches, emerald-green waters, unspoiled wetlands and more. Established by Congress in 1971, the seashore offers it all whether you enjoy camping or RVing, taking in a day of sun and fun or just walking among majestic live oak trees. Military buffs will also enjoy the many strategic installations dotted in the national park. In Florida, Gulf Islands is home to Fort Pickens with camping and beach access, Fort Barrancas with historic fortifications, hiking trails and wayside exhibits, Naval Live Oaks with miles of hiking trails, Perdido Keys Johnson Beach along with day-use pavilions, a boardwalk nature trail. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Visitors enjoy the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Feb. 10, 2026. The National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Visitors enjoy the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Feb. 10, 2026. The National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Visitors enjoy the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Feb. 10, 2026. The National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Visitors enjoy the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Feb. 10, 2026. The National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Visitors enjoy the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Feb. 10, 2026. The National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty and history of the Southern Gulf Coast. 1 / 22 Take a walk through the Gulf Islands National Seashore The Gulf Islands National Seashore offers visitors the opportunity to experience the sugar-white sands, unspoiled beaches, and natural beauty of the Southern Gulf Coast. Mississippi offers explorers barrier islands where they can glimpse uncommon species of birds, animals and marine life or walks in the trails and boardwalks that overlook Davis Bayous and wetlands. Location The Gulf Islands National Seashore runs from Pensacola, Florida, to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Why it matters Situated along the northern Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Islands National Seashore has played a major role in U.S. history. Advertisement Advertisement The area from Pensacola Bay in Florida to Ship Island in Mississippi welcomed Spanish, French and British to the region. Acquisition of the territories, coastal Mississippi in 1804, and Florida in 1819, established protections for natural and cultural resources preserved by the seashore. The seashore is also home to Fort Pickens, Fort Barrancas, Fort McRee, Fort Massachusetts and other decommissioned military sites. What to see today A Gulf Islands National Seashore visit depends on personal preference. If youre interested in history, a visit to Fort Pickens in Florida will satisfy. Visitors can explore the Civil War era site with a ranger or use the mobile apps self-guided tour. Advertisement Advertisement For those looking to disconnect, spend the day on Petit Bois and Horn Island. The undeveloped and limited cellphone reception on the Mississippi barrier islands provide opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation. Of course, theres always hiking, fishing, bird watching, boating, diving, snorkeling, swimming, watching sunsets and more. Ask a local Those who love the great outdoors can pitch a tent to rough it or park their RV into a slot at Fort Pickens. The campsites are a short distance from the Emerald Coasts beautiful beaches, and the Gulf-facing Langdon Beach Pavilion is the perfect spot for a more private beach experience. Plan your visit Best time: Check the weather, the Gulf Coast usually has mild winters and subtropical summers. Hours/admission: Standard Pass, $15-$25, Annual Pass, $45, America the Beautiful/Senior Pass, Free-$250 (Plan to go cashless, parks do not accept cash) Advertisement Advertisement This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: This Gulf Coast national seashore has beaches, forts and wildlife Major airline cancels over 1,000 flights as oil prices soar with cuts expected for months Air New Zealand will be cutting back on flights over the next two months a 5% reduction in its services due to a surge of fuel prices resulting from the conflict in the Middle East. The reduction, which will take place until the beginning of May 2026, will equate to approximately 1,100 flights, which will impact 44,000 of the major airlines 1.9 million passengers. The majority of affected passengers will be moved onto other flights. Were focused on consolidating flights that are off-peak flying hours, for example, or where there is an alternative that we can re-accommodate customers, said Nikhil Ravishankar, chief executive of Air New Zealand, to 1News. 44,000 of Air New Zealands 1.9 million passengers will be affected by the flight cut-backs. REUTERS Later, Ravishankar added that the interventions were putting in place are not only reasonable, but are what all airlines around the world are doing. Advertisement Advertisement David Slotnick, a contributing aviation editor at The Points Guy, has a nuanced take on whether the majority of major airlines will take this approach. Canceling flights and rearranging networks can be a big deal for airlines, so they generally wont do it without a compelling reason, Slotnick told The Post. If people start to travel less because of fuel prices and airlines see demand fall, then it would make sense to trim the schedule to match the demand, especially if youre just cancelling flights on routes that have multiple flights each day. But if travel demand stays high, like some of the major US airlines are forecasting, then airlines are more likely to pass on some of the higher fuel costs to passengers by raising ticket prices, and also absorbing some of the cost as an operating expense, Slotnick continued. Less long-haul flights will be cut during this period of change for the airline. NurPhoto via Getty Images While Air New Zealand has not put out a list of exact flights that will be impacted, officials in New Zealand have shared that domestic routes have been altered. Advertisement Advertisement According to Mayor Nadine Taylor, Air New Zealand will reduce its routes from Marlborough to Wellington. Auckland and Christchurch flights will also be impacted, though less long-haul flights will be cut. A tanker truck carries aviation fuel, which is skyrocketing in price. MediaNews Group via Getty Images People want to get to Europe still, and over the US airspace we can get them into Europe, and thats what were focused on doing, Ravishankar added. Air New Zealand has also recently upped its prices as the costs of jet fuel climb higher amidst the US-Iran conflict. Prior to the conflict, prices sat around $90 per barrel and have since ballooned to as much as $200 per barrel. For Air New Zealand, this led to domestic flights increasing by $10, short-haul by $20, and long-haul by a whopping $90. Advertisement Advertisement Airlines like Qantas and Scandinavias SAS have followed suit with similar price increases. Conversely, airlines like Ryanair, easyJet, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have been less affected due to having secured a portion of their fuel at fixed prices for a finite period of time. (The price rise in jet fuel) wont affect our costs and wont lower our fares, Ryanair boss Michael OLeary told The Sun. Fuel is one of the largest expenses of an airline, travel expert Gary Leff of View from the Wing told The Post. Marginal routes become loss-makers. And demand may fall, too, with economic contraction that comes from higher oil prices. Cutting domestic routes where there are multiple flights is something we may see, Leff continued. If youre based in New Zealand, a lot of flying is a long haul burns a lot of fuel! Southwest will no longer fly to these major airports. What to know Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport will be affected by Southwest Airlines' decision to suspend flights at two major U.S. airports. The airline announced in a travel advisory March 13 that it plans to end service out of Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport in June. In a statement to The Arizona Republic, Southwest said the suspensions are "part of Southwest's ongoing efforts to refine its network" and would not represent changes in flight availability because of its service to other airports in the Chicago and Washington, D.C. metro areas. Advertisement Advertisement Southwest's plan to pull out of O'Hare and Dulles is the latest of numerous changes the Dallas-based airline has made in recent months. Most notably, under pressure from an activist investor, it introduced assigned and premium seating and began charging for checked luggage. The sun sets over Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020, the last day the terminal was open. Find out why: Sky Harbor was just named among the best airports again The arrivals board at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 shows the last flight to ever arrive on Feb. 4, 2020. A passenger walks through the security checkpoint at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal closed after the final flight, Alaska Airlines #617, departed for Seattle on that day. A security guard stands on a near-empty curb at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020, the last day the terminal was open. Sky Harbor Airport mascot "Chuck" greets Bernadette Messmore who was on the last flight to ever arrive at Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal will closed after that day. A passenger runs toward the gates for the last flight to ever leave Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal will closed after Alaska Airlines Flight #617 left for Seattle. Guests gather to listen to speakers at Terminal 2 at Sky Harbor Airport on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal will close after today. Sky Harbor Airport mascot "Chuck" greets the last passengers to ever arrive at Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal will close after today. The Paul Coze mural "The Phoenix" is displayed at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020. The terminal will close after today. Center panel from Paul Coze mural at Sky Harbor Airport, Terminal 2. Left Panel of The Phoenix by Paul Coze in Terminal 2. Right panel of Paul Coze's 1962 mural The Phoenix in Terminal 2. A picture of how Paul Coze's mural looked in Terminal 2 during the 1970s. Passengers wait near the Paul Coze mural in Terminal 2 at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in the 1970s. Coze's three panel mural is made of 52 materials ranging from aluminum to sand and oil paint on canvas. The canvas is then attached to the wall of Terminal 2. Picture of Coze creating The Phoenix in Terminal 2. The three panel mural is made with 52 different materials ranging from aluminum sheeting to sand gathered from around the state as well as more traditional artistic materials like oil paint, mosaic tiles and canvas. Per Sky Harbor airport, Paul Coze's mural was the first time Phoenix used a public process to chose to commission a major work of art. His work was chosen from five finalists whose drawings were put on display at the Phoenix Public Library. The public then voted on the one they liked best which ended up being Paul Cozes design. Paul Coze was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1903 but grew up in France before immigrating to the US in 1938. During his life, he served as the French Consul in Phoenix, and also taught art classes out of his studio. He's seen here creating the mural The Phoenix which hangs in Terminal 2. A picture of the installation of Coze's mural The Phoenix in 1962. The mixed medium installation measures 16 feet by 75 feet. Check-in counters are closed at Terminal 2 at Sky Harbor Airport on Feb. 4, 2020. The gates at Terminal 2 cannot accommodate larger, modern aircraft. The airport plans to demolish T2 and replace it with bus gates. View of Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 in 1962. The airport will not renumber the terminals once it demolishes Terminal 2. Aerial view of Terminal 2 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The TWA lounge in Terminal 2. Aerial view of Terminal 2 as it was being constructed in 1961. Passengers board Hughes Airwest planes at Terminal 2. View of Terminal 2 during the holiday travel season in the 1970s. The counter for Hughes Airwest in Terminal 2. The airline, backed by Howard Hughes, ceased operations in 1980. The view in Terminal 2 as fans welcome home the Phoenix Suns from winning the Western Conference Finals in 1976. People pack the rows of public phones for business and personal calls at Terminal 2 at Sky Harbor Airport. Business travelers would head directly for the phones once they were off their flight in 1989. You enjoyed spending time at Sky Harbor: Head over to Sky Harbor International Airport today and youll find Terminals 2, 3 and 4. But dont go looking for Terminal 1. It exists only as a fond memory for those who flew in and out of early Phoenix. The terminal was demolished in 1991 to make way for progress. There was certainly no glitz and glamour about Terminal 1, but if you loved getting up to close to planes, this was the place to be. You could stand outside on an observation deck and wave goodbye to friends and family, as they climbed stairs leading from the tarmac to the plane. Spirit Airlines and Sun Country Airlines moved from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 2015. People make their way along the newly renovated North Concourse at Phoenix Sky Harbor's Terminal 3. The North Concourse at Terminal 3 of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The newly renovated North Concourse at Phoenix Sky Harbor's Terminal 3 now has views of downtown Phoenix. A media member gets a first look at the renovated North Concourse Phoenix Sky Harbor's Terminal 3. "Phoenix Light Threshold" by James Carpenter is in the north connector bridge of Terminal 3 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It comprises 750 blue and gold aluminum cells. The newly-fabricated plaque honoring the late John S. McCain III North Concourse Phoenix Sky Harbor's Terminal 3 and an unveiling of a newly-fabricated plaque honoring the late John S. McCain III. Delta Sky Club in the new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019, at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Passenger waiting area at the gates in the new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019, at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Delta Sky Club in the new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019 ,at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Shops at the new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019, at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Delta Sky Club in the new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019, at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The new John S. McCain III Terminal 3, South Concourse during opening ceremonies on Jan. 7, 2019, at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The automated PHX Sky Train system now connects the 44th Street and Washington Street light-rail stop to Terminal 3 and Terminal 4. The 20-year plan eventually calls for construction to link Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 behind security. Right now, passengers have to leave security, making it challenging for partner airlines to connect passengers. THEN: Terminal 3 under construction in 1978. THEN: Terminal 3 in operation in December of 1979. People pack the Sky Train entrance in Terminal 3 on their way to Terminal 4 after its closure at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on Sept. 16, 2018. THEN: Opening day of Terminal 3 on Oct. 20, 1979. NOW: Terminal 3 Sky Train Station Platform and Bridge at Terminal Three of Sky Harbor International Airport incorporates elements of design taken from contemporary Native pottery and jewelry. The palette refers to the color of the earth with elements of pottery shards throughout. Construction continues on and around Terminal 3 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Nov. 17, 2017. Sky Harbor International Airport unveiled $150 million in upgrades at Terminal 3, including ticket counters, security, a desert garden and dog park. The terminal opened in 1979 and had been in need of upgrades. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport's Terminal 3 opened on Dec. 6, 2016, after its first phase makeover in Phoenix. The Suns Gorilla hangs out at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. The Suns Gorilla fools around on the runway at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Suns guard Jevon Carter signs an autograph at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Suns center Frank Kaminsky scans boarding passes at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Suns forward Cheick Diallo scans boarding passes at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Suns center Frank Kaminsky (left) and Suns forward Cheick Diallo converse at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Suns forward Cheick Diallo (right) fools around as Suns guards Jevon Carter (left) and Jalen Lecque react, at Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Feb. 11, 2020. Suns players surprised Southwest Airlines passengers as they made boarding announcements, took boarding passes and even worked on the runway. Travelers at Zinc Brasserie In Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Travelers eat at Matt's Big Breakfast in Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Travelers eat at La Grande Orange in Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Travelers eat at Matt's Big Breakfast in Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Travelers eat at La Grande Orange in Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Michelle Ward of Surprise eats at Four Peaks Brewery in Terminal Four of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Nov. 13, 2018. Passengers make their way through Sky Harbor International Airport Terminal 4 on Nov. 27, 2019. Moving cargo facilities north of the airport would allow for terminal expansion in the central part of the campus. Passengers make their way through Sky Harbor International Airport Terminal 4 on Nov. 27, 2019. Customers relax in the American Airlines Admirals Club in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport on Oct. 31, 2018. Customers relax in the American Airlines Admirals Club in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport on Oct. 31, 2018. Customers relax in the American Airlines Admirals Club in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport on Oct. 31, 2018. A customer relaxes in the meeting room inside the American Airlines Admirals Club in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport on Oct. 31, 2018. Phoenix public art: "Trace Elements" (2012) by Daniel Mayer greets passengers as they cross the bridge from the Sky Train to Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor. Phoenix public art: "Trace Elements" (2012) by Daniel Mayer of Tempe greets passengers as they cross the bridge from the Sky Train to Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor. A demonstration of the new tablet in Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport which helps travelers who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech-challenged communicate with interpreters. Passengers make their way to their flights in terminal 4 during a Suns and Southwest "trading places" event where players took on the roles of Southwest Airlines employees at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on Feb. 7, 2019. Traffic slows outside Terminal 4 after its closure at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on Sept. 16, 2018. Traffic slows outside Terminal 4 after its closure at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on Sept. 16, 2018. Customers line up for Burger King in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport on Jan. 10, 1991. A new program, Navigator Buddies, was announced the morning of Sept. 1, 2017, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. Passengers and visitors will have the opportunity to pet and interact with therapy dogs while waiting to catch a flight or picking up a passenger. Charlie, a cockapoo, strikes a pose in the baggage claim area of Terminal 4. A new program, Navigator Buddies, was announced Friday morning, September 1, 2017, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. Passengers and visitors will have the opportunity to pet and interact with therapy dogs while waiting to catch a flight or picking up a passenger. Members pose with their dogs in the baggage claim area of Terminal 4. A new program, Navigator Buddies, was announced the morning of Sept. 1, 2017, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. Passengers and visitors will have the opportunity to pet and interact with therapy dogs while waiting to catch a flight or picking up a passenger. Maelvy McHaney, left, and Ayal Azan of Scottsdale, watch as Abby, an Old English Sheepdog, does tricks with her owner, Sharon Martin, right, in the baggage claim area of Terminal 4. Chelsea's Kitchen restaurant at Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Sky Harbor Airport, Terminal 4, in Phoenix in December 2005. Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport was dedicated before it opened in November 1990. Left to right are Marvin Andrews, city manager; Rose Mofford; Barry Goldwater and Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson. Because of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which meant that government no longer had control over airfares or where new airlines could fly, new airlines begin forming, creating more competition. More than a dozen airlines now serve Sky Harbor. 2013: PHX Sky Train opens in April. The $1.58 billion automated train system will connect passengers for free between the Metro light-rail station at 44th and Washington streets, Terminal 4 and the East Economy parking lot. New Sky Train stations at 44th Street and the East Economy lot also will offer free early bag-check service. | Sky Trains make test runs at Sky Harbor International Airport on March 27, 2013. 2006: One-stop rental car service- Sky Harbors Rental Car Center opens, consolidating rental-car outlets in one space. The airport also completes renovations to Terminal 4, expanding its restaurant and shopping options, and brings free Wi-Fi inside all three of its terminals. | Workers put the final touches on the new Phoenix airport Rental Car Center in 2006. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Southwest Airlines employees in 1990 parade from Terminal 1 to their new home in Terminal 4. Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Sept. 18, 2014. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 2019. 1 / 93 Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport through the years. A look back in photos The sun sets over Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 2 on Feb. 4, 2020, the last day the terminal was open. Find out why: Sky Harbor was just named among the best airports again When is Southwest ending Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles flights? Southwest Airlines will no longer fly to or from Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles starting on June 4. Its last day of service at both airports will be June 3. Can I still fly Southwest Airlines to Chicago and Washington from Phoenix? Yes, but via different airports. Southwest offers nonstop service between Phoenix and Chicago via Chicago Midway International Airport, where it has "a proud 41-year history" with flights to more than 80 destinations. Advertisement Advertisement Southwest will continue to serve the Washington, D.C. area with service to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Between the two airports, it will operate a combined 271 daily departures from 79 nonstop destinations. Phoenix travelers can fly Southwest nonstop to and from Baltimore, but flights to and from Reagan National require a layover. Can I still fly to Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles from Phoenix? Yes, but with different airlines. Chicago O'Hare and Washington Dulles are among the major hub airports for United Airlines, which offers flights to and from both airports out of Sky Harbor. American Airlines also offers nonstop service between Sky Harbor and O'Hare. Advertisement Advertisement Southwest's newest route: Flights begin from Phoenix to another Arizona city What happens if my flight is canceled? Passengers with reservations for flights to or from O'Hare and Dulles after June 4 can rebook their flights for travel within 14 days of their original travel date without paying fare differences. O'Hare passengers can rebook for flights to and from Chicago Midway, Milwaukee or Indianapolis, while Dulles passengers can rebook for flights to and from Reagan National, Baltimore, Philadelphia or Richmond, Virginia. Passengers who choose not to travel can receive a full refund for their airfare and optional travel charges such as Extra Legroom seats and priority boarding. Advertisement Advertisement Flights to O'Hare and Dulles from now to June 3 are not affected by the changes. Looking for the best things to do in Arizona? Sign up for our newsletter. Michael Salerno is an award-winning journalist whos covered travel and tourism since 2014. His work as The Arizona Republics consumer travel reporter aims to help readers navigate the stresses of traveling and get the best value for their money on their vacations. He can be reached at Michael.Salerno@usatodayco.com. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Sky Harbor impacted as airline drops 2 flight routes Susanna Reid has been "battling against a phone addiction" and is "obsessed" with her device. Susanna Reid is obsessed with her phone The Good Morning Britain presenter - who has three adult sons with former partner Dominic Cotton - doesn't think digital addiction is only a problem for Gen Z because she herself has got "lost in an algorithm" and has sympathy for others struggling to take a break from their screens. Asked if she thinks the stereotypes about Gen Z such as being constantly online and militant about work-life balance are accurate, she told The Telegraph: I dont know about stereotypes. I mean, I definitely am guilty of being obsessed with my phone, lost in an algorithm, having to battle against a phone addiction, and being sucked into seeing certain things. So I sympathise with anyone who feels like that. That is a problem. But I think thats something that crosses generations. Her co-host, Ed Balls, added: I would say engagement with current affairs amongst that generation is high. "Theyre really interested in the world, and theyre worried about the world and there are certain subjects where, I think [my children] are always slightly worried that Im going to say the wrong thing, and theyre probably right. Theres a question mark and a worry, and I think the third thing is its hard for that generation in terms of jobs and wages and the housing market and having a fair chance to have a go in life. Susanna, 55, is used to early starts for GMB and admitted she has considered "raw dogging" it and not sleeping at all before she goes on air. She said: "[I set three alarms for] 3.35, 3.40 and 3.45am, so I wake up at 3.35am and I get out of bed at 3.45am. Your body changes, doesnt it? I used to not worry about it. "Sometimes Id go to bed at midnight and think Ill just raw dog it through the morning. But actually, now, Ill happily just go [to bed] at 7.30pm. Im on a really good run of sleeping about five, six hours a night and then getting an extra hour nap during the day. Meanwhile, Ed received a "life-changing" gift at Christmas, which has helped smooth out his morning routine while he adjusted to his new regular Monday-Wednesday hosting slot on the show. He said: I got a teasmade, like my mum and dad used to have. So I make a cup of tea in the bedroom before I go downstairs and I then prime it again so it can go off at seven oclock [for wife Yvette Cooper], while were doing the show. In an interview published in yesterdays Express, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar revealed the principles guiding her administrations policies. As is usual with politicians, however, there was a notable gap between rhetoric and reality. Asked about her strong and vociferous support for American President Donald Trump, the Prime Minister explained, The current US government believes in conservatism and capitalism, and that aligns with my views. By Steve Holland, Humeyra Pamuk, Parisa Hafezi and Alexander Cornwell WASHINGTON/DUBAI/TEL AVIV, March 14 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago with a massive U.S.-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts. Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until U.S. and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring. U.S. strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, the country's main oil export hub, on Friday night underscored Trump's determination to press ahead with his military assault. Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and threatened to step up attacks on neighboring countries. The war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption as maritime traffic has halted in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported. ATTEMPTS TO OPEN LINES OF COMMUNICATION Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Oman, which mediated talks before the war, has tried multiple times to open a line of communication, but the White House has made clear it is not interested, according to two sources, who like others in this story were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about diplomatic matters. A senior White House official confirmed Trump has rebuffed those efforts to start talks and is focused on pressing ahead with the war to further weaken Tehran's military capabilities. "He's not interested in that right now, and we're going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there's a day, but not right now," the official said. During the first week of the war, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Irans leadership and military were so battered by U.S.-Israeli strikes that they wanted to talk, but that it was Too Late! He has a history of shifting foreign policy stances without warning, making it hard to rule out that he might test the waters for restarting diplomacy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated," a second senior White House official said when asked to comment on this story. The Iranian sources said Tehran has rejected efforts by several countries to negotiate a ceasefire until the U.S. and Israel end their airstrikes and meet Iran's demands, which include a permanent end to U.S. and Israeli attacks and compensation as part of a ceasefire. Egypt, which was involved in mediation before the war, has also tried to reopen communications, according to three security and diplomatic sources. While the efforts do not appear to have made progress, they have secured some military restraint from neighboring countries hit by Iran, according to one of the sources. Egypt's foreign ministry, the government of Oman and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement POSITIONS HARDEN ON ALL SIDES The war's impact on global oil markets has significantly increased the cost for the United States. Some U.S. officials and advisers to Trump urge a quick end to the war, warning that surging gasoline prices could exact a high political price from the president's Republican Party, with U.S. midterm elections looming. Others are pressing Trump to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic to destroy its missile program and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to Reuters reporting. Trump's rejection of diplomatic efforts could indicate that, for now, the administration has no plans for a quick end to the war. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Indeed, both the United States and Iran appear even less willing to engage than during the opening days of the war, when senior U.S. officials reached out to Oman to discuss de-escalating, according to several sources. One source said Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also sought to use Oman as a conduit for ceasefire discussions that would have involved U.S. Vice President JD Vance. But those discussions have not materialized. Instead, Iran's position has hardened, said a third senior Iranian source. "Whatever was communicated previously through the diplomatic channels is irrelevant now," said the source. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "The Guards strongly believe that if they lose control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will lose the war," the source added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary force that controls large parts of the economy. "Therefore, the Guards will not accept any ceasefire, ceasefire talks, or diplomatic efforts, and Irans political leaders will not engage in such talks despite attempts by several countries." (Additional reporting by Erin Banco, Samia Nakhoul, Andrew Mills, Matt Spetalnick and Alexander Dziadosz; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel) Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion "died for France during an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq", Macron posted on X (formerly Twitter) early on Friday. Another six soldiers were injured, France's military police force later said in a statement. Frion and his unit had been deployed in Iraq since 24 January as part of a counter-terrorism operation dating back to 2015, it said. France has hundreds of troops based in the Erbil region as part of a broader international coalition to fight Islamic State militants in the area. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "This attack against our forces engaged in the fight against Daesh [Islamic State] since 2015 is unacceptable," Macron said. "The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks." The president did not say who was behind the attack. Earlier, a pro-Iranian Iraqi group warned that French interests in the region were now targets after the arrival of France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. The statement on Ashab Alkahf's Telegram channel also warned "our brothers in the security forces" to stay away from a base it said housed French troops. The group did not directly claim responsibility for the attack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iran says European countries helped create conditions for US and Israeli attacks Drone strikes Frion was killed by one of Iran's Shahed drones, the commander of his battalion, Francois-Xavier de la Chesnais, told reporters. He paid tribute to "an excellent soldier". Iran has been using the unmanned craft to strike Israel and other targets in countries allied with the United States. The French military said earlier that drones had hit a base where troops were providing counter-terrorism training with Iraqi counterparts. They are among around 600 French personnel based in Iraq. France has 4,000 troops in the region as a whole, spread across bases in Djibouti, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The governor of Erbil said the strike involved two drones and hit a base in Mala Qara, around 40 kilometres from the regional capital. Iraq's Erbil in the crossfire with drones and power cuts Frion's death follows a separate drone strike on an Italian base in Erbil, within a military compound that was hosting other foreign troops. No injuries were reported in that attack, but Italy said it was temporarily withdrawing its military personnel from the base. Soldiers from several countries, including Italy and France, are training members of the Kurdish security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan as part of the anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement "Their presence in Iraq is strictly within the framework of the fight against terrorism," Macron posted on Friday. France is deploying about a dozen warships, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz. Macron has insisted that his country's stance in the Middle East war is "strictly defensive". (with newswires) Over the past two decades, drug cartels in Mexico have grown exponentially to the point that in some parts of the country organized crime groups exert more control than the federal government. To build that power, cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have recruited thousands of people into their ranks, either voluntarily or through coercion. According to mathematician Rafael Prieto-Curiel, criminal organizations in Mexico recruit more members than they lose through arrests or deaths. He estimates that cartels across the country now have more than 180,000 members. "The cartel is compensating, and it compensates faster than we are able to harm it," Prieto-Curiel said in an interview with Mexican journalist Luis Chaparro. "Ten years ago there were about 112,000 people in cartels. By 2023 we were already at 175,000, and now we estimate about 183,000." As highlighted by Infobae Mexico, the mathematician's analysis shows that cartel membership rose from about 115,000 in 2021 to nearly 175,000 in 2022. In 2021 alone, cartels recruited about 19,300 people while losing around 12,200 to deaths or imprisonment. According to Prieto-Curiel, cartels must recruit between 350 and 370 people every week just to maintain their current size. To achieve this, major drug cartels in Mexico have adopted new recruitment strategies. One of them is forced recruitment, which often involves fake job postings or deceptive offers targeting young people on social media. Those who fall for the schemes are later kidnapped and forced to join the criminal groups. There have also been reports of recruitment taking place inside rehabilitation and addiction treatment centers. Another way cartels have expanded their ranks is by convincing young people that joining an armed group is the only path to improving their lives, and an easy way for them to do that is through social media. As previously noted by The Latin Times, Mexican drug cartels prey on vulnerable teenagers through the virtual world. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok, along with encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, are also used to show off wealth, cars, and weapons, as well as to intimidate rival criminal groups by publicizing crimes and issuing threats. According to data from Mexico's Ministry of the Interior, as of Dec. 2, nearly 7,000 minors and young people up to 29 years old have disappeared in less than a year, and another 505 individuals have been found dead. For Prieto-Curiel, the key to stopping this is designing better targeted interventions for vulnerable youth in areas with a strong criminal presence. He argues that current universal social programs are too broad and provide relatively small financial benefits, making them ineffective at competing with the money offered by criminal organizations. Prieto-Curiel also noted that cartel-related violence represents a massive economic burden for Mexico. According to his estimates, such violence costs the country roughly 18 percent of its gross domestic product, including direct losses from homicides and injuries as well as indirect effects such as reduced investment and tourism. Originally published on Latin Times March 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday called on nations to send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for shipping as Iranian forces continue their retaliation campaign amid U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the strait, a narrow passage of water between Iran and Oman. Tehran's ability to stop shipping through the channel could give it enormous leverage over the U.S. and its allies. "The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help A LOT!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well." Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an earlier post on Saturday, Trump predicted that "Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe." Trump wrote that he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others would send ships to the area. "In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water," he wrote. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether any countries had agreed to send ships. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Western nations have bolstered their military presence in the eastern Mediterranean during the conflict in Iran, focusing on the security of Cyprus after an Iranian-made drone hit a British military base on the island on March 2. Britain is also exploring additional options for deployments to the Gulf after Iran stepped up attacks on vessels, defence minister John Healey said on Thursday. The British government is talking to allies and partners about "a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region," a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said on Saturday. The French Navy is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict. France has been consulting with European, Asian and Gulf Arab states over the past week with a view to putting together a plan for warships eventually to escort tankers through the strait, French officials said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump said on Thursday the U.S. was willing to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz to protect them from Iranian attack, as his administration searches for ways to ease high oil prices fuelled by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. (Reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Toronto and Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Toby Chopra, Sergio Non, Rod Nickel) Shipping grayscale photos at small scale Underjord is an artisanal consultancy doing consulting in Elixir, Nerves with an accidental speciality in marketing and outreach. If you like the writing you should really try the pro version. In September of 2025 Tigris sponsored an odd effort at an unusual conference. They contributed the money for manufacturing hardware devices to be used and hacked on during Goatmire Elixir in Varberg, Sweden. These devices also used Tigris for some features. Everything about it is open source. Lets see what it turned into. Goatmire Elixir is my (Lars') brainchild. I like the idea of a quirky event, smaller scope and people who are deeply enthusiastic about related things. So I made one, for the Elixir programming language community. In the little swedish coastal city of Varberg. And it was a blast. The photo gallery is up to get a sense of the amazing presentations and all talks are available online, also on YouTube. This kind of conference can only happen thanks to companies willing to take a gamble on an idea, like Tigris did. Im very thankful. We made a name badge. People do that for other conferences to. And if they make a special hardware name badge they are usually based on some reasonable microcontroller. Maybe LEDs or an OLED screen. This one is a bit wild. It is a small Linux-capable device built around the Allwinner T113-S4. A 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM SoC. The hardware design is called Wisteria and is based on a core board called Trellis both are open source. Designed, implemented, sourced and made real by Gus Workman. Importantly this thing has an eInk display, a battery, a few buttons and Wi-Fi. Because who doesnt love eInk. A big reason to make it a Linux-capable board is that one day of the conference was NervesConf EU. Nerves is a framework for IoT devices of the Linux-level class. So not microcontrollers, rather things with an MMU and a tractable amount of RAM. Essentially we run a barebones Buildroot-based Linux OS and the first process that boots in turn starts the legendary BEAM virtual machine. The thing Erlang runs on. Also, the thing Elixir runs on. The reason a bunch of us like to work with Nerves is that it gives you these very strong error handling behaviors and lets you build devices at a higher level of abstraction. There are other cool things like the open source firmware update service NervesHub . That is also available as a commercial offering called NervesCloud which delivers firmware using .. Tigris! Mostly Nerves is about Elixir and what a lovely language that is to build devices that deal with a lot of communication. Elixir inherits and builds on Erlangs fantastic ability to deal with binary formats and networking protocols. For this device we wanted to make it interactive and continuously helpful during the conference. So it would load the schedule for the conference. Thats helpful. It would allow you to show your name and title as a good name badge. And being eInk you could switch it off and it would just keep showing that. It also had a photo gallery and the way this worked was that we let attendees upload photos from their phone to a Phoenix LiveView web app, the backend service for the whole thing. Wed moderate the inbound photos and whatever we approved would be converted to 1-bit black-and-white, with dithering, for display on these monochrome devices. Then they were downloaded and displayed. Rendered in the UI using Typst, a Rust-based rendering library. Of course all media handling of uploads went through Tigris with pre-signed uploads and downloads. We didnt really get a lot of mileage out of the distributed regions and all that considering we were the very opposite of geo-distributed at the time. Everything except our local Wi-Fi worked great. A nice feature is that all devices that were switched on would actually show the same image as the server will push new pre-signed URLs out at an interval to all connected devices. Very neat and typical Phoenix shenanigans. There was a lot of people poking at and hacking on the badges. The most critical thing, aside from some rather urgent bug fixes, was an implementation of Snake. The classic cell-phone game was implemented by Peter Ullrich during the conference. The community will keep iterating on this software and this hardware. Another batch of these were made and sent to 39C3, the Chaos Computer Congress, for some people to hack on. Gus recently presented on the Nerves Starter Kit which expands on this device with more costly and capable peripherals which will be a great boon to people getting into Nerves. And with the open nature of the hardware and software may well get supported and adopted in other ecosystems. On the 22nd we are planning a small community event to hack on prototypes for the starter kit leading up to ElixirConf EU in Malaga as Gus is presenting in depth on the development of this kit. We have people considering putting wheels on it to make it a balance robot. The idea is to make something extensible and hackable that people can push further. The Tigris crew is nice and friendly. Weve worked together in the past and I dont think they had a big plan funding those boards. I think it was a fun way to sponsor a cool thing and show their support of fun community events. There just happens to be rings on the water from an act like that. The version of the device that was made for Goatmire Elixir thanks to Tigris will ensure more iterations of open hardware and more people getting their first crack at running on hardware. While I know Tigris can ship large files, globally at massive scale. Sometimes people want to work in the small and it also works for shipping 1-bit images, locally at a human scale. Thanks. From me, the Goatmire team and the Nerves community. If you have questions about any of this Im around on the fediverse @lawik@hachyderm.io and on email lars@underjord.io. Underjord is an artisanal consultancy doing consulting in Elixir, Nerves with an accidental speciality in marketing and outreach. If you like the writing you should really try the pro version. Note: Or try the videos on the YouTube channel. Illustrative photo On March 10, K Hospital in Hanoi) inaugurated two modern radiotherapy systems along with other medical equipment worth VND1,000 billion to serve medical examination and treatment at the Quan Su facility. Professor Le Van Quang, director of K Hospital, said with the attention of the government, the Ministry of Health and support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the hospital has received more than VND1,000 billion to upgrade infrastructure and equipment. So far, the hospital has put hundreds of modern medical devices into operation at its first facility to meet the growing demand for medical examination and treatment. The hospital director said cancer treatment today uses a multimodal approach, combining surgery, systemic therapy and radiotherapy. Among these, radiotherapy plays a particularly important role and delivers high effectiveness for many types of cancer. As of January 2026, K Hospital has nine linear accelerator radiotherapy machines installed at its facilities. However, as the number of patients continues to rise, the hospital has equipped with more next-generation linear accelerator systems to improve treatment capacity. According to Quang, the new-generation systems enable the full deployment of advanced radiotherapy techniques currently available, such as 3D radiotherapy, IMRT, VMAT, SRS/SRT radiosurgery and SBRT. As a result, treatment time can be shortened from around 10 minutes to just 23 minutes, while the radiation field is extremely small, allowing the maximum radiation dose to be concentrated on tumors and minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissues. The system can also track tumor movement according to each breath of the patient, making radiotherapy more precise, non-invasive and safer. In addition, the radiotherapy system is synchronized with a 4D CT simulation machine and the Monaco radiotherapy planning software integrated with artificial intelligence, which supports automatic lesion contouring and online consultations. The entire process from simulation and treatment planning to therapy is carried out in a closed system, ensuring quality control in line with international standards. Vu Manh Ha, permanent deputy minister of the Ministry of Health of Vietnam, said Vietnam records about 182,000 new cancer cases and more than 122,000 deaths each year, increasing the demand for medical examination and treatment and placing significant pressure on specialized hospitals. K Hospital alone receives more than 500,000 patient visits annually, and its radiotherapy systems must operate continuously. According to Ha, the operation of the two new-generation linear accelerator radiotherapy machines is an important step in improving treatment quality, allowing patients to access advanced technologies within the country while reducing costs and easing the burden on the healthcare system. Phuong Thuy Khmer ethnic areas gain development momentum from Party policies Danh Mai Dong, residing in Tram Chet hamlet, Giong Rieng commune in An Giang province, has witnessed local changes as ethnic policies were implemented, contributing to improved living standards. Just a few years ago, roads were still rough, dusty in the dry season and muddy in the rainy season. Now we have concrete roads, allowing small trucks to reach our yards. Socio-economic conditions have clearly improved, he said. Giong Rieng commune reported that by the end of 2025, average per capita income in the locality reached VND61 million per year, up nearly 34 percent; the poverty rate fell to 1.1 percent, just one-third of the 2020 level; and the commune no longer has temporary or dilapidated houses. Le Huu Co, vice chair of the Giong Rieng commune Peoples Committee, said that as ethnic policies were implemented, many essential infrastructure projects were developed, creating inter-regional connectivity, boosting production and goods circulation, and helping residents access basic social services, thereby improving quality of life. In 2020 - 2025, An Giang Province allocated hundreds of billions of VND to invest in the development of ethnic minority areas. Thanks to this, infrastructure has been developed synchronously. Currently, 100 percent of ethnic minority communes have car-accessible roads to the center, more than 95 percent of especially difficult hamlets have transport roads, nearly 90 percent of households use hygienic water, and 99 percent of households have national grid electricity. Meanwhile, the poverty rate of An Giang Province decreased from 1.9 percent in 2020 to 0.91 percent in 2025. With the support of the Party and State through programs, projects, and ethnic policies, many ethnic minority can escape poverty, and many have become well-off. In Can Tho, besides the "revolutionary" changes in infrastructure when implementing the National Target Program for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for 2021 - 2030, the effective deployment of preferential loan capital from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies has helped thousands of Khmer households transition their crop and livestock structures. Previously inefficient rice fields have now been replaced by high-value fruit orchards or closed livestock models. Lam Hoang Mau, Director of the Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of Can Tho, said: "Khmer people are closely attached to the Party because they see tangible care through each project and each direct support policy. We are not only supporting the branches but nurturing from the roots. Culture plays central role On January 7, 2026, on behalf of the Politburo, General Secretary To Lam signed and promulgated Resolution No80-NQ/TW of the Politburo on the development of Vietnamese Culture. The resolution conveys a very strong message: Culture does not stand outside, but plays a central, leading, and shaping role in the sustainable development of the nation. This is not only a recognition in terms of ideology but also a clear political line of the Party and State toward the cause of cultural development in the new period. Implementing that viewpoint, in provinces and cities where Khmer people live, cultural and religious values that were once at risk of fading away are now being restored and promoted. Festivals such as Chol Chnam Thmay, Sene Dolta, and Ooc Om Boc - Ngo boat racing are not only preserved but have also become tourism products, contributing to local economic development. Most Venerable Tang No, Deputy Patriarch of the Proofreading Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, said: "The attention of the Party and State toward Khmer people has built firm trust among the community. In particular, preserving the beautiful cultural features of the ethnic group will be the foundation to bring the country toward development in the new phase." A strategic achievement reflecting the Party's long-term vision is the formation and development of a contingent of young Khmer intellectuals. If in the past, attending university was almost out of reach for children of poor ethnic families, now, thanks to tuition fee exemption and reduction policies, boarding support and ethnic scholarships, their dreams are being realized. Tao Dat Phu Quoc welcomed about 510,000 visitors in November 2025 alone In 2026, the Hung Kings Commemoration Day holiday will last three days, from April 25 to April 27. After that, the Reunification Day and International Workers' Day break will last four days, from April 30 to May 3. Many people have taken an additional two days off to enjoy a nine-day holiday, similar in length to the Tet holiday. The trend of booking early to secure better prices has become much clearer than in previous years, according to Ho Xuan Phuc, director of Hanotours. Trang An Travel recorded a 40 percent increase in early inquiries for the Hung Kings' holiday and the April 30 holiday compared to the same period last year. Vietluxtour and BestPrice Travel all stated that the demand for late April tours appeared early, immediately after Tet. Guests who follow the official holiday schedule prioritize short-haul Asian tours (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc), road tours to China, or domestic flight-hotel combos. Nguyen Huu Cuong, General Director of Trang An Travel, said that Southeast Asian tours start from VND13 million, and road tours to China from VND4 million. For the group of guests taking leave to extend their holiday, air tours to China, South Korea, and Japan are of much greater interest. Bui Thanh Tu, Marketing Director of BestPrice Travel, said that 60-70 percent of outbound tours departing for the Hung Kings' and April 30 holidays have been fully booked. At Hanotours, tours to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, as well as popular Chinese destinations such as BeijingShanghai and ShanghaiWuzhen, have been nearly 100 percent booked. Tours departing on April 2425 to Russia, the US and Australia (with direct flights) have also been fully reserved early. Travelers are increasingly prioritizing tours without shopping stops and those offering richer travel experiences. In the domestic market, as the early summer season begins, coastal destinations are especially attractive. Flight-and-hotel combos to Phu Quoc, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Quy Nhon and Phu Yen are being booked early. Travel combos to Phu Quoc during the Hung Kings Commemoration Day and April 30 holidays this year have dropped sharply compared with previous years, easing cost pressure for travelers. Previously, during peak summer travel or holidays, high airfare was a major barrier for domestic tourists traveling to Phu Quoc. At times, the round-trip fare for Hanoi - Phu Quoc reached VND10-12 million, making domestic tourists switch to more affordable destinations. However, according to many travel businesses such as Lu Hanh Viet, Silver Sky, Hanotours, and Vietkingtravel, flight and hotel combos in Phu Quoc are decreasing by about 30 percent compared to the previous year. Tourists can choose a 4-day, 3-night package including round-trip flights between Hanoi and Phu Quoc, and stay at 3 or 4-star hotels with prices from VND5.2-VND5.7 million per person, departing between April 25 and April 30. If counting in the costs of sightseeing and dining, tourists spend about VND8.5-VND9 million in total. According to the local tourism agency, Phu Quoc welcomed about 510,000 visitors in November 2025 alone, nearly 50 percent higher than the same period the previous year. Total arrivals in 2025 are estimated at about 8.3 million, including around 1.86 million international visitors. These figures highlight Phu Quocs growing appeal on Vietnams tourism map, especially as travelers increasingly prefer all-in-one destinations for short holidays. For other domestic destinations, travel companies recommend booking tours or combos early to secure better prices and suitable itineraries. During peak holidays, hotel room rates and airfare can rise quickly, sometimes up to 50 percent higher than on normal days. Last year, during the five-day April 30May 1 holiday from April 30 to May 4, 2025, Vietnams tourism sector served about 10.5 million visitors, up 31.2 percent compared with the same period in 2024. HCMC welcomed an estimated 1.95 million visitors, double the figure from the same period in 2024. International arrivals reached about 120,000, up 2.2 times year-on-year. Hanoi welcomed more than 875,000 visitors during the same period, up nearly 19 percent year-on-year. Ngoc Ha The Pentagon has ordered a Marine expeditionary unit with about 2,200 Marines and three Navy amphibious warships from Japan toward the Middle East, a significant new U.S. force movement amid tensions tied to the war with Iran. U.S. officials told ABC News that the deployment centers on the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a forward-deployed force based in Japan that normally operates in the Indo-Pacific. At the center of the movement is the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, led by USS Tripoli, an America-class amphibious assault ship. USNI News reported that the Tripoli had been operating in the Philippine Sea earlier this week alongside USS San Diego and USS New Orleans, the three ships that make up the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group. That report added that while defense officials confirmed that Tripoli and its embarked Marines were heading toward the Middle East, it was not yet publicly clear whether all three ships in the group were being sent onward together. Even with that uncertainty, the larger message from Washington is unmistakable. The deployment would bring a fast-moving amphibious force, including Marines, aircraft and sea-based logistics support, closer to one of the world's most volatile flashpoints. The Wall Street Journal reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a request from U.S. Central Command for an element of an amphibious ready group and an attached Marine expeditionary unit as Iranian actions in and around the Strait of Hormuz intensified pressure on U.S. planners. ABC reported that the 31st MEU is permanently stationed in Japan and is now being redirected to the Middle East, a sign of how quickly the Pentagon is pulling assets from the Indo-Pacific to reinforce Central Command's area of responsibility. The unit is built for crisis response, evacuations, raids, and expeditionary missions, giving the White House and Pentagon more military options at a moment when commercial shipping, oil markets and U.S. regional bases all remain under strain. Multiple reports tied the move to the deteriorating security picture around the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian attacks and threats have sharply disrupted maritime traffic. The Guardian, citing regional developments, reported that vessel traffic through the strait had fallen dramatically this month compared with the same period last year, underscoring the broader economic stakes behind the military buildup. The Journal also reported that the Japan-based Tripoli and its attached Marines were being sent as Washington sought to respond to escalating threats at sea. For now, the Pentagon has not publicly laid out the full mission profile for the Marines or the warships. But the structure of the force offers clues. Amphibious ready groups and marine expeditionary units are designed to be flexible, self-contained crisis-response packages, capable of everything from deterrence patrols to emergency combat operations. That makes this deployment notable beyond its numbers. Moving roughly 2,200 Marines from Japan to the Middle East signals that the United States is not merely monitoring the crisis from afar. It is positioning forces that can act quickly if shipping lanes worsen, regional partners come under greater attack, or Washington decides it needs a more visible show of force. Originally published on IBTimes U.S. won't allow shipping in Strait of Hormuz "to be contested": Hegseth Xinhua) 09:22, March 14, 2026 WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States will not allow shipping in the Strait of Hormuz "to be contested" by Iran, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday. There is no clear evidence that Iran has placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz, he said at a news briefing. He said the United States is planning for Iran's various measures and "that's not a strait we're gonna allow to remain contested." The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that connects the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers. Hegseth also told reporters that strikes carried out by the United States and Israel have significantly weakened Iran's military capabilities. "Between our Air Force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck," he said. Iran's missile volume is down 90 percent and that of their one-way attack drones was down 95 percent as of Thursday, Hegseth further said. Hegseth threatened that "today will be yet again, the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran." Hegseth also told reporters that the U.S. Central Command has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation into a strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 160 people, mostly pupils. The Feb. 28 strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab occurred during U.S. operations targeting a nearby Iranian military base. According to reports, a preliminary finding from an ongoing military investigation indicates that the school was struck by a U.S. Tomahawk missile. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) A man on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list was captured this week in Mexico in connection with a crime he committed three years ago just over an hour after being added to the FBI's list, making him the fastest captured fugitive in the history of the program. Concretely, Samuel Ramirez Jr., 33, was arrested by Mexican officials in Culiacan, Sinaloa, and handed over to U.S. authorities. CAPTURED: Another FBI Most Wanted - Samuel Ramirez Jr., apprehended in Sinaloa, Mexico. Ramirez was on the run for nearly 3 years for his alleged involvement in the murder of two female victims May 21, 2023. After the alleged murders, he was believed to have fled the pic.twitter.com/UfZLWXkQsR FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) March 12, 2026 The man was then transported to Seattle, Washington, where he is wanted for the murders of Jessyca Hohn and Katie Duhnke during a shooting on May 21, 2023, outside a bar on the outskirts of Seattle. A third person was also injured in the attack but survived. "We've always been committed to the idea that he would pay some day," Jessica Blackshear, a friend of both victims, told Seattle-based outlet KOMO News. "It's such a burden off of our own shoulders. It's such a weight off of us to know that he's been captured and that we can finally breathe a little bit and celebrate knowing that he will finally face justice." According to Federal Way Police Chief Andy Hwang, Ramirez Jr. had argued with two bar employees shortly before the shooting. He said one of the victims died instantly after being shot in the head. "The second victim was shot multiple times, and he stood over her and shot her in the head," Hwang said. Investigators say Ramirez Jr. fled Washington shortly after the killings. As noted by KOMO News, authorities believe he traveled to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, before his parents drove him across the border into Tijuana, Mexico, on May 23, 2023. Officials have not confirmed whether Ramirez's parents will face charges for helping him escape. "Following an information exchange and being alerted to the presence of this fugitive sought by U.S. authorities, security measures were taken in Culiacan and a person matching the description was arrested on Calle Monte Gonga, in the Altura Sur neighborhood," Mexico's Security Secretariat said in a statement. Ramirez Jr. was taken into custody one hour and 13 minutes after the FBI announced he had been added to the Most Wanted Fugitives list. The previous fastest capture involved Billie Austin Bryant, who was arrested in 1969 only two hours after being added to the list, the agency said. Originally published on Latin Times Incredibles 3 gets a 2028 release window. The Parr family returns after a decade in Pixar's long-awaited superhero sequel. AceShowbiz - Pixars highly anticipated follow-up, Incredibles 3, has finally been assigned a new release window, with reports indicating a theatrical debut planned for 2028. This update comes from a recent Wall Street Journal article that outlines Pixars long-term release strategy and upcoming projects. The announcement marks a significant milestone for the franchise, as Incredibles 3 will arrive 24 years after the original film, which premiered in 2004. It will also come a decade after the release of Incredibles 2 in 2018. The first two films have established the series as one of Pixars most beloved and commercially successful properties, with the sequel grossing over $1.2 billion globally. The franchise centers on the Parr familyBob, Helen, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jackwho juggle their everyday lives while hiding their extraordinary superhero abilities. The original Incredibles film quickly garnered a loyal fan base due to its blend of action, humor, and heartwarming family dynamics. Its success helped cement the franchises reputation among Pixars top-tier offerings. While Pixar has yet to officially confirm a specific release date or reveal plot details, the projected 2028 timeframe suggests the studio is allotting an extended development period for the third installment. Such a timeline could allow the creative team sufficient opportunity to develop a storyline that honors the franchises legacy and meets the high expectations set by its predecessors. Brad Bird, who wrote and directed both the original film and its sequel, has not been officially confirmed to return for Incredibles 3. However, many fans speculate that his involvement is likely and consider it essential for preserving the tone and style that contributed to the critical and commercial acclaim of the first two movies. At the time of this report, no exact release date has been announced for Incredibles 3. Fans will need to wait for further updates from Pixar as production progresses. Overall, the news of a 2028 release window brings renewed excitement for the franchises continuation after a significant gap. The extra development time could enable the filmmakers to deliver a third chapter that lives up to the beloved status of the Parr familys superhero adventures. Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle's future remains uncertain after crisis talks. No decision reached, discussions to continue in coming days. AceShowbiz - The future of Tricia Tuttle as director of the Berlinale remains undecided following a crisis meeting held Thursday morning at Germanys Ministry of Culture, according to local media reports. No final decision was reached regarding her position during the discussions, signaling that she will stay in her role for the time being. A spokesperson for German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer confirmed that a supervisory board meeting of KBB GmbH, the organization responsible for the Berlinale, took place at the Chancellery earlier that day. The focus of the meeting was centered on the direction of the Berlinale festival. Weimers office stated that talks concerning the festivals leadership will continue in the coming days between Tuttle and the supervisory board, indicating that the situation remains fluid. The meeting was convened by Minister Wolfram Weimer in response to political backlash triggered by a series of pro-Palestinian speeches delivered at the Berlinales closing ceremony on Saturday. These speeches drew criticism for Germanys stance on Israel amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, sparking controversy within political circles. The Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH (KBB), which oversees the Berlinale, is jointly led by Tuttle alongside fellow directors Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Matthias Pees, with Charlotte Sieben serving as Managing Director. Minister Weimer also chairs the supervisory body of the KBB. In recent days, intense speculation surrounded Tuttles potential departure from her post amid a turbulent 76th Berlinale edition, marked by sharp criticism linked to the global polarization over the Israel-Gaza war. Rumors intensified on Wednesday after a report in the conservative tabloid Bild suggested that she might be forced out or resign. This news sparked a strong reaction across the film community. Numerous cinema professionals in Germany, Europe, and internationally expressed their support for Tuttle, valuing her leadership and contributions to the festival. An open letter opposing the rumored dismissal began circulating late Wednesday and quickly gathered over 700 signatures within 24 hours. The letter was endorsed by notable figures including Tilda Swinton, Nancy Spielberg, Sean Baker, Kleber Mendonca Filho, Karim Ainouz, and Radu Jude. In addition to individual supporters, three key pan-European film organizations also released a joint statement backing Tuttle. These groups represent many participants of the Berlinales European Film Market (EFM) and highlighted her vital role in the festivals success. On Thursday morning, Berlinale staff and contractors issued a statement praising Tuttle as an extraordinary festival director. The declaration, shared on Instagram, revealed that more than 500 festival employees had collectively expressed their support to policymakers. The letter emphasized the teams admiration for Tuttle, stating: We do not exaggerate when we say, as one, that it is unlikely the KBB Supervisory Board could have appointed a more intelligent, ethical and responsive leader for the Berlinale, nor one more dedicated to the core principles that make this festival a vital platform for cinema in Germany and internationally. It concluded by expressing hope that the message would effectively convey the depth of loyalty and respect Tuttle has earned among those invested in the Berlinales future, as well as the broader future of cinema. As discussions continue, the final decision regarding Tuttles leadership at the Berlinale remains pending, with significant public and industry support calling for her to remain at the helm during this challenging period. Bruno Mars makes history with his 12th Pop Airplay No. 1 hit, breaking the male artist record. See the full list of his chart-topping songs. AceShowbiz - The music charts are witnessing a historic moment as Bruno Mars claims his 12th No. 1 on Billboard's Pop Airplay chart dated March 21, 2026. His latest hit, I Just Might, jumped two positions to secure the top spot, marking a personal and industry milestone. Bruno Mars now holds the record for the most No. 1s among male artists in the 33-year history of the Pop Airplay chart. This achievement breaks his previous tie with Justin Bieber and Maroon 5, who each have 11 leaders. In the broader category, only Taylor Swift surpasses him with 15 No. 1s since the charts inception in October 1992, while Katy Perry and Rihanna also have 11 apiece. Here is a detailed recap of Bruno Mars' Pop Airplay No. 1 hits and their durations at the summit: I Just Might 1 week as of March 21, 2026 APT. (with ROSE) 5 weeks starting February 1, 2025 Die With a Smile (with Lady Gaga) 4 weeks starting November 23, 2024 Finesse (with Cardi B) 1 week on March 31, 2018 That's What I Like 3 weeks starting May 6, 2017 Uptown Funk! (Mark Ronson feat. Mars) 6 weeks starting February 7, 2015 When I Was Your Man 3 weeks starting April 13, 2013 Locked Out of Heaven 5 weeks starting December 29, 2012 It Will Rain 1 week on February 4, 2012 Grenade 5 weeks starting February 5, 2011 Just the Way You Are 3 weeks starting October 30, 2010 Nothin' on You (B.o.B feat. Mars) 1 week on May 22, 2010 In addition to I Just Might, Bruno Mars' ballad Risk It All climbed from number 38 to 35 in its second week on the Pop Airplay chart. Both tracks are featured on his latest Atlantic Records release, The Romantic, which debuted as his second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated March 14. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift also made waves with her new single, Elizabeth Taylor, debuting at No. 30 on Pop Airplay. This release follows her prior chart-toppers The Fate of Ophelia and Opalite from her album The Life of a Showgirl. On the Adult Pop Airplay chart, I Just Might rose from No. 3 to No. 1, marking Bruno Mars' fifth leader on this format. Meanwhile, Risk It All progressed from 40 to 29 and Elizabeth Taylor entered at No. 23. The Pop Airplay chart tracks the most-played songs on 150 mainstream U.S. top 40 radio stations, monitored by Mediabase, whose data is used by Luminate for Billboards rankings. The Adult Pop Airplay chart reflects plays on over 75 adult top 40 stations. The March 21 charts will be officially updated on Billboard.com on Tuesday, March 17, providing fans and industry watchers the latest snapshot of current hits. Scrubs returns after 25 years! Original cast reunites at Sacred Heart. Zach Braff reveals his journey from waiter to J.D. in the revival on ABC & Hulu. AceShowbiz - The beloved hospital comedy series Scrubs is making a highly anticipated return after 25 years. Originally premiering on NBC in 2001, the show is revived on ABC and Hulu with the original cast reprising their roles at Sacred Heart Hospital. At the revivals red carpet premiere held Monday night at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, I spoke with the main cast. Zach Braff, who portrays John Michael "J.D." Dorian, shared the remarkable journey that led to him landing the role. At the time of his initial audition, Braff was working as a waiter serving French Vietnamese cuisine. He recalled wearing a beige tunic and enduring the challenges of the job, including customers demanding bread that wasnt served. Despite the obstacles, Braff persevered through six auditions before finally securing the part that would change his life. "I never imagined in a thousand years that a revival would happen," Braff admitted. He expressed amazement at the show's enduring global appeal, noting that in certain international markets, its popularity has grown even larger than it was during the original run. Donald Faison, who plays Christopher Turk, also recounted his audition process, having gone through three rounds for what he described as the "hottest pilot of that season." He vividly remembered the moment he received the news from his agent that he got the role while he was at a restaurant. Faison spoke about the anxious wait between casting confirmation and filming commencement, during which time financial uncertainty was a concern. However, once production began, it blossomed into an incredible experience, making the current revival all the more exciting. Sarah Chalke, who plays Elliot Reid, shared a unique story about how she was handed the audition script just hours before her tryout. Returning from a concert with a friend, she found the script dropped off at her door. Chalke described feeling both overwhelmed and exhilarated, recognizing immediately that the material was unlike anything she had read before. She praised series creator Bill Lawrences distinctive blend of heart, comedy, pathos, and hope that set the show apart. Chalke detailed the rigorous audition process, which involved multiple callbacks with Bill Lawrence, the studio, and the network. When she finally got the call confirming she landed the role, she felt incredibly fortunate and knew it would be a life-changing opportunity. Judy Reyes, portraying head nurse Carla Espinosa, described filming the revivals first day as surreal. The production team rebuilt the entire hospital set on stages in Vancouver, making the environment feel unfamiliar at first. However, the cast quickly settled back into their dynamic, noting that the crew had more adjusting to do than they did among themselves. While a second season of the revival has not been officially announced, the cast shared their wishes for potential guest stars. Chalke hopes to see Kate McKinnon play a patient, imagining a recurring medical condition that would keep her character around for multiple episodes. Faison expressed admiration for his acting idols Harrison Ford and Denzel Washington, wishing they could appear on the show, highlighting their influence on his career. Reyes also had ideas for guest stars, naming Boris Kodjoe, Idris Elba, and even music superstar Bad Bunny as dream additions. She imagined a storyline where her character Carla, a huge fan of the rapper, struggles to treat him because her excitement makes her feel nauseous whenever she visits him in the hospital. Finally, Braff suggested bringing back former guest star Scott Foley, who played Sarah Chalkes characters love interest. Braff praised Foley as one of the funniest straight men in comedy and proposed a return where Foleys character could serve as his on-screen nemesis once again. This revival season of Scrubs not only reunites the original cast but also taps into the nostalgia and enduring affection fans have maintained for the series worldwide. With the cast excited about potential guest stars and fresh storylines, viewers can look forward to a blend of heartfelt comedy and medical drama that made the show a standout two and a half decades ago. One Piece Chopper spin-off delayed. Discover why the manga's high demand pushed its release date from March to April 2026. AceShowbiz - Fans of One Piece recently received surprising news about the latest manga installment tied to the beloved franchise. The debut volume of the new spin-off, One Piece Chopper, was quietly postponed just weeks before its initially planned release date. While such publishing delays are not unheard of, this last-minute change caught many readers off guard due to its proximity to the original schedule. The volume, which was originally set to launch on March 4, 2026, will now be released on April 23, 2026, according to an update shared by the official @Eiichiro_Staff account on X. The publisher clarified that the delay is not due to production or creative issues but stems from an overwhelmingly strong demand for the new title. This shift in the timeline reflects the franchises ongoing commercial strength rather than any internal setback. One Piece Chopper is a new Jump Comics release focusing on Tony Tony Chopper, one of the most popular members of the Straw Hat Pirates. Created by Eiichiro Oda, the original One Piece series has introduced countless memorable characters, but Choppers unique blend of humor and heart has made him a fan favorite worldwide. Although specific plot details of the spin-off remain closely guarded, the branding indicates a character-driven story centered around the reindeer doctors adventures. The delay arises from the publishers decision to significantly increase the print run following an unexpectedly strong early response from retailers and fans. To avoid shortages and ensure the volume is widely available upon release, the printing process required additional time. In a brief statement, the publisher expressed gratitude for the enthusiastic reception and apologized for any inconvenience caused by the sudden schedule adjustment. This move also highlights how the One Piece franchise continues to maintain intense popularity decades after its debut. Even spin-offs and character-specific projects tied to the main storyline attract considerable attention from both longtime collectors and newer audiences. The need to boost production capacity underscores the series sustained commercial and cultural impact. The announcement comes at a pivotal time for the franchise, as 2026 promises to be another significant year for One Piece. With ongoing manga chapters, new anime developments, and expanding international popularity, the brand shows no signs of losing momentum. Fans eager to add One Piece Chopper to their collections will need to wait a few extra weeks, but the extended preparation should reduce the likelihood of early sell-outs and improve overall availability. Character-focused side stories like this spin-off have proven successful in the past, resonating with dedicated fans and helping to introduce younger readers to the franchises rich world. The focus on Tony Tony Chopper further cements the characters role as a beloved figure within the pirate saga, known for his combination of heroic qualities and comedic charm. Despite the brief delay, the publishers transparent communication and decision to prioritize supply over speed demonstrate a thoughtful approach to meeting fan demand. In a market where popular manga volumes can quickly sell out, ensuring adequate stock is a crucial consideration. The extra weeks of production aim to provide a smoother launch experience for collectors and casual readers alike. Ultimately, this situation highlights a unique achievement: a delay caused by exceptionally high demand rather than obstacles in creation or distribution. It underscores how One Piece remains a dominant cultural force in manga and anime, capable of generating significant excitement for every new project tied to its expansive universe. As the release date approaches, anticipation will only grow for One Piece Chopper, which is already shaping up to be one of the most sought-after manga volumes of 2026. Fans can look forward to exploring more of Eiichiro Odas world through the eyes of one of the franchises most endearing characters, with the promise of a well-prepared and widely accessible launch this spring. Writers rally for union staffers' fair contract. Learn why WGA members stand in solidarity with the WGSU in this critical labor dispute. AceShowbiz - Members of the Writers Guild of America West united on February 24, 2026, to stand in solidarity with striking employees of the Writers Guild Staff Union (WGSU), urging their leadership to negotiate a fair contract for the 115 union staffers involved in the ongoing labor dispute. The rally drew approximately 120 participants, including prominent WGAW captain Joe Russo, who emphasized the critical roles these staffers play behind the scenes. "These staffers handle foundational tasks such as processing residuals and late pay claims," Russo explained. "They manage many responsibilities writers prefer not to handle, enabling us to focus on our creative work. They deserve fair treatment from our own union." The support comes as the WGSUs bargaining committee prepared to resume contract negotiations on the evening of February 24. Staff members hope that visible backing from WGA writersmany of whom maintain regular contact with themwill push guild leadership beyond what staffers describe as "surface-level bargaining" over the last six months. This strike unfolds just weeks before the WGA itself is expected to begin its own contract talks with Hollywood studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in mid-March. While the WGSU has clarified that their strike messaging is not targeted at the writers they serve, many WGA members developed close working relationships with staffers during the 2023 strike. During that previous work stoppage, union staffers took on essential responsibilities, including strike captain training, coordinating picket lines, and organizing rallies. WGAW captains Jackie Penn and Phillip Walker described how communication with staffers continued up to the beginning of the current strike. Staffers informed them during a captains meeting last Tuesday that the WGSU strike was imminent. "We would not have survived the 2023 strike without the staffers," said Penn, who also serves as vice chair on the WGAW Committee for Black Writers. "They were the first to show up and the last to leave the picket lines each day." Walker added, "What they're asking for is perfectly reasonable, and its troubling that our own union refuses to meet these demands, especially as we approach negotiations with the AMPTP. We need our union to practice what it preaches." Both captains have since joined the picket lines in support of the staff union. The WGSU first announced its organizing efforts publicly last April but has expressed frustration that the WGAW leadership has engaged in little meaningful negotiation, presenting minimal concessions over six months of talks. Among the key issues the WGSU seeks in their contract are protections against the use of artificial intelligence software for employee surveillance and performance monitoring. They also demand just cause protections, including due process rights through arbitration, to prevent wrongful termination. Additionally, staffers are pushing for union scale wages with larger annual raises compared to those writers receive under their contracts with studios. The WGSU argues this is necessary because, unlike writers, staffers lack agents to negotiate for over-scale pay. Kayley Nagle, a member of the WGSU bargaining committee, described managements negotiation tactics as disheartening. "They would leave the room and return with few, if any, changes to their proposals. Wed spend hours providing detailed feedback, only to have them come back quickly without meaningful adjustments. I was shocked by that." In addition to these contract disputes, the WGSU has accused the WGAW of unfair labor practices, including wrongful termination of three union members. The first termination occurred the day before the WGSU went public with organizing last April, while two more happened during negotiations in November. The WGAW has denied these allegations, calling the unfair labor charges "without merit." According to statements on their website, the April firing was due to performance issues, and the November terminations were for cause, involving members represented by the Pacific Northwest Staff Union, with whom the WGSU is affiliated. In a public statement, the guild said, "During 19 negotiating sessions since September, the Guild has offered comprehensive proposals including numerous union protections and improvements to compensation and working conditions." The statement also expressed optimism about reaching a first contract and noted that management staff would continue essential guild functions during the strike. Despite assurances from leadership, some writers remain concerned about the timing of the dispute. CK Kiechel, a 2023 strike captain, stressed the importance of resolving the staff unions contract before the WGA begins contract talks with the studios and the AMPTP, scheduled for March 16. "Why are we brick-walling our own people who are facilitating our careers every single day?" Kiechel asked. "We need to get our house in order before presenting a united front to the AMPTP." As the negotiations continue, the solidarity rally demonstrated growing unity among writers and staffers alike, highlighting the essential contributions of the WGSU members and the need for equitable treatment within the broader guild structure. Port Sudan, Sudan (PANA) - Sudanese military leader Gen Abdul Fatah Al Burhan on Friday vowed he would not shake hands with anyone carrying arms against the state or anyone supporting the militias Netflix's Little House reboot reimagines the classic saga, sparking excitement and concern among fans of the beloved books and original series. AceShowbiz - Little House on the Prairie is returning to screens through a new Netflix series that aims to reimagine the classic American saga rather than simply adapt it. This decision has ignited a mix of excitement and concern among longtime fans of the beloved books and original television show. Adaptations often take creative liberties, especially when transforming cherished novels or shows into new formats. As a devoted fan of classic stories myself, I understand the apprehension when a familiar narrative is altered. The Little House on the Prairie reboot is no exception, with Netflix describing the project not as a straightforward adaptation but as a reimagining. This distinction carries significant implications for the tone, characters, and themes viewers might expect. The series is developed by Rebecca Sonnenshine, who has spoken openly about her lifelong affection for the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Sonnenshine shared in an interview with Tudum that she fell deeply in love with these stories at the age of five and credits them with inspiring her career as a writer and filmmaker. Such a personal connection offers hope that the new series will honor the original spirit of the novels, even as it explores new territory. Nevertheless, the term reimagining carries weight. Unlike a reboot, which often updates a story while remaining relatively faithful to its source, a reimagining tends to reinvent aspects of the narrative, sometimes shifting genres or introducing contemporary themes. Examples from recent television history include the transformation of Battlestar Galactica from a campy sci-fi show into a darker, more serious drama, and Peacocks Bel-Air, which reworked the lighthearted 90s sitcom into a modern, intense soap opera. For Little House on the Prairie, Netflixs approach suggests a similar overhaul. Fans may see familiar characters in new contexts, alongside original figures not present in Wilders books. This could mean the addition of fresh storylines and perspectives designed to resonate with todays audiences, possibly incorporating modern social issues within the 19th-century frontier setting. This technique echoes the 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone, which reinterpreted Cold War anxieties as reflections on post-9/11 fears. The original Little House on the Prairie television series, which aired on NBC, was itself a loose adaptation of Wilders work, often straying from the books to suit the medium and era. Meanwhile, the 2005 miniseries adaptation was noted for being more faithful. Netflixs take appears to strike a balance between homage and reinvention, with the series described as part family drama, part epic survival tale, and part origin story of the American West. This blend aims to capture the essence of the frontier experience while expanding the narrative scope. Luke Bracey, one of the series stars, expressed his commitment to faithfully representing the characters and stories that have touched so many hearts. He told Collider, Everyone who was a part of making Little House on the Prairie had their heart in the exact right place, and all we want is for people to love it and to fall in love with it again. His statement reflects a shared understanding among the cast and crew of the responsibility inherent in bringing such iconic roles back to life. Alongside the Ingalls family, the new series will feature characters like Warren Christies Mr. Edwards, familiar to fans, but also introduce new faces. This expansion could enrich the story world but also risks alienating purists who prefer a closer adherence to Wilders original texts. Despite the concerns, the reboots potential to surprise and delight should not be underestimated. When handled with care, reimaginings can offer fresh insights and renewed relevance to classic stories. If the creative team manages to maintain the core themes of resilience, family, and pioneering spirit that define Little House on the Prairie, the series may succeed in bridging the gap between tradition and innovation. For those eager to revisit the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder in its original televised form, the classic Little House on the Prairie series is currently available to stream on Peacock and Prime Video. This availability allows audiences to compare and contrast the old with the new once Netflixs version premieres. In sum, Netflixs reimagining of Little House on the Prairie represents a significant shift from previous adaptations. By blending historical storytelling with contemporary sensibilities and new characters, the series hopes to capture a wider and more diverse audience. Whether longtime fans will embrace these changes remains to be seen, but the passion behind the project offers cause for cautious optimism. As this new chapter unfolds, viewers should prepare for a version of Little House on the Prairie that honors its origins while boldly exploring uncharted narrative terrain. The heart of the storythe enduring spirit of the American frontier and the resilience of its peoplewill likely remain central, even as the details evolve for a 21st-century audience. Stephen Amell takes full blame for Suits LA's cancellation after one season. Hear his candid podcast admission on why the spinoff failed. AceShowbiz - Stephen Amell has openly taken responsibility for the cancellation of Suits LA after just one season on NBC. Despite the show being a spinoff of the highly successful original Suits series on Netflix, the Los Angeles-set iteration failed to maintain strong ratings or critical acclaim, leading to its early demise. Amell, who portrayed lawyer Ted Black in the series, discussed the cancellation candidly on the podcast Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. He expressed a deep sense of personal accountability, explaining that he felt he did not deliver a performance strong enough to compensate for the shows shortcomings. This admission highlights the actors belief that the lead role carries the burden of elevating a series, especially when other elements may falter. It wasnt good enough, Amell said about the overall outcome. He elaborated, Ultimately, its a failure. Anything that ends not on your terms is a failure. But its not a complete failure because youve probably been in a pilot that didnt make it to series. He reflected on his prior experiences, noting that while he had been fortunate to have pilots move to full series, Suits LA did not progress beyond its initial season. He recalled a conversation with Aaron Korsh, the creator of both Suits and Suits LA, who expressed doubts about the shows potential during the pilot editing process. I sat down with Aaron about a month after we finished shooting, and he was editing the pilot. He said, I dont know if this is going to work, Amell recounted. Amell attributed some of the challenges to a creative tug-of-war between Korshs vision and NBCs expectations. He described a push and pull in the direction of the series, which complicated the production process. A lot of what he wanted to do seemed to run up against what the network wanted, Amell explained. While the actor was not privy to all internal discussions, he sensed a disconnect that contributed to the shows difficulties. Despite the struggles, Amell expressed that the cast and crew believed a second season was possible and anticipated an opportunity to resolve the issues. However, NBC ultimately decided to cancel the show, ending it prematurely. We thought we were going to have another season to work out some of those issues, he said. But they went, No, were going to pull the plug. In accepting responsibility, Amell acknowledged the inevitable association of the lead actor with the shows fate. If its successful, Im going to get a disproportionate amount of the credit. So, I think its only fair that I stand in front and take the blame. Im the lead of the series, and it didnt work, he stated. The actor also compared the cancellation of Suits LA to the ending of his Starz drama Heels, noting that the former was more painful for him. Following the news of the cancellation, Amell said he forced himself into a period of reflection and low public profile. I think I had to go to TV jail for a second. Maybe not TV jail, but like timeout, he said. Your face is everywhere on billboards all over North America. Its a big thing, and then it gets cancelled. So, you have to go in timeout for a second. Over the past several months, when asked about upcoming projects, Amell reportedly responded with little to share as he processed the situation. People ask, Whats going on? and I say, Uh, nothing. I got nothing, he admitted. While Amells humility in accepting blame is notable, critics and audiences alike pointed to issues beyond his acting as the main problems with Suits LA. Reviews frequently cited weak writing and a lack of the original series charm and sharpness as key factors in the shows downfall. These elements were outside of the actors control and cannot be fully addressed through performance alone. Suits LA also suffered from a significant decline in viewership over its short run. The series lost more than half of its audience from the premiere episode to the finale, signaling NBCs diminishing confidence. The cancellation was confirmed before the final episode aired, underscoring the networks decision to halt the series rather than continue to invest. Ultimately, the failure of Suits LA cannot be attributed solely to Amell. The problems were multifaceted, involving network decisions, creative disagreements, writing quality, and other production challenges. Nevertheless, Amells willingness to shoulder much of the responsibility reflects his commitment to the project and his role as the series lead. In summary, while Stephen Amell feels he could have done more to make his character, Ted Black, resonate and help salvage Suits LA, the shows cancellation was the result of various factors beyond his performance. His candid reflections offer insight into the pressures faced by actors leading high-profile projects and the complexities behind a shows success or failure in todays television landscape. Little Mix members support ex-bandmate Jesy Nelson after her twins' SMA diagnosis. Leigh-Anne reveals they reached out despite past distance. AceShowbiz - The members of Little Mix have shown their unwavering support for former bandmate Jesy Nelson during a difficult time, as Jesys 9-month-old twins face a serious health diagnosis. Leigh-Anne Pinnock revealed that she, along with Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall, reached out to Jesy after learning about her daughters battle with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type 1, despite not having been in contact since Jesy left the group. Speaking on Heart Breakfast on February 20, Leigh-Anne Pinnock said, We reached out to her when we heard what was happening with her twins. Its just devastating. She praised Jesys courage for sharing her familys story in the new Prime Video docuseries, Jesy Nelson: Life After Little Mix, emphasizing the deep bond that still connects her with her former bandmates. Leigh-Anne highlighted the closeness she shares with Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall, explaining, Obviously, me, Perrie and Jade are super close as well. I think just supporting each other has always been so important to us. She added that their sisterly relationship remains a vital part of their lives, despite the changes over time. The group originally formed on The X Factor, where they won the eighth season and quickly rose to fame. Their chart-topping hits like "Black Magic" and "Shout Out to My Ex" cemented their place in pop music history. However, the dynamic shifted in December 2020 when Jesy announced her permanent departure from the band. At the time of her exit, Jesy explained that the relentless pressure of being in a girl group and meeting expectations had taken a toll on her well-being. She stated, There comes a time in life when we need to reinvest in taking care of ourselves rather than focusing on making other people happy, and I feel like now is the time to begin that process. After leaving, Jesy was candid about the distance that developed between her and the remaining members of Little Mix. In a 2021 interview with Glamour UK, she described their relationship as having shifted from sisterhood to essentially nothing, saying, Weve sent a few texts, but thats it. I cant explain it, its like there has to be this distance. We were so close so you cant do in-between, there has to be space. Hopefully, at some point in the future, we can all come back together. Jesy expressed her affection for her former bandmates, calling them her sisters in many ways, but acknowledged that for the moment they do not communicate. In recent months, her focus has centered on her family. Jesy and her ex-fiance Zion Foster welcomed twin daughters, Ocean and Story, in May 2025. In January, Jesy shared that the twins had been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type 1 after they exhibited limited leg movement compared to other babies. SMA is a genetic disorder that results in muscle weakness and wasting, with Type 1 being the most severe form, affecting about 60 percent of cases. Symptoms usually appear in infancy and include difficulties with breathing and swallowing, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Jesy revealed in an Instagram video on January 4, We were told that theyre probably never gonna be able to walk, they probably will never regain their neck strength so they will be disabled. And so the best thing we can do right now is to get them treatment and then just hope for the best. Her openness about this heartbreaking diagnosis has drawn an outpouring of support from fans and fellow celebrities alike. During the Heart Breakfast interview, Leigh-Anne Pinnock also spoke about the possibility of a Little Mix reunion, stating that it is something that would one hundred percent happen in the future. However, Jesy herself remains uncertain about returning to music at this time. In a February 12 interview with Heart FMs Breakfast Show, Jesy said, Id never say never to music. But for me, my girls are my main focus. Ill be honest with you, Ive not got time, I really dont. She emphasized that her daughters are her entire heart and soul and that advocating for themparticularly in efforts to change the heel prick test and provide them with the strongest care possibleis her priority. Jesys candidness about her personal struggles and her childrens health challenges highlights the broader conversation about mental health and resilience among public figures. She joins a growing list of celebrities who have openly discussed their own battles to inspire and support others. For example, rapper Gucci Mane revealed in his 2025 memoir, Episodes: The Diary of a Recovering Mad Man, that he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His experience led him to seek therapy and take responsibility for his mental health, especially as he prepared to become a father. Similarly, actor Penn Badgley has spoken about his childhood struggles with body dysmorphia and depression, attributing his endurance to spirituality and inner transformation. Actress Eliza Coupe has been open about her lifelong challenges with food and body image, sharing her journey toward healing and balance. Other stars like Candace Cameron Bure and Billie Eilish have also shared their mental health journeys, offering advice and encouragement to those facing similar difficulties. The openness of these public figures helps destigmatize mental health issues and fosters greater understanding and compassion. As Jesy Nelson focuses on her twins health and her advocacy work, her story serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of support and resilience within families and communities. Meanwhile, the remaining members of Little Mix continue to stand by her side, showing that the bonds forged through years of friendship and collaboration can endure even through challenging times. The future of Little Mix as a group, with or without Jesy, remains a topic of interest for fans worldwide. But for now, the priority for Jesy and her former bandmates is the health and well-being of her children and the continued support they provide one another as sisters in music and life. DJs face a new threat: clout deepfakes. Fake videos steal fame, deceive fans, and undermine the struggling dance music industry. AceShowbiz - The dance music scene has been facing numerous challenges lately, from widespread club closures to the cancellation of major events fueled by increased violence in American cities. Now, the industry is confronting a troubling new development: the rise of clout deepfakes among DJs. This emerging trend manifests primarily in two ways. The most common involves lesser-known dance producers appropriating footage of prominent DJs performing to energetic crowds. These producers then overlay their own tracks onto the videos, share them on social media, and falsely claim the popularity and momentum typically associated with those performances. This practice deceives not only fans but potentially record labels as well, blurring the lines between genuine success and manufactured hype. The issue first gained widespread attention in early January when Alex Pall, one half of the Chainsmokers, addressed the phenomenon on LinkedIn. Pall described the trend as "kind of genius, kind of dishonest," noting its fascinating yet problematic nature. He explained how the average viewer perceives these videos as evidence of a track gaining traction and building momentum. However, in reality, the popularity is fabricated by simply replacing the original music in the clip with someone else's song. Pall pointed out the troubling implications, questioning the meaning of "support" in an environment where such manipulation can easily simulate success. While he declined further comment to Rolling Stone, his initial remarks sparked significant discussion within the EDM community. Compounding this issue, the clout deepfake has escalated to a more alarming stage involving artificial intelligence. On February 11, deadmau5 publicly disclosed an incident where an AI-generated video was used to depict him endorsing another DJ and their music. Although the AI voice wasn't perfectly replicated, it was convincing enough to mislead viewers. In his characteristic candid manner, deadmau5 criticized the misuse of technology and warned that such AI-generated impersonations would likely become more prevalent. Speaking to Rolling Stone while on tour in South America, deadmau5 confirmed that the individual behind this AI impersonation was previously unknown to him and described the person simply as "a fan that came out of the woodwork." He emphasized the unprecedented nature of this situation, stating it was the first time anyone he knows had been targeted in this way. He acknowledged the rapid advancement of technology and the eagerness of some to exploit it, stressing the urgent need for creators to maintain control over their own likenesses, voices, and creative outputs. deadmau5 underscored the necessity for legal protections to keep pace with technological developments. In response to these emerging threats, deadmau5's attorney, Dina LaPolt, is spearheading a bipartisan legislative effort known as the NO FAKES Act of 2025. The bill, supported by Senators Blackburn, Coons, Tillis, Klobuchar, and Representatives Salazar, Dean, Moran, and Balint, aims to establish new intellectual property rights specifically covering an individuals voice and likeness. LaPolt explained in an email to Rolling Stone that this legislation would offer statutory protections comparable to those for copyright and trademark. She emphasized that the bill addresses risks faced not only by celebrities but by athletes, journalists, and everyday people, highlighting the real damage deepfakes and voice cloning can cause including career sabotage, scams, public misinformation, and emotional distress. Despite these legal initiatives, technological innovation continues to outpace regulation. Industry experts suggest this type of manipulation was almost inevitable given broader shifts in the music business, particularly within EDM. Lawrence Jones, a creative executive at the UK-based agency Mutual Friends, has observed these changes firsthand. Reflecting on his experience since 2015, Jones noted how the dominant format for video content has radically transformed. "When I first started, vertical video did not exist; everything was horizontal," he said. Back then, video content was a supplementary promotional tool, but now it accounts for around 80 percent of marketing efforts, a dramatic increase from the previous 15 to 20 percent. This shift has completely upended traditional promotional strategies. This evolution aligns with the changing economic realities of EDM promotion over recent years. Martin Kandja Kabamba, who heads the London agency NOAB, explained that major record labels approach to electronic artists has fundamentally shifted. In the past, all of Kabambas clients were signed to major deals, but today, only two out of sixteen artists he manages have major label contracts. Labels have largely stopped signing electronic musicians to long-term deals, often limiting themselves to one-off single releases. This trend is supported by the low-cost effectiveness of promoting singles with eye-catching social media clips on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Kabamba further noted that full album campaigns have become increasingly costly and less profitable. An artist on his roster released an album independently last year and concluded the effort wasn't financially worthwhile compared to releasing a series of singles. The singles economy thrives because it aligns with how music is consumed on social media, eliminating the need for prolonged marketing campaigns and large social teams supporting an artists digital presence over an extended period. With long-term artist development programs largely dismantled, the responsibility now falls squarely on emerging artists to capture attention by any means possible. Kabamba observed that many record labels today sign artists based primarily on viral reactions to short clips rather than traditional scouting or development. This environment creates fertile ground for the misuse of clips and deepfakes to artificially inflate visibility and manipulate the system. When asked how much online exposure an aspiring artist needs to attract major label interest, Kabamba estimated a threshold of at least ten million views. Anything below that is often overlooked in the vast social media landscape. This high bar incentivizes some newcomers to resort to deceptive practices such as faking crowd reactions or endorsements to simulate success. Given these circumstances, the recent surge in fake co-signs and manipulated videos is unlikely to be a passing phase. Kabamba concluded that, rather than being mere mistakes by inexperienced artists, such tactics may now represent the new normthe very "ropes" that many are learning to navigate in todays music industry. Ultimately, the rise of clout deepfakes and AI-generated impersonations poses a significant challenge for the dance music community and the broader music business. As technology advances faster than regulation and traditional industry structures erode, artists, labels, and lawmakers must grapple with how to preserve authenticity, protect creative rights, and maintain trust in an era of digital deception. Lisa Rinna reveals she was drugged with fentanyl at a Hollywood party. She details the scary incident and her drug test results in a new interview. AceShowbiz - Lisa Rinna recently disclosed a frightening experience where she believes she was drugged during the premiere party for Traitors held at The Abbey in West Hollywood. The incident took place in January at the Los Angeles event, and Lisa Rinna confirmed she had a drug test that revealed fentanyl in her system, along with high levels of amphetamines and other substances. She spoke about this during her February 26 appearance on Good Day New York, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. Lisa Rinna stated, "I had fentanyl in my system, yesI'm not kidding," but added that she could not provide many details as the matter is still under investigation. She also addressed rumors suggesting she was simply intoxicated, firmly denying them by saying, "I was not. I know." Thankfully, her husband, Harry Hamlin, was with her during the event and was able to get her out quickly when she began feeling unwell. The alleged drugging reportedly occurred at The Abbey, a well-known venue in West Hollywood. In response to the allegations, The Abbey released a statement to E! News confirming that they immediately launched a thorough internal review after hearing about Lisa Rinna's claims. The venues security team reportedly assisted her when she became ill and escorted her safely out of the premises. The Abbey reviewed all surveillance footage from the night and interviewed staff on duty but found no evidence of drink tampering or suspicious activity directed at Lisa Rinna. While the venue refrained from commenting on toxicology results, they stressed their commitment to guest safety and encouraged anyone feeling unsafe or suspecting their drink was compromised to report it immediately. The statement highlighted that The Abbey maintains extensive surveillance, trained security personnel, and ongoing drink-safety protocols, reinforcing that guest safety is their top priority. Lisa Rinna expressed gratitude that sharing her story might help raise awareness about the issue of drink spiking, which she noted has been an ongoing problem for years. She said, "This is not a first-time thing, this is something that has gone on for years," and emphasized the importance of opening up a conversation about it. While Lisa Rinna could not yet fully discuss the situation due to ongoing matters, she hopes that by speaking out, it will lead to better awareness and action moving forward. Simone Ledward Boseman reveals the moving, never-before-heard Oscars speech she wrote for Chadwick in a rare interview. AceShowbiz - Chadwick Bosemans widow, Simone Ledward Boseman, opened up in a rare interview with The Hollywood Reporter about the COVID-era Oscars ceremony held five years ago. She shared, for the first time, the heartfelt acceptance speech she had prepared in case her late husband won the Best Actor award for his role in Ma Raineys Black Bottom. Ledward Boseman explained how she had carefully crafted a speech she wished she could have delivered on her husbands behalf. Searching through her notes, she found the words she had written: I will never stop thanking God for you. Thank you to the most high God. Thank you, Carolyn and Leroy Boseman [Chadwicks parents], and your mothers, and your mothers mothers. What purity. What honesty. What pain. What a role. What work. What beautiful, intricate humanity. What courage, bravery, fearlessness, honesty, commitment, humanity, strength. A spirit that refused to surrender to despair. What an actor. What an artist. What a cast. What a team. What a vision. Glory be to the most high God. Long live the King. In the interview, Simone Ledward Boseman also reflected on her husbands private multi-year battle with colon cancer and how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their lives. She described the timing of the lockdown as honestly ideal given their circumstances, though she recognized the broader tragedy of so many others losing loved ones during that period. The world was stunned when Boseman passed away on August 28, 2020, several months before the release of Ma Raineys Black Bottom. However, Ledward Boseman confirmed he had seen the film and was aware of the awards buzz surrounding it. She recounted the difficult conversations they had about his ability to participate in press and award events given his health, noting that these discussions alerted his team to the seriousness of his condition. After Bosemans death, his performances received widespread acclaim, leading to nominations for every major pre-Oscar award. When his name was announced at the virtual Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG Awards ceremonies, Ledward Boseman appeared on screen to deliver acceptance speeches, channeling her husbands spirit through his own writings. She described the experience as cathartic but challenging, as she sought to find words that felt authentic to him. On March 15, 2021, Boseman was posthumously nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, becoming only the fifth actor ever to receive such a nomination after death, following James Dean, Spencer Tracy, Peter Finch, and Massimo Troisi. The Academy announced that the 93rd Oscars would be held fully in-person at Los Angeles historic Union Station and other hubs worldwide, with no option for prerecorded speeches or remote appearances. Simone Ledward Boseman chose to attend the ceremony and prepared the speech she had previously written in case her husband won. She recalled feeling immense pressure to deliver the words correctly, especially without Boseman by her side. Attending with his best friend Logan Coles and publicist Nicki Fioravante provided some support, but the absence of her husband made the moment deeply lonely. Despite sweeping every major precursor award except the BAFTA, which went to Anthony Hopkins for The Father, the Oscars producers decided to save the Best Actor award for last. When actor Joaquin Phoenix opened the envelope, the winner announced was Hopkins, not Boseman, eliciting audible gasps in the audience. At 83, Hopkins became the oldest actor ever to win an Oscar. He was asleep in his home in Wales during the ceremony, having declined to travel or prerecord a speech due to health concerns. Ledward Boseman described the aftermath as awkward and uncomfortable, though she acknowledged the incredible honor of Bosemans nomination. She reflected on how the producers likely never intended for the moment to feel uneasy and suggested that ending the night with Best Picture instead might have provided a better celebratory reset. Though never shown on camera during the broadcast, Ledward Boseman accepted the outcome with grace. She noted a meaningful gift from producer Denzel Washington, who gave the cast a dog tag engraved with a cross and the words, Man gives the award, God gives the reward, which she felt perfectly encapsulated the experience. The morning after the ceremony, Hopkins posted an Instagram video expressing gratitude for the award and paying tribute to Boseman, saying, I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early. Ledward Boseman called Hopkins gesture very beautiful, wonderful, and kind, noting it was not something he was obliged to do. This intimate glimpse into the legacy of Chadwick Boseman highlights the enduring respect and love for his artistry and spirit, especially from those closest to him. Through his widows words and actions, the world continues to remember the profound impact he made both on and off screen. Reacher's unwavering confidence sets him apart. Explore the grounded hero at the heart of the hit Prime Video series, based on Lee Child's novels. AceShowbiz - The anticipation builds for the return of Reacher and its upcoming spin-off centered on Neagley, making it an ideal moment to examine the defining traits of the shows central figure, portrayed by Alan Ritchson. Unlike many action heroes who are often depicted as psychologically fractured or haunted by their past, Reacher stands apart due to his grounded nature and unwavering confidence in his principles, closely mirroring the character originally crafted by Lee Child in the novels. From the opening moments of Reacher, it is clear that the titular character exemplifies a rare form of strength: a stable, self-assured man who knows exactly who he is and what he stands for. The Prime Video series is set shortly after Reachers military career ends, capturing his life as a nomad who wanders the country without attachments. His lifestyle is defined by freedomfreedom from responsibility to anyone but himself. As he explains to Roscoe Conklin (played by Willa Fitzgerald) in the first episode, I had a home base my whole life. Grew up in the military. Worked in the military. Now I see my country on my own terms. This simple yet aspirational philosophy captures the essence of his approach to life. Unlike typical action protagonists who chase wealth or status, Reacher lives modestly. His military pension covers all his financial needs, freeing him from concerns about bills, mortgages, or debts. This financial independence, coupled with his pragmatic mindset, reinforces his image as a man who values principles over material possessions. Above all, his confidence and self-possession set him apart, as he never wavers in his chosen path or values. Many action heroes in film and television are defined by their inner turmoil and past trauma. Characters like Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon (played by Mel Gibson) become unstable after personal loss, while Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is plagued by fragmented memories of a violent past in the X-Men franchise. Even John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is known for his relentless grief and vengeance. In contrast, Reacher has experienced significant personal losses, including the deaths of his former protege Dominique Kohl (Mariah Robinson) and his brother Joe Reacher (Christopher Russell), but these do not consume or define him. Instead, Reacher operates by a strong moral compass shaped by the values his mother instilled in him. She taught him to use his formidable strength to protect the innocent and correct wrongs. While memories of Dominique, Joe, and his military team occasionally surface, they do not lead him into despair or paralysis. He compartmentalizes these experiences, ensuring that although they matter, they do not dictate his every action. This emotional balance allows him to respond decisively to injustice, even when it involves strangers, despite his claim of preferring to avoid other peoples problems. He is willing to use force without hesitation and never struggles with the moral weight of killing when he deems it justified. One of the most compelling aspects of Reacher as an action hero is his immutability and incorruptibility. He enjoys simple pleasures and maintains consistent habits but remains unafraid to confront wrongdoing head-on. Alan Ritchson brings a distinctive energy to the role, portraying Reacher as both an unstoppable force and a man of flesh and blood. His embodiment of the characters ideals elevates the series and offers a departure from the typical action hero mold. Larry David's new HBO sketch puts him in a V-J Day kiss gone wrong. Awkward humor and controversy ensue in this teaser for his upcoming series. AceShowbiz - Larry David returns with a fresh sketch from his upcoming HBO comedy series, Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, delivering his signature awkward humor and controversial situations. The recently released teaser places Larry David on V-J Day, the historic moment marking Japan's surrender and the conclusion of World War II. In the clip, Larry David frantically searches for a woman to kiss in celebration, but his intentions quickly go awry after being rebuffed. The woman sternly shouts, "Get your mitts off me buster," to which Larry David insists, "The wars over, the wars over." Her indifferent reply, "So?", sets the tone for an escalating misunderstanding. Larry David attempts again to kiss her but is pushed away and told to back off. When he argues that they are celebrating, the woman questions whether he is "some kind of sicko." He points out that "Everybodys kissing," but she counters, "No, theyre not! Only you!" She then accuses him of being a "perv-o, f-k-o" and reveals she is someone's girlfriend, calling over her sailor boyfriend, Johnny. As Larry David tries to explain, Johnny discovers what happened and confronts him physically. When Larry David pushes Johnnys hand away, Johnny accuses him of swinging at him, to which Larry David desperately denies. Meanwhile, a woman accuses Larry David of attacking a sailor, escalating the tension further. Johnnys sailor comrades surround Larry David, who is bombarded with accusations of being a pervert and even a Nazi. As the crowd closes in, the camera pulls away from Larry David screaming "no, no, no no," before the scene fades to black. Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness is a limited HBO series set to premiere on June 26, airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show will run for seven episodes and feature familiar faces from Curb Your Enthusiasm along with notable guest stars. The series premise humorously references a fictional scenario where President and Mrs. Obama sought to celebrate Americas 250th anniversary, but Larry David unexpectedly became involved, leading to comedic mishaps. Larry David co-wrote and executive produces the series alongside Jeff Schaffer, who also directs. The production is a collaboration with former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obamas Higher Ground, who serve as executive producers along with Ethan Lewis and Vinnie Malhotra from Higher Ground. Megan Moroney's 'Cloud 9' debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking her first chart-topper. Discover the week's other top debuts from Hilary Duff and Bab... AceShowbiz - Megan Moroney has achieved a major career milestone by debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with her third studio album, Cloud 9, for the chart dated March 7, 2026. The album earned a total of 147,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week ending February 26, according to data from Luminate. This marks Megan Moroney's first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and her strongest week ever for a country album by a female artist in nearly two years. The impressive debut underscores her growing influence in the country music scene. Alongside Megan Moroneys success, other notable entries in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 include Hilary Duffs comeback album, luck... or something, which debuts at No. 3. This is Duffs first album release in over a decade. Meanwhile, rapper Baby Keem scores his highest-charting album yet with Ca$ino entering at No. 4. British folk-rock band Mumford & Sons return to the top 10, landing at No. 10 with their album Prizefighter. The Billboard 200 ranks the most popular albums in the United States each week based on multi-metric consumption. This includes album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). One equivalent album unit is equal to one full album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold, or 2,500 ad-supported streams, or 1,000 paid/subscription streams of songs from the album. The full chart for March 7, 2026, will be available on Billboard's website on March 3. Breaking down Cloud 9s 147,000 equivalent units, album sales accounted for 78,000 copiesMegan Moroneys best sales week to date and earning her the No. 1 spot on Top Album Sales. Streaming equivalent albums contributed 69,000 units, reflecting 71.54 million on-demand official streams, also a personal best and securing the No. 2 position on Top Streaming Albums. TEA units were minimal and did not significantly impact the total. Cloud 9 represents Megan Moroneys third overall entry on the Billboard 200 and her second album to reach the top 10, following her previous albums Am I Okay? (No. 9 in 2024) and Lucky (No. 38 in 2023). This album also marks the first country album by a woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since Beyonce topped the chart for two weeks with her debut country album, Cowboy Carter, in April 2024. Prior to Cloud 9, Cowboy Carter held the record for the largest week by units (407,000 in its debut week) and streams (90.08 million in its third week) among country albums by women in recent years. Notably, the achievement of No. 1 albums by female country artists remains rare, with only seven albums by five women reaching that peak over the past decade since March 2016. These albums include Cloud 9, Cowboy Carter, three Taylor Swift albums (Speak Now (Taylor's Version) in 2023, and Red (Taylor's Version) and Fearless (Taylor's Version) in 2021), Carrie Underwoods Cry Pretty (2018), and Shania Twains Now (2017). In contrast, 17 country albums by 11 different male artists have reached No. 1 in the same period. Cloud 9s strong sales were supported by its release across multiple formats, including five vinyl variantsfeaturing a signed edition and a Target-exclusive version with two bonus tracksthree CD variants with similar exclusives, and four deluxe boxed sets. These boxed sets included branded clothing items along with the CD, appealing to collectors and dedicated fans. The album was preceded by four singles that charted on Billboards Hot Country Songs chart, all reaching the top 40: 6 Months Later, Beautiful Things, Wish I Didnt, and the title track, Cloud 9. 6 Months Later also gave Megan Moroney her highest placement on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 29 in January 2026. Other notable movements on the Billboard 200 include Bad Bunnys DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS falling to No. 2 with 85,000 equivalent album units, a 37% decline from the previous week. Hilary Duffs album luck... or something marks her first return to the Billboard 200 in over ten years, debuting at No. 3 with 84,000 equivalent album units. Of this, 73,000 were album salesher best week since 2007and 11,000 were SEA units, totaling 11.51 million on-demand official streams. TEA units were again negligible. This release brings Hilary Duff her sixth top 10 album, joining her previous entries: Breathe In. Breathe Out. (No. 5 in 2015), Dignity (No. 3 in 2007), Most Wanted (No. 1 in 2005), her self-titled album (No. 2 in 2004), and Metamorphosis (No. 1 in 2003). luck... or somethings first-week sales benefited from multiple formats, including seven vinyl variants (one signed), three CD versions (including a signed edition and a Walmart-exclusive with seven bonus tracks), a deluxe boxed set featuring branded merchandise and a signed CD, and a deluxe digital download with 11 bonus tracks. The album was supported by the single Roommates, which reached the top 20 on the Adult Pop Airplay chart and the top 30 on Pop Airplay. Baby Keem achieved his second top 10 album and highest chart position yet, as Ca$ino debuted at No. 4 with 72,000 equivalent album units. The majority of units came from streaming, with 55,500 SEA units equaling 56.67 million on-demand official streams. Album sales contributed 16,500 units, his best sales week, placing him at No. 4 on Top Album Sales. TEA units were minimal. Ca$ino is Baby Keems third charting album, following The Melodic Blue (No. 5 peak, 2021) and Die for My Bitch (No. 162, 2020). The albums first-week sales were boosted by availability on vinyl, CD, and two deluxe boxed sets that included branded merchandise and a CD copy. Other key chart movements include Morgan Wallens Im the Problem slipping from No. 4 to No. 5 with nearly 71,000 equivalent album units, down 8%. Don Tolivers former No. 1 OCTANE dropped from No. 3 to No. 6 with 68,000 units, down 13%. Olivia Deans The Art of Loving fell from No. 5 to No. 7 with 61,000 units, down 15%. Two other former No. 1s, J. Coles The Fall-Off and Taylor Swifts The Life of a Showgirl, fell to No. 8 and No. 9, respectively, with 53,000 and 44,000 units, both experiencing double-digit percentage drops. Mumford & Sons round out the top 10 with Prizefighter, debuting with nearly 44,000 equivalent album units. This is the bands sixth top 10 album, coming less than a year after their previous release, Rushmere. Of the albums units, 25,000 were album sales (No. 3 on Top Album Sales), 18,500 were SEA units (equaling 18.69 million on-demand streams, debuting at No. 32 on Top Streaming Albums), and 500 TEA units. Prizefighter was preceded by the single Rubber Band Man featuring Hozier, which spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Adult Alternative Airplay chart from November through February and peaked at No. 2 on the Alternative Airplay chart. The albums first-week sales were enhanced by seven vinyl variants, including a signed edition, and four CD versions. Luminate, the independent data provider for Billboard charts, conducts comprehensive reviews of all submitted data before chart compilation. They authenticate and verify data, removing any suspicious or unverifiable submissions according to strict criteria to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the final chart rankings. For ongoing updates and detailed chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Larry David's new HBO sketch comedy premieres June 26. Watch him hilariously skewer American history in 'Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness'. AceShowbiz - This summer offers plenty to look forward to for fans of Larry David. The acclaimed star of Curb Your Enthusiasm is set to debut a fresh comedy series on HBO titled Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness. The show is scheduled to premiere on Friday, June 26 at 9 p.m., according to the networks official announcement. This new project is a seven-episode sketch comedy series originally announced last July. It features Larry David alongside other comedy talents reenacting notable moments from American history. The timing is significant as it coincides with the United States celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. HBO has provided a sneak peek of the series showcasing David in a humorous reenactment of the iconic World War II photograph of a sailor kissing a woman in New Yorks Times Square on V-J Day. In the clip, Larry David plays an onlooker who tries to mimic the kiss but quickly encounters trouble when the womans sailor boyfriend reacts. (Viewers can press play on the clip above to watch.) Larry David will serve as both writer and executive producer of the show, partnering with Jeff Schaffer, his colleague from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Additionally, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama are also executive producers on the series. The official synopsis indicates the cast will include select actors from Curb Your Enthusiasm along with notable guest stars. In other TV scheduling news, Peacock has announced the return of Love Island USA for its eighth season on Tuesday, June 2 at 9 p.m., with Ariana Madix reprising her role as host. This season introduces a new group of singles competing for love and a $100,000 grand prize. Alongside this, Peacocks docuseries Love Island: Beyond the Villa will return for its second season starting Wednesday, April 15, featuring stars from Season 7 as they navigate life after the villa. Disney+ will debut Blueys Big Play - The Stage Show on Monday, March 16, a TV adaptation of the popular touring theater production based on the hit childrens cartoon. Additionally, 10 new minisodes of Bluey, previously available only online and in Australia, will be accessible on Disney+ starting Wednesday, May 20. Netflix is set to release the new comedy Big Mistakes on Thursday, April 9, starring Emmy winner Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega. The eight-episode series follows siblings who find themselves entangled in the world of organized crime after a botched theft for their dying grandmother. A trailer is available for viewers interested in the show. Also on Netflix, the second season of Temptation Island will premiere on Friday, April 10, with all nine episodes dropping simultaneously. A trailer has been released to build excitement for the series return. AI-powered toys that talk and respond to young children should face tighter rules because they can misread emotions and potentially harm early emotional development, Cambridge researchers have warned in a new study. The research, described as the first of its kind, looked at how children aged three to five interacted with an AI-enabled stuffed toy called Gabbo, which uses generative AI to hold conversations and respond to children's feelings. Researchers found that while the toy was designed to offer comfort and companionship, it sometimes replied in ways that ignored or dismissed a child's emotions. In one case, when a three-year-old said "I'm sad," Gabbo replied in a cheerful tone and moved the conversation on, a response experts say could teach children that their sadness does not matter, according to the BBC. Dr. Emily Goodacre, a co-author of the study at the University of Cambridge, said AI toys could "misinterpret emotions or react inappropriately," leaving children without comfort from the toy and without seeking help from adults. She warned that this is especially worrying because preschool years are a crucial time for learning how to name feelings, read social cues, and build healthy coping skills. Read more: Dozens of Missing Children Rescued as 7 Individuals Arrested in Southern California Trafficking Operation The Cambridge team is calling for stronger regulation and safety testing before such products are marketed for very young children. They argue that current consumer rules do not properly cover toys that act like emotional companions, collect data, and adapt to a child's behaviour over time. UNICEF has also urged governments and companies to adopt "childcentred AI" rules, including safetybydesign, clear limits on emotional manipulation, and strict privacy protections for products aimed at children. Other child advocacy and education groups have raised similar alarms. A recent investigation by Common Sense Media into three popular AI toys found that more than a quarter of their responses were not appropriate for children, including content linked to self-harm, drugs, and unsafe role play, EdWeek reported. Experts said these toys are built to create strong emotional bonds by remembering details, saying they "love" the child, and always agreeing, which can blur the line between a toy and a real friend. Specialists also worry that constant interaction with AI companions could weaken real-world social skills and resilience if children rely on a device that never disagrees, sets boundaries, or makes mistakes in a human way. Several advocacy groups now advise parents to avoid AI companion toys for children under five and to use extreme caution with older children until clearer safety standards and regulations are in place, as per the United Nations News. Elon Musk's retweet of a controversial Evie magazine article claiming birth control makes women attracted to feminine men sparks widespread backlash. AceShowbiz - Elon Musk has sparked controversy after retweeting a viral article from Evie magazine that claims birth control makes women attracted to feminine men, sharing the post with a simple bull's eye emoji on X. The article, titled "If You're Into Timothee Chalamet, Harry Styles, And LilHubby, Then You Might Be On The Pill," argues that women on hormonal birth control have lower estrogen levels, which allegedly causes them to find feminine-looking men more attractive. The piece suggests this explains why Generation Z's celebrity crushes look "more like women than the manly men of yesterday." "What happened to the tall, tan, hunky guys of the '90s? Am I missing something?" Evie magazine writer Meghan Dillon asks in the article. The piece references a 2013 study by Scottish researchers in which young women not on birth control digitally altered men's facial features to create their ideal partner, with results showing different preferences after some participants began taking hormonal contraceptives. Musk's retweet ignited immediate backlash across social media, but Evie magazine's Editor-in-Chief Brittany Hugoboom responded supportively to the attention. "Elon, the Evie girls agree," Hugoboom commented following the retweet. The controversial article has positioned Evie magazine as what some observers call the most talked-about publication in women's media. Vanity Fair has previously described Hugoboom as the new "Camille Paglia," referencing the provocative cultural critic known for her controversial takes on feminism and sexuality. Hugoboom has been featured in New York Times and Daily Mail coverage, building the magazine's profile through provocative content. In February, she hosted Evie magazine's first live event, which debuted their third print issue, The Sex Issue. The event garnered attention from The Daily Wire, Political Analyst, and The Cut. The magazine positions itself as a digital publication for women who value "beauty, wellness, and femininity without the influence of woke politics." Evie magazine offers content ranging from science-backed health advice to cultural commentary, targeting women seeking what it calls "truth over trends." The birth control article reflects Evie magazine's broader editorial approach, which often challenges contemporary cultural narratives around femininity and relationships. The publication has built its brand on controversial takes that generate significant online discussion and media coverage. As the debate continues across social media platforms, Musk's endorsement of the article has brought renewed attention to Evie magazine's provocative editorial stance and its growing influence in women's media discourse. Rumors revive the scrapped Ben Solo film. Could new Lucasfilm leadership bring back Adam Driver's Kylo Ren after The Rise of Skywalker? AceShowbiz - Despite earlier reports that the The Hunt for Ben Solo film a project centered on Adam Drivers Kylo Ren/Ben Solo had been scrapped, recent developments suggest the movie might still have a chance. The film, pitched by Adam Driver and director Steven Soderbergh, was initially rejected by Disneys CEO Bob Iger after years of development. The story was intended to follow the events after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but Disney declined to move forward with it. In October, Driver revealed that despite passionate efforts, the project was ultimately shut down by Iger, who struggled to accept how Ben Solo could have survived the events depicted in The Rise of Skywalker. Although fans rallied with petitions to revive the film, those efforts appeared to have minimal impact. However, the recent shift in Lucasfilms leadership has sparked renewed optimism for the films future. When the film was originally pitched in 2021, both Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and creative executive Dave Filoni supported The Hunt for Ben Solo. While Iger was the ultimate decision-maker in shelving the project, the backing from two of Lucasfilms top executives demonstrated there was strong internal interest in the story. Now, with Kennedy stepping down and Filoni ascending to a more influential creative lead role at Lucasfilm, the movie may have a stronger advocate in the studio. Dave Filoni will assume greater creative control at Lucasfilm, overseeing future Star Wars projects and liaising directly with Disney executives, including Bob Iger. Previously, Filoni operated under Kennedys leadership, who was the final authority on many creative decisions. This change could allow Filoni to champion projects he is passionate about, such as The Hunt for Ben Solo, with more authority and influence. Filoni is well-regarded by fans and critics alike, having created and contributed to numerous acclaimed Star Wars series and projects, including The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka. His track record of successful storytelling within the franchise gives hope that he could persuade Disney to revisit the Ben Solo film. Here is a summary of Dave Filonis notable Star Wars roles: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020) Creator/Director/Writer Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018) Creator/Director/Writer Star Wars: Forces of Destiny (2017-2018) Executive Producer Star Wars: Resistance (2018-2020) Creator/Writer/Producer The Mandalorian (2019-2023) Director/Writer/Producer Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021-2024) Creator/Writer/Producer The Book of Boba Fett (2022) Director/Writer/Producer Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022) Creator/Director/Writer Ahsoka (2023) Creator/Director/Writer Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (2024) Creator/Director/Writer Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024) Executive Producer Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld (2025) Creator/Writer/Producer Given Filonis original support for The Hunt for Ben Solo, his expanded role at Lucasfilm could significantly improve the project's chances. His influence may help convince Disney leadership to reconsider the pitch and potentially greenlight the film. Disney remains the ultimate gatekeeper for new Star Wars movies, but with Filoni now having a direct line to Bob Iger and the power to sway creative decisions, the project could find new life. Unlike Kennedy, Filoni may prioritize the film differently and push more vigorously for its production. The leadership shift at Lucasfilm represents an opportunity for the franchise to explore new stories and take creative risks. With Filoni at the helm, Star Wars could revisit previously shelved projects, including The Hunt for Ben Solo, especially if he is personally invested in its development. However, there are complications to consider. Lucasfilm and Disney have a packed slate of upcoming Star Wars projects, many set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. Among these are the highly anticipated Rey Skywalker-centered New Jedi Order movie and an untitled trilogy helmed by Simon Kinberg, often referred to as Episode X. Both these projects are expected to shape the post-sequel trilogy timeline extensively. This crowded schedule could limit the window for The Hunt for Ben Solo to fit into the broader narrative. Since Disney previously rejected The Rise of Kylo Ren, its likely that the current plans for the New Jedi Order and Kinbergs trilogy already have fixed story arcs following The Rise of Skywalker. Integrating Ben Solos survival into these new stories would pose significant challenges. If Ben were alive post-Rise of Skywalker, his presence would drastically alter the galaxys state and narrative direction. It would be difficult to exclude him from the New Jedi Order storyline or to justify Rey abandoning him entirely. Therefore, if The Hunt for Ben Solo is to be realized, it would probably need to be set before Reys story advances further into the timeline. In summary, while the initial rejection of The Hunt for Ben Solo appeared to close the door on the project, recent changes at Lucasfilm offer a new glimmer of hope. With Dave Filoni stepping into a key creative leadership position, there is a renewed possibility that this fan-favorite film might still be revived. Nevertheless, the packed schedule of upcoming Star Wars movies and the narrative complexities surrounding Ben Solos survival mean that any continuation of his story must be carefully positioned within the franchises evolving timeline. Before Yellowstone, Pierce Brosnan's Western 'The Son' is surging on PVOD. Discover the forgotten series sparking a new revival. AceShowbiz - Just before Taylor Sheridans groundbreaking series Yellowstone redefined the Western genre, Pierce Brosnan starred in a Western drama that initially flew under the radar but is now finding renewed interest in the PVOD market. The show, The Son, originally aired on AMC from 2017 to 2019 and has recently climbed the domestic iTunes charts, signaling a resurgence long after its two-season run ended. Before the Yellowstone era, the Western genre experienced sporadic successes, with notable films directed by acclaimed filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. Tarantinos Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, alongside the Coens True Grit and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, demonstrated the genres potential. AMC itself had invested in Western storytelling through the five-season series Hell on Wheels. Yet, these successes were rare and did not spark a consistent revival of the genre. With Sheridans Yellowstone and its spin-offs like 1883 and 1923, the Western genre has enjoyed a renaissance. This renewed popularity has cast a spotlight on earlier and contemporary Western projects. For example, Netflixs recent releases include American Primeval, directed by Peter Berg and starring Taylor Kitsch, which holds a 72% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Conversely, Netflixs The Abandons was canceled after one season despite a turbulent production. AMC has also returned to Western programming with Dark Winds, a series executive produced by George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford, while Paramount+ released Joe Pickett. It is notable that The Son aired on AMC just a year before Yellowstone premiered, placing it on the cusp of this genre revival. The Son stars Pierce Brosnan as a Texas rancher-turned-oilman named Eli McCullough, navigating the tumultuous economic and social changes of 1915. The show also features Zahn McClarnon, known for his role in Dark Winds. Despite its compelling premise and strong lead performance, the series received mixed reviews throughout its run. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 52% critic score with consensus noting that while the narrative is epic and the central performance strong, the pacing and direction were often criticized as slow and superficial. Although The Son did not achieve the widespread acclaim or commercial success that Yellowstone enjoyed, its recent climb on iTunes suggests a growing audience appreciation or curiosity, possibly fueled by the current Western revival. This renewed interest highlights the show's thematic relevance and the appeal of Brosnans lead role in a genre that is experiencing a significant resurgence. Following The Son, Pierce Brosnan has continued to secure high-profile roles, including the Paramount+ hit MobLand, which is set to return for a second season soon. Fans of Brosnan and Western dramas will likely watch closely as his career progresses within this revitalized genre landscape. As the Western genre continues to evolve with new series and growing fanbases, shows like The Son demonstrate that earlier projects can gain fresh momentum and appreciation, even years after their initial release. For viewers and industry watchers alike, this trend signals exciting times ahead for Western storytelling on television. Filming for Dept. Q Season 2 begins July 2026. Get the official production timeline and cast details for the hit Netflix detective thriller. AceShowbiz - Dept. Q quickly became one of Netflixs standout detective thrillers after its strong debut season. Since its renewal announcement in August 2025, fans have eagerly awaited updates on when the series would return to production. Now, a clear timeline has emerged, confirming that filming for Season 2 will begin in mid-2026. Production Weeklys issue 1493, as reported by What's on Netflix, reveals that shooting for Dept. Q Season 2 is scheduled to start on July 13, 2026, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The filming period is expected to run until December 11, 2026. This marks a shift from earlier plans which anticipated a spring start, indicating the production schedule has been solidified and pushed to later in the year. The news is a significant step forward for the crime drama, which stars Matthew Goode as Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck, the lead investigator of the Dept. Q unit. Alongside Goode, Netflix confirmed the return of key cast members including Alexej Manvelov as Akram, Leah Byrne as Rose, and Jamie Sives as Hardy. The series also benefits from the creative vision of its original director and creator, Scott Frank, who is set to helm Season 2 as well. The first season of Dept. Q premiered on May 29, 2025, and was met with positive reception for its dark and occasionally grimly humorous approach to the police procedural format. It was praised for a gripping whodunit narrative and a standout performance by Matthew Goode. The supporting cast included notable talents such as Kelly Macdonald, Chloe Pirrie, Mark Bonnar, Shirley Henderson, Kate Dickie, and Steven Miller, all contributing to the shows atmospheric tension and complex storytelling. Critics noted that while the series delivered strong performances, some elementslike the character development of Akram, played by Alexej Manvelovleft room for improvement. The script gave limited depth to Akram, often portraying him as quietly helpful with occasional bursts of aggression, rather than fully exploring his backstory or motivations. This aspect was seen as a missed opportunity, suggesting that future seasons might benefit from focusing more tightly on character arcs rather than spreading too thin across multiple plot threads. The original series is based on the novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen, who has written ten books in the Dept. Q series, providing a wealth of source material for potential adaptation. If Dept. Q continues to attract viewers, Netflix has ample narrative content to draw from, potentially allowing the show to deepen its storytelling and character development in subsequent seasons. The steady momentum for Dept. Q on Netflix reflects the platforms growing investment in sophisticated international crime dramas. Its renewal and forthcoming filming schedule underscore the confidence Netflix has in the shows ability to engage audiences with compelling mysteries and strong performances. For those who have yet to dive into the series, all episodes of Season 1 are currently available to stream on Netflix. As the production gears up for Season 2, anticipation is building for a return to the dark, suspenseful world of Dept. Q and its dedicated investigative team. With filming set to span nearly five months in Scotland, viewers can expect a well-crafted continuation of the story when the new season eventually premieres. The return of both the main cast and the showrunner promises consistency in tone and quality, key factors that contributed to the shows initial success. In summary, Dept. Q is poised to resume production this summer, with a confirmed filming window from July 13 to December 11, 2026. Fans of the series can look forward to further developments in the story of DCI Carl Morck and his team, brought to life once again by Matthew Goode and the talented ensemble cast. Rosanna Arquette refutes Harvey Weinstein's latest denials from prison. The actress reaffirms the assaults occurred, countering his claims of innocence. AceShowbiz - Rosanna Arquette has strongly responded to Harvey Weinsteins recent denials of sexual assault, following his latest interview from prison where he once again claimed innocence. The actress posted a detailed statement on Instagram, reaffirming that the assaults and rapes attributed to Weinstein did indeed occur. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter conducted at Rikers Island, where Weinstein is incarcerated, he insisted he never sexually assaulted anyone. He admitted to infidelity, saying, I cheated on both my wives. Thats immoral, but added, But I did not assault [anyone]. That is the big lie of all of this. I wont apologize for something I didnt do. I will be proven innocent. That I promise you. Nearly 100 women have come forward accusing Weinstein of various forms of sexual misconduct. Among them, Arquette had previously revealed in a 2017 interview with The New Yorker that she was assaulted by Weinstein at a hotel in the early 1990s. She used her Instagram post to directly challenge his persistent claims of innocence. In her statement, Arquette emphasized the well-documented nature of the allegations, writing, Here are the facts: The assaults happened. The rapes happened. She stressed that before Weinstein's convictions, multiple investigative journalists from established news organizations thoroughly verified the claims. These reports underwent rigorous legal and editorial reviews prior to publication. She also highlighted the official law enforcement response, noting that authorities in both Manhattan and Los Angeles conducted comprehensive criminal investigations into the accusations. In court, facts and evidence were presented, and Weinstein was afforded full due process, represented by top legal counsel funded by his considerable resources. Arquette pointed out that although Weinsteins New York conviction was overturned on procedural grounds, the jury initially found him guilty. A subsequent retrial resulted in a conviction on one count of sexual assault. His California conviction remains intact, and he continues to serve time in prison. She urged the public to keep the legal outcomes in mind, especially when a highly skilled storyteller, such as Weinstein, attempts to undermine the convictions. She also noted that Weinstein had the assistance of a publicist even while incarcerated, which she implied was part of a strategy to distort the truth. Arquette further addressed the moguls insinuations that accusers profited from their allegations. She firmly denied any financial gain, stating, I never profited, nor was I ever compensated in any way, via lawsuit or settlement, by Harvey Weinstein or Disney or any other party with respect to my assault. In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein also dismissed accusations that he blacklisted actresses. He claimed that women like Arquette, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie, who publicly spoke out against him, actually wanted to be part of the club and that they destroyed him. Responding to Weinsteins remarks, his representative Juda S. Engelmeyer, President and CEO of HeraldPR, issued a statement: Ms. Arquette is entitled to her views, and we respect that she feels strongly about her experiences. Mr. Weinstein has consistently denied that he ever blackballed anyone or had the ability to control peoples careers in Hollywood. The film industry is far too large and complex for any one individual to determine who works and who doesnt. Casting and hiring decisions are made by studios, directors, producers, agents and audiences, and there are many examples of performers who publicly criticized Mr. Weinstein and nevertheless went on to have long and successful careers. The statement concluded by noting that Weinstein remains focused on the legal process and intends to pursue any available remedies through the courts. In her Instagram post, Arquette also rejected the notion of a club of survivors, stating, I have never exaggerated my assault. Ever. There was/is no club to belong to as a Harvey Weinstein assault survivor. Being a survivor of assault or rape is not a club. I cant believe that has to be said. This article was updated on March 13 at 12:35 p.m. ET to include the statement from Weinsteins representative Juda S. Engelmeyer. Steven Spielberg returns to dinosaurs with a new Netflix series. Executive produced by Spielberg and narrated by Morgan Freeman, this epic documentary explor... AceShowbiz - More than three decades after the release of Jurassic Park, which revolutionized dinosaur portrayals in Hollywood and secured Steven Spielberg's reputation as a leading filmmaker in the genre, Spielberg is returning to prehistoric storytelling with a new four-part series now available on Netflix. The documentary series, titled The Dinosaurs, premiered on March 6th and is executive produced by Steven Spielberg. Created by the award-winning team behind Our Planet and narrated by Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, the series offers viewers an "epic journey into a lost world." Across four episodes, the show explores the harsh realities of prehistoric existence and traces the rise and fall of dinosaurs over a span of more than 150 million years. All episodes are currently accessible for streaming on Netflix. The Dinosaurs serves as an ideal companion for fans of the Jurassic Park franchise, especially while the next installment in the series, Jurassic World Rebirth, remains in development with no immediate release date. Unlike the action-packed blockbuster movies, this Netflix series adopts a more scientifically grounded approach, delving into how these ancient creatures evolved, behaved, and ultimately vanished. While familiar favorites such as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops make appearances, the documentary also highlights lesser-known species like Yutyrannus and Hatzegopteryx, broadening the scope of prehistoric life beyond the typical Jurassic lineup. This emphasis on diverse dinosaur species enriches the viewing experience, offering fresh insights into the prehistoric era. Early reactions to The Dinosaurs have been highly positive, particularly following the release of its trailer, which amassed over 12 million views within the first month. The trailers popularity even surpassed that of well-established shows like Bridgerton on social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram. Fans were drawn to the serious tone of Freemans narration and, crucially, the stunning visual effects. The series visuals are brought to life through state-of-the-art CGI created by Industrial Light & Magic, the same company known for delivering groundbreaking effects in many blockbuster films. This cutting-edge technology crafts an immersive and detailed prehistoric environment that enhances the storytelling and makes the ancient world feel vividly real. Regarding the future of the series, a second season of The Dinosaurs appears unlikely. The show was launched as a limited series with only four episodes planned from the start. While exceptional viewership could potentially influence Netflix to extend the series, no official confirmation has been made. At present, audiences can enjoy the existing episodes and appreciate the unique perspective this documentary offers on prehistoric life. For fans eager to explore more dinosaur content while awaiting the next Jurassic World film, The Dinosaurs presents a compelling, educational alternative that combines scientific accuracy with Spielbergs signature storytelling flair. The series celebrates the grandeur and complexity of these ancient creatures in a way that complements the thrilling action of the original franchise. What are your thoughts on this new dinosaur documentary? Join the conversation and share your views in the ComicBook Forum! Sundance-winning film Josephine tackles abuse survivors' silence & shame. Director Beth de Araujo demands accountability for perpetrators. Stars Channing Ta... AceShowbiz - Josephine director Beth de Araujo, who earned both the grand jury prize and the audience award at Sundance, emphasized the crucial need for stronger accountability for sexual abuse perpetrators during the films Berlinale presentation. The emotionally powerful drama focuses on the silence and shame survivors endure when abusers face little to no consequences. Speaking at the Berlinale press conference, de Araujo reiterated sentiments from her tearful Sundance acceptance speech. She stressed that insufficient accountability creates more silence, more shame, forcing survivors to navigate healing largely on their own. The shame needs to be on them, she said, referring to the perpetrators including pedophiles and rapists. Joining de Araujo were the films stars and producers Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan. The film, a work of autobiographical fiction, tells the story of an eight-year-old girl, Josephine, portrayed by newcomer Mason Reeves, who witnesses a rape in San Franciscos Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Chan play Josephines parents, grappling with their daughters trauma while seeking justice for the survivor. Josephine was twelve years in the making and was originally intended to be de Araujos debut feature, developed through the Sundance Lab. After financing challenges delayed the project, she directed the single-shot thriller Soft & Quiet, which premiered at SXSW and was acquired by Blumhouse. The inspiration for Josephine comes from de Araujos own childhood experience when, at age eight, she and her father interrupted a sexual assault in Golden Gate Park. She explained her desire to explore the lasting hypervigilance born from that traumatic moment, depicting it through a childs perspective. Kind of exploring both the intersection of unreasonable hypervigilance and reasonable fear that we have walking through the world, she said. While de Araujo did not testify in court like the character Josephine, she conducted extensive research on childrens experiences in legal proceedings to authentically portray the process. She also trained to become a certified witness advocate in hospitals for rape victims. When asked about societal progress regarding sexual assault survivors, de Araujo expressed mixed views: It depends what country I think, but I dont think were better equipped to handle it now. She added a hopeful note referencing the UK, possibly alluding to recent high-profile cases such as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsors arrest linked to Jeffrey Epstein. Tatum, a father himself, shared how the film resonated personally. That conversation that I had with Josephine underneath the bridge is a conversation that Ive had with my daughter, he said. You will never be in trouble with me if you protect yourself. If someone is doing something that you are asking them not to do and they dont listen, you have full right to protect yourself and I will back you forever. Dont fuck with my daughter. The press conference took a tense turn when a reporter questioned Tatum about an open letter signed by celebrities including Mark Ruffalo and Tilda Swinton, criticizing the Berlinale festival for its silence on Gaza. This political controversy has sparked debate throughout the event, especially after jury president Wim Wenders advised filmmakers to stay out of politics. Following the question, an audience member shouted, causing confusion. Tatum admitted, I dont even know whats happening exactly, as he looked toward moderator Jacqueline Lyanga. Although unclear, the words Hamas and Gaza were audible. Tatum then added, I didnt hear very much of what you said but now I think I do, but declined to comment further. The moderator quickly moved the discussion to another question, deferring the political conversation to after the press session. Later, Tatum explained why he chose to join Josephine, especially after acting in lighter films like Magic Mike. Beth wrote this and I read it and I just wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be a part of something honest and beautiful and important, he said. In a Variety interview ahead of the Berlinale premiere, Gemma Chan revealed her emotional connection to the film, shaped by an experience witnessing a fatal stabbing in London in 2012. She courageously testified in court afterward, which deepened her bond with the story. It was a big part of me wanting to be a part of the story and connecting to it emotionally, she said. The world is a very dangerous place. Unfortunately, I know that and many people know that. It just really hit a raw nerve with me. Producer David Kaplan spoke openly about the financing struggles for Josephine. Despite de Araujos growing reputation, securing funds was nearly impossible. 99% of the people we went to and said, Would you like to make this film? said, Absolutely not, Kaplan recalled. He attributed the resistance to concerns over the films commercial viability and its heavy subject matter. Resistance, concern, skepticism about the commerciality, worry from parents about what this film is and worrying that its too dark, Kaplan explained. I think there was a lot of concern about who this movie is for and how its going to be perceived. Kaplan also highlighted an inherent bias against films that are perhaps more geared towards women and assault survivors, which complicated efforts to find backers. Nonetheless, Josephine was ultimately acquired for U.S. distribution by Sumerian Pictures in a competitive seven-figure deal, signaling strong confidence in the films impact and potential. The films production team includes David Kaplan, Josh Peters, Beth de Araujo, Marina Stabile, Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Mark H. Rapaport, and Crystine Zhang, with executive producers Emanuel Nunez and Jordan Rapaport. Josephine stands as a poignant, personal exploration of trauma and resilience, underscoring the urgent call for societal accountability and support for survivors of sexual abuse. Through this deeply autobiographical work, de Araujo offers a rare, unflinching look at the lingering effects of abuse and the necessity of placing responsibility where it belongs: on the perpetrators. New Taylor Sheridan drama debuts after major industry shakeup. Watch the intimate, six-episode series "The Madison" premiering March 14 on Paramount+. AceShowbiz - The Madison premiered on Paramount+ with a special screening hosted by Cindy Holland, the platforms Direct to Consumer chair. The event took place shortly after a whirlwind day in the industry, marked by Warner Bros. Discoverys acceptance of Paramounts offer and Netflixs withdrawal from the project. This set the stage for the dramas debut, celebrated at the San Vicente Bungalows, a venue favored by future corporate sibling HBO for high-profile premieres and Emmy parties. Cindy Holland described the series as an unexpected, incisive and intimate addition to the expanding universe of The Madison creator Taylor Sheridan. The six-episode first season will launch on March 14, releasing its initial three episodes, with the remaining three to follow the next week. Notably, a second season consisting of six episodes has already been completed, although its release date remains unannounced. Sheridan is the sole writer for every episode across both seasons. Production on Season 2 was concluding as Skydance finalized its acquisition of Paramount Global. At that time, Holland and her team, including Head of Originals Jane Wiseman, assumed leadership of Paramount+. Holland emphasized she cannot take credit for anything related to The Madison except my desire to support this series which Im very proud of. Under the new leadership, Paramount+ aims to broaden its focus, particularly by expanding female-driven dramas to complement its existing lineup. This approach balances the platforms current hits, including Sheridans popular series like Landman and Tulsa King, alongside the Star Trek franchise. Recent high-profile female-led projects such as Discretion, starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning, and Fear Not, headlined by Anne Hathaway, reflect this strategy. The Madison aligns with this vision, featuring a predominantly female cast led by Michelle Pfeiffer. The show also benefits from the creative leadership of Christina Alexandra Voros, who directed, executive produced, and served as cinematographer for all six episodes of the first season. Holland praised Taylor Sheridan as a very talented artist and a joy to work with. Beyond The Madison, Sheridan has multiple projects in development, including the Yellowstone spinoff The Dutton Ranch for Paramount+ and Marshals for CBS, which will stream the day after airing on Paramount+. Sheridan is contracted to remain with Paramount through January 2029 before moving to NBCUniversal, a transition that garnered significant attention when announced in October. Since then, Sheridan has secured several renewals for Paramount+ series and committed to writing all eight episodes of the Tulsa King spinoff Frisco King, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Paramount+ is also experimenting with new release strategies, moving beyond the traditional weekly episode drop or Netflix-style binge modelboth of which Holland and Wiseman have extensive experience managing. For instance, The Madison is launching its first season in two batches of three episodes released over consecutive weeks. The narrative of The Madison follows the Clyburn familys journey from New York City to the Madison River valley in Montana. The series is a joint production of Paramount Television Studios, David C. Glasser's 101 Studios, and Bosque Ranch Productions. At the premiere, Holland acknowledged both Sheridan and Glasser, as well as the incredible Michelle Pfeiffer, who was in attendance. Reflecting on her admiration for Pfeiffer, Holland recalled seeing her in classic films like Scarface and Grease 2 during her youth, but it was Pfeiffers performance in Dangerous Liaisons on stage that truly inspired her to champion this kind of artistic work. Holland addressed the Oscar-nominated actress directly, expressing profound respect for her craft. Alongside Pfeiffer, the cast of The Madison includes notable actors such as Kurt Russell, Beau Garrett, Elle Chapman, Patrick J. Adams, Amiah Miller, Alaina Pollack, Ben Schnetzer, Kevin Zegers, Rebecca Spence, Danielle Vasinova, Matthew Fox, and Will Arnett, rounding out a strong ensemble that supports the shows intimate storytelling style. For viewers eager to get a glimpse of The Madison, a trailer is available, showcasing the series blend of family drama and scenic Montana landscapes. Tim Burgess honors Gary 'Mani' Mounfield at the 2026 BRIT Awards. A tribute to the Stone Roses bassist's legacy and profound impact on Manchester music. AceShowbiz - At the 2026 BRIT Awards held in Manchester, Tim Burgess of The Charlatans delivered a heartfelt tribute to the late Gary Mani Mounfield, renowned bassist for both The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. Burgess took a moment during the ceremonys In Memoriam segment to honour the profound influence of the Manchester music legend, who passed away in November 2025 due to respiratory complications at the age of 63. Mani was laid to rest the following month in a service at Manchester Cathedral, with notable figures such as Liam Gallagher, Paul Weller, and Ian Brown among those in attendance. During the BRITs, Burgess spoke to the audience about Manis enduring legacy, emphasizing his role not only as a local talent but as an inspirational figure whose work shaped generations of musicians. "I'm here tonight to pay tribute to a good friend of mine," Burgess said, reflecting on the late artists impact. "Mani was a kid from a few miles up the road. He changed music and inspired generations ahead of him. These songs he recorded will be his legacy, along with his unforgettable smile and uncontainable enthusiasm." He further described Mani as "truly one of the phenomenal ones, and they are far and few between."Mani but also other music figures lost over the past year, as the crowd responded with cheers. Before his speech, Burgess shared his thoughts with NME on the red carpet, stating the importance of recognising Manis contribution: "I think it's important to recognise Mani. I mean, his legacy's in the songs, but it's great to be able to do that here. The records that he played on inspired generations." The 2026 BRIT Awards marked the first time the ceremony was held outside London, taking place at Manchesters Co-op Live on Saturday night. The event also featured another nod to Mani from the band Geese, whose member Max Bassin included him in their speech while accepting the International Group of the Year award, saying: "RIP Mani, let's go Geese." NME highlighted Manis distinctive place in music history, noting how he held a rare place in the world of bass heroes and was responsible for some of the most memorable basslines in the Madchester era. His work on tracks like "Elephant Stone," "Made Of Stone," and "She Bangs The Drums," as well as the low-slung funk style of "Fools Gold," was described as both weighty and melodic, underpinning the sound that defined a period of late-80s dance rock. Tributes to the bassist came from various artists following his passing. My Bloody Valentine dedicated their first tour in seven years to Mani, while Oasis honoured him by performing "Live Forever." Additionally, Richard Ashcroft paid homage by covering "She Bangs The Drums." In January, Manchester United showed respect ahead of a match against Arsenal, with players donning custom jackets emblazoned with "Mani 1962-2025" alongside artwork inspired by the first Stone Roses album. This gesture demonstrated the wider cultural impact Mani had beyond music. A crowdfunder was also launched soon after to create a permanent mural tribute to Mani in Manchester, celebrating his lasting legacy in the city. Meanwhile, the BRIT Awards night saw Olivia Dean emerge as a major winner, securing four awards including Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year. The ceremony reflected both a celebration of current talent and a respectful remembrance of those who have shaped musics past, with Manis tribute standing out as a poignant highlight of the evening. Kevin Feige shares insights on Marvel fandom, test screenings, and Chadwick Boseman at USC event celebrating his transformative endowment to the School of Ci... AceShowbiz - Kevin Feige, the powerhouse producer behind Marvel Studios, shared candid insights about navigating internet fandom, coping with challenging test screenings, and his memories of late actor Chadwick Boseman during a special event at the University of Southern California (USC) on Thursday night. The occasion marked the dedication of the new Kevin Feige Division of Film & Television Production at USCs School of Cinematic Arts. Alongside Feige, filmmakers Ryan Coogler and Shawn Levy, both USC alumni, joined the celebration. Coogler is known for his critically acclaimed film Sinners, while Levy directs major franchises including the latest Star Wars installment currently in postproduction. Feige, a 1995 USC graduate, is one of the schools most significant benefactors as it approaches its 100th anniversary. Feiges endowment to USC was called transformational, ensuring ongoing financial support for faculty, students, and programming within the schools largest and most prestigious division. The event drew a notable crowd, including Disney executives CEO Josh DAmaro, film studio head Alan Bergman, and president Dana Walden. The presence of prominent industry figures such as Avengers star Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, USC alum Susan Downey, underscored the importance of the milestone. Other attendees included Marvel Studios co-president Louis DEsposito, Marvel TV head Brad Winderbaum (also a USC graduate), media mogul Byron Allen, veteran executive Michael Ireland, filmmaker Jason Reitman, producer Jason Shuman, and screenwriters Timothy Dowling and Alex Litvak. The evenings highlight was a revealing conversation between Feige, Coogler, and Levy, offering a rare glimpse into the challenges of working within major franchises and the evolving relationship between studios and fans. Feige reflected on the longstanding dialogue between Marvel and its audience, which dates back to comic book fan letters but has intensified with the internets rise. He warned of the overwhelming and sometimes toxic nature of online fandom, saying, "The volume of what is being said online, if you focus too closely on it, will crush you." He noted the endless hours spent theorizing on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit, emphasizing that Marvel consciously avoids immersing themselves too deeply in this digital noise to maintain creative clarity. Instead, Marvel relies heavily on traditional test screenings to gauge audience reactions before finalizing films. Feige likened this process to film students showing their work to peers but highlighted the heightened stakes when hundreds of millions of dollars are already invested. He described moments when test audiences respond with confusion, triggering a wave of panic among filmmakers. Levy added that such initial setbacks are common and lead to intense reworking and refinement. Sharing a personal revelation, Feige admitted he initially believed Marvels struggles were unique but soon realized that other top studios like Pixar also face similar hurdles. Turning to Coogler, he asked if Sinners was perfect from its first cut. Coogler responded with a laugh, admitting it was not and joked that it might not even be perfect now despite its historic Oscar nominations. Addressing the internets distracting influence, Levy emphasized the importance of filmmakers learning to mute external noise to safeguard the integrity of their work. He advised that when working on massive franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars, creators need to return to their original vision and voice, putting aside outside chatter to preserve authenticity. The discussion then shifted to Marvels approach to selecting directors, with Feige stressing that personal chemistry and the ability to endure the intense, multi-year collaboration often outweigh a filmmakers previous credits. Coogler humorously recounted his first experience watching the 2008 release of Iron Man at the Arclight theater in Hollywood. During the screening, he stepped out to the restroom only to be briefly locked out, as the filmmakers were present to greet the audience. He recalled seeing Feige, Robert Downey Jr., and Jon Favreau wearing Stark Industries jackets and how the atmosphere struck him as magical during his first semester at film school. Levy shared how actor Hugh Jackmans involvement unlocked the story for the film Deadpool & Wolverine, noting that nostalgia became a key emotional theme. He described the experience as heaven, reflecting on the deep audience connection to beloved characters who are missed, even without fans fully realizing it. The conversation took a poignant turn as Feige and Coogler opened up about the period following the death of Chadwick Boseman, the actor best known for portraying Black Panther, who died in 2020 after a battle with cancer. Feige recounted his last face-to-face meeting with Boseman, during which the actor expressed enthusiasm about voicing the character of TChalla in the animated series What If ...? and his hopes to bring that joy into a future Black Panther film that sadly never came to be. This memory highlighted a broader reflection for Feige about taking colleagues and friends for granted. He explained that in most films, collaborators work closely for a time before parting ways for years, but Marvels relentless production schedule created an expectation of constant reunion. Feige said, "We will be back in there, that was always my expectation," admitting he rarely made time to reconnect socially because there was always a next project. The realization that there would be no next time with Boseman struck him deeply. Coogler shared his own experience during the pandemic lockdown, when Feige and Disney CEO Bob Iger visited Bosemans home in Oakland. They took a walk around the Richmond Arena and spoke candidly, focusing not on franchise logistics but on personal well-being. Coogler described this as a genuine moment of humanity beyond corporate demands, asking, "Hey, are you OK? How are you taking it?" This period left a lasting impression on Coogler, who vowed to avoid the mindset of assuming there will always be a next time. He emphasized the uniqueness of Chadwick Boseman and the character he embodied, stating, "There was only one Chad, bro. And there was only one character that was really meant for him." During the event, Feige, Coogler, and Levy also reflected on their shared roots at USC. Years before collaborating professionally, Feige dreamed of attending the film school after learning that iconic directors like George Lucas, Ron Howard, and Robert Zemeckis were alumni. Even as a teenager at comic and sci-fi conventions, he was focused on enrolling at USC, a goal that has come full circle with his generous endowment. The evening provided a rare and intimate window into the creative challenges and personal trials faced by some of Hollywoods most influential figures, underscoring the human side behind blockbuster franchises and the power of legacy in the film industry. Meghan Markle made a surprise visit to Children's Hospital Los Angeles this week, spending an afternoon reading, painting, and meeting young patients as part of the hospital's annual Make March Matter fundraising campaign. The Duchess of Sussex visited the hospital on Thursday, March 12, where staff said she arrived quietly and joined children in the Creative Oasis, a dedicated space for art and play. Wearing a black face mask, she sat beside patients to watercolor paint and color pictures, including Hello Kitty-themed pages, and chatted with them about their artwork. Hospital photos show her smiling with children and staff as she helped them finish their drawings and paintings, according to People. After the group activity, Meghan continued the visit by going room to room to see children who were too ill to leave their beds, taking time to speak with them and their families. Staff members described the atmosphere as joyful and uplifting as she tried to make sure each child felt included in the special day. Children's Hospital Los Angeles said the visit supported its monthlong Make March Matter campaign, which raises money for lifesaving pediatric care, research, and innovation. The campaign brings together celebrities, local businesses, and community members to help fund treatment for sick and critically injured children, and has raised more than $10 million since it launched in 2016, according to the hospital. In a social media post, CHLA said it was "honored" to welcome "LA's own Meghan, Duchess of Sussex" and called the time she spent with patients "special moments" that show how creativity can support joy and healing. This is not Meghan's first time at the hospital: in March 2024, she led a Literally Healing storytime session, reading favorites such as "Rosie Revere, Engineer," "Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons," and "They All Saw a Cat" to young patients, Yahoo News reported. Hospital staff said children laughed, sang, and shouted out answers as she performed different voices and gestures for each character, drawing on her acting background. She also helped with STEAM activities tied to the books, which are part of a literacy program that gives families more than 65,000 books a year. Her latest hospital visit comes as Meghan prepares to travel to Australia with Prince Harry in April for a series of private, business, and charitable events. During the trip, she is set to cohost a "Girl's Weekend" retreat with the Her Best Life podcast in Sydney, which will feature speakers and a gala dinner that includes an inperson conversation with the Duchess, as per Tribune. Wolf Alice's surreal BRIT Awards 2026 performance of 'The Sofa' with living room set & theatrical dancers after winning Best British Group. AceShowbiz - The North London band Wolf Alice delivered a striking and theatrical rendition of their track 'The Sofa' during the BRIT Awards 2026 ceremony held at Manchester's Co-op Live Arena on Saturday, February 28. Wolf Alice triumphed that night by winning the Best British Group award for the second time in their career, cementing their status in the British music scene. Shortly after accepting the accolade, the band took to the stage with a captivating performance of 'The Sofa', a single from their fourth studio album, 'The Clearing', which was released the previous summer. The performance featured a unique set designed to resemble a living room, with figures emerging literally from within a sofa, adding a surreal and immersive element to the show. Lead vocalist Ellie Rowsell later appeared elevated by a group of dancers who carried her gracefully across the stage, enhancing the theatricality of the act. 'The Sofa' is described by Rowsell as a song about "not trying so hard to figure everything out," a theme reflected in the ethereal and experimental staging of their performance. During her acceptance speech for Best British Group, Rowsell used the platform to highlight the ongoing struggles faced by the UKs grassroots music sector. She emphasized that despite the live music industry contributing billions to the economy, last year saw 30 independent venues close, 6,000 jobs lost, and over half of small venues reporting no profit. Rowsell stressed the importance of making a music career viable and sustainable for all artists, regardless of background, without depending on favors or funding schemes. She urged for greater support to prevent the current crisis in grassroots music from worsening. Wolf Alice have an active live schedule ahead. They are set to headline a major outdoor concert at Londons Finsbury Park this summer, alongside acts such as The Last Dinner Party, Lykke Li, Rachel Chinouriri, Keo, and Florence Road. In March, they will participate in the 'Trans Mission' charity show at Londons OVO Arena Wembley and will also headline the Teenage Cancer Trust series at the Royal Albert Hall the same month. The bands festival appearances include headline slots at Tramlines Festival, Kendal Calling, and Eden Sessions, as well as performances at TRNSMT, Mad Cool, NOS Alive, and various other events. 'The Clearing' received critical acclaim upon release, earning a glowing five-star review and securing the number 11 position on NMEs list of the 50 best albums of 2025. Meanwhile, Olivia Dean was the standout winner of the night, taking home four BRIT Awards, including Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year. For those interested, a full list of winners is available for reference. Harry and Meghan return to Australia after 7 years for solo keynote events on mental health and women's empowerment in Sydney and Melbourne. AceShowbiz - Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle are set to visit Australia in the coming weeks for a tour combining business, philanthropy, and private engagements. This will mark the first time the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have traveled to Australia in over seven years. Although the full itinerary has yet to be publicly released, a spokesperson confirmed that the couple will spend time in both Sydney and Melbourne in mid-April. During this period, both Harry and Meghan will undertake separate high-profile solo events. Harry is scheduled to give a keynote speech focusing on mental health, a cause close to his heart, while Meghan will attend a weekend-long womens empowerment retreat in Sydney as the VIP guest. Despite this trip not being an official royal visitthe Sussexes stepped back from their royal duties in 2020 to build a new life in Californiathere is speculation about how their royal connections might be leveraged during their stay. Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond suggested that the palace may be surprised by the timing and prominence of the visit given their own significant royal engagements. "I suppose the King and his family might wonder why Harry and Meghan have chosen to announce their visit to Australia with quite such a flourish," Jennie said. She added concerns about potential overlap with events commemorating what would have been the late Queens 100th birthday. Jennie Bond also observed that this trip encapsulates the Sussexes approach since stepping away from official rolesbalancing charitable work with private business interests. "The visit is being touted as a combination of private, business and philanthropic activities," she explained, "which aligns with what the couple sought when negotiating their new status as working royals." It remains unclear how many of the events are designed purely for fundraising versus generating income. However, Harrys mental health address, which tackles workplace well-being, commands tickets starting at about 1,000. Proceeds from this event are reportedly directed toward crisis support and suicide prevention organizations, causes closely tied to Harrys advocacy. Meghans key engagement is a more lavish affair. Her role as VIP at a weekend retreat aimed at celebrating and empowering women has attracted considerable attention, particularly due to the high ticket prices starting at 1,439. The package includes accommodation at a beachfront Sydney hotel and access to a three-day schedule featuring a gala dinner, yoga and meditation sessions, and a disco celebration. Bond remarked that Meghan stands to benefit substantially from this luxury event, noting her strategic use of the Duchess of Sussex title to bolster the profile of her emerging lifestyle brand. "It would be interesting to know how much money the couple are hoping to make from this trip," she said. "Questions will surely arise about Meghan advertising herself as the Duchess of Sussexher rightful titlebut it becomes complicated when used for commercial endeavors." Nonetheless, the couple is legally free to pursue these activities. They appear determined not to lead a quiet life away from the spotlight in California. Instead, they aim to utilize their public prominence to promote causes important to them and to generate income. This, Bond pointed out, was a key reason for their decision to step back from official royal duties. In summary, this visit to Australia represents a complex mix of private interests, philanthropy, and business ventures for the Sussexes. While it is not a formal royal tour, the high-profile nature and timing of their engagements could cause friction within royal circles, especially as the palace prepares for its own major events. As this trip approaches, observers will be keen to see how Harry and Meghan navigate the delicate balance between their royal heritage and their new independent roles on the global stage. Megan Fox & MGK's playful dynamic continues post-baby. See his proud comment on her latest sultry photo and the celebrity reactions. AceShowbiz - Megan Fox and Colson Baker, better known as Machine Gun Kelly (MGK), continue to captivate fans with their public interactions following the birth of their daughter, Saga Blade, last March. Recently, MGK enthusiastically commented on one of Megan Foxs provocative photo posts for the second time in a week. The post featured a series of striking images showing Fox playfully sticking out her tongue and crawling on all fours while wearing a tight, strappy dress that revealed an exposed thong. In response, MGK wrote, stoked we had a baby, highlighting his pride and joy about their shared parenthood. The sultry pictorial was captioned by Fox as Love was the most savage monster of all, and quickly drew admiration not only from MGK but also from notable celebrities such as Charli DAmelio, Jenna Dewan, and Rachel Bilson, who complimented the post with words like gorgeous, Good lord Megan, and fire emojis respectively. Megan Fox, 39, and Machine Gun Kelly, 35, welcomed their first child together, daughter Saga Blade, in March 2023. Reports noted that this joyful event occurred roughly three months after the couple had reportedly split. Earlier this year, when rumors circulated about their possible reconciliation, MGK dismissed the gossip, calling mainstream media so [corn emoji]. Despite the unclear status of their romantic relationship, MGK has made it evident that he supports and admires whatever Fox is creating. On March 3, he left a similarly enthusiastic comment on another set of photos from what appeared to be the same photoshoot, stating, stoked i have your phone number. These images showcased Fox in a black top and matching thong paired with thigh-high stockings, a spiked choker, and platform heels decorated with marijuana leaves. That particular photo series was captioned by Fox as everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. These posts, alongside another from the same shoot, are the only recent additions to Foxs Instagram feed, which boasts nearly 23 million followers. Meanwhile, MGK remains busy with his Los Americana tour, which is scheduled to stop at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland, on March 12. Fans of the couple are closely watching their public exchanges and creative outputs, reflecting a connection that continues to fascinate audiences beyond their personal developments. Taylor Sheridan's new neo-western, The Madison, stars Pfeiffer & Russell as a family healing in Montana. Early reviews are mixed. Stream on Paramount+. AceShowbiz - The Madison marks the latest release from prolific writer Taylor Sheridan, debuting on Paramount+ just one week after his previous series, Marshals. Known for his gripping and gritty storytelling in shows like Yellowstone, Landman, and Mayor of Kingstown, Sheridan returns with a neo-western drama that shifts focus toward emotional themes. The series stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell and follows a family relocating from the hectic environment of New York City to the peaceful countryside of Montana after experiencing a profound tragedy. This premise sets a tone of grief and healing rather than the intense violence and suspense typically associated with Sheridans work. Critics were given early access to The Madison, and initial reviews appeared today. The show opened with a 60% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes based on five reviews, indicating a somewhat mixed reaction. While 60% is not poor, it falls short of expectations for a Sheridan project, who often achieves high critical acclaim. However, the score has since improved to 80%, equaling the rating of Sheridans successful series Landman. This increase reflects how The Madison occupies a unique place in Sheridans oeuvre, balancing his signature grit with a more measured exploration of family dynamics and emotional struggles. Regarding the reception, some critics noted that the shows portrayal of rural versus urban life felt somewhat dated, yet the performances, especially that of Michelle Pfeiffer, were universally praised. The visual presentation of the series also received acclaim for its compelling depiction of Montanas landscapes and atmosphere. Colliders Aidan Kelley reviewed the first season and highlighted the shows deliberate pacing. He emphasized that viewers expecting a fast-paced thriller might find The Madison slow and methodical. Kelley explained, "If youre expecting a typical, action-packed Sheridan story with a billion thrills and twists and turns, The Madison is most certainly not the show for you." He noted that the slow-burn approach mirrors the real-life process of grief, which is long and difficult, especially when family support is complicated. Despite this, Kelley acknowledged that the slow buildup could test viewers patience, citing the use of some cliches, such as the trope of wealthy city dwellers struggling with basic rural life, which he found tiresome. Still, as the story unfolds, the characters, particularly the Clyburn family, begin to reveal the shows deeper intelligence and nuance. Alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, The Madison features a notable ensemble cast including Beau Garrett (Firefly Lane), Elle Chapman (A Man Called Otto), Patrick J. Adams (Suits), Amiah Miller (War for the Planet of the Apes), Alaina Pollack (The Surrender), Ben Schnetzer (3 Body Problem), Kevin Zegers (Power), Rebecca Spence (Lady in the Lake), Danielle Vasinova (1923), Matthew Fox (Lost), and Will Arnett (Is This Thing On?). The release strategy for The Madison deviates from typical Taylor Sheridan or Paramount+ rollouts. The first three episodes premiered on Saturday, March 14, 2026, followed by three additional episodes, with the final three set to debut the next Saturday, March 21, 2026. This staggered release provides viewers time to digest the shows slow and emotional storytelling. In summary, The Madison represents a distinct departure from the high-octane thrillers Sheridan is known for, focusing instead on grief, family, and personal healing in a rural setting. While its initial critical reception was mixed, the shows growing Rotten Tomatoes score and positive remarks on performances and visuals suggest that it could find a strong audience over time. New LOTR film 'The Hunt for Gollum' casts Kate Winslet, brings back Gandalf & Frodo, but Tauriel won't return. Explore the new Middle-earth adventure. AceShowbiz - The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is shaping up to be a major return to Middle-earth, but fans hoping to see Evangeline Lilly reprise her role as Tauriel will be disappointed. The Hobbit trilogy star has confirmed she will not be involved in the upcoming film, while Kate Winslet has officially joined the cast. The film promises a blend of familiar and fresh faces. Veteran actors Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, and Elijah Wood are returning as Gandalf, Gollum, and Frodo respectively. Meanwhile, new talent like Leo Woodall is stepping in to play Aragorn, replacing Viggo Mortensen. This casting hints at a mixture of legacy and innovation in the movies approach. The story of The Hunt for Gollum is set in the period between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which makes Tauriels potential return a natural fit. Tauriel, a Sylvan elf created for the Hobbit trilogy, would provide a connective thread, especially if she appeared alongside Orlando Blooms Legolas and Lee Paces King Thranduil. However, Lillys recent brain injury has led her to step back from acting commitments. In response to fan queries on Instagram, Evangeline Lilly shared that she was not invited to participate in the film but did visit the production team during their preparations in New Zealand, describing the experience as a beautiful reunion. Unfortunately, this confirms her absence from the project. Adding to the news of departing cast members, comments from Hugo Weaving, who portrayed Elrond, have resurfaced. Weaving made it clear that his involvement with the franchise is over, citing the difficulty of aging while portraying an immortal character who spans Tolkiens extensive legendarium, including The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. He expressed no desire to return to Middle-earth in any capacity. In contrast to these departures, Deadline has officially confirmed that Kate Winslet, known for her role in Avatar: The Way of Water, is joining the cast of The Hunt for Gollum. Though her role remains undisclosed, it is said to be one of the films female leads. Winslets involvement reportedly required her to relocate her family to New Zealand for filming, scheduled from late May through October. The movies plot centers on Aragorns dangerous mission to capture Gollum before the creature can reveal the location of the One Ring to Sauron. Much of the narrative draws on Tolkiens footnotes and is positioned between the events of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Andy Serkis is not only reprising his role as Gollum but also directing the film. The screenplay is being crafted by Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, who were writers on the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, alongside Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, known for their work on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Peter Jackson, who directed both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, is producing The Hunt for Gollum. While only Serkis and Sir Ian McKellen have been officially confirmed among returning cast members so far, it is expected that a full cast announcement will be made prior to filming later this year. The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is currently slated for a theatrical release on December 17, 2027, generating significant anticipation from fans eager to see this new chapter in the Middle-earth saga. Shakira makes history with 13 sold-out shows in Mexico City. See the final concert's special guests, record-breaking ticket sales, and emotional fan farewell. AceShowbiz - Shakira closed her record-breaking run of 13 concerts at Mexico Citys GNP Seguros Stadium on February 27, 2026, solidifying her status as the artist with the most performances in a single tour at this iconic venue. During this final night, the Colombian superstar was joined by fellow countryman Beele and the Latin boy band Santos Bravos, adding special moments to the landmark show. Together, they delivered a powerful performance of the symbolic Walk with the She-Wolf, a signature opening act throughout the tour. The milestone marked a new chapter in her career, with an astounding 800,000 tickets sold over the course of these concerts, a figure that promoter Ocesa described as something unprecedented. Addressing the crowd of 65,000 fans gathered in the stadium, Shakira expressed deep gratitude: How are you, my Mexican family? How are you back there? Thirteen GNP Stadium shows are more than a gift, its a miracle, a reward from life. She acknowledged the challenges she has faced in recent years, stating, You know my journey hasnt been easy these past few years because no one is spared from lifes falls. This final concert served as a celebratory conclusion to the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour, whose central hub was Mexico City. The artist reaffirmed her deep connection with her Mexican audience, declaring, Definitely, theres no better reunion than that of a little she-wolf with her Mexican pack, awooo! Mexico, tonight, forever and always, we are one. During the finale, Beele made a special guest appearance, performing the hit Hips Dont Lie alongside Shakira in its latest version featuring Ed Sheeran. Beeles presence added to a notable lineup of guest artists who appeared throughout the tour in Mexico, including Grupo Frontera, Danna Paola, and Belinda. Earlier in 2026, Shakira announced a new collaboration with Beele, both natives of Barranquilla, titled Algo Tu, set for release on March 4. Additionally, she surprised fans by performing Donde Estas Corazon? live for the first time since 2019, delighting the audience with this rare treat. The powerful Walk with the She-Wolf segment during the final show also featured Santos Bravos, who joined Shakira on stage for this symbolic and empowering ritual. This Latin boy band is notably HYBEs first Latin act, making their participation especially significant. This historic series of concerts coincides with another remarkable achievement for Shakira: her recent nomination to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This honor recognizes her enduring influence and the extraordinary success of the ongoing tour. The Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour has set a Guinness World Record as the highest-grossing tour ever by a Hispanic artist, generating $421.6 million in revenue and selling 3.3 million tickets over 86 shows worldwide, according to Billboard Boxscore data. After concluding her performances at the GNP Seguros Stadium, Shakira is scheduled to cap her time in Mexico with a massive free concert on March 1, 2026, at the Zocalo, Mexico Citys historic main square. This venue is the second-largest public square globally, surpassed only by Beijings Tiananmen Square. Shakiras return to the Zocalo will come nearly 20 years after her first performance there on May 27, 2007, which drew an official crowd of 210,000 people. That show broke the previous attendance record of 170,000 set by Cafe Tacvba in 2005. Current attendance records for the Zocalo stand with the Argentine band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, who attracted 300,000 fans on June 3, 2023, followed by Grupo Firme with 280,000 attendees a year earlier. The upcoming concert promises to be a historic event, with expectations that Shakira will set a new attendance record at this iconic location, further cementing her legendary status in Mexico and worldwide. Harvey Weinstein disputes Gwyneth Paltrow's account of their 1990s encounter from Rikers Island. Read the conflicting stories in new interview. AceShowbiz - Gwyneth Paltrows past experience with Harvey Weinstein has resurfaced following a recent interview with the disgraced producer, who is currently incarcerated at Rikers Island amidst ongoing legal battles. In a conversation published by The Hollywood Reporter, Harvey Weinstein addressed his interaction with Gwyneth Paltrow from the 1990s, expressing frustration over her public recounting of the event. The incident took place early in Paltrows career after she was cast in the 1996 film Emma. Gwyneth Paltrow has shared that Weinstein called her to a hotel suite and made her feel uncomfortable by suggesting massages and attempting to initiate physical contact, which she rejected. She recalled that the atmosphere became tense following her refusal. In contrast, Harvey Weinstein described the encounter differently, saying, "I walked out of a nice meeting with her and said, 'How about a massage?' And she just went, 'No, I don't think so.' I got the message. I never put my hands on her." The actress reportedly told her then-boyfriend Brad Pitt about the meeting, and according to both accounts, Pitt confronted Weinstein at a public event afterward. Years later, during the 2017 investigations that brought widespread allegations against Weinstein to light, Paltrow spoke openly about the incident. Reflecting on this, Weinstein stated in the interview, "I won't forgive her for that." Harry Styles covers Tears For Fears' classic "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" in a soulful BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance, earning praise from the or... AceShowbiz - Harry Styles recently delivered a heartfelt rendition of the iconic 1985 hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by the British new wave duo Tears For Fears during his BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performance. The original track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Tears For Fears members Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal expressed their admiration for Styles soulful interpretation. The duo shared on Instagram, "Loving this cover," alongside a video showing Styles energetically performing with his band. This cover was part of Styles promotional activities for his latest album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. His BBC Maida Vale studio session included five songs: four tracks from the new album such as the singles "Aperture" and "American Girls", along with "Carla's Song" and "Dance No More". In keeping with his tradition, Styles also included a classic cover to the set. Covering classics has been a staple of Styles Live Lounge appearances. In 2022, he performed Wet Legs "Wet Dream", and in 2019, he covered Lizzos "Juice". During the press run for his self-titled 2017 debut, Styles also took on Fleetwood Macs "The Chain". Looking ahead, Styles will take on a busy weekend as he returns to Saturday Night Live, where he will serve as both host and musical guest. This marks his second time hosting the show since 2019, and he has appeared as a musical guest four times, solo and with One Direction. Recently, he made a surprise appearance during Ryan Goslings monologue, providing a memorable and humorous distraction. Tears For Fears positive response highlights the enduring impact of their music and the fresh perspective that Styles brings to their timeless hit. Fans eagerly await more from Styles as he continues to blend contemporary sounds with classic influences in his live performances. Shots fired at Rihanna & A$AP Rocky's LA home while singer & kids were inside. Suspect arrested for attempted murder. Details on the frightening incident. AceShowbiz - A frightening incident occurred at the Los Angeles residence of Rihanna and A$AP Rocky this past weekend, involving a woman who reportedly opened fire at their home. Authorities say the suspect appears to be mentally unstable, raising concerns about the legal outcome. On Sunday afternoon, police arrested a 35-year-old Florida resident named Ivanna Ortiz after she allegedly fired multiple gunshots from a vehicle aimed at Rihannas mansion located in the Beverly Crest area of Los Angeles. According to law enforcement reports, Rihanna and her three children were inside the house at the time the shots were fired. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, but the situation could have easily escalated into a tragedy given the presence of the children. Authorities quickly tracked down and detained Ortiz on suspicion of attempted murder. Video footage from about a month prior shows the same woman openly expressing hostility towards Rihanna, indicating a possible motive behind her actions. Law enforcement officials also revealed that this is not Ortizs first encounter with the law. Records from Florida confirm that she was previously arrested in June 2023 for domestic violence battery and again a few months later for violating a domestic injunction. This background suggests a troubling pattern of behavior before the recent shooting incident. The most complicated aspect of this case involves Ortizs mental health. Sources familiar with the investigation told Media take Out that Ortiz may attempt to use a not guilty by reason of insanity defense. This legal strategy is often more successful in California than in many other states and could significantly affect her sentencing. If the insanity defense succeeds, Ortiz would not be sent to prison but instead would be committed to a psychiatric facility. There, she would receive evaluation and treatment, possibly including medication, rather than serving a traditional jail term. Under California law, individuals held in such facilities are released only when medical professionals determine they no longer pose a danger to themselves or the public. This legal pathway means that the woman who allegedly fired shots at Rihannas home while her young children were inside might avoid prison altogether. This possibility has sparked outrage among fans and the public who fear justice may not be fully served. The incident has deeply unsettled many people, especially since Rihanna and A$AP Rocky share three small children. The idea of a stranger shooting at their family home has generated widespread shock and condemnation online. At present, Ortiz remains in custody as legal proceedings move forward. The outcome will largely depend on how the courts assess her mental condition and the validity of any insanity defense presented. Many observers are urging the justice system to handle this case carefully, emphasizing the need to balance public safety with appropriate treatment for mental illness. The hope is that the system will ensure the right resolution for everyone involved, particularly given the potential risks to the family targeted in this violent attack. For now, the community watches closely as the case unfolds, with the understanding that the eventual verdict may differ significantly from a standard criminal trial due to the unique circumstances surrounding the suspects mental health. Harvey Weinstein gives his first jailhouse interview from Rikers Island, calling it a "hellhole" while maintaining his innocence on rape convictions. AceShowbiz - Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, has granted his first interview since being incarcerated at the notorious Rikers Island jail, shedding light on the harsh conditions he faces behind bars. Currently 73 years old, Weinstein is serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted of rape and sexual assault. Despite the convictions, he continues to reject any admission of guilt. In a detailed conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein described his experience in the New York City jail, located on an island between Queens and the Bronx, which he labeled a "hellhole." Weinstein was first convicted in 2022 in California for raping an actress at a Beverly Hills hotel. This conviction resulted in the 16-year sentence he is currently serving. In 2025, he was found guilty on one count of criminal sexual act following a split verdict regarding a 2006 incident involving Miriam Haley, a former television production assistant. Despite attempts to appeal his conviction on grounds of juror misconduct, a judge denied Weinstein's request on January 8, keeping the original sentence intact. During the interview, Weinstein revealed some of the physical dangers he has encountered, including being struck "hard in the face" by another inmate while trying to use the prison phone. He explained that he is allowed to make phone calls every three hours, with each call lasting between 16 and 18 minutes. These calls are vital to him, as he speaks daily to three of his children: his oldest daughter, aged 30, and two younger children aged 12 and 15. He also mentioned that two of his children have not communicated with him for six years. It was reported by his lawyer in 2020 that his oldest daughters ceased contact with him following the #MeToo trial. Aside from family, Weinstein stated he keeps in touch with his lawyers and a few friends, which he says helps him maintain his sanity. When questioned about what he has told his younger children regarding his incarceration, Weinstein said they "know everything" because they are old enough to research the situation online. He told them he never sexually assaulted anyone, and claims they believe him. He contrasted his current situation at Rikers with his previous time in Bellevue Hospital, where visits from family were more accessible. Currently, he refuses to have his daughter visit him at Rikers due to the environment, though his son-in-law sometimes brings his 12-year-old daughter for a visit, which he says is emotionally difficult for the family. Weinstein is the father of five children. Three are from his first marriage to Eve Chilton Emma, Ruth, and Remy. The couple separated in 2004. He later married Georgina Chapman, co-founder of Marchesa, and they have two children together: India, born in 2010, and Dashiell, born in 2013. Inside Rikers, Weinstein said he avoids interaction with other inmates, socializing only with guards and medical staff. He described the wing where he is housed as lacking any social life. When asked why he does not socialize, Weinstein responded, "Because it's Rikers Island and it's hell," emphasizing the hostile atmosphere of the jail. He contrasted this with his prior experience in state prison, where he had more freedom to socialize, eat breakfast with others, and watch television. He has requested a transfer back to state prison but was told by the District Attorneys office that he must remain at Rikers due to an upcoming trial and for close monitoring. Weinstein noted the irony of being kept under surveillance at Rikers for 19 months without understanding what threat he poses or where he might go. The producer also stated that his celebrity status has been a disadvantage in prison, causing him to be isolated for his own safety. Authorities consider it "too dangerous" for him to mingle with other prisoners. While other inmates have access to the prison yard, Weinstein remains confined indoors, feeling under constant siege from other prisoners who approach him with demands and threats. He described interactions where inmates request money, legal contacts, or favors, and said he is "constantly threatened and derided." He admitted he would not last long if placed in the general population at Rikers. Reflecting on his previous incarceration in Upstate New York, he said he was treated more like an ordinary prisoner and faced less hostility. "It's lonely in prison. You just try to connect with people and not think too much about what got them there," he said. He shared that he befriended one inmate who loved reading and introduced him to author Daniel Silva, known for his spy thrillers. The inmate appreciated this gesture, Weinstein noted. During his time in state prison, Weinstein also volunteered to teach a course on adapting books into films, referencing popular authors like James Patterson and J.K. Rowling, but said the inmates showed little interest. He expressed hope to try again if he returns to state prison. NEW YORK and NEW ORLEANS, March 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF"), announces that KSF has commenced an investigation into CarMax, Inc. (NYSE: KMX) ("CarMax" or the "Company"). On September 25, 2025, the Company announced its second quarter Fiscal Year 2026 financial results, disclosing, among other things, that retail unit sales had decreased 5.4%, comparable store unit sales had decreased 6.3%, wholesale units had decreased 2.2%, and that net earnings per diluted share of $0.64 compared to $0.85 a year ago. The Company also disclosed disappointing second quarter net income of about $95.4 million, down from $132.8 million over the prior year. Subsequently, on November 6, 2025, the Company disclosed the unexpected departure of its CEO and a weak preliminary Q3 2025 outlook. Thereafter, the Company and certain of its executives were sued in a securities class action lawsuit, charging them with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. KSF's investigation is focusing on whether CarMax's officers and/or directors breached their fiduciary duties to its shareholders or otherwise violated state or federal laws. If you have information that would assist KSF in its investigation, or have been a long-term holder of CarMax shares and would like to discuss your legal rights, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-833-938-0905 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-kmx/ to learn more. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nation's premier boutique securities litigation law firms. This past year, KSF was ranked by SCAS among the top 10 firms nationally based upon total settlement value. KSF serves a variety of clients, including public and private institutional investors, and retail investors - in seeking recoveries for investment losses emanating from corporate fraud or malfeasance by publicly traded companies. KSF has offices in New York, Delaware, California, Louisiana, Chicago, and a representative office in Luxembourg. TOP 10 Plaintiff Law Firms - According to ISS Securities Class Action Services To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner [email protected] 1-877-515-1850 1100 Poydras St., Suite 960 New Orleans, LA 70163 CONNECT WITH US: Facebook || Instagram || YouTube || TikTok || LinkedIn SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC In the predawn darkness of July 10, 2016, 27-year-old Seth Rich was shot twice in the back as he walked home in Washington, D.C.s Bloomingdale neighborhood. The official story from D.C. Metro Police is that this was a botched robbery. Yet the killers took nothingno wallet, no watch, no phone. No suspects have ever been arrested, and the case remains unsolved nearly a decade later. Advertisement The timing seems too perfect to have been a random crime. Just days after Richs murder, WikiLeaks began releasing thousands of DNC emails that exposed the Democrat party rigging its 2016 Democrat primaries against Bernie Sanders and for Hillary Clinton. The media blamed Russian hackers. The Mueller Report, intelligence community assessments, and CrowdStrikes quick (but unverified) attribution pushed the foreign-interference line hard. But Julian Assange repeatedly implied that WikiLeaks source was not Russianand forensic analysis suggested a local transfer, such as a thumb drive handoff, not a remote hack. Rich, the DNCs Voter Expansion Data Director and a vocal Sanders supporter, had motive and access. Was he silenced to protect the emerging Russia collusion hoax? Advertisement This case sits at the center of what looks like a RICO-level criminal enterprise: elements of the Deep StateFBI, DOJ, CIA, and allied networksengaged in fraud, obstruction, election subversion, and worse. Ive argued that point in articles from 2020 onward, all built on public records, FOIA battles, declassifications, and whistleblower leaks. Fully disclosing Richs seized laptops, drives, and related files could blow open the entire 2016 Russia narrative, exposing ties to Benghazi arms trafficking, Clinton Foundation pay-to-play, FISA warrant abuses, Ukraine meddling, and more. Instead, the FBI has stonewalled for years. However, the Trump DOJ and FBI may finally be ending the silence. On February 3, 2020, at NoisyRoom.net, I framed the Deep State as a de facto criminal enterprise under the RICO Act, committing treason, fraud, obstruction, and other racketeering acts in a continuing pattern (18 U.S.C. 19611968). Advertisement The DNC hack fit the pattern: Assange denied Russian involvement and forensic analysis pointed to an insider leak, yet the FBI never inspected the DNC servers themselves, relying on CrowdStrikes report. This misdirection fueled the Russia-Trump collusion hoax, justifying surveillance, media smears, and the Mueller probe. Under those circumstances, Richs potential role as a whistleblower threatened the whole house of cards. Over the next few years, I authored a string of investigative reports, drilling down with hard evidence: Advertisement June 3, 2022: Who Really Killed Seth Rich? Reexamined the murder as the Russia hoax collapsed, highlighting Richs access and Sanders loyalty. Reexamined the murder as the Russia hoax collapsed, highlighting Richs access and Sanders loyalty. July 12, 2022: Use RICO to Get to the Bottom of Seth Richs Murder Proposed RICO as the tool to connect the hit to a broader conspiracy. September 18, 2023 : Who is Seth Rich? Who Murdered Him? And Whats The Deep State Hiding? Linked to Durham Report findings of FBI misconduct. Who is Seth Rich? Who Murdered Him? And Whats The Deep State Hiding? Linked to Durham Report findings of FBI misconduct. February 2, 2024 : The FBI Again Tries to Block Seth Richs Laptop from Public View Exposed defiance in FOIA cases like Huddleston v. FBI, with exemptions claimed for classified or personal data. The FBI Again Tries to Block Seth Richs Laptop from Public View Exposed defiance in FOIA cases like Huddleston v. FBI, with exemptions claimed for classified or personal data. March 18, 2025 : The FBI Must Investigate Itself And, Once Cleaned, Several Other Political Crimes Drew parallels to Epstein, calling for systemic reform. The FBI Must Investigate Itself And, Once Cleaned, Several Other Political Crimes Drew parallels to Epstein, calling for systemic reform. August 2, 2025 : Was the Death of Seth Rich a Hit by the Deep State? Incorporated ODNI declassifications (under Tulsi Gabbard), Metro PD leaks from Officer Douglas Berlin, and the bombshell Prohibited Access filesa secret FBI repository shielding sensitive records. Was the Death of Seth Rich a Hit by the Deep State? Incorporated ODNI declassifications (under Tulsi Gabbard), Metro PD leaks from Officer Douglas Berlin, and the bombshell Prohibited Access filesa secret FBI repository shielding sensitive records. August 8, 2025: Seth Rich: Dead Men Tell No Tales Framed it as a murder mystery riddled with media disinformation (e.g., Michael Isikoff-style amplification of false narratives), unproven CrowdStrike claims, and urgent calls for probes under Kash Patel and Pam Bondi. These articles relied on verifiable sources: FOIA denials-turned-admissions, court orders ignored, intelligence lapses (no crime-scene forensics pushed, devices held since 2016, but contents suppressed). Whispers persist, and in an unsolved case, such rumors are almost inevitable. The same holds for the broader possibility of a professional or contracted operative several levels removed from any decision-maker: plausible deniability is the hallmark of these operations. Now, however, at long last, the Trump FBI is ever so slowly giving up its secrets. Senator Chuck Grassley deserves major credit. Attorney Ty Clevenger used Grassleys discovery of hidden FBI files to advance his FOIA suits. Matt Taibbi at Racket News just posted an exclusive update on these hidden FBI files. John Solomon of Just the News just dropped an article detailing how prohibited-access files shielded politically sensitive cases, including an intriguing quote from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. The Federalist published these bombshell articles, too (here, here, here, and here). Whistleblower tips to Grassleys office blew the lid off. Grassley demanded that AG Bondi and Director Patel produce records; some have been turned over amid internal resistance, and Patels task force is now excavating decades of hidden material. Advertisement Image by AI. Advertisement Grassley said: If it werent for whistleblower disclosures to my office, the very existence of the FBI using Prohibited Access files for some investigations would have remained in the dark. Ive asked Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel to turn over certain Prohibited Access records to Congress. Ive received some but am still waiting on others. I urge the DOJ and FBI to keep diggingwhich previous administrations apparently didnt make any effort to doso that the facts can come to light. The FBIs secret stash of records is scandalous. I know how law enforcement record-keeping works. Over my 35 years in law enforcement, I started as a police cadet filing hard-copy reports in long rows of 4-drawer cabinets lining the wall. We used drum files of index cards sorted by name to locate report numbers, then pulled the physical file. Records clerks handled merging the cards during filing. The digital Records Management System (RMS) eliminated the drum file, but we still worked with hard copies. Old cases were microfilmed or purged; DIRS digital scanning arrived in the late 90s/early 2000s. Investigative units, especially homicide, kept their own hard copies of police reports indefinitely, and they were never locked away (murders and officer-involved shootings, and the like). The FBIs top-brass-only restriction is deliberate concealment, not oversight. Scandalous doesnt cover it. Reporting from Just the News shows these prohibited access files have been a go-to method for burying records in politically charged investigations for yearsexactly the kind of tool that could explain the ongoing stonewalling in cases like Richs. In Richs case, Attorney Clevenger has repeatedly exposed the FBIs contradictions: first denying any records existed, then admitting they held Richs laptops, a DVD, a thumb drive, and thousands of pagesyet continuing to withhold them under the excuse of an ongoing investigation. Following Judge Amos Mazzants August 24, 2024, ruling ordering full production, the FBI was required to comply by March 10, 2025but the bureau only delivered a Vaughn indexthat is, a list of withheld documentsnot the documents themselves (see my March 2025 American Thinker piece on the FBIs defiance). This strongly suggests the withheld information may contain exculpatory evidence of a domestic leak, which would dismantle the Russia-hack narrative. Shades of the Hunter Biden laptopbranded Russian disinformation by 51 former intel officials and suppressed across media and social platforms before the 2020 election. Clevenger tells me more developments could emerge soon. Nearly ten years later, there are still no arrests, no real progressonly obstruction. With Trumps election, Patel and Bondi are now in charge of the DOJ and FBI, and the moment is here. The old CYA days are overthe winds have shiftedbut the files are still sealed, plausibly to keep the lower ranks and conspirators unsuspecting while the real work happens. Dragging this out much longer risks losing ground politically before the midterms. Will the truth come out, or will caution become the enemy? The American people have waited long enoughno more delays. Ron Wright is a retired detective who served 35 years with Riverside PD, Calif. Ron earned a B.A. in political science from Cal State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Administration from the University of California, Riverside. X @RonTcop On March 11, Iran attacked an oil-producing site in Oman. The strike hit fuel storage tanks at the Port of Salalah, a major energy hub on Omans Arabian Sea coast used for tanker refueling and storage. Reports say drones hit several tanks and set parts of the facility on fire. Advertisement What makes this attack so shocking is not just the target; it is who got targeted. Oman is the Gulf state closest to Iran politically, and it has long served as the main mediator between Iran and the West. Yet Tehran still went after its oil infrastructure. That tells you a lot about how Iran operates in the Middle East. Irans message is clear: No oil infrastructure in the Gulf is off limits. And this is not new behavior. Iran has previously targeted oil production even in countries that are not openly hostile. Saudi Arabia, for example, signed a Chinese-mediated detente with Iran roughly four years ago. Yet key energy sites have still been hit or targeted. These include the Ras Tanura refinery and export terminal, one of the largest oil export hubs on Earth and a critical gateway for Saudi crude, as well as the Berri oil field. This important producing field feeds the eastern Saudi export infrastructure. Across the wider Gulf region, the pattern continues. Oil infrastructure that has been struck or threatened includes the Salalah oil storage tanks and the Duqm fuel storage facility in Oman, the Sitra/BAPCO refinery and Mina Salman oil port in Bahrain, and the Jebel Ali fuel storage terminal in the United Arab Emirates. Iran has also threatened shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime corridor through which roughly one fifth of the worlds oil supply moves every day. Advertisement But this is not random revenge. Iran appears to understand world politics extremely well. In the Middle East, there is an old saying: Iranians are natural carpet weavers. They do not mind working slowly, as long as the pattern is precise. What we are seeing now fits that philosophy. Iran appears to be trying to undermine Gulf oil production and disrupt global oil shipping, especially through the Strait of Hormuz. The objective is obvious: Push oil prices higher, send economic shockwaves across Europe and global markets, and pressure the United States to back off the war. Many analysts used to dismiss this scenario for one big reason: China. Iran exports much of its oil to China, and Beijing is widely seen as Irans main geopolitical backer. The thinking went that China would never let Iran disrupt global oil flows. But China has massive strategic oil reserves enough to keep its economy running during a crisis like this. No one really knows what Beijing is thinking, but it is hard to imagine Iran making such a bold move without at least some level of Chinese approval or tolerance. Advertisement Yet the strategy is not working. First, the United States is not dependent on Gulf oil. President Trump made the United States an oil- and major energyexporting country. Because of that shift in American energy policy, Iran cannot strangle the U.S. economy through Gulf oil the way producers once could in the 1970s. Second, Washington has access to Venezuelan oil supplies, which can be redirected to global markets and to Europe if necessary. In other words, there is no genuine global oil shortage. The real issue has been the panic in energy markets. Some analysts immediately claimed that tankers could no longer pass through Hormuz because war risk insurance had been withdrawn and shipping companies were pulling back. In response, President Trump ordered the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to step in and provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf, including a $20-billion reinsurance program to keep tankers sailing. The DFC is the U.S. governments development finance institution, capable of providing loans, guarantees, and political risk insurance to support international trade and investment. Advertisement This step matters enormously. Irans entire strategy depends on disrupting tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. If insurance disappears, tankers stop sailing. If tankers stop sailing, markets panic, and oil prices explode. By guaranteeing insurance for ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the United States effectively removed that pressure point and kept global energy trade moving. What is also questionable here is something many people inside the oil and energy businesses already understand. They know there is no genuine oil supply threat right now, and they also know that this war is unlikely to last long enough to create anything resembling the 1973 oil embargo crisis. The global energy system today is far more diversified, and global reserves are enormous. People inside the industry understand this perfectly. They do not need anyone to explain it to them. Yet the narrative of catastrophic shortages and runaway prices keeps being repeated. Advertisement So when some voices continue to scare American markets and American consumers about oil shortages and price shocks, a serious question arises. Irans strategy works only if markets panic and oil prices skyrocket. Without fear in financial markets, there is no mechanism for Tehran to trigger the economic shock it wants. Those who keep amplifying fears about imminent oil shortages and runaway prices are therefore objectively aiding the Iranian regimes strategy. Whether they recognize it or not, they are helping create the exact market panic Tehran needs for its plan to succeed. At best, they may simply be trying to profit from fear in volatile markets. At worst, they may belong to the same globalist circles that see profit in sustaining permanent fear, conflict, and geopolitical instability. Iran might be trying to weaponize oil markets and shipping lanes. But the basics of the global energy system strong supply, large reserves, and American production make that strategy much less powerful than Tehran hoped. Advertisement In reality, President Trumps energy policies have already taken much of the sting out of Irans oil weapon. By turning the U.S. into an energy exporter, ensuring that America has access to other oil supplies like Venezuelas, and guaranteeing tanker insurance through the Strait of Hormuz, Washington took away the leverage Tehran sought. Without those moves, Irans oil strategy might have worked. With them, Irans plan to weaponize oil markets looks much weaker than expected. In short, Trump stopped the kind of energy shock that once crippled Western economies and saved Americans from a repeat of the 1973 energy crisis. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. The United States is now at war with Iran. Advertisement On February 28, 2026, American and Israeli forces launched a coordinated assault inside Iran, striking military bases, command centers, and strategic infrastructure across the country. For more than four decades, the confrontation between Washington and Tehran had simmered through sanctions, covert operations, and proxy conflicts stretching across the Middle East. That shadow war is over. The conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic has entered a direct and dangerous new phase. In Washington, the campaign was dubbed Operation Epic Fury. In Israel, it carried another name: Operation Roaring Lion. Advertisement The most dramatic moment came at the outset of the operation, when a targeted strike killed Irans Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the immediate aftermath, President Donald Trump suggested that Washington could play a role in shaping what came next, even hinting that Irans leaderships successor would not last long without our approval. The reality proved more complicated. Irans political system moved quickly to elevate Mojtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old cleric and the slain leaders son, to the position of Supreme Leader. Advertisement Before a war, governments marshal intelligence, present evidence, and attempt to persuade their citizens that the risks of conflict are justified. In 2003, the United States did exactly that. George W. Bushs administration spent months building the case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat to global security. (Ultimately, the weapons were never found, leaving behind one of the most debated intelligence failures in modern American history.) Today, America faces a strange inversion of that moment. Were already at war with Iran, yet the administration has failed to argue its case. Advertisement The case should be easy: Iran has long boasted about its nuclear program and has openly pursued uranium enrichment for years. It possesses stockpiles enriched to levels approaching weapons grade. Its most sensitive nuclear facilities are buried deep underground or carved directly into mountains, including the Fordow enrichment complex near Qom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pointed to those hardened locations as a central concern, asking why a supposedly peaceful nuclear program would need to hide its most sensitive infrastructure hundreds of feet beneath a mountain. President Donald Trump has also emphasized that Tehran has consistently refused to clearly state that it will never build a nuclear weapon. Advertisement Western intelligence agencies have continued to monitor activity connected to Irans nuclear infrastructure, including the movement of equipment, materials, and personnel between underground locations. Officials have warned that stockpiles of enriched uranium may still exist inside Iran. Therefore, the question isnt whether Iran has the capability to build a nuclear weapon, but how quickly it could do so. Advertisement For months before attacking Iran, President Donald Trump dispatched envoys, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to explore whether it was possible to reach a diplomatic resolution. Trump explained that the discussions stalled on a central question: Irans leadership was unwilling to state clearly that it would never pursue a nuclear weapon. Irans threat also extends beyond nuclear power. Over four decades, Tehran has constructed an extensive network of allied militias stretching across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. This system of armed groupsoften described as the Shia crescenthas allowed Iran to project influence across the Middle East while maintaining plausible deniability. The 1979 Iranian Revolution and seizure of the American embassy in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis are the genesis of whats happening today. Following the revolution, the cleric Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France and consolidated power, transforming Iran from a monarchy ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into an Islamic Republic. Khomeini became the countrys first Supreme Leader, combining religious and political authority in a theocratic system that would define Irans government. America became a target the moment he returned. Protesters seized the American embassy in Tehran and took diplomats hostage, chanting Death to America and burning U.S. flags. Iranians storming the U.S. Embassy, 1979. Public domain. The rebels held American diplomats as hostages for 444 days. The crisis humiliated Washington and became one of the defining geopolitical shocks of the Cold War era. It is widely believed to have contributed to President Jimmy Carters defeat in the 1980 election, bringing Ronald Reagan to power. In a symbolic moment, Iran released the hostages the day Reagan took his presidential oath. The confrontation did not end there. In 1983, Iran-backed militants carried out the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, killing 241 American service members. During this period, U.S. Ambassador Francis E. Meloy and CIA station chief Robert Ames were assassinated in Lebanon, and CIA station chief William Buckley was kidnapped and later died in captivity. Iran-backed Hezbollah also carried out suicide bombings against the U.S. Embassy and its annex in Beirut. These attacks were widely attributed to Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, which had been cultivating militant allies in Lebanon. Over the decades, Iran expanded that network of proxy forces across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The current war is the most direct confrontation between the United States and Iran in more than four decades. The strike that killed Irans Supreme Leader (and, reputedly, several family members) introduced a volatile element: succession. The leadership of a nuclear-capable state now rests with Ali Khameneis son, Mojtaba Khamenei. This may lead hardliners to argue that Iran must move more quickly toward the ultimate deterrent: a nuclear weapon. In the short term, Tehran opted for immediately launching missile and drone attacks against American bases, diplomatic facilities, and allied targets across the region. Strikes were reported in Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, many aimed at bases hosting American forces. Some attacks struck residential areas and commercial infrastructure. Days later, Iran activated its proxy network. Hezbollah opened attacks against Israel, while Iranian-backed militias in Iraq intensified strikes against American targets. Iran also attacked the Gulf energy infrastructure. A drone strike against the Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia forced temporary shutdowns and sent shockwaves through global energy markets. Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly one-fifth of the worlds oil supply passes. Officials warned that if attacks continue, not a litre of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and suggested oil prices could surge toward $200 per barrel. Even as the conflict expanded across the region and energy markets reacted nervously, President Donald Trump suggested the campaign might already be nearing its conclusion. In an interview on March 11, 2026, he said that any time I want it to end, it will end, adding that after days of strikes, there was practically nothing left to target inside Iran. This begs the question, though: If Irans nuclear ambitions persist and its leadership continues to threaten regional stability, what exactly would ending the war mean? At moments like this, wars are not fought only on battlefields. They are also fought in the realm of public understanding. Trump is surrounded by experienced advisers and military leaders capable of prosecuting the conflict. What is needed now is a clear explanation of why this war matters. American lives and allies are at risk, and public understanding becomes a form of national strength. The war now unfolding is therefore not simply about Iran or even the Middle East. It is about whether the United States is still willingand ableto defend the strategic order it has upheld for decades. If Washington walks away from this confrontation after initiating it, the consequences will extend far beyond Tehran or the Gulf. Across the world, Americas adversaries will draw their own conclusions. In capitals from Moscow to Beijing, the outcome of this conflict will be studied closely. The stakes of this war are therefore global. What happens in Iran will shape how the world measures American resolveand whether the balance of power that has defined the international system for decades still holds. Rep. Eric Swalwell, now the frontrunner for California's governor in the upcoming election according to one poll, is facing down accusations by Democrat rival Tom Steyer and others that he doesn't actually live in this state. Advertisement Swalwell denies it, of course, and says his single rented room in a 1,350-foot home otherwise housing a family of three in Livermore, California, is his primary residence. Eric Swalwell is trying to pull a SCAM. He, his wife and kids don't live with him in a room in a tiny house in California. He is NOT QUALIFIED to be Governor of California. He MUST drop out of the race. https://t.co/bY1kTcJ0OR Mila Joy (@Milajoy) March 13, 2026 So for old time's sake, let's take him at his word and assume he's telling us the truth about really, truly, living in this state he thinks he's entitled to run. Advertisement John Nolte of Breitbart noted that Swalwell has a wife and three kids, and because of all the attention Steyer's charges are drawing, he's taken to whining that he can't let them go outside: Oddly enough, Swalwell doesnt dispute this. He only claims that by revealing this information, Steyer put his and his familys lives at risk Advertisement I receive hundreds of death threats every year. My children are not allowed in the yard. Thats why my address is private. And now Tom Steyer has not only put my life at risk but also my familys by releasing my address, Swalwell wrote on X. And the California Post and Daily Mail took his bait and are harassing my neighbors. Tom, you can try to buy this election all you want, but this is low, even for you. So with the kids packed inside Swalwell's "primary" residence, how big of a room might be found in a 1,350-foot house that houses three other people in Livermore, California? Advertisement According to a Grok search, it would typically be about 10 feet by 12 feet of space. For a master bedroom, 14 feet by 14 feet tops. Is he trying to tell us he's got three kids crammed into a 10' x 11' foot room? Packed together, like human smuggling rackets do it, waiting for the lawmen to pass them over? Advertisement Maybe this guy needs a visit from social services over exposing children to unhealthy living conditions. We have a lot of such stories out in California. But Swalwell doesn't care. The wokester state secretary of state, Shirley Weber, has said the residency law in California is "unconstitutional and unenforceable" which certainly serves her purposes. And now he's now got a coveted endorsement from the SEIU public employees union and has moved into first place in the polls for the upcoming primary. The SEIU reputedly runs California and does its rigging. They, too, don't bother about residency requirements. Their last California senator, Alphonse Butler, who was appointed to the interim term left by Kamala Harris from 2023 to 2024, didn't live in California, either. Advertisement Didn't bother any of them a bit. Who needs rules when you are a Democrat? Image: X video screenshot Ive often argued there is no such thing as American gun culture, any more than there is any such thing as jeans culture, t-shirt culture or pizza eating culture. Culture is far more than the ownership, use and enjoyment of a useful tool. That said, shooters do have a few quirks. Advertisement Whenever I write about guns, reviewing this make and model, or discoursing on the application of a given class of guns for this or that purpose, I discover Im either the most brilliant writer ever to touch fingers to keys or the stupidest idiot who doesnt know anything about anything, because only X make and model of gun is appropriate for everything and if you dont know that, whats wrong with you--meanyway? Lets visit an article by Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms charmingly titled: Harmeet Dhillon goes to Gun Range, 2A Community Shows Its Butt. Advertisement Dhillion is the US Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ Civil Rights Division. Unlike the Bidens Handlers DOJ, this Civil Rights division fairly enforces the civil rights of all Americans, including gun owners. Under Donald Trump the Second Amendment is no longer a second-class right, and Dhillon is leading that charge, doing a great deal of good for America. Advertisement Graphic: X Post Yes, I know the DOJ hasnt done all it could, and is doing some dumb things, like arguing for the National Firearms Act even though any justification for it has crumbled. Still, Dhillon is one of the good girls, and is doing much to uphold the Second Amendment. Not only that, shes apparently learning to shoot, and the article speaks to what might be her first range experience, or at least, among her first experiences. Advertisement I hold eight instructors certifications, including handgun, shotgun, submachinegun and rifle, and have been teaching shooters at all levels of skill for many years. Shooting a handgun consistently and accurately is difficult, more difficult than shooting a long gun. Ive found women tend to make great students, lacking the bad habits and ego-driven prejudices of men. We need more shooters, male and female, and one doesnt encourage sound gun handling and life-long enjoyment by uninformed criticism and hectoring. Note this target Dhillon posted: Advertisement Graphic: X Post Advertisement According to Knighton, many replies to Dhillons X posts bordered on the misogynistic. Others took her to task for her supposed lack of instant John Wick-like marksmanship. Note these are relatively small targets. On a target more representative of human body size, virtually every round would have hit something damaging. But thats not the point, particularly for beginners. I would have found such a target useful indeed, pointing out that this round indicated heeling, that round indicated jerking the trigger and another round indicated anticipating the shot. Each round less accurate than desired is a gentle learning opportunity, allowing solidification of proper stance, grip, sight picture, relaxation and mindset. All amount to teaching moments that give a new shooter check points they can use when Im not there to guide them. Graphic: X Post Notice Dhillons correction on yardage. Even 7 yards can be daunting for a neophyte, but Dhillons shot placement was creditable for a new shooter with a small handgun like a P365. New shooters are more than aware of their deficiencies, deficiencies reinforced with every shot that doesnt go where they wanted it to go. One doesnt encourage them with criticism, but with gentle guidance about correct technique and plenty of attagirls! for doing it right. Knighton observes: For a first-time shooter, that's fine. Even that 15-yard target is solid for a first range trip. Dhillon's other posts on X after this make it clear that she plans on continuing training and learning. She's making damn sure she's one of us, and some of y'all are doing what you can to push her away. Considering her role in the government, do you really think that's smart? She's the one who can direct her entire office to come to the defense of our right to keep and bear arms when your local government tries to make gun permits practically unobtainable. She's the one who can lower the boom on your state authorities who try to play games with your right to keep and bear arms. And shes just the kind of person we want and need in our gun culture. The range is never a place for unrestrained ego but understanding and encouragement. None of us know so much we cant learn more. Become a subscriber and get our weekly, Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. There are many on the left and on the right who criticize the war in Iran. Some on the left seem to prefer a US defeat. On the right, the concern seems more that the war is a catastrophic strategic mistake, although some are so invested in the criticism that American success would undermine their credibility. Advertisement Regardless of motive, almost all critics throw out analogies to Vietnam. I just finished watching Megyn Kelly interview one Saagar Enjeti, who liberally threw out Vietnam references while Kelly nodded knowingly. The problem, according to Enjeti, was Lyndon Johnsons obsession with breaking the North Vietnamese and listing body counts, tonnage of bombs, and targets struck. The amount of information I dont know is enormous. However, I do know a lot about Vietnam. If you are using it as an analogy around me, you had better be more than superficial. Advertisement Lets take a look at what the real problem was and then decide on analogies. Body counts and other metrics may be symptoms, but not the problem. The United States took over the Vietnam ground conflict in 1965 with the specific goal of victory by early 1968. On November 5, 1966, Lyndon Johnson, based on a recommendation from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, decided to change the goal from a win to a tie, not for strategic reasons but because of domestic politics. Advertisement Further, he not only concealed this decision from the American people, but he also launched a public relations campaign to convince the public that the administration was doing exactly the opposite. He left office with over half a million troops in conflict in Vietnam with no strategy, purpose, or goal other than to try not to die. He left his successor, Richard Nixon, with a political situation that made it impossible to escalate the US military effort. However, unlike Johnson, Nixon was smart enough to recognize a Sino-Soviet rift. Advertisement Nixon determined that US strategic interests would be better served by finalizing the Sino-Soviet split than by pouring more resources into Vietnam. He decided to gradually turn over the ground conflict to the South Vietnamese while establishing relations with China. Understanding that the Soviet Union, not China, was the primary source of military support for North Vietnam, Nixon decided to cut the strategic lines of communication from the Soviet Union to Vietnam. A coup in Cambodia closed the port of Sihanoukville to Soviet traffic. We mined Haiphong harbor to close that port. Advertisement Part of the deal with China after establishing relations during his trip to China was that China would delay and interfere with Soviet traffic on the Chinese railway system to Vietnam. Thus, Nixon strategically isolated the battlefield. The strategic isolation led to the Paris Peace Agreement. Soviet support to Vietnam was originally intended not to lead to North Vietnamese victory, but to stoke a large conflict and a large US military presence in Vietnam. The Soviets portrayed this as a threat to the entire socialist camp in general and to China in particular. Advertisement China needed Soviet support to contend with the American threat. The goal was to prevent a Sino-Soviet split. Although the Soviets achieved their tactical goals, their strategy failed when Nixon went to China. As a result, the Soviets changed their strategy to their own version of containment by creating a strong pro-Soviet client state on Chinas southern border. The goal became a North Vietnamese victory. Public domain. The Soviets altered the arms mix being shipped to Vietnam from primarily infantry equipment to tanks and artillery. Nixon planned to launch a massive bombing campaign to destroy much of the growing armored threat. Shortly before launch, however, John Dean went to the prosecutor in the Watergate affair. Nixon decided to deal with Watergate and come back to the bombing. Unfortunately for his Vietnam strategy, he was never able to deal with Watergate and became progressively enfeebled politically. Meanwhile, an emboldened Congress cut appropriations to support Vietnam in half, then in half again. This resulted in a lack of South Vietnamese spare parts, fuel, and ammunition. Meanwhile, Soviet supplies were unrestricted. At the end, the North had a tank advantage of 900 to 550. Many of the Souths tanks were inoperable due to a lack of spare parts. Fuel was in short supply, as was ammunition. The North had more and heavier artillery and unlimited ammunition. South Vietnamese infantry had very little M16 ammunition and very few grenades. Johnson had a plan to achieve victory, but abandoned it because of crass domestic politics. Nixon had victory in hand but was stymied by Watergate. Then, Congress raised its ugly head and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. This is what really happened. If you find an analogy, let me know. Charles Parker is the author of Vietnam: Strategy for a Stalemate. Free markets are the most inclusive, tolerant, and unerringly precise markets possible. Things and services can only be worth what people will pay for them. This should not be a difficult concept. Any other way of setting prices is inherently inefficient, biased and discriminatory. Advertisement But now let's go to the madness: Russia is allegedly supplying Iran with intelligence to help it fend off the Americans. Advertisement What the hell are the lefties supposed to think now? They hate Russia -- and are willing to help fight a forever war against them via their proxy Ukraine -- but are oddly equally opposed to the United States in its conflict with the radical Iranian theocracy. They must be sadly conflicted. And in other news, according to LifeSiteNews: Advertisement The Canadian government has created a committee filled with euthanasia advocates to determine whether or not Canada should expand assisted suicide to those with mental illness. Canada may decide to off those with mental illness?! Like those who are pro-Trump or MAGA, for example because such people are obviously mentally ill, eh? Advertisement Allow me an imagined vignette: How are you doing, Scott? Advertisement Well, honestly, Im pretty bummed out. Ive been depressed ever since Team Canada lost to the damn Yankees in the winter Olympics. Gee, I hate to see you in such pain. Say, I think I can help. Have you heard of MAID? Advertisement You mean Medical Assistance In Dying, Bob? Thats exactly what I have in mind, Scott. That might be just the thing! Yes! Lets do it! Thank you for caring, Bob! Meanwhile, the Bank of England has confirmed that Sir Winston Churchill, the iconic leader who stood alone against Hitler for many months, will be removed from banknotes and replaced with images of wildlife. The central bank plans to survey the public as to which animals they would like to see on the next set of 5, 10, 20, and 50 notes. GBN reported: The move to replace historical figures with animals was described as significant and overdue by celebrity bird-watcher Nadeem Perera, who sits on the bank's panel of wildlife experts who will choose which English species will appear on the next set of banknotes. There is such a thing as a celebrity bird-watcher?! And why does a celebrity bird-watcher sit on a banks panel of wildlife experts? And why does a bank have a panel of wildlife experts?! So, what species of wildlife will replace Churchill on British currency? A rat? Weasel? An invertebrate would be more fitting, given the current prime minister of the U.K. and his parliament. We know it wont be from the canine family, given the ever-increasing population of Muslims in once Jolly Olde England. In fact, Im betting it wont be long until The Prophet Mohammed himself graces the currency. Perhaps there will even be enough room to put the 72 virgins on the back of the notes. Image: Pixabay via Picryl // CC0 1.0 universal public domain The Iconic Irish Butter Brand Brings a Unique Sandwich Pop-Up to New York City and Partners with Actress Amybeth McNulty for a Festive Global Campaign NEW YORK, March 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kerrygold, the world-famous Irish grass-fed dairy brand, is championing authentic St. Patrick's Day celebrations and is sharing a little taste of Ireland by bringing the beloved crisp sandwich to the world. In New York City on Tuesday, March 17 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., New Yorkers are among the lucky few who will get the chance to try the Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich on St. Patrick's Day when they visit the Kerrygold sandwich pop up at Wildair, located at 142 Orchard Street. The Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich Amybeth McNulty, award-winning Irish actress and Stranger Things star, alongside the Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich. Kerrygold's New York City event spotlights the flavors and cherished memories of a crisp sandwich and invites the entire city to celebrate with the brand on St. Patrick's Day by indulging in one of the Emerald Isle's simplest pleasures, made special by the brand's signature butter. "Born in the quiet heartland of Irish food culture, the iconic crisp sandwich has long been a 'locals only' legend in Ireland - an afterhours hero and the chef's stolen moment snack," said senior global brand manager, Neil Rogers. "Seeing the intrigue and interest across social media over the last few months, Kerrygold is excited to let the rest of the world in on the secret this St. Patrick's Day." The Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich: A Simple Irish Classic Going Global this St. Patrick's Day The crisp sandwich is a beloved staple of Irish culture, a humble delicacy often enjoyed at home or on the go, and for many chefs, it's the perfect midnight snack after a long day. At its heart, it's a celebration of three simple ingredients: soft white bread, cheese and onion potato crisps, and generous layers of rich, golden Kerrygold butter. It's a beloved secret among Irish locals and A-list celebrities alike, and Kerrygold is on a mission to share this tasteful joy with the world. To help share this treasured piece of Irish culture, Kerrygold, in collaboration with award-winning Irish actress and "Stranger Things" star Amybeth McNulty, presents "Made the Irish Way" global campaign, alongside the Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich. For McNulty, a crisp sandwich transports her back to the comfort and familiarity of her hometown. Together, Kerrygold and McNulty are inviting the world to share a Kerrygold Crisp Sandwich to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, whether at a pop up in major cities across the globe, or from the comfort of their own homes, to truly understand its growing status as a cultural phenomenon. Kerrygold's "Made the Irish Way" campaign launches across the United States, Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and beyond through social, digital, PR, and retail channels throughout March 2026. For those celebrating at home, Kerrygold presents a collection of authentic Irish recipes, championing simple ingredients and real flavor, all brought to life with Kerrygold's grass-fed Irish butter and cheese. Exclusive Merchandise at the NYC Pop-Up To commemorate the St. Patrick's Day celebration in New York City, Kerrygold has partnered with renowned Irish illustrator Hephee to design exclusive merchandise. Attendees at the Wildair pop-up will have the chance to receive free, limited-edition T-shirts, which will be given out to a lucky few at the start of every hour, beginning at 11 a.m., while supplies last. Discover your next St. Patrick's Day recipe with Kerrygold at www.kerrygoldusa.com. About Kerrygold Kerrygold was established in 1962 as a premium brand, befitting the rich quality of grass-fed Irish milk. Kerrygold initially launched as a single product brand and is now Ireland's most successful food brand, becoming a 1 billion dollar brand in the U.S. in 2025. Since its creation, Kerrygold has been synonymous with quality, and today, Kerrygold has a special place in the hearts of consumers all over the world. Kerrygold dairy farmers are committed to the co-operative ideal, working together to produce only the very best grass-fed dairy products. Kerrygold cows graze freely on the fields of 14,000 family farms; each one using unique dairy farming traditions passed down through generations of family. It is this grass-fed milk that delivers the rich tasting, higher quality dairy products that Kerrygold is famous for. Today, consumers all over the world enjoy the unique taste of Kerrygold Irish grass-fed dairy. Kerrygold Grass-Fed Irish Butter is the number two butter brand in the USA and Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese is the number one specialty cheddar. Media Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Kerrygold American and Israeli air attacks have largely eliminated Irans offensive military capabilities. Air defense radars and missile launchers are greatly reduced. Their longer-range missile launchers are 90+% destroyed. Fewer suicide drones now launch daily. Advertisement Irans weapons storage facilities are constantly bombed. Their few remaining launchers are being destroyed as they play hide-and-seek, trying to keep firing. Their defense industrial base is being methodically bombed out of existence, meaning Iran cant quickly rebuild its defenses. The battlefield is well prepared for the next phase of operations. Advertisement The 82nd Airborne Division, our Armys designated quick response force, cancelled a large field exercise a few days ago. At least one Marine Expeditionary ship, a small aircraft carrier with F-35s, helicopters, and a battalion of Marines, is moving from Japan to the war area, under escort by a missile-launching cruiser and a Destroyer. And an almost dead giveaway, Trump announced last night that Kharg Island military sites were completely destroyed: Advertisement It is reasonable to think that the next phase of the war will unfold in a few weeks or so. It is also reasonable to think that a limited boots-on-the-ground operation is planned. Advertisement The Kharg Island gambit is dirt simple. It is the refinery location and shipping hub for 90% of Irans petroleum exports. It generates a huge volume of cash, giving Iran hopes of controlling the Middle East and achieving great-power status. So, we capture Kharg. We keep it under our control with a 100-year lease. We control Irans oil sales. All transactions go through banks we control. We take our cut of the sales for managing and protecting Irans property, and we draw on this income until the full cost of the war is repaid to the USA and Israel. Advertisement I hope current military movements mean the Kharg Island gambit will happen. Its our best chance to defeat Irans terrorist war to control the Middle Easts petroleum resources, 20% of global oil production. For Iranians, its been a huge source of power to implement Allahs command to convert all of humanity to Islam, starting with the destruction of Western Civilization. Irans fanatic religious leaders will hate this. They will be humiliated, a necessary effect, at bending the knee to the Great Satan USA. They will try everything in their power to wiggle out of the trap they created for themselves. Advertisement But if they dont call a ceasefire or surrender and the war continues, theyll get zero funds from their oily golden goose. We keep up a sporadic bombing campaign until they buckle under, and we support insurgent forces inside Iran. Frankly, Im fine with Iran never surrendering. Id love to recover the cost of the war and to keep them under our thumb by holding Kharg Island. If they never quit, Im all for keeping Kharg as a US protectorate and never giving it back to them. So, American peaceniks need to be ready for the massive humiliations we are about to inflict upon a rogue Islamic nation that loves terrorism in the service of Allah. Get your We Love Allah banners ready for your usual street riots. Meanwhile, conservatives should not complain about Trump. Hes just doing what the leader of the worlds greatest nation needs to do to protect America and have a stable world economy. Its what MAGAns expect of a guy who surged to his feet with clenched fist, yelling Fight, Fight, Fight after an assassination attempt. Image created using AI. Born in WWII, Army Security Agency Morse Code Intercept, MBA (Statistical Analysis), computer programmer, State Agency software/budget analyst, small business owner, operations research analyst on US Army combat & air defense equipment evaluation tests. MAGA loyalist. Been poor. Been well off. When General Eisenhower launched the D-Day offensive in June 1944, did he announce to the American People, and hence to the World including the German enemy, what the plan was in terms of what, where, when and how? Did he tell everyone at which beach we would attack and at what time with what forces, and specify how long he expected it would take to achieve victory? Of course not! Did critics in the United States demand that he do so? Naturally not. Only a fool would spill those sorts of beans ahead of time. Advertisement Graphic: X Post Advertisement Why then are so many on the Left, aided and abetted by even some on the Right, demanding, on at least a daily basis, that Trump outline this kind of information? The idea is so stupid that one must struggle to figure out why it keeps getting trumpeted. Here then is why: the Left is trying to set a trap for Trump. Imagine this speech from Chuck Schumer after the fact, being one of the most frequent voices demanding Trump furnish more details about "the plan": "Well, folks, there you have it. I told you so. Remember how Trump said we'd be done by Wednesday night. Well, here it is Thursday morning, and we are not done yet. Trump is a liar! Trump is incompetent! QED!" Advertisement The need to be wary keeps increasing because Trump has already expressed much more than necessary. To insist on even more detail is thus already a call for specificity much beyond what is either required or wise. Just because the American Left's desire to create a trap means they may never be satisfied is not a good reason to keep on furnishing more and more information to Iran. This warning would apply even if the added "briefings" were to be conducted in a closed session open only to Members of Congress. Democrats in Congress have repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut. Too often they have instead shown they can be trusted for only one purpose--to dash as fast as possible to the nearest media camera. Advertisement Politics ended at the waters edge in WWII, but not circa 2026 and certainly not for Democrats. It is easy to figure out why the Left wants to lure Trump into this specificity trap. What puzzles me is: why are some on the Right falling for it, and trotting along behind the Left like well-trained puppy dogs? News broke the other day that Winston Churchills image will be removed from the United Kingdoms banknotes. (American Thinkers Andrea Widburg did a splendid job covering that and all its implications here.) Advertisement Evidently flora and fauna are less controversial so we will see flowers and hedgehogs on their currency instead. Thatll work until the institutional left finds something objectionable about flowers and hedgehogs, but here we are. Of course, any nation is free to redesign its currency at will, but this choice is consistent with the U.K.s recent string of decisions to willingly, even lustily accelerate their own civilizational erasure. Advertisement Winston Churchill to be scrapped from banknotes as Bank of England outlines 'overdue' decisionhttps://t.co/l0uin5MnIJ GB News (@GBNEWS) March 11, 2026 The U.K. clearly doesnt have the civil rights protections we have here. This choice (below) is taking clear aim at native Britons. Our own U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, would be all over this had they tried this here. Advertisement The ruling ideology is just race communism. Taking stuff from the bad class and giving it to the good class is its central purpose as much as it was for the Soviets. Who gets board seats, jobs, college spots, loans, housingits all about the allocation of resources by race. https://t.co/qJEERPMfYP Helen Andrews (@herandrews) March 10, 2026 This choice, too, is taking direct aim at native Britons; they are essentially doing away with the House of Lords, a 700 year old tradition. Just gone. Poof. Again, the U.K. is free to disrupt their traditions but it used to be that it was a uniquely English thing to do just the opposite: fiercely protect tradition. Now? Meh. Advertisement Erasing your own civilization is insane. https://t.co/D3rxpLL1pC Elisabeth (@grizzlymamabear) March 12, 2026 Whats next? Disowning the Magna Carta? Advertisement I shouldnt joke. The inability of some to have self-control, to have agency in their own affairs, is being replaced with cultural mandates to force things on everyone so the lowest common denominator is accommodated. This below is also from the U.K. I dont know what the sub-post was about, as it was deleted, but the MBE clearly had an opinion on it and English actor John Cleese, who calls himself an "old-fashioned liberal," took note. Advertisement Islam seems to be based on the idea that men are unable to control themselves, and that they should have to make no attempt to do so It's the only religion that now encourages the male ego to enlarge itself https://t.co/8RRRVsuoGh John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 10, 2026 And its not just the women theyre coming for. Its the children too. Schools are being WARNED that children's drawings could be "blasphemous" to Muslim "sensitives". You had enough of this crap yet? Literally creeping sharia. pic.twitter.com/e2UMNTfqcy Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) March 11, 2026 Childrens crayon doodles can now be deemed offensive. And their music and dance lessons might have to go, too. So basically all the fun of being children will be suffocated in the name of diversity. And finally, 1,000 years of Christian worship and tradition, defended by blood and sword for ten centuries, absolutely defiled, and endorsed by a Prime Minister. The cut-off text reads: labelled "Big Iftar at Westminster 2026," was organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims. Because the point of Islam is to conquer, and theyve learned they can weaponize Western liberal fears of bigotry to execute that goal. https://t.co/IRx5NZCnda Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) March 12, 2026 Pray to God for England and the rest of the United Kingdom, as theyve clearly forgotten who brung them to the dance, are under verbal and physical attack, and may not survive. Quite literally. BBC says deep wound stab kits are now recommended on London buses for some strange, unstated reasonhttps://t.co/9y3cgbLSj4 Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) March 11, 2026 Image: Picryl // public domain For decades, Americans were told that industrial decline was inevitable. Manufacturing moved abroad, and supply chains shifted in some cases to hostile or unstable regions. If a critical component, pharmaceutical precursor, or industrial part could be sourced or made more cheaply overseas, the argument was that the United States should simply move up the value chain and leave the factory floor to somebody else. That model enriched consultants and importers, but it also hollowed out industrial communities, weakened supply chain resilience, and left the United States strategically exposed. Advertisement With Trump back in office, the political winds have shifted, and capital is responding. One of the defining ambitions of his second term is the revival of American industry, a theme underscored by the White Houses March 10, 2026, release of a running list of new U.S.-based investments. The list spans an impressive range of sectors, including manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, energy, automotive production, consumer products, and A.I. A broader message is also clear: Companies looking for access to the American market should start building in America again. The scale of the commitments is extraordinary. Apple announced in August 2025 that it is increasing its U.S. commitment to $600 billion over four years and launching an American Manufacturing Program aimed at bringing more of its supply chain and advanced manufacturing back to the United States. Apple says the effort includes expanded work with suppliers across multiple states, direct U.S. hiring, and a push toward an end-to-end American silicon supply chain. Although much of Apples production remains in China, Trumps tariffs have prompted the company to reorganize portions of its production and begin building up more of its supply chain ecosystem in the United States. Apple says it plans to directly hire 20,000 people in the U.S., and the majority of those hired will be employed in R&D, Silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning. Advertisement NVIDIAs investment is even more impressive. In April 2025, the company said it would manufacture A.I. supercomputers in the United States for the first time, with Blackwell chip production beginning at TSMCs chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona and supercomputer plants being built in Texas. NVIDIA said it plans to produce up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the United States over four years through a web of manufacturing partnerships with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor, and SPIL. It is a first for the U.S, according to Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. The engines of the worlds AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time. Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency. Advertisement The same is true for pharmaceuticals and life sciences. The Swiss-based drugmaker Novartis announced a planned $23 billion investment over five years in U.S.-based manufacturing and research infrastructure, including 10 facilities, seven of them new, with nearly 1,000 direct jobs and roughly 4,000 additional U.S. jobs expected. The company stated that the U.S. is a priority market, and the investment would allow it to produce 100 percent of its key medicines end-to-end on U.S. soil. According to the companys April 10, 2025, press release, the investment includes a new $1.1-billion research hub in San Diego, designed to strengthen its world-class scientific infrastructure and drug discovery capabilities. The new complex is slated to open between 2028 and 2029. Novartiss CEO specifically pointed to the U.S. policy and regulatory environment as drivers of innovation and long-term investment in America. John Deere pledged to invest $20 billion over the next decade in American expansion, production, and manufacturing, including onshoring part of excavator production. Deere has separately said that the commitment includes manufacturing expansion, workforce development, and upgrades across more than a dozen states. The company also said it would invest $100 million into its U.S. facilities in 2025 alone. Advertisement The aviation sector is moving in the same direction. On March 9, GE Aerospace said it would invest another $1 billion in its U.S. manufacturing sites and supplier base in 2026, marking its second consecutive $1 billion U.S. investment, benefiting more than 30 communities in 17 states. In energy, Australia-based Woodside Energy Group announced what it called the largest single foreign direct investment and greenfield project in Louisiana history, committing $17.5 billion to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and export facility in Calcasieu Parish. Advertisement And in November 2025, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent showcased the first magnet to come off the assembly line from a new, 500,000-square-foot rare-earth magnet manufacturing plant built in Sumter, South Carolina, his home state. The facility is part of a broader push to loosen Chinas grip on rare earths and rare-earth magnets, which are essential to everything from fighter jets and iPhones to automobiles, medical devices, and CAT scanners. Many of these U.S.-based investments are inextricably linked to Trumps national security strategy. Semiconductor fabs, packaging plants, A.I.-server factories, pharmaceuticals, steel capacity, logistics, and energy infrastructure form an ecosystem that will help the country become more resilient in the face of shocks and competition with rivals, and those investments will help America avoid strategic extortion. In Trumps worldview, a strong nation is one that is economically independent and energy-independent. Reindustrialization is one way to help rebuild American sovereignty. Advertisement Reinvestment in American manufacturing and energy will show up over time in stronger supply chains; better paid technical work; more resilient communities; and a tax base grounded in production, not speculation. The White House calls it the Trump effect. Trumps national security policy is already showing up in trade flows. The U.S. Census Bureau announced on March 12, 2026, that the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services was $54.5 billion in January, down $18.4 billion from a revised $72.9 billion in December. Furthermore, January exports were $302.1 billion, $15.8 billion more than December exports, according to the Census Bureau. January exports of capital goods ($66.9 billion) were the highest on record. Capital goods imports also hit record highs, led by computers and telecommunications equipment. For the United States, that likely means businesses are still buying high-end equipment, a positive sign of private investment even if it also raises imports. The report also indicates that supply chains are being reorganized to shift away from China to countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, and Mexico, as well as back to the U.S. Capital projects usually take years to plan and build, and some of the listed projects, including the Sumter rare-earth magnet facility, were already underway before Trump returned to office. Even so, Trumps push to restore American manufacturing and bring jobs back home is strengthening a durable reindustrialization trend that should outlast his presidency. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. For two weeks, Ive watched U.S. strikes in Iran dominate the news with disbelief and disappointmentnot because the situation is complex, but because the coverage reflects something deeper about our country. Headlines, expert panels, and political interviews all follow the same pull: negativity, doubt, and second-guessing. Pessimism casts American action as suspect and capability as inadequate. Its as if weve forgotten who we are. Advertisement Whats striking is not that people have questionsquestions are healthy in a democracybut that so few voices seem willing to acknowledge the most basic truth about this conflict: it didnt begin last week. It began in 1979. For fortyseven years, Iran has attacked Americans, taken hostages, armed proxies, destabilized the region, and tested every administrations patience. This isnt a new enemy. This isnt an unfamiliar playbook. And it certainly isnt a situation the U.S. military is encountering for the first time. Yet if you listened only to the commentary, youd think America had stumbled blindly into a confrontation it never anticipated. Advertisement Every night, experts warn on television that the military is unprepared and that escalation is inevitable. Yet the United States has spent decades analyzing and preparing for every possible contingency with Iran. To disregard this reality is not proper analysis. Such actions represent a conscious deviation from journalistic standards, intended to influence the information presented to the American public. Advertisement Take the Strait of Hormuz. In the last few days, commentators have breathlessly suggested that the U.S. Navy might not be ready for a confrontation there. But the Fifth Fleet has operated in that region for decades. Carrier groups, destroyers, and intelligence assets have all trained specifically for Iranian tactics: swarming boats, mines, drones, and missiles. This is not unfamiliar terrain. It is one of the most-studied waterways on Earth. So when experts imply that the military is caught off guard, theyre not just wrongtheyre dismissing the professionalism of the men and women who have dedicated their lives to preparing for exactly this moment. Advertisement And thats where the frustration sets in. Beneath the commentary lies a deeper cultural shift: a loss of instinctive patriotism. Not the loud, flagwaving kind that gets caricatured, but the quiet confidence that once defined the American spiritthe belief that, despite our flaws, we are a capable nation with capable people who rise to the moment. For nearly fifty years, the U.S. military has been restrained not by lack of ability, but by political decisionsRepublican and Democrat aliketo pursue diplomacy, sanctions, and negotiations. Those efforts were made in good faith, but they did not stop Irans aggression. They did not end the attacks on Americans. They did not change the regimes ambitions. Advertisement So when President Donald Trump finally chooses a different approach, the media reacts as if the military is improvising. As if the generals havent spent their entire careers preparing for this. As if the intelligence community hasnt been tracking Irans behavior for decades. As if the United Statesthe most capable fighting force in the worldis somehow the one in over its head. Its absurd. And it reveals something uncomfortable: a portion of the political and media class has grown more comfortable criticizing America than supporting it. They speak as if American strength is dangerous, American motives are suspect, and American success is something to downplay. They use the word but as a shieldThe military is capable, butas if patriotism must always be diluted with skepticism to be respectable. Advertisement But patriotism isnt naivety. Its not blind loyalty. Its the recognition that a nation is entitled to believe in itself. That its people are permitted to trust the institutions that safeguard them. That its militarymade up of volunteers who risk everythingdeserves more than a chorus of doubt from people who have never worn the uniform. What were observing now isnt a shortage of information. Its a shortage of confidence, gratitude, and the civic instinct to support your country when it faces a hostile regime that has attacked Americans for nearly fifty years. Patriotism still lives in those who understand whats at stake. It lives in families that send their sons and daughters into harms way. It lives in communities that still believe America is worth defending. And it lives in anyone who refuses to let cynicism replace clarity. Because clarity is simple: Iran started this war in 1979. America has been preparing for it ever since. And the men and women of our military know exactly what theyre doing. The question is whether the country still remembers how to believe in them. Image created using AI. Had you told me in the late winter of 1980 that the disco hit Y.M.C.A. would some 40 years become a signature song for an American president and an anthem of Iranian revolution, I would have chuckled politely, considered you a whack-job, and looked for the nearest exit. Advertisement At that time, a collision of events, public and personal, gave me good cause to judge you as nuts. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had returned to Iran, determined to make it an Islamic state and blasting America as the Great Satan. On November 4 of that year, students sanctioned by the government stormed the U.S. embassy and took 66 people hostage, later reduced to 52, and held them captive for 444 days until Ronald Reagan became president. Moreover, my brother-in-law Tom and I had just returned to Charlottesville, Virginia from New York City, where wed rented rooms for a few days at the Vanderbilt YMCA while pursuing our dreams he as a musician, I as a writer. On the train to and from the city, the conversations we heard repeatedly referenced the hostages. During our tour of the United Nations building, located just a few minutes walk from the Y, several people brought up the hostage crisis, asking questions, which our guide brushed off or ignored. Advertisement Given what Americans saw and heard coming out of Iran, it seemed unlikely that a hit disco song, which had also been adopted by the gay movement, would ever find a warm spot in Iranian hearts. In fact, at that time, Bomb Iran, a parody of Barbara Ann, a song made popular by the Beach Boys, was a hit, with lyrics like these: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran Went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks Tell the ayatollah, gonna put you in a box, bomb Iran How times have changed. Advertisement With the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military targets, and especially since the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader responsible for tens of thousands of Iranian deaths and a supporter of Islamist terrorism worldwide, Iranians around the globe who fled this repressive regime were celebrating, often incorporating a song adopted by Donald Trump into their festivities. They defiantly shouted out YMCA and often added the Trump Bump, the restrained little dance the president made popular several years ago. The crowds carried the former Iranian flag, the U.S. flag, and even the Israeli flag. Some even celebrated outside the Israeli embassy in Berlin. Even in Tehran, the song and the Trump Bump have appeared, sometimes publicly, sometimes in the relative safety of ones home. Most moving of all about these videos is the joy seen in the faces of these crowds. Repressed for 47 years, many Iranian people both at home and abroad are celebrating what they hope is a rebirth of freedom in their country freedom both political and cultural. Great numbers of them long for a life ungoverned by mullahs and the stranglehold of Islam, though, to be fair, many others are also grieving the ayatollahs death. Advertisement Watch some of the videos, including one featuring Trump as a D.J., of these celebrations, then contrast them with those of the dour protesters, both in our American streets and in our Congress, who decry the U.S. attacks and apparently support the Iranian government despite its terrorism, murder, and repression. The comparison is chilling and sad. Meanwhile, some in the legacy media and some politicians have already condemned the Trumps administration decision to destroy the missiles and the terrorist groups that constituted a major threat to world peace. All too often, their criticisms seem aimed more at Trump the man than at the actions he takes. Again sadly, their hatred for him excludes rational argument and debate and pushes them into an alliance with Americas enemy. Advertisement Whether the Israeli and American attacks will bring regime change to Iran remains to be seen, but that countrys capabilities of launching drones and missiles at its neighbors is quickly being destroyed. Surely that can only be a positive for international relations. No matter the result of this war, what Ill remember in the days to come are those Iranians dancing joyfully to the sounds of YMCA, doing the Bump, shouting out their appreciation and gratitude to Trump and America, and showing in their shining faces the lamps lit by the promises of liberty. Advertisement Jeff Minick is a former entrepreneur and teacher who now writes for Intellectual Takeout, the Epoch Times, and other publications. He lives in Front Royal, Virginia. Image: Ninara via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Take Back Power has taken responsibility for a 'food liberation' stunt in Exeter (Take Back Power /PA Wire) An activist group has claimed responsibility for a coordinated mass shoplifting campaign across several UK cities. Members said that they "liberated boxes of food" from supermarkets to supply local food banks. Take Back Power, which identifies as a non-violent civil resistance group, said its supporters in London, Manchester, Exeter, and Truro took back food and necessities from supermarkets and redistributed them to local food banks on Saturday. The group defended its actions, saying that whats legal isnt necessarily an indication of whats moral or right, and that it was necessary for ordinary people to be stepping into action given the scale of crisis our country faces. Activists reportedly entered stores, filling boxes emblazoned with the message these things are going to those that need them. They then left the shops without paying for the produce and then redistributed these items to local food bank drop-off points, the group added. Take Back Power entered a supermarket in Truro, Cornwall (Take Back Power /PA Wire) The Metropolitan Police said no arrests had been made in London as officers were told by shop staff that a member of the group subsequently paid for the items. Take Back Power denied paying for the items, but said that activists had set up a stall that was technically still on the property of the supermarket meaning no crime was committed, because none of the produce actually ended up leaving the site. A spokesperson for Take Back Power said: Whats legal isnt necessarily an indication of whats moral or right. I accept that going into shops and taking things without paying is against the law. But I really do think that we need to be looking at what is more of a problem in society is the fact that weve got a significant number of people having to go to food banks. Activists in Truro, Cornwall (Take Back Power /PA Wire) The spokesperson added: This wont be the last of this sort of action. I think its necessary for ordinary people to be stepping into action given the scale of crisis our country faces. Take Back Power said in London that on liberating boxes of food, two supporters set up a stall outside Sainsburys in the Lewisham centre, to give the food back to the local community. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: Officers responded and spoke to staff at the shop who told them a member of the group subsequently paid for the items. We are in the process of reviewing CCTV and other evidence to verify this. A handout photo issued by Take Back Power of their stunt in London (Take Back Power /PA Wire) In Exeter, Take Back Power said five supporters who took five boxes of produce from Morrisons supermarket in Prince Charles Road were stopped by security who took away two of five boxes. The group said the remaining three boxes were successfully liberated and taken to a local food bank drop-off point. In Manchester, the group said three action takers filled boxes with food from Tesco, on Parrs Wood Lane in Didsbury and then redistributed the food to a food bank drop-off point at a local Aldi. It added that two supporters loaded boxes from the Sainsburys on Treyew Road, Truro, and left the produce at the food bank drop-off point in the same store. It comes after 15 activists from the group were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of planning a mass shoplifting campaign. Activists gathered at the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster on 5 March to take part in non-violent direct action training, the Metropolitan Police said. Activists in a Manchester supermarket (Take Back Power /PA Wire) Officers halted the meeting and 15 people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit theft. Greater Manchester Police and Devon and Cornwall Police have been approached for comment. Take Back Power has claimed it was behind a stunt which saw apple crumble and custard thrown at a display case containing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London in December. Days before that, activists from the group targeted the Ritz Hotel by emptying bags of manure next to its Christmas tree. The group has called for a citizen-led assembly that has the power to tax the rich. The new Archbishop of Canterbury will embark on an 87-mile pilgrimage from London ahead of her formal enthronement on March 25. Dame Sarah Mullally, named last year as the first woman to take the leading role, will also become the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern history to undertake the trek. Accompanied by her husband Eamonn, she will begin the journey to Canterbury on Tuesday, following the Becket Camino route from St Pauls Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral. The six-day journey, which will include stops for prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, and visits to schools and ecumenical organisations, will end on Sunday, March 22. Dame Sarah, who served as Bishop of London for almost a decade, described it as deeply humbling to be following in the footsteps of those who have walked this ancient route. Dame Sarah was Bishop of London for almost a decade (PA) For centuries, faithful pilgrims have flocked to Canterbury, and I will be reflecting on this tradition as we make our way through the Kent countryside and its towns and cities, she said. Dame Sarah will be formally installed, or enthroned, as the top bishop in the Church of England at Canterbury Cathedral on Wednesday, March 25. The Prince of Wales will represent the King at the historic ceremony. Charles is the supreme governor of the Church of England but William, his son and heir, will deputise for the head of state at the service. He will be joined by the Princess of Wales. As the ceremony marks the official start of Dame Sarahs public ministry, she will, for the first time, preach a sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally spoke with the King in the days ahead of her legal confirmation in the role (PA) Stops along her route will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral. The Dean of Canterbury, David Monteith, is expected to join for the final stretch of the journey, walking from the village of Chartham to Canterbury, and aiming to arrive in time for evensong. Dame Sarah said: Im looking forward to visiting local churches, cathedrals and holy sites along the route, and to meeting people, praying with them and hearing their stories. As I walk this path I will be praying for our Church and our world, and asking God to bless those we meet. Every Christian life is a pilgrimage, a journey with God. As I begin this new chapter in my own life and ministry, I am grateful to be walking with God and with others. Products featured in this Yahoo article are selected by our shopping writers. We will earn a commission from purchases made via links in this article. Pricing and availability are subject to change. A US road trip doesn't have to follow Route 66 (Getty/iStock) Route 66 turns 100 years old on 11 November this year. The historic American road trip route is rightly lauded for being as classic as apple pie stretching from Illinois in the east across Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and ending in California in the west, it allows drivers to see a diverse cross-section of country. But it isnt the only way to see the US. In fact, whether you want a raucous night out in New Orleans or a family trip to the Great Lakes, theres a road trip route for you. And many of them are much more of a secret than Route 66, meaning that instead of road rage, youll have the open highway to yourself. Here are some of the best alternatives to Route 66, from Scenic Byway 12 in Utah to the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada. Both Route 65 and Route 66 begin in Chicago (Getty/iStock) Get your vibe on Route 65, connecting Chicago with New Orleans They both set off from in or around Chicago, but Interstate 65 Route 66s little sister, if you like heads south instead of west and passes through four states: Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Spend some time in the Windy City, from a scenic boat cruise to a trip to the top of the Willis Tower, before aiming for Indianapolis (known for its Indy 500 motor race). Stop off for a mint julep or neat bourbon in Louisville, then take a honky tonk crawl in the original Music City, Nashville. In Alabama, try some of Americas best barbecue in Birmingham and discover the history of the civil rights movement in Montgomery. Nearly 900 miles later, youll end up in New Orleans, where you can soak up blues and jazz in the French Quarter. How to do it: Travelbag has a 19-day itinerary, including accommodation, flights and car hire, from 2,299pp. Take Americas most scenic drive, from Washington DC to North Carolina Spanning 469 miles, the Blue Ridge Parkway is known as Americas favourite drive, as well as its most scenic. This is largely because it was designed purely for beauty: stretching between Shenandoah National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it winds along the crest of the Appalachian Highlands, delivering near-constant panoramic views, all without the stress of commercial traffic. En route, there are over 250 panoramic stopping points, offering everything from sweeping valley views to rolling mountain ridges, waterfalls and wildflower meadows. You can also experience a variety of hiking trails, where you might spot anything from black bear to white-tailed deer, and make pit-stops in quaint towns such as Charlottesville, once home to Thomas Jefferson, and Roanoke, famous for the Mill Mountain Star, a vast neon landmark. How to do it: An 11-day road trip with Original Travel starts from 1,980pp, including accommodation, flights and car hire. No road trip to Utah would be complete without driving down Scenic Byway 12 (Getty/iStock) Read more: Philadelphia is the USAs ultimate city for food Explore Utahs beauty along Scenic Byway 12 No road trip to Utah would be complete without driving down Scenic Byway 12. At 124 miles long, it has everything you need for an incredible journey the way the road winds through the mighty rocks, the magnificent landscapes en route, and the smooth surface quality of the asphalt itself (very important). Designated an All-American Road (only one-third of Americas scenic byways get this distinction), it connects US 89 near Panguitch with SR 24 near Torrey. The route takes you on a journey as you climb into the Dixie National Forest, curve past Grand Staircase-Escalante, and roll alongside the shimmering red rock of Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Subalpine fir and tall aspen trees decorate the surroundings, and plenty of scenic viewpoints await. How to do it: North America Travel Service offers a 10-night motorhome itinerary, including flights, campsite fees and motorhome hire, from 1,469pp. Highway 50 is known as the 'loneliest road' (Getty/iStock) Seek out alien life in Nevada The truth is out there somewhere in the dusty desert of Nevada. Discover its Loneliest Road and the eerie Extraterrestrial Highway on a road trip where you might go for hours without seeing another living soul. Highway 50 runs from Ocean City, Maryland, to Sacramento, California and the stretch between Ely and Lake Tahoe was named by Life magazine as the loneliest Road in America. The routes wide open spaces go on for miles and miles and miles. By the time you get to Highway 375, also known as the Extraterrestrial Highway, you might be grateful just to spot a little green man. The route gets its name from its association with Area 51, a heavily guarded air force base just outside Las Vegas. No one really knows what goes on within, so perhaps this is your chance to find out. How to do it: A 12-night Nevada and the Loneliest Road trip with Bon Voyage, including flights, accommodation and car hire, starts from 2,395pp. Cannon Beach featured in the Twilight films (Getty/iStock) Read more: I visited the surprising birthplace of country music Set off on the Oregon Film Trail The states dramatic scenery has become a hotbed for movie production, and the Oregon Film Trail gives you the opportunity to explore some of its most iconic cinematic locations. From lush forests and rugged coastlines to vibrant cities and small towns, the trail offers stunning scenery with peeks into pop culture. With more than 30 locations and some of Hollywoods biggest films from Academy Award winners like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to cult classics like The Goonies its an ideal cinema-meets-nature holiday. Twilight fans will be in heaven look out for stops including Cannon Beach and St Helens and along the way youll encounter fascinating wildlife, including wild sea lions. How to do it: An eight-day trip, including accommodation, flights and car hire, starts from 2,345pp with Bon Voyage. The road takes visitors along the shore of Lake Superior (Getty/iStock) Navigate the Great Lakes Road Stretching from Chicago, Illinois, the Great Lakes Road takes you along the shores of some of Americas Great Lakes like Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron peppered with vibrant urban cities, charming small towns and breathtaking scenery. Start in Detroit, separated from Canada by the Detroit River and discover its musical history at the Motown Museum. Driving through Michigan in Mackinac County, road trippers can experience the jewel of the Great Lakes. Mackinac Island (although ironically no cars are allowed here) and marvel at the spectacular view of lush forests, limestone rock formations and sea caves, atop the Sleeping Bear Dunes. How to do it: A 14-night day trip, including accommodation and car hire, starts from 1,745 with Trailfinders. 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The Byron Bay festival has been cancelled, with its organiser owing ticket holders more than $23m. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images (Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images) Byron Bay band Parkway Drive say they are gutted and heartbroken for their community after the cancellation of the Bluesfest music festival, with its organiser owing ticket holders more than $23m after going into liquidation. The comments by the metal band, who had planned to celebrate their homecoming tour at the event over the Easter long weekend, comes as a report was being prepared for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) that shows the festival owes millions of dollars to ticket holders alone. Related: Byron Bay Bluesfest cancelled at short notice as organisers cite poor ticket sales Liquidators have warned that refunds from the companys remaining assets were unlikely. To see such an important Byron Bay community institution fall on hard times is heartbreaking, Parkway Drive said in a statement. We are gutted for the fans who made plans to come to Byron we were really looking forward to sharing that moment with you at home. Liquidator Jason Bettles of Worrells confirmed on Friday that a notification of resolution winding up the company, Bluesfest Enterprises Pty Ltd, had been lodged with Asic. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email In a statement to ticket holders, he said they could lodge a claim for the money paid to the company. At this stage it seems unlikely that you will be refunded from the liquidation any money but we will notify you if the position changes, the statement said. If you paid the company on a credit or debit card you may be entitled to have the charge reversed. Most of the festivals planned 2026 lineup including Split Enz, Erykah Badu and The Teskey Brothers have been silent about the cancellation. In many cases when organisers go into liquidation, artists have the status as unsecured creditors, with management teams typically advising their clients to hold off making public statements while legal and insurance matters are assessed. The status of international sideshows for acts like The Black Crowes and Sublime remains unknown, though the separate Split Enz 50th-anniversary tour in May, promoted by Live Nation, appears unaffected. Some paid $15,000 for tickets AAP has reported that many patrons have paid between $700 and $2,000 for tickets to festival, with some spending as much as $15,000. Under the Live Performance Australia ticketing code of practice, member organisers are expected to hold ticket proceeds in a separate trust account until the event takes place. This industry best practice is designed to ensure that if a show is cancelled, the money is sitting ready to be returned to the customer. The code is a voluntary industry standard, however. In many major festival contracts, promoters negotiate advance access to these funds to cover the massive upfront costs of running a multi-day event, including artist deposits, site logistics and insurance. Once those funds are released from the ticketing agent (in Bluesfests case, Moshtix) to the promoter (Bluesfest Enterprises), they are no longer protected by a trust. Because it looks likely the money has already been spent on the festivals mounting operational costs, ticket holders have been reclassified by the liquidator as unsecured creditors. The liquidation follows a controversial campaign where the 2025 festival was marketed as the final curtain call. I bought weight loss jabs on social media this is why I regret it Weight loss jabs users who bought illegitimate skinny jabs on social media have warned against using doses of unknown drugs as experts have sounded the alarm on life threatening symptoms that could occur. Keeley from south London wanted to lose a stone after having a child, but wasnt prepared to pay for a Mounjaro prescription. The 39-year-old, who works in aesthetics, saw an advert on Facebook offering skinny jabs for 35 a week and contacted the seller who was a beauty therapist to arrange a delivery. It was such a stupid thing to do. It was just sent in the post inside an insulin needle, she told The Independent. It was just a homemade thing, when I look back I think I had no idea where it actually came from. I could have died. Keeley said the syringes arrived in a non-branded wrapper enclosed with tissue and a simple instruction on how to inject it. Keeley from south London saw an advert on Facebook offering skinny jabs for 35 a week (Keeley) An image sent to Keeley by the seller shows a small vial of liquid with the words skinny jab and Ozempic weekly injections on the bottle. In another message she was reassured that the drugs were safe and instructed her to pop the cap off and away you go. After taking the drug for just a week in February 2023 she started to experience side effects. In the first week I had headaches and stomach ache, the second week nothing happened at all and I am not sure if there was even anything in the syringe but water. After that I stopped taking it because I thought it wasnt actually safe, she explained. Keeleys sister also tried the cheap weight loss drugs and recalled having stomach aches that felt like acid in her stomach. An image sent to Keeley by the seller over Facebook messenger shows a small vial of liquid with the words skinny jab and Ozempic weekly injections on the bottle (Keeley) Jimmy Stone, a 34-year-old property manager from Windsor, used weight loss jabs he had bought on TikTok for two months after a company approached him about becoming a brand ambassador. He started taking what he believes was Retatrutide in late 2025. The weight loss drug is currently undergoing clinical trials. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, who make the drugs, said it is not licensed anywhere in the world. Mr Stone didnt have a consultation and when it arrived the packaging was labeled with Aluvi, which is not the maker of Retatrutide. It burnt the fat around my stomach and I wasn't really doing much exercise, but I did get really bad heartburn, Mr Stone said. Jimmy Stone, a 34-year-old property manager from Windsor used weight loss jabs he had bought on TikTok for two months (Jimmy Stone) After purchasing the drug the website went down and rebranded about three times, Mr Stone claimed which made him suspicious the TikTok site was a scam. You don't know what's in it, they could be filling it with anything. I just think it's a bit of a scam, he added. Weight loss drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists work by mimicking the natural hormone which regulates blood sugar, appetite and digestion. But like many drugs, there are possible side effects including nausea and diarrhoea, according to guidance by NICE. However, buying weight loss drugs from illegitimate sources exposes users to severe and life threatening side effects Dr Kasim Usmani, a private GP based in Surrey told the Independent. He explained the side effects of Retatrutide, made by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, are unknown because it is still being tested. Retatrutide is currently undergoing clinical trials and is currently unlicensed (Jimmy Stone) We are seeing some promising outcomes with clinical trials of Retatrutide, but it needs to be further investigated to seek clinical safety for human use, he said. We have no idea if in the long term it increases risk of cancer, pancreatitis or certain types of gastrointestinal disorders. Buying weight loss drugs from unknown sellers on social media comes with a host of risks, the drug may be out of date or not stored properly, he explained. The person dispensing it isn't always a trained professional, so they don't know what they're doing, Dr Usmani stressed. He advises to only buy weight loss drugs through legitimate sources, such as a pharmacy or GP that are regulated and have a license. When the product arrives, check that it is in professional packaging and that the liquid in the formulation isn't cloudy, Dr Usmani said. If it doesn't come with any instructions on how to use it, store it or best routine management, that's again a red flag, he added. An MHRA Spokesperson said: Retatrutide is in clinical development and has not been approved for UK use. Outside of authorised clinical trials, any products being sold in the UK that claim to contain Retatrutide are likely to be illegal and are potentially dangerous to your health. MHRA explained weight loss drugs are prescription-only and only available via a doctor or qualified healthcare professional. Sourcing medications from unregulated supplies will not meet the MHRAs strict safety and quality standards and could be dangerous. Eli Lilly explained the drug is only available in their clinical trial and has not been approved by a regulator. A spokesperson said: No one can legally sell it for human use. Counterfeit and black market medicines are untested, unregulated and potentially dangerous in some cases, deadly. Patients deserve safe, effective and clinically tested medicines, not harmful knock offs. Meta explained it removes content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, donate or gift weight loss products. TikTok was approached by the Independent but did not comment. It said their community guidelines are clear that they dont allow trading, marketing, or providing access to regulated, prohibited, or high-risk goods and services such as products marketed for weight loss or muscle gain. Smart Latch (left) ended up being served in a Turkish soup kitchen - Newsflash A champion racehorse was slaughtered and served to unwitting diners in a Turkish soup kitchen. Smart Latch, a four-year-old thoroughbred mare, was retired in October last year after she suffered a leg injury during a race in Adana, southern Turkey. She was then donated to a local riding club, Suat Topcu, her owner, said. However, her microchip was found in food a dish called kavurma normally made of fried beef or lamb at a council-run restaurant in the southern city of Mersin last month. One diner had complained about finding something in his food, with agriculture ministry investigators discovering it was a microchip belonging to the animal. The meat contained a microchip belonging to Smart Latch - Newsflash Horse slaughter for meat is prohibited in Turkey, especially for registered racehorses, which are typically protected or rehomed. Details emerged only after a March 12 ministry update, which said the kavurma from Mersin Metropolitan Municipalitys soup kitchen had been added to the list of unsafe products after testing showed it contained meat from a single-hoofed animal a horse, donkey or mule. Officials later traced the chip to the horse and fined Mr Topcu 132,000 Turkish lira (2,300) for not formally reporting the donation. The horse is said to have run 13 times during an 18-month career, winning three races. Suat Topcu, the horses owner, said that he understood she was being sent to a riding club - Newsflash Mr Topcu said: The fine is not important, whats important is finding those who committed this cruelty. He said he had arranged to have her donated to the riding club, using a local transporter he knew, but had no idea what happened to the mare until he was contacted by the agriculture ministry. Investigators believe the meat was falsely labelled as beef then sold to the company that supplies the municipality. In response, the council said the meat used had been sourced in line with the necessary regulations. Two weeks into this war and it is clearer than ever that Donald Trump miscalculated. It did not seem to occur to him that bombing Iran would raise gasoline prices in the United States, even though it is a net exporter of petroleum. If he was warned that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz, he ignored it. Nor does he seem to have considered the possibility that an oil supply crisis would strengthen Vladimir Putin indeed, that it might throw him a lifeline just as Russias economic burden of sustaining the war in Ukraine was becoming intolerable. After 14 days of strikes on Iran, accompanied by boasts and threats that the war is either over or going to go on for a long time, the US presidents reasons for launching military action are still no clearer. Mr Trump continues to blow hot and cold, now calling for other countries to send warships an abrupt change in tone since he said he did not need help from the British, accusing us of seeking to join wars after weve already won. If there had been evidence that the Iranian regime was about to acquire a nuclear weapon, the Israeli people would have been entitled to defend themselves against the threat to their existence, and their allies would have had a duty to assist them. No such evidence has been presented, either by the Israeli government or by the US administration, which used bunker buster bombs in June in what it declared at the time was a successful blow against the regimes nuclear programme. It seems more likely that President Trumps main reason for joining the Israeli strikes was that he believed the Iranian regime was about to fall. If that had been true, it might have been worth considering whether airstrikes would have helped to liberate the Iranian people. They have suffered under the theocratic dictatorship and were looking to the international community for support in throwing off its yoke. But when Mr Trump said help is on its way, it seems that he was offering false hope, because he had no plan to protect Iranian protesters from the regimes murderous suppression. Even if the regime had been about to collapse, it is not obvious that military action from outside would bring it about sooner or ensure security and stability afterwards. Even Mr Trump, who presented himself as an anti-war president, should have known from the experience of Iraq that the removal of a tyrannical regime is no guarantee of an end to bloodshed and there, the US has thousands of troops on the ground. As it is, the Iranian regime has proved more resilient than Mr Trump seems to have expected. The decapitation tactic of assassinating the supreme leader seems to have turned out as we warned it would. It has succeeded only in replacing an ageing hardliner with a younger, more extreme hardliner. As we report, Iran has told Abu Dhabi and Dubai to clear their ports, which suggests that the US attack on Kharg Island, far from persuading Tehran to pull back, is provoking further escalation. With the two-week war already hitting Americans in their pockets, it is as well for Mr Trump that he does not have to face the voters again. The sudden silence and low visibility of vice president JD Vance, who hopes to succeed Mr Trump, speaks volumes of the popularity of this conflict. We suspect that Mr Trump is driven by an ambition beyond vote-maximisation; that he believes his own propaganda about bringing peace to the world, and that he is looking for his place in history. That is the only explanation that makes sense of his choices, misguided as they may be. He wants to make peace in Ukraine, unaware that appeasing President Putin is prolonging the war. He wants to make peace in the Middle East, and was persuaded by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that the ayatollahs house of cards needed just a puff of high explosive to come tumbling down. Instead, he has intensified the forever war in the region, and embroiled America more deeply in it. As Bel Trew reports from Lebanon and Donald Macintyre reports from the West Bank, Israels confrontation with Iran is part of a wider campaign of assertiveness. Two weeks on, Sir Keir Starmers wisdom in staying out of the conflict, except for limited and lawful defensive action, has been vindicated. Mr Trumps folly in mistaking war for peace has been exposed. Donald Trump has pleaded for the UK and its allies to send warships to the embattled Strait of Hormuz in an effort to break Irans blockade of the key oil shipping route. Piling pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to deepen his involvement in the escalating conflict, the US president urged Britain and other nations including France, China and Japan to send warships to the area to protect oil tankers from Iranian attacks. The narrow waterway has been gripped by conflict after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had taken complete control of the passage, through which a fifth of the worlds oil passes. It is now effectively closed, stemming the flow of oil out of the Middle East, grinding trade in the region to a halt and pushing up energy prices across the globe. The UK government said it was discussing a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region. In a post on his Truth Social website, Mr Trump said: Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the strait open and safe. Donald Trump has urged a number of countries to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz (Getty) We have already destroyed 100 per cent of Irans military capability, but its easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. In what appeared to be an appeal to the UK and other nations, he added: Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated. Mr Trump struck a markedly different tone from when, earlier this month, he accused Sir Keir of joining the conflict after the US had already claimed victory, suggesting the US no longer needed UK assistance. The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East, Mr Trump wrote earlier in March. Thats OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we dont need them any longer But we will remember. We dont need people that join Wars after weve already won! The relationship between Mr Trump and Sir Keir has become increasingly fractious in recent months, a breakdown which began over US opposition to the UKs deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and the presidents threats to annex Greenland, but has only escalated since the outbreak of war with Iran. Keir Starmer confirmed this week that Britain wont be following the US in lifting sanctions on Russian oil At the start of the conflict, Mr Trump criticised the prime minister after he initially declined permission for the US to use UK bases to target Irans missile launchers. While the prime minister later allowed the use of joint UK-US bases for defensive strikes, Mr Trump nonetheless lambasted his relationship with Britain under Sir Keir, saying he is very sad to see it is obviously not what it was. The rift deepened this week, when the prime minister confirmed that Britain wont be following the US in lifting sanctions on Russian oil, saying the move risks helping Vladimir Putins war machine. No 10 instead urged its international allies to maintain pressure on Moscow, and to avoid inadvertently funding Putins war in Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. In his latest post, Mr Trump vowed to continue bombing the hell out of the shoreline of the country until the shipping lane was reopened, adding that the US would be continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water. Smoke rises from the direction of an energy installation in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah on 14 March (AFP/Getty) He added: One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE! Some 3,000 ships usually sail through the Strait of Hormuz each month. But numerous vessels have come under fire as they attempted to pass through since the start of the conflict. Motjaba Khamenei, Irans new supreme leader, vowed to keep blocking it as a means of pressuring the US in his first public statement this week. Mr Trumps comments came on another dramatic day in the Middle East conflict, which began two weeks ago when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Earlier on Saturday, a fire broke out at the Fujairah port in the UAE, which had been targeted in an Iranian drone strike, forcing the facility to suspend part of its operations. It is one of the Middle Easts largest oil storage hubs, heightening concerns over already-surging oil prices. The Fujairah media office said the blaze was sparked by debris from a drone intercepted by air defences and that no injuries were reported. Trump releases video showing apparent strike on Kharg Island (Donald Trump/Truth Social) Shortly after, Tehran warned residents living near three UAE ports Jebel Ali in Dubai, Khalifa in Abu Dhabi and the Fujairah port to evacuate the areas, according to Iranian state media. The residents were told that the ports were being used by the US military and may be targeted in the coming hours. Jebel Ali is the busiest port in the Middle East. Iranian forces had threatened to expand strikes to US allies in the region after the US hit the countrys crucial Kharg Island overnight. The island accounts for about 90 per cent of Irans oil exports. Mr Trump claimed the US had totally obliterated every military target in Irans crown jewel and called the operation one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East. Irans military responded and warned that any attack on its oil and energy infrastructure would prompt strikes on facilities owned by oil companies in the region cooperating with the US, Iranian media reported. US embassy personnel inspect the damage caused by a bombing in Baghdad on Saturday, 14 March (AP) The US embassy in Baghdad was also struck by a missile in the aftermath of the attack on Kharg Island, according to Iraqi security officials. Plumes of black smoke were seen rising above the building after the attack hit a helipad in the compound on Saturday. Drones are reported to have struck the building. Three Iran-backed fighters were also killed in strikes on Baghdad, according to reports. It comes as the US deploys thousands of troops and more warships to the Middle East as Iran steps up its fight in the Strait of Hormuz. An MoD spokesperson said: As weve said previously, we are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region. The National Rally candidate, Franck Allisio, has run on promises to restore order to the citys streets. Photograph: Theo Giacometti/The Guardian (Photograph: Theo Giacometti/The Guardian) Nathalie, a market trader in her 40s, had woken early to prepare a pan of paella rice. She was spooning it into tubs at a market in southern Marseille last week when a crowd of far-right canvassers approached, promising cleaner and safer streets if she voted for them in the local elections. Our cash tin was stolen right here at Christmas time, Nathalie said. Ive had a bag stolen too. It tends to happen at the end of the day, around 7pm. I worry for the elderly grandmas. I had a necklace ripped off me in the city centre once. Nathalie said she usually voted for the traditional right but felt Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally (RN) was now a good choice. Weve never tried them, so now we can give them a chance. I hope they can do something on security, she said. Suzanne, 80, a retired pharmacist doing her shopping in a southern neighbourhood of the Mediterranean port city said she had also spent a lifetime supporting the conservative parties of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, but, like many of her affluent neighbours, was shifting to the far right. Ive never voted RN before, but Im going to try it, she said. They are more energetic and efficient than the others. On Sunday, France will vote in the first round of local elections seen as a test of the political temperature ahead of next years crucial presidential election. With Emmanuel Macrons two terms in office coming to an end, it is uncertain who will head Europes second-largest economy. With its multicultural history of immigration and 5 million tourists a year, Marseille, Frances second city, has become a key focus of the campaign after its leftwing mayor, Benoit Payan, warned the far right was polling so high it could take city hall. If Marseille falls into the RNs hands, it would be an earthquake for France, said Payan, whose Printemps Marseillais group, a leftwing coalition including Socialists and Greens, won the city in 2020 after 25 years of the traditional right. Victory is possible, said Jordan Bardella, the RN party head and potential 2027 presidential candidate, as he toured Marseille last week. The RN has focused on municipal policing and security in the face of Marseilles deadly drug-trafficking gangs, which the far-right has likened to a South American-style mini narco-state. This is about bringing back order, said Franck Allisio, the RNs mayoral candidate as he canvassed in Marseilles southern 9th arrondissement. Allisio, 45, a member of parliament for a constituency west of Marseille, was a ministerial adviser on the traditional right during Sarkozys presidency, before joining Le Pen in 2015. His suggestions for Marseille include a special timed-access pass to local beaches for families and older people, designed to keep out delinquents ... listening to loud music and smoking joints. That the RN is the main opposition challenger in Marseille for the March vote is significant because French local elections particularly in large cities are not typically the far rights strength. For the past 20 years, the biggest city run by the RN has been Perpignan, near the Spanish border, with a population of 121,000. Winning Marseille, with a population of almost 900,000, would be hailed by the party as a step towards taking the French presidency next year. But Marseille unlike Paris has been building a sizeable far-right vote for many years. In the 2024 snap general election, the RN and its far-right allies tripled their seats in Marseille, winning three of the citys seven parliament positions. Marseille remains one of the most segregated cities in France, with a large income gap between its wealthy neighbourhoods and the low-income communities on high-rise estates or in decaying city centre buildings. More than one in four people in Marseille live below the poverty line. More than 13% of main residences are classed as slums. Politicians on all sides are describing the close mayoral race as a battle for Marseilles identity. Historically the city has welcomed immigration from north Africa, Italy, Armenia and Comoros; it has a large Muslim community and one of the biggest urban populations of Jewish people in Europe. The left says the RN is an anti-immigration party that is racist and xenophobic and at odds with the city. The leftwing city hall recently renamed a boulevard in honour of Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Marseille high school student who was shot dead on his way home from a rap rehearsal in 1995 by an activist putting up posters for Jean-Marie Le Pens Front National, since renamed as the RN. In northern Marseille, the densely populated 13th and 14th arrondissements are made up of a patchwork of historic village-style neighbourhoods and high-rise housing estates. Like Paris, Marseille has a city mayor, and several smaller district mayors. In this area, the far-right Stephane Ravier won the district mayor position for the Front National in 2014 and held the position until 2017. He was convicted on appeal this year for an illegal conflict of interest in hiring his son to the mayors office and is now appealing to Frances highest court. His niece, Sandrine DAngio, who took over from him and was also convicted of favouritism in office, denies the charges, and is appealing against the verdict. She is currently the local candidate for the RN. The RN already ran this sector of Marseille daily life didnt get better, on the contrary it got worse, said Tina Biard-Sansonetti, candidate for district mayor for Printemps Marseillais. Agnes, a local childminder and centrist voter, said: Theres feeling of disgust towards all politicians in general that could affect voter turn-out. Mohamed Arouel, 21, a law student, who grew up here, is running as a councillor for Printemps Marseillais. The RNs values are the absolute antithesis of this very mixed neighbourhood, he said. He felt it was crucial that younger voters did not abstain. The Marseille mayoral race reflects broader problems across France, namely access to public services. Five years ago, Macron announced the state would invest 5bn (4.3bn) into a special Marseille plan to address gaps in services, including the citys dangerously dilapidated school buildings and patchy public transport, as well as police and justice resources against drug crime. Printemps Marseillais says 27 schools have been built or fully renovated, while the municipal police have been doubled to 700 officers. The RN is far from certain to win Marseille. Much depends on who makes the second round runoff, and whether Payans left would come to an understanding with Jean-Luc Melenchons radical left La France Insoumise to take an anti-RN position. The RN has benefited so far from a poor campaign by the traditional right. But Marseille is just one of several southern French towns and cities targeted by the far-right. Along the coast, in Nice, Frances fifth biggest city, Eric Ciotti, who quit as leader of the traditional rights party, Les Republicains (LR), to join forces with Le Pen in 2024, is hoping to win the city from his bitter rival and one-time rightwing ally, Christian Estrosi. Vincent Martigny, professor of politics at Cote dAzur University, said a key factor in Marseille and Nice was a union of the right and far right coming from grassroots voters. Voters from Les Republicains party whose party leadership has taken positions that are increasingly radical and closer to the RN are thinking: Theres no problem voting RN because in any case the LR leadership for the past decade has been very strongly radicalising, so were pretty close on the most important issues. Martigny cautioned that local votes reflected local issues, not national political ideology, but said the RN would describe any potential Nice or Marseille win as a sign of a national dynamic or stepping stone to the presidency. Back in northern Marseille, Monique Cordier, a former teacher and optician canvassing for Marseilles leftwing mayor, said: An RN win is not at all a given. I frankly dont think theyll win. Its not in the Marseille mentality to be racist. Students and their families are living in fear of racial harassment and violence amid "provocative nationalism," the boss of the headteachers' union will caution. Pepe DiIasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), is set to voice concerns regarding the rhetoric of some politicians on immigration and the divisive role of social media platforms. This warning follows an ASCL survey revealing that over a third (36%) of school and college leaders have reported students or teachers enduring racial harassment during their journeys to and from school. The union's intervention comes as the government recently unveiled a social cohesion strategy aimed at promoting integration, combating religious hatred and curbing extremist influences. In his speech at ASCLs annual conference, Mr DiIasio is expected to say: I worry when I see some politicians speaking about immigration as a problem that needs to be solved, indulging in some sort of arms race about how tough they are going to be on those who come to our country seeking asylum. I worry when I see flags tied to lampposts, as we did last summer, something which seems more like a brand of provocative nationalism than of proud patriotism. And I worry about the role that social media platforms play in amplifying these divisions, allowing people with strong views to retreat into echo chambers where those views are endlessly reinforced. I recognise that others may have a different view. They may feel this is merely a case of citizens exercising their right to free speech and airing matters of legitimate concern. ASCL General Secretary Pepe Di'Iasio during the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) conference, right, with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson (Peter Byrne/PA Wire) But I would encourage everyone to take care with the language they use. Words and actions have consequences in the real world. They create an environment in which we see many of our students, staff and families living in fear, and facing racial harassment or even violence. An ASCL survey of 567 school and college leaders found more than one in three (38%) said their students and staff were worried about them or their families being at risk from racial harassment or attack over the past year. One in 10 (11%) said the harassment students or staff have experienced on the way to or from school has involved physical attacks. Asked whether she agreed with concerns about divisions, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told reporters: I believe were a tolerant, diverse nation, where we have shared values and where we celebrate our national identity. That should be inclusive, we should all be able to celebrate our national identity, the flags that represent the nations of our union, and thats important. Mr Di'Iasio said he worries when he sees flags tied to lampposts (PA Wire) And schools of course have an important role to play in making sure that young people are well-equipped for the world to come and emerge from school as involved citizens. Headteachers responding to the survey cited tensions fuelled by social media, anti-immigration rhetoric and campaigns to display St George flags as causing them concern. Two in five (40%) said racist incidents affecting students and teachers have increased over the past year compared with the previous one. Social media platforms must take more responsibility for policing sites and removing toxic content, Mr DiIasio is expected to say. If they are not going to do that voluntarily, they should be made to do so through regulation, he will add. Most heads (90%) said stronger social media platform regulation could help address racist attitudes and behaviour, and more care taken in the language politicians use about immigration (83%). The Government has launched a consultation on keeping children safe online, inviting views on whether there should be an Australia-style ban on children from using social media, and at what age this could begin. However, MPs voted earlier in the week to reject an amendment to the Childrens Wellbeing and Schools Bill backed by peers to ban social media for under-16s. A man fatally shot by Dallas police late Wednesday night during a standoff was a security guard for U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett, sources told CBS News Texas. Known publicly as Mike King, the man had a history of using aliases while operating a business that placed officers in off-duty jobs, according to multiple law enforcement sources speaking to the outlet. The confrontation took place inside a parking garage at Childrens Health Hospital, where King was wanted on an active arrest warrant for allegedly impersonating a police officer. According to police, the standoff escalated when King barricaded himself inside a vehicle. Officers deployed tear gas to force him out, and he reportedly pulled a gun on them, prompting SWAT to open fire, killing him. Dallas Police Departments fugitive unit was conducting an investigation at 11 p.m. Wednesday when officers across a target that ended up being a barricaded suspect, according to chief Daniel Comeaux. A man known as Mike King, who served on the security detail for US Rep Jasmine Crockett (pictured) and had an active arrest warrant for impersonating a law enforcement officer, was shot and killed by police during a standoff March 11 (Getty Images) After officers deployed tear gas, he came out of the vehicle, he had a gun, and he pointed a gun towards officers, Comeaux said. Officers shot and fired, he added. At that, we had the Dallas SWAT doctor render aid. He was pronounced dead at the scene. While running Off Duty Police Services, a platform that connects North Texas officers with off-duty work, King reportedly misrepresented himself as a law enforcement officer, authorities said. His real name has not been made public. Photos obtained by CBS News Texas show King frequently standing near Crockett at public events and during her recent Texas Democratic Senate primary campaign. King also managed teams of security officers at multiple downtown Dallas hotels and at his church, sources told CBS News. He also allegedly drove a replica undercover police vehicle and used license plates stolen from cars outside a military recruiting office. Documents obtained by the outlet indicate that a person using the name Mike King was paid by Crocketts office for security services as recently as last year. The Dallas Police Department declined the outlets request for comment. The Independent has requested comment from the Dallas Police Department and Crocketts office. Crockett, a civil rights attorney in her second term in the House whose sharp remarks on Capitol Hill often go viral, has not publicly addressed the incident. Her office reportedly declined CBS News Texas request for comment on her relationship to King. Texas state Rep. James Talarico defeated the congresswoman in the Democratic primary election for a Texas seat in the U.S. Senate earlier this month. Crockett conceded the race and urged voters to get behind Talarico, saying this is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. Im committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, he said in a statement. People checking in for a flight to London at Biarritz airport in France. Some people had had to change their travel plans before the U-turn was announced. Photograph: Bob Edme/AP (Photograph: Bob Edme/AP) British dual nationals who are EU citizens with post-Brexit settlement status in the UK will not have to use a British passport to return to the UK, the Home Office has said in a significant U-turn on its controversial dual national border rules. The change, which critics say was hidden away on a government webpage, comes weeks after controversy erupted over the new rules that came into effect on 25 February. They require British dual nationals to present a British passport or certificate of entitlement, costing 589, before they board a plane to the UK. Thousands of people have been affected by the rules, including EU citizens with settlement status in the UK who had successfully applied for citizenship but had not yet received British passports. They were effectively locked out of the country, but are now free to return on their EU passport. An updated Home Office citizenship webpage states: If you got British citizenship after settling in the UK under the EU settlement scheme, you can travel to the UK using a valid: passport of your other nationality; [or] national identity card from the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland. Jelena, a Latvian-British dual national who learned of the rule change on a social media post by the campaign group the3million said she was absolutely devastated and angry that the rule change was only being made now. Last September, she and her British husband had booked a trip of a lifetime to South America for the end of March and her plans had already been disrupted at great financial and emotional cost. A chartered surveyor, she completed her British citizenship test in November and has yet to get a passport, but did not want to miss the trip. After discussing it with her firm, where she is an associate director, the couple decided to go ahead with the holiday but she would return to Latvia rather than the UK and wait there for up to 24 weeks for her British passport to arrive. I was meant to be excited about the upcoming holiday, but instead I had to stress about this and rearrange travel, she said. I have already spent 2,000 on the naturalisation process, and the certificate is an extra 600, and as it stood, after South America I wouldnt be able to return to my flat which we own in a country I have lived in for nearly 16 years, she said. Jelena received an email two days ago saying she no longer needed to show a British passport to enter the UK. I dont really understand how people were meant to know about these changes, she said, adding she was pleased the Home Office had seen sense but that the experience had left a bitter aftertaste. The3million welcomed the rule change but criticised the Home Office for not communicating it widely. The campaign group was notified of the change in an email on 10 March. It said the rule change was hidden away on a gov.uk site about citizenship but not on the main page detailing the new border rules for dual nationals. We are really pleased that this change will help those who faced an effective travel ban following their naturalisation ceremony, said Monique Hawkins, the head of policy and advocacy. But it is so disappointing that these changes come without any consultation, and several weeks too late. The changes are hidden away on obscure Home Office pages. People are hearing about it from us, rather than from the government. Hawkins pointed out the rule change did not apply to British nationals in the EU who had naturalised post-Brexit, or EU citizens in the UK who had naturalised before the EU settlement scheme was available or people with Windrush independent leave to remain status. Another woman, Florence, missed out on a trip on 28 February to see her elderly and frail father in France because she had naturalised but was waiting for her passport. My husband went without me to France to see the family while I applied for the British passport. The ferry ticket had to be amended and obviously cost more. I stayed here and went to work instead, Florence said. Now, I hear that the government has made a U-turn. Why now? There was plenty of evidence back on the 25th [of February] that people would be stuck, she said. The migration minister, Mike Tapp, called the criticism of the Home Offices communications absurd during an urgent question debate the day after the dual national change was introduced. The Home Office did not explain the reason for the recent update when approached. A Home Office spokesperson said: Rules for dual nationals to prove they can enter the UK were laid out publicly in October 2024 and havent changed since. The rules for settled status remain the same: carriers expect to see your digital immigration status when travelling to the UK. Weight loss drug maker Novo Nordisk states it is concerned at the rise in counterfeit drugs (PA) (PA Wire) Weight loss jabs are being sold casually in pubs and fish and chip shops across London, according to a new report. Papers presented to the London Assembly's health committee show personal trainers are offering clients boxes of weight loss medication. Although some products may be genuine, they are not being legally prescribed, while other counterfeit products are also found to be on the market which could cause "serious risks to people's health", The Daily Mail reports. Neha Ramaiya, of the General Pharmaceutical Council, gave evidence before the committee that suppliers from the EU and European Economic Area (EEA) can legally send prescriptions to the UK, due to a loophole "that is not being regulated". Ms Ramaiya warned the consequences of these medicines could be "potentially life-threatening", while Wegovy manufacturer Novo Nordisk told Assembly members that fake medicines are a "serious and growing threat to public health". The Daily Mail reports that an investigation in November found some beauticians were exploiting rising interest in weight loss jabs by selling potentially lethal products to ill-informed patients. It is also suspected products from outside the UK are being imported to bypass regulations. Sukhi Basra from the National Pharmacy Association said patients described being asked if they wanted a "skinny jab" from the likes of facial therapists, hairdressers and personal trainers. One patient sent her an image of a personal trainer "showing her a box of fake skinny jabs and he was offering it to her openly". Border officials seized 18,000 illegal and counterfeit weight loss and diabetes medicines from January 2024 and June 2025. But some products may still evade the law. It is also claimed that labs in China are creating imitation weight loss drugs to be sold for as little as 1.50 per vial, which can then be bought in bulk by dealers. Last month, nearly 2,000 doses of fake weight loss medication was seized by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), just hours before the could be sent to customers. Two properties in Lincolnshire and Nottingham were raided by the agency's criminal enforcement team following a tip-off about a criminal gang involved in producing and selling weight loss treatments. The healthcare centre in Burj Qalaouiyah, southern Lebanon, after an Israeli strike killed 12 medical staff. Photograph: Kawnat Haju/AFP/Getty Images (Photograph: Kawnat Haju/AFP/Getty Images) Israel killed 12 medical workers in a strike on a medical centre in south Lebanon on Friday night, bringing the toll of healthcare staff killed in the country by Israel to 31 over the past 12 days. A primary healthcare facility in the town of Burj Qalaouiyah was hit by an Israeli strike late on Friday, setting it ablaze and causing the structure to collapse on top of the staff inside. The strike killed doctors, paramedics and nurses on duty, according to the Lebanese ministry of health, which said it violated all international humanitarian laws in a statement. Human rights groups have said that any attacks on medical workers are a war crime, regardless of their political affiliation. Commenting on the deaths of the 12 medical workers and two paramedics killed earlier in the day in an attack on a health facility in Al Sowana, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: The killings in the last 24 hours of 14 health workers in southern Lebanon mark a tragic development in the escalating Middle East crisis. Israel has carried out at least 37 attacks against healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, including against the state civil defence and Lebanese Red Cross, since the current hostilities began, Lebanese authorities said. The war in Lebanon started on 2 March after Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel, triggering a swift Israeli bombing campaign across the country. Fighting has since escalated, with Hezbollah continuing its rocket fire and Israeli troops invading south Lebanon. At least 826 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes, according to the ministry of health, and about 1 million have been displaced. On Saturday morning, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee accused Hezbollah of using ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes, and said that Israeli forces would act in accordance with international law if Hezbollah did not stop. The spokesperson gave no credible evidence for his claim. The Lebanese ministry of health denied the Israeli armys claim that ambulances are being used for military purposes, calling it nothing more than a justification for the crimes it is committing against humanity, in a statement. During the 13-month Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, Israel also accused Hezbollah of using ambulances for military purposes, again without credible evidence. It also killed 408 healthcare workers. Israel was accused of war crimes for its attacks on Gazas healthcare facilities during its two-year war on the strip by a UN commission of inquiry. A top prosecutor at the international criminal court said in 2024 that claims about the presence of Hamas fighters in hospitals in Gaza under siege by Israels military have been grossly exaggerated. Gazas healthcare system has been largely destroyed by sustained Israeli attacks. Humanitarian groups have warned the accusation by the Israeli military that Hezbollah is using healthcare centres for military purposes could be used as a justification for further attacks on such facilities in Lebanon. Under international humanitarian law, medical workers, regardless of political affiliation, are considered civilians and enjoy protected status. A police officer stands guard in front of the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where one of two mass shootings perpetrated by an Australian terrorist occurred during Friday prayers on 15 March 2019. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP (Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP) When he was 14, a boy in South Australia downloaded more than a dozen videos of the terrorist attack committed by an Australian man on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. He was sentenced in 2025 for possessing documents with information for terrorist acts and extremist material, according to the magistrates remarks, which included having the shooters manifesto on his devices. Two years earlier, a 16-year-old in South Australia was sentenced for several terrorism offences. The judge commented on his activities on the chat platform Discord, which included sharing material from Islamic State and modern-day Nazi groups, as well as death scenes, including images of the Christchurch killings that left 51 people dead. Related: I survived the Christchurch terror attack - the government is in danger of forgetting us | Temel Atacocugu As a journalist whose job includes tracking such cases, it is always confronting to see the Christchurch terrorists propaganda continue to surface in the Australian legal system, especially in cases involving young people. Courts have heard about animated recreations of the Christchurch mosque shooting; about police finding the attackers video on a red USB storage device. But this growing legal record and the continued reach of the Christchurch attack is at odds with how the man who committed the atrocity an Australian is confronted in his home country. That is, hardly at all. In 2020, the terrorist pleaded guilty to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders, and engaging in a terrorist act. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. New Zealand held a royal commission. With a coronial inquiry still under way, New Zealand continues to confront what happened that day, and to ask what could have prevented it. In Australia, meanwhile, there has been little public accounting of what, if anything, could have been done here to identify the terrorist or stop the attack despite the terrorists known interactions with local far-right groups. Australians care about what happened at Christchurch, says Rita Jabri Markwell, legal advisor to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, but the countrys leaders have failed to help us remember it together. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email To grieve what happened, together. And that grieving is so important, because it validates our shared humanity, she says. In the US too, court records show the terrorist, his manifesto and the digital propaganda of his livestreamed attack on the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre remain pervasive. When Dallas Humber, one of the leaders of the white supremacist Terrorgram network, was charged in 2024 for soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials, among other offences, the indictment detailed how she helped create a publication that celebrated white supremacist attackers as heroes of the white race. Their so-called Saint Encyclopedia had stills from the livestreamed massacre in the document. Humber was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and Terrorgram has since been listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. Hank Teran, chief executive of Open Measures, an open-source threat intelligence and social media research platform, also tracks the spread of such material. He suggested the terrorists propaganda continues to be spread because it was intentionally framed under the guise of the great replacement conspiracy theory: the claim that there is a plot to take over white European countries with immigrants or generally, the other. In the Christchurch context, that other was Muslims, Teran says. The Poway synagogue shooting in California a few weeks after the Christchurch shooting, it was Jews. The El Paso shooting in Texas, it was Latinx. For Teran, the public response cant just be content moderation or de-platforming, or even age restriction on social media and hoping it all goes away. Related: How neo-Nazis used the shield of ordinary mums and dads anti-immigration rallies to sell white supremacy Its more about disrupting that pipeline from passive exposure to active planning, he says. That typically requires some proactive education amongst parents, community stakeholders to understand the intricacies of some of these complicated communities that theyre likely not in on a regular basis. The significance of the Christchurch terrorists roots in Australia are still not properly recognised or addressed, says Jabri Markwell, even as the Muslim community continues to be painted by politicians and others in positions of power as a group to fear or hate. He was socialised in his attitudes growing up in Australia, she says. A lot of his online activity was in Australia. A lot of the hate that he developed happened in Australia. Those views are not shaped in a few weeks, they are shaped over years. There has been no accountability since that horrible day for the role that official language had in that Australians radicalisation. Alaa Elzokm, imam of Elsedeaq Heidelberg mosque in Melbourne, will be travelling to Christchurch for a commemoration of the attack. He will be speaking with Sakinah Community Trust, which is led by widows, mothers and daughters who lost family members on that Friday in 2019. Elzokm says dealing with Islamophobia in Australia, as with all forms of racism, is not only about showing sympathy but firm action so that everyone can feel safe when they worship. We dont want the incident to be forgotten with time, he says. Words are no longer enough. Five years ago, it was widely expected that Delroy Lindo would be nominated for an Oscar for his role in Spike Lees Da 5 Bloods. In the event, he was overlooked by the Academy, just as he had been by the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild. Speaking to The Independent at the time, Lindo remained good-humored. I would say that various reality checks I have received in the last few weeks or so have only enhanced my desire to remain circumspect about awards, he remarked coolly. His patience has paid off. This year at the age of 73, the London-born actor who became a fixture of American cinema, has been nominated for an Oscar for the very first time. The honor arrives a full 50 years after he made his screen debut playing a drug kingpin in the Canadian thriller Partners. In the decades since, he has excelled in roles both large and small but has never stopped working. Find ways of staying the course, Lindo recently told The Wall Street Journal when asked what advice he would give someone trying to persevere in a long career. And I say find ways, because its not an easy thing. Lindos nomination is well-deserved for the strength of his performance as the harmonica-playing Delta Slim in Ryan Cooglers hotly-tipped vampires n blues horror Sinners. For the many fans who have followed Lindos work for decades, it seems a fitting nod for his dozens of high-calibre performances since he earned mainstream success in Lees Malcolm X in 1992. Delroy Lindo received his first Oscar nomination at the age of 73, five decades after he made his film debut in Canadian thriller Partners (AFP/Getty) Michael B. Jordan (from left), Wunmi Mosaku, Miles Caton, and Delroy Lindo speaking about Sinners at the Actor Awards, where the film won the prize for Best Cast (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) While recognition for Lindo may have been a long time coming, hes far from alone in being celebrated by the Academy only in later life. A little over a decade ago, J.K. Simmons was nominated for an Oscar for the first time at the age of 60 for his performance as an unforgiving drum teacher in Whiplash. He went on to win Best Supporting Actor. Going back a little further, cigar-chomping comedian George Burns was 80 in 1976 when he won an Oscar after being nominated for the first time for The Sunshine Boys. Jessica Tandy was also 80 when she won Best Actress in 1990 at the first time of asking for her performance in Driving Miss Daisy. A couple of years later, she was back, nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Fried Green Tomatoes. Christopher Plummer had a long and storied film career that included such disparate favorites as 1965s The Sound of Music and 2019s Knives Out. However, he was only recognized by the Academy after he became an octogenarian, earning a first nomination at 80 for playing Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station. He finally won Best Supporting Actor in 2012, at the age of 82, for his role in Mike Millss Beginners. Christopher Plummer became the oldest first-time acting Oscar winner at the age of 82 (Getty Images) At the time, Plummer was not just the oldest first-time Oscar winner but the oldest ever winner in an acting category. He was outdone in 2021 by Anthony Hopkins, who was 83 when he won for his work in The Father (almost three decades after he had first won for The Silence of The Lambs in 1992). Plummer did however earn the distinction of being the oldest actor ever nominated for an Oscar when he was recognized again for his performance as J. Paul Getty in All The Money In The World in 2018, when he was 88. The oldest actor to be nominated for the first time was Gloria Stuart, who earned a Best Supporting Actress nod for her role as the elderly version of Rose in Titanic and was 87 when she attended the Oscars in 1998. Amour star Emmanuelle Riva was just a little younger: she celebrated her 86th birthday at the Oscars in 2012, where she was pipped to the Best Actress prize by Jennifer Lawrence. James Ivory was 89 when he won his first Oscar for writing 'Call Me By Your Name' (Getty Images) Outside of the acting categories, the oldest first-time Oscar winner ever was James Ivory, who was 89 when he took home Best Adapted Screenplay in 2018 for Call Me By Your Name. He had previously been nominated three times as a director for 1986s A Room with a View, 1992s Howards End and 1993s The Remains of the Day. The French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda was also 89 when she earned a nomination for the first time in the Best Documentary category for 2017s Faces Places. Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim in Ryan Cooglers hotly-tipped vampires n blues horror Sinners (Warner Bros) Age, then, is no barrier to success at the Academy Awards. When Lindo looks out at his fellow Supporting Actor nominees, hell note that Stellan Skarsgard, also recognized for the first time, is even older at 74. They will be hoping good things really do come to those who wait. Oscars 2026: Who will win, who should win, and who shoulda had a look-in In 2007, just as the Oscar voting period reached its end, Eddie Murphy released Norbit. The immortal tale of a gawky dweeb (Murphy) married to a morbidly obese woman (also Murphy), Norbit was such an earth-shaking failure that many theorised it actively lost Murphy his once all-but-guaranteed Oscar for Dreamgirls. Flash forward to 2026, and the Eddie Murphy of today may well be Hamnets Jessie Buckley, her Norbit being Maggie Gyllenhaals Frankenstein redo The Bride!, her morbidly obese woman a cackling 1930s flapper possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelley. The Bride! has received an energetic drubbing, with Buckley described as giving a performance so astonishingly poor and so catastrophically ill-judged that it almost needs to be seen to be believed. And that was in The Times! Could it really be bad enough to kill her Oscar chances? Of course, all this Buckley-losing speculation may just be proof that this awards season has gone on too long and everyones a bit bored. Were days away from Sundays ceremony new, dramatic possibilities must be entertained! See also: the discourse surrounding last weeks mysteriously unearthed clip of Buckley wishing death upon all cats (or something). That said, who would have thought that in a season dominated by the idea of Timothee Chalamet finally getting his Oscar for Marty Supreme, Sinners star Michael B Jordan suddenly seems likely to beat him to the Best Actor trophy? Taking in all these last-minute developments, weve cast an eye over the major Oscar categories (the full list can be found here) and decided who we think will likely win, who really should win, and who should have got a look-in. Best Picture Bugonia F1 Frankenstein Hamnet Marty Supreme One Battle After Another The Secret Agent Sinners Sentimental Value Train Dreams The big picture: Michael B Jordan (Smoke) and Michael B Jordan (Stack) in Sinners, and Leonardo DiCaprio (Bob Ferguson) in One Battle After Another (Warner Bros) Will win: One Battle After Another Should win: One Battle After Another Shoulda got a look-in: It Was Just an Accident Last month, Bafta and the BBC abandoned any sense of duty of care and left both the Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson and the Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo flailing in the wind. As you will inevitably know by now, Davidsons condition which inspired the Bafta-winning drama I Swear caused him to yell a racist slur as Jordan and Lindo walked on stage at one point in the ceremony, a slur that was inexplicably left intact in the BBCs broadcast despite a two-hour delay. Reactions were a soup of the fair and empathetic and the objectionably insane, but its possible that it may have sparked a rush of voting appreciation for Sinners in the weeks since, driven by literal evidence that even at the highest levels of achievement, Black artists still have to deal with nonsense. So its not out of the question for Sinners to score Best Picture, even if it has felt for a while that One Battle After Another has the win sewn up. And, lets call it as it is, One Battle was the best film of 2025, so probably should take the trophy. It would have been lovely to see Jafar Panahis urgent, funny, thrillingly relevant drama It Was Just an Accident here, though, likewise the runaway horror smash Weapons, which deserved a slot in Best Picture far more than F1, at the very least. Best Actor Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon Michael B Jordan, Sinners Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent Bravely obnoxious: Timothee Chalamet in Josh Safdies Marty Supreme (A24) Will win: Michael B Jordan, Sinners Should win: Timothee Chalamet, Marty Supreme Shoulda got a look-in: Josh OConnor, The Mastermind Best Actor is typically where excitement goes to die, but this year its suddenly the most interesting major category of the night. On 1 March, Michael B Jordan won Best Actor at the Actor Awards, which doubles as the last major pre-Oscar awards ceremony and serves as a reliable if not always exact indicator of how Oscar night will unfold. Jordan has a lot going for him, though. The Bafta controversy shone a major, positive spotlight on Sinners as a whole, while Jordan is popular in the industry and feels as if hes filled the vacuum left behind by two men who were at one point or another the category favourite: the wheels seemed to fly off Timothee Chalamets, um, vaguely smug Oscar campaign a few months ago, while DiCaprio has been a mercurial presence on the circuit (chances are he may miss the actual ceremony, too, as hes shooting Martin Scorseses new film). Voila: a Jordan win. And hes so good in the movie playing twins, no less! that few would complain. But it is a bit frustrating that Chalamet has very publicly wanted the Best Actor win this year, which is always an approach that tends to leave voters cold. His work in Marty Supreme is thrilling, proper batten-down-the-hatches, heres-a-movie-star stuff, that is ballsy and funny and bravely obnoxious. Missing here, arguably, is Josh OConnor, who had a fantastic year (he comfortably stole the show in the third Knives Out) and is lovingly grotesque as a wealthy scumbag art thief in the black comedy The Mastermind. Best Actress Jessie Buckley, Hamnet Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs Id Kick You Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value Emma Stone, Bugonia To win or not to win: Jessie Buckley in Hamnet (Universal Pictures) Will win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet Should win: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs Id Kick You Shoulda got a look-in: Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love Jessie Buckleys undeniably affecting work as a grieving mother will undoubtedly lead her to her first Oscar win this year, but I was admittedly far more struck by Rose Byrnes funny, freaky turn as a mum at her wits end in If I Had Legs Id Kick You. Byrne is one of those actors whos turned in spectacular performances for more than two decades (Bridesmaids! Spy! Marie Antoinette!) and often to minimal awards acclaim, so perhaps the nomination here is enough. Still, Id like to see her swipe it at the last minute. Separately, lets pour one out for Jennifer Lawrence, whose career-best work as a fraying mother in Lynne Ramsays Die My Love deserved a hell of a lot more awards attention. I will repeat this statement until Im in my grave, frankly. Best Supporting Actor Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein Delroy Lindo, Sinners Sean Penn, One Battle After Another Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value Mad for it: Sean Penn (with Teyana Taylor) in One Battle After Another (Warner Bros) Will win: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another Should win: Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another Shoulda got a look-in: Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later This is another tricky category to call. Theres been no decisive winner in Best Supporting at the major precursor ceremonies, with Jacob Elordi taking the Critics Choice Award, Stellan Skarsgard the Golden Globe, and Sean Penn taking the Bafta and the Actor Award. My money is on Penn to win the Oscar, primarily because hes so big and funny and mad in One Battle After Another, but theres also a world where Delroy Lindo, for his drunken bluesman in Sinners, could sneak in and swipe it on the night. Least likely (sadly) is probably Benicio del Toro, whose sharp, sensitive work in One Battle is a ray of wholesomeness in an otherwise charged movie. Speaking of, wouldnt it have been lovely to see Ralph Fiennes in here? In a movie as gnarly as 28 Years Later, Fiennes injected a gentle, endearing whimsy. Best Supporting Actress Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value Amy Madigan, Weapons Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another No dial-in performance: Teyana Taylor in One Battle After Another (Warner Bros) Will win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another Should win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another Shoulda got a look-in: Gwyneth Paltrow, Marty Supreme A nice thing about the Best Supporting Actress category this year is that all five women are bona fide supporting players in their respective movies, who sweep in, steal the show, then bounce. No Ariana-in-Wicked category fraud here! And its for that reason that Id love to see Teyana Taylor take the Oscar on the night. Her volatile revolutionary disappears from One Battle After Another after the first half hour, but haunts every second of the movie that follows. Its the performance of the year, Taylor finding the humanity in a character who is erratic, naive and passionate yet completely infuriating. Separate to Taylor, this is a very strong collection of performances, but annoyingly, MIA is Gwyneth Paltrow, who joins Jennifer Lawrence in the role of actor doing career-best work but who bafflingly struggled to get awards traction this year. As a semi-retired actress embroiled in a mortifying affair with Chalamets ping-pong sleazebag in Marty Supreme, she glides into the movie and, in one scene of breathless confrontation, nearly steals it from under its star. Best Director Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another Ryan Coogler, Sinners Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value Chloe Zhao, Hamnet Battle-hardened: Paul Thomas Anderson at the Oscar nominees luncheon in February (Getty) Will win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another Shoulda got a look-in: Mary Bronstein, If I Had Legs Id Kick You On paper, Paul Thomas Anderson has this category in the bag, but there is still the Sinners question hanging over this years Oscars there is absolutely a version of Sunday night that sees Sinners sweep, with everything from Best Director to Best Supporting Actress going its way. And while its hard to say that Ryan Coogler is overdue an Oscar, hes made a career out of beating the odds so far he made Black Panther, a Marvel movie that had a real directorial stamp on it, directed Fruitvale Station and Creed to raves, and got Sinners off the ground in the first place, despite how hard it is to mount an entirely original, expensive blockbuster today. Plus, it made a ton of money. A Coogler Best Director win isnt out of the question. Id argue that he should have been joined in this category, though, by If I Had Legs Id Kick Yous Mary Bronstein, who worked stressful wonders on a shoestring budget. Question, were you that kid that always tried to go up the slide the wrong way? If so, you're in good company. This little otter sets her sights on going up, instead of down, the attraction. Does she succeed? You'll need to watch the clip to find out. The caption gives us the facts, "Theres always that one kid who goes up the slide the wrong way today that kid was Daffodil." We absolutely love Daffodil and her fighting spirit. If you watch closely, it seems she's actually trying to get at a piece of food. Assuming that's the case, we give her extra points. Commenters loved on the romp of otters, as they're known. There were hearts and smiles filling up the feed with @Reese remarking, "Awwwww." @rogue_phoenix took it up a notch with, "Seeing this is the best part of my day!" You could not come up with a better use of your time. Related: Tiny Otters Response To Man Asking Why Theyre Hiding in an Ice Fishing Hole Is Priceless All About Otters Get this: there are in fact 13 species of otter each of whom has slightly different characteristics. The ones at the Tanganyika Wildlife Park are Asian small-clawed otters, the smallest of the bunch, under 10 pounds. Like many of our favorite creatures, they fit under the marine mammals category. As you can tell from this video, they love to vocalize. The Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute explains, "Vocalizations are used for contact, summons, greeting, threat and alarm calls and can occur visually, chemically, or through tactile cues such as social grooming, hormonal changes and posturing." It's clear from watching them that this is a social group. So what do the little guys eat? This list includes: crustaceans, mollusks, fish, shellfish, insects, amphibians, and reptiles. They can dig with their hands to get food in the wild or catch it from the zookeepers. Sadly, this species is vulnerable because of the pet trade and habitat loss. The Tanganyika Wildlife Park hosts an otter swim for guests but also reminds us not to look at these sweet dudes as pets. They live best among their own kind! SIGN UP to get pawsitivity delivered right to your inbox with inspiring & entertaining stories about our furry & feathered friends This story was originally published by PetHelpful on Mar 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the Pet News section. Add PetHelpful as a Preferred Source by clicking here. More than 30,000 tonnes of household and construction waste was dumped in Hoads Wood in Kent - David Rose for The Telegraph Environment officers could be given police-like powers to arrest waste criminals under new plans to crack down on extreme fly-tipping. Searching the premises of suspected criminals and seizing their assets without a warrant are some of the other new powers which may be granted to Environment Agency enforcement officers as part of the Governments fresh zero-tolerance approach to illegal waste. The move would make the Environment Agency one of a few organisations with these powers a clear signal that waste crime is being treated as a serious organised crime, the Government has said. It marks a significant expansion of the current powers granted to enforcement officers who currently cannot make arrests without assistance from police and are unable to seize assets or search premises without a warrant. This announcement comes as part of a new Waste Crime Action Plan which sets out a new tough approach to costly waste crimes by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra). It is estimated that waste crime costs the economy 1bn every year. Waste crime costs the British economy 1bn every year, estimates show - John Lawrence for The Telegraph Under the proposed new legislation, waste criminals caught transporting and dealing with waste illegally will face up to five years in prison. From July 2024 to the end of 2025, the Environment Agency secured 122 prosecutions, leading to 10 immediate custodial sentences, and shut down 1,205 illegal waste sites. But there are an estimated 8,000 illegal waste sites containing approximately 13 million tonnes of rubbish across the country, according to a Guardian report last year. Not only does this damage the natural environment and mean that criminals are dodging landfill taxes but there are also concerns that criminal enterprises do not observe the proper Government waste regulations to prevent fires and mitigate harms to air quality. In one shocking case last year, three men were arrested after more than 30,000 tonnes of household and construction waste was dumped in Hoads Wood in Kent. Locals reported up to 30 trucks dumping illegal waste in the natural beauty spot every day for years and it eventually cost authorities 15m to clean up the rubbish pile which measured more than 15ft high. Credit: Kent Wildlife Trust The Government is also exploring ways for enforcement bodies to share information with banks and finance companies in an attempt to stop them doing business with waste criminals. They hope these new policies will bring more criminals to justice and help restore pride in Britains neighbourhoods. Responding to the announcement, Sarah Jones, the crime and policing minister, told The Telegraph: Fly-tipping is an attack on our countryside, our communities, and the environment we all share. We will give the Environment Agency the power they need to crack down on these reckless criminals. Emma Reynolds, the Environment Secretary, said: Waste crime is a disgrace. It blights our countryside and communities, damaging our environment and economy. That is why we are taking decisive action. Were giving the Environment Agency the police-like powers they need to stop waste criminals in their tracks and bring those responsible swiftly to justice. Philip Duffy, the Environment Agencys chief executive, added: Waste crime causes misery across communities, and we have significantly stepped up our response to it already. But we are not standing still. While having more boots on the ground is important in tackling these criminal networks, we also need to make sure our officers have as many powers as possible to bring them down. But we cant do this on our own. We are working closely with the police and local government. And we need the eyes and ears of the public to report potential dumping through Crimestoppers or our incident hotline. Working together, we can drive criminals out of our waste sector. During a heated exchange with Mr Obese-Jecty, who is the prospective MP for Huntingdon, the young man posted a clown and raccoon emoji. (Getty) A new study suggests a smartphone app specifically designed to address the underlying psychological causes of premature ejaculation could help men last longer in bed. Researchers say the discreet, at-home self-help tool could also benefit men who are hesitant to seek professional help due to feelings of shame. The Melonga App guides users through a number of therapeutic techniques, tips and exercises developed by urologists and psychologists to help men manage arousal better and also includes elements of cognitive behavioural therapy and physical exercises intended to improve ejaculation control. The Climacs study, led by researchers in Germany, included 80 men with no underlying health conditions who took part in a 12-week programme. Each was given a series of health questionnaires about their experiences during sex and was asked to use a stopwatch to measure the length of time between penetration and ejaculation. Some 66 patients submitted complete questionnaires at the end of the 12-week period. Researchers found that app users doubled the time from penetration to ejaculation by an average of more than a minute, from 61 seconds to 125 seconds. Men who did not use the app experienced an increase of 0.5 seconds on average. The at-home self-help tool could also benefit men who are hesitant to seek help because they are ashamed, researchers said (Getty) At the end of the 12 weeks, some 22 per cent of app users reported no longer experiencing premature ejaculation. Lead researcher Dr Christer Groeben, of Marburg University and Medical Faculty Heidelberg at Heidelberg University, said: Many men who live with premature ejaculation dont seek help because of the shame associated with the condition. Our study shows that, as an at-home self-help tool, this can support men to improve control of their ejaculation and achieve a satisfying sex life without losing spontaneity. The most commonly available pharmacy therapies are designed only to treat the symptoms, not the cause, meaning many men discontinue them after a while. These men can remain under-treated and live with a considerable psychological burden that really starts to affect the quality of their relationships. Going to a doctor for help can feel like a big first step, and so an app like this can help to bridge that gap by normalising the condition as treatable. Melonga is currently available in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Belgium. Findings from the study have been presented at the European Association of Urology Annual Congress (EAU26) in London. Dr Giorgio Russo, associate professor of urology at University of Catania in Italy, and chairman of the EAU office of young academic urologists, said: Theres much information and misinformation out there for men who find they have premature ejaculation, and so this app is devised by urologists and psychologists as a new way to bring together the most effective advice into a single, easily accessible and trusted, evidence-based resource. The research shows it can completely treat almost a quarter of patients, which is a huge development because these men were treated without pills. I think it would now be interesting to build on this research with a larger study and look at the impact of a digital approach on the satisfaction of partners, rather than just users. The RSPCA has reiterated its concerns about racehorse welfare following the deaths of four horses at the Cheltenham Festival. Hansard suffered a fatal injury when pulled up in Tuesdays Arkle, while HMS Seahorse and Saint Le Fort died following falls in Wednesdays BetMGM Cup Handicap Hurdle and Fridays Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Handicap Hurdle respectively. Envoi Allen was also a fatality on the last day of the Festival, as the 12-year-old collapsed and died after safely negotiating the Cheltenham Gold Cup course. A spokesperson said: We are deeply saddened that four horses died at the Cheltenham Festival this year. The deaths of Hansard, HMS Seahorse, Envoi Allen and Saint Le Fort mean 24 horses have lost their lives in competitive racing in the UK this year alone. One death is too many but the scale of fatalities reiterate the urgency that lessons must be learned including what caused the loss of life, decision making during the race, and any future means of prevention. These incidents are clearly at odds with the UKs status as a nation of animal lovers. The RSPCA remains concerned about racehorse welfare, so we continue to engage with the industry to advocate for further improvements, including the introduction of greater safety measures, and improvements for equine welfare both on and off the track. Given the wealth and expertise within the sector, we remain hopeful that there remains significant scope to do more to meaningfully improve equine welfare. Many of these events like Cheltenham, and the Grand National are massive economic drivers, and watched by hundreds of thousands of people. The very least the horses competing deserve in return is to have every possible step taken to improve their safety and welfare, and we have received welcome assurances from the BHA that this continues to be a priority for them too. We reassure our supporters we will keep engaging with the racing industry to encourage continual welfare improvements and explore further measures to protect horses from injury and death, and promote good welfare throughout their lives. The British Horseracing Authoritys director of equine regulation safety and welfare James Given described the deaths as devastating on Friday evening, with all subject to in depth examination as part of the regulators standard procedure. He said: As with any fatal injury, these incidents will now be looked at in detail through our fatality review process, which is part of the sports commitment to ongoing improvements in racehorse safety. Risk can never be entirely eliminated. British racing is transparent about the risks involved in the sport and publishes data regarding injury rates on its website at HorsePWR.co.uk. 'Lucy's hunter' illustration (Tyler Stone/University of Iowa) Scientists have discovered a new species of giant prehistoric crocodile that would have weighed half a tonne, grown up to 15ft in length and likely terrorised our ancestors as they roamed the African landscape. With a prominent lump on its head, this giant relative of modern-day crocodiles patiently lurked in rivers and lakes to attack human ancestors over 3 million years ago. It has been named Crocodylus lucivenator, or Lucys hunter, as it would almost certainly have preyed upon the extinct hominid species Australopithecus afarensis one of the best studied ancestors of modern-day humans, thanks to the immaculately-preserved, 3.2 million-year-old skeleton known as Lucy. It was the only crocodile in a landscape covering an expanse of shrubland and wetlands pocked with rivers in modern-day Ethiopia. The crocodile grew to maximum lengths of between 12ft (3.5m) and 15ft (4.5m), and adults weighed between 270 kg (600 lb) and 590 kg (1,300 lbs), according to the study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Being an ambush predator akin to modern-day crocodiles, Lucys hunter would have waited for its prey while submerged in water, poised to spring on those who came for a drink, scientists say. It was the largest predator in that ecosystem, more so than lions and hyenas, and the biggest threat to our ancestors who lived there during that time, said Christopher Brochu, an author of the study from the University of Iowa. Its a near certainty this crocodile would have hunted Lucys species. Whether a particular crocodile tried to grab Lucy, well never know, but it would have seen Lucys kind and thought, Dinner, Dr Brochu said. 'Lucy's hunter' illustration (Tyler Stone/University of Iowa) Researchers identified the new species based on museum specimens kept in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in 2016. They then analysed 121 catalogued remains, including skulls, teeth, and parts of jaws, representing dozens of individuals. One of the specimens had several healed injuries on its jaw, suggesting it had tussled with one of its peers. I was just blown away because it had this really weird combination of character states, Dr Brochu said. The extinct crocodile had peculiar physical traits, including a large hump in the middle of its snout, similar to what is found on the American crocodile but not seen with the Nile crocodile in Africa. Scientists suspect the hump was used by male crocodiles to attract a mate. You see this in some modern crocodiles, Dr Brochu explained. The male will lower his head down a little bit to a female to show it off. The fossils were excavated from the Hadar site in the Afar region of Ethiopia. During the Pliocene, Hadar was composed of a variety of habitats alongside its lake and river systems over space and time, including open and closed woodlands, gallery forests, wet grasslands, and shrublands, said Christopher Campisano, another author of the study. Interestingly, this crocodile was one of only a few species that were able to persist throughout, Dr Campisano said. Britain has worked with Ukraine to develop anti-drone systems which could now be used against Shahed drones in the Middle East - Wild Hornets Sir Keir Starmer could send thousands of interceptor drones to the Middle East, The Telegraph has learnt. The sophisticated Octopus interceptor anti-drone systems are being manufactured in the UK for Ukraine to use against Russia, with production ramping up to reach thousands per month. But The Telegraph can reveal that military officials are now examining whether the interceptors could also be used to bolster the UKs defences against Irans Shahed drones. It may be seen as an attempt by the Prime Minister to counter criticism from Donald Trump and military figures over his weak response to the Iran war. On Saturday, the US president urged the UK to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz as part of a global flotilla to force Iran to unblock the crucial oil passage. The Government is considering deploying a ship to the Gulf, but has not made a final decision. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, said on Sunday that Britain is in discussions over how to help reopen the shipping route, saying: We are talking to our allies. Theres different ways in which we can make maritime shipping possible. We are intensively looking with our allies at what can be done, because its so important that we get the strait reopened. Volodymyr Zelensky shows Sir Keir Starmer an Octopus drone interceptor. The UK is weighing up whether to use them in Iran However, a defence source told The Telegraph that the UK was considering deploying drone interceptors to fight the axis of aggression between Russia and Iran. They said: The Ukrainians are the best at stopping these drones as they have been doing it for the past four years. We are playing a leading role here, working with Ukrainians in a way that no other nation is to develop and manufacture anti-drone systems and drone interceptors, designed to take out Shahed drones. Ukraine is clearly the first priority for this capability. But beyond that, the axis of aggression between Russia and Iran is clear. Shahed-style drones are a key part of both their arsenals. They added: As this conflict [in the Middle East] continues, we should absolutely be looking at how we can bring in Ukrainian expertise and innovation and ensuring the Ukrainians see benefits from that in terms of increased support for their ongoing, heroic resistance against Putin. And the potential benefits both for UK defence and for our partners is clear. In January, John Healey, the Defence Secretary, announced a partnership to allow the cutting-edge Octopus interceptor drones which cost $3,000 (2,260) and have been developed by Ukrainian engineers to be manufactured in the UK. Britain can in turn send thousands of low-cost anti-drone systems back to Kyiv, enabling the Ukrainian military to defend itself from Russian attacks. Now, officials in the Ministry of Defence are looking at whether British-made Octopus drone interceptors could be sent to the Middle East as well. Mr Miliband said there are a range of things that we can do, including autonomous mine-hunting equipment, but refused to speculate on how far along the proposals were. US cannot depend on Britain Drone attacks on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and on British special forces in Erbil, Iraq, have exposed the vulnerability of UK military bases to cheap, mass-produced Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles. Mr Healey claimed that Vladimir Putins hidden hand was behind the strikes. Six US soldiers were also killed in a makeshift facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, after it was struck by an Iranian drone that evaded air defences at the start of the war. Sir Keir scrambled to send a warship to Cyprus after the attack on Akrotiri, following France in sending reinforcements. HMS Dragon is on track to arrive in the eastern Mediterranean as early as next week. Smoke rises from the site of a drone crash on the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq, where British forces came under attack - Khalid Al-Mousily/Reuters However, Mr Trump has attacked Sir Keir over his slow response, warning earlier this month that he will remember the lack of British support during the conflict. A source close to the president told The Telegraph that the US could no longer depend on the UK for military support. They said: The British showed during the Iran conflict they cant be depended upon, they dont have the resources and theyre not really committed to any assets. There is no special relationship; thats over. The entire war in Iran shows that the entire security guarantee will fall apart. The US is going to see France, and particularly England and see our special relationship can deliver nothing. HMS Dragon is on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean - Chris Gorman/Big Ladder Rick Gill, a former Army logistics officer who heads Drone Defence, a firm that specialises in counter-drone systems, warned that the UK was vulnerable to drone warfare. He said: Low-cost, mass-produced aerial threats can now reach sovereign territories and forward bases with economics that favour the attacker. Attacks threatening service personnel and their families at bases such as Cyprus underline the urgent need for robust, layered counter-drone defences. How Shahed drones work Senior military figures have also raised concerns about the state of Britains defences. Sir Harv Smyth, the Air Chief Marshal, claimed on Thursday that the nations advantage over its opponents had waned. In an unusually frank critique of the state of the military, he warned of a new era where RAF bases would be once again attacked from the air. At a conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think tank, he said: [Our] numerical and technological advantage has waned over time, and our opponents are developing fast. Theyre learning through fighting and rapidly closing the technological gap. We must not be outpaced. Sir Harv said that the era of mass raids of highly autonomous, low-risk, long-range and high-stand-off attack are now upon us, adding: We know that control of the air is not inherited. It cannot be taken for granted any more. It is earned. It is maintained, and it is re-earned by every generation. Without control of the air, he said the joint and integrated campaign becomes problematic, adding: Control of the air is the foundation upon which all joint operations depend. Mr Miliband defended the UKs military capabilities amid suggestions that Britain cannot meet all its commitments. He told Sky News: Of course its the case that there are significant demands in this unstable world on our armed forces. I think our armed forces are actually doing a fantastic job in responding to those demands, and as I say, it is this Government that is investing in our armed forces. Trump calls for help in Strait of Hormuz Late on Saturday, Mr Trump renewed his call for other nations to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and said the United States would coordinate with them. Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: Donald Trump TruthSocial Iran all but closed the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a conduit for about a fifth of the worlds oil, earlier this month after threatening to attack any vessel using the shipping lane. However, former military chiefs said that the UK was too weak to heed Mr Trumps demand to deploy ships there, even if it wanted to. Admiral Lord West of Spithead, the former First Sea Lord, said: If there is going to be a concerted maritime response to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz stays open, then we should be part of that. The sad thing is the ships we used to have in Bahrain, not least to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open and what have we done? We withdrew them all before this war started. We still have no warships between Gibraltar and Singapore that shows a lack of strategic understanding of maritime power. Prof Gwythian Prins, a former Nato adviser who sat on the chief of the defence staffs strategy advisory panel from 2006 to 2013, said that the Royal Navy was in a state of weakness. I am afraid that is the position we are too weak, he said. Meanwhile, Timothy Cross, a retired major general and military logistics expert, said the UK should be a part of breaking Irans blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. However, he added: You come back to the problem of what assets have we got? Our ability is pretty limited. I think people are surprised and disappointed about what we have allowed to happen to our defence capability. We used to have four Navy ships in Bahrain now weve got nothing. Its a pretty poor state of affairs. Defence officials rejected the suggestion that the UK was too weak to defend its interests in the region, pointing to the deployment of HMS Dragon. While it is on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean, it could be redirected if required. They also noted that the UK had autonomous mine-hunting systems in the region, which are effectively seaborne drones and could be utilised. Insiders pointed to the possibility of sending HMS Anson, the UKs only nuclear attack submarine, towards the Strait of Hormuz. Government sources refused to be drawn on whether the vessel, which left Australia earlier this week, was heading to the Middle East. Sir Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, told The Telegraph: If our HMS Anson attack submarine is in the area, you could deter Iran by saying, We will hit you with a Tomahawk cruise missile. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: The UK is continuously investing in new counter-drone defences. To protect the security of our personnel, we do not comment on specific operational capabilities. The Pentagon on Saturday released the identities of the six US airmen who were killed in a plane crash over Iraq on Friday. Alex Klinner died in the crash on Friday - AP Maj John A Klinner, 33, Capt Ariana G Savino, 31, Sgt Ashley B Pruitt, 34, Capt Seth R Koval, 38, Capt Curtis J Angst, 30, and Sgt Tyler H Simmons, 28, were on a KC-135 aerial refuelling tanker supporting American attacks on Iran. The crash involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire and is under investigation, the US military has said. There was some disquiet over Lord Mandelsons appointment as UK ambassador to the US, but he got the job anyway - Carl Court/Getty Images If Sir Keir Starmer wanted to hear no evil about Lord Mandelson, it would explain why he asked two people likely to speak no evil about him to vet him for the job of US ambassador. Matthew (now Lord) Doyle, Sir Keirs then director of communications, and Morgan McSweeney, his then chief of staff, were handed the job of conducting due diligence on the Prince of Darkness, who happened to be a long-standing friend of both. Documents released by the Government this week have helped to expose the extent to which the Prime Ministers inner circle was put in charge of sniffing out any potential problems with appointing a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, with disastrous results. David Lammy, the former foreign secretary, and Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, both played their part in the process of appointing Lord Mandelson. Some now say they alerted the Prime Minister to the dangers of the appointment, but none was able to stop it happening. The initial due diligence on the peer was so informal that it seems to have been done via conversations with Lord Mandelson, rather than in writing, meaning official records are sketchy. But Lord Doyle now suspended by Labour after campaigning for a councillor in 2016 who had been charged with child pornography offences has emerged as a pivotal figure in the vetting process. We will develop a plan for due diligence Less than a week after Donald Trump won the 2024 US election, Sir Keir appeared to have made up his mind that he wanted to take the unusual step of replacing the ambassador to Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, with a political appointment in the form of Lord Mandelson. Such a move was rare Britain traditionally chooses ambassadors from its diplomatic service but on Nov 11, 2024, six days after the US election, Simon (now Lord) Case, the then Cabinet secretary, prepared a note for Sir Keir on political appointments. It said that if he wanted to go down that route: We will develop a plan for them to acquire the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential conflicts of interest or other issues of which you should be aware before confirming your choice. The Cabinet Office, initially under Lord Case but later under his successor, Sir Chris Wormald, was in charge of due diligence via its propriety and ethics team (PET). Sir Chris later told MPs this was largely based on publicly available information, such as media reports. Others, including Mr Powell, the national security adviser, were consulted, and Mr Powell would later tell the Prime Ministers legal adviser that he had raised concerns about the individual and reputation to Morgan McSweeney who told him the issues had been addressed. Philip Barton, the then permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, also had reservations about the appointment, Mr Powell claimed. Mr Powell, who knows Lord Mandelson well after spending 10 years as Sir Tony Blairs Downing Street chief of staff, also described the appointment as unusual and weirdly rushed but did not ultimately block it. A particularly close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein On Dec 4, 2024, the Cabinet Office carried out due diligence on Lord Mandelson, and on Dec 12 Sir Keir was sent a four-page note summarising its findings. It referred to the peer maintaining a particularly close relationship with Epstein after his conviction for a child sex offence, and that he stayed at his house in New York after the conviction and was a founding citizen of an Epstein-funded ocean conservation charity founded by Ghislaine Maxwell. The document referred to an article in The Telegraph that detailed Lord Mandelsons ties to Epstein after his conviction, and the words reputational risk were highlighted in bold three times in different sections of the document. The document referred to a Daily Telegraph article that detailed Lord Mandelsons ties to Epstein after his conviction, and the words reputational risk are highlighted According to recent reports, Mr McSweeney drew up a list of three questions for Lord Mandelson, relating to his continued contact with Epstein, his visit to the paedophiles home while he was serving his prison sentence, and his links to Maxwells charity. Mr McSweeney is reported to have emailed these questions to Lord Mandelson, but the documents released by the Government provide no clarity about whether that was the case. Your Director of Communications is satisfied with his responses By Dec 11 Sir Keirs mind appeared to be made up. Ninjeri Pandit, his then principal private secretary, sent him a note about the lead candidate, Lord Mandelson, telling the Prime Minister that we have sought a due diligence review from the PET and your Chief of Staff [Morgan McSweeney] has discussed Peters relationship with Jeffrey Epstein which we will go through with you, but your Director of Communications [Lord Doyle] is satisfied with his responses to questions about contact [with Epstein]. Mr McSweeney was Lord Mandelsons protege, having been schooled by him since they first met during the 2001 election campaign, and had lobbied hard for the peer to be given the ambassadorial role. Lord Doyles connections to Lord Mandelson go further back, to 1998 and the second year of the Blair premiership, when Lord Doyle was head of press and broadcasting for the Labour Party. His subsequent rise through the ranks to become deputy director of communications in Downing Street from 2005-2007 brought him into closer proximity to Lord Mandelson, who is, in his words, a personal friend. Yet the memo makes clear that he was entrusted by the Prime Minister with being Lord Mandelsons judge and jury. He does not recall any unique correspondence The question of who put Mr McSweeneys list of three questions to Lord Mandelson, and how, and whether the Prime Minister ever saw the answers, is even less clear following the publication of 147 pages of documents relating to the ambassadorial appointment. Lord Doyle was asked by Mike Ostheimer, Sir Keirs general counsel, about the vetting process after Lord Mandelson was sacked last year, and told him there had been some back and forth with Mr McSweeney which resulted in the three specific questions for Lord Mandelson to answer. Lord Doyle was asked by Mike Ostheimer about the vetting process after Lord Mandelson was sacked Ms Pandits memo of Dec 11 does not make it clear whether Mr McSweeney or Lord Doyle put the questions to Lord Mandelson, or whether that was done verbally or in writing, but Lord Doyle told Mr Ostheimer he does not recall any unique correspondence or a specific letter from Lord Mandelson to the PM about the appointment. Mr Powell told Mr Ostheimer he didnt see any correspondence between Mandelson and the PM and Mr Powell had a vague feeling there was some incoming communication from Lord Mandelson to someone but has low confidence in that or what it was. He did not recall any specific meetings about the matter though there were a few conversations. Similarly, Lord Doyle told Mr Ostheimer he did not have a unilateral meeting with Lord Mandelson to discuss the appointment, though he did however have a number of conversations with Morgan McSweeney that were 1:1 and he recalled a number of wider political meetings around the time, some more formal than others. Nowhere in the documents is there any mention of Sir Keir being personally involved in the due diligence or vetting process, other than being sent memos. Get the wheels in motion for Peters audience By Dec 18, 2024 Sir Keir was keen to proceed with announcing Lord Mandelsons appointment, even though the full security vetting process, involving the security services, was yet to be completed. The Foreign Offices Mr Barton wrote to Sir Clive Alderton, the Kings private secretary, that day to tell him of the intended appointment and to ask him to request that the King approve it. Mr Lammy, the then foreign secretary, was required to write to Mr Barton formalising the decision to make the political appointment. Mr Lammy, who was a backbencher in the Blair years, has since said that he opposed Lord Mandelsons appointment, but a letter from Mr Barton noted that: The Foreign Secretary ... agrees with the recommendation. On Dec 19 the appointment was announced, and Sir Olly Robbins began the process of welcoming Lord Mandelson into the diplomatic fold. On Jan 27, 2025, Sir Olly wrote to outgoing ambassador Dame Karen, Lord Mandelson and others to say he would ask Sir Clive to get the wheels in motion for Peters audience with the King. A 75,000 golden goodbye is good value for money The folly of Lord Mandelsons appointment became clear on Sept 9, 2025, when a release of Epstein documents by the US government included a picture of the peer sitting in his bathrobe while sharing a joke with Epstein, whom he had called my best pal in a birthday greeting from 2003. The ambassador admitted more very embarrassing details of his relationship with Epstein were likely to come out, and on Sept 11 Sir Keir finally decided to sack him. He claimed that additional information had come to light about the depth and extent of his relationship with Epstein. That claim is now being challenged by MPs from opposition parties in the light of what the Prime Minister had been told about Lord Mandelson before he appointed him. Sir Keir claims Lord Mandelson lied to him, while the former ambassador insists he was open and honest. The very fact that the Prime Minister placed so much faith in his inner circle, and in particular two long-standing friends of Lord Mandelson, to find any skeletons in his cupboard is also a serious problem for Sir Keir. Sir Olly was left to negotiate the terms of Lord Mandelsons exit, and appears to have put up little resistance when it came to handing over large amounts of public money to him. Lord Mandelson began by demanding that he be paid for the remainder of his four-year contract a sum of 547,201 and on Sept 23 last year, Mark Power, the interim chief people officer at the Foreign Office, wrote to Sir Olly warning him that if an agreement wasnt reached publicly there is a potentialPeter goes public on some of his claims so there is some urgency. Exactly what those claims are does not appear in the partially redacted files. Lord Mandelson wanted to be paid for the remainder of his four-year contract On Oct 6, Sir Olly wrote to James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, seeking permission to give Lord Mandelson a severance payment of 34,670 on top of his 40,330 in lieu of three months notice, rounding up his severance payment to 75,000. Lord Mandelson, he said, would have to sign confidentiality undertakings which presumably would save further embarrassment for Sir Keir meaning the payoff, which is twice the median annual salary in the UK, represents good value for money in Sir Ollys words. Living in London requires a particular set of life skills. Not just the obvious ones navigating the Tube at rush hour, locating the one decent coffee (Blank Street doesnt cut it, Im afraid) near the office, or squeezing your weekly shop into a Zone 1-2 kitchen cupboard but the quieter, more mysterious tasks of adulthood. Things like figuring out why your car is making that noise (although if this is you, you cant be living in Zone 1-2...), how to patch up a hole in the wall, or whether your budget actually makes sense. So its no surprise that, increasingly, Londoners are turning to AI to help. Nearly half of Londoners (47 per cent) say they need help with everyday responsibilities significantly higher than the national average of 31 per cent. An incredibly humbling statistic comparison for any Londoner who thinks they are significantly cooler or superior for living in the capital. But yes, when Londoners get stuck, it seems as though many are opening an AI tool rather than calling a friend or scrolling through endless how-to articles. In fact, new research suggests the capital has quietly become the UKs hub of AI-assisted adulting, with 59 per cent of Londoners now say they use AI at least once a week, compared with 31 per cent nationally. There may be more limited access to a matcha but there is pride in being able to fix ones problems themselves... Londoners are turning to AI for all their task troubles (Andrea Piacquadio) The reason isnt necessarily fascination with futuristic tech. For most people, its far more practical: AI simply makes complicated things easier to understand. Around 39 per cent of people in the capital say they prefer using AI because it can break down confusing instructions into clear, step-by-step guidance. Instead of skimming multiple websites trying to piece together an answer, you can ask a specific question and get a tailored response in seconds. Visual explanations are also part of the appeal. More than a third of Londoners (36 per cent) say diagrams, images or short videos make tasks far easier to grasp especially when it comes to practical jobs around the house (or, lets be honest, flat). And there are plenty of those, even in Londons more-often-than-not poky-sized living quarters. According to the research, the areas where Londoners most often want help are surprisingly down-to-earth: 29 per cent need help with car maintenance, while managing finances and budgeting puzzle 28 per cent of us, and DIY tasks affecting 27 per cent. Anyone who has ever stared blankly at a boiler pressure gauge or a mysterious dashboard symbol will recognise the feeling. The difference now is that instead of spending half an hour on search results and forums, many people simply ask an AI assistant to walk them through it. Whats emerging is a kind of digital life co-pilot something between a search engine, a patient tutor and a very knowledgeable friend. According to Kate Nightingale, a psychologist, "Gen Z has been significantly affected in their psychological and social development by the pandemic, resulting in underdeveloped life skills. This has been further intensified by high levels of loneliness and social isolation within this demographic. Having an AI-based advice partner to support the development of these fundamental skills can provide a safe environment to practice and refine them before engaging with peers. It creates a virtual space free from social judgment, promoting a more positive learning experience, which in turn can enhance curiosity, motivation, and overall life satisfaction. Completing these kinds of tasks oneself strengthens cognitive function, and supports memory and intelligence Kate Nightingale This also hints at a broader shift in how people look for information online, leading Heywa, a visuals-driven AI model, to identify five different ways people naturally search for answers, calling them Online Languages. Think of them as the digital equivalent of body language: the instinctive way someone tries to understand something new. First up, is the Rabbit Hole Explorer: endlessly curious and happy to open twenty tabs to uncover every detail, very type B. In contrast, the Deep Dive Analyser is more methodical, prioritising accuracy and research. Others prefer something different entirely. The Moodboard Visualist wants diagrams and visual inspiration; the Savvy Synthesiser gathers information from multiple sources and distils the key points; and the Talk-It-Out Conversationalist prefers to figure things out through discussion and follow-up questions. If that last one sounds familiar, its because it closely mirrors how people now interact with AI tools themselves. Nightingale adds: "Completing these kinds of tasks oneself strengthens cognitive function, encourages a multidisciplinary mindset, and supports memory, intelligence, and the sense of control essential for psychological wellbeing. Individuals who are naturally curious and pursue diverse skills are likely to thrive in this independent economy, and AI tools like Heywa can further foster curiosity, learning, and a proactive approach to skill development. It goes both ways, however, as suppliers of these skills can build additional income not only through service provision, but also through content sharing, which AI tools rely on to develop their models." For years, finding information online meant typing a few words into a search bar and scrolling through a page of links. Increasingly, though, people want something more interactive a conversation that can refine answers, explain things differently or provide visuals where needed. AI fits neatly into that shift. And in a city like London, where time is often in short supply and no one wants to admit they dont know how to fix a leaking tap, its proving surprisingly useful. The future of AI may involve self-driving cars and super-smart assistants but for now, many Londoners are using it for something far simpler: working out how to get through everyday life. Arent we all? A political action committee linked to Donald Trump used a photo of the president saluting a dead soldiers casket in a fundraising email, prompting backlash from several Democratic officials and veterans groups. The message, sent Thursday and paid for by Never Surrender Inc., advertises a new National Security Briefing Membership and includes multiple donation links. The message included an image of Trump saluting during last weeks dignified transfer ceremony for six U.S. service members who were killed during an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait. As a National Security Briefing Member, you'll receive my private national security briefings, unfiltered updates on the threats facing America, the email reads. The straight truth on border invasions, foreign adversaries, deep state sabotage, and every danger the fake news hides. The White House originally shared the photo by photographer Daniel Torok on X last week. The six fallen warriors represent the very best of America, giving everything in service to our country, the White House wrote. Their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten. A fundraising email from Never Surrender Inc. used a photo of President Donald Trump saluting as a service members casket is carried during a dignified transfer ceremony for troops killed in the Iran war (Never Surrender Inc.) Government officials were quick to criticize the email on social media. California Governor Gavin Newsoms press office called Trump a deeply SICK and DISGUSTING MAN and accused him of fundraising off of dead soldiers. Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois, claimed that Trump is profiting off service members deaths. Democratic Senator Andy Kim also reacted to the email, writing, I hope the donors national security briefing doesnt skip the Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz section that Trump and Hegseth missed. Not a shred of dignity to be found anywhere in this administration, wrote Army veteran Naveed Shah, political director for veterans advocacy group Common Defense. An officials White House photograph of Donald Trump saluting during a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base was used in a fundraising message from a Trump-connected PAC (The White House/Daniel Torok) Kims post appears to reference a recent CNN report, which suggested administration officials underestimated the Iran conflicts impact on the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route off Irans southern coast. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has pushed back on the report, calling it 100% FAKE NEWS. The Independent has requested comment from the White House and Never Surrender Inc. for comment. Trump-connected fundraising groups have sent more than a dozen emails and text messages referencing Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli strikes, often written to appear as if the president himself has written them. Trumps signature also appears on several messages. Right now, Im asking everyone who approves of Operation Epic Fury to rally behind me with incredible messages of support, the president says in a March 5 message from the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint fundraising committee composed of and authorized by Never Surrender and Save America. Your words mean the world to me, the message says. Show your support!Will you stand STRONG with me as I protect our country? Respondents are given a set of three replies, which range from no, to unsure, to YES - I STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP! Suggested donations range from $26 to $3,300 to support the Trump National Committee JFC. At least 13 service members have been killed since the Iran conflict began on February 28 (AP) Never Surrender has paid for a number of fundraising emails that reference the ongoing conflict with Iran. On recent message included a direct warning to Iranian forces from the president: To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and all of the police, I say that you must lay down all your weapons and have complete immunity or you will face certain death. Another fundraising message, sent Saturday, reads: NOW THAT DEMOCRATS SIDED WITH THE RADICAL REGIME IN IRAN IT HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT TO HOLD OUR MAGA MAJORITY DURING THE MIDTERMS! At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed since the Iran conflict began on February 28. At least 140 others were injured over the first 10 days of the campaign, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. At least 108 service members have returned to duty, and eight remain listed as severely injured, defense officials told The Independent. Its unclear when the conflict, which is entering its third week, might come to an end. When Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Trump how hell know the war is over, the president replied: When I feel it feel it in my bones. Trump says four Air Force refueling planes are back in service after damage from Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia President Donald Trump said four U.S. Air Force tanker planes are back in service following reports of damage from an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia. Five Air Force refueling planes were damaged, but not completely destroyed, in an Iranian missile strike at Prince Sultan air base in recent days, The Wall Street Journal first reported. No one was killed, and officials were working to repair the tankers, the outlets sources said. In a Saturday morning Truth Social post, Trump responded to reports about the five planes and railed against the Fake News Media for its continuing coverage of the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. In actuality, the Base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not struck or destroyed, he wrote. Four of the five had virtually no damage, and are already back in service. One had slightly more damage, but will be in the air shortly. At least seven Air Force refueling planes have been damaged or destroyed amid the ongoing conflict, according to the Journal. President Donald Trump said Saturday four U.S. tanker planes are already back in service following reports of an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia (AFP via Getty Images) A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command said they're "not discussing battle damage assessments" and declined to comment to The Independent. The Pentagon declined to comment. News of the strike in Saudi Arabia followed the announcement that all six crew members on a U.S. KC-135 refueling plane were killed after the aircraft crashed over friendly airspace in western Iran on Thursday. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire, U.S. Central Command said Friday. At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed since the conflict began February 28. At least 140 others were injured over the first 10 days of the campaign, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. At least 108 service members have returned to duty, and eight remain listed as severely injured, defense officials told The Independent. Recent polling has found that many Americans oppose the Iran war. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted this month found that 56 percent of people said theyre against the Trump administrations military campaign. A Quinnipiac University survey released Monday similarly found that 53 percent of voters oppose military action against Iran, and 74 percent are against sending in ground troops. At least 13 US service members have been killed since the Iran conflict began February 28 (Getty) Meanwhile, Trump announced Friday that the U.S. totally obliterated every military target on Irans Kharg Island, a key export hub. Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island, he wrote on Truth Social. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision, he added. The president said Saturday that Many Countries are sending War Ships to ensure the strait remains open and safe. in conjunction with U.S. operations there. Its unclear when the conflict, which is entering its third week, might come to an end. When Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Trump how hell know the war is over, the president replied: When I feel it feel it in my bones. A general view of the oil terminal on the island of Kharg in Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images (Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images) Iran threatened on Saturday to further escalate the war raging in the Middle East by targeting any facility in the region with US ties, after Donald Trump predicted many countries would send warships to support a US bid to reopen by force the strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway closed to virtually all maritime traffic by Tehran since the beginning of the war. Iran has responded to the joint US-Israeli offensive, which is entering its third week, with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, as well as against Israel. Both continued on Saturday with salvoes fired by Iran at Israel and a barrage of ballistic missiles directed at the United Arab Emirates. Some oil-loading operations have been suspended in the UAEs Fujairah emirate, a global ship-refuelling hub, industry and trade sources said on Saturday, with TV footage showing plumes of dark smoke rising into the air. An Iranian military spokesperson called on people in the UAE to evacuate ports, docks and American hideouts, saying US forces had targeted Iranian islands from those areas. Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on Saturday night that the country had a right to defend itself in the face of terrorist aggression. The UAE has the right to defend itself against this imposed terrorist aggression, but it is still prioritising reason and logic, continuing to exercise restraint and seeking a way out for Iran and the region, he wrote on X. US planes bombed Irans main oil export hub, Kharg Island, on Friday and continued to launch waves of attacks in Iran on Saturday. Speaking to NBC News on Saturday night, Trump said US strikes had totally demolished most of the island but we may hit it a few more times just for fun. He added that he wasnt ready to make a deal with Iran because the terms arent good enough yet. Israeli warplanes also launched dozens of raids. At least 15 people were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday. The Israeli air force said it was seeking to degrade Irans ability to launch missiles and also targeting the security forces of the regime. In the latest flurry of social media posts, Trump wrote on Saturday on Truth Social that many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. The US president, seemingly in an attempt to bolster domestic and international support for the war, added: Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area. The US has yet to present a coherent strategy to reopen the strait of Hormuz which usually carries a fifth of global supplies of crude oil and liquefied fossil gas. On Friday Trump said that US forces obliterated military targets in the raid on the Kharg island and warned that crucial oil infrastructure there could be next. For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island, Trump wrote on social media. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. Last week, Trump called the leaders of Iran deranged scumbags and said it was an honour to kill them. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told a press conference in Washington that Iranian leaders were desperate and hiding, theyve gone underground. Hegseth also said that Mojtaba Khamenei, Irans new supreme leader, was wounded and probably disfigured. Iranian officials have admitted Khamenei was hurt in the Israeli strike that opened the conflict but say the 56-year-olds injuries are not serious. The flow of oil and gas from Iran and the Gulf has moved centre stage in the ongoing conflict in recent days. Kharg lies about 15 miles (25km) off Irans coastline and is the main facility for exporting the countrys oil. Iran has effectively closed the narrow strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices surging and raising the prospect of major damage to economies worldwide. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Irans joint military command, warned of attacks on all oil, economic and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with America, while Irans foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called on Saturday for neighbouring countries to expel US forces from the Middle East. The US security umbrella in the region has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble, the top diplomat posted on X, adding that Iran called on its neighbours to expel foreign aggressors. Irans strategy of hurting US allies in a bid to force Trump to halt the offensive appears to have had little concrete success so far, though its efforts to cause economic pain across the world may be having greater impact. Tehran is taking the global economy hostage as a means of putting pressure on Trump, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at International Crisis Group. The regime seems pretty intact, despite the fact that it has lost some very senior leaders, and that allows Tehran to roll out a three-part strategy, Vaez said. First, ensure survival. Second, keep enough retaliatory capacity to be able to stay in the fight. And then third was to prolong the conflict so that you can end it on your terms. Meanwhile, the US embassy in Baghdad said Americans should leave Iraq immediately, after an overnight missile attack on the embassy building. In an alert on social media, the embassy warned of Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups along with the risk of missiles, drones and rockets in Iraqi airspace. Between 1,400 and 1,800 people are reported to have been killed in Iran, where residents report relentless bombing. Thirteen have been killed in Israel, and about 20 in total in the Gulf. Trump has declined to publicly give an end date for the conflict, telling reporters: Itll be as long as its necessary. Analysts have suggested that Trump will seek to end the conflict soon to prevent a full blown global economic crisis and soaring fuel prices causing discontent among US voters. Trumps comments on Saturday marked the first time he has publicly suggested the US may not be able to reopen the strait of Hormuz on its own, and without international support. Related: Trump calls Iran leaders deranged scumbags as Middle East violence spirals Experts told the Guardian earlier this week that military actions directed toward Kharg would lead to a further dramatic increase in oil prices, already surging since the war began on 28 February. We may see the $120 (90) a barrel price we saw on Monday heading to $150 if Kharg were attacked, said Neil Quilliam of the Chatham House thinktank. Its too vital for global energy markets. In Lebanon, the humanitarian crisis deepened, with more than 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced, as Israel launched waves of strikes against Hezbollah and warned there would be no letup. Lebanons health ministry says 31 paramedics have been killed by Israeli strikes. Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of using civilian ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, without credible evidence. Concerns that the US may seize Kharg rose when officials in Washington said that 2,500 more marines and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli had been ordered to the Middle East. Marine expeditionary units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. US forces have suffered casualties, including the deaths of all six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq. The US struck military installations on Kharg Island but stopped short of hitting its oil infrastructure - Planet Labs PBC/AFP Donald Trump has threatened to destroy the crown jewel of Irans oil infrastructure if the regime continues to prevent tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday night, as Iran continued to tighten its stranglehold on the global economy, the US president announced that American forces struck military installations on Kharg Island in one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East. According to US Central Command, more than 90 Iranian regime targets were hit in the assault, including storage facilities for missiles and naval mines. Mr Trump said that the US bombing raid destroyed every military target on the island, but avoided the oil infrastructure for reasons of decency. On Saturday, he warned that the US may carry out further strikes just for fun, claiming that most of the island had been totally demolished. The five-mile strip of land, which the president described as Irans crown jewel, serves as a hub for exporting about 90 per cent of the nations oil. It has been described as a potential pressure point to gain leverage over the Iranian regime perhaps even a target for a full US takeover although analysts warn of serious risks to any strikes on oil facilities. Mr Trump said he would immediately reconsider his decision to spare the islands energy infrastructure if Tehran did anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian drone and missile attacks have effectively closed the narrow waterway, which is used to transport around a fifth of the worlds oil supply, to foreign tankers. The regime has also begun to lay mines across the two-mile-wide channels reserved for cargo vessels, the British Government believes. Washington is short of options to reopen the Strait. By Saturday morning, oil prices had climbed above $100 per barrel while others have warned they could exceed $147, the record that was hit in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. On Friday, the Pentagon ordered 2,500 more marines to the Middle East. The purpose of the deployment remains unclear, but it could signal plans for an amphibious ground operation. Apparently responding to the rising economic turmoil, Mr Trump called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others to send warships to help reopen the Strait on Saturday. Through Kharg Island, Iran has been able to continue its own exports while the rest of the worlds tankers remain stuck behind the straits 20-mile pinch-point. Shadow-fleet vessels bound for China have been spared from attacks. In reply to Mr Trumps threat on Truth Social, Tehran vowed to obliterate the oil facilities of Americas Gulf allies if any of its own infrastructure was damaged. Every oil company that co-operates with the US would be attacked immediately, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement, adding: We will turn them into dust. So far, the regime has launched only limited airborne assaults on oil facilities, with damage to Saudi Aramcos Ras Tanura oil refinery after a drone interception. Fears of mutually assured destruction have helped to contain such attacks. A major exchange of fire could cripple the entire Middle Eastern oil industry, rather than just suspend it. Last week, Tehran held back from striking oil sites around the Gulf after Israeli jets bombed major refineries around the capital, sending clouds into the sky that then dropped black rain across the city. However, the calculus for the Trump administration may be shifting as it faces a military quagmire and global economic slowdown. Targeting Kharg Islands oil facilities is a bold strategic move, but it makes sense, said Ellen Ward, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Centre. Tehran may or may not be able to take out oil fields and ports in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, but the US can definitely take out Irans. Having previously doubted that such strikes would take place, Ms Ward told The Telegraph that the prospect was becoming increasingly likely as the US had few options left to get oil moving out of the Gulf. The Trump administration has pointed to a collapse in the firing rate of Iranian drones and missiles as proof of the success of its military operation. On Feb 28, Tehran fired 215 missiles and 567 drones, according to a collation of reports from regional defence ministries. By March 13, the three-day average had fallen to 30 and 72 respectively. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said on Friday that the US had destroyed Irans military and eliminated the entire ballistic missile production capacity. Were shooting down and destroying what missiles they still have in stock, but more importantly, ensuring that they have no ability to make more, he said. However, analysts cautioned that Tehran may be rationing its arsenal and could still cause serious damage. Dr Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Service Institute, a London-based think tank, said: None of us know what it has left. Tehran has said it will begin to roll out its higher-capability missiles in a third wave against Israel but we havent seen that yet. If it does have them, it could turn some of those on the oil industry in the Gulf. Iranian proxy groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, could also turn their fire on the strategic targets. Dr Farmanfarmaian said that any additional US strike on Khargs economic infrastructure would spike the oil price because thats a major source of oil that would be taken out of the Asian market in particular. It would also cause further problems for the supply of urea, an oil distillate that is a key ingredient in fertiliser. Farmers already face serious worldwide shortages, including in the United States, as planting season begins. The Trump administration may be considering plans to seize Kharg Island entirely. Michael Rubin, a senior Pentagon adviser under George W Bushs administration, told Politico that he had lobbied White House officials in favour of a full-scale takeover. If they cant sell their own oil, they cant make payroll, Mr Rubin said. No matter how much we bomb, theres not going to be regime change until we fracture the Revolutionary Guard, and if there can be a fairly non-violent way of doing it, all the better. In 1988, Mr Trump told The Guardian that he might one day run for president in order to win back respect for America on the world stage. Referring to the Islamic Republic, he said: One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and Id do a number on Kharg Island. Id go in and take it. Lindsey Graham, a US senator and confidant of Mr Trump, wrote on X that he who controls Kharg Island, controls the destiny of this war. Semper Fi, he signed off, using the official motto of the US Marine Corps. The regime in Iran is "in its death throes" an Anglican bishop who left the country after the revolution has warned, but cautions it "shouldnt be underestimated". The Rt Rev Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford, said that the regime is "doing everything it can to survive another day". She expressed deep personal concern, adding she "weeps what for could be coming" and is currently unable to contact anyone she knows in Iran. The bishop, who holds a seat in the House of Lords, also affirmed her belief that the UK was right to stand by international law and refuse to join in with the initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Bishop Francis-Dehqani, 59, was born in Iran in 1966. Her father, Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, served as the Anglican Bishop in Iran and presiding bishop of the Episcopal church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. In the wake of the revolution in 1979, there were raids on their house, her father was imprisoned and there was an assassination attempt on her fathers life in which her mother Margaret was injured. Bishop Francis-Dehqani, 59, was born in Iran (Diocese of Chelmsford) Then, while her father was on duties elsewhere in the Middle East, her brother Bahram was murdered. After the funeral, Guli, her mother and her sister Shirin joined her father abroad and they eventually settled in the UK as refugees when Bishop Francis-Dehqani was 14 years old. Reflecting on the current situation in Iran, the bishop told PA: I think that this regime is in its death throes, I genuinely do. But death throes can last for a very, very long time. I dont have any clear sense of when it will end, but I believe it will end, and so I think they feel a sort of existential threat. I dont think they really have a plan for how to properly reassert themselves financially, for example I think everything theyre doing is about surviving another day, hence the brutality of the crackdown we saw at the end of last year into the beginning of this. I mean, it was utterly, utterly barbaric. I think everything theyre doing is about trying to survive another day and that shouldnt be underestimated. Bishop Francis-Dehqani fears civil war and massive bloodshed in Iran (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Iran constantly seems to surprise the West, Bishop Francis-Dehqani said, adding: Im not a politician, but I imagine that President Trump is probably quite surprised at the response of Iran to these latest attacks. So, I think people underestimate their ability to have planned for this event they probably knew it was coming. Asked about the UK Governments decision not to be involved in the initial strikes on Iran, she said: I personally happen to agree that Britain should not have joined in the attack. I think he (Sir Keir Starmer) was right to say this does not seem to have legal status under international law. And, frankly, I know international law is virtually now in shreds, and this seems to be another nail in its coffin, but I think its right that we stood by that and refused to join the attack. Bishop Francis-Dehqani said her fear is that Iran will descend into a civil war and the bloodshed that comes with that. She said: There is no credible opposition around which people will coalesce. If the regime does kind of collapse in some form of chaos, I really worry that there will be civil war. There are factions who are seeking change, wanting change. Some of them are no better, if not worse, than what we have at the minute. Bishop Francis-Dehqani said Starmer was right to say the Iran war did not seem to have legal status under international law (Jaimi Joy/PA) And I really fear civil war and massive bloodshed. Bishop Francis-Dehqani added that any regime change will have to come from within Iran. She said: The West has intervened so often in the politics of Iran, the people almost have lost the ability to to work out their future for themselves. So, I think the West, yes, give support to dissident groups, help the Iranian people, but they have to have agency in working out what comes next. And, certainly, democracy is a far-off dream. Democracy doesnt come to a nation overnight, it has to be learned. And Iran has never been democratic. As she discussed her concerns, the bishop recalled a message she received from someone in Iran during the protests in January, who told her that there are terrorist dissident groups making use of the unrest. She said: They are killing government agents and, he said, beheading them, literally on the streets. And then the government isnt discerning between the terrorist groups and innocent protesters, so I fear we would have more of that kind of thing. She said that while there were some reports of celebrations in Iran at the death of the Ayatollah, her worry is that, as time goes on and the reality kicks in that this is not going to be over quickly, that the elation will turn to real fear. She said: I really weep for what could be coming in the coming days and weeks. The bishop reported that she is not getting anything out of Iran at the minute, my messages arent getting through and nothings coming out. She said: I know that people who have close family and a lot of ties in Iran, this is a very, very difficult time, because obviously we have no news or information about friends, family, loved ones and so on. Russia has named the US-based great-granddaughter of a Soviet leader a foreign agent, a term with connotations of spying that Moscow applies to people it views as engaged in anti-Russian activity. Nina Khrushcheva, 62, is a professor at The New School university in New York and has continued to make research trips to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Her ancestor, Nikita Khrushchev, led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, when he was ousted by fellow members of the ruling politburo. Contacted by Reuters, Khrushcheva said she was not surprised to be added to Russias foreign agent list, which, as of Friday, contains 1,164 names, including politicians, journalists, artists, NGOs and media organisations. It would have been sloppy on their part not to do this sooner or later, she said, adding that it was too early to say what the practical impact would be. Big win: Dan Edwards (Getty Images) Wales ended a three-year Guinness Six Nations losing streak with a 31-17 victory over Italy in Cardiff. Two tries from Aaron Wainwright and another from skipper Dewi Lake gave Wales a 21-0 interval lead which was quickly built on. Dan Edwards darted over and the Ospreys outside-half added a superb long-range drop goal to four conversions for a personal haul of 16 points. Italy appeared dead and buried at 31-0 down, but they refused to go out with a whimper and Tommaso Di Bartolomeo, Tommaso Allan and Paolo Garbisi scored tries. Garbisi added a conversion. Wales had not tasted Six Nations victory since March 11, 2023 - 15 games and 1,099 days ago - when they beat Italy in Rome. But there were clear signs of green shoots in defeats to Scotland and Ireland, and Wales produced the performance nearly 70,000 fans inside Principality Stadium had craved to register a first Six Nations home win since February 2022. Italy could not back up a first-ever victory over England seven days earlier, as hopes of winning three games in a Six Nations campaign for the first time were snuffed out. The visitors almost undid a positive start from Wales after Tommaso Menoncello turned over possession and led an Azzurri charge. Wales survived that breakaway and a skewed Garbisi penalty attempt and hit the front after 15 minutes. Lineout ball was secured to let Eddie James loose and Wainwright took it on with a huge carry that saw the number eight bounce off defenders to score. Wales were further rewarded when Italy were penalised at the breakdown and chose to go to the corner rather than take the option of three points. Edwards delivered an excellent kick and Wainwright was the beneficiary of a driving lineout that Italy could not stop. The extras were added from the touchline and Wales were in dreamland with a third try before the 30-minutes mark. Lake found his target at the lineout and guided the driving maul over, with Edwards converting again. It had been clinical stuff from Wales with three tries from as many entries into the Italy 22, and the roof was in danger of coming off the Principality Stadium. Wales were just as efficient after the break as the forwards dragged in the Azzurri defence and Edwards sped through a gap for the bonus-point try. Edwards added another conversion and slotted a drop goal from 40 metres before hooker Di Bartolomeo rumbled over to put Italy on the scoreboard. Wales were reduced to 14 when Archie Griffin was shown a yellow card and Italy produced their most dominant period after the replacement prop returned from 10 minutes in the sin bin. Allan went over in the corner and Ellis Mee denied Monty Ioane with a try-saving tackle as the winger's left foot just touched the touchline before grounding the ball. Italy had the last word as Garbisi went over in the corner after Leonardo Marin was adjudged to be just short of the line, but Welsh joy - and relief - at the final whistle was palpable. The public is being invited to vote on which of six shortlisted artists will transform timber from the illegally felled Sycamore Gap tree into a lasting artwork. This follows a September call from the National Trust for a "nationally important" commission, seeking ideas from artists and agencies to shape the trees next chapter using half its wood. The charity unveiled the finalists on Saturday, launching a public ballot that runs until 28 March. Voters can choose from six distinct visions, each aiming to preserve the trees story, symbolism, and memory for future generations. The publics input will contribute to 30 per cent of the final decision, while scores from a judging panel made up of nature and art experts will make up 70 per cent. It comes more than two years after Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, from Cumbria, travelled to Hadrians Wall in Northumberland during Storm Agnes in 2023 to cut down the world-famous tree, which is thought to have been planted in the late 1880s. The felled Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrians Wall in Northumberland (Owen Humphreys/PA) The act of vandalism sparked national outrage and an outpouring of grief for the widely loved landmark. Annie Reilly, National Trust public engagement director and chairwoman of the judging panel, said: Over the past two years, weve heard extraordinary stories about what the Sycamore Gap tree meant to people from moments of celebration and milestones to quiet memories of loss, connection and reflection. It became more than a tree; it became part of the emotional landscape of the nation. Ms Reilly said the vote will give the public the opportunity to help share the ongoing story. Each of the six proposals honours the tree in a different way, and we want people to choose the idea that captures what the Sycamore Gap tree meant to them, she said. Shortlisted proposals include ideas that transform the Sycamore Gap tree wood into new artworks and sculptural installations. Also put forward are nationwide participatory projects that gather personal stories, distribute symbolic carved seeds, build platforms for conversations about climate or bring communities together in song and remembrance. The six artists or collaborations are Alex Hartley and Tom James, based in Devon and London, Helix Arts x George King Architects, based in the North East, Mary Dalton, based in Hampshire, non zero one, based in London, Sam Williams Studio, based in Sussex, and Trigger, based in Bristol. The wood is now ready for artists to work with after being stored to season over the past 28 months. The tree at Sycamore Gap had become a landmark for more than a century (PA Archive) The winner will be announced later in the spring and the final artwork is expected to be completed by 2028. The initiative comes as part of a wider public engagement programme responding to the trees felling, supported by Northumberland National Park Authority (NNPA), Historic England, the Hadrians Wall Partnership and the National Trust. So far, the main section of the trees trunk has been installed at the gateway to Northumberland National Park, where the tree once stood. Heartwood prints from a cross-section of the trunk created by printmaker Shona Branigan are now on display at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland. And UK communities were invited to apply for one of the 49 saplings grown from seeds rescued from the original tree and they have now been planted across the country. People can cast up to three votes using a valid email address at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sycamore-gap-commission. March 13, 2026: Russia recently sent five of its military instructors to Ukraine for three months to gather information and gain experience in the latest combat methods. During World War II American and Russian troops encountered instructors from NCO and officer schools in the final days of combat. When all was lost, the Germans sent in their instructors to delay the inevitable defeat. In Ukraine the Russians want to avoid ultimate defeat by upgrading the skills and combat knowledge of their instructors. Last year Russia established thirteen VOIN/Fighter centers. VOIN is used to expose teenagers to military life by giving them military uniforms, regular military orientation and some training to prepare them for joining the military via conscription or volunteering. The VOIN training for teenagers also includes a lot of education and indoctrination about the importance of patriotism and preparing to defend Russia. This is one of the reasons Russia never refers to their invasion of Ukraine as an invasion. According to the government, the fighting in Ukraine is a Russian internal matter to suppress separatist activity by some people in southern Russia that call themselves Ukrainians and are fighting to create an independent country called Ukraine. Since 2022, VOIN centers also trained Russian army reservists headed for Ukraine. Recently, the number of reservists called up has overwhelmed the VOIN system and reservists are sent to Ukraine without any preparation. Losses are higher for these reservists. While the war in Ukraine isnt over yet, Russia is already working on needed reforms so, they hope, that the next time Russian troops are in combat they perform better and perhaps even win. There have been several rounds of unsuccessful military reforms since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. One of the major causes of that collapse was their unaffordable and largely ineffective armed forces. In post-Soviet Russia there were far fewer restrictions on criticizing the military. Most Russians had a very negative attitude towards conscription and the reforms underway because of the Ukraine War disaster are typical of several previous efforts to remedy problems that continue to resist any fundamental change. President Vladimir Putin ordered all these reform efforts and is dismayed that they failed. Putin never served in the military but joined the KGB secret police in 1975. Since then Putin did what he could to punish domestic enemies, especially those calling for actions against his corrupt officials. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the KGB became, after many reforms and dismissal of incompetent or disloyal personnel, the FSB/Federal Security Bureau. By 1998 Putin was head of the FSB. At this point Putin declared that communism was a failed doctrine and proposed that democracy replace it. Putin worked hard to control the voting and the counting of votes so that he and his cronies could stay in power. The FSB reforms were still underway when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. The losses were heavier than expected and a new plan called for a massive training program to replace all the officers lost in the first few months of the 2022 fighting. The immediate problem was that all the officer instructors were sent to the front in March and April 2022 where they too became casualties. Next was that military and political leaders are still unable to restore one crucial aspect of an improved military: NCOs/Non-Commissioned Officers, sergeants in the army, petty officers in the navy. A century ago, Russia abandoned a long tradition of NCOs. Instead, junior officers would try to do everything NCOs handled. That never worked. Providing adequate training for new combat troops is something else that never had a high priority and still doesnt after 30 months of war with Ukraine. The prewar reforms were supposed to change that. There have been similar efforts in the past and none lasted long. Yesterday Dubai tomorrow, who knows? How Iran conflict could change UK travel plans once and for all Could this be one travel trauma too many? This weekend, hundreds of the time-rich, cash-rich cohort who bankroll much of the UK travel industry are converging on Sri Lanka for a midnight plane to Stansted on Sunday night. One couple, Jeff and Wendy Spencer from Surrey, will have overstayed their planned trip by 12 days by the time they step onto the chartered Spanish aircraft for the 10-hour flight to Essex. They will get back sooner than John and Sian Parker from North Wales, who are locked in limbo in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Weve just been left to our own devices, says Ms Parker. Their airline, Etihad, hopes to fly them back on Tuesday after more than a week of on-and-off communications. But the couple acknowledge they are in a relatively good situation. We keep telling ourselves: thank God were not in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, Ms Parker says. The first casualty of war is tourism. Within hours of the first US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Tehran was dispatching missiles and drones laden with 90kg of explosives to try to hit key economic infrastructure in the UAE and elsewhere. Departing soon? Sian and John Parker, from North Wales, who are currently stranded in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta (Simon Calder) Dubai, seen for decades as a safe and serene haven offering guaranteed sunshine and indulgence, now finds itself on the Foreign Office no-go list, along with Abu Dhabi, just down the road in the UAE, and Doha in Qatar. In a normal fortnight, seven million passengers would fly to, through or from the key Middle East hubs. Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways have long offered an aviation superhighway to British holidaymakers: connecting cities across the UK with destinations in Asia, Australasia and Africa. That role has come to a sudden halt, with attention now on getting stranded travellers where they need to be. Emirates and Etihad are selling commercial tickets, which is one reason the UK government and British Airways are no longer putting on evacuation flights from Muscat in Oman. But the market reveals a safety premium of around 200 per cent. Flights from Australia and Asia to the UK that do not involve a stop in the UAE or Qatar are typically selling for three times the fare with a Gulf connection. Passengers are prepared to pay dearly to avoid the apprehension of a change of planes in a location that the FCO warns against visiting. From Melbourne to London next weekend, for example, Etihad has a one-way fare as low as 462. Shenzhen Airlines not everybodys top choice for so long a journey is just over three times as much. Carriers including British Airways, Lufthansa of Germany and Singapore Airlines have added flights from East Asia specifically to cash in on the strong demand from fearful and distressed passengers. These companies will naturally say they are providing a sought-after service for people who want to bypass the Middle East. An Emirates Airbus A380 passenger aircraft prepares for landing at Dubai International Airport in Dubai on 8 March 2026. The US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 26 February, sparking swift retaliation by the Islamic Republic, which responded with missile attacks across the region. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images) (AFP/Getty) That reality will not have gone unnoticed by the aviation and tourism industries in the Gulf. They are faced with seeking to rebuild a previously well-tuned and highly profitable travel industry in a location that the world now realises is close to a temperamental and unpredictable state. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates the conflict has cut international visitor spending across the Middle East by at least US$600m (450m) per day mostly lost air fares and hotel bookings, but also dining and shopping, which normally employ a vast number of people. Restoring confidence among British travellers matters hugely for Dubai, which was, until the end of February, the worlds largest international aviation hub. The UK is the third-biggest market, after Saudi Arabia and India, for DXB. Rapid reinstatement of flying is also crucial for Britain. Those A380 superjumbos bring in tourists and business travellers to the UK, and crucially connect to the world to regional cities including Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow. When Tunisia and Egypt were put on the no-go list because of terrorist attacks, the ban on organised tourism lasted for years and caused immense social and economic harm. But travel insiders expect the warning for the Gulf states is likely to be lifted in days after a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the damage is spreading according to Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership a consortium of more than 700 UK agents. During and after past crises, a significant number of British tourists have demonstrated that they have no qualms about visiting parts of the world recently in the firing line (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Our travel agency partners are seeing a slowdown in demand for parts of the Eastern Mediterranean over the Easter window, particularly Cyprus, Turkey and Egypt. But, she says, the appetite for holidays is undimmed: People are continuing to plan and book travel for Easter. Mainland Spain, the Canary Islands, Portugal, France, Greece and Italy are all proving popular, and cruising is emerging as a strong alternative. During and after past crises, a significant number of British tourists have demonstrated that they have no qualms about visiting parts of the world recently in the firing line as long as the price is right. Steve Heapy, chief executive of the UKs leading tour operator, Jet2, told travel agents: Were speaking to hotels and trying to get special offers for Cyprus and Turkey. It might not make much difference now, but as soon as the war is over, well see a sharp spike in bookings. The airline part of his operation is insulated from the oil price surge due to judicious hedging. UK travellers seeking longhaul destinations, though, will need to adjust to higher fares. Carriers face longer routings due to airspace closures. Capacity is likely to shrink, even when the Gulf airlines return to full strength. And airlines will be able to extract a premium for both non-stop flights and connecting trips that do not involve the Middle East. People will think, maybe Ill fly Singapore Airlines next time, says Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler. He believes the tourism industry in the Gulf could be hit for the next one to five years because of the Iranian action: There you are in your five-star hotel in Dubai, and suddenly the reception desk downstairs is taken out by an errant drone. Julia Lo Bue-Said says winners already beginning to emerge: The Caribbean is seeing a notable spike in bookings from travellers who might otherwise have headed to the Middle East. Back in Jakarta, John and Sian Parker are preparing for a journey that will see them spend a couple of hours in Abu Dhabi on route to Manchester. Id like to have got home to get back to normal life and get on with work, said Mr Parker. But things are what they are and we hopefully well go on Tuesday. His wife, Sian, is not looking forward to the stopover. I must admit Im a bit apprehensive, but its something youve just got to get on with. History suggests British travellers will do just that. US justice department prosecutors contend that Nass threatened a client for payment that he claimed he was owed for his services. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP (Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP) A New York lobbyist and attorney connected to a presidential pardon issued by Donald Trump in November has been charged with attempting to extort money from a former client and the clients son over an alleged $500,000 debt. Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested on Friday after being charged in federal court in Brooklyn with attempted Hobbs Act extortion. US justice department prosecutors contend that Nass threatened a client for payment that he claimed he was owed for his services. Nass is alleged to have provided an unnamed individual with a phone number as well as addresses while instructing the individual to visit the client at his home. It was an effort to intimidate the client into paying up, as prosecutors put it. According to prosecutors, Nass told the individual in question to do anything and everything to force to the payment, including physically assaulting the clients son or forcing him into a car with masked men and threatening him to make someone in [the sons] family pay Nass. Related: Fraud focus: why is Trump granting clemency to convicted fraudsters? It is also alleged that Nass told the individual that he could not be a human being with the clients son if the son rebuffed paying. Nass is alleged to have agreed to pay the individual at least $15,000 for his continued efforts. As alleged, Nass plotted the violent extortion of one of his own clients and hired an individual to do anything and everything to force the clients son to pay for services, said a statement from US attorney Joseph Nocella Jr of the eastern district of New York. James Barnacle, an FBI assistant director in charge, said that rather than honestly representing his client, Joshua Nass allegedly chose to shake him down by hiring an enforcer to extort payment. Nass faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted as charged. He was scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Saturday. After a brief appearance in court on Saturday, Nass was released on a $5m bond. Five properties two in New York and three in South Carolina along with $50,000 in cash secured the bond. He was also placed on GPS electronic monitoring. Nass had a role in Trumps 14 November 2025 pardon of Joseph Schwartz, who had been convicted in Arkansas over his ownership of a nursing-home empire that had failed to pay nearly $40m in employment and payroll taxes and had been charged with Medicaid fraud. Neither Schwartz nor his son are mentioned in the governments press release. But Nass conspicuously reported in a public filing that he was paid $100,000 toward the end of 2025 for advocacy concerning executive clemency and post-conviction relief, including federal presidential pardon advocacy and subsequent efforts to obtain expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas. Related: Capitol rioter pardoned by Trump given life sentence for molesting two children Separately, in documents pertaining to the extortion case against the attorney, prosecutors allege that the son of Nasss client facilitated a $100,000 payment out of $600,000 owed for lobbying services. Earlier in March, the New York Times reported that Schwartz had connected with Trump through Nass and his connections to pro-Israel evangelicals. Nass told the outlet that clemency reflects the belief that people are capable of redemption. Referring to the numerous pardons Trump has issued during his second presidency, Nass added that Trump has shown a willingness to give deserving individuals a second chance and he should be commended for such. The case against Nass comes amid allegations that Trumps system of clemency is one shaped by lobbyists, though Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has rejected that assertion. Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money, and the president doesnt even know who these so-called lobbyists are, Leavitt told the Times. Zarah Sultana has been accused of a modern iteration of the medieval blood libel - Maja Smiejkowska/PA Wire Zarah Sultana could face an investigation by the parliamentary watchdog after being accused of peddling an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. The co-founder of Your Party is accused of normalising anti-Semitic rhetoric in British political discourse through social media posts. On March 4, Ms Sultana posted on her X account that Zionism is one of the greatest threats to humanity, responding to footage of air strikes in Tehran. Three days later, the MP for Coventry South wrote they love killing kids in response to an Al Jazeera news update which said: Four children among six people killed in Israeli attack on Lebanons Shmestar town, according to the countrys Health Ministry. A complaint, seen by The Telegraph, has been submitted to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over the two posts. It states: The accusation that Israelis derive pleasure from killing children is a modern iteration of the medieval blood libel, one of the most enduring and dangerous anti-Semitic conspiracy fantasies in history. It claims that Ms Sultanas X post employs the same rhetorical framework as the blood libel a bogus claim of ritualised murder that has been used in the past to justify violence against Jews. The complaint also claims that Ms Sultanas characterisation of Zionism the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland echoes historical anti-Semitic propaganda that portrayed Jews as an existential danger to civilisation. It says: The historical context makes this particularly serious. Nazi propaganda consistently depicted Jews and Jewish national aspirations as threats to humanity, using remarkably similar language to justify persecution and ultimately genocide. The phrase threat to humanity (Gefahr fur die Menschheit) appeared repeatedly in Nazi anti-Semitic materials portraying Jews as a malign force that must be eliminated for humanitys survival. The complaint adds that since the majority of British Jews identify as Zionists, Ms Sultanas statement effectively declares that British Jews are one of the greatest threats to humanity. Zarah Sultana has claimed that Israelis love killing kids - Jeff Overs/BBC The standards commissioner is examining claims that Ms Sultanas social media posts breach the code of conduct for members of Parliament, specifically the requirements for honesty, integrity, and not bringing the House into disrepute. Alex Hearn, of the campaign group Labour Against Anti-Semitism, said he believes Ms Sultanas claims cross the line from legitimate criticism of Israeli military actions into anti-Semitic tropes and dehumanisation. He said: Ms Sultanas posts legitimise a hostile environment for Jewish constituents and Jewish MPs by normalising anti-Semitic rhetoric in British political discourse, by employing blood libel imagery and portraying Jewish self-determination as an existential threat to humanity. The characterisation of Jewish self-determination as one of humanitys greatest threats, combined with the accusation that Israelis love killing kids, is not legitimate political debate. It is rhetoric that employs anti-Semitic tropes with deeply troubling historical precedents. Ms Sultana was elected in 2019 as a Labour MP, but lost the whip in July 2024 after rebelling against the Government on the two-child benefit cap. She went on to set up Your Party, along with Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, to provide a hard-Left alternative to Sir Keir Starmers Labour. However, the pair fell out with Ms Sultana accusing Mr Corbyn of having capitulated in his handling of Labours anti-Semitism crisis during his time as leader of the Opposition. She said he was wrong to have eventually adopted the definition of anti-Semitism drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Mr Corbyn said the barb wasnt really necessary. Last month, Mr Corbyn took effective control of Your Party after winning a power struggle with Ms Sultana. A spokesman for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said they did not comment on individual cases. Ms Sultanas spokesman said on Saturday that she had not heard from the commissioner on this matter. Dame Sarah Mullally will be reflecting on the tradition of pilgrimage with a six-day walk before her instalment as Archbishop of Canterbury - Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images The Archbishop of Canterbury will make an 87-mile pilgrimage from London to the final of three instalment ceremonies. The Most Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, 63, will become the first archbishop to make a pilgrimage to their instalment after she completes the six-day walking route from London to Canterbury. She will arrive in the city a few days before her final installation service at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25. Dame Sarah, who is the 106th and first female Archbishop of Canterbury to hold the role in its 1,400-year history, is guarded about her personal life but has long spoken of her love of walking. Deeply humbling She will be undertaking the Beckett-Camino from St Pauls Cathedral to Canterbury with her husband, Eamonn, who is also a passionate pilgrim and serves as a trustee of another ancient route which runs from Canterbury to Rome. The last time he walked the route alongside his wife, who was then Bishop of London, they arrived in Rome just as Pope Francis died in April 2025. As a result, she was able to attend his funeral. Dame Sarah said: As I prepare for my installation at Canterbury Cathedral, it feels deeply humbling to be following in the footsteps of those who have walked this ancient route. For centuries, faithful pilgrims have flocked to Canterbury, and I will be reflecting on this tradition as we make our way through the Kent countryside and its towns and cities. The six-day journey, during which the Archbishop will stop at various points for prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, meet other pilgrims and visit schools and ecumenical organisations, will end on Sunday March 22. Dame Sarah added: Im looking forward to visiting local churches, cathedrals and holy sites along the route and to meeting people, praying with them and hearing their stories. As I walk this path, I will be praying for our Church and our world, and asking God to bless those we meet. Every Christian life is a pilgrimage, a journey with God. As I begin this new chapter in my own life and ministry, I am grateful to be walking with God and with others. Walking along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, she will join morning and evening prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting other pilgrims and visiting schools and ecumenical organisations. Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral. The final stretch will see the pilgrims joined by David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury, and members of the cathedral chapter, to walk from the village of Chartham to Canterbury, arriving in time for Evensong on March 22. The Prince of Wales will represent the King at the historic enthronement ceremony, where he will be joined by the Princess of Wales. In February, the couple met Dame Sarah for the first time at Lambeth Palace, her official residence. The King is supreme governor of the Church of England but William, his son and heir, will deputise for the head of state at the service. As the ceremony marks the official start of Dame Sarahs public ministry, she will for the first time preach a sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury. Toxic algal bloom at Battery Harbour on Lough Neagh in August last year. The bloom, fuelled by sewage and slurry pollution, helps spread antibiotic resistance. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA (Photograph: Niall Carson/PA) Genes capable of creating antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been detected in the UKs largest lake, which supplies drinking water to about 40% of Northern Ireland. Testing of water from Lough Neagh, which has a surface area 26 times bigger than Windermere, found genes resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, including carbapenems drugs reserved for life-threatening infections when all other treatments have failed. The discovery comes as deaths linked to antibiotic-resistant infections are rising worldwide. Nearly 400 resistant infections are reported each week in England, with deaths linked to them reaching an estimated 2,379 in 2024, according to UK Health Security Agency data. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes this antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the most urgent, complex and frightening health challenges of our time. Samples taken by Watershed Investigations and the Guardian found resistance genes spanning multiple antibiotic classes, from common penicillins to last-resort carbapenems, as well as quinolones, macrolides, aminoglycosides and cephalosporins, which are used to treat pneumonia and other serious infections. Genes resistant to tetracycline, widely used in livestock, were also present. Carbapenems are known as the last-line-of-defence antibiotics because they are only used when other treatments have failed, said Will Gaze, a professor of microbiology at the University of Exeter. If pathogens are resistant to the carbapenem antibiotics, theyre resistant to many others too. Samples from a designated bathing-water area on the lough were also affected. Gaze said: If a swimmer swallowed 30ml of the lough water, theyd get a pretty good exposure to carbapenem-resistance genes, but we dont know what impact that has on the gut microbiome or risk of infection. Related: Its dying in front of our eyes: how the UKs largest lake became an ecological disaster Alongside the resistance genes, markers of human, cattle and pig faeces were detected in the water. Sewage and livestock slurry create ideal conditions for superbugs, flushing pathogens, antibiotic residues and resistant bacteria into waterways where they can mix, multiply and spread. Sewage and livestock manures can contain pathogens that can cause serious infections, said Gaze. If those organisms are carrying resistance genes, theyre much harder to treat. Sewage and slurry pollution is widespread across the UK. In Lough Neagh it has fuelled vast toxic algal blooms, visible from space, that suffocate wildlife and help spread antibiotic resistance. Despite various environmental protections, the lake is now in such poor health that campaigners recently held a mock funeral for it. Northern Irelands Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) minister, Andrew Muir, said more than 20m tonnes of untreated sewage spilled into the countrys waterways each year. About 30% of Northern Ireland Waters storm overflows spill raw sewage into Lough Neagh, 106 directly and 618 indirectly via rivers. But the scale of the problem may be even greater. A water industry expert warned that monitors were being installed on the water companys storm overflows but not at outfalls from wastewater treatment works, where larger volumes can enter waterways unchecked. Much more raw sewage is getting into rivers and lakes than the water company estimates imply, the expert said. Forty per cent of Northern Ireland are drinking water from a fetid pond filled with bacteria from human and animal waste, and now, unsurprisingly, there are AMR genes. Yet, even treated sewage poses a risk. Davey Jones, a professor of environmental science and public health at Bangor University, warned: Just because wastewaters treated, it doesnt mean its safe. [Sewage overflows] are really bad, but theyre not always discharging and can be diluted, whereas AMR genes are pumping out every single day through treated sewage. He described sewer networks as a mega-network of an epic breeding ground for resistant microbes, and called for better treatment technologies at wastewater plants. Related: UKs largest lake faces environmental crisis as rescue plans stall However, the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council, a non-departmental public body, said the company lacked sufficient funding for the scale of wastewater investment required and was forced to prioritise drinking water instead. As a result, Northern Ireland Water is spending public money trying to clean up pollution caused by its own infrastructure. A Northern Ireland Water spokesperson acknowledged decades of underinvestment, saying the company had been left with very limited scope for upgrades and that only a permanent, sustainable investment plan would close the long-term funding gap. In the meantime, the consequences are restrictions on development, increased pollution risk and worsening pressure on the environment, they said. Stringent targets to reduce pollution incidents are being introduced and new monitoring equipment is being installed to track storm overflows in the Lough Neagh catchment, they added. Sewage is only half the story, however. Livestock slurry runs off farmland, feeding algal blooms and flushing antibiotics, pathogens and resistance genes into the lake. The pressure from farming has intensified in recent years. Since a government policy promoting intensive agriculture was introduced in 2013, pig numbers in Northern Ireland have risen from 517,075 to 744,643, while poultry numbers have jumped from about 19.5 million to 25.8 million. There are now approximately 1.6 million cattle and 1.8 million sheep in the country. Jones described cattle as pathogen bioreactors on four legs, arguing that streams should be fenced off to prevent animals defecating directly into waterways, and that farmers must stop spreading slurry at the wrong time of year. Ive seen people doing it because their slurry tanks are full and theyve got to get rid of the stuff, he said. A recent study found E coli in every sample of cattle manure tested. Progress has also been hobbled by governance failures. The Office for Environmental Protection watchdog found that Northern Ireland lacked an environmental regulator free from government influence. A source within Daera described collapsed morale inside the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. Theyre not allowed to talk, to breathe, to do their jobs. Theyre not supposed to prosecute agriculture or take Northern Ireland Water to court, despite so many wastewater works being beyond capacity. Northern Ireland Water has largely avoided prosecution since 2007, when an agreement was signed limiting regulators ability to pursue the company, though Muir withdrew that agreement on 3 March this year. Muir has also attempted to establish an independent environmental regulator, but the proposal has been blocked at Stormont by the Democratic Unionist party (DUP). The Daera source alleged that agriculture held significant political influence, with many farmers forming part of the DUPs support base. Related: Like the flip of a switch, its gone: has the ecosystem of the UKs largest lake collapsed? Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent global challenge and evidence has been found in Northern Irelands aquatic environments, including Lough Neagh, said Muir, adding that there were plans for more testing. Restoring and protecting the ecological health of Lough Neagh cannot be overstated and work is under way on the Lough Neagh action plan. Overuse of antibiotics in both people and livestock underpins the increase in resistance. In an attempt to tackle it, the UK government has a target to reduce their use in humans by 5% by 2029 from a 2019 baseline. NHS prescription of antibiotics fell slightly between 2019 and 2024, but private prescriptions more than doubled over the same period, pushing overall primary care use up 10.7%, with 22% of all antibiotics now dispensed privately. Northern Ireland has the highest rate of antimicrobial prescribing in the UK. Ruth Chambers, a senior fellow at the thinktank Green Alliance, said the situation had all the ingredients to be a perfect storm for the health of Northern Irelands people and environment and called for an independent environmental protection agency to be fast-tracked. Natalie Sims, a policy adviser at the Royal Society of Chemistry, warned that the UK risked falling behind the EU, which is introducing laws requiring countries to monitor AMR in wastewater. We still understand far too little about how the aquatic environment contributes to the spread of AMR, she said. Without robust environmental data, we risk missing a major part of the problem. Without urgent action, the WHO warns, drug-resistant infections could claim 39 million lives worldwide by 2050 and impose an annual economic burden of up to $412bn (307bn). Migrants on an overcrowded dinghy are spotted by lifeboat crews. More small boats are setting off from Belgium People-smugglers bringing migrants to Britain have expanded their criminal operations to Belgium. Officials have raised fears about a possible wave of migrant deaths in the Channel as people-smuggling gangs launch an increasing number of crossings from Belgian towns and cities including Le Panne, Coxide, Nieuwpoort and Middelkerke. Some crossings from the new departure towns have taken up to 24 hours because of a range of issues including flimsy boats, unreliable engines and longer journeys. It is thought the smugglers running the small boats operation are using cheaper and more unreliable engines as well as more flimsy boats. People-smugglers are said to be using boats of poor quality - Dan Kitwood/2021 Getty Images Last week, one boat with dozens of migrants on board got into difficulty when one of the two engines on board failed. It had launched from Berck, 40 miles east of Calais. They spent seven hours in the Channel trying to reach British soil when the second engine also failed and many migrants reportedly started to get hypothermia. The boat returned to where it set off and many of the sick people aboard were replaced with others chancing the crossing. The engine restarted but then failed again twice more. Migrants run to board a small boat in the Channel - Gareth Fuller/PA Wire Some 86 people on that boat made it to Britain the next day with a total journey time of 24 hours. Photos from rescuers show the migrants cramped on a small boat as it starts to get into difficulty. Other reports from that region and Belgium estimate a similar length of time, because of the extra journeys and faulty engines. The authorities and rescuers are also tackling an increase in crossings from Belgium. Between March 3-4, one boat which had set sail from Belgium had to be rescued by the authorities. It originally ignored help, but when sources said the engine failed, it asked for help and was taken to Calais after a 10-hour failed journey. Dozens of other migrants have had to be rescued this month, many because of engine failure. There were other failed crossings on March 4 and on other dates. One British source said: The number of engine failures is a real concern to the authorities on both sides. It appears the smugglers are sourcing poorer quality or simply do not care. Safety is not their priority. Engine failures, combined with journeys from Belgium and wider out of Calais, is a real cause for concern. Its setting itself up for a disaster. Belgian authorities are cracking down with more arrests of smugglers. Two smugglers were arrested each month in the Belgian region of Westkust last year. By the start of this month, that number had already reached 25. Carl Decaluw, the governor of West Flanders, told the local media: We have already reached half of last years total arrests. The situation is therefore explosive, as we predicted. The newspaper La Voix du Nord reported that he called for the use of modern cameras to spot small boats, and thus accelerate interventions in the event of attempted crossings. He said: It is now up to the local police to take care of them, when they already have a lot to do with her interventions on the ground. Migrants in transit are usually ordered to leave the territory, which rarely happens. So we end up always arresting the same people, and its a dead end. The paper reported one of the solutions would be to improve cooperation with the UK and create a dedicated centre. He said: When you stop people and take them to a centre, it has a deterrent effect. There should be only one foreign service official in our province who sends those arrested to other centres. Five-year-olds are creating pornographic content on TikTok to raise money for video games such as Roblox and Fortnite, police have warned. A document prepared by the UK Online CSEA Covert Intelligence Team (OCCIT), seen by The Telegraph, says that young children are livestreaming content for strangers. In return for explicit content, paedophiles are paying schoolchildren using TikToks virtual gift system, which can be converted back into real-world money by youngsters. Offenders, operating in organised groups of up to 10,000 members, have been observed using gifts to reward children who perform acts, such as handstands whilst wearing skirts. Paedophiles blackmail victims The specialist police group said it was alarmed to find that TikTok was also enabling self-generated child pornography and self-harm, which was being monetised by youngsters, while their algorithms facilitated abuse and helped paedophiles locate schoolchildren. Children have been observed selling such content for fiat currency, as well as currencies for video games such as Roblox and Fortnite, the document warns. This has been noted to escalate all the way up to the most explicit sexual acts being undertaken by children on TikTok live streams, which are recorded and subsequently shared by online sex offenders. Many children engaging in these increasingly concerning practises are eventually subject to blackmail and extortion by adult sex offenders. As a result, they are subject to the most extreme and humiliating abuse imaginable. The OCCIT report concluded: TikTok doesnt just enable online sexual abuse. It currently promotes it. 1503 The document was provided to Baroness Kidron ahead of a session of the House of Lords science, innovation and technology committee, which was looking into whether social media should be banned for under-16s. The Government is carrying out a consultation on an Australian-style ban, but last Monday MPs voted against immediate restrictions. Lady Kidron told peers: Last Monday, while the Commons was voting against the ban, I got evidence from the police about live streaming on TikTok which makes for such poor reading that my parliamentary assistant said he felt rather sick and asked if he could go home. After the session, she told The Telegraph: Frankly everything in that TikTok report is illegal and should not be happening, and I was particularly concerned to find that it involves children as young as five. This is unacceptable. If this was a toy it wouldnt be allowed because its literally not suitable for children. It is a a duty to check hat something you have built and profit from doesnt accidentally create or allow others to create child sexual abuse. That is such a low bar. She added: Honestly, shame on the Government for implementing a three-line whip to stop risk-assessing things for child sexual abuse material and shame on the opposition for not voting for it. Baroness Kidron says everything in the TikTok report is illegal and should not be happening - Jeff Gilbert The OCCIT task force warned that officers had identified hundreds of accounts dedicated to the sexualisation of children many of which specifically focussed on those from the UK Offenders operate with impunity when it comes to contacting children on TikTok, it said. Offender discussions have shown that TikTok is a favoured platform for locating victims of online sexual exploitation. This was shown to include blackmail and extortion. TikTok said that its law enforcement response team was dedicated to engaging with police and met regularly with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre within the National Crime Agency. The platform said that it made deliberate design decisions to make TikTok hostile to predators and said that under-16s were banned from using direct messaging, and their accounts were not suggested to adults. It said it had not been made aware of the examples in the OCCIT report and disagreed with some of its findings and would be requesting an urgent meeting. A spokesman for TikTok said: Child Sexual Abuse Material is abhorrent and categorically prohibited on our platform. We invest significantly in combating exploitation and staying ahead of bad actors through proactive detection technology and specialist teams, and we take deliberate design decisions that make our platform hostile to predators. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Irans parliamentary national security committee, issues his threat on social media above a photograph of Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu - X Iran has declared Ukraine a legitimate target after claiming Kyiv had offered drone support to Israel. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Irans parliamentary national security committee, said on the social media platform X that Ukraine had effectively entered the war. By providing drone support to the Israeli regime, failed Ukraine has turned its entire territory into a legitimate target for Iran, Mr Azizi wrote, without providing evidence for his claim of aid to Israel. Ukraine has not officially provided drone support to Israel, but has sent teams of military experts to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said earlier this week that 11 countries, including the US and nations across the Middle East and Europe, had asked Kyiv for support in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones. Volodymyr Zelensky met Reza Pahlavi, the exiled Crown Prince of Iran, in Paris on Friday to discuss the war in Iran - X Shahriar Amouzegar, Irans envoy to Ukraine, mocked the support Kyiv has offered to its allies on Saturday, telling AFP: As for the actions Ukraine is taking in the Middle East against drones, we essentially consider them nothing more than a joke and a showy gesture. Tehran is a close strategic partner of Moscow and the pair cooperate heavily in military technology, intelligence and matters of regional security. Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said: The Iranian regime has been supporting the murder of Ukrainians for years by directly supplying drones and technology for Russias aggression against Ukraine. Hearing anyone from that regime threaten Ukraine while citing the right to self-defence enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter is absurd. Its like hearing a serial killer justify his crimes by citing the criminal code. The swarms of delta-winged Shahed-136 drones that have descended almost nightly on Ukrainian cities since at least 2024 were originally designed in Iran before Moscow localised production and upgraded its models. How Shahed drones work Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb 28, the Kremlin is thought to have supplied intelligence to Tehran to facilitate strikes on US military assets and personnel. Russia has started supporting the Iranian regime with drones. It will definitely help with missiles, and it is also helping them with air defence, Mr Zelensky said on Wednesday. John Healey, Britains Defence Secretary, said Vladimir Putins hidden hand was behind Iranian drone strikes on British troops and allies in the Middle East. Mr Healey blamed Russia after a swarm of Iranian drones hit a coalition air base in Erbil, northern Iraq. Two drones were destroyed by British forces, but others eluded defences and struck the base on Wednesday night. No one will be surprised to believe that Putins hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well, the Defence Secretary added. Russia is producing Shahed drones based on an Iranian design - Telegram Meanwhile, Russia announced that it had dispatched 13 tons of humanitarian aid to the Iranian authorities via Azerbaijan, on the orders of Vladimir Putin. Moscow and Tehran have also held a succession of phone calls, with Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, saying that Putin is in constant contact with Irans leadership. In a call with Donald Trump on Monday, Putin was said to have proposed moving Irans enriched uranium to Russia, as one of several suggestions to help bring the war to an end. This is not the first time it was offered. It hasnt been accepted. The US position is we need to see the uranium secured, a US official told Axios. Moscow has condemned US and Israeli attacks on Iran as the implementation of a long-cherished plan to violently overthrow the constitutional order of a sovereign state that Washington and Tel Aviv dislike and called for an end to the fighting. However, it has been estimated that Moscow is raking in up to $150m (113m) extra revenue per day because of the conflict, which has sent global oil prices soaring amid what the International Energy Agency described on Thursday as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Palestinians are given training on professional editing on Wikipedia Young Palestinians are being trained to fill Wikipedia with anti-Israel propaganda, it has been claimed. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based NGO, has launched a programme to train groups of Palestinians in Gaza to edit pages relating to Israel in the online encyclopaedia. Wikipedia allows anyone to edit its content without creating an account, while stipulating that they must maintain a neutral point of view, cite reputable sources and avoid vandalism. But critics fear the project, called WikiRights, will produce misleading and harmful propaganda about Israel. The NGO announced last month it had completed the third phase of WikiRights in the Gaza Strip, targeting a new cohort of young men and women who survived the genocide in the enclave. As part of the project, 12 young Palestinian men and women have been given what it describes as in-depth training in human rights research and documentation, as well as professional editing on Wikipedia. The NGO says the project aims to challenge efforts to conceal the true story of victims of genocide. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitors photos show young Palestinians at computer screens in a Gaza office Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which also has offices in Gaza City and Beirut, said: The training covers creating, developing, and updating content, and involves using editing and contribution tools in both Arabic and English. The project aims to enable participants to produce reliable content based on international documentation standards, address knowledge gaps concerning human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory. Photographs published by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor show several young Palestinians at computer screens in a Gaza office, apparently working on a number of documents. But Jack Rankin, the Tory MP for Windsor, claimed Euro-Med Monitors WikiRights programme were designed to create anti-Israel propaganda, and called on the broadcasting regulator Ofcom to investigate. He said: This case highlights the all too real spread of anti-Israel propaganda online. Ofcom needs to urgently investigate reports that partisan actors are editing and producing potentially misleading and harmful content on a website used daily by millions of Brits. It is essential that the Labour Government ensures that British taxpayers money isnt being received by this organisation as it is potentially stoking division and hatred of Israel and Jews. Jack Rankin, the Tory MP for Windsor, has demanded an Ofcom investigation into the project - House of Commons Wikipedia risks huge damage Lord Walney, the UK governments independent adviser on political violence and disruption from 2020 to 2025, said: The weaponisation of Wikipedia by activists with an extreme Leftist agenda is a growing issue that risks hugely damaging the reputation of the platform as a trusted news source. Internet empires rise and fall at breakneck speed as technology accelerates, and Wikipedia will soon find itself on the scrapheap if it allows itself to be manipulated like this. He added: NGO funding for Gazans should be directed at helping reconstruct the country, not acting as a propaganda tool. Wikipedia is the seventh most-visited website in the world, with 776 million visits per month in the UK. Surveys indicate the British public trusts it more than traditional news outlets. But it has previously faced questions about being vulnerable to politically motivated activists. Pirate Wires, a US tech and media company, claimed after a 2024 investigation that 40 Wikipedia editors had made 850,000 changes to nearly 10,000 articles relating to Israel, in what critics said was an apparently coordinated attempt to shape public opinion against the Jewish state. The edits reportedly included removing historic Jewish connections to the land of Israel and deleting information about Hamass use of rape and sexual violence during the Oct 7 attacks. Hamas militants pose for a photograph at the handover in February 2025 of the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her children Kfir and Ariel, who were seized in the Oct 7 attacks - Hatem Khaled/Reuters The Wikimedia Foundation took action in early 2025 by suspending six editors identified as pro-Palestinian, as well as two users identified as pro-Israel, following an investigation into conflict-of-interest editing. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has rejected claims by Israel that its work lends support to Hamas. Ramy Abdu, its founder and chairman, has argued that attempts to link Palestinian activists with Hamas are intended to delegitimise its documentation of Israels human rights violations. The NGO has defended its WikiRights project, saying it is vital for Palestinians to be able to share their first-hand knowledge and experience of the conflict. Anas Jerjawi, Euro-Med Monitors chief operations officer, said: Training young people to edit Wikipedia content seeks to transform victims of genocide in Gaza from mere statistics into storytellers, especially given the recent failures of some platforms or their complicity in not conveying the scale of genocide. It is crucial for us to empower young people to share accurate facts and document Israeli crimes, ensuring that these details are not exclusively recorded by the perpetrators. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says it does not receive government funding, but relies on private donations, crowdfunding campaigns and grants from private foundations. Under the Online Safety Act, sites and apps are required to assess and mitigate the risk of UK users seeing illegal user-generated content. Ofcom monitors platforms legal obligations The act requires Ofcom to determine whether platforms such as Wikipedia have taken appropriate steps to comply with these legal obligations. The Wikimedia Foundation said it had rigorous editorial policies in place to ensure information is backed by reliable sources. A spokesman said: Wikipedias content is not influenced by any one person or group, and the Wikimedia Foundation takes claims against the integrity of Wikimedia projects very seriously. Any attempts to edit Wikipedia to promote a political agenda or personal point of view on Wikipedia would violate either platform policies, the Foundations Code of Conduct, or both, likely resulting in enforcement. The spokesman added: Wikipedias content is determined by its global community of nearly 250,000 volunteer editors [who] discuss, debate, and often disagree until a shared consensus can be reached on what content to include. This process is done entirely out in the open. Every edit can be seen in the articles history, and every discussion point can be seen in the articles talk page. In a statement to The Telegraph Mr Jerjawi said: The project provides training on how to edit and contribute to Wikipedia using the proper methods and standards followed by the platforms editors. We do not operate any centres dedicated to directing, creating, or drafting edits, nor do we lead organised collective activities aimed at editing Wikipedia articles to defame or attack Israel. Therefore, documenting the genocide on Wikipedia means training participants to search for and review materials related to the genocide that have already been published on reliable online sources, and then incorporate them into the encyclopedia as part of the practical application of the skills they have acquired during the training. He added: Contributions by users to articles related to Israels human rights violations on Wikipedia cannot in any way be considered anti-Semitic. Rather, they reflect facts that have occurred and have been documented according to transparent, impartial, and independent standards, including by human rights organisations and international independent media outlets. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Within the span of nine hours, law enforcement in separate Middle Tennessee counties responded to two road rage incidents that resulted in shootings Thursday. Aggressive driving can be contagious, Megan Cooper, the Tennessee spokesperson for AAA, said. Around 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 12, the Smyrna Police Department was dispatched to an alleged road rage incident in the 200 block of South Lowry Street, according to authorities. At some point, the situation reportedly escalated and the suspect reached for a weapon, so two officers fired their guns, injuring the suspect. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said its agents are working to determine what led to the officer-involved shooting. Suspect injured after road rage incident leads to officer-involved shooting in Smyrna Then, at approximately 8:15 p.m. Thursday, the Metro Nashville Police Department said a man was shot in the 2300 block of West End Avenue in a reported act of road rage. It can definitely be scary when you hear of stories that have escalated too far, especially when they are close to home, Cooper said. According to officials, the victim in Nashville said he turned onto West End from 23rd Avenue in front of a white sedan, believed to be a mid-2010s Kia Optima, which started driving aggressively. Both vehicles pulled into a parking lot, at which point a passenger in the back seat of the Kia allegedly yelled and fired into the victims car, wounding him in the back. The victim who was wounded in the back rear-ended a parked vehicle, and the Kia made a U-turn and headed down West End Avenue, law enforcement said. Man seriously injured in suspected road rage shooting near Vanderbilt University, police say Advertisement That aggression starts; the situation is not deescalated; and, unfortunately, sometimes those can escalate into injury and sometimes fatalities when people have weapons, Cooper said. AAA said avoiding road rage starts with the driver. If youre behind the wheel, make sure you arent intentionally being aggressive towards other motorists, follow the rules of the road, and be polite. However, if you still find yourself in a dangerous situation, Cooper recommended the following: Try not to make eye contact with them. Dont respond to anything that they are doing. A lot of cases, you are able to slow down, let them move on, let them pass you. A lot of times, that works. In the case that it does not, try not to handle that situation yourself. Experts recommend not getting out of the car. Also, if youre being followed, dont go home. Instead, head to the nearest police station. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com We cannot control what other people are doing behind the wheel. We can only control what were doing in our vehicle and how we are reacting, Cooper said. AAA research found 96% of drivers admit to driving aggressively or being on the receiving end of such driving. As for Thursdays two road rage incidents, no additional details were released about the one in Smyrna, but in Nashville, authorities asked for the communitys help finding the suspect vehicle: (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) If you have any information about the car pictured above and/or its occupants, youre asked to call Nashville Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Border town emerges as key port for China-Europe trade over past decade Xinhua) 09:30, March 14, 2026 This photo taken on Aug. 25, 2025 shows a fully assembled China-Europe freight train waiting for departure at the standard-gauge yard of Horgos railway port in Horgos, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo by Feng Haisen/Xinhua) URUMQI, March 13 (Xinhua) -- In the course of the past ten years, Horgos Railway Port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has become one of the busiest gateways for China-Europe freight trains, handling more than 19,000 train trips since the first train departed in March 2016. Data from Horgos Railway Station, administered by China Railway Urumqi Group, shows that the variety of goods transported via the port has expanded significantly, from daily necessities and textiles in the early days to over 200 categories currently, including mechanical and electrical equipment, new energy vehicles, electronics and agricultural products. This expansion reflects ongoing optimization from "moving available goods" to "moving high-value goods." "The China-Europe freight train service is our preferred logistics solution for reaching European markets, thanks to its speed, cost efficiency and reliability," said Zhang Yunyu, business manager of a local international freight forwarding company. The company has so far been involved in over 2,000 freight train trips. The steady growth in train volume at this port is underpinned by continuous improvements in customs clearance and operational efficiency. In recent years, Horgos has deepened port reforms and introduced an innovative model combining a "smart railway port" with localized fast-track clearance. By coordinating resources across customs, border inspection and railway authorities, the port now synchronizes processes such as train disassembly, trans-shipment, inspection and release, boosting turnover efficiency by more than 20 percent. The port also provides round-the-clock clearance services, streamlines transport procedures, moves document review forward in the workflow, and strengthens daily and weekly coordination with Kazakh railway authorities to address bottlenecks in cross-border transit. "We fully leverage our production command center to ensure accurate train flow forecasting, seamless operational coordination and efficient trans-shipment, which allows us to reliably execute daily plans and keep trains moving smoothly," said Yang Jiming, a production dispatcher at the station's safety command center. Customs procedures have been upgraded in parallel. Zhao Yuanfeng, deputy head of the third supervision division at Horgos Customs, noted that authorities have implemented supportive policies, integrated customs oversight into railway workflows, and set up dedicated service windows for China-Europe trains. Tailored solutions and green channels are also offered to expedite document checks, inspections and trans-shipment. As a key railway hub in China's westward opening-up endeavors, Horgos has seen rapid growth in port-related industries, cross-border e-commerce and logistics, driven by the freight train network. What was once a remote border town is now steadily expanding its role in international trade, serving the development of the Belt and Road Initiative. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) March 12, 2026: Current practice in the United States Navy is for sailors to paint their ships. This is something sailors are not trained for and do not do often enough to gain much experience. The paint job is often substandard because all sailors have to do is remove evidence of rust. What does remain is incomplete coverage in obscured areas, where the rust remains and spreads until the next scheduled pain by the ships crew. A proposed alternative would have the paint job done by professional contractors each time the ship is in port for two weeks or more. Contractors, augmented by shore-based sailors trained for the job, would do the painting and corroded fasteners and similar things with new items. With the persistent shortage of sailors, using contractors and shore-based sailors would make life much easier for the ships crew and eliminate one more reason why fewer Americans are joining the navy. Nearly a century ago, during World War I, there was no shortage of sailors and there was time and enthusiasm for experimenting with new applications of paint. One of these was the use of popular new camouflage patterns. These dazzle and zig-zag paint patterns were used because research found that this would spoil the aim of enemy gunners. It was later discovered that a regular camouflage pattern would serve nearly as well. Pilots also found, through experience, that a dark color, without camouflage detail, would work about as well to hide a low flying aircraft from being spotted from above. After all, at a certain altitude, all you saw of the ground below was a lot of dark colors. More recent research has found that the dazzle patterns actually did make ground troops misjudge the speed of moving of vehicles by about seven percent, which in many cases would cause the gunner, especially one using a machine-gun or RPG, to miss by a meter. That's enough, it is believed, to save lives. But many troops are skeptical, as were those faced with this striking type of camouflage pattern in the past. These new findings may be a big deal for those who still believe in dazzle paint patterns, but little is expected to change. That's because dazzle camouflage never seemed to work that well in actual use. It all began during World War I, when ships had to face the widespread use of submarines for the first time. Because subs often attacked while submerged, the mere shape of a ship stood out on the horizon. The sub commander was looking at its targets from a periscope that was only a meter above the water. In effect, a periscope view was looking up at its targets and not seeing much under the best of conditions. The sailors on the receiving end of these torpedoes soon realized that, while a new paint job would not hide them, it could throw off the aim of the sub captain. World War I torpedoes were not as accurate as later models, and the sub captain had to look through the periscope and estimate range and speed of the target ship before he ordered the speed and direction settings for the torpedoes about to be launched. A paint job on the target ship would make it difficult to estimate distance or speed for the target and thus there was a good chance of aiming the torpedo incorrectly. This concept led to various dazzle paint schemes, which broke up the silhouette of the ship, suggested it was moving in the opposite direction, that it was moving at high speed, and so forth. The extent to which this approach was effective has never been demonstrated, until recently, but it appeared, back then, to have some value. At the same time merchantmen and warships were being repainted, better anti-submarine warfare techniques were being developed. All agreed that the new paint jobs didn't make it any easier for the torpedoes to hit something. And the obvious effort expended in repainting the ships improved the shaky morale of the civilian crews on the merchantmen. The reality was that World War I torpedoes were not all that reliable, and usually missed for that reason, or because the sub captain misjudged the speed and direction of that blob on the horizon he saw via the periscope. Years later, when questioned, several of these U-Boat captains admitted that they never noticed the paint job on their targets, just the general shape. When World War II came around, the bizarre paint schemes of World War I were not used much by the Americans. They felt that the effort could be better spent on anti-submarine warfare techniques. Moreover, the U.S. noted that the most dangerous attacks were by groups or wolfpacks of U-boats attacking at night while on the surface. The subs were hard to see at night, so they surfaced to fire their torpedoes with greater accuracy. The British stuck with the World War I zig-zag paint schemes on some of their merchant ships, if only to give crew morale a boost, as did the Japanese. In fact, the Japanese tried a few interesting wrinkles to the scheme, even painting aircraft carrier decks so that, from the air, they suggested a battleship, in the hope of deceiving aerial reconnaissance. But American sub captains never noted any usefulness of the Japanese dazzle camouflage on merchant ships. This unique camouflage pattern is striking mainly because it shows up so well in posed photographs. In combat, it apparently doesn't get noticed much at all. -Credit:The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost/Youtube (The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost/Youtube) A video showing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent being called away by President Donald Trump mid-interview, then coming back with a trembling voice, has gone viral online. The footage, shared on X, captures Bessent settling in with Wilfred Frost from Sky News for what seemed to be a routine interview; yet, just as Frost begins to pose a question, a woman off-camera cuts in. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but the president wants you," the woman announces, prompting startled reactions from both Bessent and the reporter. She adds: "The president wants you right away." Donald Trump turns Iran war into 'nightmare' by making 'disaster' move Donald Trump mocked after CNN airs clip exposing no wars promise Production staff quickly moved in and removed Bessent's microphone, with the secretary offering an apology to Frost before the woman mentioned he should only be gone for 10 minutes. "No problem at all," Frost replies. A clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent being summoned away by President Donald Trump during an interview and returning with a shaky voice has spread rapidly online. -Credit:The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost/Youtube "See you shortly, Mr. Secretary," he says whilst Bessent quips that he could "work that in" to his schedule. The footage indicates that the interruption in the interview happened at 10:22 a.m. , then cuts to 12:07 p.m. when Bessent came back to the interview. Advertisement "Mr. Secretary, I have to say, it's a first, I'm sure a last as well, that an interviewee has been pulled away to go to the Situation Room," noted Frost once filming resumed. "How is the president? Was he stressed? "No, the president is in high spirits. The Iranian mission is advancing well ahead of schedule," Bessent declared. "And I have to tell you, Wilf, that I have a teenager who's contemplating military service. "And I could give this team my highest praise from President Trump to the head of the Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of War," Bessent continued. "I would entrust my child's life to their care." Social media was rife with speculation that the secretary was abruptly pulled from the interview due to developments in Iran; however, Bessent remained mum on the matter. The Mirror U.S. reached out to both the White House and the Department of the Treasury for comment. Bessent's interview comes on the heels of the president's announcement of his intention to sever all trade relations with Spain after the nation declined to permit the U.S. to use its military bases for strikes against Iran. "We're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain," Trump declared. "Spain has been terrible," Trump further commented before revealing that he had instructed Bessent to "cut off all dealings" with the country. "It started when every European nation, at my request, contributed 5%, which they should be doing. Everyone was on board - Germany, everyone - but Spain didn't comply. "And that's fine, we can use their bases if we choose," Trump stated. "We can simply fly in and utilize them. No one is going to prevent us from using them. They were unfriendly." This follows a shocking revelation made by the daughter of Trump's doctor regarding his health. Excavation work in the city of Regensburg led to a stunning discovery for Germany, when a planned apartment project was halted after construction crews uncovered what appears to be a rare Roman temple. According to the experts, the temple was once used by a "mystery cult" that was known to worship Mithras. Now, experts are saying that this may be the oldest sanctuary of its kind in the region, and what they've found within it gives them a new understanding of Mithraism, a type of worship that is old as Christianity itself. Keep reading to learn more. SIGN UP for Parades Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox German Construction Crews Unearthed Ancient Roman Temple Talk about a crazy day at work. German construction crews seem to have uncovered a major historical find while getting ready to start work on a multi-story apartment building in the city of Regensburg in Germany, according to Fox News. Experts believe that the temple was dedicated to the Roman deity Mithras, as part of a "mystery cult" or "star cult." Followers were very into light and cosmic order, according to the publication, and Mithraism was very popular in the Roman Empire during the second and third centuries A.D. Not only that, but it's believed to have existed right alongside of the earliest beginnings of Christianity. One of the City of Regensburg's archaeologists spoke with Fox News about the find, calling it "very rare." Advertisement "Based on the evaluation of the coins discovered in the sanctuary, it is the oldest of the nine known Mithras temples identified in Bavaria to date," Johannes Sebrich said in an email. "As their knowledge increased, they could attain up to seven grades of initiation and thus ascend the celestial ladder toward the highest possible level of understanding." Sebrich said that that the organization is still regarded as one of the most "mysterious" and most "fascinating" cults from that time. As for how it was determined to be from that era, Fox News said that the details were all found in the types of food remains, tableware, and overturned cabinet. You Can Find Other Mithraism Ruins in Europe I'll admit, I was fascinated with this find. While it will likely be a while before people can go there in person to check out the artifacts, there are other places in Europe that are already set up for curious travelers who want to learn more about Mithraism. According to Atlas Obscura, you can visit sites like: Santa Maria Capua Vetere in Italy, where you can find a subterranean temple full of sculptures, cryptic symbols, and frescoes featuring some of the Roman Empire's most ancient gods The London Mithraeum, which is a public exhibit that recreates what scholars believe was happening inside the temples at the time Caesarea Maritima Mithraeum in Israel, another underground temple that was built to represent the grotto where followers believe Mithras was born While there aren't likely many followers left today, visitors should remember that these locations were once very important to the followers, so they should be treated with the same respect that you would when visiting other religious sites. Additionally, since these sites are located all over the worldapproximately 400 of these temples have been uncoveredit's important to also research the region before traveling there to ensure that you're following local customs and rules as well. This story was originally published by TravelHost on Mar 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add TravelHost as a Preferred Source by clicking here. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - Major auto trade groups urged the Trump administration to keep Chinese carmakers out of the U.S., raising concerns ahead of President Donald Trump's planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The groups raised "serious concerns about Chinas ongoing efforts to dominate global automotive manufacturing and to gain access to the U.S. market. These actions pose a direct threat to Americas global competitiveness, national security, and automotive industrial base." A 2025 U.S. Commerce Department cybersecurity regulation effectively keeps nearly all Chinese vehicles out of the U.S. market and the five groups representing automakers, car dealers and parts manufacturers said it should be maintained. Advertisement The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. "We also strongly urge the Administration to reject any attempt by Chinese manufacturers to circumvent these existing restrictions by establishing production facilities in the U.S.," said the letter dated Thursday from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, National Automobile Dealers Association, American Automotive Policy Council and other groups. "The market distortions and risks to the auto industry in the U.S. are fundamentally the same whether these vehicles are imported or produced domestically." In January, Trump said he was open to Chinese automakers building vehicles in the United States. "If they want to come in and build a plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, thats great, I love that, he told the Detroit Economic Club. In December, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors, Ford, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Stellantis and other major automakers said "China poses a clear and present threat to the auto industry in the U.S" and urged Washington to prevent Chinese government-backed automakers and battery manufacturers from opening U.S. manufacturing plants. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Parth Chandna; Editing by Alan Barona and Anna Driver) Laramie County Sheriff's Office. Credit: Laramie County Sheriff's Office NEED TO KNOW A 14-year-old boy has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of his mother Police allege that the boy shot his mother after an argument over a stolen tablet The boy initially claimed his mother died by suicide, police allege, but later admitted to being angry before the shooting, per reports A 14-year-old boy in Wyoming is being charged with the first-degree murder of his mother, according to multiple reports. According to a news release from the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to the 2300 block of Pine Avenue for a report of a 41-year-old female with a gunshot wound to the head on Saturday, March 7. The woman, later identified by Cowboy State Daily, Oil City News, and Wyoming News as Theresa McIntosh, was unconscious but breathing, with a visible gunshot wound to the back of her head. She was transferred to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) before being life-flighted to UC Health in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she succumbed to her injuries. The juvenile was taken into custody, and initially, Wyoming News reported that he allegedly told the Laramie County Sheriff's Office that his mother had died by suicide. CRMC staff, however, did not find a "contact wound" that would be typical of suicide attempts involving firearms, Wyoming News reported, citing court documents. Advertisement At the time of the incident, the only other people in the home were McIntoshs common-law husband and the 14-year-old suspect, Oil City News reported, citing a Laramie County Sheriffs Office affidavit. In court documents obtained by local news outlet Cowboy State Daily, Leone allegedly told investigators that at the time of the incident, McIntosh had been completing a puzzle in his room. That morning, the two had argued over a tablet that McIntosh accused the boy of stealing from a client of her house-cleaning business. The boy allegedly told police that his mother called him names, including "thief." Law enforcement alleges that the suspect stole the firearm used in the shooting a week prior, after he and his mom were reportedly involved in a "big fight" over his math grade, per Oil City News. Theresa McIntosh Credit: Theresa McIntosh/Facebook He was angry right before he shot McIntosh and couldnt tell her how much he hated her because she doesnt understand him, Deputy Miles DePrimo wrote in an affidavit of probable cause, per Cowboy State Daily. He was mad McIntosh was calling him names." Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. [He] has thought about killing McIntosh in the past, specifically when she would make him do things he didnt want to do," DePrimo alleged in the affidavit. Read the original article on People FILE - Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, temporarily allowed out of house arrest for medical treatment, departs a hospital in Brasilia, Brazil, Sept. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File) RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Brazils former President Jair Bolsonaro has pneumonia and is receiving treatment in an intensive care unit, a hospital in the capital, Brasilia, said Friday. One of his doctors, Brasil Caiado, told journalists that the 70-year-old's medical situation was serious. Pneumonia in patients over 70 is always serious because it can progress to septicemia, since the bacteria can normally enter the bloodstream and cause an even more severe condition, Caiado said. Earlier in the day, Bolsonaros eldest son Flavio said on X that his father was being transferred from prison to a hospital after waking up with chills and vomiting. I ask for prayers that it not be anything serious, Flavio wrote. Flavio Bolsonaro has said he will run for president this year, and recent polls show him and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva almost tied. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after he was convicted last year by a panel of Supreme Court justices. He was admitted to the hospital after experiencing high fever, low oxygen, sweating and chills, DF Star Hospital said in a statement. Exams confirmed bronchopneumonia, a type of pneumonia, likely caused by aspiration. He is currently hospitalized in the intensive care unit, receiving IV antibiotics and non-invasive clinical support, the hospital said. Caiado, a cardiologist, said that it was unlikely that Bolsonaro would return to prison in the next few days because the treatment is intravenous and has to be done in a hospital setting. Advertisement The embattled ex-leader was transferred to a larger cell in January, but his relatives have repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to allow Bolsonaro to carry out his sentence under house arrest. They allege he is being mistreated and receiving insufficient medical attention. On Friday, Carlos Bolsonaro one of the former presidents sons said on X the system, literally and insistently, (is) trying to kill his father. The Court has refuted those claims and refused to allow Bolsonaro to serve his sentence at home. Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election. In January, police escorted him to the same hospital for brain tests after he fell from his bed. Bolsonaro and several of his allies were convicted in September of attempting to overthrow Brazils democratic system following his 2022 election defeat. The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023. Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing. His trial received renewed international attention after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Brazil, citing the judicial proceedings against his ally, which Trump called a witch hunt. Many of those taxes have since been removed. ___ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america A makeshift memorial outside North Hall High School, where Jason Hughes worked as a math teacher, in Gainesville, Ga. on Sunday. (Emilie Megnien / AP) (Emilie Megnien) A Georgia prosecutor said Friday that he had dismissed vehicular homicide charges against a high school student who fatally struck his math teacher during a prank last week. Hall County District Attorney Lee Darragh confirmed the dismissal to NBC News without comment. The family of Jason Hughes, the North Hall High School teacher who was killed, had called for the charges to be dropped. In addition to the homicide charge, the prosecutor dismissed reckless driving, criminal trespass and littering charges against Jayden Wallace, 18, in connection with the death of Hughes, 40, on March 6. Darragh also dismissed criminal trespassing and littering charges against four other 18-year-old students who were present when Hughes was run over outside his home in Gainesville, northeast of Atlanta. Advertisement In a statement, an attorney for the Wallace family, Graham McKinnon, said there was no crime only an extremely sad and devastating accident." He thanked Hughes wife for her remarkable compassion and spirit of forgiveness in the face of the tremendous loss of her husband. Jason Hughes. (Jason Hughes) (Jason Hughes) Authorities have said Hughes was killed after the students rolled the trees outside his home with toilet paper. Hughes emerged from his home, then tripped and fell, the Hall County Sheriffs Office said. He was run over as the students began to drive off. Hughes family have said he knew the teens were coming Wallaces attorney described the prank as a longtime junior-senior tradition at North Hall High School and was excited and waiting to catch them in the act. They said Hughes slipped because it had been raining. Our family is determined to prevent a separate tragedy from occurring, ruining the lives of these students, the family said. This would be counter to Jasons lifelong dedication of investing in the lives of these children. A Virginia man accused of illegally selling the gun used by a former National Guard service member in a shooting inside an ROTC class at Old Dominion University has been arrested. Kenya Chapman, 32, of Smithfield, appeared in federal court Friday after being charged with dealing firearms without a license and three counts of making false statements during firearm purchases, according to the Department of Justice. Investigators say Chapman sold a .22-caliber Glock 44 to Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the Virginia Army National Guard accused of using the weapon in Thursdays attack, killing Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, a military science instructor, and wounding two students, before he was fatally stabbed by another student. Jalloh was prohibited from possessing guns because of his prior felony conviction, according to prosecutors. Despite that restriction, Chapman allegedly sold him a stolen handgun with a partially obliterated serial number just days before the attack, officials said. Chapman faces up to 35 years in prison, if convicted, though a federal judge will ultimately determine his sentence. Kenya Chapman, 32, of Smithfield, Virginia, appeared in federal court March 13 on charges of illegally selling the gun used by the Old Dominion University shooter and making false statements (AP) Police investigate the scene where alleged gunman Mohamed Jalloh, a former National Guard service member, shot and killed an ROTC instructor and wounded two students (AP) Agents searched Chapmans home Friday and questioned him about the gun, according to court filings. Advertisement Chapman allegedly first claimed he found the gun in the woods, but later admitted he had stolen it from a car in Newport News about a year ago and recently sold it to Jalloh for $100, prosecutors said. Jalloh was released from federal prison in 2024, about two and a half years early, after completing a drug treatment program, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. He had been sentenced to 11 years in 2017 for providing material support to ISIS. Chapman told investigators he met Jalloh through work and claimed the buyer said he needed the gun for protection while working as a delivery driver, documents allege. Although Chapman was aware that Jalloh had served time in prison, he denied knowing that Jalloh was a convicted felon or about his intentions to use it in the attack, according to investigators. Federal prosecutors say Chapman had previously come to the attention of law enforcement in connection with suspected straw purchases, which are when someone buys guns on behalf of another person who cannot legally acquire them. In 2021, investigators found he had purchased three guns later recovered at crime scenes, including one linked to a homicide, though he was not prosecuted at the time, the affidavit states. If you steal firearms, lie on federal forms, and put weapons in the hands of convicted terrorists, this FBI will find you, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. I want to thank our Norfolk Field Office and partners who continue to work 24/7 to bring to justice those responsible for yesterdays attack. In the meantime, we continue to keep the victims, their families, and the entire Old Dominion community in our prayers. The Cuban government is in talks with Trump administration officials, the country's president said Friday, as Havana works to halt a potential regime change as it deals with a widening energy crisis. In a 90-minute news conference broadcast by state media, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said talks with Washington were aimed at finding solutions to the political differences that divide the communist island and the United States, The New York Times reported. However, changes to Cuba's political system are off limits, Lianys Torres Rivera, Cubas chief of mission in the United States, told Politico in an interview. Millions Lose Power Across Cuba As Trump Sanctions Continue To Fuel Ongoing Energy Crisis Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel smokes a cigar during a humidor auction held as part of the closing ceremony of the XXV Habanos Festival in Havana Feb. 28, 2025. (Getty Images) Cuba's economy has struggled since the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his home in Caracas at the start of the year. The Trump administration immediately cut off oil exports to the island. A number of key sectors across the island are under considerable strain, including its transportation, health and education systems, Torres Rivera said. She noted that as many as 11,000 children are on waiting lists for surgeries and procedures at health clinics. Read On The Fox News App "They have no money. They have no anything right now," President Donald Trump said in February. "Maybe well have a friendly takeover of Cuba." Trump has said a deal with Havana "would be very easily made." In January, Trump declared a national emergency via an executive order over Cuba, accusing the communist regime of aligning with hostile foreign powers and terrorist groups. Advertisement Family Member Of American Killed By Cuban Forces In Boat Shootout Says He Was On 'Diabolical' Mission A woman holds a sign and Cuban flags as supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump participate in a protest against Cuba's government in Miami Feb. 28, 2026. (Reuters Photos) Last week, he said Cuba was "negotiating with [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] and myself and some others. And I would think a deal would be made very easily with Cuba." Trump has charged Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and someone who has actively championed regime change, with negotiations with Cuba. Friday was the first time the Cuban government formally acknowledged talks with Washington. Amid talks, Rubios main counterpart has been Raul Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Raul Castro, the island's de facto leader and its former president. Diaz-Canel said the talks with the United States were needed, in part, "to determine the willingness of both sides to take concrete actions," the Times reported. He added that he would soon welcome an FBI team to take part in the investigation into 10 Cubans who lived in the United States who got into a firefight with the Cuban coast guard last month. A woman wearing a T-shirt with the United States flag sells Coquito in a street in Havana March 13, 2026. Click Here To Download The Fox News App "Agendas are built, negotiations and conversations take place and agreements are reached. Things we are still far from because we are in the initial phases of this process," Diaz-Canel said. Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House. Original article source: Cuban president reveals talks with Trump admin as fuel blockade chokes domestic energy supply and economy March 12, 2026: For the last three years government forces have been fighting Fano, a group of tribal militias in the Amhara tribal lands. The Amhara were one of the founding groups of the Ethiopian state. The official language of Ethiopia is Amharic. Last year the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was completed in July. Earlier in the year Ethiopia established its first stock exchange since the last one collapsed 50 years ago. The Ethiopian civil war continued in 2025. Despite numerous international efforts to broker peace, the conflicts between government forces and various regional factions show little sign of abating. Clashes have intensified in the northern regions, leading to further displacement of civilians and exacerbating the already dire conditions in refugee camps. Aid organizations are struggling to deliver essential supplies due to the ongoing violence, and there are increasing concerns about food insecurity and health crises. Diplomatic efforts are ongoing, with the United Nations and African Union calling for immediate ceasefire talks. However, deep-seated mistrust between the warring parties poses a significant obstacle to meaningful negotiations. The international community remains vigilant, urging all sides to prioritize humanitarian relief and work towards a sustainable resolution. The current civil war in Ethiopia began in November 2020 when the TPLF/Tigray People's Liberation Front attacked security forces because of disagreements with the ruling EPRDF/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front over how the nation should be ruled. Tigray has feuded with the central government for centuries. This time the complaint was that prime minister Abiy Ahmed had reorganized the ruling EPRDF as the Prosperity Party and the TPLF saw this as an effort to reduce Tigrayan power in the government. The TPLF refused to join the Prosperity Party and sought to take control of the government. The fighting went on for so long because the EPRDF has a large country to administer. The current population of Ethiopia is 123 million. The armed forces and national police are spread thin. The armed forces have 162,000 personnel and a billion dollar a year budget, which is less than one percent of GDP. The TPLF had a Tigray militia force that could call on up to 100,000 armed men but could not move them around because nearly all were armed only to defend their villages or neighborhoods. The army was joined by an Amhara militia. Most of the fighting and casualties occurred in Tigray. The Tigray forces threatened to drive on the capital Addis Ababa. That sort of thing is not unknown in Africa where lots of pickup trucks and a few good roads leading to the capital, plus poorly organized security forces, make a threat to drive on the capitol something that can happen. The TPLF was aided by another rebel group, the OLA/Oromo Liberation Army in western Ethiopia that had been formed in 2018 when the larger OLF/Oromo Liberation Front made peace with the central government. The OLA has only a few thousand members and not all of them are willing or able to take a weapon and join an effort to advance on Addis Ababa. But it doesnt take much of an armed force equipped with rifles, pistols, and machine guns in a few dozen motor vehicles to pose a threat, at least on the electronic media, to the national government. With OLA advancing from the west and TPLF from the north, the potential for scary and lucrative headlines was too much to resist. In the last week the situation suddenly changed, with the government forces advancing. There were other factors at work here and one was that electronic media has been slow to appear in Ethiopia. Telegraph, telephones, wireless telegraph, radio, TV, cell phones with Tik Tok and the internet all eventually arrived but are not widely available to a lot of Ethiopians. A decade ago, there were about half a million internet users, but now it is 20 percent of the population and perhaps more because many more people can afford to spend time at Internet Cafes. This is a common expansion method for the Internet but it was slower than usual in Ethiopia because the central government was quick to put controls on cell-phone use by making it mandatory to use a government approved SIM card. Individual satellite phones required government permission to enter the country. Another problem is literacy as only about half the adult population can read. Many cannot read that well because they only had a few years of schooling and left to work after attaining basic literacy in one of the three main languages used by the Amhara, Tigray and Oromo regions. That explains why the Amhara get most of the blame for the decades of communist Derg Party dictatorship. Now an Oromo prime minister, with the backing of many Amhara, is seeking to reduce the power of ethnic politics in Ethiopia. A noble goal, but many people in Tigray and Oromo see this as another oppressive scheme coming from the center. That is Addis Ababa and its highland plateau that has always been the center of the kingdom/empire/republic that survives by introducing new ideas to keep Ethiopia completive with potential foreign threats. With more literacy and a smattering of electronic media, the rebellions are being organized and defeated more quickly. Accusations of ethnic atrocities travel faster and with more impact by the subsequent clarifications that diminish or invalidate the initial claim. Apparently Ethiopian forces avoided that threat by using drones and smaller quadcopters to monitor the roads plus the armed opposition and their condition. The government also armed some of its non-combat air force aircraft to provide air support. Government forces have been advancing down the key highways and chasing the rebels out of roadside towns they had occupied. The rebels reply that this is part of their plan and they will strike back soon and crush the government forces. Thats not how it works when the rebels are diehard splinter groups from larger ethnic rebel organizations that made peace with the central government. The current plan is for government change to depend less on ethnic differences and animosities. Over 900,000 have died so far, at least half of them civilians. Many more civilians fled their homes temporarily to avoid violence or looters. The local damage and refugees were often the result of ethnic violence in communities nowhere near the armed rebels and government forces. This is the ethnic problem the proposed government program wants to overcome. Ancient practices often resist change, which is why they still exist. Reforms have been generally agreed on for generations, but local politics and paranoia have always been a local obstacle that will flare into violence quickly and then dissipate. Electronic communications and media make it all happen more quickly than in the past, but not a lot more effectively. Claims were made of much higher casualties but verifying such claims is difficult and time consuming in Ethiopia. Politicians and community leaders on both sides have kept talking, because the fighting is not going to be decisive unless there is agreement between the three major ethnic groups. The TPLF and OLA are not going to get to Addis Ababa and the security forces are not going to end the violence in Tigray or Oromia by force. A negotiated settlement is still underway, and the fighting has subsided but not ended, because the main TPLF demand is that prime minister Ahmed resign. The two rebel groups got to within a few hundred kilometers of the capital and admit they were supplied by what they could steal along the way. Foraging is an ancient logistics method but has limitations, especially when the government forces have a more modern resupply system. The government has easy access to foreign suppliers, who can use air freight services to get what they need quickly. The travel disruptions have hurt many Ethiopians who want nothing to do with this fight. Vital supplies of food and other essentials have been reduced by the fighting along the few paved roads that can handle the heavy truck traffic. More remote communities that depend on food aid are going hungry for reasons they dont fully comprehend. Tigrayans had a reputation as determined and skilled fighters, but they were part of Ethiopia because they were outnumbered in a country that has long been the only Christian majority state in North Africa, and the only African state or region that escaped colonization by Europeans. The Italians tried and failed in the 1930s to turn Ethiopia into a colony. This war against the only Christian kingdom in Africa was widely criticized at the time. Ethiopia is an ancient Christian kingdom that survived for so long because at its core there is some of the best farmland in the Sahel, a semi-desert region south of the Sahara Desert that extends across Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. The Ethiopian plateau gets plenty of rain and contains one of the main sources of the Nile River. Surrounding this lush plateau are deserts and semi-desert grasslands. Most Ethiopians converted from ancient faiths to Christianity in the 4th century. Four hundred years later the new and expanding Islamic caliphate attacked and eventually seized the coastal Eritrea region but could not get much further for a long time. In the 1400s the Ottomans made some more damaging attacks on Abyssinia, so more than five centuries after that the ancient Christian kingdom became something of a legend in Europe because ancient Abyssinia no longer had access to the sea and getting messages, like letters from European kings and emperors to the Abyssinian emperor failed. For a long time, it was unclear if the legendary Christian State still existed. After 1492 European ships with their new technology began showing up off the East African coast. One of these expeditions from Portugal reestablished links to the Abyssinian emperor and even provided crucial assistance when another Moslem army threatened them. Centuries of Moslem armies attacking had made a mark and left Abyssinia/Ethiopia with a 30 percent Moslem minority. The threat of Moslem armies from the east led Abyssinian emperors to seek allies to the west and thus the lowland Oromo people became part of the empire and most were converted to Christianity. The Oromo were culturally similar to the Amhara and speak a related but different language. The Amhara and Oromo are the Christian majority, although only about half of Oromos are Christian, and the Oromo are the largest minority. The Tigray people are north of the plateau and all that is left of the larger Christian population along the Red Sea coast that were lost to Islam. What the Europeans contacted in the early 1500s was a new and more powerful Ethiopian empire founded in the 1200s by the largest group in the highlands, the Amhara. Both Tigray and Amhara people share the plateau but the Tigray were always more advanced economically and culturally because they were closest to the ancient Nile kingdoms. What the Tigray learned was passed on to the more numerous Amhara who became culturally and politically dominant in the 1200s. The Tigray are about six percent of the population and nearly all are Christian and have the highest education rate and personal incomes in Ethiopia. The more recently acquired Somalis in Ogaden province bordering Somalia also have about six percent of the national population. The Oromo are 34 percent and the Amhara 27 percent. The Amhara have long led a coalition founded in unity with the Oromo and Tigray. Prime minister Ahmed is Oromo and a Protestant Christian. His father was an Oromo Moslem while his mother was an Oromo raised in the ancient Orthodox Christian religion. Ahmed believed the country needed more Ethiopians and fewer people who saw themselves as Tigray, Amhara, Oromo or Somali first. The traditional source of national political leadership has long been the Amhara. That custom was eroded because it was Amhara who formed the communist Derg government that replaced the monarchy in the 1970s. Ethnic politics has crippled Ethiopia since the monarchy was overthrown in 1974 and replaced by the Derg, an even more repressive and dictatorial communist group that also exploited ethnic rivalries and survived with massive support from Russia. That support was all gone by 1991 and the democratic EPRDF took power. The EPRDF consisted of many former Derg factions, like the TPLF. The many ethnic parties and their militias had a difficult time agreeing on a new constitution and how democratic Ethiopia would be governed. The first national elections were held in 1995. One faction, Eretria, controlled the tiny coastline Ethiopia had access to and gained independence in 1993 via a national referendum. While Eritrea was now independent there were still disagreements about where the border should be, and in 1998 this led to a ruinous, for both countries, two-year war. Eritrea has still not recovered but the EPRDF gained national support for the way it handled the war and negotiated an end to it. The EPRDF kept winning elections and some ethnic groups claimed the elections were not honest. Foreign observers could find no massive fraud and backed EPRDF claims that the dissatisfaction with the voting was more a matter of some ethnic groups not gaining as much national support as they believed they should. The TPLF was the most powerful and persistent critic of the new Prosperity Party as even more unfair to Tigrayans. Tigray is considered the source of the ideas and cultural practices that led to the formation of the Abyssinian kingdom, then empire and the larger Abyssinia that finally became known as Ethiopia in the 20th century. The older entities known as Abyssinia were much smaller than 20th century Ethiopia. The EPRDF, even after it reorganized as the Prosperity Party, was still a multi-ethnic coalition dominated by Amhara, Oromo, and Tigrayan people who had long dominated national politics. The Prosperity Party was meant to be more effective at negotiating ethnic disputes without risking civil wars. Despite the religious differences, it is the ethnic groups that drive the conflicts. Ethiopia is 67 percent Christian, 31 percent Moslem, and the rest smaller and often older religions. The largest religion is the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox with 43 percent of the population while other Christian sects comprise 24 percent. That means less to most Ethiopians than the fact the Ethiopian population is dominated by the Oromo who are 34 percent of the population, Amhara who are 24 percent and Tigray who are six percent. The unity of these three groups keeps Ethiopia united and when these three cannot agree on something, there is trouble. When the three groups agree on something there is peace and that agreement is still being sought to end the civil war that began in 2020 and continues to fester. The situation remains fluid, and updates are expected as new developments unfold. Officials are still piecing together why a 41-year-old man attacked Michigans largest synagogue as the public learns more from the FBI and local faith leaders. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, of Dearborn Heights, was identified as the suspect who on March 12 rammed his truck into Temple Israels entrance in West Bloomfield. After a gunfight with security guards, Ghazali died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, FBI Detroit Field Office Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan told reporters March 13. There were no injuries to synagogue members, including children at preschool, though Ghazali hit one security guard with his truck. Days after the attack, FBI Detroit issued its timeline, which said Ghazali shot himself amid a gun battle. Read more: After synagogue attack, Jewish leaders say 'preparations mattered' Meanwhile, local officials and religious leaders said Ghazalis family died in a recent Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon as the United States and Israel continue their war with Iran. Runyan said FBI was still investigating a motive for the attack. FBI has previously said its being investigated as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. Here is what we know about the suspect. Who is the suspect? Ghazali, originally from Lebanon, entered the United States in May 2010 on an IR1 immigration visa, for spouses of U.S. citizens, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In 2015, he applied for naturalization, and he was granted citizenship in February 2016. Records show Ghazalis ex-wife filed for divorce in Wayne County Circuit Court in August 2024, according to the Detroit News. A divorce was granted seven months later. Ghazali had at least one child with his ex-wife. He worked at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Dearborn Heights. Ghazali had no prior criminal history, no registered weapons and was never part of an FBI investigation, Runyan said. Advertisement Police from various agencies come out Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Thursday, March. 12, 2026. Family killed in airstrike Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun on March 13 told reporters Ghazalis family home in Lebanon had recently been hit by an airstrike amid the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, killing his relatives. Wayne County, which includes Dearborn Heights, has the highest percentage of Lebanese Americans in the United States. The Michigan community has been rattled by the strikes in Lebanon, alongside the war in Iran, since both are affecting areas with large Shia Muslim communities. On March 13, the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported a memorial service had been held at the Islamic Institute of America, a large Shia mosque in Dearborn Heights, for Ghazalis family members. The strike killed two of Ghazalis brothers and a niece and nephew, according to a flyer the Free Press reviewed. The flyer named surviving family members, including the name of the suspected Temple Israel attacker. In response to reporters questions in a March 13 briefing, Runyan said FBI was aware of reports that members of Ghazalis family were allegedly part of Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group based in Lebanon that's been designated a terrorist group by the United States. Runyan declined to speculate further on ties. In a March 14 email, FBI said it had no additional information. Faith leader who met suspect at memorial condemns attack Imam Hassan Qazwini, the mosques religious leader, told the Free Press he met Ghazali during the memorial service. Qazwini said he didnt know Ghazali personally, but said Israels attacks dont give people a blank check to attack synagogues and civilians. I strongly condemn the attack against Temple Israel," Qazwini told the Free Press. "Houses of worship have their sanctity and should be spared from political violence. Islam forbids holding innocent people accountable for acts done by others. The unjustified Israeli attack on civilians in Iran and Lebanon gives no blank check to anyone attacking synagogues, civilians and peaceful communities. SAC Jennifer Runyan provides an approximate timeline of events of the West Bloomfield Attack. pic.twitter.com/PNpPQzxWY9 FBI Detroit (@FBIDetroit) March 13, 2026 After gunfight, suspect shot himself, FBI says FBI Detroit on March 13 issued its timeline of the March 12 ramming attack: Just before 10 a.m., Ghazali drove his gray Ford F-150 into Temple Israels parking lot and stayed parked in the vehicle for just over two hours. He previously bought $2,000 worth of fireworks, and Runyan said he had a large amount of commercial fireworks and gasoline in the bed of his truck. Just before 12:20 p.m., Ghazali is accused of driving into a building entrance, hitting the security guard. His vehicle got stuck in the hallway, and he began shooting through the windshield. Through his rear window, he exchanged gunfire with the security guard he hit, before also having a firefight with a second security guard from the front of his truck. At about 12:31 p.m., his engine caught fire. During the gunfight and the fire, he shot himself in the head, according to the FBI. Contributing: Andrea May Sahouri and Violet Ikonomova, Detroit Free Press; Christopher Cann and Michael Loria, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New details revealed in Michigan synagogue attack. What we know FILE PHOTO: People pose for a photo in front of a sign of Meta, the new name for the company formerly known as Facebook, at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S. October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Nathan Frandino/File Photo By Katie Paul, Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (Reuters) - Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers. No date has been set for the cuts and the magnitude has not been finalized, the people said. Top executives have recently signaled the plans to other senior leaders at Meta and told them to begin planning how to pare back, two of the people said. The sources spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to disclose the cuts. Meta did not immediately comment. If Meta settles on the 20% figure, the layoffs will be the company's most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the "year of efficiency." It employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, according to its latest filing. The company laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs. ZUCKERBERG FOCUSING ON GENERATIVE AI Advertisement Over the last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team. The company has said it plans to invest $600 billion to build data centers by 2028. Earlier this week, it acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for AI agents. Meta is also spending at least $2 billion to buy Chinese AI startup Manus, Reuters previously reported. Zuckerberg has alluded to efficiency gains from the investments, saying in January he was starting to see "projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person." Meta's plans reflect a broader pattern among major U.S. companies, particularly in tech, this year. Executives have pointed to recent improvements in AI systems as one reason for the changes. In January, Amazon confirmed it would cut some 16,000 jobs, amounting to nearly 10% of its workforce. Last month, the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI tools and their growing capability to help companies do more with smaller teams. Meta's planned AI investments follow a series of setbacks with its Llama 4 models last year, including criticism that it provided misleading results on the benchmarks it used for early versions. It abandoned the release of the largest version of that model, called Behemoth, which had been due out in the summer. The superintelligence team has been working to reassert the company's standing this year by building a new model called Avocado, but the performance of that model has also lagged expectations. (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz in San Francisco and Katie Paul in New York; editing by Kenneth Li, Rod Nickel) International travel keeps expanding, and that growth has exposed pressure points in cities, islands, and landmarks that once welcomed every arrival. Housing shortages, crowded streets, and environmental damage now define policy discussions in tourism-heavy destinations. On that note, leaders are testing stricter tools that influence pricing, access, and behavior. Though tourism still matters economically, governments now place stronger emphasis on shielding residents, infrastructure, and fragile ecosystems. Japan Cancels Festivals and Blocks Photo Spots Credit: Wikimedia Commons Public frustration in Japan pushed administrators toward visible action. In Fujiyoshida, officials cancelled the annual cherry blossom festival after residents reported littering, trespassing, and tourists entering private homes. The festival normally attracts about 200,000 guests, so the decision prioritized community order over revenue. Meanwhile, a mesh barrier was installed to block a Mount Fuji angle that encouraged unsafe behavior. United States Raises Entry Fees in National Parks Credit: Wikimedia Commons Overcrowding concentrates heavily in a small number of parks. Half of all recreation visits in the United States occur in just 25 units of the national park system. To address this imbalance, officials implemented a $100 surcharge for international arrivals at 11 major parks in 2026. The America the Beautiful annual pass now costs $250 for non-residents and $80 for citizens. Spain Uses Artificial Intelligence in Mallorca Credit: Canva If you are planning on visiting Mallorca, you will soon encounter an AI-powered platform built into the islands official tourism website. The system analyzes real-time visitor data and recommends less crowded times for major attractions. It also directs travelers toward alternatives such as glassblowing workshops, traditional llatra weaving, and olive oil producers. Denmark Rewards Sustainable Tourism in Copenhagen Credit: Wikimedia Commons Incentives for sustainable tourism encourage visitors to act responsibly without the need for strict bans. The CopenPay initiative allows guests to earn access to activities by completing environmentally friendly actions. Participants kayak through canals while collecting litter or arrive at museums by bicycle. More than 30,000 people have joined since 2024. Jamaica Encourages Off-Peak Travel with Rain Coverage Credit: Getty Images Advertisement Seasonal imbalance can strain resources during peak months and leave businesses underused during slower periods. This is why tourism leaders launched rain coverage on vacation packages booked through November after Hurricane Melissa caused significant damage in 2025. If rainfall exceeds a defined threshold, travelers receive refunds while still completing their trips. Greece and Italy Tighten Cruise Ship Controls Credit: Wikimedia Commons People on trips to Santorini, Mykonos, and other cruise-heavy ports tend to arrive in waves that flood compact historic centers within hours. Authorities responded with targeted restrictions to manage those surges. A 20 levy now applies to cruise passengers. Peru and Thailand Impose Strict Timed Entry Systems Credit: Wikimedia Commons Machu Picchu operates under a strict ticketing system with designated time slots to regulate foot traffic across sensitive archaeological zones. At Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh, visits last only an hour, and authorities prohibit swimming and motorboats to preserve the coral ecosystem. These policies followed visible ecological pressure linked to heavy tourism. Italy and Indonesia Enforce Environmental Boundaries Credit: Getty Images Coastal and island destinations, such as Italy and Indonesia, have strengthened physical protections. Capri plans to install a 40-buoy barrier 100 meters offshore to prevent boat damage along its coastline. On the other hand, Bali introduced a $10 tourist tax and distributed a handbook outlining acceptable conduct for foreigners. Netherlands and Czechia Regulate Tourist Behavior Credit: Getty Images It is common for visitors to become disruptive in nightlife-heavy European cities, especially during large bachelor parties. Thus, Amsterdam has launched an online campaign targeting party-focused travel that uses warning videos triggered by specific search terms. Prague, on the other hand, has banned exaggerated bachelor party costumes and nighttime pub crawls after repeated complaints about noise and disorder. Ecuador and Japan Cap Individuals in Sensitive Areas Credit: Canva Fragile ecosystems require strict limits, which is why the Galapagos Islands have mandated guided visits in protected areas, prohibited private yachts at key sites, and restricted movement to marked trails. Visitor entry fees have increased, and are now priced at $200 for international tourists. Alabama is a beautiful state with scenic beaches, rolling mountains, and pretty towns. But its history is also inseparable from the pain of slavery and the injustice of segregation. It was this deep-rooted practice of discrimination that inspired Nelle Harper Lee to publish the American classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1960. Within a year, she'd won the Pulitzer Prize for the book, which centers around a girl nicknamed Scout confronting the racism of her 1930s Alabama small town. Scout faces this harsh reality when her lawyer father, Atticus Finch, defends Tom Robinson, a black man whos been wrongfully accused of assaulting a white woman. The story was published four years before segregation ended, yet it doesn't hold back from shaming racism in the U.S. In facing difficult issues head on, Lee cemented herself as a great American writer, and turned her hometown of Monroeville into a literary destination in Alabama. The Real-Life Inspiration Behind the Story While Lee's famous novel isn't directly based on a single true event, it reflects the authors experience growing up in the segregated South. Born in 1926, the author saw the law sanctioning discrimination and applauding it as justice. The book's fictional town of Maycomb is similar to Monroeville, where the author lived all her life. It's also no coincidence that Lee chose to tackle racism through a court case, as she frequently saw her lawyer father in the middle of trials at the towns courthouse. Some people believe that real cases of black men falsely accused of crimes - like the 1933 Walter Lett Trial - likely inspired the story as well. Monroeville is also the inspiration for Lee's second novel, "Go Set a Watchman," published in 2015. Focused on now 26-year-old Scout, the book deals with Maycomb's push to keep schools segregated, a notion that Atticus Finch defends. Lee dared to tear down the hero of her first novel to portray the events she witnessed firsthand during the fight for civil rights in Alabama. Advertisement Tips for Planning Your Literary Pilgrimage Carmen K. Sisson stock.adobe.com Rather than sweep its dark past under the rug, the town has embraced the book's cultural criticism and continues to celebrate it. Prioritize visiting the old courthouse, now the Monroe County Museum, whose permanent To Kill a Mockingbird Exhibit" provides insight into both the book and the author. The museum also highlights other Monroeville writers, including Lee's childhood friend, Truman Capote. Afterwards, you can stop by the Old Bank Building, where Lees dad once worked, or see a large mural that portrays one of the book's scenes. There are references to the novel all over Monroeville, which is part of what makes this small town a great destination in Alabama. Many Harper Lee fans travel to Monroeville between mid-April and mid-May to see the towns annual play version of "To Kill a Mockingbird." The first act is held outside, and the second act is enacted inside the courthouse, immersing people in the events of the book - and in a not-so-distant reality. Afterward, try to drive to nearby Montgomery, where you can follow a Civil Rights Trail that will also highlight the history that Harper Lee so sharply exposed. Feeling inspired? Try planning your own trip using Only In Your State's itinerary planner. Smoke rises in the Fujairah oil industry zone, caused by debris after interception of a drone by air defenses, according to the Fujairah media office, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, March 14, 2026. REUTERS/Staff By Sarah El Safty and Nidhi Verma DUBAI, March 14 (Reuters) - Some oil-loading operations have been suspended in the United Arab Emirates' Fujairah emirate, a major bunkering hub and crude export terminal, after a drone attack and fire on Saturday, industry and trade sources said. The suspension comes hours after the U.S. attacked military targets on Iran's Kharg Island oil export terminal and Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) responded by saying that U.S. interests in the UAE - including ports, docks and military locations - were legitimate targets. Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, is the outlet for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE's Murban crude oil - a volume equal to about 1% of world demand. A witness in Fujairah saw two separate columns of smoke rising from the terminal. Reuters could not immediately establish the impact on loadings. Just after midnight, Fujairah's Media Office said the emirate was still trying to put out the fire, which it said had lightly injured a Jordanian citizen. "The IRGC is sending a message that there is no safe harbor in this rapidly expanding conflict," said Helima Croft, analyst at RBC Capital. "The fact this comes hours after the U.S. strike on Kharg Island also signals that Tehran will not let Washington control the terms of escalation and impose dominance." The International Energy Agency said earlier this week that the world was facing its biggest ever oil supply crisis due to the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a channel along the Iranian coast, since the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes on Iran on February 28, with the UAE among producers forced to cut oil output. Advertisement Iran threatened more UAE ports on Saturday, warning residents to leave areas near Jebel Ali port in Dubai and Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi as well as Fujairah, Iranian news agencies reported. The UAE Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran's accusation that the attack on Kharg Island had come through the UAE. REGIONAL ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE UNDER PRESSURE The fire in Fujairah occurred after debris fell during the interception of a drone, the emirate's media office said. Civil defence forces are handling the incident to contain the fire, it added. Authorities did not provide any information about the suspension of operations. Abu Dhabi state oil giant ADNOC, which operates in the emirate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Tuesday, ADNOC shut its Ruwais refinery in response to a fire at a facility within the complex following a drone strike, a source with knowledge of the situation said, in further disruption of energy infrastructure due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. (Reporting by Sarah El-Safty, Jaidaa Taha, Nidhi Verma, Yousef Saba, Ahmad Ghaddar and Maha El Dahan; writing by Alex Lawler, Editing by Toby Chopra, Gareth Jones and Chizu Nomiyama ) An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows A street in Jacksonville where he was arrested, Image 2 shows A mugshot of a man with blue hair A Florida man was arrested this week in the death of his 5-week-old daughter, who suffered a slew of horrifying critical injuries after he allegedly shook and spanked her, police said. Dajuan Patrick, of Jacksonville, was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child on Wednesday more than a year after his infant, Dahlia Siebenhaar, died, according to the Volusia Sheriffs Office. Dahlia was rushed to the hospital the night of Dec. 2, 2024 brutally battered and unresponsive, authorities said. Dajuan Patrick, 27, was arrested for allegedly shaking and spanking his five-week-old daughter to death in 2024. Volusia Sheriff's Office An autopsy and medical records revealed the infant had serious head trauma, leaving her brain dead; broken ribs; bruises all over her body; and bleeding behind her eyes from being shaken and held with extreme force, investigators said. She clung to life for 10 days until she was taken off life support. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide. Advertisement Patrick, 27, was allegedly taking care of Dahlia in their home the night she was fatally injured, while her mother was resting, WESH 2 reported. The dad initially claimed he had no idea why his daughter was hurt before allegedly changing his story to claim he had tripped over a bag and landed on the baby, authorities said. It is unclear why it took so long to arrest and charge the blue-haired suspect who appeared emotionless while pursing his lips for his mugshot. Dahlia was attacked inside of her home. The street where she lived is seen above. WESH The arrest in this case wont bring Dahlia back or give her the childhood she deserved, but today were speaking up for her, because her life mattered, Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in a statement. Patrick was being held without bond in Jacksonville and was awaiting extradition to Volusia County. The sheriffs office did not immediately return a request for comment. Democrat Jasmine Crockett Holds Her Senate Primary Election Night Party Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images A fugitive whom Dallas SWAT officers shot and killed Wednesday after he pointed a gun at them served as a key member of Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crocketts security detail, CBS News first reported Friday. The man, who used the alias Mike King, was wanted by police for impersonating a law enforcement officer while running an online business placing actual officers in off-duty jobs, the outlet reported, citing anonymous sources. After officers tracked the alleged security guard to the parking garage of a childrens hospital in Dallas, Texas and forced him out of his car using tear gas he drew a gun at them, prompting the SWAT team to fire and kill him at the scene, CBS News reported Wednesday. Dallas Police Department officials have not named the deceased fugitive or disclosed his relationship to Crockett. However, CBS reported Friday, citing photographs obtained by the outlet, that the man stood in close proximity to the recently defeated Senate candidate during her campaign events. King also was in charge of security teams at multiple Dallas hotels as well as his church, anonymous sources told CBS News. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) speaks with supporters outside a polling station on February 27, 2026 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images) Advertisement Crockett paid a man named Mike King for security services in 2025, according to documents obtained by the outlet. Sources told the outlet that the deceased fugitive had a criminal record, drove a vehicle resembling an undercover police car and used stolen license plates. The Dallas Police Department and Crocketts office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundations requests for comment. These images of Mike King standing close to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett shows how trusted he was as part of her security detail while shes been in office and while on the campaign trail during her recent run for a U.S. Senate seat, stated a Friday CBS News Texas broadcast showing video footage Crockett walking next to a man presumed to be King. Crockett, a left-wing firebrand known for making several incendiary remarks, lost the March 3 Democratic Senate primary to Texas State Rep. James Talarico by six percentage points. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporters byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. DES MOINES, Iowa The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services says it has been notified of a possible measles exposure at an eastern Iowa hotel. The Iowa HHS says the Illinois Department of Public Health notified them of a confirmed Illinois measles patient who had traveled to eastern Iowa during their contagious period. During the period, the person reportedly stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites, located at 2100 Swan Lake Boulevard in Independence. Officials say the person was there between the afternoon of March 4 and the morning of March 5. HHS officials say anyone who has visited this location should monitor for possible symptoms, including fever, cough, red/watery eyes, runny nose, and a rash. If someone believes they have been exposed, the Iowa HSS says to call your medical provider or nearest emergency room ahead of time and tell them that you have been exposed to measles and have symptoms before arriving. National measles outbreak: Iowas low vaccination rate raises concerns The Iowa HHS says, as of March 5, a total of 1,281 confirmed measles cases have been reported in the United States in 2026. Officials say of the confirmed cases 93%, or 1,191, were unvaccinated. Advertisement In 2025, there were nine measles cases identified in Iowa. The HHS says, to date, there have been no cases identified among Iowa residents in 2026. According to the CDC, measles is a highly contagious illness that is spread through the air when an infectious person coughs, sneezes or breathes, and can stay in the air for up to two hours after a person with measles leaves the room. At the time of the announcement, the Iowa HHS released this statement from the State Medical Director. With ongoing measles transmission in the United States, Iowans should make sure theyve received a measles-containing vaccine and should consider an accelerated measles vaccination schedule for their children, said Dr. Robert Kruse. For the latest information on measles in Iowa, visit the Iowa HHS website. Officials say the page is updated each week on Friday with current case counts and public health guidance. Officials say if there is a confirmed exposure that may pose a risk to others, the Iowa HHS will issue a press release. Iowa News: Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com. A Smith & Wesson M&P Shield handgun rests on a quilted surface. Photo: Carleen Johnson / The Center Square (The Center Square) The Gun Owners Foundation and Gun Owners of America have filed suit in the Southern District of Illinois over the states prohibition of open and concealed public carry of firearms. The plaintiffs say the case involves a challenge to Illinois refusal to allow the vast majority of Americans to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The federal complaint names Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly as defendants. CHICAGO SUED OVER SOCIAL MEDIA TAX Chicago is facing a lawsuit against its recently-enacted social media amusement tax. Advertisement NetChoice filed the suit in Cook County circuit court on Friday, claiming the tax violates free speech rights, unfairly discriminates against digital publications, violates federal law and harms Chicago residents and their businesses. SALINE COUNTY CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASE A district judge sentenced a Saline County man to nine years in prison after he pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography. Prosecutors say James Troy Martin, 51, of Carrier Mills received at least two images of child sexual abuse material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in Saline County between February and April 2024. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of Illinois, the investigation was led by Homeland Security Investigations. March 14, 2026: During the Ukrainian winter of late 2025 and early 2026 Russian forces sought to take advantage of the thick fog that covers vast areas of terrain that their troops operate in. For a few weeks that worked, but that was enough time for the Ukrainians to obtain and install thermal cameras on many of their surveillance drones. The thermal cameras detect differences in temperature and that means armored vehicles and troops dressed in cold weather clothing are easy to detect and kill with attack drones. The United States not only sent thermal imaging equipment for drones but also for Ukrainian troops. For over a decade American troops have been using helmet mounted ENVGs/Enhanced Night Vision and SENVG/Spiral Enhanced Night Vision Goggles. The main improvement with SENVG was a much sharper, true-color image. Troops who tested them did not want to give them up. The ENVGs were so successful that the army ordered 50,000, so that all troops in a combat zone could have them. The ENVG were particularly useful at spotting enemy gunmen at night. Troops equipped with ENVG have a 50 percent probability of spotting these hidden hostiles at 300 meters and an 80 percent probability at 150 meters. This made it much more difficult for enemy fighters to ambush American troops at night. Since the enemy rarely has night vision gear, they have to rely on sound and fleeting glimpses of the approaching Americans. That means the U.S. troops had to be less than 50 meters away before the enemy could open fire. The ENVG thus provides a crucial edge at night. This has been great for American, and later Ukrainian, morale but not so good for the Taliban or Russian troops. The SENVG goggles simply increase the American/Ukrainian edge. What made the ENVG so popular was that it combines the older light enhancement technology goggles with a thermal heat sensing night sight. This combined sight weighs about one kilogram. The older ENVG thermal only weighed 864 gr, while the AN/PVS-13 light enhancing device weighed 568 gr, for a total of nearly a kilogram. The new sight is not only lighter, but more compact and easier to use. It provides a total of 15 hours' use, 7.5 hours for thermal imaging and the same for light enhancement. In most cases where there is some star or moonlight the light enhancement sight will do. But where there is no other light as in a building or cave the thermal imager works. The thermal imager also works through fog and sandstorms. It was two decades later that field testing of the original ENVG, the AN/PAS13, took place. This device worked with the current AN/PVS-14 night vision goggles which provide night vision by enhancing available light but added the capability to use thermal imaging seeing differences in heat. As more combat moved to Afghanistan, the ENVG became more critical for battlefield success at night. Until the 1990s, thermal imaging equipment was large and bulky and only available in vehicles like M-1 tanks and M-2 IFVs. But twenty years ago, smaller and lighter thermal imagers came onto the market. The U.S. Army Special Forces have been using these lightweight thermal imagers to great effect from the very beginning of their development. Field testing of the combined device began eighteen years ago and was quickly found to be popular and reliable. The earlier thermal imagers were also very popular, but carrying both night sights was not. At first, the plan was not to equip all combat troops with the more expensive combined sight. That soon changed once user reports came back, praising the ENVG and describing how much of a lifesaver it was. Not all non-combat troops had an ENVG, but every unit had some. The army found the money to buy over 50,000 of the new ENVGs, which cost about $15,000 each. As Iranian-designed Shahed drones proliferate across battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East, relatively cheap unmanned aircraft are forcing the use of some of the world's most expensive air defense systems, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of that approach. The issue has taken on new urgency in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, as Iranian drones widely estimated to cost $20,000 to $50,000 to manufacture target U.S. forces and allied Gulf states across the region. U.S. and partner forces have relied on a mix of Patriot missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries, naval interceptors and other systems to blunt the attacks. While many of the incoming drones have been intercepted, the strikes have still exacted a cost, killing six U.S. service members in Kuwait and damaging civilian infrastructure, including airports and hotels in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Tomahawks Spearheaded Us Strike On Iran Why Presidents Reach For This Missile First Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), the Shahed-136, are carried by a truck during a military parade in south Tehran on Sept. 21, 2024. (Getty Images) The mounting toll has intensified concerns over how to counter drone swarms without depleting interceptor stockpiles that cost millions of dollars each to replace. Read On The Fox News App Ukraine has been at the forefront of modern drone warfare since Russias 2022 invasion, rapidly adapting its tactics and emerging as a leader in battlefield drone technology. Alex Roslin, a spokesman for the Ukrainian nonprofit miltech company Wild Hornets, told Fox News Digital in an interview that interceptor drones developed in Ukraine offer a dramatically cheaper alternative to traditional air defense systems. Here Come The Big Bombs As Us Escalates Strikes On Iran's Huge Military Arsenal While a U.S. Patriot missile can cost roughly $4 million, Roslin said his organizations interceptor drones can be produced for as little as $1,400 apiece. Wild Hornets so-called "Sting" interceptors have downed thousands of Russian-made Shahed-type drones and now achieve a 90% effectiveness rate, according to the group, up from roughly 70% last fall as pilots and radar teams gained experience and adopted improved ground control systems. "Ukraine had to fight smart and didn't have rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, stuff like that, so they turned to these kinds of drones to sort of equalize the battlefield," Roslin told Fox News Digital. Advertisement Iran War, 11 Days In: Us Controls Skies, Oil Surges And The Region Braces For Whats Next The Financial Times reported the Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are in talks to buy Ukrainian-made interceptors amid Iran's retaliatory attacks. President Donald Trump told Reuters in a phone interview in early March that he would be open to assistance from any country, when asked about an offer from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to help defend against Iranian drones. Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on X that Kyiv was sending a team of experts and military personnel to three countries in the Gulf region to help counter Tehrans drones. Us Diplomatic Facility In Iraq Struck By Drone The remains of a Russian-made, Iran-designed Shahed-136 drone, known in Russia as a Geran-2, are displayed with other recovered drones, glide bombs, missiles and rockets in Kharkiv on July 30, 2025. (Getty Images) "We know that in Middle Eastern countries, in the U.S., and in European states, there is a certain number of interceptor drones. But without our pilots, without our military personnel, without specialized software, none of this works," he wrote. Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the focus on air defense price tags can obscure the more pressing constraint. "Capacity is even more important than cheap," he told Fox News Digital. Us Scrambles As Drones Shape The Landscape Of War: The Future Is Here Click Here To Download The Fox News App Karako cited lower-cost counter-drone systems, including the Coyote interceptor and the Armys Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System, or LIDS, as examples of capabilities already fielded to address many drone threats without relying exclusively on high-end air defense systems such as the Patriot. As Irans drone campaign widens, the debate is no longer just about the cost gap between missiles and drones, but about whether traditional air defenses can sustain a new era of mass, low-cost aerial warfare. Original article source: Iranian drone attacks strain US air defenses as Ukraine pitches low-cost interceptors A Photo of the Djidji Ayokwe, an ancestral talking drum of the Atchan people living in southern Ivory Coast, taken from the Ivory Coast during the colonial period and housed at Quai Branly Museum in Paris, is seen in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, March 13, 2026. REUTERS/ Luc Gnago By Loucoumane Coulibaly ABIDJAN, March 13 (Reuters) - Traditional chiefs wearing crowns and gold chains gathered at Ivory Coast's main airport on Friday to welcome the return of a "talking drum" looted more than a century ago, the first artifact returned to the West African country by former colonial power France. The drum - known as "Djidji Ayokwe", meaning Panther-Lion in the Atchan language - is more than three metres long and weighs nearly 400 kg, according to Ivory Coast's culture ministry. It was used by the Atchan people, native to southern Ivory Coast, to alert locals to forced labour operations being carried out by colonizers and to mobilize fighters. The Ivorian culture ministry is seeking the restitution of 148 artifacts from France, and the talking drum, previously displayed at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, is the first to make the return journey. Advertisement Confiscated in 1916, the talking drum was initially kept at the governor's palace in Abidjan before being sent to France in 1930, according to the culture ministry. "This is a historic day, and I am deeply moved," Francoise Remarck, Ivory Coast's minister of culture and Francophonie, said during Friday's ceremony, punctuated by traditional songs and war dances. Pressure has grown in recent years for former colonial powers such as France and Britain to return artefacts taken from Africa and Asia. Donning a traditional loincloth, Gervais Djoman, chief of an Atchan village, told Reuters on Friday that the return of the talking drum was a source of joy and pride for the Atchan people."We are reclaiming our identity. Psychologically, something had been taken from us," he said. (Reporting and writing by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet) Congresswoman Robin Kelly asked voters to send her to the United States Senate, but with just days left before the primary, polling shows its an uphill climb. Kelly has served in Congress since 2013. She went to Washington after a long career in the state Democratic party and Southland, Chicago politics. Kelly is well-known among voters, but her opponents in the Senate primary have more resources and more prominent supporters. Her main rivals include Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton. Advertisement Polling and pundits say Kelly and Stratton, both Black women, are pulling voters from each other. Kelly dismisses the notion shes playing spoiler for Stratton. The well-liked representative says shes the most qualified in the race. On Friday, she took that message to voters at Valois before sitting down with WGN-TV Political Editor Tahman Bradley. The Point airs weeknight on WGN and all its digital platforms. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. President Trump said the U.S. military "totally obliterated" every military target on Kharg Island during large-scale precision strikes Friday, thrusting the strategic small isle into the global spotlight as the Iran war continues. Just 20 miles off Iran's northern Gulf coast, Kharg Island is Iran's hub for oil exports and a key bargaining chip Mr. Trump plans to use to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and safe. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said Thursday that precision strikes were conducted against more than 90 targets on Kharg Island. The strikes "included all of their military only-infrastructure, which included air defenses, naval base, mine storage and deployment facilities," Caine said. The president said U.S. forces avoided the island's oil export infrastructure, but warned Iran that if they "do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision." Here's what to know about the heavily fortified island and why it is strategically valuable. What is Kharg Island? Kharg Island lies roughly 20 miles off Iran's northern Gulf coast. For decades, it has served as Iran's main oil export terminal, historically handling 8595% of the country's crude exports. / Credit: Elif Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images Tankers load up on the island before heading through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. If the island's loading facilities were knocked out, Iran's ability to export oil would collapse almost immediately. Oil revenue, earned mainly by selling crude to China, remains one of the Islamic Republic's most important sources of funding. Strikes on the oil infrastructure would be a massive escalation in the war that could send global oil markets into a panic, and threats to the island would pressure Tehran's energy system. How could strikes threaten Iran's energy system? Iran has been threatening the world's energy markets by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed to most traffic, but the strikes on Kharg Island show the U.S. can affect Iran. Advertisement National security analyst Aaron MacLean told "CBS Saturday Morning" that Mr. Trump has shown he has leverage if Iran keeps the Strait closed. About 20% of the world's oil supplies pass through the waterway. "The president has linked the vulnerability of Kharg Island to Iran's continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz," MacLean said. Oil and gas prices have soared since the war began. A release of 172 million barrels from the United States' Strategic Petroleum Reserve failed to calm investors, and the price of a barrel of crude oil rose above $100 for the first time in years on Thursday. Kharg Island has been a target before This isn't the first time Kharg Island has been at the center of a war. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi aircraft to repeatedly bomb the island in an attempt to choke off Iran's oil revenue. The facilities were badly damaged, but Iran kept repairing them and exports continued. Since then, Tehran has fortified Kharg heavily, building air defenses, hardened infrastructure and underground storage designed to keep oil flowing even under sustained attack. While Iran cannot match the United States or Israel in conventional military terms, it has spent decades preparing for asymmetric war. If Kharg Island were seriously threatened, Tehran would likely respond across multiple fronts. Iran's military could continue to strike U.S. bases across the Gulf, increase attacks by allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere, and keep striking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz using fast attack boats, naval mines and suicide drones. Iran's response would not defeat a superior military force head-on, but would make operating in the Gulf painful and expensive. Body found in Barcelona identified as missing American student James Gracey Joseph Duggar arrested, facing child sex abuse charges A lot of Iran's nuclear capabilities "still has survived," UN watchdog chief says Manhunt for Louisiana man wanted in deadly crash who may have fled state or country continues into sixth month A manhunt is continuing into its sixth month for a Louisiana man indicted for vehicular manslaughter last fall after he allegedly drove the wrong way on a freeway in St. John the Baptist Parish, killing a recent college graduate. Manmeet Singh, 30, had a felony warrant issued in late October, charging him with vehicular homicide, reckless operation of a motor vehicle and driving in the wrong direction, Crime Stoppers of Great New Orleans said this week. He is wanted by the Louisiana State Police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service New Orleans Task Force. Singh was last known to be living in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, and he worked as a ride-share driver in New Orleans. Illegal Immigrant Ran From Deadly Wrong-way Dui Crash That Killed Motorcyclist, Records Show Manmeet Singh, 30, has a warrant out for his arrest on charges of vehicular manslaughter. (Getty Images) Singh was allegedly driving drunk in September when he hit Patricia Saidu, 21, head-on on Interstate 10. Read On The Fox News App Saidu was trapped in her vehicle when it burst into flames and died immediately. Singh was taken to a hospital with a blood alcohol level of .21% with serious injuries, but he recovered and was released before police could check back in with him. "She wanted to be a physician and medical doctor," her father, Dr. Patrick Saidu, told WAFB-TV, adding that Saidu hoped to be a pediatrician. Saidu comes from an immigrant family of doctors from Sierra Leone. ICE agents went to Singhs house Oct. 1 after he was released from the hospital to serve an arrest warrant but determined he "was unable to be moved due to his injuries," according to WAFB. Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE for comment. Advertisement Manhunt Underway After Missouri Deputy Slain, Suspect's Truck Spotted Heading Toward Arkansas Border Louisiana police had also gone to his home days earlier but also decided he was too injured to be moved. At some point after that, Singh allegedly fled the state and hasnt been seen since. "We are in the sixth month since this accident took place. Patricia was taken from us in a very tragic manner," her father told WAFB. "Im pleading with them," her mother, Martha Saidu, added. "Im a grieving mother. My daughter did not deserve the way she died." Crimestoppers is offering a reward for information leading to Singhs arrest. Click Here To Download The Fox News App Singh is supposed to be in court next week. "He left family behind in the Ponchatoula area, including a young child and a wife," Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair told Crimestoppers Tuesday. "He left a wake of destruction behind him with not only his family but definitely with the victims family." Original article source: Manhunt for Louisiana man wanted in deadly crash who may have fled state or country continues into sixth month Coalition of Manufactured Home Communities advisory team members Bob Besecker and Reggie Hockenberry speak with Lehigh Valley residents. Photo: Lauren Jessop / The Center Square (The Center Square) Manufactured homeowners got a visit from a heavyweight legislative ally this week. And they told The Center Square it brings hope not politics into the conversation. Gov. Josh Shapiro visited a community in Berks County on Wednesday to renew his push for legislation aimed at protecting nearly 360,000 of the commonwealths most vulnerable residents from exploitation by private equity firms. During his February budget address, Shapiro called on lawmakers to pass legislation designed to stabilize lot rent increases, framing it as part of his broader plan to address Pennsylvanias affordable housing issues. On Wednesday, he again called out Senate leadership for failing to act. In the more than 2,200 manufactured housing communities across the state, residents typically own their homes, but not the land beneath them. As private equity firms acquire these communities, many have seen steep increases in lot rents in some cases, as much as 50% in a single year. Bills passed by the House and introduced in the Senate were all referred to the Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee where they have been waiting since June 2025. The proposals would stabilize annual lot rent increases by tying them to the consumer price index, while allowing additional increases for extraordinary operating expenses or major repairs. They would also expand consumer protections, including required fee disclosures and longer notification timelines. Shapiro argued that lot rents in many communities are rising far beyond reasonable maintenance costs while, in some cases, services are being reduced. He said the consequences are especially severe for residents on fixed incomes, whose home value diminishes with each increase and who face uncertainty over whether their community could eventually be sold. So far, the Republican leadership has refused to bring it up for a vote, Shapiro said. My view is, if they bring it up for a vote, probably at least 40 of the 50 senators will be prepared to vote for it. He vowed to keep fighting to get the bill across the finish line and said he would gladly sign the legislation once it reaches his desk even joking that he would do so at Christine Ziemers kitchen table. Advertisement Ziemer, a resident of Douglass Village, said that when she and her husband moved into the community in 2019, the lot rent was $495 a month and annual increases were expected to be limited to 2%. Today, she said, her lot rent has climbed to $900. Living on a fixed income, Zeimer said she is now facing the reality of struggling to remain in her home following the death of her husband, a U.S. Navy veteran who suffered from multiple health challenges and died in October 2025. She stressed that her story is only one of many and said residents are looking forward to the day the governor can sign the legislation. If we all come together, Republican and Democrat alike, we can protect wonderful people like Christine and others from seeing private equity and outside financial interests come in and take advantage of these good people, said Shapiro. Before the press conference, Shapiro also met with six members of the Coalition of Manufactured Home Communities of Pennsylvania. The coalition was founded in 2022 by Bob Besecker, who told The Center Square the group had a productive dialogue with the governor. Besecker also offered his own view on why the protections have been delayed. He said private equity property owners are funneling money from homeowners lot fees to lobbyists to help block what he called lifesaving legislation. He said its so twisted that homeowners are, in effect, funding efforts to stop senators from passing protections meant to help them. Two or three years ago residents in Manufactured Home Communities were largely uninformed about how they could protect themselves, Besecker said. Now they know. They are watching the Senate closely and evaluating their actions. The coalition has grown to 139 member communities statewide, and Besecker noted those communities include equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans who are united on the issue. As we move forward, he said, its not going to be political, were simply going to support those who support us. Smoke rises following a drone attack on the US embassy in Baghdad on March 14, 2026 -Credit:AFP via Getty Images (AFP via Getty Images) A missile struck a helipad inside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, two Iraqi security officials confirmed. Footage shows smoke billowing above the sprawling embassy compound on Saturday morning. Iran-aligned militias have repeatedly attacked the embassy, considered one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, with rocket and drone fire. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has not commented on the matter at press time. It comes after CENTCOM announced that a U.S. refueling aircraft crashed over western Iraq on Thursday, killing all six crew members. Officials said the aircraft lacked ejection mechanisms and parachutes that would have allowed the crew to escape in midair. Gas prices surge to 22 month high as war with Iran chokes global oil supply US warplane that went down over Iraq 'did not have parachutes or ejection seats' Security officials told Agence France-Presse that the missile hit the embassy grounds after passing through the Green Zone, which is a heavily fortified district of central Baghdad where Iraqi government institutions and foreign embassies abound. Advertisement Another security source told AFP that the drone was targeting a diplomatic mission. The security officials spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press. The attack came shortly after reports emerged that two Iran-backed fighters were killed in strikes on Baghdad. At least one French soldier was killed and several others were wounded in a drone strike in northern Iraq on Thursday. All of those hit in the strike had reportedly been stationed in the nation's capital as part of an international coalition. The attack also comes a day after the embassy renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq because of previous attacks carried out by Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups against U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure, warning that Iran may continue to target them. The groups have amped up attacks on bases hosting U.S. and coalition troops after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, during which Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, was killed. In response, Iran has launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and U.S. military bases in the region. After Hezbollah in Lebanon launched retaliatory strikes on Israel for killing Khamenei, Israel has repeatedly fired at Lebanon, killing more than 800 people and displacing more than 800,000 people, bringing more regional actors into the war. Iran has also tightened its control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key trading route where about a fifth of the world's oil transports through, leading to skyrocketing fuel prices. World leaders agreed to release more than 400 million barrels of oil reserves to address the fuel crisis. It comes after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his attacks after announcing Friday that U.S. forces "obliterated" targets, including military sites, on Irans Kharg Island, which is critical to its oil network, warning that he will attack its oil infrastructure next if Iran continues to interfere with ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran vowed that the attack warranted a new level of retaliation. Aurelia Choc, Niurka Zuleta Choc, Anthony Garcia Choc. Credit: Remembering The Choc Family - Mobile, Alabama/Facebook NEED TO KNOW Aurelia Choc Cac, 40, and two of her children Niurka Zuleta Choc, 17, and 2-year-old Anthony Garcia Choc disappeared from their home in late January Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra is facing three counts of capital murder in connection with the killings Authorities recovered jewelry at the location with Aurelia and Anthony's pictures on them Authorities in Alabama have recovered the remains of bodies they believe belong to a missing mother and her two children who mysteriously disappeared in January. Aurelia Choc Cac, 40, and two of her children Niurka Zuleta Choc, 17, and 2-year-old Anthony Garcia Choc were reported missing on Jan. 31 from their Mobile County, Ala., residence, local police said at the time. Following an extensive search involving the Mobile County Sheriff's Office and the FBI, the sheriff's office announced on Thursday, March 13, that they recovered remains they believe belong to the three missing victims. Their remains were found in Summerdale in Baldwin County, the sheriff's office said in a statement, per NBC 15. Alabama authorities also announced they are charging suspect Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra, 31, with three counts of capital murder. Guerra, who is at times referred to as "Hector" by police, has been in custody since his arrest on Feb. 9 in connection with what police allege were the victims kidnappings. The remains were found buried in plastic and bedding covering, according to a criminal complaint cited by NBC 15. Authorities allege the victims bore signs of a "gruesome" murder. The bodies were found alongside jewelry that had Anthony and Aurelia's names, the sheriff's office said in the statement cited by NBC 15. All three were killed with an "edged weapon, the complaint states. Anthony the 2-year-old had signs of sharp force trauma to the head. His mother Aurelia had sharp force wounds to her chest and back. Advertisement Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra (left); and Aurelia Choc Cac Niurka Zuleta Choc Anthony Garcia Choc. Credit: Mobile County Metro Jail; Mobile County Sheriff's Office/Facebook The three victims were reported missing by a neighbor on Jan. 31. Investigators found signs of a struggle inside the residence, per a sheriff's office statement at the time. There was also a mattress missing from the residence, where investigators found a lot of blood as well. Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra (left); and Aurelia Choc Cac Niurka Zuleta Choc Anthony Garcia Choc. Credit: Mobile County Metro Jail; Mobile County Sheriff's Office/Facebook Another suspect in the case who was not mentioned in connection with the killings but had been arrested following the alleged kidnapping was known to Aurelia, police previously said. Sliverio Garcia, 60, was Aurelia's employer. He had been in a relationship with her 21-year-old daughter and was living with her at the time of the killings. Garcia, who was on a Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) hold because of his undocumented status, had been charged with possession of a pistol of certain persons forbidden, per the sheriff's office. "This is a horrific, gruesome murder," Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said at Thursday's briefing. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The Mobile County District Attorney's Office said at Thursday's briefing that they are upgrading the charges against Guerra to three counts of capital murder during the course of kidnapping; three counts of capital murder during the course of a burglary; capital murder for the death of two or more people; capital murder of a child under the age of 14; three counts of abuse of corpse; and obstruction of justice by providing false identification to police. The DA's office said they will be seeking the death penalty. Read the original article on People A U.S. fugitive was captured in Mexico just over an hour after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, making it the fastest arrest time in the history of the list and breaking a record set over 55 years ago. Samuel Ramirez Jr., 33, was wanted for his alleged involvement in the murders of two women on May 21, 2023, at a bar in Federal Way, Washington, the Justice Department said in a news release. A third person was also injured in the incident. Federal Way Police Chief Andy Hwang identified the victims as Jessyca Hohn and Katie Duhnke. An arrest warrant was issued charging him with the crimes, but Ramirez was believed to have fled the country after the killings. In November 2025, he was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and a federal arrest warrant was issued, the Justice Department said. On December 10, 2025, the FBI announced a reward of up to $25,000 for his arrest and conviction. The FBI increased the award amount to up to $1 million on Tuesday. He was added to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List that same day. Just an hour and 13 minutes later, Ramirez was captured without incident in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico. The FBI credited its Legal Attache office in Mexico City, the U.S. Attorney's Office Western District of Washington, and Mexican authorities with his apprehension. The previous record for the shortest arrest time in 1969, when a man was arrested two hours after being added to the list. Advertisement CAPTURED: #FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive Samuel Ramirez, Jr., has been apprehended in Sinaloa, Mexico. He was returned to the United States and taken into custody by Federal Way Police in Washington state where he will face justice. Help the FBI capture the other fugitives: pic.twitter.com/gS0gSw4w9T FBI Seattle (@FBISeattle) March 12, 2026 Ramirez was deported from Mexico to the U.S. and returned to Washington on Wednesday night, the Justice Department said. He will be booked into jail in King County, Washington. He will next appear in court for his arraignment, in about two weeks, the Justice Department said. In a statement, Mexico's government confimed the details of Ramirez's arrest and reaffirmed its "commitment to work in a coordinated manner with international authorities to detain individuals wanted in other countries." Ramirez's capture comes just weeks after former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, who was also on the FBI's most wanted list, was arrested in Mexico. Wedding, who was on the run for over a year, pleaded not guilty in January to 17 felony charges alleging that he operated a Mexican drug cartel. Hawaii's Kilauea volcano sends glassy fragments, ash into the air during new eruption Trump says to "watch what happens" as Iran war enters second week Iran unleashes massive attacks on Day 13 of war A fierce legal battle has erupted in Texas after state officials effectively disqualified Islamic private schools from participating in a landmark $1bn voucher scheme. The programme, intended to expand educational options for low-income families and those with children requiring special needs, has become a lightning rod for accusations of religious discrimination. Muslim families and school administrators claim they have been systematically blocked from the initiative, which was championed by Republican lawmakers last year. As the 17 March 2026 application deadline approaches, parents are now left in a state of 'deathly silence' and growing uncertainty, fearing that their children may be denied the opportunity to attend their preferred faith-based schools. The Mysterious Disappearance Of Bayaan Academy The controversy centres on a lack of transparency regarding eligibility criteria. Bayaan Academy, a virtual institution in Galveston County, initially appeared to meet all the state's requirements. It was placed on the official approved list, only to be removed without explanation shortly after media reports publicised its inclusion. Administrators were left baffled by the sudden reversal. The office of the Texas Comptroller has offered no public justification for the removal, leaving Bayaan Academy and other institutions to navigate a regulatory maze that critics describe as opaque and an obstruction of access. The Texas legislature's review procedure has become an obstacle. The state is also investigating the connection of the Islamic schools with the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is a Muslim advocacy organisation. Accusations Of Bias And State Investigation At the heart of the standoff is the state's ongoing investigation into the connection of certain Islamic schools with CAIR. Governor Greg Abbott has previously accused the Muslim organisation of having affiliations with foreign terrorist groups, a claim that Muslim advocacy groups vehemently deny. Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock has acknowledged that his office is vetting the funding sources of schools seeking these vouchers, citing laws designed to prevent contracts with foreign adversaries. However, the plaintiffs' legal representatives argue this is a pretext for bias. They contend that while other religious institutions have sailed through the approval process, Islamic schools are being subjected to a heightened, discriminatory level of scrutiny that lacks a clear legal basis. Constitutional Rights And The Fight For Fairness Plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit, arguing that the state's actions represent a clear violation of constitutional rights. The filing alleges that the blanket exclusion of Islamic institutions breaches both the First Amendment's protection of religious exercise and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. 'The state is denying access to a benefit on the basis of religious identity,' legal observers noted. Families like those at the Houston Quran Academy now face a stark choice: abandon their commitment to an Islamic education or forfeit the essential funds needed to cover their tuition costs. What Happens To Texas Education Freedom? The legal team is currently seeking a temporary restraining order to pause the 17 March application deadline, hoping to prevent further exclusions until the merits of the case can be heard. As anti-Islamic rhetoric gains momentum in parts of the state, the voucher programme has transformed from a fiscal policy debate into a broader test of religious liberty in Texas. Whether the state will permit prejudice to shape educational policy remains the central question facing the federal courts, as families continue to await clarity in an environment of deep-seated anxiety and division. Originally published on IBTimes UK BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. Two young men from Pennsylvania are accused of driving to New York City with a pair of homemade bombs before throwing them at protesters and police officers on March 7. Both devices failed to detonate. Police arrested both men at the scene. They were identified as Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, both described by the FBI as supporters of the Islamic State terror group. Prosecutors say they brought the devices to target a protest outside the mayor's home, Gracie Mansion, in Manhattan. Suspect In Nyc Terror Probe Planned Attack 'Bigger Than The Boston Marathon Bombing,' Prosecutors Say Here's a timeline of events: Surveillance footage obtained by Fox News Digital appears to show Balat purchase a 20-foot roll of fuse from Phantom Fireworks in Penndel, Pennsylvania. The purchase was made just two days after the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran and killed dozens of top leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Read On The Fox News App WATCH: Surveillance video appears to show NYC terror suspect buying fuse in Pennsylvania "The single item purchased was a 20-foot length of consumer fireworks safety fuse," Phantom Fireworks Vice President and General Counsel William Weimer told Fox News Digital. "The total spend was $6.89 including tax." The same type of fuse would later be recovered during a search of a vehicle in Manhattan. Send Us A Tip Here In the street outside Gracie Mansion, about 20 people joined a protest organizers dubbed "Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City: Stop New York City Public Muslim Prayer." A counterprotest titled "Run the Nazis out of New York City: Stand Against Hate" drew about 125 more. The two sides clashed, leading to at least one arrest before the attack. Mysterious Calls Placed From Nyc Terror Suspect's Family Home Hours After Alleged Isis-inspired Attack Video appears to show Balat emerge from behind a counterprotester at about 12:15 p.m. and throw the first device near the intersection of 87th Street and East End Avenue. Although it smoked, the explosive compound inside did not go off, saving people nearby from metal and glass shrapnel packed inside. Another video appears to show Kayumi handing a second alleged IED to Balat, who allegedly lit it and dropped it at the feet of a group of police officers. Officers arrested him after it failed to detonate. "After being apprehended by NYPD officers, both Balat and Kayumi stated they were aligned with ISIS," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a statement. Emir Balat, 18, is arrested after allegedly throwing an explosive device during a protest organized by far-right influencer Jake Lang against alleged "Islamification of New York" outside Gracie Mansion. Hours after the arrests, someone at Kayumi's home called law enforcement multiple times. The first two calls were placed at 4:15 p.m. and 9:19 p.m. Saturday. A third came just before 9 p.m. Sunday. Authorities have not released additional details. Advertisement Two NYPD members, Chief Aaron Edwards and Sgt. Luis Navarro, were later honored by city leaders for their heroism. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced that the bomb squad's preliminary investigation had found "an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death." She added that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) was assisting with the case and made no mention of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose wife Rama Duwaji has been accused of "liking" social media posts promoting Hamas' Oct. 7 2023, terror attacks against Israel, blasted protest organizer Jake Lang on X by name in a post about the failed bombing. "White supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City," he wrote. "It is an affront to our citys values and the unity that defines who we are." He went on to condemn "violence" without mentioning the suspected terror motive. "What followed was even more disturbing," he wrote. "Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are." He also thanked the NYPD officers on scene for their quick response, years after calling for the department to be dismantled in another X post. NYPD Bomb Squad officers search a car allegedly belonging to an individual who attempted to throw a homemade explosive at police officers in New York City. Separately, police located a parked vehicle registered to one of Balat's relatives parked near Gracie Mansion. Inside, they allegedly found additional explosive materials and handwritten notes with references to "TATP," the volatile compound police said was used in the IEDs. FBI bomb technicians found "explosive residue" at a Pennsylvania storage unit allegedly connected to Balat and Kayumi. They conducted a controlled detonation. LISTEN TO THE NEW 'CRIME & JUSTICE WITH DONNA ROTUNNO' PODCAST A federal source confirmed to Fox News that federal authorities raided a storage facility in Pennsylvania in connection to the investigation into the men accused of an ISIS-inspired bomb throwing attack in NYC. "This was an alleged ISIS-inspired act of terrorism that could have killed American citizens," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. "We will not allow ISISs poisonous, anti-American ideology to threaten this nationour law enforcement officers will remain vigilant, as they were when these devices were brought to a protest." The SDNY also announced federal charges against the suspects and released new details about their alleged support for ISIS. A man is arrested after allegedly throwing a handmade smoke grenade during a "Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City" protest on March 7, 2026. "All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds!" Balat wrote after being given a pen and paper following his arrest, according to the FBI. "I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar! Emir B." Kuffar is an Arabic term referring to non-Muslims. Accused ISIS-inspired terrorist Ibrahim Kayumi is detained by New York Police Department (NYPD) officers outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Reuters) Click Here To Download The Fox News App Kayumi allegedly told police he watched ISIS propaganda on his phone and was partly inspired by the terror group. Balat and Kayumi face up to life in prison on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group, use of a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosives and unlawful possession of destructive devices. Original article source: Pennsylvania men accused of ISIS-inspired bomb attack on NYC protesters near mayor's mansion: timeline Debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire near the Port of Fujairah in the UAE on Saturday. AP Photo/Altaf Qadri A fire broke out near a key oil port in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday. Officials said debris from an intercepted drone caused the fire and that operations were suspended. The US attacked Kharg Island, a major oil depot in Iran, on Friday. Fire erupted at a critical oil hub in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday amid the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East. Plumes of dark black smoke billowed around the Port of Fujairah, the only multipurpose maritime facility on the UAE's east coast. The Fujairah government's media office said debris from an intercepted drone caused the fire. No injuries were reported. The fire comes after Iran said it would retaliate against the US for attacking Kharg Island on Friday. Kharg Island, located about 300 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, is key to Iran's oil industry and has refineries that process nearly all of the country's oil exports. President Donald Trump said the US had "totally obliterated" military targets on Kharg Island in a Truth Social post on Friday. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said he hoped other countries affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure would send warships alongside the US to help secure it. War broke out in the Middle East last month when the US and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran. In response, Iran has targeted US military bases in neighboring countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. The ongoing military conflict has shuttered airspaces and halted most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. US strikes on Kharg Island and damage to the UAE's Port of Fujairah could impact oil prices, which again surged past $100 on Friday, driving up gas prices around the world. Smoke from the coast of Fujairah spread over the Gulf of Oman. NASA MODIS satellite image of Fujairah on March 14, 2026. NASA Modis satellite image, November 14, 2026. A satellite image taken on Saturday showed smoke from the fire spreading over the Gulf of Oman. The Port of Fujairah exported an average of 1.7 million barrels of crude oil and refined fuels each day in 2025, Reuters reported. Some operations at the Port of Fujairah were suspended on Saturday. AP Photo/Altaf Qadri Local outlets reported that some oil-loading operations were suspended on Saturday following the intercepted strike. The Fujairah Oil Industry Zone can store millions of barrels. Advertisement AP Photo/Altaf Qadri The Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, located near the port, is home to the largest commercial storage facility for refined oil products in the Middle East. The hub can store about 70 million barrels of oil. The military conflict has sent oil prices skyrocketing. AFP/Getty Images The ongoing war has disrupted the oil supply chain, sending oil prices over $100 a barrel this week. The International Energy Agency said it will release 400 million barrels from reserves in response, marking the largest coordinated release in the IEA's history. The International Energy Agency said the war has caused the largest oil market disruption in history. AFP/Getty Images The International Energy Agency said global oil supply will drop by 8 million barrels a day in March. "Disruptions are not limited to upstream production and exports, with several refineries and gas processing facilities shut down due to attacks or for safety concerns," the agency said in its monthly markets report. "The closure of the Strait is also forcing export-oriented refineries to cut runs or shut completely as product storage tanks top up." The UAE said it intercepted nine missiles and 33 drones launched from Iran on Saturday. AP Photo/Altaf Qadri The UAE Defense Ministry said it intercepted nine ballistic missiles and 33 uncrewed aerial vehicles launched from Iran in an X post on Saturday. "Since the onset of the blatant Iranian aggression, UAE air defences have engaged 294 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles, and 1,600 UAVs launched from Iran," it said. Read the original article on Business Insider Photo: Alan Wooten / The Center Square (The Center Square) Both sides of the aisle in the state legislature have agreed home affordability is an issue for Illinois residents in recent weeks. A new program to help first-time home buyers with down payments was announced by Gov. J.B. Pritzker earlier this week. The IHDAccess Home program, overseen by the Illinois Housing Development Authority, is part of a larger expenditure program proposed by Pritzker, called Building Up Illinois Developments. The proposed 2027 budget would allocate an additional $50 million to the program. The plan is for the state to support the housing market through incentives for new construction and financial assistance to home buyers, reallocating funds from previous programs and bond proceeds. The program will provide new home buyers with 6% of the purchase price, up to $15,000, as a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. The mortgage is only available to residents who make under specific income thresholds, varying by county. Additional programs by the department have been utilized by 34,000 residents in the past five years, with 87% of borrowers being first-time buyers, according to the department. Advertisement Pritzker highlighted homeownership is important to building wealth, saying high entry costs limit access for many working families. State Sen. Erica Harriss, R-Edwardsville, has a bill that would similarly address issues of affordability for first time home buyers. This bill provides a $500 non-refundable tax credit to first-time home buyers. It can be carried forward up to five years, Harriss said. We know that the early years of the mortgage are sometimes the hardest, so this will help directly during those times. Discussing SB 3959, which she calls the Welcome Home Illinois bill, Harriss said that last year the average home buyer was 40 years old, with only 21% of all homes bought by first time buyers. In response to the governors budget address last month, state Republicans in the Freedom Caucus were highly critical of additional taxation and spending, tying it back to issues of home affordability. Young families are struggling to buy their first home. Yet year after year, meaningful reform is avoided while governments continue to tax and spend, state Rep. Brad Hallbrook, R-Effingham, said. A Texas fugitive who allegedly worked as a security guard for Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) was killed in a standoff with a Dallas SWAT team Wednesday night. The suspect, who went by several aliases including Mike King, was wanted for impersonating a law enforcement officer and had claimed to be one while recruiting for his business that places off-duty cops with side jobs, CBS News Texas reported. King was being tracked by the Dallas Police Departments fugitive unit Wednesday night when he barricaded himself inside a car in the parking garage at Childrens Medical Center Dallas at around 11:40 p.m., officials said at a press conference Thursday morning. Rep. Jasmine Crockett with security guard Mike King, who was killed by Dallas Police SWAT on March 11, 2026. CBS News King was forced out of the car by tear gas and aimed a gun at the heavily armed police, who fired at the armed suspect. The wanted fugitive was struck by the gunfire and pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have yet to release his real name. King had worked on Crocketts detail while she was in both Washington, DC, and Texas, including when she appeared at campaign events for her primary run for the Democratic Senate nomination, which she eventually lost to candidate James Talarico, CBS reported. Video footage shared by the outlet captured 44-year-old Democrat walking beside her towering security guard, who had been living a double life as a crime boss masquerading as a cop. Advertisement King had run the online website Off Duty Police Services while allegedly driving a replica undercover cop car with stolen license plates from a military recruiting office. Rep. Jasmine Crockett speaks during a primary election watch party on March 3, 2026. AP Crockett had most recently paid Mike King for security services as recently as last year despite the shadowy figure having a criminal background, according to CBS News Texas. The Post has reached out to Crocketts office. The progressive firebrand has been a fierce opponent to President Trump and GOP members of Congress since she was first elected to the House in 2023. During her election watch party on March 3, Crockett accused the Republican party of meddling in her primary election that specifically targeted Democratic voters. Despite the accusations, Crockett conceded and endorsed Talarico but said she wasnt making plans to campaign for the 36-year-old. Crockett came under fire last month after her armed security guards removed Atlantic reporter Elaine Godfrey after a rally in Lubbock. They just said, Elaine from Atlantic, white girl with a hat and notepad. Shes interviewing people in the crowd. Shes a top-notch hater and will spin. She needs to leave, a woman with a badge told the reporter, as she was being booted. A group of Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) students has been credited with stopping a shooter who killed one and injured two more at Old Dominion University in Virginia on Thursday, March 12. Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI's Norfolk field office, said a group of ROTC students subdued and killed the suspect, who opened fire in a classroom inside Constant Hall, USA TODAY previously reported. Authorities have not yet disclosed how the shooter was killed. The suspect was later identified as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, a former member of the Army National Guard who pleaded guilty in 2016 to federal charges of providing material support to the Islamic State. What we know: Who was the Old Dominion University shooting suspect? 'Brave' ROTC members praised for their actions Evans commended the students' "extreme bravery and courage" in a news conference. "There were students that were in that room that subdued him and rendered him no longer alive," Evans said. "I don't know how else to say it, but they basically were able to terminate the threat." She did not provide further details on the incident, but noted that the suspect was not shot. "The brave ROTC members in that room subdued him, and if not for them, I'm not sure, you know, what else he may have done," she added. Advertisement FBI Director Kash Patel also praised the students in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying their actions "undoubtedly saved lives along with the quick response of law enforcement." Police block an entrance road after a gunman opened fire at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, U.S., March 12, 2026, in a still image from video. Old Dominion University shooting leaves 1 dead, 2 injured Federal authorities said the suspect entered an ROTC classroom on the morning of March 12 and yelled Allahu Akbar before opening fire. Three people were injured, one of whom later died at the hospital. In a statement on social media, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger identified the victim as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, saying he was killed in his classroom. Shah was a professor of military science at the university's ROTC and a decorated veteran who received multiple awards, including two Bronze Stars, after deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. FBI investigates: Deadly Old Dominion University shooting probed as act of terrorism While authorities have not yet confirmed a motive in the shooting, Patel said in a statement on X that the incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is working with local authorities in the investigation. The suspect, Jalloh, was a former member of the Army National Guard. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sierra Leone, he enlisted in the Virginia Army National Guard at 19 years old and received an honorable discharge when his six-year commitment ended, a defense lawyer for Jalloh wrote in court filings. He was arrested in 2016 and pleaded guilty to "attempting to provide material support to ISIS," said the FBI. He was sentenced in 2017 to 11 years in prison and was released in 2024. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ROTC members credited with subduing the Old Dominion shooter Rupert Murdoch, Grace Murdoch, Chloe Murdoch, and Wendi Murdoch attend Citymeals On Wheels' 33rd Annual Power Lunch For Women at The Plaza Hotel on November 19, 2019 in New York City. Credit: Steven Ferdman/Getty Rupert Murdoch's large family of six adult children with three of his ex-wives inspired the HBO hit dramedy Succession. The billionaire media mogul's youngest children are daughters Chloe and Grace Murdoch, who he shares with his third wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch. In a 2006 TV interview with Charlie Rose, Rupert announced that Grace and Chloe would get the same share of his approximately $20 billion fortune (per Forbes) as their older siblings, but wouldn't have the same voting stakes in his company, NewsCorp. It led to a rift between him and Wendi, per The New York Times, but they reconciled and stayed together for another seven years. When Wendi and Rupert divorced in 2013 after more than 14 years together, the exes made sure to be on the same page when it came to raising their girls. "Ruperts a very good father, strict like me," Wendi told Vogue in 2016. "We attend school conferences together. We both make sure they learn Chinese, do well in math. We make decisions together about how they use social media. We never want them to say, 'Well, Mommy said this' or 'Daddy said that.' " Chloe and Grace keep a lower profile as compared to their older siblings, who were more prominently featured in the March 2026 Netflix doc Dynasty: The Murdochs. Here is everything to know about Rupert Murdoch's younger daughters, Chloe and Grace Murdoch. Grace Murdoch, 24 Grace Murdoch attends The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2024 in New York City. Credit: Cindy Ord/MG24/Getty Rupert and Wendi welcomed Grace on Nov. 19, 2001. She attended the elite, all-girls Brearley School, a private liberal arts school in Manhattan's Upper East Side neighborhood, and she graduated in 2020. Grace then attended Yale University (where Wendi got her MBA), and did a 2024 internship at Goldman Sachs with a focus on consumer retail, per her LinkedIn. Advertisement After graduating, Grace came back to the financial firm as a full-time investment banking analyst. She also worked for Yale Smart Woman Securities, and from 2021 to 2022, she studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Grace also has a long work history including a journalism internship at The Wall Street Journal (which Rupert owns), a public relations internship at celeb-loved makeup brand Charlotte Tilbury, a gallery assistant internship at the Pace Gallery in New York City, a remote internship with Girls Who Invest and a retail job at Goop's Sag Harbor location in the Hamptons. Grace has also volunteered for New York City's Meals on Wheels and as a teaching aide for the Chinatown Literacy Project. In addition to her studies, professional and personal life, Grace also loves fashion. She's attended many Met Galas with Wendi and was photographed at New York Fashion Week for the first time when she was just 9 years old. Chloe Murdoch, 22 Chloe Murdoch and Wendi Murdoch attend the Ninth Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Rupert and Wendi welcomed their second daughter, Chloe, on July 17, 2003. She graduated from New York City's Trinity School, a private K-12 Episcopal school in the Upper West Side, per her LinkedIn. She is currently enrolled at Stanford University in California, majoring in the Ivy League college's Symbolic Systems Program. According to Stanford's website, the program combines computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and statistics to develop artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. In addition to her studies, Chloe has had internships at several major companies, including Zoom, Blockchain Creative Labs and, like her sister, Goldman Sachs. In 2021, Wendi wished Chloe a happy birthday on Instagram, writing "you always were the cutest child, but now you are the most wonderful 18 year daughter!! Happiest 18th birthday." Read the original article on People Michigan's Temple Israel shooter, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the FBI said -Credit:Getty Images (Getty Images) The man behind the attack on the largest Reform synagogue in the U.S. fatally shot himself in the head after driving his explosive-filled truck into Temple Israel in Michigan on Thursday, the FBI announced Friday. The perpetrator was identified by the FBI as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old father who was born in Lebanon and lived in Dearborn Heights. Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI field office, said Friday that her office found a large amount of commercial fireworks$2,000 worth from a metro Detroit firework store, according to NBC Newsand gasoline in his truck after searching for potential improvised explosive devices (IEDs). NBC News reports that he purchased $2,00 worth of fireworks Authorities have not spoken about the motive behind the attack, which Runyan said is being investigated as a "targeted act of violence against the Jewish community." Dead Michigan synagogue shooter burns in car wreckage after 'explosive launched' in attack Michigan shooting is 'biggest crime scene reporter had ever seen' as car rams Temple Israel synagogue However, emerging reports have found that several members of his family were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. Advertisement A local official in Mashgharah, Lebanon, told The Associated Press that two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed in their home in an airstrike shortly after sunset while breaking their Ramadan fast. Lebanese officials also confirmed that two of his relatives, both of whom were known Hezbollah members, were killed in recent Israeli airstrikes, NBC News reports. The two men killed were reportedly his brothers, Ibrahim and Qassem, and their children, Ali and Fatima, according to Drop Site News. A large mosque in Dearborn Heights held a memorial service for Ghazali's family members killed in Lebanon, a secretary at the Islamic Institute of America told The Detroit Free Press on Friday. Caution tape near the front entrance of Temple Israel a day after an active shooter incident on March 13, 2026 in West Bloomfield, Michigan. -Credit:Getty Images Runyan revealed that Ghazali waited inside his gray Ford F-150 truck at the West Bloomfield Township synagogue for more than two hours before driving through Door 5 in the southeast corner of the building, causing a fire at the synagogue. After driving through the doorway, the vehicle got stuck in the hallway and Ghazali remained trapped inside the vehicle. The FBI said he was confronted by two security guards before he fatally shot himself. Ghazali immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon in 2011 and became a U.S. citizen in 2016. The Dearborn Heights resident does not possess a criminal record or registered weapons. He was also never tied to a previous FBI investigation. None of the 140 staff members or children in the synagogue were harmed, though a security guard was hit by the vehicle and dozens of first responders had to be treated for smoke inhalation, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. Parents in a small Washington state community are demanding answers after a school staff member was arrested in connection with an alleged sexual assault involving a student. According to the King County Sheriff's Office, detectives arrested a male staff member at Skykomish K-12 School on 6 March as part of an investigation into the alleged rape of a child. The suspect was booked into the King County Jail while authorities continue to investigate the case, per KOMO News. Authorities opened the investigation in early March, the Sheriff's Office said, after allegations surfaced involving a student and an adult male staff member at the school. Detectives with the Special Assault Unit of the King County Sheriff's Office carried out the arrest on campus during the school day. The case remains under investigation, and authorities said the determinations will be forwarded to the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, which will decide whether to formally file charges. Investigators added that they are not aware of any additional victims at this time but are urging anyone with relevant information to come forward. Allegations Involving a Student Reports indicate that the case centres on allegations that the teacher developed an inappropriate relationship with a student that later turned sexual. Investigators say the interactions allegedly occurred on multiple occasions and in different locations on campus, such as in school closets, the gymnasium, and stairwells. Authorities said that the student involved was about 14 years old at the time the alleged abuse came to light. According to investigators, the relationship may have continued for more than a year. Skykomish School District staff member arrested for alleged child rape https://t.co/WM87nHG9iV KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) March 8, 2026 Investigators said that the student moved to Skykomish K-12 School in seventh grade and developed a rapport with the teacher through their common interest in a sport after the loss of a friend from the school she previously attended. Authorities allege the teacher later gave the student presents and showed her special attention before the relationship reportedly became sexual when she reached eighth grade, per Fox News. Authorities say that as the relationship gradually grew into a more personal one, they began to exchange messages via email through the teacher's school district email account. They allegedly hid messages about their sexual activity by using code words. According to law enforcement, the teacher admitted to multiple sexual encounters with the students and giving her gifts, which included lingerie. Investigators said the matter was brought to law enforcement's attention after the student's mother reported suspicious content on her daughter's phone to authorities. Other Recorded Warnings Investigators also said the school principal allegedly warned the 62-year-old staff member against having unsupervised contact with the student. However, instead of sending an adult to supervise their encounter, another student, described as autistic, was in the area during their interaction. One parent said her young son, a student at the school, was terrified as he watched the arrest take place. She said she was upset about the incident herself, 'I'm shaking right now because I'm pretty irritated about this.' Skykomish parents packed a tense meeting, demanding answers and calling for the superintendents resignation after a teacher was arrested for investigation of child rape. https://t.co/emLRfRo4t9 FOX 13 Seattle (@fox13seattle) March 10, 2026 According to Superintendent Destry Jones, the safety of the student involved remains their top priority, and the school is providing full cooperation. 'We ask community members to be mindful and respectful of student privacy when sharing information with each other and the community about this topic,' he requested. 'Our focus remains on maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.' Originally published on IBTimes UK Texas Department of Public Safety investigators announced they suspect a former Shallowater ISD band teacher accused of sexually abusing two students multiple times may have preyed on other victims. Joseph Gonzalez, 27, was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center Thursday on a first-degree felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child, according to county jail records. His bond is set at $500,000, according to jail records. He remained in jail as of Saturday. The offense carries a punishment of 25 years to life in prison without parole. His charge stems from a Texas Rangers investigation that began on Feb. 4 after the Shallowater ISD police chief asked for assistance investigating reports that Gonzalez was in a sexual relationship with a student, according to court records. The Ranger observed the child's forensic interview at the Children's Advocacy Center, during which the girl said Gonzalez became her band teacher in 2023. She said the relationship started professionally but turned personal as he began messaging her on Facebook, then on Snapchat after she agreed not to tell anyone about the communications. She reportedly said he started asking her for explicit images of herself, which she sent, the documents state. She said Gonzalez also sent her pictures of his genitals, the documents state. The girl reportedly said Gonzalez sexually assaulted her at her home and at the school's band hall multiple times between May 2024 and December 2025. Advertisement The Ranger found on the girl's phone Facebook messages Gonzalez reportedly sent her that corroborated her outrcy, the documents state. On Feb. 3, Shallowater ISD officials issued a statement to parents of students saying an unidentified employee was placed on leave after they learned he was being accused of having an improper relationship with a student. Officials could not disclose details of the situation, citing the ongoing investigation, with which they were fully cooperating. Six days later, the Ranger spoke with another student, who made an outcry accusing Gonzalez of sexually abusing her around the same time as the first girl. The second girl provided a similar account as the first girl, saying Gonzalez intially began messaging her on a school-approved app but their relationship shifted into a friendship by the summber of 2025. Ultimaltely, Gonzalez reportedly manipulated the girl into trading sexually explicit images with him, the documents state. The girl reportedly said Gonzalez also sexually abused her at the school's band hall in October, November and December, the documents state. The Ranger found messages on the girls phone that Gonzalez reportedly sent her confirming the sexual relationship, the documents state. Meanwhile, DPS officials believe Gonzalez preyed on more victims and are asking anyone with information about the case to contact the Texas Rangers at 806-740-8975. This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: New details, DPS seek victims in former Shallowater band teacher case A retired Air Force general living in New Mexico has been missing for two weeks. The Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office on Thursday released a timeline showing a repairman arrived at William Neil McCaslands home in Albuquerque around 10 a.m. on Feb. 27. McCaslands wife left the home about an hour later, authorities said. When she returned at about 12:04 p.m., McCasland was gone. After searching for him for several hours, she reported him missing, investigators said. Authorities said several of McCaslands personal items were also missing from the home, including his hiking boots, wallet and a .38-caliber revolver with a leather holster. Advertisement IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Family of Nancy Guthrie offers $1M reward for her recovery While there is currently no evidence indicating foul play, investigators are examining all available information as the case remains active, the sheriffs office said in a statement. Investigators are asking people in and around the 68-year-olds neighborhood to review security camera footage from Feb. 27 and Feb. 28, particularly between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., and contact authorities with any relevant video or information. A statewide Silver Alert remains active. The alerts are used for missing people age 50 or older when there is a clear indication of irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as Alzheimers disease or dementia. Authorities, however, declined to release information about McCaslands medical condition. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, McCasland holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in aerospace and astronautical engineering, including a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his career, he worked on a range of space and defense programs, including GPS systems and other space acquisition efforts. As spring break gets underway, travel agencies are issuing their own warnings about travel in Mexico following last months cartel attacks. The State Department classifies Mexico at a Level 2 "exercise increased caution" because of terrorism, crime and kidnapping threats. "Many violent crimes take place in Mexico," the State Departments warning issued last summer says. "They include homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery. There is a risk of terrorist violence, including terrorist attacks and other activity in Mexico." The threats also vary from region to region, for instance, the State Department classifies several states in Mexico, including Jalisco and Baja California as Level 3 "Reconsider travel" and states such as Sinaloa and Colima, where cartel violence is rampant, as Level 4 "Do not travel." Cartels Fear Us Retaliation As Trump-era Pressure Reshapes Strategy: 'They Fear The United States' Firefighters cleaning a street in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco State, Mexico, on February 24. (Getty Images) "Conditions vary significantly by state, and whats happening in one region may look very different from what travelers are experiencing in a major resort corridor," AAA said in a recent article on travel to Mexico on its website. "Because of that, safety isnt a one-size-fits-all answer; its a personal decision best made with up-to-date, destination-specific information." Read On The Fox News App The travel agency noted that "ongoing cartel conflicts in parts of Mexico led to temporary spikes in violence," recently, "prompting heightened US security alerts, including shelter-in-place notices in some popular resort regions." "According to US Embassy alerts, these incidents are typically tied to localized security operations involving Mexican authorities and criminal groups," AAA added. "While most tourist visits to Mexico occur without incident, short-term flare-ups underscore why travelers should review current, destination-specific guidance before departure." Air Force Veteran Warns 'Cartels Dont Collapse They Fracture' After Notorious Drug Lord Killed Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, was killed in a Mexican military operation helped by U.S. intelligence on Feb. 22. Advertisement People walk near a burned-out car in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state, Mexico, on February 23, 2026. His death led to widespread unrest in Jalisco which is home to popular tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara and other states, as the cartels conducted retaliatory attacks that lasted several days, but have left travelers feeling shaken. During the unrest, the State Department issued a shelter-in-place advisory for Americans in Jalisco, some cruise lines skipped stops in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara and some U.S. airlines canceled flights, according to Town and Country. Paul Tumpowsky, chief revenue officer for Fora Travel, said that cartels are incentivized to minimize their impact on tourism, because its a big part of the economy there. "Its a delicate balance to find their way at war with the police or whoever is coming after them," he said. Security members speak next to burnt buses on February 22, 2026, in Zapopan, Mexico, near Guadalarjara. He added, "Mexico is a big place. Thats the first thing to remember. Baja California operates totally differently than Jalisco, relative to Mexico City, Cancun, Riviera Maya, etc. Generally speaking, outside of the regions that have been directly impacted, its going to be safe to travel." He said that travelers should have a "heightened sense of awareness, not to the point of ruining your vacation, but being smart. This is a time to think about and plan a little bit more about whats the appropriate amount of risk youre willing to take." Kent Webber, a senior manager at Global Rescue, a travel safety organization, told The New York Times "this marks a new phase in cartel reactions to high-level enforcement actions. No travel to Mexico is ever risk-free." Guadalajara in 2019. Click Here To Download The Fox News App Mike Ballard, the director of intelligence at Global Guardian, a travel-risk management company, told The Times that hed comfortably advise clients to travel to Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, which was unaffected by the cartel violence in February, as long as they stay aware and monitor the news. "But as we have seen, this can all go sideways quickly," he added, "so you want to be paying attention to what is going on before departing." Original article source: Travel agencies warn spring break tourists about Mexico safety risks after recent surge of cartel violence The Trump administrations attacks on universities have led to a slowdown in hiring, with international academics particularly caught in the crossfire. Colleges are being forced to navigate both threats to federal funding and immigration roadblocks, a landscape that many find increasingly untenable to navigate. The U.S. has a reputation for research that some say will survive the Trump onslaught, but the real harm could be deterring future candidates from pursuing certain fields. The pause in hiring began last year after the administration started pulling millions of dollars from elite universities, often citing allegations of antisemitism. The loss of money led to hiring freezes at top universities such as Harvard and thousands to be laid off at Johns Hopkins University. While some schools have reached deals with the administration to restore funding and others won it back in the courts, restoration has not translated to a resurgence in hiring. Its become much more complicated in the sense that were spending a lot more time than we used to try to make the case for new positions, to justify how a new position is going to lead to enrollment growth I have heard a lot more kind of consternation from counterparts around just the struggle to make the case for new positions. And, in some instances, just not being able to hire new faculty, said Kevin McClure, chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. While funding concerns plague hiring issues on the administrators end, academics are also struggling with decisions over whether to even stay in their fields amid the turmoil. Free speech concerns have hit U.S. and international academics as some states crack down on how professors can teach about certain topics such as race and gender, efforts largely supported by the White House Even before the second Trump administration, the American Association of University Professors found in 2023 one in three academics were looking to leave Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, with 58 percent citing their states political climate. Recently, one professor was fired at the Texas A&M University for kicking out a student who challenged her teaching about more than two genders in an incident that went viral. The professor is currently suing for her job back. In multiple red states, bans have been placed on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices, and DEI programs have been outlawed. Other U.S. academics have discussed leaving out certain words such as equity from government funding proposals over fear the Trump administration would outright reject their requests. The quality is not at the same level in the states that are imposing different kind of restrictions on academic freedom and also diversity equity, inclusion, and so the retention of quality scholars and also the attracting of that has been not great, said Mike Gavin, president and CEO of Alliance for Higher Education. There have been some states where the opposite effect is taking place, where youre seeing high-quality administrators and faculty apply and get jobs in states where there are protections of the same thing. So, youre seeing a major demographic shift that aligned with the legislative posture that each state takes with regard to academic freedom, institutional autonomy and, especially, diversity, equity, inclusion, he added. Advertisement U.S. students may also be less likely to go into certain fields after Republicans last year capped how much those going for particular degrees can borrow in federal student loans, with industries including nursing sounding the alarm on the future of their workforces. That change could eventually impact universities willingness to hire as they adjust their financial models, But it could also affect universities willingness to hire as they may have to adjust their financial models, a possibility the GOP hopes will make higher education cheaper. Foreign professors have even more perilous waters to navigate, with a recent lawsuit alleging the First Amendment rights of non-citizen academics have been violated. The Trump administration began a policy last year to bar researchers who study fact-checking and social media due to fears the work could lead to censorship of Americans. The policy has caused foreign-born professors and faculty to self-censor or be barred from entering the country, according to the lawsuit. The Trump administrations introduction of a $100,000 H-1B visa fee also harms the prospects of getting international talent into American universities, with some not wanting to take on the high cost to bring these individuals in. There are certainly challenges attracting international academics, more broadly, some of that is driven by just concerns about U.S. politics, but a lot of its driven by the H-1B visa issue, where, if you get $100,000 to hire a person in much of academia, there are other people who could potentially have those positions who are Americans. Its more challenging in fields like engineering, where there are a lot of very well qualified international graduates, said Robert Kelchen, professor and head of the Department of Education Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The chaos in the U.S. higher education system has led some foreign countries to try to take advantage and attract talented academics to their schools. Spain, Denmark, China and others are offering research money, relocation assistance and other benefits to lure U.S. academics away, with some success. Were going to get a smaller share of the worlds top talent just because of the difficulties in coming to the U.S., but I dont think were going to lose a lot of top American talent to other countries. Thats something that it just seems to be a pretty rare event, and much of the world, outside of China, doesnt provide anywhere near the level of federal support for higher education that the U.S. has, especially in research, Kelchen said. There could also be some long-term hiring consequences in the U.S., even if academics dont try to go to another country. As an example, if youve got people who are completing their doctorates, theyre considering an academic job, but theyre doing so in an environment where there is a lot of uncertainty. There are some real questions about the financial viability of some institutions. It means that the prospect of stepping into a faculty job is a little riskier than it was in the past. In a variety of ways, its more politically risky and maybe more financially risky, McClure said. Were probably going to see fewer applicants who, themselves, are coming from a lower income background, fewer applicants whose research is in an area that is important and studies underserved communities And so, we may see less diversity in individuals that are pursuing faculty careers, he added. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq was struck by a missile earlier on Saturday, with no reported injuries, several outlets reported. The missile attack destroyed the embassys air defence system, an Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera. The Associated Press also reported that the missile struck a helipad inside the compound. Agence France-Presse, however, reported that the attack was from a drone strike. The Hill has reached out to the State Department for more information. The embassy issued an alert later in the day, urging American citizens in Iraq to leave immediately. Iran-aligned terrorist militias have repeatedly attacked the International Zone in central Baghdad, embassy officials wrote on the social platform X. The International Zone remains closed, with limited exceptions. There have also been repeated attacks in the area around the Erbil International Airport and the Consulate General. Do not attempt to come to the embassy in Baghdad or the consulate general in Erbil in light of the ongoing risk of missiles, drones, and rockets in Iraqi airspace, officials added. The U.S. previously ordered embassies across the Middle East to evacuate after the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran on Feb. 28. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes attacking U.S. bases and Gulf partners across the region. Advertisement The U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were closed after Tehran struck both consulates. The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, also closed after fighting erupted between Hezbollah and Israel. The State Department has also instructed Americans to leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen due to serious safety risks. U.S. officials have urged Americans in the Middle East to travel by land to a site where flights are still departing. The attack on the embassy in Baghdad comes amid questions about how the U.S. will resolve its military operation in Iran. The two-week-old conflict has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the main waterway for around 20 percent of the worlds oil and gas, along with other goods, causing prices to skyrocket. President Trump has given various timetables for when the conflict could end, including an estimate that it could be just over a month. He told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Friday that he will know when the conflict ends when he feels it in my bones. The president later wrote on Truth Social on Friday that Iran is totally defeated and wants a deal. He added that Iran would be wise to lay down their arms, and save whats left of their country, which isnt much! Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. FILE PHOTO: Oil tanker Bronco sits anchored in Lake Maracaibo, near the Bajo Grande crude port operated by state oil company PDVSA, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, February 9, 2026. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo LOS ANGELES, March 13 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday updated waivers to Venezuela sanctions aimed at easing the way for investment and activities related to the country's oil and the export of fertilizer, as prices rise amid U.S. strikes on Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department issued three updated general licenses on Friday as part of the move. In a post on X, the department said it "updated several Venezuela-related licenses to further support the revitalization of the countrys energy sector and help ensure a well-supplied global commodity market." Advertisement "These authorizations expand permitted investment and activities in Venezuelas energy industry and allow for the export of fertilizer directly to the U.S. to support our great American farmers," the Treasury Department said in a post on X. (Reporting by Ryan Jones, Writing by Christian Martinez and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Caitlin Webber) Utahs measles outbreak is speeding up as it spills into the eighth month, getting so bad that some local health officials have turned to talk radio to get the message about vaccination to more people. As South Carolina seems to be getting a handle on its outbreak the largest in the United States in three decades measles in Utah is raging through unvaccinated children in several communities. There have been almost 100 confirmed illnesses in Utah in the last three weeks and likely many more families have been affected, experts say. More people have caught measles in the first few months of this year than all of last year. Since measles began spreading in Utah last summer, state health officials have barely acknowledged it. Health officials in the southwest corner of the state, which still accounts for the bulk of cases, havent been holding vaccine clinics, they say, because most residents arent interested in getting the shots. During the states first media briefing March 5, state epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen pleaded with residents to get vaccinated. A nurse practitioner recounted in detail several severe measles cases shes treated. A number of families who had coped with the virus didnt realize how bad measles was, Nolen said. The Utah Department of Health and Human Services has updated its website weekly but has otherwise remained largely silent. The agency hasnt posted about the outbreak on its Facebook and X platforms since the outbreak began. The agency declined a request for interview. In southwest Utah, a remote tight-knit community which has accounted for most of the cases, its been a struggle to reach residents. Most people in the area are linked to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a religious group that is wary of outsiders. Vaccination rates are very low among school-age kids. David Heaton, public information officer for the Southwest Utah Public Health Department, said theres no main television station or newspaper in the five counties under his agencys jurisdiction. Instead, he has harnessed social media and talk radio to provide updates on the outbreak. We do a lot of radio spots, probably two to three times a week, he said. Talk radio is big down here. Heaton's messaging on measles vaccinations has evolved throughout the outbreak. Were trying to find ways of tweaking the message, he said. If you dont want to get all your vaccines, at least get this one. Or weve started saying, consider whos in your circle. Are there little kids under 5 that might have a harder time healthwise if they get measles? Few seem to be listening. Advertisement There hasnt been any sense of alarm or living life differently, he said. Im surprised by some people who I talk to informally who still havent heard the message, which makes me wonder, are we covering all of our bases? Is there something were not aware of? Theres a different response among people living in the northeastern part of the state. The TriCounty Health Department, which encompasses three counties, has had five measles cases since mid-February. The agency saturated its social media with information and held two vaccine clinics. Thirty-three people showed up to get vaccinated, said Sydnee Lyons, TriCounty Healths public information officer. Our community is going above and beyond in terms of asking questions and making the right decisions for their families and trying to protect not only themselves but their community members, Lyons said. Everyones working together. Measles is the most contagious virus known in the world. When it infiltrates pockets of unvaccinated people, up to 9 out of 10 will become infected. People who are infected can spread the virus four days before the characteristic rash shows up. While the virus is continuing to spread uncontrolled in the southwest part of Utah, other parts of the state including areas closer to Salt Lake City are now experiencing increases in cases. According to an NBC News/Stanford University investigation, the MMR vaccination rate for kindergarteners in hard-hit Washington County is 79.2%. Its 92.6% in Salt Lake County, which had measles exposures at hospital emergency departments, a restaurant, a gas station and an aquarium last week alone. An immunization rate of 95% is needed, experts say, to achieve the level of herd immunity to prevent outbreaks. Containing measles outbreaks relies on effective communication encouraging the public either to get vaccinated or to stay away from others until the threat passes. In South Carolina, state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell has held dozens of public briefings one each week since the outbreak was declared in early October. The briefings are publicly available on the agencys website. The state rolled out mobile vaccine clinics and invited public health experts to help with contact tracing and data management. Because Utahs public health system is decentralized, its up to local and regional health departments to respond to outbreaks the way they see fit. The Southwest Utah Public Health Department is not holding vaccine clinics. We have the capacity, Heaton said, but theres been no surge in demand for the vaccines. ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. Vice President JD Vance hinted California may be targeted next with major fraud investigations and revealed that fraud discovered in the Minneapolis area has "probably been $19 billion at least" since the administration began investigating in the Twin Cities. In January, Vance announced an interagency task force within the Department of Justice that specifically targets fraud, and reports suggest the vice president will soon lead a new task force established through a Trump executive order. "We know there's a lot of fraud in California, and we're trying to get to the bottom of exactly what it looks like and what we've done in the Trump administration," Vance said in response to a question by Fox News Digital. He took questions after a speech Friday afternoon at the Power House event center that focused on the economy, public safety and election integrity. Comer To Say Tim Walz 'Enabled Fraud,' Failed Whistleblowers In Bombshell Minnesota Hearing "And the president has really empowered us to do this, is to take the first national look at the way the American people have been defrauded over many, many years," Vance added. Read On The Fox News App Vice President JD Vance suggested Friday that California could be the next focus of major federal fraud investigations, while claiming that fraud uncovered in the Minneapolis area may total at least $19 billion. In January, President Donald Trump was critical of California, announcing the "fraud investigation of California has begun" and saying the state was "more corrupt than Minnesota." Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom defended the Golden State's fraud protection in February, saying that California's Franchise Tax Board has blocked billions in fraud in recent years. "In the actual world where adults govern, Gavin Newsom has been cleaning house," a spokesperson for Newsom told Fox News Digital. "Since taking office, hes blocked over $125 billion in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses and pardons. "Gavin Newsom runs a state," the spokesperson added. "Donald Trump runs his mouth. Again and again, weve shown that the programs they are attempting to call out are programs the federal government is administering, not the state. We suggest they get their house in order." Vance on Friday pointed to fraud that has occurred in Minnesota, telling Fox News Digital and reporters that taxpayer dollars are footing the bill for the illegal misuse of funds. Advertisement Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom defended the states safeguards and said Californias tax agency has blocked billions of dollars in fraud in recent years. (AP Newsroom) Jd Vance Spearheads 'War On Fraud,' Promises To Root Out Taxpayer Money 'Stolen' By Illegal Immigrants "You asked about Minnesota, [and] we think that there's probably been $19 billion at least to fraud just committed in Minneapolis in the surrounding areas," Vance explained. "Let me give you an example of this because it's not just the American people being defrauded. It's not just your tax dollars that are being stolen out of your wallet and given to fraudsters. "It's the fact that the services we need to deliver to needy people are not getting delivered because they're going to fraudsters." Federal investigators in Minnesota launched a probe in 2022 into the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which prosecutors later identified as a key player in what became one of the largest COVID-19 relief fraud cases uncovered. Homeland Security Investigations agents conduct a fraud investigation in Minneapolis after the release of a video over the weekend on alleged daycare fraud. Report Exposes Billions In Uncovered Fraud, Waste As Watchdog Coalition Offers Support To Trump's Crackdown As the investigation progressed, authorities said they uncovered roughly $250 million in fraudulent claims, with 78 people ultimately charged in the alleged scheme. Prosecutors have also suggested the broader fraud linked to related programs could total as much as $9 billion. Independent journalist Nick Shirley took to the streets of Minneapolis in late December 2025 and discovered one organization that claimed to be a type of daycare, where the word "learning" was misspelled on the front door of the business. Quality Learning Center in Minnesota was found to be at the center of an alleged childcare fraud scandal in the state. Vance poked fun at the organization, which has since shut its doors, during his response to Fox News Digital reporter's question Friday. Click Here To Download The Fox News App "When you have a Somali fraudster come into the United States illegally and then set up a school to collect tax dollars, and the name of the school is the Quality Learning Center, but when they put the sign up, they take the n out. So, it says Quality Learing Center," Vance explained. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to send my kids to a school where they can't spell learn. That group was getting millions of dollars from the American taxpayer." Original article source: Vance reveals $19B fraud uncovered in Minneapolis, hints California is next target Americans looking for employment have one more thing to worry about: the workers who are holding onto their jobs with an iron grip. People's willingness to leave their jobs is widely seen as a barometer of confidence in the labor market. And right now, that indicator is flashing red. The share of employees who quit their jobs in January was 2%, Labor Department data showed, and February survey data from the New York Federal Reserve showed workers' perceived probability of leaving their job voluntarily in the next year hit a record low in data going back to 2013. - - "The probability of losing your job has not gone up all that much. But if you lose your job, the probability of finding a new one that's gotten harder, that's gone down," Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Yahoo Finance. "It's especially true in the sectors that have low hires and low quits rates," she added, "where they're just not seeing room made for new people." Ullrich pointed to government, financial activities, and manufacturing, which all have a quits rates below 1.5%. In an economy that's hardly sustaining any payroll growth outside of the healthcare sector, and amid persistent fears of AI-induced layoffs, it only makes sense that those with jobs are treating them like precious jewels. But that leaves those without them trapped between stagnant hiring and the anxious employed. There were just 0.94 jobs available for every unemployed person in January, compared to the roughly 2 positions open for each out-of-work American in the white-hot labor market of 2022. Read more: Worried about job security? Take these 5 steps now to protect your finances. A sign with information about employment is displayed during a job fair in Dallas, on Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) It no longer pays to job-hop The Federal Reserve's Beige Book hinted at the trend this month, with the Boston Fed reporting an increase in applicants, as well as "some experienced workers applying for junior-level positions." The New York Fed also noted "labor supply generally continued to exceed labor demand," while the Cleveland Fed found "increased availability of qualified candidates as larger firms slowed hiring." Do you have a story about navigating the job market? Reach out to Emma Ockerman here. That intense competition for jobs, combined with workers' reluctance to leave, gives employers the upper hand. Pay growth for job-switchers is slowing, according to data tracked by ADP, with the premium for job-hoppers hitting a record low in February in data dating back to 2020. That may only further incentivize staying put, since pay for job-stayers is steadier. Taylor Bowley, an economist at the Bank of America Institute, also flagged this pattern in a March 3 note, writing that "the median pay raise associated with a job change has moderated for both men and women, with January's level measuring less than half that of the 2019 average." Advertisement "Looking ahead, if 'low-hire, low-fire' continues to characterize the labor market, the jobchange premium could compress further, limiting the extent to which workers can secure meaningful pay bumps by switching roles," Bowley wrote. Read more: Can you get a mortgage without a job? Yes here's how. Musical chairs gone cold Jasmine Escalera, a career expert at MyPerfectResume, said that an October survey by the employment assistance platform found 65% of workers planned not to look for a new job in 2026. The question is whether that's "because they're satisfied, or is it because they're terrified?" Escalera said. Signs point to the latter, at least for some. "We're seeing that people take a long time to find jobs," Escalera said. "And it isn't about qualifications or skillsets it's about the competition in the market. For the job-seekers, this is really sad, actually." Indeed, long-term unemployment is creeping up, with a quarter of out-of-work Americans unemployed for 27 weeks or longer as of February. Anyone watching that trend who still has a job no matter how bad it is might be a bit skittish about jumping ship. Lauren Thomas, an economist at Deel, a human resources company, said that seems particularly true for workers under 24, who in 2024 had the highest rate of job-hopping. Now, she said, they're typically staying where they are and have experienced the sharpest drop in job-switching among other age groups. Their anxiety isn't without reason. Just in New York City, long a place where young job-seekers flock, entry-level postings plummeted more than 37% between 2022 and 2024, according to a recent report from the Center for an Urban Future. If you're early in your career, looking for a new job might force you into the most troubled job market in years. "There's good reason for people to quit their jobs, whether it's to move to a position with better opportunity, or better pay, or to change sectors, or to move to a new town," Ullrich said. "When the churn is taken out of the labor market, and layoff rates are low which they are what happens is you don't have opportunities for new people to enter." Emma Ockerman is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Click here for the latest personal finance news to help you with investing, paying off debt, buying a home, retirement, and more Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance A Yamaha booth at the 2018 NAMM Show in California, where the company will be relocating its U.S. headquarters out of in 2026. After half a century in Cypress, California, Yamaha Motor Co. is packing up and heading east, way east. The Japanese manufacturer announced it is relocating its U.S. headquarters to Kennesaw, Georgia, citing the need to cut costs and streamline operations amid rising tariff pressures (1). The move, which begins this year and runs through 2028, means Yamaha will also be selling off its California fixed assets outright, including land, offices and warehouses. Must Read In a statement on Feb. 26 (1), Yamaha said it is "undertaking structural reforms aimed at improving the profitability of its U.S. operations in response to cost increases resulting from U.S. tariffs and changes in the market environment." Translation: the math stopped working in California, and it now works in Georgia. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was quick to welcome the news. "After many years of great partnership, we are honored and proud to welcome Yamaha's American headquarters to the No. 1 state for business," Kemp said on March 10. "This is another loud and clear testament to what we offer job creators from around the world (2). The California exodus is real and still accelerating Yamaha's move isn't a one-off headline. It's the latest chapter in a story that has been building for more than a decade. According to research by the Public Policy Institute of California, 789 companies moved their headquarters out of California from 2011 to 2021, roughly 1.9% of all headquarters in the state at the start of that period. The number of firms who moved their headquarters out of the state went up over time, while the number moving in declined. California also lost an estimated 77,600 jobs due to those moves (3). And the trend hasn't slowed. In 2025, several major relocations out of California were announced. Chevron, John Paul Mitchell Systems and Realtor.com are all moving to Texas (4). While In-N-Out Burger, a California institution since 1948, made waves when it announced a move to Tennessee, with its CEO citing the difficulty of raising a family and running a business in the state. The broader list of California defectors in recent years includes Oracle, Tesla, SpaceX, Charles Schwab, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Palantir, household names that collectively represent billions in tax revenue and tens of thousands of jobs. Moving company data tells the same story from a different angle: U-Haul ranked California dead last among "growth states" for the fifth consecutive year for 2024; Atlas Van Lines reported that 60% of its 2024 California shipments were outbound, compared to just 40% inbound; while United Van Lines had similar findings 58% outbound to 42% inbound (5). The fiscal outlook adds to the pressure. California faces a projected $50 billion to $70 billion deficit in 2025-2026, a near one-eighty from the $97 billion surplus it recorded in 2021-2022, according to reporting by The Real Deal (4). Tax revenue can erode quickly when, as the outlet notes, wealthy residents and major employers leave. Two very different philosophies on business The contrast between how California and Georgia approach job creators couldn't be sharper, and the gap has become a centerpiece of the economic debate around corporate relocation. California levies the highest state income tax rate in the nation at 13.3% on top earners (6) (compared to 5.19% in Georgia) and its corporate income tax rate of 8.84% (7) is among the steepest in the country. But taxes are only part of the picture. According to the Hoover Institution (8), businesses leave California due to "taxes, regulations, litigation costs, labor costs, energy and utility costs, and employee cost of living." California's permitting process is widely regarded as one of the most cumbersome in the U.S., and its regulatory environment can mean high compliance costs. Georgia has deliberately built its identity around being the opposite of that. The state has now been recognized as No. 1 for business by Area Development magazine for 12 consecutive years, an unmatched record in the publication's history (9). The ranking is based on scores from consultants who work directly with companies making real investment decisions. Gov. Kemp, himself a former small business owner, recently laid out the states approach in plain terms in an interview with Forbes (10). Advertisement "We have stayed true to a simple formula: trust job creators and get government out of the way, he said. That's why it has been a priority to tackle the top three things that kill deals: a burdensome tax code, slow permits and lack of available sites. Kemp went on to describe Georgia's investment in what he calls "speed to market" policies a concept that deserves attention from any company evaluating a relocation. Read More: Non-millionaires can now invest in this $1B private real estate fund starting at just $10 Read More: Warren Buffetts 8 simple and repeatable rules to get rich (and stay rich) in America "We invested heavily in our Rural Site Development Initiative, where the state partners directly with local development authorities to grade land, put in infrastructure and turn what some partners have called 'fields of dreams' into 'ready-made sites' before a company even looks at them, he explained. Through our Georgia Ready for Accelerated Development (GRAD) program, we do the heavy lifting upfront so that when a business is ready to build, they aren't waiting on us. For a manufacturer like Yamaha, racing to restructure its U.S. operations amid tariff pressures, the ability to move quickly is not a minor convenience. It's a material business advantage. Is there any good news for California? It would be unfair not to note that the California story is more complicated than a pure exodus narrative. Migration data shows a large decline in the number of higher-income adults moving out, 28% fewer leaving in 2024 versus the peak in 2021 (11). California's population has also grown in recent years, buoyed by international immigration that offsets domestic outflows (12). And the state retains extraordinary advantages: the largest economy of any U.S. state, world-class research universities, deep venture capital networks and unmatched concentration of tech talent. Researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California have also cautioned that headquarter relocations should not be viewed in isolation. Far more headquarters launched (17%) or closed (30%) over the same period than relocated, and those latter events had a larger impact on employment overall (3). Still, the direction of travel, both literal and figurative, is hard to ignore. California had the highest net outflow of domestic companies across the U.S. from 2015 to 2025 (13). Yamaha's decision to leave California isn't a dramatic act of protest. It's a business decision, made by executives weighing costs against returns. But when that calculus plays out the same way, in favor of states like Georgia, Texas, Tennessee or Florida, hundreds of times over a decade, the cumulative effect reshapes not just corporate maps, but tax bases, job markets and the economic fortunes of millions of people on both sides of the ledger. What To Read Next Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywises best stories and exclusive interviews first clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now. Article sources We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines. Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd (1); WALB News 10 (2); Public Policy Institute of California (3), (11); The Real Deal (4); KTLA 5 Morning News (5); Tax Foundation (6), (7); Hoover Institution (8); Area Development (9); Forbes (10); Los Angeles Times (12); Financial Times (13) This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Vance's "weak" position has been widely criticized, as he failed to publicly speak out against Trump -Credit:AFP via Getty Images (AFP via Getty Images) Vice President JD Vance was reportedly a cautious voice within the White House during discussions surrounding potential military action against Iran. According to POLITICO, two senior officials from the Trump administration revealed that Vance expressed his reservations as plans for the strikes took shape. Vance is "skeptical," is "worried about success" and "just opposes" the war on Iran, a senior Trump official conveyed to the outlet through a text message. Another Trump official explained "his role is to provide the president and the administration, you know, all points of views of what could happen from many different angles and, you know, he does that. But once the decision has been made, he's fully on board." However, Vance's supposed opposition has been widely criticized, with people pointing out that he still refuses to publicly speak out against Trump. GOP senator says DOJ's probe of Fed chair Jerome Powell is becoming 'absurd' Trumps pick for new DHS secretary once hired felon who illegally stored guns at work President Donald Trump has previously recognized that Vance held views "philosophically a little bit different than me" concerning the Iran situation at the outset, whilst dismissing any notion of discord between them, reports the Irish Star. The president acknowledged Vance was "maybe less enthusiastic about going" but emphasized that his decision to proceed with airstrikes in Iran alongside Israel was necessary. Advertisement "I felt it was something we had to do," Trump said. "I didn't feel we had a choice." On social media, users criticized Vance's weak position. @stratoman1 wrote, "J.D. Vance is such a weasel. He has his team leak to Politico that he was skeptical of this illegal war, but hes completely disappeared from X. Where is he? The most online vice VP is gone at a time when we our is at war. If he opposes what Trump is doing, he should say so publicly. " President Trump previously acknowledged that Vance was "maybe less enthusiastic" about the war in Iran -Credit:Getty With a challenging election year on the horizon, the Iran conflict has sparked tensions within Republican circles, as some party members question whether the military campaign fits with the "America First," isolationist stance the GOP has embraced throughout the Trump administration. Few individuals have embodied that ideology as prominently as Vance, who over the span of ten years rose from bestselling writer to U.S. senator and ultimately vice president. He's currently seen as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, putting him in a position to carry Trump's agenda into the future. During his rise through the political ranks, Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, has consistently promoted Trump's vision of an America more focused on tackling problems at home rather than military interventions abroad. In a 2023 opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal that has come under renewed examination after the Iran strikes, Vance wrote that Trump has his support because "I know he won't recklessly send Americans to fight overseas." Just before the strikes occurred, Vance told The Washington Post that there was " no chance " of the U.S. becoming mired in a lengthy war like Iraq. Yet since that time, the administration has sent conflicting messages about how long the conflict might last. Trump has indicated it could go on "as long as necessary." Speaking with Jesse Watters on Fox News, Vance rejected comparisons between the Iran operation and past wars, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. "If you think back to Afghanistan, 20 years of mission creep, 20 years (of) not having a clear objective and 20 years (of) the United States trying to bring liberal democracy to Afghanistan," Vance said at the time. "Iraq was a little bit shorter, but we were still in that country for nearly a decade with no clear mission, no clear definition. "What's so different about this, Jesse," Vance added, "is that the president has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish." North Korea has become one of the biggest crypto antagonists for the United States. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, North Korean hackers stole more than $2 billion in crypto during 2025, including a record $1.5 billion hack of crypto exchange Bybit. On March 12, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed fresh sanctions on individuals and entities allegedly involved in a crypto fraud scheme. Related: North Koreas hacking group now holds more Bitcoin than these countries Fraudulent IT workers run scam The Treasury sanctioned six individuals and two entities linked to a North Korean government scheme that allegedly used fraudulent IT workers to infiltrate American companies and funnel millions into Pyongyangs weapons programs. The sanctions were announced by the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as part of a broader effort to dismantle overseas revenue networks used by North Korea to evade international sanctions. According to Treasury officials, the operation generated nearly $800 million in 2024 alone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the scheme relied on deceptive employment tactics that allowed operatives to infiltrate companies and extract sensitive information. Advertisement The North Korean regime targets American companies through deceptive schemes carried out by its overseas IT operatives, who weaponize sensitive data and extort businesses for substantial payments, Bessent said in a statement. Trending on TheStreet Roundtable: Fake identities and remote jobs fuel Pyongyangs funding streams U.S. officials say North Korean IT workers routinely secure remote employment using stolen identities, forged documents and fabricated personas. Once hired, these workers allegedly send the majority of their wages back to the North Korean government, helping finance the countrys nuclear and ballistic missile programs in violation of U.S. and United Nations sanctions. In some cases, investigators say the workers also embedded malware inside company systems to steal proprietary data or extort payments. The network targeted in Thursdays sanctions operated across several countries, including Vietnam, Laos and Spain. Among those sanctioned was a Vietnamese businessman accused of converting roughly $2.5 million into cryptocurrency for North Korean operatives between 2023 and 2025. Two additional individuals were sanctioned for helping a previously designated North Korean nuclear procurement facilitator open bank accounts and launder funds. Treasury also targeted a North Korean national accused of leading a group of IT workers operating out of Boten, Laos. Related: North Korea's Lazarus Group Might Have Been Behind Axie Infinity's $625 Million Crypto Heist This story was originally published by TheStreet on Mar 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the Trading News & Analysis section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here. Credit: junpinzon / Getty Images A big bowl of sinigang na isda sat steaming on our dinner table. I would watch my parents and brother serve themselves pieces of softened white fish, curled-up shrimp, and melty tomato. I skipped the add-ins and simply ladled the sabaw, or broth, into my bowl with rice. I was a woefully picky eater, but I loved the twang of sinigang. Proteins and vegetables in the beloved soup vary between regions of the Philippines, but two things dont: Sinigang should be hot, and it should be sour. While other Filipino dishes like chicken adobo, paksiw, and raw fish kinilaw are enlivened with vinegar, sinigangs mouthpuckering flavor traditionally comes from tamarind. Related: 24 Bold-Flavored Filipino Recipes to Try at Home, From Sisig to Pancit 3 Ways In Doreen Gamboa Fernandezs 2001 article Why Sinigang? the noted culinary historian wrote that more than adobo, sinigang seems to me the dish most representative of Filipino taste. But 25 years later, it is still less widely known outside of Filipino kitchens. I spoke to a few chefs and surveyed family members about what makes sinigang so treasured and how theyre reimagining this classic Filipino family meal today. What is sinigang? Sinigang is a thin, sour, highly adaptable soup often served with steamed white rice. It typically contains a protein, starchy vegetables (or sometimes fruit), leafy greens, and, most importantly, a souring agent. Sinigang is comfort you can smell before you even taste it, says Diana Manalang, chef of Little Chef Little Cafe in Long Island City, New York. Its the slow bloom of tamarind in simmering broth, the way sourness wakes up your whole mouth, the gentle sweetness that follows, and that quiet warmth that lingers in your chest. In their book, Memories of Philippine Kitchens, chefs Amy Besa and Romy Dotoran write that sourness is the heart of sinigang. According to Besa and Dotoran, the soup traditionally included fruits like unripe green tamarind pods and flowers that were boiled, mashed, and strained; kamias (tree sorrel); siniguelas (Spanish plum); and batuan. (That last one was the punchline of a sinigang joke for my late uncle Junior in Ilo-Ilo: Its so sour, you need only batuan.) "Ive never seen a fresh green tamarind pod in my life, so I imagine Filipino Americans like my grandma and mother had to make do with more readily available ingredients." Jenn de la Vega Many of these fruits are endemic to the Philippines and hard to find in other countries. Other variations of sinigang might use green mangoes, calamansi, and guavas as their acidic agent. Ive never seen a fresh green tamarind pod in my life, so I imagine Filipino Americans like my grandma and mother had to make do with more readily available ingredients like brown tamarind pods, tamarind paste, citrus, and tomatoes. Sinigang thus easily adapted to the needs of a sprawling Filipino diaspora. Take, for example, the mother of Patrice Cleary, chef of Washington, D.C.s Purple Patch. When we came [to the U.S.] from the Philippines, the first place that we went to was my fathers hometown in Westwood, Massachusetts, she says. Obviously, they didnt have your typical ingredients like tamarind or guava, so my mom used fresh lemons. No matter where we lived, lemons were always consistently available. Related: How to Stock Your Filipino Pantry Advertisement Many Filipino Americans, such as my parents, also rely on instant soup mixes made with citric acid and MSG. Knorr offers an easy to use Tamarind Soup Mix packet, but Im partial to Mama Sitas spicy sinigang mix. Whether you use a store-bought or homemade broth, it is customary to serve a side of fish sauce, Thai chiles, and calamansi for adjusting the flavor to taste. An endlessly customizable dish Beyond the sour broth, sinigang is a blank canvas for a wide range of fillings and proteins. The precolonial dish was first made with seafood, which was abundant in the Philippines. In her 2001 article, Fernandez wrote that the simple dish likely originated as a way to preserve the flavor and freshness of the archipelagos plentiful seafood. While I thought all sinigang was made with seafood like shrimp, bangus (milkfish), snapper, and salmon fillets, several relatives told me they use fattier pork cuts like spare ribs or pork belly to cut through the acid. Sinigang na Hipon at Purple Patch in Washington, D.C. Credit: Photo by Saltbridge Strategies for Purple Patch Cleary recalls a less common cut growing up. My mother used to make hers with pork neckbones. It was great because there is a lot of collagen, which makes the broth very rich. The meat is super-tender. It was a bonus to suck all the juice out of them. And Vicky Rose Pacheco, chef of Sentro 1771 in Makati, Philippines, says that sinigang na baka (with beef) was a Saturday treat with her family. Whatever protein you use, vegetables and fruits help to stretch the soup and balance out its acidity. I like to use potatoes to help soak up the acidic broth, and you can also add hearty taro, onion, eggplant, or daikon for the same purpose. Other common additions include sitaw (long beans), okra, and spicy long peppers. Leafy greens are not only nutritious but also capture the sour broth in their fronds. Growing up, I primarily enjoyed pechay or bok choy and kangkong (water spinach), but you can use pretty much any hardy green like mustard, kamote (sweet potato leaves), and Swiss chard. Sinigang in the U.S. Sinigang continues to evolve in home and restaurant kitchens. Pacheco was inspired by her familys beef sinigang and Irish corned beef and cabbage to make a mash-up dish at Sentro 1771. Before she makes sinigang, she brines beef flank and beef short rib for four days. She then tenderizes the meat in a big pot of water with leeks, onions, celery, and aromatics. New-school chefs are forgoing animal products altogether for plant-based proteins. Manalang serves sinigang as part of her weekly chef series. She also grew up with the packet soup, but has since changed her approach: Ive found myself reimagining it leaning into a thicker, more stewlike base, especially during the colder months. Ive grown to love one with more body, something that coats the spoon and lingers a bit longer. Related: A New Generation of Filipino American Chefs Is Finding Joy and Community in Cooking Their Heritage She builds her broth with tamarind pulp and tomato slowly, to extract the most flavor. For the headliner, she looked beyond typical non-meat proteins. Tofu worked, flavor-wise, but the texture would break down too much in the soup. Thats when green plantains clicked. They stay beautifully meaty, hold their structure, and soak up the tamarind broth like a sponge. When you embark on your own sinigang journey at home, Manalang urges you not to overthink it. Sinigang is incredibly forgiving and meant to flex with whats in your kitchen. Start with what you love, and let the sour guide you. Read the original article on Food & Wine A scientist takes a photo as part of an annual monitoring project of Austrian glaciers administered by the Austrian Alpine Association in 2023. In the background the glacier slopes down the rocky mountainside, while in the foreground chunks of ice are in a stream. Scientists are warning that glaciers in the Austrian Alps are not just shrinking, but are disintegrating, because of climate change. The latest report on glaciers by the Austrian Alpine Club say they "continue to shrink dramatically in length, area and volume". "Many glaciers are not only shrinking in length but are increasingly entering a phase of structural disintegration," said Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer from the University of Graz. "Exposed rock ledges, sections of ice breaking away and glacier tongues collapsing in on themselves are increasingly shaping the landscape." In its annual report, the Austrian Alpine Club, said 94 out of the 96 glaciers that it measured over the past year in Austria, had shrunk. The report said the most badly affected glaciers during this period were the Alpeiner Ferner glacier in Tyrol which shrunk by 114.3m and the Stubacher Sonnblickkees in the province of Salzburg, which lost 103.9m in length. Austria's largest glacier, the Pasterze in Carinthia, also continues to shrink. The report said it was very likely that the glacier tongue would break off in the coming years, splitting the glacier in two. The report said the trend was once again due to climate change. "A warm winter with little snow and an exceptionally warm early summer, with June being almost 5C warmer than average," it added. Advertisement It said temperatures at the high-altitude stations were 2C (36F) above the long-term annual average. Gerhard Lieb, who runs the glacier monitoring service with Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, said the weather conditions in recent years had been "extremely unfavourable for glaciers". "Many glaciers are now losing so much mass that they barely react to periods of short-term cooling, such as that seen in July 2025," he said. Climate change is particularly evident in the Alpine region, the scientists said. Progressive warmer temperatures, they said, were leading to "more extreme weather events and natural hazards". "Alpine infrastructure is increasingly at risk; and as the glaciers disappear, the landscape is undergoing profound changes," the report said. "Climate change has long been a reality in the Alps, and we are experiencing its consequences... right now," Nicole Slupetzky, Vice-President of the Austrian Alpine Club said. "It is no longer a question of whether we can still save the glaciers in their former state. It is a question of mitigating the consequences for ourselves". Ben Wood, a Connecticut-born Instagram food influencer, died on March 9 in Chile after he rushed into the ocean to rescue a drowning woman. His partner and Connecticut-resident dad also died trying to help. Ben Wood/Instagram A Connecticut father, his influencer son, and the sons partner died this week while heroically trying to rescue a woman who was drowning off the coast of Chile. Norman Wood, 77, of Bridgewater, his son Ben Wood, and Bens partner, Maria Jose Duarte, were walking along a beach in the central Chilean coastal city of Algarrobo on Monday, March 9, when they saw a 26-year-old woman being swept out to sea, according to People. They rushed into the surf to help, but powerful Pacific Ocean currents pulled them into deeper waters, where Norman Wood and his son Ben, who was born in Brookfield, drowned. Duarte was pulled from the water alive but died shortly after at a hospital. Patricia del Pilar Bello Labe, the woman they were attempting to save, also died. Advertisement Only Bello Labes partner, who had also rushed to save her, survived after a Chilean Navy rescue helicopter pulled him from the water. The crew also retrieved the bodies of Norman and Ben Wood, the New York Post reported. Ben Wood was a popular beer influencer on Instagram who had amassed more than 37,000 followers. He was born in Brookfield and raised in Danbury. He had lived in Chile for more than a decade. Norman Wood had flown down to visit him. Ben Woods daughter posted a tribute to her father on his Instagram Stories Wednesday. March 9th will be for you and to remember how you gave your lives for others, as you did so many times before, the tribute said. I love you to the moon and back. Whitby's Whalebone Arch has symbolised the town's maritime heritage for decades Described as one of Whitby's "most recognisable and significant landmarks", the Whale Bone Arch is a symbol of the picturesque coastal town's maritime history. But behind the photo opportunities, the clifftop structure also tells a somewhat darker tale of the whaling industry upon which Whitby's wealth was built. According to local newspaper reports, real jawbones of dead whales were first raised on top of West Cliff in 1964, when they were gifted to the town's council by a Norwegian whaling firm. After nearly 40 years exposed to the elements the original structure was substituted for another genuine pair, sourced from Alaska, in 2002. Now, with the bones deteriorating once again, the question of how to replace them has become a source of much discussion. From the ethical and logistical concerns around replacing it with real whale bones to how best to create a replica the structure, the answer is not simple. As attitudes change, the BBC spoke to visitors and locals to hear their views on how Whitby's heritage should be remembered moving forward. Whitby Museum's natural history curator Elaine Hoyle says the town's association with whaling goes back to the 18th Century, when it became "one of the major whaling ports" in Britain, thanks to local figures like William Scoresby and, later, his son of the same name. "This was concurrent with the start of the Industrial Revolution in Northern Europe," she explains. "They needed lubricants, they needed lighting fuel, they needed strong materials that could support things like bed frames. The whale was used for all these kinds of things." Whitby began to prosper off the back of this thriving new practice, Hoyle says, which helped the town to develop. "The Georgian mansions that you see around you were built on the back of shipping and whaling," she adds. Hoyle, a native of the area, says the general feeling among local people about the town's history is one of "pride". However, she admits there is a "more modern" school of thought about Whitby's association with whaling which isn't as positive. Elaine Hoyle says many local people feel a sense of pride about Whitby's whaling past "Having sat up there and listened to people chatting about it - 'It's disgusting, it shouldn't be there' - that's what I hear," she says. North Yorkshire Council has said there are "ethical and legal challenges" to securing a new set of real whale bones, with Elaine admitting "attitudes have changed" in the 24 years since the last set of real bones were raised. 'Good educational opportunity' Over at the arch, which is used heavily to market Whitby to visitors, a steady stream of people stop to take photos. Among them is Neil Orford, a retired historian from Orangeville, in the Canadian state of Ontario. He loves Whitby so much he visits three times a year to take in some of North Yorkshire's best scenery. "I'm OK with it because it's historical," he says, looking up at the roughly 19ft (5.8m) tall arch. "It tells the narrative history of this place. The more important issue is to have the discussion about it." He suggests putting up a plaque to explain the potential controversy of the landmark. "It's a good educational opportunity, but I don't think you necessarily throw out the original just for the sake of the controversy." Neil Orford, a retired historian, suggests educating people about the arch's potential controversy At a meeting earlier this week, Whitby Town Council endorsed an option to replace the bones with replicas cast in bronze, similar to the Captain Cooke statue which stands just a few feet away. Advertisement Costed at 60,000, it is the most expensive option available to the local authority, but would have an "indefinite lifespan". West Cliff councillor Robert Dalrymple was part of the decision to endorse the bronze replica option, which will be put forward to North Yorkshire Council for the final ruling. "We thought it would fit better within the surroundings and that it would be quite fitting if it was similar to Captain Cook," he explains. "We had no issue going with the most expensive one because North Yorkshire Council have said they have got funding. "A lot of tourists come here so we wanted to ensure whatever replaced the whale bones was suitable and continued to be appropriate for the area." A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Council said they did not yet have a date for a decision on the future of the sculpture, although Whitby's mayor Sandra Turner previously said she hoped a replacement set could be secured by "the summer at the latest". 'It's part of Whitby' Meanwhile, Peter and Elaine Mills, from Wakefield, are also regular visitors to Whitby. They would like to see the arch maintained in its original form. "I don't have a problem with it being replaced with a natural whale bone as long as the whale has died naturally and they are not slaughtered for profit or gain," says Peter. "It's part of the history of Whitby and that's what people like to see," adds Elaine. "You can't wipe that out, whatever has happened." Peter says the bronze replica "will cost an awful lot of money", adding: "There's things that need updating in Whitby and the money could be better spent elsewhere." Turner, however, said all options to source genuine replacement bones have been "exhausted", including conversations with the mayor's office in Anchorage, Alaska, over the possibility of procuring a new set. According to a report presented to Whitby Town Council, assessments suggest the current structure is "unlikely to remain in a safe condition beyond the next five years". The arch is showing signs of deterioration Sylvia Borness was also visiting the landmark during an overnight stay in Whitby with her mother. "It's quite sad because they have been there such a long time and they are genuine," she says. "It does seem a bit of a pity to replace a genuine article with a replica, but I can see they are crumbling at the top and I don't think there's another alternative." Taking in the view from West Cliff, John McCormack has made the most of the spring sunshine with "a run out in the car" to Whitby. "I have been coming here since I was a kid," explains the 77-year-old. "I like these things," he says of the bones towering overhead. "It's part of my childhood." But he has something else on his mind when asked what he thinks of the possibility of them being replaced by a replica. "I would rather they reduced the parking charges." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. More on this story Related internet links - North Dakota frozen pizza trends, according to Instacart data In honor of National Pi Day (March 13), Instacart looked into one of North Dakota and America's favorite pies by digging into its 2025 frozen pizza ordering data to uncover how consumers across the country are enjoying pizza night, from the most popular flavors nationwide to the states that stock their freezers the fullest. Key Takeaways: Pepperoni is America's undisputed favorite slice. It accounted for 43% of all frozen pizza items sold in 2025 more than cheese and supreme combined making it the clear champion of pizza night nationwide. The Midwest is frozen pizza country. Wisconsin leads the nation in ounces of frozen pizza purchased per customer, ordering 113% more than the national average, with North Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota close behind. Pizza night is getting more adventurous. Mexican/Taco pizza was the fastest-growing type in 2025, with other flavors like Hawaiian, Chicken Alfredo, and Chicken Bacon Ranch also gaining share. Crust preferences are shifting back to indulgence. Detroit-style crust grew 38% year-over-year in share, while Cauliflower Crust declined by 14%, suggesting consumers are leaning into classic, crispy, comfort-forward slices in 2025. - How North Dakota Ranks Among America's Most Pizza Loving States Some states take pizza night more seriously than others. Measured by ounces of frozen pizza purchased per customer in 2025, Wisconsin takes the crown as our most frozen pizza-loving state, ordering 113% more per customer than the national average! North Dakota ordered 82.28% more ounces of frozen pizza than the national average, ranking as the #2 most among all states. The rest of the top five is a very Midwest-friendly lineup: North Dakota (82% above average), Iowa (63%), Minnesota (63%) and Missouri (60%) round out the top five. If you've ever suspected the Midwest has pizza night down to a science consider this your confirmation. - Pizza My (Pepperoni) Heart When it comes to frozen pizza, one topping stands alone and it's a runaway win. Pepperoni is the clear No. 1, making up 43% of all frozen pizza items sold on Instacart in 2025. Cheese follows at 27%, with supreme/deluxe taking third at 11%. Consumers may love variety, but the freezer aisle still belongs to the classics. Sometimes, you just can't beat the original! - Turning Up the Heat: Fastest-Growing Pizza Types Pepperoni may hold the crown, but pizza night is getting more adventurous. The fastest-growing pizza type in 2025 was Mexican/taco, followed by supreme/deluxe and pepperoni & sausage. And the growth doesn't stop there: Hawaiian, chicken Alfredo, and chicken bacon ranch also gained share, which proves that whether you're team spicy, team creamy, or team sweet-and-savory, there's a pie for you. - Almost Everyone Agrees on One Thing If you map the most popular pizza type by state, one result jumps out: Pepperoni is No. 1 almost everywhere. The only exceptions? New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, where cheese pizza takes the top spot. Call it minimalistic or just "don't mess with perfection," but parts of the Northeast believe that simple might be best. Advertisement - Pineapple on Pizza? Love it or hate it, Hawaiian pizza isn't going anywhere and a few states are especially loyal to the pineapple-and-ham combo. North Dakota ordered 243% more ounces of Hawaiian pizza than the national average, ranking as the #5 most among all states. Oregon leads the nation, ordering Hawaiian pizza 384% more often than the national average. Rounding out the top five are Washington (371% above average), Utah (322%), Idaho (303%), and North Dakota (243%) a strong showing from the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West. And here's the twist: Hawaii itself orders Hawaiian pizza 49% less than the national average. Apparently, a namesake doesn't guarantee loyalty. Pizza's Best Buds Frozen pizza rarely travels alone. When frozen pizza is in the cart, customers are significantly more likely to also order other quick-prep and frozen favorites. Some of the biggest increases in order share when frozen pizza is present include: Frozen mozzarella sticks (319% more than average with orders for frozen pizza) Frozen taquitos (310%) Frozen hot dog snacks (293%) Frozen burritos (256%) Frozen pot pies (253%) Frozen pasta meals (245%) When it comes to condiments, this won't come as a surprise: Ranch dressing appears in orders 156% more often than average when frozen pizza is in the cart confirming that for many Americans, pizza night isn't complete without a side of ranch. - Crust Issues: What's Rising and Falling Thin crust may still dominate the freezer aisle, but several styles are gaining serious momentum. In 2025, Neapolitan-style (up 303% YoY in order share), Roman-style (up 231%), and tavern-style (up 106%) all surged signaling renewed interest in classic, ultra-thin, pizzeria-inspired pies. At the same time, thicker slices are also having a moment. Detroit-style crust grew 38% year-over-year, proving that crispy, square-cut comfort is earning more space in consumers' carts. Even sourdough crust rose 87%, suggesting more pizza nights are getting a tangy twist. On the flip side, cauliflower crust declined 14% compared to 2024. Meanwhile, gluten-free crust edged up 6%, hinting that some customers may be opting for gluten-free options that still deliver a more traditional pizza experience. One Nation, United by Pizza Night From pepperoni's overwhelming dominance to Wisconsin's outsized love of frozen pies, one thing is clear: Frozen pizza remains a staple in American freezers. This story was produced by Instacart and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. Q We were due to fly with Etihad from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Manchester via Abu Dhabi on Wednesday 12 March. The flight was cancelled, and Etihad said that the earliest available flight is on 19 March a week later than we should have flown. Both of us are going to miss a week of work and have additional hotel expenses. Looking at the war situation, we are increasingly worried that the next flight will be cancelled and that we will be forced to buy a new flight, which could be very costly. What rights do we have? David and Miri Mair A Sadly, this is becoming a familiar tale. Because you are booked on a non-European airline from an airport outside Europe, you have no significant rights beyond the general presumption that a professional airline will aim to get you to your final destination as soon as possible. We would like to thank our guests for their patience, says Etihad. We apologise for any disruption caused by circumstances beyond our control. The Abu Dhabi carrier has not, as far as I can tell, laid on any flights to Phnom Penh in the two weeks since the Iran crisis began. Once Etihad has told you that rescue is on the way, I believe it is likely to go ahead though the airline warns: Given the fluid nature of the situation, some services may be subject to change. Onwards from Abu Dhabi, the carrier is flying twice daily to London Heathrow and once a day to Manchester. Be aware, though, that during the time you are in transit in Abu Dhabi, you will not be covered by standard travel insurance. The no-go warning from the UK Foreign Office invalidates most policies during airport connections. If you are unhappy with this, or your flight ends up being cancelled, then the best option is to make for the nearest big hub to Cambodia: Bangkok. Many airlines are piling on capacity to Bangkok, and plenty of budget airlines will get you to the Thai capital for around 50. The best deal I have seen in the next few days that avoids the Gulf states is around 700 one way on Oman Air to Heathrow. Better deals are likely to emerge as the supply of seats increases and demand dwindles. Beached: our reader is stuck in Sri Lanka due to the Gulf turmoil (Simon Calder) Q I booked a UK-Sri Lanka ticket with British Airways. My return flight from Colombo was cancelled because of the closure of Gulf airspace. BA is telling me the earliest reroute is three weeks from now, but earlier flights with other airlines exist. Under the UK261 civil aviation regulations, arent I entitled to rerouteing at the earliest opportunity? Leon Y A UK261 is the law that governs air passengers rights from a British perspective. It is a copy-and-paste near-replica of the deeply flawed European statute, EU261, which came into effect 21 years ago. Both sets of consumer protections have a gaping loophole for many airlines. While all carriers that cancel a flight from British or European airports must find alternative transport for the passenger as soon as possible, that obligation does not apply to non-UK/EU airlines flying from outside Europe. You are among tens of thousands of passengers whose travel plans have been torn up because of the Middle East flight disruption and who are discovering that the airlines are in no particular hurry to fly them home. The fact that you bought your ticket from a bona fide UK airline, British Airways, is irrelevant. BA hasnt flown from Colombo for many years. The carrier that you had actually booked to fly you from Sri Lanka to the UK was BAs part-owner, Qatar Airways. This airline has no obligation to you beyond flying you back when it is convenient for it to do so, or refunding the homeward portion of your fare. I can more or less guarantee that this sum will be a lot less than you will need to spend to return swiftly. If you are prepared to take the risk involved in changing planes at Dubai International airport, the obvious way home is on Emirates for about 700-800; seats are available every day. Note that the Foreign Office regards connecting at a UAE airport as too risky, but many people faced with much higher fares for alternative routes are opting for a Gulf transit. Advertisement Meanwhile, I will continue to lobby for an improvement in air passengers rights. After Brexit, the government could have chosen to make the rules fit for purpose, but declined to do so. All that changed was that the stipulated compensation figures in euros were replaced by proper sterling pounds. US and them: British citizens are ineligible for electronic travel authorisation (Getty/iStock) Q I just discovered my UK passport expired in January. And while I have a valid US passport, I cant use it to travel to the UK for the event Im supposed to attend in two weeks. Were I just an American I would get an ETA, but thats not allowed for someone who is a British citizen. Itll take a month to renew my passport. Any suggestions to rescue my trip? Name supplied A Until last month, any dual citizen from a so-called visa-free nation could enter the UK on their non-British passport. They would be stamped in and out by frontier officials. The process, which was largely automated, involved a straightforward enquiry: does the owner of this passport have permission to enter the UK? Since 26 February 2026, the question has become: is this person eligible to enter the UK on an electronic travel authorisation (ETA)? Anyone known to be a British citizen is ineligible. A UK person can leave and return only on a British passport. So strident has been the publicity from the Home Office about the change, that you might infer that people are being told: You cant come into the UK, because we know you are British. This could never actually happen. But were the system working as intended, that UK citizen could be denied boarding a plane on the grounds that with a foreign passport, an ETA is needed. So much for the theory; what about the practice? Let me turn to the House of Commons Library, whose recent report notes: Dual nationals may travel to the UK on a foreign passport [while] unaware that they have British citizenship. This clearly does not apply to you. But the report also says: There has been speculation that some British dual nationals will go against UK government advice by applying for an ETA with their foreign passport and not declaring their British citizenship. In such a case: Transport providers and staff at UK passport control wouldnt necessarily know that a person travelling on a foreign passport also has British citizenship if the person didnt volunteer that information. There is no central register of British citizens or dual nationals, and information about a persons place of birth isnt enough to confirm if they are British.Everyone should comply with all border rules at all times. Evidently, though, not everyone does. I shall say no more. Fend for yourselves is the general principle I have observed from Qatar Airways towards its passengers (Getty/iStock) Q Were in Cape Town, and were due to go home on Monday with Qatar Airways via Doha to Manchester. They have offered a refund for the flight, or a rebooking within 14 days of the original booking. We can stay, but are concerned that a rebooked flight in a week or so may not go ahead. Would we be best getting a refund and finding another way home? Sallie S A The carrier is currently saying: Qatar Airways will resume operations once the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority announces the safe full reopening of Qatari airspace by the relevant authorities. At present, the airline is operating flights to the highest-volume destinations, where the most passengers are stranded, including Bangkok, Mumbai, Delhi, Moscow and Melbourne. Cape Town is not on that list. Furthermore, Qatar Airways stresses: These flights do not constitute a confirmation of the resumption of scheduled commercial operations. That term commercial operations is crucial. Only when Qatar Airways resumes a normal schedule, with new customers paying money to fly, can you be sure of being flown without a problem to Manchester. (I assume here that if the Qatari authorities deem Doha airport to be safe, the Foreign Office will lift its current advice against connections at the hub.) While you wait it out in Cape Town, do not assume that the airline has you at the top of its list of priorities. Fend for yourselves is the general principle I have observed from Qatar Airways towards its passengers. Even so, I urge you not to cancel. During times of disruption, airlines like passengers to accept a refund because it manages down the problem at little cost to the carrier. Better to hang on to the ticket and remain a problem for the airline to solve. Also, when people hear the word refund, they may assume that the airline is going to hand back the entire cost of their return ticket. Far from it. You are reliant upon the airlines judgement of how much that particular segment of your trip costs. It is likely to be significantly less than half of what you paid for the round trip. If you end up deciding to buy a new ticket, I recommend Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa. The carrier offers excellent service, at fares that are significantly lower than going non-stop. Email your question to s@hols.tv or tweet @SimonCalder - South Dakota frozen pizza trends, according to Instacart data In honor of National Pi Day (March 13), Instacart looked into one of South Dakota and America's favorite pies by digging into its 2025 frozen pizza ordering data to uncover how consumers across the country are enjoying pizza night, from the most popular flavors nationwide to the states that stock their freezers the fullest. Key Takeaways: Pepperoni is America's undisputed favorite slice. It accounted for 43% of all frozen pizza items sold in 2025 more than cheese and supreme combined making it the clear champion of pizza night nationwide. The Midwest is frozen pizza country. Wisconsin leads the nation in ounces of frozen pizza purchased per customer, ordering 113% more than the national average, with North Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota close behind. Pizza night is getting more adventurous. Mexican/Taco pizza was the fastest-growing type in 2025, with other flavors like Hawaiian, Chicken Alfredo, and Chicken Bacon Ranch also gaining share. Crust preferences are shifting back to indulgence. Detroit-style crust grew 38% year-over-year in share, while Cauliflower Crust declined by 14%, suggesting consumers are leaning into classic, crispy, comfort-forward slices in 2025. - How South Dakota Ranks Among America's Most Pizza Loving States Some states take pizza night more seriously than others. Measured by ounces of frozen pizza purchased per customer in 2025, Wisconsin takes the crown as our most frozen pizza-loving state, ordering 113% more per customer than the national average! South Dakota ordered 34.73% more ounces of frozen pizza than the national average, ranking as the #9 most among all states. The rest of the top five is a very Midwest-friendly lineup: North Dakota (82% above average), Iowa (63%), Minnesota (63%) and Missouri (60%) round out the top five. If you've ever suspected the Midwest has pizza night down to a science consider this your confirmation. - Pizza My (Pepperoni) Heart When it comes to frozen pizza, one topping stands alone and it's a runaway win. Pepperoni is the clear No. 1, making up 43% of all frozen pizza items sold on Instacart in 2025. Cheese follows at 27%, with supreme/deluxe taking third at 11%. Consumers may love variety, but the freezer aisle still belongs to the classics. Sometimes, you just can't beat the original! - Turning Up the Heat: Fastest-Growing Pizza Types Pepperoni may hold the crown, but pizza night is getting more adventurous. The fastest-growing pizza type in 2025 was Mexican/taco, followed by supreme/deluxe and pepperoni & sausage. And the growth doesn't stop there: Hawaiian, chicken Alfredo, and chicken bacon ranch also gained share, which proves that whether you're team spicy, team creamy, or team sweet-and-savory, there's a pie for you. - Almost Everyone Agrees on One Thing If you map the most popular pizza type by state, one result jumps out: Pepperoni is No. 1 almost everywhere. The only exceptions? New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, where cheese pizza takes the top spot. Call it minimalistic or just "don't mess with perfection," but parts of the Northeast believe that simple might be best. Advertisement - Pineapple on Pizza? Love it or hate it, Hawaiian pizza isn't going anywhere and a few states are especially loyal to the pineapple-and-ham combo. South Dakota ordered 136% more ounces of Hawaiian pizza than the national average, ranking as the #9 most among all states. Oregon leads the nation, ordering Hawaiian pizza 384% more often than the national average. Rounding out the top five are Washington (371% above average), Utah (322%), Idaho (303%), and North Dakota (243%) a strong showing from the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West. And here's the twist: Hawaii itself orders Hawaiian pizza 49% less than the national average. Apparently, a namesake doesn't guarantee loyalty. Pizza's Best Buds Frozen pizza rarely travels alone. When frozen pizza is in the cart, customers are significantly more likely to also order other quick-prep and frozen favorites. Some of the biggest increases in order share when frozen pizza is present include: Frozen mozzarella sticks (319% more than average with orders for frozen pizza) Frozen taquitos (310%) Frozen hot dog snacks (293%) Frozen burritos (256%) Frozen pot pies (253%) Frozen pasta meals (245%) When it comes to condiments, this won't come as a surprise: Ranch dressing appears in orders 156% more often than average when frozen pizza is in the cart confirming that for many Americans, pizza night isn't complete without a side of ranch. - Crust Issues: What's Rising and Falling Thin crust may still dominate the freezer aisle, but several styles are gaining serious momentum. In 2025, Neapolitan-style (up 303% YoY in order share), Roman-style (up 231%), and tavern-style (up 106%) all surged signaling renewed interest in classic, ultra-thin, pizzeria-inspired pies. At the same time, thicker slices are also having a moment. Detroit-style crust grew 38% year-over-year, proving that crispy, square-cut comfort is earning more space in consumers' carts. Even sourdough crust rose 87%, suggesting more pizza nights are getting a tangy twist. On the flip side, cauliflower crust declined 14% compared to 2024. Meanwhile, gluten-free crust edged up 6%, hinting that some customers may be opting for gluten-free options that still deliver a more traditional pizza experience. One Nation, United by Pizza Night From pepperoni's overwhelming dominance to Wisconsin's outsized love of frozen pies, one thing is clear: Frozen pizza remains a staple in American freezers. This story was produced by Instacart and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. New York Post may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our links. Featured pricing is subject to change. For too long, the bedding industry has operated on a binary. Either youre settling for scratchy, mass-produced polyester blends or youre taking out a small loan for high-thread-count linens that require someone with a B.S. in chemistry to wash. Riley Home does things differently, and thank goodness. And if this is your first time hearing of them, its because theyve been offering an approach to home textiles that prioritizes material integrity over marketing gimmicks. I recently spent a week with their Organic Cotton Duvet Cover & Shams Set. In this era of fast homeware, Riley is something of an antidote, focused on craftsmanship (all things made in Portugal) and a direct-to-consumer system that aims to make high-end bedding accessible, if not essential. What is Riley Home? Riley Home is a New York-based bedding and bath brand that bypasses traditional retail markups by sourcing directly from family-owned mills in Portugal. Portugal has long been the global epicenter for textile manufacturing, known for combining old-world techniques with modern environmental standards. The brands philosophy is rooted in approachable indulgence. Rather than overwhelming consumers with a dizzying array of thread counts (a metric that is often manipulated by manufacturers), Riley focuses on the quality of the raw fiber and the weave. Their catalog is tight and intentional, featuring percale, sateen, and linen staples designed to survive years of Sunday morning lie-ins (to say the least). Organic Cotton Duvet Cover & Shams Set Riley Home The Riley Home Organic Cotton Duvet Cover & Shams Set (in Harbor) is a refined bedding set crafted from 100% long-staple organic cotton sateen, offering a soft, breathable feel with a subtle luster. Made in Portugal with a 300-thread-count weave, the duvet cover and matching shams are garment-washed for extra softness and garment-dyed for a rich, slightly varied finish that makes each set unique. The design includes practical details like corner ties to secure your comforter and envelope-closure shams for a clean look, while the organic cotton (grown without synthetic pesticides or GMOs) creates a comfortable, hypoallergenic sleep environment. BUY NOW $195.00 $156.00 Advertisement What are the benefits of organic bedding? The shift toward organic bedding isnt just a lifestyle trend, by the way. Standard cotton is one of the most chemically intensive crops in the world. By opting for GOTS-certified organic cotton, Riley ensures the product is free from the pesticides and heavy metal dyes that can linger in the fibers long after theyve reached your bedroom. Beyond environmental ethics, organic cotton offers superior breathability. Because the fibers havent been weakened by harsh chemical processing, they maintain their natural structure. This results in a fabric that is more durable and significantly better at regulating body temperature, which is an essential feature for anyone who finds themselves tossing off the covers in the middle of the night (which I can say I havent had to for a week now) Our review The first thing you notice about the Organic Cotton Duvet Cover is the hand *ahem* the industry term for how a fabric feels against the skin. This isnt the slick, almost oily feel of cheap sateen; its a crisp, matte texture thats substantial without being heavy. Kendalls Organic Cotton Duvet Set in Harbor Kendall Cornish Design The Harbor colorway is a masterclass in pigment and light play. Its dark enough to anchor a room but muted enough to pair with almost any wood tone or accent color. The King/California King sizing is generous, draping elegantly over the sides of a deep mattress without the awkward too-short look that plagues many standard retail sets. The sleep test Sleeping under Rileys organic cotton feels balanced. There is a certain pliability to the fabric that suggests a high-end hotel suite, but it maintained its integrity noticeably after its first and second trips through the laundry. Remarkably, for something so soft, it stayed cool throughout the night, providing that sought-after cold side of the pillow sensation across the entire duvet surface. The shams are, of course, equally well-constructed, featuring a clean envelope closure that keeps even the most unruly pillows looking tailored. Not a fray in sight. Is Riley Home worth it? If youve reached the stage of life where you value the quality of your sleep as much as the quality of your comfort and credit score, Riley Home is a logical next step. The Organic Cotton Duvet Cover & Shams Set is a high-performing staple that manages to be both environmentally conscious and aesthetically superior. While its an investment compared to big-box alternatives, the cost-per-sleep breakdown makes it an easy sell. Its a sophisticated upgrade for the discerning sleeper who wants their bedroom to look like an interior design spread and feel like a sanctuary. SHOP RILEY HOME This article was written by Kendall Cornish, New York Post Commerce Editor & Reporter. Kendall, who moonlights as a private chef in the Hamptons for New York elites, lends her expertise to testing and recommending cooking products for beginners and aspiring sous chefs alike. Simmering and seasoning her way through both jobs, Kendall dishes on everything from the best cookware for your kitchen to chef-approved gourmet meal kits to the full suite of Ninja appliances. Prior to joining the Posts shopping team in 2023, Kendall previously held positions at Apartment Therapy and at Dotdash Merediths Travel + Leisure and Departures magazines. Suzanne Schmeider, 57, was crossing Jamaica Avenue mid-block Wednesday afternoon when the dark-colored 2001 Lincoln LS rammed into her, police said. A 57-year-old woman was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver outside a Queens social security center in broad daylight this week, cops said. Suzanne Schmeider, 57, was crossing Jamaica Avenue mid-block in front of the facility around 3 p.m. Wednesday when the dark-colored 2001 Lincoln LS rammed into her, police said. The sedan driver fled the scene, leaving Schmeider in the roadway with severe trauma to her head and body, authorities said. Suzanne Schmeider, 57, was crossing Jamaica Avenue mid-block Wednesday afternoon when the dark-colored 2001 Lincoln LS rammed into her, police said. Peter Gerber Schmeider who lives just over a mile from the scene was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, according to authorities. We are just trying to move forward, Schmieders daughter, Sydney, told The Post. Its under investigation right now. The police are doing a great job. Schmeider who lives just over a mile from the scene died at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. Peter Gerber Sydney launched a GoFundMe page for her mother, hoping to help cover funeral expenses. We hope to give my mother a proper celebration and honor the strong, independent and loving woman she was, she wrote. No arrests had been made in connection to the deadly crash by Friday. One security guard told The Post he recalled seeing the car speeding by at the time of the broad-daylight crash. A single sneaker could be seen in the middle of the street as police investigated. Peter Gerber It blew through the light and hit the woman and hit a bus and kept going, the worker said. Another guard said he was coming back from lunch when he stumbled upon the disturbing scene. Advertisement I saw the woman laying on the ground. I didnt see any blood, he said. A single sneaker could be seen in the middle of the street in the aftermath. Schmieder was a strong, independent and loving woman, her daughter said. gofundme A nearby store owner said it is very common to see people crossing mid-block while coming from or going from the social security office. People come in here and ask me where is the social security office, he said. I tell them its across the street and they want to cross and I say No, cross at the light. He said that motorists tend to zoom down Jamaica Avenue once they cross Parsons Boulevard. The street opens up, its wider and they think they are on the highway, the owner added. I feel bad and upset. I dont want to see anybody die like that. The fleeing motorist who was driving in a bus and truck only zone was still on the loose Friday. Peter Gerber Cars are not supposed to pass in that area at that time, sources said. A Department of Transportation sign is posted on the corner, warning motorists, Do not enter, except trucks and buses 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The deadly hit-and-run comes about a week after a 4-year-old Brooklyn boy, Zachariah Padilla, was fatally struck by a motorist in a Ford SUV that fled the scene, cops said. Padilla was walking near Linden Boulevard and Rockaway Parkway across the street from Brookdale University Hospital shortly after 11 a.m. when he broke off from his mom and darted into the street, where he was hit, authorities and sources said. That driver had not been caught by Friday, police said. The preliminary hearing for a man accused of stealing and selling human remains from a historic Delaware County cemetery was continued again Friday, prompting renewed calls for changes to state law. Yeadon Police Chief Henry Giammarco spoke outside the Delaware County Courthouse after the hearing for Jonathan Gerlach was postponed. Gerlach, 34, is accused of carrying out burglaries over several months at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yeadon. "I can't sell my grandchildren's old car seats, but I can go on Facebook marketplace and sell a skull," Giammarco said. READ MORE | Court docs reveal accused grave robber's months-long plot to steal human remains Court docs reveal accused grave robber's plot to steal human remains The chief said the delay came at the request of the public defender, but added that the reason was unclear. "I know that was the request from the public defender, but we're not sure what that was," Giammarco said. Police allege Gerlach rappelled into mausoleums at the cemetery, stole human remains, and sold some of them online. He is charged with more than 500 counts, including burglary and abuse of corpse. Among those affected is Judy Prichard-McCleary, whose great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Prichard, is entombed at Mount Moriah. She said his mausoleum was broken into. Prichard-McCleary attended court, hoping the case would move forward, only to see it continued. Advertisement Grave markers at the Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia, on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) "My great-great-grandfather was a religious man," she said. "He built this mausoleum because he wanted to keep his family together." The case has also changed how she thinks about her own final arrangements. "My brother said I was sitting on the fence about being buried in a coffin or being cremated. Now, I know there's no question in my mind, I'm going to be cremated because no one is going to dig me up," she said. Police say the case remains under investigation. While the court proceedings have been delayed, law enforcement officials say the allegations have already spurred broader action. Authorities say they are working with state lawmakers to form new laws that would make selling body parts illegal. Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton addressed the issue in a statement. SEE ALSO | 'Horror movie come to life': Cops find more than 100 skeletal remains in Pa. man's home "The grave robberies at Mt. Moriah and other cemeteries are heartbreaking for our community and so many families who had loved ones laid to rest there," McClinton said. "These spaces are meant to be solemn resting places, and the theft and exploitation of people's final remains is sickening and unconscionable. "My office is partnering with law enforcement, and other local officials and organizations, to enact laws to deter and prevent tragedies like this in the future, and to restore the sanctity of the final resting place of so many Pennsylvanians." The Friends of Mount Moriah are also raising money for security improvements at the cemetery, including fence repairs, new cameras and active patrols, in an effort to prevent similar crimes. "These were people's loved ones to be disturbed, and what happened to them is just horrific," Giammarco said. A new court date has not yet been announced, though court sources say it will likely be within the next month. by Sumon Corraya At a time of economic crisis, exacerbated by the Gulf War, Archbishop D'Cruze turns down government allowances for clergy. Instead, he calls for money to be used in programmes aimed at the most vulnerable. He also requests aid for the construction and renovation of churches and cemeteries. Dhaka (AsiaNews) The Catholic Church in Bangladesh says no to subsidies and public funds at a time of severe economic crisis linked to the countrys political turmoil of the past year and the Gulf War that broke out at the end of February, with serious consequences for transportation and fuel. The Church says no to state allowances for priests, but calls for money to be used to support welfare initiatives that benefit ordinary people regardless of religion, with particular attention to the most vulnerable and marginalised. Prime Minister Tarek Rahman today launched a new government programme that provides monthly allowances to imams, muezzins, and religious leaders of various denominations, seen as a step towards strengthening religious harmony and social justice. The announcement was made this morning at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka. Archbishop Bejoy N. D'Cruze, OMI, of Dhaka and president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bangladesh, publicly expressed his reluctance vis-a-vis the proposed allowance for Catholic clergy. Speaking as the guest of honour at the ceremony, the prelate stated that priests, friars, and nuns live a consecrated life characterised by renunciation and do not receive salaries for their ministry. He stressed that the discipline of the Catholic Church places limits on accepting government allowances for individuals. Priests do not have personal property or families of their own, Archbishop D'Cruze explained. Their lives are entirely devoted to God and to the service of the people. For this reason, I humbly express my inability to accept the allowance proposed for priests. The prelate noted that his position applies only to Catholics and that pastors of other Christian denominations are free to accept. If pastors of other churches wish to receive this honour, we have no objection, he said. Many of them support families and have different needs. The archbishop of Dhaka explained that, in the Catholic tradition, the spiritual bond between the clergy and the faithful is reflected in voluntary offerings, which help sustain pastoral life. Christians support their Church personally and communally. Through gifts and donations, they express love and generosity towards God. Priests dedicate their lives freely to preaching the Gospel and offering spiritual and pastoral service," he explained. Conversely, while members of the clergy do not accept personal allowances, the Church hopes the government will instead support the community's welfare work through the Ministry of Religious Affairs or the Christian Religious Welfare Trust. In this regard, he proposed boosting educational assistance for poor children, expanding health services for low-income families, and providing greater support for widows and people with disabilities. He also urged aid for the construction and renovation of churches and cemeteries, emphasising that such initiatives would benefit the entire Christian community. Lastly, he congratulated Prime Minister Rahman on the launch of the programme, but also expressed hope that the government would positively evaluate the Catholic position. Some Protestant pastors are expected to accept the honorarium, since many receive little or no regular salary from their congregations. While no Christian clergy received funds at today's event, officials indicated that a list is being prepared for those who wish to participate in the programme in the future. The initial phase covers one mosque in each union and municipality, for a total of 4,908 mosques. For other religions, two temples have been selected per upazila, for a total of 990 Hindu temples. Buddhist monasteries in 72 upazilas were also included, with two chosen in each area, for a total of 144 monasteries. Since churches are present in 198 upazilas, two were selected in each, for a total of 396 Christian churches. Under the programme, monthly allowances have been set as follows: 5,000 taka (US$ 40,00) for imams, 3,000 taka (US$ 25,00) for muezzins, and 2,000 taka (US$ 16,50) for khadems (mosque attendants). For other religious groups, temple priests will receive 5,000 taka (US$ 40,00), while sebayets (temple custodians) will receive 3,000 taka (US$ 25,00). Buddhist abbots will receive 5,000 taka (US$ 40,00), and assistant monks will receive 3,000 taka (US$ 25,00). Christian priests will receive 5,000 taka (US$ 40,00), and assistant priests will receive 3,000 taka (US$ 25,00). In addition, each Hindu temple, Buddhist monastery, and church will receive a monthly institutional allowance of 8,000 taka (US$ 65,00) under the programme. Today's news: The war against Iran has displaced at least 3.2 million people, while a missile hit the US embassy in Baghdad. Taiwan's parliament authorises the deal with the United States for the purchase of four weapons packages. Thai authorities have seized over 100,000 counterfeit items worth more than US$ 1 million. KOREA JAPAN This morning, North Korea fired more than 10 ballistic missiles into the sea, according to the South Korean military. This comes as South Korean and US forces conducted military exercises in the area, amid renewed overtures by US President Donald Trump towards North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. According to the Japanese coast guard, at least one ballistic missile fell into the sea, just outside Japans exclusive economic zone. The missiles were launched from an area near the North Korean capital Pyongyang around 1:20 pm. For more than two decades, North Korea has successfully tested a wide range of ballistic and cruise missiles, developing the means to deliver nuclear weapons. IRAN IRAQ The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that since the start of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran on 28 February, up to 3.2 million people have been displaced within the Islamic Republic. In a statement, the UN refugee agency said that, This figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist, marking a worrying escalation in humanitarian needs. Meanwhile, an Iranian missile hit the US Embassy in Baghdad. TAIWAN UNITED STATES Taiwan's parliament yesterday authorised the government to sign agreements with the United States involving four arms packages worth approximately US$ 9 billion, under pressure from officials concerned that Taiwan might be left behind if it didn't conclude the deal. The purchase includes TOW anti-tank missiles, M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, Lockheed Martin Javelin missiles, and the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system. THAILAND Thai authorities seized more than 100,000 counterfeit items worth nearly US$ 1 million in a raid on a popular Bangkok shopping mall, part of measures to address intellectual property violations. The operation, which took place yesterday at the MBK Center, targeted a key location for counterfeiting. Large quantities of handbags, shoes, clothing, and fashion items that violated trademarks and copyrights were discovered. SRI LANKA IRAN The bodies of 84 Iranian seamen killed in a US submarine attack on an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka last week have been repatriated, a source at the Iranian embassy in Colombo reported. The IRIN[*] Dena was sunk by a torpedo from a US submarine on 4 March while returning from a naval exercise in India. The remains are being returned on a special flight departing from Mattala, southern Sri Lanka, bound for India, before making their final journey to Iran. INDONESIA SAUDI ARABIA ISLAM As the US and Israeli war on Iran intensifies with little sign of de-escalation, Indonesian authorities are preparing contingency plans to ensure the safety of Indonesian pilgrims expected to undertake hajj this year. The peak of the 2026 pilgrimage is expected to be in May, with departures for Saudi Arabia scheduled to begin on 22 April. However, doubts remain about the feasibility of this because the cradle of Islam is among the most affected Gulf countries by the war. RUSSIA A Moscow court sentenced the people held responsible for the March 2024 attack on Crokus City Hall ( ), a music venue on the outskirts of the capital, where no fewer than 147 people were killed. In total, 15 people received a life sentence, while four were given 19 to 22 years. The court concluded that the culprits were linked to Islamic State Vilayat Khorasan group. The trial was held behind closed doors, neither the defendants' testimony nor the prosecution's evidence were made public, and many details remain unknown. TAJIKISTAN Tajikistan's oldest woman, Basimo Turaeva, is preparing to celebrate her 122nd birthday with her seven children and more than 200 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren at her home in the capital, Dushanbe. One of her sons, Mirzoyan Gadoev, told Asia Plus that his mother is doing well, although she is starting to forget things, and her hearing has got a little worse, spending her days by the stove, watching television, and taking walks in the yard. [*] Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, 14 March 2026 13:45 (UTC+04:00) Full digital access to all news for 1 year Full digital access to all news for 6 months Full digital access to all news for 3 months Full digital access to all news for 1 month Find the plan that suits you best. In JanuaryFebruary of this year, Azerbaijan imported $19.052 million worth of steel from Turkiye, Azernews reports, citing the Turkish Exporters Assembly. Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention. Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis. By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more. Subscribe You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper Thank you! 14 March 2026 16:59 (UTC+04:00) Full digital access to all news for 1 year Full digital access to all news for 6 months Full digital access to all news for 3 months Full digital access to all news for 1 month Find the plan that suits you best. In the first two months of 2026, Azerbaijan imported clothing worth $9.466 million from Turkiye, AzerNEWS reports, citing the Turkish Exporters Assembly. Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention. Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis. By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more. Subscribe You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper Thank you! 14 March 2026 12:10 (UTC+04:00) In accordance with the instructions of President Ilham Aliyev, the Great Return program continues in the territories liberated from occupation. AzerNEWS reports that the first caravan of returnees has been dispatched to Khanoba village in the Khojavend district. The families relocating are those who had been temporarily housed in various locations across the country, primarily in dormitories, sanatoriums, and administrative buildings. The residents returning to their ancestral homes expressed gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva for the comprehensive state support they have received. They also extended their thanks to the heroic Azerbaijani Armed Forces and the brave soldiers and officers who liberated the lands, and they prayed for the martyrs who gave their lives in this effort. 14 March 2026 13:15 (UTC+04:00) Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President and Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration, met with Eduard Stiprais. AzerNEWS reports that Hajiyev shared details of the meeting on his social media account. He stated that the discussions focused on regional cooperation, particularly connectivity opportunities, as well as effective talks on the Trans-Caspian and TRIPP projects. The presidential aide also noted that, considering Azerbaijans full membership in the Central Asia Advisory Council, there are significant opportunities for cooperation within this format. 14 March 2026 14:20 (UTC+04:00) As part of the XIII Global Baku Forum, a panel discussion on Digital Future: Artificial Intelligence, Governance, and Ethics of Innovation was held. AzerNEWS reports that participants discussed potential risks and challenges associated with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). During the discussion, Mari Kiviniemi emphasized that for people to trust AI, society must learn to regulate and manage its development. According to a survey conducted in the United States last December, 77% of Americans expressed concern that AI could pose a threat to humanity, and 68% said they would not trust AI to make decisions on their behalf without oversight, she noted. Kiviniemi added that effective regulators responsible for safe AI use require transparent mechanisms, protection of personal data, and full inclusivity, ensuring that all segments of the population have equal access to modern technologies. Tulia Akson stressed that national parliaments should have the authority to hear representatives of AI-developing companies in order to answer relevant committee questions: The problem is that private companies do not report directly to parliaments. At the same time, they produce products later used worldwide, she said. Meanwhile, Silvana Koch-Mehrin stated that AI can be effectively regulated. 14 March 2026 13:13 (UTC+04:00) Cvijanovic was seen off at Heydar Aliyev International Airport by Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Fariz Rzayev and other officials. The visit of Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency Member Zeljka Cvijanovic to Azerbaijan ended today, AzerNEWS reports. Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention. Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis. By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more. Subscribe You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper Thank you! Ban can ang nhap e thuc hien chuc nang nay! 14 March 2026 16:30 (UTC+04:00) The evacuation of foreign nationals from Iran via the Astara state border crossing continues. AzerNEWS reports that between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. today, a total of 60 individuals entered Azerbaijan through the border checkpoint. Among those evacuated were 43 Indian citizens, 6 Russians, 4 Canadians, 3 Tajiks, 3 Azerbaijanis, and 1 Pakistani. The evacuees underwent all necessary procedures at the border checkpoint, including document verification and registration, before being safely admitted into Azerbaijani territory. The Astara crossing has become a crucial exit route for foreign nationals stranded in Iran following recent Israeli and U.S. airstrikes. Azerbaijani authorities have been coordinating with foreign missions to ensure orderly evacuation, safety, and humanitarian support for those seeking temporary refuge. 14 March 2026 17:35 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia constitute an essential part of Europes security architecture, the European Unions Special Representative for Central Asia, Eduard Stiprais, stated during a dedicated session at the XIII Global Baku Forum, AzerNEWS reports. Stiprais emphasized that cooperation in this area must continue and be strengthened. The countries of this region are of strategic importance to Europe in terms of security, stability, and economic collaboration, the diplomat noted. His remarks underscore the growing recognition of Central Asias role in broader European security and economic frameworks, highlighting opportunities for continued diplomatic and regional cooperation. 14 March 2026 09:00 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to launch the Artemis II mission on April 1, marking an important step in humanitys return to the Moon, AzerNEWS reports. This was announced by Lori Glaze, Acting Assistant Administrator for Exploration Systems Development at NASA. Although I and the agency as a whole feel confident in targeting April 1 as our first opportunity, we still have some work to do, she said. The crew of the 10-day mission will include NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover, as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. The astronauts will fly aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, developed by Boeing, and travel inside the Orion spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin. The launch was originally scheduled for February but had to be postponed due to issues with the rockets helium supply system. Engineers needed to return the rocket to the hangar for additional inspections and repairs. If successful, Artemis II will become the first crewed mission of NASAs Artemis Program and the first time astronauts travel around the Moon since the historic Apollo 17 mission in 1972. During the flight, the crew will perform a lunar flyby, testing the spacecrafts systems and preparing the way for future missions that aim to land astronauts on the Moon later in the decade. 14 March 2026 21:50 (UTC+04:00) The removal of radioactive waste from the Asse nuclear storage site in Lower Saxony, Germany, has been postponed indefinitely. Citing Spiegel, AzerNEWS reports that the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) stated that numerous uncertainties in the project prevent them from providing a precise new date for the start of waste extraction. Approximately 126,000 barrels of radioactive waste, stored in the Asse mine complex during the 1960s and 1970s, are contained at the site. The facility is considered geologically unstable, with a risk of future flooding, prompting plans for the wastes removal and the closure of the mine. BGE had originally planned to begin extraction in 2033, with estimated costs exceeding 3 billion. Subsequent assessments revealed that the initial plan lacked sufficient detailed justification. Christian Meyer, Lower Saxonys Environment Minister and member of the Green Party, criticized the delays, stating that the planned clearing of the Asse facility, mandated by the Bundestag, should not be postponed indefinitely. He urged the federal government to ensure that BGE fulfills its legal obligations. 14 March 2026 22:55 (UTC+04:00) Romania has emerged as one of the European Unions countries experiencing the sharpest declines in industrial production, AzerNEWS reports. According to data released by Eurostat, industrial output in January 2026 fell both across the eurozone and the wider EU compared with the previous month. Specifically, industrial production dropped 1.5% in the Eurozone and 1.6% across the EU. The largest decreases were recorded in Ireland (-9.8%), Luxembourg (-4.3%), Sweden (-4.1%), and Romania (-3.3%). Data from Romanias National Institute of Statistics indicates that the countrys industrial slowdown was primarily driven by contractions in manufacturing and the extractive industries. In January, manufacturing output fell 6.4%, while production in the extraction sector declined 2%. Conversely, the production and supply of electricity, heat, gas, and hot water saw modest growth. On a month-to-month basis, Romanias industrial production also fell in January compared with December 2025, with total industrial output dropping 7.3%. Analysts note that the recent weakening of the industrial sector across several European countries reflects global economic uncertainty and rising production costs, signaling a challenging environment for the EUs manufacturing base. The ideologues who believe that gender confused children should be "transed" instead of allowing them to naturally grow out of their gender confusion (as science tells us most of them will if left alone) are battling the SCOTUS over parental rights to protect their children from this practice. Liberal run school districts around the country are defying the SCOTUS, and some rogue lower courts are going along with them. The Supreme Court had to step in and reinstate an injunction against California's policy of not telling parents when the schools were working to trans their children. Now a case from Maine has had to go to the Supreme Court on the same issue, as school districts continue to try to trans children without even telling their parents., and some liberal lower courts have tried to find creative ways to dodge the clear position of the SCOTUS. Nineteen states have filed briefs supporting the parents in the Maine case. Citizens are clearly tired of school districts abusing both children and parents this way. Medical science shows that most gender confused children will naturally grow out of their gender confusion and become content with their biological gender ..https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/school-district-tells-scotus-butt-out-dispute-mom-over-girls-secret Schools are also being sued civilly by parents over promoting "transgenderism". A school in California, for example has been sued by parents after the school secretly allowed their son to socially "transition" to a girl without telling the parents. The son's struggles with transgenderism led to his suicide according to the parents. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15646325/dylan-parke-suicide-gender-transition-palisades-charter-high-school.html On a related issue, Arizona has a bill going through the legislature to keep biological males out of female sports and female locker rooms under force of law. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/watch-deranged-leftist-az-state-senator-attacks-lectures/ In Beaufort County a couple of our more liberal school board members have openly expressed sympathy for the LGBTQ narrative on gender and openly criticized a conservative board member who was not okay with that narrative. Adding a couple of ex-teachers who were members of the radical NCAE teachers union will just make these positions worse on the board. Being in here in the last three weeks has been so wonderful and relaxing for patients because we have space, owner Christina Meucci said. There's a peaceful energy about this place It's not so tight and squeezed. While Cheshire has adopted a pay as you throw system based on volume, the 600 permit holders are still heaving plenty into the 30-yard roll-off headed to Clinton County landfill in Morrisonville, N.Y. If you wanted to design a country ripe for revolution, more akin to a dystopian film than the richest nation on earth, you could do worse than Brush up your Shakespeare, as Cole Porter advised in Act Two of Kiss Me, Kate deep in the heart of the baby boom era in 1953. Standing in for the pathetic old men running the country today, you might lament as King Lear does in Act One, Scene Four: How sharper than a serpents tooth it is to have a thankless child! The self-aggrandizing adulation our president expects while lining the pockets of family, cronies and toadies at the expense of the future for younger generations merits the response Hamlet gives Polonius in Act Two, Scene Two: Words, words, words. Recently, I spoke with Professor Suzy Welch of the Stern School of Business at New York University for an Eagle Reels episode. Her values bridge study of 110,000 respondents revealed data that should trouble anyone paying attention. Professor Welch told me, 62 percent of Gen Z, their number one value is ... self-care, 20 percent higher than those in their 60s. Its a long way from the Me Generation of the 1970s, and I wondered what was behind this turning inward of not only those born between 1997 and 2012 but also their predecessors the Millennials, born from 1981 to 1996. When I took this result to members of these cohorts among family and friends, I received a reply I had failed to fully comprehend before. The word that kept floating up was nihilism, an embrace of meaninglessness, amorality and hopelessness I would have imagined too extreme for these coddled kids we thought we had raised in relative ease and comfort. It turns out that, while enjoying material things, they were far from immune to the prescriptions for their future written by the boomers. Its not a pretty picture. Many who receive any higher education at all carry enormous student loan debt. More than two-thirds of young renters struggle with affordability. No wonder Zohran Mamdani could play this card to mayoral victory in New York City. For those who attempt starter-home ownership, nearly one in four need to lean on family for a down-payment. Climate change threatens the environment, while the president rolls back the clock on wind farms. A teaspoon of microplastics could be stirred in our brains. These sorts of inflammation-causing pollutants cause deadly cancers in far too many young people. Every year I seem to bury another younger colleague of environmentally-triggered diseases. With a do-nothing Legislature and a court far from supreme, federal immigration agents and National Guard deployed on the streets, and health care cost again skyrocketing, small wonder that Gen Z and Millennials have no faith in leaders and institutions. Along comes generative artificial intelligence on top of workplace transformation already long underway, and the precarious economic cliff appears to be in a mudslide that will only worsen, and rapidly. What future? Millennials and Gen Z are digital natives, more comfortable with digital communications than face-to-face interactions. Mobile devices should no longer be termed phones try getting a phone call answered by a Millennial or Gen Z. Email is an annoying efflorescence they ignore, and even texting is sporadic. For those in the white-collar world, remote work is often partial or total. The niceties of human communication are forgotten or never-learned. What we view as rude they see as par for the course. Smothered in digital communications, they think nothing of ignoring or delaying response. In such an inhuman, inhumane and chaotic world, the respondents in Professor Welchs survey doubtless steer their personal vessels to the comfort of their own berths. The implicit nihilism behind self-care above all is a coping mechanism, making what they can of the present when no good future or no future at all awaits. The fertility rate in the United States hit a historic low in 2023. Why have children in an unaffordable and precarious world? Doom prophesying creates its own doom loop: If you want Social Security to fail, create fewer new workers and under-employ them. The loop tightens. We who came of age in the 1960s had our own rebellion, facing the draft and a failing war far away. But we thought in resistance and turning inward that we would forge a better future. We were idealists at heart. That our progeny are increasingly nihilistic is not merely sad; it is a condemnation of our Lear-like blindness. If you feather your own nest, the foxes will multiply and ultimately tear those twigs apart. Worse, we will deserve what befalls us and our country. With every vote, refuse the status quo and reject short-sighted leadership. Be a part of forging a brighter future. In 2028, Mamdani might prove a harbinger. You reap what you sow. News / National by Staff reporter The Permanent Secretary for Harare Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Cosmas Chiringa, who died at West End Hospital on Monday, has been declared a national hero.Chiringa, a veteran of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, succumbed to heart failure at the age of 67.The announcement was made by Charles Tawengwa, the Zanu-PF Secretary for Education, Ideology and Research and Minister of State for Harare Metropolitan Province, when he visited the Chiringa family at their home in Newlands on Monday night."After consultations with his Politburo members, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is the First Secretary of the party, has conferred national hero status on the late Chiringa," Tawengwa said.He described the late public servant as a distinguished nation builder who dedicated his life to the liberation struggle and the development of Zimbabwe after independence."He was a seasoned public administrator and servant of the people of Zimbabwe. He dedicated his life to the struggle for national independence, post-independence and public service," Tawengwa added.Godwills Masimirembwa, who accompanied the minister to the family home, also paid tribute to Chiringa, describing him as a committed cadre who played a key role in implementing government programmes in Harare."He organised Government programmes in Harare and relayed messages about party and Government initiatives. We have lost a dedicated cadre who was committed to the development of the country," Masimirembwa said.Zanu-PF Secretary for Economic Affairs Andy Mhlanga, a close associate of the late national hero, said the two trained together in Mozambique during the liberation struggle."We were together in Mozambique during the liberation struggle. We operated in different provinces, but we met soon after independence," Mhlanga said.He added that Chiringa played a key role in championing several development programmes in Harare during his time in public service.Family members also welcomed the honour, with his daughter Kudakwashe Chiringa expressing gratitude to President Mnangagwa and the Zanu-PF leadership."We appreciate the conferment of national hero status on our father. We are very happy as a family that the role played by our father towards the development of Zimbabwe has been recognised," she said.Chiringa was born on December 10, 1960, and is survived by his wife, four children and six grandchildren.Burial arrangements will be announced in due course, while mourners are gathered at his family home at 32 Victoria Road in Newlands, Harare. A Dublin man survived a domestic knife attack and a severed artery only for the actions of a garda who used his belt to stop him from bleeding to death, a court has heard. His long-term partner, a woman in her 50s, was charged with assault causing harm to him at their home in Dublin's north side on Thursday. She instructed her barrister that she was acting in self-defence when she appeared before Judge Catherine Ghent at Dublin District Court on Saturday. North Dublin-based Garda Sean Clyde opposed bail, citing concerns that the accused would return to their home to coerce the man into withdrawing his complaint. He said the man suffered three stab wounds, two to his leg, one to his upper chest. He remains in high support care in the Mater Hospital, having suffered a severed artery and was awaiting surgery at the time of the court hearing. Advertisement A contested bail hearing was told that the injured man used the woman's phone to make a 999 call and told the emergency operator that the attack was still in progress. Clyde told the court he had listened to the audio recording of the call and said the accused could be heard telling her partner, "don't mention my name". Gardai arrived at the property and met the woman, who allegedly told them a man named "Deano" had entered their home and stabbed her partner. A partially washed knife was found placed back in a knife block in their property, the garda said. He also told the court the accused, who is on disability benefits, had admitted chronic alcohol use. The accused is not being named because the proceedings were held in camera as a domestic violence case. Clyde agreed with defence counsel Paddy Flynn that the woman's account is that she acted in self-defence. However, he contended that it was clear from the 999 call recording that she was trying to coerce the man, and she tried to mould a narrative when gardai arrived with her account about "Deano". The garda believed the man would have bled to death and "only for the actions of several of his colleagues who used one of their belts to wrap around his leg, he would have bled out". "He is lucky to be alive," the garda added. Flynn stressed that being unable to provide an address was not a barrier to bail. In evidence, the woman said she would try to reside with a friend in Dublin or with relatives outside the city. Flynn submitted that denying bail could see his client spend a lengthy period in custody until her trial, which may not get underway until late 2027. He suggested that she be released under stringent conditions, including no contact with the alleged victim. However, Judge Catherine Ghent held that the garda's objections to bail were legitimate. She remanded the accused in custody with a request that she receive medical and psychiatric attention. Legal aid was granted. Donald Trump is set to be invited to Ireland, and excitement is building ahead of the Oscars, making the front pages of Saturday's papers. The Irish Times leads with Trump claiming Iran will be hit "very hard over the next week by strikes by the US. The Irish Examiner leads with the death of a woman in Cork, with a murder probe set to be launched. The Irish Independent reveals Donald Trump is set to be invited to Ireland by the Taoiseach during Micheal Martin's visit to the US for St Patrick's Day. The Irish Daily Mail leads with a survey which shows only one in 12 people believes Ireland is ready for a drone attack. The Irish Daily Mirror leads with a picture from the Epstein files, which shows the former UK prince Andrew with Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson. The Irish Daily Star leads with the Cheltenham festival, with more winners for Willie Mullins. A young mother who was found dead in suspicious circumstances in Ballincollig, Co Cork, has been named locally as Kelly Cremin. The body of Cremin (32) was found at her two-storey terraced home at Innishmore Park yesterday at about 5.30 pm. A neighbour raised the alarm. Gardai attended the property, which was subsequently sealed off for a technical examination. Cremin was pronounced dead at the scene by a local GP, and her body was transferred to the morgue. A postmortem examination will be carried out on Saturday at Cork University Hospital by State Pathologist Dr Yvonne McCartney. The results of the post-mortem will determine the course of the investigation. The Coroner has been notified, and investigations are ongoing. A Family Liaison Officer (FLO) has been assigned to support the family of the deceased. Door-to-door inquiries have commenced in the area. Advertisement Sinn Fein councillor Joe Lynch lives in the estate where Ms Cremin was found deceased. He said her thoughts were with the victim and her family. This is a truly shocking incident, and it has caused major upset in what is a close, tight-knit community. As a lifelong resident of the estate, I have spent the evening with friends and neighbours, and all I can say is that everyone here in Innishmore is shell-shocked. Former Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Colm Kelleher, who also lives in Ballincollig, also offered his condolences to the family of Cremin at an incredibly difficult and painful time. He also urged anyone with information, no matter how small it may seem, to contact gardai. Meanwhile, gardai have issued an appeal to the public in the aftermath of the discovery of the body of Cremin. Anyone who was in the Innishmore area of Ballincollig, Co Cork, between 3pm on Thursday and 5.30 pm Friday and who may have camera footage (including home security and dash-cam footage) is asked to provide this footage to investigating Gardai. Anyone with information is asked to contact Togher Garda Station on 021 4947120, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station. Hong Kong Customs hosts regional conference to boost smart customs Xinhua) 11:28, March 14, 2026 HONG KONG, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong Customs, in the capacity of the World Customs Organization (WCO) Vice-Chair for the Asia-Pacific Region, hosted a three-day Regional Conference on Smart Customs from Wednesday to Friday, gathering key global stakeholders to advance digital transformation in customs operations. This inaugural large-scale regional workshop on smart customs brought together over 200 representatives from the WCO, global customs administrations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Secretariat and the innovation and technology sector. In his opening address, Chris Tang Ping-keung, secretary for security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, underscored the vital role of smart customs in supporting the Asia-Pacific region's dynamic trade flows and addressing transnational challenges. Tang highlighted four key pillars of smart customs initiatives in the region, namely data-driven intelligence, digital single-window trade, intelligent inspection, and multilateral connectivity, citing Hong Kong Customs' AI-driven video analytics system "WiseShield" and Project "ValidAP" as examples of innovation. He called for harmonized digital standards, a narrower digital divide and stronger public-private cooperation to ensure growth and resilient supply chains. Addressing the opening ceremony, Chan Tsz-tat, commissioner of Customs and Excise of the HKSAR government, outlined Hong Kong Customs' transformative initiatives, including the application of AI, blockchain and big data, and emphasized that the success of smart customs relies on mutual trust, partnership and collaboration. Hong Kong Customs is committed to advancing digitalization of customs practices, strengthening global trade connectivity and building resilient supply chains, he said. Tech firms from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong displayed intelligent patrol robots and smart port community systems at the exhibition booths, drawing strong interest from customs delegates across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and ASEAN. The conference featured a series of presentations and panel discussions that facilitated a robust exchange of experiences and best practices. Delegates also participated in field visits to Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao to observe firsthand the customs authorities' application of innovative technologies in their operations. The conference concluded with a renewed commitment from all participants to drive the smart customs agenda, leveraging technology and partnership to create a more efficient, secure and connected future for global trade. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) News / National by Staff reporter Renowned Zimbabwean evangelist Trymore Muparinga has filed a police report against fellow preacher Dickson Nhumwa, accusing him of cyberbullying following a series of allegations posted on social media.The dispute erupted after Apostle Nhumwa released a video online accusing Muparinga of allegedly misusing church offerings for personal indulgences, including seducing women and purchasing alcohol.Muparinga has strongly denied the accusations, describing them as malicious and unfounded. He claims the claims stem from a personal dispute between the two ministers over money he received from businessman Wicknell Chivayo."I have never misused money for personal pleasures or to buy alcohol, as claimed," Muparinga said."We once worked together in ministry and he seemed to believe he was entitled to my earnings. He is simply a bitter man and this time I have decided to take the matter to the police."Muparinga said he has engaged a lawyer to assist with the case, adding that the latest incident was not the first time he had faced public attacks.In the video that triggered the dispute, Nhumwa reflected on their years ministering together since 2007 along First Street in Harare before he later relocated to Masvingo. He said he was concerned about Muparinga's conduct and suggested the evangelist needed intervention from the broader Christian community."Mukomana (Muparinga), akunyanya kuti pese paaenda kunoparidza apihwa mari dzepa altar odzishandisa kudhakwa ne kukecha," Nhumwa alleged in the clip, claiming that Muparinga misused altar offerings for drinking and relationships.Muparinga, who has built a following for his articulate preaching and biblical teachings, has previously faced scrutiny within Christian circles after a photograph circulated online showing him holding a brown bottle believed to contain alcohol.The matter is now expected to be handled by police as investigations into the cyberbullying complaint proceed. Donald Trump said US forces have obliterated military targets on an island vital to Irans oil network and warned its oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island is the primary terminal that handles Irans oil exports, and earlier this week the speaker of the Iranian Parliament had warned Tehran would abandon all restraint if the islands come under attack adding that Mr Trump will be responsible for the blood of American soldiers. Announcing the action in a social media post, the president said: Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island. For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. In a later post, Mr Trump said: Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD! Advertisement Irans semi-official Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island. It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar, adding that no oil infrastructure was damaged. On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat that it will attack the US-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if oil infrastructure of the Islamic Republic is hit. Rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble after a strike in southern Tehran, Iran (Sajjad Safari/AP) Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned they will target all oil, economic, and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or co-operate with America. In addition, it threatened to attack cities in the United Arab Emirates, claiming they were used by US forces to launch strikes on Irans Abu Musa and Kharg islands. Without providing evidence, Khatam al-Anbiya said US forces launched attacks on the Islamic Republic from ports, docks and hideouts within cities in the Emirates. Advertisement It called on people to evacuate ports, docks and locations where US forces are sheltered in UAE cities. Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East nearly two weeks into the war with the Islamic Republic. Smoke rose from the US embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday (Ali Jabar/AP) Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the region. Marine Expeditionary Units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians, and providing disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well as the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the Marines, are based in Japan and have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing alone near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from the waters off Iran. (PA Graphics) Earlier in the week, the US Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. While the total number of US service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear, Al-Udeid Air Base alone, one of the largest in the region, typically houses some 8,000 Amercian troops in Qatar. Advertisement It comes as Iran continues to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. An air strike hit a house in Iraqs capital Baghdad early on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding two others, local officials said. In a statement, the Iraqi military condemned the strike as a blatant violation of all humanitarian values and a disregard for international conventions. A missile later struck a helipad inside the US Embassy in Baghdad, according to security officials. Saudi Arabias defence ministry said early on Saturday it downed a drone in the al-Jawf region, a sparsely populated province near the Jordan border that hosts military and energy infrastructure, and shot down seven drones headed toward the kingdoms eastern region which is home to major oil installations. Dubais Media Office said debris from an interception struck the facade of a building in the city centre, adding the incident was contained, with no fire or injuries reported. Qatars defence ministry said early on Saturday it had intercepted a missile attack. The ministry said earlier that authorities were evacuating a number of areas as a temporary precaution, without identifying the locations. Emergency alerts were sent to peoples phones. An Israeli strike hit a health care centre in the village of Burj Qalaouiyah in the Bint Jbeil District, killing 12 doctors, paramedics and nurses who were on duty, Lebanons health ministry said. The ministry said it was the second attack on the health sector within hours, after another Israeli strike on the southern village of Souaneh killed two paramedics and wounded five others when it hit a paramedic centre. A combined missile and drone attack on the Kyiv region has killed at least four people and wounded 15, regional officials have said. Three of those injured in the attack overnight into Saturday are in a critical condition, with two undergoing surgery, regional administration chief Mykola Kalashnyk said. The attack hit four districts of the Ukrainian capital, damaging residential buildings, educational institutions, enterprises and critical infrastructure, he added in a social media post. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the main target was the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv region. He said Russia launched around 430 drones of various types during the night, as well as 68 missiles. Firefighters tackle a blaze at a household services centre in a residential neighbourhood of Brovary, close to Kyiv (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Russias defence ministry said the night-time strikes targeted energy and industrial facilities serving Ukraines armed forces, as well as military airfields. The strikes came days after the US postponed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine scheduled for this week, citing the war in the Middle East. Advertisement As US and Israeli missiles and bombs rain down on Iran, Russia has responded with words of indignation but no action to support its ally. Moscows failure to help another ally, after the 2024 ousting of former Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and Januarys US arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, highlighted the limits of its influence but the Kremlin expects to reap benefits from the Iran war. Russia is already profiting from a surge in global energy prices, and could hope the war will detract attention from its own operations in Ukraine and deplete Western arsenals. Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking in Paris on Friday, said the US waiver on Russian oil sanctions amid the war in Iran does not help peace in Ukraine (Ludovic Marin/pool/AP) Mr Zelensky on Saturday called on Kyivs Western partners to pay 100% attention to the need to boost the production of air defence missiles. Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine, he said in a post on social media. We must be fully aware of the real level of the threat and prepare accordingly, namely: in Europe, we need to develop the production of air defence missiles especially those capable of countering ballistic threats as well as all other systems necessary to truly protect lives. Advertisement Kyiv is also awaiting White House approval for a major drone production agreement proposed by Ukraine last year, Mr Zelensky had said on Thursday, as countries scramble to modernise their air defences after the Iran war exposed shortcomings. Mr Zelensky has criticised the 30-day US waiver on Russian oil sanctions amid the Iran war, saying it is not the right decision and will not help bring a stop to Russias now four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. The US has postponed peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine amid the conflict in Iran (Sajjad Safari/AP) This easing alone by the United States could provide Russia with about 10 billion US dollars for the war, he said. This certainly does not help peace. Overnight into Saturday, Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery and port in Russias southern Krasnodar region, local Russian officials reported. Krasnodar authorities said three people were hurt in a strike on Port Kavkaz, a port opposite Crimea used to ship liquefied natural gas and grains. A service vessel and pier infrastructure were damaged, they added in a post on Telegram. Falling drone debris also sparked a fire at the regions Afipsky oil refinery, authorities said in a separate Telegram post. They said no one was hurt, but did not immediately comment on damage. Earlier this week, Russian and Ukrainian officials both claimed gains in the conflict, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscows forces back across places on the front line and the Kremlin insisting Russias invasion of its neighbour is making progress. Meanwhile, Russias almost daily attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas have continued. A missile struck a helipad inside the US Embassy compound in Baghdad and debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hit an oil facility in the United Arab Emirates as the US-Israeli war with Iran entered its third week. A column of smoke could be seen rising over the embassy compound in the Iraqi capital on Saturday, while a fire at Fujairah port in the UAE broke out after what authorities said was a drone interception. It came hours after Donald Trump said US forces had obliterated military targets on an island vital to Irans oil network and warned its oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island is the primary terminal that handles Irans oil exports, and earlier this week the speaker of the Iranian Parliament had warned Tehran would abandon all restraint if the islands came under attack adding that Mr Trump will be responsible for the blood of American soldiers. Announcing the action in a social media post on Friday, the president said: Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island. Advertisement For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. In a later post, Mr Trump said: Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD! US Embassy personnel inspect the damage caused by a missile in Baghdad, Iraq (Hadi Mizban/AP) The US Central Command released a video on X showing the strike and said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and multiple other military sites. Irans semi-official Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island. It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar, adding that no oil infrastructure was damaged. On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat that it will attack the US-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if oil infrastructure of the Islamic Republic is hit. Last night, U.S. forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island, Iran. The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites. U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg pic.twitter.com/2X1glD4Flt U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 14, 2026 Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned they will target all oil, economic, and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or co-operate with America. In addition, it threatened to attack cities in the United Arab Emirates, claiming they were used by US forces to launch strikes on Irans Abu Musa and Kharg islands. Advertisement Without providing evidence, Khatam al-Anbiya said US forces launched attacks on the Islamic Republic from ports, docks and hideouts within cities in the Emirates. It called on people to evacuate ports, docks and locations where US forces are sheltered in UAE cities. Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East. An Israeli air strike on Dahiyeh, a suburb of Lebanese capital Beirut, left a scene of devastation (Hassan Ammar/AP) Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the region. Earlier in the week, the US Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. While the total number of US service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear, Al-Udeid Air Base alone, one of the largest in the region, typically houses some 8,000 American troops in Qatar. It comes as Iran continues to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. Smoke rose from the US embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday (Ali Jabar/AP) The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepened, with nearly 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants and warned there would be no let up. Saudi Arabias defence ministry said early on Saturday it downed a drone in the al-Jawf region, a sparsely populated province near the Jordan border that hosts military and energy infrastructure, and shot down seven drones headed toward the kingdoms eastern region which is home to major oil installations. Advertisement Dubais Media Office said debris from an interception struck the facade of a building in the city centre, adding the incident was contained, with no fire or injuries reported. Qatars defence ministry said early on Saturday it had intercepted a missile attack. The ministry said earlier that authorities were evacuating a number of areas as a temporary precaution, without identifying the locations. Emergency alerts were sent to peoples phones. An Israeli strike hit a health care centre in the village of Burj Qalaouiyah in the Bint Jbeil District, killing 12 doctors, paramedics and nurses who were on duty, Lebanons health ministry said. The ministry said it was the second attack on the health sector within hours, after another Israeli strike on the southern village of Souaneh killed two paramedics and wounded five others when it hit a paramedic centre. Iran has openly threatened a neighbouring countrys non-US assets for the first time, warning people to immediately evacuate the busiest port in the Middle East and two others in the United Arab Emirates as the war entered its third week. It came as a missile struck a helipad inside the US Embassy compound in Baghdad on Saturday, and debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hit the Fujairah oil facility in the UAE, further increasing global anxiety about oil supplies. Iran threatened to attack cities in the UAE, home to Dubai and one of the worlds busiest airports, saying the US used ports, docks and hideouts there to launch strikes on Irans Kharg Island, without providing evidence. It urged people to evacuate areas where it said US forces are sheltering, naming Dubais Jebel Ali port the busiest in the Middle East as well as Abu Dhabis Khalifa port and Fujairah port. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Arab Gulf neighbours during the war, but it said it was targeting US assets, even as hits or attempts were reported on civilian ones such as airports and oil fields. Advertisement Images published on Saturday showed the extent of a fire at Fujairah that broke out after what authorities said was a drone interception, and smoke rising over the embassy compound in the Iraqi capital. It came hours after Donald Trump said US forces had obliterated military targets on a Kharg Island, which is vital to Irans oil network, and warned its oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Last night, U.S. forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island, Iran. The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites. U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg pic.twitter.com/2X1glD4Flt U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 14, 2026 Kharg is the primary terminal that handles Irans oil exports, and earlier this week the speaker of the Iranian Parliament had warned Tehran would abandon all restraint if the islands came under attack adding that Mr Trump will be responsible for the blood of American soldiers. The US Central Command released a video on X showing the strike and said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and multiple other military sites. Irans semi-official Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island. It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil companys helicopter hangar, adding that no oil infrastructure was damaged. US Embassy personnel inspect the damage caused by a missile in Baghdad, Iraq (Hadi Mizban/AP) In the hours after the attack, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat that it will attack the US-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if oil infrastructure of the Islamic Republic is hit. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned they will target all oil, economic, and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or co-operate with America. Advertisement In addition, it threatened to attack cities in the United Arab Emirates, claiming they were used by US forces to launch strikes on Irans Abu Musa and Kharg islands. Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East. Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the region. An Israeli air strike on Dahiyeh, a suburb of Lebanese capital Beirut, left a scene of devastation (Hassan Ammar/AP) Earlier in the week, the US Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. While the total number of US service members on the ground in the Middle East is not clear, Al-Udeid Air Base alone, one of the largest in the region, typically houses some 8,000 American troops in Qatar. It comes as Iran continues to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran. Advertisement The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepened, with nearly 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants and warned there would be no let up. Smoke rose from the US embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday (Ali Jabar/AP) Saudi Arabias defence ministry said early on Saturday it downed a drone in the al-Jawf region, a sparsely populated province near the Jordan border that hosts military and energy infrastructure, and shot down seven drones headed toward the kingdoms eastern region which is home to major oil installations. Dubais Media Office said debris from an interception struck the facade of a building in the city centre, adding the incident was contained, with no fire or injuries reported. Qatars defence ministry said early on Saturday it had intercepted a missile attack. The ministry said earlier that authorities were evacuating a number of areas as a temporary precaution, without identifying the locations. Emergency alerts were sent to peoples phones. An Israeli strike hit a health care centre in the village of Burj Qalaouiyah in the Bint Jbeil District, killing 12 doctors, paramedics and nurses who were on duty, Lebanons health ministry said. The ministry said it was the second attack on the health sector within hours, after another Israeli strike on the southern village of Souaneh killed two paramedics and wounded five others when it hit a paramedic centre. The islands off Iran have become the latest focus of the war after a US strike destroyed military targets on Kharg Island, which is vital to Tehrans oil network. The US strike on the island in the Persian Gulf left its oil infrastructure intact, but President Donald Trump warned if Iran or anyone else interferes with the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, he will reconsider his decision not to wipe it out. Although they account for only a small share of Irans territory, the islands carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. Heres what to know about Irans islands in the Persian Gulf up to the Strait of Hormuz: Iran has claimed the US previously targeted the island of Qeshm (Vahid Salemi/AP) Kharg Island The small coral island about 21 miles off Irans coast is the primary terminal through which nearly all of Irans oil exports pass. Advertisement Iran has exported 13.7 million barrels since the war started, and multiple tankers were seen on satellite imagery on Wednesday loading at Kharg, according to TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence company. Iran gets a significant share of its revenue from oil, with shipments flowing to countries like China. A strike on Kharg would not only damage Irans current government but could also undermine the viability of whatever might eventually replace it. The island has storage tanks in the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. Gazelles roam freely near the refineries and depots that make Kharg one of Irans most valuable and sensitive assets. Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said Kharg Island is critical to funding Irans government and military. If Iran was to lose control of Kharg, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island is not a military or nuclear target, he said. It doesnt matter which regime is in power new or old, Mr Katinas said. A takeover would give the US leverage over negotiations with Iran because the island is the main node of its economy. JPMorgans global commodity research team warned this week in an investment note that a strike on the island would have major economic implications. Oil tankers and ships have been lining up in the Strait of Hormuz (Altaf Qadri/AP) Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb The three tiny islands have long been a front line in tensions between Iran and Gulf states allied with the United States. Advertisement Iranian forces seized the islands in November 1971, days after the UK withdrew from the Gulf and just before the sheikhdoms joined to form the United Arab Emirates. Iran maintains military assets and garrisons on the islands. The territorial dispute over the islands remains one of the Gulfs most persistent flashpoints. Qeshm Island The largest island in the Persian Gulf sits near the Strait of Hormuz and is home to about 150,000 residents. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the US struck a desalination plant on the island on March 8 a claim not acknowledged by Washington. Attacking Irans infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences, Mr Araghchi warned in a March 7 post on X. The US set this precedent, not Iran. The desalination plant supplies water to about 30 villages. In Bahrain home to the US Navys 5th Fleet the interior ministry said an Iranian drone had caused material damage to a desalination plant there the next day, although water supplies were never disrupted. Three acts of ideologically inspired violence in the past week in the United States have laid bare the heightened terrorism threat unfolding against the backdrop of the war with Iran. In New York City, two men who federal authorities say were inspired by Islamic State brought powerful homemade bombs to a far-right protest outside the mayoral mansion. A naturalised citizen from Lebanon rammed his vehicle into a synagogue in Michigan, where he was shot at by security before he shot himself dead. In Virginia, a man previously imprisoned on a terrorism conviction was heard yelling Allahu akbar before opening fire in a university classroom in an attack that officials said ended when the gunman was killed by students. The violence has also put a focus on a counter-terrorism system strained by the widespread departures of experienced national security professionals at the FBI and Justice Department. Advertisement Those firings and resignations, coupled with the diversion of resources over the last year to meet other Trump administration priorities, have increased concerns about the capability to head off a potential surge in threats. Police outside Old Dominion Universitys campus in Norfolk, Virginia (John Clark/AP) Frank Montoya, a retired senior FBI official, said: So much experience has been decimated from the ranks. He said staff who were best positioned to get to the bottom of it before something really bad happened are in many cases no longer with the government, meaning less experienced personnel assigned to the threat are starting from way behind. The FBI said it would not comment on personnel numbers and decisions, but issued a statement saying: Agents and staff are dedicated professionals working around the clock to defend the homeland and crush violent crime. The FBI continuously assesses and realigns our resources to ensure the safety of the American people. Iran has vowed revenge for the killing by the US and Israel of former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and though the fighting has so far been confined to the Middle East, the Islamic Republic has long professed its determination to carry out violence on American soil. Iranian operatives, for instance, responded to the 2020 assassination of General Qassem Soleimani during the first Trump administration with a disrupted murder-for-hire plot targeting former national security adviser John Bolton. NYPD officers stand outside Carl Schurz Park as they investigate suspicious devices (Yuki Iwamura/AP) A Pakistani business owner who says he was carrying out instructions from a contact in Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was convicted in New York last week of trying to hire hitmen in 2024 for assassination plots targeting public figures, including President Donald Trump, who was then running for the White House. Though much attention has focused on Irans use of proxies or hired hands to carry out plots, the countrys capability to organise a large-scale assault on the US remains unclear despite clear angst over the potential. Advertisement The FBI warned in a recent bulletin to law enforcement about Irans aspiration to conduct a drone attack targeting California, but after the warning was publicised, officials emphasised the intelligence was unverified and that no specific plot was known to exist. Terrorism concerns typically rise during times of international conflict when military action overseas is accompanied by increased vigilance, including outreach from agents to their sources, more active sharing of tips between federal and local law enforcement and closer co-ordination among FBI joint terrorism task forces, said Claire Moravec, a former FBI national security official who served as deputy homeland security adviser in Illinois. Officials have said there is no indication that either the men arrested in connection with the explosives in New York, or the man responsible for Thursdays Old Dominion University shooting, were motivated explicitly by the Iran war. The man who crashed into Temple Israel synagogue near Detroit on Thursday lost four family members in an Israeli air strike in his native Lebanon last week, an official in Lebanon said. Regardless, wars like the one in Iran can function as accelerants, raising the volume and intensity of grievances for the disaffected, Ms Moravec said. Ultimately, the goal during these periods is not surveillance but maintaining a broad awareness of how international events could translate into domestic security risks, so that threats can be identified and disrupted early, she said. Advertisement Updated NationalQueenslandTraffic Passenger dies after car crashes into bridge south of Brisbane William Davis March 14, 2026 9:57am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A A man has died after an early-morning crash into a bridge south of Brisbane. A Toyota ute failed to negotiate the Brigade Drive roundabout under the Pacific Motorway at Eagleby in Logan and collided with its pylons about 1am. Emergency teams were called minutes later, and eight paramedic units were sent to the scene. The Toyota ute hit a pylon under the Pacific Motorway at Eagleby. Google Maps The 24-year-old male driver suffered head injuries and was taken to Princess Alexandra Hospital in a stable condition. Advertisement His passenger, a 23-year-old man, was trapped by his legs and suffered limb, abdominal and head injuries. He was taken to the same hospital in a life-threatening condition but has since died. The Forensic Crash Unit was sent to investigate the cause of the crash. Delays were still reported at the roundabout at 9.30am on Saturday. About two hours after the Eagleby crash, a brown Mazda CX7 collided head-on with a white Kia Sportage on the M1 at Yatala on the Gold Coast. The Mazdas 28-year-old driver was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Advertisement A section of the M1 Northbound was closed temporarily, but traffic had cleared by 9am. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement NationalVictoriaCourts ACM chairman Antony Catalano checking into rehab after assault charges Cameron Houston and Ashleigh McMillan Updated March 14, 2026 4:27pm ,first published 10:57am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A Prominent media owner Antony Catalano has been charged with assault and accused in court of dragging a woman around an apartment by her hair and ankles, before swinging a clothes iron at her head. The woman sustained a fractured coccyx during the alleged attack by the 59-year-old, who was granted bail on Friday evening at a hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court. Antony Catalano is charged with assaulting a woman in Melbourne. Jesse Marlow Catalano, the co-owner and chairman of Australian Community Media (ACM), is facing charges of assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill, according to a report by the ABC. He was placed on an immediate leave of absence until this matter is resolved, ACM general manager Tony Kendall told staff on Saturday. Advertisement In a statement later on Saturday, Catalano said he was profoundly sorry for his actions. He said he had been struggling with significant mental health and substance abuse issues and would immediately check in to a rehabilitation program, while taking six months off work. I am deeply ashamed and humiliated. I know that my actions have caused hurt and concern for others, including the woman involved, my family, friends, colleagues and the many people connected to the businesses I have been privileged to lead, he said. Two sources, who asked not to be named, told this masthead that police attended the Saint Moritz building in St Kilda on Thursday evening, where Catalano owns the penthouse he purchased for $30 million in 2019. On Friday evening, a police investigator asked magistrate Rohan Lawrence to deny bail for Catalano, alleging the prominent businessman posed an unacceptable risk of further offending and fleeing Victoria. The accused dragged the victim to the laundry area where he grabbed a clothes iron and held it towards the victims head, causing the victim to grab onto the iron herself, according to a police summary read in court. Advertisement Catalano refused to comment on Saturday morning when this masthead approached him as he returned to the St Kilda complex. Loading The police investigator told the court the woman sustained a fractured coccyx and had spent several hours in hospital following the alleged assault. The entire incident was captured by CCTV cameras, with Catalanos barrister Jason Gullaci, SC, conceding there was no doubt his client had made physical contact with the woman. Theres still a few moving parts about exactly what happened, how it started, how it moved out to the area where the CCTV footage is inside, how it then manifested in relation to what happened in that hallway, he said. Advertisement Gullaci said a claim by the woman that Catalano forcefully swung the iron at her head was not included in the written police summary presented to court. Before granting bail, Lawrence, the magistrate, described the evidence as relatively strong and said a jail term was possible if the charges were proved, according to the ABC report. Catalano was not required to enter a plea, given the early stage of the case. This masthead has contacted Victoria Police for further detail on the incident. The court had been told Catalano recently experienced a mental health episode at his waterfront residence in Wategos Beach in Byron Bay and was admitted to a psychiatric ward last month after using drugs. Advertisement It is believed approximately three days ago at his property in Byron Bay, the accused himself called police because he believed he was seeing people emerging from the woodworks around his property, the officer testified on Friday. Originally a property reporter with Fairfax Media, Catalano rapidly ascended to become Domain Group chief executive in 2015 before abruptly departing from Fairfax in 2018, when he said he wanted to spend more time with his family. However, in 2019, he splashed $125 million to buy Australian Community Media, the publisher of major regional newspapers including The Canberra Times and Newcastle Herald and 160 regional mastheads. Widely known in media and property circles as The Cat, the 59-year-old has extensive business and real estate interests across the nation, including the $30 million St Kilda apartment and a $7 million penthouse on Mount Buller. He also has a stake in famed Byron Bay resort Raes on Wategos, although he is not involved in the businesss operations. However the past 12 months have been turbulent for Catalano, who has four children with wife Stephanie and five other children with two previous partners. Advertisement He only recently reconciled with his 40-year-old wife last month, following a trial separation. Editor's pick Good Weekend She nearly quit the pool at 14. Now, Mollies the face of a new Australian era In March last year, he was spoken to by police officers from Byron Bay over a public altercation with celebrity jeweller Giovanni DErcole near Wategos Beach. No charges were laid over the incident. Sources close to Catalano said he was also deeply traumatised by the sudden death of close friend and prominent Byron Bay restaurateur Kim Stephen. Australian Community Media and his online property business View Media Group have both struggled in response to a slump in advertising, while his long-term business partner Alex Waislitz recently agreed to a $325 million settlement with his former wife, Visy heiress Heloise Pratt. Advertisement Catalano has also struggled to find a buyer for his St Kilda penthouse, which was put on the market last year with an asking price of $36 million. The price was slashed to $29.95 million last month, when Catalano blamed Melbournes soft real estate market on the high-taxing Victorian government. His penthouse on Mount Buller has also failed to find a buyer with a price guide of $9.25 million. Despite the mounting pressures, several sources close to Catalano said he had not curbed his enthusiastic partying. The problem for Cat is he carries on like a 30-year-old, but hes almost 60. At some point something has to give ... and Im not sure Byron has been that good for him. Hes surrounded by too much temptation, said a Melbourne businessman who had been friends with him for almost 30 years. In his statement, Catalano said: Those close to me have been urging me to seek professional help for some time and there have been interventions by close family and friends. I regret not heeding their advice and I continued to believe I could hide my mental health issues. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. Advertisement PoliticsFederalPolitical leadership Opinion Matt Canavan and the male breadwinner model: A throwback to the 50s Jacqueline Maley Columnist and senior journalist March 15, 2026 4:00am March 15, 2026 4:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A The women of Australia are on notice: Senator Matt Canavan wants more Australian babies. In the remarks he made following his election as Nationals leader on Wednesday, the Queensland senator did not specify who would be having the babies, or who would primarily raise them, but perhaps we can infer that Canavan is a family traditionalist who clearly enjoys trolling feminists. Nationals leader Matt Canavan would like more Australian babies. Alex Ellinghausen In 2020, he posted on social media that he had bought his wife a clothesline for Mothers Day. The post, small though it was, served as an effective display of Canavans significant political talents. Advertisement He made headlines the post was widely shared on social media (often by people who missed its irony), it was discussed on breakfast television, and it had the welcome side-effect of upsetting snowflakes on Twitter (now X), thereby shoring up Canavans political brand as a refreshing iconoclast. But Canavan was also making a nationalistic point about economic sovereignty the type of clothesline he bought for his wife was not a traditional Hills Hoist, a brand now made in China, he said. It was an 100 per cent Aussie made Austral clothesline. Canavans protectionist instincts are not surprising for a Nationals politician, but they are surprising for a former Productivity Commission economist, which he is. Also surprising, for an economist, is his insistence that the taxpayer subsidise ongoing coal production, and his insistent preference for fossil fuels. Advertisement The latter is a particularly puzzling stance at a moment when the war-disrupted oil supply chain is threatening to damage the Australian economy. Related Article Political leadership From Marxist to rebel to leader: The making of Matt Canavan The surge in oil prices and our reliance on foreign oil are acting as an effective carbon price for Australian consumers. You wont hear the fossil-fuel fetishists admit that. It was Canavans interest in the fiscal policy of income splitting that drew the attention of the sorts of people he was hoping to irritate with his clothesline post. Income splitting is when the higher-income-earning half of a couple diverts some of his/her income to their spouse, who is on a lower income or even no income, so each member of the couple is taxed at a lower rate. Advertisement For example, if a husband earns $100,000 and his wife earns $40,000, he could apportion her $30,000 of his salary, so they are both taxed on the marginal rate for income of $70,000. It is a tax-reduction measure that treats households as a socialistic entity in which each member gives according to their means and takes according to their needs. This, of course, is how most families work. Canavan has supported the policy for more than a decade, and in an interview with The Australian last week, he made it clear he will push for the policy as leader. Our tax system should encourage parental bonds, not penalise them by not treating families as a team, he said. Advertisement Childcare works for some but not all. Providing more choice will (benefit) all parents because it will take the pressure off our straining childcare system. Related Article Income tax Slash income tax, lift it on assets: Spenders plan for tax reform New Liberal leader Angus Taylor and his deputy, Jane Hume, seem open to considering income splitting. They have repeatedly said they want to see more tax flexibility and choice for families in how they raise their kids, and last year Hume introduced a bill to allow couples to split their superannuation balances. Income splitting is already practised in Australia anyone who sets up a family trust can do it, in effect, by apportioning income from the trust to different family members. Advertisement Given that family trusts are used as a tax minimisation scheme for the wealthy, income splitting through the marginal tax system is a way of making it accessible for all. As a tax minimisation strategy, it does, of course, leave a large hole in the federal budget. A few years ago, Senator Gerard Rennick asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to cost his income splitting proposal it came back with a figure of $68.9 billion over a decade. In 2015, Canavan put out a press release proposing a more modest form of income splitting, with total annual tax relief capped at $2000 per couple. But still, the sacrificed tax revenue would have to come from somewhere. Advertisement Related Article Opinion Gender equality Matt Canavan wants more Australian babies. But Australian women might just say no Virginia Haussegger Canberra writer and an academic advocate for gender equity. Most likely it would be filched from other parts of the family-support budget, such as the Family Tax Benefit, or from childcare subsidies. Helen Hodgson, professor of taxation at Curtin University law school, did her PhD on income splitting. Its very inefficient, she says of the policy. It restrains productivity because the lower earner will be paying a marginal tax rate at the threshold of the household, which will be higher than what she would pay as a lower earner. Advertisement The lower earner is giving her partner a benefit by scoring him a tax break, but she doesnt get one herself. In fact, her tax bill will increase because she gets pushed to the higher bracket. But the household pays less overall. Thats fine for couples who can afford to live (largely) from one salary, and fine for women who are certain they will never need to support themselves. But if the reasoning for the policy is to give couples more choice, it wont necessarily achieve that for the lower earner she will be disincentivised from earning more. Income splitting tends to benefit higher-income families who can afford to live on one salary (or 1.5 salaries). The policy is also inequitable for split couples by giving tax relief to intact families, the system is deliberately preferencing a traditional family over a divorced family. Advertisement Not very fair for children of divorce, who are more likely to live in poverty anyway. For all these reasons, Liberal elder (and co-author of the partys controversial election review) Pru Goward labelled the policy regressive, too expensive and favourable to the rich, and that was 22 years ago, when she was Sex Discrimination Commissioner. I can imagine that some families would respond to this policy by having the lower-income partner work less, says Professor Robert Breunig, director of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University. Given gender roles, that would be more likely to be the woman. But that could be a welfare-enhancing thing. Breunig says that government policy should be about making choices better, not about making people work. Advertisement Related Article Opinion Political leadership Labor has set a political trap for Taylor and Canavan. Will they fall for it? James Massola Chief political commentator But choice holds up only when there is genuine equality within a relationship. Says Professor Miranda Stewart of Melbourne University: Income splitting discriminates against dual earner families the majority and has the effect of over-taxing the wages of mothers returning to work. The most targeted, efficient way to support families is individual taxation combined with broad family payments and child care subsidies, she says. Professor Hodgson points out that income splitting doesnt account for what we now know about financial control within abusive relationships, not to mention womens increasing desire for financial autonomy within marriage. Advertisement The policy is a throwback to the main breadwinner model that we became accustomed to until the 70s and 80s, when it was normal to have one person earning and the other person at home, says Professor Hodgson. And here lies the social narrative behind the fiscal arguments for income splitting. Last year, the opposition inflicted untold damage on itself with its election policy to restrict working-from-home for public servants. The Liberals were blindsided by the huge backlash against that policy it was as though no one in their ranks had spoken to, or even passed in the street, a contemporary working family in the previous five years. The fiasco over that policy only worsened the Liberals so-called woman problem. Advertisement There are benefits to income splitting, and as teal independent Allegra Spender keeps saying, our system taxes incomes too highly, and wealth too lightly. But the Coalition needs to be careful in proposing a tax strategy that preferences the male-breadwinner family model, which penalises single parents, and which threatens to hamper female workforce participation. They risk repeating the mistakes of the past, and projecting themselves, again, as a party that refuses to accept the reality of how working families manage themselves in 2026. Not how they used to, in a romanticised past a rose-tinted time when families could survive on a single income, when women were discouraged from working outside the home, and when Hills Hoists were still proudly Australian. Jacqueline Maley is a senior writer, author and columnist. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter. News / National by Staff reporter Former Health and Child Care minister Obadiah Moyo has defended his controversial proposal for a salt tax, saying the idea was misunderstood and would target food manufacturers rather than ordinary Zimbabwean consumers.The proposal sparked outrage after reports published on March 12 suggested that Moyo had recommended introducing a salt tax in Zimbabwe to help fund treatment for illnesses linked to excessive salt consumption, including hypertension and kidney disease. The suggestion quickly triggered debate on social media, with many citizens questioning why another levy should be introduced when the country already has a sugar tax.However, speaking after the backlash, Moyo said the tax would be directed at companies producing foods with high sodium content, not households."It is not the consumer who should be taxed but the manufacturers of food products with high salt content who should be taxed if they exceed the set sodium limits," he said.Moyo explained that the proposal focuses on processed foods rather than raw salt used by families at home. He said the plan would involve setting sodium limits for products such as stock cubes, soups, processed meats and salty snacks.Manufacturers would be required to reformulate their products to comply with the limits. Those who fail to meet the sodium thresholds could face higher excise taxes."The saltier the product, the higher the tax rate," Moyo said, adding that the goal is to encourage the food industry to reduce sodium levels while improving public health outcomes."I want families to hear this consumers are not taxed. You're protected by cheaper, lower-salt options and by warnings about salt use at home," he said.Moyo added that similar policy approaches have been used in other countries to push manufacturers to reduce sodium content while maintaining product availability.The debate has also revived questions about Zimbabwe's existing sugar levy introduced in 2024. The tax applies to sugar-sweetened beverages and was introduced to fund treatment for non-communicable diseases.During a parliamentary session in February, legislators including Surrender Kapoikilu raised concerns about how the revenue from the levy was being used, particularly regarding the state of cancer treatment facilities in public hospitals.Another lawmaker, Clifford Hlatshwayo, called for greater transparency on how the funds collected from the tax are being managed.Health experts have long warned that excessive salt consumption contributes to high blood pressure and other non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and kidney complications.For now, it remains unclear whether the government will formally consider introducing the proposed salt tax. Advertisement Exclusive PropertyNewsNSW residential property Sydney property sellers to be forced to advertise price guides Elizabeth Redman March 15, 2026 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A NSW property sellers will be forced to advertise their price guide and real estate agents who break new underquoting laws will be fined three times their commission in legislation to be introduced this week. Agents will be banned from advertising a sale price for a property that is lower than a previously rejected written offer and agents will be required to publish a list of comparable sales in a Minns government underquoting crackdown announced on Sunday. The NSW government will mandate property price guide disclosure. Peter Braig The government is pushing ahead with reforms it signalled after an investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which revealed almost half of all property sales at auction in Sydney sold above the guide by more than 10 per cent, leaving buyers wasting time and money chasing properties they could not afford. NSW Better Regulation and Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong said the reforms would protect home buyers from unscrupulous real estate agents and that the government was focusing on a fair property market that works for everyone. Advertisement By significantly increasing penalties for underquoting, we are ensuring misconduct can no longer be written off as a cost of doing business, but as a meaningful deterrent, he said. Related Article Updated Bidding blind 9000 readers told us about underquoting. Now, the government has acted The changes will also empower NSW Fair Trading to tackle misrepresentations of property prices through stronger disciplinary action, better enforcement tools and improvements to mandatory education and professional standards. In NSW, properties can be listed for sale with no advertised price guide, leaving it to buyers to contact agents for details. In Victoria, price guides were made mandatory in 2017, and agents must provide a statement of information that includes comparable sales. At present, NSW agents must make reasonable estimates of selling prices and never publish a price lower than those estimates. They must revise their estimated selling price if they become aware that it has ceased to be a reasonable estimate. Advertisement Under the proposed laws, NSW agents will have to include a price or price guide on all advertising, and publish a statement of information with comparable sales and the suburbs median sale price. Agents will have to calculate the estimated selling price in line with new, clearer guidelines, the government said. This mastheads Bidding Blind investigation tracked 10,772 sales across Sydney and found that almost half of all sales tracked in NSW (48 per cent) sold above the guide by more than 10 per cent. Of these, 16 per cent of all sales tracked sold above the guide by 20 per cent or more. However, the reforms do not make it compulsory for a vendors reserve the lowest price at which they will sell their property to be in line with the price guide that is advertised on the listing. Previous analysis by this masthead tracked 319 auctions attended or contacted over the course of 2024 and found at least 172 Sydney home sellers set their reserve price higher than the top of the quoted price range. Some sellers wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even as much as $2 million, more than the advertised price. Advertisement It is not illegal to do so, but critics say the practice creates false hope for buyers. Related Article Exclusive Bidding blind Sydneys the property underquoting capital: How does your suburb compare? In contrast, the practice is set to be outlawed in Victoria. After the Bidding Blind investigation was published, the Victorian government proposed laws forcing real estate agents to disclose a homes reserve price at least seven days before auction day or fixed-date sale. The NSW crackdown will increase penalties for underquoting from $22,000 to $110,000 or three times the agents commission, whichever is greater. The government says the change will remove the financial incentive to break the law. Given a 2 per cent commission, the penalty for underquoting on a $2 million house could be $120,000. Advertisement The new laws will stop agents from advertising a sale price lower than a previously rejected written offer or the highest unsuccessful bid at an auction. Penalties for dummy bidding at auctions will be doubled from $55,000 to $110,000 under the new laws. Fair Tradings powers will be expanded to respond to serious breaches and require agents to publicly admit their misconduct or have a valuer independently verify their price estimates. Professional development obligations will be in focus, as penalties will be introduced for agents who fail to undertake required training, and Fair Trading will get powers to approve training providers and training courses. This masthead previously asked readers to share their auction experiences. Among more than 9100 respondents, 6344 people reported they had spent time and money investigating the purchase of properties they were ultimately unable to afford. Advertisement Real estate industry leaders have backed previous calls for more transparency and tougher regulation of price guides, though some shied away from the idea of published reserves. The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here. Property listings Advertisement InspirationFoodie travel Beyond moussaka: The foodies guide to Greek dishes you must try Kate Armstrong March 15, 2026 4:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A This article is part of Travellers Holiday Guide to bucket-list places to eat. See all stories . Greeks are a nation of food lovers meals are made to share, servings come larger than Mount Olympus and leisurely lunches stretch into the late afternoon. Australians are no strangers to Greek cuisine; you can probably reel off dishes faster than a gyros spit the rotisserie on which meat is grilled and then stuffed into pita bread, with dollops of tzatziki, fresh tomato, onion and fried potato chips. Moussaka, souvlaki and taramasalata? Tick. Dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) and saganaki (fried cheese)? Tick again. But these are mere tasters in the colossus of Greek cuisine. Lamb fillet with skordalia. William Meppem Local specialties exist all over Greece at a seafood shack in Rhodes, village tavern in northern Greece or contemporary restaurant in the shadow of Athens Acropolis. Each region, island, village or local cook usually has their own take on a recipe. The following are mere tasters to help get you started. Advertisement Dip in to mezedhes Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now. Kolokithokeftedes, traditional Greek zucchini fritters. iStock A selection of dips and small dishes (mezedhes) can be a meal in themselves. Fava is a smooth, creamy dip made from broad beans; Santorinis version includes split peas. Skordalia comprises pureed potato combined with oodles of crushed garlic and olive oil, often served with fried cod fish, a specialty of Greek Independence Day. And a reliable bite? Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini balls). The best have a fritter type exterior and a moist interior with enough feta and herbs to flavour but not dominate. Cheese, please Manouri cheese is a specialty of the island of Sifnos. Advertisement Using the milk of mountain sheep and island goats, Greeks have made cheese (tyri) fresh, aged and hard for centuries. While feta is among the most known of Greek cheeses (and the cheese in the ubiquitous Greek salad), wherever you go, cheese is likely to feature strongly on any menu. One of the best is graviera, a hard, yellow cheese thats made frequently in Naxos, Crete and Lesvos. Youll find manouri, a specialty of Sifnos island (also known for its chickpea soup try it at Tsikali in Vathi village), xynomyzithra, a tangy ricotta-like cheese from Crete, and ladotyri or oil cheese because its preserved in olive oil, a specialty of Lesvos. Grills and thrills Mountain eateries serve meats, such as goat, rabbit and lamb kleftiko (slow-cooked lamb in baking paper). Zerzova (Panagia village, near Dimitsana) in Arkadia serves one of the best. Islands and coastal areas prepare fresh seafood, including urchins, shrimp, octopus and squid. Either way, preparation is key: it doesnt get better than flame-grilled octopus or lamb chops (paidakia) with a squeeze of lemon and a decent sprinkle of salt. Add a glass of wine, a mountain vista or the ocean lapping at your feet, and its hard not to think best meal ever. Slow-cooked lamb kleftiko. iStock Sweet treats Advertisement A word of advice? Pack elastic-waisted pants. Greece is made for sweet lovers thanks to honey, spices and filo pastry. Any Greek pastry is good, but those worth seeking out are portokalopita, a cake made with filo and orange-flavoured syrup, and bougatsa, layers of light filo with custard cream or savoury fillings. Queue with locals at Bougatsa Giannis (106 Mitropoleos Street) in Thessaloniki and snaffle an oven-fresh batch. Greek traditional dessert, bougatsa. iStock Moustalevria, a grape-juice and semolina concoction, is one of Greeces most ancient desserts and is served in Crete, Naxos, the Peloponnese or where grapes are grown locally. It might not have Aphrodites beauty appeal, but taste definitely wins over appearance. Elsewhere, bakeries lay out slabs of kataifi bundles of angel hair pastry, chopped nuts and a honey-based syrup (baklava, although similar, is made with filo pastry). The traditional Stani in Athens is a great place to binge. Not sweet, but a satisfying savoury, the koulouri, a baked sesame seed-covered bagel-style ring, is sold from food carts, especially in Thessaloniki. If you dont cross paths with one, head to Bakolas Bakery (20 Chrysostomou Smyrnis Street, Thessaloniki), which is said to prepare among the best around. Eat your greens Advertisement Chicory, dandelion and purslane are often used in traditional Greek dishes. Kate Armstrong More than 300 varieties of wild greens are picked and used in Greek dishes. Chicory, dandelion and purslane are boiled and then drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. The best spanakopita (spinach pie) can be found in mountainous Greece where greens are gathered. In Crete, dont miss hortopitakia, small pies stuffed with greens and feta, found in most bakeries. THE DETAILS FLY Emirates operates flights to Athens (via Dubai) from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. See emirates.com Advertisement Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share License this article More: Foodie travel Greece Travel writer Kate Armstrong divides her time between the US, Mexico and Europe exploring places and subjects that spark her interest: culture, cuisine, cruises and anything offbeat. She usually travels solo. Advertisement Reviews & adviceHotel reviews This redesigned flagship property showcases French-style luxury Kristie Kellahan March 15, 2026 4:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A The hotel Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile Check-in Style forward Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile. Sofitels flagship Canadian property has undergone an extensive redesign of guestrooms, its signature restaurant, fitness centre and communal areas. The spruce-up is immediately noticeable in the light-filled lobby, with furniture and design elements that wouldnt look out of place in a well-curated French home. Turquoise and white sculptural light fixtures hang from the ceiling above the check-in desks, while ample cosy seating invites guests to linger. Advertisement Turquoise and white sculptural light fixtures are suspended over the check-in desks. Sign up for the Traveller newsletter The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now. The look Chic and comfortable, Quebec-style. The first of Sofitels North American hotels to undergo a major redesign as part of the brands global revitalisation, the hotel has been given a sleek glow-up by Canadian consultancy 2pi rDesign.Their brief? To showcase French luxury and lifestyle with a modern touch. The result is classic rather than trendy: sophisticated art on the walls, rich colours (deep blues and golds), intimate dining spaces, a greenhouse-inspired sunroom and plenty of opulent materials including velvet, marble and silk. The room Classic Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile. Advertisement There are 256 beautifully renovated rooms, including 17 suites. Im staying in a Golden Mile King Bed Suite, a generously proportioned 53-square-metre space that resembles an elegant apartment with separate living room (including a sofa bed) and floor-to-ceiling views of Mount Royal. The Sofitel My Beds are some of the softest youll ever sleep on. In the bathroom theres a big, round bathtub, separate shower, double-sink vanity and luxe Balmain toiletries. Food + drink Renoir a must-visit. The hotels signature restaurant, Renoir, serves some of the best French food this side of the Atlantic. Executive chef Olivier Perret is at the helm; his inventive use of local ingredients delivers some truly memorable dishes, including Quebec rack of lamb with Jerusalem artichokes and winter truffles, and local bluefin tuna with maple soy vinaigrette, avocado, watermelon radish and Montreals Locavore Farm sprouts. A curated selection of the restaurants greatest hits is available for in-room dining. Book in advance for the popular Sunday brunch buffet, where pastry chef Paul Peyrats desserts shine. Advertisement The addition of a sophisticated new cocktail lounge, Nini, just off the lobby, is a magnet for locals and city visitors as much as for hotel guests. Named in tribute to one of painter Auguste Renoirs favourite muses, Nini Lopez, the bar features live music, delicious bites (Parmesan-truffle fries, salmon tartare, charcuterie) and a cocktail menu that goes well beyond the standard offerings. The Nini Star Martini tastes of passionfruit syrup and lime juice, while the Sgroppinos lemon sorbet, vodka and champagne is boozy fun in a glass. Guest lounge. Out + about The hotel is on Sherbrooke Street in Montreals downtown area, close to Mount Royal, the acclaimed Museum of Fine Arts and boutique shopping. Stroll to Old Montreal (about a 20-minute walk) for the most European part of the city: cobblestone streets, cosy wine bars and the Notre-Dame Basilica where Celine Dion got hitched. When planning a visit to Montreal, check the annual festival calendar for dates of citywide celebrations, including the worlds largest jazz fest. Advertisement The verdict Cest tres bon, as the French say. A stylish renovation, a terrific French restaurant and the introduction of a cool new cocktail bar are good reasons to book this hotel for a Montreal stay. The reasonable rates are a great excuse to stay longer. Essentials Superior Rooms from $350 a night. The hotel has 256 rooms, including 17 suites. There are four accessible rooms. Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile, 1155 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, Canada. See sofitel.com. Our score out of five Advertisement Highlight The propertys signature restaurant, Renoir, and new cocktail lounge, Nini, are must-visits, even if youre not staying at the hotel. Lowlight The addition of an in-house spa for massages and facials (or at least a hot tub) would be nice, especially when its snowing outside. The writer was a guest of Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile. Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share License this article More: Hotel reviews Canada Montreal Kristie Kellahan swapped life as a lawyer for the freedom and adventure of travel writing 20 years ago and has never looked back. Sydney-born, her commute home is a little longer now that she is based in New York City. Connect via X Advertisement WorldMiddle EastMiddle East at war The US-Iran war is making Putin richer and stronger Ivan Nechepurenko and Paul Sonne March 14, 2026 3:45pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A The US decision to temporarily lift some restrictions on Russian oil has delivered a geopolitical victory to the Kremlin on top of the boon that Russias war-strained budget is already receiving from soaring energy prices. The US move, announced on Thursday, is intended to ease an energy shock that has accompanied the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and at times sent the price of oil soaring over $US100 a barrel. Analysts said they did not believe the suspension of sanctions on Russian oil already on tankers at sea would substantially ease the worst supply shock to the global market since the 1970s, given that Russia had been able to transport and sell its oil for years despite the restrictions. The current oil crunch could prop up the Russian budget and further fuel its war effort against Ukraine. AP Right now, obviously, the world needs every extra barrel that is available, and I can understand why the White House, under political pressure, would want to check this particular box, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James. But its not going to make any meaningful difference. Advertisement European countries, which have been at the forefront of imposing sanctions on Russia and are also suffering from higher energy prices, opposed the US move. Paula Pinho, a spokesperson for the executive arm of the European Union, said that walking back Russian sanctions in response to an admittedly challenging energy situation would be a total strategic blunder. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said during a news conference Friday that the move certainly does not help peace. Emergency workers carry debris from a multi-storey building destroyed in a Russian air raid at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war in Borodyanka, close to Kyiv. AP The temporary loosening of the US restrictions, some analysts said, could reduce the discount that Russia has been forced to offer buyers of its oil since the invasion of Ukraine four years ago and lower logistics costs for Russian oil suppliers. Still, the real boon for Russia, they noted, is from higher prices, which the conflict in Iran was prompting before the United States loosened restrictions. Russian oil has gone from global pariah to now being extremely sought after, with the discount on Urals crude versus the global Brent benchmark almost disappearing. Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Advertisement The mood in Moscow was triumphant, after years in which the United States and European countries have tried to starve Russias economy of the energy revenues needed for its war machine. Russian officials said the US move showed that Russia could not be dislodged from its central place in global energy markets. Related Article Visual story Blood Oil How Putins ghost ships put billions worth of blood oil into Australian cars Kirill Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putins special envoy for foreign investment and economic co-operation, boasted in a post on Telegram that the United States was effectively acknowledging the obvious: without Russian oil, the global energy market cannot remain stable. In a post on social media, Dmitriev was even more blunt: EU bureaucrats will soon be forced to recognise this reality, acknowledge their strategic blunders, and atone. Dmitriev met this week in Florida with Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trumps special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law. They discussed energy issues in addition to the peace negotiations that Witkoff and Kushner have been leading. Advertisement Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday that the interests of the United States and Russia had aligned in the current environment and that he welcomed the US move. Such measures will help stabilise the market, Peskov said. Without significant volumes of Russian oil, market stabilisation is impossible. Loading The decision came as the Trump administration scrambled to contain the energy shock that has resulted from production disruptions in Gulf countries and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit corridor for oil and gas. The US move was announced by the Treasury Department, which said the exemptions would be in place until April 11 and apply only to Russian oil that was loaded onto tankers on or before Thursday. Advertisement The Trump administration has argued that its move does not directly benefit the Russian budget because Moscow taxes oil based on production, meaning the oil at sea subject to the exemption has already been taxed. Related Article Russia-Ukraine war Four years on, Ukraine is under more pressure than ever. So is Russia Washington previously issued a 30-day waiver to allow India to buy Russian oil, an about-face after the Trump administration pressured New Delhi to cease purchases last year. Indian firms moved rapidly to buy the Russian oil available on the market. David Wech, chief economist at the oil and gas cargo tracking firm Vortexa, said he expected Indian imports of Russian crude to reach new record highs from next month, providing the situation in the Middle East continued. Since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, China, Turkey and India have been among Russias biggest oil purchasers. Soaring energy prices and sanctions relief during the conflict with Iran have offered the Kremlin a lifeline at a difficult financial moment. Advertisement On Tuesday, the Russian finance ministry reported that its revenues had collapsed by more than 10 per cent since the start of the year, with its budget deficit reaching $US43 billion, more than 90 per cent of what was forecast for all of 2026. Russias budget is set to gain more than $US1.6 billion per month from each $US10 increase in the price of its crude. Reuters Now, prices have risen and restrictions have vanished on the barrels of its oil currently at sea. There were about 137 million barrels of Russian crude on the water as of Thursday, Wech said, citing Vortexa tracking data. In a commentary, he said that Russian oil was selling and being delivered like hot cakes in response to the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Russian oil has gone from global pariah to now being extremely sought after, with the discount on Urals crude versus the global Brent benchmark almost disappearing, Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a post on Substack. Urals crude is the blend most often produced by Russia. Russias budget is set to gain more than $US1.6 billion per month from each $US10 increase in the price of its crude, according to Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin and a former top manager at Gazprom Neft, one of Russias largest oil producers. Advertisement As of Friday, Russias Urals oil benchmark had increased by about $US30 per barrel since before the war with Iran, according to Argus Media, a price reporting agency used by the Russian government to calculate its oil extraction taxes. That would mean that the country is receiving more than $150 million extra every day. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says loosening the reins on Russia is a bad move. Getty Images The European Union has rejected easing sanctions on Russia in response to the energy crisis. President Emmanuel Macron of France, speaking at a joint news conference Friday with Zelensky in Paris, said that if Russia believed the war in Iran would give it a respite, it is mistaken. He said Frances support for Ukraine would not weaken. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany expressed a similar sentiment Friday in Norway. Advertisement Let me be very clear: We believe it would be wrong to ease sanctions now, for whatever reason, Merz said during a news conference. Related Article Russia-Ukraine war The world must treat Putin like the Nazis, says visiting foreign minister We will continue our support for Ukraine. We will not allow ourselves to be deterred or distracted by the war in Iran. The oil crunch in the Middle East has the potential to do more than prop up the Russian budget, more than a third of which is being spent on the war in Ukraine. It could also shift the Kremlins leverage in the global market, with countries in Asia beginning to view Moscow as a more necessary long-term partner. For years, China has been reluctant to pursue Moscows ambitious plans for a gas pipeline and other projects. But it may now be more amenable, looking to diversify its supplies away from the Middle East in the longer term. Advertisement China may realise that shipments from the Gulf are a problem, Vakulenko said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter. Advertisement WorldMiddle EastMiddle East at war US bomb critical Iranian military sites on Kharg Island March 14, 2026 6:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Share A A A US President Donald Trump says the American military has bombed critical Iranian military sites on Kharg Island and will target energy infrastructure next if the Iranian regime continues to menace oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The island is Irans primary oil export hub and its economic lifeline. Variously described as Irans crown jewel and Achilles heel, oil terminals on the island handle around 90 per cent of Irans crude oil exports. President Donald Trump has not given a straight answer on his intentions in Iran. AP It had so far not been subject to US and Israeli assault, but Trump said in a social post that US Central Command had executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target on Kharg. For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil infrastructure on the island, he wrote on Truth Social. Advertisement However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision. It was not immediately clear which military targets were hit and Trump later told reporters the war would last for as long as its necessary. I mean, I have my own idea. But what good does it do [speculating]? Itll be as long as its necessary, he said before boarding Air Force One. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warned on Thursday in a social media post that attacks on the islands on Irans southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to abandon all restraint, underscoring how central they are to the countrys economy and security. Loading Advertisement On Saturday, Irans joint military command reiterated its threat that it will attack the US-linked oil and energy facilities in the region if the oil infrastructure of the Islamic Republic was hit. The warning from Trump of further strikes on Kharg comes with more US military resources headed towards the region. An American official told The Associated Press that 2500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East nearly two weeks into the war with the Islamic Republic. Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the Middle East, according to the US official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Marine Expeditionary Units can conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians, and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. The new Marine deployment was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Advertisement The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well as the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the Marines, are based in Japan and have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. Earlier in the week, the US navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. Meanwhile, Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the worlds traded oil passes. A missile struck a helipad inside the US embassy compound in Baghdad, two Iraqi security officials said. Smoke rises from the US embassy building in Baghdad, Iraq, AP Advertisement The sprawling embassy complex, one of the largest US diplomatic facilities in the world, has been repeatedly targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias. There was no immediate comment from the US embassy in Baghdad. On Friday (Iraq time), the embassy renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq, warning that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups have previously carried out attacks against US citizens, interests and infrastructure, and may continue to target them. An Iranian cleric chants slogans during the annual anti-Israeli Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day rally in support of Palestinians. AP Earlier in the Iranian capital, a large explosion rocked a central square where thousands of people gathered for an annual state-organised rally to support the Palestinians and call for Israels demise. There were no reports of casualties. The explosion in Tehran rocked the Ferdowsi Square area midday, where thousands had gathered for an annual Quds Day rally, chanting death to Israel and death to America. Advertisement Related Article Middle East at war A blast across the valley, black smoke over the hills and the wounded arrive Israel had issued a warning on a Farsi-language X account for people to clear the area shortly before the blast. But few Iranians would have seen it, as authorities have almost completely shut down the internet. Footage showed people chanting God is greatest, as smoke rose in the area. Israel earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the last 24 hours, including missile launchers, defence systems and weapons production sites. Israeli aircraft are also continuing their air offensive in Lebanon and have dropped leaflets onto the streets of Beirut in an attempt to shift public opinion against Hezbollah fighters who are firing rockets into Israel, but there is no sign of a peace deal that could halt the airstrikes that have forced more than 800,000 people out of their homes across Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is urging the government of Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, and the leaflets spread this message to Lebanese citizens. Lebanon is your decision, not someone elses, the leaflets said. Advertisement Related Article Analysis US politics With 10 damning words, Pete Hegseth says the quiet part out loud Stability is not just a word it is a right for every Lebanese. The leaflets called Hezbollah Irans shield and said it should be disarmed. In Washington, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck more than 1000 a day since the war began. He also sought to address concerns about the bottling of the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters: We have been dealing with it and dont need to worry about it. With David Crowe, AP and Reuters Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on whats making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter. News / National by Staff reporter The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says unknown attackers disrupted a Women's Assembly meeting in Bulawayo on Saturday, pelting members with stones during a gathering meant to mark International Women's Day.According to the party, the meeting was being held at the MDC provincial offices to discuss the contentious Constitutional Amendment Number 3, which among other proposals seeks to extend the term of office of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.The MDC alleged that a group of hired thugs stormed the meeting and unleashed violence against the women attending the event, forcing disruption of the proceedings.Party president Douglas Mwonzora confirmed the incident on social media, claiming the attackers targeted the meeting because of the party's stance against the proposed constitutional changes."Some hired thugs are currently attacking the MDC Women Assembly meeting at the Provincial Offices in Bulawayo. The women are commemorating the International Women's Day. The attackers made it clear that they are against the party stance on (Constitutional) Amendment 3," Mwonzora wrote on X.He also alleged that police officers present at the scene did not intervene while the attack was taking place."The police are standing and watching while thugs are pelting members of the MDC Women's Assembly with stones at a meeting This is retribution for our stance on the 2030 agenda," he said.The incident comes amid rising tensions in the political arena following recent assaults on members of the National Constitutional Assembly, including its leader Lovemore Madhuku.Authorities had not yet commented on the alleged attack at the time of publication. News / National by Staff reporter Seasoned Zimbabwean journalist Ezra Tshisa Sibanda says he has formally contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade urging authorities to intervene and assist Zimbabweans allegedly trapped in the ongoing war following Russian invasion of Ukraine.In a letter dated March 10, 2026, Sibanda said several Zimbabwean men were allegedly deceived by recruitment agents who promised them lucrative jobs in Russia, including truck driving, security, and cleaning work. The recruits were reportedly told they would receive a once-off payment of about US$37,000 and a monthly salary of US$4,000.However, according to testimonies received by Sibanda, the situation changed after the men arrived in Russia. Their passports were allegedly confiscated and, instead of being taken to workplaces, they were transported to military barracks where they underwent basic firearms training for about two weeks before being deployed to the frontline in Donetsk.Sibanda said the Zimbabweans reported experiencing heavy fighting, including drone attacks, with some allegedly killed and others seriously injured. He also said some of the men received little or no medical care despite their injuries.According to the accounts he received, the recruits claim they are not allowed to leave their positions and fear severe consequences if they attempt to escape.Sibanda also said the financial promises made to the men were largely not fulfilled. Instead of receiving the agreed payments, some families reportedly received only about US$1,000 once.He has urged the Zimbabwean government to urgently engage authorities in Russia to locate the affected citizens, ensure their safety, and facilitate their return home. Sibanda said he has names of the alleged recruitment agents as well as contact details of some of the Zimbabweans believed to be trapped in the conflict and is prepared to share the information to assist investigations and possible rescue efforts. Sign up to get our news digest delivered directly to your inbox twice a week. Iconic producer, writer, and animator, Mike Judge, will receive an Honorary Cristal at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which runs June 2127. The festival will recognize Judges decades-long career and his lasting influence on the adult animation TV landscape. Judge is best known as the co-creator of King of the Hill and the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head, two landmark series that helped define adult-oriented animation in the 1990s and beyond. More recently, he spearheaded the brilliant stop-motion series In the Know, executive-produced Common Side Effects (one of 2025s best new shows), and has rebooted his two best-loved properties in modern-day adaptations that havent lost a beat. His live-action work, including Office Space, Idiocracy, and Silicon Valley, has proved equally impactful, ranging from cult classics to generation-defining touchstones. Among his many virtues as a writer and creator is his ability to adapt over time, with the work he has done over the last decade proving just as poignant as when Beavis and Butt-Head first blew up on MTV. His work regularly blends sharp social satire with a grounded sense of character, influencing multiple generations of artists working in comedy and animation. Annecy artistic director Marcel Jean said of the selection: Mike Judge is a cultural icon who has created legendary characters, pioneered new formats, and seamlessly transitioned from animation to live action. His visit is a momentous occasion that reflects our determination to highlight the dynamism, social relevance, and rebellious audacity of American animation series for adults. Mike Judges influence on two generations of creators is undeniable: he has taken social satire to new heights, and we wanted to celebrate his work and him. Judge will appear at the festival for a special screening event celebrating his career. He will be joined by King of the Hill executive producers Greg Daniels, the shows co-creator, and Saladin K. Patterson, who serves as showrunner on the revival. The event will include a conversation about the cultural legacy of both King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-Head, along with an exclusive preview of King of the Hills upcoming 15th season and a signing session with fans. Annecys Honorary Cristal is the festivals highest lifetime recognition. Previous recipients include influential animation figures such as Matt Groening, Joanna Quinn, and Terry Gilliam. News / National by Staff reporter Proposed Bill Number 3, a constitutional amendment currently undergoing public consultations, has ignited debate across Zimbabwe's political landscape, drawing renewed attention from political actors outside Parliament.The Bill, which has been gazetted for public input, has generated intense discussion not only over its constitutional implications but also over the re-emergence of opposition figures and civic groups traditionally active during election periods.Analysts say much of the political commentary surrounding the proposal has come from personalities without parliamentary representation, raising questions about their ability to influence the legislative process.Among those vocal about the amendment are Lovemore Madhuku and Tendai Biti, as well as factions linked to the Movement for Democratic Change.Critics argue that some of these figures frequently reappear during periods of political tension, promising to block government initiatives but rarely outlining the legal or institutional steps required to achieve such outcomes.During his time in office, former president Robert Mugabe once accused certain opposition figures of seeking donor funding during political crises and then disappearing from public life after elections remarks that some observers say mirror current dynamics.Supporters of the proposed amendment argue that Bill Number 3 is largely a technical constitutional change whose fate lies primarily in Parliament and, if contested, in the courts.Legal analysts point to precedents such as the Marx Mupungu vs Minister of Justice case, noting that extensions of time in office that do not alter constitutional term limits may not necessarily require a referendum.With the ruling ZANUPF holding a parliamentary majority and some opposition lawmakers reportedly signalling support for the measure, observers say the legislative balance appears to favour the Bill's passage.This has prompted questions about why individuals or groups without parliamentary representation are positioning themselves as key opponents of the amendment, particularly when legal challenges would likely need to be pursued through the courts.Government officials have maintained that Parliament and the judiciary remain the legitimate arenas for deciding the matter.As public submissions on Bill Number 3 continue, attention remains focused both on the substance of the proposed amendment and on the political motivations of those campaigning for or against it. Landmark Fortwood Historic Mansion that sits on rare double lot with extensive off-street parking at 926 Oak St. in Chattanooga offers a restoration opportunity for $829,000.Property Description:One of Chattanoogas historic architectural treasures in the heart of the Fortwood Historic District. Located just blocks from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, this early-1900s Colonial Revival residence commands attention with its grand columned portico, stately brick facade and expansive covered porcheshallmarks of the eras timeless craftsmanship.Situated on a coveted double lot, the property offers a feature seldom found in Fort Wood: extensive off-street parking tucked behind the home. This unique amenity dramatically expands the possibilities for future use and restoration. Formerly utilized as a fraternity residence, this nine bedroom, five and one half bathroom home presents an exceptional value-add opportunity for a visionary buyer to restore and reimagine a historic landmark.Whether transformed into a magnificent private residence, luxury executive housing or another adaptive use (subject to city approvals), the architectural presence and location offer extraordinary potential. Zoned R-3. Per seller, HVAC replaced in 2007, plumbing and electrical replaced in 2012. Basement offers 2000+/- square feet of additional space to expand.The property is located within the Fortwood Historic District and subject to oversight by the Chattanooga Historic Zoning Commission, ensuring the long-term preservation and character of one of Chattanoogas most beloved historic neighborhoods. Priced at $829k with $1.5M+ potential after restoration value. Offered AS-IS and priced to allow for full restoration, this is a rare chance to bring new life to a truly iconic Chattanooga property. Make your appointment to view today. Seller intends to review highest and best offers after a 30-day marketing period. The owner of a local cab company said in a Circuit Court lawsuit that the city has allowed a taxi company owner who allegedly has two felonies to keep operating. Mercury Transportation and its owner, Tony Boston, filed suit against the city and officer Galen Fugh. Mr. Boston, who is also in the bonding business, earlier sued Tenesica Cross. He said he "paid substantial funds to purchase an ownership interest in which Cross represented to be a valid and lawfully operating company." Mr. Boston said he presented officer Fugh "with documentary evidence establishing that Tenesica Cross has been convicted of two felony offenses and was otherwise non-compliant" with the city taxi ordinance. The suit, filed by attorney Seth Wilson, says there was a Nov. 18 hearing in the suit against Ms. Cross at which officer Fugh attended. It says, "Although officer Fugh ultimately did not testify, his presence at the hearing in official city insignia, couple with his anticipated testimony on behalf of Cross, constituted conduct undertaken in his official capacity and under color of law. Officer Fugh's appearance in the Cross litigation further demonstrates his alignment with Cross's interests and his willful participation in shielding Cross from enforcement of mandatory provisions of the Chattanooga Municipal Code." The suit asks $500,000 compensatory damages "for economic loss, lost profits, lost business opportunity, reliance damages, competitive harm, litigation-necessitated costs, and other damages." East Ridge Police said they have arrested a woman who admitted she was paid $100 for each fraudulent prescription she filed. Sara Wilder, 42, of Duluth, Ga., was charged with prescription drug fraud and conspiracy to commit prescription drug fraud. Police said they were alerted by a pharmacist that a woman was trying to fill a prescription for prednisone and phenergan-codeine syrup, but the DEA number was invalid. He also found that the listed prescriber, Dr. Debbie Daniel, did not exist. An officer said he spoke with Ms. Wilder, who said she worked for a home health care company and was filling prescriptions for a patient. She said she got the prescription from her boss. She had no ID to show where she worked. She could not explain why she drove two hours to file the prescription. Ms. Wilder, interviewed by police, said she was to be paid $100 for each filled prescription. She said the payment was to come from a black male who was described as short and weighing 130-150 pounds. She said he was driving a small gray car. A search of her purse turned up $404, which she said was to purchase the drugs. That money was confiscated. Also found in the purse were 12 other fraudulent prescriptions for various people using various names of "Doctors." All used the same invalid DEA number. Police said Ms. Wilder's "handler" fled the scene while police were dealing with her. Police said they were able to identify the vehicle used by him as a gray Chevrolet Sonic with Georgia registration. The driver's name was learned through his rental agreement for use of the car. A warrant for conspiracy to commit drug fraud has been issued for the man. Regent Cindy Dearing of Chattanoogas Chickamauga Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution announced a Tennessee Society DAR Scholarship has been awarded to a local Army Veteran currently studying at UTC. Chickamauga Chapter Honorary Regent and member Carol Rogers, serving as Tennessee State Chairman of the Wimberley Military Service Scholarship Committee, recently presented the scholarship check and certificate to Hunter MacFarland at the chapters March meeting. The scholarship application was sponsored by Chickamauga Chapter and submitted for state-level judging. Honorary Tennessee DAR Regent Cecile Wimberley founded the Scholarship. The Scholarship recipient, Mr. MacFarland, is a 10-year U.S. Army veteran, graduate of Army Ranger School, and has served two tours in Afghanistan. Excerpts from his platoon leaders recommendation noted that as Section Sergeant, Hunter co-led a platoon of twenty-five soldiers and aided in the management of military equipment. He assisted in planning, resourcing, and leading over 120 combat missions during his deployment in Afghanistan. Through his skill and effort, his platoon came home physically unharmed, a badge of honor. Mr. MacFarland is a third-year student in the UTC undergraduate History Program with a minor in Spanish. He plans to pursue a masters degree in education. His current goals are to maintain a 4.0 GPA and publish an academic paper before he graduates. He plans to teach in Chattanooga public schools where he thinks he can make the greatest impact on youth. Mr. MacFarland stated, This scholarship will help lower my financial burdens while still in university and enable me to complete my studies toward becoming an educator in Chattanooga. I hope to develop our youth into contributing members of society with a never-ending appetite for learning. The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to preserve the memory and spirit of those who contributed to securing American independence. For more than 130 years, the DAR has strived to bring awareness to the honorable sacrifices and enduring legacy of all patriots who fought for Americas freedom. Through the DAR Genealogical Research System (www.dar.org/GRS), the public can access a free database of information amassed by the DAR about these patriots. DAR is a nonprofit, nonpolitical womens service organization with more than 185,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide. Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible for membership. DAR members passionately carry out the timeless mission of promoting historic preservation, education and patriotism. To learn more about the work of todays DAR, visit www.dar.org. Previous Next Tennessee State Rep. Greg Vital gathered local partners for an educational visit to an important historic site within the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District. Beginning near the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute entrance on Moccasin Bend Road, the ranger-led hike to the Civil War fortifications on the southern terminus of Stringers Ridge sparked conversation around improving access to the area for the growing numbers of residents and visitors eager to explore some of the areas nationally significant history. Before departing on the two-hour hike and interpretive tour, Rep. Vital welcomed attendees from the City of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, National Park Partners, and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Vital noted the decades of conservation legacy and partnerships that have established the National Archeological District and have protected other of the regions historic sites as well. Park Ranger Will Wilson gave an overview of Moccasin Bends role in shaping 12,000 years of Chattanoogas history, after which the group set out for the mile and a half, moderately-difficult hike to the artillery earthwork complex on the southern end of Stringer's Ridge. In the fall of 1863, the earthen and log fortifications were the positions of Union cannon that played an important role in keeping the Confederates at bay in the Siege of Chattanooga and which helped Union forces win the Battle Above the Clouds, the Battle of Lookout Mountain. Following the Sept. 18-20, 1863, Battle of Chickamauga, Union Army commander General William Rosecrans sent troops to Moccasin Bend to guard side and back doors into Chattanooga and to counter Confederate occupation of Lookout Mountain. Those troops, as many as 2,000, included the 10th Indiana Battery and the 18th Ohio Light Artillery. Digging in on the top of the southern-most hills of Stringers Ridge, the 10-pound Parrott rifles and 3-inch ordnance rifles of those two batteries commanded with their fire all the northern slopes of Lookout Mountain less than a mile away across the Tennessee River to the south. Robert Cravens Alta Vista home on Lookout Mountain, clearly in view, became a frequent target. Colonel John Bratton of the 6th South Carolina said in early November, the enemy gave it a shelling the other day while we were passing this point to support General LawThere are two or three holes through the room where I am sitting. The Moccasin Battery which you have seen in the papers, does this work. Several of the guns could have also fired east across the river had the Confederates ever have attempted to attack the Union line south of Chattanooga during the siege. Because of the Indiana and Ohio artillerymens command of the northern slopes of the mountain, the Confederates were unable to supply any sizeable force in Lookout Valley west of the mountain. This was a significant factor in allowing Union troops in late October, 1863, to easily seize Browns Ferry and the northern end of Lookout Valley and open a more direct supply, the Cracker Line, into Chattanooga via the Tennessee River to Kellys Ferry and then across the river at Browns Ferry and across Moccasin Bend to Chattanooga. On November 24, 1863, the guns fired into the rear and flank of Confederates on Lookout Mountain while Union infantry assaulted across the western slopes of the mountain and around the northern tip. Abandoned soon after the Union victories in November, 1863, much of the complex of earthwork fortifications remain today. National Park Partners has planned a series of guided hikes at the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District, from noon hour walks along the Browns Ferry/Old Federal Road Trace to longer explorations on the Blue Blazes Trail and the Stringers Ridge earthworks. Visit https://nppcha.org/events to join us as we explore 12,000 years of history on Moccasin Bend. As a builder/developer for over 41 years and a 39-year unincorporated Hamilton County resident, I have attended many Chattanooga-Hamilton County Planning Commission meetings. I personally have witnessed and been subjected first hand to the apparent disregard and disrespect that several members of the current Planning Commission exhibit towards some Hamilton County residents, especially county residents who oppose development requests in their area. The obvious show of disrespect from several current Planning Commission members to many Hamilton County residents and the apparent favoritism to most if not all developers and special interest groups' requests by most members of the current Planning Commission is unacceptable and should not be tolerated any longer. During a recent Planning Commission meeting in December 2025, Chairman Ethan Collier proposed that residents speaking in opposition to developments should be required to show the Planning Commissioners on a map where they believe growth should occur before they are allowed to oppose a development. I think the chairman's proposal was an overreach of his duties as the chairman and could be considered a conflict with Hamilton County residents' 1st Amendment Rights. Mr. Collier appeared frustrated that every residential project request had faced opposition, stating, "What we hear over and over again is 'We're not opposed to development, it just shouldn't be here.' " I disagree with the chairman's statement and think many Hamilton County residents understand and expect growth will happen and many do not oppose responsible development that adheres with their neighborhood character, adjoining lot sizes, zoning, land use, and where the necessary infrastructure is already in place in their immediate county area to support the requested increased development demands. However, I think most Hamilton County residents object to irresponsible overdevelopment with high density development requests being granted in rural low density areas that do not adhere with the neighborhood character, land use, lot sizes, zoning, and especially where the necessary infrastructure is not in place to support the high density development demands. The current Planning Commission adopted Plan Hamilton on 9/8/25, which included a highly controversial Resolution 825-18. Many of the changes incorporated into 825-18 were requested by the area Home Builders Association. This resolution led to significant changes in unincorporated county development regulations for rural and agricultural areas. According to public records, nine of the 15 members of the current Chattanooga-Hamilton County Planning Commission are either homebuilders, realtors, architects, engineers, or Individuals directly compensated by special interest groups. By any reasonable standard, 60 percent of the Planning Commission has a direct or indirect financial interest in the approval of Resolution 825-18. I also have concerns of potential conflicts of interest within the current commission. The majority of unincorporated Hamilton County residents objected to Resolution 825-18. The approval of Plan Hamilton that included Resolution 825-18 by the current Planning Commission, was a vote against the core principles of the democratic process for the majority of Hamilton County residents. The main purpose of the Planning Commission is to act in the public's best interest and to promote balanced, sustainable, responsible growth planning for all unincorporated and incorporated Hamilton County residents. I think Hamilton County residents need a county only Planning Department staffed with Individuals and members that are not part of, or supported by special interest groups. I believe this would allow Hamilton County to create a fair, unbiased, transparent, balanced Planning Department that truly represents the best interest of Hamilton County residents. I implore all Hamilton County residents to take a few minutes to contact your area specific Hamilton County Commissioner before the March 18th meeting. Your County Commissioner email and contact information can be found on the Hamilton County Commissioner website. Please ask your Commissioner to consider and vote to approve a Hamilton County only Planning Department. The public welfare requires it. I think the current Chattanooga-Hamilton County Planning Agency should be split into separate city and county Planning Departments as soon as possible. Barry Glasscock Signal Mountain House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. | Photo: Facebook/Speaker Mike Johnson (modified from original). House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cautioned that efforts to promote Sharia law within the United States pose a challenge to the nations constitutional framework, describing the issue as a growing concern during a press briefing in Florida on Tuesday. Johnson addressed the topic after being asked about a controversial post on X by Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who wrote Monday, Muslims don't belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie. While Johnson did not endorse the language used in the message, he said he understood the concerns behind it. There's a lot of energy in the country and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem, Johnson said. That's what animates this. The language that people use is different language than I would use, but I think that that's a serious issue. Johnson argued that any attempt to introduce or enforce Sharia law within the United States would contradict the nations constitutional principles. Sharia law and the imposition of Sharia law is contrary to the U.S. Constitution. Our Constitution is the greatest in the world. It's the longest surviving Constitution on the planet, and we're 250 years into this grand experiment in self-governance, he continued. The speaker also emphasized that American legal and political traditions, including the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, protect human dignity and religious liberty. But when you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law Sharia law is in conflict with the Constitution that is the conflict that people are talking. It is not about people, as Muslims; it is about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution. The debate over Sharia law has also surfaced among other Republican lawmakers. In January, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, announced the formation of the Sharia-Free America Caucus alongside another Texas congressman, citing concerns that some immigrant communities might seek to establish areas governed by Islamic law. Roy later presided over a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government to examine the issue. During the hearing, several Democratic lawmakers dismissed the concern about Sharia law while warning instead about what they described as the influence of white Christian nationalism, a term they did not define. Roy said during the hearing that some residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth region had expressed worries that certain neighborhoods were becoming no-go zones for non-Muslims, drawing comparisons to reports of similar situations in parts of Europe and the United Kingdom. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., criticized Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., following a controversial social media post in which Ogles wrote that Muslims do not belong in American society. In a post on X, Raskin argued that the United States is founded on constitutional protections that safeguard religious liberty and prohibit discrimination based on faith earlier this week. Racism and religious bigotry are the lie not pluralism and Andy Ogles doesn't know the American Constitution, which guarantees Free Exercise of Religion, no Establishment of Religion, Equal Protection and no religious tests for public office, Raskin said in an X post. News / National by Staff reporter A 22-year-old man from Lupane has been sentenced to 16 years in prison by the High Court of Zimbabwe circuit sitting in Hwange after being convicted of murdering his elderly stepmother.The National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe told the court that on May 17, 2025, the accused attacked the 72-year-old woman, identified as Christine Ncube, at her homestead.Prosecutors said the man struck Ncube on the head with an axe before setting her on fire inside her kitchen hut. Evidence presented in court showed that shortly after the attack, he phoned his brother and confessed that he had assaulted Ncube and set her ablaze.Witnesses who later arrived at the homestead found Ncube still alive inside the kitchen hut, bleeding from a head wound and suffering severe burns across her body. She was rushed to hospital but died about a month later due to complications from the injuries.During the trial, the accused told the court the incident followed a verbal dispute after he allegedly failed to immediately assist Ncube in carrying grain to a grinding mill. He claimed the elderly woman became angry and made remarks suggesting he would continue living a life of suffering.According to his testimony, he pulled a burning log from the fire and pretended to strike her, which he said caused her to lose balance and fall into the flames. He denied hitting her with an axe and insisted the injuries resulted from the fall into the fire.The court, however, found the evidence presented by the prosecution sufficient to secure a conviction, resulting in the 16-year prison sentence. Home News Christian parents separated from daughters lose appeal for reunification; labeled 'extremists' for attending church Swedish authorities claim attending church 3 times a week is evidence of 'religious extremism' A Swedish couple that have been separated from their two eldest daughters for nearly four years due to alleged religious extremism have had an appeal rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Daniel and Bianca Samsons ordeal began in late 2022 when government authorities took the daughters into their care. The intervention was prompted by an allegation by the eldest daughter that her parents would not allow them to wear makeup or own a phone due to their purported religious extremism. According to ADF International, which is helping the Samsons, the daughter later retracted her accusations and the authorities could find no evidence that either girl had been abused in any way. Despite this, the girls have still not been allowed to return to their parents and are being kept in separate foster homes. The girls have reportedly said they wish to be reunited with their parents and have started to suffer health problems. At present, the Samsons can only see their daughters once a month and under supervision. Having taken the case to the ECHR, the court said that it could not rule on the issue on the grounds that all possible legal remedies in Sweden have not yet been exhausted. The ECHR indicated that the Samsons could take claims that their religious freedom has been violated to Swedish courts. According to ADF, Swedish authorities have used the Samsons practice of attending church three times a week as evidence of religious extremism. Guillermo A Morales Sancho, legal counsel for ADF, said, Parents have the primary responsibility and right to raise their children. When the state interferes with family life based on values-based parenting choices or discrimination on the basis of faith, fundamental freedoms are at stake. We deeply regret the courts decision to reject this case, considering that this family has been torn apart for over three years despite a full investigation that cleared Mr. and Mrs. Samson of any abuse and the fact that the social services certified their capacity and fitness for parenting after they successfully completed an official training. "Families should be free to live according to their convictions without fear of losing their children to the state." This article was originally published at Christian Today Home News Hindu extremists storm house church, beat pastor unconscious, injure children NEW DELHI Hindu nationalists in central India last month led a mob that assaulted Christians worshiping at a house church, including women and children, and beat the pastor unconscious. Pastor Ramesh Barela, 42, went to the house of Naval Singh to lead the service in Kotwara village, Khandwa District, Madhya Pradesh state on Feb. 7. Four families comprising 16 members gathered for the worship service. After the service began at about 9 p.m., more than 100 people led by Hindu extremist groups surrounded Singhs house, he said. On the way to Navals house I crossed a village where a few supporters of the Hindu right-wing groups spotted me, Pastor Barela told Morning Star News. These days, they have expanded their network; they have gotten vigilant, and word travels fast because of WhatsApp groups. The mob surrounded the house and broke open the front and the back doors that were latched from the inside, he said. They broke in, brandishing thick wooden sticks, went straight to Pastor Barela and began assaulting him, though they were unable to raise their sticks as the roof was too low, he said. I repeatedly told them that physical violence was not a solution to solving any grievance they might have had, and that we must sit and talk out whatever the matter was, but they continued to beat me, he said. They tried to drag Pastor Barela outside the house so that they could use the wooden sticks, but congregation members caught hold of him, he said. The mob resorted to hitting him with their hands and kicking him. Those who tried to stop them were assaulted, including women and children, he said. They pulled womens sarees and their blouses, thus outraging their modesty, and hit little children with their legs, said Pastor Barela. Singhs two grandchildren sustained internal injuries to the chest as the assailants kicked one and manhandled the other, he said. The mob broke the chair the pastor was using and vandalized the house as if searching for something, he said. I suppose they were looking for Bibles to confiscate as proof of [forced] conversion, but they could not find a single one, said Pasto Barela, who uses a Bible app on his phone rather than carry a printed copy. He lost his mobile phone as he was being assaulted. Another Christian began to record the incident on his cell phone, but the Hindu extremists switched off the lights of the house. While they beat Barela, he fell unconscious. They hit me from all sides, and some of them were constantly attacking me from the back. I could not see them, and suddenly I lost consciousness, he said. A Christian called the police, who arrived and took Pastor Barela and Singh to the government hospital in Khandwa, where doctors hospitalized both of them after examining the extent of their injuries. When I regained consciousness, I saw that I was in the hospital, said Barela, who remained for four days. After being discharged, he went to a private hospital where doctors admitted him for treatment for two more days. Singh and Pastor Barela were still on medication at this writing. Police inaction On Feb. 8, Piplod Police filed two separate cases, one at the complaint of Singh against three identified assailants, and the second by a member of the mob, Vijay Kumar Rathore, against three Christians, including Pastor Barela. Singhs complaint named Kishore Banjara, Pawan and Bharat Banjara in First Information Report (FIR) No. 51 under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 for Singing, reciting, or uttering obscene songs/words in public place, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation involving grievous hurt, joint liability for acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention, and under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, for Preventing, obstructing, or humiliating a member of SC/ST from entering public places and offense committed against an SC/ST person or property knowing that such person belongs to an SC/ST. Singh, in his complaint, mentioned that they were praying to Christ in their house when the mob led by the three men named in the complaint broke open his doors and began to assault them. Singh sustained an injury on his right foot and internal injuries on his back. He also mentioned that his daughter and daughters-in-law were manhandled. The three assailants used derogatory words pertaining to his caste and used abusive language as they assaulted everyone present and threatened to kill them if they converted anybody, Singh stated. Pastor Sunil Arya, a friend of Singh, told Morning Star News that Singh was able to identify several of the assailants. Naval gave their names to the police, but the police only named these three in the complaint and let the others be counted under a mob which does not have a face, neither a name, Pastor Arya said. The second FIR by Rathore was registered against Singh, Dashrath Vishwakarma and Pastor Barela. Rathore alleged that they were trying to convert Hindus to Christianity, which is not illegal in India, and that they tried to coerce him into converting and beat him when he refused. The three Christians were charged with voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation involving grievous hurt, and unlawful religious conversion under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021. An attorney representing Singh, Vishwakarma and Pastor Barela applied for anticipatory bail in the district Sessions Court, which was denied on Feb. 13. Though no arrests have been made on both sides, Pastor Arya said that the charges against the Christians are more severe, thus the Christians have to acquire anticipatory bail as soon as possible. Pastor Barela, who has not returned home since the attack, is awaiting anticipatory bail from the High Court in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. He has four daughters and is also caring for the daughter of his deceased brother. Three of the five daughters are married, while two are still in junior high school. Please pray for me, Pastor Barela said. With these false charges against me, my family is paying a heavy price. My wife lacks resources to run the family and I am helpless too. The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say. India ranked 12th on Christian support organization Open Doors 2026 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, up from 31st in 2013 before Modi came to power. This article was originally published at Morning Star News Home News Iran names Google, Amazon, Microsoft as targets in widening regional conflict The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian news agency Tasnim on Thursday declared Google, Amazon and Microsoft as legitimate targets for attack, further escalating the conflict in the Middle East. The hit list, comprising tech company offices and data centers across the Middle East, also included U.S. corporations such as NVIDIA, Palantir, IBM and Oracle as targets for attack. Tasnim listed 29 offices, data centers and research hubs owned by seven tech giants in Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. As the regional war expands into an infrastructure war, the scope of Irans legitimate targets gradually broadens, Tasnim wrote in a post on Telegram called Irans new targets. The announcement followed the bombing of Amazon data centers in the UAE and Bahrain by Iranian drones last week, amid accusations that the companies technologies are being used by the IDF in the war. Advertising sales offices and research centers in populated cities were also included on the list of location targets, in addition to financial institutions named on Wednesday. The tech companies have not stated whether they have taken steps to protect staff or close offices. The Iranian threat stated that people should stay outside a one-kilometer radius of the locations. Many of the tech giants named by Iran have significant operations in the Middle East, including NVIDIA, which employs roughly 5,000 people in Israel and Google, which has a center in Doha, Qatar. The Iranian threat is designed to impede the UAEs and Saudi Arabias ability to capitalize on cheap energy and abundant land, making them both major players in the race against China to develop powerful AI infrastructure. In the past, digital warfare largely took the form of cyberattacks and electronic warfare. However, the shift toward kinetic strikes against large server farms signifies a dramatic escalation. Last weeks attacks against Amazon are believed to be the first military attacks against a U.S. tech companys data center. This article was originally published at All Israel News Home News Millions of Christians facing persecution, violence worldwide: Holy See Christians remain the most persecuted religious group globally, the Holy Sees representative to the United Nations in Geneva has warned, urging governments to strengthen protections for freedom of religion. Speaking at an event titled Standing with Persecuted Christians: Defending the Faith and Christian Values on March 3, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Holy Sees Permanent Observer to the United Nations, said hundreds of millions of Christians suffer some form of repression because of their faith. Almost 400 million Christians worldwide face persecution or violence, making them the most persecuted religious community in the world he said. This means that one in seven Christians is affected. He added that the human cost of this persecution remains severe. According to figures cited during his remarks, nearly 5,000 Christians were massacred on account of their faith in 2025, an average of around 13 deaths each day. The Archbishop said those killed because of their beliefs are considered martyrs within the Christian tradition witnesses whose lives testify to their faith. From the standpoint of international law, however, he stressed they are victims of grave human rights abuses. He warned that responsibility ultimately lies with governments to ensure the safety and rights of religious believers. It is the States duty to protect freedom of religion or belief, he said, stressing that authorities must prevent attacks against believers and ensure accountability for violations. Archbishop Balestrero went on to say that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right recognized in international law. Governments, he said, must not only defend believers from violence but also avoid restricting their freedom to practice their faith publicly or privately, reports Vatican Media. He warned that impunity for crimes against religious communities persists among the gravest global challenges in addressing persecution. Christians in many parts of the world, he noted, continue to face violence, imprisonment, seizure of their property, forced displacement, and other abuses because of their beliefs. The archbishop also pointed to forms of discrimination that are less visible but still significant, including social marginalization, exclusion from certain professions, and legal restrictions that quietly limit the ability of Christians to express or live out their faith. Even in parts of Europe, he said, hostility toward Christians resulted in more than 760 anti-Christian attacks on churches, acts of vandalism and physical assaults in 2024 alone. Recent research supports the scale of the problem. The Open Doors World Watch List 2026 estimates that 388 million Christians now experience severe persecution and discrimination worldwide, a rise of 8 million compared with the previous year. The report identifies North Korea as the most dangerous country in the world to be a Christian, where practicing the faith can lead to imprisonment in labor camps or execution. However, Nigeria remains the deadliest country for Christians, responsible for 70% of the nearly 4,900 Christians who lost their lives because of their faith during the reporting period. The report also highlights widespread violence and instability across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, such as Sudan and Mali, as well as increasing pressure on Christian communities in the Middle East and parts of Asia, like Yemen and Syria. Archbishop Balestrero warned that in some Western societies, freedom of religion is increasingly challenged by legal and cultural pressures that limit the public expression of Christian beliefs. Citing recent cases documented by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, he pointed to 2,211 recorded incidents in 2024 involving legal action against individuals for activities such as silent prayer close to abortion clinics or publicly referencing biblical passages on social matters. He said such situations raise serious concerns about the protection of religious freedom and called on governments to uphold their obligation to respect and defend the rights of all believers. Concluding his address, the archbishop described attacks on Christians as attacks on the deeper spiritual and social values symbolized by the Christian cross both humanitys relationship with God and the bonds between people within society. Safeguarding freedom of religion, he said, is essential not only for protecting believers to respond freely to the call of truth, but also for preserving human dignity and social harmony. This article was originally published at Christian Today Home News Union Seminary mocked for having students confess to plants The New York-based Union Seminary has garnered a great deal of criticism and mockery for holding a chapel service in which students confessed to plants. On Tuesday, Union posted a photo of the chapel service which showed a student sitting on the ground before several potted plants to offer confession, mainly over failures to protect the environment. Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life? tweeted Union. The tweet was met with numerous comments on Twitter criticizing the practice, seeing it as evidence of pagan practice at the school and mocking the confession as ridiculous. Popular Christian satire site The Babylon Bee was among the critics, running a piece on Thursday titled Disaster At Union Seminary As Giant, Angry Carnivorous Plant Does Not Accept Students' Apologies. Campus faculty say the event was a success, as there are now far fewer humans around to pollute the planet, joked the satirical piece. For its part, Union defended the service in a series of tweets, explaining that our community confessed the harm we've done to plants, speaking directly in repentance. We are in the throes of a climate emergency, a crisis created by humanity's arrogance, our disregard for Creation. Far too often, we see the natural world only as resources to be extracted for our use, not divinely created in their own rightworthy of honor, thanks and care, the Seminary stated. Churches have a huge role to play in this endeavor. Theologies that encourage humans to dominate and master the Earth have played a deplorable role in degrading God's creation. We must birth new theology, new liturgy to heal and sow, replacing ones that reap and destroy. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, denounced the chapel event and tweets made in defense of it on his podcast The Briefing as coming from a modern secular worldview. If you do not worship the Creator, you will inevitably worship the creation, in one way or another. That is the primal form of idolatry, said Mohler. We cannot be pleased with the desecration of creation, but we can also not be pleased or ever satisfied with the idea that creation exists unto itself, that human beings are a blight upon creation, and that it is wrong for human beings to exercise dominion over creation. Mohler also took issue with Union referring to the plants as beings, explaining that a being is one who has consciousness, and has consciousness of consciousness. A stalk of wheat is not a being, nor is a rhododendron, nor is an oak tree, nor even an acorn, nor is an entire forest. Plants are not beings, but what you see here is the confusion that happens when the biblical worldview is abandoned, he continued. However, Wheaton College Professor Noah Toly cautioned in a series of tweets on Thursday against making a dismissive hot take on the issue of confessing failures on creation care. There are ways to go about whatever they were doing that arent addressed by my comments above (e.g., seeking absolution from the plants; confessing to creation sins that arent against creation, like, Oh plant, I confess that I have a problem with lust) and would be bad ideas, tweeted Toly. But if we think that the liturgy included confessing failures related to a mandate to serve and to keep creation, and if we immediately dismiss that as absurd or stupid and not even a hard question, then I think were doing it wrong. Union Seminary was founded in 1836 by a group of Presbyterian ministers and sees itself as rooted in Protestantism. Nevertheless, the school states on their website that they seek to train students of all religions to advance social justice. Home News Union Seminary president claims Texas heartbeat abortion ban is 'un-Christian' Union Theological Seminary President Serene Jones recently argued that Texas law prohibiting most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected is un-Christian. In a commentary published by Salon Tuesday, the head of the New York City-based progressive ecumenical institution argued that the heartbeat abortion ban, also known as Senate Bill 8, is grounded in a fundamentally warped interpretation of Christianity. As a Christian, a biblical scholar, and a mother, it is infuriating that lawmakers would twist and distort our sacred text to give the government the power to force women to carry a child to term, wrote Jones. The Bible doesnt say that abortion is a sin and has no explicit definition of when life begins. The reality is that abortion only became a rallying cry for conservative Christians and particularly Evangelicals when Republicans decided it was politically advantageous to do so. Jones further argued that the Christian faith requires protecting the lives and well-being of women by allowing them reproductive freedom, not taking steps to eliminate it. Texas law is particularly un-Christian, she continued. The bottom line is, no government should have the power to force women to carry a pregnancy to term. Any faith leaders who say otherwise are willfully mischaracterizing the teachings of their religions. The column was critiqued by Micaiah Bilger of LifeNews.com, who argued that it is Jones who is twisting Christian teachings to claim that its acceptable to kill a unique, living unborn baby who is created in the image of God. The Bible recognizes unborn babies as valuable human beings in Luke 1:41, Genesis 25:21-22, Psalm 22:10-11 and other passages, wrote Bilger. Jesus placed great value on children when others in society did not in Matthew 19:14, and Proverbs 6:16-17 states that one of the things God hates most is the shedding of innocent blood. Bilger concluded that opposition to abortion has never been about politics. Christians and other pro-lifers fight against abortion because they know that abortion is a violent, oppressive injustice against a defenseless child in the womb and every unborn baby deserves a right to life, Bilger contends. Jones remarks come the week that the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments over a legal challenge to Texas heartbeat abortion ban, which is being challenged by abortion providers and the Biden administration. In April 2019, Jones garnered controversy when she claimed in an interview with The New York Times and on Twitter that Christians do not need to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. You can believe in resurrection without believing in a bodily resurrection: Faith is more than adherence to rigid dogma, she tweeted at the time. The truth about our livesabout our worldis Gods love and grace will always have the final word. Rejoice! In a column published by The Christian Post at the time, John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris responded to Jones claim by noting that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to the Christian faith. The earliest witness of the church, the thing that altered their Jewish faith, the thing that they lived and died for, was that Jesus not only rose from the dead, but that if He did not, as Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15, our faith is futile; you are still in your sins (and) we are of all people most to be pitied, wrote Stonestreet and Morris. Home News US govt designates Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood domestic terrorist entity The U.S. government has designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity and announced plans to classify it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a move that imposes financial sanctions and legal restrictions on the group and its supporters. The designation, announced this week, identifies the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a network made up of the Sudanese Islamic Movement and its armed wing, the al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade, which U.S. officials say has used violence against civilians during Sudans ongoing war, according to the U.S. Department of State. The network has contributed more than 20,000 fighters to the conflict in Sudan, with some receiving training and support from Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, it said, adding that fighters from the al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade have carried out mass executions of civilians in areas they captured and have summarily executed people based on race, ethnicity, or perceived affiliation with opposition groups. The designation triggers a range of sanctions under U.S. counterterrorism authorities. Property and interests belonging to the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood that are located in the U.S. or under the control of U.S. persons are blocked, and U.S. citizens and companies are generally prohibited from conducting business with the group. The action was taken under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Executive Order 13224, which allows the U.S. government to impose sanctions on organizations involved in terrorism. The designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization will take effect once it is formally published in the Federal Register. The United States previously sanctioned the al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade in September 2025 under Executive Order 14098 for its role in Sudans war. The decision also places the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood within a larger U.S. campaign targeting regional branches of the Muslim Brotherhood network. The State Departments move makes the Sudanese chapter the fourth regional branch to face this type of designation, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Earlier this year, the U.S. designated the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, also known as the Islamic Group, as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. Branches in Egypt and Jordan have also been designated under the Specially Designated Global Terrorist program. The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood has deep roots in the countrys political and military institutions. The Sudanese Islamic Movement, the groups political component, originated in Khartoum in the 1940s as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and was formally organized in 1954. Under the three-decade rule of former Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, the movement gained influence inside key state institutions and the officer corps. Bashirs government integrated Islamist networks into the security apparatus, including paramilitary groups connected to the Popular Defense Forces. The al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade traces its origins to those earlier Islamist security structures. The brigade emerged as a distinct entity in January 2020 following the 2019 coup that removed Bashir from power. Sudans current civil war began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary organization. During the conflict, Islamist aligned fighters have operated alongside government forces, and militants linked to networks connected with Bashir helped break Rapid Support Forces sieges around Khartoum in January 2025. The al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade has maintained ties with officers linked to the Sudanese Islamic Movement and has fought alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces during the conflict, according to the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide. CSW has reported that the brigade was involved in a range of human rights violations during the war, citing incidents including the vandalizing and detonation of explosives inside a mosque located in an area controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces in March 2024. The brigade has also carried out ethnically motivated attacks against South Sudanese nationals and members of the Kanabi community following the Sudanese Armed Forces takeover of Gezira State in January 2025. The Kanabi community includes people from Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. Militias aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces, including the al Baraa Bin Malik Brigade, have also been linked to extrajudicial killings of suspected Rapid Support Forces fighters and civilians accused of supporting them. CSW cited sources as saying that extremist preachers encouraged fighters to take captives. The conflict has unfolded against the backdrop of Sudans political upheaval in recent years. Bashirs Islamist government dominated the countrys political system after a 1989 coup, but nationwide protests in 2018 and 2019 led to his removal and arrest. Sudans civilian transitional government attempted to dismantle the structures of Bashirs ruling National Congress Party and barred its members from holding government positions. The transition collapsed in October 2021 after a military coup by the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces that ended the civilian-led process and resulted in the detention of political leaders. The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom has also urged the U.S. government to designate the Rapid Support Forces as an Entity of Particular Concern, citing the militias role in mass atrocities and human rights violations affecting religious freedom and Sudans diverse religious and ethnic communities. Home News Wyo. Gov. Mark Gordon signs heartbeat bill into law Wyoming has become the latest state to enact a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This follows the state Supreme Court ruling that the states near-total abortion ban was unconstitutional. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed the heartbeat bill into law this week. Gordons approval of House Bill 126 comes after the Republican-controlled Wyoming House of Representatives passed it in a 51-7 vote last month, while the Republican-controlled Wyoming Senate supported the legislation in a 27-4 vote. While most support for the legislation came from Republicans and most opposition came from Democrats, two Republicans in each chamber voted against it. Carol Tobias, president of the pro-life advocacy group National Right to Life, praised the passage of House Bill 126 in a statement on Tuesday. We thank Governor Gordon for signing this vital law, she said. Wyomings action reflects an ongoing national conversation about how our laws should recognize the humanity of the unborn child while ensuring that her mother receives appropriate care. Gordons approval of House Bill 126 comes two months after the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down a near-total abortion ban in the state as a violation of Article 1, Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution, which gives people the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The text of House Bill 126 suggests that the measure will survive court scrutiny in light of the Wyoming Supreme Courts January opinion on the near-total abortion ban because the ruling acknowledged that the state has an interest in protecting the life that an abortion would end. The legislation subjects anyone who violates the bills provisions to a prison term of up to five years and/or a fine of up to $10,000, as well as the revocation of their professional license. Additional provisions of the legislation require physicians performing abortions to offer the patient an opportunity to view an ultrasound of their unborn child and prohibit physicians from performing abortions on minors unless they notify the minors parents at least 48 hours in advance and receive written consent from both the minor and at least one of the childs parents. Any exceptions to the provision about parental consent for abortion must be adjudicated in court. Assuming House Bill 126 is allowed to stand, Wyoming will become the fifth state to have a heartbeat bill in place. The pro-life advocacy group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which keeps track of pro-life laws at the state level, lists Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina as other states with heartbeat bills on the books. Wyomings heartbeat bill and its previous near-total abortion ban are among several pro-life laws implemented at the state level following the U.S. Supreme Courts 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, which found that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. Currently, 12 states protect unborn babies throughout all nine months of pregnancy with limited exceptions: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Nebraska and North Carolina have laws on the books that prohibit abortions after 12 weeks gestation, while North Dakota and Utah have near-total abortion bans tied up in litigation. The remaining 29 states have few or no pro-life protections. Home Opinion Critical theory: Here's how CS Lewis would've dismantled it Oxford scholar and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis coined the term Bulverism in an essay from his book God in the Dock. In that essay, he mused on how atheists attempt to debunk belief in God by appealing to wish fulfillment. Of course you believe in God, says the atheist, because he is a psychological projection of your need to feel loved. He is a coping mechanism arising from a guilty conscience. He is the result of wish fulfillment that arises from your desire to escape death. Lewis pointed out that the atheist had committed a common but disastrous logical blunder in making such claims. Lewis wrote: Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is wishful thinking. You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevantbut only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error. You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. Lewis is correct. Bulverism is fallacious. Even if someone does have an ulterior motive for making some claim, it does not follow that this claim is false. The kind of cynicism that Bulverism demands is a universal acid that will ultimately dissolve and deconstruct all truth claims. If we are permitted to dismiss the truth of a claim on the grounds that the person making the claim has some hidden desire that supposedly motivates the claim, what claim will emerge unscathed? Do you believe that God exists? Thats just wish fulfillment. Do you believe that Jesus existed? Thats because youre a Christian. If you admitted that hes a myth, your world would crumble. Do you believe that the Earth is a sphere? Ha! No wonder! Youre probably getting kickbacks from Big Geography lobbyists. Do you claim that 2 + 2 = 4? Thats because youre a mathematician; you have to say that or youd lose your job. While anyone, regardless of their ideological leanings, can engage in Bulverism, it is almost unavoidable for those who embrace contemporary critical theory. Recall that the critical tradition, stretching all the way back to Marx, has always insisted that people were socialized into a false consciousness by being immersed in the ideology of the ruling class. Thus, in modern times, Whites are blinded by the system of white supremacy that dominates our country. Men are blinded by the patriarchy. Straight people are blinded by heterosexism and cisgenderism. The rich are blinded by capitalism and classism. Given this foundational assumption, contemporary critical theory cant avoid appealing to Bulverism to explain the dissent of straight white men: Of course Whites dont believe in systemic racism; its invisible to them! They have both conscious and subconscious reasons to deny the existence of a system that advantages them. Of course men dont believe in the patriarchy! It has so colonized their minds that they cant see it. Admitting that they are oppressors would require them to give up their privilege. Of course straight people dont believe trans women are women. They are used to living in a world that valorizes their own gender identity. But what happens if a conservative Black woman rejects the idea of systemic racism, the patriarchy, or transgenderism? Again, critical theory supplies the answer: She is suffering from internalized oppression. She has imbibed the norms and values of the ruling class and has not yet attained a critical consciousness. Her beliefs can also be explained away as manifestations of her proximity to power. Critical theory, therefore, enshrines Bulverism, a fallacious form of reasoning, at the very heart of its approach to knowledge. Its pronouncements become unchallengeable. No matter who you are, your claims can be dismissed either as an attempt to protect your privilege or as a symptom of your internalized oppression. In both cases, the critical theorist effectively bypasses any engagement with your arguments and can ignore any evidence you might present in defense of your claims. Your identity alone is sufficient to show that your beliefs are false. How to respond As weve seen, Bulverism is so foundational to contemporary critical theory that it often wont be perceived as a fallacy at all. The belief that our culture is suffused with oppressive narratives that dictate what we believe and what we can know is not seen as corrosive anti-knowledge but as a mark of sophistication. Several responses are possible, all of which aim to expose the dangers of this way of reasoning. First, try explaining why Bulverism is a flawed approach to knowledge. If your interlocutor is a Christian, citing C.S. Lewiss use of the term and his explanation of it may be useful. It may also be useful to point out how this approach to knowledge will undermine basic Christian doctrine. For example, if a Christian endorses Bulverism, what will they say when a progressive tells them, You only believe in the Trinity because youve been brainwashed into white Western theological norms, or You only believe that Jesus died for your sins because you feel guilty about all the sins youve committed? If your interlocutor is not a Christian, you can point out that this deconstructive approach to knowledge has no stopping point. Do you think that hard work is the key to success? You only believe that because thats an aspect and assumption of Whiteness, as the Smithsonian Institute recently informed us. Do you think that science is a reliable method for determining truth? Thats because youve internalized the discourses of Western patriarchal colonialism. Its easy to get on the train of Bulverism, but much harder to get off. Alternatively, you could simply accept the accusations made against you, for the sake of argument, and then ask whether your claims are true. For example, imagine you claim that the gender income gap is largely the result of personal choices, and are told, You believe that only because you want to retain your male power and privilege. You can respond, Lets grant, for the sake of argument, that youre correct. I am an awful, sexist bigot who is solely motivated by a desire to retain my male power and privilege. Are you now willing to look at the evidence that the gender income gap is largely the result of personal choices? Of course, they may simply respond, No, I am not willing to look at the evidence! But you will have severed the connection between your supposed motivations and the truth of your claim. Another approach is to turn Bulverism around on your interlocutor, demonstrating how useless it is. The claim You say that only because youre a straight White male can be met with a counterclaim: You say that only because youre a critical theorist. Hopefully, your conversation partner will realize that these kinds of schoolyard rejoinders should be left on the playground, where they belong. Originally published at The Worldview Bulletin Newsletter. Home Opinion Trump doesn't care about bad polls he cares about the mission Sir Edmund Burke, in a speech to the Electors of Bristol in 1774, said: Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. That may not sit well in an age of polling and clamor for direct democracy, but the reality is this: the duty of statesmen is not to follow public opinion, but to lead it. In moments of crisis, leaders are not called to read the polls they are called to rise above them. And that is exactly what President Donald Trump has done to this point in the war with Iran. When asked about public polling where most surveys show a majority opposing the war Trump responded, I dont care about polling. That statement gained my immediate attention, because in almost every conversation or meeting I have had with the president, he often references the polls favorable polls. I note this not as criticism, but to commend the president for stepping into the role of a statesman who leads in the direction the nation needs to go, regardless of the political consequences. The stock market very familiar territory for the president has gone a bit wobbly. Gas prices have risen quickly, though they remain below the peak Americans experienced in the summer of 2022, when the average gallon approached $5. Some congressional Republicans are also expressing concern about the possible impact on the midterm elections. These are big issues in the short term. That is why most administrations confronting the Iranian nuclear threat sought to contain it, if they could not avoid it altogether. To use a familiar phrase from American politics over the last 60 or 70 years, they simply kicked the can down the road so the next administration or the next generation would deal with it. Donald Trump concluded there was no road left. Open sources suggest Iran possessed roughly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% before the launch of Operation Epic Fury. Iran was racing to reach the 90% weapons-grade level enough material for roughly 10 nuclear warheads. Enough to hold the world hostage, if not destroy large parts of it. If there has been a justifiable war since World War II, this may be it. This is not defending oil-rich countries made wealthy by American dependence. This is confronting a direct threat to our security and to that of our natural ally, Israel. When the leadership of a rogue regime repeatedly calls America the Great Satan, vows to destroy us, and sponsors repeated terrorist attacks against Americans at what point should we believe them? As president, Donald Trump had the constitutional authority to act. Based on the available facts, the war is justified, and the stated purpose is right: peace in the Middle East and justice for the Iranian people. President Trump should be commended for taking the regime at its word and responding not because it was politically popular, but because it was justified, militarily and morally. And in doing so, he illustrated the very principle Burke described 250 years ago: a leader who governs not by the polls, but by judgment. News / National by Stephen Jakes A 35yearold man from Highfield, Harare, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Harare Magistrates Court after being convicted of cutting TelOne Zimbabwe telecommunications cables. The court heard that on 5 March 2026, at around 4am, Wesley Muriritirwa climbed onto the roof of a shop at Machipisa Shopping Centre and cut nine TelOne drop wires measuring a total of 15.2 metres from a pole.A security guard on duty spotted him and shone a torch in his direction. Realising he had been detected, Muriritirwa jumped from the building in an attempt to flee but was quickly apprehended.Police recovered the nine pieces of TelOne drop wire and a pair of scissors from the offender.The National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe has urged the public to safeguard critical infrastructure, warning that vandalism of telecommunications equipment disrupts essential services and attracts severe penalties. News / National by Stephen Jakes Police in Matabeleland South have arrested a man for cultivating 102 cannabis plants in Guyu. The arrest was confirmed by the Zimbabwe Republic Police on their X platform.On 12 March, police in Guyu acted on received information and arrested Nuni Ngulube for cultivating dagga at a farm in Village 6, Kafusi, Guyu. Detectives uprooted 102 plants of dagga which had been planted within a maize field, police said.The plants had an approximate height range of 1 to 2 metres. Iran on Saturday threatened to attack the infrastructure of its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, urging people to evacuate three major ports that Tehran claims are now "legitimate targets" because they were used by the U.S. to attack Iran. Mizan, Iran's official judiciary news agency, claimed without providing evidence that U.S. forces are located in the civilian ports of Jebel Ali, Khalifa and Fujairah in the UAE. The news agency urged residents in and around those ports to immediately evacuate, saying the facilities "may be targeted in the coming hours." The warning comes as U.S. President Donald Trump called on other nations to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. In a Truth Social post, the president wrote, "Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area." In the same post, Trump claimed "many countries will be sending send war ships" to help the U.S. keep the strait "open and safe," without providing any details. Trump doubled down later in the day, demanding in a post on Truth Social that countries that rely on the Strait of Hormuz for their energy supply assist in the U.S. and Israeli military operations in the region. "The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help A LOT!" Trump wrote. "The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well." He added: "This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be." Afterward, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took to social media to mock Trump's repeated calls for assistance, describing the president as "begging," the Associated Press reported. On Friday, Trump said that he directed the U.S. Central Command to carry out a bombing raid, hitting military targets on Iran's Kharg Island for the first time. "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," the president wrote in a Truth Social post. Trump said he had "chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island." "However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision," Trump wrote. Less than an hour later, the president once again posted on Truth, saying: "Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD!" Early Saturday, the U.S. Central Command posted a video of strikes on naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and other military sites. "U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure," CENTCOM stated in the post. Speaking late Friday, Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One for Florida that his military campaign will last "as long as necessary." When asked by reporters how long the war will last, he said: "I can't tell you that. I mean, I have my own idea." He added: "I won't give you a time but we are way ahead of schedule." He was also asked by reporters what he meant by "unconditional surrender," and responded: "To me it means very simply that we are in a position of dominance that nobody has seen before, whether or not they're able to say the words ... ." And in an early Saturday Truth Social post, Trump said: "The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" Analysts have said that the prospect of a U.S. move to seize Kharg Island, a strategically vital hub often referred to as Iran's "oil lifeline," is considered extremely high risk, both from a geopolitical and economic standpoint. The five-mile-long coral island, which is located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran in the waters of the northern Persian Gulf, had been left untouched through nearly two weeks of U.S. and Israeli-led strikes against Iran. While attending college at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, Suras Nayak knew he wanted to leave his hometown of Hyderabad, India, and travel the world. "When I was growing up, I always had this idea somewhere behind my head that I always wanted to move abroad, but I was a little bit influenced by the Western media. I watch a lot of Hollywood movies ... so I was always influenced and liked the idea of moving to a different country, living there, experiencing how things are like there," he tells CNBC Make It. Nayak gained his first experience living abroad when he participated in an exchange program that sent him to China for 45 days as a teenager. And almost a decade later, Nayak got a chance to live abroad when he moved to Dublin, Ireland, in March 2025 to work as a software development engineer at Amazon, where his compensation comes to a projected 122,428 euros (US $144,000) a year. Suras Nayak knew he wanted to move away from his hometown of Hyderabad, India, in college. In 2025, he moved to Dublin, Ireland. Sam Jones | CNBC Make It Growing up, Nayak's dad was also a software engineer. He introduced Nayak to the field and helped him understand coding and programming, Nayak says. Nayak landed a six-month internship at Amazon during his senior year of college and joined the company full time upon graduating in 2020, where he received compensation of around 6.8 million Indian rupees (US $75,000) a year. He was working out of Amazon's Bengaluru office, which is about an hour-long flight south from his hometown. After a year at Amazon, Nayak learned that if he completed at least two years at the company and reached a certain level on his software engineer track, he could interview for opportunities in another country. He immediately started looking for other positions at Amazon, eventually landing in Dublin. Moving to Dublin Nayak looked for open positions in Amazon offices in the U.K., Germany and Ireland, but narrowed it down to the latter because he knew the tech sector was growing there, he says. Google, Meta, Apple and Microsoft all have headquarters in Ireland, according to IT Brew. "I was so happy when I came to know that I got this opportunity," Nayak says about landing the position in Dublin. "I immediately went to my parents and I told them and it was such a nice moment. They were all so happy for me, especially my dad, because my dad always supports me in all of this stuff." Suras Nayak was able to move from India to Ireland in 2025 with help from Amazon, his employer. Sam Jones | CNBC Make It It took about six to eight weeks for Nayak to secure a visa to live and work in Ireland, with Amazon covering all costs, he says. When Nayak arrived in Ireland, Amazon provided him with temporary housing and hired an agency to help him find a house. The company even helped him ship his possessions from India to Ireland. "I did a lot of exploring during my first month," he says. "I was very excited and I was very happy. As I was exploring, I realized that I made the right decision to move here." 'I feel quite settled here' The biggest thing Nayak says he had to adjust to after moving was the weather; he was used to India's sunny days, long summers and short winters. He also had to get used to Dublin's cost of living. Compared with Hyderabad, Dublin is very expensive, especially for rent and groceries, Nayak says. "When I was in India, I did not think about budgeting a lot because I always used to spend less there," he says. Now, he says he has to set a budget for himself. Nayak splits a three-bedroom house with two fellow Amazon employees. The total rent is 4,000 euros a month (US $4,725) and Nayak pays 1,450 euros (US $1,713), according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Here's a look at the rest of his estimated share of monthly expenses. All amounts have been rounded. GitHub Copilot : 9 euros (US $11) : 9 euros (US $11) Revolut Premium Plan : 9 euros (US $11) : 9 euros (US $11) Wi-Fi : 15 euros (US $18) : 15 euros (US $18) Phone bill : 15 euros (US $18) : 15 euros (US $18) OpenAI for personal use : 24 euros (US $28) : 24 euros (US $28) Streaming services, including Netflix and Disney+ : 25 euros (US $30) : 25 euros (US $30) Transportation via public buses : 30 euros (US $35) : 30 euros (US $35) Electricity and gas : 50 euros (US $59) : 50 euros (US $59) Shopping for clothes and the latest technology : 100 to 150 euros (US $118 to $177) : 100 to 150 euros (US $118 to $177) Groceries : 150 to 200 euros (US $177 to $236) : 150 to 200 euros (US $177 to $236) Dining out: 400 to 500 euros (US $472 to $591) "One thing that I spend more on here is eating out, which I used to not do often back in India," Nayak says. "I used to either eat at home or eat at the office." Suras Nayak says he spends more living in Dublin, Ireland, than he did in his hometown in India. "One thing that I spend more on here is eating out," he says. Sam Jones | CNBC Make It When he first moved to Ireland, Nayak says he found it hard to connect with people, since in India he was so used to having friends everywhere. "I never had to actively go out and look for people or connections, but I realized that if you can push yourself and if you go out, you can make good friends. It's just about making the effort," he says. Nayak says he used an app called Meetup to attend various events, which helped him meet people from all over the world. "The people in Dublin are really friendly. I always get good vibes from people here. I feel quite settled here," he says. "I have made some good friends and I am really liking my stay here, my time here and even working here." Looking ahead In 2023, Nayak bought a three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment in Hyderabad as an investment property. The property is worth about 16 million Indian rupees (US $180,000) and he says he plans to eventually rent it out. "I wanted to make a big investment. Real estate made the most sense to me because in India, real estate is always a booming and growing business," he says. However, Nayak doesn't plan to move back to India for at least another 10 to 15 years, when he feels he has enough money in the bank. He says he would feel comfortable with a net worth of 400,000 to 500,000 euros, but his long-term goal is to reach 1 million euros (US $1.17 million) before moving back. Suras Nayak plans to stay in Ireland long-term. Sam Jones | CNBC Make It In this article Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch now The oil market sent a clear signal this week that a massive release of stockpiled crude by the U.S. and its allies is nowhere near enough to address the unprecedented supply disruption triggered by the Iran war. More than 30 nations in Europe, North America and Northeast Asia agreed to flood the market with 400 million barrels of oil in an effort to keep a lid on rising energy prices. The U.S. is leading the effort with a release of 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve or 43% of the IEA total. It is the largest release of stockpiled oil in the 50-year history of the International Energy Agency, an organization tasked with maintaining the energy security of its members during global crises. But the oil bazooka is not inspiring confidence in the market. Crude prices have surged more than 17% since the IEA announced the emergency stockpile release on Wednesday. Brent oil prices, the international benchmark, closed above $100 on Friday for the second session in a row. Stock Chart Icon Stock chart icon Brent crude oil futures in the past five days The explanation is simple, said Tamas Varga, analyst at the London-based oil broker PVM. Tankers are under attack in the Persian Gulf, the critical Strait of Hormuz remains basically closed, and Iran's new supreme leader has vowed to keep the trade chokepoint shut. "Until transit is reactivated, those kinds of policy announcements are going to have limited impact," said Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at consulting firm Rystad Energy. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates exported around 14 million barrels per day (bpd) before the war, Liles said. Around 5 million bpd to 6 million bpd can be exported through Saudi and UAE pipelines that terminate at the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman, he said. This leaves around 9 million bpd, or about 10% of global supply, that can only pass through the Strait and will remain bottlenecked in the region until transit resumes, Liles said. At first glance, the 400 million emergency barrels would cover about 40 days of that lost supply, the analyst said. But the reality is a lot more complicated, Liles said. "There's only a limited amount of volume that can be released over a given period. It's not as if 400 million barrels just appear immediately on the market," he said. Stockpiles not enough The oil supply disrupted by the war is far larger than the stockpiles the IEA can release daily. As a consequence, the action will have limited impact on the trajectory of oil prices, analysts at Bernstein told clients in a Thursday note. The U.S. will release 172 million barrels over a 120-day period. This implies 1.4 million barrels per day, which is just 15% of the supply lost due to the Hormuz closure. It takes 13 days for the barrels to hit the market from President Donald Trump's authorization. watch now "Yes we should be looking at all those things," Fuleihan told audience members. He emphasized, however, that parking fees wouldn't fix the totality of the budget problem. In a statement the following day, Mamdani echoed this sentiment. "Our administration is committed to filling the budget gap by ending the drain on New York City and taxing the rich," he said, adding that "we need structural change at the scale necessary to put our city back on firm financial footing." For New York, the idea of charging for parking gained renewed public interest this month following remarks by Dean Fuleihan, first deputy mayor of New York City, at a Center for New York City and State Law event. The topic came up in response to an audience member's question about raising additional revenue by changing the city's approach to street parking. New York has about 3 million curbside parking spaces, and roughly 97% of them are free. Eliminating this perk has been floated, unsuccessfully, many times. However, given an overall annual municipal budget over $100 billion and Mamdani's need to close the budget gap, there may be more momentum. It would follow in the footsteps of many other U.S. and European cities where using more public parking space as a way to raise revenue is already common. The topic has assumed a higher profile within public policy discussions across the U.S. at a time of widespread municipal financial strain. With New York City facing a budget gap estimated at around $7 billion , new Mayor Zohran Mamdani would prefer to tax the rich . But lately, Mamdani and his administration have conceded that other ways to raise revenue for the city need to be considered, from higher property taxes on homeowners to a long-talked-about idea that would upend a feature of life in the Big Apple many residents have long considered a right: ample free parking. City officials aren't the only ones thinking about ways to increase revenue. Last May, the New York Senate introduced a bill that would authorize the city of New York to provide for a residential parking permit system. The bill was sponsored by Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is now Manhattan borough president, and it remains in committee. This past week, New York State legislators proposed a comprehensive state-level budget package that would increase taxes on the wealthiest individuals, as well as businesses. If the tax changes are approved by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, it would enact a similar approach to Mamdani in seeking ways to increase revenue and close the budget gap in New York City. However, negotiations are expected to last until at least April, and Hochul is in a tough reelection fight and has to date said she will not approve a tax increase. There is a separate political cost to consider for a mayor who ran on taxing the rich, as parking fees are considered a form of regressive taxation, hitting lower-income earners harder on a percentage basis. But most urban policy experts say the idea of generating more revenue from parking makes sense. "New York City real estate street space is being given away for free in many parts of the city," said Nicholas J. Klein, associate professor at Cornell University, who teaches classes on city planning. "It's one of the most valuable resources, and the city is just giving it away." What makes NYC unique, how other cities handle parking In fact, New York City is one of the only major U.S. cities that allows people to park on residential streets completely free, says Zhan Guo, associate professor of urban planning and transportation policy at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. "It doesn't make economic sense," Guo said. What's more, the percentage of metered parking spaces in New York is significantly below other large U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, said Brenden Beck, associate professor at Rutgers-Newark, and a sociologist who focuses on policing, city budgets and housing. "It should be much higher when you consider that New York City has a much more robust public transit system. The working class and the middle-class system of Los Angeles, for example, might have a case if they were to say, 'Please don't meter us; we have no other way to get to work.' There's less of a case to be made in New York," he said. There are multiple approaches. Washington, D.C., is heavily metered, for example. The city also issues residential parking permits. San Francisco, meanwhile, has demand-based pricing for its parking meters, meaning rates vary based on usage levels at different times of the day. It also charges residents for a residential permit. In Boston, there are meters throughout the city. Additionally, many residential streets are now permit-only. Residents have to apply for a permit, but there's no charge. New York City's options New York could take several paths to raise parking revenue. One option is to increase the number of parking meters in the city and charge an hourly rate for usage, said Terrance J. Regan, adjunct professor in Boston University's city planning and urban affairs department. Thanks to technology, cities no longer have to install physical meters. They can turn entire streets into metered parking by having people pay online or through a revenue box on the street, he said. Another option is for the city to institute resident parking permits. This could be either for the whole city or only certain boroughs. A combination of both revenue-raising ideas could be ideal, according to urban planning professionals. "Lots of cities charge for parking," and it's not hard to implement, especially with digital parking meters, said Klein. "We already do this in lots of places, and people know it and expect it," he added. The cost to car owners The cost to drivers would depend on the particulars New York decided to implement. According to Michael Lewyn, director of the Institute on Land Use and Sustainable Development and professor of law at Touro Law Center, the city could keep its existing fee structure for parking meters, with rates that vary by zone, or implement demand-based pricing like San Francisco, which relies on in-ground sensors to estimate parking occupancy. To determine the cost of a residential permit, New York could look to other cities for guidance. In Washington, D.C., for example, a permit costs $50 for the first vehicle, $75 for the second vehicle, $100 for the third vehicle and $150 for each vehicle beyond the first three vehicles. San Francisco, meanwhile, charges an annual fee of $215 for a residential permit on a passenger vehicle. Notably, a 2013 study by New York University's Guo found that 52.5% of respondents would be willing to pay an average of $408 per year for a parking permit. How much revenue it could raise The amount of money the city could raise depends largely on the specifics of the program, but it certainly has the potential to chip away at the budget issue. "Can you finance the whole city off it? No, of course not, but you could make a sizable amount of money," said Michael Manville, professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. A 2020 study from UCLA estimated that New York is losing at least $114 million a year, on the Upper West Side alone, by allowing unmetered curb spaces. More broadly, if New York decided to make two-thirds of its free parking spaces "resident permit parking" and charged a $100 a year fee for a permit, it would raise about $200 million a year, said Boston University's Regan. Obviously, you can raise more if you make the permit more, he said. If the city also added 250,000 new meters and collected $20 a day, 300 days a year, it could raise $1.5 billion, on top of revenue from existing meters. "You've got a lot of tools to play with here to raise money," he said. Pricing parking appropriately has other benefits as well, said Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Emma Bloomberg Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. This includes time savings for drivers cruising for parking, reduced traffic congestion and less pollution, he said. The politics of paid parking The big barrier to introducing these types of initiatives is political because leaders are concerned that constituents won't see the benefit, de Benedictis-Kessner said. In reality, it doesn't have to be expensive in relation to the incomes of city drivers to make a meaningful difference. It's economics 101: "If you offer New York City land at the price of zero, then you're going to have a shortage of it because the price is well below its value," said UCLA's Manville. If you price the curb to keep one space on a block always open, it solves the problem. The city might also be able to loosen its alternate side parking rules since "you can clean the street around parked cars," he said. The upshot: "You price it so that it's a better service for people who do want to park, and in addition, you raise some revenue." But whatever New York does, there's an approach not to take, said Erick Guerra, associate professor of regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Chicago inked a multi-decade deal in 2008 to privatize parking meters. The intentions were to raise revenue, but it bombed in part due to poor execution, and the city is still dealing with the aftermath, Guerra said. Chicago should have gotten way more money than it did, and the city has lost the ability to gain revenue from an important asset for many years. "They really dug themselves into a hole," Guerra said. People sit in front of a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul on January 27, 2026. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP via Getty Images) North Korea fired more than 10 ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday, South Korea's military said, as the U.S. and South Korean forces conducted military drills and U.S. President Donald Trump renewed overtures towards Pyongyang for dialogue. Japan's coast guard said it had detected what could be a ballistic missile that fell into the sea. It appeared to have fallen outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, public broadcaster NHK said, citing the military. The missiles were launched from an area near the capital Pyongyang, around 1:20 p.m. (0430 GMT) towards the sea off the country's east coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. North Korea has test-launched a wide range of ballistic and cruise missiles for more than two decades in a push to develop the means to deliver nuclear weapons, which it is believed to have successfully built. As a result, Pyongyang has been under multiple U.N. Security Council sanctions since 2006 but it remains defiant, despite severe obstacles they created to its trade, economy and defense. South Korea and Washington this week launched the annual major drills in South Korea, which they say are purely defensive, aimed at testing readiness against military threats from North Korea. Hundreds of U.S. and South Korean troops conducted river-crossing drills on Saturday with hardware including tanks and armored combat vehicles, overseen by the commander of their combined forces. The U.S. military has about 28,500 troops and squadrons of fighter jets stationed in South Korea. North Korea frequently displays its anger at such exercises, saying they are "dress rehearsals" for armed aggression against it by the allies. On Thursday, South Korea's Prime Minister Kim Min-seok met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington to discuss ways to reopen dialogue with the North. Trump is eager for any opportunity to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea's Kim told reporters. A top official of the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation, the company's Sri Lanka operation, on Saturday assured continued fuel supplies amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia.The statement from Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) comes after Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, expressed confidence that the request to his Indian counterpart, Dr S. Jaishankar, would help sustain island nations' energy supply chain.Herath discussed the matter with Jaishankar during his official visit to India on March 6.Addressing a gathering of management students here on Saturday, K Raghu, the managing director of LIOC, said, As the Managing Director of Lanka IOC, I only want to tell the people that you are all in safe hands." "We will maintain the fuel line and provide energy security to the country, which is very important, Raghu added.I will not say the situation is very rosy, but I will definitely assure you that you are all in safe hands, he said, adding that the companies and the government are doing their best.Raghu also assured that LIOC will continue to fuel the progress of the country.LIOC also assisted the Sri Lankan people when the country was hit by an unprecedented economic crisis in mid-2022, and the people were forced to wait in long queues at fuel stations.Currently, LIOC operates 200 fuel stations throughout Sri Lanka and enjoys a 20% share of the market. They first came in 2003 under a 20-year contract, which has again been renewed in 2023. United States President Donald Trump has said he is hopeful that several countries such as the United Kingdom, China and France will send warships in West Asia to "open and free" the Strait of Hormuz.In a statement on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said, "Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe.""Hopefully, China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated," he added.Trump also claimed that the US has "already destroyed 100% of Irans Military capability", but its easy for them to send a "drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are."Trump's remarks come at a time when Iran has shut the passage of ships carrying oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz. Closed since March 2, the step has led to an energy crisis across the world as the supply gets interrupted.According to reports, the Trump administration did not expect Iran to be taking such a step but as the new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei also reinforced the closure of the passage, the Gulf nation seems to be utilising it as a strategic measure during the war.Trump also warned that in the meantime, the United States will be "bombing the hell out of the shoreline" of Iran, and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water."One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!" he wrote.The war started on February 28 after the US and Israel attacked Iran in a joint operation. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other military officials, were killed in the strikes.Retaliating to the attacks, Iran fired back at Israel and US bases across various Gulf nations, spilling out the war into the wider West Asian region. News / National by Stephen Jakes The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has this week remembered abducted and disappeared journalist Itai Dzamara, eleven years after he was taken. Dzamara was abducted on 9 March 2015 and has never been seen again. His brother Patson, who had been at the forefront of demanding justice and supporting Dzamaras wife and children, also passed away recently leaving both families without a breadwinner.In a statement posted on X, ZLHR said it marks 11 years since the enforced disappearance of freelance journalist and activist Itai Dzamara.Dzamara was abducted and disappeared on 9 March 2015 and has not been heard from since, the organisation said.ZLHR remains deeply concerned about Dzamaras whereabouts and wellbeing. Zimbabwean authorities must make more efforts to establish what happened to Dzamara and offer answers to his family, which continues its relentless quest for the truth and has been left to worry for the past 11 years without his whereabouts being ascertained.Since his disappearance, authorities have not provided any leads on his fate. However, unverified reports circulating on social media recently claimed he was tortured, killed and disposed of in an acid pit. The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.Noboa lost all four questions in the November 2025 referendum: there will be no Constituent Assembly, no foreign military bases will be installedat least officially, although in practice several secret agreements with the United States allow the presence of US security personnel on Ecuadorian soilpolitical parties will continue to receive public funds, and the number of assembly members will not be reduced. With the democratic facade fallen, the government is seeking to impose the agenda it lost at the polls by other meansreduction of public spending, legal reforms, decrees and ministerial agreements, but also militarization.Since coming to power in 2023, Noboa has been cutting state spending. Two examples of the current effects: patients are dying in public hospitals where they cannot receive dialysis because these hospitals have only 30 percent of the supplies they need, and the budget for universities has been cut by $128 million, or 12.7 percent. Public health and education, which are essential for a minimally democratic society, are being systematically dismantled.The year 2025 was the most violent since statistics have been kept: 51 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, six coastal cities among the 10 most dangerous in the world , and 183 people killed in prisons , with a total of 500 since 2021. Ecuador, which was one of the safest countries in the region until 2017, is now one of the most dangerous not only in Latin America but in the world. The economic crisis that has been dragging on since the pandemic, the reduction in public spending, and collusion with drug trafficking explain these figures.On 19 February 2026, the Ministry of Labor issued a ministerial agreement establishing 12-hour workdays. This measure represents a historic setback in terms of workers' rights and continues the series of measures to increase job insecurity determined in the agreements signed with the IMF, favoring the interests of capital over the well-being of workers.Decentralized autonomous governments (GAD), in some cases the only safeguard for public policies aimed at the population and not at capital, will be hit by a recently approved law that requires them to allocate a minimum of 70 percent of their budget to infrastructure. It sounds good, but it is a trap: it seeks to force them to stop investing in education, culture, and other social programs, and to lay off staff. The bill imposes central government control over the GADs, undermining their autonomy and contradicting the principle of decentralization. If they fail to comply, a penalty reduces their transfers to the constitutional minimum , which would paralyze their operations. There is also obvious cynicism in this area: the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador has reported that the central government itself owes $543 million to the GADs, suffocating their finances.Noboa also managed to pass, as an urgent economic measure, the Law on Strengthening Strategic Mining and Energy Sectors. Among its most dangerous provisions: the environmental license will be replaced by a simple 'environmental authorization,' private military protection in mining projects will be legalized, prior consultation with indigenous peoples will be eliminated, and the fragmentation of mining concessions and mining in the Galapagos Islands, a supposedly protected nature reserve, will be allowed. Complemented by Executive Decree 273 of December 2025, this law paves the way for the reopening of the Mining Registry and the massive expansion of concessions without environmental regulation or respect for the rights of the affected populations. Noboa and his family have links to mining companies that have already received licenses or are in the process of obtaining them.Judicial persecution is a systematic tool of the regime. In the 2023 referendum, citizens voted to stop oil exploitation in the Yasuni ITT, but the government has done nothing to comply with that mandate; the response to environmentalists' demands has been repression and lawfare . The attacks against the Citizen Revolution (Correismo) that began in 2018 continue unabated. On 4 February 2026, the homes of four leaders of the movement were raided for an alleged case of corruption. They attempted to revoke the mandate of the mayor of Quito, Pabel Munoz, against whom they fabricated a false case of corruption, and imprisoned the mayor of Guayaquil, Aquiles Hervas, also of the Citizen Revolution, on the basis of another fabricated case The repression also affects the indigenous movement. Leonidas Iza, former president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and current president of Ecuarunari (an organization of indigenous peoples of the Sierra), faces multiple investigations and reports of covert police surveillance. Nayra Chalan, former vice president of Ecuarunari, and the Kitu Kara people denounced the deactivation of their bank accounts. During the 2025 National Strike, the accounts of 21 social organizations were frozen without a court order. Unfounded proceedings have been brought against them for financing terrorism and illicit enrichment, using a narrative of narco-terrorism similar to that of Trump, who, without any evidence, extrajudicially executed more than 80 people on boats in the Caribbean.While criminalizing the opposition, Noboa's entourage is riddled with scandals. Six people are being prosecuted after 2.6 tons of cocaine were found in a container belonging to Blasti S.A., a company linked to the presidential circle . This case, one of several , highlights the strategy of a government that prosecutes social leaders and political opponents while coexisting with drug trafficking networks in its inner circle, as well as several other cases of corruption At the time of writing, the Noboa government has just expelled the Cuban ambassador and all Cuban diplomats from Ecuador, declaring them persona non grata and giving them 48 hours to leave the country. The reason? Nothing more than obedience to the orders of the Trump Administration and its illegal hybrid war against Cuba. At the same time, the US Southern Command said in X that Ecuadorian and US military forces 'launched operations against designated terrorist organizations,' setting an example of cooperation for the region in the fight against narco-terrorism. This concept is the same label that Noboa uses against all social movements that oppose his policies.The analogy with Trumpism is not rhetorical: like his US counterpart, Noboa governs for capital, seeking to destroy the public sector and reduce the state to its bare minimum, using militarization and political violence as instruments to achieve this, and submitting absolutely to US dictates. The difference is the context: in Ecuador, this model is applied to a society already battered by violence, poverty, precariousness, and a lack of basic services, which multiplies its capacity for harm. Stopping these attacks is a necessary condition for Ecuador's survival as a democracy.--- The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggressionthe brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitionsclashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue. Yet, in the midst of these talks, the "I-A" (Israel-America) axis launched a campaign that has inflicted severe damage. The human cost has been staggering: the reported killing of Khamenei and his family members, the bombing of a school resulting in the deaths of 165 young girls, and the targeting of numerous civilians. In a move that directly impacted regional maritime security, an Iranian naval shippresent in Indian waters for joint exerciseswas reportedly torpedoed by a U.S. submarine. While Iran has retaliated, the cycle of violence only deepens the humanitarian crisis. For India, these events serve as a sobering eye-opener regarding the evolution of its foreign policy. Historically, India championed Non-Alignment, maintaining amicable and culturally rich relations with Iran. However, the recent shift is palpable. Prime Minister Modis visit to Israel on the eve of this conflict, where he pledged solidarity "through thick and thin," stands in stark contrast to Indias traditional neutrality. The Prime Ministers subsequent silence on the demise of Irans leadership, coupled with a "blank statement" that equated the aggressor with the aggrieved, signals a departure from India's role as a moral arbiter in the Global South. This transitionfrom a neutral partner to a silent collaborator with the American-Israeli axisis a watershed moment in Indian diplomacy. To understand this current crisis, one must view it through the lens of U.S. foreign policy since the 1950s. For decades, Washington has interfered in the sovereign affairs of nations under various ideological banners. In the 1960s, the "containment of Communism" led to a horrific war in Vietnam. The U.S. deployed chemical weapons like Napalm and Agent Orange, devastating the ecology and the population alike. Despite spending millions and deploying over 500,000 troops, the U.S. was eventually forced into a morale-crushing retreat by a young nations resolve. Iran itself has long been a target; in 1951, the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh moved to nationalize Iran's oil, challenging British hegemony. In response, the UK and U.S. orchestrated a coup to install the Shah, a move that prioritized oil interests over Iranian democracy. A similar script was followed in Chile in 1973. When the Marxist leader Salvador Allende nationalized U.S.-controlled copper companies, the CIA backed a coup that installed the ruthless dictator Augusto Pinochet, destroying Chilean democracy for a generation. The scars inflicted on West Asia are perhaps the deepest. Following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S. funded and trained the Mujahideenthe precursors to the Taliban and Al-Qaedato the tune of $8 billion. Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. used the "War on Terror" as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and later Iraq. The invasion of Iraq, built on the fabrication of "Weapons of Mass Destruction," was sold to soldiers as a mission of liberation. Instead of bouquets, the region found itself dismantled, giving rise to the horrors of the Islamic State (ISIS). Neither weapons of mass destruction could be located, nor were the soldiers welcomed as liberators. Colonialism and imperialism leave indelible marks on the world. Just as the British policy of "divide and rule" fostered the communalism that still haunts India today, the modern "War on Terror" and the coining of the term "Islamic terrorism" have led to the global demonization of Muslims. Imperialism continues to prioritize strategic dominance and resource control over human rights and international law. Both these phenomena remain the forces at the roots of the major problems the world faces today. True peace can only be promoted when we recognize these historical patterns and demand a world order based on sovereignty and genuine diplomacy, rather than the "claws" of imperial might. --- Ram Puniyani taught at IIT Bombay and is the President of the Center for Study of Society and Secularism News / National by Simbarashe Sithole A Mozambican vendor has been arrested in Bindura for overstaying in Zimbabwe while selling secondhand shoes. Entro Manuel Chapulene (22) pleaded guilty before magistrate Seluleko Mathuthu. He was sentenced to one month in prison, wholly suspended on condition of good behaviour, but will remain in custody pending deportation.Prosecutor Sheila Maribha told the court that on 10 March detectives on patrol encountered Chapulene selling secondhand shoes. They noticed he spoke with a Mozambican accent and stopped him to verify his identity and immigration status.When asked to produce valid documents, he failed to do so, leading to his arrest. China-Netherlands mutually beneficial cooperation in line with common interests: Chinese FM Xinhua) 13:08, March 14, 2026 BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that both China and the Netherlands being committed to promoting mutually beneficial cooperation in an open and pragmatic spirit is in line with the shared interests of the two sides. This is also conducive to the sound development of China-European Union (EU) relations as well as the security and stability of the global industrial and supply chains, he said. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in a phone conversation with Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendson at the latter's request. Wang congratulated Berendson on his assuming office as the Netherlands' new foreign minister and said that China and the Netherlands are important partners of cooperation to each other. China appreciates the positive signal released by the new Dutch government of valuing its relations with China, he said, noting that China's foreign policy maintains coherence and stability, and that China is willing to work with the Netherlands to strengthen exchanges and communication, promote mutual understanding and trust, and consistently deepen their open and pragmatic partnership for comprehensive cooperation. Wang briefed his Dutch counterpart on the outcomes of China's just concluded "two sessions," noting that China will remain committed to opening wider to the outside world and expanding institutional opening-up, bringing more opportunities to countries around the world, including the Netherlands. China-Netherlands economic and trade cooperation enjoys mutual complementarity of advantages, mutual benefit and win-win results, Wang noted. He expressed hope that the new government of the Netherlands will take on a new look and new challenges, adhere to independence and self-autonomy, and support the normal economic and trade exchanges between enterprises of the two countries. It is hoped that the Dutch side would push EU institutions to understand China in an objective and rational manner, and adhere to the positioning of partnership and open cooperation between China and the EU, Wang said. For his part, Berendson said the new government of the Netherlands speaks highly of the achievements China has made in its rapid development, and regards the relations with China as one of its most important bilateral relationships. Berendson said his country is willing to keep high-level exchanges with China, leverage bilateral mechanisms such as the political consultation between foreign ministries and the mixed economic and trade committee, increase dialogue and exchanges at all levels, deepen the pragmatic cooperation in climate change, water resource management and other areas, and jointly defend multilateralism, consistently advancing the bilateral open and pragmatic partnership for comprehensive cooperation to new levels. The Dutch side is willing to play a constructive role for the sound and steady development of EU-China relations, he said. The two sides also exchanged views on issues including the Ukraine crisis. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) WASHINGTON The Trump administration has expanded its trade investigations to 60 countries, including Canada, in an effort to shore up the U.S. president's tariff policies. "We are trying to move very quickly," United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC Friday. "We are trying to move in a matter of months." Greer's office announced Wednesday that it was launching investigations of excess industrial capacity in the European Union and a handful of other countries under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. A Thursday evening news release from the office expanded the list of countries targeted by the investigations, citing forced labour. "Despite the international consensus against forced labor, governments have failed to impose and effectively enforce measures banning goods produced with forced labor from entering their markets," Greer said in the news release. Canada is aware of the latest trade investigation, said Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc's spokesperson. "We are committed to working with our (Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement) partners to further a North American approach to tackling forced labour in international supply chains, as we have done over the last number of years," Gabriel Brunet said in an email. The new investigations are meant to give President Donald Trump a legal basis to continue his worldwide tariff agenda. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump's favourite tariff tool, which he used for his "Liberation Day" tariffs and fentanyl-related duties on Canada, Mexico and China. In response to the top court's ruling, Trump implemented a 10 per cent worldwide tariff using Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. Those tariffs do not apply to goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade. Section 122 tariffs can only increase to 15 per cent and expire after 150 days unless Congress votes to extend them. An extension would be unlikely to get the approval of Congress. Canada is also being hammered by Trump's separate Section 232 tariffs on specific industries, including steel, aluminum, automobiles and cabinetry. Trump is hoping to implement longer-term tariffs through Section 301 investigations but the process does require public consultations and reports. Greer told CNBC that "if we find that countries have been involved in unfair trading practices" such as subsidies, excess capacity or forced labour "we can quantify that harm to U.S. commerce and then try to resolve that issue with that country." Little did Angela Moyers know that when she waved her son off on a solo fishing trip eight years ago, he would never make it home. Police told Moyers that her son Robbie Crites, 20, had drowned in a terrible accident on June 16, 2018, in the Jacks Fork River in Missouri, but Moyers never believed that. She told the Daily Mail that her son was afraid of drowning and would even ask her to sit on the toilet while he showered due to his fear. 'I know he didn't walk into the river and just drown,' Moyers said. Moyers said a number of things did not add up in the case and she became more alarmed after viewing harrowing photos of her son's body which showed bloody injuries to his face. She accused former Shannon County Sheriff Darrin Brawley of brushing her off when she attempted to raise concerns but police ruled it a drowning. 'I would take stuff in, and he would point at the door like I was a piece of crap. He'd say it was an open and shut investigation. [Robbie] walked in the river and he drowned. Well I know better,' Moyers said. 'I don't think he treated my son's case fairly at all.' Now, after a bombshell confession came to light, the case was reopened under a new sheriff, and three men have been arrested and charged with murder, and the former sheriff's link to one of the suspects has been revealed. Angela Moyers, pictured with her son, Robbie Crites, told the Daily Mail that she never believed her son drowned in 2018 Crites died at the age of 20 after leaving his house on a fishing trip. Police ruled his death a drowning at the time Sheriff Darrin Brawley, pictured in a social media photo, investigated the case at the time. Moyers claims he did not properly handing her son's case Moyers shared photos online a few years after her son's death because she suspected that he had been killed Shannon County Prosecuting Attorney William Seay has confirmed to the Daily Mail that former sheriff Darrin Brawley is distantly related to one of the arrested men, Ronald D Brawley III. The two also appear to be friends on Facebook. The Daily Mail has reached out to Darrin Brawley, who retired from the department in January 2024, and his representation for comment. On March 5, Ronald D Brawley III was charged with murder in the second degree for Crites' death alongside Zachary D Watson and Austin D Womack. All three men were taken into custody on a $250,000 cash-only bond. Brawley III and Watson have pleaded not guilty. The two have yet to obtain a lawyer, according to Missouri court records. Womack has yet to enter a plea. He is being represented by Lacon Marie Smith. The Daily Mail has reached out to his representation for comment. Seay told the Daily Mail that Hogan decided to reopen the case because he received 'numerous' public concerns. The Shannon County Sheriff's Department said investigators reviewed the original investigation and found 'significant unanswered questions and inconsistencies.' The three men have been accused of physically assaulting Crites, wrapping him in fishing line, and dumping him in the river, which eventually led to his drowning, according to a criminal complaint viewed by the Daily Mail. Ronald Brawley III, pictured above, was charged with second-degree murder in connection with Crites' death and has pleaded not guilty Austin D Womack, pictured above, was charged with second-degree murder in connection with Crites' death and has pleaded not guilty A probable cause affidavit for arrest noted witness statements alleging that the men had previously bragged about killing Crites. Moyers' son, Jacob King, told police that he saw Ronald Brawley III and Zachary Watson when he was looking for Crites near the river, according to his witness statement. King also testified that his brother-in-law, Quinton Southworth, found Crites' body floating in the river with fishing line wrapped around his ankles, knees, and back. Another witness, Edward Steven Coleman Ferris, told police that three weeks after the alleged killing, he asked Womack if he was 'one of the boys who killed Crites.' 'Yeah, I killed that motherf***er. He owed me money for dope,' Womack allegedly replied, according to the affidavit. On a separate occasion, Womack allegedly told a group of people during a bonfire that he killed Crites for allegedly assaulting his sister, according to a witness statement included in the arrest affidavit. Peyton Hammock told police that Womack 'openly claimed he killed Crites for sexually assaulting his sister.' Hammock said that Womack told him he hit Crites with a fishing pole before punching and kicking him. Ronald Brawley appears to be friends with the former sheriff, Darrin Brawley, on Facebook. Pictured above is a screenshot of his social media profile Zachary D Watson, pictured above, was charged with second-degree murder in connection with Crites' death and has pleaded not guilty A witness told police that he saw Ronald Brawley and Zachary Watson when he was looking for Crites near the river Womack then allegedly admitted to stabbing Crites with a hook and ripping it across his torso. Crites then allegedly had a seizure and Womack kicked Crites in the water, according to Hammock's testimony. Three other witnesses told police a similar recounting of what occurred at the bonfire. Moyers shared a video that appeared to depict the bonfire incident. The video was dark, so the men's faces were not visible, but at least three voices can be heard screaming. 'It's bulls*** that he tried raping a f***ing innocent girl,' one man said. 'It's bulls*** that you f***ing killed somebody,' another replied. The two men continued to hurl threats while a man appearing to take the video attempted to de-escalate the situation. Prosecuting Attorney Seay confirmed that the video is being treated as evidence in the case. Moyers has maintained that allegations of sexual assault against her son are false. Police have not disclosed information on that topic. Watson is one of the three men accused of second-degree murder. He's pictured above with his dog in a social media photo A video posted on social media appeared to depict a confrontation at a bonfire after Crites' death. A witness later told police that Womack allegedly told a group of people that night that he killed Crites for assaulting his sister Ronald Brawley III's cousin, Madelynne Prewett, told police that he had drunkenly confessed to the murder to her on June 18, 2018. Prewett said she was told that Crites owed Womack and Brawley $100 for methamphetamine and never paid them, according to her witness statement. James and Ryan Boyer, two individuals who were also allegedly at the bonfire, told police: 'We heard A. Womack say, "Darren Brawley (previous Shannon County Sheriff) is stupid for thinking Zack Watson and Ronnie Brawley did it when I killed Robbie." 'A. Womack said "I confronted Robbie, beat and stabbed him with a fishing hook, then kicked him in the river,'" according to a witness statement. Moyers told the Daily Mail that she did not know the three men charged with her son's murder. However, she said that Womack was her daughter's roommate when they were teenagers. She was unaware of any issues between her son and the three men, but noted that Crites disliked Womack because of a dispute that arose when he lived with her daughter. Moyers said she had felt a wave of emotions when the three men were arrested. Moyers said she did not know the three men charged with her son's murder. Crites is pictured above in a family photo Moyers said her son's death certificate read 'accidental drowning, unknown.' Crites is pictured in a prom photo The last eight years have marked a tiresome fight in her son's case. She recalled her suspicions as soon as she was told he was dead. Moyers said Sheriff Brawley had placed Crites' body in the back of a pickup truck after he was found in the river and never informed the coroner. 'I asked him "how would he feel if the shoe was on the other foot? And I was a sheriff, and I did that to his son" and he said, "I don't have any kids,"' Moyers told the Daily Mail. Prosecuting Attorney William Seay confirmed ex Sheriff Brawley did use a pickup truck to transport Crites' body, and that was not standard protocol. Moyers also said ex Sheriff Brawley did not contact the coroner. Seay confirmed a coroner did not examine the body to determine a cause of death. The prosecuting attorney explained that it was not standard protocol, but that a sheriff is authorized if a coroner is not available. Moyers said her son's death certificate read 'accidental drowning, unknown.' She added that she was told at the funeral home that the cuts on her son's face were not consistent with a drowning. Graphic images Moyers shared of her son's body depict gashes across his face. She said that she decided to post them online two years after her son's death because she wanted people to see what happened to him. The graphic images can be viewed here. Moyers described her son as an 'adventurer' who loved to hunt and fish. He is pictured with family She recalled multiple times that she brought her concerns about the investigation to the police, but was dismissed. 'I just wanna see that my son gets the justice that he deserves,' Moyers said. The grieving mother added that she understands it has been years since the incident, and that the suspects may have changed, noting that one of the men accused is now a father. 'It weighs on my heart for his kids, because it's innocent children' she said. 'But then again, I live every day without my son. Wondering who he would've been, how many kids he would've had if he would've been married, what his life would've been like.' Moyers described her son as an 'adventurer' who loved to hunt and fish. She said he was 'caring' and 'vibrant.' Ronald Brawley III and Watson last appeared in court for a counsel hearing status on Tuesday. Womack's last court date was on Monday. I'm just going to say it. Sometimes the best turn on is ourselves. Seriously. Sometimes when I'm in the throes of - shall we say - passion, I realize that my own rather enthusiastic performance is giving me all the foreplay I need. Which is why I'm a big fan of making noise in the bedroom. Use those vocal chords, ladies. It encourages him when he gets something right, and it also puts you in the perfect headspace to enjoy the moment yourself. So when our favorite silver fox, Harrison Ford, was asked by Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show whether he had 'ever made love to the soundtrack of one of his films,' I have to admit, I was intrigued. The 83-year-old Hollywood icon's response was a very casual: 'Of course I have.' Annoyingly, he didn't reveal which soundtrack, because now I too would quite like to give it a go. The swelling orchestral score of Indiana Jones while you're in the middle of your own adventure? The dramatic strings of a Star Wars moment? It certainly beats the awkward Spotify shuffle that inevitably lands on something wildly inappropriate. Of course, there may be some narcissism in play here, which shows that perhaps the biggest turn on for guys - and the thing they like to have stroked the most - is their ego. Sometimes when I'm in the throes of - shall we say - passion, I realize that my own rather enthusiastic performance is giving me all the foreplay I need Harrison Ford, was asked by Jimmy Kimmel whether he had 'ever made love to the soundtrack of one of his films. The 83-year-old Hollywood icon responded: 'Of course I have' But Ford's confession did make me ponder the strange and unexpected things people discover turn them on in the heat of the moment. Because while candles, lingerie and Barry White might be the traditional mood-setters, my DMs are full of people admitting their real turn-ons are far more specific. Take one man on who confessed that nothing gets him going quite like hearing a woman passionately explain something she loves. The subject doesn't even matter. Her enthusiasm alone apparently does the trick: 'Seeing her nerd out on something is so arousing.' Another admitted that messy hair - the slightly chaotic 'I've been dancing all night' look - is peak attraction. Someone else wrote that the smell of diesel fuel strangely does it for them, explaining her husband is a mechanic and 'the moment he walks through the door, with grease under his fingernails and the scent of gas l, I just want to rip his clothes off.' I get it. When I was dating a farmer, he would come home smelling like dirt and sweat I couldn't get enough of it. It was giving 'I'm a man of the land' type vibes. Va Va Voom. Then there are the oddly wholesome ones. A few people simply said 'hands.' Long fingers. Clean nails. Strong hands. Apparently, that's all it takes. (Makes mental note to get a manicure.) Others admitted they're drawn to the forbidden. One commenter confessed he finds extremely conservative, church-going women in long skirts inexplicably alluring. The classic forbidden-fruit effect. One woman even confessed she gets turned on by tears. Yes, really. There's even a term for it: dacryphilia, a sexual interest in crying or tears. Psychologists say the attraction can come from the emotional intensity of the moment, or from the desire to comfort someone who's upset. Which means somewhere out there is a woman who hears sobbing and immediately gets worked up. The strangest one I got, however, was from a man who got off on the subtle waft of a fart. Believe it or not, it is an officially documented kink called eproctophilia, where someone is sexually aroused by flatulence. Researchers have even studied people who admit the sound, smell or sheer taboo of it is what does the trick. Because while candles, lingerie and Barry White might be the traditional mood-setters, my DMs are full of people admitting their real turn-ons are far more specific Romance is alive and well, ladies. It just occasionally comes with a digestive soundtrack. And if you really tumble down the rabbit hole of unusual desires, which I did, the list becomes extraordinary. Psychologists have documented sexual interests involving things like clowns (coulrophilia), dancing (choreophilia), smoke (capnolagnia) or even being robbed (chremastistophilia). Proof that human attraction is endlessly creative and occasionally a little alarming. Who am I to 'yuck' another person's 'yum'? Which brings us neatly back to Harrison Ford. Because while the rest of us are fumbling with playlists or hoping the neighbors can't hear the bed frame knocking against the wall, Ford has apparently discovered the ultimate mood music: himself. And I can't even be mad about it. If you've spent decades saving the galaxy, cracking whips in ancient temples and being one of the most handsome men in Hollywood history, perhaps you've earned the right to a little bit of self-love. When news broke Thursday of the synagogue attack in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, the pattern felt grimly familiar: Another Jewish house of worship, another act of violence. As I watched the media reports and anxiously waited for casualty numbers, it was clear that despite the different time and different place, the fundamentalist ideology that I grew up with in the Middle East has now taken hold in Middle America. Antisemitism is rising across the West, with hatred that once lingered along the margins now appearing openly. Jewish communities feel its impact daily, from increased security at synagogues to harassment on college campuses and families hesitating to display their Jewish identity in public. Despite hoping I would be wrong, I instinctively assumed the Michigan attack had been carried out by one of my own, a Muslim and Arab. And my instincts quickly proved correct. Within hours, the Department of Homeland Security identified the Michigan suspect as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Muslim immigrant from Lebanon who had become a US citizen. Hatred directed at American Jews is not simply an attack on an individual religious group. It is an attack on the freedoms and values that define this country. I say this not as an outside observer, but as someone who knows this ideology from within. I am a Muslim American and an Arab American, and I did not learn about antisemitism from books or political debates. I learned about it by living among it, growing up in societies first Iraq and later Lebanon -- where hatred against Jews was part of the air people breathed. It's a hatred that appears in schoolbooks, political speeches, television programs, and everyday conversations. Over time, this hatred settles in and becomes normalized. This was the case when I was growing up and it remains the case today. When news broke Thursday of the synagogue attack in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, the pattern felt grimly familiar: Another Jewish house of worship, another act of violence Within hours, the Department of Homeland Security identified the Michigan suspect as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Muslim immigrant from Lebanon Author Dalia al-Aqidi fled the repression of the Middle East for the openness of America But this normalization comes with a terrible cost. It poisons societies, turns neighbors into enemies, and lays the foundation for violence. I witnessed both this hatred and its consequences firsthand in the nations of my youth and this is why I fled them. I came to the United States because it promised something different, a country where people could live without fear of expressing their faith and where freedom wasn't determined by identity. That promise is why I will not remain silent as the same poisonous ideology I learned in my youth takes root here in America. During my decades as a journalist, I've covered wars, terrorism, and the rise of extremism. I have interviewed radicals and studied the narratives that turn anger into violence. One thing I now know for certain: Extremism rarely begins with bombs or trucks; it begins with words. In the US, such words have resulted in an uneasy partnership between secular 'revolutionary' politics from transgender rights to black liberation and the religious extremism espoused by pro-Palestinian causes. On the surface, these groups appear to share little in common how else to explain the 'queer' affinity for Gaza, a place where LGBTs are regularly murdered. But these groups have found common allies and enemies in their shared hostility toward the West, liberal democratic values, and Israel. Such alliances have created an environment where ideology becomes exempt from scrutiny. Under the banner of social justice and #intersectionality, Islamists are often portrayed as victims beyond criticism, while accusations of 'Islamophobia' are used to intimidate and silence those who warn against terror. Or, even worse, Islamophobia allegations fuel the hatred that causes men like Ayman Ghazali to take up arms against sacred houses of worship, like Temple Israel outside Detroit. The consequences of this dynamic are severe. When legitimate criticism is suppressed, dangerous ideas spread unchecked. Extremist rhetoric becomes normalized, hostility toward Jews is reframed as legitimate political expression, and those who attempt to sound the alarm are pushed outside of public debate. But the problems do not stop there. Antisemitic rhetoric is also finding a megaphone along the far right. Media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens now promote ancient conspiracies about Jewish power and influence. When voices from opposite ends of the political spectrum begin repeating the same libels, the danger multiplies and metastasizes. On the surface, these groups appear to share little in common how else to explain the 'queer' affinity for Gaza, a place where LGBTs are regularly murdered Media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens now promote ancient conspiracies about Jewish power and influence Hatred spreads fastest when it is legitimized from every direction. For that reason, Thursday's attack on Temple Israel cannot be merely dismissed as an isolated incident. This was not about Israel or the current war in the Middle East. It was about an American community targeted simply for being Jewish. History has repeatedly demonstrated that when hatred toward one group is tolerated, it rarely stops there. Once such prejudices take root, no community remains truly safe. America now faces a choice. We can confront this rising antisemitism and radical Islamism with honesty and courage. Or pretend it is someone else's problem until the next synagogue, school, or neighborhood targeted. Hatred often begins by isolating one community from the mainstream. It then tests how far such isolation will be tolerated how much silence, how much indifference, how much fear hate can exploit. If we allow this radical ideology to further take root, we will lose far more than another school or synagogue. We will lose the very principles that make America a nation worth defending the principles that caused me to flee my homelands all those decades ago. Dalia Al-Aqidi is a Republican Congressional candidate in Minnesota, an Advisory Board Member of the Ideological Defense Institute and a Senior fellow at the Center for Security policy. 'Weve won, President Trump declared earlier this week. As he spoke Iranian missiles and drones continued to rain down on Americas beleaguered allies in the Gulf, the Tyrants of Tehran tightened their already iron grip on domestic dissent, oil settled at around $100 a barrel (versus $60 before America and Israel started bombing Iran) and cargo ships trying to make it through the Strait of Hormuz were destroyed, confirming the Iranian regime has its boot pressed hard on the global economys throat. If this is what the President considers victory to be, then you wonder what he thinks defeat would look like. Yes, the regime has taken a terrible pounding. It is battered and bruised. How could it be otherwise, with the US and Israel claiming to have hit 15,000 targets? Its leadership has been decapitated, its infrastructure of repression degraded, its missile stocks depleted, its navy sunk, its nuclear-bomb ambitions set back yet again. But heres the rub: Its still standing, still functioning, still retaliating, still in control of the streets as well as the Strait. America claims the new Supreme Leader (son of the old one, killed in the first Israeli bombing raid) is wounded, perhaps seriously. But still well enough to demand America meet some tough pre-conditions before Iran would agree to a ceasefire. Its almost as if Tehran is taunting Trump. The regime is gambling that if it can raise the cost of oil and gas high enough for long enough with all that would entail in the higher prices and lost jobs for the worlds major economies then Trump will soon declare victory (as he always does, whatever the facts) and go home. If this is what the President considers victory to be, then you wonder what he thinks defeat would look like, writes Andrew Neil An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq It thinks it can endure hardship more easily than Trump can suffer the economic and political pain of soaring energy prices in a crucial election year. Of course Tehran is in no position to dictate terms to America. But Washington is not exactly awash with decent options either. It can unleash attacks on another 15,000 targets. But would that really be a game-changer? There comes a point when bombardment is subject to the law of diminishing returns. We may already be there. Washington hawks are now suggesting invading Kharg Island, from which most Iranian oil exports leave, to cut off the revenues that keep the regime going; and occupying the Iranian coastline to the north of the Strait of Hormuz as a necessary first step to reopening the choke point. Both moves would be classic mission creep, casebook escalations involving boots on the ground. It would take weeks if not months to assemble the necessary forces. It would run the risk of yet another forever war, the prospect of which so repels Trumps Maga base. I doubt the President will sign off on either. But what does he do instead? It is dawning on those around him that military success does not necessarily translate into political success. That destroying an enemys ability to wage war does not guarantee better government. The White House, of course, is populated by slow learners for this was already the lesson of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And now of Iran. However ground down the government in Tehran, the prospect of regime change is as far away as ever. Israeli officials privately admit that Irans ruling elite a combination of medieval mullahs and Revolutionary Guard thugs is unlikely to be toppled any time soon, that the chances of a popular uprising are slight. But Washington is also starting to realise that an end to hostilities which leaves the current regime in situ is pretty much the worst of all possible outcomes. For a start it means that the Islamic Republic, however battered, would have seen off the Great Satan. It would have survived to threaten its Gulf neighbours again Americas allies in the years to come, whenever the mood took it. A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil was damaged, following unidentified attacks that targeted two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra The White House, of course, is populated by slow learners for this was already the lesson of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And now of Iran If you really want to understand how this war is going just look at the state of the respective allies of America and Iran. The Gulf States Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are in despair. Their chances of rebuilding their reputation for safety and security while the regime in Tehran remains intact are close to zero. Already some Gulf leaders are mulling over how to make their peace with Tehran. European leaders are no less distraught. A war with no real purpose or decent outcome risks throwing their already stagnant economies into recession yet again, fanning social unrest, fuelling extremists on the Left and Right. One source told me that European and Gulf leaders now exchange phone calls privately fuming at what Trump has done. Some European countries, I hear, are trying to do an India and negotiate direct with Iran to get some tankers out the Gulf. Britain, of course, has been conspicuous collateral damage exposed as a paper tiger, struggling to deploy even one warship to defend our bases in Cyprus. In stark contrast, Irans allies are cock-a-hoop. Iranian oil is still making it through the Strait of Hormuz to China, which is suspected of covertly helping Irans ballistic missile programme. Beijing is delighted that Americas attention is elsewhere while it continues to put the squeeze on Taiwan. But Russia is the biggest winner of all. Just as its treasury coffers were running dry and even its sovereign wealth fund was running out of liquid assets to pay for the war in Ukraine, the spike in oil and gas prices has been a huge, unexpected boon. Its raking in as much as $150million a day in extra tax revenues from its oil sales a cumulative windfall of up to 2billion since the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with much more to come should energy prices remain elevated. No wonder Russia is providing Iran with intelligence, including satellite imagery and drone targeting, to help Tehran strike the US and its allies in the region. Bizarrely, even Trump is helping out: In an attempt to stop oil prices soaring out of control the US Treasury is easing sanctions to allow the market to buy Russian oil cargoes already at sea. No doubt President Putin is grateful to his old pal in the White House. China and India are the main beneficiaries. Both have upped their imports of Russian oil by over 20 per cent a week since the attacks on Iran began, replenishing Kremlin coffers in the process. India is also dealing directly with Iran: It is negotiating with Tehran to allow at least 23 tankers loaded with oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Strait of Hormuz with the first passages expected this weekend. Only Americas allies, it seems, are the losers in Trumps war against Iran. So much so that European governments are now thinking of delaying their upcoming ban on Russian LNG because gas from Qatar cant get out of the Gulf. Bang would go years of effort to isolate Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Another win for Putin. In truth, very little lasting good has come out of the US-Israeli onslaught on Iran so far. Israel has made some short-term gain from the further hobbling of a regime which wants to wipe it out. But for America there is as yet no long-term advantage. When Trump removed Venezuelas dictator at the start of the year and put the squeeze on the communist commissars of Cuba, there was a hope that 2026 would be the year in which the worlds autocrats would be on the back foot for the first time this century. Iran was to be the biggest prize of all. But Trump went to war without a clear end game in sight and with the conceit always likely to be mistaken that you could remove an entrenched regime from 35,000 feet. Of course with Trump you can never rule out the unexpected that he might yet pull some enormous rabbit out of the hat. But for the moment it is the autocrats who are celebrating. Once again we face the risk that the 21st century will be their time that they are the future while the democracies are in retreat. If that is indeed the sad, geopolitical outcome of Trumps Iranian misadventure then he will have made a miscalculation of historic proportions from which his reputation, such as it is, will never recover. For centuries, the sudden shape of a Royal Navy warship on the horizon has been a symbol to Britons around the world that order was coming. From Nelsons victories over Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, to the West Africa Squadrons unprecedented 19th century anti-slavery patrols, through to Dunkirk and modern-day disaster relief operations in Sierra Leone and Lebanon; Britains global power and reputation was built on her maritime prowess. But when HMS Dragon finally heaves into view off the coast of Cyprus, alone, a full two weeks after a solitary Iranian drone managed to puncture RAF defences here, hitting the Akrotiri base on March 2, there will be no cheers of relief. Instead, thanks to the staggering incompetence of Sir Keir Starmers government, her arrival will only serve to enforce a growing sense on these shores that Britain is a country in decline. I think more people are now thinking that the British Army, the Navy, the RAF, is not actually the organised military that they thought it was, Tasos Kosteas, head of the Cyprus Peace Council, tells me, standing outside the gates of RAF Akrotiri. Peoples first thought of the British was that they are very organised and are ready to confront such incidents. But now and I say this with many Britons who are my friends I think maybe Britain is not really ready for something like this. It is no more a great country. They are not ready for such provocations. HMS Dragon leaves Portsmouth harbour for Cyprus on Tuesday Family and friends wave goodbye to their crewmembers as HMS Dragon finally sets sail The 60-year-old Cypriot has been calling for RAF Akrotiri and Dhekelia Cantonment, its sister Sovereign Base Area (SBA), to be closed for all his life, having sat on the peace council for 40 years. For decades, the council has made the case that, since the country won independence from the UK in 1960, the bases are a colonial hangover that only bring trouble. Now, he senses something has changed. We have the moral support of the majority of the Cypriot people, he tells me. We have the proof that the British military bases in Cyprus are a danger. He is not the only one to think so. What was it Trump said We dont need your battleship? says Andreas Philis, 74, a retired technician in the Cypriot army as he plays cards at a cafe. He adds: England used to be very good. But now England is coming down you dont know what to do. Its not very good, is it? You have the air base it belongs to you, and you wait for Greece and Italy and France to protect your air base. Over the past two weeks, the British government has been projecting nothing but weakness to the Cypriots. Having refused US permission to use British bases for its joint-Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, Starmer dithered and then U-turned to allow them usage for defensive strikes the following day. Then, at 12.03am local time on March 2, a solitary Iranian Shahed drone fired from Lebanon managed to make the 30-minute flight 100 miles across the Mediterranean undetected and smacked into RAF Akrotiri on the southern peninsula. The fact it had not been picked up by radar meant nearly all 1,100 residents of Akrotiri were forced to evacuate as a precaution. I think more people are now thinking the British Army, the Navy, the RAF, is not actually the organised military they thought it was, says Tasos Kosteas, head of the Cyprus Peace Council Elizabeth Toumazou, 21, who works at a cafe, describes the feelings towards Britain now as complicated There was not a single Royal Navy ship on standby to relieve and reassure the Cypriots. Instead, it was the military minnow of Greece whose two warships arrived first within 48 hours. Britains humiliation continued. As HMS Dragon languished in dry dock in Portsmouth, a French frigate and then aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle arrived. Spain sent a frigate and a supply ship. Even the Italians arrived in Cypriot waters on Wednesday the day after HMS Dragon finally set sail. Emmanuel Macron basked in our ignominy, embracing president of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides in Paphos and telling his people they can count on France. The unspoken message was clear you can no longer count on Britain. It hurt a bit, said British-Cypriot Christine Wilson, 46, of the drone strike and the governments response. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but our reputation . . . she added, looking down at her shoes. After the Greek Cypriot nationalist insurgency against Britain, a treaty was struck in 1960 that granted the Cypriot people independence but stipulated that the SBAs of Akrotiri and Dhekelia must remain as British Overseas Territory. For many Cypriots, from that day the SBAs were viewed as an offensive colonial hangover and tens of thousands would protest at the gates. But when Turkey invaded the north in 1974, for many, suddenly the bases became a refuge. People flocked there seeking security, as they felt Turkey wouldnt hit the bases, Giorgos Konstantinos, deputy mayor of Akrotiri, says. This feeling was cemented as the green line drawn up to separate Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus from the south is marked on its easternmost point by Dhekelia. The drone strike has left locals rattled. Elizabeth Toumazou, 21, who works at a cafe nearby says: I was in Akrotiri. I didnt hear anything but I was so terrified that it would hit us. We were really scared. She describes the feelings towards Britain now as complicated. Others tell of feeling panic and terror with mother-of-three Maria Pavlou asking: Why havent the British done more to protect us? We dont just feel exposed. We feel totally let down. Daniel Maricic, 46, who owns Ryans Bar and Grill by the base, says his restaurant has remained deserted since the attack. If it continues this way for two or three weeks I will have to close, he says. Andreas Philis, 74, a retired technician in the Cypriot army says: England used to be very good. But now England is coming down you dont know what to do' Locals had been told the extensive radar that blights some of the islands foremost beauty spots is essential to their safety. Yet after this radar failed to detect the drone, the entire village had to be evacuated as a precaution hammering the very people who support the base the most as nearly all owe their livelihood to it. This was then compounded by Britains tardy response. Stefanos Stefanou, leader of the main opposition Left-wing Akel party, says the delayed deployment of HMS Dragon had helped fuel anger. Its created this sense that the UK is more interested in protecting the bases than Cyprus. Nasia Hadjigeorgiou, assistant professor in transitional justice and human rights at the University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus, adds that it will have crystallised in some Cypriots minds a growing sense that the bases do not in fact make them more secure. In fact, quite the reverse. I think people will have seen how quickly other European states reacted who didnt have to react at all. It was Britain who had the main responsibility and yet they were slow to react, she adds. Former First Sea Lord Admiral West warned in the House of Lords as early as January that Britain must send ships to the sound of guns in the Middle East but it fell on deaf ears. What have we done? he asked, exasperated. We actually withdrew everything from the region. There wasnt a single ship between Gibraltar and Singapore. Ive never known the Navy like that. Im glad that the Allies are rallying around to work with us against Iran, but it would be a great pretence to pretend that it isnt humiliating and embarrassing that a great maritime nation like the UK has huge difficulty in generating one destroyer. As HMS Dragon comes into view off the headland in the coming days, her arrival will bring not reassurance but a question: if Britain cannot even defend its bases, what business does it have keeping them? The body lies mutilated in the street. The wounds are savage but calculated. This is more than sadism. It is a message. At first glance, its just one more Iranian who has lost their life amid the states promiscuous violence. A tragedy as death always is but in the Islamic Republic, sadly a part of daily life. But this is different: its not an Iranian protester lying in the dirt for all to see but an officer of the regimes first and last line of defence: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28 I have been in contact with a source who is across western intelligence inside the country. And what they have revealed to me is something extraordinary: that amid the chaos and fury of the war in Iran, the states most brutal security forces are not only penetrated by enemy services and in disarray they are turning on each other. Over the past four days, reports have painted a picture of an Iranian security apparatus under severe and accelerating internal strain, says my source. More than 60 incidents have been documented across virtually every branch of the regimes military and security apparatus, spanning multiple regions simultaneously. That body turned up in the street just the other day, they add. And its not an isolated incident by any means. There are many reports of IRGC soldiers being executed for desertion, he continues. Its happening constantly. IRGC leaders are also regularly executing subordinates for refusing to carry out orders. This is not isolated turbulence but a nationwide condition, they add. Executions are reportedly occurring throughout Irans military and security forces, with personnel from multiple branches being put to death sometimes on the spot at their own bases. The killings are often carried out under secret orders so tightly classified that even fellow officers are kept in the dark. Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian (pictured on the back of a motorcycle) waves to crowds as he attends a march in Tehran on March 13, 2026 Rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble after a strike in southern Tehran, Iran At the same time, bodies of regime officials showing signs of torture have been turning up dumped in streets and other public places. The victims come from across Irans security apparatus including intelligence officers, naval personnel and members of the regular army. Opposition groups are believed to be responsible for some of the killings. The message is clear: the regime is under attack from all sides. Even Iranian missile teams are penetrated, with their equipment reportedly breaking down mysteriously on occasions. Authorities suspect sabotage and the incidents are followed by investigations, arrest and yet more executions. The security forces are so widely compromised that they are being turned inside out. Paranoia is at an all-time high. The Iran War has sparked outrage among many critics. Even those more sympathetic to the need to take out this vicious regime have questioned what appears to be an absence of clear objectives or planning in the war. Regime change beyond the states inner circles seems, for the moment, impossible as we have just seen by the replacement of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. But it remains the goal. In a video message released on February 28 as the strikes began, Trump called on the Iranians to seize the moment. The hour of your freedom is at hand, he told them. When we are finished, take over your government. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny. So far, there is little sign of that. People are mostly confined to their homes while US and Israeli airstrikes continue to pound Iran. Trips out into the street and shops are few and mainly for basics and retribution for those who step out of line is swift. If anyone comes forward in line with the wishes of the enemy, we will no longer see them as merely a protester, we will see them as an enemy, said national police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan in comments aired by state broadcaster IRIB. And we will do to them what we do to an enemy all our forces are also ready, with their hands on the trigger. My source confirms this. On the street the atmosphere remains bleak, they say. Across the board there is extremely heavy repression. There are checkpoints everywhere in Tehran. People are being beaten, investigated and detained. But as the days roll by, a clear plan tactically at least, is starting to emerge. Join the discussion Should the world intervene when a regime brutally turns on its own security forces? Smoke rises after an explosion during the World Quds Day march as participants carry Iranian flags and banners in Tehran, Iran on March 13, 2026 The first wave of strikes took out Irans now former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and as much of the leadership as possible. Then came wider strikes aimed at IRGC facilities and Irans potent ballistic missile capability. In recent days strikes have moved on to hitting the Basij, the IRGCs street-thug enforcers and the checkpoints. What is now evident is that a central plank of the American and Israeli plan is to do whatever they can to help the people rise up after the bombing stops. Even now, amid the relentless pounding, there are still signs of opposition. Last week there was an attempt to organise a large rally in Tehran, says my security source. But it collapsed because the city was saturated with security forces. And yet the regime does not have complete control. Attacks from the limited opposition that is able to function mean security officials are on their guard. Regime forces are more scared of a mobilised population than air strikes for these reasons, says my source. For now, the bombing is relentless; swathes of Iran are an inferno and the people are terrified. A friend I will call Mahmoud, who lives in Tehran, was blunt. Its terrifying, he told me. The bombs are very loud and we hear them through the night. I gather with my family and try to tell them we will be OK. We are very afraid. Its a terrible war. But we hope the Americans will succeed. Will regime change happen? I ask Baqer, a 45-year-old office worker. Right now, it seems little has changed, he says, referring to Mojtabas accession to the leadership. But we hope the regime will be much weaker when this war ends. One day Trump and Netanyahu will finish the job. Then, believe me, our time will come. If this might once have seemed fanciful, intelligence assessments are becoming more sanguine, despite the soaring costs of oil and gas caused by Irans chokehold on supplies. Not least because another growing source of chaos is the regimes failure to pay its thugs. Across Iran, soldiers and security personnel from multiple branches have reportedly staged protests, threatened to abandon their posts and, in some cases, deserted after months of unpaid salaries and pensions. Critically, the anger cuts across the ranks, from ordinary troops to senior officers. Instead of addressing the mounting financial crisis, authorities are doing what they always do: lash out. The result is more surveillance, more intimidation, more punishment. The effect is merely to breed yet more resentment among the very forces the regime relies on to keep it wedged in place. Personnel across multiple branches [of the Revolutionary Guard] have fled or attempted to flee. Manhunts have been launched for missing members, and families of those who fled have been placed under house arrest. Resignation requests across multiple provinces have been rejected outright, in some cases under explicit threat, reports my source. The idea is that all this paves the way for uprisings in the future, they conclude. When the smoke clears, people will be surprised at how degraded the regimes machinery of terror is. Its only a matter of time before it starts breaking down. No one seems to understand just how much trouble the regime is now in. In the realpolitik of international diplomacy, it's sometimes necessary to dance with the devil by enlisting the support of an otherwise unsavoury regime in the fight against a more pressing foe. But for all its short-term appeal, there are risks with this form of moral compromise. Give too much to the wrong people, and an even greater evil may emerge. The US arming of the Mujahideen in its fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the Cold War is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong. Those Mujahideen guerillas eventually morphed into the Taliban, who would go on to rout US and UK forces and plunge their country into a new dark age of oppression. It's easy to see the immediate advantage for Donald Trump in temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil - a deal believed to have been struck during an hour-long phone call with Vladimir Putin. Iranian attacks on shipping along the critical route through the Strait of Hormuz have seen the price of crude soar. Allowing the free sale of Russian oil, which accounts for around 12 per cent of the global supply and doesn't need to use the strait, should curb rising prices at American gasoline pumps. But those sanctions were imposed for a reason - as punishment for Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine. What message does their removal send out to beleaguered Ukrainian families, who are still being bombed daily? Russian oil provides approximately 12 per cent of the global supply and doesn't need to use the Strait of Hormuz The US Treasury Department issued a 30-day temporary waiver that allows for the purchase of Russian oil currently stranded at sea Putin has already benefited hugely from the oil price spike. He will now cash in even more, enabling him to keep feeding his bloody war machine, which had been running low on funds. He also has a huge incentive to shore up the brutal Iranian regime and encourage the mullahs to continue their raids on the Strait of Hormuz. Russia is already the chief supplier of weaponry to Tehran. Putin may now be bold enough - and rich enough - to provide yet more. This lifting of sanctions is meant to last for just a month. However tempting it may be for Mr Trump to extend it for domestic political reasons, he must resist. Further enriching and empowering Putin will not only lead directly to more Ukraine deaths, but also undermine Western democracy, embolden Iran's despots and make the whole world more perilous. Profits of war Vladimir Putin is not the only one making money from the Iran conflict. The UK Treasury is also doing nicely out of it. Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called in fuel industry bosses yesterday to tell them pump prices were being closely monitored during the oil crisis and warn that any attempt at profiteering would not be tolerated. However, their message might have carried more weight had the Government itself not been making a handsome profit as a result of the war. A new study suggests the Chancellor is netting an extra 91million a month in VAT on increased petrol and diesel sales - equivalent to more than 1billion a year. Before lecturing others, she should ensure that this money is given back to consumers, possibly by promising to extend the fuel duty freeze beyond September. With figures yesterday showing UK growth has ground to a halt, it would be a timely shot in the arm for an ailing economy. If she doesn't redistribute her new-found windfall, won't she be guilty of profiteering on the back of war? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first documented use of the noun responsibility dates back to 1642 and the writings of a political historian named Henry Parker. The same Indentures were drawn also by the Kings Councell, in whose judgment and responsibility the Vintners had reason to confide, recorded Parker, in relation to a dispute lost to the mists of time. The OED, custodian of the globes native tongue, goes on to define the words meaning as capability of fulfilling an obligation or duty; the quality of being reliable or trustworthy. Last week it was deployed by another Kings Counsel. In his response to publication of the first tranche of the Mandelson papers, Sir Keir Starmer delivered the following soundbite. I made a mistake in appointing Peter Mandelson, he said. Let me follow that up with as Ive done before, but I need to do it again an apology for the victims of Epstein. It was my mistake and I take responsibility in relation to it. A few months ago, after I had written about how Starmer had lied on numerous occasions over the China spy trial, I received a call from one of his senior aides. For 22 minutes he politely but firmly chastised me for accusing Sir Keir of deliberate deceit. We debated the various charges Id made. But in the end the thrust of his argument was this. You can disagree with the Prime Minister, he said, but when you accuse him of outright lying youre not only undermining him, but faith in our politicians and the entire political process. And you need to reflect on that. Sir Keir Starmer's claim to have accepted responsibility for the Mandelson affair was not just an abuse of the English language, but an attempt to disembowel it, writes Dan Hodges Ive reflected. And thats why I can say with conviction that Starmer is the most politically dishonest, disreputable, dishonourable and deceitful Prime Minister of my adult lifetime. This is not a comment on his personal character. Politics corrupts and brutalises the best. But his claim to have accepted responsibility for the Mandelson affair was not just an abuse of the English language, but an attempt to disembowel it. Lets start from the point Starmer was supposed to have first taken responsibility Mandelsons initial appointment. He wasnt choosing a plumber. The decision he was making was who should occupy one of the most sensitive posts in the British diplomatic service. It was set against a backdrop of war, the imposition of tariffs that could potentially cripple every business and household in the country, and an occupant of the White House whose volatility was rapidly descending into outright instability. And as we now know, what due diligence did the Prime Minister do in relation to his appointment? Did he conduct a series of lengthy meetings with his preferred candidate to discuss his foreign affairs strategy, ambitions and priorities? Or any meetings? Did he bother to take time from watching his beloved Arsenal grind out another tedious win to even pick up the phone to Mandelson for a few minutes? No. The man we are told is a great manager, with such a forensic eye for detail, subcontracted the whole process to his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Matthew Doyle. Then simply nodded the appointment through. At which point it promptly blew up in his face. So again, did Sir Keir choose to accept responsibility for his own failure to properly ascertain the now disgraced peers suitability for the role? Again, no. What he did instead was stand up in the House of Commons and claim: Full due process was followed during this appointment, as it is with all ambassadors. On Friday I spoke to a senior civil servant with years of direct experience of ambassadorial selections and asked if this claim was true. No, nothing like it, he said. The Prime Minister obviously felt he could do whatever he liked. Hed clearly decided no matter what he was told, hed do whatever it took to appoint Mandelson. Then there was the third occasion where Starmer could have accepted genuine responsibility. That was when in February the full extent of Mandelsons relationship with Epstein emerged, including his questionable business dealings. Yet again, did the Prime Minister hold up his hands? Of course not. Mandelson had deliberately lied to him to create the impression he barely knew Epstein, he claimed. I had no reason at that stage to think that was anything other than the truth. But as a result of the revelations last week, we now know the truth ourselves. At no stage had Starmer even bothered to speak to Mandelson. Despite being presented with a briefing paper setting out in detail the Epstein friendship, and warning of the associated risks, he again offloaded responsibility to McSweeney and Doyle, two of Mandelsons personal friends. One of whom Doyle had his own questionable relationship with a convicted paedophile. Taking true responsibility does not simply mean reluctantly mouthing the word, then tossing it out as belated mea culpa to the victims of Epsteins appalling crimes because the political heat has become too great. It means honestly and openly accepting there comes a point where an error of judgment is so great a personal price needs to be paid. And if waving through without proper scrutiny the elevation of the close friend of the worlds most notorious child abuser to the most sensitive diplomatic posting on the globe, then being caught lying repeatedly to Parliament over it, doesnt meet the criteria, its hard to see what does. Not least because that price has now been paid by everyone else associated with this tawdry affair. Mandelson, McSweeney, Doyle, Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald. Each of them has gone. Its now only Starmer left clinging on like grim death to the doorframe of 10 Downing Street. Yes, all politicians are deceitful. Thatcher lied, most famously over the Belgrano. But her motivation was a misguided attempt to protect the Armed Forces and the wider national interest. Blair deceived the nation over Iraq. But it was a deceit born of a messianic devotion to the Special Relationship, not personal survival. Boris, as Starmer never tired of telling us, lied repeatedly. But he at least did so with a smile on his lips that said, You know this is rubbish but lets keep it our secret. Its Starmer, uniquely, who chose to place honesty, integrity and incorruptibility at the heart of his political offer. A heart that the Mandelson affair has darkened beyond redemption. Last week the Prime Minister said he accepted full responsibility for the decision to appoint Mandelson despite his relationship with Epstein. Does he mean it? Or is it just another of his lies? Have GPs lost the ability to say no to their patients? I ask because a BBC survey published last week, based on more than 750 family doctors, found that 72 per cent say they have never refused a patient's request for a sick note. Consider what that really means. Of the more than ten million written statements known as fit notes issued last year, nearly one in ten cited mental health or behavioural disorders that were allegedly so severe they prevented patients from working. But not only does the BBC's survey suggest GPs rarely interrogate whether this is actually true, the reality is also that they don't always even see the patient before issuing one. One GP told me that if repeat patients request a fit note, no consultation is even booked in just a pop-up reminder for them to issue the correct paperwork. Can it possibly be true, then, that nearly one million people last year one in 40 of the UK's working-age population were so badly affected by mental and behavioural health disorders that they needed time off? Or is it something arguably far more likely: that our GPs once the gatekeepers of our great NHS are now more commonly bowing to patient demands? What that means, of course, is otherwise-healthy people are being encouraged in their belief that they are genuinely ill. I see them every day. As a teacher to children increasingly being diagnosed with myriad mental health and behavioural problems, I'm for ever being told this is a reason for them being unable to attend mainstream education. Like fit notes, the issuing of autism referrals is fast becoming a formality for GPs My pupils often say: 'My GP says I've got anxiety so I can't go to school'; or, 'I've been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder [ASD] so I can't socialise'. The prevalence of such disorders is rising. The latest NHS data suggests one in five children had a probable mental health condition in 2023, up from one in eight in 2017. But many of these children may well have other explanations for their behaviour. One of my pupils, 14-year-old Sandie (not her real name), was diagnosed with ASD when she was 12. She told me the real reason for her challenging behaviour was not mental illness, but her home life. 'I had to move in with my aunt because my dad couldn't cope,' she said. 'I was p****d off. I didn't want to go to school and started bunking off.' She said this acting out triggered 'all these people' to come to her house, including an educational needs practitioner and occupational therapist, and she was referred to CAHMS, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. 'I said I'd kill myself, [and] got an appointment after a few months,' Sandie said. 'I had my hood up, didn't talk to her, played with my phone. Got told I was autistic.' But two years on, Sandie doesn't think she has autism at all and wants another appointment to prove she's 'OK'. I don't believe Sandie is an isolated case, as the system favours over-diagnosing conditions such as these. What often happens is that patients like her, who have caused problems at home or in school, see a GP with parents convinced they 'must' have a disorder. GPs use a standard questionnaire to provide an initial assessment before referring them on to CAHMS or other NHS providers who make ADHD and autism assessments. But the problem with this questionnaire is that it is easily gamed. Patients, or their families, can turn up with prepared answers they've picked up online or on AI chatbots to questions they know will be asked. The lack of rigour in GPs' decision-making and reluctance to say no are setting up a generation to fail Like fit notes, the issuing of autism referrals is fast becoming a formality for GPs, rather than what it should be an interrogation of the patient and their symptoms. While few physical symptoms would simply be referred on to specialists without an initial examination, mental health issues are given a free pass. The GPs I have spoken to say grilling a patient and refusing a referral would 'interfere with the doctor-patient relationship'. They add that, for autism and ADHD, 'specialists are better placed to make such diagnoses'. It's true those seeking such medical labels often have a complex lifestyle of social and emotional behaviours that are impossible to unravel in a short appointment. But when the buck is so easily passed from the GP to educational psychologists or psychiatrists, it can put a child on a medical path that is nearly impossible to leave. Once their behaviour is pathologised as a disorder, they believe it. It absolves them from addressing their real problems, such as overeating, nocturnal living patterns and excessive tech use. One of my pupils, Kelly-Jane (again, not her real name) was diagnosed with autism aged 11. She found the transition to a very unruly secondary school difficult. Gradually, she stopped attending. Her concerned parents paid for a private assessment costing 1,800 that led to a diagnosis. As a result, Kelly-Jane became one of the 149,000 children in England and Wales to get an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) specifically for autism in 2025. These plans come with a suite of financial benefits to support their educational needs until they turn 25 or get a full-time job. But that means teaching firms such as mine are disincentivised from encouraging our pupils into employment if they're no longer in full-time education, we won't receive government funding. So girls such as Kelly-Jane and Sandie are robbed of ambition and will likely claim benefits for the rest of their lives. It is nothing short of a national scandal. Given Sandie's disrupted home life and Kelly-Jane's unpleasant school experience, their behaviour is easily explainable without a medical label something I suspect even the godmother of autism, Dame Uta Frith, would agree with. Dame Uta is emeritus professor in cognitive development at University College London. She recently suggested that describing autism as a spectrum has been 'stretched so far that it has become meaningless and is no longer useful as a medical diagnosis'. And yet the mass diagnoses continue, partly because the guidance GPs follow is so hopelessly woolly. The most common diagnostic manual says autism sufferers may display 'abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation'. In other words, they are a typical moody teenager. I understand GPs are under ever-greater pressures. But they must remember their role as patient assessors, not abettors. The lack of rigour in their decision-making and reluctance to say no are setting up a generation to fail. Anna Sadowski blamed her itchy rashes on being 'burnt out' from her 'insane college workload' - until doctors discovered a grapefruit-sized tumor in her chest. The student, 22, from Philadelphia said the 'random rashes' and hives on her body first appeared in the spring of 2023. She dismissed them as signs of stress. They would appear on Sadowski's face, neck, back and shins, and continued for the next two years. She said they even made her lips swell. 'I was so busy with school, working part time, focusing on graduating, on the board for three clubs, taking my classes and tutoring,' Sadowski said. 'I had this insane workload so I pushed things aside. I felt super burnt out and fatigued, but again I just thought it was a result of my amplified workload.' Her initial hives were 'more like raised bumps on my back... [and] not super itchy.' However, in April 2025, they appeared on her legs. 'The rashes on my shins were super itchy, and I would need to put cream on them or else I would scratch them until the point where they would bleed and it was just disgusting,' she recalled. Then, the young woman began experiencing other symptoms including fatigue, chest pain, night sweats and cold-like symptoms that worsened all throughout 2025. Anna Sadowski was diagnosed with cancer after dismissing her rash, blaming her symptoms on stress The circle shows the 'grapefruit-sized' tumor in Sadowski's chest Your browser does not support iframes. The fall of that year was when things got worse. 'My symptoms became unmanageable...' Sadowski said. 'From August to October I was sick every day, every week. I gaslit myself that it was just a common cold. I was coughing so much and having feverish chills. 'Then the night sweats began - I was having them for multiple months to the point where I was drenching the sheets multiple times per night. 'I was miserable because I was getting zero sleep because I was so sick. I physically couldn't complete my work and I knew something was wrong. 'My mom took me to the doctor's and I told them about the night sweats and they sent me to the emergency room. I was so, so scared.' After undergoing scans in the hospital, doctors told Sadowski she had a 10cm 'grapefruit-sized tumor' in her chest. Sadowski thought her life was over. 'The mass lies right next to my heart and it's huge. I genuinely thought that I was going to die,' she said. 'They said that they believed it to be cancerous but that they would need to do more testing to confirm. I'd already braced myself for the worst.' On November 18, 2025, after several biopsies and further testing, Sadowski received a diagnosis of Stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer that can spread quickly if not treated. Between 8,500 and 9,000 Americans are diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma each year, making it a rare type of cancer. It is, however, the most common cancer among 15- to 19-year-olds, and rates peak in people 18 to 34. The National Cancer Institute estimates about 1,100 deaths per year. Sadowski said she knew something was wrong because she was getting no sleep due to the feverish night sweats and cold-like symptoms Sadowski said her initial hives were 'more like raised bumps on my back... [and] not super itchy.' However, in April 2025, she developed rashes on her shins that became extremely itchy Sadowski was diagnosed at stage two, which has a five-year relative survival rate of about 95 percent After undergoing chemotherapy, Sadowski will have a detailed scan later this month to confirm whether she is in remission Itchiness and a rash are rare symptoms of Hodgkin lymphoma, but researchers believe they are caused by cytokines - chemicals released by the body's immune system as a response to the disease - irritating nerve endings in the skin, which cause persistent itching. The five-year relative survival rate for Stage 2 is about 95 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute, but doctors still initiated an aggressive chemotherapy plan for Sadowski. She will have a detailed scan later this month to confirm whether she is in remission. Now, Sadowski is sharing her story in the hopes of encouraging other people to visit their doctor if they notice something wrong with their body. 'You should trust your gut, and if you think that something is wrong then you should go to the doctor,' Sadowski said. 'Most of the time your body knows when something is wrong. Don't be scared. I was scared to go to the doctor - that's why I didn't go. '[But] if you think that something is wrong then go and get it checked out.' Sunday, December 14. Its a perfect afternoon: sun, sand, surfers. Im in Sydney visiting my two Londoner daughters who are here living the Australian dream. My 28-year-old, Ella, is at the beach with friends; her elder sister Anya, 30, is out with her boyfriend. So I go for a swim alone at the iconic oceanside pool, Icebergs. Afterwards I stroll along Bondi Beach photographing women celebrating Christmas around their tiny tree. Nearby, I hear firecrackers. Walking towards the sound, I wonder if its people paintballing. But these are sharp, booming bangs, not muffled recreational pops. Deep down, I know its gunfire, but I deny it and head home to Ellas flat three minutes walk away. Outside, a group of guys gathers around a phone. Theyre shooting people on the beach! yells one, who has just fled the scene. I glance at his carnage video: theres a man firing a gun, but still, I think its a game. The air fills with bang, bang, bang. Only later will I learn that Im caught up in the Bondi Beach terrorist atrocity. An Isis-inspired, murderous, anti-Semitic attack that targeted Jewish families celebrating Hanukkah. Fifteen dead. Forty-one hospitalised. Two gunmen Sajid and Naveed Akram, father and son. Four bombs thrown from a footbridge, none detonated. Bondi Beach My phone rings; its Ella. Where are you? she cries, gasping. Theres a man on the beach with a gun, shooting at us. Anyas OK. Shes at home. (Her flat is a mile away.) Then the phone goes dead. Part of me hopes that Ella is being melodramatic; part acknowledges the unfolding horror; above all, my mind tells me its not happening. I try to call Anya, but cant reach her. How can I really know shes safe until I hear her voice? Three minutes after the attack started, and before he sees it on the news, I message my ex-husband, Adrian, in Paris: 18.45: shooting in Bondi. E & I safe. Anya calls at 18.46. Shes alive. I text Adrian that shes OK, just as a bystander shouts, Three gunmen. With bombs! Is Ella going to die? Fight, flight, freeze. I do all three. Instead of hunting for Ella, I retreat to her flat, as if she should be there. Then I about-turn and drive to Anyas so we can look for Ella together. The air fills with sirens, the street with abandoned cars. En route I have a screaming standoff with a traumatised woman blocking the road, refusing to move. Anya is terrified but calm. Her boyfriend drives while she tracks Ellas phone. Youre safe, Smella, Anya calls. Well find you. LOVE you! We get out as near to the massacre scene as the cordons allow. This is the police, booms a helicopter. Vacate the area. I disobey, hellbent on reaching Ella. Its a war zone of helicopters, police and first responders. Out of the road! shouts an officer, speeding past in an armoured vehicle. A policewoman bars entry. F**k off! I scream. Let me through! My daughters in there! Ella suddenly appears from behind a policewoman physically uninjured. Surreal. I bear-hug her, crying. Shes frozen with fear. Its now 47 minutes since the first shot was fired (the whole incident lasted six minutes, 11 seconds), but feels like a week. Gunman Naveed Akram And yet our challenges are just beginning. As night falls, we go to Anyas flat its too unbearable to be in Ellas home near the beach, with snipers on roofs and helicopters circling. Ellas flatmate, Esther, locked inside a beachside restaurant, witnessed the shootings and the dying and injured being carried on surfboard stretchers. Their neighbour, Jess, lay on her five-year-old at the Hanukkah celebrations, nearly suffocating her. I hear about lifeguards sprinting barefoot into gunfire. Shop owner Ahmed al-Ahmed tackling a gunman. The dead: ten-year-old Matilda and 87-year-old Alexander, a Holocaust survivor. Theres footage of Ella on BBC News, screaming in the stampede: Go, go, go! I cant watch. For a week, we feel freezing, despite the heat. I become over-anxious, treating my daughters like five-year-olds. Before swimming, Ella texts: Out of contact 30 mins, Mumma Bear. For the first three adrenalised nights I dont sleep. Ella conks out during the day, then is up all night. On the Tuesday, we write about Ellas experience for a newspaper. Its the first time she is able to talk about Sunday. I find out that the friends she was with had delayed her from going home, otherwise, when the shooting started shed have been by the footbridge, from where the Akrams fired. She tells me now how the shots ricocheted, echoing how she never knew if she was running toward the gunmen. (Thats when, breathless, she had rung me.) How, in shock, she returned to her starting point, among prostrate bodies, someone screaming, The shooters are coming back! I thought I was going to die, she says. Caroline Phillips The what ifs begin to hit me. At 3.45am on Wednesday 17 December, three days after the shooting, we retrace Ellas footsteps. Theres nobody around except the police. Just outside the taped-off crime scene are abandoned pushchairs and piles of discarded shoes; inside it, bullet-holed cars. Ella sits alone for an hour by the sea of floral tributes. Needing community, we attend vigils every night for a week. Mental-health workers in orange T-shirts wander the Bondi streets, handing out leaflets and directing people to victim-support services. I need help for my daughter, I say. But how are you? they ask. I burst into tears. A London friend introduces me to David Trickey, co-director of the UK Trauma Council. Youre doing all the right things to maximise recovery, he emails. Have confidence in yourselves. This buoys me. But were isolated. On the other side of the world, our loved ones think alive means OK. Theyre busy with Christmas and Hanukkah. How can anyone understand, unless they have experienced a terrorist attack? I email psychologists repeatedly. No response. Its now 19 December and Christmas is impossible timing for finding help. Then, walking down the street, my bladder suddenly gives out. This hasnt happened since childhood. Its embarrassing, trauma. I hit bottom, thinking of suicide. I call Lifeline, a crisis helpline. Your feelings are normal, the man at the end of the phone consoles me, given what youve been through. A friend who saw active service in Northern Ireland writes, I fear it will take time to fully recover. I had similar experiences, but we were trained for it. We take part in group breathwork sessions and go to yoga, where a quarter of the class starts crying. Ella, Caroline's daughter Almost a month later, on 12 January, all three of us visit the Hub, the nexus of victim services, in Bondi Pavilion. Behind a screen labelled quiet space are three chairs, a candle and a mental-health practitioner who helps us find therapists. Still nowhere feels safe. It takes me 46 days to visit the footbridge. I weep. I take up ocean swimming, until there are four shark attacks in 48 hours, including a fatal one at my local beach. I hike in the Blue Mountains, until I encounter an eastern brown snake whose venom kills in 15 to 30 minutes. Today, three months on, Ella and I still tense and shake when cars backfire, ambulances wail or helicopters roar over. Ella suffers mood swings. Anya says shes fine, then bursts into tears. I feel low. Yet there has been light and kindness, too. Five days after the evil act, hundreds of surfers, swimmers and lifeguards formed a circle in the ocean to honour victims and reclaim the beach. I volunteer at a food bank, to remind myself of my good fortune. And try donating blood along with 50,000 other people, so I turn back at the four-hour queue. Then theres carpe diem stuff: Ella goes skydiving, Anya swims with dolphins, I opt for five-star nosh. Life-affirming, adrenalin-inducing, money-burning activities. Were all rethinking where we want to live, how and with whom. We have tighter familial ties, alternating deeper connections with more arguments a common post-trauma reaction. Theres a special bond with people who were there that day. Were the lucky ones. Were alive. Only one other thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same again. alamy, matrixnews Melania Trump has been brutally roasted online after she referred to herself as a 'visionary' during a recent speech. The First Lady, 55, made the comment at a Women's History Month event at the White House on Thursday afternoon, while celebrating her recent documentary. She not only called herself a 'visionary,' but she also talked about being 'often alone at the top' and knowing firsthand how 'success is not born overnight.' 'As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather, takes shape after a long, and sometimes challenging process,' the wife of Donald Trump said. 'Often alone at the top, I follow my passion, listen to my instinct and always maintain a laser focus. In solitude my creative mind dances - filling my imagination with originality. 'This unrestricted mindset has led me to build across very different sectors: fashion, digital assets, publishing, accessories, skincare, commercial television and of course, filmmaking.' Melania's statements went viral on X afterwards, as many people across the web mocked her for calling herself a 'visionary.' 'GIMME A BREAK: Melania Trump describes herself as a "visionary,"' one user captioned a video of her talking at the event, which got over 722,000 views. Melania Trump has been brutally roasted online after she referred to herself as a 'visionary' during a recent speech The First Lady, 55, made the comment at a Women's History Month event at the White House on Thursday afternoon, while celebrating her recent documentary 'The word "visionary" usually means someone who changed the world. Not someone who married into it,' quipped another user. 'The funniest part of calling yourself a visionary is that real visionaries usually wait for other people to say it,' someone else chimed in. 'She really said that?' asked a different user. 'Wild.' 'I often describe myself that way, Im not sure if people agree but whatevs,' another sarcastic post read. A sixth said: 'Melania calling herself a visionary feels like someone introducing themselves at a party as "the life of the party."' Impressed with his wife's speech, Trump immediately heaped praise on Melania afterwards, dubbing her a 'movie star' for the success of her recent documentary, titled Melania. 'A movie star, can you believe it?' Trump doted. 'I think it was number one last night. Streaming last night, was number one.' Melania was the seventh most-watched movie on Amazon Prime as of Thursday afternoon, according to FlixPatrol, a streaming and movie tracker. 'I don't know, maybe she's getting a little too big for the White House,' Trump riffed with a smile. Impressed with his wife's speech, Trump immediately heaped praise on Melania afterwards, dubbing her a 'movie star' for the success of her recent documentary, titled Melania It comes just days after an old video resurfaced that showed Trump driving a Rolls-Royce with his young son Barron in the passenger seat It comes just days after an old video resurfaced and gave fans an intimate look into the couple's private lives. The video, which was originally taken in 2014 by Melania, showed Trump driving a Rolls-Royce with his young son Barron in the passenger seat. The family were heard blasting the song Blank Space by Taylor Swift as they enjoyed a nighttime outing together. It recently went viral on X, and social media users were surprised to see the now-President in such a casual setting: hanging out with his wife and son like any normal dad would. In particular, many admitted that witnessing him behind the wheel was jarring, considering he is now always ferried around by a personal driver. 'Seeing Donald drive is like seeing Frank Sinatra cutting the lawn,' one user joked. 'Woah, he's driving,' someone else simply added. 'Cool to see Trump driving! And now Barron would barely fit in the side seat,' joked another fan, in reference to the now 20-year-old who stands at 6ft 9in. 'Just a typical American family,' read a fourth post. The video was originally shared by Melania on Facebook in 2014, with her writing in the caption at the time: 'Fun night with my two boys.' It first went viral in 2017 after Trump told Reuters in an interview that the one thing he missed since becoming President was driving. 'I like to drive,' he said. 'I can't drive anymore.' Many questioned how much driving experience the real estate mogul had, so according to Business Insider, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan did some 'digging' and 'unearthed' the video. Daily Mail journalists select and curate the products that feature on our site. If you make a purchase via links on this page we will earn commission - learn more Some people visit Paris to stock up on French pharmacy finds. Me? I dreamt of taking an empty suitcase to Seoul and filling it with Korean beauty products. Now I can just head to Boots, where many stores have counters dedicated to it (the retailer sells a Korean product every 11 seconds). Further proof Im not alone in my obsession? #kbeauty is TikToks third most-used beauty hashtag in the UK, and it was Look Fantastics fastest-growing skincare category in 2025. Korean beautys skin-first philosophy is driving this popularity, as are its prices (many products are under 25). Now third-generation K-beauty smarter formulas and simpler yet more powerful routines is leading the way. Here are my picks TLC for your skin barrier If your skin is dry, sensitive or prone to breakouts, the root cause is often a weakened skin barrier (the outer layer that keeps moisture in and irritants out). When the barrier is healthy, skin looks more radiant. Rather than relying on harsh exfoliants that promise quick results, todays K-beauty routines focus on strengthening the skin barrier first. The result is skin that holds hydration better, so looks plumper. Haruharu Wonder Black Rice Probiotics Barrier Essence (21, lookfantastic.com) has become a staple in my morning routine for a fresh, dewy base. At night, Thank You Farmer Rice Pure Milky Cleansing Oil (22, cultbeauty.co.uk) removes make-up thoroughly without stripping the skin. SPF with added benefits Daily sunscreen is the most effective way to prevent premature ageing, pigmentation and loss of firmness. Korean SPFs have become cult favourites because they feel weightless and hydrating more like skincare than traditional sun cream. Many formulas also include ingredients that actively improve skin, helping it appear brighter and smoother while protecting it from UV damage. Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics SPF50+ (15.50, spacenk.com) is a repeat-buy because it offers a hydrating, dewy finish without any stickiness. Skin1001 Madagascar Centella Hyalu-Cica Water-Fit Serum SPF50+ (19, spacenk.com) feels barely there on the skin, delivering hydration and high protection. The renewal revolution Supporting skin regeneration is key to keeping it looking young. This means using skincare that boosts collagen production and cell renewal to help skin appear firmer, smoother and more youthful. Ingredients such as PDRN (a DNA-derived ingredient sourced from salmon) and exosomes promote skin elasticity, soften fine lines and strengthen skin over time. Medicube PDRN Pink Peptide Serum (19.99, sephora.co.uk) has become a bestseller with the brand reporting six million bottles sold thanks to its reputation for visibly improving hydration, skin tone and the appearance of pores. Want a game-changing pad? Meet pre-soaked toner pads, which deliver a precise dose of active ingredients in a single swipe, helping to exfoliate, hydrate and smooth skin without the guesswork of traditional liquid toners. Stored in sealed tubs with hygienic tweezers, theyre also more convenient and consistent, making it easier to maintain results with minimal effort. Mediheal, Koreas leading sheet-mask brand, produces some of the most effective versions. Once a week, Ill use one of its Madecassoside Blemish Pads (22 for 100, boots.com) to help calm inflammation and reduce redness. I also rate Biodance Collagen Gel Toner Pads (20 for 60, boots.com) as they leave skin visibly plumper. Next-generation face masks Face masks are evolving from occasional treats into targeted regular treatments. Sheet masks made from hydrogel stick to the skin better than traditional fabric ones, allowing ingredients to absorb more effectively. The result is deeper hydration and skin that looks fresher. Overnight masks, which seal in moisture and support repair while you sleep, are also ideal when skin feels dry, dull or depleted. Anua PDRN Hyaluronic Acid Capsule 100 Serum Mask (24 for ten, lookfantastic.com) consistently gives my skin its healthiest glow, while Medicube Collagen Night Wrapping Mask (26, lookfantastic.com) locks in moisture overnight, so skin looks more supple by morning. Results over fancy packaging In South Korea, pharmacy skincare is huge, with consumers gravitating towards dermatologist-developed, clinically tested formulas that may not look bougie but pack a real punch. Brands such as Dr Althea emphasise rigorous clinical testing alongside formulation expertise. I rate its Pure Grinding Cleansing Balm (19, sephora.co.uk) for a gentle yet effective cleanse, while Aestura Atobarrier365 Cream (26, sephora.co.uk) is the final step in my nightly routine to keep skin hydrated. Getting to the root of healthy hair The same philosophy that has revolutionised skincare is now reshaping haircare. Korean formulas prioritise scalp health and repairing damage at the source, resulting in hair that looks shinier and glass-like. The focus is on strengthening hair over time, so it becomes more resilient to breakage and frizz. This approach has helped fuel the success of Unove, South Koreas best-selling haircare brand, which has just launched in Boots. Its hair mask Deep Damage Treatment Ex (22, boots.com) has for years ranked among the top products at South Korean pharmacy Olive Young. The formula helps repair damaged lengths, improving shine and softness. Face-grade formulas for the body Bodycare is following skincares lead with results-driven formulas using proven ingredients to tackle issues such as dry, rough and dull skin more effectively than traditional body lotions. Illiyoon Ceramide Ato Concentrate Cream (19.99, boots.com) is one of my go-to, no-nonsense body lotions. It absorbs quickly despite its rich texture and never feels sticky, so I can get dressed straight away. State-of-the-art scents Korean innovation is extending into perfume, with niche brands gaining attention for not just their distinctive scents but ones that are designed to last the whole day. Born To Stand Out is one such brand. Its perfumes, which include the best-selling Drunk Lovers Eau De Parfum (173, cultbeauty.co.uk), are aged in traditional Korean onggi jars for up to 90 days, a process that results in a more complex scent that lingers on the skin. Do-it-yourself tweakments Liquid microneedling has become one of K-beautys fastest-growing trends. Instead of needles, these formulas use microscopic spicules tiny, needle-like particles to help ingredients penetrate more deeply and support skin renewal. I currently use a serum by VT Cosmetics Reedle Shot (15 from 25, cultbeauty.co.uk) a couple of nights a week, as it helps refine texture and boost glow without the downtime needed for in-clinic treatments and the costly price tag. With just days to go until the Oscars 2026, some of Hollywood's biggest stars have spent a fortune to ensure their skin is red carpet ready. A-list guests are set to put their best foot forward as they descend on the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday for the Academy Awards. But many famous faces will have undergone a strict checklist of cosmetic tweakments in the months leading up to the most coveted industry awards - and likely put themselves at risk in doing so. Preparations to get the skin looking taut and wrinkle-free begin as far as six months in advance. And, between laser treatments and deepening resurfacing procedures to chemical peels and Botox injections, the cost of beauty really does add up. The Daily Mail has now spoken to dermatologists and plastic surgeons ahead of the glitzy gathering to weigh in on which procedures are considered essential for stars, as well as their hefty price tags. But they warned that 'stacking' all these procedures carry dangers that could leave A-listers looking like Frankenstein's latest project. Dr. Aderonke Obayomi MD, MPH, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist and Assistant Professor at Mount Sinai who specializes in cosmetic treatments, pointed out that adhering to a sensible cosmetic schedule minimizes any last-minute mishaps. Botox injections, usually administered two to four weeks before the awards, can range between $800 and $2,000 (stock image) Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, she pointed out that many stars rely on a combination of injectables and skin resurfacing treatments before major events like the Oscars. She said: 'It is common for people to undergo multiple procedures before big events. A combination of procedures are best used for different concerns.' Often, Botox is used for dynamic wrinkles and wrinkles at rest, fillers are used for contour and volume, and lasers or peels are used for skin tone and texture. These treatments are frequently layered together for optimal results. 'A polished red-carpet look usually comes from strategic, layered treatments performed over several months, not a last-minute cosmetic overhaul,' she said. These treatments are frequently layered together for optimal results. 'New procedures should be avoided right before a big event, because your skin could react unpredictably. 'There needs to be time for follow ups or in some cases for initial selling to subside.' Stars can shell out thousands of dollars on cosmetic tweakments ahead of big events Laser treatments and dermal fillers are the most expensive and can set a client back up to an estimated $5,000 per procedure (left, stock image). Microneedling is approximately $500 (right, stock image) Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Jay Calvert, who owns RoxSpa and is the host of the Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery Podcast, shared insight into just how much Hollywood stars could be shelling out for their red carpet procedures. According to Dr. Calvert, laser treatments and dermal fillers are the most expensive and can set a client back up to an estimated $5,000 per procedure. Botox injections can range between $800 and $2,000, while microneedling is approximately $500, and luxury facials can cost between $400 to $800. Timeline for Oscars ready skin treatments 36 months before: Laser treatments or deeper resurfacing procedures if needed 68 weeks before: Chemical peels or microneedling 24 weeks before: Botox injections (takes about 1014 days to fully kick in) Dermal fillers so swelling settles before the event 12 weeks before: Light facials or gentle treatments for glow To that end, our favorite celebrities could be dropping as much as $15,300 just to ensure they're camera ready. In 2023, Cara Delevingne and Lily Aldridge were among the stars to have been pampered with approximately $4,000 worth of luxury skincare treatments ahead of the 95th Academy Awards. At the time, it was revealed they ad enjoyed a customized facial treatment by Joanna Czech at the L'Ermitage Beverly Hills. A Lyma Laser device was used to boost the results and help them both look refreshed, sculpted, and hydrated. But undergoing skin procedures doesn't come without risks, and that's why Dr Obayomi suggests starting early allows dermatologists to adjust treatments and avoid last-minute complications. Potential complications include bruising or swelling from fillers, uneven Botox results if done too close to the event and overfilled or unnatural appearance. There is also a risk of post-laser redness or hyperpigmentation and in rare cases, vascular complications from filler. Another danger is stacking too many treatments without allowing proper healing time, which can compromise the skin barrier or trigger inflammation. 'One of the biggest risks before major events is trying to do too much too quickly,' Dr Obayomi said. She also warns that when it comes to aesthetic procedures, which are medical procedures, it is never a good idea to be cheap. 'Sometimes the best prep before a big event is just hydration, sleep, and staying out of the sun,' she added. 'Not everything needs to be a procedure. 'Ultimately, people should do whatever helps them to feel their most confident to put their best foot forward. 'And the best person to help them do that is a board-certified dermatologist.' A woman has issued a stark warning to others after she claimed that her botched Botox injections left her with a 'frozen' face and completely different smile. Bailey Turner, 27, from Dallas, Texas, decided to get Botox in 2023 in an attempt to combat her jaw pain per the recommendation of her dentist. But she has now claimed that a mishap during the procedure altered her appearance and left her unrecognizable. While chatting with the Daily Mail about it, she explained that she started suffering from severe pain in her jaw in 2017 due to teeth grinding and was ultimately diagnosed with temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ). After years of battling jaw tension and soreness, as well as frequent headaches, her dentist recommended she try Botox to alleviate her symptoms. 'Its become a pretty common treatment for relaxing the masseter muscle and helping with clenching,' she explained. She paid 'a few hundred dollars' and got injections on both sides of her jaw, and about a week later, her symptoms started to disappear. 'It helped reduce the tension and clenching in my jaw,' she explained. 'The muscles definitely relaxed and I noticed less tightness.' After Bailey Turner, 27, got Botox in her jaw to alleviate pain, she said she wasn't able to fully smile and felt like her face was 'frozen.' She's seen before (l) and after (r) the injections However, her relief soon turned to horror when she developed sudden paralysis in her face. 'A few weeks after the injections, I noticed I wasn't able to fully smile. It felt like my face was frozen,' she revealed. 'I was confused and a little concerned because my smile had never looked like that before.' Turner explained that while her physical pain was gone, looking in the mirror and not recognizing her own smile brought immense mental pain. She noted that she was not warned about the potential side effects by the doctor before getting the Botox. She later learned it was likely caused by the Botox 'diffusing into nearby muscles that affect your smile,' which usually occurs when an improper injection technique is used, or by the 'incorrect muscle being injected.' Thankfully, it was only temporary and gradually wore off as the Botox dissolved. Now, she is warning others about the potential reaction. She recently opened up about it on TikTok, where her video went viral, raking in more than 435,000 views. She learned it was likely caused by the Botox 'diffusing into nearby muscles that affect your smile' or by the 'incorrect muscle being injected.' She's seen before (l) and after (r) the Botox She showed before and after photos of her smile, writing in the caption: 'I got masseter Botox for TMJ pain and left with a frozen face.' Many people were quick to thank her for sharing her story in the comment section, with one user gushing: 'Thank you for de-influencing me, seriously, Ive never seen this.' Some admitted that they were now 'scared' to get Botox, while others shared their own similar experiences. Another comment read: 'Omg this happened to me too. And right before I went on a trip to Spain so I had to smile with no teeth.' 'I thought it was just me,' said someone else. 'Feels like my face never recovered,' announced a different user. Looking back, Turner told the Daily Mail that she wished she 'asked more questions,' went to a specialist or started with a 'more conservative dose.' 'Make sure you go to someone very experienced with TMJ Botox and ask detailed questions about placement, dosage and potential side effects beforehand,' she suggested. Daily Mail journalists select and curate the products that feature on our site. If you make a purchase via links on this page we will earn commission - learn more Ive never been more ready to pack away my coats and chunky knitwear. The endless winter layering has lost all its charm and the prospect of stepping out in something lighter feels genuinely freeing and exhilarating. This spring Ill be returning to some of my wardrobe favourites: my Toteme signature trench (a piece the label revisits each year), my Saint Laurent mens black blazer, my light-blue 501s and my go-to white T-shirt (the simple Clean Cut style from Cos). As well as these regulars on rotation, here are some microtrends Im excited to try: Jacket, Rejina Pyo. Rollneck, Massimo Dutti. Trousers, Toteme. Sunglasses, Saint Laurent. Bag, Bottega Veneta. Boots, Khaite The kick flare With fascination around Carolyn Bessette Kennedys wardrobe newly reignited thanks to Ryan Murphys miniseries Love Story kick-flare trousers and jeans are making a comeback. Ive always loved this flirty shape because it subtly spotlights your flats or mules. CBK herself favoured vintage Levis in this cut, often sourced from What Goes Around Comes Around in SoHo, New York still open, and still very much worth a visit. Fancy footwear When it comes to shoes this spring, ballet flats, backless loafers and sharp pointy mules are leading the charge. Fun accessories Brooches are back as are statement necklaces and pendants (see right). Im a fan of the tassel pendant casually draped over a T-shirt. Colourful silk scarves are also trending Celine has just dropped a beautiful new collection (see below). Jacket, Rejina Pyo. Rollneck, Massimo Dutti. Trousers, Toteme. Sunglasses, Saint Laurent. Bag, Bottega Veneta. Silky things For a touch of quiet luxury, think fluid-silk shirts worn casually with jeans or everyday tailoring. Lace trims on skirts and tops will also remain firmly in favour. Horse and swan motifs As the Year of the Horse gallops in, equestrian motifs are set to be popular. An unexpected companion trend is a renewed appreciation for the swan the most elegant of all the birds. Leather jackets These, along with suede jackets, will continue to dominate. Ill be wearing mine with white skirts and trousers, then teaming them both with pops of olive green, red and yellow. @thestylistandthewardrobe @youmagazine RIDE OR TIE Wear Celines chic scarf (with on-trend horse motif) inside your shirt or wrap it around the handle of your favourite bag. IN THE SWIM Fish for compliments this spring with a beautiful piscine pendant from Ysso. SPOTTED After a decade of channelling her style, Lily Collins has been cast as Audrey Hepburn in a new big-screen biopic and Im super-excited to see the films wardrobe. Heres Lily recently, wearing her friend Harris Reeds designs at his London Fashion Week show. Sophie Bouali and her tradie husband Adam will be living the 'Great Australian Dream' - except it won't actually be in Australia. The couple bought their first property together near Brisbane's CBD in late 2021. But with expensive groceries, utility bills and mortgage repayments piling up, they began to feel the pinch amid the soaring cost of living. 'Australia has been a great place to live and build our lives, but like many Australians, we've definitely felt the rising cost of living over the last few years,' Sophie, a corporate employee in administration, told the Daily Mail. 'So we started thinking about whether there might be another lifestyle that suited us better long term. Like many households, a large portion of our income goes towards everyday expenses and mortgage repayments.' So the pair decided to expand their real estate search overseas. After trips abroad to inspect dozens of properties in various locations, Sophie, 31, and Adam, 35, found the perfect two-bedroom property right near Tuscany, Italy, for $90,000 (55,000). 'We bought a house in Italy for the price it cost for a ute in Australia,' she said. 'When I first started looking at properties, I was shocked to see how affordable some homes in Italy were compared to Australia. It made us realise that owning a house outright and living mortgage-free could actually be possible.' Sophie Bouali and her tradie husband Adam will be living the 'Great Australian Dream' - except it won't actually be in Australia The couple found the perfect two-bedroom property right outside of Tuscany, Italy, for $90,000 (55,000) The Italian home is spread over three floors, offering plenty of space. 'It's a semi-detached independent house. The top floor has two bedrooms, one bedroom has a powder room with a toilet and the other has a balcony,' she said. 'The main floor has an open plan kitchen and a large renovated bathroom. The ground floor is a full garage and cellar with a laundry room at the back. 'The house doesn't require any renovation as it was updated around 10 years ago. It has traditional terrazzo floors and a beautiful exposed timber beam roof. It also includes integrated kitchen appliances.' Their new home is located in a town in the region of Lazio. It is two hours from Rome and close to Tuscany's southern border. 'The town itself is really charming with plenty of local tourism, gelato shops and cafes all within walking distance,' she said. 'It has a population of about 6,000 people.' However, buying a property in Italy wasn't as simple as some may think. Their new home is located in a town in the region of Lazio. It is two hours from Rome and close to Tuscany's southern border The Italian home is spread over three floors, offering plenty of space. The main floor has an open plan kitchen There's a large renovated bathroom in their Italian home 'It definitely wasn't as straightforward as buying property in Australia,' Sophie said. 'We were told the process could take around six months, but we were lucky that everything was completed in about three months. 'We did have a few properties we were interested in where offers fell through, which is quite common in Italy, but it ultimately helped us find the right place. Having a property agent who guided us through each step made a huge difference. 'There are also additional costs buyers need to factor in such as purchase taxes, notary fees, property inspections and agent fees. In our case, those costs were about 11,000, approximately A$18,000. Although this can vary depending on the property's value. Sophie and Adam chose Italy after being drawn to the lifestyle, balance and affordable cost of living. 'We really love the slower pace of life, the language, the food and the strong sense of community,' she explained. 'When we realised we could potentially buy a property outright and not have a huge mortgage, it felt like an opportunity to build a life with more time to enjoy those things. 'From our calculations, the general cost of living can be around 30 per cent cheaper than in Australia, depending on where you live. Of course, larger cities like Rome can be more expensive, but in smaller towns, the cost of living can be significantly lower.' Sophie said she always loved the idea of living somewhere she could immerse herself in another language every day After visiting Italy multiple times, the couple set their hearts on building a new life in Tuscany Share your story with Daily Mail Did you move overseas from Australia in search of a more affordable cost of living? Email Cindy.Tran@dailymail.com.au After visiting Italy multiple times, the couple set their hearts on building a new life in the region, which is renowned for its stunning landscapes, food and wine, and rich culture. 'The nearby Tuscan hills and surrounding areas are incredibly beautiful and the people outside the major cities are really lovely,' she said. 'One of the culture shocks were that many shops close during the afternoon and reopen later in the evening. But we also loved the tradition of late dinners and doing fare una passeggiata, which is going for a walk after a meal.' Sophie said she always loved the idea of living somewhere where she could immerse herself in another language every day. 'Italy made sense for me because I have Italian heritage, but it was also about rediscovering the language and culture in a deeper way,' she said. 'I've been learning Italian for the last few years and realised that the best way to truly learn a language is to live in the country where it's spoken.' Before buying their Italian home, Adam was working as an electrician and later started his own electrical business. Tuscany, right near their home, is renowned for its stunning landscapes, food and wine, and rich culture (picture of the town near their house) After Adam sold his business in May 2025, the couple began exploring other ways to generate income, while Sophie continues to work full-time in a corporate role. 'My husband and I have taken over our family business, Languages Made Easy, which sells language learning resources for teachers as well as digital products for adults wanting to learn Italian,' Sophie said. 'My parents started the company many years ago. My husband and I now run it together and we've been expanding it into digital products for adult learners as well, including Italian bundles for people wanting to learn the language faster.' As it's an online business, the couple can run it remotely from anywhere, hoping to use the income to fund their new life abroad. Sophie said they were able to buy the home outright using the money they made from selling her husband's business. As she has Italian heritage, Sophie discovered she was eligible for citizenship to live in Italy so the couple are going all in with their new life. As she's in the process of finalising her citizenship, she's looking to apply for a study visa so she can continue learning Italian once she settles into their new home. After spending three years working to make their dream life abroad a reality, the couple is looking to make the permanent move by the end of the year. After spending three years working to make their dream life abroad a reality, the couple is looking to make the permanent move by the end of the year For any Aussies looking to buy property in Italy, she urged: 'Do your research and find a good property agent who understands the local process Join the discussion Is chasing a better life abroad giving up on Australia or just being smart about your future? 'We've been preparing for this for over three years so we finally feel ready to take the plunge,' she said. 'Our long-term plan is to relocate to Italy once my citizenship process is finalised. It felt like the right time to take the next step. We're planning to move with our two dogs. 'Because the property is already renovated, we're currently in the process of setting it up on Airbnb until we eventually move there ourselves.' As for their property in Australia, they have no plans to keep it. 'We are planning to sell our Australian home. For us personally, being mortgage free and simplifying our life feels like the right decision,' Sophie explained. Once they set up their new lives, the couple hope to invest in more properties. 'We would love to eventually buy a fixer upper property in Tuscany and renovate it ourselves and potentially rent it as a holiday property,' Sophie said. For any Aussies looking to buy property in Italy, she urged: 'Do your research and find a good property agent who understands the local process. 'One of the hardest parts is choosing the area because there are so many beautiful places. It's also important to decide on your non-negotiables. Things like distance to the airport, shops and train stations. 'And even if you don't have heritage ties to Italy, Australians can still purchase property and apply for visas. It might not be the easiest process, but if it's something you really want to do, it can absolutely be possible.' Comedian Bill Maher has declared it is time to move on from the Oscars' diversity complaints. Maher, 70, addressed the tenth anniversary of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign by saying it is time to abandon the movement as its goal has been achieved. He told his Real Time audience that Oscars attendees should wear a 'ribbon that says we won.' 'Take the win,' he said on his HBO show on Friday. 'Eight of the last ten best director prizes have been won by underrepresented groups, not to mention 60 percent of the honorary awards. 'The Oscars are no longer a long, boring show full of white people. It's a long, boring show full of all people.' He mentioned several diverse actors who have won in recent years, including Zoe Saldana for Emilia Perez in 2025 and Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2023. He also lamented a change to nomination rules which dictate that movies must have a certain percentage of diverse cast and crew to be eligible for Best Picture, noting that several critically acclaimed films would no longer meet the criteria. 'You couldn't make Titanic today and hope to get nominated, or Braveheart, or Amadeus. Apollo 13 was about a bunch of white people because white people have done some stuff,' Maher argued. Maher, 70, honored the tenth anniversary of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign by saying it's time to move on as the prestigious award ceremony has become diverse Maher brought up Ke Huy Quan, who won in 2023 for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Zoe Saldana, who won for Emilia Perez in 2025 Maher also highlighted that Moonlight, a film that follows a young black man growing up in Miami, won Best Picture in 2017. It was the first LGBT+ film to win the biggest award of the night. The next year, The Shape of Water, a fantasy movie that follows a mute woman in Baltimore, won four Oscars - including Best Picture. CODA, a film about children of deaf adults, won the biggest award in 2022, becoming the first film to win with a predominantly deaf cast. 'Not to mention Nomadland, which might be about Somalia, but no one has seen it, so it's impossible to know,' Maher joked. 'Acting Oscars have gone to Will Smith, Michelle Yeoh, Zoe Saldana, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Youn Yuh-jung, Regina King, Viola Davis, Ke Huy Quan, Daniel Kaluuya, and Mahershala Ali twice. 'You cant argue with a straight face - or even a gay face - that the Academy in 2026 still overlooks minority achievement or that Hollywood is biased in favor of all white people, just Australians.' Maher went on to insist that Academy voters aren't looking at a nominee's race when they make their selection. 'No Academy member this year filled out their ballot thinking: "Well, I didn't think Timothee Chalamet was very good, but I'll vote for him because he's white."' Chalamet is expected to take home Best Actor this year for his role in Marty Supreme, despite being in a media firestorm for making negative comments about ballet and opera. Maher joked that critics aren't celebrating Timothee Chalamet for his performance in Marty Supreme just because he is white 'Hollywood isn't a secret cabal of racists. It's a secret cabal of people terrified of looking like racists,' Maher said. 'And I'm just tired of no matter how much progress is made, social justice warriors feeling the need to gaslight us as if none of it had happened.' He also criticized the Academy for changing the rules to only make films eligible for Best Picture if they were made by a diverse cast and crew. The rules stipulate that at least 30 percent of cast and crew have to be from at least two underrepresented groups. But there are also other ways to get nominated, including having a movie's subject matter or the lead actor being from underrepresented groups, among others. Maher brought up this year's most nominated film, Sinners, starring Michael B Jordan, which beat Titanic's record for Oscar nominations, saying it 'doesn't need affirmative action.' 'Neither did Parasite or Shape of Water,' the comedian said. 'The whole thing is so Hollywood. A room full of know-nothings who call themselves the Academy, making everyone tremble before their judgment, even though their judgment is often terrible and fails the test of time. 'Maybe the hashtag should be #OscarsSoWrong.' He also criticized the Academy for new rules which only make films eligible for Best Picture if they they have a certain percentage of diverse cast and crew, which would have made films like Titanic ineligible The #OscarsSoWhite campaign started with April Reign, a former lawyer-turned-editor. It started as a hashtag in 2015 in response to the lack of diversity among the Academy Award nominees. She tweeted: 'Oscars so white they ask to touch my hair' and the hashtag took on a life of its own. It was heavily used online in 2016 after the 20 acting nominations did not include any people of color. Revolut has placed London at the top of its list of destinations for a stock market float, The Mail on Sunday understands. The fintech giant, which last week finally received a UK banking licence following a five-year wait, is said to have put the City in 'pole position' for a future listing following discussions with officials at the London Stock Exchange. Boasting an estimated value of 56 billion, the company is also thought to have been encouraged by indications that it would swiftly enter the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip British firms should it opt for a UK listing. Revolut's preference for a London float marks a stark change in what had previously been a tempestuous relationship between the fintech's billionaire boss, Nik Storonsky, and Britain's financial regulators. The company first applied for a UK banking licence in 2021 and, two years later, said approval was 'imminent'. But there was a hiccup when the company's then-auditor said 477 million of revenue about three-quarters of turnover for 2021 could not be verified and may have been misstated. All smiles: Revolut's preference for a City float marks a stark change in what had been a tempestuous relationship between its boss, Nik Storonsky (pictured), and financial regulators Eventually, in July 2024, it was granted a licence 'with restrictions' from the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority, before receiving a full licence last week. The company also suffered a setback in April when it was slapped with a 3 million fine by Lithuanian regulators for failures in its anti-money laundering controls. The agonising process prompted Storonsky, 41, to throw a tantrum at the 'long and tiring' saga and attack the UK as a place to do business, raising fears that Revolut could instead opt for a listing in New York, dealing another blow to the LSE's global competitiveness. But tempers appear to have cooled, with a senior Revolut source telling The Mail on Sunday that the LSE had 'moved a long way' to address the company's concerns about a UK float. 'The atmosphere has changed and we recognise the need to compete with New York,' they added. Revolut is also said to have warmed to the London market due to its 'less onerous' filing rules compared with those of the US. While a timeline for the listing has not been set, Revolut's UK boss Francesca Carlesi told The Sunday Times a float would not occur until 2028 at the earliest. The firm is also understood to be waiting for its accounts to be signed off next March the first set of numbers that will be scrutinised by accounting giant EY. They said approval from a major auditor was considered vital to bolster Revolut's financial credibility with potential investors. Revolut's 56 billion valuation, based on a private funding round last year, would place it among the 15 biggest companies on the LSE and within striking distance of Lloyds and Barclays. But, Will Mahon-Heap, Revolut's former head of licensing, who steered the firm through its efforts to secure banking approvals in multiple countries, said the company was aiming to fetch a value of as much as 76 billion when it floats. It would also provide a much-needed boost for the UK stock market, which in recent years has been criticised for failing to attract listings from major tech firms and from which several large companies have defected to the US for higher valuations. Revolut was founded in 2015 and has 13 million customers in the UK and 70 million around the world. Its new licence means it will be able to start lending in Britain and offer deposits that will be protected up to the value of 120,000 under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The company is also thought to be planning a major push into the US market, primarily with offers of new credit cards, while in the UK it is aiming to start providing mortgages. It has also plans to invest 3 billion in the UK, creating 1,000 jobs. Entrepreneur Nathalie Morrison is best known in business circles as the woman who took on Phones 4U tycoon John Caudwell in a bruising court battle that transfixed the City. Eight years on, Morrison then Nathalie Dauriac has remarried, ironically enough to a lawyer, and started a lab-grown diamond jewellery business. The brand, Astrea London, is backed by Sex And The City star Sarah Jessica Parker, while England rugby captain Maro Itoje has also been brought on as a brand ambassador. Morrison, who previously set up two wealth management firms, is backed by City grandee Lord Stanley Fink, former boss of FTSE 100 hedge fund firm Man Group. Fink, who chairs Astrea, had the same role at Morrison's most recent wealth business, Hay Hill, which she sold to private equity five years ago. She became interested in lab-grown diamonds through a school mum friend. 'At first, I didn't know what a lab-grown diamond was,' Morrison says. 'I didn't realise the harm caused by mined diamonds to the planet. I thought, if we can have these beautiful diamonds without ruining the earth then that will be great. Now I believe this could be my biggest business by miles.' Ring of confidence: Nathalie Morrison, pictured at Brown's Hotel, London, became interested in lab-grown diamonds through a school mum friend Brands such as Pandora and Swarovski dominate the mid-market for lab-grown pieces. Morrison has pitched for the very high-end, where she argues there is 'not a lot of competition yet'. She argues that lab-grown stones could be so disruptive, they might spell the end of Bond Street, London's famous jewellery thoroughfare, as we know it. 'The Bond Streets of this world won't be able to compete with the price of mined diamonds coming down, so one of the big players will move to lab-grown,' Morrison says. How did she bring in Sarah Jessica Parker? 'I wrote to her. I could see how much she has influenced the fashion industry. I flew to New York to meet her. She is now a shareholder with 10 per cent of the company and she creates at least two collections a year.' Morrison says the actress is nothing like her scatty character, Carrie. 'Sarah Jessica is much more business-oriented than people would think from the show. I call her for financial advice.' In good company: Sarah Jessica Parker is a shareholder in Astrea London Itoje, who also owns a small stake, recently did a Hello! photoshoot for the brand with his wife, Mimi, sporting Astrea jewellery. 'Men are going to be a big part of our offering. About 20 per cent of our sales are for men,' Morrison says. She began selling the jewellery 'like Tupperware parties with the mums from school' and started off with 'just my own money.' She raised 4 million, which she says valued the firm at 14 million last summer. Turnover this year, she says, is heading for 3 million. She has opened an Astrea London boutique in the Fairmont Windsor Park Hotel, owned by billionaire hotelier Surinder Arora. And prior to the hostilities in Iran, she opened two stores in the Mandarin Oriental Jumeirah and the Five Luxe JBR hotels in Dubai. She is also working with the ruler of the United Arab Emirates to open a lab-grown diamond 'museum' in Abu Dhabi. Morrison has become an evangelist for lab-grown gems, objecting when anyone uses the term 'real' diamonds; she calls them 'mined' stones. But the multi-billion-pound question is whether people will still buy into the status and romance of natural stones even if lab-grown alternatives are cheaper and greener. The boom in lab-grown gems is just one crisis facing the natural diamond market. This is symbolised by the plight of industry giant De Beers, which has been put up for sale by miner Anglo American but is struggling to find a buyer. Not everyone is convinced lab-grown diamonds will vanquish their costlier rivals, however. De Beers itself entered the market in 2018 but withdrew last year, pointing to a 90 per cent fall in the wholesale price of the stones. This, it said, had reinforced its 'belief in rare, high-value natural diamond jewellery' as separate from the 'low-cost, mass-produced' lab-grown kind. De Beers would say that. But respected industry analysts also argue that diamonds are an emotional rather than rational purchase. Lower prices for lab-grown stones, therefore, may not win over status-conscious buyers. A Frenchwoman brought up in Bordeaux, Morrison, now 48, came to England 20 years ago for a postgraduate diploma at Cambridge and never left. She says she became the youngest senior client partner at private bank Coutts at 26, before leaving at 29 to set up Signia Wealth with John Caudwell. The acrimonious court case that ended their professional relationship came when she accused him of forcing her out of the business. Both sides claimed victory in court. She has not seen Caudwell since. 'I learned one lesson. If you are proud of your business, you need to keep control. And I would advise people to avoid going to court... even though my husband owns a law firm.' The Government has been accused of 'deceiving millions of savers' over plans which enable ministers to force workplace pension schemes to invest in the risky private credit sector and their own pet projects such as infrastructure and renewable energy. It comes as peers prepare to debate the Pension Schemes Bill containing the controversial clause in the House of Lords tomorrow. Under the Mansion House accord, 17 of the largest pension providers promised to invest at least a tenth of their default auto-enrolment funds in risky, private or unlisted assets by 2030 with half of that in the UK in a bid to boost growth. The voluntary deal means the vast majority of staff pensions savings would be funnelled into these funds, potentially affecting the size of their retirement pots. But, crucially, the Government also wants to reserve the right to compel schemes to invest where it sees fit, such as if they are deemed to be falling short on their commitment to back UK assets. Ministers have vowed to increase the investment pipeline, but opposition peers and many pension experts are not convinced. Thin-skinned: Pensions minister Torsten Bell has blocked a critic on social media 'There is no justification for the Government reserving to itself the power to dictate where trustees invest on their members' behalf,' pensions expert Tom McPhail wrote on social media. He also took aim at Chancellor Rachel Reeves and pensions minister Torsten Bell, saying they were 'deceiving the millions of savers who rely on workplace pensions'. In response, Bell blocked McPhail from his X account. McPhail told The Mail on Sunday he would 'absolutely' treat the ban as a badge of honour, adding that Bell was 'not a man overly troubled by self-doubt'. Reeves has also been compared to the fictional Mafia boss in The Godfather film over the way she is trying to force pension funds to buy UK assets. Tom Selby, a pensions expert at investment platform AJ Bell, said there was 'something a bit Vito Corleone' about her as she could order schemes to invest in domestic deals if they did not 'voluntarily' bend to her will. Pension funds have been criticised for being too risk-averse and not investing in home-grown ventures. But the sector is concerned that any attempt by ministers to channel workers' savings into Whitehall's pet projects would clash with the legal duty of scheme trustees to act in members' best interests. Peers led by former pensions minister Baroness Altmann and London Stock Exchange board member Baroness Bowles are leading the bid to keep politicians out of funds' investment decisions. 'Ministers insist these are just backstop powers. They will only be used to force schemes to invest as Government dictates if they don't do it themselves, so we shouldn't worry about the mandation clause,' said Altmann. 'But that is precisely the worry. Once the measure is in primary legislation, the Government could use it as it wishes and any assurances about not intending to use it may prove worthless.' A Treasury spokesman said: 'Pension funds have committed to private market investment targets in the UK voluntarily, due to the potentially higher returns and security for savers. 'Thanks to our Pension Schemes Bill, an average earner's pension pot could see a boost of 29,000, making pension pots work harder for savers.' Toby Dorr was in the car with her husband when she learned her lover was dead. His girlfriend sent Dorr a Facebook message saying that the 45-year-old - who Dorr had helped escape from prison during their torrid affair - was found unresponsive in his Arizona prison cell. 'Oh no,' was Dorr's husband's reply, genuinely saddened. Dorr herself was 'devastated.' It is a tangled, barely credible tale. And Dorr, a 68-year-old web designer with a kindly grandmother look, makes for an unusual femme fatale. Yet 20 years ago last month, Dorr was indeed involved in one of the most remarkable prison breaks - and steamy romances - of recent times. 'It's a beautiful love story,' she told the Daily Mail. 'It really is. It's also a story of heartbreak and of starting over. 'I think so many women can relate to starting over. It's really not uncommon to kind of come adrift at the midpoint of your life, when you realize you've been doing all these things, and you're kind of invisible. 'That's how I felt. You're just taken for granted, and you think, what can I do with the rest of my life to really make it matter?' Toby Dorr, now 68, fell in love 20 years ago with a convicted murderer and helped him escape Toby Dorr (left) went on the run with her convict lover John Manard, then 26, in 2006, sparking a nationwide manhunt. He was 21 years her junior Married to her childhood sweetheart, the mother to two adult sons, she had grown restless and aged 48 began volunteering at the local prison, taking dogs behind bars to allow the inmates to help train them. It was there she met John Manard, a 26-year-old convicted of felony murder. 'Hi, I'm John and I want to be your next handler,' he said by way of introduction. The pair became smitten and hatched a far-fetched plot to smuggle Manard out of Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, hiding him inside a dog crate when she drove out. They went on the run for 12 passionate days until police tracked them down to rural Tennessee and, after a high-speed car chase, they were both arrested. Manard was given an additional 30 years; Dorr sentenced to 27 months. She walked free in May 2008, divorced, and moved to Boston where she met the man who in 2009 would become her second husband, Chris Dorr. 'It was about two years after I got out before John started reaching out to me and writing to me,' said Dorr, who has updated her memoir, Living with Conviction, for the 20-year anniversary. 'A reporter called me and said they'd been talking to John, and that John asked them for my phone number. They said: "I don't want to give it to him unless I have your permission." 'I had the reporter on speakerphone and Chris said: "Toby, give him your number. He needs a friend. We can be his friends. And I think you two need to talk. You need to get closure."' Remarkably, Dorr and her new husband would end up traveling to the New Hampshire prison where Manard was held and visiting him together. The Associated Press came to do an article about Lansing's 'Dog Lady,' Dorr. The pair were pictured less than two weeks before his escape and the plan was already set Manard was given a digital tablet behind bars, which enabled him to send emails. 'John was an important part of my life,' said Dorr. 'And, you know, my husband liked him, too. We wanted to make his life easier. It wasn't easy being in prison, so we were always open to talking to him on the phone, or emailing him, or whatever he needed. 'And there'd be times when John and I might be talking every day by email, and then all of a sudden there'd be no email and he'd be gone for a year or two. 'I just let it be, because the point of our being in his life was to help him get through whatever he was going through and if he needed to step away from me at that moment, then that's okay. 'But he always came back. It was just kind of a cycle.' Was she not worried about the impact continued contact would have on her own mental health and her own efforts to put the past behind her? Dorr insists she was not. 'By the time that John reached out to me, Chris and I were married, and Chris really is my rock. He is what steadies me and he's what gives me strength. And so, I knew with him next to me that I could navigate that water.' Yet over time, Manard's messages got more concerning. He had met a girl - she was visiting another inmate in New Hampshire and then began visiting him instead. When he was transferred to an Arizona prison, she moved to be near him. Dorr and the new girlfriend are indeed firm friends and remain in constant contact. But Manard showed signs, Dorr says, of losing hope. 'Been thinking about building me a guitar neck outta cardboard,' he wrote in June 2024. 'GOTTA START SOMETHIN OR IMA BREAK FOR GOOD THIS TIME I THINK!!!!!' Several days later, he emailed: 'I've been in MAAANY dark times and places in my mind and prayed and WISHED for aaall those thingsmainly strength and death to be honest both seemed like the best thing, or something like that.' Dorr pictured after she was captured and arrested for helping Manard escape Dorr and Manard went on the run for 12 passionate days until police tracked them down to rural Tennessee and, after a high-speed car chase, they were both arrested Dorr said Manard asked her and Chris to send him a Bible, which they did, and they began to discuss the texts. 'A lot of our conversations would revolve around things he'd read in the Bible, and what he thought about it,' she said. 'That was another thing I should have picked up on, because John wasn't a Bible reader up until then. So, you know, there were just some different things going on.' Dorr and her husband were producing a podcast, discussing the crime of felony murder - for which Manard was convicted when he was 17. A person can be convicted of felony murder if they are in the vicinity of a felony and a person is killed. In Manard's case it was a carjacking he and his friend carried out. It was Manard's friend who pulled the trigger, shooting dead the occupant, but both teenagers were convicted of the murder. The United States is one of the few countries to keep felony murder on the books - in Britain it was repealed as a crime back in the 1950s. 'They said it was inhumane and unjust,' Toby said. 'And that's what every other civilized country has ruled that you can't sentence someone to murder, and sentence them to life in prison, if they didn't kill anybody. 'I mean, it's the stupidest rule ever. It's a 12th Century English law, from when they couldn't figure out who did something. Now we have modern investigative techniques. And it's just not fair. You just destroy people's lives.' Manard was due to appear on her podcast on Monday August 26, 2024. Instead, on the Sunday, August 25, he was found unresponsive in his cell. His death was ruled a suicide. Dorr said: 'It was a shock, but at the same time I went back and I re-read all of our texts and emails for the last five months and I could see that he was struggling - now that I knew the ending. 'And I thought, why didn't I see this? Why didn't I see something? But you know, you just you just don't. It takes you by surprise. 'I don't blame him. He didn't have anything to look forward to, and in one of his messages to me he said: 'Another year, I will have been in prison for two-thirds of my life.' Dorr was not worried about the impact of being in touch with Manard. She said: 'By the time that John reached out to me, Chris and I were married, and Chris really is my rock' Manard was serving a life sentence for the felony murder. Even if he were granted parole for the 1996 killing, he would have to serve his additional 30 years for the prison escape before walking free. 'What was there to hope for? What was there to live for?' she said. 'It just becomes too much to bear.' Dorr's biggest regret, she says, is that her actions in helping Manard escape caused him to have additional time added to his sentence. Yet Manard told her and Chris, during their prison visit, that he had no regrets about their escapade. Now, all these years later, and with the heartache of his suicide, does she have any regrets about remaining in contact with him? 'No, no, not at all,' she said. 'Not at all. I just wish I could have done more.' Not since 1941 has Iran been conquered. That year saw the armies of Britain and the USSR combine their air, land and sea might to rush the country during the Second World War to defeat the severely under-developed military set up by Iran's then-ruler, Reza Shah. Donald Trump appears to be angling to emulate the success of the UK-Russian invasion with his roiling war in the Middle East, as for the first time since the conflict began the US sent 5,000 US Marines to the Middle East. The US troops will head to the conflict from Japan, as a defiant Trump told press last night that the war would end 'when I feel it', while defence secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS that the US is 'willing to go as far as we need to'. The deployment of US boots on the ground came despite White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying last week that ground operations were 'not part of the plan right now'. But Iran is a notoriously difficult country to invade, thanks to its tough terrain. The country is home to vast salt flats, dense and swampy marshes, and a series of rocky mountains that create a natural, nationwide fortress, in which countless military and nuclear sites hide. Iran's dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway to its south, means that any enemy vessels in either the Gulf of Oman or the Persian Gulf may become sitting ducks. Some experts have warned that America could face a worse environment than they encountered in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Vietnam. Your browser does not support iframes. Iran has hidden countless missile facilities across its mountains (File image) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seen taking part in a military drill in the northwestern region of Aras along the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2022 Analyst Cagatay Balc wrote in Turkish newspaper The Daily Sabah: 'A comprehensive ground intervention could prove even more strategically costly than Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.' Iran is one of the biggest countries in the world, coming in at just over 630,000 square miles. Its total land mass is larger than France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Portugal combined. It also has one of the largest populations in the world, with more than 93million citizens. Comparing these statistics to its neighbours, it's easy to see why Iran has emerged as such a dominant player in the Middle East. It is four times bigger than Iraq, and nearly three times bigger than Afghanistan. Meanwhile, it has a nearly twice as big a population than both nations. The whole country has an incredibly high elevation. Tehran, Iran's capital, sits at 3,900ft. For comparison, London's elevation is just 139ft at its peak. According to the US Air Force Medical service, military personnel operating in locations above 4,000ft can cause 'acute mountain sickness, the most common and mild form of altitude illness, and decreased performance'. This requires significant training and acclimatisation, something which may not be possible for a full ground invasion of a country. Iran is not only a large and significantly elevated country much of it is based on mountains. The nation has three major mountain ranges, the biggest being the Zagros range. They run for around 990 miles from Iran's northwest border with Turkey towards Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz. It towers over the Persian Gulf, the home to some of the most important oil ports in the world. Tehran is protected by the Alborz Mountains (pictured) The highest point on this range is Mount Dena, which pierces the sky at 14,465ft. Along the Caspian Sea is the Alborz Mountain Range, which also protects Tehran's northern side. The Alborz Range is home to Iran's tallest mountain, Mount Damavand. At its peak, the mountain stands at 18,405ft. And lastly is the Makran mountain range, which stretches across Iran's portion of the Gulf of Oman. These mountains are where much of Iran's population is concentrated. On top of this, an analysis of publicly available information shows that the vast majority of Iran's military and nuclear assets are hidden throughout its three mountain ranges. Mountains are notoriously difficult to fight in. According to NATO's Mountain Warfare Centre of Excellence, they present vast challenges including difficult access, rugged terrain, extreme weather conditions and high altitude. Soldiers and military vehicles in this environment have to deal with steep inclines, narrow paths and potentially lethal falls. As a result, NATO recommends that armies are split up into smaller-than-normal units to allow for flexibility and agility. But this increases the risk that each unit is dominated by opposing Iranian forces. Kris Osborn, military affairs editor of defence publication 19FortyFive, warned that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could easily mobilise large numbers of fighters who are all trained in guerrilla warfare and would know their terrains far better than an invading army. A fireball rising from the site of an Israeli air strike overnight in Beirut on March 11 He said: 'Even if the United States defeated Irans conventional army, these irregular forces could continue fighting for years.' The only part of Iran's borders that isn't elevated is the Khuzestan province, which sits at the head of the Persian Gulf. But an invading force would run into a different, equally arduous problem. The region is known for its wide marshes. Among the biggest are the Shadegan Ponds, a series of wetlands covering 400,000 hectares. Wetlands are notoriously difficult for invaders to pass through. Heavy vehicles, like tanks, can easily get stuck in saturated soil. And the terrain around marshes is often both too complex for ordinary land vehicles and too shallow for waterborne vehicles. Any invading troops that do walk through marshes will have to follow predictable routes, which makes them easy pickings for Iranian soldiers who know these lands like the backs of their hands. What if the US decides to take a leaf out of Franklin D Roosevelt's book and launch a paratrooper invasion of Iran? During WW2, as part of Operation Overlord, the US launched up to 17,000 paratroopers and gliders into Normandy to secure vital routes. The creation of the Normandy airhead allowed the Allies to then land amphibious vehicles. But this relies on dominance in Iran's southern waters. The Strait of Hormuz is littered with Iranian vessels already aggressively pursuing tankers trying to reach or leave its Gulf neighbours. Iran showed off a sprawling underground network of tunnels filled with row after row of drones and rockets Shahed drones were seen in their launchers on the back of a pair of lorries The waterway is a chokepoint in the global oil trade, where roughly 20 per cent of the world's oil would ordinarily pass through daily. But as a result of the roiling war, oil shipments have been largely blocked from using the shipping artery. Iran said on Tuesday it would not allow 'one litre of oil' to be shipped from the Middle East if the shipments were from the US or Israel. And given that almost all of Iran's coast is met with severe mountain ranges, the rate of coastal elevation is stark, increasing the risk of a sea-borne invasion. For instance, the town of Nikshahr sits at an elevation of 1,673ft just 60 miles from the Gulf of Oman. As a result, even if an airborne invasion were successfully pulled off, the size and geography of Iran would make it incredibly difficult to mount a full invasion from the sea. Iran is also home to two major salt flats, Dasht-E Kavir and Dasht-E Lut. These cover a total of 50,000 square miles, largely covering the central and east parts of the nation. They are also some of the only sections of the country that aren't at a significant elevation. But desert warfare comes with its own challenges. Often, deserts have very poor infrastructure, making the movement of troops and supplies more difficult. Deserts rarely have any water in them, let alone enough water to sustain entire armies. Finding and maintaining enough sources of water would be a significant hurdle for an invading force. Temperatures in Dasht-E Kavir reach as high as 50C, which can present problems for soldiers not used to fighting in conditions like this. Iran has displayed its armada of explosive naval drones which it is using to shut the Strait of Hormuz and cripple the global economy The Islamic Republic released a video boasting of its underground tunnels stocked with naval drones, anti-ship missiles and sea mines But similarly, deserts can quickly drop their temperatures overnight. With little moisture in the air, temperatures in deserts are unstable. As a result, when night falls, the cold can be an unexpected problem for the US, were it to invade. On top of this, salt flats are notoriously hard to operate in. Salt dust is incredibly corrosive, capable of quickly degrading protective material, as well as internal machinery and electronics, and rendering them useless. Iran's natural terrain makes it a hardy adversary, and may severely limit what a full invasion could achieve. Thomas Bonnie James, a professor at Qatars AFG College with The University of Aberdeen, told Al Jazeera that while a full invasion may not be possible, a limited mission to take Iran's nuclear materials away would present a much smaller risk. He said: 'It is far more likely to refer to limited, specialised operations involving small units targeting specific facilities, potentially supported by rapid-deployment forces, such as the 82nd Airborne Division.' This would help achieve Trump's aim of defanging Iran's nuclear capabilities. James said that if the US were to send troops to Iran, their aim would be to target its most critical nuclear facilities, including the Natanz Nuclear Facility, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. He said that this would likely involve 'penetrating hardened facilities, collecting intelligence, and locating or securing sensitive nuclear materials with the overall emphasis on speed, precision and limited exposure'. Dubai has been dragged into the conflict between Iran, the US and Israel He said: 'Any limited ground operation would likely begin with gaining air superiority and suppressing Iranian air defences to allow aircraft and support assets to reach targets safely.' It would then end with a rapid exfiltration, with American troops quickly moving to extraction points and leaving the country as soon as possible. However, this may not result in the end of the conflict, Neil Quilliam of Chatham House warned. He said: 'These would be high-risk, complex and lengthy operations taking place in very hostile environments and against facilities heavily protected by the countrys security forces.' Travelers throughout the United States are facing a new obstacle this spring. At many airports, security lines are taking hours as the current federal government shutdown drags on. At least 300 TSA employees have resigned, and call-outs have more than doubled as workers continue to perform their duties without pay. At some airports, delays have become a nightmare. Recently, Austin officials advised passengers to arrive three hours early after security lines stretched outside into the parking lot. And at Houstons William P. Hobby Airport, wait times have climbed above three hours. In New Orleans, viral videos showed security lines snaking through the terminal and into a parking garage while passengers waited to clear screening. At some airports, the line is stretching out the door (Shutterstock/James R. Martin) Even major hubs like Atlanta and JFK in New York have experienced dramatic slowdowns as staffing shortages impact one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Advertisement Advertisement This isnt great news if youre flying soon. But frequent travelers know there are still ways to avoid the worst of the lines. Many of them do not require TSA PreCheck at all. Instead, they take a little planning and awareness of often-overlooked airport perks. Heres what you need to know. What to do before you leave home July 31, 2025, Dulles, Virginia: TSA agents scan luggage as passengers walk through scanners in the security line (Greggory DiSalvo via Getty Images) One of the easiest ways to avoid a miserable wait is to look up the security situation before heading to the airport. The Transportation Security Administration publishes estimated checkpoint wait times through the free MyTSA app, which allows travelers to see both current estimates and historical patterns for many airports. The historical patterns are especially helpful if youre planning your transportation a day or two before you leave for the airport. If youre reluctant to download yet another app, many airports publish real-time wait estimates on their website. Look for priority security lanes Airport TSA security check point hustle! (Salameh dibaei via Getty Images) Many travelers join the general security line without realizing they may have a better choice. This is even true of frequent fliers, who are wasting a golden opportunity to skip the line. Advertisement Advertisement Most major airports often offer overlooked priority security lanes for premium-class passengers and frequent flyers. In other words, if you are flying first class on airlines such as Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, or American Airlines, your boarding pass may grant access to a separate, faster security lane. If youre flying Southwest, youll also receive this benefit if you purchase a Choice Preferred or Choice Extra ticket. These lanes are also made available to travelers with airline status, even if theyre flying economy. So few people use this line that, at some airports, the wait is significantly shorter than in the TSA PreCheck lane. Reserve your spot in advance Check to see if your airport allows you to reserve your place in advance (Thidarat Kwangten via Getty Images) In recent years, many major airports have introduced free programs that allow travelers to book a screening time in advance directly through their website. These services are expanding across the U.S. and can dramatically shorten security wait times. The service is expanding and is currently available at airports including SEA, LAX, JFK, MSP, DEN, EWR, and MCO. Try expedited programs that are not TSA PreCheck Your airport may have programs besides TSA PreCheck (Greggory DiSalvo via Getty Images) TSA PreCheck isnt the only way to move through security faster. Programs like CLEAR allow travelers to bypass the ID-check line at security using biometric verification. Instead of waiting in line for an agent to examine your ID, members verify their identity at a kiosk and are escorted directly to the screening area. It usually takes five minutes or less to sign up, and they often offer free trials. Advertisement Advertisement Some airports have also introduced reservation-style security programs that allow travelers to book a screening time in advance. These services are expanding across the U.S. and can dramatically shorten security wait times when they are available. Check your credit card benefits Your credit card may grant you access to the priority lanes (EvgeniyShkolenko via Getty Images) Certain branded airline credit cards come with an often-neglected perk: access to priority lanes when traveling with the airline. Examples include the Citi/AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard. Skip the airline counter Pack light so you can skip the check-in counter (goc via Getty Images) Sometimes, passengers get caught in long lines prior to security. Airline ticket counters can develop long lines during busy travel periods, especially when travelers need to check bags. Checking in online is one way to eliminate visits to the ticket counter. You can also save a great deal of time and aggravation by traveling with a carry-on instead of a checked bag when possible. The bottom line None of these strategies will eliminate airport lines entirely. During busy travel periods and government disruptions, such as the current shutdown, delays can still occur. But with a little awareness, you often shave a surprising amount of time off the airport experience and spend less of your trip standing in line. US bases across the Middle East have been struck by Iran as the regime continues to furiously target the region in retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Republic has unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones at American military bases, air defence facilities and embassies, with seven US troops killed and around 150 injured as the conflict enters its twelfth day. At least 17 bases and military installations used by the US have been damaged by Iran as Donald Trump threatens to hit back with 'death, fire and fury'. These include Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the biggest site in the region and home to around 10,000 troops, and Port Shuaiba in Kuwait, where six US soldiers were killed after a drone evaded air defence systems, hitting a command centre. Al Udeid Air Base, Al Dhafra Air Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, Camp Buehring and the Navys Fifth Fleet headquarters have been hit on multiple occasions. Satellite images show black smoke rising above the Port of Jebel Ali in Dubai, the main port used by the US Navy in the region, as Tehran steps up attacks against the United Arab Emirates. And debris can be seen scattered across Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE and Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the United States Fifth Fleet. The intensity and breadth of Iranian strikes has indicated the regime was better prepared for war than the US expected, military officials have claimed. Embassies and consulates in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Dubai have also been targeted. Port of Jebel Ali, Dubai The Port of Jebel Ali, the busiest seaport in the Middle East, is the main port used by the US navy in the region Satellite images show black smoke rising above Dubai's largest port after it was hit by Iranian strikes Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar Al Udeid Air Base is the US's biggest in the Middle East, housing around 10,000 service personnel Iran hit the Qatari facility with two ballistic missiles, while two Iranian bomber jets were shot down just 'two minutes' before reaching the base Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait Ali Al Salem Air Base, a Kuwaiti military base just 37km from the Iraqi border, has hosted RAF jets in the past Damage can be seen in satellite pictures after Iran attacked the base in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes Naval Support Activity Bahrain Naval Support Activity Bahrain houses the US Naval Forces Central Command and the United States Fifth Fleet The base sustained damage to a radar facility, raising questions about the US navy's air defence capabilities Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan The US maintains a sizeable presence at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan Iran destroyed radars and other military communication infrastructure at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates The US has maintained its military presence at Al Dhafra Air Base since the 1990s and hosts US jets A compound, satellite systems, and radar equipment were damaged at the base in the UAE Camp Arifjan, Kuwait Camp Arifjan, located south of Kuwait City, hosts the US Air Force and its navy China's most dangerous technology has already been deployed, and you're likely already within the system's database, according to a new book. Social media giant TikTok and AI behemoth DeepSeek - both Chinese-made applications - are 'Trojan Horses' employed by the Chinese Communist Party to scrape up sensitive data on Americans, writes Wynton Hall in his forthcoming book 'Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI.' The AI and social media companies track users' keystrokes, IP addresses, habits, browser history and more - a threat that could help China build profiles on US citizens for things like espionage, influence campaigns, or surveillance. TikTok boasts approximately 150 million active monthly US users while DeepSeek has substantially less, estimated to be around 4 million monthly active users, per ElectroIQ. The platforms serve as 'data vacuums,' Hall told the Daily Mail. The data retrieved from apps can include users' typing cadence and finger positioning, providing a detailed digital fingerprint of who is using the phone. 'Tragically, America's digital gates were breached long ago with the CCP's original Trojan horse, TikTok,' Hall writes. 'After years of exposure to Chinese 'mental warfare,' propaganda, and data collection, the hope now is that TikTok, at a minimum, will finally be forced into American ownership and control.' Hall writes that few people in the US realize how China's social media technology have functioned as a surveillance app, 'collecting personal data from one in three Americans.' US officials fear China's 2017 National Intelligence Law - which compels citizens and organizations to cooperate with state intelligence efforts - could allow Beijing to demand Americans' data from the company or use it as a espionage tool. Author Wynton Hall writes in his upcoming book 'Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI' that TikTok and DeepSeek serve as 'data vacuums' to pick up data on US citizens, possibly to advance the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance objectives TikTok tracks user's keystrokes, finger positioning, habits, IP address and more. Lawmakers have warned its a propoganda tool AI app DeepSeek rattled global markets in early 2025 when it was reported that the Chinese AI firm made technology capable of competing with top US AI companies for a fraction of the price. The news caused NVIDIA, a US AI firm, to lose over $590 billion in value in a single day DeepSeek and TikTok can be used as propaganda tools, too, according to the House Select Committee on the CCP, which says the social media app's algorithm can be adjusted to display certain content and the AI firm can 'manipulate information to align with CCP propaganda.' 'AI chatbot DeepSeek is another CCP tool to censor information and promote propaganda,' California Congresswoman Young Kim said last year. Both of platforms have faced bans from lawmakers concerned about their surveillance abilities. A TikTok ban was passed by Congress before Trump struck a deal with the company's ownership to keep it available in the US by shifting its ownership structure to be primarily comprised of American investors. Trump famously used TikTok in his 2024 campaign to connect with younger voters and has taken pride in 'saving' the application in the US after it was banned. ByteDance, the Chinese parent company to TikTok, was forced to sell off its majority stake to a consortium of US investors to stay operational in the US. The deal was finalized in January 2026, giving ByteDance just 19.9 percent ownership in exchange for $14 billion, Axios reported. Legislation targeting DeepSeek, meanwhile, has been introduced but not adopted federally. Some states have passed bans on DeepSeek being used on government devices. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping together at a summit in October 2025. The two leaders worked on the deal that kept TikTok operational in the US 'Within days, DeepSeek's chatbot vaulted to the top of US app stores, overtaking ChatGPT in number of downloads. Millions of Americans, drawn by its impressive capabilities, installed the open- source LLM. In so doing, they unwittingly supplied it with their personal messages, business documents, creative works, and private conversations,' Hall writes in the book 'Given DeepSeek's aggressive data collection protocols, which include monitoring users' keystroke patterns and rhythms, any American using DeepSeek on a nonsecure platform is effectively surrendering their privacy and security to the Chinese regime,' Hall writes. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI wunderkind shocked US markets and caused the world's most valuable company, NVIDIA, to lose half a trillion dollars in a single day. When the Chinese AI firm burst onto the scene in early 2025 - claiming to match US giants like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost - it sent the US tech market into a nosedive. On January 27, 2025, Nvidia - the world's most valuable company - saw its stock plummet roughly 17 percent, wiping out approximately $590 billion in market value in a single day, the largest such loss in history. It later emerged that training DeepSeek's R1 model likely cost close to $1 billion - far more than initially claimed - but the damage was done. Within days, DeepSeek's chatbot vaulted to the top of US app stores, overtaking ChatGPT in downloads as millions of Americans installed the open-source model, unwittingly handing it their personal messages, business documents and private conversations. The app's privacy policy reads like a surveillance wish list: usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, passwords, chat histories, device information, IP addresses and even individual keystroke patterns. All of it, the company acknowledges, is stored in China. The episode rattled Washington. Trump called it 'a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing.' It also landed amid a years-long escalation in Chinese espionage threats against the United States. There were 55 CCP-related espionage cases across twenty states between February 2021 and August 2024, a 2024 congressional report states. They involve transmitting sensitive military information, the theft of trade secrets and obstruction of justice, among other infractions. 'If you don't think the Chinese Communist Party can twist that algorithm to make it the news that they see reflective of their views, then I don't think you appreciate the nature of the threat.' Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee said in 2024.. TikTok is perhaps 'the most powerful propaganda tool ever,' he added. Even Chinese officials have noted how powerful of a tool TikTok is. 'Colonel Dai Xu, a professor at the People's Liberation Army National Defense University (PLA- NDU), described platforms such as TikTok as a 'modern day Trojan Horse' engineered to lure American youth with addictive algorithms and dopamine- driven content,' Hall writes. Hall suggests that federal and state-level employees be banned from DeepSeek due to its intelligence gathering capabilities. 'As for TikTok, the jury is still out on whether the new U.S. deals implementation will end the myriad security risks that ignited the TikTok ban in the first place. 'The safest way to stop CCP Trojan horses is to not let them enter the gates to begin with,' Hall told the Daily Mail. Guy Sebastian has opened up about two key moments that changed his life - sobbing in a NSW court bathroom, and screaming for his wife following 40 'excruciating minutes' of constipation. The Battle Scars hitmaker and his wife Jules sat down with Sunday Life for a tell-all interview about his ongoing legal battle against his former friend and manager, Titus Day. Day was jailed in 2022 for allegedly pocketing about $625,000 of Sebastian's money, before he was released on appeal and found not guilty last year on four counts of embezzlement. However, the jury couldn't reach a verdict on the remaining 31 charges. Despite choosing to continue pursuing Day - who maintains his innocence - over the same allegations in costly civil court proceedings, Sebastian and his wife were teary-eyed as they recalled the emotional toll of the hearings. His lowest point, he said, before posing for photos in his $8million three-storey concrete fortress in Maroubra, was crying in a toilet cubicle at Sydney's Downing Centre while giving evidence against Day. He started praying, only to feel guilty because it had been so long since he prayed. Another low point was wondering whether his marriage was over while desperately calling for Jules to 'help' him in the bathroom, after he'd been prescribed constipating opioids for a spinal operation. Guy and Jules Sebastian have opened up about his ongoing legal dispute with his former friend and manager Titus Day Titus Day outside court in Sydney in 2022 during his embezzlement case Guy Sebastian's $8million concrete mansion in Maroubra - the site of the nasty dispute with his neighbour that ended up in court Absent from the interview was any mention of a restraining order and assault charges against his elderly and disabled neighbour in 2023, Phillip Hanslow, which were eventually dropped. Sebastian brought the case on, but never attended court in person and tried to get a suppression order on his name, which was withdrawn when the case was thrown out. Throughout the magazine interview, Sebastian and his wife talked about how they felt betrayed by Day, whose children were best friends and used to 'run through the park under sprinklers' together. On the first day of the trial, when Sebastian was due to testify against Day, he told the publication that he would 'literally vomit' and at times burst into tears because the stress was overwhelming. Drying her eyes with a serviette, Jules added: 'Watching Guy go through this was the hardest thing. 'There's no way to know how it's going to end, and every day there's something new to wake up to. It was a really wobbly road, and some would say I handled it terribly.' She described him as 'superhuman' for taking their two sons to the beach during the trial, and for casting his emotional turmoil aside and continuing his music tour that same year. 'I'll struggle to say this without being emotional,' he told the magazine. Sebastian lodged an AVO against his Maroubra neighbour Phillip Hanslow (pictured outside court with his frail wife Carol) Guy Sebastian on crutches outside Sydney's Downing Centre in 2025 following surgery 'But I don't think people in the audience realised just how much they pulled me out of the mud during that time.' Sebastian's eyes also welled with tears while talking about Jules's support, and her role making sure their sons stayed out of the public eye. Speaking about the constipation incident from last year when he cried for Jules's help in the bathroom, Sebastian told the magazine: 'At that point, I thought, "My marriage is over". 'If she loves me after this, we're good. And here she is and we are good.' Crying with laughter, he said: 'I know you girls give birth to children but I imagine [the pain I suffered] was close.' The former Australian Idol winner is now looking forward to another tour in April, and feels he's learnt valuable lessons over the past few years. 'I've wasted so much energy trying to please everyone,' he said. 'You end up spreading yourself thin and not really being impactful in anyone's life.' As the conflict in the Middle East looks set to intensify, Aussies have been assured they can still plan their dream summer holiday in Europe. US President Donald Trump says American forces will strike Iranian targets 'very hard' in the coming days as the war in the Middle East approaches its third week. Despite this, Helloworld travel agent Kim Owen told the Daily Mail that while 'it's a very tense situation' at the moment, it shouldn't stop Aussies from going overseas. 'It would be very difficult to get to Europe in the next couple of weeks because the availability of seats on aircraft and that doesn't matter which hub you're going through,' Ms Owen said. 'But if you wanted to go in May or June, you can because we can get you through Asia to get to Europe. Why should your life change? 'If we can get you there safely, why not? I think people will still want to go to Europe, but they won't want to fly via the Middle East.' Ms Owen said Aussies with pre-booked European trips will still proceed with their bookings but will face some inconveniences if they're flying this month. 'We're trying to get people to their destinations however we can. I've got people going to Paris in a couple of weeks going via the United States,' she said. Aussies wanting to go to Europe still despite the conflict in the Middle East (London is pictured) Smoke rises following an explosion during the US-Israeli strikes on Iran this month Aussies seeking to go overseas are starting to look at alternative destinations as the Iran war rages in the Middle East (pictured, Sydney Airport) Australia has closed its embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv as well as its consulate in Dubai, with Aussies living in the Middle East urged to return home. Registration for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Crisis Portal is open for Bahrain, Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar and the UAE. Australians have been urged not to travel to these locations, as well as Palestine and Yemen. Travel toJordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia should also be reconsidered. Ms Owen said government warnings provided their own challenges for Aussies heading overseas as many have been deterred from booking a holiday. 'If people have airfares booked and the airline is flying, then what do they do? Because their travel insurance won't cover them if they're going somewhere they're told "do not go",' Ms Owen said. 'We're not seeing new bookings this week at all. People are cautious and that's normal. People aren't thinking about travelling overseas.' Ms Owen said a growing number of Aussies are now looking at New Zealand and Asian destinations as an alternative to Europe. Join the discussion Should Australians risk travelling to Europe now or wait until tensions calm in the Middle East? Foreign Minister Penny Wong has issued several warnings for Aussies in the Middle East Machu Picchu in Peru (pictured) is an attractive destination for those looking to avoid Europe General manager at Eclipse Travel Hilary Dubyk said her business hasn't been significantly affected by the war in Iran simply because it focuses on wildlife and nature-focused destinations such as Africa and Latin America. 'There has been a noticeable shift in behaviour,' Ms Dubyk told the Daily Mail. 'We are seeing an increase in last-minute enquiries from travellers who appear to be adjusting their short-term plans away from Europe.' Ms Dubyk said Aussie travellers are starting to choose destinations that are further away from the Middle East and the Northern Hemisphere more broadly. She said destinations like South America and Southern Africa are very accessible and don't require transiting through the Middle East. 'Travellers can fly east directly to Santiago to reach South America, or west directly to Johannesburg for Southern Africa,' she said. 'So it appears to us many Australians still feel comfortable travelling, they're simply opting for destinations and flight routings that feel further removed from current geopolitical tensions.' Peter Carter, director of Carter Capner Law, has warned Aussies looking to take advantage of the Iran war by booking cheap airfares with Middle East carriers. African safaris are also appealing for Aussies looking to avoid the northern hemisphere Travel agents will still find a way to get Aussies to their destinations in Europe this winter Mr Carter said while the cheaper fares may save Aussies money in the short-term, there are risks involved. 'Airlines never accept liability for disruption to forward travel arrangements that follow flight diversions or delays,' Mr Carter said. 'Most travel insurance excludes cover for expenses incurred due to war, including invasion, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities, civil war, rebellion, or insurrection. 'This exclusion applies to related claims, such as trip cancellations, medical expenses, or evacuations, regardless of whether war is officially declared.' Mr Carter advised those booking a flight that terminates or transits through the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Israel or Lebanon to ask their travel insurer if they will extend cover. 'If you don't ask or if they refuse the additional cover and disruption to your travel schedule due to hostilities, a resulting loss of your baggage or any medical issue will put you to significant expense,' he said. A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein has candidly spoken out about the horrific abuse she endured at the hands of the paedophile financier after she was lured into visiting his home. Jena-Lisa Jones was just 14 years old when Epstein sexually assaulted her at his Palm Beach mansion after she was hired as a masseuse. In a lengthy interview she recalled how the attack began when the paedophile rolled over during the massage - and a 'crazy clown face' expression spread across his features when he realised she had no idea what he was about to do to her. The mother-of-four has spent close to a decade tirelessly campaigning with other survivors for the release of the Epstein files, and she recently sat down with YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly to speak out about her horrifying encounter with the billionaire predator. In an emotional, hour-long interview, she revealed how she crossed paths with the disgraced financier when a popular girl from her school told her and her friends about 'this guy named Jeff,' who was willing to pay them $200 each for a massage. To Jena-Lisa, whose mother was a drug addict and would often forget to buy her and her siblings food, the offer was appealing. '[It] didn't sound like that bad of an idea,' she recalled. 'Like, where else am I going to make that kind of money and be that age and not be able to work?', she recalled. But 'Jeff', she would later learn, was Jeffrey Epstein, a then 51-year-old billionaire who would, by 2006, come under investigation by local and federal authorities in Florida for alleged sexual crimes against dozens of underage girls. As Jena-Lisa and her friend got ready to be taken to his house, the girl who had arranged for them to meet Epstein told them that they would each have to go up alone and massage him for 30 minutes. Jeffrey Epstein survivor Jena-Lisa Jones has candidly spoken out about the struggles she endured after being subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of the paedophile financier Jena-Lisa, pictured at the age of 14 Epstein kisses an unknown girl in this image recently released by the DOJ 'That's just how he liked it,' the girl told them, 'and that he may ask us to take our shirt off.' But they were assured that 'you don't have to do anything you don't want to do'. When the girls arrived at Epstein's waterfront mansion, Jena-Lisa's friend was taken upstairs to meet him first. But within minutes, her friend was back. Jena-Lisa was confused, as the girls had been told the massage session would last half an hour. 'He didn't like me because I was too developed,' her friend told her after the encounter. It was Jena-Lisa's turn next. She was led to a room where a massage table had been set up, but 'Jeff' was nowhere to be seen. 'I just thought it was weird that he wasn't already in the room since my friend was just up there,' Jena-Lisa recalled. 'We [get] into the room...and she's like "he'll be in in a minute, go ahead and take your shirt off", and pretty much tells me to get naked.' Jena-Lisa did as she was told and waited, unaware that her life was about to change forever. 'He walks in with a towel, and he [lies] face down and tells me to grab the massage oil, and he's directing me the whole time on what to do', she said. Epstein had set an egg timer next to the massage table to keep track of the session. 'I knew how long I had to stay, so in my head I was like "just get through this, and you're going to be done. It's only 30 minutes".' And in the beginning, it was just a massage, Jena-Lisa recalled. But she described how Epstein suddenly flipped over and had 'a crazy clown face expression'. 'He went from this normal man [who] had walked into the room to when he flipped over, [in which] there was excitement in his face like he knew what was about to happen, and I had no clue.' 'And he just takes his towel off, he pretty much tells me to take all my clothes off, and does horrific things,' she added. The front exterior of Epstein's home in Palm Beach, Florida, where Jena-Lisa's abuse took place Epstein abuse survivor Jena-Lisa Jones holds up a photo of her younger self during a news conference with lawmakers on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the U.S. Capitol on November 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. 'I had never kissed a boy at that point...and now I have this old man [taking control] over me, and I couldn't say anything, or I didn't know how to say anything. Where was I going to go? I was in the room by myself. 'There were so many things in that moment at 14 that I just couldn't even process all of it.' All Jena-Lisa could do in that moment was look at the egg timer, trying not to make eye contact with Epstein while following his instructions, praying it would all be over. 'The whole time I'm just dying inside, and I just want to go home.' She felt angry at the girl who had brought her there, saying: 'She knew this was going to happen. There was no way she didn't know that this wasn't going to happen...This wasn't her first time bringing people.' 'He sexually assaulted me....he touched me inappropriately and put his hands in places he shouldn't,' she said tearfully. Epstein then proceeded to perform a sex act on himself, she said, and once the 30 minutes were over, he got up, grabbed his towel and walked out, leaving the terrified 14-year-old alone in the room again. 'I'm just standing there. I hurry up and get my clothes back on. I wanted to get the hell out of there. I'm so confused [about] so many aspects of what had just happened to me.' On her way home and struggling to process what had happened to her, Jena-Lisa suddenly burst into tears. 'Shut the f**k up, you just made $200,' she was told, as the girl who had brought her there threw money at her. But her nightmare was far from over, and she would carry the weight of those 30 minutes with her well into her adult life. Jena-Lisa felt intense shame after her encounter with Epstein, and for a long time, she blamed herself for the abuse she endured. 'I went there on my free will...you hold that guilt of like, you kind of set yourself up for that,' she explained. That shame, she said, led her to become a stripper at the age of 16. 'I didn't have control in that situation, so it was like, "How can I get control back?" Files released by the DOJ included numerous disturbing images of Epstein with young women 'I never liked doing it, I always knew it was wrong. I went from wanting to be a doctor or a lawyer or a school teacher to taking my clothes off for men to survive, and I wanted a way out. I just wanted someone to come and save me.' At 19, Jena-Lisa married a man who was 22 years older than her, and became pregnant with her first child soon after. 'He had a house, and he was normal. I just wanted what I had always wanted growing up, I just wanted a normal family, I just wanted a normal life.' But it was a difficult marriage, and Jena-Lisa, then a mother to two children, decided to leave him for good. It was only then that she began processing what had happened to her as a child. And it was during that time, in 2017, that she encountered Epstein again. Jena-Lisa had been mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when she suddenly came across a picture of the billionaire with former President Bill Clinton, alongside an article. 'I hadn't seen him in all these years, and I'm freaking out,' she recalled. It was then that she learned that Epstein had been arrested over a decade ago for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender. And as she dug through years-old news articles, Jena-Lisa became furious to learn that Epstein had gotten nothing but a 'slap on the wrist' and feared that he was continuing his sick abuse of underage girls. 'At that time, my daughters [were] going to school on Palm Beach Island...I had never thought of him like that, in the proximity of my kids...And when I'm reading that this man didn't even get in trouble...I knew in my heart that he was still doing all of this.' Jena-Lisa was enraged, and all of the emotions she felt that fateful day at Epstein's mansion came back up. But now she felt she was strong enough to stick up for herself and decided to take action. After reaching out to a lawyer, she discovered she had been a victim of a massive sex trafficking network. 'I thought it was just this small group of us girls that were involved in this. 'I'm finding out all of this horrific s**t, and it's so much more, and there's so many more girls, and I'm enraged.' Jena-Lisa Jones, centre, hugs Haley Robson, right, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., left, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Washington Around that time, the Miami Herald was working on an investigation into Epstein, and Jena-Lisa agreed to be interviewed alongside other survivors, including the late Virginia Giuffre. When the investigation came out, Jena-Lisa said she felt the 'first glimpse of hope', but sharing such an intimate part of herself with the world was hard, she said. 'My world changed. I allowed myself to [come out] publicly about something I was extremely embarrassed about. 'A lot of fear started coming into play with all of that...Yes, I wanted him to get in trouble, but I also didn't want to lose my privacy. 'I kept thinking, am I doing this for the right reason? And I knew I was, but I also knew it was at such a [high] cost to myself.' But all of her self-doubt finally seemed worthwhile when, on July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested for the second time, on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York. 'I just broke down in tears,' she recalled. 'This is what we [had] been working for.' A month later, as Jena-Lisa prepared to come face-to-face with Epstein in court to tell him what he had done to her, her phone rang. Epstein had killed himself in his prison cell, she was told, and there would no longer be a court appearance. 'I had done everything, and still wasn't going to get what I needed...I was never going to have my day in court. He was never going to have to face me. He was never going to have to listen to me; he was never going to have to hear my words. 'Whether they would have affected him or not, it was for me. I needed that, and it was stolen from me. 'People say "he's dead, that's a good thing", yeah, great he's gone. But he still won. He never had to be held accountable in a way that was fair.' But now that she has told her story and fought tirelessly for the release of the Epstein files, Jena-Lisa continues on her path to self-healing. A mother of four, Jena-Lisa continues to live in Palm Beach alongside her partner and works at a local church. Her testimony comes amid the recent release of millions of Epstein files. Included were documents concerning some of Epstein's famous associates, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and email correspondences between Epstein and Elon Musk and other prominent contacts from across the political spectrum. The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and longtime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Lawmakers complained when the Justice Department made only a limited release, but officials said more time was needed to review additional documents that were discovered and to ensure no sensitive information about victims was released. January's disclosure represents the largest document dump to date about a saga the Trump administration has struggled to shake because of the presidents previous association with Epstein. Criminal investigations into the financier have long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who have suspected government cover-ups. Fears are growing over Iran's ability to strike deep inside Europe with suicide drones and missiles following a recent warning that the Islamic Republic could launch an attack on California. The FBI on Wednesday alerted California law enforcement to potential Iranian drone strikes on the West Coast in retaliation for America's war against them. 'Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,' the alert obtained by ABC News said. 'We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack,' the FBI update continued. The alert surfaced as the Trump administration continued its sustained offensive against Iran. This move follows a pattern of escalation in the Middle East, where the regime in Tehran has used drone warfare as a primary tool for retaliation. Drones have emerged as one of the most influential weapons, allowing forces to carry out long-range attacks at relatively low costs while overwhelming air defences. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. On March 1, an Iranian Shahed kamikaze drone struck a British RAF base in Cyprus, just days after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was obliterated in joint US-Israeli air strikes. The following day, Iran launched its second attack on the British base, but the two unmanned suicide drones were shot down just in time by RAF Typhoons from RAF Akrotiri. Iranian Shahed suicide drones have a range of 2,500km, and have extensively been used by Russia to attack Ukraine, causing extreme destruction and civilian deaths. They come in swarms, containing a warhead which weighs between 30-50kg and are designed to overwhelm air defences and knock out power grids over entire regions. If launched towards Europe from Iran, they could hit countries such as Moldova, Bulgaria and Ukraine. At its maximum extension, the drone could reach tourist hotspots such as Athens, Greece and Bucharest, Romania. And if launched from Hezbollah hubs in Lebanon, the projectiles could enter the continent even further. However, experts say the concern doesn't lie in swarm attacks on cities, but rather on smaller, more targeted strikes. Brett Velicovich, a defence expert and the founder of drone company Powerus, told the Daily Mail: 'Shahed-136 loitering munition drones absolutely have the range and capability to threaten parts of Europe, and are far more plausible than missile strikes because they operate below the threshold of open war with NATO.' 'The real risk is smaller, deniable strikes launched by proxies or covert networks targeting infrastructure like airports, energy facilities, or transportation hubs,' he added. Iran also recently unveiled a stealthier version of its infamous Shahed 'kamikaze' drone, potentially making it harder for western air defence systems to detect. Images of the modified Shahed-101 loitering munition were shared Tuesday by Middle East security analyst Mohammed al-Basha, who highlighted several structural changes suggesting the drone may operate more quietly than earlier variants. Unlike most Shahed drones, which rely on rear-mounted gasoline engines that produce a distinctive buzzing sound during flight, the new version appears to feature a nose-mounted propeller powered by an electric motor. This configuration pulls the aircraft through the air rather than pushing it from the rear, a design change that could reduce both acoustic and thermal signatures and potentially make the drone more difficult for radar and infrared detection systems to detect. The Shahed-101 is an autonomous, electric-powered loitering munition designed to carry a high-explosive warhead. It can remain in the battlespace while searching for targets before striking by flying directly into them and detonating, using a rocket-assisted launch system to take off. Slower than missiles but easier to launch in large numbers, Iran's one-way attack drones may be used in repeated waves to wear down air defences. Iran's advantage also lies in scale, according to data gathered from open source intelligence and defence analysts. Rather than a few thousand long range drones, its total Shahed fleet is estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 across all variants. Combined with an ongoing production rate of around 500 a month, if used at full capacity, those numbers could translate into waves of more than 2,500 drones a day for a month. If launched at Europe, this could greatly overwhelm air defences and wreck havoc across the region. Join the discussion What's YOUR view on the drone threats discussed here? Iranian-made Shahed-136 'Kamikaze' drone flies over the sky of Kermanshah, Iran Modified Shahed-101 loitering munition launching with a rear-mounted rocket booster, showing its fixed-wing design and X-shaped tail stabilizers during flight At the same time, for a drone or missile to reach Europe, it would have to cross airspace over Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, where many drones have been intercepted on their way to Israel Once reaching European airspace, the interception of these projectiles would rely on US defence architecture, such as the Aegis Ashore site in Deveselu, Romania, equipped with SM-3 interceptors. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer vessels deployed in the Mediterranean could provide more coverage as well as Germany's newly-acquired Arrow 3 system. In addition to Shahed drones, Iran also possesses of a large stockpile of missiles, the most lethal being the Khorramshahr 4 missile, with a range of 2,000-3,000km and a a 1,500kg warhead. It can be launched in volleys, and if used, the missiles could reach a large swathe of Europe, including Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland and Denmark. Dr. Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at RUSI, told the Daily Mail that the Khorramshahr is a 'derivative' of a North Korean ballistic missile. He said: 'It was always speculated that this would have been the delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead if the Iranians had ever developed one.' Iran is believed to possess the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, but the exact count is difficult to pinpoint due to the Islamic Republic's so-called 'missile cities' and lack of transparency. In a propaganda video released last week by the Fars News Agency, Iran showed off a sprawling underground network of tunnels filled with row after row of drones and rockets. However, drones and missiles are not the only threat alarming the continent. Fears are also bubbling that Iran will call on its sleeper terror cells to attack targets across Europe. A sleeper cell is a covert group of operatives affiliated with a state or non-state actor, such as a terrorist group, who infiltrate a country or community, essentially hiding in plain sight for a prolonged period of time before they are activated to carry out acts of terrorism, spying or sabotage. And according to an alert intercepted by the US earlier this week, Iran may already be activating its sleeper cells outside the country. The encrypted communications, believed to have come from inside Iran, was sent as an 'operational trigger' for 'sleeper assets,' according to ABC News. The message was transmitted across multiple countries shortly after Khamenei killed in Tehran on February 28. The increasing danger towards the west comes after the UK moved to review its terror threat level last week. Defence Secretary John Healey said there was a risk of 'increasing Iranian indiscriminate retaliatory attacks', which required a review of the threat level. This currently stands at 'substantial' meaning a terror attack is judged to be 'likely'. There are two higher levels 'severe' and 'critical'. MI5 warned last year that Iran had been behind 20 potentially deadly plots in the UK in the last 12 months. Speaking on Sky News, Healey said: 'When you have some of [Iran's] proxies capable of other actions on their behalf, then of course our force protection in the region is at its highest. Our alert and vigilance in the UK is also high.' Worries over Tehran's ability to unleash chaos beyond the Middle East are understood to be rooted in efforts by the IRGC to coordinate clandestine intelligence operations, such as assassinations and cyber attacks, across the West, according to The i. There is also increased concern that the IRGC could act alongside the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah, which is believed to have a support network of sleeper agents in Europe. Velicovich said the west must begin to seriously prepare for retaliatory strikes and sleeper cell attacks. He said: 'We need to hunt the IRGC Quds Force officers that Iran had running around Europe for years, these are the special operations guys who have armed proxy militias behind the scenes for years. We should unleash our own special operations units in the UK and US to find them and stop them.' The drone expert said that Europe and the US also must begin treating drones like cyber threats, 'persistent, unpredictable and capable of appearing anywhere,' he added. 'That means expanding counter-drone defences around critical infrastructure, increasing intelligence sharing across Europe and the United States, and disrupting supply networks that provide components to hostile actors.' On Thursday, US President Donald Trump addressed the California drone threat, saying that federal law enforcement was investigating. 'It's being investigated. You have a lot of things happening and all we can do is take them as they come,' he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. Trump blamed Joe Biden's immigration policies for the sleeper cell threat - calling him 'the worst president in the history of our country'. 'I have been [briefed] and a lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border,' he told the group of reporters traveling with him for a two-stop jaunt in Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday. 'But we know where most of them are. We've got our eye on all of them, I think,' he added. The Daily Mail exclusively reported last year how the existence of sleeper cells in and around the US was on the rise due to Iranian and Venezuelan cooperation. The threat, experts explained, was exacerbated by border policies that allowed illegal immigrants to enter the US. And on Wednesday, Iran launched a cyber offensive against one of the world's leading medical technology companies based in Michigan. Stryker experienced a global outage, saying thousands of employees have lost access to work systems. The company is a leading provider in advanced medical technologies that improve healthcare outcomes, including joint replacements, robotic-assisted surgical systems, trauma and neurotechnology products. The Tehran-aligned Handala group issued a statement on Telegram, saying it wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran. The group claimed it shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data is 'now in the hands of the free people of the world'. Stryker is active in over 100 countries around the world. 'Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,' Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it calls 'the brutal attack on the Minab school' and for 'ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance'. The three wealthy brothers convicted this week in a major sex trafficking case had ties to Jeffrey Epstein, according to explosive files released by the Department of Justice. Real estate moguls Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander are named in a shocking FBI interview with a woman who claimed she was targeted at one of Epstein's notorious parties. The brothers representative denied the claims. The woman told investigators she was 16 when 38-year-old twins Oren and Alon who is wrongly referred to as Allen in the papers allegedly lured her and her friend upstairs during an event at the disgraced financier's Manhattan townhouse. According to interview notes uncovered by the Daily Mail, the two girls later managed to escape the locked room but the eyewitness said Oren raped her best friend while his older brother Tal, 39, raped a 14-year-old girl. The young girl then tried to slit her wrists, according to the newly disclosed account. The FBI interview took place in 2019, five years before the Alexander brothers were arrested and charged in a sweeping sex trafficking investigation and before their names were well known to the public. It surfaced in a trove of roughly three million Epstein-related files released by the Department of Justice last month. Other documents contained in the tranche reveal some investigators cast doubt on the woman's account, claiming that she was 'not credible'. Brothers Alon (left), Tal (center) and Oren were named in the Epstein files by a woman who claimed the twins lured her to a room during a party at Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion when she was 16 and proceeded to rape her friends The three brothers are seen standing in a court sketch before the jury delivered their guilty verdict on March 9 The revelations come just three days after Tal, Oren and Alon, were convicted on all 10 counts related to them using their wealth and influence to drug and rape multiple women. The Manhattan trial heard testimony from 11 women, including one who said she was 17 when she was raped and another who said she was 18 at the time of the attack. Among the disturbing evidence shown to the jury was shown a chilling video of the 17-year-old being raped by Oren while she was unconscious. In the FBI interview uncovered by the Daily Mail in the files, the 16-year-old eyewitness explains how she met the brothers through Epstein. She said she first met Epstein in 2015 while working as a model, later attending parties at his New York mansion. 'During one of the parties Epstein asked (the victim) to take a tour of (redacted),' according to the interview. 'Once Epstein asked (the victim) to "take off her panties". 'When she didn't comply, he said: "It's fine, I'll pay you five hundred dollars". Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein entertained guests and victims at his lavish Upper East Side townhouse The victim told investigators twins Oren and Alon lured her and friend upstairs during a party at the disgraced financier's Manhattan townhouse '(The victim) complied because she thought he was a very important person,' the narrative continues. On another occasion a year later, Epstein sexually assault the woman, she told the FBI. In her statement she said: At one of the parties, two twin brothers, Allen [Alon] and Oren, who were involved in real estate lured [redacted] and her friend upstairs and locked the door. [Redacted] knocked the door back open and the two ran back downstairs. [Redacted] stated Oren raped [redacted]a nd Oren's brother, Tal, raped a 14-year-old girl named [redacted] and tried to slit her wrist after the incident. The same allegations appear in another FBI document summarizing claims made by Epstein accusers and gives slightly more detail including that she was 16 at the time and the other 16-year-old was described as her best friend. The woman 'named other individuals involved in "big orgy parties" with her, other young girls, and older Victoria's Secret models...', the document states. Tal Alexander (front, blue shorts) and identical twins Oren and Alon (back row) faced 10 counts relating to federal sex trafficking charges The brothers were luxury real estate tycoons. Tal, left, and Oren lived in this property in Miami Beach Next to the woman's statements, an FBI agent wrote: 'Complainant was spoken to and deemed not credible. Additional research showed 3 separate (redacted)'. The document released by the DOJ from the Epstein files stated: 'Complainant reported participating in orgies and that some girls went missing, rumored to have been murdered and buried at the facility.' But in a New York Times interview published in February a woman claimed that Tal Alexander who was still in high school at the time raped her at a party in Bal Harbour, Florida, when she was 13 years old. The woman said she was in eighth grade in late 2002 or early 2003 at the time of the incident. No charges have been filed in connection with the allegation. Deanna Paul, a lawyer for Tal Alexander, told the Times that the claim, made before the brothers were convicted, was 'categorically false'. The three were found guilty on ten counts of using their wealth and influence to drug and rape multiple women at Manhattan federal court The parents of the high-profile real estate agent brothers react as a jury foreperson reads the verdict in their federal sex trafficking trial The Alexander brothers are due to be sentenced on August 6 and face life in jail. A spokesman for all three brothers told the Daily Mail that the allegations in the Epstein files were 'false' and their release had created 'confusion and reputational damage'. The spokesman said: 'The Epstein files contain a wide range of raw and unverified claims involving numerous public figures. 'It is important for readers to understand the distinction between allegations recorded during an intake interview and findings supported by evidence. In this instance, the FBI concluded the account lacked credibility and no action was taken. 'What was particularly troubling was the Justice Department's decision to release this material while the federal trial was underway before a non-sequestered jury, creating the risk of prejudice from unsubstantiated claims that investigators themselves had already discounted.' With a YouTube channel that documented a seemingly happy family life, Amber Sinkler liked to portray herself as the perfect Christian wife and mother. Yet behind the facade Amber and her 'cocaine-fueled' husband Joshua, 36, allegedly worked together to subject their own daughter to a horrific campaign of sexual abuse, police in Missouri claimed in court papers. According to a probable cause statement seen by the Daily Mail, Amber, 31, was allegedly 'fully aware' that her husband was abusing the youngster from when she was a baby - but did nothing to intervene. Filings laid out the couple's alleged acts in detail too graphic and disturbing to reproduce. In the probable cause statement filed in Amber's case, officials said they uncovered four videos on her mobile phone, as well as several images, of the alleged abuse. The videos all involved a 'prepubescent female' of two-years-old which investigators said was approximated by her 'diminutive stature and lack of anatomical growth'. According to the statement, one of the videos showed the toddler clutching a stuffed animal and crying as she was abused by Joshua. It is claimed by investigators that Amber was typically in the same bed while the abuse was carried out, but never once raised the alarm. The alleged horror outlined in the court filings could not be in greater contrast to the life Sinkler was happy to portray online. Amber Sinkler, seen here, is accused of standing by and letting her husband subject their daughter to horrific sexual abuse Police said an investigation found that Joshua Sinkler, seen here, was abusing his daughter since she was born Sinkler's YouTube channel is littered with videos of her family attending church, Bible study and even milestones in her children's life like their first steps. If it wasn't updates on their life, Amber would post videos of them celebrating the 4th of July, Father's Day and family weddings while speaking in a high-pitched, babyish voice. One video from 2024 showed her flaunting an engagement ring in the bathroom of their home after Joshua proposed to her. 'I'm engaged again, I'm still married but I'm engaged again', she told the camera while adding she had to 'work on her body' to fit into a wedding dress. As she speaks, a man can be heard shouting from beyond the bathroom at a crying child. In other clips she would post her own video tributes to celebrities who had died, including actor Val Kilmer and One Direction star Liam Payne. Despite the constant videos, police said in the court papers that her care was all an illusion and that Amber 'showed no concern' for her daughter 'and made no attempt to stop the sexual abuse'. The probable cause statement continued: 'Amber stated she didn't report the abuse to her family or law enforcement out of fear for what may happen to her husband. 'Amber also implicated her husband may be having sex with a yet to be identified 11-year-old in the neighborhood. 'Amber also showed poor judgment and a lack of character by stating she "wouldn't be surprised" if her husband was molesting other children', the statement said. The horror outlined in the court filings could not be in greater contrast to the life Sinkler was happy to portray online The two were arrested earlier this week from their mobile home before being formally charged They are both being held inside St. Charles County Jail on a $500,000 cash bond each Officers with the St Charles County Police Department said Amber told them that she was in the same bed as her husband carried out the abuse. In the probable cause statement, Amber also claimed that her husband would abuse cocaine, which according to her would make him 'become very sexual with the child'. Officers described how Amber was aware that her husband was 'having sexual contact with the 2-year-old for two years', the statement added. She was charged with first-degree child endangerment and of possessing child sexual abuse material. Her husband was charged with incest, child molestation, statutory rape of a person younger than 14, statutory sodomy, sexual exploitation of a minor, possession of child pornography and endangering the welfare of a child. The couple was arrested earlier this week from their trailer park home after an investigation. They both appeared for hearings on Friday where they pleaded not guilty and were both referred to a public defender for representation. Their details were not yet available. Prosecuting Attorney Joe McCulloch described the couple as 'monsters' in a statement to the media. He said: 'The sickness displayed by these individuals is indescribable. These charges mandate that we protect the victim and the public from these monsters.' They are both being held inside St. Charles County Jail on a $500,000 cash bond each. Eight reported Bigfoot sightings were logged across Ohio in just four days, a surge experts say hasn't been seen in the region in nearly 50 years. An expert with the Bigfoot Society podcast, hosted by Jeremiah Byron, said a possible 'flap' - a sudden cluster of Sasquatch sightings within a short time span - may be unfolding across Ohio. Each witness, Byron said, is a local familiar with rural Ohio wildlife, and all described similar sightings: large, black-haired creatures with long arms, walking upright and making 'grunting noises.' 'The current generation of Bigfoot enthusiasts, including myself, have never lived through a sighting flap like this, and we are extremely excited to potentially to get substantial evidence through this,' he told Newsweek. Although no physical evidence has been found and all sightings are based on eyewitness reports - there are no new photos or video shared so far, encounters have been reported in Mantua, Garrettsville, Streetsboro, Windham, Newton Township and Lake Milton. 'I do have a local Bigfoot researcher, Glenn Adkins, and his research group, Ohio Sasquatch Project, following up on reports, and hopefully there will be something found eventually, such as tracks,' he added. In a podcast episode released Tuesday, Byron said the first sightings across northeast Ohio appear to have begun on the afternoon of March 6. Shortly before 12.30pm, in Mantua, a researcher with the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) said they saw a '9ft brown male Sasquatch in broad daylight.' Bigfoot as seen in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Film, which depicts a suspected Sasquatch that was spotted in Bluff Creek, California Each witness described similar sightings: large, black-haired creatures with long arms, walking upright and making 'grunting noises' (stock photo) Your browser does not support iframes. The researcher, who reported the sighting to the Bigfoot Mapping Project, said he was hiking when he spotted the large creature standing about 120 yards away - and that the beast appeared to know he was there. He shared: 'It started moving away. It left fast and I left just as fast.' Byron stressed that Ohios surge in Bigfoot reports owes much to Scott Tompkins of the Bigfoot Mapping Project, designed to centralize reported sightings instead of leaving data scattered online. 'His database captured the initial Bigfoot report on March 6, which made me aware of the area more,' he explained. On March 7, in the same village, an individual identifying himself as Dylan Obney reported seeing an 8ft tall brown figure just before 11pm in the forest. He contacted the podcast host through Tiktok, sharing an account in which he heard heavy, unhuman-like footsteps and deep, vibrating grunts nearby. While walking along a trail near the edge of the woods, Obney said heavy footsteps deep in the trees caught his attention - something he initially thought was a deer or another person hiking. 'But the steps were slow, spaced out, and much heavier than anything I've ever heard out there before,' he said. In this photo shared by Jeff Meldrum, Bigfoot expert and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, a trail of 35-45 clear pristine footprints in Washington from 1996 are seen In an image shared by Meldrum, intricate, detailed nesting areas discovered on expeditions and believed to have been made by Bigfoot are seen Minutes later, Obney said he noticed movement roughly 40 to 50 yards away - a 'tall' figure stepping between two trees. The creature, he said, was easily 7ft to 8ft tall, covered in dark brown hair, with long arms dangling low at its sides. Obney said that, much like the previous day's sighting, the creature moved upright and slowly turned its head toward him as he lay motionless on the trail, seemingly aware of his presence. 'The craziest part was the sound it made, a deep grunt that echoed through the woods before it stepped back behind the trees and disappeared after that,' he said. Within seconds, he said, the woods fell completely silent again, and he decided to investigate the area where he may have glimpsed Bigfoot. He said he noticed 'several large footprints pressed into the muddy ground,' each far bigger than a normal boot could make. 'I'm not saying 100 percent what it was, but whatever I saw definitely wasn't a person, definitely wasn't a deer,' Obney shared. On March 9, the focus shifted east to Garrettsville, where two 'intense' sightings caught the attention of villagers - including the sheriff, according to WOIO News. An image captured by Maine resident Stephen Bartlett last February showed footprints in the snow on his York County property, which he believes were made by Bigfoot 'Everyone is talking about it,' chiropractor Dr John Barnosky told the outlet. 'Everyone is asking, "Have you seen Bigfoot, where is he going?"' Byron spoke with two individuals over the phone - one choosing to remain anonymous and another named Jacob Taylor - who recounted their encounter while hiking Headwaters Trail. The anonymous witness said that while hiking a wooded trail at around 11.47am, he and Taylor saw movement in trees about 30ft ahead. Covered in black hair and around 8ft to 10ft tall, the figure - similar to the others - stood for several seconds while they looked on in awe. The witness said the figure had broad shoulders and 'unusually long' arms, and walked upright on two legs with such weight that the ground shook slightly as it passed between the trees. 'We also noticed a strong, musky smell in the air,' the witness said. 'It turned its head toward us, let out a deep, grunt-like noise, and then quickly stepped back into the trees. 'We were both pretty shaken up and didn't approach the area any closer,' the hiker added. 'It all happened so quick.' During the phone call, the witness - whom Byron said appeared genuine and visibly shaken - said the beast could only turn its neck by rotating its shoulders, describing its movement as like that of someone on 'stilts.' Jeremiah Byron, host of podcast the Bigfoot Society, said: 'The current generation of Bigfoot enthusiasts, including myself, have never lived through a sighting flap like this' (stock photo) Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski of Portage County said hed heard about the towns commotion, but the Garrettsville Police Department reported receiving no related calls, according to WOIO. 'Ten individual people were like, "yeah, I was walking my dog when I saw a big creature with a musty odor and suddenly it ran,'" he told the outlet. Around 6pm, in Windham, an older woman saw something unusual run from the woods onto her neighbors property while looking out her living room window. She recalled seeing a 6ft figure, completely brown and moving with a long stride, in an encounter that lasted barely six seconds. Byron spoke with the woman and her daughter - both skeptics - who said she had a side view of Bigfoot running the entire time. The woman's quote was simply: 'I know what I saw, but I don't know what I saw.' Byron also spoke with a man, described as 'very emotional about what happened to him,' who reported an alleged encounter in Newton Township on March 10. Reaching out to the Bigfoot Society via email, the man said he went to let his German Shepherd out at about 4am, only for the dog to start 'freaking out' and lunge toward some trees. An image shared last year by Amy Bue, co-founder of Project Zoobook, shows Bigfoot hunters searching wilderness areas in Washington Bigfoot expert and author Jeff Meldrum last year captured potential Sasquatch footprint evidence He reported seeing a large black shadow crashing through the woods and dismissed the idea that it could have been a bear, which frequently visits his property. 'One individual has bears on their property but replied to me that none of those bear are 9ft to 10ft tall,' Byron told Newsweek. On Tuesdays podcast, Byron said the man finally brought his dog inside, but to his surprise, the large dog was 'shaking,' which was unlike its usual behavior. With reports on the rise, the host said he must tread carefully. Byron explained that a growing number of reports and photos are AI-generated - some created years ago, others more recently - and that he attempts to screen each person before engaging further. Once the submission passes screening, he conducts a phone interview while coordinating with a local Ohio researcher to follow up and investigate possible physical evidence. A Tennessee nurse has raised more than half a million dollars to help an elderly DoorDash driver retire after seeing him struggle to deliver her Starbucks order. Brittany Smith, a nurse in Manchester, launched a GoFundMe page after her doorbell camera captured Richard Pulley, 78, struggling to climb the stairs as he slowly made his way to her front door earlier this week. She later learned that Pulley had come out of retirement after his wife Brenda lost her job and that the couple had little to nothing after paying their monthly bills and medication costs. By Saturday morning, donations to the 'Give Richard a Chance to Rest Again' fundraiser had surpassed $816,322. 'We appreciate every one of them,' Pulley told WSMV News. 'It's taking a lot of pressure off of us and making life livable once again.' The touching tale began Tuesday, when Smith learned that her daughter's father had arranged for Starbucks to be delivered to her front door - a gesture she said she was not happy about, according to The Independent. 'He often orders Starbucks for her, but we try to do it as more of a reward, and this was the third time he had ordered for her in the week,' Smith told the outlet. A fundraiser for an elderly Tennessee DoorDash driver named Richard Pulley (pictured), 78, raised more than half a million dollars to help him retire Brittany Smith (pictured), launched a GoFundMe page on Tuesday after her doorbell camera captured Pulley struggling to make his way to her front door with her delivery 'So I see the Ring doorbell go off, and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me, he had Starbucks sent again,' she added. But that one order may have been fate. When Smith clicked on the Ring doorbell app, she saw 'a little old man walking up the steps.' In the brief clip lasting just 20 seconds, an elderly man in a plaid button-down shirt and khakis grips the handrail as he slowly climbs a small set of stairs and carefully sets the brown paper bag at the front door. 'This poor guy is struggling to get up my stairs to deliver my very capable daughter her Starbucks,' Smith told the outlet. 'My daughter's dad is a quadriplegic, so he often has things sent to the house because he can't physically go get them,' she added. After watching the footage, Smith felt compelled to use social media to track down the man. She shared the moving video in an effort to learn his name. 'Help me find this precious man!' she wrote on Facebook, adding crying emojis. 'Why is he having to DoorDash? Help me find him.' The internet worked its magic when a Facebook user recognized Pulley as the man who frequently delivered DoorDash orders to her office and passed along his name. In a 20-second viral clip, Pulley is seen gripping the handrail as he slowly climbs a small set of stairs and carefully sets the brown paper bag at the front door Smith (left) learned that Pulley (center) came out of retirement after his wife Brenda (right) lost her job, and that the couple was left with little to nothing after paying their monthly bills and medication costs She tracked down his address, confirmed the car in the driveway matched her doorbell footage and showed up at his door with an unexpected $200 tip. 'Before he accepted the money, he wanted to make sure that I was going to be OK if he accepted that money from me,' Smith told The Independent. The pair started talking, and Pulley revealed he came out of retirement to support his wife, who requires 'very expensive medication' costing thousands a year. The couple work together and have been delivering through DoorDash for around a year with Brenda behind the wheel while her husband hops out to deliver. 'When you're past your mid-70s, there's not exactly a line of people waiting to hire you,' Brenda told WSMV. Smith's footage quickly went viral and she was inundated with offers of help from well-wishers across the country leading her to set up the donation page. Donations to the 'Give Richard a Chance to Rest Again' fundraiser had surpassed $816,322 by Saturday morning Nearly overnight, contributions skyrocketed, far exceeding her expectations. By the following night, more than 12,000 people had already donated. Days later, Smith and her daughter met Pulley and his wife at a local restaurant to reveal the extent of the donations. 'Richard said he's not slept in two days because he can't quit watching the GoFundMe,' Smith added. She shared a video on Facebook showing that strangers had also sent $1,900 to her personal CashApp and Venmo accounts, which she counted in front of the couple before giving it to them in an envelope. 'Don't show this on TV until I get to the bank,' Pulley joked. But the couple were nothing short of stunned by the generosity, admitting that it was hard to believe complete strangers had come together to support them. 'I just can't believe that someone would be that caring to set this up for us,' Brenda told WSMV News, speaking of Smith. 'It's just really difficult to believe that there's that many people that are that generous to try and help us,' she added. 'People that don't even know us.' Smith (pictured) said the response was 'overwhelming,' but she would 'do it all over again in a heartbeat' Thanks to the donations, the longtime pair can now leave delivery work behind and finally live out the retirement they had once planned together. Smith said that while the response was 'overwhelming,' she would 'do it all over again in a heartbeat.' 'I don't know,' she told WSMV. 'It's just, I love this man.' It is never too early to enjoy corned beef. Nothing says comfort food like tender, flavorful corned beef smothered in a rich, velvety parsley saucean Irish classic that's sure to bring a bit of luck to your table! Corned Beef with Parsley Sauce Although I do not have an ounce of Irish in me, I have been celebrating St. Patricks Day since I was first introduced to it. I love selecting my corned beef, getting all the fixings, bringing out my favorite pot, and getting to work. Advertisement Advertisement I do not know if you can call it to work, as the stove does everything for me. To add a bit of a spin, here is a simple white sauce with parsley, creating an excellent cream to accompany this super-tender corned beef dinner. What is Saint Patricks Day? St. Patricks Day, celebrated on March 17, is the patron saint of Ireland. It was initially observed as a religious celebration, with feasts and services. The Irish have observed the anniversary of his death in the fifth century for over a thousand years. When Irish immigrants arrived in the United States, they brought this day of celebration. The first and on record St. Patricks Day parade was held in 1601, not in Ireland but in a Spanish colony, now St. Augustine, Florida. Advertisement Advertisement More than a century later, Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched on New York City in 1772 to honor the Irish patron saint. Nowadays, New York and Boston hold spectacular parades every year. Irish or not, everyone joins in the celebration. Corned beef with parsley sauce You may wonder what exactly is Corned Beef? It is beef that has been cured in a salt solution. Long ago, that was the way meat was preserved. Todays process remains the same, and beef brisket is the cut of meat. One of the most asked questions is: why serve it with cabbage? When young immigrants came to America, affordable food was readily available. Here are a few helpful tips for the ingredients needed to make this Corned Beef with Parsley sauce. This is a quick introduction. Please read the recipe for complete instructions. Advertisement Advertisement Corned beef brisket: Most stores have it with all the spices in a packet to go alongside. Just remove it from the sealed package and follow the instructions. Carrots: nicely chopped, all in the same bite-sized pieces. They are the perfect pairing to corned beef, and to me, they are so versatile. Yellow onion: its flavor adds a beautiful layer to your corned beef. Cabbage: select one where all the leaves are nicely attached. Slice into four quarters. Whole milk: The base for your sauce. Do use whole milk, which is richer in flavor and yields a richer parsley sauce. Flour: Thickening agent to create your parsley sauce. Advertisement Advertisement Unsalted butter: The miracle ingredient for perfecting your white sauce or bechamel. Use unsalted butter so you do not oversalt your dish. Unsalted butter has a very neutral flavor to it, Parsley: Flatleaf parsley is always my choice. The rich flavor is also in the stems; therefore, do use them. Mustard: A bit of punch to your sauce. Nutmeg: The savory, spicy nutmeg flavor pairs perfectly with all your white sauces. Uplift them. Corned beef with parsley sauce (Giangi's Kitchen- Giangi Townsend) Cooking tips and step-by-step instructions to make this delicious Corned Beef with Parsley Sauce recipe A two-step recipe. Corned beef Please start with the corned beef by placing it in a large Dutch oven pan. Add the spice packet that comes with most store-purchased corned beef. Advertisement Advertisement Add the peeled and chopped carrots, cabbage, and onion to the corned beef. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, then remove the onion's grayish foam that forms as it cooks. Cover and let it do its thing for a couple of hours. Once done, remove the corned beef from the cooking water and set aside covered. It will continue cooking. Corned beef with parsley sauce (Giangi's Kitchen- Giangi Townsend) Parsley Sauce This is a bechamel sauce with the perfect hint of parsley. Easy to make, the only tip I have for you is to keep a keen eye and continually stir. The butter melts with the flour, creating this excellent, smooth cream. A chefs tip is to let the butter and flour cook together. You want to cook the flour until a beautifully fragrant, nutty flavor emerges. Advertisement Advertisement Once the flour is well incorporated into the butter, slowly add the milk and whisk constantly to prevent lumps from forming. Adding the liquid from the corned beef will thin your sauce and enhance its flavors. Add the nutmeg and parsley to this juncture and season with salt and pepper. Whisk until the sauce thickens. Corned beef with parsley sauce (Giangi's Kitchen- Giangi Townsend) Ingredients needed to make this Corned Beef with Parsley Sauce 1 pound corned beef brisket 2 carrots, cleaned and chopped 1 yellow onion, chopped 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour cup whole milk 2 teaspoons flat-leaf parsley, minced teaspoon mustard nutmeg, pinch 1 cabbage, divided into 4 pieces Instructions Place the corned beef with the spice packet into a large pot. Add the carrots and onion (less than 1 tablespoon) to a large pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and skim the foam from the water's surface. Cover and simmer for about 2 hours, or until the corned beef is tender. Add the cabbage and cook for another 5 minutes, and let it rest in the pan with the juices until tender. Remove from the liquid, wrap in foil, and set aside. Reserve about cup of the cooking liquid. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Mince the reserved onions and add to the butter. Cook for about 1 minute, whisk in the flour, and cook for another minute. Add the reserved liquid, milk, parsley, mustard, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste, whisking until smooth. Cook for another 5 minutes more, whisking constantly until the sauce thickens. Serve over corned beef slices, then spoon the sauce over it. Equipment needed I only recommend the products that I love and use. This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. Advertisement Advertisement Large Dutch oven pot Skimmer Small saucepan Storage instructions and reheating It will store well in the refrigerator in an airtight glass container for several days. You can also freeze the corned beef for up to two months. The beauty of corned beef is that you can reheat it slowly in the oven covered so as not to dry and enjoy it another day, or make beautiful sandwiches. What can you prepare with leftovers? A Reuben sandwich is one of my favorites, with 1000 Island dressing, prepared horseradish sauce, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and lots of sliced corned beef. If you have leftover corned beef, you can always make corned beef ash with an egg for Sunday brunch. If you enjoy this Corned Beef with Horseradish Sauce, check out these flavorful recipes: Corned Beef with Horseradish Sauce Coquilles Saint Jacques A French Classic Broiled Beef Tenderloin With Asparagus and Roasted Red Onion Vinaigrette A fundraiser for the group leading the Al-Quds Day rally in London shouted 'death to the IDF' and 'Khamenei makes us proud' at a protest last weekend. Raza Kazim attended a pro-Iran demonstration outside the US embassy last Saturday after the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli drone strike. Footage shows him leading crowds with a chant of 'say it clear, say it loud, Khamenei makes us proud'. In another video, he is seen yelling 'death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]' a slogan described as hate speech last year by Sir Keir Starmer. This week, the Home Secretary banned a planned Al-Quds Day march through London by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) due to the risk of serious disorder, but it will still go ahead on Sunday as a static protest. Mr Kazim who leads a course training maths teachers at Middlesex University is a trustee of the IHRC trust, the charitable arm that funds the IHRC. The IHRC was described in the independent review of the Prevent strategy as an 'Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime, that has a history of extremist links and terrorist sympathies'. It claims it is a separate entity to the IHRC trust, although they share the same business address and phone number. Raza Kazim attended a pro-Iran demonstration outside the US embassy last Saturday. He is seen in the centre of this image, with grey hair and wearing a white scarf In a statement reported, Mr Kazim praised Khamenei whose regime has killed thousands of protesters for 'his principled opposition to systems of racial and political oppression'. He said the IDF chant was a 'creative and forceful expression calling for the dismantling of a genocidal military institution responsible for terrorising, killing, raping and torturing Palestinians, while enforcing a system of apartheid that denies their basic humanity'. Lord Walney, the Government's former extremism adviser, called his comments 'deeply disturbing'. He told The Times: 'These kinds of remarks are not remotely acceptable and not remotely peaceful and they make a mockery of those who claim there is no link between regime supporters and charities.' Mr Kazim has organised previous Al-Quds Day marches. The event named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after Iran's 1979 revolution to express opposition to Israel. Other IHRC figures have gone on the record to praise the Iranian regime. They include its co-founder and chair Massoud Shadjareh, who was previously filmed recalling a meeting he had with Khamenei. Mr Shadjareh, who was born in Iran in the 1970s, said he had been summoned to describe the findings of an IHRC report, entitled Environment of Hate: The New Normal for British Muslims in the UK. He told an audience at an event: 'We did a report about Islamophobia, how the environment is created by politicians by the media and in that environment people became so bad that even sometimes themselves they were shocked at how they had become so racist. Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, speaking under a banner lauding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 'I was asked to explain this research, this book, to Ayatollah Khamenei and in the small gathering I explained the whole findings of this.' The IHRC chairman said the despot had listened 'very attentively' before replying: 'This is because they want to destroy your confidence in yourselves as Muslims and in your deen [all-encompassing faith]. Don't let it happen.' Revealing how inspired he was by Khamenei's words, Mr Shadjareh said: 'Day in day out, when these Zionists and neocons are attacking us, abusing us, writing and demonising us, it is because they want to remove this confidence from you. 'Our confidence comes in the fact that we have got the most powerful entity backing us and guiding us and this is why we are here and this is why we will be victorious if we unite.' Faisal Bodi, the IHRC's spokesman, described the late dictator as a man of 'principle and integrity'. Asked if he would hold a picture of Khamenei, Mr Bodi told the BBC earlier this week: 'Happily. I would rather hold a picture of the Ayatollah than Keir Starmer or Donald Trump. He was a man of principle, a man of integrity, a man who stood for justice.' He added: 'In the same way I would happily hold a picture of Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X and many other towering personalities.' Mr Bodi added that Khamenei 'stood on the side of Palestine'. He also quoted Tehran's figures for the number of protesters that had been killed during a recent wave of street protests rather than independently verified figures that are in the tens of thousands. The IHRC said on Wednesday that it 'strongly condemned' the decision to ban its march and would continue with a static protest. Shabana Mahmood had said the move was necessary 'to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East'. The Home Secretary added: 'Should a stationary demonstration proceed, the police will be able to apply strict conditions. 'I expect to see the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest.' Your browser does not support iframes. Neither the Government nor police have powers under the Public Order Act to ban a static demonstration. Police chiefs believe the demonstration could potentially attract 12,000 people or more and are planning to use the River Thames as a barrier to keep rival groups apart. At least a thousand officers from the Metropolitan Police and forces around the country are being drafted in to patrol the crowds, with more made available if needed. Met deputy assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan warned the measures taken by police cannot 'guarantee' disorder will not take place but it is hoped the measures will mitigate disruption. Speaking to reporters today, he said: 'While we will protect the right to freedom of speech, there is a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime and anyone who crosses the line can expect to face arrest.' The protest has drawn criticism over apparent backing for the Iranian regime after its organisers expressed support for the country's late leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Government banned the march but people can still legally assemble and take part in a so-called 'static protest'. Mr Adelekan said this would be 'immeasurably easier to police'. But Lord Walney has warned this could still cause serious disorder and blamed a 'loophole' in public order laws depriving ministers of the power to stop rallies that stay in one location. All protests and counter-protests will take place between Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges and are permitted between 1pm and 3pm, the Met said. People take part in an Al-Quds march in London on March 23, 2025 Counter protesters can assemble on the Millbank side of the Thames. Lambeth Bridge will be closed, with access only for emergency vehicles. The force needed a 'unique plan' to respond to 'unique circumstances', Mr Adelekan said but he stressed this would not set a precedent. 'I've been in this organisation for 31 years, I cannot think of a time when we used it. 'So as far as I'm concerned it's new, it's new in my generation of policing,' he said, adding: 'It will keep both sides apart whilst also allowing people to protest within the law.' Mr Adelekan said anticipating protest turnout was 'not an exact science' but that it was his 'professional judgment that numbers I think will go up to 6,000 in terms of the counter protest, which is a significant number when you combine all of those groups'. He said: 'I caveat that by saying you could see significantly more based on the current political situation.' Mr Adelekan later added that police anticipate a 'similar number or more' supporting the protest. Officers are having to be redeployed from neighbourhood policing to cover the event and patrol Jewish neighbourhoods in the capital, Mr Adelekan said. Middlesex University has been contacted for comment. What is Al-Quds Day? Al-Quds Day named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after Iran's 1979 revolution. Falling on the last Friday of Ramadan, it was billed as an international day to express support for Palestine and opposition to Israel and Zionism. The London march has taken place for more than 40 years and is organised by the UK al-Quds Committee led by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). It is seen by many as a hate march, and each year sees numerous arrests for supporting terrorist organisations and anti-Semitic hate crimes. The IHRC has backed Iran's late despot Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing him as having been 'on the right side of history'. Fly-tippers face being banned from driving as part of a new crackdown on waste criminals. Ministers will give courts powers to punish criminals convicted of illegal dumping by adding penalty points to their licence, the Daily Mail can reveal. There were more than 1.2million incidents of fly-tipping in England in 2024-25 - many involving vans and cars. Ministers hope offenders will be deterred by the threat of having their vehicles seized, and that serial fly-tippers will find it harder to operate without a vehicle. A proposal to hand fly-tippers three penalty points on their licence was included in a Conservative amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. But the Mail understands Labour's plan could see drivers face an even larger points penalty. Drivers can be disqualified from the roads if they build up 12 or more penalty points within a three-year period. The new points penalty will require legislation, and Defra said it is currently 'considering the appropriate legislative vehicle'. Two fly-tippers were caught dumping rubbish from two white vans on a country lane near Meriden in the West Midlands in 2024 Footage showing men in a white van dumping rubbish near Nuneaton Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said: 'Fly-tipping damages our communities and the environment and we are taking action to stop them. 'Litter louts who repeatedly break the law will see points added to their licence and risk losing it for good if they continue to offend. 'We are empowering local authorities to deal with fly-tipping, like seizing and crushing vehicles, and are urging them to make use of the whole range of measures available to them.' Last month, Defra published guidance to help councils seize and crush more vehicles used for fly-tipping, or repurpose them for clean-up operations, along with advice on how to take cases to court. A series of vast illegal dumps have gained national attention in recent months, prompting calls for tougher punishments against waste criminals. They include a 500ft-long, 12ft-high waste 'mountain' abandoned in a field near Kidlington in Oxfordshire, and a two-acre illegal rubbish site at the back of Over Farm in Gloucestershire. Criminals can make large profits by charging to collect waste before illegally dumping it on public land without paying landfill tax, which now stands at 126.15 per tonne. While some offenders are fined, experts fear the large profits on offer mean financial penalties are seen merely as a 'cost of doing business'. A couple dumping rubbish from the back of their van in rural Wiltshire last year. They have since been caught and fined Last month, Defra published guidance to help councils seize and crush more vehicles used for fly-tipping The proposal to hand out penalty points to fly-tippers forms part of the Government's new Waste Crime Action Plan, which will be published shortly. It is also making around 78billion available to council budgets in England this year to help fund key responsibilities, like tackling waste crime. The 1.26million fly-tipping incidents recorded by councils in England last year represented a nine-per-cent rise on the year before. The figures from Defra relate to rubbish illegally dumped on public land, with private landowners across the country facing clear-up costs from the scourge of having waste fly-tipped on their property. The data from councils reveal that nearly two thirds of cases (62 per cent) involved household waste, with 777,000 incidents in 2024/2025, up on the 688,000 that had to be cleared up the previous year. Household waste ranges from black bags of day-to-day rubbish to old furniture, carpets and bric-a-brac from loft and shed clearances. Convicted fly-tippers can already face fines, community sentences or prison. For over 20 years, Banksys artwork has adorned the sides of city buildings, a London tube train and even his own bathroom. So it would appear to be a difficult task to fit all 200 examples in one place. But recreations of the mysterious artists complete works have been brought together for the first time in a single exhibition. The display has already wowed 3.5 million visitors across 36 venues around Europe and further afield - and opened for the first time in the UK yesterday. Visitors can view recreations of iconic works, from the notorious Girl With Balloon shredding moment, the thought-provoking Devolved Parliament, to a fully Banksified London Underground carriage and a towering seven-foot elephant installation. The interactive art experience - on show in Manchester - gives visitors a comprehensive overview and insight into the complete works of the genius and exceptional artist who began his street art in Bristol in the 2000s. Although there have been other displays featuring Banksys art, The Mystery of Banksy - A Genius Mind is believed to be the first time examples of all his works have been exhibited in one place. There is also a video screening that illuminates the most important stages of the anonymous street artists renowned career. Banksy's 'Because I'm worthless' message conveyed his critical view of capitalism Banksy's Elephant in the Room - originally featuring a live elephant - conveyed a message about poverty The original 'vandalised phone box' sculpture was installed in Soho Square, London Kissing Coppers was first unveiled on the wall of The Prince Albert pub in Brighton in 2004 Banksy's 'Paint Pot Angel' - a recreation of the moment a classical angel sculpture at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery was crowned with a dripping paint can in a message about defiance The exhibition, an interactive collection of graffiti, photographs, sculptures, video installations and prints, is being shown at Depot Mayfield, near the city's Piccadilly Station. Organisers said that in line with Banksys own principle that Copyright is for losers TM, the event is not officially authorised, owing to the artists continued anonymity. Open to all, standard adult tickets start at 22, while entry is free for under 6s and discounted for 7-16 year-olds, seniors and all NHS workers. The exhibition runs until June 28th. A cat features repeatedly in Banksy's work, here with slogan 'disturb the comfortable' Suicide Man sculpture depicts a classical statue wearing an explosive belt Spy Booth shows stenciled government spies stood around an existing telephone booth Over 200 items of Banksy's work - much of which contains ironic social commentary - have been recreated at exhibition A take on Banksy's Girl With a Balloon which shows only the balloon, with the girl section of the picture shredded The Mystery of Banksy exhibition also aims to raise funds for Manchesters Christie Cancer Hospital, with The Christie Charity as its official partner. It will be supporting the charitys appeal towards a new Total Body PET-CT scanner. Louise Hadley, Chief Executive of The Christie Charity, says: We are absolutely thrilled to be the chosen charity for The Mystery of Banksy, A Genius Mind exhibition. It is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us and one that will ultimately benefit cancer patients both now and in the future. Future dates and locations for the exhibition are to be announced. The decline of British policing is the 'golden thread' that links years of failures in apprehending Valdo Calocane before he killed two university students and a school caretaker, a former senior Metropolitan Police officer has told the Daily Mail's Trial podcast. David Gilbertson worked for Scotland Yard for 35 years, rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner before his retirement in 2001. Speaking to award-winning court reporter Caroline Cheetham after week three of the official inquiry into the 2023 Nottingham attacks, Gilbertson blamed the tragedy on a lack of leadership and accountability among senior police officers. Despite a series of incidents beginning as early as 2020 which exhibited Calocane's mental instability and propensity for violence, including stalking, attacking a police officer and terrorising an Italian student so severely she jumped from a window, multiple forces failed to identify the threat he posed. Calocane, who had a history of paranoid schizophrenia, was controversially handed an indefinite hospital order rather than a prison sentence after prosecutors accepted his plea of manslaughter by diminished responsibility, a decision his victims' families continue to fight against. The decline of British policing is the 'golden thread' that links years of failures in apprehending Valdo Calocane, a former senior Metropolitan Police officer has told the Trial podcast From left to right: Ian Coates, 65, Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19 'What happened here is not a one off', Gilbertson told The Trial Plus. 'There's a golden thread that runs through all of this and that's the decline of policing over the last 20 to 30 years. An absolutely appalling lack of leadership and supervision within the police service. 'It's very easy to blame a 19, 20 year old officer on the scene at 2 o'clock in the morning but the people to blame are those in command. 'There needs to be a really profound rejigging of the way we look at command ability and accountability in the police service. 'When are we going to see a senior officer put his or her hand on their heart and say, this is my fault. I didn't brief an officer properly.' One of the biggest revelations from the inquiry has been Calocane's menacing of an Italian student in May 2020. The inquiry heard the young woman was so terrified as he repeatedly kicked at her door that she leapt from her window, suffering permanent spinal injuries. The victim was told Calocane would not be prosecuted after a sergeant decided to drop the case, based solely on an email from a psychiatrist stating he had no recollection of the offence. 'Why was a sergeant personally dealing with a case of that complexity and importance?', Gilbertson said. 'Why were they not supervised by a more senior officer?' 'This was serious, it was life or death for that woman. In the old days, you would have had a Superintendent signing off. That person takes authority, removing the responsibility and the liability from the junior officer who should not have it in the first place.' Despite a series of incidents beginning as early as 2020 which exhibited Calocane's mental instability and propensity for violence, multiple forces failed to identify the threat he posed Calocane already had a warrant out for his arrest when he killed Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and 65-year-old Ian Coates on Friday 13 June 2023. The warrant was issued in September 2022 after Calocane failed to appear at Nottingham Magistrates Court, where he faced a charge of assaulting an emergency worker. It went unexecuted for ten months. During that time, Calocane assaulted two colleagues at a warehouse in Kegworth, Leicestershire, just weeks before the murders. Leicestershire Police attended but failed to identify his outstanding warrant. Despite knowing Calocane was somewhere in the Nottingham area, the two forces failed to communicate with one another and he was left to his own devices. Gilbertson said he was 'more than surprised' by this missed opportunity to apprehend Calocane before his deadly rampage. He explained: 'They must have had an address for him. He was not an international criminal who had fled the country. 'When I was a young investigator, I always felt I owned a case. I kept it with me. It was mine. If a character did not turn up at court or if the victim wanted to know what was going on, that was my responsibility. 'I had a duty of care, professional pride. It is not just about case volume. I can remember carrying 20 or 30 cases at once. You cannot just say you have too much work on. 'I do not want to sound like that person who says, it was better in my day. But, we genuinely did it better. We owned what we were doing, we felt responsible for it. We did not regard the public as our enemy.' Gilbertson's full analysis of the Nottingham attacks inquiry is available exclusively on The Crime Desk. Subscribe today for access to the Trial Plus podcast, ad-free listening and a host of other member benefits. A businessman has stumped up 9,000 to save a Scout parade for St Georges Day, after it came under threat over health and safety. Children have come together in Romford to celebrate the patron saint of the Scouts - and England - for decades, and residents were outraged when the event was nearly cancelled this year. Havering Council said it faced a bill of 9,000 for traffic management, because the Metropolitan Police would not be supporting it with road closures this year. The Daily Mails columnist Richard Littlejohn shone a light on the spat this week, and a fundraising page was set up to foot the bill. Now, Dean Floyd, the chief executive of Chigwell Construction, has donated the full 9,000. The father of four said: Last year the council was going to cancel Christmas festivities, and we supported there. We always help where we can to make sure the children have a good time. When I think of everything thats getting cancelled, its disgusting. I was a Cub growing up. This parade has been going for decades, but if it didnt happen this year, it never would have happened again. Children have marched to celebrate the patron saint of the Scouts movement - and England - for decades I cant believe that between the council and the mayor of London, we couldnt get that money together. Were talking about kids. There wont be any trouble, not like the big marches in central London. Mr Floyds donation means the parade, which involves a march through Collier Row in Romford, followed by a Church service, will be able to go ahead. However, local councillors and MPs have said it is outrageous that it should fall to Mr Floyd to fund the event, which has reportedly been going since 1954. Andrew Rosindell, the Reform MP for Romford, said: People are already feeling that our identity as an Essex market town is being diminished. The parade is a magnificent display of pride - a big Christian service for the Scouts and part of our heritage - we dont want to lose that. The council suggested a traffic management team should be hired. We could surely have had volunteers doing this - responsible adults with high-vis jackets. This is a 15 to 20-minute parade through a small town centre. The children arent marching through massive roads with lorries everywhere. He added: Its outrageous that we pay huge sums of money for the police and get so little back. Being a London borough and under the Met, resources are always taken away from us. Its Sir Sadiq Khan who is to blame. Our police are constantly sent into central London for Palestine protests, pride marches, anti-capitalist marches and big state occasions. But when we need them, they tell us they cant do it. Mr Rosindells comments come as a mass demonstration is due to take place in the capital tomorrow. The Home Secretary agreed to ban a march by the Iran-linked Al Quds group, but a static protest will still take place, and could attract more than 12,000 people. At least a thousand officers from the Met and forces around the country are being drafted in to patrol the crowds. Having held talks yesterday, Havering Council, the Met and the Scouts issued a joint statement, saying that updated plans mean there are no expensive costs required for outside organisations to manage the event. Conservative councillor Michael White, who was also once a Scout, said he was pleased the parade would be going ahead. Its great watching the Scouts march past, it brings us a huge sense of pride, he said. In the outer London boroughs we are very patriotic. We celebrate St Georges Day just as we would Remembrance Day, for example. Half of me thinks Sadiq Khan doesnt understand what goes on in the outer circle. But Dean and his company stepped up to the mark. A spokesman for the Met said responsibilities such as road closures sit with event organisers and local authorities, and that the force had not previously provided traffic support at the Scouts parade. Acting Chief Inspector Charlie Routley, who leads neighbourhood policing in Havering, said: As we have done for many years, our officers will be attending to protect the local community. Democrat Congresswoman and billionaire heiress Sara Jacobs has been accused of using her family's vast fortune to fund her boyfriend's doomed political campaigns. Jacobs, 37, who once joked that 'Congress is basically high school,' is the granddaughter of the founder of semiconductor company Qualcomm, Irwin M Jacobs. The liberal representative and her family have spent more than $200,000 on the three failed campaigns by Amma Campa-Najjar, who she has reportedly been dating since 2019, according to campaign records seen by the New York Post. Campa-Najjar, a 37-year-old Naval Reserve Officer, has run for Congress twice and again for mayor of Chula Vista, California, losing on all three occasions. He received the benefit of Jacobs' family money each time, with her grandfather Irwin said to be worth $1.2 billion. Now that he's running again to serve California's 48th district in eastern San Diego, they family is backing him once again. Jacobs is co-hosting a campaign lunch with her grandfather for Campa-Najjar, with the top dollar for tickets $7,000, the Post reported. As a family, they've contributed more than $73,000 to Campa-Najjar's campaign since this past August, per the outlet. Democrat Congresswoman and billionaire heiress Sara Jacobs (pictured right) has been accused of using her family's vast fortune to fund her boyfriend Amma Campa-Najjar (pictured right) doomed political campaigns Jacobs, 37, who once joked that 'Congress is basically high school,' is the granddaughter of the founder of semiconductor company Qualcomm, Irwin Mark Jacobs (pictured above) They gave even more in 2023 when he ran for mayor, propping up his failed campaign for the Chula Vista post to the tune of $118,000, while he allegedly lived with Jacobs in San Diego. However, the biggest complaints with Campa-Najjar's campaigns - and Jacobs' support - are that he has flip flopped on several issues with each run. Campa-Najjar - the grandson of a man who founded the Palestinian nationalist group Fatah - ran during the 2018 Democrat 'blue wave' as an acolyte of socialist Bernie Sanders. However, when he ran in 2020, he promised to 'investigate Trump, Biden [and] Hillary' while opposing abortion and holding a campaign event with a man who eventually turned up at the January 6 riot. He's apparently returned to being a standard issue liberal again, having said at a campaign event in September that he supports abortion, calling accusations otherwise 'misinformation.' 'I believe every woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body. Sara would not be with me if that were not true,' he said, referencing Jacobs. 'The only cool thing about being a flip-flopper is wearing the shoes. That's the only thing he has going for him,' Democrat consultant Mike Trujillo told the Post. Campa-Najjar also tried to use photos of him with a woman and a pair of young children to suggest he was married with a family, with the San Diego Union-Tribune calling him a 'brazenly cynical ideological chameleon.' Campa-Najjar has faced allegations of flip-flopping on the issues and using his girlfriend's family wealth to fund his campaigns Sara Jacobs attends the 2024 CARE International Women's Day Dinner at National Museum of the American Indian Trujillo alleged that Jacobs is 'whipping' endorsements from the California Democrat elite. 'It would be unfortunate if we were to not take back the House because someone was trying to impress her boyfriend,' he quipped. Campa-Najjar has also allegedly failed to pay campaign staffer Jaimey Sexton $6,000 dating back to his 2022 Congressional run. 'If you can't pay his bills, how can you be be responsible for our money as a congressman?' Sexton asked, per the Post. 'Sara can stop by the ATM, take out $6,000 and pay me.' A group of southern California Democrats wrote him a letter begging him not to run again in 2026. 'Ammar's repeated defeats have compounded a troubling pattern: a lack of clear principles Democrats can unite behind and a tendency to tell different groups whatever they want to hear,' they wrote. A spokesperson for Jacobs denied that she had demanded her Democrat colleagues endorse Campa-Najjar. 'She hasn't asked her colleagues for endorsements in fact, she's told her colleagues explicitly not to endorse because of her, so there's no ambiguity, pressure, or sense of obligation,' Lauren McIlvaine said. The Daily Mail has reached out to Campa-Najjar for further comment. Campa-Najjar is fighting for the seat of retiring incumbent Republican Darrell Issa in a district that has been helped tilt toward the Democrats from Gavin Newsom's redistricting bill. The Democrat opponent is San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, while the Republican favorite is Jim Desmond. The primary is set for June 2. Donald Trump's luxury hotel and tower in Chicago has failed a health inspection, with reports citing insects in the bar and unsanitary appliances. It was bad news for the president who famously describes himself as a 'germaphobe' after Trump International Hotel & Tower received multiple citations for its main kitchen, room service operations and ritzy Terrace 16 restaurant. The December 17 inspection report by the Chicago Department of Public Health found several small insects crawling about the bar and dish areas, per TMZ. Described as a 'premier luxury hotel,' Trump Tower Chicago boasts 'world-class amenities' and 'unmatched accommodations.' But according to records recently obtained by People, the inspection found 'more than 10 small flies throughout [the] bar area and three small flies in [the] dish area.' Investigators also reported wastewater drained on to the floor by the kitchen's prep sink and a dish machine that 'was not properly sanitizing.' Inspection reports also concluded that perishable foods were being stored at dangerously warm temperatures ranging from 46 degrees to 53 degrees. According to the USDA, perishable items are best refrigerated at 40 degrees or below. Trump's Chicago Tower failed a health inspection late last year. The president has been known by staffers to be an infamous germaphobe Inspectors found built up grime and insects at s Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago Many of the infractions were reported at the hotel's Terrace 16 restaurant Shellfish used at the restaurant were missing expiration dates and use-by labels, debris was piled up under the sink and the prep cooler had built-up grime of its own, per the reports. Even the lid to the ice machine was cracked, making for a total of six issues cited by the health inspector, reported ABC7 Chicago. The Chicago hotspot offers sweeping views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Despite the citations, Terrace 16 advertises itself as 'an unforgettable dining experience amidst these breathtaking views.' It was re-inspected a week later and passed. Chicago hotels and restaurants regularly undergo unannounced health inspections based on the 'risk level' of the business. Priority violations, including food stored at inadequate temperatures and insect infestations, can cause immediate closure and food license suspension, per the Chicago Health Department. The restaurant inside of Trump's five-star hotel is understood to have failed health inspections multiple times since it opened in 2009. The inspection alleged that perishable food were not being kept at food safe temperatures The restaurant describes itself as 'an unforgettable dining experience' The hotel offers views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River In January 2024, records stated that one chef was reusing oyster shells as dishes after placing them in the dishwasher. At the time, more than 20 'small black flying insects' were spotted in the bar and kitchen. Ironically, Trump himself is a self-proclaimed 'germaphobe' who has described shaking hands as 'barbaric' due to the bacteria it spreads. Those close to the president have claimed that he uses hand sanitizer after social engagements and asks visitors to the Oval Office to wash their hands. The Daily Mail contacted the Trump Organization and the Chicago Health Department for comment. A Texas TV reporter has been arrested after allegedly breaking a woman's nose in a domestic dispute. KSAT meteorologist Elliot Wilson, 32, was arrested on Thursday evening at a home in San Antonio over a violent incident which allegedly unfolded earlier that day. According to a statement obtained by the Daily Mail, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office and police responded to a call from a woman requesting a civil standby. 'Upon arrival, the female victim informed deputies that she had been assaulted by Elliot Wilson earlier that morning while he was driving her to a medical appointment,' a spokesperson for the sheriff's office said. The victim claimed that Wilson hit her in the face during a heated argument while they were driving on Highway 41 in San Antonio. She was transferred to a hospital where staff treated her for a broken nose. Wilson is originally from Indianapolis and had only been reporting on the weather at the Texas TV station for three months. According to the biography on its website, he previously served as a meteorologist in Waco, Rockford and Oklahoma City for eight years. Texas meteorologist Elliot Wilson was arrested on Thursday after an alleged domestic dispute Wilson had only been working at the San Antonio station KSAT for a few months Despite the legal turmoil, Wilson is an accomplished meteorologist who graduated from Ball State University in 2016. 'Elliot's always been fascinated by weather ever since he was a kid, having watched a tornado special done by one of the TV stations in his hometown, Indianapolis,' read his biography. 'From then on, he knew he wanted to do something with regard to weather.' According to his LinkedIn profile, Wilson became a certified broadcast meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society just a week before his arrest. He called the accomplishment 'rigorous' and 'difficult to get.' The meteorologist is married. Police have not named the woman he allegedly assaulted. Just a week before his arrest, Wilson became a certified broadcast meteorologist Wilson was booked in Bexar County Detention Center on Friday on a $2,500 bond KSAT responded to a request for comment from the San Antonio Express-News amid their star meteorologist's arrest. 'We are aware of an incident involving Elliot Wilson that occurred outside of the workplace,' a representative said. 'There is no further comment at this time.' Wilson was booked into Bexar County Adult Detention Center on Friday and charged with assault family violence - causing bodily injury. Bond was set at $2,500. Wilson does not appear to have a prior criminal history. The Daily Mail contacted the Bexar County Sheriff's Office and KSAT for comment. Most Britons now believe World War III will probably start within the next decade - and military experts agree. A new poll found that 53 per cent believe it is likely or very likely that we will be dragged into global conflict within the next five to ten years - a dramatic 12-point increase since last year. There was also an 11-point rise in the number of Britons who said the government is handling defence matters badly, with the figure hitting 56 per cent. General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, said that fears about global conflict are well founded due to how small and broken the Armed Forces have become. We live in a new world of state confrontation and conflict which is unlike the world we knew a few years ago, he said. The world used to be regulated by supranational institutions like the UN and a thing called international law, but now were seeing big powers shoot up people if they feel like it. People are nervous about war on their doorstep because they have seen what is happening in Ukraine and in the Gulf. The public also recognises that the US has decided not to underpin our security as it has since 1949. Our security, prosperity and values are at risk and the US isnt going to bail us out. We must either make some really hard decisions to fix our defence and national resilience, or really bad things could happen. A new poll found that 53 per cent of Britons believe it is likely or very likely that we will be dragged into global conflict within the next five to ten years (file photo) General Sir Richard Barrons suggested that global conflict fears are justified because the Armed Forces have become significantly small and broken Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticised for his limp response to the Iran crisis, (Pictured: Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer takes part in a meeting with the UK-Ireland Youth Forum Advisory Group, during his visit to Cork, Ireland, on March 12, 2026) He added the solution will involve taking money out of things like welfare, fixing potholes and the NHS sooner rather than later. More than half (54 per cent) of the 2,079 British adults who were polled by YouGov last week said they have little to no confidence in the UK armed forces to defend the country in the event of war. Reform UK voters were notably less likely to have confidence in the armed forces (22 per cent) than Conservative voters (34 per cent) or Labour supporters (44 per cent). Former army colonel and intelligence officer Philip Ingram MBE has been analysing hostilities around the world for more than 40 years. For the first time ever, I can see a clear path to global conflict, he said. Everything that is happening now is bringing us even closer to the possibility. It is a very real and very genuine concern that I have had for a while now. Our politicians are failing to recognise the threat building on the horizon from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all working together, swapping technologies and enabling each other. America may have started something it cant finish in Iran, and things are not going to plan, because they didnt zoom out and see the wider picture. It makes global war more likely than not. This is a very frightening time, I dont say it lightly, because the last thing that anyone whos been in conflict would ever want is more conflict. But I think were on a path for it. Matthew Smith, of YouGov, said the survey comes after well-publicised cuts to defence spending and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Iran. Keir Starmer was accused of a 'dereliction of duty' last night after No 10 admitted he did not speak to Peter Mandelson before making him US ambassador. Downing Street said there was 'no requirement' for the PM to interview the disgraced peer before handing him the most high-profile and sensitive post in the diplomatic service. The revelation came as a sensational new photo emerged of what is thought to have been Mandelson's first meeting with Jeffrey Epstein, alongside disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The photo, believed to have been taken in the US at the turn of the century, shows a smiling Mandelson and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor sitting barefoot and dressed in bathrobes at a table with Epstein. Kemi Badenoch said on Friday: 'The fact Keir Starmer did not even meet with Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain's ambassador to Washington is a total dereliction of duty. 'Starmer likes to tell everyone how much of a hot-shot lawyer he was, yet he was handed a dossier clearly showing Mandelson's close links to Epstein and didn't even bother to interrogate the man he was about to appoint to high office. 'These latest releases show yet again the appalling judgment of this weak, distracted Prime Minister. The country deserves so much better.' Documents made public this week reveal that the Prime Minister was warned in writing that Mandelson's 'particularly close' friendship with Epstein continued for years after the financier's conviction for child-sex offences in 2008. Sir Keir Starmer was accused of a 'dereliction of duty' after No 10 admitted the Prime Minister did not speak to Peter Mandelson before making him US ambassador A sensational new photo emerged on Friday of what is thought to have been Peter Mandelson's first meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. The former peer and disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were both pictured in bathrobes next to the paedophile financier Sir Keir has told MPs that Mandelson 'lied' about his relationship with the notorious paedophile. But it has now emerged that he chose not to quiz the Labour grandee himself - instead delegating the task to a pair of advisers known to be close friends of the disgraced peer. The PM's former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney asked Mandelson just three questions about his friendship with Epstein. His former director of communications Matthew Doyle reviewed the responses and reported that he was 'satisfied' with them. But both men are known to be proteges of Mandelson. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it was 'an absolute absurdity' to leave the scrutiny of Mandelson's links to Epstein to two of his friends. There is no evidence that Sir Keir asked any follow-up questions, despite being told that Mandelson stayed at Epstein's New York mansion while the paedophile was in prison for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Asked whether Sir Keir spoke to Mandelson before appointing him to Washington in December 2024, the PM's spokesman replied: 'The full process at the time of the appointment was followed. There was no requirement for a formal interview with the PM as part of that process.' The spokesman added: 'It is clear there are lessons to be learned from this... shortcomings have been highlighted.' The revelations will raise fresh doubts about Sir Keir's repeated claim that 'full due process' was followed throughout the disastrous appointment. Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart has already written to the PM's standards adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, asking him to investigate whether Sir Keir misled Parliament in making the claim to MPs. Tpry leaader Kemi Badenoch said: 'The fact Keir Starmer did not even meet with Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain's ambassador to Washington is a total dereliction of duty' Sir Keir with Mandelson during a welcome reception at the US ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025 in Washington DC But Sir Laurie last night rejected the calls, saying he was satisfied that the 'relevant process' had been followed. The first batch of the Mandelson files, released this week, showed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell advised against the appointment and complained that it was 'weirdly rushed'. Tory justice spokesman Nick Timothy said: 'Keir Starmer told Parliament he had followed 'full due process' when he appointed Mandelson. It's now beyond clear that this wasn't true.' Labour is also facing allegations of a 'cover-up', with Mrs Badenoch claiming that key files setting out the PM's thinking are 'missing' or have 'been removed'. The files include the 'due diligence' document sent to Sir Keir which sets out Mandelson's links to Epstein, plus accounts of his two previous Cabinet resignations and details of his business links to China and Russia. But the space where the PM's comments and instructions should be recorded is blank. In a letter to the PM's chief secretary Darren Jones, Mr Burghart set out a list of 56 files that appeared to be missing. Mr Burghart said the documents were 'relevant to the Prime Minister's decision-making' and said failure to provide them to Parliament could be a breach of the ministerial code. Downing Street has denied claims of a cover-up. But the PM's spokesman yesterday refused to say whether Sir Keir and key aides communicated through personal email accounts and phones to avoid their conversations being released. Fresh from the sauna and under Epstein's spell, Andy and Mandy By Inderdeep Bains Wearing crisp white bathrobes with their hair still damp, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson sit on either side of their perverted ringmaster. Fully dressed in a polo shirt and chinos, in what could easily be seen as a power play, Jeffrey Epstein is positioned between them with his arm casually draped over the back of his chair, clearly holding court. The extraordinary image plucked from the three million-strong Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice is the first that shows all three disgraced men together. Thought to have been taken at a summer house in Martha's Vineyard, the scene appears at first glance to depict a typical New England coastal getaway in the early noughties. Friends lounging on wooden outdoor furniture with a barbecue in the background and coffee mugs emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes on the table. However, it is far from a standard summer backyard photograph. Instead, it captures the beginnings of Andrew and Mandelson's seedy association with the disgraced financier - connections that would later contribute to their dramatic downfalls. Relaxed and barefoot in their gowns, and still showing that dewy after-spa glow, the Labour peer and the then-prince appear to have just emerged from a massage or sauna session. It is a stark contrast to their ashen-faced appearances in recent weeks following their arrests on suspicion of misconduct in public office, linked to leaking sensitive data to the powerful financier. Both men are understood to deny the allegations. A graphic identifying key elements of the newly-uncovered picture of Epstein with Mandelson and the former Prince Andrew The trio are believed to have been pictured at the holiday home of the wealthy Lady de Rothschild in the coveted community just south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. No time or date is given for the photograph, which was unearthed by ITV News, and it is unclear who is behind the camera. Like tens of thousands of other pictures and video contained in the Epstein Files, there is no context, but it appears to have been framed, suggesting it was placed on display at one of Epstein's sprawling properties. And it appears to have been taken at the same time as another, better known, image of Mandelson, again dressed in a robe, deep in conversation with Epstein. That image featured in Epstein's 'birthday book,' released by the Democrats in Congress last year, in which the Labour grandee left a nauseating message in his slanted handwriting describing the sex offender as his 'best pal'. The photograph is understood to have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was jailed for soliciting a minor. At that time Mandelson and Andrew are understood to have known each other thorough Mandelson's role as Northern Ireland secretary. Their connection to Epstein stemmed via their mutual friends, Epstein's on-off girlfriend and now convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell and City financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, as well as his future wife, Lynn Forester. In 2000, a year before Andrew was made the UK's trade envoy, he and Mandelson, who was a senior adviser to the then prime minister Tony Blair, were both guests at the de Rothschilds' wedding. A woman who previously worked for Epstein said she had massaged both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson on Martha's Vineyard on an unknown date but said they were 'both perfect gentlemen'. The image released yesterday is very similar to a second photograph of Mandelson and Epstein which was included in the convicted paedophile's 'birthday book', which was released last year Previously, Mandelson was thought to have met Epstein at de Rothschild's summer retreat in 2001, but emails suggest their connection dates back to at least 1999. The files released by the US authorities have revealed the ex-Labour minister had reminisced about their first meeting, describing being 'entranced' by the convicted sex offender. In a 2013 email exchange with Epstein's staff, Mandelson discussed a photo he had been sent, saying: 'I think it was Martha's the first time I met Jeffrey, staying with Lynn Forester.' He is believed to be referring to Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the businesswoman and now widow of financier Sir Evelyn, who was one of Britain's richest men before his death in 2022. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by de Rothschilds. In an exchange in 2010, Epstein emailed Mandelson a picture titled 'the good old days' to which Mandelson replied: 'The first time we met and I was entranced.' The release of the bombshell Epstein files have laid bare the depth of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein, and Epstein and Andrew. Both men have denied wrongdoing but remain under police investigation for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the paedophile while in public office. The Epstein files were released in January but the sheer quantity means new evidence is still coming to light. It is not the first time that Mandelson, 72, and Andrew, 66, have appeared in embarrassing photos linked to Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting a sex-trafficking trial in 2019. One image, in the files released under the US Epstein Transparency Act, shows Andrew on all fours, leaning over a woman lying on the ground. Another shows Mandelson, the former business secretary, in his underwear talking to a young woman at the paedophile's Paris apartment. I drove up from San Francisco on a Saturday morning to meet two of my friends in Old Sacramento for a tuk-tuk mural tour, and it turned out to be one of the most fun mornings I've had in a while. We crossed the famous Tower Bridge, stumbled on a shipping container art gallery I'd never heard of, and spotted a mural from one of my favorite films, all from the back of a baby pink tuk-tuk. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Capital Tuk-Tuk is the brainchild of Manushi Weerasinghe, a Sacramento therapist turned entrepreneur who grew up riding tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka. When she moved to Sacramento for graduate school, she fell in love with the city and eventually decided to bring a piece of her childhood here. Advertisement Advertisement The result is a small, woman-owned touring company that has been showing locals and visitors around Sacramento since 2022. She runs every tour herself, and that personal touch makes all the difference. Capital TukTuk Tour What It Actually Feels Like to Ride a Tuk-Tuk Picture a baby pink three-wheeled vehicle, open on the sides, with a shaded canopy overhead. You climb in, settle onto the bench seat, and suddenly the city looks completely different. You're low to the ground, close to the street, and moving at a pace that actually lets you take things in. The breeze hits you as you zip through intersections (dont worry, seatbelts are installed!) Advertisement Advertisement It seats up to six, but four is the sweet spot for comfort. The canopy provides shade, though the Sacramento sun is no joke, so bring sunscreen anyway. You're welcome to bring non-alcoholic drinks on board, which is how I ended up starting the tour with a pistachio rose latte from Blueprint Coffee Shop, where the tour kicks off in Old Town. Capital TukTuk Manushi Makes the Experience We met Manushi outside Blueprint before hopping on, and within the first few minutes, she made something clear: this is your time. Want to linger at a mural for twenty minutes? Great. Want to move fast and cram in more stops? Also great. She shapes the tour around you, and that flexibility makes it feel less like a scheduled activity and more like exploring the city with a friend who happens to know every interesting corner of it. Advertisement Advertisement She also knows Sacramento deeply. As we rolled through the streets, she pointed out history, context, and stories behind the murals that you'd never get from just walking past them. It added a layer to the whole experience that I didn't expect. What We Saw on the Mural Tour We did the Murals of Sacramento Tour. Almost immediately after climbing on, we crossed the Tower Bridge, Sacramento's golden drawbridge over the river. It's one of those landmarks you've probably seen in photos a hundred times, but rolling across it in an open-air tuk-tuk with the water below and the Capitol in the distance is its own thing entirely. Capital TukTuk The stop that stuck with me most was Twisted Track Gallery on R Street, a stretch of shipping containers completely covered in murals. It has the kind of creative, gritty energy you find in certain neighborhoods in Austin or Portland, and I've walked R Street plenty of times without ever making it to this corner. Advertisement Advertisement We hopped off, wandered around, took photos, and grabbed coffee from the shop right next door before climbing back on. We also passed the Lady Bird mural, painted in honor of the 2017 Greta Gerwig film shot entirely in Sacramento. Seeing it from the tuk-tuk while riding through the actual streets featured in the movie is a genuinely cool moment. And if Lady Bird is your thing, Manushi offers a dedicated Lady Bird Tour that hits all the filming locations, including Tower Bridge, Tower Cafe, and McKinley Park. The tour wrapped at the California State Capitol, a perfect excuse for a few photos before Manushi looped us back to where we started. Capital TukTuk Other Tours Worth Knowing About The mural tours are just the starting point. Capital Tuk-Tuk also runs a Sweets and Brews Dessert Tour hitting Sacramento's best coffee shops and dessert spots, a Beer and Wine Crawl that takes you to three spots of your choosing, and a Fab Forties Holiday Lights Tour through Sacramento's most decorated neighborhood in December. Advertisement Advertisement They also do weddings, bachelorette parties, and corporate events, and for those situations the no-parking, no-logistics setup is genuinely a gift. Is It Worth Booking? Without question. Sacramento is a city that rewards slowing down, and a tuk-tuk forces you to do exactly that. Even my friends who have lived there for years left saying they saw parts of their neighborhood they'd walked past a hundred times without noticing. That's what a good tour does. Manushi built this company from scratch, survived a pandemic shutdown, and came back stronger because Sacramento kept showing up for her. Tours range in price but start at around $175 for a private reservation. Browse all available tours and book at Capital TukTuk or connect with them on Instagram. HMS Dragon spent three days 'bobbing about in the Channel' after being ordered to Cyprus to help defend British forces from drone attacks. The Type-45 destroyer only left UK waters yesterday despite setting sail from Portsmouth on Tuesday. The first thing the 1billion warship did after leaving the harbour was switch off its transponder the system which broadcasts a vessel's position meaning its movements could no longer be publicly tracked. HMS Dragon had also been scheduled to stop at Plymouth for a crew change, but those plans were reportedly abandoned as pressure mounted to get the vessel to the eastern Mediterranean. Sir Keir Starmer ordered HMS Dragon's departure after RAF Akrotiri, a British base in Cyprus, was struck by an enemy drone on March 1. But critics say the move came too late with his slow response to the war in the Middle East leaving the air base vulnerable to attack. The Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers carry the country's best air defence missiles but all six were stuck in port when the drone hit RAF Akrotiri. The warships are capable of launching multiple interceptor missiles at once to destroy incoming drones or missiles. HMS Dragon finally sailed from Portsmouth on Tuesday as it began its journey towards Cyprus Family and friends waved loved ones off as HMS Dragon set sail from Portsmouth Harbour HMS Dragon is classed as operational and therefore it should have been ready to sail at 72 hours' notice. But the 1billion warship was in dock undergoing welding work when the Royal Navy thrust her back into service. Navy sources have since insisted 'they did six weeks' work in six days' to get her ready to sail to Cyprus. But this explanation has done little to quieten critics. Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West told The Sun: 'There is no understanding in government of the importance of maritime power. 'There isn't a single warship between Singapore and Gibraltar. 'It's astonishing that no one had the geopolitical sense to make these decisions earlier.' An MOD spokesperson confirmed HMS Dragon is in transit to the Eastern Mediterranean, adding that sometimes ships finish their final preparations while out at sea. They said: 'For reasons of operational security we won't provide a running commentary on ship movements. 'HMS Dragon is continuing her transit to the Eastern Mediterranean, where she will play a vital role in safeguarding UK assets and interests in the region. Sir Keir Starmer has held talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy's Giorgia Meloni about the security crisis 'This follows the ship's company and support staff working flat out to deploy her, completing six weeks work in just six days.' They added: 'It's not uncommon for ships to continue final maintenance and preparations while on deployment at sea, shortly after sailing from port.' HMS Dragon is expected to take a week to reach Cypriot waters. Once there she is expected to join Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and Netherlands' ships. On Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey paid tribute to military and civilian staff who prepared HMS Dragon, saying: 'I have only praise for our teams who worked flat out. 'What is normally six weeks of work was completed in just six days. A remarkable effort delivered around the clock. They are the very best of Britain in action.' The destroyer's departure came hours after Ministry of Defence officials confirmed that the UK's designated civilian evacuation vessel, RFA Lyme Bay, is being readied for a possible deployment. With 173,000 Britons having registered their presence in the region, Lyme Bay could play a key role in evacuation efforts. The 579ft Bay-class dock landing ship part of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary was on a shortened 'notice to move' period on Tuesday. If her involvement is approved, she is expected to rescue UK civilians stranded in countries such as Lebanon, sailing them to relative safety in Cyprus. On Tuesday night, defence officials said preparations for a possible deployment of RFA Lyme Bay were 'prudent planning'. But the ship, which would carry a contingent of Royal Marines and medical specialists, could have been readied in January when other preparations were made. Neither ship is expected to play any part in operations to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important maritime oil and gas route. A Labour grandee tipped off police about the alleged China spy ring which has rocked the Government. Scotland Yard launched an investigation into an MP's husband and two former Labour advisers after receiving a tip-off from a senior party figure who was concerned that lines may have been crossed. The influential figure, whom the Daily Mail is not naming, is understood to have contacted GCHQ several months ago alleging that Beijing was offering payments in return for insights on UK policies and other sensitive information. As a result, detectives launched a major investigation, resulting in the arrest of David Taylor, 39 the husband of Labour MP Joani Reid Matthew Aplin, 43, and Steve Jones, 68. They are all accused of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Following the arrests, security minister Dan Jarvis told the Commons: 'We remain deeply concerned by an increasing pattern of covert activity from Chinese state-linked actors targeting UK democracy. This involves attempts to obtain information on UK policy-making and interfere with our sovereign affairs.' The three suspects have been released on bail while inquiries continue. Police have searched their properties, including Taylor's 1.9million Georgian townhouse in Lambeth, just across the river from the Houses of Parliament. Labour has suspended Taylor and his wife, the MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven who has voluntarily given up the party whip pending an internal investigation. She said: 'I have done nothing wrong', adding: 'I am voluntarily suspending myself from the whip and will not sit as a Labour MP until internal investigations are concluded.' Taylor describes himself as a 'trusted adviser to government leaders and prominent executives worldwide' who has previously worked as a country envoy to Cop26 working to 'promote collaboration between world leaders'. Labour MP Joani Reid and her husband, lobbyist David Taylor, who was arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service Matthew Aplin, a former journalist and Welsh Labour government employee, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service following a tip-off from a senior Labour source to GCHQ He has advised foreign governments on policy issues, including Malta, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Since 2024, Taylor has been head of programmes at the Asia House think-tank, which develops engagement between Asia and Europe. Asia House is the secretariat to the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for central Asia, meaning it connects policymakers, businesses and institutions to enhance understanding of the region's emerging opportunities. Announcing Taylor's appointment, the think-tank described him as a 'former senior political adviser to the UK Labour Party' who 'offers unique insights into the new UK government's approach to trade and international relations'. Yvette Cooper gave a speech at an event hosted by Asia House in one of her first public engagements as Foreign Secretary, with diplomats from 40 countries said to have been in attendance. Taylor has travelled to China several times to speak to a think-tank and attend conferences. In 2023, he went with a veteran journalist on an all-expenses-paid trip to meet a think-tank reporting to president Xi Jinping. The pair travelled to Hong Kong where they met a man known as Michael who quizzed them about British attitudes to China and trade opportunities while taking them on various sightseeing trips. Journalist Martin Shipton, 72, who went on the trip, said: 'It was presented to me that a think-tank was involved in briefing president Xi on international relations and basically they wanted to have chats with us about perceptions of China in Britain. 'They paid for the trip but it was a sightseeing jolly really, there was no interrogation. I didn't think for a moment it was anything to do with espionage.' Wearing crisp white bathrobes with their hair still damp, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson sit on either side of their perverted ringmaster. Fully dressed in a polo shirt and chinos, in what could easily be seen as a power play, Jeffrey Epstein is positioned between them with his arm casually draped over the back of his chair, clearly holding court. The extraordinary image plucked from the three million-strong Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice is the first that shows all three disgraced men together. Thought to have been taken at a summer house in Martha's Vineyard, the scene appears at first glance to depict a typical New England coastal getaway in the early noughties. Friends lounging on wooden outdoor furniture with a barbecue in the background and coffee mugs emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes on the table. However, it is far from a standard summer backyard photograph. Instead, it captures the beginnings of Andrew and Mandelson's seedy association with the disgraced financier - connections that would later contribute to their dramatic downfalls. Relaxed and barefoot in their gowns, and still showing that dewy after-spa glow, the Labour peer and the then-prince appear to have just emerged from a massage or sauna session. It is a stark contrast to their ashen-faced appearances in recent weeks following their arrests on suspicion of misconduct in public office, linked to leaking sensitive data to the powerful financier. Both men are understood to deny the allegations. A graphic showing the key elements of interest in the new picture of Epstein with Mandelson and the former Prince Andrew The trio are believed to have been pictured at the holiday home of the wealthy Lady de Rothschild in the coveted community just south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. No time or date is given for the photograph, which was unearthed by ITV News, and it is unclear who is behind the camera. Like tens of thousands of other pictures and video contained in the Epstein Files, there is no context, but it appears to have been framed, suggesting it was placed on display at one of Epstein's sprawling properties. And it appears to have been taken at the same time as another, better known, image of Mandelson, again dressed in a robe, deep in conversation with Epstein. That image featured in Epstein's 'birthday book,' released by the Democrats in Congress last year, in which the Labour grandee left a nauseating message in his slanted handwriting describing the sex offender as his 'best pal'. The photograph is understood to have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was jailed for soliciting a minor. At that time Mandelson and Andrew are understood to have known each other thorough Mandelson's role as Northern Ireland secretary. Their connection to Epstein stemmed via their mutual friends, Epstein's on-off girlfriend and now convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell and City financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, as well as his future wife, Lynn Forester. In 2000, a year before Andrew was made the UK's trade envoy, he and Mandelson, who was a senior adviser to the then prime minister Tony Blair, were both guests at the de Rothschilds' wedding. A woman who previously worked for Epstein said she had massaged both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson on Martha's Vineyard on an unknown date but said they were 'both perfect gentlemen'. The image released yesterday is very similar to a second photograph of Mandelson and Epstein which was included in the convicted paedophile's 'birthday book', which was released last year Previously, Mandelson was thought to have met Epstein at de Rothschild's summer retreat in 2001, but emails suggest their connection dates back to at least 1999. The files released by the US authorities have revealed the ex-Labour minister had reminisced about their first meeting, describing being 'entranced' by the convicted sex offender. In a 2013 email exchange with Epstein's staff, Mandelson discussed a photo he had been sent, saying: 'I think it was Martha's the first time I met Jeffrey, staying with Lynn Forester.' He is believed to be referring to Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the businesswoman and now widow of financier Sir Evelyn, who was one of Britain's richest men before his death in 2022. There is no suggestion of wrong-doing by the de Rothschilds. In an exchange in 2010, Epstein emailed Mandelson a picture titled 'the good old days' to which Mandelson replied: 'The first time we met and I was entranced.' The release of the bombshell Epstein files have laid bare the depth of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein, and Epstein and Andrew. Both men have denied wrong-doing but remain under police investigation for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the paedophile while in public office. The Epstein files were released in January but the sheer quantity means new evidence is still coming to light. It is not the first time that Mandelson, 72, and Andrew, 66, have appeared in embarrassing photos linked to Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting a sex-trafficking trial in 2019. One image, in the files released under the US Epstein Transparency Act, shows Andrew on all fours, leaning over a woman lying on the ground. Another shows Mandelson, the former business secretary, in his underwear talking to a young woman at the paedophile's Paris apartment. A dramatic new alliance is forming across the Middle East as Israel and others take on Iran, Israel's president believes. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Isaac Herzog said the war against the regime in Iran has created a 'historic turning point' one that could reshape the region for generations. According to Mr Herzog, two rival camps are now clearly visible in the region. On one side stands Tehran and its network of militant allies. 'The coalition of what I call the empire of evil from Tehran... which spreads havoc, hate and bloodshed all over the region,' he said. But on the other side, a new bloc is emerging. 'Now you see this coalition in front of your eyes. You see Jews and Muslims fighting together against this empire of evil, and of course Christians from the United States of America,' he explained. 'That is very dramatic. That's a new configuration for the Middle East.' Mr Herzog said the conflict with Iran has pushed countries together in ways that would have been unimaginable only decades ago. Israel's president Isaac Herzog (centre) said the conflict in Iran could reshape the Middle East for generations in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail In the two weeks of war, Tehran has launched unprecedented attacks on US military bases across the Gulf including targets in Qatar who home Hamas terrorists, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in what analysts say was an attempt to pressure its regional neighbours to force an end to the US-Israel campaign. Instead, the strikes only risk drawing the region closer together against Iran, strengthening the emerging alliance between Israel, the US and several Gulf countries. The growing partnership has reportedly included intelligence sharing and increased security coordination, with Israel targeting Iranian missile launchers believed to have been intended for strikes on Gulf states. 'If you look at the historical perspective, 50 years ago or even 30 years ago, you could not imagine this situation,' Mr Herzog told the Daily Mail. 'We are fighting together because we have been attacked together by Iran.' He said that while some in the region still disagree with Israel over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they increasingly share a desire for stability and peace. 'The entire region wants to move forward,' he said. 'They are fed up.' But he warned Western governments to take a tougher stance against Tehran. 'I think now is the moment for Western free nations especially European nations to stand up to them,' he said. His comments come amid tensions between Washington and London, after Donald Trump criticised Keir Starmer, saying he was 'no Winston Churchill'. As head of state, Mr Herzog declined to comment directly on British politics but said countries must act together if Iranian-linked threats target their territory. 'If a British army base British territory by convention was attacked, then this is definitely the moment when we all have to align together against this empire of evil,' he said. He warned that Tehran's strategy relies on spreading terror networks across the West. 'We won't let you establish terror cells in our countries. We won't let you rush to the bomb,' he said. Donald Trump's Treasury Department is set to get a $10 billion payday in a deal that will see American investors take control of TikTok in the US. TikTok announced the deal in late January, just one day before the deadline set by Trump for the app's US assets to be sold off by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The fee comes on top of the new owners making investments that will allow the version of the app to run in the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported. The joint venture, called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, came in response to a law passed by former President Joe Biden. The law threatened to ban TikTok in the US if ByteDance did not sell TikTok's operations in the country, which is the app's biggest market. The deal allows for profit sharing with ByteDance, which retains a 20 percent stake in the American app, just below the 20 percent threshold stipulated in the law passed by Biden. The new owners include Trump ally Larry Ellison's Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based investor, with each taking a 15 percent stake. Other investors include Dell Family Office, affiliates of Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, and several other investment firms. Donald Trump's Treasury Department is set to get a $10 billion payday in a deal that will see American investors take control of TikTok in the US The creation of the new joint venture came as a result of bipartisan fears that China could use TikTok to mine Americans' data or exert influence through its algorithm Historians have said that the $10 billion fee - $2.5 billion of which has already been paid out to the treasury - would likely be a record for government involvement in such a deal. The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment. The US and China signed the deal in late January to give control of TikTok's US operation to a majority American-owned joint venture comprised of investors backed by Trump. 'The majority American owned Joint Venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users,' the announcement stated. The joint venture will have authority over trust and safety policies, as well as content moderation for US users. It also plans to retrain TikTok's algorithm on US user data, which will be stored and overseen by Oracle's cloud computing operation. American users' data will be subject to data privacy and security review by third-party cybersecurity experts. TikTok's global entities, which are still owned by ByteDance, will continue to manage international product integration and commercial activities, including e-commerce and advertising. TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC will be governed by a seven-member, majority-American board including TikTok CEO Shou Chew and executives from major investment firms. Oracle holds a 15 percent stake in the joint venture. The company's co-founder and executive chair, Larry Ellison (pictured), is a longtime Trump ally TikTok executive Adam Presser (pictured), who previously led the company's efforts to secure Americans user data in the US, was appointed CEO of the new joint venture TikTok executive Adam Presser, who previously led the company's efforts to secure Americans user data in the US, was appointed CEO of the new entity. Will Farrell, who led privacy and security under Presser's efforts, was appointed as chief security officer. The requirement to create the joint venture came after bipartisan fears that China could use TikTok to mine Americans' data or exert influence through its algorithm. Both Trump and Biden warned of national security concerns and pushed for a nationwide ban at different points. Such a ban almost took effect about a year ago, when the original deadline for Biden's bill - which was upheld by the Supreme Court - came to pass. But Trump, crediting the app for his appeal with young voters, delayed enforcement four times through successive executive orders, most recently extending the deadline to January 22. Trump said in September that a new venture had been agreed with China and would meet the law's requirements. At the time, he had already mentioned that Ellison would play a major role in the arrangement. Ellison has returned to the spotlight through his dealings with Trump, who has brought his old friend into major AI partnerships with OpenAI. Ellison has also financed his son David's recent takeover of Paramount and bidding war with Netflix for Warner Bros. Prince Harrys claim that a reporter must have bribed or tricked people for information about him was branded ridiculous yesterday. Mail on Sunday journalist Barbara Jones said it was insane to think one could only get details about the Duke of Sussex unlawfully. In his evidence to a privacy case he has brought against The Mail On Sunday (MoS) and the Daily Mail at the High Court in London, he said he was convinced she must have used unlawful information-gathering to discover where he stayed on a visit to Malawi. He told an aide she kept appearing at secret locations, and was a total nightmare. Ms Jones, a war correspondent and former MoS Africa correspondent, said it was a fantasy to suggest she had bribed park rangers or blagged details by trickery. On one occasion, she said she walked into a bar in a Malawi national park, asked if anyone had seen Harry, and in minutes was told where he was likely to be staying. She told the court: Untrue things have been said about me in this very witness box by Prince Harry. Ive never blagged or bribed anyone. Harry is one of seven public figures accusing the MoS and Daily Mail of unlawful information-gathering. Associated Newspapers, which publishes both, denies its journalists hired private detectives to hack voicemails, intercept landline calls and blag their private information. Prince Harry leaving the High Court on the third day of the trial in January 2025 Ms Jones told the court she got information about Harrys then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, from Joe Osman, an associate of her brother, who claimed he spoke to Miss Davy in 2005. In 2004, when their relationship emerged, Ms Jones said she found an address for her mother in the phonebook. Reporter Heather Briley was asked about her role in trying to discover Miss Davys name. In an email to MoS journalist Caroline Graham she wrote: Have spoken to contact at British Airways... and offered $ in return for name. Hes gone off to investigate. She said he told her later he could not check BAs computer as it was confidential. She thought the name was confirmed by staff at a ranch in Argentina that Miss Davy visited with Harry. The trial continues. Illegal migrants suspected of working as delivery riders in the gig economy have been arrested in a police raid on a caravan park in Bromley. Officers from Immigration Enforcement and the Metropolitan Police stormed the site on Croydon Road at just after 4.30am on Thursday. A total of 18 migrants - nine women and nine men of Brazilian, Polish and Czech nationality - were arrested for overstaying in Britain and admitting to illegal working. An investigation conducted at the site revealed some of them had been 'substituting' for legitimate delivery riders and completing food deliveries on their behalf without the right to work, the Home Office said. Eight of the arrested migrants have been detained pending their removal from the country. The remaining ten have been placed on 'strict immigration bail' pending further investigation, according to the Home Office. Alex Norris, Border Security and Asylum Minister, said: 'We are coming down hard on illegal working and ramping up removals of those with no right to be here.' 'That is why we have surged our immigration enforcement activity to the highest level in British history as we remove the incentives drawing illegal migrants to the UK. An Immigration Enforcement van at the site of the caravan park where 18 illegal migrants were arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning 'My message is clear, illegal workers will be swiftly arrested, detained and removed wherever possible.' Immigration Enforcement inspector Kelly Griffiths said: 'I hope this raid sends a clear message that those involved in illegal working will face the full force of the law. 'We will continue to work around the clock to ensure our immigration rules are respected and enforced.' Until now, companies hiring gig economy and zero-hours workers, including in the delivery sector, have not legally been required to check their right to work. But the Government is seeking to close the loophole through the new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act. It would mean companies hiring people in the gig economy will be legally required to carry out checks they are eligible to work in Britain. Failing to do so could result in penalties including fines of up to 60,000 per worker, director disqualifications and potential prison sentences of up to five years, according to the Home Office. Large numbers of newly arrived migrants have been found to be working for takeaways companies - flouting a ban on paid employment for asylum seekers. Some of the illegal migrants arrested had been 'substituting' for legitimate delivery riders and completing food deliveries on their behalf without the right to work And last October Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood launched a consultation on plans to force food delivery apps to carry out stricter checks on their riders' right to work. Under existing laws, right-to-work checks to verify someone is eligible to work in the UK are needed only for companies with traditional employer to employee contracts. But ministers want to close a 'loophole' for casual, temporary or subcontracted workers to also have to prove their status. Ms Mahmood said: 'Illegal working creates an incentive for people attempting to arrive in this country illegally. No more. 'Those found to be illegally working in beauty salons, car washes and as delivery drivers will be arrested, detained and removed from this country. 'I will do whatever it takes to secure Britain's borders.' Media mogul Antony 'The Cat' Catalano has been charged with assault after he allegedly dragged a woman through her unit and swung a clothes iron at her head. Mr Catalano, the co-owner and chairman of Australian Community Media (ACM), is facing charges of assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill. The journalist-turned-executive, 59, faced court via video-link from a police station in Melbourne on Friday night following the alleged incident, the ABC reports. The woman suffered a fractured coccyx after she was allegedly dragged through her apartment by the hair and ankles, a summary of the police allegations as referred to during the hearing stated. 'The accused dragged the victim to the laundry area where he grabbed a clothes iron and held it towards the victim's head, causing the victim to grab onto the iron herself,' the summary said. The court heard that the woman claimed Catalano swung the iron 'forcefully' at her head, but his barrister Jason Gullaci SC said that allegation was not included in the police summary. It was alleged in court that he rang police from his $55million Byron Bay home after seeing what he believed were people emerging from the woodwork at the property. Mr Gullaci told the court there was 'no doubt' his client had made contact with the woman, based on CCTV of the incident. Media mogul Antony 'The Cat' Catalano (pictured) has been charged with assault after he allegedly dragged a woman through her unit and swung a clothes iron at her head Antony Catalano is pictured with his wife Stefanie The media boss was granted bail after agreeing to a series of conditions He said the aftermath of the alleged attack 'doesn't look great'. But he said Catalano, a father-of-nine, had a clean criminal history and had significant property and business interests that he was an integral part of. Police argued the media boss should be denied bail and remanded in custody due to a 'significant' risk of him reoffending or leaving Victoria. Catalano was granted bail after agreeing to a series of conditions and the case was adjourned until May 11. The media boss resigned as chief executive of the property listings company Domain in 2018 after working at Fairfax Media as an executive. Catalano bought ACM with billionaire investor Alex Waislitz in an eye-watering $115million deal the following year. ACM's titles include the regional newspapers such as the Newcastle Herald, Illawarra Mercury, Canberra Times and The Examiner in Launceston. A mother whose daughter was stabbed to death by a Sudanese migrant has blamed Sir Keir Starmer - questioning why the attacker was refused asylum in Europe before claiming it in Britain. Deng Chol Majek stabbed 27-year-old Rhiannon Whyte 23 times with a screwdriver in a 90-second premeditated attack in October 2024, after following her to Bescot Stadium railway station in Walsall. Now, Rhiannon's mother, Siobhan Whyte, has asked why Majek - a Channel migrant - was permitted to claim asylum in the UK after being refused it in Germany and Italy, where he first landed. Ms Whyte, 56, was invited by the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp from her home in the West Midlands to Parliament this week, where she demanded that ministers close borders to migrants to prevent similar deaths to Rhiannon's. Speaking to The Telegraph, Ms Whyte said she has a 'life sentence' because of her daughter's death - and placed the blame on the Prime Minister. She said: 'Starmer wants to go out there and apologise to Epstein's victims but I don't care. What about our women and children? What about my daughter? What about my grandson who's got to grow up without a mother?' Ms Whyte had previously sent the Labour leader two emails requesting a meeting on the issue, which went unanswered. She previously met with Safeguarding Minister Jess Philips three years ago shortly following her daughter's murder, however, Ms Whyte said she has heard nothing since. The mother of Rhiannon Whyte (pictured) has blamed Sir Keir Starmer for her daughter's death, questioning why her murderer was allowed to claim asylum in Britain after being refused in Italy and Germany Deng Chol Majek (pictured), who is from Sudan but arrived in the UK by small boat in July last year, was found guilty of murdering Rhiannon after stabbing her multiple times with a screwdriver When asked if she had a message for the Prime Minister, Ms Whyte said: 'I know it was the government before him but why is he not stopping it?' She added that she believes he is to blame for her daughter's being 'taken,' as he has allowed migrants to 'take over' Britain. She said: 'The government should and send them back. Why are they coming over here? 'I know, it's because the UK will give everything freely. But I've got to live with this for the rest of my life. You know, my six-year-old grandson's going to live without his Mum.' Mother-of-one Rhiannon was responsible for Majek and other migrants while working at Park Inn Hotel - an asylum hotel - in Walsall. She had just completed a shift at 23:00 on October 20, 2024, and was speaking on the phone to a friend while walking to the railway station. While standing on the platform, Majek attacked her, with one of her injuries so deep it pierced her brain stem. Rhiannon died in hospital three days later. Majek was caught on CCTV shortly after the event laughing and dancing. Mother-of-one Rhiannon (pictured) was attacked moments after leaving work and died in hospital with her family by her side Rhiannon's mother Siobhan (pictured) was invited to Parliament this week, where she demanded that ministers close borders to migrants to prevent similar deaths to her daughter's The Sudanese national had arrived in Britain three months before the murder and made a legal claim for asylum on the basis he was fleeing war in Sudan. In January, he was handed a minimum prison term of 29 years at Coventry Crown Court for Rihannon's murder. No motive for the attack was ever established. Throughout his trial, Ms Whyte said Majek showed 'no remorse.' She labelled Majek as 'evil,' and after viewing the CCTV footage from the night of her daughter's murder, said: 'Excuse my French, but I'm really p***ed off with this government that they're not doing anything.' Mother-of-five Ms Whyte is now establishing a foundation in her daughter's memory to aid the children of murdered women and bolster tougher immigration controls. She said any 'undocumented migrants' should be held in secure accommodation away from women and children, however, accepted for some genuine asylum seekers from war-torn countries provisions should be made for 'safe and legal' routes into Britain. Chris Philp, who hosted Ms Whyte, said Rhiannon's case exemplifies how 'the government's failure to control our borders is directly putting lives in the UK at risk.' He added the case of Majek is an example of why 'illegal immigrants should be immediately deported upon arrival.' A Home Office spokesman said: 'The murder of Rhiannon Whyte was an abhorrent crime, and our thoughts remain with her loved ones. 'We share the public's anger about the broken asylum system, which is precisely why we are doing everything we can to keep dangerous offenders out of the country and close down hotels. 'Both the Prime Minister and Minister Phillips have spent their careers tackling violence against women and girls, and this government will always make the time to meet with a victim's family.' A crown court judge who was accused of trolling a female barrister using an anonymous social media account has been cleared of harassment. Judge Daniel Sawyer, who sits in Portsmouth, faced allegations he breached judicial guidance on social media and abused his position by targeting Dr Charlotte Proudman on X. He was said to have repeatedly posted, liked and replied to hostile comments about Dr Proudman, including claims she knew 'nothing' about the criminal courts. Other posts allegedly encouraged users to 'ignore anything that this person tweets' and referred to her commentary on gender-based violence as 'unprofessional drivel'. Mr Sawyer was also said to have mocked Dr Proudman's understanding of legal terminology, implying it was worse than 'the average GCSE student'. The barrister, who is a vocal women's rights campaigner, was further criticised for her views on rape laws on X. In one of his threads about her, Mr Sawyer is said to have stated: 'Allow me to conclude in the words of what I think is a popular song... the criminal justice system has at least 99 problems but the fact that rape complainants can choose to be screened from the defendant ain't one.' It was alleged Mr Sawyer's followers would have assumed he was calling Dr Proudman a 'b****' due to his play on the Jay-Z lyric 'I got 99 problems but a b**** ain't one'. The tweets were mostly written in 2022, when Sawyer was a recorder or part-time judge. He was appointed a circuit judge for the western circuit in 2024. Judge Daniel Sawyer, who sits in Portsmouth, faced allegations he breached judicial guidance on social media and abused his position by targeting Dr Charlotte Proudman on X Mr Sawyer (pictured) was said to have repeatedly posted, liked and replied to hostile comments about Dr Proudman, including claims she knew 'nothing' about the criminal courts It is understood that Mr Sawyer was initially linked to the account due to posts relating to horseback archery, a niche sport in which he is heavily involved in. Mr Sawyer was investigated by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) after a complaint was brought against him in June 2025. He admitted he was responsible for the posts made under the pseudonym 'Yet Another Tweeting Barrister', but he denied they amounted to bullying or harassment. The complaint, which has been seen by The Telegraph, alleged that the judge's behaviour amounted to a breach of judicial guidance on social media. The regulations, which are circulated to members of the bench, advise judges to 'pause before you post' and to remember that likes can be interpreted as an endorsement of the content. However, the judicial watchdog's investigation concluded there was no intent to bully Dr Proudman and that the judge's behaviour did not warrant disciplinary action. It found: 'The conduct complained of would not have breached the disciplinary standards in such a way as to require disciplinary action.' It is believed the JCIO initially responded saying it had upheld the compliant against Mr Sawyer but this was later clarified as an error. Dr Proudman has maintained that she believes Mr Sawyer's posts were part of a sustained campaign against her. She told the Daily Mail: 'Daniel Sawyer publicly targeted me simply for challenging the way rape victims are treated in the criminal justice system. 'His comments demonstrated an ignorance of the reality survivors face in court. 'The JCIO said Mr Sawyer had described his posts as a forceful correction of what he believed was false and harmful, such as the claim that clothing could be used as a defence in rape cases. 'He argued this could deter victims from reporting. The evidence is clear. 'A 2024 report by Victim Support found that three-quarters of sexual violence survivors are subjected to rape myths during cross-examination, including being asked what they were wearing.' The Daily Mail has approached Dr Proudman for further comment. The Times has contacted Mr Sawyer for comment. More than 323 million times in 2025, someone laced up their boots, loaded up the car, or booked a backcountry permit and headed to a national park. The exact visitation numbers for 2025 are in: 323,014,305 recreation visits across 406 National Park Service sites a number so large it's almost easier to picture it as people. Thats every single American visiting a park, then some doing it again and bringing a friend. The NPS also logged more than 1.38 billion recreation visitor hours and over 13 million overnight stays. Twenty-six parks set all-time visitation records. All of this, remarkably, during a year that included the longest government shutdown in U.S. history 43 days during which the agency worked to keep parks open and accessible wherever it could. The people clearly showed up. Can you guess where they went? Hint: There are zero surprises on the list. This is a photograph of an ascending hiking trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the Deep Creek area in North Carolina on a summer day. (Boogich via Getty Images) Americas top 10 national parks in 2025 No surprise at the top: Great Smoky Mountains retained its #1 crown with a staggering 11.5 million visits more than double the runner-up. Straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border with no entrance fee and easy access from the Eastern Seaboard, the Smokies have long been in a category of their own. Advertisement Advertisement Zion came in at #2 at nearly 5 million visits, its slot canyons and Angel's Landing trail drawing crowds that now require advance permits just to manage the flow. Yellowstone followed close behind at #3 with 4.76 million still the world's first national park, still the best place on Earth to watch a geyser go off on schedule. Grand Canyon (4.43M) and Yosemite (4.28M) rounded out the top five, two parks so iconic they've practically become verbs. You don't visit them; you do them. Rocky Mountain (4.17M) and Acadia (4.08M) the only New England park on the list showed that America's park love isn't confined to the West. Grand Teton (3.8M) benefits enormously from its proximity to Yellowstone, with many visitors combining the two into a single Wyoming trip. Olympic (3.58M) on Washington's wild peninsula offers temperate rainforest, rugged coastline, and glacier-capped peaks in one compact, extraordinary package. And closing out the top ten: Glacier (3.14M), whose signature Going-to-the-Sun Road remains one of the most dramatic drives in the country and one of the most coveted timed-entry reservations to snag. In other words: 1. Great Smoky Mountains NP 11,527,939 2. Zion NP 4,984,525 3. Yellowstone NP 4,762,988 4. Grand Canyon NP 4,430,653 5. Yosemite NP 4,278,413 6. Rocky Mountain NP 4,171,431 7. Acadia NP 4,079,318 8. Grand Teton NP 3,800,648 9. Olympic NP 3,584,187 10. Glacier NP 3,136,557 The top 10 national park sites in the NPS system When you expand the lens beyond national parks to all National Park Service sites across the country which includes parkways, recreation areas, seashores, and national memorials the list reshuffles dramatically. Advertisement Advertisement Blue Ridge Parkway tops everything at 16.5 million visits, a winding 469-mile scenic road through the Appalachians that people drive for the pure pleasure of it. Golden Gate National Recreation Area came in second at 15.7 million, buoyed by its location in one of America's most visited cities. Natchez Trace Parkway (8M), Lincoln Memorial (7.7M), Gateway NRA (7.7M), and Gulf Islands National Seashore (7.6M) all cracked the top six. George Washington Memorial Parkway (6.7M), Appalachian National Scenic Trail (6.2M), and Lake Mead NRA (6.1M) rounded out the top ten a reminder that the NPS manages far more than mountaintops and geysers. Together, it all adds up to one unmistakable message: Americans are still hungry for the outdoors, and the parks are delivering. Hamptons residents have been left reeling after hundreds of dead geese - believed to have died from bird flu - were dumped into a shallow trench on one of the ritzy enclave's most famous beaches. Disturbing images show a mechanical digger carving a pit into the sand at Georgica in East Hampton before piling in what appears to be hundreds of lifeless Canada geese. The birds lay stacked together in a mass heap just yards from the ocean in an area that come summer will be frequented by swarms of families, pets and tourists. Other photographs taken along the shoreline show carcasses and partially-decomposed birds scattered across the beach and rocky areas nearby, underscoring the scale of the virus that has shocked the affluent coastal community. East Hampton Town Trustees Deputy Clerk Jim Grimes told 27East.com that he believed some of the birds may have succumbed to the harsh weather conditions rather than bird flu. Residents quickly began sharing the images on social media, questioning how such a disposal method could be approved in one of the region's most popular public spaces. 'Can anyone explain why the EH town trustees / @townofeasthampton / @easthamptonvillage approved of burying more than 750 dead geese on the beach at Georgica in what's clearly an extremely shallow grave?' one Instagram user wrote alongside a photo of the trench filled with birds. 'How is this the right decision? Obviously the deceased birds have to go somewhere, but honestly this is not it. In no time these will be exposed again where people, kids and animals play.' The same post included a message the author said came from an anonymous source who contacted local officials to ask about the operation. Hamptons residents are reeling after hundreds of dead geese - believed to have died from bird flu - were dumped into a shallow trench on one of the ritzy enclave's most famous beaches Dozens of geese could be seen being scooped up by a digger and placed onto the back of a pcikup truck Workers could be seen wearing protective clothing as they scooped up the dead birds 'When I inquired as to who was running this operation, they told me the EH town trustees,' the message read. 'When I called the trustee office, they told me 'we're just doing what the Georgica homeowners association told us to do'.' The source further claimed that no outside health agencies had been consulted. 'This high level, anonymous source at the trustees office told me there had been zero input from the state or county health dept, or the CDC, as to how to properly dispose of these infected birds,' the message continued. 'They were just doing what they were told from wealthy people.' The photos quickly sparked a furious reaction online. 'The birds are supposed to be incinerated send these pictures to the state,' one commenter wrote. Another resident expressed alarm about the potential impact on people and animals visiting the beach. 'Definitely call the state and the CDC. This is awful,' the commenter wrote. 'The poor birds and then what happens to kids, people, pets on the beach when the decaying bodies emerge from this grave. Not acceptable!' Others said the decision raised broader environmental concerns. The beach is usually pristine and the perfect spot for locals and tourists to relax Residents shared photos online showing dead birds scattered across the beach Several geese can be seen lying lifeless on the sand along the shoreline near Georgica Pond Other photos show decomposing birds washed up along the pebbled sections of the shoreline The remains of dead birds appear strewn across the shoreline State officials said the dead birds were likely infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu 'Turning a beach that is frequented by locals, tourists, and other animals into a mass grave for birds that died of an infectious disease is hardly good conservation,' another person wrote. One East Hampton resident, Jenny Balderon, said she had contacted the trustees' office herself after seeing sick birds. 'I called the town trustees office two days ago and was told "Well if we were in the Middle East they would be people" and to "call my landscaper" when I asked if there was anything to be done about actively dying geese,' she wrote. 'The office is obviously inept,' Balderon added, claiming state guidance already exists for disposing of infected birds. The mass burial comes after unusually large numbers of geese around Georgica Pond in East Hampton have died. State officials said close to 800 dead birds were discovered in the area over the course of about a week, with many believed to have been infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza - commonly known as bird flu. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Canada geese and other waterfowl can gather in large numbers when waterways freeze during winter, which can increase the spread of the virus. The strain circulating in North America, known as H5N1, arrived from Canada in late 2021 and has continued to appear in wild birds each season since 2022. The virus is extremely contagious among birds and can cause severe illness and death in species ranging from geese and ducks to raptors and poultry. It has also occasionally been detected in mammals. Locals are particularly concerned the dead birds have been buried close to where children play Birds were seen congregating on the ice on nearby Georgica Pond in the Hamptons last month The mass die-off stunned residents who reported seeing large numbers of lifeless birds along the shoreline A member of the Long Island Nature Photography Facebook group asked why there were so many dead birds Photographs show birds lying among seaweed, driftwood and stones along the beach Georgica Beach is one of the most beautiful and pristine stretches of coastline in the Hamptons Despite the dramatic scenes along the Hamptons shoreline, health officials say the risk to the general public remains low. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 71 human cases have been confirmed nationwide since 2024, with two deaths recorded. Most infections have occurred in people who work closely with poultry or livestock. Still, environmental experts warn that members of the public should avoid contact with sick or dead birds. The DEC advises residents to stay away from clusters of carcasses and to avoid touching them. Anyone who must handle a dead bird should wear gloves, a mask and eye protection and use tools such as a shovel to avoid direct contact. Bird flu cases have appeared elsewhere across Long Island, New York in recent months. Dead geese found in Heckscher Park in Huntington tested positive for the virus, while wildlife officials say infected birds have also been detected across Nassau and Suffolk counties, including species such as bald eagles, snowy owls and red-tailed hawks. Wildlife officials say there is no realistic way to stop the virus from spreading among wild birds, as it circulates naturally in migratory populations. An undocumented migrant has been charged with nine counts of assault and battery after it was claimed that he was groping fellow students in the hallways of a Virginia high school. Israel Flores Ortiz, 18, is enrolled as a junior at Fairfax High School. He was charged with nine counts of assault and battery, which is a level one misdemeanor. Ortiz appeared in court on Friday morning, but was originally arrested on March 7. The student, who is almost 19, entered the country illegally in 2024 from El Salvador. He was released under a federal government policy from the Biden administration, reported 7News. The mother of one of the victims said the suspect would sneak up behind girls he didn't know and grab them by the crotch. 'There's a group of about 12 individuals that have reported this assault,' the unnamed parent said. 'It was all perpetrated by a single individual who is a stranger to the girls. He just sneakily walked up behind them and put his hand in between their legs.' Victims claimed Ortiz had been touching them inappropriately for months, though police listed his official offense date as February 25. Israel Flores Ortiz was arrested on March 7 for nine counts of assault and battery At least a dozen students at Fairfax County High School accused Ortiz of grabbing them inappropriately in the school hallway 'It was not just a butt smack or a butt grab,' she continued. 'It was a groping of a private area. It had been occurring for several months.' The victims' parents were less than satisfied with how the school district and Principal Georgina Aye handled the distressing case. 'I think from the very beginning, Fairfax County has attempted to diminish what happened to these girls,' a parent said, calling the county's approach to the situation 'abysmal.' Aye issued a letter on March 12 alerting parents of a 'student touching students' buttocks.' 'We are writing to share the news of the recent arrest of a student who was charged with inappropriately touching other students at school,' it read. 'These incidents involved the student touching students' buttocks while they were transitioning in the hallways.' Parents were dissatisfied with the letter, which they said was only sent out after they 'demanded it.' They alleged that the principal's choice of words led to bullying toward the victims, 'adding fuel to the rumors that they were just attention seeking.' 'The girls have experienced harassment and bullying from peers at school,' a parent said. Concerned parents (pictured) told 7News that they were dissatisfied with the way the school handled the incident Parents claimed that Fairfax County Public Schools would allow Ortiz back in class if and when he is released from custody. County Judge Dipti Pidikiti-Smith denied his request to be released on bail this week, even after the prosecution agreed. Pidikiti-Smith, who reviewed surveillance video of the incident, claimed the bail request that was made did not adequately protect the public. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detainer on Ortiz's arrest so that he could be deported. But the agency claimed that the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office failed to honor the detainer. 'Unfortunately, sanctuary politicians like [Virginia] Gov Abigail Spanberger are outlawing cooperation with ICE and choosing to RELEASE criminal illegal aliens from their jails back onto their communities to create more American victims,' ICE said. Fairfax High School sent out a letter two weeks after the reported incidents, informing parents about what had happened Parents are also concerned that even if Ortiz is convicted, he won't serve the time they believe he deserves. Because Ortiz was charged with assault and battery, not sexual assault, he could spend just one year in jail, per Thomas M Wilson Law. The victims' parents agreed that the most important thing is making sure the same thing cannot happen to other girls in the future. 'I feel like this seems like a crime of someone that will escalate ... if it's not handled properly, and that's been my concern,' said a parent. The Daily Mail contacted the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, DHS, Fairfax High School and the public defender's office for comment. A group of 'Antifa cell' operatives have been convicted over an attack on a Texas ICE facility, which involved one member of the group shooting a police officer in the neck. Nine people, led by Benjamin Song, swarmed the Prairieland detention center armed with rifles before launching fireworks at the building on July 4, 2025. Jurors gave a mixed verdict on Friday in the trial of Song, Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada for their roles in the attack. Song was identified by police as the group leader, and he was convicted of attempted murder for gunning down Alvarado Police Lieutenant Thomas Gross, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). All defendants, except Sanchez-Estrada, were found guilty of providing material support to terrorists, rioting, conspiring to use and carry explosives and using explosives during a riot, the DOJ said. Sanchez-Estrada, who was not present at the attack, was found guilty of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. Maricela Rueda was also convicted of conspiracy to conceal documents. 'These guilty verdicts and convictions rightly reflect the vicious, armed attack that these Antifa cell members planned and executed against law enforcement and detention center officers on the night of July 4 last year,' North Texas attorney Ryan Raybould said in the DOJ release. 'Their terrorist acts, attempted murder, vandalism and explosives launched at a detention center facility were a far cry from some peaceful protest or First Amendment expression.' Top L-R: Benjamin Song, Bradford Morris, Savanna Batten, Maricela Rueda. Bottom L-R: Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto Fireworks were pictured being released by the group during the attack on the facility The group attacked the Prairieland ICE facility, seen above, on July 4, 2025 Antifa, short for 'anti-fascists,' refers to those involved in far-left militant groups that oppose fascism, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Defense attorneys said most protesters began leaving when two guards from the center came outside before any shots were fired. Prosecutors argued that Song, a former US Marine Corps reservist, yelled 'get to the rifles' and opened fire, striking one police officer who had just arrived to the scene. Police Lieutenant Gross testified that he recalled seeing a person dressed in black, with their face covered, and carrying a rifle. He told the court that he was shot, and sustained wounds to his shoulder and neck. Phillip Hayes, Song's attorney, told the jury that Gross had 'aggressively' brandished a gun, prompting the use of firearms from the defendants. Evidence found that collectively, the group acquired more than 50 firearms in the Fort Worth/Dallas area prior to the attack, according to the DOJ press release. Sanchez-Estradas attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said he cant believe jurors 'came to this conclusion.' Weinbel said he has deployed as a member of the Army several times in the defense of the US and hed hoped what he sacrificed 'meant something.' 'The US lost today with this verdict,' he said. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement to Fox News: 'Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities - not under President Trump.' North Texas attorney Ryan Raybould said: 'Their terrorist acts, attempted murder, vandalism and explosives launched at a detention center facility were a far cry from some peaceful protest or First Amendment expression' FBI Director Kash Patel said: 'Today's verdict shows the FBI remains committed to identifying, locating and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country' Surveillance footage of the fireworks being released on the day of the attack 'Today's verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America's streets.' FBI Director Kash Patel said: 'Today's verdict shows the FBI remains committed to identifying, locating and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country.' 'Acts of violence against our law enforcement partners will not be tolerated, and we continue our work to protect communities across the country from domestic terrorism,' he added. Patel later posted on X: 'A federal jury just convicted nine violent extremists for the July 4 attack on an ICE detention center in Texas. They ambushed law enforcement, shot an officer in the neck, and thought theyd get away with it. Today justice prevailed.' 'Terrorists who target our agents will face the full force of federal law. We will continue dismantling violent extremist networks and the funding pipelines that support them. Thank you to our partners across law enforcement and to the Attorney General and the Department of Justice for ensuring these prosecutions moved forward.' Homeland Security Investigations Dallas Special Agent in Charge Travis Pickard said that the case marked 'a historic moment' representing 'the nation's initial federal indictment targeting a coordinated group of Antifa cell members engaged in violent criminal activity.' 'The charges demonstrate our unwavering commitment to confronting domestic terrorism and protecting our communities from organized threats,' Pickard added. Song, who was viewed as the leader according to the office of public affairs, faces a minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life in prison. Arnold, Evetts, Morris, Rueda, Batten, Elizabeth and Ines Soto, each face a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison. Sanchez-Estrada faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. A man has been charged with murder after the body of an elderly man and a critically injured woman were found inside a home in NSW's west. Police responded to a concern for welfare at a home on Gisborne Street in Wellington, in the state's Central Western Slopes region, about 8.10am on Saturday. Officers discovered the body of a man, 76, along with a seriously injured woman, also 74. The woman was treated at the scene by paramedics before she was airlifted to hospital, where she remains in a critical condition. A crime scene was established as an investigation was launched. Following an extensive search of the area, a 30-year-old man was arrested at a nearby fast food restaurant on Arthur Street two hours later. He was taken to Wellington Police Station, where he was later charged with murder (DV) and cause grievous bodily harm to person with intent (DV). He was refused bail to appear in Bail Division Court 4 on Sunday. The body of a man and a critically injured woman were found inside a home in Wellington in NSW's west on Saturday Detectives remained at the crime scene on Saturday afternoon A man, 30, has since been charged with murder and cause grievous bodily harm to person with intent The man was arrested at a fast food restaurant nearby Photo showed multiple emergency vehicles outside the home as police cordoned off the crime scene. Detectives under Strike Force Fedonia will investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident with the assistance of the State Crime Command's Homicide Squad. Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade appeared to predict the future a little too accurately for Donald Trump during an interview recorded before the US 'obliterated' Iran's military assets on Kharg Island. The chat, recorded Thursday for the host's radio show and aired Friday morning, happened just hours before Trump announced they had taken out Iran's 'crown jewel.' On Thursday, Kilmeade asked the president: 'Are you thinking about taking Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iranian oil goes through?' Trump, who has long been friendly with Kilmeade, a big-name host on the conservative leaning network, appeared annoyed with the question and tried to deflect. 'I can't answer a question like that. You shouldn't ask it. It's not high on the list, but it's one of many different things, and I can change my mind in seconds,' Trump said. He then asked Kilmeade: 'Who would ask a question like that, and what fool would answer it?' 'It's sort of a foolish question. A little surprising for you, because you're a smart man,' he told the host. 'Let's say I was going to do it or let's say I wasn't going to do it, why would I tell you?' Fox News host Brian Kilmeade appeared to predict the future a little too accurately for Donald Trump during an interview recorded before the US military 'obliterated' Kharg Island The chat, recorded Thursday for the host's radio show and aired Friday morning, happened just hours before Trump announced they'd taken out Iran's 'crown jewel' Trump said later Friday that the United States military 'obliterated' targets on Iran's Kharg Island, warning the country's oil infrastructure could be next. The president announced the action in a social media post as he prepared to fly to Florida for the weekend. 'Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island,' Trump said. For now, however, he has told US forces to avoid taking out Iran's oil infrastructure. 'For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. 'However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.' Trump answered questions from reporters traveling with him before he boarded Air Force One but did not mention the latest US military operation. The small island in the Persian Gulf is the primary terminal through which all of Iran's oil exports pass. Trump said later Friday that the United States military 'obliterated' targets on Iran's Kharg Island, warning the country's oil infrastructure could be next Iran's parliament speaker warned on Thursday that attacks on the Persian Gulf islands on Iran's southern maritime frontier would provoke a new level of retaliation, underscoring how central they are to the country's economy and security. In a social media post on Thursday, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Iran 'will abandon all restraint' if the islands come under attack and said Trump will be responsible for 'the blood of American soldiers.' It was not clear what prompted Qalibaf's remarks, but he was not the first to raise the possibility of an attack on the islands since the Iran war began February 28. The US and Israel both have suggested expanding their list of targets beyond military and nuclear sites. Officials in Israel's government haven't publicly referenced the island, but opposition leader Yair Lapid has called for striking energy infrastructure on Kharg Island. 'That is what will cripple Iran's economy and topple the regime,' he wrote on X last Sunday. Although they account for only a small share of Iran's territory, the islands carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. The small coral island about 21 miles off Iran's coast is the primary terminal through which nearly all of Iran's oil exports pass. Iran has exported 13.7 million barrels since the war started, and multiple tankers were seen on satellite imagery Wednesday loading at Kharg, according to TankerTrackers.com, maritime intelligence company. Iran gets a significant share of its $78 billion a year in revenue from oil, with shipments flowing to countries like China. Fire burns and smoke rises from Aqdasieh Oil Depot after being reportedly hit by a strike Smoke rises following an explosion, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran A strike on Kharg would not only damage Iran's current government but also could undermine the viability of whatever might eventually replace it. Kharg Island, Qeshm Island, and the tiny islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. The island has storage tanks in the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. Gazelles roam freely near the refineries and depots that make Kharg one of Iran's most valuable and sensitive assets. Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said Kharg Island was critical to funding Iran's government and military. If Iran were to lose control of Kharg, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn't a military or nuclear target, he said. 'It doesn't matter which regime is in power new or old,' Katinas said. A takeover would give the U.S. leverage over negotiations with Iran because the island is 'the main node' of its economy. JPMorgan's global commodity research team warned this week in an investment note that a strike on the island would have major economic implications. 'The island has often been viewed as a critical vulnerability, yet it has rarely been directly targeted,' it said. 'A direct strike would immediately halt the bulk of Iran's crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure.' Australia 'as prepared as possible' for ongoing fuel crisis Australia has stockpiled billions of litres of fuel - more than a month's supply - as frustrated motorists grapple with rising petrol prices and an explosion in demand. The country is 'as prepared as possible' with 1.6billion litres of petrol or 37 days' supply, Energy Minister Chris Bowen told reporters on Saturday. The stockpile includes 2.7billion litres of diesel, or 30 days of supply, and 800 million litres or 29 days of jet fuel. Global concerns over the US-Israeli-led war in Iran have fanned fears of fuel shortages, leading to regional supply issues and price hikes. 'We have received all our expected shipping of petrol and diesel that our refineries continue to work, and the supply of petrol has been secure and has been just as expected,' Mr Bowen said. 'What we have seen is real and unacceptable shortages in rural and regional areas in particular, as we've been dealing with a massive explosion in demand - demand up 100 per cent at every terminal across Australia. 'This has seen shortages for farmers, for people in regional areas in particular, which the government has been working very hard with the industry to get addressed as quickly as possible.' The government has moved to ease the pain for motorists, releasing up to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel from emergency reserves to meet regional demand. Australia has 1.6billion litres of petrol or 37 days' supply, according Energy Minister Chris Bowen The war in Iran has skyrocketed fuel prices and rocket its security around the world NSW will convene an urgent roundtable to address concerns over the impact of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, as its premier urges restraint at the bowsers. Representatives from transport and logistics, fuel, agriculture, local councils, mining, unions and consumer protection groups will meet with government officials on Monday. 'Global events are putting pressure on fuel markets around the world and we are making sure NSW is prepared as we can be and well co-ordinated if those pressures continue,' Premier Chris Minns said. 'I appreciate this is a stressful time for everyone but it's important people don't buy more fuel at the bowser than they need.' Iran has closed one of the world's busiest oil corridors - the Strait of Hormuz - in response to the US-led war launched against it, causing a global shortage that has led fuel prices to skyrocket. Fuel should have already been reserved for the regions, according to Westlink Petroleum managing director Danny Kreutzer, whose Queensland-based company services 500 businesses. 'We've got a lot of angry customers that want their fuel,' he told AAP. Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the country is 'as prepared as possible' for the crisis 'A lot of them have been pretty good to deal with and understand the situation we're in. 'Every other fuel distributor in the country, we're all the same. It's really impacted our business because we just can't get the volume we require on a normal day.' Donald Trump has jubilantly claimed US 'obliterated' Iran's Kharg Island - as Tehran furiously threatened revenge if he went after the island's oil infrastructure. The president bragged about the decisive strikes on Friday evening in a post to his Truth Social account. 'Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island,' he wrote. He added that he did not go after the island's oil infrastructure 'for reasons of decency', but said it's not out of the question if Iran makes a wrong move. 'However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,' he said. Trump later released an apparent video of the strikes. The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment. The Iranian military responded that oil and energy infrastructure owned by US-linked firms would 'immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes' if the United States struck its oil facilities, according to Iranian media. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warned on Thursday that attacks on the islands on Irans southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to 'abandon all restraint', underscoring how central they are to the countrys economy and security. Donald Trump has jubilantly claimed US 'obliterated' Iran's Kharg Island - as Tehran furiously threatened revenge if he went after the island's oil infrastructure Kharg Island (pictured), Qeshm Island, and the tiny islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions with thick smoke rising over Kharg Island, earlier hit by US strikes. It said the strikes targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil company's helicopter hangar, adding no oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack. Kharg Island, Qeshm Island and the tiny islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. The small coral island about 21 miles off Iran's coast is the primary terminal through which nearly all of Iran's oil exports pass. Iran has exported 13.7million barrels since the war started, and multiple tankers were seen on satellite imagery on Wednesday loading at Kharg, according to TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence company. Iran gets a significant share of its $78billion a year in revenue from oil, with shipments flowing to countries like China. A strike on Kharg would not only damage Iran's current government but also could undermine the viability of whatever might eventually replace it. The island has storage tanks in the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. Trump later released an apparent video of the strikes Gazelles roam freely near the refineries and depots that make Kharg one of Iran's most valuable and sensitive assets. Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, said Kharg Island was critical to funding Iran's government and military. If Iran were to lose control of Kharg, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn't a military or nuclear target, he said. 'It doesn't matter which regime is in power new or old,' Katinas said. A takeover would give the US leverage over negotiations with Iran because the island is 'the main node' of its economy. JPMorgan's global commodity research team warned this week in an investment note that a strike on the island would have major economic implications. 'The island has often been viewed as a critical vulnerability, yet it has rarely been directly targeted,' it said. 'A direct strike would immediately halt the bulk of Iran's crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure.' Trump answered questions from reporters traveling with him before he boarded Air Force One on Friday but did not mention the latest US military operation. Meanwhile, an American official said 2,500 more Marines and an amphibious assault ship are being sent to the Middle East nearly two weeks into the war with the Islamic Republic. Kharg Island, Qeshm Island (pictured), and the tiny islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location A strike on Kharg would not only damage Iran's current government but also could undermine the viability of whatever might eventually replace it The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepened, with nearly 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants and warned there would be no let up. Elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have been ordered to the Middle East, according to the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans. Marine Expeditionary Units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. US and Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, according to health ministry figures that could not be independently verified. As of Friday, at least 13 US soldiers had lost their lives since Trump began striking two weeks ago. In Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck - more than 1,000 a day since the war began. He also sought to address concerns about the bottling of the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters: 'We have been dealing with it and dont need to worry about it.' The UN refugee agency has estimated that up to 3.2million people have been displaced inside Iran since the war started. Despite facing superior US and Israeli firepower, Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against at least 10 countries. Tehran has also squeezed the world economy by threatening to strike oil tankers on the Strait of Hormuz, bringing traffic to a virtual halt on a route that normally carries one fifth of global oil supplies. Crude oil prices have surged more 40 percent since the war began. Queen Mary and King Frederik of Denmark have enjoyed one of Australia's most iconic landmarks as their whirlwind six-day tour kicked off. After touching down in Perth on Friday, the Danish royals travelled to the Northern Territory on Saturday to visit Uluru in their first public appearance. Sporting a chic beige long skirt, colourful blouse and comfortable flats, Australian-born Queen Mary was seen waving to the awaiting media as she stepped off the plane at Ayers Rock Airport. The couple were greeted on the tarmac by NT Police southern commander James Gray-Spence and newly sworn-in NT Administrator David Connolly. Queen Mary was later seen wearing an Akubra as the Danish royals were greeted by local guides. The normally arid desert region was a sea of green after weeks of heavy rain soaked the outback tourist site, sending waterfalls cascading down the famous rock. They began the afternoon with a tour of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre, where they learned about the creation of the land and Anangu customs. The royal couple exchanged handshakes with Anangu traditional owners and watched a ceremonial dance called Inma that connects the Anangu to their ancestors through song and dance. Queen Mary and King Frederik X of Denmark were all smiles when they arrived in Uluru Australian-born Queen Mary was seen waving to the awaiting media as she stepped off the plane at Ayers Rock Airport on Saturday afternoon A scenic photo with the stunning Uluru backdrop was a must for the Danish royals The monarchs opted against umbrellas during the traditional ceremony, where King Frederik was seen helping his wife put on a waterproof jacket when it began to rain. They were then taken to a local cafe, where they enjoyed refreshing iced teas made from quandong and other native ingredients. The Danish royals later admired the sunset at the massive sandstone monolith with Indigenous elders. 'Weve been so much looking forward to the visit and to start the visit here, in the centre of Australia, is quite something,' Queen Mary told reporters. 'To start the visit here in the centre of Australia is quite something, to experience Uluru for the first time and to meet with the Anangu.' 'To hear a little bit about their spiritual and cultural connection to the land, it's been a really great start to what will be an exciting visit here.' The monarchs spent the night there and will travel to a nearby waterhole, which is one of the few permanent water sources around Uluru, for sunrise on Sunday. The Uluru visit was reminiscent of the 1983 British royal tour, when the late Princess Diana and then Prince Charles, now King, visited the culturally significant monument. The Danish royals enjoyed a sunset tour of iconic landmark Uluru The Danish monarchs spent the night in Uluru before heading to Canberra on Sunday The Danish royals earlier enjoyed a traditional song and dance ceremony at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre The British royals' son Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton followed in their footsteps by visiting Uluru 31 year later. The latest historic royal tour marks Mary's first return to her homeland since she became Queen in January 2024, the first by any Danish monarch in 40 years. The couple will travel to Canberra on Sunday, where they will be welcomed at Government House by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his wife Jodie Haydon. Ms Mostyn will host a formal state dinner for the royals. The Danish royal couple will visit Parliament House, where they will receive a ceremonial 21-gun salute. There will be an opportunity for the public to see the Danish royals at Canberra's Australian War Memorial on Monday morning. The tour will also take them to Melbourne, where they will attend a state banquet and events highlighting Denmark-Australia relations. They will then travel to Queen Mary's home state of Tasmania , where she will visit her old school in Hobart and other hometown sites, where she still has family, including her elderly father John Donaldson. The last time the royals visited Australia officially was 13 years ago, making this their fourth tour together. The Danish royals are promoting industry and trade ties during their visit, highlighting clean energy and urban development. More than 50 Danish business leaders will accompany the monarchs on their Australian tour, including Denmark's deputy prime minister and various ministers. 'Denmark and Australia share an interest in nature and cultural conservation and elements related to nature and culture will form part of the state visit,' a statement from the Royal House of Denmark read. As the royals touched down in Perth, their official Instagram page shared photos of the couple early in their relationship, which began after they met during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. 'On the way! We have been greatly looking forward to seeing Australia and the people of the whole country again,' the post, accompanied by the iconic Aussie anthem Down Under from Men At Work, read. 'A lot has happened since we last met here more than 25 years ago!' 'Weve been so much looking forward to the visit and to start the visit here, in the centre of Australia, is quite something,' Queen Mary told reporters King Frederik helped his wife put on a waterproof jacket when it began raining during the ceremony They began the afternoon with a tour of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Cultural Centre, which included a traditional ceremony The couple chatted with local guides at the iconic Aussie landmark Queen Mary needed a fan in the humid conditions It's Queen Mary's first return to her homeland since she became Queen in January 2024, the first by any Danish monarch in 40 years. The couple's visit is reminiscent of the 1983 British royal tour, when the late Princess Diana and then Prince Charles, now King, visited Uluru The Danish royals were greeted by local guides on the first stop of their six-day tour The couple met in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics, striking up a friendship at the CBD bar The Slip Inn. They married in 2004 and have made several official and private visits to Australia since. Previous visits have involved introducing their children - Christian, 20, Isabella, 18, and 15-year-old twins Vincent and Josephine, to Australia. It's understood that they have not joined their parents on the latest tour. A woman has been bitten by a shark off the north coast of Western Australia. The female swimmer suffered minor injuries near Kurrajong Campground in Exmouth, about 14 hours north of Perth, at 10.15am on Saturday. The species of shark is unknown but was believed to be 1.5 metres long, according to Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development officials. The public are urged to exercise caution in the area and follow any beach closures They are also urged to report any shark sightings to Water Police. The latest incident comes just days after electrician Dave Daniell was attacked by a 3m long great white while foil boarding off a nearby Exmouth beach. He had fallen into the water off Graveyards and Hunters beach when 'the shark came flying in' and bit his board. 'I managed to get my leg out of the way as it bit down... I clung to the board as it took a bite and then I managed to try get back up to my feet again,' Mr Daniell told the West Australian. A woman was bitten by a shark near Kurrajong Camp in Exmouth on Saturday The species of shark is unknown but was believed to be 1.5m long, according to department officials (stock image) 'It all happened pretty quick, and as I was getting to my feet again, it nudged the actual foil, the mast itself, and it actually knocked me back in, on top of the shark.' Located in Cape Range National Park, Kurrajong Campground is a popular campsite nestled between sand dunes. It's the same campsite where Tasmanian tourist Archie Rose, 11, was bitten on the leg by a 'decent shark' while snorkelling in May 2023. He was airlifted to Perth, where he underwent multiple surgeries. An explosion has damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam this morning, Dutch officials have said. Femke Halseme, the city's mayor, said the blast only caused limited damage to the school on the south side of Amsterdam. The explosion happened early today, with police and firefighters quickly arriving to the scene. No injuries have been reported. Police are probing camera footage which seems to show the individual igniting the explosive. 'This is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community,' Ms Halsema said. 'Jewish people in Amsterdam are increasingly confronted with antisemitism. This is unacceptable.' The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right has claimed to have carried out the attack - the fourth they have alleged to have done this week in Europe. The group posted a video online showing an individual igniting a fire before it explodes and driving away. Officials have not confirmed if the group are responsible. It comes after synagogues in Rotterdam and Liege, Belgium, had been subject to arson attacks in recent days. And as a result, security at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the Dutch capital had already been heightened. A police car parked outside a Jewish school in Amsterdam following an explosion early today The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right has claimed to have carried out the attack The group posted a video online showing an individual igniting a fire before it explodes and driving away. Officials have not confirmed if the group are responsible Meanwhile, a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, near Detroit in the US had also been attacked. A Lebanese-born US citizen, who according to officials was armed with a rifle, is alleged to have driven his car into the place of worship. Authorities have said the alleged attacker was shot dead. Staff, teachers nor any of the 140 pupils at the synagogue's early childhood centre sustained any injuries. Federal investigators described the incident in the US as an incident of violence targeting the Jewish community. Concerns about possible attacks against Jewish communities around the world have risen following US and Israeli attacks on Iran and Tehran's retaliatory strikes. This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow. Feedspace is a comprehensive platform designed to help businesses collect, manage, and showcase user-generated content, including video testimonials, audio messages, text feedback, and social media appreciations. By centralizing this valuable content, Feedspace aims to enhance brand credibility and foster stronger customer relationships. 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The Labour aide who signed off Lord Mandelson's US ambassador role was later forced out of the Party over his own links to a paedophile, it has emerged. Yesterday, files released by the Government showed Prime Minister Keir Starmer had taken a minimal role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to the US - not even speaking to Mandelson personally before giving him the job. This was despite being presented with evidence that the New Labour architect's friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein continued after he was jailed, and warnings from senior officials. Now it has been revealed that the person who did sign off Mandelson's influential position was none other than Lord Doyle - Sir Keir's former communications director who was suspended from the Labour Party under investigation last month, after it emerged he campaigned on behalf of a child sex offender. The peer, who was close to Lord Mandelson for over two decades, approved Mandelson's controversial appointment, the Telegraph reported. The news threatens to undermine the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly claimed Lord Mandelson lied to No10 about his links to Epstein, and said he was not aware of his full relationship to the paedophile. Lord Doyle, one of Sir Keir's most senior aides at the time, is also being asked to address questions about Mandelson's relationship with Epstein during the vetting process. Last night, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused the PM of a 'dereliction of duty', after No10 admitted he did not speak to Mandelson before making him US ambassador. Sir Keir with Mandelson during a welcome reception at the US ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025 in Washington DC. It emerged this week that Sir Keir Starmer did not personally speak to Mandelson before his appointment Lord Doyle (pictured) is currently under investigation by the Labour Party over his own links to a paedophile Peter Mandelson pictured today going for a walk near his Wiltshire home this morning Downing Street said there was 'no requirement' for the PM to interview the disgraced peer before handing him the most high-profile and sensitive post in the diplomatic service. Mrs Badenoch said on Friday: 'The fact Keir Starmer did not even meet with Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain's ambassador to Washington is a total dereliction of duty. 'Starmer likes to tell everyone how much of a hot-shot lawyer he was, yet he was handed a dossier clearly showing Mandelson's close links to Epstein and didn't even bother to interrogate the man he was about to appoint to high office. 'These latest releases show yet again the appalling judgment of this weak, distracted Prime Minister. The country deserves so much better.' Documents made public this week reveal that the Prime Minister was warned in writing that Mandelson's 'particularly close' friendship with Epstein continued for years after the financier's conviction for child-sex offences in 2008. But despite this, Sir Keir allowed Lord Doyle and Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister's then-chief of staff, to handle the process in Downing Street instead. Mr McSweeney resigned last month over his role in the appointment and stated that he asked Mandelson just three questions as part of the vetting process. Lord Doyle reviewed the responses and reported that he was 'satisfied' with them. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said on Friday: 'The fact Keir Starmer did not even meet with Peter Mandelson before appointing him as Britain's ambassador to Washington is a total dereliction of duty' A sensational new photo also emerged on Friday of what is thought to have been Peter Mandelson's first meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. The former peer and disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were both pictured in bathrobes next to the paedophile financier But both men are known to be proteges of Mandelson. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it was 'an absolute absurdity' to leave the scrutiny of Mandelson's links to Epstein to two of his friends. Mandelson was asked to explain why he had stayed in touch with Epstein after the New York financier's conviction for sex offences in 2008, why he had stayed at one of Epstein's homes, and why he had associated with a charity founded by Ghislaine Maxwell - who is currently jailed for child sex trafficking. There is no evidence that Sir Keir asked any follow-up questions, despite being told that Mandelson stayed at Epstein's New York mansion while the paedophile was in prison for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Asked whether Sir Keir spoke to Mandelson before appointing him to Washington in December 2024, the PM's spokesman replied: 'The full process at the time of the appointment was followed. There was no requirement for a formal interview with the PM as part of that process.' The spokesman added: 'It is clear there are lessons to be learned from this... shortcomings have been highlighted.' Sir Keir has previously said Mandelson lied in his answers and that the further information about their friendship was only revealed months later. Mandelson denies this and says his responses during the vetting process were honest and not misleading. The exchange between Mr McSweeney and Mandelson has not been made public due to concerns it could be prejudicial to the investigation. Meanwhile, Lord Doyle, who is currently suspended from the Labour Party under investigation over his links to convicted paedophile Sean Morton, said he was 'satisfied' with Mandelson's responses and approved them. Sir Keir was then advised that the appointment could proceed. Sir Keir Starmer was accused of a 'dereliction of duty' after No10 admitted the Prime Minister did not speak to Peter Mandelson before making him US ambassador The Mandelson files also revealed Lord Doyle had socialised with Mandelson in December 2024 - the same month his appointment as ambassador was approved. The pair have been friends for decades after serving under Sir Tony Blair's government. In the past few years, Lord Doyle has also attended dinners at Global Counsel - Lord Mandelson's now-closed lobbying firm. In March last year, Lord Doyle resigned from his Downing Street role following criticism of the Government's communications strategy. He was made a life peer in December, but was later forced to resign from the Labour Party whip over his links to Morton - a former Scottish Labour councillor who admitted possessing indecent images of children in 2018 and was later convicted. Lord Doyle apologised 'unreservedly' for campaigning in support of Morton after he was charged, saying Morton was maintaining his innocence at the time. Sir Keir was criticised for granting Lord Doyle a peerage even though Downing Street had been aware of his connection to Morton. A No10 investigation into the issue was signed off by Tim Allan, Lord Doyle's successor as communications director, instead of civil servants. Tory frontbencher Alex Burghart has already written to the PM's standards adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, asking him to investigate whether Sir Keir misled Parliament in making the claim to MPs. Sir Keir told MPs last month that Lord Doyle 'did not give a full account' of his association with Morton to Mr Allan, in what some have called a similar response to his answer over Mandelson's vetting. But Sir Laurie last night rejected the calls, saying he was satisfied that the 'relevant process' had been followed. The first batch of the Mandelson files, released this week, showed that national security adviser Jonathan Powell advised against the appointment and complained that it was 'weirdly rushed'. Tory justice spokesman Nick Timothy said: 'Keir Starmer told Parliament he had followed "full due process" when he appointed Mandelson. It's now beyond clear that this wasn't true.' The Prime Minister has also previously said a police investigation into Mandelson prevented the Government from releasing further details, including his full responses to the Epstein questions. Mandelson is under investigation after emails appeared to show he shared confidential information about Gordon Brown's government with Epstein. He denies any wrongdoing. The news of Sir Keir not personally meeting with Mandelson before his appointment followed the bombshell release of a sensational new photo that was revealed in the Epstein files this week. The photo appeared to show what is thought to have been Mandelson's first meeting with Epstein, alongside disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The image, believed to have been taken in the US at the turn of the century, shows a smiling Mandelson and Mountbatten-Windsor sitting barefoot and dressed in bathrobes at a table with Epstein. Labour is also facing allegations of a 'cover-up', with Mrs Badenoch claiming that key files setting out the PM's thinking are 'missing' or have 'been removed'. The files include the 'due diligence' document sent to Sir Keir which sets out Mandelson's links to Epstein, plus accounts of his two previous Cabinet resignations and details of his business links to China and Russia. But the space where the PM's comments and instructions should be recorded is blank. In a letter to the PM's chief secretary Darren Jones, Mr Burghart set out a list of 56 files that appeared to be missing. Mr Burghart said the documents were 'relevant to the Prime Minister's decision-making' and said failure to provide them to Parliament could be a breach of the ministerial code. Downing Street has denied claims of a cover-up. But the PM's spokesman yesterday refused to say whether Sir Keir and key aides communicated through personal email accounts and phones to avoid their conversations being released. An asylum hotel migrant who terrified a blind woman when he burst into her home has been cleared by police due to a lack of evidence. The man, who is in his early twenties, was staying at the four-star Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, east London, where anti-migrant protests took place last summer. He entered the woman's house last August after being followed by a group of men, who told him to 'go back to the hotel' where the protestors were gathered outside. Family members of the woman said she was left 'traumatised' by the incident and 'feared for her life', adding that earlier that day she had been in a coma. Footage circulated on social media capturing the moment the 'scary' migrant was held by members of the public and urged to return to Britannia Hotel, which was a five-minute walk away. A photo taken in the aftermath captured the man staring ahead at members of the public as the police detained him. The Metropolitan Police had previously said no offences had been identified, yet changed their opinion after viewing CCTV footage, leading to the man being arrested on suspicion of common assault. A photo taken in the aftermath captured the man staring ahead at members of the public as the police detained him after he terrified a blind woman by bursting into her home The man, who is in his early twenties, was staying at the four-star Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, east London, where anti-migrant protests took place last summer The man, who is no longer living at the Britannia Hotel, has now been cleared due to a lack of evidence. The hotel is still open to migrants who cross the Channel on small boats. Around 41,500 people arrived in the UK by small boats during 2025, according to the Migration Observatory. The daughter of the blind woman, Channay Augustus, pleaded guilty to affray last year after she stormed the migrant hotel with a meat cleaver, having discovered the man inside her mother's flat. Augustus, then 22, was part of a group of around 20 people who allegedly tried to barge into the hotel on the evening of August 13. Augustus appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court, London, by video link, when she pleaded guilty to affray and having an article which had a blade or was sharply pointed, namely the meat cleaver, in a public place outside the migrant hotel. She pleaded not guilty to threatening two hotel security guards with the meat cleaver and not guilty to assaulting an emergency worker. Her trial is set for June this year. Dubai influencers have denounced those who have left the besieged city, branding them 'ungrateful' and 'brokies'. Mitchell Armstrong took to TikTok, claiming those who stayed in the city have 'either profited off the war or made more money' because they 'were more locked in'. More than 63,000 Britons have returned home from the region since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, according to Government figures. It comes amid claims some influencers based in the United Arab Emirates are being paid to pump out 'propaganda'. Content creators with droves of followers have been sharing videos of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with the words, 'I know who protects us' in the midst of Iranian attacks. Meanwhile, 45 people of 'various nationalities' have been arrested by police in Abu Dhabi for 'spreading misinformation and filming and sharing event locations' over alleged footage showing attacks. In total, as of yesterday, 285 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,567 drones from Iran have been intercepted, the UAE's Ministry of Defence said. Over the last couple of weeks, Dubai has been attacked on several occasions, including its airports and the city's financial centre, with videos showing plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. However, Mr Armstrong has maintained 'nothing has changed for him', insisting his daily routine of hitting the sauna, steam room and enjoying his '$2.1million' apartment has continued whilst also taking aim at those who fled the city. 'Like nothing has changed for me. While you guys were all running around acting like brokies, "oh my god, there's bombs, oh my god, let's get out of Dubai",' he told his 31,100 followers in a mocking tone. Dubai influencers have hit out at Brits who have fled the United Arab Emirates city branding them 'ungrateful' (Pictured: Soudi) Mitchell Armstrong (pictured) claimed those who stayed in the city have 'either profited off the war or made more money' because they 'were more locked in' Smoke billowed from a building in Dubai's International Financial Centre yesterday 'All the rich guys, all the guys making money, printing bread either profited off the war or made more money because we are more locked in.' Panning to the view of Dubai from his balcony, he added: 'Like, look at this, nothing changed, nothing changed. 'People running around like headless chickens, like the world is ending, and now four days in a row, we have had nothing in Dubai. 'No bombs, no crackles, no nothing, no missile interceptions.' Claiming 'all the guys that fled are trying to come back to Dubai', he added: 'All my boys have been messaging me today, "oh we are thinking of coming back this week".' While laughing, he plunged his head back into a pool and repeated: 'Why did you leave then? Why did you leave?' And he is not the only influencer to condemn those who have decided to come back to the safety of their home countries, with Soudi also sharing her thoughts on the 'very ungrateful' who have fled. 'As you can see, it is very quiet and peaceful in Dubai at the moment, but for those people who want to leave, let them leave. I just think they are very ungrateful,' she said in a video, which now has over 62,000 views. 'Less traffic and less scammers, please. The best era for Dubai was 2015, so let's bring that back - if you know, you know. 'I seriously don't think people's home countries are any better. They have no idea what they are going back to.' And while she noted that it was 'very quiet' and 'everyone had a little PTSD from the overhead noises', she insisted there 'is nowhere else [she] would rather be at the moment'. Dubai's international airport has been attacked on multiple occasions and four people were injured after a strike on Wednesday Influencers in Dubai have been posting identical videos emphasising the safety of the city which have been seen millions of times One expert said that it appeared 'suspicious' that the videos were identical and could have started out as a 'paid trend' (Pictured: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) Soudi added: 'All of the OGs that have been in Dubai for longer than ten years or more are all staying. It's literally the people who have just moved out here that are leaving. 'And honestly, they are the types of people that I don't mind leaving, let's be honest here. But I am sorry somebody had to say it.' Hitting out at those who had returned once again, she added: 'Why are some people coming back from Dubai acting like they actually fought in the war? Guys, are you in the same Dubai right now? 'Are you coming back from the same Dubai, because I have no idea what these people are on about. 'They are acting like they just got off a plane from the front line,' she said, panning to the scenery around her. 'I am sorry, do you guys see anything that is going on. I don't think so.' Describing the conflict as a 'speed hump', Soudi continued: 'And I still feel very grateful that I live in one of the safest countries in the world. Like, there is quite literally nowhere else I would rather be right now. 'At this point, the only thing I am really worried about is the holidays I have booked. Do I go or do I stay?' It comes as wealthy Brits fleeing the conflict in the Gulf are heading to Ireland and France to avoid huge tax bills in the UK. Those with a high net worth who were previously living in the UAE are hoping to bide their time in other countries rather than risk facing HM Revenue and Customs. Many residents living overseas have already 'spent' the number of days on British soil they are allowed to without paying tax. And with only three weeks left of the financial year, some are trying to get an extra 60 days free of tax in the UK from HMRC under an 'exceptional circumstances' provision. Nimesh Shah, the chief executive of advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, said he had received 'a disproportionate number of calls' from those fleeing the UAE in recent weeks. Shah has urged them not to rely on the 'exceptional circumstances' provision, as he says HMRC view UAE expats as having moved not to pay tax in the UK, and are therefore unlikely to give the 'green light' for them to stay on British soil without paying. Abu Dhabi Police announced today that 45 people of 'various nationalities' had been arrested 'for filming various locations during ongoing events and publishing them on social media' UAE expats trying to come home who have lived outside the UK for fewer than five years might also face paying capital gains tax on any assets or firm sold during the time they spent overseas. One wealthy business owner, who is staying in Dublin until the end of the financial year on April 5, told The Guardian: 'Im happy to pay income tax and tax on investments next tax year, but I dont want the sale of a business that I sold years ago to fall within UK capital gains tax. 'I paid for my own travel home, by the way.' Meanwhile, another British entrepreneur, who was previously based in the UAE, said he would be residing in France for the time being. Another British UAE-based business owner said they would spend some time in France for now. The number of days a person who claims they are a non-resident for tax purposes can stay in the UK depends on several factors, including their links to the country, whether they have a spouse or children here and whether they have accommodation. Many who decided to emigrate over the last few years can stay in the UK for 45 days before they fall back under the country's domestic tax rules and regulations. Depending on their circumstances, others may be permitted to stay for up to 183 days during a tax year without having to pay. A mother has said she wants a gift of 500 from each of her children this Mother's Day, after she 'sacrificed my whole life for them'. Carla Bellucci, 44, from Hertfordshire, is expecting nothing less than 'cold hard cash' from her four kids when the celebration rolls around on Sunday. Her eldest, 23, who she does not want to name, Tanisha, 21, Jayden, 19, and even Blu, three, will all be expected to cough up to mark the festivities. The parent, who has previously been dubbed Britain's 'most hated mum', said: 'I want 500 from each child in cold hard cash. 'I need the money so I can put it towards fixing my face. After four kids, I'm going to get Botox to melt away the stress of being such a great mum.' It marks an improbable step up from her wishlist last year, which saw her request a Gucci cap costing 400 and a 'slap up meal with champagne'. On top of this year's cash gifts, Ms Bellucci has also requested a series of other premium presents from her brood. Tanisha has so far booked a variety of activities for her mother, including a fine-dining reservation for one at a top London restaurant and an afternoon tea at The Shard. Carla Bellucci (pictured, with her youngest child, Blu), 44, from Hertfordshire, is expecting each of her four kids to cough up when the celebration rolls around on Sunday The parent (pictured), who has previously been dubbed Britain's 'most hated mum', said: 'I want 500 from each child in cold hard cash' And she is also set to give her mother a further 'stack of cash' to splash on a shopping spree and a pricey bouquet of flowers, which cost 200 alone. Her two brothers will put a further undecided amount towards a holiday for Ms Bellucci - which will mark her ninth trip this year alone. Even though Blu is only a toddler, she is also expecting from her a brand new pair of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, on top of her 500 cash gift. Given her daughter's pre-school age, these will likely come from her husband Giovanni's pocket. Despite the laundry list of demands, Tanisha does not think her mum is being unreasonable in the slightest. She said: 'Honestly, if I have the money, then why wouldn't I spend it on her? My mum is the best mum ever. 'She's done so much for me and my brothers - so she truly deserves the best of everything. 'I know some people might think it's a bit extra, but I love going above and beyond for her. She's always put us first, so it feels right to spoil her when I can. On top of this year's cash gifts, Ms Bellucci has also requested a series of other premium presents from her brood, with her daughter Tanisha (pictured) booking a variety of activities for her mother Ms Bellucci (pictured) said: 'I'm really not asking for a lot when I have sacrificed my whole life for them. They only get one mum and I have done everything I can' 'It's just my way of showing her how much I appreciate everything she's done for us.' But despite her children's generosity, Ms Bellucci expressed her distaste for opening her gifts while they are present - and plans to do it solo, champagne in hand. 'I want to open my presents in peace with no noisy kids around,' she said. 'I'm really not asking for a lot when I have sacrificed my whole life for them. They only get one mum and I have done everything I can.' It comes after Ms Bellucci previously revealed she 'vets' anyone Tanisha dates with an invasive list of questions. Though it drives her daughter 'crazy', her mother insists it is done with love - and to make sure she does not 'end up with a loser'. Ms Bellucci, who faked depression to get a nose job on the NHS, has now been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She is now relying on the free healthcare service for treatment for her incurable lung condition and to 'stay alive' - and has noted the irony of the situation. Her other previous controversial moves include charging her family 150 per head for Christmas dinner and buying her daughter a Magic Mike lap dance for her 18th birthday. Media mogul Antony Catalano has stepped down from his role and says he's 'deeply ashamed' after being charged with assault. The co-owner and chairman of Australian Community Media (ACM), is facing charges of assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill after he allegedly dragged a woman through her Melbourne unit and swung a clothes iron at her head. The journalist-turned-executive, 59, faced court via video-link from a police station on Friday night following the alleged incident and was granted bail. The 59-year-old announced in a statement on Saturday that he would temporarily step down from his role and take six months away from all business commitments. Catalano will also check into rehab to address what he candidly described as ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues. His focus is now 'entirely on treatment and recovery' after celebrating his 59th birthday on Wednesday. 'I am deeply ashamed and humiliated,' Catalano said in a statement to the Australian Financial Review. 'Those close to me have been urging me to seek professional help for some time and there have been interventions by close family and friends. Antony Catalano has stepped down from his roles at Australian Community Media and View Media following assault allegations The media mogul (left) said he is also entering into rehab to address what he described as ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues 'I regret not heeding their advice and I continued to believe I could hide my mental health issues. 'I allowed shame and pride to prevent me from confronting these problems and seeking treatment earlier.' ACM managing director Tony Kendall informed staff that Catalano had been placed on immediate leave while the matter is before the courts. 'I understand that our staff may be concerned and distressed by this news,' Mr Kendall said in a message. 'Please be assured that the executive leadership teams are focused on upholding our companys values.' He added that the company would make no further public comment while the case is before the courts. Catalano was granted bail, despite police arguing he posed a significant risk of reoffending or leaving Victoria. Catalano, 59, has been granted bail despite police objections As part of his bail conditions, Catalano must surrender his passport, report regularly to police, avoid contact with the alleged victim, and comply with a curfew. The woman suffered a fractured coccyx after she was allegedly dragged through her apartment by the hair and ankles, a summary of the police allegations as referred to during the hearing stated. 'The accused dragged the victim to the laundry area where he grabbed a clothes iron and held it towards the victim's head, causing the victim to grab onto the iron herself,' the summary said. The court heard that the woman claimed Catalano swung the iron 'forcefully' at her head, but his barrister Jason Gullaci SC said that allegation was not included in the police summary. It was alleged in court that he rang police from his $55million Byron Bay home after seeing what he believed were people emerging from the woodwork at the property. Mr Gullaci told the court there was 'no doubt' his client had made contact with the woman, based on CCTV of the incident. He said the aftermath of the alleged attack 'doesn't look great'. But he said Catalano, a father-of-nine, had a clean criminal history and had significant property and business interests that he was an integral part of. Antony Catalano will return to court on May 11 Police argued the media boss should be denied bail and remanded in custody due to a 'significant' risk of him reoffending or leaving Victoria. Catalano will reappear in court on May 11. The media boss resigned as chief executive of the property listings company Domain in 2018 after working at Fairfax Media as an executive. Catalano bought ACM with billionaire investor Alex Waislitz in an eye-watering $115million deal the following year. ACM's titles include the regional newspapers such as the Newcastle Herald, Illawarra Mercury, Canberra Times and The Examiner in Launceston. Up to 100 people have been arrested by police in the UAE for filming drone or missile strikes, it emerged this morning. Abu Dhabi Police alone have arrested 45 people of multiple nationalities for filming various locations amid current ongoing events and posting clips on social media. In neighbouring Dubai, at least 21 people, including a 60-year-old British tourist, have been detained, with the overall total believed to be approaching 100 according to one source. The detainees are accused of sharing inaccurate and misleading information. Authorities warned that such actions could provoke public opinion and spread rumours. The government in Abu Dhabi said its security agencies were monitoring social media for violations of their strict ban on posting images of the conflict. The crackdown appears to be working: far fewer images of missile or drone strikes have appeared online in recent days, compared to the initial days of the Iranian attacks. In a statement posted on social media, Dubai Police said, Sharing rumours, false information, or any content that contradicts official announcements or that may cause public panic or threaten public safety, order, or health is prohibited. Abu Dhabi Police alone have arrested 45 people of multiple nationalities for filming various locations amid current ongoing events and posting clips on social media. Pictured: Smoke billows from Zayed port after an Iranian attack An alert issued by the UAE Ministry of Interior warning residents of Dubai and Abu Dhabi of a potential Iranian missile strike President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan meets an injured patient receiving treatment at a hospital in Abu Dhabi Violators may face criminal penalties, including imprisonment and fines of no less than Dh200,000, [41,000] they added in the reminder. The police also warned against taking photos of critical sites. It may seem like just a photo... But to some, it's information. Do not photograph or share security or critical sites. Protecting them is a national responsibility that helps keep our community safe and secure, they said. Several UAE government entities have also warned the public against sharing or circulating old videos and images since Iran broadened its retaliatory attacks on American targets in the Gulf region from February 28. The 60-year-old Brit from London was reportedly arrested on Monday after being seen recording the weapons during ongoing strikes across the region. He is currently being held at Bur Dubai Police station, according to campaign group Detained in Dubai. The Brit, who had travelled to the UAE for a holiday, was allegedly spotted filming missiles during the dramatic attacks. Detained in Dubai said he stopped filming when challenged by police, but was still arrested and charged. Sir Keir Starmer faced a fresh barrage of criticism over his handling of the Iran war and Britain's military preparations. Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague criticised the Prime Minister's two-stage response when Donald Trump asked for UK help. The former Tory leader said that the Government could have handled all of this better by giving one answer to the Americans from the start - that the US could use British bases for defensive action against Iran. In the event, Sir Keir first refused the US presidents request to use UK bases for offensive action but later agreed that the bases, such as RAF Fairford, could be used by American bombers for defensive action to take out Iranian missile launch sites. Speaking to the Telegraph, Lord Hague made clear that the Government had been right to stay out of involvement in US strikes on Iran and said Mr Trump had entered the conflict without a clear exit strategy. But insisting that the PM should have agreed to help the Americans to defend themselves against Iranian missiles while refusing to join the war, Lord Hague criticised the lack of British military preparations for the resulting conflict. He said: They could have positioned enough ships in the right place to do so. The Tory peer added: It reflects more than just him [Starmer]. A US B-1 Lancer bomber took off from RAF Fairford today after Keir Starmer allowed the US to use British bases to launch 'defensive' strikes at the start of the war Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague criticised the Prime Minister's two-stage response when Donald Trump asked for UK help It reflects how much Britains defence capacity has been reduced. When I was Foreign Secretary, it would have been unthinkable not to have minesweepers stationed in Bahrain or a frigate in the Mediterranean ready to move to Cyprus.' Only last week, the Mail on Sunday highlighted criticisms from former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West over Labours decision to pull out Royal Navy ships from the Gulf. And Lord Hague said: 'The Government has been caught out, and it highlights the need for significantly higher defence spending. 'That said, in geopolitical terms the bigger questions are what happens to Iran, oil prices, and the future of the Middle East those issues matter far more than whether the UK had a destroyer in the right place. His criticisms come amid claims that Royal Navy bosses were furious at the handling of the Middle East crisis, with reports that they had been out-manoeuvred by senior army and RAF chiefs in charge in key posts. The Times also reported that the Government itself was suffering from a lack of senior staff with military experience. Lord Hague also raised concerns over the future of the special relationship with the US after Mr Trump reacting to Sir Keir's initial response about using British bases by declaring that the PM no Winston Churchill. Sir Keir first refused the US presidents request to use UK bases for offensive action but later agreed that the bases, such as RAF Fairford, could be used by American bombers for defensive action to take out Iranian missile launch sites The Tory peer said: I think the relationship will be rocky in the coming months. Historically there have been disagreements Britain didnt join the Vietnam War despite pressure from President Lyndon Johnson, Margaret Thatcher fell out with Ronald Reagan over Grenada, and there was the Suez Crisis. Yet the relationship always recovered, partly because the Cold War kept our strategic interests aligned. Today we dont have that same context, and we also have a very temperamental US president. So I expect turbulence. I disagree with the Governments deal over the Chagos Islands, but I think staying out of US strikes on Iran was the right decision. Trump has entered a conflict without a clear exit strategy. However, he also admitted that he was glad that he was not dealing with the current US administration. He said: Its extremely difficult. Even under Barack Obama, there were problems A member of ground crew walked under a USAF B-1 bomber at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire But he added that Obama was predictable if you reached an agreement with him, he stuck to it. Trump is very different. Lord Hague suggested that Britains approach should now be about maintaining the personal relationship at leadership level, presenting close intelligence and military cooperation, strengthening business and institutional links as well as and staying patient. You do just have to ride out difficult periods, he said. And if one lesson can be taken from recent events, it was the need for the UK to become more independent from the US on defence and foreign policy. Britain must strengthen its own capabilities, because there will be times when we are more on our own. We need defence systems that are not entirely dependent on American components. Projects like the new fighter jet programme with Italy and Japan are good examples. The special relationship will remain important, but it may be less dominant than before. The former CEO of Uber has become the latest billionaire to ditch California for Texas ahead of the liberal state's proposed wealth tax. Travis Kalanick, 49, fled Los Angeles to set up a new life in Lake Austin in December. Kalanick revealed his new address as he sat down with TBPN to discuss his new robotics company, Atoms. 'I'm a primary resident of Texas,' he told cohosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays on Friday's episode. 'Lake life, hell yeah!' Kalanick bought the lake house five years ago but said he has since made the property his main residence, spending every weekend there so far this year. The business mogul, who has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, is among the droves of wealthy entrepreneurs ditching the West Coast. Tesla founder Elon Musk has also moved himself and his businesses to Texas. He told the Wall Street Journal in 2020 that California has become 'complacent' when it comes to technology and innovation. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth also relocated the company to Houston at the end of 2024. Travis Kalanick, 49, moved to Austin, Texas, on December 16, 2025 - just weeks before California's billionaire's tax deadline He lives near Lake Austin, where he bought a property five years ago which is now his permanent residence Tom Boyle, the CEO of Public Storage, moved his company's headquarters from Glendale, California, to Frisco, Texas. Other companies that left California for a different state, including Yamaha Motor Co and Playboy. It comes as California's billionaires are rallying against plans for a controversial wealth tax for the state's wealthiest residents. The levy is designed to recoup funds for essential services, such as health care and education. The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act would see residents with a net worth of more than $1 billion pay a one-time tax worth five percent of their assets. The bill has been championed by Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who said in a statement to Daily Mail in January: 'We must balance making sure we keep the Silicon Valley miracle and dynamism with ensuring that the working class benefit from the prosperity with healthcare, education, and childcare. If the bill passes a vote due in November, it would retroactively affect billionaires living in the state beginning January 1, 2026, and would include stocks, art, and intellectual property in the calculation. California is home to the most billionaires out of any state, with 225 calling it home. More than 80 people featured on the Forbes 400 list in 2025 also reside in California. But some of those opposing the Act have warned that many wealthy residents would opt to sell large portions of their companies rather than pay, or abandon the state altogether, taking all of their tax dollars with them. Elon Musk announced in 2020 he was moving to Texas and taking his businesses with him Chevron CEO Mike Wirth also relocated his company to Houston at the end of 2024 Google co-founder Larry Page, ranked the seventh richest person in the world with a net worth of $144 billion, announced his exit from California ahead of the controversial bill. Page, who founded Google alongside Sergey Brin in 1998 but stepped down as CEO in 2019, reportedly began relocating out of the state some time ago. The billionaire moved his California-based businesses in late 2025, just meeting a deadline for the exemption from the impending possible levy. Recently, he also transferred most of his business holdings to Delaware. The billionaire's wife, Lucinda Southworth, who is the head of her own marine conservation charity Oceankind, has also moved her interests out of the state. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, staunchly condemned the bill and took to social media to declare it was 'badly designed.' 'The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws,' he wrote on X. 'One well-documented example is the horrendous idea to tax illiquid stock in the proposal.' Kalanick previously owned this $43.3 million mansion in Bel-Air, Los Angeles The Gavin Newsom-led state would tax anyone who makes more than $1 billion. If passed, the bill would retroactively affect billionaires living in the state beginning January 1, 2026 'Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight, and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue,' Hoffman argued. 'It is true that we need to preserve and grow the incredible creation and generativity of Silicon Valley. It is also true that we must figure out how to help people who have not benefited from the wealth, jobs, and company creation engine of Silicon Valley thus far. 'I, along with many others, have expressed to Rep Khanna that this wealth tax proposal is not the best way to achieve those objectives.' Hoffman, a current partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners, sold LinkedIn to Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2billion and has a current net worth of $2.5billion, according to Forbes. Kalanick did not reveal his reason for moving, however, his December 16 move date would allow him to be excluded from the one-time tax. The Daily Mail has reached out to Kalanick for comment. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's fugitive bodyguard was shot and killed in a chaotic SWAT standoff in Texas. Mike King died Wednesday night following a police chase, with sources telling CBS News that he was wanted for impersonating an officer. The fugitive led cops into the Childrens Medical Center Dallas hospital parking garage shortly before midnight before barricading himself inside a vehicle. He was eventually forced out of the car by tear gas and was shot and killed when he pulled a gun on officers, police said. King reportedly ran a business that placed police officers in off-duty security jobs, and used a number of aliases while operating his firm. Officials have not released his real name. He was accused of posing as law enforcement while operating the business, named Off Duty Police Services, and allegedly drove a replica undercover cop car with stolen license plates while recruiting officers. While King was not a police officer, he had worked a number of security jobs, including on Rep Crockett's detail in both Washington DC and in Texas, according to CBS. He was frequently seen by her side as she campaigned in recent months for the Democratic Party's Senate nomination in Texas, which she lost to James Talarico. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's fugitive bodyguard, known by the alias Mike King (left) was shot and killed in a chaotic SWAT standoff in Texas on Wednesday night A standoff ensued after King fled cops and ran into the Childrens Medical Center Dallas hospital parking garage, barricaded himself inside a vehicle, and was shot and killed when he pulled a gun on officers It is unclear how long King had been sought by Dallas police, but he was reportedly being tracked by investigators in the lead-up to the shooting on Wednesday night. Sources told CBS that King's role on Crockett's detail saw him organize security at a number of her events. Documents show a person named Mike King was paid for 'security services' from Crockett as recently as last year, the outlet reported. King was hired by Crockett despite a reported criminal history, although details of his background are not yet clear. The Daily Mail has contacted Crockett's office for comment. King's role in her security team comes after her campaign developed a reputation for having guards escort journalists out of events and being combative with the press. In two incidents in late February, Crockett's campaign called police on a CNN reporter and a correspondent with The Atlantic, escorting them off the premises at campaign rallies. King was accused of impersonating a police officer, and was allegedly hired by Crockett's team despite a reported criminal history While King was not a police officer, he had worked a number of security jobs, including on Rep. Crockett's detail in both Washington DC and in Texas King was frequently seen by Crockett's side as she campaigned in recent months for the Democratic Party's Senate nomination in Texas, which she lost to James Talarico (pictured) The firebrand Democrat lost her Senate race to Talarico earlier this month, after complaining that voting irregularities cost her the nomination. Talarico, a 36-year-old state representative who gained traction through a savvy social media strategy, defeated her by 52.4 percent to Crockett's 46.2 percent. The Republican race between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton remains unsettled and headed to a bitter runoff to be determined on May 26. The State Supreme Court ruled against Crockett's request to give voters in Dallas an extension after Republican-led changes to polling stations created confusion. Polling location restrictions led Democratic officials to accuse Republicans of disenfranchising voters. Residents in Dallas and areas north of Austin were turned away at their local polling locations and directed to different precincts. Speaking to her audience shortly after results showed her losing the race, a sour-sounding Crockett accused Republicans of slowing down the election result, saying: 'Unfortunately, this is what Republicans like to do and so they specifically targeted Dallas Ccounty and I think we all know why.' Americans in every state have been warned to brace for extreme weather over the next few days as everything from deadly heat to a polar vortex is set to ravage the US. In the Southwest, temperatures could shoot up to a blistering 107 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona while rare 90degree March heat roasts Los Angeles. The sweltering conditions will be brought on by a heat dome settling over the region at the start of the week, according to forecasters. Farther north, the Midwest and East are bracing for a polar vortex that could impact nearly 200 million people. Parts of the Great Lakes could see up to four feet of snow after two consecutive storms sweep through with temperatures plunging down to the 20s across parts of the southeast. Hawaii is already facing relentless rain from an atmospheric river that has triggered major flooding concerns across the island state. Meanwhile in the heartland, wildfires have already torched hundreds of square miles in Nebraska and powerful gusts of wind threaten to fan the flames even further. 'All of the country, even if you're not necessarily seeing extremes, are going to see generally changing from cold to warm, or warm to cold to warm,' Marc Chenard, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Associated Press. Scorching high temperatures were expected to last through the weekend in Southern California, with locals warned that the heat could be life-threatening Construction workers spray water during an unseasonably hot day at MacArthur Park on Thursday in Los Angeles Pedestrians on the West Coast sought refuge from the blistering heat by walking with umbrellas (left), meanwhile in Washington D.C. they were being used to avoid the snow In southern California and Arizona, temperatures in the 80s and 90s are making it feel like summer before spring even officially begins. Heat advisories and extreme heat watches have been issued in many areas across the Southwest, including Los Angeles and Phoenix. Highs in Los Angeles could reach 100 degrees between March 17 and 19. Downtown Los Angeles already registered a record 92 degrees on Friday, but locals have been told to expect even more scorching weather. Meanwhile, Phoenix could see temperatures between 103 and 109 degrees. Phoenix has never hit 100 degrees before March 26 in 137 years of record-keeping, according to the NWS. Officials warned that the 'historic, long and record breaking March heatwave' could be lifethreatening and highly dangerous for the very young and very old. Residents without air conditioning and locals exercising outdoors were told to take precautions. Highs in Los Angeles could reach 100 degrees next week, urging officials to tell residents to stay inside. The downtown area of the city reached a record 92 degrees on Friday A National Weather Service meteorologist warned that the entire United States could expect up-and-down weather This weekend will simultaneously bring extreme heat to the Southwest and frigid cold to other parts of the country The danger is not just due to the extreme heat, but also because of how unusual it is for this time of the year. On the opposite side of the country a polar vortex is set to return, bringing frigid temperatures to the Midwest and East. In Minnesota, snow is expected to begin Saturday and continue through Sunday, with most of the state under winter weather alerts. Blizzard warnings have been issued for south central Minnesota, including just outside the Twin Cities metro area. Officials cautioned that heavy snow and strong winds could create dangerous conditions for locals over the weekend. 'Travel will be very difficult to nearly impossible by early Sunday morning,' the NWS said Saturday. A blizzard is expected late Sunday and the cold is set to continue into Monday. High sustained wind speeds with strong gusts caused widespread damage to equipment that delivered power to customers in Ohio Your browser does not support iframes. Heavy snow and strong winds are expected to begin Saturday and continue through Sunday in Minnesota Snowy conditions in the north might make travel close to impossible. Blizzard warnings have been issued for south central Minnesota Over in Chicago, a high wind warning was issued on Friday and officials warned that the 'damaging' winds could continue through the weekend. Single digits have been forecast by Tuesday, despite spring being just around the corner. The polar vortex could also hit some of the Southeast, with Atlanta set to drop into the 20s. In total, the storm could reach almost 200 million people across the central and eastern US, according to AccuWeather. Michigan and the Great Lakes will also see cold and snow over the weekend after two storm systems in a row. The second storm is expected to intensify rapidly, with powerful winds and plummeting pressure creating what is called a bomb cyclone or an Arctic hurricane. Parts of Michigan could be buried under three to four feet of snow from the upcoming storm. Authorities have also warned of dangerous travel conditions. Your browser does not support iframes. An aerial image showed the damage to Menards caused by an EF-2 tornado that swept Three Rivers, Michigan, on March 6 Strong winds are expected to wallop the east coast after tornadoes already caused damage in Michigan and Oklahoma last week Power outages and widespread disruptions have already been reported across the state. More than 110,000 locals were without power due to high winds on Friday, according to the Detroit Free Press. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Mason, Lake, Oceana, Newaygo and Mecosta counties from 2am Sunday through 8pm Monday. Michigan was recently rocked by extreme weather when at least eight people died last week following a streak of tornadoes in the state. Oklahoma, which also experienced the tornadoes, is also preparing to see high winds this weekend. The same goes for Kansas and Texas, where winds are predicted in the 60 miles per hour range for Sunday night. Such gusts could pose a problem in Nebraska, where Governor Jim Pillen declared a state of emergency to fight wildfires that prompted evacuations across the state. National Guard troops have been mobilized to combat the two dozen fires, which have consumed more than 550 square miles. A powerful Kona storm has caused days of downpours in Hawaii. Floods were expected to continue throughout today and perhaps subside around Sunday Schools, universities and public libraries have been closed across Hawaii, as the state continues to deal with the dangerous cyclone Most of Hawaii was under a flash flood warning and more than 130,000 locals lost power as a seasonal cyclone blasted the island state At least one person has been reported dead to date, according to KETV. Ohio has also been battered by high winds and more than 100,000 homes are without energy, per the Columbus Dispatch. As a whole, the extreme weather across the US is expected to cause mass flight delays and cancellations from Sunday through Monday night, compounding chaos caused by the partial government shutdown which has left 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers without pay. The extreme weather even extends to outside the mainland, where parts of Hawaii have been hit with an unusual winter weather warning. Flood watches and high wind watches are in effect throughout the islands as a powerful cyclone called a Kona storm sweeps through. More than 130,000 Hawaiians are currently without electricity due to power outages, according to the Honolulu StarAdvertiser. Schools, university campuses and public libraries were closed because of the inclement weather. The storm was even expected to bring heavy snow, thunderstorms and strong winds to the Big Island Summits, the NWS said. Flash floods are expected, though the threat is expected to wane on Saturday night into Sunday. Barbed wire fences are seen outside a shuttered Great Wall Park compound where Cambodian authorities said they had recovered evidence of human trafficking, kidnapping and torture during raids on suspected cybercrime compounds in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, September 2022. Photo by Reuters The Cambodian Government on Friday approved a draft law introducing tougher penalties for operators of online scam networks, as the country faces growing challenges from transnational fraud groups and increasing scrutiny as a hotspot for cybercrime. Under the draft legislation, ringleaders of online scam centers could face prison sentences of five to 10 years along with fines of up to KHR1 billion (US$246,000). If the operations involve violence, torture, unlawful detention, human trafficking or forced labor, the penalties could rise to 10-20 years in prison and fines of up to KHR2 billion ($502,000 ). In particularly serious cases, scam kingpins could face 15-30 years in prison or life imprisonment if their illegal activities result in one or more deaths. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), this form of crime is expanding rapidly worldwide, generating estimated losses of around $64 billion each year. A 2024 report by the United States Institute of Peace estimated that illicit revenues from online scams in Cambodia could exceed $12.5 billion annually, equivalent to roughly half of the countrys GDP. Prime Minister Hun Manet has previously said the scam centers are seriously damaging Cambodias economy and international image, pledging to "clean up" the problem. Cambodian authorities have continued to intensify their crackdown since launching a nationwide campaign in July last year. The effort has led to the closure of around 250 scam sites and 91 casinos, while roughly 10,000 foreign nationals have been deported. More than 200,000 people are believed to have left scam compounds and departed Cambodia as a result of the operation. Kristi Noem's most loyal aide has received no job offers from the nation's leading conservative media outlets including Fox News after leaving the Department of Homeland Security amid corruption allegations tied to a $220 million advertising campaign. Tricia McLaughlin, the top DHS spokeswoman who departed shortly before Kristi Noem's firing, has reached out to Fox about joining the network as a contributor, the Daily Mail can reveal. The 31-year-old has also approached Newsmax and Real America's Voice, though she has not received a formal offer from any of the networks. McLaughlin left DHS under a dark cloud in February after a report detailed how her husband Ben Yoho secretly benefited from a no-bid, taxpayer-funded contract to produce border control ads featuring Noem. When contacted by the Daily Mail, McLaughlin denied ever approaching Fox, Newsmax, or Real America's Voice for a job. McLaughlin was a Fox stalwart during her time at DHS, but her history with the network has done little to help her cause in the wake of Noem's spectacular sacking by Donald Trump, sources said. 'Fox is pretty picky, and they don't like to deal with drama,' one insider told the Daily Mail. At the center of the brewing storm is McLaughlin's husband, Yoho, whose Strategy Group company received hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce an ad campaign featuring Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore in October 2025. His firm was paid through the ad campaign as a sub-contractor, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, in Washington, DC, on January 22 Group, which is owned by McLaughlin's husband, received hundreds of thousands of dollars for producing a series of ads including one featuring Noem on a horse at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial during a government shutdown in October 2025 At the center of the brewing storm is McLaughlin's husband, Ben Yoho, whose Strategy Group company received hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce an ad campaign featuring Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore in October 2025 The 31-year-old has also approached Newsmax and Real America's Voice, though she has not received a formal offer from any of the networks, sources told the Daily Mail. McLaughlin has denied ever approaching these outlets Noem faced an intense grilling from Louisiana Senator John Kennedy over the ad after claiming Trump had personally approved the lavish taxpayer-funded campaign. Trump swiftly shot down those claims and she was fired within hours, becoming the first cabinet casualty of his second term. McLaughlin's attempts to salvage her reputation after Noem's humiliating ouster from Trump's cabinet have been met with a muted response from the White House. A senior White House official, however, told the Daily Mail that Tricia was not pushed out of her job: 'She told us she was planning to leave on her own and we were actually disappointed to hear that because she was great to work with, and she was a great advocate for the President on TV!' The DHS inspector general's office has now launched an official investigation into how the contract was awarded. A DHS spokesman previously said: 'DHS has no involvement with the selection of subcontractors.' The Daily Mail has contacted Fox News for comment. McLaughlin was a prominent feature on Fox during her tenure at Homeland, appearing on the network during their primetime coverage multiple times a week. 'Tricia really knows her 'STUFF!' Trump wrote on Truth Social in December following one of her appearances. Fox has a history of hiring former Trump officials as on-air personalities, including the president's ex-press secretaries Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany. McLaughlin has had to perform crisis PR work for herself and her husband while pursuing a new media role. McLaughlin has pushed back against numerous journalists and some Republican influencers on social media, demanding they update stories and posts to remove any references to wrongdoing or corruption. Yoho, meanwhile, is continuing to do work for a network of Republicans in his home state of Ohio, where McLaughlin also grew up Sources told the Daily Mail that Tricia McLaughlin, the former top spokesperson for Kristi Noem who left DHS in February, has reached out to Fox News about joining the network as a contributor but does not have an offer. McLaughlin denied ever approaching Fox for the job 'Fox is pretty picky, and they don't like to deal with drama,' one insider told the Daily Mail. While pursuing a new media gig, McLaughlin has had to focus much of her attention lately performing crisis PR work for herself and her husband Yoho, meanwhile, is continuing to do work for a network of Republicans in his home state of Ohio, where McLaughlin also grew up. His firm is working on the Ohio House congressional campaign for former ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan, a longtime Noem loyalist who fled the department prior to Tricia's resignation. Vivek Ramaswamy's Ohio gubernatorial campaign has also hired Yoho's firm to produce its first commercial, released Thursday, amid the couple's swirling scandal, the Daily Mail has learned. Yoho and McLaughlin met initially as staffers on Ramaswamy's short-lived presidential campaign during the 2024 presidential cycle. The couple celebrated their wedding last summer. Flights have been suspended at Dubai Airport after reports of explosions nearby. A drone-related blaze sparked in recent hours, the Dubai Media Office said. It said in a statement: 'A drone incident in the vicinity of Dubai International Airport (DXB) affected one of the fuel tanks. 'Dubai Civil Defence teams are currently working to bring the fire under control,' the media office said, adding there had been no reports of injuries. It came after Keir Starmer held discussions with President Donald Trump and the Canadian Prime Minister regarding the 'ongoing situation' in the Middle East - specifically, the critical need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Downing Street confirmed the Labour leader spoke with Mr Trump on Sunday evening to address the disruption to global shipping, which is 'driving up costs worldwide'. Follow our live updates on the conflict in the Middle East below. China have appeared to ramp up work on the Great Wall of Sand as dredgers get to work on turning disputed islands into military bases in the South China Sea. New satellite images show more than 20 dredgers at work, picking up sand and mud from the seabed and bringing it onto the surface to lay a foundation for new construction. Despite a 2015 pledge to stop the expansion, Work is taking place around the Antelope Reef, which forms part of the Paracel Islands and is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. Just two dredgers started the work on the island at first in December, but photographs now show a fleet of 22 high-tech 'dark dredgers' working on what one report describes as a 'massive industrial campaign'. China claims virtually all of the South China Sea, but has had territorial disputes with neighbouring countries in the busy sea, which have been particularly concerned by the land reclamation projects. Since 2014, China has been proactively strengthening its claims by transforming the islands and reefs into military bases. Long runways have been built on three of the Spratly Islands; Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, as well as on Woody Island in the Paracels. The bases are also equipped with hangars and radar, meaning they are capable of deploying military aircraft across the South China Sea. New satellite images show more than 20 dredgers at work, picking up sand and mud from the seabed and bringing it onto the surface to lay a foundation for new construction. Despite a 2015 pledge to stop the expansion, Work is taking place around the Antelope Reef, which forms part of the Paracel Islands and is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. They have temporarily hosted anti-ship cruise missiles, have surface-to-air missiles and have hardened shelters capable of holding missiles. Their airfields are also capable of receiving fighter jets, the Times reports. In 2015, China said it would stop militarising such bases in such way, however, this appears to have now resumed with work on the so-called Great Wall of Sand appearing to be ramping up. 'This activity at the reef appears to have already created several square kilometres of new land, with significant reclamation visible across more than 15 square kilometres of the once-empty reef,' said a report by the London-based Open Source Centre. It added: '[A] modest start has since expanded into a massive industrial campaign these developments suggest reclamation activity is intended to extend across the reef's full length and will likely evolve into a multi-purpose outpost to enhance China's military presence in the region.' China seized the Paracel Islands in 1974 from South Vietnam, a few months before its civil war defeat to North Vietnam. Antelope Reef acts as a stepping stone between Chinas large Hainan island and Woody Island, whose airstrip hosts fighter jets and surveillance aircraft. Beijing claims almost all of the 1.2million square miles of the South China Sea, a body of water vitally important to global trade and security, belong to it. Under authoritarian President Xi Jinping, Beijing has continued to expand its reach into the South China Sea's strategically vital and resource-rich waters bordered by several Southeast Asian nations. Each of these countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam, all lay claim to different parts of the sea and a litany of small islands, shoals and reefs adrift within it. But China insists it should own virtually the entire sea and its strategic outposts, including swathes of territory within the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) off the shores of all its island neighbours. At the heart of the tensions between China and the Philippines lies a scattering of rocks, shoals, reefs and atolls across the South China Sea, most notably the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, over which both countries assert sovereignty. The Philippines bases its claims on proximity and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), under which most of the contested features lie within its EEZ. China, meanwhile, claims almost the entire sea via its so-called 'nine-dash line', a sweeping boundary drawn on a map in the 1940s that has no legal basis under international law. That illegality was confirmed in 2016, when a Hague-based tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in favour of the Philippines, declaring China's claims invalid. Western governments, including the UK, will regularly carry out 'freedom of navigation operations', sending ships close to the islands in a symbolic rejection of China's claim to the islands. Just two dredgers started the work on the island at first in December, but photographs now show a fleet of 22 high-tech 'dark dredgers' working on what one report describes as a 'massive industrial campaign' Long runways have been built on three of the Spratly Islands; Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, as well as on Woody Island in the Paracels. The bases are also equipped with hangars and radar, meaning they are capable of deploying military aircraft across the South China Sea Last September, HMS Richmond and the USS Higgins passed between Taiwan and mainland China on Friday, prompting fury in Beijing. Beijing accused the two allies of undermining peace in the region, saying that the move amounted to 'harassment and provocation', according to military spokesman Senior Colonel Shi Yi. But a spokesperson representing the British and American alliance said the two ships sailed through international waters. It is not just China turning islands in the South China Sea into military air bases as Taiwan has one on Taiping Island, the Philippines on Thitu, and Malaysia on Swallow Reef. Vietnam also has a 1,300m runway on Spratly Island and is looking to overtake China as it builds new land and military facilities at a rapid pace. Images published last year by a United States think tank show that artificial land has been used to expand all 21 Vietnamese-occupied rocks and sandbanks in the Spratly Islands. Earlier this week, 11 jobs advertised as 'community workers' were listed by the local government body that administers the South China Sea to work on eight of its reefs and islands. This includes Woody Island, the administrative centre of the disputed territories. The job description says that candidates should be aged between 18 and 35 years old, have a university degree, be 'dedicated to island and community service' and be physically and psychologically adaptable. The Trump administration has revealed its latest plans for its sweeping overhaul of the White House grounds. The blueprint released Friday outlines a new underground security hub for screening visitors to the Washington DC landmark. The project envisions a massive 33,000 sq ft subterranean center beneath Sherman Park, just southeast of the White House and south of the Treasury. Construction may kick off as early as August, with the White House determined to have the facility ready by July 2028, six months before Trump leaves office. 'The permanent facility will strengthen campus security and enhance the overall visitor experience,' the overview reads. For years tourists and visitors were screened ahead of entry in a series of temporary trailer structures before gaining access to the East Wing entrance. But October saw the East Wing flattened as Trump cleared the way for a $400 million private ballroom, a move that sparked fierce controversy. Today, visitors wait in line by Lafayette Park to get in, just steps across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. On Friday, the Trump administration revealed plans for an underground security hub to screen visitors (pictured: White House is seen Feb. 24, 2026) The preliminary agenda is the latest step in the Trump administration's sweeping overhaul of the White House grounds Your browser does not support iframes. Under the new plans, visitors will begin to enter the facility via an exterior ramp leading to a sunken plaza, where tickets and identification will be verified. The 5,000 sq ft recessed entry will act as a gathering area for visitors, allowing them to queue along the ramp instead of crowding the adjacent 15th Street sidewalk. Per the White House agenda, the facility will be equipped with the necessary security systems, technology and support space to satisfy US Secret Service (USSS) requirements for handling large crowds of visitors at tours and events. Once fully in the facility, visitors will go through two security steps: pre-screening and primary screening. The seven-lane primary screening area is intended to cut down wait times while handling current security procedures and easily adapting to future upgrades. After passing through security, guests will move through a tunnel lined with displays from the White House tour office and the Executive Office of the President. From there, visitors will take an elevator up out of the underground facility and exit inside the secure area of the White House complex, where they'll begin their visit. A single escalator will return visitors to ground level north of the secure fence along East Executive Avenue. Visitors will begin to enter the facility via an exterior ramp leading to a sunken plaza, where tickets and identification will be verified Construction could begin as early as August, with the White House determined to have the facility ready by July 2028 The plan envisions 33,000 sq ft underground center beneath Sherman Park, just southeast of the White House and south of the Treasury According to the outline, the monument of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman at the heart of Sherman Park will stay put. 'Landscape restoration, including new tree plantings, will be provided within all impacted zones to reinstate and enhance the park's character,' the agenda reads. Placing the screening center underground will 'reduce visual impact' and avoid conflicts with infrastructure in the southeast corner of the park, according to the plans. Also highlighted in the agenda were environmental considerations, with the site selection 'carefully considered to ensure new elements blend with the park's historic fabric and the city's architectural character.' 'The project has been designed to minimize cultural, visual, and environmental impacts to the extent practicable,' the plans read. 'While approximately six trees would be removed, these would be replaced with suitable native species,' it added. The Executive Office of the President, the USSS and the National Park Service - which manages the White House grounds - are all collaborating on the ambitious plans. The National Capital Planning Commission, responsible for federal construction, is set to review the proposal on April 2. The agenda also includes discussion and a final vote on Trump's proposal to erect a 90,000-square-foot building featuring his massive ballroom where the East Wing once stood. October saw the East Wing demolished as Trump cleared the way for a $250 million private ballroom in his temporary home The site selection was 'carefully considered to ensure new elements blend with the park's historic fabric and the city's architectural character' Last month, Trump installed his 26-year-old executive assistant Chamberlain Harris (pictured) as the latest member of the panel meant to oversee his White House ballroom project Last month, Trump installed his 26-year-old executive assistant as the latest member of the panel meant to oversee his controversial White House ballroom project. Chamberlain Harris, deputy director of Oval Office operations, was sworn in to the Commission of Fine Arts, one of two bodies required to approve the plan. Harris didn't study art or architecture in college, instead majoring in political science at the University of Albany, SUNY, with minors in communications and economics, according to a Washington Post report on the pick. Her appointment came after Trump hurriedly named seven members to the commission in January, having fired everyone remaining on the panel the previous October. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is suing the president, arguing he should have allowed the ballroom project to go through the CFA and the National Capital Planning Commission before demolishing the East Wing. A ruling is expected soon, with the Washington Post reporting that the federal judge keyed in on private donations being used to fund the estimated $400 million project, as a way to bypass Congressional authorization. In January, the architect helming the design for Trump's ballroom project revealed new plans for a West Wing expansion. Sir Keir Starmer must confront Nigeria's president over the killing of Christians while he is in the UK for a state visit, MPs have demanded. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who will be accompanied by his wife Oluremi, are set to be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, where they will attend a state banquet as guests of honour. The Nigerian president will then travel to Downing Street to meet with Prime Minister Sir Keir on Thursday, marking the first state visit by a Nigerian president in 37 years. MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB) have written to the Development Minister, Baroness Jenny Chapman, calling for the Government to pressure Mr Tinubu on the protection of human rights in his country. This comes amid Nigeria's ranking as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for Christians, following prolific coordinated attacks by Islamist terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province. Some 163 Christian worshippers were kidnapped by armed gangs earlier this year in Nigeria's northern Kaduna State, adding to a wave of kidnappings targeting Christians in the country - where sharia law is practised in 12 of its northern states. DUP MP Jim Shannon, the group's chairman, said Nigeria must 'take concrete steps to prevent the harassment, persecution and killing of Christians, while ensuring that perpetrators are investigated and prosecuted'. King Charles and President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu held a meeting in a hotel in Dubai, as they attended the Cop28 summit in 2023 Christians in Nigeria, pictured, live in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for their faith group The group of 209 MPs and peers expressed concern that the Nigerian state has failed to treat the attacks with the level of seriousness required. They demanded the Government shed light on the case of Leah Sharibu, who was one of the 110 schoolgirls kidnapped in 2018. She remains held prisoner by the militants as she refuses to renounce her Christian faith. APPG FoRB also urged Sir Keir to ensure that human rights obligations become fundamental to all future diplomatic, security and trade discussions. It has requested a response from Baroness Chapman before the state visit. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, may also pressure Mrs Tinubu on human rights as she hosts the Nigerian First Lady at Lambeth Palace on Thursday. Mrs Tinubu, who is a Christian Pastor while her husband is Muslim, will attend a prayer service and be invited to preach. She will also join representatives from the Church of England and faith charities that have provided support in Nigeria, such as Christian Aid, at a reception at Lambeth Palace. Claims of genocide against Christians in the African nation began circulating last year, which were followed by US airstrikes on the northern Sokoto state on Christmas Day. President Donald Trump warned of further airstrikes, targeting Islamist militants, as the two countries continue a dispute over what Trump has characterised as the mass killing of Christians in armed conflicts. Trump told the New York Times: 'I'd love to make it a one-time strike. But if they continue to kill Christians it will be a many-time strike.' Thousands have been killed in one Nigerian state alone since the early 2000s, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. While Nigeria's Security Tracker predicts that more than 60,000 people have died nationwide as a result of communal and insurgent violence since 2011. Nigeria's government rejected Trump's accusations that it is failing to protect Christians, adding that 'Muslim, Christians and those of no faith alike' are being targeted by jihadists. Nigeria - which has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1960 - is home to more than 220million people, which is projected to grow to 400million within decades. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been contacted for comment. Donald Trump's changing narratives around his conflict with Iran are being driven by a complex tug-of-war among top aides in the White House and leading figures in his base, insiders say. The Trump administration has offered varying assessments in recent days over how the war has progressed, with Trump declaring this week the US has 'already won' before Pete Hegseth admitted: 'This is only the beginning.' Insiders say the conflicting messaging coming from the White House is the result of differing factions fighting for Trump's ear, with some close advisers warning that the war could cost the president politically heading into the midterms. Leading figures in the administration, reportedly led by Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, are urging Trump to keep the campaign limited and to get out quickly, cautioning that the crisis in the Middle East threatens to send gas prices surging and undercut their economic message domestically. Meanwhile, a hawkish element in the Republican Party is encouraging a harder offensive against the Islamic Republic, pushing Trump away from his campaign promises to avoid foreign wars. A third, isolationist faction among Trump's base has also emerged, with commentators such as Tucker Carlson pressing Trump to avoid the war entirely. Uncertainty surrounding Trump's plans for the war and the length of his campaign has already upended global oil and energy markets. Yet the president appears willing to abruptly change his timeline for the future of the war, telling a campaign rally in Kentucky on Wednesday: 'We won... but we don't want to leave early, do we? We've got to finish the job.' Donald Trump's changing narratives around his conflict with Iran have been driven by a complex tug-of-war among top aides in the White House and leading figures in his base, insiders say Trump seen with Susie Wiles in the Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago as the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28 Wrangling over Trump's plans for the war comes as the White House has repeatedly rebuffed efforts by its Middle Eastern allies to negotiate a ceasefire between the US and Iran. A source close to Trump told Reuters that Oman had tried to offer itself as a mediator, but the president is 'not interested in that right now.' 'We're going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there's a day, but not right now,' they said. Insiders also told the outlet that top Trump advisers, including from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council, have warned that potential domestic support for the ongoing war hinges on its impact on oil prices. Wiles is leading the push to walk Trump down from all-out war, sources claimed, saying that she fears it could result in a bloodbath for Republicans at the midterms in November. The chief of staff and her deputy, James Blair, have reportedly urged Trump to define what victory in the war looks like, and signal to the public it is a limited operation that will not go on indefinitely. Opposing voices in Trump's ear include Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, who argue that the US must obliterate Iran's military and prevent it from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. Insiders said Trump is trying to walk the line between the warring factions in his ear and believes he can appease them all while focusing on the conflict. 'He is allowing the hawks to believe the campaign continues, wants markets to believe the war might end soon and his base to believe escalation will be limited,' a Trump adviser told Reuters. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump addressed the ongoing hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz, and again offered contradictory assessments of the damage done to Iran's military, saying that it was both wiped out and that it remains a threat to neighboring countries Marco Rubio listens to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a White House meeting on March 6 Iran has shut the Strait of Hormuz (pictured), through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, sending prices soaring more than 10 percent in a single week, with Brent crude jumping from $72 to over $82 a barrel On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump underestimated the impact of the war and believed it was unlikely Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow corridor through the Middle East where 20 percent of the world's crude oil passes. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump addressed the ongoing hostilities in the Strait, which has seen Iran effectively close the waterway and threaten to sink any ships sailing through it. Trump said he was defying the warnings from Tehran, writing: 'Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending war ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the strait open and safe.' The president again offered contradictory assessments of the damage done to Iran's military, saying that it was both wiped out and that it remains a threat to neighboring countries. 'We have already destroyed 100% of Irans Military capability, but its easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are,' Trump wrote. Trump concluded that 'in the meantime', he would 'be bombing the hell out of the shoreline and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water.' Nervous aides close to the president have reportedly been attempting to define a conclusion that Trump can call a victory, even if Iran continues to be defiant. Vice President JD Vance has been publicly supportive of the war with Iran, but insiders reportedly say he has privately voiced opposition to the conflict Asked by Fox News host Brian Kilmeade this week how he will 'know when the war is over', Trump offered a noncommittal response, saying it all comes down to him. 'When I feel it,' he said. 'When I feel it in my bones.' Kilmeade then referenced reports that Vance has privately voiced disapproval over the war, to which Trump said he lets them 'speak their mind.' 'And we have some differences, but they never end up being much,' Trump said. 'I convince them all to do it my way.' Press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the claims Trump is being pulled in various directions saying they are 'based on gossip and speculation from anonymous sources who arent even in the room for any discussions with President Trump.' 'The President is known for being a good listener and seeking the opinions of many people, but ultimately everyone knows hes the final decision maker and his own best messenger,' she said. 'The Presidents entire team is focused on ensuring the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved.' Banksy's new identity has finally been revealed - after the shy superstar street artist changed his name when this newspaper unmasked him. The British graffitist, who is known for his distinctive stencilled spray paintings, has become internationally renowned since his career began in the nineties. His works, which often comment on the state of British politics, have sold for tens of millions of pounds over the years and seen him dubbed an icon in the art world. He has always worked under the pseudonym, amid various guesses about who he really is - including Robert Del Naja, a member of the band Massive Attack. The Mail on Sunday finally revealed in 2008 the artist is in fact a man named Robin Gunningham, who was born in Bristol in 1973. But in a shocking twist, a recent investigation by Reuters has disclosed Mr Gunningham changed his name after the MoS report to maintain his anonymity. He is now known as David Jones - a moniker so common in the UK that for nearly 20 years, it has helped him continue to hide in plain sight. The discovery came after the news agency found new details in a memoir written by Steve Lazarides, a photographer and Mr Gunningham's former manager. Banksy, who is known for his distinctive stencilled spray paintings, has become internationally renowned since his career began in the nineties. Pictured: One of his works in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk The British graffitist (left) has always worked under the pseudonym, amid various guesses about who he really is - including Robert Del Naja (centre), a member of the band Massive Attack The Mail on Sunday finally revealed in 2008 the artist is in fact a man named Robin Gunningham (pictured), who was born in Bristol in 1973 His book, called Banksy Captured, about his experience working for the artist from the late nineties until 2008, included a telling anecdote from more than 25 years ago. In September 2000, the pair visited Ivy Brown, a gallerist and Mr Lazarides' photography agent, at her apartment in Manhattan, New York. She was dismayed by a billboard advertising Marc Jacobs clothing which had been put up on the roof of her building. It was a distinctive brownstone property, with a triangular shape like the city's famous Flat Iron building - and she felt the new structure ruined the block's appearance. Ms Brown asked Mr Gunningham to graffiti the billboard to make it look better, which he did, inspired by one he had seen in Steven Spielberg's iconic 1975 film Jaws. In the movie, someone defaces a tourism sign of a woman on an inflatable raft at sea. They give her bulging eyes, add a shark fin and draw a speech bubble saying, 'HELP!!! SHARK.' Similarly, Mr Gunningham gave the model on the Marc Jacobs billboard rabbit-like teeth and drew an empty speech bubble. But it was only empty because the police caught and arrested him before he could finish - though Mr Lazarides's book did not say exactly where or when this was. The exact building has now been identified and the advert dated - and this was used to unearth previously unseen police and court documents. The paperwork shows at 4.20am on September 18, 2000, officers found a man defacing a billboard on 675 Hudson Street. Because the damages were greater than $1,500, the force sought to charge him with a felony - and obtained a handwritten signed confession from the man. He was released within hours of his arrest after agreeing to temporarily hand over his passport, and later posted $1,500 bail to get it back. The felony charges were reduced to a disorderly conduct misdemeanour. He was ordered to complete five days of community service and pay $310 in a fine and fees. The graffiti did not unmask him as Banksy at the time because he had then only just begun using the pseudonym and its associated style. But the minor incident has now cost him his anonymity - with his signature and mentions in the newly discovered documents confirming him as Robin Gunningham. But in a shocking twist, a recent investigation by Reuters has disclosed Mr Gunningham changed his name after the MoS report to maintain his anonymity. Pictured: Banksy's artwork Love is in the Bin He is now known as David Jones - a moniker so common in the UK that for nearly 20 years, it has helped him continue to hide in plain sight. Pictured: Graffiti attributed to the artist at Glastonbury Festival in 2022 The discovery came after the news agency found new details in a memoir written by Steve Lazarides, a photographer and Mr Gunningham's former manager. Pictured: Artwork by Banksy in Walthamstow, London An MoS investigation published in July 2008 unmasked the artist's name and picture for the first time. But despite his name being public knowledge for years following the report, the artist's fans continued to ignore it. Instead of calling him by his real name, there was a surreal omerta, which saw his true identity continue to be camouflaged by his supporters. This, according to art experts previously speaking to the MoS, let him continue to exploit his image as 'the Scarlet Pimpernel of modern art' - and keep earning. And after this newspaper's story was published, mentions of Mr Gunningham in British public records are few and far between. It seemed as if the report had prompted him to go off-grid. During his time in New York, he stayed for several months in the Carlton Arms Hotel in Manhattan, which lets artists stay for free in return for decorating their rooms. Robert Clarke, a former hotel employee, struck up a friendship with Mr Gunningham during his time there, bonding over their shared hometown of Bristol. He wrote a memoir, called Seven Years With Banksy, about their relationship, which mentioned the artist had once considered legally changing his name. This hypothesis for Mr Gunningham's disappearance from records seemed to be confirmed by Mr Lazarides, who told Reuters the name was a 'dead end'. 'There is no Robin Gunningham,' he said. 'The name you've got I killed years ago... You'll never find him.' His former manager said the anonymity began as a way to avoid police seeking to arrest the artist for his graffiti work - but later became difficult to maintain. The pair parted ways in 2008 - the same year as the MoS investigation - in what Mr Lazarides said was a mutual decision. But the last thing he did for his client was to arrange for his name to be legally changed, to one that could never be linked to him. Mr Lazarides refused to reveal Mr Gunningham's new identity - though he did note it was a random one, with no hidden meaning, pun or joke in it. The artist's past public statements, companies connected to him and extracts from books and articles about him were used to eventually piece it together. His book, called Banksy Captured, about his experience working for the artist from the late nineties until 2008, included a telling anecdote from more than 25 years ago. Pictured: The Flower Thrower, Flower Bomber, Rage, or Love is in the Air, a piece of artwork by the artist at a Banksy exhibition In revealing the artist's new name, it was considered he did not face an extensive risk of retaliation or censorship - even after he painted (pictured) on the historically protected Royal Courts of Justice building in London in September last year There has long been speculation that musician Robert Del Naja (pictured during a DJ set in 2019), a known graffiti artist and Massive Attack band member, could be Banksy. It has now been confirmed he is not the artist They were cross-referenced with public, property and passport records, as well as a corporate filing by the artist's former accountant. His new name can now be disclosed to be David Jones - one so common in the UK it has afforded him continued anonymity for the nearly 20 years after the MoS report. It is also the birth name of David Bowie. Features of the musician's Ziggy Stardust alter ego were once used by Mr Gunningham to paint a portrait of the late Queen. Whether the artist uses this new name to this day is unclear - but when asked about the latest findings, Banksy did not reply. His company, Pest Control Office, which authenticates his work and decides who gets the first chance to buy it, said the artist 'has decided to say nothing'. Banksy's long-time lawyer, Mark Stephens, meanwhile, said the artist 'does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct'. He neither expanded on this, nor confirmed or denied the artist's identity. But he urged Reuters not to publish its report, saying it would violate the artist's privacy, put him danger and stop him from being able to create art freely. Mr Stephens said Banksy has for years 'been subject to fixated, threatening and extremist behaviour'. He did not specify what these threats were. He also said uncovering the artist would harm the public as working 'anonymously or under a pseudonym serves vital societal interests'. 'It protects freedom of expression by allowing creators to speak truth to power without fear of retaliation, censorship or persecution particularly when addressing sensitive issues such as politics, religion or social justice,' he said. These privacy claims and the wish of many Banksy fans that his anonymity is maintained were taken into account. But it was concluded there is a public interest in understanding such a prominent cultural, artistic and political figure's identity and career. And anonymity has long enabled him to operate without the necessary transparency, scrutiny and accountability of those who seek to shape social and political discourse. It was also considered he did not face an extensive risk of retaliation or censorship - even after he painted on the historically protected Royal Courts of Justice building in London in September last year. The day after the artwork appeared, the Metropolitan Police said it was investigating 'a report of criminal damage' to the building. The Ministry of Justice, meanwhile, said an investigation is ongoing. It declined to say if the artist was penalised or paid compensation. His lawyer did not comment. As of December, the government has spent 23,690 on ongoing work to remove the piece - a trace of which still remains on the wall. There has long been speculation that musician Robert Del Naja, a known graffiti artist and Massive Attack band member, could be Banksy. It has now been confirmed he is not the artist, who has previously said he admires Del Naja's painting, which he does under the alias 3D. But the pair are friends - and the musician has on at least one occasion acted as Banksy's painting partner. This included in October 2022, when they were found to have travelled to Ukraine, with documentary photographer Giles Duley to paint a mural on a bombed-out apartment block. Donald Trump's administration has offered a $10million reward for information about Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as well as other top officials. The US State Department's Rewards for Justice programme also wanted information about nine other 'key leaders' within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Minister of Intelligence and Security Esmail Khatib were among the 10 individuals on the State Department list. Military Adviser Yahya Rahim Safavi, Deputy Chief of Staff Ali Asghar Hejazi, and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Lanjani, were also on the list. 'These individuals command and direct various elements of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which plans, organizes and executes terrorism around the world,' the State Department said. Meanwhile, four leaders had no names listed on the poster and were only identified by their titles. These included the military chief of the supreme leader's office, the IRGC commander, adviser to the supreme leader, and the secretary of the defence council. Donald Trump's administration has offered a $10 million reward for information about Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as well as other top officials In a post on X, the US department urged tipsters to send in any information via Tor or Signal, writing: 'Got information on these Iranian terrorist leaders? 'Send us a tip. It could make you eligible for a reward and relocation.' Two versions of the poster were issued, one in Farsi and another in English, suggesting the US was appealing to Iranians. The State Department's 'Rewards for Justice' programme offers cash for intelligence leading to the capture or prosecution of wanted individuals. Mojtaba Khamenei's father Ali Khamenei was killed in a bombing on February 28 at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran. It comes as Pete Hegseth, the US Defense Secretary said the new Ayatollah was 'wounded and likely disfigured' in a press conference yesterday. 'Iran's leadership is in no better shape,' Hegseth claimed. 'Desperate and hiding, they have gone underground, cowering. That's what rats do.' 'We know the new so-called not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured,' Hegseth told reporters yesterday at the Pentagon briefing. Donald Trump has asked for Britain's help to save the Strait of Hormuz from closure while also calling for other foreign leaders to send ships to the strategic passage. In a post on Truth Social, the US President asked for help from France, Japan, South Korea and China, a country which has long been considered his country's geopolitical rival. Since the beginning of the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel, Tehran has all but completely closed the key shipping lane, which sees 20 per cent of the world's oil supplies move through it each year. In recent days, Tehran has launched several missile strikes on vessels passing through the Strait, as well as sending its own explosive-laden ships, amid threats to send the price of oil to $200 per barrel. 'Many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe,' Trump wrote. 'We have already destroyed 100% of Iran's military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.' Trump went on to call on several states that 'are affected by this artificial constraint', including the UK, to send vessels to the Strait in a bid to help unblock one of the world's most important shipping routes. 'In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water,' he said, later vowing to get the passage 'open, safe and free', 'one way or another'. It comes amid intense criticism from Trump over the UK's response to the conflict, including a delay in allowing the US to use British military bases, and hitting out at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, saying he is 'no Winston Churchill'. In response to the President's comments today, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'As we've said previously, we are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region.' Donald Trump has asked for Britain's help to save the Strait of Hormuz from closure in a new social media post HMS Dragon sets sail from Portsmouth Harbour on March 10, 2026 The US President's new post asking other nations for help in opening the Strait of Hormuz suggests Iran has been successful in closing the passage Trump's call to arms comes as an ex-admiral warned that risks are 'too great' for the UK to consider getting involved in escorting tankers through the strait. Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, who navigated and captained British warships in the region in the 1980s and 1990s, told the Times: 'You have a threat in the air environment, a threat in the surface environment and a threat in the sub-surface environment. It is an incredibly challenging operating environment.' 'I think thats why youre hearing people saying we hope to escort the tankers shortly, because its probably too high a threat at the moment and the risks are too great,' he added. Meanwhile, Britain's HMS Dragon was only just deployed on Tuesday and has spent the last three days 'bobbing around in the Channel' after being sent to defend the nation's forces from Iranian drone attacks in Cyprus. And the 1billion Type-45 destroyer only departed from UK waters yesterday, despite having been deployed several days earlier amid mounting criticism over Britain's slow response to the conflict. After leaving the harbour, the warship switched off its transporter - a system which broadcasts a vessel's position - meaning its movements could no longer be publicly monitored. HMS Dragon had also been scheduled to stop at Plymouth for a crew change, but those plans were reportedly abandoned as pressure mounted to get the vessel to the east of the Mediterranean. And despite previous rebukes to the US-Israel's attacks on Iran, Sir Keir Starmer ordered HMS Dragon's departure after RAF Akrotiri, in Cyprus, was struck by an enemy drone on March 1. And while the Royal Navy vessel, which is heading to the Mediterranean Sea, is equipped with the country's best air defence missiles and can launch several interceptor missiles at once, he continues to be criticised for his slow response. HMS Dragon should have been ready to sail at 72 hours' notice. It was docked and undergoing welding work before being thrust back into service by the Royal Navy. Navy sources have since insisted 'they did six weeks' work in six days' to get her ready to sail to the Mediterranean; however, this explanation has done little to quieten critics. In Cyprus, Britain has become a laughing stock among locals, with one giggling when asked about the UK's course of action, quipping: 'What response? There was no response.' Nicholas Andreo, 35, an engineer from Sakak near RAF Akrotiri, added: 'There was a response from France, from Greece, from Italy.' Told that HMS Dragon had only just left British waters on Friday, Mr Andreo asked pointedly: 'So the ship is still coming? Who is going to protect the ship - not Britain. Your browser does not support iframes. 'It is frustrating. What's happening now is happening because of your base. Cyprus is in danger because of the English base. But the people who own the base? They are not even here. 'I think Britain now is lost. The whole country is a mess. You know, I think maybe 10 years ago maybe things were different. 'But now the government has many problems, internal and external, and now your mess is coming to Cyprus. Because of the British, and because of Trump,' he sniped. 'It is embarrassing.' Shopkeeper Andreas Kyriacou, 80, said the Cypriot government had made a mistake allowing 'so many' helicopters, aeroplanes and ships to come to the island. 'We don't have a problem here, the problems are outside Cyprus but now people do not come,' he said. 'Britain has a responsibility, it is their bases that brought this, and now they must explain. 'They send one big, big ship - we don't want it here. It only brings problems. Why would anyone attack us without these bases? This war is very damaging. 'The people are afraid and do not know what is going to happen, the prices are going up because of it all, the tourists have stopped coming.' Petros Pavlou, 87, who is from Asomatos and works near the RAF base as an electrician, said: 'We know your friendship. England has supported us every time. We remember 1955 to 1959, how Britain supported the Cypriots against Turkey. 'The base gave us security, and it gives people jobs. But if the base was not here, we would not have had this attack. Now I think more people think that, sadly after your response.' A Cypriot living in Akrotiri who gave his name as Andreas, 33, said: 'The locals here have problems with the British. 'The British don't know how to act anymore. They don't know what game they are going to play with us now.' A fire broke out in Fujairah - one of the largest oil facilities in the Middle East - after it was struck by debris from an intercepted Iranian drone A missile hit the US embassy in Baghdad today as plumes of smoke were seen billowing over the skies of the Iraqi city Donald Trump previously boasted that he 'totally obliterated' Iraq and said the US had hit all military targets on Kharg Island Marios, who lives with his wife and two children near the base, said: 'For us living by this base, this is the first time we are afraid. 'Now we are only safe because we have Greece and Spain and other countries here. Britain is sending its one ship. 'I think we need more safety from England, it is their base here,' he added. 'It is quite late.' Elsewhere, HMS Prince of Wales was recently upgraded to advanced readiness, amid the ongoing criticism of Britain's military response to the conflict in the Middle East. This means the crew of the 3billion ship, currently undergoing repairs in Portsmouth, must be ready to sail with five days' notice. HMS Prince of Wales could also require a French escort to the Middle East if there are not enough British military vessels to do the job. Crew members have reportedly been alerted to a potential mission, but with most of the Royal Navy's warships unavailable or broken, allies such as France, the US and other European nations may be called upon to take their place. An aircraft carrier usually needs to be accompanied by two or three warships, either destroyers or frigates, and an attack submarine - although it's understood no decision has been taken over whether to deploy the carrier, or whether it would be escorted. The Royal Navy has six destroyers in total, but only one, HMS Dragon, is already on its way to protect the British sovereign base in Cyprus. And of the fleets seven frigates, only HMS Somerset and HMS St Albans are understood to be available, with the rest needing maintenance or problems to be fixed. Your browser does not support iframes. James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, told The Telegraph: 'Labours talk of putting a carrier on greater readiness is a distraction from the real question: why didnt Starmer plan properly and move naval assets weeks ago, when a major US operation was clearly coming? 'The truth is Labour have prioritised welfare over defence, leaving an under-funded Ministry of Defence forced to make 2.6bn in cuts this year. 'Thats why there are no Royal Navy warships in the Middle East and why even if a carrier were deployed, there would be serious questions about escort ships.' The US President has also been one of the UK's greatest critics in recent weeks, with Trump hitting out at the Government for not joining its initial strikes or allowing the use of British air bases. Since then, the UK has allowed America to make use of British military bases for defensive operations. Trump also lambasted Sir Keir Starmer over the delay, saying he is 'no Winston Churchill'. The US President delivered a withering verdict on the Prime Minister as he continued to fume at Sir Keir for failing to back US and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier this month. In comments that immediately plunged the so-called 'special relationship' into an unprecedented crisis, Mr Trump declared that he was 'not happy' with the PM and accused him of being 'very, very uncooperative'. Speaking in the White House, the US President hit out again at Sir Keir's initial decision to block the US using British bases to launch attacks on Tehran. In an apparent reference to Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, the US President said: 'That island It's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there. 'It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours, so we are very surprised.' Referring to Britain's war-time PM, a bust of whom sits in the Oval Office, Mr Trump added: 'This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.' The US President went on to criticise the UK's approach to the 'stupid island' as he issued a fresh blast at Sir Keir's bid to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. 'This is not the age of Churchill. I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have, that they gave away and took a 100-year lease,' he told reporters in the Oval Office, as he sat alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 'Having to do with, perhaps, indigenous people claiming the island that never even saw the island before. What's that all about? They ruin relationships, it's a shame.' It came weeks after the President sparked outrage in Europe after making baseless claims that NATO troops remained behind the front lines in Afghanistan. Your browser does not support iframes. Today, a missile has struck a helipad inside the US Embassy in Baghdad, with plumes of smoke seen above in the skies of the Iraqi capital. It comes after Trump said on Truth Social that the US had 'totally obliterated' all military targets in 'Iran's crown jewel', Kharg Island. The US President also vowed to 'wipe out' oil infrastructure on the island if Iran continued its attacks on vessels on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran retaliated by striking a major oil hub in the UAE, with clouds of black smoke seen billowing into the skies above the port of Fujairah following a drone attack. Former Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki also threatened to 'capture' US forces if they make an attempt to seize oil infrastructure in Kharg Island. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also warned that US 'hideouts' in the UAE are 'legitimate' targets after Trump attacked the major export terminal. Activists have launched a mass shoplifting spree across the UK today, targeting Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons stores in several cities as they aim to 'liberate' produce. Take Back Power, whose stated aim is to 'tax the rich to fix Britain', shared footage of activists stealing products from a Morrison's store in Exeter on Saturday morning, saying they planned on taking on stores in the capital later in the day. The anti-capitalist group wrote on social media: 'All the food we liberated this morning was delivered to food bank donation points, to go to the people who need it most. 'The CEO of Sainsbury's pays himself 239 times that of an ordinary full time employee in his company. 'The super rich don't need a "magic money tree" when they freely pick the pockets of working people every single day. It's theft. Nothing more, nothing less.' The group said they had 'redistributed food from supermarkets to local foodbanks across the country' today, beginning at around 8.30am and targeting supermarkets in Manchester, London, Exeter and Truro. Although the group said activists were confronted by security staff in Exeter and London, they state on their website that no arrests have been made yet. When the Daily Mail contacted police, they said officers in London found that activists had paid for the food, so no offences had been committed. The group told the Daily Mail this was not true. Activists took items from the shelves and put them in boxes labelled 'Take Back Power' The items taken from major UK supermarkets were not paid for by the activists, who said they were 'redistributing' produce The group states that the aim is to 'tax the rich to fix Britain'. They have previously been behind stunts at the Ritz and even the Crown Jewels The group tackled Manchester, London, Exeter and Truro, taking the goods and giving them to foodbanks as donations One man managed to load up a trolley full of goods. No arrests have yet been made, the Daily Mail understands A video posted by the group to social media had mixed responses, with some calling the protest 'stealing' while others praised the group. One person commented: 'So essentially stealing then - yes this is exactly what it is.' Another wrote: 'On the one hand, fully agree that resources should be provided to those who need them, but filming employees and trying to get them on board is risking their jobs and therefore their access to resources. 'It's a neat publicity stunt with a valid message but you gotta leave the employees out of it. They're not corporate.' The group had announced their plans to 'paralyse' the capital back in January. They had previously made headlines with high-profile stunts including pouring manure onto the floor of The Ritz hotel in Mayfair and smearing custard on a case containing the Crown Jewels. Organisers of the group told an open launch event attended by the Daily Mail that activists would 'take over' high-end stores and raid food stores as part of a week of action in April. Co-founder Arthur Clifton, 25, told more than 140 would-be activists who attended the launch the plans were part of a long-term aim for the 'mass-mobilisation' of 10,000 supporters he hoped would carry out acts of 'civil disobedience' at the 2029 election. The group began its campaign of Robin Hood-style actions today. Join the discussion Is taking from supermarkets to help the needy ever justified, or does it cross a moral line? Take Back Power's previous stunts include pouring custard over the Crown Jewels last year Your browser does not support iframes. Privately-educated Mr Clifton, who attended Latymer Upper School where fees are 30,000 per year, said up to 100 activists at a time plan to enter food stores such as Marks and Spencer in the capital and 'strip the shelves'. Mr Clifton has also previously been convicted for his role in protests with Just Stop Oil. Britain is in the midst of a 'theft epidemic' as police faced a record 810 shoplifting crimes a day last year. Police closed 295,589 shoplifting cases without identifying a suspect in the year 2024-25 - the equivalent of officers shelving 34 offences an hour. Shoplifting levels have doubled since the pandemic and rocketed by 20 per cent since Labour came into power. The analysis, produced for the Liberal Democrats, revealed that a record number of cases are also being dropped by police. The number of shoplifting investigations being closed without a suspect identified has soared by 65 per cent compared to five years ago, when 178,906 shoplifting offences went unsolved. Last year, fewer than one in five (19 per cent) shoplifting cases led to a suspect being charged or summoned, while 55 per cent of cases were closed without a suspect being identified. And separate Office for National Statistics figures show that between April 2024 and March 2025, police recorded 530,643 shoplifting offences - the equivalent of one a minute. What is driving hundreds of thousands of foreign students to South Korea? Open policies, strong academic opportunities and promising career prospects are drawing a record number of foreign students to South Korea, led by Vietnamese nationals. According to data released by the Ministry of Justice of South Korea, the number of people holding D-2 (degree-seeking) and D-4 (language training) visas reached 305,807 as of Jan. 31. Vietnamese students accounted for the largest share, with 115,939 people, or 37.9% of the total, followed by Chinese nationals at 25.2%, according to the Korea Times. South Korea attracted more than 305,000 international students by August last year, surpassing its 2027 target and marking a 16% increase compared with 2024. Vietnamese students led the influx with 107,807 enrollments, followed by 86,179 from China. It was the first time the number of international students in South Korean universities and language institutes exceeded 300,000, allowing the country to reach its ambitious target two years ahead of schedule, according to data from the Korea Immigration Service cited by the Korea JoongAng Daily. According to the Korean Ministry of Justice's Survey on the Residence and Employment Status of Migrants released last December, Vietnamese students mainly pursue studies in language and social sciences, with about 61% funding their education independently. Around 79% of respondents said they plan to remain in South Korea after graduation, including 38% who intend to work, while the rest plan to continue their studies. Policy incentives and easier visas Experts attribute the surge partly to government and university policies designed to attract international students, along with South Korea's geographic proximity to Vietnam. Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of Alpha Study Abroad Center, said one of the biggest drivers has been the pilot D2 Metropolitan Visa policy, which allows students in 10 major Korean cities to apply for visas directly through immigration offices instead of the Korean Embassy. Under the policy, international students can work up to 30 hours per week, five hours more than previously allowed, while financial proof requirements have been halved from 16-20 million won (US$10,800-13,500). Students are also permitted to take internships during the academic term and receive support for employment and settlement after graduation. Thuy Linh, a consultant at Sunny Study Abroad, said the number of Vietnamese students obtaining D2 visas has increased noticeably over the past year. Professor Truong Nguyen Tam Nguyen of Yeungnam University said Korean universities are also paying greater attention to Vietnamese students, offering more scholarships and opening representative offices in Vietnam. Scholarships and academic opportunities Many universities have expanded and relaxed scholarship requirements. Undergraduate students can now apply for scholarships with a level 2 certificate in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) instead of the previously required level 3. Universities such as Konkuk University and Kyung Hee University offer tuition reductions of 30-100% for the first semester to students with high TOPIK scores, typically level 4 or above. At the postgraduate level, generous scholarship programs have long been available, including the Global Korea Scholarship. In addition, professors at Korean universities often recruit students directly from Vietnamese institutions such as Hanoi University of Science and Technology and the University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University. These students may receive tuition waivers, stipends, and living allowances for study and research. Regional scholarships outside Seoul are also available at universities such as Daegu University and Yeungnam University. Corporate scholarships are offered by major companies including Samsung, Hyundai, and POSCO. To attract international students, many universities are expanding English-taught programs, particularly in STEM fields. Affordability and career prospects Another advantage for Vietnamese students is relatively affordable tuition compared with universities in Europe, the United States, and Australia. Annual tuition ranges from about VND85 million to VND200 million ($3,230-7,600), not significantly higher than high-quality programs in Vietnam while still offering international degrees and overseas experience. South Korea is also known for strong education quality in fields such as technology, mechanical engineering, languages, beauty, nursing, and design. After graduation, students may stay to seek employment or return to Vietnam to work for Korean-invested companies and projects. South Korea is currently Vietnam's largest foreign investor, with total registered capital reaching $94 billion as of November last year. Cultural appeal and student experiences Convenient geographic proximity and a large Vietnamese community are also important factors attracting students. Tran Huu Tri, head of the Department of Vietnamese Language and Culture at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University Hanoi, said South Korea's appeal also lies in its blend of modernity and traditional East Asian culture, which Vietnamese youth encounter through movies and music. Students attend a career orientation event at Korea University in March 2026. Photo from the university's Facebook page Hoang Uyen, 25, is among those choosing South Korea for these reasons. She recently began a Korean language program at Chung-Ang University in Seoul before starting a master's degree in international logistics. Previously employed at a Korean electronics company, she said her experience working with Korean colleagues and her long-time interest in K-pop influenced her decision to study there. Uyen believes South Korea's strong logistics sector and practice-oriented programs align with her long-term goal of earning a PhD and returning to Vietnam to teach. Meanwhile, 20-year-old Huyen Trang chose vocational training at a college in Seoul due to her passion for beauty and Korean aesthetics inspired by films and television. She hopes the practical skills gained in what she calls the "makeup capital of the world" will help her start a business after returning home. Challenges and warnings Despite the growing opportunities, Linh cautioned students to strictly follow employment regulations. Beginning in July 2025, international students who violate work rules, such as exceeding permitted hours or working without proper registration, may face a permanent ban on part-time work registration. Previously, they could reapply after one year. Thanh emphasized that students must prepare for independent living and ensure solid financial planning. "Students need to clearly define what they want to study, why they are studying, and whether they plan to stay or return. Part-time work should not be treated as the main job," he said. A former Labour minister who was famously confronted by Joanna Lumley live on television has died from brain cancer aged 66. Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led tributes today to Phil Woolas who passed away on Saturday after a brave battle against the disease. The former Oldham East and Saddleworth MP served as a minister under both the Blair and Brown governments. And today, Sir Tony hailed him as a 'greatly respected and admired colleague'. Mr Brown said: 'Phil Woolas was a brilliant MP, a highly-effective minister and a very generous and popular friend who fought a brave struggle against an incurable cancer and will be sorely missed.' It was then as Immigration Minister in 2009 that he was confronted live on television by national treasure Ms Lumley over plans by the Brown government to restrict the rights of retired Gurkhas to settle in the UK. At the time, Ms Lumley was spearheading the Gurkhas Justice Campaign fighting the Government's plans. Former Labour minister Phil Woolas (pictured) passed away on Saturday after a brave battle against brain cancer When serving as Immigration Minister in 2009, Mr Woolas (right) was famously confronted by Joanna Lumley (left) on television over plans by the Brown government to restrict the rights of retired Gurkhas to settle in the UK But after the confrontation, she declared: 'I have met Mr Woolas now and I am reassured again - because I know we are going to assist Mr Woolas in making the strongest guidelines possible.' First elected in the Blair landslide of 1997, former NUS president and TV producer Mr Woolas represented his Oldham seat for 13 years. He won the seat again at the 2010 general election but in extraordinary legal battle, a rarely-convened election court ruled that he had lied about his Liberal Democrat opponent and his victory was declared void. Mr Woolas admitted one of his election leaflets had 'sailed very close to the wind' but insisted he did not believe he misled anyone. A statement attributed to his family and close friends announcing his death yesterday said that he had 'battled the brain cancer, glioblastoma'. It read: 'Phil Woolas, former Labour MP and minister, has died aged 66. 'For more than a year he battled the brain cancer, glioblastoma. 'He leaves his wife Tracey, his sons Josh and Jed and a new grandson, and many friends and former colleagues who will all miss him greatly. 'Before entering Parliament, Phil was NUS president, TV producer and GMB union communications director. 'He served as MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth from 1997 to 2010, and a minister in both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments - appointed successively: whip, deputy leader of the Commons, local government minister, environment minister and immigration minister.' After his political career finished, in 2011 he set up and ran his own political and risk consultancy. His family added that for over 25 years, he was chair of the Oldham charity The Ace Centre which helps people with communication difficulties. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle also paid tribute to Mr Woolas and sent condolences to his family. The Alexander brothers are facing a fresh blow following their convictions for sex trafficking as a bank looks to foreclose on two of their sprawling Miami mansions. Twin brothers Oren and Alon and their younger brother Tal face up to life in prison after being found guilty earlier this month in a wide-ranging sex trafficking conspiracy dating back more than a decade. Their family's misery could be compounded even further by lawsuits filed by the City National Bank over allegedly unpaid loans tied to two waterfront Miami Beach homes. The Florida properties being foreclosed on are 1611 West 24th Street on the Sunset Islands, currently worth an estimated $14 million, and 2687 Flamingo Drive, estimated to be worth around $12 million. The bank filed the complaints ahead of the brothers' federal trial, according to the Real Deal. The foreclosure lawsuits allege that the Alexander family failed to pay off loans for the mansions by the agreed date of July 31, 2025, after entering into a forbearance agreement in February that year. The family claimed in court documents that the loans were paid. The forbearance agreement reportedly saw the brothers' parents, property developers Shlomy and Orly, agree to financing tied to the two Miami homes plus a 30-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado. Sources told the Real Deal that the family is looking to sell the two Florida properties in the 'high $30 million range', to satisfy mounting debts as their business empire crumbles. Alon Alexander (left) and his brothers, Tal (center) and Oren (right), were convicted earlier this month in a wide-ranging sex trafficking conspiracy dating back more than a decade The Alexander family is reportedly looking to sell two Miami Beach properties, seen in aerial views, for over $30 million, as a bank files foreclosure lawsuits against them The loans for the properties were issued in 2022, when City National Bank provided a $15 million construction loan for the Aspen ranch. The bank also issued a $7.5 million loan for the home on Flamingo Drive and a $7.3 million loan for the property on Sunset Islands, the Real Deal reported. The Alexander family argued in court filings that they did pay off the loans in June 2025 and claimed they submitted wire payments to City National Bank. Attorney for the bank, Alan Grunspan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail also reached out to representatives for the Alexander family but did not immediately hear back. The home on Sunset Islands was bought by a company managed by Oren and Tal in 2021 for $9.8 million, and was listed for rent last year for a staggering $55,000-per-month. Meanwhile, the home on Flamingo Drive was reportedly Tal's personal home, and renovations were recently completed by his father Shlomy's development firm, Alexander Group. While no foreclosure lawsuits have been filed against the Aspen ranch, records show the property had three liens totaling over $240,000 filed in November, related to allegedly unpaid invoices for construction work. Tal Alexander (front, blue shorts) and identical twins Oren and Alon (back row) faced 10 counts relating to federal sex trafficking, and were convicted on all counts The brothers' parents Shlomy and Orly (seen in 2024) supported them throughout their trial Tal and Oren were once known as the 'A Team' in luxury real estate circles, selling multi-million dollar homes to the rich and famous. Alon was a trained attorney and ran their family's private security company After the brothers were arrested and detained in Brooklyn last year, Oren was the first of the brothers to sell part of his real estate portfolio, offloading a waterfront home also in Sunset Islands for $51.5 million. Following their conviction on ten counts for sex trafficking conspiracy earlier this month, the brothers face up to life in prison, and will be sentenced on August 6. Alon and Oren still face three rape charges in Florida which they deny. The brothers are set to be sentenced in August, after which they are expected to be extradited to Florida to face trial in the state. The brothers were supported throughout their federal trial by their parents Shlomy and Orly, as well as Alon Alexander's fashion model wife Shani Zigron. Moments after they were found guilty on all counts, exclusive Daily Mail images showed Zigron bursting into tears in the streets of Manhattan. The former Victoria's Secret model was seen wiping tears from her face and gesturing in disbelief as a family friend tried to console her. The 30-year-old model - who shares two young daughters with Alon - was a near-constant presence throughout the trial. She often sat in the gallery behind her husband as accusers detailed the harrowing allegations of sexual abuse against him and his brothers. Zigron had seemed convinced of his innocence, shaking her head during numerous portions of victim testimony. In a diary she carried to court, in hollow, child-like bubble letters, she had written: 'Alon coming home now.' Reporters in the courtroom said the brothers looked 'shell shocked' when the verdict was read. They were escorted back to their cells in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Center, a jail where they were housed along with notable inmates including Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Sam Bankman-Fried and former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Alon Alexander's wife, Shani Zigron, 30, was pictured in floods of tears in the street shortly after her husband and two of his brothers were found guilty on sex trafficking charges Zigron, a fashion model married Alon Alexander in 2020. They share two young daughters Oren Alexander's wife, Kamila Hansen, appeared in court a handful of times throughout the trial The brothers' lawyers vowed to appeal the verdict. Speaking to reporters, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said: 'We believe in our clients' innocence and we're not going to stop fighting until we prevail - and we believe that we will one day prevail.' Exiting from the other side of the building, the Alexander family's loved ones already appeared defeated - a marked departure from the confidence they had displayed through much of the trial. Noticeably absent from the court was Oren's wife, Brazilian model Kamila Hansen, who appeared in the weeks prior only a handful of times, never staying for the full day. Tal and Oren were once known as the 'A Team' in luxury real estate circles, selling multi-million dollar homes to the rich, famous and powerful in New York and Miami, with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner among their clientele. Alon, meanwhile, was a trained attorney and ran their family's private security company. Their high-flying, hard-partying lifestyles came crashing down in December 2024, when they were arrested by federal prosecutors and accused of using their wealth, status and access to lure women into their opulent world and abuse them. A woman has been arrested for murder after an 18-day-old baby girl fell from a residential property. Police attended a house on Horseferry Road in Westminster, London, following reports that a baby had fallen from a height. The baby - aged just 18 days old - was taken to hospital, where she was sadly pronounced dead. A 43-year-old woman was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder. She was taken into police custody, where she remains. Detective Chief Inspector Alison Foxwell, who is leading the Met's investigation, said: 'Our thoughts today are with the babys family. 'The death of an infant is always an extremely tragic occurrence, and officers are making urgent enquiries around the circumstances. 'At this stage, we believe the incident occurred within a domestic context, but we are appealing for anybody with information to come forward.' Police urged any witnesses to call 101, quoting reference 1596/14MAR. Police stand guard beside a cordon in Horseferry Road in Westminster, London, following reports that a baby had fallen from a height - a woman was arrested on suspicion of murder A forensic investigator was seen working at the window of a property today following the tragic death of an 18-day-old baby girl. The infant died after falling from a height This forensic officer was pictured at the scene near the junction of Great Peter Street and Horseferry Road in Westminster The police cordon covered most of Great Peter Street, which is just off Horseferry Road, on Saturday evening. An officer in a blue forensics suit was seen in a grey van parked partway down the road, which was closed to traffic. Passers-by were diverted around the taped cordon. Two forensics officers could be seen working in a third floor flat in the Peabody Estate. A spokesperson for the London Ambulance Service said the baby was treated at the scene before being taken to a major trauma centre. The grieving mother of a British graduate tragically shot dead by her own father while visiting his Texas home has called on US detectives to reopen the case amid fears the original investigation was 'not good enough'. Jane Coates, 49, from Warrington, Cheshire, believes there are lingering questions over the death of her only child, Lucy, who was fatally shot through the heart just hours before she was due to fly home on January 10, 2025. According to Jane's ex-husband, Kris Harrison, the 23-year-old fashion buyer had asked to see his Glock 9mm pistol, which he had not been trained to use, when it 'just went off' as he removed the weapon from its case. Lucy had been on a post-Christmas break in Prosper, Collin County, accompanied by her boyfriend, Sam Littler, when the tragedy occurred. Police records show that officers were swift to deem her death as accidental, although they did subsequently open an investigation into a potential charge of criminally negligent homicide. The charge is defined in Texan law as a person who 'intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual'. A grand jury, comprising 12 civilians, were asked to review the police evidence at a court in Collin County last June to determine if anyone should face a criminal trial, but no charges were brought against Harrison. Ms Coates described the decision at the time as 'baffling' and 'beyond comprehension'. The grieving mother of Lucy Harrison, who was shot by her own father, has called on US detectives to reopen the case amid fears the original investigation was 'not good enough' Jane Coates, pictured with her daughter's boyfriend Sam Littler, believes there are lingering questions over the death of Lucy, who was fatally shot through the heart just hours before she was due to fly home in January 2025 Kris Harrison said his daughter had asked to see his Glock 9mm pistol, which he had not been trained to use, when it 'just went off' as he removed the weapon from its case But last month that determination was called into question after an inquest at Cheshire Coroner's Court concluded Lucy was unlawfully killed by 'reckless' Mr Harrison. The court heard that the 'functioning alcoholic' had drunk at least 500ml of wine before deliberately aiming the gun at Lucy's chest, unaware it was loaded. Senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish went on to add that the actions of Mr Harrison, an executive at a fibre optics company who had remarried and settled in Texas, had been 'reprehensible'. She highlighted how police in Texas had failed to test Mr Harrison for alcohol despite suspecting he had been drinking after smelling it on his breath - and said that under English law his actions would have amounted to gross negligence manslaughter. Now ahead of facing a second Mother's Day without Lucy, Ms Coates has called on police to reopen the investigation, claiming they failed to properly investigate the circumstances surrounding her daughter's death, or probe the inconsistencies in her ex-husband's account. While she does not believe he intended to kill their daughter, she feels there could still be a case to answer over his actions and consumption of alcohol that fateful day. At the inquest in Warrington last month, the court heard how Mr Harrison had been drinking on the morning of the tragedy and that the pair had argued about US President Donald Trump. Ms Harrison was 'categorically anti-gun' and felt it was unsafe for her father to have a firearm in the house with his two young daughters around, the inquest heard. Giving evidence, her boyfriend said he 'always felt on edge' at the house, he added, saying: 'There was a lot of very opinionated people in the house.' As they prepared to set off for the airport, he said Mr Harrison took his daughter by the hand in a 'mysterious' manner without saying anything. He then guided her into the downstairs bedroom where the gun was kept in a locked case. Within 15 seconds, Mr Littler heard a 'loud bang' from the bedroom and found his girlfriend collapsed on the floor. He insisted she would not have been interested in seeing her father's gun. In his own witness statement read to the court, Mr Harrison - who did not attend the inquest - claimed Lucy daughter agreed to let him show her the weapon after they had watched a television news report about gun crime. He said he bought the handgun as a 'home defence' weapon, meaning he did not need a licence as long as he did not take it out in public. He had 'no prior experience and no formal training' around firearms, he said. Mr Harrison suffered an 'alcoholic seizure' in 2023 which left him in an induced coma, the inquest was told. Lucy had been in on a post-Christmas break at her father's home in Prosper, Collin County, accompanied by her boyfriend, Sam Littler, when the tragedy occurred He had drunk a 500ml carton of white wine that morning, but did not believe he was impaired by alcohol when his daughter was shot shortly before 3pm. 'As I lifted the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang,' he said in his statement. 'Lucy immediately fell to the ground.' Police bodycam footage showed Mr Harrison saying the gun 'just went off'. 'We were getting ready to go to the airport and we were talking about guns,' he tells the officer as a shocked-looking Mr Littler stands with his hands behind the back of his neck. 'It was in the bedside cabinet in a locked box. I took it out to look and it just went off.' In a statement read to the hearing, Officer Luciano Escalera, who was scrambled to the house, said he smelt 'metabolised alcohol' on Mr Harrison's breath at which he initially lied, saying he hadn't drunk alcohol since the day before. But he then confessed to having drunk a 'small' carton of wine earlier in the day. Despite his concerns, the police officer did not breathalyse Mr Harrison at the scene or afterwards. Lucy's body however was subjected to testing for alcohol, drugs and prescription medication, all with negative results. It is a contradiction that her mother said has been hurtful to the family as they continue to seek answers. In an interview with The Times, Coates said: 'We just couldn't understand how, given by Kris's own admission he [had issues with] alcohol, and alcohol had been smelt on his breath, why a blood alcohol concentration test wasn't given at that time. 'We will never know actually how much Kris drank that morning as absolute evidence and I just think that's not good enough.' Ms Coates believes the police may have drawn different conclusions about the case had they known exactly how much alcohol her ex-husband had consumed at the time of the gun being fired. She is emboldened by the findings of the coroner that it could be possible to reopen the case - however legal experts believe the likelihood of another investigation after a grand jury has already dismissed the case remains 'extremely rare'. When asked how she feels about her ex-husband, Ms Coates described the tragedy as a string between them that had been 'cut' and that it was 'very hard to feel anything'. She added: 'The person I want in my mind and in my heart is Lucy.' Mr Harrison, pictured with Lucy, revealed he had drunk a 500ml carton of white wine that morning, but did not believe he was impaired by alcohol when his daughter was shot at 3pm Ms Coates previously shared similar sentiments when she revealed she would not let 'bitterness and hatred' consume her. She said at last month's inquest: 'Lucy had so much more of life to live, to love, to give. She had a huge sense of right and wrong, and was not afraid to speak out if she saw any type of injustice. 'Those who really know Lucys heart can hear her, loud and clear, and know exactly what she would want us to do moving forward. 'Make change. Do better. Be better.' Tucked away on the outskirts of Edinburgh, a short drive from the citys airport, it is an unassuming flat, like countless others across Scotland. However, plans to turn the nondescript property into tourist accommodation have seen it dragged it into an absurd argument as a result of the SNPs Net Zero obsession. The Scottish Government has refused permission to turn the flat in the Cammo area into accommodation for overseas visitors partly over fears that it will add to climate change. Officials argue that making apartments available for hire may encourage tourists to travel long distances to Scotland. It is further claimed that washing the bedsheets plus the extra cleaning involved could also add to the nations carbon footprint. The decision is rooted in 2023 planning rules introduced by SNP ministers which state: When considering all development proposals, significant weight will be given to the global climate and nature crises. But the precedent the latest ruling sets could have consequences for tourism across Scotland. Lawyer Ross Armstrong, of planning consultant STL Solutions, fears landlords may soon have to fork out for environmental impact assessments, listing where guests come from, what temperature linen is washed at and even what fuel a cleaners van uses. He said: There are 31,000 jobs in Edinburgh supported by tourism. The Edinburgh flat (top left) is at the centre of a bizarre row over climate change If tourists cant get accommodation because the price has skyrocketed, they will go elsewhere. Tourism is not good for the environment and hasnt been for 50 years when it involves people getting on jet aircraft. So I dont know what the government wants as VisitScotland is absolutely desperate to promote Scottish tourism while the planning system seems extremely reluctant to allow businesses to continue. This could become trial by bureaucracy [for property owners]. Those in rural areas will struggle more to justify the environmental impacts. The 200,000 two-bedroom flat at the centre of the row is in a three-storey block in the western part of the Capital. Owner Stuart Gilgannon, 43, was raised in Cammo but is now a lawyer in the US. He bought the apartment as a pied-a-terre for annual trips to visit family with his wife and two teenage sons. To cover the mortgage, he has a licence to rent it to others on holiday and business but Edinburgh has since declared a housing emergency, forcing him to apply for retrospective planning permission to take in guests. The city council wants as much private stock as possible to remain in the residential market so rejected Mr Gilgannons bid. When he took his case to the Scottish Government, its planning and appeals division upheld the decision and then went further claiming every additional unit of tourist accommodation might have an effect on the planet. Last months ruling states: The proposed use would attract visitors to the property from elsewhere, some of whom may have travelled a considerable distance. The implications of laundry and cleaning activities would also need to be taken into account. To make any realistic comparison between the likely contribution of the proposed use to the climate and nature crises and that of the propertys lawful use as a permanent home, far more information would be required than the applicant has provided. Mr Gilgannon said: Its hard to imagine any way round it. If this is the end of the road, Ill have to possibly sell it. Tourism is worth 14 billion a year to the Scottish economy, with Edinburghs Festival and Fringe contributing 1 billion alone. Foreign students fly into Edinburgh to visit attractions such as Edinburgh Castle But performers and visitors have complained of a lack of affordable accommodation in the city. The SNP has tied Scotland into reaching Net Zero in 2045, five years ahead of the rest of the UK. Fiona Campbell, chief executive of the Association of Scotlands Self-Caterers, said: No one disputes that climate change must be taken seriously, but suggesting the occasional letting of a small flat requires analysis of travel or laundry emissions pushes planning policy into the realm of the absurd. Edinburgh City Council wouldnt comment on the appeal. A Scottish Government spokesman said: Any environmental effects from short-term letting were not a significant factor in this appeal decision. This decision does not imply any reduction in our support for the tourism sector. A mother and father whose baby died at a scandal-hit hospital say they feel vindicated after a senior NHS official they claim offered them a 20,000 bribe quit her high-profile quango job. Theresa and Matthew Smiths daughter Sophia died in 2017 after contracting an infection at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow. Last month the couple claimed that, when they raised concerns about their babys death, Fiona McQueen who was Scotlands Chief Nursing Officer at the time but later became chair of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) offered them cash and to arrange a holiday for them and their other children and give them an ice cream to cheer them up. Less than a month after the parents sensational accusation in The Scottish Mail on Sunday, Ms McQueen announced she was stepping down from her new role. Last night Mrs Smith welcomed her decision. She said: Because of the way our family was treated, I believe Fiona McQueen is not fit for public office. No apology, no resignation, and certainly no bribe could ever make up for the loss of a child. Theresa and Mathew Smith 's daughter Sophia died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2017 Although it was hailed as a superhospital when it opened in 2015, the QEUH is subject to an ongoing public inquiry looking at high levels of infection and the death of patients. In January, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde admitted after years of denials that contaminated water had probably caused serious infections in young cancer patients. Sophia was born in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley but was transferred to the Royal Hospital for Children at the QEUH campus, due to breathing problems. However, she then contracted a rare bloodstream infection which developed into sepsis. She died in April 2017, less than a fortnight after she was born. After Mr and Mrs Smith raised concerns about their daughters care, they say they were phoned by Ms McQueen. Mrs Smith, 45, said: She apologised and said she was going to have to ask me to go through what happened to Sophia. I poured my heart out to her. She then asked if we were litigation-minded and started saying things about how a babys life is worth less than an adult, because an adult has a job, a mortgage, a spouse and children She said if you did go the litigation route, youd only get up to and kept emphasising up to 20,000. I said we didnt want money. She said Yeah, but you know, we could help you, well organise for you to take the kids on a nice holiday and 20,000. They can have some ice cream, and that will cheer them up. The Smiths later emailed Ms McQueen saying: We feel that this was inappropriate to discuss such things with us. In response, Ms McQueen apologised and said: I have clearly misjudged our conversation; with the issue of money being put in the context of you indicating that you wanted answers and were not minded to take forwards litigation. Ms McQueen retired as Chief Nursing Officer in 2021 but was appointed as chair of the SPA last year. Fiona McQueen stepped down from her role at the Scottish Police Authority for 'personal reasons' Last week it announced she had stepped down with immediate effect for personal and family reasons. Mrs Smith said in her opinion Ms McQueens resignation is tantamount to an admission of guilt and shows the seriousness of the failures that occurred. I feel vindicated that we finally were able to speak out about what happened to us, to Sophia, and Fiona McQueen has now gone, she added. A spokesman for Ms McQueen has previously said she strongly refutes any suggestions that she offered the Smiths money or a holiday. Last night the SPA said it had nothing to add. Ms McQueen was approached for comment. The scandal over Scotlands superhospital deepened last night as it emerged health bosses want to build a replacement ward for seriously ill cancer patients after mould was found in the existing one. A fifth of the rooms in the bone marrow transplant (BMT) unit at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus in Glasgow have been shut at some point in the last six months due to water ingress and mould concerns. The most recent closures saw two rooms sealed off in February and another in March with experts brought in to investigate. On Thursday, it emerged a swab taken from one of the closed rooms has since developed mould. Despite concerns, First Minister John Swinney and SNP health secretary Neil Gray have repeatedly given assurances that the hospital is safe. The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is at the centre of a major infections scandal Now, it has emerged NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), which runs the 11-year-old 1billion hospital, will ask the Scottish Government for significant investment to build an entirely new BMT unit. The board said it is planning the move due to infrastructure defects and an increase in room closures in recent weeks. The current BMT unit is in ward 4B. It is not clear if the replacement will be there or elsewhere in the grounds of the QEUH. Families of 27 cancer patients who contracted rare infections have repeatedly questioned the hospitals safety - going as far as to write a letter urging Mr Swinney to act. Tony Dynes, 63, died at the QEUH in May 2021 after contracting two infections while being treated for lymphoma. His widow Maureen said that while she welcomed news that a new unit will be built, she remains concerned about patients still being treated at the QEUH. Mrs Dynes said: I hope that, given the previous difficulties with the current hospital, they will consult closely with the appropriate experts to ensure the building is truly fit for purpose. She added: However, I remain concerned about the safety of patients currently being treated in the hospital, particularly whether the ventilation and water systems are providing the safe and secure environment required for those in such an extremely vulnerable position. NHS GGC need to clearly state how long the new build will take, what precautions are in place to ensure the BMT unit is safe for patients, and what actions will be taken if it cannot be made safe including whether the unit would be closed if necessary. Andrew Slorance, who was a Scottish government official under Nicola Sturgeon, had gone into ward 4B in October 2020 for a stem cell transplant and chemotherapy after being diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma. Andrew Slorance died six weeks after being admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital The 49-year-old father-of-five died six weeks after being admitted to the hospital - with the official cause of death listed as Covid pneumonia. He had also contracted aspergillus - caused by breathing in spores of mould linked to soil and dust while in the QEUH. His wife Louise said: While it is too late for our loved ones, the new unit is welcome for all Scotlands patients that need it in the future. However, it is only one step of many that require to be taken to ensure patient safety at our flagship hospital going forward. Plans for the new unit come despite the fact the existing facility, which is part of the 1billion QEUH campus, has been open for little more than 10 years. The hospital is at the centre of a public inquiry after dozens of patients contracted bugs while being treated at the QEUH campus. NHS GGC is pursuing legal action against the main building contractor Multiplex for the flaws at the site, alleging that it did not receive what it asked or paid for. Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: SNP ministers and the health board have lost control of this situation. What message does it send to patients if a new BMT unit is needed after only 10 years. The cover ups and lack of transparency must end. The Health Secretary needs to tell us how much this will cost, how long it will take and crucially will it last longer than 10 years? SNP health secretary Neil Gray has repeatedly given assurances that the hospital is safe. Bone marrow transplant patients are among the most vulnerable patients in the NHS getting this right is as serious as it gets. In a statement NHS GGC said it has been clear that the ventilation system is not fully compliant but that it continues to apply ongoing risk mitigations to allow delivery of effective care in the unit. It added: Therefore, due to infrastructure defects and an associated increased number of room closures in recent weeks, we now feel it necessary to develop a proposal for a new unit which would be more resilient and fully compliant. It also said the project will take significant time and investment, and that it continues to assess and take actions as necessary to maintain this vital national service. Concerns have been raised over the future of Grace Tame's charity after it was revealed it has lost over $180,000 in two years, while internal tensions grow over her infamous 'globalise the intifada' protest speech. According to filings with the Australian Charities and Notforprofits Commission (ACNC), the Grace Tame Foundation recorded a $60,640 deficit in the 2025 financial year, after posting a $121,690 loss the previous year. The foundation's latest report said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe the company would be able to pay its debts, reporting total equity of $129,563. It comes just days after the former Australian of the Year announced that she had lost all speaking engagements for the rest of the year, blaming a 'smear campaign' against her. 'This is my last presentation of the year and it's only March,' Tame told audiences at the No to Violence conference in Hobart on Thursday. Daily Mail understands that Tame charged about $20,000 per corporate speaking event, as of 2023 - meaning she has lost a considerable source of revenue. The ACNC filings show the charitys main expenses in the last financial year were psychological support ($63,124), salaries and wages ($34,228), and recruitment costs ($26,760). Funds were also directed to staff training and welfare ($11,647), website expenses ($6,972) and survivor legal expenses ($17,000). Concerns have been raised over the future of Grace Tame's charity after it was revealed it has lost over $180,000 in two years, while internal tensions grow over her infamous 'globalise the intifada' protest speech Tame is currently listed as a volunteer board director for the charity, alongside Michael Salter, Michael Bradley (left), and Scarlett Franks Tame now says her livelihood has been 'completely destroyed' in the month since she shouted 'globalise the intifada' at a rally, protesting against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's state visit, outside Sydney's Town Hall in February. It was these actions that has caused some 'internal fallout' with some of the charity's board members, The Sunday Telegraph reported. 'I know of one board member who was particularly upset by her speech at the protest,' one source said. Another source said the aftermath of the protest, including a video of Tame insisting she would not be 'silenced', has caused further unease within the foundation. Tame is currently listed as a volunteer board director for the charity, alongside Michael Salter, Michael Bradley, and Scarlett Franks. Following the protest, Tame faced calls from a number of politicians and Jewish leaders to be stripped of her Australian of the Year honour. She was the subject of a petition, signed by more than 25,000 Australians, which called for authorities to charge her with '[alleged] criminal incitement to violence under existing Australian law'. On Friday, Tame claimed she had been the subject of a 'concerted smear campaign' by conservative politicians and media. Internal tensions are reportedly growing within the charity over her 'globalise the intifada' speech at a pro-Palestine protest in February The foundation's primary income was generated through general donations 'I do not support violence,' she wrote in a first-person piece for Crikey. 'I do not condone antisemitism, Islamophobia or hatred of any kind. 'I am a human rights activist who advocates for the safety of all children, no matter their background.' She added: 'I've lost several close friends for speaking the truth. I've been publicly vilified over and over and over again. In under a month, my livelihood has been completely destroyed.' The charity, which began operating in 2022, was created to raise awareness and prevent child sexual abuse through advocacy, education and legal reforms. In 2024, Tame announced she was stepping down as CEO of the foundation - the role remains unfulfilled. All six heroes killed this week in Operation Epic Fury have been named, with a young dad and 'superstar' female pilot among them. The Department of War named Captain Ariana G. Savino, Major John 'Alex' Klinner, Sergeant Ashley B. Pruitt, Captain Seth R. Koval, Captain Curtis J. Angst and Sergeant Tyler H. Simmons as the victims of Thursday's crash. The US KC-135 plane went down in the western part of Iraq, which authorities said was 'friendly airspace', and the tragedy was not caused by 'hostile fire.' Washington resident Savino, 31, was assigned to the sixth Air Refueling Wing at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. A loved one remembered her as an 'Air Force superstar.' 'She was one of those people who lit up every room she walked into,' they said. 'That smile of hers wasn't just infectious, it was disarming. She brought energy, grit, and a ruthless commitment to making everyone around her better.' Klinner, 33, had a wife, seven-month-old twins and a two-year-old son, his brother-in-law, James Harrill, said Saturday while confirming his death. 'It's kind of heartbreaking to say: He was just a really good dad and really loved his family a lot like a lot,' Harrill said. A pilot from Alabama who had recently become a dad to adorable twins has been named as one of the six US servicemembers killed this week in Operation Epic Fury Captain Ariana Savino, pictured right, was killed Thursday in the horrific accident over Iraq Sergeant Ashley Pruitt, 34, was from Bardstown, Kentucky Pruitt was a wife, mother to a three year old daughter and stepmother Klinner had just been promoted to major in January and had been deployed for less than a week when the refueling aircraft he was aboard crashed in Iraq on Thursday. The father-of-three was survived by his wife, Libby Klinner, who said her world 'shattered' when she got the news that her husband was among the victims. 'I'm devastated to lose the best person I know, the person that made everything more fun, my best friend,' Libby wrote on social media. 'But even more so, my heart is broken for our three kids who will grow up not knowing him.' Klinner had been deployed for less than a week when he died, and his young family had just moved into a new home. They had been living in Birmingham since 2022. He was fondly remembered as an outdoorsman who enjoyed hiking and was always willing to help others. 'Alex was one of those guys that had this steady command about him,' Harrill said. 'He was literally one of the kindest, giving people.' Harrill helped set up a GoFundMe page for Klinner's widow and children to aid with any additional expenses in the wake of his death. They paid tribute to the fallen pilot as a 'devoted husband, a loving father and the kind of person who would quietly step in to help anyone who needed it.' Klinner's wife Libby (right) mourned the loss of her husband on social media Klinner was an outdoorsman and graduate of Auburn University Loved ones said Savino was an 'Air Force superstar' who 'lit up every room she walked into' 'Libby and Alex built a beautiful life together and were raising three precious children: their energetic two-and-a-half-year-old and their seven-month-old twins,' it read. 'In an instant, Libby has been left to walk through profound grief while caring for their young family. 'During this incredibly difficult season, we want to surround Libby and the children with the same generosity and love that Alex so freely gave to others.' The fundraising page asked for $600,000 to support the family, and more than $500,000 of which has already been fulfilled. Klinner graduated from Auburn University in 2016 with a degree in mechanical engineering, per AL.com. His alma mater posted a tribute to him, mourning the tragic loss. 'On Behalf of the Auburn Family, we extend our deepest condolences to Major Klinner's family, fellow service member and all who knew and loved him,' it said. 'We honor his sacrifice and remain grateful for his service to our nation.' Pictured: A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling a Navy Super Hornet during Operation Epic Fury earlier on Thursday The KC-135 refueling plane went down on Thursday in 'friendly airspace' and a second aircraft involved in the incident landed safely. Picture shows the second aircraft with damage to its tail Alabama Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell expressed her condolences to Klinner's family on X. 'I'm heartbroken to learn that Maj. Alex Klinner of Birmingham, Alabama, was among the six service members who lost their lives in the crash of a KC-135 refueling aircraft in Iraq,' she wrote. 'Please join me in praying for his family and honoring his selfless service to our nation.' Representative Dale Strong also took to social media to compliment Klinner's 'bravery' and express his condolences. 'All of Alabama mourns the loss of Maj. Alex Klinner,' he wrote. 'Please join me in praying for his family and loved ones.' 'His sacrifice is a somber testament to the profound bravery of those who volunteer to protect our freedom.' Pruitt, 34, was from Bardstown, Kentucky. According to a GoFundMe posted by loved ones, Pruitt loved her job and was a devoted wife, stepmother and mother to a three-year-old girl. 'She worked hard for the family she always wanted and cherished them all,' it read. 'Ashley's loss leaves an unimaginable hole for her family, friends and fellow Airmen.' Curtis Angst, 30, was from Wilmington, Ohio and was listed among the casualties Captain Seth Koval, 38, was one of the victims of the refueling plan accident Tyler Simmons, 28, was killed during the refueling flight Kentucky Congressman Andy Barr expressed his condolences to Pruitt's family on social media. 'Praying for the family and friends of TSgt Ashley Pruitt of Bardstown,' he wrote. 'God bless her memory and her ultimate sacrifice in Operation Epic Freedom to rid the world of the largest state sponsor of terror. Her legacy will never be forgotten.' Koval, 38, was from Mooresville, Indiana. His wife, Heather Nichole, posted a statement on Facebook after his death was announced. 'Seth was a man whose life I could never confine to a single statement and whose loss will echo in my heart forever,' she wrote. 'Seth was exceptional in everything he did. He was truly the most amazing husband, father, son, brother, friend, and Airman. He loved what he did, and he was proud to put his uniform on and serve others.' According to a GoFundMe posted in his honor, Koval was survived by his wife and son. Angst, 30, was from Wilmington, Ohio, and attended the University of Cincinnati, per the Wilmington News Journal. He earned his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering. Angst studied aerospace engineering at the University of Cinicinatti Angst was married to Mary Angst (center). The pair wed last year Tyler Simmons, 28, was identified as one of the servicemembers in the deadly crash aboard a US KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down over western Iraq Angst was the husband of Mary Angst, whom he married last year. The Clinton County Republican Party issued a statement mourning the death of Angst. 'God rest Curtis Angst,' it read. 'Please pray for them and the souls of the brave crew that were with him on their mission.' Ohio resident Tyler Simmons, 28, was named on Friday by family members as one of the airmen involved in the deadly crash. Simmons was the first of the six victims to be named by loved ones. He was remembered for his 'million-dollar smile.' Simmons' mother broke down in tears as she recalled the moment uniformed officers appeared at their home to deliver the heartbreaking news that her only child had passed away. 'When he (another relative) opened the door, he said, "Oh no," and I jumped up and ran in there and they were lined up out on the porch,' Cheryl Simmons told WBNS 10. 'You got to be kidding me,' she added, while covering her face as she began to sob. Simmons, along with two other victims, was a part of the Columbus-based Ohio Air National Guard's 121st Air Refueling Wing. Angst, Simmons and Koval were based in Ohio and Savino, Klinner and Pruitt were based in Florida. State leaders spoke out on social media to express their condolences. Florida Senator Rick Scott asked Floridians to join him in a 'special prayer' for the victims and their families. 'We will never forget them and the sacrifice they made serving our country,' he wrote. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a statement, noting that the sacrifices of all six victims 'would not be forgotten.' The second plane involved in the crash sustained minor damage to its tail but landed safely. There were no fatalities reported on board. As Prince Albert of Monaco turns 68 today, the circle of trust surrounding him is a lot smaller than it used to be. In a new interview, Albert's former friend and lawyer Thierry Lacoste has claimed the Monegasque ruler has conducted a 'Stalin-like purge' of his closest allies and advisors. Lacoste is among the nearly 40 people affected by the palace shakeup, as he told The Times: 'I have been betrayed with a capital "B". The prince is now surrounded by dishonest people.' In 2023, Albert dismissed Lacoste, his money man Claude Palmero, chief-of-staff Laurent Anselmi, and ex-Supreme Court president Didier Linotte after they were accused of corruption by an anonymous website set up in 2021. And it calls into question his marriage to Princess Charlene after a new book by Palmero laid bare how the 'G4' were instrumental in keeping the peace while also managing Albert's alleged indiscreet affairs. The book Monaco Unveiled: The Quiet Takeover Of The Principality contains several eyebrow-raising revelations about their relationship after it was threatened by secret love children and claims of the princesss reckless spending habits. 'The royal couple may give the performance of a strong union, but reality appears to contradict this narrative,' Palmero wrote in the book. 'Such is the rumour in Monaco.' Reports that Prince Albert and Princess Charlene's relationship was on shaky ground date back to their wedding day in 2011, when she was dubbed the 'Runaway Bride' by French media for reportedly trying to flee before the ceremony (a suggestion she later laughed off). A new book by Albert's former money man, Claude Palmero has laid bare how his allies were instrumental in keeping the peace in his marriage to Charlene - while also managing Albert's alleged indiscreet affairs Albert, then 53, married Charlene Wittstock - 20 years his junior - on July 1, 2011. The son of former Prince Rainier III, who died in 2005, tied the knot with the ex-Olympian during two lavish wedding ceremonies that cost a combined 53million. With a glittering 850-strong guest list that included Sir Roger Moore and Prince Edward, the religious ceremony on July 2 followed the civil nuptials a day earlier. Charlene was breathtaking in an off-the-shoulder Armani gown, complete with a six-metre train and studded with Swarovski diamonds and mother-of-pearl teardrops. But the couple's uneasy kiss - and the fact that at one moment Charlene was in tears - perhaps betrayed the trouble that had already taken place and the further angst that was to come. Days before the big day, rumours began to circulate that Charlene had tried to flee the country on three occasions with a one-way ticket to Johannesburg. A Parisian news magazine reported that Charlene had been stopped at Nice airport after allegedly learning a 'distressing' revelation about her future husband's private life. A senior Monaco detective claimed at the time: 'Charlene had her passport confiscated so that the Prince's entourage could persuade her to stay.' The rumour mill in France went into overdrive. Charlene had, it was suggested, heard talk of an illegitimate child, allegedly conceived when she was dating Prince Albert in 2005. But the princess would go on to dismiss the 'hilarious' rumours. She said: 'Why would he go through all this effort to have our dearest friends come join us, for us to be reluctant?' Palmero, who drafted the couple's pre-nuptial agreement, has dedicated a whole chapter in his new book to Monaco's princess, The Telegraph reported. While he dismissed claims that Charlene tried to escape her own wedding, Palmero seemed to suggest Albert fell out of love with Charlene. He said sources close to Albert maintain he was in love with Charlene 'at least at the start' and revealed the prince asked him to set up a secret bachelor pad one year after the royal wedding. Palmero first revealed details about Albert's 'love nest' during a police interrogation in September 2024 after the prince accused him of a 'breach of secrecy'. In January 2024, French newspaper Le Monde published a series of scandalous allegations about the Grimaldis that were taken from Palmer's 'secret' notebooks. During his time working for Albert, Palmero kept a painstaking record of his employers' personal and public dealings - some of which caused the family a great deal of embarrassment at the time. Le Monde followed this up by printing excerpts from Palmero's police interrogation, before he was released without charge. Included in Palmero's statements were claims he had prepared a 'bachelor pad' for Prince Albert in 2012 - a year after he married Charlene. Albert and his wife pictured with their children in 2024 Princess Charlene pictured in Paris in September The prince's former confidant claimed he had been 'commissioned' to find his boss 'a discreet pied-a-terre in complete confidentiality'. In 2017, he was also allegedly asked to 'make sure the property was ready' for the prince to go there. Palmero also claims that Albert had listed him as the official tenant to conceal his true motives. 'That proves how unusual the missions he assigned to me were,' the former advisor told officials. 'So it is quite inappropriate to claim that I overstepped my duties. Do you think it is the job of a financial asset manager to take care of his bachelor pad and such matters? 'He trusted me... And who else could he have asked for such things, apart from me?' The newspaper also reported Albert had 'opened a Pandora's box' with his complaints against Palmero, who is accused by the prince of a 'breach of confidentiality, invasion of privacy, and receiving the proceeds of two offences'. The police transcripts also revealed how Albert was allegedly financing his illegitimate children and their mothers, in what would have been another blow to his marriage. Palmero, 68, looked after the family's money (including their investments, their properties and the main palace) from 2001 to 2023, just as his father, Andre, had done for Prince Rainier III of Monaco two decades before him. He recorded how Albert spent millions every year from a secret French bank account to pay his former mistresses and love children - with Jazmin Grimaldi, 31, and Alexandre Coste-Grimaldi, 20, receiving allowances of 344,000 a year each. In his conversations with the police, Palmero claimed that he and Albert's lawyer Thierry Lacoste - who was also dismissed by the prince - 'handled' matters regarding Alexandre's mother Nicole Coste, including the birth and recognition of their son. The prince was said to be 'very uneasy and wanted to carry out these operations without anyone finding out, which was done successfully'. Coste, a former Air France flight attendant, fell pregnant with Alexandre in 2003, and Lacoste recently confirmed he is the godfather in an interview with The Sunday Times. Palmero also claimed he was tasked with handling the salaries of UK-based Coste's employees, covering everything from accommodation to dismissals. At one point, about 10 years ago, he detailed a purchase of a 6.5million luxury London apartment for Alexandre's mother. 'So that Charlene would not find out, Albert created a trust for which I was the trustee, which means a trusted person,' Palmero continued. In 2015, Alexandre's mother persuaded Albert to back her fashion business, which was fronted by a shop in London's Knightsbridge, Le Monde said. Palmero noted that it was 'on course [to cost] one million [euros] a year'. Liberation, another of the French newspapers which published excerpts from the series of five notebooks, said the prince had an account at French bank BNP under the name AG for 'Albert Grimaldi'. The newspaper said the account was used to pay Albert's former mistresses and their children without Charlene knowing. According to Le Monde, Jazmin, Albert's love child with US estate agent Tamara Rotolo, receives 73,000 every three months - despite not being part of the royal family. Writing in his notebooks, Palmero noted she was given 4,200 for her 18th and a flat in New York worth 2.6million seven years later. In September 2020, another putative love child sent a letter. The teenager - aged 15 at the time - is being raised in Brazil and claimed in the handwritten note to have been conceived during a round-the-world love affair in 2004. The matter was to come to court in Milan, but was dropped. A spokesman for the prince said it was a 'hoax'. Some of the most potentially damaging comments in Palmero's notebooks refer to Charlene's staff. He alleges she employed nannies and other domestic staff who were illegal immigrants, or living in Monaco illegally. 'Her Serene Highness the Princess makes people work for her who are not compliant,' Palmero warned Albert. In a letter written in January 2017, he said another employee from the Philippines had been 'illegal for five years', despite being on a one-month tourist visa. 'He gets paid 100 euros a day [85], which is off the scale,' Palmero wrote. In December 2014, Charlene gave birth to twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, and immediately placed them in the care of nannies who Palmero claims were also illegal immigrants. 'Update on the hiring of nannies . . . We are completely illegal (even their tourist visa expired on January 7),' Palmero wrote on January 15 of that year. In a statement to Le Monde, the prince's lawyers said that if money was paid to illegal migrants, then it was Palmero who had authorised the expenditure. 'They are not only in an illegal situation, but one entered with a false passport,' he added. Despite this, Mr Palmero released almost 600,000 to celebrate the children's birth and baptism. Palmero's new book, after his five infamous notebooks, also laid bare the extent of Charlene's unchecked spending. He reported the princess, who shares twins Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella with Albert, was routinely given an allowance of 1.2million a year - but still managed to overspend. On one day alone in April 2016, Charlene asked for the equivalent of 66,000, and this was 'definitely too much,' said Mr Palmero, especially as she also planned to rent a second villa on Corsica. 'Isn't that a lot?' asked the accountant, who was concerned that the princess was taking money from funds that were 'undeclared' in terms of tax. 'These practices are dangerous,' Mr Palmero warned. 'They are not only in an illegal situation, but one entered with a false passport, Mr Palmero added. In 2021, he vetoed new staff hires requested by Charlene, who already had '8.5 people in her service, there have never been so many'. Palmero also divulged how Charlene poured 826,000 into redecorating her holiday villa in Calvi, on the island of Corsica, along with 860,000 to decorate her office back in Monte Carlo. Charlene was paying her personal chef the equivalent of 250-a-day from petty cash, said Mr Palmero, while her South African family were also receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds. In February 2017, the accountant also released the equivalent of more than half-a-million pounds to pay off the princess's overdraft. In December 2019, an alarmed Mr Palmero noted that Charlene had spent 'around 15 million euros [13million]', over eight years, despite her allowance being '7.5 million euros' [6.4million] The speed at which the mother-of-two apparently burned through money so worried the prince's accountant that he wrote in his notes: 'It's crazy! I have no control over the Princess's spending.' Albert later said: 'The attacks that Mr Palmero makes against me and against the state of Monaco and its institutions show his true nature and the little respect... he has for the family and the principality.' Since they were married in 2011, Charlene and Albert's relationship has been dogged by controversy. The state of affairs significantly worsened when the princess took a prolonged medical hiatus in South Africa, which saw her spend most of 2021 away from her husband and children. This meant she missed the seventh birthdays of her twins - Jacques and Gabriella - and her tenth wedding anniversary. Charlene also travelled to a Swiss clinic that allegedly specialises in mental health and addiction issues. In 2021, the WikiLeaks-style' website Les Dossiers du Roche set off a chain of events leading up to the publication of Palmeros memoir as Alberts former right-hand man aims for the heart of the monarchy. Five years later, it seems Charlene's marriage to Albert might end up the biggest casualty. Chinese FM calls for resolving issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan through dialogue, consultation Xinhua) 13:10, March 14, 2026 BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that the issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan can only be resolved through dialogue and consultation. The use of force would only complicate the situation and intensify the contradictions, which would be of no benefit to either side and threatens regional peace and stability, he said. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in a phone conversation with Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi at the latter's request. Muttaqi thanked China for its active efforts in mediating the conflicts between Afghanistan and Pakistan, noting that the Afghan people, who have suffered greatly from war, cherish the opportunities for peace and development. The Afghan foreign minister said his country wants to be a source of regional peace rather than unrest, reaffirming that its territory will not be used to attack neighboring countries. Afghanistan does not wish to engage in military conflict with other countries, and looks forward to mutual trust and friendly coexistence with neighboring countries, he said. The Afghan side believes that dialogue and consultation are the only way to resolve issues and looks forward to China, as a major country and a friendly neighbor, playing a greater role, he said. For his part, Wang said that the more volatile the external environment becomes, the more regional countries should strengthen unity and cooperation, overcome difficulties together, and forge a path of cooperative security and common security. Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable brothers and neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other, he said. China has always maintained an objective and impartial stance on the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Wang said. The special envoy on Afghan affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry is shuttling between the two countries to mediate, he said, adding that it is hoped that both sides will keep calm and exercise restraint, have face-to-face exchanges at an early date, achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible, and resolve differences and contradictions through dialogue. China is willing to continue to make active efforts to help achieve reconciliation and detente between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Wang said. The two sides also exchanged views on the situation in Iran. Wang reaffirmed China's principled position, stating that China is willing to work with the international community, including Afghanistan, to further play a constructive role in striving for peace. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Sheng Chuyi) Photo: https://eurosolidarity.org/2025/11/26/poroshenko-12/ Ukraine is in a deep parliamentary crisis, according to Ukrainian MP and leader of the European Solidarity party, Petro Poroshenko, who also calls for the creation of a unified negotiating team with partners, which should include representatives of various political forces. "Ukraine needs internal unity. The country is in a deep parliamentary crisis. And do you know who's being blamed for the lack of votes? The anti-corruption agencies. And our political force is the only one advocating for their protection. We declare: we are ready to accept responsibility and ready for representatives of our political force to join the negotiating team," Poroshenko wrote on X on Wednesday following the political force's congress. He expressed confidence that the new negotiating team would provide a chance to improve the effectiveness of Ukraine's position, and that unity was "a necessary condition for our future victory." "Look how quickly the authorities' talk of peace has faded. Today, they're already admitting that the negotiations have reached a dead end... The global situation has dramatically deteriorated. Events in the Middle East are dangerous for peace and, unfortunately, advantageous for Putin. The attention of the USA, NATO countries, and the Persian Gulf states is being diverted from Russian aggression. At the same time, the arms market is being redistributedair defense missiles, long-range weapons, and financial resources are being diverted to another conflict. There's also another dangerous trendthe sharp rise in oil prices," the politician explained. According to Poroshenko, efforts should be made to strengthen Ukraine's Armed Forces and sanctions against Russia, "which will cut off Russian exports and reduce oil revenues." "We have already taken a step toward unity: for the first time, we supported the appointment of a defense minister so that our team can be involved in strengthening the state's defense capability. We advocate for unity, for a government of national unity, and for peace for Ukraine," he added. Wisconsin's population is projected to shrink by 200,000 over the next 25 years, but a professor in the state has proposed a controversial growth solution - bring in more immigrants. The alarming figure, which is the result of a 2024 study based on data from the federal government's most recent census in 2020, was shared by the Wisconsin Department of Administration. The department examined fertility rates among women in Wisconsin, net migration and the size of different generations, to come up with the projected population. Around six million people currently live in Wisconsin, so 200,000 fewer residents would represent a significant population decline of about 3.33 percent. Jonathan Burkham, an associate professor of human geography at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, who published a book last month laying out his potential solution, told Daily Mail: 'I've proposed a place-based immigration policy. There are different versions of this. The one I write about in my book is a state program, which would be created at the federal level.' The proposal would comprise 'reforms to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that would set aside a pool of employment-based visas that states could opt into and tailor their share of visas to specific industries within the state,' the professor added. A good way to understand the proposal is by comparing it to H1B visas, which allow companies in the US to employ foreign workers with highly specialized skills. Burkham explained to the Daily Mail that a range of industries in Wisconsin, from healthcare to manufacturing and agriculture, have been struggling to find workers to fill positions due to the state's labor supply shortage. The population of Wisconsin is projected to shrink by 200,000 by 2050. The state's largest city, Milwaukee, is pictured Jonathan Burkham, an associate professor of human geography at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, has proposed bringing in a visa to tackle Wisconsin's population decline The shortage comes down to a mix of the boomer generation retiring then dying and low birth rates. 'We have 50,000 to 60,000 fewer employed Wisconsinites than we did a year ago. The labor force itself has dropped even at a higher rate than that,' the professor told the Daily Mail. Burkham added that if domestic migration to Wisconsin picks up or if international migration stabilizes, 'then maybe that will be alleviated, but without those two things, it's not looking good for the labor force.' In his book, Migrant Midwest: The Case for Immigration and Economic Growth in the American Heartland, which was released on February 19, Burkham proposes the visa plan. Instead of giving visas to specialized workers and tying them to specific companies, Burkham's proposal would be tied to states or counties and allow immigrants to work regular jobs in industries that need more employees. 'This is one way for states that don't have large immigrant populations to bring in more immigrants,' Burkham told the Daily Mail. Last year in Wisconsin, international migration dropped more than 62 percent, according to the US Census Bureau. Between low fertility and migration rates, the state could see fewer companies opening, lower rates of investment and difficulty filling positions in industries such as healthcare and agriculture, which rely heavily on foreign workers. Wisconsin currently has a population of around 6 million, so 200,000 fewer people would represent a 3.33 dip. A coastline of Lake Superior in Wisconsin is pictured Population decline would present challenges for Wisconsin's economy, which is already facing a labor shortage. The Milwaukee skyline is pictured The fertility rate in the state is about the same as that of the rest of the country, which was about 1.6 children per woman in 2024, according to the most recently available data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO states that for populations to remain consistent, fertility rates should be at 2.1. Despite the national fertility rate being below that number, the US has never experienced an overall population decline since the census started being taken in 1790, though growth has slowed dramatically in recent years, increasing just 0.5 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to a recent estimate by the US Census Bureau. That consistent growth has been due to positive net migration into the US throughout its history. Healthcare is a particularly pressing sector, as baby boomers who are set to age out of the workforce in massive numbers over the next couple of decades will require lots of care. Burkham explained that other states tend to fill out the demand for those roles with immigrant workers, but 'we just don't really have that population here (in Wisconsin),' he said. The professor is not the only person to have proposed visa-based solutions to bring in more residents. In December 2024, Todd Young, a Republican senator from Indiana, and Joe Manchin, a now-retired Democratic senator from West Virginia, proposed a bipartisan bill on the Senate floor that was similar to Burkham's proposal. The bill was not passed, and Burkham said he was 'a little wary of it' because 'it prioritizes high-skilled immigrants so much that I wonder who's going to be doing the truck driving and other things like that.' The healthcare industry will require many more workers in the coming years as baby boomers age out of the workforce. An elderly woman is pictured with a healthcare worker (stock image) Mayors of cities in the Midwest have expressed bipartisan support for visa-based solutions to population decline. Milwaukee is pictured Still, it shows that the professor's proposal is not unprecedented and the general idea has received support on both sides of the aisle. Whether the idea could be put into practice is a different matter, however, especially under the current Trump administration. 'President Trump has made overtures occasionally that he's open to comprehensive immigration reform or significant immigration reform. But I just generally think there are too many people pulling him in another direction,' Burkham said. 'The Stephen Miller wing of his administration is horrified at this idea I'd be proposing here. It goes against what they would see as the future of the country.' The professor noted that mayors of cities in the Midwest are generally supportive of a visa-based solution to population decline, and the idea received bipartisan support at the 2025 Conference of Mayors. The attitude of businesses towards the proposed solution remains less clear, especially as many companies have stayed silent about how Trump's immigration crackdown has impacted them. Whether Burkham's proposal to mitigate population decline is accepted and implemented is ultimately a choice of whether or not to stay in line with US history, the professor said. 'On the one hand, I'm not going to argue that it's just going to be completely catastrophic if we don't see significant increases in immigration,' Burkham told the Daily Mail. It is unlikely that Burkham's proposal would be implemented under the Trump administration due to its attitude towards immigration. Wisconsin's capital, Madison, is pictured 'I would argue it's going to lead to a much slower-growing, less dynamic economy, but it's ultimately a choice. 'And we can choose that path or we can choose one that is, I think, more consistent with our history as a nation of immigrants and as a growing, dynamic economy in the future.' A long-forgotten 19th century church in upstate New York has been reborn as a breathtaking $3 million retreat - complete with a dramatic timber frame interior and a bell tower library. The early Greek Revival structure, which was built in 1837 and sits on 37 acres of land in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, underwent a painstaking restoration that transformed the abandoned sanctuary into a sprawling luxury residence. At the heart of the property is the church's original structure, where huge hand-chopped beams, which are almost two centuries old, remain exposed. The beams create a cathedral-like space that dominate the home's interior. 'The real standout is the great room, which is the church itself,' listing agent Annabel Taylor of Four SeasonsSotheby's International Realty said. 'Of course, all of those exposed beams provide such a "wow" factor as well.' The beams are a striking reminder of the building's religious past. The structure stopped being used as a church during the 1990s when it fell into such disrepair that it was nearly torn down. The converted church sits on more than 30 acres in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York The first floor features soaring ceilings that highlight the original timber frame structure of the church Massive exposed beams stretch across the great room, creating a dramatic open space in the former sanctuary Decades later, the property has been revived by architects Nik Vekic and Quinn Marquardt of ICDT Studio, who purchased the deteriorating structure in 2023 for $425,000. At the time, the church was far from the dramatic sanctuary it is today. The building had previously been dismantled and relocated to Gilboa, New York, by another owner. 'A previous owner moved the church to its current location with the intention of turning it into a residence, but that vision was never fully realized,' Taylor said. 'The sellers completed the project and also put on an addition. They also expanded the lower level with additional living space. 'It's a very large structure that has a big communal great room, but there is a large separation of space so you can also have a lot of privacy.' Over the next two years, Vekic and Marquardt undertook the meticulous transformation, turning the once-abandoned church into a 6,242-square-foot residence that blends its historic bones with modern design. 'When we first walked through it, we could see the original timber frame structure of the church, and we both realized the potential of that,' Vekic told Mansion Global. That original framework now frames the property's most dramatic space - a cavernous great room beneath towering ceilings where an open floor plan, central fireplace and expansive dining table stretch across the former sanctuary. The open floor plan allows the dining space to flow seamlessly into the dramatic great room A huge communal dining area sits beneath the towering ceilings, designed for large gatherings and entertaining. Throughout the home, a soft cream-colored interior palette creates a warm and elegant atmosphere The churchs bell tower has been converted into a unique library filled with books and natural light The property sites on more than 30 acres of land with rocky outcrops, trails, streams and waterfalls One of the home's most distinctive features lies high above the rest of property. The architects converted the bell tower into a library filled with bookshelves. It is now bathed in natural light that comes streaming in through tall windows. Elsewhere, the designers layered luxury into the historic shell. Hidden beneath a staircase sits a temperature-controlled wine room capable of storing 600 bottles, concealed behind steel doors. A separate guest wing includes a bunk room with four beds, while a third-floor home office sits high in the former church's steeple, accessed by its own staircase. 'They were inspired by the structure of the church, but this is the first church transformation they have done,' Taylor said. 'It makes for a stunning residence. They are very creative people who own a design studio.' Additional design touches include a towering gas stove that rises from floor to ceiling in the great room, a chef's kitchen fitted with marble countertops, and a butler's pantry equipped with a second sink and a concealed refrigerator hidden behind paneled cabinetry. Downstairs, the walk-out lower level contains a media room with a wet bar along with a laundry room complete with dual washer-dryer units. Beyond the walls of the former church, the property sits on 30 acres of land and includes wooded trails, streams, waterfalls and rock formations scattered across the rolling terrain. Children will enjoy these tastefully decorated built-in bunk beds, complete with curtains One of the bathrooms features a spacious double-sink vanity designed for couples Forest wallpaper only serves to add to the feeling of seclusion about the properly Another bathroom showcases striking black-and-white tiles that create a bold, graphic design The secluded location still offers easy access to nearby attractions. The home sits within the Catskill foothills and is roughly 20 minutes from the Windham Mountain Club. Taylor said the property could serve as a private family getaway or an entertaining space for buyers who enjoy hosting large gatherings. 'A no-brainer would be a family,' she said, 'but it could also go to a couple who loves to entertain.' Because the town of Gilboa has no zoning restrictions, Taylor said the land could also support hospitality or development opportunities. 'There is no zoning in the town of Balboa, so you could also have a hospitality business because there are no restrictions,' she said. 'With 30 acres, you could also subdivide the property.' Pieces of raw meat suddenly began falling from the sky over rural Kentucky, baffling witnesses who watched the bizarre shower unfold beneath a clear blue sky. The strange incident occurred on farmland owned by Allen and Rebecca Crouch on March 3, 1876. Witnesses said chunks of meat continued to fall from the sky for several minutes, scattering across an area roughly 100 yards long and 50 yards wide. The pieces ranged from tiny flakes to larger fragments measuring about two to four inches across. Two local men reportedly tasted the meat to identify it, saying it resembled mutton or venison, but no one could explain the bizarre phenomenon that would later be dubbed the Kentucky Meat Shower. Now, nearly 150 years later, Brent Taylor, a professor of history at West Kentucky Community & Technical College, told Daily Mail that while some witnesses initially believed the event was a miracle or religious sign, historians have proposed more grounded explanations. One theory suggests strong winds may have carried animal remains from elsewhere before dropping them over the farm. But the explanation most historians consider plausible is far stranger: a flock of vultures feeding on a carcass may have simultaneously regurgitated partially digested meat while flying overhead, creating what appeared to be a grisly rainstorm. One preserved piece of the mysterious substance is still kept at Transylvania University in Lexington, where it remains one of the strangest artifacts in American scientific history Bath County, located in the northeastern part of the state, sits at the edge of the Bluegrass Region and the Appalachian Mountains, with Owingsville serving as its county seat. Based on federal census data, the population of Bath County was approximately 10,145 in 1870 and grew to 11,982 by 1880, indicating the 1876 population was likely somewhere between 10,500 and 11,500. Taylor explained that the mystery started just as Rebecca was outside making soap when it started to rain. However, he said, Rebecca then heard strange noises, similar to something splatting on the ground. 'Some of the pieces are kind of large, some are a little bit small. They said it felt like snowflakes,' said Taylor. 'She said it only lasted about one to two minutes, and then it was over with.' At first, the woman reportedly believed the strange event might have been a miracle or some kind of religious sign. But those explanations did little to satisfy the curious townspeople, who began questioning witnesses and searching for answers. In one of the strangest details of the incident, two local men decided to taste the mysterious substance, claiming it resembled mutton or venison, though their informal test provided little clarity about what had actually fallen from the sky. The strange incident occurred on farmland owned by Allen and Rebecca Crouch on March 3, 1876. Witnesses said chunks of meat continued to fall from the sky for several minutes, scattering across an area roughly 100 yards long and 50 yards wide 'From there, they actually get a little bit more serious about trying to find an answer,' said Taylor. 'They eventually took samples to a scientist, Professor JL Smith, who examined the material under a microscope, but the analysis led to another dead end. 'All he could really confirm was that it appeared to be meat.' The townspeople then took it to a butcher, hoping to identify the meat's origins. 'The butcher also decided to taste it,' Taylor said. 'He said it didn't resemble anything he'd eaten before, and the smell was unusual.' The closest thing researchers have to an explanation comes from a scientist named Professor Peter in Lexington, whose theory remains one of the leading explanations today. 'He suggested a group of buzzards had been feeding on an animal carcass, possibly a bear or sheep, and then took flight,' said Taylor. 'In the animal world, when one bird regurgitates after feeding, it can trigger the same reflex in the others. That chain reaction could explain the mysterious shower.' He added that Kentucky has a high population of buzzards, specifically Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures, which are common statewide year-round. Despite the lingering mystery, the bizarre event has become a point of local pride. Earlier this year, Bath County residents marked the approaching 150th anniversary of the so-called Kentucky Meat Shower with a festival that drew visitors from across the country to the small community near Olympia Springs where the strange event unfolded. Organized by resident Ian Corbin, the celebration featured a cookoff, meat-themed games, and even a display of a preserved piece of the mysterious substance believed to have fallen from the sky in 1876. Corbin said the goal was to bring attention to the unusual history of the area and introduce visitors to a town that rarely makes national headlines. One preserved piece of the mysterious substance is still kept at Transylvania University in Lexington, where it remains one of the strangest artifacts in American scientific history. From glitzy meditation courses to psychedelic retreats in the jungle, some people go to astonishing lengths to get out of their minds. But now, finding inner peace might be as simple as having a nice sitdown. That is the astonishing promise of the Aiora chair from British designers DavidHugh LTD, which claims to put the sitter in an 'altered state of mind' in minutes. Ranging from 5,700 for the basic model to 9,950 for the leatherclad 'Signature' version, tranquillity doesn't come cheap but is it worth the cost? Scientists claim that sitting in this unusual seat creates massive changes in people's brains, leading to states usually seen in Tibetan monks in deep meditation. To put these wacky claims to the test, I made my way to the University of Essex, where psychologists have been investigating the Aiora chair's strange properties since 2018. To separate fact from fiction, scientists would be carefully watching my brain activity every second I was sitting in the chair. So, is it worth 9,000? After a tough day of lounging about in the name of science, I'm convinced that it is worth every penny. The inventors of the Aiora chair claim that this simplelooking recliner can put you in an altered state of consciousness in minutes. But is it worth the price? The Aiora chair is the brainchild of furniture designer and biomechanics expert Dr David Wickett, whose plan was not to make something that affected the brain. Having started his career designing clinical seating solutions for patients with mobility issues, the original goal had simply been to make a chair that reduced pressure on the body as much as possible. It was only when people started reporting strange experiences like altered perceptions of time that Dr Wickett decided to hand over his creation to the psychologists at the University of Essex. I met Dr Wickett and Dr Helge Gillmeister, a psychologist who has been working with the Aiora chair, in the quiet seclusion of the university's sleep laboratory. After hearing so much about what was about to happen to my brain, I'd been expecting to find something that would look at home on the set of Star Trek. So I was rather surprised to find what appeared to be a normal, albeit rather stylish, recliner looking enormously out of place amongst the piles of scientific equipment. There are no spinning wheels, flashing lights, or really anything with any moving parts at all in fact, it doesn't even need power to work. Instead, the Aiora chair works by recreating the sensation of floating in zero gravity using a technology Dr Wickett calls 'pure planar motion mechanics'. To see just how much the Aiora chair (right) really lives up the hype, the Daily Mail's Wiliam Hunter travelled to Essex University to see how it would really change his brain How does the Aiora chair work? When you sit in a normal chair, you feel gravity due to friction and acceleration. The Aiora chair works by removing both of these sensations as much as possible. Even as you rock in the chair, your centre of gravity only moves on a horizontal plane. This means that it isn't accelerating relative to gravity. At the same time, your weight is evenly distributed between all the supports, so you don't experience the sheer force of friction. That creates a sense of weightlessness similar to that created in sensory deprivation tanks. What this creates in practice is a sensation that is monumentally difficult to put into words. In fact, the chair is so weird that Dr Wickett says that we shouldn't really think of it as a piece of furniture at all. 'It represents a new category of wellness innovation that we're calling embodied neurodesign,' he said as we set up for the experiment. To put that in layman's terms, this is more like a chairshaped meditation tool than somewhere to sit while you read the paper. For a start, I had to spend a few minutes 'learning' to sit in it before I could hold myself in a balanced position. The Aiora chair has a mechanism that ensures your body's centre of gravity only ever moves horizontally, even as you rock back and forth. That makes it so sensitive that even a deep breath or a wiggle of your fingers can send you tipping one way or another. But when you do finally get to the perfect balance point, the sheer force of friction simply vanishes, and you are suddenly floating. The chair simulates the sensation of floating weightlessly. Studies have shown that sitting in the chair produces brain activity similar to that of skilled meditators The sensation is subtle but extremely strange: on one hand, you know you are very much sat in a chair, but on the other, there is an overwhelming sensation of drifting through space. Closing my eyes was like being transported from the dimly lit lab onto a moving rollercoaster as my inner ear fought with my brain over where I was going. For the first trial, Dr Wickett suggested I simply sit in the chair and listen to some relaxing music for 15 minutes to get used to the feeling. Having used sensory deprivation tanks in the past, I was actually shocked by just how similar the feeling of being adrift really was. With my eyes closed and the headphones keeping the real world at bay, it felt like the space around me was opening up into an expansive void. While the experience is subtle at first, I soon found myself drifting into a deep, calm, and blissfully quiet state. Then, all of a sudden, the music had ended, and Dr Wickett was turning the lights back on. Although 15 minutes had passed in the real world, I felt like I couldn't have sat down for more than five minutes in total. Join the discussion What does spending thousands seeking "inner peace" say about our priorities in modern life? In order to see what effect the chair really has, Dr Helge Gillmeister fitted me with an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap, designed to measure the activity in the outer layers of my brain Aiora chair: Key stats Price Monochrome: 5,700 Soul: 7,850 Signature: 9,950 Materials: Birch plywood shell, memory foam cushions, powder coated aluminum and steel frame Height: 127cm Width: 80cm Weight: 49kg Manufactured: Cambridge, England As Dr Gillmeister later explained, it was actually this bizarre effect on time perception that first piqued her interest in the Aiora chair. This effect was something she had also spotted in her research into inducing dissociative states through extended periods of mirror gazing. While the exact mechanism is still a little unclear, it seems to be a sign that something is disturbing the normal integration of our sensory information. In the case of the Aiora chair, the researchers think that the lack of normal information about our bodies' whereabouts somehow interferes with the way we normally put together our picture of the world. Having now had a taste of what I was getting myself into, it was time for the real science. Dr Gillmeister fitted my head with an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap, designed to measure the activity in the outer layers of my brain. When brain cells talk to one another, they produce a tiny electrical charge, but when thousands are chatting away all at once, it creates an electrical field big enough to measure. Our brains are constantly churning out a lowlevel electrical fuzz, but what Dr Gillmeister is really looking for are changes in my 'brain waves'. The EEG data shows that my brain's activity actually increased across most bands, including the fast Alpha brain waves. This suggests I was becoming more alert and more aware of my internal sensations When you plot the voltage in one brain area, you can see that it goes up and down over time, like someone adjusting the brightness on a dimmable bulb tracing the shape of a wave. Some of these waves, known as alpha waves, are small and fast and are normally associated with activity in the sensory systems. Others, known as delta waves, are long, slow oscillations that are typically found in the brains of people in deep sleep. If Dr Gillmeister can see big changes in my brain waves while I sit in the chair, that should tell us whether I am relaxed, focused, excited, or spinning out into an altered state of consciousness. So, with a head caked in sticky gel and a thicket of wires protruding from my skull, it was time to see what was really going on inside my brain. Just as before, I sat down on the Aiora chair, settled back into the frictionless balanced point, closed my eyes, and drifted off into space. Once again, that strange sensation of quiet and calm slipped over me as the slight floating rock of the chair lulled me away from consciousness. Following Dr Wickett's advice, I tried to follow some simple meditation techniques. The amount of slow Delta brain waves decreased. These are usually associated with sleep so it suggests that I wasn't dozing off despite the feeling of relaxation What did the EEG data show? Increased brain activity across most bands: Indicates increased mental stimulation and sensory experience. Decreased delta brainwave power: Indicates increasing alertness and a move away from a state of sleep. Increased power in the right hemisphere: Suggests a rise in 'approach motivation', more positive mental states, and a broader attention. Autonomic nervous switching modulation: Movement between 'fight or flight' to 'rest and recover' nervous system modes. A process often reported during altered states of consciousness and psychedelic drug experiences. I'd never been a very successful meditator and, despite over a year of stubborn daily practice throughout my shortlived mindfulness phase, I never could quite let my mind truly settle down. However, after just a few minutes of deep breathing, I soon found myself in what can only be described as a meditative trance. The halfhour slipped by in what felt like minutes, and soon the lights were back on, and I was rudely deposited back in reality feeling deeply refreshed and ever so slightly dazed. Looking at the data gathered by the EEG, it was also clear that something profoundly strange was happening inside my brain during that half an hour. The activity in my brain had actually increased in every single frequency of brain wave, except for the slowmoving delta waves. Dr Wickett later told me: 'Increased delta is associated with sleep, so these data suggest that your state of consciousness gradually shifted away from sleep as the session went on. 'The data clearly show that you became increasingly cognitively active as time passed in the chair. Given that the lights were out and the environment was quiet, it is safe to assume that your internal awareness increased.' The only exception was a sudden spike in delta activity at the 11minute mark, which, while charitably explained as a 'liminal state', was probably explained by my briefly dozing off. The heart rate data suggests I was moving between different nervous system states changing from 'fight or flight' to 'rest and recover'. This is something often seen in people at the peak of psychedelic trips At the same time, heart rate data shows that my body had been rapidly switching between 'fight or flight' and 'rest and repair' nervous system responses. These changes between the 'sympathetic' and 'parasympathetic' nervous systems are generally a sign of a profoundly altered state of consciousness, and something often seen in the brains of people at the peak of a psychedelic DMT trip. Although only anecdotal, this unusual finding echoes Dr Wickett's account of a powerfully intense meditation experience in the chair, which he described as 'something between MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms'. But the strangest thing of all was that the EEG data showed that my cortical activity shifted toward the right hemisphere. Dr Gillmeister explains: 'More activity in your right hemisphere means an approach motivation. 'It's a kind of motivational state where you want to go towards something. If you translate it in terms of emotions, then it'd be all the ones that will make you move forward like joy or anger.' Likewise, studies have suggested that more activity in the right hemisphere is associated with a more diffuse, less focused form of attention. So, is it worth putting down almost 10,000 for something that can do this to your brain? Strangely, having now tried it out for myself, I almost want to say that it is. While the Aiora chair might be expensive, the evidence suggests it really does induce enhanced states of alertness and relaxation at the neurological level Obviously, that is a staggering amount of money to spend on anything especially a chair. But considering how much money people are willing to blow chasing inner peace with innumerable wellness trends, classes, and retreats, that might not seem so silly. While so much of the wellness industry is littered with exaggerations, misinformation, and outright scams, there is hard data to show that the Aiora chair is at least doing something to your brain. If I were the kind of person with a few thousand pounds to spend on relaxing, I would be sorely tempted to install an Aiora chair in the living room and possibly never leave it again. An 'arousal training' app could help men last twice as long in bed, a study has found. The Melonga App guides users through a number of therapeutic techniques, tips and exercises designed by urologists and psychologists. It is designed to help men manage arousal better and includes elements of cognitive behavioural therapy and physical exercises to improve ejaculation control without taking medicine. The athome selfhelp tool could benefit men who are hesitant to seek help because they are ashamed, researchers said. And it could help the 20 to 30 per cent of men in the UK who are estimated to suffer from the issue, which is defined by ejaculating sooner than wanted during sex. 'Many men who live with premature ejaculation don't seek help because of the shame associated with the condition,' lead researcher Dr Christer Groeben said. 'Our study shows that, as an athome selfhelp tool, this can support men to improve control of their ejaculation and achieve a satisfying sex life without losing spontaneity. 'Going to a doctor for help can feel like a big first step, and so an app like this can help to bridge that gap by normalising the condition as treatable.' Over a 12week study, men who used the app lasted twice as long in bed compared to usual, the scientists said The Climacs study, led by researchers in Germany, included 80 men with no other underlying health conditions who took part in a 12week programme. Each were given a series of health questionnaires about their experiences during sex and were asked to use a stopwatch to measure the length of time between penetration and ejaculation. Researchers found that on average, app users doubled the time from penetration to ejaculation from 61 seconds to 125 seconds. For comparison, men who did not use the app experienced an increase of just 0.5 seconds on average. Remarkably, at the end of the 12 weeks, 22 per cent of app users reported no longer experiencing premature ejaculation. Dr Giorgio Russo, associate professor of urology at University of Catania in Italy, and chairman of the EAU office of young academic urologists, said: 'There's much information and misinformation out there for men who find they have premature ejaculation. 'So this app is devised by urologists and psychologists as a new way to bring together the most effective advice into a single, easily accessible and trusted, evidencebased resource. 'The research shows it can completely treat almost a quarter of patients, which is a huge development because these men were treated without pills.' The app contains elements of physical activity to help improve ejaculation control. Some features also encourage men to involve their partners What is premature ejaculation? Premature ejaculation is a common problem where the male ejaculates sooner than he or his partner wishes during sexual arousal. Causes can be physical, such as prostate or thyroid problems, or psychological, such as having depression, stress or relationship problems. Treatment includes selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are a type of depressant, and phosphodiesterase5 inhibitors such as Viagra. Wearing thicker condoms or using a topical anaesthetic can also help. Melonga is currently available in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Belgium. It costs 2.01 (the equivalent of around 1.75) per day for the most basic level, which includes reading material arranged in 12 'modules'. It also included 77 bitesized videos and 26 exercises to be performed on their own or with a partner. Those who opt for the pricier option, of 4.52 (around 3.91 per day) will also have access to 'incognito' group sessions with an expert urologist and psychotherapist. The researchers behind the app say the exercises require one to three hours of commitment per week to see results. One 60yearold user described the app as 'extremely helpful' for helping improve their premature ejaculation. Others praised the structure of the app and they appreciated that it was scientificallybacked. The findings, presented at the European Association of Urology Annual Congress (EAU26) in London, could provide another avenue of treatment for men that doesn't require medical treatment. 'The most commonly available pharmacy therapies are designed only to treat the symptoms, not the cause, meaning many men discontinue them after a while,' Dr Groeben explained. 'These men can remain undertreated and live with a considerable psychological burden that really starts to affect the quality of their relationships.' Various psychological and physical factors can cause a man to suddenly experience premature ejaculation including prostate problems, recreational drugs, depression, stress or anxiety. Current treatment options include taking antidepressants, Viagra, using thicker condoms and psychosexual counselling. With inflated house prices, poor air quality and constant congestion, the English capital can be an unforgiving place to live... so is it any wonder many of its residents dream of a simpler life by the sea? Migration to the UK's coastal towns is on the up, with destinations such as Margate, Brighton and Whitby among the most desirable resorts for those looking to start afresh beside the sea. The biggest driver is almost certainly house prices. The average cost of a four-bed home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, for example, comes in at 454,991 versus 950,000 in London. Beyond that, there's the appeal of waking up to the sound of the sea and finding a community that isn't a slave to the rat race. And, if you choose a town such as Margate, where gentrification is very much happening spearheaded by British artist Tracey Emin then you'll certainly have access to some high culture including galleries, quirky boutiques and interesting restaurants. The coastal dream has enticed plenty away from the big smoke, with the promise of cheaper house prices, fresh air and a quieter life (Pictured: Margate beach) So, it's no surprise more and more Londoners are ditching the big smoke and making for the coast? Ask residents in some of the towns they're heading to about their new neighbours though... and they might suggest there are certain stereotypes that exist arriving in a removal van full of dreams, and pinning their future happiness on a new life by the sea. In Kent and Sussex, the DFLs (down from Londons) is a common nickname for those who sell up and head for the regions' beach towns. Here's a guide to the types of excitable city dwellers who are trading in city lives for life by the beach... THE 'DINKS' WHO CASHED IN Mortgage free by 40? This canny couple will be their Camden flat, bought thanks to the Bank of Mum and Dad in their early twenties, has come up trumps. They are DINKS Double Income, No Kids with another trendy acronym close to their hearts: FIRE... Financial Independence, Retire Early. There's been an exodus of Londoners moving to the UK's coastal towns in recent years After a year of weekend 'reccy' trips to almost every coastal hotspot likely to be 'the next Whitstable' and asking ChatGPT for guidance (ignoring the fact that AI suggested Grimsby as a top choice), their spreadsheet is signposting them to Ramsgate. What does a trendy 950,000 two-bed flat in NW1 get you in this slightly down-at-heel Kent harbour town? A totally done-up, six-bedroom sea-facing townhouse, including a one-bedroom maisonette that can be rented out for around 750,000. There may only be one road that looks a bit like Camden arty Addington Street but 30 years from now, this will be 'the new Whitstable'. When friends whip down the M2 for the weekend? They'll meet them in Margate. THE MIDDLE CLASS FAMILY A desire for more space and a 'fresh air childhood' for their growing brood has seen many a middle class parent fall under the seaside spell. Brighton, and in particular Hove, is veritable catnip to those locked into high mortgage payments in London's family-friendly enclaves such as Clapham, Richmond and Barnes. And so, they head south to double their home space for much less money, and then quickly set about trying to meet people (just like them). Come on in... the water's lovely! Middle class families bound for south coast property hotspots Brighton and Hove are likely to join a club or two... The quickest way to become a Brightonian? The local wild swimming club there's nothing like plunging into the English Channel, wearing your Sweaty Betty bathers, to bond with a stranger. Meanwhile, Dad has plans to do a triathlon, and will start training just as soon as it stops raining. The kids, happily on the school plus ballet/rugby/theatre/swimming classes treadmill, have barely noticed the move it's just like Clapham, basically. The family love the independent shops, long walks with their cockapoo (bought since moving), and interacting (before swiftly moving on) with the town's 'eccentric' artist community. Minor niggles? The 3am weekend effing and jeffing that can be heard and the slightly tawdry seaside party town detritus that blows around the house front on a Sunday morning including plastic BuzzBallz containers and discarded chip trays. THE B&B OWNERS This well-travelled duo he was a trader, so they've been lucky enough to go five-star are well qualified to know exactly what weekenders want, right? Swapping out their Victorian terrace house in Fulham, which they 'sold for over a mil', they've snapped up an unloved B&B in a four-storey Edwardian mansion on the south coast and set about transforming it leaving space for the Visit England 'B&B of the Year' award on the mantelpiece before they open. Anyone well-travelled can enter the hotel business... at least that's the hope for some ex-Londoners looking to build a new business by the sea There's white linen on the beds, products 'made with local seaweed' in the en suites and cute nods to the maritime heritage in the artwork. The rooms? 250 a night but they include a 'local fry-up' in the morning. For the first six months, their enthusiasm for their new life manifests in a cheery intensity that leaves most guests hurrying to close their bedroom doors shortly after arrival... and quietly dreading another dose of the life story over breakfast. What eventually tempers the novelty of their new life? Mascara on the white towels, the constant pilfering of products even the mini ketchup jars at breakfast and the biting winter wind that was nowhere to be seen when they moved in in May. THE RETIREES Of all the people vacating London, the retirees deserve the coastal nirvana dream the most they've paid their dues. This cultured pair, former academics with a rich and varied social life, have been saving for decades to make their dream of living in a cultural seaside idyll a reality. They opt for a pretty village on the South Coast that has bigger places nearby they mostly want peace, but with a little urbanity nearby. They dream of idle mornings looking at the ocean, coffee and books in hand. Of attending local life drawing classes to meet like-minded folk and enjoying theatre that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. And yet, change comes harder when you're getting on; and, three months into their move, the grey cloud literal and metaphorical moves in. The seagulls are more annoying than the pigeons, it turns out, and the Lebanese food they loved to order in London is nowhere to be seen. Their Freedom bus pass gave them so much more freedom in the capital too. Still, once you leave London and its ever spiralling property prices, there's no going back. Hipsters with 'career portfolios' that require lower rents find seaside towns such as Margate and Brighton have plenty to offer THE HIPSTERS Shoreditch is soooo 2017. The coolest kids in town are now in Margate, munching buns from the viral donut shop and seeing the latest free exhibition at the Turner Gallery. Tracey Emin is their queen and their dream rental is a pad within the Brutalist beachside tower Arlington House. The locals might hate this monolithic 1960s eyesore but a spruced up two-bed rental comes in at around 1,000 or 250 each if two couples share, which is a lot cheaper than a Dalston bedsit. There's Dreamland right next door, too ideal for 23-year-old 'kidults' who love roller-skating, penny slots and dodgems. Cliftonville, once the most dubious street in Margate, is packed with coffee houses, vintage clothing stores and vinyl record shops. East London is over, baby. Picture this. Youre searching online for a hotel when you spot somewhere reasonable looking for a decent price in a good location with breakfast included. You book it without hesitation. Then, fast-forward six months and youre shown to a dark, cavernous, glorified shoebox without a beam of light. Im not sure when this trend of windowless rooms started exactly, but - frankly - it must stop. Because other than bats, bears and broke backpackers with no choice, absolutely nobody on this planet wants to sleep in a room without a view. For me, part of the thrill of staying at a hotel whether its a Premier Inn in Milton Keynes or a boutique in the Bahamas is waking up, popping on the kettle and drawing back the curtains. It doesnt matter if its Icelands fjords or the supermarket Icelands car park: its a little ritual I cherish. Glancing out of that hotel window often provides a first glimpse of a new destination, especially if youve landed in darkness the evening before. Holiday cell: Tiny spaces can make big money for companies branding them as 'capsule' hotel experiences, with rooms starting from around 20-a-night In the UK, regulations require that habitable rooms in new builds, HMOs (houses in multiple occupation) and rentals have windows. It doesnt seem unreasonable that similar standards should apply to hotels. Some may possibly argue they sleep better when cocooned in permanent darkness. However, Ive yet to find a hotel room made better by not having a window. At a capsule hotel in Tokyo recently essentially a glorified coffin with a TV and a curtain Ive never woken feeling more groggy or depressed. As soon as I arose, I darted for the door, squeezing past equally miserable guests fumbling in the dark for their boxer shorts and dignity. OK, this may have been taking things to extremes (and I certainly knew in advance what to expect, and was simply curious about a one-off capsule hotel experience). But whether youre a cash-strapped Gen Z on a gap year in Southeast Asia or a wealthy entrepreneur living the life of Riley in the Maldives, you deserve a room with a window, regardless of price tag. Staying at a hotel should be an enjoyable experience whatever the reason youre there. But as with so much else in modern life, comfort has been replaced by cost-cutting. Many hoteliers even seem to celebrate selling tiny, claustrophobia-inducing rooms positively pushing windowless crashpads and unashamedly putting the bottom line ahead of guests getting a good nights sleep. They dress this up as a cost-saving option for budget travellers. Cheap...as long as you don't mind being stacked up like shoeboxes in a shop Windowless hotel rooms - and on cruise ships too (pictured) - ruin a big part of the holiday charm, says Adam Turner But what a load of tripe. These rooms are simply money-spinners dreamed up by developers more concerned with profit than providing decent hospitality. What next? Will TVs be removed? Showers too? Will you soon need to bring your own bedding? And tuck into Oliver Twist-style gruel? Mark my words: windowless rooms are neither about accessibility nor cost-saving for consumers. They are a degradation of hospitality standards. We are on a slippery slope that, like shrinkflation, will see us tricked into getting less for more. So next time youre handed the keys to one of these drab, shadowy hellholes, do me a favour: complain, hand them back and ask for another room. We must reclaim our natural light, one window at a time. Netflix viewers showered praise on an award-winning sci-fi series branding it as the 'best show ever' - while raving over its casting and themes. Created by Jonathan Nolan, Person Of Interest first hit screens in 2011 and lasted five seasons up to 2016. The premise features reclusive billionaire computer genius Harold Finch (Michael Emerson), who created The Machine, a powerful program for the US government. This can predict terrorist acts by collecting widespread information - and identify those responsible for planning these. Meanwhile, Finch recruits former special forces soldier and CIA operative John Reese (Jim Caviezel), as a field agent to stop every day murders. Taking to Rotten Tomatoes, viewers enthused over the series and encouraged others to watch. Hit sci-fi drama Person Of Interest starred Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson in leading roles for five seasons Netflix viewers have showered praise on the show, as they wrote online encouraging other people to watch One wrote: 'Great characters: Finch is top-notch great and Michael Emerson absolutely pulls off each scene with excellence. 'John Reese - Jim Caviezel is flawless and awesome. Fusco - Kevin Chapman balances the show and is also a great actor!' Another agreed: 'Person of Interest is the best show ever.' A third said: 'This is a superb show and binge-worthy. 'We had not seen it when it was originally released but only recently caught up with the series via Amazon Prime. 'We find the idea very compelling and the plotting excellent, not to mention the actors who are perfectly cast. 'It keeps you wanting to know more- from the big-picture stories that move the series forward to each episode where the characters work to help save doomed souls. We need more of these types of series.' While a fourth penned: 'Absolutely thrilling show that showcases the incredible impact of AI on everyone!' As well as Caviezel and Emerson, the main cast also included Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Chapman, Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi. In 2012, Person Of Interest won a People's Choice Award for Favourite New TV Drama and four years later, for Favourite Crime Drama. It comes as an international action thriller has been wowing Netflix fans since its release on February 20 - with viewers describing it as 'the best thing in an age'. The Orphans brings together two former childhood friends after almost two decades apart, and when their first love ends up in a coma, they are forced to reconcile their differences to try to save her teenage daughter. The film, initially released in French, is now sitting at number six on the UK Netflix charts and stars Lost Bullet's Alban Lenoir and Athena's Gabriel Stenne. Its synopsis reads: 'Childhood friends Gabriel and Idriss have taken different paths: the former became a police inspector, while the latter joined organised crime. 'They reunite when their first love is involved in a suspicious road accident.' While the film has a modest IMDb rating of 5.5 out of 10, where one of its fans dubbed it 'the best thing on Netflix in [an] age', viewers have been raving about The Orphans on social media. Elsewhere, international action thriller The Orphans has been wowing Netflix fans since its release on February 20 - with one viewer describing it as 'the best thing in an age' Taking to Letterboxd, they praised: 'Hot damn! Some really f***ing awesome stunts in this film and well crafted action scenes. GO SEE THIS!! It f***ing rocks.'; 'Lacking in story but making up for that with some pulse pounding action, this thriller rattles along at a fast pace and doesn't require much thought.' 'It's well made, the first half is a little slow, making way for all the carnage in the second half. I really enjoyed it. If you like stuff like Lost Bullet, give this a go.' Initially writing in French, another viewer enthused: 'A very beautiful film! Great action scenes, stunts... Excellent work on the visuals as well, with magnificent shots of Biarritz.' One viewer shared: 'The orphans is too good on Netflix [sic].' Sharing another recommendation, a second viewer gave the film a 10 out of 10 rating: 'Run away & the orphans on Netflix 10/10 [sic].' IMDb, meanwhile, paints a more mixed picture of the film. One big fan wrote: 'If I was to describe this it's lethal weapon with a bit of bullet and some 007 just for good measure not forgetting also The Sweeney from the 70's it's a old story but it still works today the whole 90 minutes fly by there's laughter tears and a few wtf it's a whole lot of fun it's a 8 from me enjoy [sic].' A familiar guest from BBC Breakfast and Morning Live revealed viewers would be surprised by how much she and fellow contributors are paid. Dr. Helen Wall, a GP, has appeared more than 80 times across both programmes, offering her insight on health-related stories. She opened up about people's assumptions over how much money she makes from appearing on the shows - and why this doesn't reflect reality. Dr. Helen also broke down the differences between the two shows - although stressed she 'absolutely loves' working on both. Speaking to The Express, Dr. Helen said: 'You get a very short notice period for BBC Breakfast but I love it. 'I think people assume I get loads of money for doing that but I absolutely don't. I do it because I really enjoy it and it keeps me current. BBC Breakfast and Morning Live star Dr. Helen Wall opened up about the differences between the shows She addressed people's assumptions over how much money she makes from appearing on the shows - and why this doesn't reflect reality 'It means I know what's happening in the news, health wise.' Discussing Morning Live, she shared: 'The Morning Live team are all absolutely amazing. I'm not just saying that. It's a joy to be there. They're so friendly and we have a laugh.' Dr Helen also highlighted the Morning Live team, including Gethin Jones, Michelle Ackerley, Kym Marsh and Rav Wilding. She described the atmosphere while filming as being like 'you're usually having a chat and a laugh' and said it did not feel like work. Previously, the GP highlighted a particular BBC Breakfast presenter for standing out from the crowd. She told The Express that while all the presenters she's worked with have been 'lovely, Dr. Helen gave a special mention to Jon Kay. Dr. Helen described the BBC Breakfast presenters as among one of the 'nicest and most genuine guys' she's met. Dr. Helen particularly singled out Jon Kay for praise - he hosts Breakfast on Monday to Wednesday alongside Sally Nugent Jon, 56, became a regular fixture on the red sofa in 2022 and usually presents Monday to Wednesday alongside Sally Nugent. Meanwhile, Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty typically host the episodes broadcast on Thursday to Saturday. Dr. Helen also explained that while she may only be needed on set for a few minutes, she tends to arrive an hour or two ahead of time. Elsewhere, a BBC Breakfast guest fought back tears recounting the devastating death of his brave teenage daughter Jon Kay and Sally Nugent touched upon the public enquiry into the stabbing of a caretaker and two university students in Nottingham three years ago. Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar, both 19, and Ian Coates were violently stabbed to death by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham City Centre in the early hours of June 13, 2023. Jon explained: 'This morning, three years on, a public enquiry begins looking at the events that led up to the attacks and it will provide recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future. 'Ahead of the hearing, the families of the three victims have been speaking to Breakfast.' The show played out a clip of Jon's interview with Grace's dad Dr Sanjoy Kumar. Dr Kumar told the broadcaster: 'There isn't a single night that I don't think about my daughter's injuries, something that she could have run away from, but she didn't. 'She stuck it out with her friend and that will be her legacy, her bravery. 'She didn't abandon her friend. And I think about her every night.' Jon asked: 'How does her bravery inspire you through this inquiry and beyond?' Dr Kumar replied: 'I will bring positive change through my campaign. 'I will do my absolute upmost to bring mental health homicide to zero because no parent should go through this...' Breakfast and Morning Live air on BBC One and are available to stream on iPlayer. How To Make A Killing (15, 105 mins) Brian Viner: Rating: The greatest of all Ealing comedies, the 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts And Coronets, really should be left to rest in eternal peace and everlasting appreciation. Instead, in How To Make A Killing, it is clumsily exhumed and given a modern American setting, with Glen Powell as the conniving murderer who stands to inherit a fortune if he can just knock off the seven relatives ahead of him in line. This is director John Patton Fords second feature. His first was 2022s Emily The Criminal, a pulsating thriller about a credit card fraudster played by Aubrey Plaza, which seemed to announce a filmmaker of real talent. How To Make A Killing stars Glen Powell (pictured) as a conniving murderer who stands to inherit a fortune if he can just knock off the seven relatives ahead of him in line The strong cast is led by Powell as well as Margaret Qualley, as a scarlet-lipsticked femme fatale Alas, there isnt much of it on show here, with a decent cast led by Powell and Margaret Qualley, as a scarlet-lipsticked femme fatale, doing their utmost to pump life (and indeed death) into a lacklustre script light on wit, tension, fun or anything else that might reward the effort of making it through to a final twist that isnt even all that twisty. The story is related in flashback, after Becket Redfellow (Powell), awaiting execution on Death Row, starts telling a priest his life story. His late mother, when she got pregnant out of wedlock, was shunned by her gazillionaire father and raised Becket in working-class New Jersey, always telling him never to quit until you have the right kind of life. So, with the inheritance still glinting from afar, thats his mission. He duly sets about killing his kinsfolk in various sneaky ways, in one case with poisoned teeth-whitener, knowing what riches will come to him after seven funerals at the family mausoleum. Of course, in Kind Hearts And Coronets the relatives were all played by one actor: the mighty Alec Guinness. How To Make A Killing shows none of that inventiveness; in fact its hard to know whether to call it a comedy, a thriller, a neo-noir or a melodrama. Lets settle for dud. Matthew Bond: Rating: Glen Powells latest film is essentially a remake of the old Ealing Studios classic, Kind Hearts And Coronets. But where that staple of so many rainy Sunday afternoons starred Alec Guinness, one of the finest actors of his generation, How To Make A Killing, stars well, er, Powell, who (sticking my neck out here) is not. The film is loosely inspired by 1949's Kind Hearts and Coronets, which saw Alex Guinness play eight characters Yes, hes undeniably a handsome hunk who can usefully grace a decent rom-com, but is there really much going on behind those smooth, sculpted features? Those who answer with a firm yes will find the next hour-and-three-quarters more enjoyable than I did. Powell plays Becket Redfellow, whose mother is thrown out of the palatial family seat by her billionaire father when she becomes pregnant at the age of 18. But as she explains to her son before tragically dying a decade or so later, while they may have been thrown out of the family home they cant be thrown out of the family trust. All young Becket has to do is wait for the seven relatives who stand in his way to die. Or, of course, he could accelerate the process a tad. Call me when youve killed them all, jokes his childhood friend, Julia, who may be about to marry someone else but still takes a flirtatious interest in Becket, even when hes only scraping a living as a tailors assistant. An idea is born just not a very original one. In fairness, Powell is taking on the equivalent of the role played by Dennis Price in Kind Hearts; Guinness made the film his own by playing all the doomed relatives. But sheer familiarity limits our enjoyment of what ensues. But theres still some fun to be had as Becket discovers that murder is complicated he ends up really liking one of his intended victims and is romantically involved with the girlfriend of another and Margaret Qualley always catches the eye as the enigmatic Julia. But if this is saving a rainy Sunday afternoon in 30 years time, Ill be very surprised. Death toll in Kyiv region as result of Russian attack grows to four, while number of injured reaches ten The death toll from the enemy attack on Kyiv region has risen to four and ten, respectively, the National Police of Ukraine reported. "Russian troops continue to strike Kyiv region. Four people are currently dead and ten are wounded. Residential buildings, warehouses, and vehicles have also been damaged," the message reads. Patrol police response teams, investigative teams, Kyiv region police bomb disposal experts, as well as rescuers and medics, are working at the scene of the incidents. "Investigators have opened a criminal investigation into war crimes under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," police reported. Earlier, three people were killed and five injured in Kyiv region as a result of another massive Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine. There are fires and damage to civilian infrastructure, according to Regional Military Administration chief Mykola Kalashnyk. The Claudia Winkleman Show finally landed on British screens on Friday after months of hype but its first episode has fallen flat with viewers. Fronted by The Traitors icon Claudia Winkleman, the new chat show takes on a similar format to The Graham Norton Show with a moodier, after hours vibe. But despite an all-star guest list consisting of Jeff Goldblum, Jennifer Saunders, Vanessa Williams and Tom Allen, viewers have claimed the chat show is 'nowhere near as good as Graham Norton' - and even Claudia's charisma can't save it. Taking to social media as the first episode aired on the BBC, viewers shared their many criticisms of the show, including that they hated the recorded audience noise. Another criticism for viewers were the that experts planted around the audience primed to chime in when each celebrity told anecdote made for awkward viewing, with one person saying: 'So flat, even the guests look bored.' Elsewhere some people thought the interviews were unstructured and 'all over the place', adding that the celebrities appeared to talk over each other. The Claudia Winkleman Show finally landed on British screens on Friday after months of hype but its first episode has fallen flat with viewers Fronted by The Traitors icon Claudia Winkleman, the new chat show takes on a similar format to The Graham Norton Show with a moodier, after hours vibe And even the set took a beating, with viewers claiming the lighting, furniture and outfits were all too dark and merged into one. Taking to social media as it aired, they wrote: 'So Goldblum assumes the A lister seat and Tom Allen the British comedian seat. Its no different to #thegrahamnortonshow,'; 'The set has too many shades of brown and it's very dark, the audience sound is terrible and sounds too prompted. I love Claudia but it's setup to fail,'; 'So Television is Graham Norton's production company, they also produce The Claudia Winkleman Show which is why, despite a set change, the format is identical. A shame nothing different was attempted with this chat show!'; 'This show is probably a bit like making pancakes. The first one is a bit iffy but things do improve going forward,'; 'the laugh track is getting irritating,'; 'Intro music is cr**. The set is too dark. Something's not right about the sound, but not sure what. Interviews are a bit all over the place. Tweaking definitely needed if it's to be anywhere near as good as the Graham Norton Show,'; 'Just what we need another chat show. Sadly the format has died out now same celebs every time,'; 'So far this show is pretty poor,'; 'Will Claudia have a brown chair instead of a red chair to tip up at the end of the show?'; 'This show feels a little random, everyone talking amongst themselves,'; But despite an all-star guest list consisting of Jeff Goldblum, Jennifer Saunders, Vanessa Williams and Tom Allen, viewers have claimed the chat show is 'nowhere near as good as Graham Norton' Taking to social media as the first episode aired on the BBC, viewers shared their many criticisms of the show, including that they hated the recorded audience noise Taking to social media as the first episode aired on the BBC , viewers shared their many criticisms of the show, including that they hated the recorded audience noise '#TheClaudiaWinklemanShow is the new The new #grahamnortonshow after hours!!'; 'So flat. Even the guests look bored,'; 'It's giving the vibe of a bunch of folk who hardly know each other arriving for a dinner party and making awkward, random conversation,'; '#TheClaudiaWinklemanShow isn't bad but I think it's more of a midweek or Sunday night chat show. Talking to a woman in the audience who designs pencils doesn't scream Friday night,'; 'I love Claudia but sorry, this is on a par with watching The One Show,'; 'I really wanted to like it, but the cameras are all over the place. Just have a wide shot that shows the host and the guests. After all the hype, I only carried on watching until the end because Claudia is great, but this was really not good.' However not all viewers were left disappointed, with several gushing over Claudia's presenting skills and the late night set up. They said: 'I'm already loving Claudia's new show. The set is fab. They have Tom Raffield light shades and table lamps. Ive a few in the house but not a table lamp. Gonna want one!'; And even the set took a beating, with viewers claiming the lighting, furniture and outfits were all too dark and merged into one However not all viewers were left disappointed, with several gushing over Claudia's presenting skills and the late night set up 'Early days but this is promising. Having Jeff Goldblum as a guest on the 1st show is a blessing!'; 'This is the return of classic late night talk shows. The walk round the audience greeting everyone. The genuine conversations. Just saying whatever. KEEP THIS ON MY SCREEN FOREVER,'; 'Loving #TheClaudiaWinklemanShow. She is an excellent host. Guests are fab. Loving hearing them all chatting away. Dont need the weird audience forced interaction bits,'; 'Loved #TheClaudiaWinklemanShow Can't remember the last time I sat and watched something all the way through without reaching for my phone. @jeffGoldblumMSO a genius booking! Well done @ClaudiaWinkle you can stop being nervous now!' She failed to forge a connection with her Married At First Sight groom Tyson Gordon, but Stephanie Marshall is certainly not wallowing in heartbreak. The reality star celebrated her 33rd birthday in Brisbane this week with a brand new beau, Aaron, on her arm. The newly minted couple were not afraid to flaunt their burgeoning love either, pausing for a kiss as they made their way to a nearby restaurant for a romantic lunch date. Stephanie was positively glowing as she walked, beaming as she held Aaron's hand tightly in hers. Aaron, too, looked chuffed to be in Stephanie's company, grinning broadly as he escorted her to the restaurant. Stephanie also cut quite the chic figure, stepping out in a sleeveless, electric blue halter dress that clung perfectly to her svelte frame. She failed to forge a connection with her Married At First Sight groom Tyson Gordon, but Stephanie Marshall is certainly not wallowing in heartbreak The reality star celebrated her 33rd birthday in Brisbane this week with a brand new beau, Aaron, on her arm (Both pictured) The dress also boasted chunky gold buttons down the front, and a cheeky knee-high split that flaunted the MAFS star's lithe legs. Wearing her flaxen locks tied back for the romantic rendezvous, Stephanie finished her look with a pair of strappy gold heels. Dialing back on the bling for the outing, Stephanie accessorised with a cute tan-coloured Saint Laurent clutch. Aaron, meanwhile, wore a light blue collared shirt and a pair of light grey chinos. Sporting facial hair on his top lip, he brought the outfit together with a brown leather belt and a pair of matching boots. Speaking to Daily Mail, Stephanie revealed that the pair began dating in late October, after finalising a real estate deal. 'I sold him a house when I was in the experiment and then, after I left, we did the pre-settlement inspection and met there and have been dating ever since,' she said. She admitted that sparks ignited almost immediately with Aaron, saying that she was attracted to her new beau's 'thoughtful nature' and 'emotional maturity'. The newly minted couple were not afraid to flaunt their burgeoning love either, pausing for a kiss as they made their way to a nearby restaurant for a romantic lunch date Stephanie was positively glowing as she walked, beaming as she held Aaron's hand tightly in hers Speaking to Daily Mail, Stephanie revealed that the pair began dating in late October, after finalising a real estate deal 'I sold him a house when I was in the experiment and then, after I left, we did the pre-settlement inspection and met there and have been dating ever since,' she said She admitted that sparks ignited almost immediately with Aaron, saying that she was attracted to her new beau's 'thoughtful nature' and 'emotional maturity' Drawing a clear distinction between Aaron and Tyson, Stephanie didn't mince words when discussing her ex, saying he behaved like 'a big kid' and insisting the pair are 'completely different people.' Meanwhile, Tyson also revealed to Daily Mail that there was never any spark with Stephanie, describing their short-lived marriage as more of a friendship. 'Steph I think she's a great person,' Tyson said. 'I've got nothing really bad to say about Steph, quite frankly but just the connection wasn't there and yeah, it just wasn't meant to be.' He added that he knew that it wasn't meant to be as soon as he first laid eyes on Stephanie at their wedding. 'I just didn't feel the connection. I just didn't feel the spark,' he said. 'As soon as I saw her walk down the aisle I thought she was pretty, don't get me wrong, but just I don't know I really didn't feel, I didn't have any feelings there.' Adding that the couple's off-camera life was nowhere near as dramatic as what viewers saw, Tyson said he 'pulled back' from his bride as he didn't want to waste her time. Meanwhile, Tyson also revealed to Daily Mail that there was never any spark with Stephanie, describing their short-lived marriage as more of a friendship 'Steph I think she's a great person,' Tyson said. 'I've got nothing really bad to say about Steph, quite frankly but just the connection wasn't there and yeah, it just wasn't meant to be' 'There's no point sticking around with someone that you don't see a future with,' he said. 'The worst thing you can do is lead someone on.' While admitting that Stephanie was a 'great person' Tyson said he felt let down by his bride in the experiment. 'I feel like she didn't have my back. She was supposed to be this conservative woman, but she didn't really have my back in any of my conservative views,' he said. 'I think our personalities collided a little bit. I think maybe the attraction as well wasn't there for both of us.' Katie Price's husband Lee Andrews has reportedly been heard begging a woman for cash in desperate voice notes. The US-based businesswoman, who did not want to be named, reportedly revealed she received a string of 'desperate' voice notes from Lee just a week before he proposed to Katie, 47. In the voice notes, Lee reportedly tried to persuade the woman to send him cash in amounts ranging from 1100 to 2500 on multiple occasions since last May for what she believed was a business opportunity. But as the woman felt uneasy about sending money, Lee's voice notes reportedly became more and more desperate - with the Dubai-based 'millionaire businessman', 42, asking her for cash as recently as January. In the voice notes heard by The Sun, Lee reportedly said: 'If you can help me or send Western Union 3000 that would help me so much. I could just do with a big hug really. 'You don't know how desperate it's been, the last couple of months of me trying to survive.' Katie Price's husband Lee Andrews has reportedly been heard begging a woman for cash in desperate voice notes The former glamour model stunned fans last month when she announced she had married the Dubai-based businessman following a whirlwind one-week romance Self-proclaimed 'millionaire' Lee is said to have claimed he was cash-strapped and living off 20 pence ready meals because he was waiting for payments from his business Aura Sustainable Vehicles & Energy BVI to clear from Kenya. Despite their arrangement reportedly being a business one, Lee is said to have told the woman he would 'love her' if she could send him the cash and referred to her as 'beautiful'. When the woman refused to send Lee money, he reportedly swore at her and called her a time waster. Speaking to the publication, the woman said Lee had told her he was so poor he was forced to live off packets of rice. She said she ultimately decided against sending him cash but she came very close as he is 'so persuasive'. The woman went on to say that Lee told her back in December he had met someone special, who she believes to be Katie. The Daily Mail has contacted Lee for comment. Lee has denied all previous claims. She is not the first woman to make allegations against Lee. It comes after Lee's furious ex accused him of 'scamming' women out of cash as she dubs him the 'tinder swindler'. The former glamour model stunned fans last month when she announced she had married the Dubai-based businessman following a whirlwind one-week romance. The US-based businesswoman, who did not want to be named, reportedly revealed she received a string of 'desperate' voice notes from Lee just a week before he proposed to Katie After news of their nuptials emerged, Lee's exes spoke out about him and he faced a string of accusations about the true nature of his finances, with a slew of his claims about his wealth, business acumen and celebrity-links said to be false. His former flame Alana Percival, 32, previously spoke out about how Lee had asked her to marry him in a lavish proposal strikingly similar to when he popped the question to Katie 16 weeks later. Last week Alana claimed four women have got in contact with her in the last two weeks since she told her story - all claiming that Lee tried to 'scam' them out of money - in a post seen by The Sun. Alana went on to brand Lee 'embarrassing' and likened him to the Tinder Swindler - a Netflix show made about Israeli conman Simon Leviev, a notorious relationship scammer. Taking to her Instagram Story on Saturday, Alana wrote: 'Another woman sending me voices on how he tried to scam her 4 people in 2 weeks reached out to me sending me all sorts of voice recordings. 'Self claimed multimillionaire or billionaire my f***ing a**e. Begging women around the world for 3000 this was only in January!. 'They have been speaking since May 2025when she said no he got angry and said some [vile] things (no shock there) More people that he is trying to scam like he done to poor Crystal! '[He] actually is another tinder swindler soooo embarrassing. But one that is stuck in [Dubai] on a travel ban.' Warwick Davis' is pictured with his mystery girlfriend he's nicknamed 'Sponge' as it's revealed the couple have been dating for a year following the tragic death of his wife. The Harry Potter star, 56, has was seen with the attractive brunette at the BAFTA awards where he paid tribute to her in his acceptance speech for 'helping him find love again.' The couple were also together backstage at a Madness concert last July- while his new love was alongside his two children when Warwick accepted his OBE at Windsor Castle earlier this week. Sources close to the couple say they have been dating for a year and are apparently 'happier than ever' together. Warwick's girlfriend is helping him rebuild his life after his wife Samantha suffered a cardiac arrest in 2024 aged 53. A source told the Daily Mail: 'Warwick has been with his girlfriend for over a year now and they couldn't be happier. 'She has no interest in being a public figure and although she has accompanied Warwick to events she does not court the limelight. 'She is so proud of Warwick and loves to be by his side at events, but she will stand back and allow him to be in the spotlight. Warwick Davis and his mystery girlfriend were pictured together at last month's BAFTA Awards The pair were also seen together having a giggle backstage at a Madness concert at the Eden Project The woman Warwick affectionately calls 'Sponge' was also alongside his two children this week at Windsor Castle as the actor accepted an OBE from the Prince of Wales 'She is close with his children and they have a lovely life together. All anyone wanted was to see Warwick happy and he has that with his girlfriend.' Arriving at Wndsor Castle, Warwick was seen conversing with Prince William as he accepted the honour, with the girlfriend and his daughter Annabelle, 28, and son Harrison, 23, looking on. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama and charity. His girlfriend also attended the Bafta Film Awards with Warrick at London's Royal Festival Hall last month. Last July, the couple were also seen backstage together at a Madness concert in Cornwall. Warwick revealed he had found love again with a mystery women during his acceptance speech, after being awarded with the BAFTA Fellowship. He said: 'Special mention should go to Sponge, you know who you are. 'Thank you for showing me that life can still have meaning and for helping me to laugh and to love again.' Asked about the identity of 'Sponge' last year, Warwick said on The Jonathan Ross Show: 'I can reveal, sticking with the Harry Potter theme, Sponge is indeed She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.' Referring to Daisy May Cooper's character, Kerry Mucklowe, from comedy series This Country, Warwick adds: 'Sponge very much reminds me of Kerry. Some of the things she says and her accent.' Warwick also spoke about his emotional tribute to his late wife Samantha during his acceptance speech, saying: 'When you go through your career as an actor, you sometimes become a bit reluctant to do certain jobs thinking another one will come along and be a bit better. 'She would always say 'get out there and do it'. She was great at networking as well, always talking to producers and getting me the work in the next job. Very supportive. You need that in this business because it is difficult. You've got to have someone who is very supportive of you being away on occasions and working ridiculous hours.' Warwick added: 'Acting is quite a lonely career, really. You need a solid foundation at home to support that and make it work.' Join the discussion How soon is too soon to find love again after losing a long-term partner? Warwick's late wife Samantha Davis, who was also an actress, died aged 53 at University College Hospital in London on March 24, 2024 He was also joined by his daughter Annabelle, 28, and son Harrison, 23, as he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama and charity Arriving for the ceremony, Warwick was seen conversing with Prince William as he accepted the honour, with his girlfriend and his children watching on Warwick's late wife Samantha, who was also an actress, died aged at University College Hospital in London. An inquest into her death concluded that she died as a result of a cardiac arrest following complications from an essential surgery. She fell ill with sepsis in 2019 which led to intensive care treatment. This followed operations on her spine that were undertaken at University College London Hospital. Warwick dedicated his BAFTA Film Fellowship Award to his late wife during an emotional tribute at the ceremony. He said: 'Above all I would like to dedicate and thank my wonderful wife Sammy who died almost a year ago. She was always so supportive of my career and encouraged me to grab every opportunity with both hands.' His children were both seen crying in the audience as their dad thanked them helping him get through the tough year. He said: 'Since then, life has been pretty tough for me but thanks to the support of our wonderful children Annabelle and Harrison, I've been able to continue working and engaging in life.' The couple met during the filming of 1988 fantasy movie Willow, in which he had a starring role as the hero Willow Ufgood. They married in 1991. Alongside their daughter Annabelle and son Harrison, Warwick and Samantha also had a third child, however he tragically died nine days after being born. Warwick said in 2022 that he would not wish the 'devastating' experience of losing their son on anyone and added: 'You never get over it.' Samantha was then struck down with sepsis, five years before her death, with Warwick keeping vigil at her hospital bedside as she fought for her life. Their family had been gearing up for a caravan holiday in 2019 when she suddenly fell ill with a mystery condition, something she put down to stress. However, she became gravely unwell and left on the brink of death before thankfully making a remarkable recovery. Samantha then tragically died in 2024, with Warwick releasing a touching statement where he said her passing had 'left a huge hole in our lives' and paid tribute to his 'favourite human'. He described Sammy, as he called her, as his 'most trusted confidant and an ardent supporter of everything I did in my career'. The Star Wars actor said he felt like he could achieve anything with his wife by his side and that it felt like he had a 'superpower'. 'She was a unique character, always seeing the sunny side of life she had a wicked sense of humour and always laughed at my bad jokes,' Warwick said in a statement given to the BBC. Following the inquest into Samantha's death, Senior coroner Professor Fiona Wilcox ruled her cause of death as 'arrhythmic cardiac arrest and complications following left thoracotomies'. She explained that she had achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, which was 'complicated by very severe spinal problems' and had required multiple surgeries since 2016. She also praised the care given by hospital staff, telling the court, the hospital delivered 'nothing but excellent care' and all of Samantha's 'complications were appropriately managed'. She said: 'I am satisfied that the medical cause of death should be arrhythmic cardiac arrest and complications following left thoracotomies. 'In my view, the stress of everything together has precipitated this arrhythmic cardiac arrest in a lady who was not known to have any previous arrhythmia problems.' Prof Wilcox added: 'I have found nothing but excellent care being delivered to this lady and all of her complications were appropriately managed. 'It is frankly heartbreaking that the surgery itself was successful only for complications to arise and to cause her death.' David Lawrence, a cardiothoracic surgeon at University College London Hospitals, said Samantha's recovery had been going well and that she had stable readings. He told the inquest: 'Very sadly, on the night this happened, the original plan had been that she would be discharged home the following day. 'We had good evidence that this patient had a chest x-ray that was acceptable, very stable observations and this patient did not bleed during the day.' During her stay, two surgical chest drains had been removed the second of which came out on the very same day she died. Senior Coroner for Inner West London, Prof Wilcox, said: 'I am satisfied that the medical cause of death should be arrhythmic cardiac arrest and complications following left thoracotomies. 'In my view, the stress of everything together has precipitated this arrhythmic cardiac arrest in a lady who was not known to have any previous arrhythmia problems.' The coroner added: 'I have found nothing but excellent care being delivered to this lady and all of her complications were appropriately managed. 'It is frankly heartbreaking that the surgery itself was successful only for complications to arise and to cause her death.' In a statement released through their solicitors ahead of the hearing, the family said: 'We know that the resilience and strength Sammy instilled in all of us will guide us through this difficult next chapter. 'Her love, support, and determination is a legacy we want to continue. Sammy's Helping Hands fund, which was set up in her honour, has already had a huge impact on young people in the dwarfism community, and will continue to support families all over the UK moving forwards. 'The last year and trying to come to terms with Samantha's death has been incredibly difficult. 'However, we hope that the inquest will at last provide us with answers. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their kindness and well-wishes to us all.' Samantha was diagnosed with achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder that causes dwarfism, as a child. Her husband is affected by a similar condition, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. It meant he never grew taller than 3ft 6in. Best known for roles such as Professor Flitwick and goblin Griphook in Harry Potter, as well as his comedic adventures with Karl Pilkington in An Idiot Abroad, Warwick is particularly commended for his advocacy for people with dwarfism. He co-founded the charity Little People UK in 2012 with his late wife Samantha, to support people with dwarfism and their families. Davis has confirmed he will return to the world of wizardry for the new Harry Potter series reboot and reprise his role as Professor Flitwick. Kate Hudson turned up the glamour while attending the 63rd Annual ICG Publicists Awards on Friday. The 46-year-old actress dazzled in a strapless gown with a crinkled aluminum foil-inspired design and the addition of a structured hip design to highlight her curves. She posed on the red carpet in a pair of black, patent leather pumps that matched the neckline detail on her dress. The Song Sung Blue star completed her look with silver and black statement earrings but opted out of any other accessories to show off her eye-catching dress. She also went for a classic, simple makeup and hair look as she left her blonde tresses down to showcase her natural beauty. At the luncheon ceremony, Hudson was honored with the Motion Picture Showperson of the Year Award for her acting performances over the years - just days ahead of the Oscars on Sunday. Kate Hudson received a special honor at the annual ICG Publicists Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills on Friday She was presented the award from fellow actress Gwyneth Paltrow at the ceremony, which also recognized Sinners and The Pitt. Fellow actor Noah Wyle was honored with the Television Showperson of the Year Award for his role in The Pitt. She accepted the award and gushed about the 'magic' of working in the film industry in her speech. 'Making movies is an extraordinary process. It doesn't end when we wrap,' she said, per The Hollywood Reporter. 'We are also tasked with bringing that magic to audiences, and publicity is a huge part of that,' the Oscar nominee continued. 'I'm the showperson and you're the ship.' At the upcoming 98th Academy Awards set for Sunday, March 14, Hudson is in the running for the Best Actress award for her role as Claire Sardina in Song Sung Blue. The daughter of Hollywood icon Goldie Hawn earned her first Oscar nomination over two decades ago. Back in 2001, she received a Best Supporting Actress nod for her role as Penny Lane in Almost Famous. Her nomination at this year's ceremony marks her return to the Oscars after 25 years since she earned her first. The Song Sung Blue actress attended the luncheon ceremony in a crinkled, silver dress that appeared to be inspired by aluminum foil While she went for a bold dress, she opted for minimalism with her accessories, her hair and makeup as she walked the red carpet in an otherwise simple yet classic look In the biographical musical drama film, which was released in late 2025, Hudson stars opposite Hugh Jackman. The Craig Brewer-directed film is based on the true story of the Milwaukee-based Neil Diamond tribute act Lightning & Thunder. For the Oscar event, Hudson is expected to bring along her star-studded family to support her at the awards ceremony. Just one day earlier, her longtime 'stepdad' Kurt Russell shared his thoughts about her Oscar nomination. 'She's up for her second Oscar,' Russell, 74, told AARP's Movies for Grownups in an interview published on Thursday. 'Goldie won one and was nominated twice. If Kate were to win, she and Goldie would share that, which would be a wonderful thing.' The Madison star added that he changed his plans to support Hudson at the Oscars. '[I] didn't think I was going to be able to make it to the Academy Awards because I was going to be out of town, but now it looks like I am.' The Oscar nominee had a bright smile on her face as she accepted the special honor just days ahead of the highly anticipated Academy Awards The actress received her second Oscar nomination, her first in 25 years, and is up for the Best Actress statuette for her performance in Song Sung Blue In the biographical musical drama film, which was released in late 2025, Hudson stars opposite Hugh Jackman The Craig Brewer-directed film is based on the true story of the Milwaukee-based Neil Diamond tribute act Lightning & Thunder Russell also gushed about Hudson and the talent that runs in the Hudson family during the same conversation. 'She's a great, fabulous person with a lot of talent. We all pretty much realize how fortunate we are. Because you're going to have a lot of things happen to you in life that are not good [and] not fun. There are down times. There are tragedies. But I like staying around for as long as I can because I like it.' He also shed insight into his 43-year relationship with Hudson's mother Hawn, 80. 'Well, it doesn't feel like a long time,' he told the outlet. 'She's not the type of person that wears on you. She's just a blast. I mean, she's completely unique. She's a one-off, and I just feel incredibly lucky to have had the years and times that I've had with Goldie. We've shared a wonderful life.' Jennie Garth brought along daughter Lola Ray Facinelli to LA Magazine's Women of Impact luncheon on Friday. Garth, 53, shares Facinelli, 23, with ex-husband Peter Facinelli. The mother-daughter duo coordinated in dresses that were different shades of brown. Garth, who has been promoting a new memoir called I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention, wore a long-sleeved satin dress. She added pointed-toe white flats and wore her blonde locks loose and in a center part. Meanwhile, Lola's sleeveless number boasted pleated accents and a keyhole cutout at the chest. Jennie Garth brought along daughter Lola Ray Facinelli to LA Magazine's Women of Impact luncheon on Friday Garth, who has been promoting a new memoir called I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention, wore a long-sleeved satin dress She paired the outfit with a pair of round-toe lavender flats and she wore a light face of makeup. Garth was married to her ex-husband from 2001-2013 and in addition to Lola they share Luca, 28, and Fiona, 19. In December she paid tribute to her middle child with a reflective Instagram post as she turned a year older. Sharing a slew of photos, she captioned, 'She is lovely, she is wonderful, she is precious AND SHE IS TWENTY THREE! How does time fly??!! Happy Birthday @raylolaray. 'You are my constant ray of goodness. Being your Mommie is the joy of my life. We have so many crazy adventures ahead of us! Heres to your 23rd year!I know it will be your best one yet! And I am always right here cheering you on. I love you.' And in a post on her daughter's previous birthday, she wrote, 'My one piece of advice for Lola as she turns 22 is You dont need to have it all figured out yet. Progress is more important than perfection.' The former Beverly Hills, 90210 actress married Dave Abrams in 2015. She will embark on an eight-stop book tour beginning on April 14. Garth marked Lola's birthday in December with a gushing social media post calling her 'my constant ray of goodness' L-R Corinne Foxx, Olivia Munn, Lola, and Garth Her face-framing blonde locks were loose and in a center part She posted to her 1.4 million followers on Friday, 'SO EXCITED for my book tour! I cant wait to see all of your beautiful faces. 'Thank you all for your support and kindness so far, it truly means the world to me. Go ahead and get your tickets today, theyre selling fast.' Her tour stops include Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Missouri, and California. The mom-of-three also has a clothing line in partnership with QVC called Me By Jennie Garth. The tagline in the official Instagram profile reads, 'Making choosing yourself the easiest decision of your day.' Australia's Next Top Model star Didier Cohen will have to wait another two months to find out if he will be serving up to eight years in an American prison. The actor, 40, stands accused of brutally attacking his father David Cohen with a bottle, assaulting his step-mother Avesta Saaty, kidnapping them both, and threatening to kill them - along with other shocking felonies. His lawyer, Charles Unger, filed a motion pleading with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Andrea Thompson at a criminal court hearing on Friday, saying Cohen should not stand trial, which could lead to his conviction and years behind bars. Instead, attorney Unger asked the judge to order the troubled star to enrol in a 'mental health diversion program', which would mean if he stayed out of trouble for a set number of years, all the charges against him would be thrown out. Since she's newly appointed to oversee the case, Judge Thompson postponed her ruling on the motion to another hearing on May 15, saying she wants to 'hear from mental health experts, victims, other family members and everyone involved with the case'. Meanwhile, prosecutor Frederick Engell is pushing for Cohen to be put on trial, telling the judge: 'There were serious injuries to victims in this case.' Australia's Next Top Model star Didier Cohen, 40, will have to wait another two months to find out if he will be serving up to eight years in an American prison He indicated that Cohen's 72-year-old father may have forgiven his son for the attack, saying: 'His father is pro mental health diversion.' But added that 52-year-old Saaty may not be in favour of putting her stepson in a diversion program instead of prison. Judge Thompson agreed the case involved 'very serious injuries' and told the court that when she decides whether to put Cohen in a diversion program or order him to stand trial, 'the safety of the community is paramount, as well as the needs of the defendant'. Cohen - whose home burned down in last year's devastating LA fires - has pleaded not guilty to all nine charges against him. He showed up at Friday's hearing with his heavily-tattooed head shaved and wearing a dark suit and tie with a white shirt. Despite the severity of his alleged crimes, his lawyers argue that rather than locking him up, supervised mental health treatment would be more appropriate for Cohen, who is already living in a residential drug treatment program. In a written brief, found by Daily Mail, they wrote that when California lawmakers enacted mental health diversion provisions eight years ago, 'the express purpose of this legislation was to increase diversion of mentally ill individuals based on concerns that incarceration only serves to aggravate their pre-existing conditions and does little to deter future lawlessness'. 'Successful mental health treatment helps the person and makes the community safer,' the brief continued. The actor stands accused of brutally attacking his father David Cohen with a bottle, assaulting his step-mother Avesta Saaty, kidnapping them both, and threatening to kill them - along with other shocking felonies. Pictured with his mother and a close friend at court in January 'Diversion is intended to provide eligible defendants with treatment opportunities that address the root causes of their criminal behaviour, ultimately reducing recidivism and promoting public safety.' According to the criminal complaint against Cohen, some of the crimes the LA-born former model is accused of 'involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, and other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness and callousness'. In count one of the charges, he allegedly committed 'first degree burglary' at the $4 million home his dad and Saaty share in celebrity-rich Malibu 'with the intent to commit larceny and any felony'. In count two, Cohen - who prosecutors say was supposed to provide elder care for his father - instead allegedly committed 'elder or dependent abuse' by inflicting 'unjustifiable physical pain and mental suffering and, having the care and custody of said victim, wilfully caused and permitted him to be placed in a situation in which his health was endangered'. In counts three and five, he is accused of kidnapping his dad and Saaty 'forcibly and by instilling fear'. Count four alleges he assaulted his father 'with a deadly weapon, to wit, a glass bottle'. In count six, he's charged with assaulting Saaty 'by means of force likely to produce great bodily harm'. Counts seven and eight accuse him of making his father and Saaty scared for their lives by issuing threats 'to commit a crime that would result in death and great bodily injury'. Cohen is best known for appearing on Australia's Next Top Model. Pictured with co-stars Jennifer Hawkins, Alex Perry and Cheyenne Tozzi in 2015 In the ninth and final count against him, he is alleged to have 'maliciously' vandalised Saaty's car. The sentences for the charges he is facing range from two to eight years in prison. Kidnapping carries the highest maximum penalty of eight years - which would likely be his maximum sentence if he goes to trial and is convicted, since the sentences for any other convictions would commonly run concurrently. Cohen - who has a four-year-old daughter, Marigold, with his estranged partner, Chanel Wolf - has already had a taste of life in prison. After his arrest on June 26 last year, he spent five months in jail before being released in November on $300,000 bail. Prosecutors claim at the time of his arrest he was already 'on probation, mandatory supervision, post-release community supervision and parole'. On Friday, Judge Thompson allowed Cohen to remain free on the same $300,000 bail until the May 15 hearing, which means he will stay at the drug rehabilitation facility he currently resides in. At an earlier hearing, Cohen's lawyer, Unger, explained the workings of the mental health diversion program to Daily Mail, saying: 'In place of being convicted and sentenced, Didier would have to agree to stay clean and comply with all the rules and conditions laid down by the judge for a set period, probably two years. 'If he did comply with all those conditions and complete the diversion program, the charges against him would eventually be dismissed.' But, he warned that if Cohen - who now goes by the name Meyer Love Moquin - did not comply with all the diversion conditions, 'he could be brought to court and sent to state prison for a very long time'. Overall, critics were pleasantly surprised by The Claudia Winkleman Show when it graced screens on Friday night. Claudia secured a top notch line-up of Jeff Goldblum, Vanessa Williams, Jennifer Saunders and Tom Allen. The former Strictly Come Dancing host has taken over from Graham for seven weeks in a new London studio. While the show fell flat with viewers, who claim Claudia could 'never replace' Graham Norton, there were a mixture of feelings from the critics. Nick Hilton of the Independent gave the show three stars for the 'classy, witty affair that has brilliant potential' but added it 'might need a few tweaks'. Making clear they 'love Claudia', The Guardian's critic says Graham is just too difficult to replace before branding the chat show 'a mess'. Overall, critics were pleasantly surprised by The Claudia Winkleman Show when it graced screens on Friday night Claudia secured a top notch line-up of Jeff Goldblum, Vanessa Williams, Jennifer Saunders and Tom Allen Giving the show a poor two stars, Lucy Mangan writes: 'Claudia has been faster and wittier than at least three fifths of her guests'. Carol Midgley for The Times pens: 'Claudia is not a comedian but she is funny (she made a joke about breastfeeding her dog). She should relax more and have the confidence to be herself. And, dare I say it, be a bit less nice. 'This is a job that is more difficult than it looks. Claudia, despite her self-mockery and nerves, put in a respectable first shift'. Anita Singh at The Telegraph says the show was 'quite random, reassuringly nice. A lovely way to end the week, but not yet appointment-to-view TV'. Meanwhile, viewers claimed the chat show is 'nowhere near as good as Graham Norton' - and even Claudia's charisma can't save it. Taking to social media as the first episode aired on the BBC, viewers shared their many criticisms of the show, including that they hated the recorded audience noise. Another criticism for viewers were the that experts planted around the audience primed to chime in when each celebrity told anecdote made for awkward viewing, with one person saying: 'So flat, even the guests look bored.' Elsewhere some people thought the interviews were unstructured and 'all over the place', adding that the celebrities appeared to talk over each other. Fronted by The Traitors icon Claudia Winkleman, the new chat show takes on a similar format to The Graham Norton Show with a moodier, after hours vibe Taking to social media as the first episode aired on the BBC , viewers shared their many criticisms of the show, including that they hated the recorded audience noise However not all viewers were left disappointed, with several gushing over Claudia's presenting skills and the late night set up And even the set took a beating, with viewers claiming the lighting, furniture and outfits were all too dark and merged into one. Taking to social media as it aired, they wrote: 'So Goldblum assumes the A lister seat and Tom Allen the British comedian seat. Its no different to #thegrahamnortonshow,'; 'The set has too many shades of brown and it's very dark, the audience sound is terrible and sounds too prompted. I love Claudia but it's setup to fail,'; 'So Television is Graham Norton's production company, they also produce The Claudia Winkleman Show which is why, despite a set change, the format is identical. A shame nothing different was attempted with this chat show!'; 'This show is probably a bit like making pancakes. The first one is a bit iffy but things do improve going forward,'; 'the laugh track is getting irritating'. Cameron Diaz got into character on Friday night as he was spotted filming her new movie in New York. The actress, 53, who recently came out of retirement, was spotted shooting scenes for the new romantic flick in the Big Apple. While Cameron was instantly recognisable by her blonde locks, they were curled as part of her new role in the movie. Pictures show Cameron and the crew gathered outside of the Olive Tree Cafe and Comedy Cellar. While details of the film are vague, Cameron will share the big screen with Stephen Merchant, who is directing and co-wrote the screenplay. The plot sees Stephen's character work at an upscale New York hotel, though he needs a wife for the sake of appearances. Cameron Diaz got into character on Friday night as he was spotted filming her new movie in New York The actress, 53, who recently came out of retirement, was spotted shooting scenes for the new romantic flick in the Big Apple He strikes a deal with a struggling stand up comic, played by Diaz, who is desperate for health insurance. While their fake marriage starts as purely a transaction, a teaser for the movie hints it could end in unexpected romance between the pair. Other names attached to the film include John Segarra, and comedian Joy Ride. Cameron has slowly been returning to the spotlight and starred in the Netflix movie Back In Action which hit the streaming site last year in January 2025. It had been her first film project in 10 years after she took a lengthy break from Hollywood. She had devoted time to motherhood and raising her two children Raddix, six, and Cardinal, one - whom she shares with husband Benji Madden. 'That was what I was putting most of my focus on. If I was doing anything other than just sort of being a mom and living my day-to-day,' she said in a behind-the-scenes Netflix interview for the film Back In Action. 'That was pretty much it. I'm just trying to stay alive just like every other mother. I'm just trying to keep it going.' While Cameron was instantly recognisable by her blonde locks, they were curled as part of her new role in the movie While details of the film are vague, Cameron will share the big screen with Stephen Merchant, who is directing and co-wrote the screenplay Cameron has slowly been returning to the spotlight and starred in the Netflix movie Back In Action in January 2025, 10 years after she took a lengthy break from Hollywood She now has a number of other projects under her belt, including reprising her role of Princess Fiona in Shrek 5. Diaz has also been cast in another Netflix action comedy titled Bad Day - which she was seen filming last autumn. The star took on a leading role in the movie alongside other cast members such as Danielle Brooks, Mark Duplass and Ed O'Neill. The premise is: 'A single mother struggles to fulfill a small promise to her daughter during the most devastating day she's ever faced,' per IMDB. Victoria Beckham has been dealt a fresh blow ahead of Mother's Day as estranged son Brooklyn celebrated Nicola Peltz's mother. The hot saucer owner, 27, who previously said he did not wish to reconcile with his family amid their bitter feud, celebrated billionaire heiress wife Nicola's mother's birthday this week. New snaps posted by Nicola, 31, show the pair celebrating with Claudia Heffner Peltz for her big day. In a tribute, Nicola penned: 'Happy Birthday to my mom! The pure fact that i get to call you mom makes me truly, the luckiest ever. 'Im so happy I got to spend your special day with you. I love celebrating you - your light is so bright you make everything better in this world. 'I love you more than you will ever understand. i hope all your dreams and wishes come true!' Victoria Beckham has been dealt a fresh blow ahead of Mother's Day as estranged son Brooklyn celebrated Nicola Peltz's mother New snaps posted by Nicola, 31, show the pair celebrating with Claudia Heffner Peltz for her big day Brooklyn has grown close with Nicola's parents and spent last Christmas celebrating with them, including her brother Bradley. Meanwhile, Brooklyn is said to have been 'disheartened' that his parents publicly wished him a happy birthday and broke their communication agreement. The eldest son of Victoria and David turned 27 earlier this month and blasted the 'performative posts' which included loving messages, according to reports. An insider told ET that Brooklyn wants to put an end to any attempt from his parents to contact him, including on social media, following their bitter falling out. Victoria, 51, David, 50, and his brothers Romeo, 23, and Cruz, 21, all shared heartfelt posts honouring Brooklyn's birthday, but they were apparently unappreciated. A source told the publication: 'Brooklyn and Nicola are disheartened they chose to make public Instagram posts for his birthday. 'These are the exact type of performative public actions that Brooklyn has been trying to put an end to, to no avail. 'Last summer they issued a legal letter to his parents requesting that any correspondence go through lawyers.' Brooklyn spent the day with Nicola who shared a video of her husband blowing out his candles on a box of doughnuts. The aspiring chef only took to Instagram during the day to thank his wife for her gushing social media post, brushing aside his family's olive branch. He was given another opportunity to reconnect with his estranged family after his parents attempted to build bridges by sharing a series of birthday tributes. But while he failed to acknowledge their nostalgic throwback photos, birthday messages and repeated use of his affectionate nickname - Buster - he wasted no time in responding to Nicola. The most recent reports suggest Brooklyn is on speaking terms with his grandfather Ted and his wife Hilary, even though he remains estranged from his parents. Hes reportedly been in regular contact with them. Now based in the United States with his wife, Brooklyn recently outlined his desire to distance himself from his family in a six-page Instagram statement filled with lurid allegations. In a lengthy tribute, Nicola penned: 'Happy Birthday to my mom! The pure fact that i get to call you mom makes me truly, the luckiest ever' Brooklyn has grown close with Nicola's parents and spent last Christmas celebrating with them, including her brother Bradley Addressing social media followers in January, he claimed his parents had tried to sabotage his marriage and have always prioritised public branding over their family relationships. 'For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family,' he wrote. 'The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into.' He added: 'Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they'll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade. But I believe the truth always comes out.' Photo: https://www.facebook.com/RedCrossUkraine he Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) provided assistance to victims in Kyiv region following the Russian Federations massive missile and drone attack overnight. "The Ukrainian Red Cross rapid response team in Kyiv region was working alongside rescuers at the site of another overnight attack," the Ukrainian Red Cross reported on Facebook on Saturday. Volunteers provided first aid to the wounded and also joined in the firefighting efforts. As reported, the Russian attack in Kyiv region left four dead and 15 injured, three of whom are in serious condition. The aftermath of the attack is being recorded in four districts of the region. Residential buildings, educational institutions, businesses, and critical infrastructure facilities were hit. The heaviest damage was in Obukhiv and Brovary districts. Approximately 30 damaged facilities are currently known. Jessie Buckley has shared her nerves ahead of the 2026 Oscars on Sunday night as she's tipped for more awards success. The Hamnet actress, 36, has dominated awards season so far, scooping up the Best Actress gong at the BAFTAs, Golden Gobes, a Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice Award. Jessie reflected on her 'insane' experience with Timothee Chalamet and Emma Stone at the Oscars luncheon when they all posed for a 'class photo' together. The down to earth mother-of-one says winning an Oscar is 'beyond her wildest expectations' and joked 'she'll be 80 before she takes it all in'. Speaking in an interview ahead of her glamorous appearance at the Dolby Theatre, she said: 'It's kind of hard to take in. I think probably when I'm 80, I'll have a really good answer. 'Going to the Oscar nominee luncheon and, being completely honest, sometimes you're getting in the car and you're like, "Oh god, I'm tired. And I have a six-month-old, and I should be at home changing her nappy. What am I doing? And I don't know anybody there, I'm scared"'. Jessie Buckley, 36, has shared her nerves ahead of the 2026 Oscars on Sunday night as she's tipped for more awards success Jessie reflected on her 'insane' experience with Timothee Chalamet and Emma Stone at the Oscars luncheon when they all posed for a 'class photo' together Reflecting on her 'insane and cute' class photograph with fellow nominees and starry guests, she told The Mirror: 'I was watching everybody get up and you've got, like Guillermo del Toro and Rose Byrne, Timothee Chalamet, Emma Stone and I'm ike, "God, I cannot take this for granted, this moment". 'It's something I never, ever expected. I thought I would be lucky enough to peep behind the curtain and be in a play. This is beyond my wildest expectations.' It was announced in January that Jessie has earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Hamnet. She will attend the March 15 ceremony in Los Angeles as a nominee, four years after she earned a nod for The Lost Daughter. Actress in a Leading Role will be a highly competitive field as Jessie goes up against Rose Byrne - If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Kate Hudson - Song Sung Blue, Renate Reinsve - Sentimental Value and Emma Stone - Bugonia. Jessie said she is 'so proud and honoured' to have been nominated for her portrayal of Agatha Shakespeare. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, she said: 'My baby's screaming in the background, but I am thrilled. I'm so proud and honoured to be beside all those extraordinary women and to be there with Hamnet. I'm delighted.' Hamnet is nominated for a total of eight awards, including the coveted Best Picture accolade and Best Director for Chloe Zhao, but Paul Mescal was a surprise snub in the Best Supporting Actor category. The Hamnet actress has dominated awards season so far, scooping up the Best Actress gong at the BAFTAs, Golden Gobes, a Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice Award Reflecting on her 'insane and cute' class photograph with fellow nominees and starry guests, she said: 'I was watching everybody get up and and thought I cannot take this for granted' The film - about the death of William Shakespeare and Agnes Shakespeare's son Hamnet - has received wide critical acclaim following its release in January. It has picked up top gongs during the awards season so far, and looks set to be a big winner at the Oscars. Particular praise has been made for Jessie, who plays central figure Agnes Shakespeare and follows her journey in the life and death of her son. The film explores how that loss shapes both her family and, indirectly, the creation of one of Shakespeare's greatest works, Hamlet. Maura Higgins left little to the imagination as she stripped completely naked for a brand new advert ahead of St Patrick's Day. The Irish brunette, 35, could be seen in the nip as she apparently bathed in a bubble bath, with a pint of Guinness beside her. During the clip, as Maura enjoys a soak, a team of crew search desperately for the former Love Island star inside an Irish pub. The video then cuts back to Maura, who jokes about making an 'Irish exit', which is used to describe someone who sneaks out of a gathering or party without letting anybody know. She says to the camera: 'There's nothing better than a successful Irish exit. 'Sneaky away quietly in a well-timed Uber. I think it's my new thing.' Maura Higgins left little to the imagination as she stripped completely naked for a brand new advert ahead of St Patrick's Day The Irish brunette, 35, could be seen in the nip as she apparently bathed in a bubble bath, with a pint of Guinness beside her She continued: 'It's like when you're out or at a pub filming a work thing. I don't think you should say anything to anyone about leaving anywhere. 'Ya know it's nothing personal, and the people usually understand.' The new advert, which is appearing on social media, is part of her campaign with Uber for St Patrick's Day. Meanwhile, Maura turned heads in a quirky corset gown as she continued her US takeover at the 19th Annual Women in Film Oscar Nominees Party on Friday. She looked incredible as she posed for photos at Wheelhouse in Los Angeles while mingling with the stars. Maura has proven to be a hit with fans in the states after she made her glamorous debut on The Traitors US last month. Attending the event ahead of this weekend's ceremony, Maura wore a printed A-line gown with a lace corset top layered underneath. She accessorised her looked with a black veil and added a pair of lace peep toe heels to complete her outfit. After sharing her plans to crack America, Maura has been pictured attending a number of glitzy events. The star is currently on a press tour following her appearance on the fourth season of The Traitors US and was joined by her co-star Lisa Rinna. Months after her successful Love Island stint way back in 2019, Maura appeared on Dancing On Ice at the beginning of 2020, Cooking With The Stars in 2022 and I'm A Celeb in 2024. Along with her success at home, she has also branched out across the pond thanks to a hosting gig on Love Island USA: Aftersun. She also similarly impressed American viewers during her unapologetic appearance on Celebrity Traitors, aiding her star to rise like never before. During the clip, as Maura enjoys a soak, a team of crew search desperately for the former Love Island star inside an Irish pub The star is currently on a press tour following her appearance on the fourth season of The Traitors US and was joined by her co-star Lisa Rinna Last week, Maura turned heads as she paid a visit to Page Six Radio at SiriusXM Studios in New York City on Thursday. Maura appeared in great spirits as she caught up with Danny Murphy and Evan Real during her appearance on the show. During the talk show appearance, Maura added to her designer handbag collection with a box-fresh 17,000 Hermes Birkin gifted from Traitors co-star Rob Rausch. Rob, 27, officially made amends with Maura after betraying her during the series 4 Traitors finale as he gifted her the expensive handbag. Maya Jama has shared her hopes to be a leading lady in a movie one day in a new career move. The TV presenter, 31, who got her big break when she was asked to host Love Island back in 2022, said she has 'a second wind of ambition' to make it as an actor. After failing to break into the industry when she was younger, Maya said she 'wasn't as persistent as she should have been'. 'I dreamt of being an actor when I was younger and would try and do all these auditions and would get loads of no's', she said. 'My dream role is something completely opposite to me. I've always said I don't want to be what people expect me to be on camera. 'I'd want to be the complete opposite to that so a monster or a mean, evil person. A villain maybe would be nice', she told the BBC. Maya Jama, 31, has shared her hopes to be a leading lady in a movie one day in a new career move The TV presenter, who got her big break when she was asked to host Love Island back in 2022, said she has 'a second wind of ambition' to make it as an actor Maya is set to star in the second season of Guy Ritchie's Netflix series The Gentlemen. She will reportedly play the glamorous wife of a shady associate linked to Theo James' lead character Eddie Horniman. Filming began last year at the stunning Badminton House in Gloucestershire - a grand estate that doubles as the fictional Halstead Manor in the series. A source told The Sun at the time: 'Maya is over the moon to land a role in such a massive show with Guy Ritchie at the helm. 'The Gentlemen was one of 2024's biggest series and it's such a glossy, sexy show. It's a perfect fit.' Maya teased fans earlier this year when she posted a Netflix script on social media, followed by a cryptic photo alongside The Gentlemen star Kaya Scodelario, who plays mob boss Susie Glass in the series. She previously hinted she might have been in meetings with the streamer by posting a Netflix branded cup to social media, but it was unclear where she was at the time. Back in January 2025, the BBC Three Glow Up presenter revealed she had been auditioning behind the scenes for a 'dream role' and hinted she wanted to play something completely different from her bubbly TV persona. She said: 'My dream role, I would want to be like a villain or something thats completely not like me, so then it shows that I can actually act. 'And then people would be like, wow, two different people.' Maya is set to star in the second season of Guy Ritchie's Netflix series The Gentlemen She hinted she might have been in meetings with the streaming platform last year by posting a Netflix copy cup to her social media followers, but it was unclear where she was at the time The Gentlemen, launched on Netflix in 2024 and became an instant hit thanks to its gritty storyline, razor-sharp dialogue and Guy Ritchie's signature gangster flair (pictured: Kaya Scodelario and Theo James) It became one of the platform's biggest hits of the year after it reached 44million views in just four weeks. The Gentlemen, launched on Netflix in 2024 and became an instant hit thanks to its gritty storyline, razor-sharp dialogue and Guy Ritchie's signature gangster flair. The plot follows Eddie Horniman, an ex-Army officer who inherits his family's estate only to discover it's at the centre of a massive cannabis empire. Series one featured a star-studded cast including Theo James, Vinnie Jones, and Ray Winstone. While some may consider it rude to talk about money, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has very candidly opened up about his finances. The interior designer, 61, admitted that he only has enough money to last 20 years and quipped that he needed to 'die by at 81' or would end up in 'Jane Austen penury'. Laurence revealed that his formerly lavish lifestyle with 'first class trips to Barbados' and out of control spending were 'long gone' after getting to grips with his shopping addiction during lockdown. He explained that in his younger years he was footloose and fancy free before the financial realities of life dawned on him after reaching a certain age. 'Theres a moment when you sit down with all these financial advisers and they say: we can guarantee the kind of lifestyle youve got for 20 years. So basically, Ive got to die at 81 or else Im going to be in total Jane Austen penury. 'The years of splurging and "Well fly first class to Barbados are long gone. I knocked off the shopping addiction in lockdown'. While some may consider it rude to talk about money, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, 61, has very candidly opened up about his finances He went on to tell The Times: 'Before then, youd have a good lunch, then trawl through Burlington Arcade and have three of those, one of those and one of those, just because you could'. Laurence lives with his wife Jackie, their two grown-up daughters, Hermione, 26, and Cecile, 29, and their husbands Dan and Drew - as well as their four grandchildren, Albion, eight , Demelza, three , Romily, two, and one-year-old Eleanora. Such is the shared responsibility between the adults, that Laurence has signed away two thirds of the deed to his Cotswolds manor to his two sons-in-law. Speaking to The Sunday Times last year, Laurence mused: 'I'm no longer lord of the manor,' as he detailed his unique living arrangement. Yet daughter Hermione revealed: 'Hilariously, Cecile and I aren't on the deeds, because we inherit it anyway it's actually the husbands.' Laurence then explained: 'One of the most amusing things was having to sit down with a solicitor for them to assess whether Jackie and I were being coerced into this by our bullying sons-in-law. Our friends just can't believe it. They go, "what happens if you all fall out?"' Yet Hermione explained that while they bicker all the time, they simply have to 'get over it'. Detailing why he wanted to pass on his property now, Laurence - who has an estimated net worth of 8 million - shared: 'Were not going to be those old people sitting on a great big pile of cash. Terribly unhappy, terribly lonely. 'Owning a lot of stuff but not actually having the benefit of it. We are very, very privileged, but we have made this decision. We have manifested this life'. Laurence spoke about his formerly lavish lifestyle with first class trips to Barbados now 'long gone' after getting to grips with his shopping addiction during lockdown (pictured 1996) Laurence lives with wife Jackie, their two grown-up daughters, Hermione, 26, and Cecile, 29, and their husbands Dan and Drew - as well as their four grandchildren His decision to reassess his finances and assets came after Laurence confessed he was going through an 'end of life crisis' following a near-death experience on Netflix show Bear Hunt. During filming in Costa Rica in May 2024, Laurence was among celebrities taking part in a water challenge and was told to leap from a boat into the river. However, he became entangled in a bungee rope and got stuck underneath the boat. He was dragged underwater for several heart-stopping minutes before being pulled to safety by members of the team supervising the stunt, and lost consciousness. Laurence then joked that his wife Jackie said he was in a 'mid-life crisis' when he told her he was appearing in the show. 'She feels its got midlife crisis written all over it, although, as I keep telling her, Im too old to have a midlife crisis, this is more like an end of life crisis,' he mused. 'Shes actually, frankly, incredibly jealous. She would love to do it and has always been mildly irritated that no ones ever asked her to do something like this. 'Because she literally has always had in her handbag, a SAS Survival Guide, to get herself out of all sorts. I meant to bring it actually and again, how foolishly, I completely forgot.' Laurence has spoken previously about his unconventional set-up, telling the My Dirty Laundry podcast that they invited the children back when he and his wife 'were rattling around the house like dried peas in a luxury tin'. He added that living with your entire family is 'something more people should be doing' and doesn't mind his lavish interiors now be filled with children's toys. 'We certainly aren't sliding into our sixtieth year with boredom calling. We want to use our time wisely and valuably. The way you design your world helps the way you feel,' he said. 'We have our big manor house filled with children and pieces of brightly coloured plastic and Peppa Pig again. 'I think its something that more and more people should be doing, for us boomers generation we're all sort of surprised we've made it to 60. 'I think everyone thought we would live fast and die young rather than live very, very slowly and die really quite old.' Kris Jenner is proud of daughter Kylie Jenner's transformation from teenager to beauty mogul, and she never misses an opportunity to praise her youngest's head for business. The boss of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, 70, said she helped the 28-year-old Kylie Cosmetics founder get her start during Mondays episode of the SmartLess podcast, per People. Jenner told hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett how Kylie approached her one day in 2015 with the idea of developing her own brand. Kylie was just 17 at the time. 'She goes, "Mom, I know what I want to do for the rest of my life, and it's beauty. And I want to, you know, do this Lip Kit, and now you've got to take this and run with it and figure out how to make it,"' Jenner recalled. The momager - who recently denied Ray J's claim that Kim's sex tape was staged - then revealed she 'contacted some people' to bring the idea to fruition and developed a marketing plan with Kylie. 'I said, "So, what are we doing about the marketing?"'Jenner recalled telling her daughter. 'Like, you know, we need an ad in People Magazine, and we need to have a billboard.' Kris Jenner is proud of daughter Kylie Jenner's transformation from teenager to beauty mogul, and she never misses an opportunity to praise her youngest's head for business (pictured in November 2022) Jenner said she helped the 28-year-old Kylie Cosmetics founder get her start on the latest episode of the SmartLess podcast The family matriarch said Kylie responded in a calm and collected manner. 'She goes, "Are we okay, mom? Like, I know what I'm doing. Just relax." And I said, "I can't relax. You just spent every dime you've ever made on Keeping Up with the Kardashians to start your own brand by yourself with your own money. And I'm a little nervous. Mom's a little... You know, you're 17 years old, so what are you doing?"' But Kylie convinced her jittery mother that she was up for it and totally prepared. 'I'll never forget the morning she launched her brand, which was the first time she disrupted an entire beauty business,' Jenner continued. 'She pressed send on the link to go buy this and put a post out. "Go buy my Lip Kit."' Kylie Cosmetics was an instant, huge success from its November 2015 launch with the debut 15,000 Lip Kits, priced at $29 each, selling out in under a minute. 'I think it was four seconds, and we thought the site crashed because we had to launch, and it was just sold out in seconds. And then we knew, you know. Then it was on,' Jenner said with pride, adding, 'She was the first one to do that.' Kylie used her massive social media presence to promote the brand. 'I'll never forget the morning she launched her brand, which was the first time she disrupted an entire beauty business,' Jenner said of Kylie Kylie has used her massive social media presence to promote the brand The savvy businesswoman celebrated Kylie Cosmetics 10-year anniversary with her family at an event last October The family matriarch said Kylie 'spent every dime' she made on Keeping Up with the Kardashians on her beauty brand The brand took in over $300 million in revenue during its first year and evolved from a small player into a major industry mover and shaker. By 2018, the brand's worth had grown to a reported $900 million and Kylie was well on her way to becoming a billionaire. In 2020, Kylie finalized a deal to sell a 51 percent majority stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty Inc for $600 million. She remained involved in creative and marketing aspects of the company. Kylie, who has been in a relationship with Oscar-nominated actor Timothee Chalamet for three years, told Vanity Fair that she was stressed out after launching Lip Kits. She said she couldnt keep up with the demand. 'It wasnt very exciting for me for the first year because I was so stressed out that everyone would harass me on Twitter at the time because they couldnt get a Lip Kit,' she said in the interview published on March 11. 'I couldnt handle it because I really wanted to just make everyone happy.' Fans are waiting with bated breath to see whether Kylie joins boyfriend Timothee Chalamet at the Oscars where his film is nominated for nine awards including Best Actor (pictured at the 2024 Golden Globes) Meanwhile, fans are waiting with bated breath to see whether Kylie joins her man at the Oscars where his film is nominated for nine awards including Best Actor. Kylie has been glued to Chalamet's side at other awards shows this season including the Critics Choice awards and the Golden Globes, plus the BAFTA Film Awards in London. Back in 2025, their steamy PDA at the Oscars drew gazes. They were photographed sharing an intimate moment as Chalamet whispered in Kylie's ear and kissed her cheek before taking their seats. Courtney Stodden wore a stringy black bikini for a PETA photo shoot in Hollywood this week. The 31-year-old media personality was doused in a black substance resembling tar for the non-profit organization's latest campaign. Her surgically-enhanced chest was put on display in the low-cut top, which she wore with matching bottoms and perspex heels. Just two days later, Stodden's fans got to see the final result of the production as the campaign launched on social media. Stodden appeared fully nude, against a white backdrop, with her body dripping in the onyx slime. 'Leather is a dirty business,' was printed above and around her head, with a finally message urging, 'Wear vegan.' Courtney Stodden wore a stringy black bikini for a PETA photo shoot in Hollywood this week The 31-year-old media personality was doused in a black substance resembling tar for the non-profit organization's latest campaign There was a row of black leather jackets lined up behind the model, also covered in tar. In an Instagram caption, PETA wrote, '@courtneyastodden airs leathers dirty laundry and reminds shoppers that every leather bag starts as someones skin. Drop the baggage and choose vegan leather instead.' Another post read, 'The REAL cost of leather is on display in our new campaign as @courtneyastodden reminds shoppers that carrying animal skin is never a good look. Ditch leather and stick to vegan leather options instead!' An accompanying video featured a voiceover from Stodden as she listed the harmful ingredients associated with leather products. 'Coal, formaldehyde, chromium, blood, feces, arsenic, fossil fuels, lime, sludge,' she rattled off while the camera panned different parts of her body in a video. She also linked leather to child labor, cancer, chemical pollution, deforestation, and methane. Stodden's lips were covered in red lipstick, which the camera highlighted to emphasize her message. Just two days later, Stodden's fans got to see the final result of the production as the campaign launched on social media She shared a behind-the-scenes image from the shoot on her personal account and wrote in the caption: 'Your jacket shouldnt cost a life #crueltyfree @peta.' The public figure rose to fame when she married ex-husband Hutchinson in 2011 when she was just 16-years-old. Her parents legally signed off on the wedding. Now she's on a mission to stop underage people from going through the same ordeal. 'I don't want this to happen to anyone else, and it scares me,' the activist told People last year as she pointed out that underage marriage with parental permission is legal throughout more than half of the country. She added, 'We're the hotbed for the dirty little secret, which are pedophiles marrying our children legally in the United States, so that's why I'm speaking out.' Stodden's divorce from Hutchinson was finalized in 2020 and she married Jared Safier in 2024. She had to reflect on tying the knot as a teen as she worked on a Lifetime biopic about her life, I Was a Child Bride: The Courtney Stodden Story, which she produced alongside her husband. 'I'm glad I did it, but boy, it's been hard to watch it,' the star shared with People. 'It's something I've lived through, and it's the PG version, it's the TV version. A lot of scenes were cut because it was too much for TV.' She noted, 'It's the craziest story I've ever heard, and it's my own.' Sarah Michelle Gellar looked a chic as she attended the premiere of her new film Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come in Austin, Texas on Friday. The actress, 48, was joined by her co-star Kathryn Newton at the event, which took place during SXSW 2026. Sarah looked incredible in a lace slip dress that featured spaghetti straps and a frilled neckline. She teamed it with a pair of black heels and styled her hair into a low updo to complete her outfit. Meanwhile, Kathryn stood out in a tiered dress, made up of clashing patterns and frilled edges. Ready Or Not 2 follows on from the 2019 horror, with Samara Weaving's character Grace as the sequel's sole survivor. Sarah Michelle Gellar looked a chic as she attended the premiere of her new film Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come in Austin, Texas on Friday The actress was joined by her co-star Kathryn Newton at the event, which took place during SXSW 2026 The first instalment saw her hunted by her new husband's rich, eccentric family on her wedding night. With Samara unable to attend the event, Sarah was pictured holding up a cardboard cut out of her on the red carpet. Elsewhere, the hotly-anticipated Buffy reboot has cast its new slayer with OG Sarah breaking the news to her new co-star. The acclaimed actress revealed Ryan Kiera Armstrong, 15, been cast as the titular character in the reboot of the WB hit, that was originally the air from 1997 to 2003. The casting decision came via a Zoom call in which Gellar asked Armstrong one very important question. 'Do you want to stand beside me and save the world?,' Gellar asked and Armstrong replied, 'Im so honored, thank you for trusting me,' an elated Armstrong said through a mixture of tears and laughter. 'From the moment I saw Ryan's audition, I knew there was only one girl that I wanted by my side,' Gellar said. 'To have that kind of emotional intelligence, and talent, at such a young age is truly a gift. The bonus is that her smile lights up even the darkest room.' They were joined on the red carpet by Elijah Wood The first instalment saw her hunted by her new husband's rich, eccentric family on her wedding night. With Samara unable to attend the event, Sarah was pictured holding up a photo For her second look of the day Sarah wore a two-toned midi dress with cut-out sections And it was Armstrong's elated and charming reaction to the news that captured the hearts of the Buffy fan universe who are largely on the new Slayer's side. Sarah Michelle was 18 when she stepped into the Slayer's shoes. Fans were divided over the casting of Armstrong - with some delighted at the new slayer and others citing Buffy lore, and wondering why all the Slayers were activated in season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer if they aren't going to be used now. The new Buffy is a reboot of the popular WB series set in the present day. All those reactivated Slayers would be 22 years older than they were in the final season of the series in 2003. Adrien Brody and Georgina Chapman have made their first public appearance since Harvey Weinstein's bombshell Hollywood Reporter interview. Brody, 52, and Chapman, 49, attended CAA's pre-Oscar party at Living Room in Los Angeles on Friday. They matched in black outfits, with the stunning model donning a sparkly off-the-shoulder dress and open-toe heels. The Oscar-winning actor, meanwhile, wore a jacket over a white T-shirt, adding fitted trousers and shiny dress boots. The twosome, together since 2019, kept close and tightly held hands at the star-studded affair. Weinstein and Chapman separated in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse made against the movie producer in a bombshell report by the New York Times. Adrien Brody and Georgina Chapman have made their first public appearance since Harvey Weinstein's bombshell Hollywood Reporter interview Brody, 52, and Chapman, 49, attended CAA's pre-Oscar party at Living Room in Los Angeles on Friday Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein revealed how he feels about Brody playing dad to his and ex-wife Chapman's two kids in a new interview; pictured March 4 They share daughter, India Pearl, 15, and son, Dashiell Max Robert, 12. Brody has taken on a fatherly role in the children's lives while Weinstein remains behind bars. Last year he revealed in his Oscars acceptance speech that India and Dashiell fondly refer to him as 'Popsy.' Weinstein told THR that he is 'happy' the actor has stepped in for his children. 'No! I was happy. It's good that my kids have someone in their lives,' he answered when asked if he was upset by Brody's mention of his kids on the Oscars stage. 'And Georgina suffered terribly because of me. I'm glad she's finally found some happiness.' Chapman, whose divorce was finalized in 2021, doesn't speak to Weinstein, but the fashion designer still allows him to see their kids. Weinstein also addressed how her luxury fashion label Marchesa was 'punished' by Hollywood after the allegations against him were made public. 'I am sorry she got such a bad rap,' he said. 'She knew nothing about what I was doing. I was a master of deception. To punish her company is an act of insanity.' The twosome, together since 2019, kept close and tightly held hands at the star-studded affair Weinstein and Chapman separated in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse made against the movie producer in a bombshell report by the New York Times; pictured in 2017 Brody and Chapman were set up by Danish model Helena Christensen in April 2019, the Sun previously reported. The two, who had initially met through Weinstein, were introduced 'properly' at a swimwear launch in Puerto Rico where they 'bonded over cocktails,' according to an insider. 'She has had a torrid past couple of years, and finally feels ready to move on with her life. Her kids and family are all aware, and everyone whole-heartedly approves,' the person said at the time. Her divorce settlement is believed to have been between $15 million and $20 million. Chapman previously told Vogue that she has 'moments of rage' about her ex-husband's behavior. Mariah Carey is a global superstar worth an estimated $350 million but at home with the kids shes just 'mom' who sometimes embarrasses them. The We Belong Together star, 56, acted like a normal parent as she walked into her 14-year-old son's room during his Twitch livestream with friends and fans on Friday. Moroccan, or Rocky as he's usually called, welcomed Carey into his screen space and encouraged her to say hello to viewers. 'My moms here, do you want to say hi? he asked Carey, who recently announced plans to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of her 2001 movie Glitter and accompanying album. 'Of course I want to say hi, her voice could be heard saying from across the dimly lit room. 'Wait, wait, wait, wait, are you sure?' Rocky said. 'Im on stream in front of all these people.' Mariah Carey acted like any normal parent when she walked into her 14-year-old son's room during his Twitch livestream with friends and fans on Friday Moroccan - or Rocky as he's usually called - welcomed his mother into his screen space and encouraged her to say hello to viewers (pictured on Instagram) 'Should I be concerned?' Carey responded as she stepped into camera range. Carey could be seen hovering next to her son wearing what looked like a bathrobe with her long hair falling in perfect waves on either side of her head. 'Listen, I want them to know I love them,' she said while leaning over Rockys shoulder. 'All right, that's very sweet mom,' Rocky told her, adding that he needed to 'get back to streaming. I love you, Mama. Have a good night.' The messages were coming in faster than Rocky could talk with one writing, 'Hi, ms carey' and another gushing, 'Omg, I love you.' This isnt the first time Carey has crashed Rocky's livestream party. Back in April 2025, she walked into his session but her son's reaction was quite different. At first, he invited Carey in but then he got flustered when twin sister Monroe started wandering around his room. Rocky was either embarrassed or distracted or both. Carey let Rocky's livestream fans and friends know that she loved them and her son said, 'That's very sweet mom' The pop diva shared a photo with her kids over the holidays last year Carey and her twins celebrated Halloween together in Japan last year Rocky and Monroe - affectionally called Roe by her mom - are Carey's children with ex-husband Nick Cannon (pictured on January 30) 'Yall need to get out now, everybody get out,' he said, waving them away. But Carey stuck around, telling Rockys friends, 'Hi guys, I love you.' Rocky asked his family members to get out again, adding, 'please.' When Carey and Monroe - affectionately called Roe by her mom - didn't leave, he told them more emphatically, 'Get out of my room!' Rocky and Monroe are Carey's two children with ex-husband Nick Cannon, who has 10 other children with five other women. Carey's latest surprise appearance on her sons livestream comes in the wake of plans to celebrate Glitter as the film and accompanying soundtrack mark their 25-year anniversary. Speaking to Variety, the entertainer said, 'Plans for a deluxe and a reissue, or maybe just one, I dont know. Were getting on top of it. Im excited about it.' The music legend admitted she once loathed Glitter 'because it was a disastrous flop.' Carey's latest appearance on her son's livestream comes after she revealed plans to celebrate Glitter's 25-year anniversary 'I used to hate it. I used to be so like, why did I do that? And then, you know, it became something that I really loved and it just sort of took on its own thing,' Carey said, adding, 'It was just a tough time for me.' But over the years Glitter has grown a devoted fanbase of people who love the album for its music despite the movies dismal reception. The fans see it as an underrated piece of Carey's work and they launched a successful #JusticeForGlitter campaign in 2018 that drove the album to No. 1 on iTunes. Carey, who was mocked for using a teleprompter to phonetically spell out Italian lyrics during her Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony performance, thinks remastering some of her old music videos including Don't Stop (Funkin 4 Jamaica) would be great to include in the celebration. Lily Allen looked sensational as she took to the stage on the latest stop of her West End Girl tour in Manchester on Thursday evening. The songstress, 40, took to Instagram with a slew of behind-the-scenes snaps of her frolicking backstage before entertaining the crowd. One of her saucy looks for the show was a sheer lace mini dress which she wore showcasing her skimpy pink lingerie and jaw-dropping figure beneath. She completed the look with a faux fur trimmed silk robe which the stunner let fall open as she strutted her stuff on stage. Lily later slipped into a figure-hugging leather cone bra dress which again hugged every inch of her lithe physique. She captioned the post: 'Two nights in Manchester. Nottingham see you tonight x'. Lily Allen, 40, looked sensational as she took to the stage on the latest stop of her West End Girl tour in Manchester on Thursday evening One of her saucy looks for the show was a sheer lace mini dress which she wore showcasing her skimpy pink lingerie and jaw-dropping figure beneath The West End Girl album is famously an ode to her ex-husband David Harbour, 50, and their acrimonious breakup. During her performance of the track 4Chan Stan, during which Lily sings about discovering a partner's infidelity, Lily wrapped herself in a long swath of fabric printed with lyrics and receipts. Fans in the audience for the first two shows at Glasgow and Liverpool last week spotted that the receipts are from tequila bars and Bergdorf Goodman, detailing items her ex bought for other women. The Bergdorf reference is a direct nod to the song, in which she sings 'Never been Bergdorf's, but you took someone shopping there on May 24. You bought her a handbag. It wasn't cheap. I was in London. Probably asleep.' Lily unravelled the receipt dress during the song, revealing a custom Self-Portrait ruffled sheer lace bodysuit and burgundy patent hot pants underneath. The dress isn't the only on-stage reference to the album's cheating lyrics as during the track Pussy Palace Lily sings from a bed with a Duane Reade bag beside her mirroring the tracks lyrics about discovering a bag full of sex toys at her husband's second apartment. The songstress took to Instagram with a slew of behind-the-scenes snaps of her frolicking backstage before entertaining the crowd. Lily later slipped into a figure-hugging leather cone bra dress which again hugged every inch of her lithe physique Another racy look saw her throw off her suit jacket to reveal her bra beneath The West End Girl album is famously an ode to her ex-husband David Harbour , 50, and their acrimonious breakup During her performance of the track 4Chan Stan , during which Lily sings about discovering a partner's infidelity, Lily wrapped herself in a long swath of fabric printed with receipts Fans in the audience for the first two shows at Glasgow and Liverpool last week spotted that the receipts detailing items her ex bought for other women She captioned the post: 'Two nights in Manchester. Nottingham see you tonight x'. The new album was nominated in three categories at the 2026 BRITs but unfortunately she didn't walk away with any wins during last week's ceremony. During the West End Girl tour show, Lily changes into six looks over the 45-minute set, with pieces including a sheer Valentino negligee, a tweed Valentino skirt suit and a black leather bullet-bra bustier dress by 16Arlington, the design house Lily walked the runway for last year. The shows incredible looks were styled by Interview magazine editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg, who revealed on Instagram this week that his long-time friend Lily 'got me out of tour styling retirement 20 years after I first styled her.' After Lily's first show, some fans admitted they were left confused by the format and the fact she was only on stage for 45 minutes. While they delighted in the time Lily was on stage playing her new album from beginning to end, some took issue with the first half of the show. A string trio entertained the audience with a 55-minute instrumental performance of some of her biggest hits, including Not Fair, The Fear and Smile. This segment of the gig received mixed reviews, as some branded it 'funny and camp' while others said it was akin to a 'primary school assembly sing along'. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES) received two modern, specialized fire and rescue vehicles, delivered by North Defence in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported. "This equipment will expand the fleet of Poltava region rescuers, helping them respond more quickly to emergencies and carry out rescue missions more effectively," the Service said on its Telegram channel. The equipment handover ceremony took place with the participation of the head of the State Emergency Service, Andriy Danyk, and the authorized representative of the Luxembourg Ministry of Defense, Oliver North, CEO of North Defense. Emily Ratajkowski flaunted her toned physique in a red bikini as she marked her return home with a snap to Instagram on Saturday after attending Paris Fashion Week. The American model and actress, 34, looked incredible in the two-piece as she sunbathed poolside in LA. The star looked incredible as she showcased her abs in a red bikini with white polka dots. Emily recently confirmed her hot new romance with Romain Gavras, as the pair went Instagram official earlier this year. The new couple were first romantically linked last November, when they were spotted kissing in New York City. Emily's Instagram post, which featured a snapshot of the couple cosied up at a dinner table, lacked a caption. Emily Ratajkowski marked her return home with bikini shared a snap to Instagram on Saturday after attending Paris Fashion Week Among the snaps was a shot of Emily snuggling up to Romain in a slinky red dress as she stuck out her tongue. For his part, Gavras has an Instagram account with 64,000 followers and has not posted on his grid since July 2025. This seems to be the iNAMORATA swimwear designer's longest romantic relationship since her divorce from movie producer Sebastian Bear-McClard, 45, in 2022. The exes share a son, Sly, who will turn four in March. Emily previously had flings with Harry Styles, Shaboozey, and comedian Eric Andre. She appeared nude in a Valentine's Day Instagram post shared by Eric in 2023, leading fans to believe they were hard-launching their relationship. But the dalliance lasted no more than one month. Prior to that, in December 2022, the mother-of-one was pictured kissing New Yorkbased artist Jack Greer following a brief affair with comedian Pete Davidson. Romain is known for directing popular music videos, including Kanye West and Jay-Z's No Church In The Wild and M.I.A.'s Bad Girls and Born Free. Emily (pictured at Paris Fashion Week last week) recently confirmed her hot new romance with Romain Gavras, as the pair went Instagram official earlier this year He has since turned his focus to feature films, including 2022's critically acclaimed French drama Athena. His latest film, Sacrifice, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The movie, which marks his English-language debut, stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a crazed zealot who plans to sacrifice three important people in order to save the world from destruction. The star-studded cast also includes Chris Evans, Vincent Cassel, Salma Hayek, John Malkovich, Charli XCX, comedian Sam Richardson and rapper Yung Lean. Gemma Collins was reportedly asked for a photo by an unlikely fan at the Cheltenham Festival on Thursday, former Prime Minister David Cameron. The former TOWIE star, 45, star was said to have been 'honoured' by the request, before the pair went on to 'chat politics' in the VIP stands. Cameron, 59, who served as PM from 2010 to 2016, was joined at the races by wife Samantha, 54, who also posed for the snap. It was a great day for Gemma who not only was approached the Camerons but also netted 20,000, 5,00 of which was from one 500 bet alone. Taking to Instagram she captioned the post: 'Fabulous day with @ruthcotterr @paddypowerofficial and it was lovely to be In the Royal Box and have a good chat with @dwdcameron and his lovely wife we spoke politics and what we was going to bet on next'. A source said: 'Gemma was honoured that David asked her for a picture. Gemma Collins was reportedly asked for a photo by an unlikely fan at the Cheltenham Festival on Thursday, former PM David Cameron (L-R) Gemma, David, Samantha Cameron, Ruth Cotter Going on to tell The Sun: 'They chatted about politics and her fondness of conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.' Daily Mail have contacted David Cameron and Gemma Collins' reps for comment. Gemma left the whole room in stitches as she yelled 'I'm f***ing loaded!' during a sit down lunch after winning 20,000, adding: 'Im coming home with 20 large ones.' She pocked the hefty winnings during day three of the races, 5,00 of which was from one 500 bet alone. The reality star punched the air with glee after her horse, Meetmebythesea, came first in the 2pm race with 9/1 odds. Taking to her Instagram at the end of the day, the former TOWIE star fanned herself with the wad of bank notes alongside the Britney Spears track Work B***h. She penned: 'Absolutely had the best day ever Ive been very lucky today @paddypowerofficial thank you for all the luck Ive absolutely smashed it out the park today with the horse picks'. Joining a host of other stars on the day, Gemma arrived by helicopter and stood out wearing a plaid coat with brown furry sleeves and a silk headscarf. She wore pink gloves and carried a large Mulberry Bayswater bag and wore sunglasses, of course. Gemma has signed up for I'm A Celeb All Stars series, filmed in South Africa last year, and admits she 'felt like Lara Croft' tackling the 'terrifying' trials. She confessed that after over a decade of feeling like a 'black cloud' hung over her head following her onscreen meltdown in Australia, quitting the show over her fears in just three days, she has finally proven herself. Speaking about her determination to move on from her 2014 experience, which turned Gemma into a meme and viral clip, she said at Monday's I'm A Celeb All Stars launch: 'Obviously, it didn't work out for me the first time around. 'When I got asked to do it again, I thought I had spent my whole life with this black cloud hanging over my head. I am older now, I just thought, I have to do this before whatever happens to me in my life, I must go back into that jungle. It was one regret I had. This was a total redemption from me. 'On a real one, I went in there as Gemma Collins and it's like the GC is the bravado and she'll have a laugh and whatever, but I was so stripped bare because I knew it was so disastrous the time before.' It was a great day for Gemma who not only was approached the Camerons but also netted 20,000, 5,00 of which was from one 500 bet alone Gemma has explained that, despite knowing what to expect from the show presented by Ant and Dec, the trials were even harder than when she first appeared on the program. She almost quit before even getting on the plane, admitting that if it wasn't for her makeup artist, she may not have taken on the challenge. She said: 'I got told I was going to a cocktail party so I had a full silk gown on and I turned the corner and you know what they're like, bless you, producers, they go to me "Gem, it's all good, you're going in, you're going to have a few drinks with everyone, it's like a welcome meeting" but honestly it was nothing like that. 'It's so surreal. Nothing can prepare you for what comes next. It was so much tougher than before. 'I was absolutely bricking it, and I was petrified. My makeup artist had to slap me at Heathrow airport because I sat there and said "I don't think I can go through with this." I was petrified but I took a deep breath and went in strong.' But for Gemma, who expected the heights, bugs, trials, and camp conditions to be her biggest test, it was living without her beloved two dishwashers that proved the toughest challenge. She said: 'The one thing that troubled me though was the copious amounts of washing up because I was on camp duty with Adam Thomas and it was a massive camp, I'm not going to lie, I have two dishwashers at home. 'It was all part of camp life, it really grounds you again going in there. It brings you back to simplicity; it breaks you in ways you have never been broken before. I left some trials broken with every inch of my life, I can't describe the pain I felt.' Math nerds and pie lovers of the world, unite! The 14th day of March holds a double meaning, as this calendar date echoes the first three digits of the mathematical constant pi: 3.14. Often stylized as 3/14 or 3.14, this day is known as pi day by mathematicians, pastry lovers and ambitious entrepreneurs. This year, restaurant and store chains like 7-Eleven, BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse, Blaze Pizza and California Pizza Kitchen are celebrating 3.14 with pi-themed deals. Here is a selection of the best pi day deals we could uncover. 7-Eleven stores are offering a pizza deal in honor of pi day - but only for reward members 7-Eleven This convenience store chain offers some of the best pi day deals of 2026. 7-Eleven reward members can snag a whole pizza for just $3.14 either in-store or with the 7Now delivery app. The discount lasts from March 13 through March 14. Additionally, the Tex-Mex brand Laredo Taco Company, owned by 7-Eleven, is offering $3.14 quesadillas at their restaurant locations. 7-Elevens Raise the Roost restaurants are selling cinnamon sugar fried pies for 31.4 cents. Blaze Pizza lets customers score a $3.14 pizza with a purchase of a full price pizza Blaze Pizza It wouldn't be pi day without a pizza pie. Blaze Pizza returns with an offer available exclusively on March 14: Customers can buy one 11-inch pizza and get another for $3.14. The deal is only available in stores for people with a Blaze Rewards account. Some customers say the deal isn't as alluring as in previous years. In 2024, customers could buy any 11-inch pizza for just $3.14. 'Pi day is more than a promotion for us, its a celebration our fans look forward to every year,' Blaze Pizza said. 'Its our way of saying thank you to the guests who have made Blaze part of their traditions.' One of BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse's Pizookies, the pickle-themed Pizickle of 2024 BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse Diners who visit BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse can get a full-size Pizookie for $3.14 with the purchase of a large or shareable pizza on pi day. There are two kinds of pies on offer here - the most iconic being BJ's Pizookie, a warm, soft-baked cookie in a deep-dish pizza pan or skillet, often with a scoop of ice cream on top. Burger King, known for the Whopper, is offering a pi day deal for its app users Burger King Pi day is pie day at Burger King. On March 14, customers can get a free slice of Hersheys sundae pie or cinnamon apple pie with a purchase of $3.14 or more. The offer is only available on the Burger King app. The announcement comes after Burger King's president taste tested a Whopper in a video posted to social media, appearing to mock McDonald's CEO. Inside a California Pizza Kitchen, where customers can try flavors like original BBQ chicken pizza California Pizza Kitchen California Pizza Kitchen is offering a $3.14 pizza on pi day for people who sign up for their CPK Rewards program, with the choice of BBQ chicken, pepperoni or cheese. If you're already a rewards member, this pi day exclusive offer will be available in your wallet on March 14. Crumbl is known for their rotating selections of cookies and desserts, including the ice cream sundae cookie Crumbl Cookies Sure, they're known for their cookies, but Crumbl is also known to enjoy pi from time to time. For the week of March 9-14, customers can order a special, chilled cookie dough pie. Crumbl describes this pie-cookie hybrid as 'a brown sugar and graham pie crust filled with cookie dough-studded brown sugar cream cheese and a topping of whipped cream, cookie dough pieces and mini chocolate chips.' The dessert chain also announced that only on March 14, every store location will be required to have an exclusive pie or pie cookie on their secret menu. Papa John's will have deals and discounts on pi day, despite plans to shutter hundreds of locations Papa John's In past years, Papa John's has offered a $3.14 deal for pi day. The chain has not announced deals for the holiday this year, there are discounts already available for customers, including a large one-topping pizza discounted to $7.99. Papa John's is one of the most popular pizza chains in the US, with around 3,500 locations nationwide. In 2026, Papa John's announced it would shutter 300 'underperforming' restaurants. Ukrainian air defense shoot down 460 of 498 Russian air targets; hits by 6 missiles and 28 attack UAVs recorded at 11 locations On Saturday night, Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed 460 of 498 Russian air targets, with six missiles and 28 attack UAVs hitting 11 targets, the Ukrainian Air Force reported. "According to preliminary data, as of 9:00 a.m., air defense forces have shot down or suppressed 460 targets58 missiles and 402 drones of various types," the air command wrote on its Telegram channel. In particular, one Tsirkon anti-ship missile; seven Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles; 25 Kalibr cruise missiles; 24 X-101 cruise missiles; one X-59/69 guided air missile; 402 enemy UAVs of various types were destroyed. Overall, on the night of March 14 (beginning at 6:00 p.m. on March 13), the enemy launched a combined attack on Ukraines critical infrastructure using attack UAVs and land- and sea-based missiles. In total, the Air Forces electronic warfare troops detected 498 airborne attack weapons. In particular, two anti-ship missiles Tsirkon (launch area - the Autonomous Republic of Crimea); 13 ballistic missiles Iskander-M/S-400 (launch areas - Bryansk region, Russian Federation); 25 cruise missiles Kalibr (launch area - the waters of the Black and Caspian Seas); 24 cruise missiles X-101 (launch area - Vologda region, Russian Federation); 4 guided aircraft missiles X-59/69 (launch area - Kursk region, Russian Federation, military area of Donetsk region). Also, 430 attack UAVs of the Shahed, Gerbera, Italmas type and drones of other types from the following directions: Bryansk, Kursk, Orel, Shatalovo, Millerovo, Primorsko-Akhtarsk of the Russian Federation, Hvardeyske, Chauda the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, about 250 of them are shaheds. It is noted that the main direction of the attack was Kyiv region. The air attack was repelled by aircraft, anti-aircraft missile forces, electronic warfare units, unmanned aerial systems, and mobile fire teams of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Meanwhile, six missile hits and 28 attack UAVs were recorded at 11 locations, as well as UAV debris at seven locations. Information regarding four enemy missiles is being clarified. The attack is ongoing, and several enemy UAVs are in the airspace, the command added. On the night of March 13, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces launched a series of strikes against military installations of the Russian aggressor, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on Telegram on Saturday. In particular, an area where enemy manpower was concentrated in Novo-Mykolavka region (TOT, Zaporizhia region) was hit, as well as an artillery gun at a firing position near Zelene (TOT, Donetsk region). In addition, the destruction of an area where enemy personnel are concentrated in Shakhtarsk region, as well as a logistics depot near Berdyansk in Donetsk regions military territorial waters, was confirmed. Among other things, a repair unit and a warehouse for enemy materiel were damaged near Andriyivka (Zaporizhia region). The extent of the damage is being determined. In addition, the destruction of five enemy units of equipment was additionally confirmed as a result of the destruction of an ammunition depot in the area of Shyroka Balka (Donetsk region) on March 11. "The systematic destruction of enemy manpower, artillery, and military logistics areas significantly reduces their ability to conduct combat operations and support their troops. To be continued!" the General Staff assured. Ukraine provides reps of 31 countries with comprehensive materials on consequences of Russia's attack on Druzhba oil pipeline Naftogaz head Naftogaz Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a special briefing for representatives of foreign diplomatic missions from nearly 40 countries regarding the consequences of Russias attacks on the Druzhba oil pipeline, said Naftogaz Chairman of the Board Serhiy Koretsky. "We presented comprehensive materials on the nature of the attack and its consequences, including photos and video footage from the scene. We also briefed the diplomats in detail on the challenges our colleagues are facing," Koretsky wrote on Facebook on Saturday. He emphasized that restoring such infrastructure is a complex technological process that requires time, specialized equipment, and work under the constant threat of repeated Russian strikes. According to him, representatives from 31 countries, including the G7 countries and Ukraines European partners, took part in the briefing. Koretsky added that since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has carried out more than 400 attacks on Naftogaz Group facilities, and in 2026 alone, more than 30 attacks have already been recorded. "The Naftogaz Group, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, continues to inform international partners about the consequences of Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the progress of restoration work," the groups director noted. He expressed gratitude to Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and Deputy Minister Evhen Perebyinis for co-organising this meeting, as well as to representatives of all states who took part in the event. As far as Energoreform has learned, representatives from Hungary and Slovakia took part in the event; these countries categorically insist on the resumption of the pipelines operation. As reported, a targeted Russian attack on January 27 caused significant damage to the technological and auxiliary equipment of the Druzhba oil pipeline. Following this, Ukraine halted energy transportation through the pipeline. Its Saturday night in Manila, but 25-year-old Chris, who just graduated with a masters degree, is not getting ready to party. His chair at a call center awaits him, so he is hurriedly eating a plate of street food before settling in to attend a flood of phone calls coming from the United States. In a skyscraper located in the modern neighborhood of Makati, Chris will resolve the doubts of clients living on the other side of the Pacific, where the sun is just beginning to rise. Hes been with the company Conentrix, which subcontracts with large financial and technological corporations, for five years. He earns $337 a month. Chris gets to work at 11 p.m. and leaves at 8 a.m. He covers the graveyard shift, so called for the silence that reigns in the early hours of dawn. This schedule is the norm for many of the roughly 1.5 million Filipinos employed in call centers, according to data from the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), an employer association for business process outsourcing (BPO). IBPAP covers a wide range of functions that large companies typically outsource, most notably customer service and technical support. The Philippines is a world leader in the former, says Carole Gaffud, director and head of research and innovation for IBPAP. The latter area is typically the domain of India. Both countries offer similar advantages: low costs and a population where a large portion has excellent English skills. Around 70% of BPO in the Philippines comes from the United States, explains Gaffud. That is the same percentage, according to data from IBPAP, that U.S. companies save by locating their services in the Asian country. Residents of the archipelago have a neutral accent and according to Gaffud, offer cultural compatibility, empathy, friendly service and strict adherence to protocols. With the arrival of the internet and lower cost of international calls, the BPO sector has seen unending growth in the Philippines. The industry has grown nonstop since the end of the 1990s. Today, it is worth $39.5 billion and represents 8% of the countrys GDP. Last year its earnings increased by 5% and its number of employees by 4%. The number of the total workers (including both those who answer phones and others in non-telephonic services) is nearly two million. As it is totally dependent on foreign markets, this pillar of the Philippine economy could be ruined if a current legislative initiative to protect U.S. industry goes ahead. A bill that was introduced in August 2025 and has a rather explicit name the Keep Call Centers in America Act would provide incentives to companies that opt to operate within the United States, as well as harsh deterrents to those that continue to outsource such jobs. If approved, it could have catastrophic effects on the Philippines. Gaffud acknowledges her companys concerns, but adds that at this point, IBPAP members are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, and are working on dialogue and a study of possible implications. For now, Filipino call centers continue at a frenetic pace. In cities like Manila and Cebu, it has become normal to see young people coming and going in the middle of the night from well-lit buildings that fill the major business districts. Before starting their shifts and during breaks, they often flock to the food stalls that have sprung up alongside the BPO boom modest stands selling skewers or rice dishes that have turned the early hours of the morning into their peak business time. While the rest of the city sleeps, theyre swarmed by 20-somethings, who always look like theyre in a rush, ID badges hanging from their necks. Working in a call center offers an easy entry point into the job market. Although most applicants are university students, in theory all one needs is good English and some problemsolving ability. An employee with no experience makes around $291 a month (about $1.74 an hour) for a 40-hour workweek. The average minimum wage which in the Philippines depends on days worked and in what region would be $186 for the same amount of time. A taxi driver has to work 12 hours, six days a week to make $349. Renso Bajala, secretary general of the BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN), acknowledges that callcenter wages are higher than in other fastgrowing sectors in the country, such as semiconductors. But he insists that the poorer conditions faced by other workers or the unrealistic minimum wage set by the authorities say nothing about the fairness or unfairness that defines the BPO sector itself. With a monthly salary of $291 or $349 you cant, by a long shot, earn a living in urban areas in the Philippines, says Clifford Temprosa, who runs a socialenterprise consultancy. In October last year, he published an article denouncing the sector for exporting exploitation. Interestingly, a recruiting agency for call center workers admitted in a 2025 report at for a person living in Manila, basic monthly expenses (rent, transportation, food) are at least $582. According to data from BIEN, subcontracting companies the biggest are Concentrix, Accenture and Teleperformance, none of which agreed to provide an interview for this article earn around $1,500 per month for their clients per worker. Until his recent dismissal from Concentrix, Bajala earned $407 a month answering calls for American Express. In the United States, you would earn no less than $2,500, he says. Though his former employer posted losses last year, its shareholders earned $256 million. Its biggest competitor in the Philippines, the international corporation Accenture, reported earnings of $7.56 billion during the same period. Call center manager in Manila Thats how you make the big bucks, sums up a manager of another Manila call center as he smokes at the foot of a glass tower. My subordinates are university students with nearly native English who are capable of multi-tasking under a lot of pressure. Their wages are very far from fair, says the manager says. At 46 years of age, with 12 years of experience and 25 people under his supervision, he earns $873 a month. From the employers association, Carole Gaffud speaks of good intentions. I want to believe that our companies are genuinely concerned about the well-being of their employees, whether thats in terms of salaries or other benefits. She explains that AI is creating a lot of value for BPO services, adding that this could help companies increase workers salaries. Fewer jobs, but better-paid? Gaffud is optimistic. Not necessarily, she says. I predict that there will be fewer basic jobs, and more highly skilled ones. Bajala was fired from Concentrix precisely for telling a journalist how AI was affecting his work. He said that performance and satisfaction metrics increasingly depend on how the machine evaluates call center agents tone of voice, or on the number of times the customer says yes or thank you. Beyond the way it is increasing surveillance of employees, Bajala has no doubt that AI will be the end of many jobs. Unless workers take action, he warns, there will be fewer and fewer positions, and they will be just as poorly paid. Its not easy to fight for better working conditions in the Philippines. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, its among the 10 worst countries in the world when it comes to labor rights. The ITUC reported that Filipino union leaders are under constant monitoring from politicians, judges and law enforcement, who sometimes invent criminal charges, accusing unionists of belonging to violent communist organizations. Speaking out can even cost ones life. A report from the ITUC found that 72 Filipino trade unionists were killed between 2016 and 2023. Alongside the fear of losing their jobs and institutional repression, there is also, in Clifford Temprosas words, a culture of resignation, that idea that, since things could be worse, one shouldnt complain too much. Banjala confirms this tendency toward inaction: We do a lot of field work in the large BPO hubs, and the majority of people show little interest in our cause, arguing that other sectors pay less and offer worse conditions. High turnover in the industry doesnt help the situation either, as it discourages long-term union battles. Working in a call center is often a kind of rite of passage for university students or recent graduates. Like Chris, the young man who eats hurriedly at a street stall before beginning his graveyard shift. He says he only wants to survive as he looks for a decent job in marketing, his true vocation. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Miami has become one of those cities young people want to leave. In fact, Miami ranked third in the whole of the U.S. regarding intent to leave. More than half of its residents aged between 18 to 34 without children said they are likely or very likely to pack their bags. But for many young Hispanics, especially in multigenerational households, moving is complex because it involves disrupting a shared family economy. Hispanics make up more than 70% of Miami-Dade Countys population, one of the largest concentrations in the country. Studies show that Latino households are more likely than others to be multigenerational and operate with shared family economies, a dynamic associated with so-called familismo, which can complicate moving. The study, conducted by the firm Gensler, indicates that the rising cost of living is leading many to rethink where to live. Eighty-three percent of young people said affordability was the main reason for moving, especially in places worst-hit, such as Miami-Dade. Domino Park in Miami, February 19. Eva Marie UZCATEGUI The county has become one of the most expensive in the United States. The cost of living is about 20% higher than the national average and the average family home costs more than $500,000. More than half its residents have considered leaving for financial reasons, according to another survey, although older adults are far less willing to do so than their younger counterparts. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that the number of Americans living in households consisting of two or more generations has quadrupled since the 1970s, especially among immigrants and Hispanic communities. Christian Torres, 23, who was born in Miami, says that even if he wanted to, he cant leave the city because he needs to help his mother financially. The young man works as a butcher at Publix, a supermarket chain, but his salary barely covers his basic expenses. Its not enough to pay the rent, the car, the electricity, the water. I dont have money to move forward. Living here in Miami is very expensive, he says. When he finishes college, he would like to get a better-paying job in another state. With something more stable I could move, start a family. Its very difficult here, he adds. Jared Nordlund from the Latino civil rights organization Unidos US says the high cost of living and economic insecurity has hit working-class communities hard. For many young Hispanics, especially from immigrant families, these pressures are compounded by the family dynamics of multigenerational households, he explains. Adding to the pressure is Miami-Dades labor market, which relies heavily on service sectors such as hospitality, healthcare, and retail, where low wages predominate. View of the streets of Miami, February 19. Eva Marie UZCATEGUI Hernan, a 21-year-old Venezuelan, works as a bellboy in a hotel in the Brickell neighborhood. He arrived in the U.S. five years ago and says he has thought about moving from Miami many times, but he doesnt want to be too far away from his family. In case they need me Becoming independent is part of life, but that doesnt mean you stop supporting your family, he says. He is now considering a move to a nearby city like Weston, Pembroke Pines, or Fort Lauderdale, where the pace is slower. That way I can stay close to my parents and help them if necessary, but without living in Miami, he explains. Studies suggest that more affordable cities tend to attract new residents. Erdianys Lopez, a 26-year-old Cuban, moved with her husband to Iowa last year. There they pay $950 a month for a spacious two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, while in Miami they paid $1,400 for half of a mobile home. They earn similar salaries in their new jobs and have managed to save up to start a family. However, moving consumed virtually all their savings and was only possible because Lopezs husband got a job before he left. Lauren Sanchez, a 23-year-old Cuban, faces a similar dilemma. She also works at a hotel, lives with her parents, and says the cost of living in Miami is overwhelming. She wants to study at university but does not qualify for in-state tuition after a law passed last year that eliminated that benefit for students with irregular immigration status. For her, moving is not a viable option. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition This is not just a war with Israel and the USA against Iran. Iranians are not Arabs; they are Persians. In this respect, the majority Sunni Muslim Arabs and Turks are the enemy as much as the Israelis and Americans. For the psychotic cult of the Shia clerics, these are the End of Days, and the cultists are awaiting the Twelfth Imam to appear from the midst of the violent explosions, missiles, and drones. The Shia Islamic zealots are looking to take down the entire globe with them, and they will do it gladly aligned with their skewed belief system and superstitious predictions. The Final Struggle Air power never wins a war, and the U.S. needs to learn this hard lesson if it wants to stop these suicidal Shia nutcases going ahead with their apocalypse. Only a major operation with boots on the ground will solve this Persian problem. Global economic destruction, escalating regional conflict, escalating global conflict, the destruction of the previous world order and invisible red lines. Many Western analysts completely misunderstand Iran because they assume Iranian leaders think about time, power, and conflict in the same strategic framework as secular states. They do not. In the ideological core of the Islamic Republic, there is a religious worldview rooted in Twelver Shia theology that changes how history, legitimacy, and patience are perceived. Shia islam is masochism and self harm turned into a religion. pic.twitter.com/w9taImdF8P (@NiohBerg) September 29, 2024 The new Khamenei and many of the Iranian hierarchy have apocalyptic beliefs rooted in Shiite Islamic scripture. The Hiddenor TwelfthImam plays a dominant role in one specific form of Shiite Islamic theology, called Twelverism, which happens to be the primary belief system of Irans leadership. Muhammad alMahdi, the final of the Twelve Imams. He was born around 868 CE in Samarra (modern Iraq). In 874 CE he entered occultation, a divinely ordained disappearance from public life. He is believed to still be alive but hidden until the end of time. At a divinely chosen moment he will reappear as the Mahdi (the Guided One). This belief is the central eschatological doctrine of Twelver Shiism Shia islam is just a really elaborate excuse for having all male half naked raves. pic.twitter.com/dWCcQh9oxe (@NiohBerg) March 16, 2025 This is the messianic belief that at the end of days, the Hidden Imam will appear in the midst of a violent apocalyptic scenario played out on a battleground stained with infidels blood. In Twelver theology, the Mahdis return marks the final stage of history. The world will be filled with injustice, corruption, and chaos. The Mahdi will emerge and establish global justice and true Islamic rule. In some traditions he returns alongside Jesus, who helps defeat evil. they are afraid we will stop them from doing techno party pic.twitter.com/0ktTezprNY MMUTFX2053 (@MMUTFX2053) December 2, 2024 The dominant doctrine of the Iranian system is Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), which states that clerics govern temporarily during the Imams absence. The state is therefore seen as provisional until the Mahdi returns. In other words, the Iranian mullahs welcome their own destruction as long as they take all others with them (specifically Israel). BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers on Thursday voted to adopt the Ecological and Environmental Code at the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress. As China's second formal statutory code following the adoption of the Civil Code in 2020, the legislation aims to protect the ecological environment and promote green development through the strictest systems and the most rigorous rule of law. Overseas media and experts have closely followed the adoption of the code, calling it a milestone in the evolution of China's legal system and a valuable reference for the international community. They believe it also reflects China's long-term commitment to green transformation and addressing climate change amid a rapidly changing global landscape. A MILESTONE IN ECOLOGICAL GOVERNANCE The code aims at safeguarding the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature, thus consolidating the country's theoretical, institutional and practical achievements in ecological conservation since 2012. The legislation marks a "very significant step in the evolution of environmental governance in the country," said Meilleur Derek Murindabigwi, CEO of IGIHE, a leading news and media group in Kigali, Rwanda. "For developing countries, this is an important signal. It demonstrates that rapid economic growth and strong environmental protection do not have to be mutually exclusive." Observers abroad are paying close attention to its concrete provisions. Ado Shaibu, a member of the Tanzanian parliament, noted that the code addresses issues closely related to daily life, including cooking fumes and noise pollution. Nasser Bouchiba, chairman of the Africa-China Cooperation Association for Development in Morocco, pointed to provisions on emerging environmental issues such as electromagnetic radiation and light pollution, calling them evidence of forward-looking legislation. Gerd Winter, emeritus professor of law at the University of Bremen in Germany, said the code brings the environmental impact of consumption patterns into the regulatory framework -- an issue often overlooked in Western development models. Eduardo Tzili-Apango, a researcher at Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, said that at a time when some countries are reverting to high-carbon development paths, China's continued strengthening of ecological and environmental institutions underscores its leading role in global environmental governance. A NEW PATH TO GREEN DEVELOPMENT China's green development achievements -- from expanding vegetation around the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang to the ecological recovery of the Yangtze River, as well as the growing presence of new energy vehicles on Chinese roads -- have drawn global attention. The international community hopes the new code can provide valuable reference for other countries' green transitions. Pavel Troshchinsky, head of the Center for Political Research and Forecasting at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said China has not only turned green concepts into development outcomes but also translated them into the language of law, setting an example for other nations. China has also contributed practical environmental technologies to the world. Kenya's The Star newspaper reported that as China strengthens environmental governance, its overseas projects in Africa and other regions will benefit local communities. A commentary on Pakistan's The News International website said the code reflects China's philosophy of harmony between humanity and nature -- pursuing economic growth and public well-being while respecting the environment. Aly Abdel Aziz, an expert at Egypt's Desert Research Center, said China offers a useful reference for countries seeking to balance economic growth, legal governance and sustainable development. VIENTIANE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone chaired a high-level consultative meeting to address fuel challenges, as unrest in the Middle East has driven sharp price fluctuations and caused a decline in fuel import volumes. The session, held in the Lao capital Vientiane on Friday, brought together deputy prime ministers, cabinet members, and representatives from both state and private sectors, Lao News Agency reported on Saturday. The meeting focused on addressing the impact of Middle East instability, which has triggered sharp rises in global fuel prices and led to a downward trend in import volumes. Participants deliberated on several critical measures, including diversifying supply sources and streamlining import mechanisms to ensure speed and reliability. Key discussions centered on improving the oversight of fuel reserves and ensuring efficient, nationwide distribution. To provide a sustainable long-term solution, the government is prioritizing alternative energy policies. This includes promoting the use of electric vehicles (EVs) and expanding public EV transport networks across urban and residential areas. During the meeting, Sonexay emphasized the importance of public awareness campaigns to promote national solidarity, reduce the social impact of rising fuel costs, and support ongoing development projects. To ensure effective implementation, the government will establish a dedicated task force and formalize both short-term and long-term measures through legislation, providing ministries and local authorities with clear mandates for immediate action. PICTURED ABOVE: From left to right, Angus Kerr, Director of Climate Change at the Department for Communities, Noel Rice, Housing Executive Chair Nicole Lappin, Caroline Connor, Interim Director Strategic Housing Authority, Emma Stubbs, Housing Executive Assistant Director of Sustainable Homes and Robert Clements, Head of Sustainable Development. Over 50m was invested in energy efficiency and carbon reduction measures by the Housing Executive last year, a newly published report has revealed. The figure was part of the Northern Ireland Home Energy Conservation Authority (HECA) annual progress report, launched at this years Sustainability Symposium in Belfast. Now in its fourth year, the symposium brings housing professionals together to learn more about the latest developments in green energy and receive updates from the Housing Executive about its continued sustainability efforts as Northern Irelands largest landlord and strategic housing authority. Speakers at the Housing Executive event included Michael Craggs, Development & Asset Management Innovation Lead at Bromford Housing and included a video message from Communities Minister Gordon Lyons. READ NEXT: Ronan Keating takes to the Derry Walls for new BBC adventure series A special discussion was also held with Noel Rice, who was appointed as the Housing Executives first Energy Conservation Manager 30 years ago. Housing Executive Chief Executive, Grainia Long, said: We were thrilled to welcome attendees to our latest Sustainability Symposium, which has become an important opportunity to explore how the housing sector can work together to address climate change. We have made great progress to increase energy efficiency in homes across Northern Ireland, reduce our carbon footprint and tackle fuel poverty. Last year alone we invested 10.8m in the Affordable Warmth Scheme. Working in partnership with the Department for Communities, the scheme offers grants to lower income households to install a range of different measures in their home that help reduce energy bills. The Housing Executive has also continued to invest in our own properties with over 42,442,344 in energy efficiency and low carbon projects over the last year. In its role as the Home Energy Conservation Authority for Northern Ireland, the Housing Executive seeks to support improvements in home energy efficiency across the entire housing stock in the region. This includes carrying out and supporting research to promote innovation and help track the progress of energy efficiency programmes and projects. You can read the full report by visiting nihe.gov.uk. Naomi Long has said she will not stand by as progress in Northern Ireland is frustrated and stymied. The Alliance leader and Stormont Justice Minister addressed her partys annual conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belfast on Saturday. Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester who is seen as a possible challenger to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, also addressed the conference, which has the theme hope not fear. Mrs Long began her speech by thanking Mr Burnham for his attendance. She said: As someone from a northern industrial town, who grew up in a two-up two-down that opened straight out onto the street, I wonder if some of those in power are worried about the power they would unlock if people like us actually got our hands on some of the power that they like to hang on to. Mrs Long reflected on 25 years since she was first elected and almost 10 years since she became party leader, before criticising US President Donald Trump and warning the Alliance Partys place in the powersharing Executive should not be taken for granted. Mrs Long made similar comments during an interview with the Press Association during the week, where she said she would step away from the Executive if she believed that it had become too threadbare to deliver for people. Speaking on Saturday, she pledged she would not to stand by as progress was frustrated and that she was confident her party was best-placed to lead us forward. As someone who grew up during the Troubles, I will never take our progress for granted, but equally I will also not stand by while others rest on their laurels or frustrate progress, Mrs Long said. She said that if they reach a point where the partys key priorities are stymied by vetoes and frustrated by heel-dragging, then she would be advocating a change in direction. Our continued participation in the Executive cannot and should not be taken for granted. Mrs Long said Alliance were an optimistic party and that the progress made by Northern Ireland to date had been built on hope, not fear. She said the party had proved its critics wrong to become the third largest party in Stormont and said they would not entertain their counsel of doom. Of course, there will always be those who seek to talk down our achievements or suggest that our progress is unsustainable. What they have failed to grasp every time is that Alliance success isnt merely a party political phenomenon: it reflects the positive and progressive change happening outside rooms like these, in our communities. In relation to international affairs, Mrs Long said the party was not attending the White House for St Patricks Day celebrations as Mr Trump is someone who engages in race-baiting and calls female journalists piggy. As someone who believes in democracy, freedom and peace, why would I want to spend time with someone who threatens the global order and stability? she said. As someone whose family fought in the Second World War, why would I want to engage a man who so disgracefully disrespected war veterans and continues to threaten US traditional allies? Trump may not have standards: we do. She said it was important that the party speak up and speak out for their values at home and abroad, and warned against viewing every international conflict through the lens of our local divisions in Northern Ireland. She said the lack of meaningful sanctions for Russias breaches of international law in Ukraine had paved the way for further illegal wars and that the US and Israel waging a war of choice on Iran had serious implications for the world. She said it was simplistic and crass to expect people to pick a side on conflicts as if it was a sport or game. She said: We need to articulate that, just as it is possible both to agree that Hamas are a terrorist regime and that that Israeli government is engaged in genocide; it is possible to abhor the human rights abuses, murders and oppression of opponents by the Iranian regime whilst also acknowledging the recent military action by the US and Israel is contrary to international law, as are the random retaliatory strikes by Iran. Mrs Long received applause in the room after her comments on the US and Israels attack on Iran. Ireland must adapt its workplaces to reflect an increasingly age-diverse workforce, Age Friendly Ireland has said, with multigenerational employment at the heart of the third annual Age Friendly Ireland Ambassadors Day. Gavin Duffy, Age Friendly Ambassador for Louth, is among those promoting the importance of age-friendly workplaces and supporting employers to plan for an ageing workforce. The annual event, this year hosted by Kerry County Council, brought together representatives from across the country to examine how employers can respond to Irelands changing demographics. Age Friendly Irelands nationwide network of Ambassadors, including Francis Brennan, Geraldine Plunkett, Gavin Duffy, and John Spillane, gathered to discuss the theme of Age Friendly Workplaces and the practical steps needed to support longer working lives. As people live longer and healthier lives, many want and need to remain in the workplace for longer. Age Friendly Ireland said this shift presents a significant opportunity for employers willing to embrace flexibility, inclusive cultures and long-term workforce planning. Held at the Rose Hotel in Tralee, the event highlighted insights from Age Friendly Irelands Workplace Pathfinder Programme, which brought together businesses, recent retirees, and people approaching retirement age to understand what needs to change to support the fast-growing older population. These insights include workforce succession planning, phased retirement models, increased pension planning, and addressing harmful stereotypes in the workplace. Read Next: Gardai investigate early morning fire at Dundalk McDonalds A nationwide survey of workers aged 45-65 found flexible working arrangements are the single biggest support needed to enable people remain in the workplace longer, with 37% of respondents identifying it as a key priority. A full report, including policy recommendations to support multigenerational employment, will be launched by Age Friendly Ireland later this year. Francis Brennan, Irish Television personality, former hotelier and Kerry Age Friendly Ambassador said : "One of the most important conversations we need to have in Ireland today is about how we value older people in the workplace. Experience, diverse perspectives and resilience are enormous assets to any organisation. Older workers bring insights, stability and real-world knowledge that strengthen multigenerational teams. If we truly want to plan properly for our future as a country, we need to ensure our workplaces reflect our ageing population. Catherine McGuigan, Chief Officer of Age Friendly Ireland, said: On Ambassadors Day, we want to sincerely thank our Age Friendly Ambassadors across the country for the leadership and visibility they bring to this important movement. They use their voices and lived experiences to challenge perceptions of ageing, and to highlight the opportunities that come with living longer lives. Kieran Kehoe, Chief Executive, Meath County Council, said: We are living longer, healthier lives and many people want to continue contributing their skills, knowledge and experience. Becoming Age Friendly is not about accommodation, it is about recognising value. Employers who recognise and harness the strengths of every generation will build stronger, more sustainable organisations, and have a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent Age Friendly Ambassadors are appointed by City and County Councils across Ireland to use their platforms to challenge ageism, champion dignity in ageing, and support more connected, active and inclusive ageing across Ireland. The full list of Irelands Age Friendly Ambassadors can be found here: https:// agefriendlyireland.ie/meet- the-team/local-age-friendly- ambassadors/ Cathaoirleach of Kerry County Council, Cllr Michael Foley said: I warmly welcome the Age Friendly Ambassadors Day to Kerry. We look forward to sharing new ideas and experiences. As Kerry has just embarked on the development of a new Age Friendly Strategy, I am very interested in hearing about projects and initiatives across the county and how we can continue to develop and sustain Age Friendly communities. Age Friendly Ireland is the national body supporting Irelands 31 Local Authorities to deliver the Governments vision of an Age Friendly Ireland. Each local authority leads a dedicated Age Friendly Programme, in partnership with older people, service providers and community stakeholders. Those wishing to learn more about ageing well in Ireland should contact their local Age Friendly Programme via their local council or visit agefriendlyireland.ie. Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) has been awarded the TrustEd Ireland International Education Mark by Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI). This national recognition is granted to Irish education providers that demonstrate excellence in international student recruitment, marketing, admissions, English language provision, and student supports. The TrustEd Ireland Mark is a quality assurance framework developed by QQI to give international students confidence in the integrity, transparency and high standards of Irish Higher Education Institutions. Its purpose is to ensure a positive and consistent experience for international learners. Diarmuid OCallaghan, DkIT President said: Securing the TrustEd Ireland mark represents a significant and distinguished endorsement of DkITs unwavering commitment to excellence and to the wellbeing of our international students. This prestigious recognition affirms to students and our international partners, that DkIT is a trusted provider of high-quality education, offering a safe and inclusive environment to learners from across the world. Earning the TrustEd Ireland Mark recognises that DkIT adheres to stringent national benchmarks for providing a safe, welcoming, and high-quality educational experience to students from across the globe. Noreen Carney, International Office Manager stated Dundalk Institute of Technologys achievement in receiving the TrustEd Ireland mark is a proud milestone for the DkIT community. This recognition enhances DkITs international profile, helping to build trusted global partnerships and warmly welcoming students from around the world to join our vibrant campus. It also further strengthens Irelands reputation as a high-quality, supportive, and inspired destination-choice for international students. Read Next: Louth housing estate wins Social Development of the Year DkIT delivers a wide range of accredited undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across Science, Nursing, Business, Engineering, the Creative Arts and Computing. The Institute fosters a dynamic and diverse international community, complemented by tailored supports that empower international students to thrive academically and socially. TrustEd Ireland is a new statutory quality mark and part of a suite of legislative measures designed to protect international learners. The new mark will be awarded to higher education and English language education providers who have demonstrated that they meet national standards to ensure a quality experience for international learners from pre-enrolment through to the completion of their programme of education and training. Cllr Robert Nash, Fine Gael Councillor for Dundalk South, has said that rising oil prices linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East are causing serious anxiety for families across Dundalk who are already struggling with the cost of living, and has called for a review of taxes and levies applied to fuel prices. Cllr Nash said he has been contacted by a number of concerned constituents in recent days who are worried about the rising cost of fuel and the possibility that they may not be able to afford to adequately heat their homes or in some cases commute to work. The Fine Gael councillor told the Dundalk Democrat: As a father of five myself, I fully understand the concerns people have about the rising cost of fuel and the impact it is having on households, said Cllr Nash. Whether it is the increased cost for someone commuting to work, business owners in the transport sector, or people trying to heat their homes or offices, the sharp rise in fuel prices is having a very real and detrimental impact on peoples finances. Cllr Nash said that in an already inflated economy, where the cost of goods and services has risen significantly, he fears this latest increase could become a tipping point for families who are already under pressure. Read also: 30% increase in funding for Housing Adaptations for older and disabled people in Louth Over the past three years many families have been dealing with rising costs across the board from consumer goods and energy bills to basic services such as GP visits, dental care and childcare, he said. I am extremely concerned that some families may soon be forced to choose between food, electricity and heating in the months ahead. I believe there is more the Government can do to support people during this difficult period. Cllr Nash acknowledged that previous cost-of-living support packages introduced by the Government had been beneficial, but said similar or further action may now be required. During times of crisis such as this, I believe the taxes and levies applied to fuel prices need to be reviewed. In Ireland, a significant proportion of the price of motor fuel and to a lesser extent heating fuel is made up of Government taxes and charges, in some cases accounting for more than 50% of the overall cost. If the Government is serious about helping struggling families, then steps must be taken to examine whether these taxes and levies can be temporarily reduced or waived. The councillor confirmed that he has already raised the issue with my TD Deputy Paula Butterly and asked that the concerns of local families be brought to the attention of the relevant Government department. Addressing ongoing speculation about possible price gouging within the fuel industry, Cllr Nash said he welcomes investigations by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) into illegal practices in the energy sector. However, he noted that the process often relies heavily on whistleblowers, which he believes may present a significant obstacle. Cllr Nash concluded by saying that the only immediate relief for many families is that the country is now moving into the spring months. "The one saving grace is that we are now in March and hopefully the worst of the winter weather is behind us. "I hope that by the end of the summer we will see a resolution to the conflict in the Middle East and a long-term path toward peace in the region. KABUL, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani airstrikes claimed four lives and injured 25 others in the Afghan capital Kabul early Friday, deputy spokesman of the Afghan government Hamdullah Fitrat said Saturday. According to the official, besides Kabul, Pakistan also conducted air raids on Kandahar, Paktika, Khost and Nangarhar provinces on Thursday night and Friday. In Kandahar, an oil depot was targeted. In the past weeks, scores of people from both sides have been killed or injured in the conflict between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, according to officials from the two countries. Almost 500 Cork tenants have contacted housing charity Threshold about receiving eviction notices in the past six months. The charity has also logged a 37% increase in calls about evictions in the first two months of this year, compared with the same period last year. This month saw the replacement of rent pressure zones with a national rent control system. Despite Government claims that this would improve security for tenants, there has been concern that the rules could lead to more evictions across the country. Cork City Council said 430 notices of termination were issued in the city since the start of 2025 366 last year, and 64 this January and February. In September 2025, Threshold was contacted by 113 Cork people about a tenancy termination. This is compared to 83 calls during the same month in 2024. October and November were also up from 2024, though subsequent figures have decreased. Overall, 491 people in Cork have contacted the charity about termination notices in the past six months marking a 4% increase on the same time period last year. Threshold southern regional manager Edel Conlon has said the charity had seen an increase this year in the number of tenants worried about eviction. Fortunately, we have not seen an increase in Cork-based renters with notices of termination, so far, [in 2026] she said. However, she said that there had been a small increase at the end of last year in the number of Cork-based renters getting in touch after receiving notices of termination, following on from an earlier spike in September. The increase may have been a result of people misunderstanding the proposed legislation and what it would mean for tenancies, she said. The changes offer improved security of tenure for those in tenancies that commenced since March 1, 2026. She said there was no reason for tenants to be faced with a large rent increase at this time, and anyone who did should contact Threshold on 1800 454454. Lucas van Bilderbeek of the Cork branch of the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) said tenants were expressing worries about the new rental laws, and fears of rent hikes, adding that the union had noted an increase in new member registrations. He said reported evictions in other parts of Ireland were concerning, and predictable. Landlords can raise their rents to a market rent, which is not clearly defined, but they have to wait for a new tenant, or just evict the current ones, Mr van Bilderbeek said. Meanwhile, new analysis from Threshold has highlighted the scale of homes being diverted into the short-term letting market during Irelands housing emergency. There are now more than 8,600 second homes advertised for short-term let across Ireland, compared to 2,100 homes available nationwide in the private rental market. Data analysed from Inside Airbnb and Daft.ie show that, nationally, short-term lets outnumber homes available to rent by 4.1 to 1. Corks ratio, 3.7 to 1, is slightly below the national average, while Kerry has the highest, 30.6:1, followed by Clare at 28:1 and Donegal at 24.5:1. International students and graduates in Cork are unable to work due to increasing delays in Irelands immigration processing system. Many graduates and current students who are legally entitled to remain in the country are finding themselves unable to begin employment due to prolonged waiting times for visa renewals, residence permits, and other immigration permissions. Lekha Menon Margassery, a Cork Labour Party member who works in the education sector, has raised concerns about the growing impact of these delays on students and the institutions that support them. For many international students, securing employment after completing their studies is a key step in transitioning from education to contributing to Irelands workforce. "However, growing backlogs in immigration processing mean that even students who already have confirmed job offers are often forced to delay their start dates. In some cases, employers are unable to proceed with hiring because the necessary immigration permissions remain pending. The situation is creating uncertainty not only for students but also for businesses that rely on international talent. Employers eager to recruit skilled graduates are being held back. While the introduction of an online immigration portal was intended to improve efficiency and simplify the process, many applicants report that waiting times have actually increased, she said. International students make a significant contribution to Irelands education sector, local communities, and labour market. Beyond tuition fees and academic engagement, many graduates go on to work in sectors facing skills shortages, helping support Irelands growing economy. Ensuring that immigration processes are efficient, transparent, and accessible is essential for maintaining Irelands reputation as a welcoming destination for international education and global talent. Scoil Barra Naofa in Monkstown, Co Cork, recently hosted a History Day at the school. The students were proud to show off their projects on the history of the local area. Pupils revealed the hard work they had undertaken over the previous weeks on a wide range of subjects including their own school, Monkstown Castle, Monkstown Bay Sailing Club and more. They even performed some songs for visitors on the day. The Cork Business Association (CBA) has relaunched its 'sensory friendly' shopping initiative which aims to make Cork city centre more inclusive for all customers. Primarily supporting people with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences or anxiety, it also benefits many other shoppers who prefer a calmer and more relaxed retail experience. The initiative provides a sensory friendly atmosphere during each participating stores first hour of trade on Sunday mornings. As part of the initiative, participating stores reduce sensory stimuli, including visual, audio or olfactory. The measures undertaken by stores include switching off in-store music, dimming lighting where possible, silencing or reducing the volume of cash register sounds, suspending scent sampling and pausing shelf stacking. Staff in the participating stores also receive customer service training to better support customers with sensory sensitivities. The Lord Mayor of Cork Fergal Dennehy has welcomed the renewal of this particular initiative. I was delighted to meet the business and charity representatives, families and volunteers who have reinvigorated this great initiative. As the city centre continues to evolve and welcome new retailers, I hope many more stores will sign up and do their best to make Cork an inclusive city, allowing access for all. Cliona Barnes, director of the Cork Business Association added: We have worked closely with two of the leading charities in this area, Shine and Rainbow Club, and are grateful for their input and direction in developing the training programme. Now is the right time to refresh the training, reintroduce the initiative, and invite more businesses across the city centre to get involved. Among the retailers that have recommitted to the training programme include Marks & Spencer, Brown Thomas, Penneys and Vibes & Scribes. A feasibility study into a marine biorefinery in Castletownbere in West Cork was recently launched. The project was unveiled by the Mara Blue initiative, with support from Enterprise Ireland and Cork County Council. A marine biorefinery is a sustainable industrial facility that processes materials like algae, seaweed, and fish waste into products like biofuels, food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and fertilisers. The proposed facility is intended to serve as a 'living lab' for developing and demonstrating new products and circular economy solutions, and it is intended it would operate as dedicated, not-for-profit entity. The project is being led by Munster Technological University (MTU) in collaboration with Pure Ocean Algae and the Castletownbere Fishermens Co-Op. It would be Irelands first full-scale marine biorefinery. Michael ONeill, managing director of Pure Ocean Algae, said that the project could unlock economic potential, drive innovation, and ensure our marine resources are used sustainably for generations to come. Professor Maggie Cusack, MTU president, added: This feasibility study represents the first critical step in bringing this world-class marine biorefinery to life. By demonstrating the viability of a circular, sustainable, and commercially robust blue bioeconomy, the feasibility study will pave the way for the south-west region to become a global leader in marine innovation, environmental stewardship, and regional regeneration. Earmarked for Dinish Island in Castletownbere, and subject to validation of the commercial and technical viability of the initiative, the proposed facility will seek to focus on functional foods, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, animal feed, sustainable agricultural inputs, and biomedical ingredients. Darragh Cotter, south west regional manager for Enterprise Ireland, said that the feasibility study will enable the evaluation of the technical, commercial, and community potential for a marine biorefinery in the region, which may help realise the long term opportunities for the processing and exports of marine bioproducts. After 42 years at the helm of the East Cork Choral Society, conductor Colin Nicholls is preparing to take his final bow. Mr Nicholls, who assumed leadership of the choir in 1984, made his debut with a warmly received performance of Haydns The Creation. Over the ensuing years, the society has presented a rich repertoire of oratorio, spanning composers from Purcell to Britten and encompassing the major choral works of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Brahms. The choirs high standards have been underpinned by the loyalty of its members, while generations of young soloists and instrumentalists have benefited from opportunities to perform. Numerous charitable causes have also gained from the groups fundraising. Mr Nicholls has now decided to step down, with his farewell concert scheduled for Saturday, March 21, at 8pm in Cork City Hall. In a fitting tribute to his long association with the work, he has chosen once again to conduct The Creation. He will be joined by soprano Mary Hegarty, tenor Breiffni Horgan, and bass Gheorghe Palcu, with accompaniment by the East Cork Orchestra under the leadership of Eithne Willis. Proceeds from the concert will support the Irish Cancer Society. Tickets are available from Pro Musica, Eventbrite, society members, and at the door. A man and a woman have been arrested after of 5.25 million of cocaine was seized in Co Monaghan on Friday. Gardai carried out searches of several vehicles and searched a business premise. During the course of the operation, gardai seized suspected cocaine with an estimated value of 5.25 million. A man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s were arrested pursuant to Section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 and are currently detained at Garda stations in Co Monaghan. The Custom Revenue Service, local Units in Monaghan and international partners from the Belgian Federal Maritime Police supported this operation. The seized drugs will be sent to Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) for analysis. Gardai say investigations are ongoing. As spring returns, thousands of migratory birds has just landed at a lake in northeast China's Shenyang after their long journey from the south. #MigratoryBirds #AmazingChina #spring #BirdWatching Support Us Your Support will ensure EPWs financial viability and sustainability. The EPW produces independent and public-spirited scholarship and analyses of contemporary affairs every week. EPW is one of the few publications that keep alive the spirit of intellectual inquiry in the Indian media. Often described as a publication with a social conscience, EPW has never shied away from taking strong editorial positions. Our publication is free from political pressure, or commercial interests. Our editorial independence is our pride. We rely on your support to continue the endeavour of highlighting the challenges faced by the disadvantaged, writings from the margins, and scholarship on the most pertinent issues that concern contemporary Indian society. Every contribution is valuable for our future. 1. US Bombs Key Military Sites on Iran's Kharg Island 2. Iran Defies US Threats, Claims Control Over Strait of Hormuz 3. Iran Intensifies Missile and Drone Attacks Across Gulf 4. Trump Vows to Keep Strait Open, Threatens More Strikes 5. Death Toll Rises as Strikes Hit Tehran and Other Iranian Sites 6. Iran Allows Selective Tanker Transits Amid Disruption 7. Netanyahu's Remarks Draw Global Attention 8. Hezbollah and Proxy Activity Continues to Divert Pressure 9. China and Russia Distance Themselves, Condemn Escalation 10. Global Energy and Market Volatility Persists You Might Also Like Day 15 of the US-Israel war on Iran dominates X feeds with fresh US strikes on Kharg Islandthe "crown jewel" of Iran's oil exportssparking furious debates over energy security and escalation risks. President Trump warned of wiping out remaining oil facilities if Tehran keeps menacing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran defiantly claims full control and threatens any transit attempts.Oil markets remain volatile amid partial disruptions, with prices hovering high and global shipping still strained despite some selective passages allowed. Proxy fronts flare as intensified Iranian missile and drone attacks hit Gulf targets, drawing condemnations and UN resolutions. X is exploding with real-time footage of blasts in Tehran, defiant Iranian rallies, and heated takes on whether this ends soon or spirals widereconomic pain from energy shocks hitting everyone keeps engagement massive.US forces struck military targets on Kharg Island, Iran's main oil export hub, with President Trump describing it as hitting the "crown jewel" but sparing oil infrastructure for now. He warned further strikes could target energy facilities if disruptions continue in the Strait of Hormuz. This marks a major escalation on day 15, raising fears of broader energy crisis.Iran rebuffed Trump's warnings, stating the Strait remains under its full control and any transit attempts will be targeted. Tehran continues selective enforcement, allowing some tankers (e.g., Indian, Turkish, Iraqi) to pass while maintaining pressure through missile/drone threats. Maritime traffic has dropped sharply, but no full mining or complete blockade yet observed.Iran pressed sustained strikes on US assets, bases, and sites in Gulf countries including Oman and Saudi Arabia, retaliating against ongoing US-Israeli campaign. Attacks have caused casualties and heightened regional tensions, with neighbors protesting spillover while the conflict spreads beyond Iran's borders.President Trump stated the US is working with allies to ensure the Strait remains "open, safe, and free," promising to bomb shorelines and shoot Iranian vessels if needed. His comments reflect market and voter pressure to contain economic fallout from high oil prices and shipping chaos.US and Israeli operations targeted security infrastructure, weapons storage, and government offices in Tehran and elsewhere, with huge blasts reported amid mass rallies in defiance. Iranian UN ambassador reported at least 1,300 killed from the campaign so far.Despite threats, Iran permitted specific vesselsincluding Indian LPG carriers and a Turkish shipto pass the Strait under conditions like non-US/Israeli ownership. Overall traffic down 97%, but selective approach avoids total economic backlash while pressuring shipping.Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu issued a strong statement amid the war, sparking international reactions and concern over further escalation. Details remain focused on regional developments and heightened geopolitical sensitivity.Ongoing rocket and drone fire from Hezbollah targets northern Israel, aiming to stretch IDF resources. This front remains active as the main Iran war enters its third week, complicating Israel's multi-domain response.Beijing and Moscow condemned the US-Israeli attacks but offered no direct military support. China urged immediate ceasefire to avoid wider Middle East spread, while both benefit indirectly from elevated oil prices and shifting alliances.Oil prices stay elevated due to Hormuz risks and Gulf attacks, with analysts warning of stagflation threats in Europe and broader economic strain. The conflict underscores oil's enduring geopolitical weapon status, reversing some 2026 market consensus trades. Cuba's communist authorities on Friday began a prisoner release negotiated with the Vatican and confirmed that talks were underway with the United States amid intense pressure from President Donald Trump. The Justicia 11J rights group said it had been able to confirm the release of two people jailed for taking part in major anti-government protests on July 11, 2021. Cuba said Thursday that it would release 51 prisoners after talks with the Holy See, which has in the past acted as mediator between Havana and Washington. Havana has described the prisoner releases as a "goodwill" gesture to the Vatican. AFP witnessed the arrival home of Adael Leyva Diaz, 29, who was serving a 13-year sentence, and Ronald Garcia Sanchez, 33, sentenced to 14 years. Both live in the Havana suburb of Arroyo Naranjo. According to Justice 11J, which tracks arrests since the 2021 protests, there are at least 760 political prisoners behind bars in Cuba. The unusual show of clemency came hours after President Miguel Diaz-Canel confirmed that his government was in talks with the United States. Trump has said Cuba will be "next" on his agenda after Iran and the US overthrow of Cuba's top ally, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Speaking to AFP, a White House official on Friday repeated Trump's claim that Cuba is a "failing nation" and that a deal would its government "would be very easily made." The Republican leader has placed the impoverished island under a US oil blockade, strangling its fuel supply on the basis of what he called the "extraordinary threat" posed by Cuba to the United States. This comes on top of a six-decade-old US trade embargo. During a meeting with top Cuban officials, broadcast live on national television, Diaz-Canel said Havana was negotiating with Washington, but gave little away about the nature of the talks. "Cuban officials recently held discussions with representatives of the United States government," he said, confirming negotiations first revealed by Trump in mid-January. "These conversations have been aimed at seeking solutions -- through dialogue -- to the bilateral differences," he added. - 'Make a deal' - Mexico's left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum, who had offered to mediate between Cuba and the United States, welcomed the talks, highlighting "the injustice of the blockade against the Cuban people for all these years." Two Mexican Navy ships bearing 1,000 tons of humanitarian aid -- the third Mexican aid shipment since February -- arrived Friday in Cuba. US media reports say Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, a grandson of former president Raul Castro, has been holding secret talks for weeks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is Cuban-American. "As long as it benefits us, we'll reach an agreement, but on our terms," Sergio Guerra, a 55-year-old food trader, told AFP. Rodriguez Castro was seated in the front row at the meeting addressed by Diaz-Canel on Friday. The Cuban government has been in Trump's sights since the January overthrow of Washington's other foe in the Caribbean, Maduro, on whom Cuba relied for cheap oil. The oil embargo has brought Cuba's already troubled economy to the brink of collapse. The blockade has also starved Cuba's power plants and farms of fuel and brought daily life to a near standstill. Airlines have curtailed or suspend flights to the island for lack of fuel. Trump last weekend predicted that Cuba "is going to fall pretty soon" and told CNN: "They want to make a deal so badly." Diaz-Canel said the talks were being supported by "international factors" without elaborating. Underlining the tension across the Florida Straits separating Cuba and the United States, Cuban forces opened fire on a speedboat carrying a group of alleged armed, US-based assailants on February 25. Five of the people on the boat were killed. rd/jb/mel/sms-cb/bgs A recent controversy involving comments about legendary actor and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran appears to be settling down after veteran Telugu actor Rajendra Prasad issued a public apology. Actor Vishal has now responded with a video message thanking him for addressing the issue and acknowledging the sentiments of fans and members of the Tamil film fraternity. The controversy erupted after Rajendra Prasad made remarks about MGR while praising the acting prowess of legendary Telugu star Kantha Rao during the Kalaprapurna Kanta Rao National Award2025 ceremony held in Hyderabad. According to reports, the veteran actor suggested that MGR was intimidated by Kantha Raos performances and claimed that the actor-politician "used to wet his pants watching Kanta Rao's acting." The statement quickly sparked criticism from several members of the Tamil film industry. Among those who reacted were Vishal and Nassar, both associated with the Nadigar Sangam, who urged Rajendra Prasad to apologise for the remark. Rajendra Prasad issues a public apology Responding to the backlash, Rajendra Prasad shared a video message on Friday in which he clarified that his words were not intended to disrespect the late icon. "When I was casually speaking on stage, I misspoke about Tamil cinema's legendary actor, MGR sir. I'm unsure who did it, but it has blown out of proportion. Why would I disrespect MGR sir? When I was studying in the film institute, MGR sir was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. He had even visited our institute to see how we learned acting. I am nobody to disrespect him," he said in the video. The actor also assured viewers that he would be more mindful about his words in the future and expressed regret over the controversy that followed his statement. MGR remains one of the most revered figures in Tamil cinema and politics. Known for his iconic screen presence and immense popularity among audiences, he went on to become Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and led the state from 1977 until his passing in 1987. His legacy continues to hold immense emotional value for fans and the Tamil film industry. Thank you #RajendraPrasad Garu for your gracious gesture and truly appreciate the heartfelt apology, this only shows your true greatness and humility.#MGR Sir will always be a legend, visionary & an inspiration to one and all, God bless. pic.twitter.com/xHXcCfTJDX Vishal (@VishalKOfficial) March 14, 2026 Vishal responds with appreciation Following the apology, Vishal released a video acknowledging Rajendra Prasads clarification and thanking him for addressing the issue. Thanking him, Vishal said, "On behalf of Nadigar Sangam and MGR fans across the world, we thank you for your words. We were hurt by your words and requested to tender an apology. You are a talented veteran, but to err is human. You realised it, understood our sentiments and gave an apology. It is very nice and sweet of you. Even if someone speaks ill of you tomorrow, we would all support you." Vishals response signals that the issue has now been resolved amicably, with the Tamil film fraternity accepting the veteran actors apology. The exchange also highlights the deep reverence the industry continues to hold for MGR, whose contributions to cinema and public life remain a defining chapter in Tamil cultural history. With the clarification now issued and acknowledged, the controversy appears to have come to a close, with both sides emphasising mutual respect and understanding. Also Read: Mohanlal In Iruvar: When An Icon Played Another Investing in the Next Generation of Surgical Talent BOCA RATON, Fla., March 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. David Pincus, board-certified plastic surgeon and founder of Pincus Plastic Surgery, has announced the launch of a $1,000 academic scholarship designed to support students pursuing careers in plastic surgery. The Dr. David Pincus Scholarship aims to recognize dedication, academic achievement, and a commitment to advancing the field through integrity, skill, and patient-centered care. Through this initiative, Dr. Pincus seeks to encourage aspiring plastic surgeons who demonstrate both clinical promise and a strong ethical foundation. The scholarship reflects his belief that the future of aesthetic and reconstructive surgery depends on thoughtful education, responsible innovation, and mentorship. A Commitment to Education and Professional Growth Dr. Pincus built his career on precision, safety, and natural-looking outcomes. He believes those same principles must guide the training of future surgeons. By establishing this scholarship, he hopes to ease financial pressures that often accompany medical education while also reinforcing the importance of academic excellence. Medical training demands years of study, discipline, and sacrifice. Many students balance coursework, clinical rotations, research responsibilities, and financial challenges. The Dr. David Pincus Scholarship recognizes these demands and offers meaningful support to a student who shows dedication to both technical mastery and compassionate care. Dr. Pincus has long prioritized education within his practice. He emphasizes clear communication with patients and encourages informed decision-making. Extending that commitment to students represents a natural progression of his professional values. Encouraging Ethical and Patient-Centered Practice Plastic surgery combines science, artistry, and responsibility. Dr. Pincus believes future leaders in the field must develop not only surgical skill but also ethical judgment and empathy. The scholarship seeks applicants who demonstrate an understanding of these broader responsibilities. In announcing the award, Dr. Pincus shared that patient trust forms the foundation of every successful surgical relationship. He encourages students to approach plastic surgery as a long-term commitment to safety, proportion, and structural integrity rather than short-term trends. By supporting a student who shares this mindset, the scholarship reinforces standards that elevate the profession. Scholarship Eligibility and Application Criteria The Dr. David Pincus Scholarship is open to students currently enrolled in accredited medical programs who intend to pursue plastic surgery or a closely related specialty. Applicants must demonstrate academic achievement, leadership potential, and a clear interest in advancing the field. Candidates will submit an application that includes academic records and a written statement outlining their goals within plastic surgery. The essay component allows applicants to describe how they plan to contribute to patient care, research, or surgical innovation. Dr. Pincus will evaluate submissions based on clarity of purpose, depth of understanding, and commitment to ethical practice. The scholarship award of $1,000 will be granted to one selected student, with the intention of supporting tuition, educational materials, or related academic expenses. Strengthening the Field Through Mentorship Dr. Pincus recognizes that financial support represents only one part of professional development. Mentorship and guidance play equally important roles in shaping successful surgeons. Throughout his career, Dr. Pincus has benefited from mentors who emphasized discipline, humility, and precision. By launching this scholarship, he hopes to inspire a culture of mentorship among future recipients. Students who receive recognition early in their training often carry that encouragement forward, supporting others as they advance in their careers. This cycle of mentorship strengthens the profession and promotes higher standards of care. The Growing Importance of Skilled Plastic Surgeons Demand for both reconstructive and cosmetic procedures continues to evolve. Advances in surgical techniques, non-surgical treatments, and technology require physicians who can adapt while maintaining a strong ethical compass. Dr. Pincus believes that the next generation must balance innovation with responsibility. The scholarship underscores the importance of comprehensive training. Plastic surgeons must understand anatomy, wound healing, aesthetics, and patient psychology. By supporting students who demonstrate this broad perspective, Dr. Pincus reinforces the importance of well-rounded education. Building Confidence Through Education At Pincus Plastic Surgery, Dr. Pincus focuses on enhancing confidence while preserving individuality. He approaches every procedure with careful planning and clear communication. The scholarship extends this philosophy beyond the clinic by encouraging students to view education as the foundation of confident practice. Future surgeons who invest in their training and approach each patient with integrity contribute to a stronger, more trusted profession. Dr. Pincus hopes this scholarship serves as a reminder that excellence begins with preparation and accountability. Long-Term Vision for the Scholarship Although the initial award amount is $1,000, Dr. Pincus views the scholarship as part of a broader commitment to supporting medical education. He intends for the initiative to grow and potentially expand in scope over time. By establishing the Dr. David Pincus Scholarship, he lays the groundwork for sustained involvement in academic development. He encourages qualified students to apply and to approach the opportunity with sincerity and ambition. The goal is not only to provide financial support but also to highlight the values that define strong surgical leadership. Upholding Standards in an Evolving Industry Plastic surgery continues to gain visibility across social media and public platforms. While increased awareness can educate patients, it can also create unrealistic expectations. Dr. Pincus believes that strong training and ethical leadership are essential to maintaining professional credibility. By investing in students committed to responsible practice, he contributes to the long-term stability of the field. The scholarship reflects his dedication to standards that prioritize patient safety, structural integrity, and balanced aesthetic judgment. A Message to Aspiring Plastic Surgeons Dr. Pincus encourages students considering plastic surgery to pursue excellence with patience and discipline. He emphasizes that mastery develops over time through study, mentorship, and experience. The Dr. David Pincus Scholarship recognizes one student who embodies these qualities and demonstrates readiness to contribute meaningfully to the profession. Through this initiative, Dr. David Pincus reinforces his belief that the future of plastic surgery depends on education, ethics, and thoughtful leadership. By supporting emerging talent, he continues to strengthen the foundation of a field built on trust, precision, and dedication. For more information, please feel free to visit https://www.pincusplasticsurgery.com/ Contact: NEW YORK OFFICE 50 Route 111, Suite 300 Smithtown, NY 11787 Phone (631) 352-3556 FLORIDA OFFICE 875 Meadows Road #313 Boca Raton, FL 33486 Phone (561) 362-9700 Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2931817/Pincus_Plastic_Surgery.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/dr-david-pincus-of-pincus-plastic-surgery-launches-1-000-scholarship-to-support-future-leaders-in-plastic-surgery-302713828.html HONG KONG, HK AND RENO, NV / ACCESS Newswire / March 13, 2026 / Tianci International, Inc. (the "Company" or "Tianci"), a global logistics service provider specializing in ocean freight forwarding, today announced its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2026. Second Fiscal Quarter 2026 Highlights: Revenue increased, quarter-to-quarter, by 87%, as global logistics revenue increased by 22% and was complemented by revenue of $1,315,855 resulting from our initial entry into the market for mineral ores. General and administrative expenses increased from $1,999,225 in the quarter ended January 31, 2025 to $3,794,374 in the quarter ended January 31, 2026. As a result, the Company incurred a net loss of $417,124 in the quarter ended January 31, 2026, an increased loss compared to the quarter ended January 31, 2025. Financial Results Revenue from logistics operations for the quarter ended January 31, 2026, which represented 65% of the Company's overall revenue in that period, increased by 22% from the revenue generated by logistics operations during the quarter ended January 31, 2025. However, the cost of that revenue increased by 26% from the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 to the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, as demand for logistics services waned due to concerns about the implementation of tariffs, while shipping companies in the Southeast Asia market increased their pricing in an effort to offset the decline in demand for their services. As a result of the increase in cost of revenue, the Company's gross profit margin attributable to logistics operations decreased from 3.6% in the quarter ended January 31, 2025 to 3.5% in the quarter ended January 31, 2026, and decreased from 5.0% for the six months ended January 31, 2025 to 2.5% for the six months ended January 31, 2026. To reduce the effect of declining demand in the Southeast Asia market, the Company intends to reorient its focus towards long-distance shipping lines, which generally produce higher profit margins. As one particular effort toward that reorientation, the Company has been accumulating an inventory of bulk chrome and manganese ore for the purpose of entering into the global commodity trade arena, and completed its initial mineral sales during the six months ended January 31, 2026. Those sales yielded $1,821,320 in revenue and a gross profit margin of 12.0%. By applying its core resource control capabilities and supply chain integration strengths with an in-house demand for shipping services, the Company looks to release itself from dependence on local demand for shipping services. We recorded a net loss of $417,124 for the quarter ended January 31, 2026, primarily due to a 170% increase in general and administrative expenses arising from most aspects of our operations. Our bottom line net loss for the second quarter of $417,124, therefore, represented an increase of 276% in our quarterly net loss. Our operations during the six months ended January 31, 2026 reduced our cash balance by $1,682,251 to $723,101. In addition to our net loss of $685,998, the greater portion of that cash drain was attributable to the increase of $561,754 in our accounts receivable. At January 31, 2026 our working capital was $2,506,100, a decline of $399,501 during the six months ended January 31, 2026. About Tianci International, Inc. Tianci International Inc., through its subsidiary Roshing, provides global logistics services specializing in ocean freight forwarding, including container and bulk goods shipping. Operating under an asset-light model, Roshing's logistics solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of its customers across the Asia-Pacific, including Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Starting in the current fiscal year, Roshing has expanded into global trade of bulk chrome and manganese ore by sourcing high-grade minerals directly from resource-rich regions for resale. Roshing intends to utilize optimized bulk vessel and container shipping, and provide end-to-end supply chain solutions for metallurgical and steelmaking customers. Beyond logistics and mineral sales, Roshing generates revenue from the sale of electronic parts and business consulting services. For more information, please visit the Company's website: tianci-ciit.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this announcement are forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on the Company's current expectations and projections about future events that the Company believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Investors can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as "approximates," "believes," "hopes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "projects," "intends," "plans," "will," "would," "should," "could," "may" or other similar expressions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and the Company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. The Company encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results that are discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Tianci International, Inc. Investor Relations Email: ir@rqscapital.com Financial Summary Tables The following financial information should be read in conjunction with the financial statements and accompanying notes filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 10-Q for the period ended January 31, 2026, which can be viewed at www.sec.gov and in the investor relations section of the Company's website at www.tianci-ciit.com. TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (EXPRESSED IN UNITED STATES DOLLARS) January 31, July 31, 2026 2025 (Unaudited) ASSETS Current assets: Cash $ 723,101 $ 2,405,352 Accounts receivable 561,753 - Prepayment and other current assets 777,767 382,554 Inventory 516,536 215,346 Total current assets 2,579,157 3,003,252 Other assets: Lease security deposit 21,518 23,174 Lease right-of-use asset 89,586 119,545 Total non-current assets 111,104 142,719 TOTAL ASSETS $ 2,690,261 $ 3,145,971 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 3,038 $ 18,554 Income taxes payable - 16,117 Lease liability-current 65,362 57,903 Accrued liabilities and other payables 4,657 5,077 Total current liabilities 73,057 97,651 Lease liability - noncurrent 28,285 61,403 Total liabilities 101,342 159,054 Commitments and contingencies - - Stockholders' equity: Series A Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 80,000 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding as of January 31, 2026 and July 31, 2025 - - Series B Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 80,000 shares authorized; 0 and 80,000 shares issued and outstanding as of January 31, 2026 and July 31, 2025, respectively - 8 Undesignated preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 19,920,000 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding - - Common stock, $0.0001 par value, 100,000,000 shares authorized; 25,331,803 and 16,531,803 shares issued and outstanding as of January 31, 2026 and, July 31, 2025, respectively 2,533 1,653 Additional paid-in capital 6,132,633 5,845,505 Accumulated deficit (3,530,856 ) (2,862,860 ) Total stockholders' equity attributable to TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. 2,604,310 2,984,306 Non-controlling interest (15,391 ) 2,611 Total stockholders' equity 2,588,919 2,986,917 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $ 2,690,261 $ 3,145,971 TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES UNAUDITED INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (EXPRESSED IN UNITED STATES DOLLARS) For the three months ended January 31, For the six months ended January 31, 2026 2025 2026 2025 (Unaudited) (Unaudited) (Unaudited) (Unaudited) OPERATING REVENUES Global logistics services $ 2,531,360 $ 2,070,083 $ 5,747,241 $ 4,829,776 Sale of minerals 1,315,855 - 1,821,320 - Other revenue 37,469 9,120 134,350 230,367 Total Operating Revenues 3,884,684 2,079,203 7,702,911 5,060,143 COST OF REVENUES Global logistics services 2,522,643 1,995,569 5,604,300 4,586,434 Cost of minerals 1,260,538 - 1,601,690 - Other revenue 11,193 3,656 22,360 165,300 Total Cost of Revenues 3,794,374 1,999,225 7,228,350 4,751,734 Gross profit 90,310 79,978 474,561 308,409 Operating expenses: Selling and marketing 45,170 15,036 89,580 100,224 General and administrative 462,264 171,211 1,070,912 431,604 Total operating expenses 507,434 186,247 1,160,492 531,828 (Loss) from operations (417,124 ) (106,269 ) (685,931 ) (223,419 ) Other (loss) income net - - (67 ) 27,391 (Loss) before provision for income taxes (417,124 ) (106,269 ) (685,998 ) (196,028 ) Provision for income taxes - 4,702 - 6,891 Net (loss) (417,124 ) (110,971 ) (685,998 ) (202,919 ) Less: net (loss) income attributable to non-controlling interest (17,226 ) 2,380 (18,002 ) 3,488 Net (loss) attributable to TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. $ (399,898 ) $ (113,351 ) $ (667,996 ) $ (206,407 ) Weighted average number of common shares Basic and diluted 24,320,814 14,781,803 20,405,027 14,781,803 (Loss) per common share attributable to TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. Basic and diluted $ (0.02 ) $ (0.01 ) $ (0.03 ) $ (0.01 ) Weighted average number of preferred shares B Basic and diluted 3,516 80,000 41,967 80,000 (Loss) per preferred share B attributable to TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. Basic and diluted $ (0.02 ) $ (0.01 ) $ (0.03 ) $ (0.01 ) TIANCI INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES UNAUDITED INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (EXPRESSED IN UNITED STATES DOLLARS) For the six months ended January 31, 2026 2025 (Unaudited) (Unaudited) Cash flows from operating activities: Net (loss) $ (685,998 ) $ (202,919 ) Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash used in operating activities: Amortization of operating lease right-of-use asset 29,959 - Accounts receivable (561,754 ) - Prepayment and other current assets (357,662 ) (23,249 ) Inventory (13,190 ) - Lease security deposit 1,656 - Accounts payable (15,516 ) - Income taxes payable (53,665 ) (45,029 ) Operating lease liabilities (25,659 ) - Accrued liabilities and other payables (422 ) 112,747 Net cash (used in) operating activities (1,682,251 ) (158,450 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Deferred offering costs incurred - (74,125 ) Net cash (used in) financing activities - (74,125 ) Net (decrease) in cash (1,682,251 ) (232,575 ) Cash, beginning 2,405,352 413,129 Cash, ending $ 723,101 $ 180,554 Supplemental disclosure of cash flow information: Cash paid during the period for: Interest $ - $ - Income taxes $ 53,665 $ 51,920 Non-Cash Activities: Issuance common stock for inventory purchase 288,000 - Conversion of preferred stock to common stock 800 - SOURCE: Tianci International Inc. View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/transportation/tianci-international-inc.-reports-financial-results-for-fiscal-quarter-ended-january-1147622 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 13, 2026) - Renegade Gold Inc. (TSXV: RAGE) (OTCQB: RENGF) (FSE: 0700) ("Renegade" or the "Company") announces that, further to its news release of January 8, 2026, it has received the final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange to settle outstanding debt in the aggregate amount of $175,000 owed to certain creditors through the issuance of 448,714 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of $0.39 per Share. Certain directors and officers acquired a total of 314,099 Shares under the debt settlement for a total price of $122,500, representing 70% of the total Shares issued thereunder. Each such participation is considered to be a related party transaction as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 and is exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of any shares issued to, nor the consideration paid by such directors and officers, exceeds 25 per cent of the Company's market capitalization. All Shares issued under the debt settlement are subject to a hold period and may not be traded until July 13, 2026, except as permitted by applicable securities legislation and the rules and policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. About Renegade Gold Inc. Renegade Gold Inc. is a growth-oriented exploration company advancing a district-scale portfolio in the Red Lake region of Northern Ontario. The Company's strategy combines advancing defined gold resources and development-stage assets with systematic greenfields exploration across one of Canada's most prolific gold districts. Renegade has assembled one of the largest and most prospective land packages in Red Lake, totaling approximately 1,380 km, strategically positioned near producing mines and advanced-stage deposits along the Confederation Lake and Birch-Uchi greenstone belts. The Company's diversified portfolio includes both advanced exploration assets with established Mineral Resources and earlier-stage targets along key structural corridors that host many of Red Lake's significant gold discoveries. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/288478 Source: Renegade Gold Inc. Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - March 13, 2026) - Comprehensive Healthcare Systems Inc. (TSXV: CHS) (the "Company" or "CHS"), an industry leader in healthcare benefits administration software and services, announces that it will be extending its non-brokered private placement (the "Offering"), previously announced on January 8, 2026 and upsized on January 26, 2026, of an aggregate of: up to 7,000,000 units (" Units ") at a price of $0.50 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $3.5 million; plus up to an additional 4,038,462 Units at a price of $0.52 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $2.1 million, for an additional 30 days, until April 13, 2026. The Company closed a first tranche of the Offering on February 10, 2026, issuing all 7,000,000 of the $0.50 Units (see news release dated February 12, 2026). The extension of the Offering, in respect of the additional $0.52 Units, will allow the Company to accommodate a subscription by its controlling shareholder, who is based overseas and must follow certain processes in order to further participate in the Offering. Each Unit is comprised of one common share ("Shares") of the Company and one-half of a warrant, with each whole warrant ("Warrants") being exercisable to purchase one common share of the Company at an exercise price of $1.00 for a period of three years after closing. Completion of the Offering will be subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of all necessary approvals including that of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). All securities issued will be subject to hold periods under applicable securities laws. The Company may pay finder fees on the Offering in compliance with applicable laws and subject to Exchange approval. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Comprehensive Healthcare Systems Inc. Comprehensive Healthcare Systems Inc. is a corporation incorporated under the laws of the Province of Alberta and is the parent company of Comprehensive Healthcare Systems Inc. (Delaware). The Company is a vertically integrated software as a services (SaaS) company focused on digitizing healthcare with Healthcare Benefits Administration solutions, providing reliable and high-volume transaction-capable systems. The Company's state-of-the-art Novus 360 Healthcare Welfare and Benefits Administration (HWBA) SaaS platform is used by clients for all aspects of healthcare benefits administration (including self-funded employers, providers, and labor unions), providing healthcare administrative software and technology-enabled services. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This release may include certain statements and information that constitute forward-looking statements and information ("FLSI") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. FLSI relates to future events and circumstances which are believed or expected by management. Anything that is not historical fact is FLSI. Generally, FLSI can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "expects" and similar words and phrases, and statements that certain actions, events or circumstances "may", "might", "could", "should" or "would" occur or otherwise exist. FLSI is not historical fact, and is made as of the date hereof and based on numerous assumptions and subject to foreseeable and unforeseeable risks and uncertainties, the nature of which can cause actual results to differ materially from results indicated or suggested in FLSI. Although management has attempted to use reasonable assumptions and identify and evaluate important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from results indicated or suggested in FLSI, there can be no assurances that such assumptions will prove to be accurate or that additional risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause results to be not as planned, intended or anticipated. Accordingly, there can be no assurances that FLSI will prove to be accurate and readers should not place undue reliance on FLSI, and are further cautioned that reliance on FLSI herein may not be appropriate for other purposes. Any FLSI is made as at the date hereof, and the Company does not undertake to update any FLSI expressed or incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/288571 Source: Comprehensive Healthcare Systems Inc. ISLAMABAD, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Six terrorists were killed in an intelligence-based operation carried out by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said on Friday. The operation was conducted in Lakki Marwat district after authorities received credible intelligence about the presence of terrorists in the area, according to a CTD statement. The terrorists opened fire on the CTD team during the raid, triggering an exchange of fire that lasted around 40 minutes, the statement said. Following the gun battle, security forces found six terrorists dead while several others managed to escape. Police recovered a cache of weapons and explosives from the terrorists, including Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades and an improvised explosive device. Inspector General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Zulfiqar Hameed commended the CTD personnel for the successful operation and reiterated the police's resolve to continue operations against militant groups in the province. Earlier in the day, seven police personnel were killed when an explosion targeted a police vehicle in the district. Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 14, 2026) - UVeCARE has achieved notable recognition at the Natural Health Readers' Choice Awards 2025, securing the prestigious 'Natural Health Iconic Brand 2025' title. Additionally, the brand was honored with the DIAMOND Award for 'Best Face Brightening Sunscreen,' marking another significant milestone. The Iconic Brand honour is reserved for brands whose influence, credibility, and vision have left a lasting mark on the health and wellness sector. It celebrates organisations that inspire trust, demonstrate consistent leadership, and create products that genuinely enhance daily routines. For MD Pharma, UVeCARE's win at the Natural Health Readers' Choice Awards 2025 highlights its strong track record of consumer trust and consistent popularity among Malaysian users. Chosen by Consumers Across Malaysia The Natural Health Readers' Choice Awards 2025 are determined entirely by consumer votes, reflecting real-world trust and preference. This year, the public honoured UVeCARE 3 in 1 Brightening Up Sunscreen with the Best Face Brightening Sunscreen award, recognising its protective, hydrating, brightening, and carefully formulated skincare benefits. As a dermatologist-recommended product, UVeCARE 3-in-1 Brightening Up Sunscreen combines protective and nourishing benefits to maintain a radiant and even-toned complexion. Its lightweight formulation is designed for safe daily use, absorbing quickly without leaving a greasy feel or white cast. These distinctions highlight the brands' ability to meet consumer expectations with results-oriented solutions. MD Pharma's UVeCARE Celebrates Major Win at Natural Health Awards 2025 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/288379_3bf86cc3f4d7bb70_002full.jpg MD Pharma Sdn Bhd's Director and Pharmacist, Mr. Andrew Tan, delivers his acceptance speech for the Natural Health Iconic Brand 2025 award. Recognised for Innovation and Expertise UVeCARE has earned strong consumer confidence through consistent quality, transparency, and innovation. Representing MD Pharma Sdn Bhd, Mr. Andrew Tan, Director and Pharmacist, officially accepted the Natural Health Iconic Brand award for UVeCARE 3-in-1 Brightening Up Sunscreen, highlighting the brand's success in developing skincare solutions specifically for the Asian market. He added, "UVeCARE was created as more than just a sunscreen. It is a three-in-one daily shield that protects against UV damage, brightens the skin, and strengthens the skin barrier. Lightweight, non-greasy, no white cast, and formulated for sensitive Asian skin living in a hot, humid climate, it is ideal for daily use. I sincerely thank the judges, R&D partners, healthcare professionals, dermatologists, MD Pharma team, and every consumer who trusts UVeCARE. This award inspires us to continue innovating with purpose." Celebrating Excellence in Everyday Skincare The awards ceremony, held in Kuala Lumpur on 29 January 2026, recognised brands that make a tangible impact on personal health and wellness. UVeCARE wins reaffirm their commitment to innovative, consumer-focused skincare solutions that enhance confidence, comfort, and everyday radiance. Through these achievements, UVeCARE continues to set high standards for quality and innovation, ensuring that every product reflects their promise of efficacy, reliability, and care for modern consumers. About UVeCARE UVeCARE is a brand under MD Pharma Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian company that develops and markets skincare and personal care products. Founded by pharmacist Andrew Tan Eng Joo, who has 28 years of professional experience, MD Pharma is a pioneering skincare company committed to developing products that effectively meet the needs of sensitive and sun-exposed skin. To learn more about their products, visit their Instagram account: uvecare_malaysia and Facebook account: UVecare Sunscreen. About Natural Health Magazine Natural Health Magazine is Malaysia's leading media platform for healthy and holistic living, reaching more than 120,000 readers every month on digital, print, and social media platforms. It offers comprehensive resources covering health, beauty, wellness, home, and living, empowering readers with expert advice and practical tips. To view the complete list of winners of Natural Health Readers' Choice Awards 2025, please visit: https://naturalhealth.my/naturalhealth2025awards/. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/288379 Source: Plentisoft Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 14, 2026) - Agung Afif, founder and CEO of Komodo Luxury, has been accepted as a member of the Forbes Business Council, a vetted professional community operated by Forbes Councils. His membership profile is publicly listed on the Forbes Councils website (https://councils.forbes.com/profile/Agung-Afif-Founder-CEO-Komodo-Luxury/c92737aa-a59c-49ab-b457-5e44450cada5). Forbes Business Council Accepts Komodo Luxury Founder Agung Afif as Member To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/288269_98123f6914f31b2d_002full.jpg "We are honored to welcome Agung into the community," said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils. "Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world." Afif began his career in Indonesia's tourism industry at the grassroots level, working as a tour guide in his early twenties, leading travelers across the Indonesian archipelago. In 2014, he founded IndonesiaJuara Trip, a tour operator based in Labuan Bajo that went on to earn TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice recognition as the top tour operator in the region. Before turning 30, Afif had expanded into multiple high-end ventures and established Juara Holding Group, an integrated ecosystem spanning luxury tourism, real estate, and digital media, headquartered in Denpasar, Bali. Komodo Luxury is a yacht charter company headquartered in Denpasar, Bali, that operates private superyacht charters across Komodo National Park and Raja Ampat. Unlike booking intermediaries, the company owns and manages its fleet from Labuan Bajo, including its flagship vessels Komodo Prestige by Komodo Luxury and Komodo Signature by Komodo Luxury, functioning as a vertically integrated yacht charter operator. The Juara Holding Group ecosystem also includes Bali Premium Trip for luxury travel in Bali, IndonesiaJuara Trip for adventure tours across Labuan Bajo and Raja Ampat, and Bali Premium Villa for villa accommodations. Komodo Luxury provides private yacht charter services with dedicated crew and curated itineraries departing from Labuan Bajo. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when international tourism came to a standstill and ultra-luxury yachts sat idle, Afif identified an untapped domestic market. In collaboration with the owner of five-star sailing yacht Lamima, he repositioned luxury yacht charters for Indonesian high-net-worth travelers, a market segment previously unexplored. Through strategic digital marketing and high-profile partnerships, Afif brought unprecedented exposure to luxury local travel. He replicated this success across other luxury liveaboards including Prana by Atzaro and Velocean, ensuring they found business from domestic clientele until international tourism recovered. This resilient pivot demonstrated the innovative leadership that earned him recognition from Forbes Business Council. "Being accepted into Forbes Business Council is a milestone for both myself and the team behind Komodo Luxury and Juara Holding Group," said Afif. "With our flagship yachts Komodo Prestige and Komodo Signature, we are committed to elevating Indonesia's luxury yacht charter industry to world-class standards, and I look forward to contributing insights alongside other global business leaders." As a Forbes Business Council member, Afif will have the opportunity to contribute expert insights through original articles on Forbes.com, collaborate with respected leaders in a private forum, and access exclusive resources designed to accelerate professional growth. About Komodo Luxury Komodo Luxury is a yacht charter company headquartered in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, operating private yacht charters across Komodo National Park and Raja Ampat. A subsidiary of Juara Holding Group, the company owns and manages its fleet from Labuan Bajo. The fleet includes Komodo Prestige by Komodo Luxury and Komodo Signature by Komodo Luxury. Founder Agung Afif is a member of the Forbes Business Council. For more information, visit komodoluxury.com. Video URL: https://youtu.be/pWp4VpxpLG0?si=K3pXHQeBYNtOEb8D To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/288269 Source: Plentisoft The draft rules were seen as a part of the broader US campaign to restrict Chinas access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology while preserving US leadership in AI. The withdrawal of the draft rule also reflect internal debate within the Trump administration over how to balance national security concerns with efforts to expand the global reach of US AI technology. Photo: File/REUTERS The US government has withdrawn a draft rule that would have tightened its control on the export of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The move marks a step back from an earlier proposal that sought to require the governments approval for the export of high-end processors. Earlier, on February 26, a notice was published by the governments commerce department regarding the implementation of rules. However, now it has been pulled back. Citing a US official, Reuters reported that the measure had only been a draft and that discussions surrounding it were preliminary. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The planned regulation was seen as the biggest attempt by US President Donald Trump to outline a strategy governing the export of advanced AI processors. Earlier, Trump had discarded the regulatory framework put in place by former President Joe Biden. According to details previously reported by Bloomberg, the proposal would have given the Commerce Departments licensing office a major role in reviewing exports of advanced AI chips produced by companies such as Nvidia. Approval for exports was to be given by the government on a case-by-case basis. One point of the draft also proposed to link chip exports to commitments by foreign governments. Countries seeking more than 2,00,000 AI chips could have been required to invest in the US, while requests for up to 1,00,000 chips would have required formal government guarantees. During the Biden administration, the approach was to divide countries into three groups: close allies that could obtain chips freely, most other nations subject to caps, and countries of concern effectively barred from purchasing the advanced processors. That strategy was a part of the broader US campaign to restrict Chinas access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology while preserving US leadership in AI. According to the reports, Officials have indicated that the Trump administration does not plan to revive the previous framework, describing it as overly complex. The Commerce Department has highlighted that it remains focused on ensuring secure exports of American technology while supporting the countrys push for global AI leadership. The withdrawal of the draft rule also reflects internal debate within the Trump administration over how to balance national security concerns with efforts to expand the global reach of US AI technology. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Actor Vivek Oberoi was in Mumbai for the shoot of Sandeep Reddy Vangas Spirit, and spoke exclusively to Firstposts Lachmi Deb Roy about the crisis in UAE, and reuniting with his family The Iran- Israel war also impacted UAE and Dubai was never the same. Many pictures and videos surfaced on social media that left people all across the globe worried and panicking. Many celebrities have spoken about the same on social media. Indian actor Vivek Oberoi, who is a successful businessman in Dubai, also spoke about the same in an exclusive interview with Firstpost. The actor was in Mumbai for the shoot of Sandeep Reddy Vangas _Spirit_, and spoke exclusively to Firstpost about the crisis in UAE, and reuniting with his family. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Edited excerpts from the interview How are things in Dubai now? Is it business as usual or has the atmosphere shifted? There is an old saying: The storm does not disturb the fish in the deep sea. While the world outside often views us through a lens of distortion, the reality on the ground is a defiance of that narrative. Dubai isnt just functioning; it has found a higher gear. You can feel it in the buzzing markets and the electric energy in our officesa conviction that comes when you are part of a community that knows its purpose. We arent just open for business; we are a global benchmark for progress and stability. Our companies arent merely surviving; they are adapting and evolving, mirroring the unshakeable, forward-leaning spirit of the UAE. Youve just reunited with your kids back in Dubaias a father, are you feeling better now that youre all together? The moment I landed in Dubai and saw my kids, the weight of the world just fell away. They were laughing over a board gamea scene of such profound, calm normalcy. As a father, your priority is always their peace of mind. Under the visionary leadership of this nation, we are grateful that our daily lives remain focused on family and growth, providing a secure environment where children can simply be children. How are you, your family, and your office staff at BNW Developments coping with the ongoing situation? We arent just coping; we are growing. This experience has strengthened our bonds, transforming our team at BNW into a tribean unbreakable collective where our strategy calls always begin with a genuine check-in: Is your family okay?. Because we have such deep faith in the stability here, we continue to move forwardlaunching projects and creating jobs. We are deeply invested in this land, and when you are a stakeholder in a nations future, you dont just cheer for the UAE; you contribute to its strength, just as it supports yours Games View All There is a lot of talk about regional tensionare things getting difficult on the ground? Are you facing issues with day-to-day provisions or security? That is exactly what people abroad are fundamentally getting wrong; they are mistaking the razor-sharp precision of caution for the tremors of fear. In reality, the UAE Leadership deserves immense recognition. While uncertainty elsewhere can lead to division, here, the leadership fosters unity. We are living within a highly sophisticated framework of security where everyone is protected without differentiation. There is a beautiful sense of one here. Because of this visionary protection, we are able to maintain a state of absolute, unshakeable normalcy in our professional and personal lives. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Back in 2022, the actress appearance at the Paris Fashion Week was one such instance that made her fans go all praise for the actress Deepika Padukone was all set to attend the Paris Fashion Week 2026 but has now pulled back from attending the same due to the ongoing Iran-Israel war, reported NDTV. Deepika has been one of the brands global ambassadors since 2022. Deepika Padukoneis one of those celebrities who never fails to leave her fans impressed, amazed, and in awe. Back in 2022, the actress appearance at the Paris Fashion Week was one such instance that made her fans go all praise for the actress. Deepika, who is the global brand ambassador of the luxury fashion brand, Louis Vuitton attended the brands show as a celebrity guest during Paris Fashion Week. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Dressed in a sleek mini dress, Deepika arrived at the event with her parents, former badminton player Prakash Padukone and Ujjala Padukone, thus leaving her fans quite impressed. Several videos and pictures had gone viral on social media which show the actress arriving at the event with her parents and further also leaving with them after the event. In some of the pictures, she could be seen outdoors accompanying her parents while going towards the venue, in one more video, she can be seen leaving the event, again with them. Saying no to Hollywood For over two years, there were reports that Deepika Padukone would be starring in the fourth season of HBOs ambitious Emmy award winning series The White Lotus. But Variety India has reported the actress has refused the part and has her reasons of doing so. A source told the portal, Auditions are a mandatory part of the casting process for The White Lotus. The makers were very keen on auditioning actors before signing them on. Deepika was not keen on auditioning and that was the reason why the White Lotus opportunity had to be passed. Thats not all, the fiasco between Deepika and Vanga has been garnering headlines for quite some time, a new report then emerged discussing the actress demands for Spirit. Speaking to Firstpost at the Synergia Conclave, International Crisis Group chief Dr. Comfort Ero warns that Pandoras box has been opened and that the escalating US-Israel confrontation with Iran could spiral into a prolonged regional conflict. Can the world find a realistic diplomatic off-ramp? Smoke and dust rise amid explosions in Lebanon, as seen from Israel, after Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, March 2, 2026. File Image/Reuters On the sidelines of the Synergia Conclave 2026 on Friday (March 13), Dr. Comfort Ero, the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG), sat down with Firstposts Anmol Singla to assess the widening war in West Asia. Her assessment came with a warning that Pandoras Box of regional conflict has not only been opened but that the hinges have been ripped off. Exactly two weeks after the United States and Israel launched massive joint strikes on Tehran on February 28 a move that effectively ended the brief period of shuttle diplomacy seen in earlier weeks the world is grappling with a conflict that seems to have no defined finish line. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Can Iran make it through the war? Following the first strikes, many in Washington had anticipated a rapid internal collapse or a desperate plea for a ceasefire. Instead, the Iranian military leadership under new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has declared its readiness for a long war'. Ero noted that this resilience was not born of desperation, but of preparation. I mean, look, Iran was ready for this war. Especially after the 12-day war of 2025, she explained to Firstpost. It understood that there would be a second round. It understood that Israel, particularly, would want to come back for another go. It didnt have much faith in diplomacy, but neither did Israel and neither did the United States as well. The internal politics of Iran have taken a definitive turn with the ascension of Mojtaba Khamenei. Far from being a moment of weakness, the ICG president argues that Tehran has used this transition to project strength and resilience. Iran is angry, is emboldened. It also has a victory narrative. It is resilient. It hasnt been decapitated. It hasnt collapsed, Ero said. This poses a significant problem for the US victory narrative. While Washington may declare the mission accomplished, Tehran is far from admitting defeat. This disconnect, Ero argues, is where the danger of a long war truly lies. Dr. Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG) speaks to the gathering at the Synergia Conclave 2026 on March 13, 2026 at the Manekshaw Centre in Delhi, India. Firstpost/Anmol Singla The 12-day war (June 13-24, 2025) saw an intense armed conflict between Israel and Iran, initiated by surprise Israeli airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities. Israel killed key military leaders and damaged air defences, while Iran responded with massive ballistic missile and drone strikes on Israel. The US intervened by intercepting Iranian attacks and launching Operation Midnight Hammer on June 22, striking three Iranian nuclear sites. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD What is the end goal for Trump in Iran? As the US demands "unconditional surrender," the actual policy goals of the White House remain a moving target, causing significant anxiety among allies and adversaries alike. Highlighting the unpredictable nature of the American administration under President Donald Trump, Ero stated, We actually dont know what Trump wants. The goals shift every day, by the hour, by the second. There are sometimes contradictions among himself, in his own mind, and between himself and his own team around him. Weve gone from nuclear to ballistics to unconditional surrender to regime change, regime light, to a Delcy [Delcy Rodriguez] moment, i.e. similar to Venezuela. And even the Israelis are privately admitting that they may not get regime change, that they have not been necessarily surprised, but they recognise the degree of resilience among the regime that may become even more hard-line. The ICG president quipped that by the time the interview [with Firstpost] concluded, the scenario might have shifted again. The point is, its very difficult and hard to assess, she remarked, noting that even Israeli intelligence is now recalculating its strategy in the face of an Iranian regime that appears to be hardening rather than fracturing. To many observers, the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei withing the first few hours of the operation was the ultimate win that could have allowed the US to withdraw with its objectives met. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Ero questioned why the administration did not take that path. In many ways, he [Trump] could have declared victory and gone after he brought down Khamenei, she said. I mean, somebody who most Americans would agree, or at least those who have been long-time followers and still have the image of the hostage crisis during Jimmy Carters in their mind, to see this one leader being assassinated on day one within hours of the attack. You know, take that rally and go home. The fact that the conflict has persisted beyond that moment suggests a more complex, or perhaps more confused, set of objectives. Will rising energy prices force Trump to end the war? For Trump, the primary metric of success may not be a military map, but the numbers on a stock ticker or a gas pump. As India and other major importers face skyrocketing energy costs, the domestic political pressure in the United States is mounting. Hell [Trump] be looking at the energy, the oil spike, and concerns about the economy. Hes doing this a few months ahead of the midterms. So he can quickly define what the matrix looks like, Ero explained. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In a surprising turn of events, the US has recently moved to lift some sanctions to allow for the flow of Russian oil a pragmatic, if ideologically inconsistent, move aimed at stabilising prices. Ero noted this as a key indicator of where Trumps true priorities lie. The matrix for Trump and what may allow him to turn around and say, Im done here, were finished, is those oil prices. Its the energy shocks. Its the fact that at the pump, ordinary Americans will be feeling the pain. She also noted that the US had allowed India to negotiate continued access to Russian oil, recognising that a total collapse of the Indian energy market would be a strategic disaster for Washingtons Indo-Pacific goals. The strategic importance of Kharg Island the primary terminal for Iranian oil exports also remains a sticking point. While crippling the island would decimate Tehrans remaining revenue, it would also send global oil prices into an uncontrollable spiral. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, February 25, 2026. Image/Planet Labs via Reuters The US did strike the island on Friday itself, destroying military targets, as Trump threatened to strike the oil infrastructure unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz So the number of calculations that are playing out in Trumps mind, and he keeps telling us in two weeks, in a few weeks time, we simply dont know. And you really have to get a degree in a psychology of Trump to understand. What about Irans nuclear programme? A looming shadow over the conflict is the status of Irans nuclear programme. In June last year, Trump famously claimed to have obliterated Irans nuclear ambitions. However, intelligence suggests that nearly 400 kilogrammes of enriched uranium remain within the country, presenting a massive tactical challenge. Are we going to have a double obliteration? Ero asked. Will he put ground troops in to deal with the 400 kilogrammes of uranium? Thats going to require some significant operation. How will Gulf states assess their ties with Iran & US-Israel now? The regional fallout has been particularly severe for the Gulf states, who find themselves acting as unwilling collateral damage. Despite clear warnings initially from Saudi Arabia and other neighbours that they would not serve as launch pads for US strikes, STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I think the big shock was that it went as far as Syria, but it [Iran] did project that it would hit where the US bases were, Ero noted. The Iranian leadership was quick to reach out to their Gulf counterparts immediately following the strikes, signalling a desire to maintain regional ties even while striking at US interests. However, the trust deficit has reached an all-time high not just between the Gulf and Iran, but between the Gulf and the United States. The trust deficit has gone down with Iran, but its also gone down with the United States as well. The trust deficit has gone down also with Israel. They do not want to see a situation where Israel is the hegemon in the region. And they will be building and reviewing their own security guarantees as well. The ramification of this is the total freezing of normalisation efforts, particularly for Saudi Arabia. The idea that regional peace can be brokered through economic deals alone is, according to Ero, off the table. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Will this spiral into a prolonged regional conflict? As the conflict escalates, the humanitarian toll is mounting in countries often sidelined in the great power narrative. Ero also pointed to the alarming situation in Syria, which is now seeing a massive influx of refugees from Lebanon alongside its own returning citizens. As we speak, the UN is reporting 84,000 refugees, but also Syrians, Lebanese refugees, plus Syrians, rushing back into a country that is also facing its own challenges, she stated. The renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has complicated this, creating a multi-front disaster that Ero describes as a huge gambit. The question is, have we also opened old wounds that will be difficult to manage? So its a huge gambit. The Pandoras box has been opened. Can you squash it all back in? I dont think so. I think were in for a difficult few months as well. she warned. Can India-led Global South be a mediator? In the search for circuit breakers to stop the escalation, all eyes are on the Global South. Ero believes that countries like India and Brazil must play a role in restoring dialogue, as the traditional mediators have been sidelined by the sheer scale of the violence. When asked if Oman could still mediate, Ero was cautiously optimistic but noted the difficulty. I would not necessarily rule that out. Their instinct is dialogue. Their instinct is mediation. And the same with Qatar. And its in their interest because in the end they have to live with Iran and they have to live with Israel. So theyre not going to say that. And also the same with Turkey, whos very concerned about the Kurdish issues. she added. However, she stressed that a division of labour is needed. Every country has an interest and should be thinking about how we get back to dialogue, how we open lines of communications, back-channelling, who can talk to who, who can whisper to who, and who can convince all the three actors, Israel, the US and Iran, she stressed. Whos best placed to whisper into whos ear? India ought to be part of that because of the economic shocks to you but because of your own peace and security issues in the region. How will the Iran war end? According to Ero, this million-dollar question centres on security guarantees. I think they [Iran] need to hear that theres not going to be a return, a third attempt. They want security guarantees but that itself is a dilemma. To achieve this, several near-impossible conditions must be met like clear guarantees and monitoring of the nuclear programme, limitations on Irans missile reach, and a non-aggression pact ensuring that Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis are not mobilised. We saw how quickly Hezbollah came back into the picture, she noted. Ultimately, the resolution may hinge on the personal, transactional nature of the US president. In the end, look its the personal relationship that Trump so desires as well, Ero observed. While there were hopes for a presidential conversation in Ankara in late January, the Iranians did not bite. I cant see that happening right now. But lets watch, she concluded. Also Watch: The war in West Asia that began with Israel and the US killing top Iranian leaders has completed two weeks. Neither side appears willing to relent. The Iranian regime is not on the verge of collapse, as the US hoped. Oil prices are soaring as global supplies remain disrupted due to Tehrans shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. Is there an endgame? Rescue workers search for survivors in the rubble after a strike in southern Tehran, Iran, March 13, 2026. AP The conflict in West Asia has entered its third week. Israel and the United States plunged the region into chaos and violence after launching a war against Iran late last month. The joint strikes on February 28 decimated Irans top leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran has retaliated by targeting Israel and Gulf nations housing US military installations. Iran has also effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of global oil passes. The disruption to crude supplies has sent oil prices soaring to a record high. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Even after two weeks, there seems to be no end to the fighting anytime soon. We take a look at the takeaways so far from the US-Israel conflict with Iran. Iran in for a long haul Despite Israel and the US taking out its top leadership, the Iranian regime has survived. Recent US intelligence assessments found that the regime is not at imminent risk, according to Reuters. Iran has expanded the battlefield by targeting Gulf countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Its ballistic missiles and drones have struck 11 countries: Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Cyprus. These Iranian attacks have targeted beyond American diplomatic and military assets, hitting airports, oil infrastructure, hotels, and other civilian sites. Tehrans counter is a horizontal escalation that the regime had been preparing for long and is meant to expand the conflict geographically, as per The Guardian. The are several stages to the escalation trap, Robert Pape, a US historian who has studied the limitation of air power, told the British newspaper. What we saw with the initial attack was tactically almost 100 per cent success, he said. The problem is that when that doesnt lead to strategic success you get to second stage of the trap. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The attacker still has escalation dominance, so there is a doubling down, which then moves up the escalation ladder and that still does not lead to strategic success. Then you reach stage three, which is the real crisis, where you are contemplating far riskier options. I would say we are stage two, and on the cusp of stage three. Reports say US officials have privately admitted to being surprised at Iran still fighting despite the US and Israels near control of the Iranian airspace. Tehran has adopted a defiant tone and does not seem to be in a hurry to call for peace. No clear goal for Iran war The US has no clearly defined goal for waging its war against Iran. Trump has only said that he wants America to avoid the need to return every two years. Over the last two weeks, the US president has changed objectives for the war. After initially calling for regime change, he spoke about the need to destroy Irans nuclear programme and later dismantle its missile and defence capabilities. The US-Israels bombing of Iran has, however, not destroyed its enriched uranium, the fissile material required to make nuclear weapons. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump also keeps shifting his stance on how long the war in West Asia will last. After repeatedly saying in recent days that there is nothing left to target, he said in an interview on Friday (March 13) that the fighting would cease when he feels it in my bones. Trump told Fox News Radio that he did not think the war would be long. But he said that only he will know when it will be over, saying the conflict will end when I feel it, feel it in my bones. The senior Trump administration officials have been indicating that the war could last anywhere from days to months. As per the US military, it is in the second phase of a likely four-phase plan initial strikes, control of Irans airspace, stabilisation, and withdrawal. US officials have suggested that the war could last at least another two weeks, reported The Atlantic. Israel sees Iran as an immediate, external threat. Its strikes on key Iranian economic assets, including energy facilities, reflect it wants to leave a weakened Iran beyond its military capacity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Israelis are looking to ensure that they dont have a threat from the Iranians, but their way of going about it means if they are successful, Iran is a failed state, sooner or later, HA Hellyer, a West Asian security and geopolitics expert for the Royal United Services Institute and at the Center for American Progress, told The Atlantic. The war has also spread to Lebanon, with Israel ramping up its strikes after Hezbollah fired several rockets into the Jewish country following the killing of Irans supreme leader at the start of the war. India in a pickle India and Iran have been historic allies. New Delhis partnerships with the US and Israel have also been bolstered in recent years. The war in West Asia has put India in a spot. While New Delhi has criticised Irans retaliation against Gulf countries, it has not condemned the US and Israel for launching the war. The region is important for India as about one crore Indians live and work across the Gulf. India also relies on West Asia for around 60 per cent of its energy imports. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The region accounts for 17 per cent of Indias exports, and generates 38 per cent of its remittances, according to Jefferies, a brokerage firm. Iran hosts 9,000 Indians, mostly students. A significant portion of Indias liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shipments normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed by Iran. Oil prices have touched above $100 a barrel, with the war leading to the largest oil-supply disruption in history. Indias dilemma is visible in its foreign policy. New Delhi has not condoled the death of Irans Supreme Leader at the highest levels, but Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri went to sign the condolence book at the Iranian embassy. Earlier in the war, PM Narendra Modi spoke to eight countries in West Asia at the highest level following Iranian strikes. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has talked to his Iranian counterpart four times in two weeks. Recently, Modi also spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Given its interest in the region, New Delhi would want the war to end soon. The costly human toll War comes with death and destruction. The conflict in West Asia has killed as many as 2,000 people, mostly in Iran. People have also been killed in Lebanon and several Gulf nations. Smoke rises from a building hit by a targeted Israeli strike in central Beirut, Lebanon, March 12, 2026. AP In the initial hours of the war on February 28, a missile strike on a girls school in southern Iran killed more than 170 people most of them schoolgirls. Evidence is mounting that the US was responsible for the killings. More than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced by war, with Israel intensifying its attacks. When will the war end? The end of the conflict may depend on economic factors. Trumps call to put an end to the war may be driven by the impact on markets and the global economy as global energy prices surge, as per Indian Express. Israel and the US may not be on the same page when it comes to tolerance for the rising costs of their war in Iran. Israelis view higher gas prices triggered by obstructions or threats in the Strait of Hormuz a small price to pay to combat their chief nemesis, Danny Citrinowicz, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Councils Middle East programs, told The Atlantic. But Trump may not be on board with sustained high oil prices. Some predict that a prolonged war in West Asia could send oil prices up to $200 (Rs 18,508) a barrel ahead of Novembers midterm elections in the US. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Robert Malley, a former US envoy to Iran and lead negotiator in the nuclear talks with Tehran, told The Guardian, At some point, I assume there will be an exit ramp, but I could imagine the escalation reaching levels we really wouldnt have contemplated even a month ago troops on the ground, going after basic infrastructure, taking over parts of Iran, working with Kurdish or other ethnic groups. All of that is escalatory in a different way. But that could trigger reactions on the Iranian side, and then who knows what happens. I wouldnt be shocked if we saw terrorist attacks against soft targets, soft, quote-unquote, American targets. If that were to happen, whether it was directed by Iran or not, who knows how the president then reacts? But at this point, what we should fear is that the escalatory ladder is the one that Trump is most comfortable on, because I dont think the Iranians are going make life any easier for him. I dont think theyre going to offer him the victory on a platter that he wants and say: Okay, we stop shooting. By targeting Gulf nations, Iran is hoping that these outside powers will pressure Trump to back off and cease fire. With inputs from agencies The US has struck military targets on Kharg Island Irans economic backbone. Announcing the attacks, President Donald Trump threatened to strike the vital islands oil infrastructure if Tehran kept targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Located in the waters of the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg Island accounts for around 90 per cent of the Islamic Republics crude exports. Any attack on the island could further drive up global oil prices The United States has taken a risky bet by targeting Irans oil lifeline. US President Donald Trump announced on Friday (March 13) that American forces have totally obliterated all military targets on Kharg Island, key to Irans oil network. He also threatened to strike the islands oil infrastructure if Iran continues targeting commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier, Trump turned down questions about the US potentially seizing Kharg Island. But what is this island? Why is it important? We explain. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD US strikes Kharg Island President Donald Trump said on Friday that moments ago, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island. He added that American strikes on Kharg Island did not target oil infrastructure. But should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision, he wrote on social media. The US president went on to call on Iran to lay down its weapons and save whats left of their country, which isnt much. According to sources of Irans semi-official Fars news agency, over 15 explosions were heard on Kharg Island during the US attacks. They added that the US hit air defences, a naval base, and airport facilities, but did not cause damage to oil infrastructure. On Saturday (March 14), Irans armed forces warned that a strike on their countrys oil and energy infrastructure would lead to strikes on facilities owned by oil companies cooperating with the US in the region, Reuters reported, citing Iranian media. Earlier this week, Trump was evasive about the prospect of the US seizing Kharg Island. Its not high on the list, the US president said in an interview with Fox News radio. Its one of so many different things, and I can change my mind in seconds. As per an Axios report on March 7, the Trump administration has discussed seizing the strategic island. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Significance of Kharg Island Kharg Island is a 22-square-kilometre coral island, which is located 55 km northwest of the Bushehr port and 15 nautical miles (about 28 km) from the Iranian mainland. The island, which lies in the waters of the northern Persian Gulf, is the economic backbone of Iran. It accounts for around 90 per cent of the Islamic Republics crude exports and has a loading capacity of about seven million (70 lakh) barrels per day. The terminal receives crude from three major offshore fields Aboozar, Forouzan and Dorood. The islands deep surrounding waters allow supertankers to dock safely and load crude. An Iranian man works on an oil production platform at the Soroush oil fields in the Persian Gulf, 1,250 km south of the capital Tehran, July 25, 2005. File Photo/Reuters The crude oil is transported via a complex network of subsea pipelines to onshore processing facilities. It is later stored or shipped to global markets, reported Al Jazeera. The crude processed at the island is primarily exported to Asia, with China as the leading market. Will US attack on Kharg Island push up oil prices? Oil prices have climbed since the US and Israel started the conflict with Iran late last month. Global oil futures rose 2.7 per cent to more than $103 (Rs 9,532) a barrel on Friday. Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which a fifth of global oil passes. This has led to a spike in global oil prices as crude supplies have been disrupted. Until Friday, Irans vital Kharg Island had remained untouched as the war in West Asia continued for two weeks. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD No major Iranian oil & gas production, export facility has thus far been attacked. I believe it is a deliberate measure in the interest of stabilising the oil price. It is partly a signal to Iran to reciprocate by refraining from attacking other countries facilities which it has so far rebuffed. It is partly also a measure to keep the Iranian people on side in the days after the war, as Irans ability to produce and export oil and gas will be the foundation on which its economy can be revived, a shipping expert had told Indian Express days before the strike. But with the US attacking the island and not ruling out its takeover, oil prices could further inch towards the $150 (Rs 13,881) per barrel mark. To seize Kharg Island, the US would have to send boots on the ground. The US is sending more troops to West Asia, including an amphibious ready group (ARG) that will include nearly 5,000 Marines and sailors. The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli has also been ordered to the region, Associated Press (AP) reported. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The additional US military deployment to the Gulf has fuelled the speculation that the US is planning to seize the island. These developments are expected to disrupt the global oil market next week. Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, told Reuters that Trumps remarks on Friday will focus the markets mind on pathways that this energy disruption, already historys largest, could expand and last longer. Speaking to CNBC, Francis Galgano, an associate professor and military geography and environmental security specialist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, said the US will be at a major advantage over Iran if it takes over Kharg Island. I will put on my war hat if the objective is to win the war (quickly), you destroy or capture Kharg immediately, Galgano said in an email, adding that any such attempt would create maximum leverage over Tehran. But he added that seizing the island would not be easy. It would involve moving a considerable number of ground combat troops into the region I estimate about 5,000 to take and hold the island. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He added, All of this of course affects global oil markets, but they are already being affected. According to analysts at JPMorgan, if access to Kharg Island were cut off, the loss of Irans storage buffer and the shortage of viable export alternatives would rapidly trigger upstream shut-ins across major southwest fields. With production near 3.3 mbd [million barrels a day] and exports around 1.5 mbd, as much as half of national output could be at risk if the hub remains offline, and the previously assumed 20day buffer would vanish from day one, they said in a note on Sunday. With inputs from agencies After Shivalik, Indias second Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) carrier, Nanda Devi, has successfully exited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the international waters amid growing tensions in West Asia. After Shivalik, Indias second Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) carrier, Nanda Devi, has successfully exited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the international waters amid growing tensions in West Asia. Government sources close to the matter confirmed the news to CNN-News18. This marked another step forward in Indias efforts to safely move its energy cargo through the tense Gulf region. The government sources said that the vessel is now being escorted by the Indian Navy, which will guide it during the next leg of its journey to India. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As per the report, the ship is expected to reach an Indian port within the next two days. The port of Mumbai or Kandla is likely to be the destination of the vessel. Top government sources told News18 that Nanda Devi is carrying more than 46,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Why it matters The cargo was considered critical for Indias energy supply chain, especially at a time when shipping movements in the Gulf have faced disruptions due to the ongoing war in Iran. Earlier today, CNN-News18 reported that the first Indian LPG vessel, Shivalik, had already begun its movement through the Strait of Hormuz after negotiations helped secure safe passage. The ship has since reached open sea and is sailing safely under Indian Navy guidance. Sources said that both ships are being closely guided by Indian naval assets to ensure safe transit through the strategically sensitive waters. With both Shivalik and Nanda Devi now out of the strait, authorities are optimistic that the same operational protocol can be followed for other vessels, allowing them to move without major disruptions. The news of the vessels came a day after Foreign Minister Dr S. Jaishankar held a phone call with his counterpart, Abbar Arghachi, discussing the ongoing crisis in West Asia. The development is also significant for India, which depends heavily on LPG imports from the Gulf region. Officials said the safe movement of these vessels demonstrates that a workable mechanism has been established to ensure the secure transit of Indian energy shipments through the vital maritime corridor. The ministry said that there is adequate availability of petrol and diesel across the country and urged consumers not to engage in unsafe storage practices. Indias Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Saturday issued an advisory on X urging citizens not to store petrol or diesel in loose or inappropriate containers, warning that such practices pose serious safety risks. The ministry also warned petrol pumps that strict action will be taken if they violate safety norms while dispensing fuel. Petrol and diesel are adequately available at retail outlets across the country. Consumers are advised not to take or store fuel in loose or inappropriate containers, as it poses serious safety risks, the advisory said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The advisory came after a video of a petrol pump station in Indias state of Tamil Nadu got viral on social media, where petrol was reportedly sold to a customer in a loose container. The ministry said the outlet had been suspended and appropriate action has been initiated against those responsible. In the message posted on X, the ministry said that there is adequate availability of petrol and diesel across the country and urged consumers not to engage in unsafe storage practices. It reiterated that retail outlets must strictly follow safety guidelines while dispensing fuel and warned that violations would invite strict penalties. The governments advisory comes amid the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in West Asia, which has fuelled concerns about possible disruptions to global oil supplies. Some unverified posts have claimed that fuel shortage could possibly occur in India, prompting panic buying at some petrol stations. Officials have earlier said that these fears were unfounded and Indias fuel supply remains stable. A day earlier, addressing the media, ministry officials had highlighted that there has been no dry out witnessed among oil and gas distributors in the country. Highlighting the panic buying of LPG by consumers, the official said that an average of 55.7 lakh requests for booking refills were placed between April 2025 and February 2026. But, the number of requests peaked at 69 lakh on March 10 and 75.7 lakh on March 12. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The same is the case with petrol and diesel where some outlets have seen a sudden spike as consumers rushed to fill their tanks amid rumours of shortages. Authorities have said that the surge appeared to be driven by precautionary purchases rather than any actual disruption in supplies. The ministry said it has instructed all fuel retailers and dealers to strictly adhere to safety regulations while dispensing petrol and diesel, stressing that improper handling or storage of fuel can lead to accidents. It also urged citizens to rely on official information and avoid spreading or acting on unverified claims circulating online. VIENTIANE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of the Lao National Assembly (NA) has approved the schedule for the inaugural session of the NA's 10th legislature, which will be held from March 23 to March 27, according to an announcement issued on Friday. The five-day session will take place in Lao capital Vientiane, and the announcement calls on all members of the NA, its internal bodies, and relevant sectors to ensure the successful organization of the inaugural session and the fulfillment of its objectives. In an unpredictable, volatile world ridden with conflicts in multiple theatres, it is important to make sense of the events around us. Theres hardly a better voice than Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, the head for South Asia in Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm, to unpack it for us. Pal Chaudhuri, a former journalist, has served on the National Security Advisory Board of two Indian prime ministers. He is an advisor to several New Delhi-based think tanks and remains active in Track-II diplomacy between India and the US, Japan, China, and Israel. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Firstpost got the chance recently to have an extensive conversation with Pal Chaudhuri, who brings his signature sangfroid, sagacity and intelligence into discussions, on a range of issues of topical interest. This is the first part of the conversation. It has been lightly edited for fluidity. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, South Asia head at Eurasia Group and a former member of Indias National Security Advisory Board, speaks on the evolving dynamics of USIndia relations and Washingtons increasingly transactional foreign policy. Excerpts: Q: Lets start with US-India relations. The US Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, recently commented that the Americans committed a mistake in aiding Chinas rise, and theyre not going to commit that mistake again and aid Indias rise. Whats your take? Pramit: This essentially ends, if you wish, a period which I jokingly call the Zelikow Doctrine of America. During the George Bush Jr. administration the year was probably 2005 when Phil Zelikow, the advisor to then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a press conference, said I paraphrase America has concluded that the rise of India is in its strategic interest. And we understand the economic and strategic fallout or requirements of that. Effectively, for the first time since the late Eisenhower-Kennedy period, America said we want to make India a great power. The Indo-US nuclear deal, which is more about dual-use technology building a certain confidence between the two systems really comes from that. So roughly from that period you have seen a broad consistency in American policy that it is in our strategic interest to build up India. Until weve come now to the second Trump administration. Trump is a Taftian (Robert Taft, a conservative, who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination in 1940, 1948 and 1952). Hes from the past, a pre-World War One isolationist America. He fundamentally believes America has lost out because of its international relationships, and on the trade front, alliance front, these countries have bled America dry. There is a certain element of truth in that. Landau is saying that it is no longer in our strategic interest to invest American resources to build up other countries, as they did with post-war Japan, post-war Germany, and China. India had a good run, if you wish, for almost 20 years. But that run has come to an end. It doesnt mean America will pull us down, but America will now be purely transactional. You will receive the benefits of trading. Landau is indicating that were not going to stop Indian American companies from investing. We dont see you as a threat, but America is not going to go out of its way for you anymore. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I dont think that is a problem. One, its important for India in many ways to do this on its own or play its cards in a much more diversified manner. Second, we are now a lot bigger. When we began our economic reforms in 1991, our GDP was about $270 billion in nominal USD terms, right? And now were close to $4 trillion (projected to be $4.3 trillion in 2026). Thats a staggering 16-fold difference. So, we should now be able to do this on our own. And I think our response is that, fine, America will be transactional, but it is still our single largest source of FDI, our single largest source of FII (foreign institutional investment), our single largest source of remittances, our biggest source of technology. We are now winding down a little bit on the defense side. Were diversifying. But remember, all of the other countries we are diversifying to the Japanese, the Europeans, the UAE, Israel, Canada, are American allies as well. So, in effect, were saying, all right, well diversify from an America policy to one that is effectively the West with a few other add-on countries. Thats where we are right now. I was happy that Landau made that statement because in effect, he puts a bookmark. An actual policy statement that this is what America believes. Hes not saying were going to pull you down, but now youre basically going to be treated just like any other country, but not the country that America will strategically invest in. Your rise now is really up to you. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Q: Thats fine. But during even Trump 1, or Biden administration, and maybe even earlier than that, we frequently used to hear that a strong India is in Americas interest. It would imply that sometimes America would take the long view on certain issues. So, is there a clean break from that policy? Pramit: See, Trump 1.0 was less about Trump. He was as surprised as anybody else that he became the President, so he basically absorbed people from the Washington establishment into his administration because he didnt have anybody. As is well known, Trump launched his presidency as a real estate developer. His job was only to sell the Trump brand, make people buy his apartments and go to his hotels. Suddenly he won, and he wasnt ready. So, he brought in people who belong to the Washington consensus. They told him, this is how you do it And this is why we want to do India. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD So Tillerson, Mattis all of these people were part of that Washington consensus on India. It wasnt a real Trump presidency. Trump was, of course, very frustrated by the end of it, which is why when he ran for a second time, he carefully went outside of Washington and chose a group of people who come from all over middle America, people nobody had ever heard of in their life, and who often dont have any concept of strategic thinking. If you look at what Trump has done he has virtually shut down the Office of Net Assessment (ONA, Department of Defenses internal think tank, created in 1973 to provide long-term strategic foresight). The Chinese used to see the ONA under Andrew Marshall as the ultimate strategic thinking body in the world. They tried to recreate the ONA as much as they could. Trump guys come in. They say, this is a long-term strategic thinking body. We dont need it. Shut it down. And slowly theyve been going around doing exactly that. Their view is, all these strategic thinking is what led America into these entangling alliances and so on So we cut this down. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD And were already starting to see shifts in the way they spend their defense money. Golden Dome air defense Isolate yourself, build a defense against the rest of the world, have some long-term strike capacity against an enemy that may pop up in the distant planet. But why do we need aircraft carriers? You can see the budget, for example, for the next carrier fighter aircraft is being cut every year, bit by bit, because they dont want to have one. They dont see the point. Carriers for them may be useful now, but they are fundamentally about an America that is projecting power around the world, and it should not be doing that money should be spent at home. Q: The Trump administration has said its going to allow India to buy Russian oil for another 30 days. Now, does that mean that an America first policy is clashing with Indias strategic autonomy? And if so, how is New Delhi managing it? STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Pramit: Anything that is America first, Russia first, Europe first, will automatically clash. That is fine. Thats exactly what you would expect in the present situation. People have focused on Mark Carneys speech in Davos about middle powers coming together. But if you look at our foreign minister Jaishankars speech in January, the Nani Palkhivala Memorial lecture, he said exactly the same thing. And he actually says (roughly) the two superpowers are not underwriting the international system. Theyre weaponizing bits and pieces of it for very narrow-minded interest. So, what will be the response? And he says, we will embrace other middle powers to find a way, not to decouple from the superpowers you cant do that but to find a means to balance or hedge against them. In another interview he gave and I cant remember where it was He (Jaishankar) said the so-called alliance culture of the past, where you would have an ally in which you would basically support wrong or right, thats over. Youre going to have a world of frenemies. Sometimes well agree with you on points 1 through 6. We will be neutral on points 7 through 9. And at number 10, we will disagree with you, and we will oppose your policies. Thats what governments now have to get used to. But to this day right now, we are still closer to America than we are to China, which is very much of the view that far from being transactional with India, making sure India does not rise is in their national interest. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Q: Are you surprised at the way that ties between US and India, which we were told was a matter of bipartisan consensus in the US, were allowed to decay with no pushback from any quarters? Is there no constituency in the U.S., political or otherwise, that would arrest the fall of the relationship to the extent that it has now? Pramit: On the trade issues specifically, the US has always had grouse. India is a protectionist country. We have incredibly high tariffs. Theres a mismatch there. America is not a major industrial power. Europe has a bigger industrial base, for example, than the United States does. It sells airplanes. It does manufacture more than we do. But compared to China or even Europe, America exports less manufactured goods than even Germany, a much smaller economy. Its noticeable that the single largest economic relationship we have in America, which is service exports, hasnt been touched. So, I would argue, you actually do have a big constituency, mainly Silicon Valley and big American companies, who say dont touch the service relationship. And in particular, the new one we have, which is the Global Capability Center (GCC), which is driving our service exports. Weve now gone from 2 to 6 per cent of global services export, and most of that is driven by our American relationship. But on the goods, and American agricultural products, weve been extremely protectionist. It clashes with our domestic agriculture sector. But in my view, weve declined to adopt technologies that improve our agricultural output We have the lowest productivity in dairy. And our soya productivity is almost 1/3 of the rest of the world. Ironically, though, we imported the germplasm from America in the 1970s. So, theres a clash there. And the Democrats are as much on this side But over time, what has happened? Today India imports around 80% of almonds from California. We are the third largest importer of Washington apples. So, despite protectionism, just because our demand has been so massive and our domestic production has been so pathetic, we are importing anyway. To some degree, what weve done in the trade framework is institutionalize a lot of them. We will give you lower almond tariff, but we already buy from you anyway. We are going to give you lower apple tariff, but buy from you anyway. Well give you less soybean oil tariff, but we are the worlds largest importer of soybean in the world because we dont produce enough. And we dont even have a single large-scale soybean refinery in the country. We cant even make it. Where do we import it from? Traditionally, Argentina. Now well buy it from America. So yes, there is on the trade front, no serious constituency (thatll bat for India). But keep in mind that American corporations continue to invest $67 billion in digital infrastructure have been announced even while we were fighting about the FTA. Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft didnt care. Apple makes the single-largest manufacturing gamble, if you wish, on India. If you look at our trade figures, Apple has actually transformed our basket of exports. Now electronics is our single largest export. And as a result, the ecosystem thats coming in over 200 Taiwanese companies have now moved to India, riding on Apple. And Samsung. (Interjection) Despite China not allowing its technicians to come to India Its interesting that initially Apple (when it set up manufacturing in India) China laughed at this, didnt take it seriously. Then in the past year, Beijing is deliberately trying to ensure that it does not take off. In my view, China has been a bit surprised at how successfully this has worked out in the end. So, you saw it all happening even while Trump actually denounced Apple for this. And Apple said, we dont care. Tim Cook announced a $60 billion in AI server investment in America (which he was planning to do anyway). So, it didnt really make any difference. Ultimately, Apple is a perfect example. A company big enough, so massive, I mean, Apples cash reserves are the size of a GDP of a medium-sized country, saying, were not backing down on this. So, I would say corporate America has stuck with India. They dont make a public fight with the President That doesnt make sense Even to some degree, I would argue on the immigration side, the Indian story continues, really, without too much trouble. Indians have been terrified, the students have dropped off, but actually the number of students, number of immigrant visas and so on hasnt really fallen all that much, especially family reunion continues. I would put it this way, America still remains the single-largest immigrant destination for Indians. Theres an anti-immigrant sentiment across the West everywhere, but it really continues reasonably strongly in America. So, there are constituencies, I think, that are fighting. But with Trump controlling both houses of Congress and having a popular mandate for his policies you are not going to get much pushback. Which is why everybody is waiting for November. And thats where youre going to start to see the American things swing in the other direction. (Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part interview with Pramit Pal Chaudhuri. Part 2 will be published soon.) Indias foreign policy frameworkbuilt on strong, simultaneous ties with Israel, Iran, the US, and Gulf nationspositions it as a potential backchannel negotiator and peace architect in West Asia One phone call from PM Narendra Modi could help end the IranIsrael conflict, said former UAE envoy to India Hussain Hassan Mirza, highlighting Indias potential role in regional diplomacy. Image: Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via Reuters Since February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel have conducted coordinated military strikes against Iran under a joint campaign aimed at degrading its military and nuclear capabilities. The campaign has expanded into a sustained, large-scale air operation targeting military, nuclear, and leadership infrastructure across at least 26 of Irans 31 provinces. The coalition has struck over 5,500 targets, including 11 of Irans 17 tactical airbases, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) headquarters, and the underground fuel enrichment plant at Natanz. US forces have reportedly destroyed at least 50 Iranian vessels, including mine-laying ships near the Strait of Hormuz, which remains virtually closed due to the conflict. Human rights organisations report over 1,700 deaths, while other sources suggest total Iranian casualties may exceed 4,300, including nearly 1,300 civilians. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Iran has vowed an eye for an eye response to attacks, and the IRGC has dismissed claims of its missile capabilities being destroyed. Iran has responded with missile and drone strikes against US bases and civilian sites in Israel, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Iran is engaging in a multi-front, asymmetric retaliation, launching hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, US bases, and Gulf state energy infrastructure. Iran aims to sustain high-intensity attacks to exhaust regional air defences, disrupt global oil supplies, and force a costly, long-drawn-out conflict. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has paralysed global oil traffic, with Iran warning that prices could reach $200 per barrel. The campaigns codenamed Operation Epic Fury by the US and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel have pursued several overlapping strategic and military objectives. A core goal is to permanently prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. This follows the collapse of previous negotiations and findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding increased uranium enrichment. The operation seeks to destroy Irans ballistic missile stockpiles and raze its missile production industry, targeting weapons capable of reaching Israel, Europe, and the US mainland. The US and Israel aim to neutralise Iran-backed proxy groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to reduce regional instability and threats to Israeli security. A stated objective is to annihilate the Iranian Navy and destroy mine-laying vessels to ensure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Some analysts suggest long-term US interests include influencing global oil prices and potentially controlling Iranian energy infrastructure post-conflict to diminish Russian and Chinese influence. Above all, both nations have explicitly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. US President Donald Trump has urged the Iranian people to take over the government, and the initial strikes included a decapitation attempt that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Thus, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have framed the campaign as an opportunity for the Iranian people to take over their government. However, US intelligence and independent analysts remain sceptical that these actions will successfully topple the Iranian government. Shortly before the war began, the US National Intelligence Council concluded that a large-scale military attack was unlikely to quickly topple Irans deeply entrenched political structure. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Following the death of Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei has already been named the new Supreme Leader, suggesting the regimes core structure remains intact. The IRGC and the Basij militia remain loyal and maintain deep control over the country, effectively suppressing domestic uprisings. The current US and Israeli strategy appears to involve using intense military pressure and sanctions to create an environment where the Iranian people or internal military factions (like the Artesh, the national army) might rise up and overthrow the government themselves. This is widely viewed by analysts as hope rather than a reliable strategy, as a sufficiently numerous, organised, and ideologically motivated internal opposition force has not yet emerged. A ground assault, whether by external military forces or an internal armed opposition group, is generally seen as necessary to fully remove the existing power structure and prevent it from regrouping. History suggests that air power alone is rarely sufficient to collapse a deeply entrenched regime. While US and Israeli airstrikes can severely damage Irans military capabilities, nuclear programme infrastructure, and leadership, they cannot seize territory or secure physical assets like the underground uranium stockpiles. It is widely considered difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the complete toppling of the Iranian regime using only air power, sanctions, and other non-ground interventions. Regime change typically requires some form of boots on the ground, whether by foreign forces or a substantial domestic opposition movement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Examples often cited include the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 intervention in Libya. In both cases, the regimes were only removed when significant ground forces (a US-led invasion in Iraq and local rebel forces supported by Nato air power in Libya) were involved in the ground offensive. In short, most experts agree that without a significant force on the ground, a complete regime change remains an elusive goal for the US and Israel. President Trump has not ruled out the possibility of putting boots on the ground in Iran, though no formal announcement of a ground invasion has been made. While the US has primarily relied on air and naval strikes so far, President Trump has stated he would never say never regarding ground troop deployment, noting the administration will do whatever is necessary to protect US interests. However, many military analysts believe a traditional mass-infantry invasion is unlikely due to Irans large size and rugged terrain; instead, they expect potential targeted special operations if ground forces are used. Some US lawmakers have expressed alarm over a potential ground war, citing risks of a wider regional conflict and the involvement of Russian and Chinese support for Tehran. Moreover, Pentagon officials have framed current operations as a limited war aimed at destroying Irans offensive capabilities rather than an Iraq-style nation-building quagmire. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Iranian regime is a deeply embedded theocratic system that has weathered severe sanctions and large-scale protests in the past through brutal repression. The assassination of key leaders may simply lead to the consolidation of power under even more hardline factions, as the system is designed with succession plans in mind. The situation is described as a lethal cocktail affecting global energy markets and security. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grave concern over the escalation, urging a return to dialogue and diplomacy. While diplomacy is being pursued, the situation remains highly volatile with continued attacks, making an immediate, lasting peace difficult to guarantee. India is increasingly viewed by regional actors as a potential mediator in the escalating conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States, though it has not formally accepted a lead mediation role. India maintains robust, independent partnerships with all primary rivalsIsrael, Iran, and the Gulf states. This unique positioning allows New Delhi to act as a neutral back channel for de-escalation. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This month, former UAE envoy to India, Hussain Hassan Mirza, stated that one phone call from PM Modi has the potential to encourage dialogue between the conflicting nations. Previously, in mid-2025, Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar expressed optimism that India could play a role due to its avenues for dialogue with both sides. Iran has indicated a willingness to engage with India as a mediator, provided India more openly condemns Israeli actions. Iranian diplomats have stated that while they recognise Indias balanced, neutral approach toward Iran and Israel, they expect Indiaas a voice of the Global Southto openly condemn Israeli actions against Iran and in Gaza. India is navigating a difficult balancing act, ensuring its economic interestsincluding energy imports and the safety of its diaspora in the Gulfare protected amid the 2026 conflict. India has stated its willingness to support peace efforts, emphasising its close relations with all involved parties. India is viewed as a credible, neutral back channel for de-escalation, particularly as traditional western mediation mechanisms face challenges. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD India has avoided explicit condemnation of any side to maintain its neutrality, a stance criticised by some domestic opposition as silence but which serves as a calibrated response to protect its diverse partnerships. India can offer to host talks or provide humanitarian aid, positioning itself as a peace architect that emphasises stability and dialogue over military escalation. Will India play the role of a mediator in the Iran war? Will India act as a passive observer or leverage its multi-aligned foreign policy to mediate in order to bring to an end this volatile situation? Indias foreign policy framework, which involves maintaining strong, simultaneous ties with all involved parties (Israel, Iran, the US, and Gulf nations), positions it as a potential back-channel negotiator. India is one of the few powers with credibility to talk to all sides. It has a Special Strategic Partnership with Israel (for defence and technology) while maintaining long-standing, strategic ties with Iran (via the Chabahar port). Indias current strategy allows it to act as a peace architect. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Given the high stakes, India should leverage its multi-aligned policy to facilitate de-escalation through quiet diplomacy and back channels. While a public, high-profile mediation attempt might be risky, a passive stance would be detrimental to Indias national interest. Therefore, a proactive, balanced, and behind-the-scenes role that advocates for dialogue (as shown by recent diplomatic engagements) is the most logical path forward. (The writer is a retired Indian diplomat and had previously served as ambassador in Kuwait and Morocco and as Consul General in New York. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.) At least four people, including two children, were injured in Pakistan after Afghanistan launched drones towards the country ONE of the drones, ostensibly sent by Afghan forces, is seen crashed in Swabi. ISPR At least four people, including two children, were injured in Pakistan after Afghanistan launched drones towards the country. Pakistans Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed the news on Saturday, describing the drones as rudimentary. The attack came at a time when tensions between the two neighbouring states had been reignited. On Friday evening, Pakistani security sources said two drones were intercepted at different locations adjacent to Rawalpindi, Dawn reported. Pakistan claimed that the drones were successfully brought down through electronic countermeasures. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Pakistani militarys media wing said on Saturday that the drones were intercepted through soft and hard kills and did not reach their intended targets. According to the ISPR, two children were injured in Quetta, a civilian was injured in Kohat, and another was injured in Rawalpindi. These attacks were aimed at inducing fear in the public and reminding us of the terrorist mindset which drives the Afghan Taliban," the authorities said in a statement. Operation Ghazab lil-Haq will continue: ISPR The Pakistani military said that while the Afghan Taliban project victimhood to garner global sympathy, on the other hand, they actively target civilians through their terrorist proxies and their drones. Pakistans people and its Armed Forces are absolutely clear about the true nature and intentions of the terrorist militia-for-hire that rules Afghanistan, said the statement by the ISPR. The military also maintained that Operation Ghazab lil-Haq will continue till the Afghan Taliban address Pakistans core concern regarding terrorism originating from Afghan soil. Pakistans Armed Forces stand steadfast in the fight against terrorism and its manifestations, like the drone attacks by the Afghan Taliban," the statement further reads. However, it is pertinent to note that Afghanistans drone attack came just days after Pakistan conducted a strike on Kabul. The tensions between the two neighbouring states escalated after a failed ceasefire. Amid the rising tensions in West Asia, Iran on Saturday slammed the United States, claiming that American President Donald Trump is now begging countries, including India, to purchase oil from Russia Amid the rising tensions in , Iran on Saturday slammed the United States, claiming that American President Donald Trump is now begging countries, including India, to purchase oil from Russia. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called out Americas double standards over Russian crude. The US spent months bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the world including India to buy Russian crude, he posted on X. The Iranian diplomat went on to slam the European nations for backing illegal war against Iran, which has been raging on since February 28. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The U.S. spent months on bullying India into ending oil imports from Russia. After two weeks of war with Iran, White House is now begging the worldincl Indiato buy Russian crude. Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win U.S. support against Russia. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/fbkrXpXa9P Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 13, 2026 Europe thought backing illegal war on Iran would win US support against Russia. Pathetic, he said. Araghchi was sharing his assertion along with a Financial Times report highlighting how rising oil prices are providing Russia with a significant boost in revenue. US eases sanctions on Russia Araghchis remarks came a day after the Trump administration announced a 30-day waiver permitting countries to buy Russian oil cargoes despite existing sanctions. Last week, US Secretary of State Scott Bessent said Washington has allowed Indian refiners to buy Russian oil that was stranded at sea and could consider allowing more barrels into the market if supply pressures continue. The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall. They did, Bessent said, noting that New Delhi complied with earlier US requests before receiving the temporary waiver. It is pertinent to note that this waiver was introduced after benchmark crude prices surged past $100 per barrel due to supply disruptions triggered by the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the worlds most vital oil shipping waterways. Meanwhile, Irans Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, also maintained that New Delhi will be granted safe passage through the Strait. He cited the longstanding friendship and shared interests between the two countries. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Yes. Because India and I are friends. You can see the future, and I think that after two or three hours. Because we believe that. We believe that Iran and India are friends. We have common interests; we have a common fate, the Iranian envoy told reporters. An explosion damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam on Saturday, in what Mayor Femke Halsema described as a deliberate attack on the Jewish community. Authorities said the blast caused only limited damage, and it is not yet clear if anyone was injured. An explosion damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam on Saturday, in what Mayor Femke Halsema described as a targeted attack against the Jewish community, Dutch media reported via Reuters. Authorities said the blast caused only limited damage, and it is not yet clear whether there were any casualties. Police and fire services responded swiftly. Investigators are reviewing surveillance footage that may show the person who detonated the device, Sky News reported. Rising antisemitic violence across Europe The attack comes amid a surge in antisemitic incidents across Europe, amid heightened tensions in the Middle East following US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran. Jewish schools, synagogues, and other community institutions have increased security over fears of retaliatory attacks. Similar incidents in Rotterdam and Belgium This follows a similar attack in Rotterdam on Friday, when an explosion at a synagogue entrance caused a small fire but no injuries. Dutch police arrested four men, aged 17 to 19, after stopping a car near another synagogue matching the description of the suspects. Earlier in the week, a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, was also damaged in an antisemitic attack. In the US, a Lebanon-born man drove into a synagogue and its preschool in Michigan before being shot dead by police. A Jewish organisation in the Netherlands said an Islamist group had claimed responsibility for the Rotterdam attack online and had previously taken credit for the Liege incident. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The man, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, recently suffered devastating and personal losses overseas, Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said, however, adding that it was not an excuse for the attack Oakland County Sheriff Deputies prepare to enter Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, on March 13, 2026, after a person drove a vehicle into the synagogue a day earlier. AFP The family of the suspect who rammed his vehicle into a synagogue in Michigan had recently died in an airstrike in Lebanon, officials have said. The man, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, recently suffered devastating and personal losses overseas, Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said, however, adding that it was not an excuse for the attack. Ghazali died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head during a gunfight with the police, the FBI said on Friday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The man drove his grey Ford F150 truck into the synagogue and got it struck in a hallway, where security guards opened fire, causing the vehicles engine compartment to catch fire. The federal agency said that Ghazali possessed large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of flammable liquid in the bed of his truck. He had no criminal history and was waiting in his car for about two hours before ramming it into the synagogue. The FBI said that Ghazali shot at security guards through his windshield before the attack. The attack comes amid heightened security across the United States following the launch nearly two weeks ago of the US-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict that has since broadened to the Middle East. Jews at unease American Jews were already reporting increasing unease over antisemitism and the new West Asia war is likely to compound those fears. Any time there is fighting in the Middle East, that is often turned into greater hatred, greater threats against the Jewish community, said Amy Sapeika of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). A recent survey by the AJC found that 91 per cent of American Jews feel less safe as a result of violence against Jewish people in the past year. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The threats have boosted demand for security services specifically protecting Jewish communities, with officers stationed at schools, campuses and other buildings. With inputs from agencies The militant organisation responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel is trying to rebuild its hold in Gaza, as Israel and US shift their attention on Iran. A man holds a picture of Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, while people attend a funeral ceremony for the Iranian military commanders who were killed in strikes, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran on March 11. Reuters While backing Tehrans right to defend itself against attacks by Israel and the United States, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Saturday urged Iran to avoid striking neighbouring countries as regional tensions continue to escalate. While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries, Hamas said in a statement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Hamas also urged the international community to act to bring the war to an immediate end. The militant organisation further warned that the continuing hostilities risk deepening instability in the region. Previously, the group had also condemned the killing of Irans supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, terming it a heinous crime, while acknowledging his longstanding support for the Palestinian movement. Hamas gains strength as Gaza recovery stalls The militant organisation responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel is trying to rebuild its hold in Gaza, as Israel and the US shift their attention to Iran. According to a report published in The Washington Post, the group is collecting taxes and deploying officers directing traffic at some intersections. Hamas is present now in a clear and prominent way, the report says. Despite suffering heavy losses in leadership during Israels military offensive, Hamas has retained an organisational presence in Gaza. Analysts in The Post note that the group has historically demonstrated the ability to regroup even after major setbacks, often rebuilding its networks once fighting subsides or attention shifts elsewhere. For Gazas residents, however, the shifting spotlight has brought little relief. Large parts of the enclave remain devastated after years of war, with infrastructure destroyed and humanitarian conditions still miserable, even as Hamas attempts to regain a foothold in the territory. Around 80 per cent of all the structures in Gaza are expected to be damaged. Before the recent disruption in West Asia, Gaza had shown fragile signs of recovery, with border crossings reopening and humanitarian aid gradually increasing. But the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict disrupted those improvements, halting aid flows and medical evacuations while worsening the humanitarian situation in the territory. The halt of the cargo trucks has caused food shocks in vulnerable areas. Residents are panic-buying, leading to a sharp increase in price. Aid groups warn that their stocks have little to no reserve. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called on Iran on Saturday to refrain from targeting neighbouring countries, while affirming Tehrans right to defend itself against Israel and the United States. Smoke rises from the direction of an energy installation in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah on March 14, 2026.- AFP The Palestinian militant group Hamas has urged Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries, even as it reaffirmed Tehrans right to respond to the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign. While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries, Hamas said in a statement, its first such public appeal to Tehran. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD While the group affirms Irans right to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, it calls upon our brothers in Iran not to target neighbouring countries, it said. Hamas also appealed to governments in the region and international organisations to intervene and halt the fighting immediately, warning that further escalation could destabilise the broader West Asia. Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in Gaza that went into effect in October, but there have been regular outbreaks of violence since then. While Israeli attacks on Gaza declined at the beginning of the war with Iran, they have since begun to rise. The Lebanese Iran-aligned Hezbollah, meanwhile, opened fire on Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Irans supreme leader at the start of the war. Israel has since then pounded Lebanon and targeted the group. Yemens Iran-aligned Houthis, which launched a military campaign against ships they perceived as affiliated with Israel in the Red Sea during the war in Gaza, have also expressed strong solidarity with Tehran. They have not yet threatened to resume attacks. Iran has long provided financial and military support to Hamas as part of a network often described as the axis of resistance, which includes Hezbollah and the Houthis. However, analysts say the alliance has weakened significantly in recent years due to military losses and political pressure. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Separately, several Gulf countries recently pledged more than $4 billion to an initiative linked to Donald Trump aimed at promoting peace efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the initiatives first meeting in Washington, Qatar and Saudi Arabia each committed $1 billion, while Kuwait pledged a similar amount over the coming years. The United Arab Emirates announced an additional $1.2 billion to support Gaza reconstruction efforts. With inputs from agencies As he gave a press conference alongside the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth criticised the news coverage on the war and even suggested alternative headlines for TV news channels US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth looks at the signed joint security agreement at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference with regional defense and security leaders at US Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, US, on March 5, 2026. Reuters File US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accused the media of not being positive enough about Americas military campaign in Iran, which he claims is gaining unprecedented success. As he gave a press conference alongside the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth criticised the news coverage on the war and even suggested alternative headlines for TV news channels. What should the banner [on TV] read? How about Iran increasingly desperate? he said. One journalist present at the press conference told Hegseth they had been denied entry to the press briefing, along with all print photographers, because some of the pictures of Hegseth taken by them were unflattering. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The defense secretary singled out CNN, saying, The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. Ellison, a Trump ally, is the leading contender to acquire CNNs parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and has reportedly told Trump administration officials he would implement sweeping changes at the network if the deal goes through. Irans military severely degraded Hegseth on Friday said that Irans military capability has been significantly degraded and that President Donald Trump holds the cards in determining the pace and timing of the conflict. Addressing a press briefing, Hegseth said Americas resolve remains unshakeable as the United States prepares to carry out its highest volume of strikes over Iran to date. Hegseth said that Irans missile stockpiles have been reduced by about 90 per cent and that its oneway attack drones were down approximately 95 per cent as of Thursday, describing the countrys remaining arsenal as severely diminished. Iran shooting at ships On the Strait of Hormuz, Hegseth said, The only thing prohibiting traffic in the strait at the moment is Iran shooting at shipping. He stressed that the US has a plan for every option and will not allow the strait to remain contested. Regarding Irans nuclear ambitions, Hegseth reaffirmed that denying the country the ability to pursue a nuclear weapon remains a core mission. Hegseth also addressed the deaths of four US service members after a refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, stating that war is hell. War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen, CNN quoted Hegseth as saying. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichis office has asked authorities to ensure the safety of aircraft, vessels and other military assets. It has also called for deploying all measures for precaution, including readying contingencies This picture taken on December 28, 2025 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 29, 2025 shows a long-range strategic cruise missile launching drill in the West Sea of North Korea. AFP/Representational image Japans Defence Ministry has said that North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile towards it on Saturday. What is possibly a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea, the ministry said on its official X account. The projectile is believed to have already fallen, it added in a separate post a few minutes later. [Emergency alert] North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile. More updates to follow. PM's Office of Japan (@JPN_PMO) March 14, 2026 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Prime Minister Sanae Takaichis office has asked authorities to ensure the safety of aircraft, vessels and other military assets. It has also called for deploying all measures for precaution, including readying contingencies. North Korea fired about 10 unidentified ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan, Seouls Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. Seouls military detected around ten unidentified ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea at around 1:20 pm (0420 GMT), the JCS said in a statement. South Korea confirms missile launch Earlier today, South Koreas defence ministry said that North Korea fired at least one unidentified projectile eastward, weeks after Pyongyang dismissed Seouls latest peace overtures as a deceptive farce. North Korea fired at least one unidentified projectile eastward, Seouls defence ministry said in a statement, without providing details. The projectiles were fired as the US and South Korea conducted military drills. It was fired toward the sea off North Koreas east coast, the South Korean military said. It appeared to have fallen outside Japans exclusive economic zone, NHK reported, citing defence ministry sources. Seoul and Washington, five days earlier, launched the major drills, which they say are purely defensive, aimed at testing readiness against military threats from North Korea. Nuclear-armed North Korea frequently displays its anger and objections to such exercises, saying they are dress rehearsals for armed aggression against it by the allies. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies YANGON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar on Friday kicked off the Forum on the Dawn of a New State (Trust, Stability & Development) in Nay Pyi Taw, state-owned daily The Mirror reported on Saturday. The forum was launched ahead of the new parliament session set to begin on March 16. Myanmar's Acting President Senior General Min Aung Hlaing attended and delivered a speech at the forum. The purpose of the forum includes enabling elected Hluttaw representatives (members of Myanmar's parliament) to gain a broad perspective on the political, economic, and social sectors and anticipate tasks for national development, the report said. It also aims to provide guidance on effective legislation for export, import, and trade sectors contributing to economic growth, and to inform representatives about key considerations and international measures for economic development, it said. Another objective is to facilitate cooperation among Hluttaw representatives to ensure smooth and effective implementation of the new government's plans, it added. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing expressed hope that the outcomes of the forum will help support the shaping of Myanmar's "Dawn of a New State," adding that in the near future, together with the new government, Myanmar will reach a new horizon -- a new morning, a new state. The two-day forum continues until Saturday, the report added. Israels military operations in Lebanon have displaced over 800,000 people, destroyed homes, and disrupted communities as the UN appeals for $325 million in humanitarian aid to support affected civilians. Smoke rises after an Israeli strike, as people gather after an evacuation order in Beirut, March 12. REUTERS Israels military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon has escalated dramatically since early March 2026, turning vibrant border communities into ghost towns and claiming entire families in relentless airstrikes and ground raids. Over 800,000 people, many from southern Lebanon have been displaced with Lebanese health authorities reporting at least 687 deaths including 98 children and 52 women as of March 13. Strikes have hit central Beirut in double-tap attacks reportedly killing displaced civilians on beaches and destroyed key infrastructure like bridges, forcing mass evacuations. Towns like Nabi Chit have seen dozens reportedly killed in Israeli special forces raids even among non-combatants insisting they had no Hezbollah ties. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The scale evokes Lebanons 2024 conflict but with fiercer intensity as Hezbollahs coordinated barrages, its largest on record prompt Israel to expand a buffer zone beyond initial positions. Israeli officials view the clashes as a blessing to justify deeper pushes, aiming to prevent rearming south of the Litani River despite a fragile November 2024 ceasefire. Hezbollahs short-range rockets and drones target northern Israel daily but Israels response threatens nationwide infrastructure with Defence Minister Israel Katz warning of strikes on Lebanese assets used by terrorists. Entire villages stand empty, schools and homes reduced to rubble, amplifying a humanitarian nightmare in a nation still scarred by prior violence. The erasure of lineage and localities The hallmark of this intensification is the rising frequency of mass casualty events within residential structures. Various media reports suggest that the precision of modern warfare is offering little protection to Lebanese non-combatants. In several villages across the south, local authorities have reported the deaths of three generations of the same family grandparents, parents and children, trapped under the rubble of ancestral homes. This is not merely a crisis of casualties but one of total community dissolution. From Bint Jbeil to the outskirts of Tyre, towns that once served as the cultural heart of the Levant now stand empty. The silence in these streets is broken only by the sound of overhead drones and the distant thunder of artillery. For those who remain, the choice is between the risk of immediate death and the uncertainty of a life of displacement that may never allow for a return. Humanitarian catastrophe unfolds The UN has appealed for $325 million in emergency aid, warning of a widening crisis as displacement surges past 750,000-816,000 registered cases, per Lebanese authorities and IOM data. Families cram into Beiruts Corniche tents, abandoned buildings, and makeshift camps, with children denied education and normalcy. UNICEF highlights 200,000 child displacements, while strikes on refugee camps like Bedawi mark new lows. No education, no return home, displaced voices describe chaos from screen-time surges pre-war now irrelevant amid survival struggles. Lebanons government bans Hezbollah activities and deploys troops but US diplomats decry slow disarmament, fuelling Israels incursions into five positions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Aid groups like MedGlobal report alarming casualty rises with online registration platforms overwhelmed. French ceasefire bids by Macron fail, as Israel prioritizes finishing the 2024 job, uncoordinated with US focus on Iran. Hezbollah frames it as an existential battle, but analysts see its missile limits signalling potential last stand. Hezbollahs existential gamble and regional fallout For Hezbollah, the conflict has shifted from a support front for Gaza into an existential struggle for its own survival. Despite heavy losses to its leadership and infrastructure, the group continues to launch barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel which in turn triggers even more severe Israeli retaliatory strikes. Analysts suggest that this cycle of violence is pushing the region toward a point of no return. As Iran-backed militias across the West Asia watch the potential dismantling of their most powerful regional proxy, the pressure for a wider intervention grows. For the people of Lebanon, however, the geopolitical chess match is secondary to the immediate reality of survival. As the war intensifies, the primary concern is whether there will be anything left of Lebanons social fabric once the smoke eventually clears. With inputs from agencies Macron has condemned the attack as unacceptable, but reaffirmed Frances purely defensive stance in the conflict President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he had expressed gratitude to the Iraqi prime minister for taking measures to protect French forces, after a drone strike killed a French soldier in Iraqs Kurdistan region. Yesterday, I spoke with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Macron said on X, writing in French and Arabic. I thank him for his commitment to getting to the bottom of this attack and to strengthening measures to protect our forces, who are present in Iraq to fight, alongside the Iraqis, against the scourge of terrorism. Arnaud Frion, 42, was killed and six other French soldiers were wounded on Thursday evening in a drone attack in the Erbil region of Iraqi Kurdistan. He is the first French soldier to die since the start of the war in the Middle East. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD We will continue our coordination and our efforts to promote the countrys stability and sovereignty, as well as regional de-escalation, Macron said. Iraqs prime minister has vowed to prevent further attacks after Frions death. Macron has condemned the attack as unacceptable, but reaffirmed Frances purely defensive stance in the conflict. He refrained from attributing the attack, carried out by an Iranian-designed drone, to any specific group or country, or from mentioning a possible retaliation. Without directly claiming responsibility for the strike, a pro-Iranian armed group in Iraq said on Friday it would target French interests in the region. Soldiers from several countries, including Italy and France, are training members of the Kurdish security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan as part of the anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington. Hegseth said that his department is conducting a higher-level investigation led by an unnamed US general officer from outside of U.S. Central Command, who is overseeing the operations in Iran People and rescue forces work following a reported strike on a school in Minab, Iran, on February 28. More than 160 people were killed in the air strike on the first day of the conflict. Reuters The Pentagon has elevated its investigation into the bombardment of an Iranian school that killed 168 children, as the Trump administration faces heat from the global community over the attack. If the probe confirms American involvement in the attack on the girls school, it would rank among the worst incidents of civilian deaths in decades of US military strikes in West Asia. What has Hegseth said? US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the incident as serious but declined to comment on the preliminary finding of the investigation, saying: Were not going to let reporting lead us or force our hand into indicating what happened. However, Hegseth said that his department is conducting a higher-level investigation led by an unnamed US general officer from outside of U.S. Central Command, who is overseeing the operations in Iran. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident, Hegseth told a press conference at the Pentagon. What has Trump said? Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has said that he does not know enough about the school attack in Iran. He also suggested that the strikes could have been launched by somebody else. Its something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are used by others. As you know, numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us, he said. A video released by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated to the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, along with other evidence from the scene, suggests that the elementary school in Minab was struck during a series of US attacks targeting a nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) naval compound. Qatars Interior Minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad, said that the government already had a defence plan in place to thwart more Iranian attacks as the entire Gulf remains tense amid the US-Israel and Iran war Smoke rises after reported Iranian missile attacks, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, as seen from Doha, Qatar. Reuters Qatars Interior Minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad, has said that the security situation remains stable despite drone and missile attacks by Iran. Speaking to Qatar Television, Hamad said that the government already had a defence plan in place to thwart more Iranian attacks as the entire Gulf remains tense amid the US-Israel and Iran war. The security situation in the country is stable, and we will not hesitate to take any measure that ensures the stability of our nation, he said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How is Qatars situation stable? The interior minister said Qatars early warning system had proven effective, with authorities responding to reports of falling missile fragments at more than 600 locations across the country. He added that the country has sufficient water supplies to last several months, along with food reserves capable of meeting national needs for up to a year and a half. Qatar rejects mediation role Qatars Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, has said that Irans attacks on regional countries bring benefit for no one, adding that they are not Tehrans enemy. Speaking to Al Jazeera, al-Khulaifi said, Its unfortunate where we are standing right now. We also believe that there is no pathway to a sustainable and long-lasting solution other than returning to the negotiation table. The minister also asserted that Qatar continues to remain extremely worried about the wider implications of Irans attacks that have damaged major oil infrastructure in the country and its neighbours. The Qatari foreign minister noted that the attacks come after the country played a mediator role and tried to build bridges between Iran and the West. He said that neither Qatar nor Oman, which has also served as a mediator, will play the role until the attacks stop. Trump has time and again reiterated that Iran wants to strike a deal with the US, a claim rejected by Tehran officials, who have indicated that there is no scope for negotiation Giving loyalty to a dynamic leader can seem 'the surest route to regaining' personal power. File image/Reuters US President Donald Trump has said that Iran wants to negotiate a deal with him, but added that it is not the kind of deal I would accept. Trump has time and again reiterated that Iran wants to strike a deal with the US, a claim rejected by Tehran officials, who have indicated that there is no scope for negotiation. Iran suffered a crushing defeat and wants to strike a deal, but not the kind I would accept, the president said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump has told G7 leaders that Iran is about to surrender but failed to outline the wars goals or a timeline to end it, according to Axios. In a meeting of G7 leaders convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump on Wednesday said that Iran was about to surrender and boasted I got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all about killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, people briefed on the call told Axios. But Iran has not indicated it would surrender any time soon. A day after Trumps remarks to allies, Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, vowed to continue fighting and declared Iran would continue to block the Strait of Hormuz the closure has halted up to 20-25 per cent of the worlds seaborne oil and gas trade and sent prices soaring to their highest point in years. Irans Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has ruled out the possibility of a ceasefire with the US. Even if they [US and Israel] request a ceasefire, this has to be put forward when Iran is certain they will not attack again, and they have accepted responsibility for their actions. They cannot just come to us and say ceasefire, and we say OK, he said. His comments come after Trump said that the Iran war will be finished pretty quickly as the conflict has rallied global oil prices in its second week. Similarly, Irans Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country would keep fighting as long as necessary, casting doubt on Trumps insistence that the conflict would be over soon. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Donald Trump says US forces bombed targets on Irans Kharg Island and warned that oil infrastructure could be hit if shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is threatened. A motorcycle passes by fire burning along Tehran's Koohsar Boulevard, Iran, in this screengrab from video obtained from social media and released on March 8 amid the conflict. (Reuters) President Donald Trump said on Friday that US forces carried out heavy bombing on targets on Irans Kharg Island, a strategic hub that handles almost all of the countrys crude exports. He also warned that oil infrastructure on the island could be targeted if shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted. The United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Irans crown jewel, Kharg Island, Trump said on social media. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He added that the had not been struck but warned that this could change if maritime traffic in the region is threatened. I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider. Strategic importance of Kharg Island Kharg Island lies around 30 kilometres (19 miles) off the Iranian mainland and is responsible for roughly 90 per cent of Irans crude exports, according to a recent JP Morgan note. The territory is about one-third the size of Manhattan and has long been a central part of Irans energy infrastructure. The United States and Israel have previously approached the island cautiously, though reports have indicated that officials in the Trump administration have considered the possibility of capturing Kharg as West Asia conflict continues. Potential impact on global energy markets Analysts have warned that military action involving Kharg Island could have immediate and far-reaching consequences for global energy supplies. A direct strike would immediately halt the bulk of Irans crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure, JP Morgan said. Iranian strikes have already severely disrupted maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route through which roughly a fifth of the worlds crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes. The conflict has also affected oil infrastructure in several Gulf countries. US plans naval escorts for tankers Trump said on Friday that the US Navy would begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz very soon in an effort to restore oil shipments through the vital waterway. The move comes as the US administration faces rising fuel prices at home and seeks to stabilise energy flows through the region. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Kharg Island itself underwent major development during Irans oil expansion in the 1960s and 1970s, when much of the countrys coastline was considered too shallow for large supertankers. After the Supreme Court struck down key import taxes, the Trump administration is launching sweeping trade investigations and new tariff plans to recover an estimated $1.6 trillion in lost revenue. The Trump administration this week stepped up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Courts decision to strike down a range of the presidents import taxes. Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multi-trillion dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say. The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new duties, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that U.S. companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I wouldnt bet against this administration being able to get back on paper the same effective tariff rate they had before, said Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. But the new approach will make it easier for people to contest the tariffs, which is going to put a big asterisk on the revenue until all that is settled. On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration will investigate 16 economies including the European Union over whether their governments are subsidizing excessive factory capacity in a way that disadvantages U.S. manufacturing. The investigation will also cover China, South Korea, and Japan, Greer said. In addition, he said there would be a second investigation of dozens of countries to see if their failure to ban goods made by forced labor amounts to an unfair trade practice that harms the United States. That investigation will also cover the EU and China, as well as Mexico, Canada, Australia, and Brazil. Both investigations are being conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which requires the administration to consult with the targeted countries, as well as hold public hearings and allow affected U.S. industries to comment. A hearing as part of the factory capacity investigation will be held May 5, while a hearing on the forced labor investigation will occur April 28. Its a far cry from the emergency law that President Donald Trump relied on in his first year in office, which allowed him to immediately impose tariffs on any country, at nearly any level, simply by issuing an executive order. Moments after the Supreme Courts ruling, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under a separate legal authority, but that duty can only last for 150 days. The president has said he would raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed, but has yet to do so. Some two dozen states have already challenged the new tariffs. The administration is aiming to complete its Section 301 investigations before the 10% duties expire. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The effort underscores the importance that the Trump White House has placed on tariffs as a revenue-raiser at a time when the federal government is facing huge annual budget deficits for decades into the future. Previous administrations, by contrast, used tariffs more sparingly to narrowly protect specific industries. Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the first investigation covers roughly 70% of imports, while the second would cover nearly all of them. That breadth suggests the goal isnt to address the issues at hand, but instead to recreate a sweeping tariff tool, she said. Trump sees tariffs as a way to force foreign countries to essentially help pay the cost of U.S. government services, even though all recent economic studies find that American companies and consumers are paying the duties, including ones from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and economists at Harvard University. In his state of the union address last month, Trump even touted his tariffs as a potential replacement for the income tax, which would return the United States tax regime to the late 19th century. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump also wants tariffs to help pay for the tax cuts he extended in key legislation last year. The tax cut legislation is expected, according to the most recent estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to add $4.7 trillion to the national debt over a decade, while all Trumps duties, including ones not struck down by the court, were projected to offset about $3 trillion or two-thirds of that cost. The courts ruling Feb. 20 that he could no longer impose emergency tariffs eliminated about $1.6 trillion in expected revenue over the next decade, according to the CBO. Some of Trumps tariffs remain place, including previous duties on China and Canada that were imposed after earlier 301 investigations. The administration has also slapped tariffs on some specific products, including steel, lumber, and cars. Those, combined with the 10% tariff for part of this year, should yield about $668 billion over the next decade, the Tax Foundation estimates. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Its going to take a really big patchwork of these other investigations to make up for the (lost) tariffs, York said. The administrations efforts are also unusual because they reflect an overreliance on tariffs to bring in more government revenue. Trump has also said the duties are intended to return manufacturing to the United States, and he has used them to leverage trade deals. What makes this really different, said Kent Smetters, executive director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, it is really the first time tariffs have been mainly used as a revenue raiser. Patel, meanwhile, argues that raising revenue can be done more reliably and straightforwardly by Congress. Laws like Section 301 are traditionally intended to be used to address specific trade policy concerns in particular countries. Its not supposed to be there to raise revenue, she said. If we want to raise revenue through tariffs, then Congress should impose a broad based tariff. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Donald Trump calls on countries reliant on Gulf oil shipments to deploy naval vessels to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as rising tensions and attacks on commercial ships raise concerns over global energy supplies. US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged other nations to send ships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for global oil supplies disrupted by the Mideast war. Trump, who has said the United States will soon start escorting tankers through the strait, posted on Truth Social that Many countries, especially those who are affected by Irans attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The US president added: Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area. Calls for multinational effort to protect shipping Trump said countries that rely heavily on energy shipments moving through the Strait of Hormuz should contribute naval forces to ensure the safety of international shipping. The waterway located between Iran and Oman is considered one of the worlds most critical maritime chokepoints with roughly a fifth of global oil supplies passing through it. The appeal comes as attacks and threats targeting commercial vessels have intensified amid the ongoing conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran. Shipping companies and global energy markets have been on edge as concerns mount that disruptions in the strait could severely affect global fuel supplies. Trump suggested that protecting the passage should not be the responsibility of the United States alone, arguing that many countries benefiting from the flow of oil through the region should share the burden of maintaining maritime security. Rising tensions in the Gulf The call for a broader naval presence follows a series of incidents in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters, including attacks on oil tankers and cargo ships. Some vessels have been damaged in recent days, raising fears of further escalation and threatening the stability of global shipping routes. Military analysts warn that any prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz could have major economic consequences, potentially pushing up global energy prices and disrupting supply chains. Oil traders have already been closely monitoring the situation as the conflict continues to unfold. In response to the deteriorating security environment, the United States has been weighing additional measures to protect commercial shipping. Trump indicated that American naval forces could escort vessels transiting the strait, although he stressed that other nations should also deploy ships to contribute to the effort. Strategic importance of the strait The Strait of Hormuz links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, making it a crucial route for energy exports from major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Any attempt to block or disrupt the passage could have far-reaching implications for the global economy. Iran has repeatedly warned that it could restrict access to the strait if tensions escalate further, a move that analysts say would trigger an international response. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD As the conflict continues, governments and shipping companies are increasingly focused on ensuring the safe passage of vessels through the region. Trumps appeal for international participation reflects growing concern that safeguarding one of the worlds most important energy corridors will require coordinated action from multiple countries. With inputs from agencies Amid the escalating tensions in West Asia, the US Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a missile attack on Friday night. The US embassy headquarters in Iraq is pictured in Baghdads fortified Green Zone on March 8, 2026. AFP Amid the escalating tensions in West Asia, the US Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a missile attack on Friday night. According to The Associated Press, the missile struck a helipad at the embassy. Videos circulating online show smoke bellowing from the diplomatic mission. Meanwhile, AFP reported that the attack took place shortly after two fighters belonging to an Iran-backed militant group were killed in Baghdad. It is pertient to note that the American embassy is located in Baghdads heavily fortified green zone. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It is still unclear if anyone was injured in the incident. A security alert posted by the embassy hours before the attack warned that Iran and the terrorist militia groups allied with it pose a significant threat to public safety in Iraq. Attacks targeting US citizens, US interests, and critical infrastructure have been observed, the embassy warned. These groups have also attacked US companies and energy infrastructure operated by the United States, and they are likely to continue targeting them." In addition, Iran-aligned terrorist militias have launched attacks on hotels frequented by foreigners and other facilities linked to the United States throughout Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. U.S. citizens also face a risk of kidnapping, it furthered. The embassy went on to urge Americans to exercise vigilance, maintain a low profile, and avoid areas that could make them potential targets and guided US citizens wishing to leave Iraq. Last week, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabias capital city of Riyadh was damaged in a suspected Iranian drone strike. US-Israel-Iran War Live Updates: The West Asia war intensifies as US strikes Iranian targets on Kharg Island, blasts rock Tehran, casualties rise in Iran and Lebanon, and Gulf states issue evacuation warnings amid ongoing missile and drone attacks Smoke rises in the Fujairah oil industry zone, caused by debris after interception of a drone by air defenses, according to the Fujairah media office, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, March 14, 2026. REUTERS This live blog is now closed. Our fresh blog is continued here. As the war in West Asia continues with escalating hostilities, President Donald Trump said the US military had carried out heavy bombing on Irans Kharg Island, a key hub that handles almost all of the countrys crude exports, while warning that the islands oil infrastructure could be targeted if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted. Trump said US forces had carried out a major raid on the strategic island, describing the attack as one of the most powerful operations conducted in the region. "The United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump said on social media. He also warned that Washington could target the islands oil facilities if maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is threatened. "I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider." The wider conflict has continued to spread across the region. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the group is fighting what he described as an existential battle against Israel as the displacement crisis in Lebanon deepens amid ongoing strikes. In Iraq, the US military confirmed that six service members were killed after a refuelling jet crashed in the countrys west, adding that the incident was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire. Trump also warned that further military action could follow, saying the United States would launch hard attacks against Iran over the next week, indicating that the conflict is unlikely to end in the coming days. The Israeli military said it had carried out 150 attacks on Iran, while Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced strikes against Israel as well as US assets across the region. Live Updates