The World Health Organisation (WHO) has started research after the man died from animal illness – only detected for first time this summer

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched an investigation after the first-ever case of a brain disease was found in an EU country which is a favourite destination for UK tourists. Health officials in France raised the alarm following the first ever known case of Shamonda virus (SHAV) infection in a human.

The person concerned had not travelled outside the country in the preceding 12 months, the WHO said. WHO said: “The case was an immunocompromised older man from eastern France with no travel history during the preceding year. He developed severe neurological illness on 23 September 2026 and was diagnosed with severe encephalitis (brain inflammation). The patient died on 8 October 2026.”

It said there are ‘no previously documented human infections’ of the disease, which normally affects animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and horses. The WHO said: “As only one human case has been reported so far, information on the disease in humans remains limited. In this case, the patient was already seriously ill and experienced additional, brain-related symptoms that were considered to be linked to the Shamonda virus.”

Vector-borne transmission (via a bite from an infected midge) is thought to be the most likely source of infection. Officials are investigating the possibility of food-borne transmission, but said it’s unlikely.

WHO added: “As this is the first documented laboratory-confirmed human infection, WHO considers that the public health risk cannot yet be reliably assessed and recommends continued surveillance and investigation.”

The patient lived in rural eastern France, where animal SHAV transmission has been documented since July 2026, and had not travelled in the preceding year. The patient received multiple blood transfusions between February and October 2026 for his underlying illness.

SHAV was only found for the first time in Europe during the summer of 2026 with confirmed or suspected infections reported in cattle, horses and alpacas in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

As of October 21 2026, additional European countries and territories have reported SHAV detections in animals: Austria, Ireland, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

It adds: “This first documented human infection with SHAV in 2026 demonstrates that human infection is possible. However, a single case is insufficient to assess the risk to the general population, including immunocompetent individuals, or to determine the frequency, clinical spectrum or severity of human infection. The route of infection and possible sources of exposure are unknown, though vector-borne transmission is a plausible hypothesis.”

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Agadir, Morocco – Mustapha Harmouch moves slowly across the sand at Agadir’s Corniche, sweeping his metal detector in low, even arcs. He tunes out the surfers paddling beyond the shore, the children shrieking in the waves and the chatter of families, all his attention is on one sound: the beep that means the coil has passed over something buried beneath the sand.

For the 33-year-old content creator, that uncertainty is the whole appeal. The detector does not distinguish between treasure and rubbish, it gives the same signal whether the object below is a coin, a ring, a discarded piece of aluminium, or an old piece of fishing equipment.

“The excitement comes partly from not knowing what lies beneath the sand,” he told Al Jazeera English.

Harmouch bought a Tianxun TX 850 metal detector online about four years ago. What began as a hobby has since become an occasional part of the videos he posts on Stofishing, a YouTube travel and spearfishing channel with roughly 123,000 subscribers.

“It’s a nice hobby because it’s the kind of exploration where I find something and learn something new,” he said. “Each outing is a chance to encounter something I would otherwise never have known about.”

That curiosity has led him to old coins, including some associated with historical periods and places such as the Al Haouz region and Fez.

In the coastal town of Sidi Ouassay, about 65km south of Agadir, he says he found one of his rarest hauls: 14 Moroccan falus, old bronze or copper coins, in a single spot.

Some were too damaged by salt and the passage of time for their markings to be easily read, but Harmouch says the oldest dates to 1289 on the Hijri calendar.

For Harmouch, the coins’ value lies less in their price than in what they reveal about the past.

“I just collect them as a memory,” he said with a glint in his eye.

In the same area, he once found what he thought was a meteorite, only to learn it was a common, inexpensive mineral.

“Before asking, I thought I had found the best discovery,” he said, laughing at the memory.

That sense of possibility and adventure is what keeps him returning to the beaches around Agadir.

Harmouch goes detecting about four times a month, often with fellow members of the Moroccan Association for Research and Exploration Enthusiasts. He favours Taghazout and Agadir’s Corniche, where there is less rubbish for his detector to pick up.

The beaches have yielded jewellery, Moroccan coins and foreign currency, including a French 20-franc silver coin.

The possibility of finding something valuable is still part of the appeal. He once found a small gold ring in Taghazout.

“I always try to identify and return valuable lost items to their rightful owners,” Harmouch says.

Where the law draws the line

Morocco’s main legal framework for protecting historical monuments, archaeological sites, works of art and antiquities dates to Law 22-80, which regulates archaeological prospecting and the treatment of historical discoveries. The government has reiterated that unauthorised archaeological searches on land or at sea are prohibited.

Under the law, searches intended to uncover monuments or moveable objects of historic, archaeological, or anthropological importance require authorisation, while accidental discoveries are subject to reporting requirements.

If a non-archaeological activity uncovers monuments, coins, works of art, or antiquities, the discovery must be reported to authorities. The objects should not be damaged or moved, except where necessary to protect them.

Finding a modern coin lost by a holidaymaker is one thing; deliberately searching for archaeological material is another.

But on Morocco’s coastline, archaeologists say the context in which an object is found can be just as important as the object itself.

Underwater archaeologist Basma Oumaima explains why context matters: “Sometimes something as simple as a fragment of metal, a coin, or a small tool can become important because of where it was found and what was found around it”.

“That does not mean curiosity itself should be discouraged. Metal detectors themselves can actually be useful tools in archaeology when they are used as part of a proper archaeological survey, where every find is located, recorded and studied within its context”.

Harmouch says he respects the law. Members of the association carry identification, avoid private property and heritage sites and treat detecting as a hobby rather than a job. His source of income, he says, comes mainly from content creation and a fishing equipment store.

‘Every person has their luck’

For Mohamed Botaib, metal detecting has never been his main source of income. A former sports coach currently looking for work, he searches beaches, forests and mountains as a hobby.

His finds have been modest: ordinary coins, Moroccan dirhams and rings.

“Every person has their luck,” he said.

For Jalal Zegnoune, another detectorist, removing unwanted metal is one of the hobby’s practical sides. His detector has produced coins, jewellery, glasses and watches, along with less glamorous finds, including rusted sardine-can fragments, nails and lost fishing gear.

“I remove such objects from the beaches because some can be dangerous to beachgoers,” he said.

Zegnoune works full-time as a maintenance technician in Casablanca and goes metal detecting when he’s free or for limited hours in the evening.

“I also enjoy meeting other people who practise the hobby and sharing the objects they find.”

“When we look at the beach, it’s not to find treasure,” Botaib says. “It’s also our way of contributing to keeping our beaches clean. We collect pieces of metal and aluminium that we find and throw them away.”

USS Theodore Roosevelt moored at Changi Naval Base in Singapore last night just before midnight Eastern Time, her final stop before continuing on to the Middle East. The Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (CSG) will join the George H.W. Bush and George Washington CSGs, which are both now prepared, locked, and loaded should the commander in chief follow through on threats to renew military action against Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Roosevelt and the three escorting warships will transit the Strait of Malacca next before heading west toward the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR), a journey that will likely take one to two weeks.

Meanwhile, the U.S. quietly launched strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, according to a report first published by The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. officials cited by The Journal said the strikes were reactive and for defensive purposes, but the paper notes they were the latest in a “series of limited strikes Washington has secretly carried out against the country in recent weeks.” However, it’s possible that CENTCOM began shaping operations to prepare the battlefield if the go order is given. The U.S. military did not announce the strikes publicly, a noteworthy deviation from past operations that were typically disclosed, but U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox on Tuesday it was “just a minor attack” on a recently built “anti-aircraft facility.”

Here’s TWZ’s weekly carrier tracker monitoring and visualizing America’s flattop fleet, including deployed CSGs and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs), using publicly available open-source information. Check out last week’s report here.

How Fast Can The Theodore Roosevelt CSG Get To The Middle East?

The Theodore Roosevelt CSG completed combined exercise Keen Sword 27, which involved four other allied navies, on October 29. After being topped off by fleet replenishment oiler USNS Tippecanoe the following day, Roosevelt and her three escorts – guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin and guided-missile destroyers USS Paul Hamilton and USS Decatur – entered the South China Sea via the Luzon Strait and steamed southwest toward Singapore. A U.S. official told Axios that the group will spend a few days in Singapore but “won’t reach CENTCOM’s area of responsibility before mid-November.”

According to MarineTraffic, Roosevelt switched on her Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder about 100 nautical miles east of Malaysia at 11:25 Eastern Time on November 5, broadcasting a precise position publicly for the first time since departing Yokosuka on October 19. The flattop moored at Berth 3/4 at RSS Singapura–Changi Naval Base approximately 12 hours later, followed by the other three warships over the next few hours.

The next leg of Roosevelt’s transit to the CENTCOM AOR runs north through the narrow Strait of Malacca and west across the vast Indian Ocean. In August, USS George Washington completed the journey from the Strait to the Arabian Sea in just over one week. A few days in port and a roughly 10-day cruise support the reporting of a mid-to-late November arrival.

Elements of the Makin Island ARG, which is also reportedly bound for the Middle East, were still in Yokosuka, Japan, as of publication. The three-ship amphibious group, packed with more than 2,200 Marines, will likely replace the Boxer ARG, which is approaching eight months deployed and due for relief. The fleet of amphibious warships is stretched thin, with only 31 in the fleet, but Navy and Marine leaders believe at least 40 are required.

Which Carriers Are On Station If The U.S. Launches Post-Midterm Strikes Against Iran?

USS George Washington, with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 embarked, and USS George H.W. Bush, with CVW 7 aboard, are both operating in the Middle East. The composition of both CSGs is fluid as CENTCOM frequently rotates destroyers and cruisers assigned to strike groups with those on independent deployments. Imagery posted on DVIDS, the military’s content-sharing platform, shows Bush launching and recovering F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers on November 4, and Washington conducting a fueling-at-sea evolution alongside fleet replenishment oiler USNS Oscar V. Peterson on November 3.

Washington left Yokosuka, where she is forward-deployed, 167 days ago on what was expected to be a routine three-month patrol in the Western Pacific. However, the flattop was redirected to the Middle East to relieve the battle-worn USS Abraham Lincoln, leaving the roughly 5,000 Sailors aboard unprepared for an unexpected, and potentially extended, combat deployment. Bush, whose crew knew what their mission was upon departure, has been deployed for 220 days. Neither carrier has broadcast AIS since arriving in theater.

An author on the WSJ article referenced above, Shelby Holliday, embarked on Washington in mid-October and provided a firsthand account of life aboard the carrier in a series of must-watch videos on YouTube and Instagram. Sailors spoke candidly about the deployment, and some hinted at what could come next.

Holliday’s interview with the “Gun Boss,” Cmdr. Brian Garcia, showcased AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response) air-launched cruise missiles and GBU-31(V)4/B JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs equipped with BLU-109 bunker-buster penetrators. “We’re getting more of these weapons right here, and a couple other items that they feel we’re going to need for whatever the mission set sets forward in the future,” Garcia said. When asked what the magazine room looks like before an escalation, he responded, “This is it right here. This is the preparation that we’re ready for; we don’t need to ramp up because we’re already prepared.”

Where Is The Rest Of The American Aircraft Carrier Fleet?

• On the West Coast, USS Ronald Reagan returned to her homeport in Bremerton, Washington, on November 3 after departing San Diego the week before. Reagan was completing flight deck certification and carrier qualifications following a lengthy maintenance availability. USS Abraham Lincoln, which will conduct a homeport shift from San Diego to Bremerton by the end of the year ahead of a Drydock Planned Incremental Availability, remains moored at Naval Air Station North Island. Also pierside in San Diego, USS Carl Vinson has not been at sea since completing a 25 days of Tailored Ship’s Training Availability and Final Evaluation Period in September.
• On the East Coast, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower returned to Naval Station Norfolk yesterday after a one-day underway, according to AIS data. USS Nimitz has been operating at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean conducting Carrier Air Traffic Control Center certifications with CVW 1, as well as carrier qualifications, since October 27.
• Three carriers are currently offline in various states of maintenance: USS John C. Stennis, USS Gerald R. Ford, and USS Harry S. Truman. Stennis is at the tail end of a yearslong Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH), while Truman just began an RCOH. Ford began a post-deployment availability in July, and work is expected to be finished by March 2027.
• The future USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy’s second and newest Gerald R. Ford class supercarrier, returned to Norfolk on November 5 after 13 days at sea conducting Aircraft Compatibility Testing with Super Hornets and Growlers. In mid-October, an F-35C assigned to the Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 made the first arrested landing on and launch from a Ford class. Kennedy, still considered a Pre-Commissioning Unit, is expected to enter the fleet in spring 2027, around the same time Nimitz will begin the process of deactivation.

The Big Deck Fleet At A Glance

Overall, three U.S. carriers are deployed, three are working up in various states of readiness, three are in maintenance, one is post-deployment preparing for an upcoming availability, another is being used primarily for training before deactivation, and the next to be commissioned will be delivered to the fleet in 2027. Two amphibious assault ships are deployed, one is forward-deployed, two are getting ready for upcoming deployments and currently in port, and four are in maintenance.

Note: Positions are general approximations. Non-deployed LHA/LHD amphibious warships are not shown on the graphic.

Contact the author: ian@twz.com or @ianellisjones

Lately, Pamela Abdy has been feeling “pure, unadulterated rage.”

Abdy exited her role as co-chair and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. after the studio was acquired by Paramount Skydance in a controversial merger that closed last month.

The now-former studio executive received the inaugural Vanguard Award at the Women in Film Honors gala on Thursday evening. She thanked every single female director, producer and executive she has worked with throughout her career, including Greta Gerwig, Emerald Fennell, Zoë Kravitz, Margot Robbie, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, whom she feels ever-growing gratitude toward.

“But lately, other feelings, and one in particular, have risen to the surface with undeniable ferocity, and that feeling is pure, unadulterated rage,” she said onstage in the Beverly Hilton’s opulent ballroom. “Rage for these women, rage for me and even more rage for the entire generation of women who deserve to have their potential recognized and elevated.”

“Rage at how women are under attack everywhere,” she continued. “Rage at how our health and our well-being always seem to come second to how we show up in a room. And here’s the problem: As a leader who happens to be a woman, I am supposed to sublimate this rage. And you know what happens when they tell you to tamp down a fever? Sometimes it just burns hotter.” (All remarks onstage were interpreted into ASL by Keturah Holiday and Amber Berteloot.)

“When I researched the term vanguard, I came across a few meanings,” Pamela Abdy said at the 2026 Women in Film Honors gala, where she received the inaugural Vanguard Award. It can mean “a leader who brings new ideas, political movements or art.”

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

She has been called difficult, emotional and combative, Abdy said. She’s been told to put on her “big boy pants,” to smile more. She’s been told that movies starring women and directed by women don’t make as much money as those made by men, that their audience is limited. (Even after “Barbie,” which she oversaw alongside Mike De Luca, grossed more than $1.4 billion.)

“It is getting harder, not easier, to be a woman in the business,” Abdy said. “We tell ourselves because a few of us made it into these chairperson seats, we broke through, that we paved the way for the next generation. But I don’t think it’s true.”

When Gerwig made “Barbie,” people consistently referred to her as a “female director,” Abdy said — not a “director.” But when people talk about the highest-grossing male directors, they don’t call them “male directors.” We still have the “Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” lists. But the men don’t have a separate list; they are the list, she added.

“So I have to ask: What business are we leaving for future vanguards?” Abdy said. “Is it a healthy industry for the next generation of storytellers and executives to step into? One that allows women to enter with an open heart and mind, without having to fight the fights we’re still fighting?”

“These are the questions I think about when I focus on funneling my rage,” she continued. “Rage can be destructive, but I think of it as fuel, as something that can burn bright, something that can be harnessed to fight on for what we think is right, what we believe in and what we deserve.”

Jane Fonda, right, presented Salma Hayek Pinault with the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award at Thursday’s Women in Film Honors gala.

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

Abdy then paused to acknowledge how heartening it was to see so many women elected in the midterms on Tuesday. Earlier in the evening, WIF Chief Executive Kirsten Schaffer shouted out Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman elected governor of a state, in Georgia; Gina Hinojosa, the first Latina governor elected in Texas; and the six transgender and nonbinary candidates who made history.

Filmmaker Nancy Meyers, who presented Abdy with her honor, praised Abdy and De Luca’s historic tenure: “Barbie” is the highest-grossing film in Warner Bros. history. “Sinners” set an Oscar record with the most nominations ever by a single movie. And last year’s best picture winner, “One Battle After Another,” was “another feather in Pam’s very crowded hat.”

After Meyers’ introduction, a highlight reel played Abdy’s greatest hits, including video submissions from some of her friends in the industry: Gerwig, Robbie, Kidman, Bullock and Ryan Coogler, among others.

Bullock cheekily reminded Abdy that, when she accepts her award, “remember that when they gave it to you, you were initially employed at the place where you are no longer employed.” Then, when Bullock “realizes” that this is the WIF Honors gala, she backtracks. “Never mind, forget everything I just said. Say everything you want to say, toot your own horn. They love you.”

This seemed, for the most part, true about the hundreds of women in attendance. As soon as Abdy turned her speech toward rage, a faint “preach!” rang from somewhere in the ballroom. The 15-minute speech was met with a standing ovation.

At the Women in Film Honors gala, WIF Chief Executive Kirsten Schaffer asked: “Whose stories make it to the big screen? Whose vision of the future are we living in?”

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

“In the executive suites of Hollywood, in the past three months, we’ve lost 50% of our top women leaders, which has been a major blow, because it’s not like we had that many to begin with,” Schaffer said. “So what are we going to do about it? At WIF, we have a very simple answer: We keep going. We keep opening doors. We keep investing in each other. We keep hiring each other. We keep fostering the next generation of storytellers.”

Abdy wasn’t the only honoree Thursday evening. Jane Fonda presented Salma Hayek Pinault with the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic work, including with the Kering Foundation (established by her husband’s luxury group), which fights gender-based violence across the U.S., Mexico, France, Italy, Korea and the U.K. Hayek Pinault dedicated the award to Dolores Huerta, who died last week and attended the gala last year, and called Huerta “a womb for our community.”

Sharon Stone presented Hannah Waddingham with the Crystal Award for Advocacy in TV, and Maria Giulia Prezioso Maramotti (granddaughter of the founder of Italian clothing brand Max Mara, which sponsored the event) presented actor Adria Arjona with the WIF Max Mara Face of the Future Award. Emmy Rossum gave writer, director and producer Beth de Araújo and actor Gemma Chan (in absentia) the Crystal Award for Advocacy in Film for their upcoming movie “Josephine,” about a young girl who has witnessed a sexual assault.

Beth de Araújo — who wrote, directed and produced the upcoming movie “Josephine” — received the Crystal Award for Advocacy in Film (along with star Gemma Chan, in absentia) at the gala.

(Unique Nicole / Getty Images)

“In our film ‘Josephine,’ we attempt to transport you back to your youth, to a time before you understood the concept of sexual assault,” De Araújo said. “What happened to you once you became aware of it? How did this start to inform the way you moved your body through the world, the way you thought about your own safety?”

“For me, I certainly became very, very scared, and I hid. I locked myself inside so that there were barriers between myself and danger,” she continued, tearing up. “But I’m very tired of being scared. It is time for those who are committed to violence to be scared of us.”

El Cerrito High School in the Bay Area has canceled the remainder of its football season following a month-long police investigation into allegations of hazing and sexual assault involving at least 22 athletes over the last three seasons.

The probe stems from “a mandated reporter” on Oct. 2 telling police that members of the football team were engaging in bullying and hazing, the El Cerrito Police Department said in a statement. A mandated reporter in California is someone who has responsibility for children through their employment or volunteer status and is legally required to report suspected child abuse.

The alleged victims were other members of the football team. Detectives interviewed them along with school staff and witnesses. The West Contra Costa Unified School District, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the alleged incidents were said to have occurred between September 2024 and October 2026.

The police said they are investigating allegations of battery, sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, dissuading a victim, conspiracy and stalking.

Detectives have obtained video evidence that corroborated the allegations, although police officials said they would not release details because of “the sensitive nature of an ongoing investigation that involves juvenile victims, witnesses and suspects.”

El Cerrito head coach Tim Johnson was placed on leave, and the team’s regular-season finale Friday against El Sobrante De Anza High was canceled. El Cerrito has a 6-3 record but will not participate in the upcoming playoffs to defend their title won last year.

The school district said it is conducting its own investigation under Title IX.

“No child should ever experience what our students have described,” District Supt. Cheryl Cotton said. “While we have worked to focus on accountability for the actions of individual players up until this point, new information has led to new decisions.

“We must now make the very tough call to immediately suspend the El Cerrito High football program in order to prevent any further harm and restore a safe learning environment for our students.”

Cotton said the district is “providing resources for all impacted and involved students” through classroom instruction on anti-hazing and bystander education.

The El Cerrito football program is two years removed from a controversy that allegedly coincided with the beginning of the hazing. Six games were forfeited by the Gauchos in 2024 and their coach at the time, Jacob Rincon, was suspended for breaking rules prohibiting undue influence and athletically motivated transfers. Several players were deemed ineligible, and the program was placed on probation for two years.

Some parents and advocates of the program were outraged by the school’s action, calling on Rincon to be reinstated and then-principal Malcolm Norrington to be fired. More than 100 students engaged in a walkout, waving homemade posters and chanting “Free Coach Jake,” and “No More Norrington,” according to digital news site Richmond Confidential.

Parents gathered more than 2,000 signatures in a petition to fire Norrington, who left the district in 2025. Rincon was dismissed and replaced last season by Johnson, who led the team to a 13-2 record and the school’s first State Division 4-A championship.

According to the police, however, the hazing and sexual assaults continued in 2025 and into 2026.

Similar allegations have marred prominent high school football programs in Southern California in recent years.

A lawsuit in 2024 details a sexual assault against a sophomore football player at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita that triggered a police investigation and left the boy with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigated after the boy went to a hospital emergency room and alleged he had been sexually assaulted.

Santa Margarita principal Cheri Wood admitted in emails obtained by the Orange County Register that “at least 8” other players were allegedly assaulted by their teammates in a similar manner. The lawsuit was dismissed after a confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The coach at the time was replaced by former NFL quarterback Carson Palmer, and Santa Margarita won a state title in 2025 and currently sits atop The Times’ high school football rankings.

A Rancho Cucamonga Los Osos High football player placed in a chokehold and whipped with a belt by two older players in a locker room in 2023 was initially described by Chaffey Joint Union High School District officials as “horseplay.” However, a video of the victim begging and screaming was circulated widely online and the district reversed its position, reclassified the event as prohibited hazing and issued undisclosed student disciplinary measures.

A 2021 lawsuit shined a light on players at Santa Ana Mater Dei High — one of the most celebrated football programs in the nation — being severely beaten by other players in a brutal hazing ritual called “bodies.” The family of a victim who suffered a traumatic brain injury and a broken nose filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident.

“You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe,” the victim’s mother told The Times. “I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. … It’s like, you failed my child.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog must decide who gets the first attempt at forming a government, after an inconclusive election left both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival, former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, short of a parliamentary majority.

Herzog has said he will task a candidate with forming a government on Sunday. Eisenkot has received the endorsement of a majority of lawmakers – but only thanks to parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, which won a record 19 seats in October’s election, but whom Eisenkot has ruled out bringing into government.

Here is what we know:

Who is Herzog likely to ask to form a government?

During consultations between party heads and Herzog, which ended on Thursday, 67 out of 120 Knesset members endorsed Eisenkot, while only 46 endorsed Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s endorsements fell seven short of his bloc’s 53 seats after United Torah Judaism, one of his longtime allies, withheld endorsements over his coalition’s failure to exempt ultra-Orthodox Israelis from military service.

Herzog has not publicly committed to either side, saying that while the numbers may look clear, “mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves” made it hard to tell who could build a coalition.

Prior to the October 27 elections, reports emerged that the president wanted to push for a national unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot’s rival parties to avoid another election.

How difficult will it be to form a government?

No bloc has secured the 61 seats needed to form a majority government. Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious alliance has 53, four Jewish-led parties backing Eisenkot hold 48, and the Arab-led parties hold 19.

Eisenkot has ruled out forming a government with the Arab-led parties, which would give him a 67-seat bloc. Winning over the two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, would give him exactly 61 seats.

United Torah Judaism has signalled that its support was available for the right price, but Shas endorsed Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, would need to lure an opposition party to his side. A unity government with the two men rotating as prime minister – and excluding Arab-led parties from government – is another option, but many Netanyahu rivals have ruled out serving under him.

Will Arab-led parties be part of the next government?

So far, it seems unlikely that they will.

The Arab-led parties are the Joint List, an alliance of three parties, and the United Arab List (Ra’am). They hold 11 and eight seats, respectively.

Ra’am says it is willing to join an Eisenkot-led government, while the Joint List has ruled out joining but offered to help put him in office from the outside.

Both endorsed Eisenkot during consultations with President Herzog, but he has refused to bring either into government unless they meet certain conditions, including recognising Hamas as a “terrorist organisation”.

Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas, whose party joined an anti-Netanyahu coalition in 2021 and became the first party representing Palestinians to enter government in Israel, has expressed support for disarming Hamas, but declined to label it as a “terror” group.

However, Israeli law allows Eisenkot to become prime minister with fewer than 61 seats if his proposed government wins a parliamentary confidence vote – which the two could help him secure.

Eisenkot could form a minority government in the meantime and later secure a majority by luring the two ultra-Orthodox parties by making concessions on the conscription issue.

In positions that many observers see as highlighting the second-class nature of Palestinian citizens in Israel, some of Eisenkot’s allies have opposed any reliance on Palestinian lawmakers, while Netanyahu’s Likud has threatened that cooperating with the Arab-led parties would be “dangerous to Israel”.

Senior Joint List member Ahmad Tibi told The Associated Press that rejecting a partnership would prove Israel is “an ethnocracy, not an absolute democracy for all citizens”.

What do Palestinian-led parties want from the next government?

First, an end to Netanyahu’s rule.

The Joint List said its unanimous backing for Eisenkot answered a “public demand” to stop Netanyahu and his government returning to power.

By widening Eisenkot’s lead, it said, it hoped to narrow the path to a unity government that keeps Netanyahu in office. Its support, it added, did not mean dropping its reservations about an opposition that had not shown readiness to confront Netanyahu’s approach or incitement against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

In return for outside support, Arab-led parties are seeking guarantees for Palestinian citizens, including an end to house demolitions and incitement, action against crime, and a political horizon for Palestinians.

Tibi told The AP he had no illusions that this would end Israel’s wars or bring a Palestinian state, but said a “repair government” would improve Palestinian citizens’ lives, including, potentially, by tackling violent crime in their communities.

Ra’am leader Abbas has also said ending the government of Netanyahu, and far-right figures such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a priority.

What happens if no government can be formed?

The nominee chosen by Herzog will have 28 days to form a coalition, extendable by 14 more. If they fail, another nominee will be chosen and granted 28 days.

If the second nominee fails, a parliament majority can back a third candidate, and be granted a final 14 days.

If once again no government is formed, the Knesset will be dissolved and an entirely new election called within 90 days. This would mean Netanyahu staying on as caretaker prime minister.

Nehru Jamhour, an analyst of Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that this drawn-out impasse was the likeliest outcome, and Netanyahu’s preferred one. He said that Netanyahu was hoping that a repeat election could weaken his rivals and depress turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

The control room of the Project Mercury Mission Control Center, at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Brevard County, Florida, 1961. (Photo by NASA/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

They binged a whole series ‘in a day’

Fans might have said farewell to Cillian Murphy in his iconic Peaky Blinders role — and it could be a long wait until the sequel drops.

Whilst Cillian Murphy wrapped up Tommy’s story in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, a new gangster drama will pick up where the movie left off. Last summer, Netflix confirmed a spinoff is on the way.

Set in the 1950s, the sequel will focus on the next generation of Peaky Blinders: Tommy Shelby’s sons Duke (Jamie Bell) and Charles (Charlie Heaton of Stranger Things). A release date hasn’t been confirmed, but Netflix has greenlit the show for 12 episodes split over two series.

“Once again it will be rooted in Birmingham and will tell the story of a city rising from the ashes of the Birmingham blitz,” said show creator Steven Knight. “The new generation of Shelbys have taken the wheel, and it will be a hell of a ride.”

Until then, a few shows come well recommended by Peaky Blinders fans.

House of Guinness

From the same creator of Peaky Blinders is another family saga: House of Guinness. The drama begins in Dublin in 1868 with the death of the Guinness family patriarch. His four children — “each with dark secrets to hide” — hold the fate of the family brewery empire in their hands. All eight episodes of the first series are free to binge on Netflix now.

Naturally, viewers have drawn comparisons to Peaky Blinders. One said: “It was a little slow to get into, but once you understand the characters it’s a solid 7/10 (if Peaky Blinders is 10/10).”

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Another wrote: “The whole vibe of the scenery is certainly familiar, especially the slowed down walks through the factories. This show (HoG) is less violent, had more of an ensemble cast balanced storyline than a single mastermind.”

A third said: “I binged the entire first season in a day and, while enjoyable and I’m looking forward to another season, it’s def no Peaky Blinders. But I guess that’s a ‘good’ thing? Because Wright can never top his Birmingham-based opus.”

House of Guinness is streaming on Netflix.

Boardwalk Empire

Boardwalk Empire, a gritty Prohibition-era show from HBO, is a highly rated show set in an overlapping time period.

The story kicks off on the day alcohol is outlawed in 1920. Over in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Steve Buscemi stars as “Nucky” Thompson, a corrupt senior politician and the biggest bootlegger in the city. Expect to see some historic figures like Al Capone along the way.

It’s got star power. From the late great Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Lovecraft Country) and Stephen Graham, to the director of the first episode — Martin Scorsese — there is a lot to like.

To some fans, it’s the better show of the two. One fan explained: “Peaky Blinders has some great scenes – and Cillian Murphy is a captivating leading man. And this might sound like blasphemy on a Peaky Blinders subreddit, but I think Boardwalk Empire is easily the better show overall.

“B. Empire also had a lot of exceptional actors (e.g., Buscemi, Michael Shannon, Jeffrey Wright, Stephen Graham etc.) and really satisfying story arcs in most seasons. Excellent cinematography and music, too.”

Boardwalk Empire requires an HBO Max subscription, now available in the UK.

MobLand

This British drama, currently in its second series, is about a crime family headed by their patriarch Conrad Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan). Peaky Blinders alum Tom Hardy plays Harry Da Souza, a street-smart fixer who cleans up the family’s messes.

The first series follows a bloody gang war between the Harrigans and a rival family — the Stevensons. As tensions rise, Harry must do what he can to prevent an all-out war and shield the Harrigans from police scrutiny.

“If you like Peaky Blinders, I think you should try MobLand,” wrote a fan of both shows.

“It’s set in modern day but other than that the tone, the intrigue, the scheming, the brutality, all of them remind me very much of what I love about Peaky Blinders.

“Plus it’s got Alfie in it (Tom Hardy technically) which is always a very good bonus. And without spoiling any plot points there is a very Polly-like character played by Helen Mirren. Anyway give it a try and see what you think!”

MobLand can be streamed on Paramount+ via Prime Video.

Barri Worth Girvan, a veteran government employee who ran on a platform of leveraging her experience to advocate for residents, declared victory in the race for Los Angeles City Council’s Third District seat late Friday.

Worth Girvan’s announcement came after the latest vote tally Friday evening showed her widening her lead over rival Tim Gaspar, with 51% of the vote to Gaspar’s 49%.

“I will bring competence, transparency, follow-through, and ethical leadership to City Hall, which Angelenos deserve and too often do not get,” she said in a statement, which also thanked Gaspar for stepping up to run as well.

“I know how City Hall works, and I know how to make it work for you,” Worth Girvan said. “I am ready to hit the ground running on Day One, delivering the services our neighborhoods deserve, and leading with the integrity you have every right to expect.

Earlier Friday, Gaspar’s campaign said he wasn’t yet ready to concede. The campaign couldn’t immediately be reached for comment following Worth Girvan’s announcement.

The current Third District councilmember, Bob Blumenfield, is leaving office because of term limits. The 3rd District seat includes Woodland Hills, Reseda and Canoga Park.

Worth Girvan and Gaspar were virtually tied on election night Tuesday, but on Thursday Worth Girvan began pulling ahead as more mail-in ballots were counted.

Before entering the race, Worth Girvan was L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years, handling constituent services on the Westside and in the Valley.

A former insurance company owner, Gaspar is running on a pro-business platform and has been endorsed by the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a union representing LAPD officers. He’s also been endorsed by Blumenfield, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, real estate developer Rick Caruso and former Democratic state Assemblymember Bob Hertzberg, Worth Girvan’s former boss.

Worth Girvan was endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party and labor unions including the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Service Employees International Union. She’s also been endorsed by Horvath and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In the race for District 9, both Jose Ugarte and Estuardo Mazariegos remain locked in a tight contest. Councilmember Curren Price is also termed out.

District 9 encompasses South L.A. neighborhoods, the Convention Center and USC. But no matter who wins, District 9 will undergo a shift in representation after decades of being represented by a Black council member.

Price is currently facing charges of embezzlement and conflict of interest and he has denied wrongdoing. Price has endorsed Ugarte, his former deputy chief of staff, whose platform includes protecting city residents from federal immigration enforcement and the Trump administration.

Mazariegos is backed by the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. He’s worked as a community organizer for decades and said he’s running to improve quality of life in the city, including by making housing more affordable and spending money on basic services other than policing.

Ugarte’s campaign received outside support from special interest groups including Airbnb, Uber, the California Apartment Assn. and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which represents workers at the Department of Water and Power.

Mazariegos was supported by groups including United Teachers Los Angeles and the Progressive Era PAC. Special interest groups have spent more than $250,000 supporting his campaign.

CALGARY, Canada — Cutter Gauthier broke a tie with 1:34 left to extend his goal streak to five games and help the Ducks beat the Calgary Flames 5-3 on Friday night for their fourth straight victory.

The Ducks are the first team since the 1991-92 Pittsburgh Penguins to score at least five goals in seven consecutive games.

Gauthier one-timed a pass from Mikael Granlund. He has scored 10 of his 12 goals this season during the five-game streak.

Jeff Malott, Tristan Luneau, Leo Carlsson and Nikita Nesterenko, into an empty net, also scored for the Ducks (9-7-1). Granlund and Beckett Sennecke each had two assists.

William Stromgren, Joel Hanley and Joel Farabee scored for Calgary. Morgan Frost and Zayne Parekh each had a pair of assists as the Flames’ five-game home winning streak ended.

Lukas Dostal started for the Ducks, but was chased after giving up three goals on 11 shots in the first period. Ville Husso, who gave up seven goals in his last appearance, came on in relief and stopped all 10 shots he faced. He improved to 2-3-0.

Dustin Wolf, making his third straight start, had 24 stops for Calgary (7-9-1).

The Flames took a 3-2 lead to the third period, but when Matt Coronato was sent off for delay of game 17 seconds in, the Ducks’ red-hot power play took advantage with Carlsson tying it at 55 seconds.

The Ducks’ Jackson LaCombe had an assist to extend his points streak to nine games, the longest in franchise history for a defenseman. He passed Scott Niedermayer (2006-07) and Oleg Tverdovsky (1999-00) on the team list.

Up next for the Ducks: vs. Pittsburgh at Honda Center on Sunday.

Early in “Queen at Sea,” there’s a sex scene. It’s brief and shows little, but the fleeting moment will inform everything that happens in writer-director Lance Hammer’s crushing second feature. This movie about consent and dementia — and ultimately, far much more — hinges on a questionable act that provokes a hasty emotional reaction. In the process, a family tries to come to the aid of its ailing matriarch, presented with only a series of unappealing options, each more unbearable than the next.

Juliette Binoche is beautifully fragile as Amanda, the dutiful daughter of Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall), who herself has been married to second husband Martin (Tom Courtenay) for 18 years. Amanda and her teenage daughter Sarah (Florence Hunt) visit the older couple’s London home one morning, shocked to open their bedroom door to find Martin on top of Leslie, thrusting away. But embarrassment quickly gives way to anger for Amanda: Leslie has advanced dementia and her doctor has told Martin that he can no longer have sex with Leslie because she doesn’t possess the mental acuteness to give consent. Furious at her stepfather, Amanda phones the police, hoping the authorities can put a scare into him.

But Amanda’s call has unintended consequences. When the police arrive, they arrest Martin, advising Amanda that she take her mother for a “forensic medical examination” — or, as Amanda puts it bluntly, a rape exam — to ensure she has not been injured. Amanda’s rage quickly morphs into panic because she knows how dependent the childlike Leslie is on her husband, who functions as her primary caregiver. She just wanted to teach Martin a lesson, but soon, social services intervene to determine whether the elderly couple has to be separated for Leslie’s safety.

Even before the police becomes involved, Hammer hints at his film’s tense tenor. You can feel it in how he shoots the house’s severely winding stairs — dangerous for Leslie and Martin to navigate — from occasionally vertiginous angles. The camera rarely moves as we spy charged conversations from a distance, sometimes from another room or from a floor above the characters. We’re intruders, stealing glimpses of a private domestic drama not meant for our prying eyes.

Unlike previous terrific pictures about dementia (such as “The Father”), “Queen at Sea” is less about the crippling condition than it is the fulcrum for a troubling exploration of several topics: mortality, love, parenting and the grim futility of everything. Similarly, although Hammer takes seriously the question of consent, he widens his narrative’s lens to provide a thoughtful, complex view of the issue. Martin adores his wife, insisting that their doctor is wrong and that Leslie, in fact, does understand her sexual urges. To back up his argument, he informs Amanda that, frequently, it is her mother who initiates sex. But is that because dementia has robbed Leslie of the ability to modulate her urges? “Queen at Sea” offers no answers, leaving the viewer as uncertain as Amanda, who wants to protect her mother but cannot deny how drawn Leslie is to her kindly husband.

At the film’s heart is a terribly relatable family conflict in which each character assumes that they know best. Binoche plays Amanda with a surfeit of tenderness for her mother, who goes from being lucid to infantile without warning. (Calder-Marshall poignantly channels the silent helplessness that consumes those with dementia, making her an unstable chemical compound always on the verge of explosion.)

Just as fiercely loyal as Amanda, Martin vainly advocates for his beloved, knowing that Amanda has power of attorney and, therefore, the upper hand. Courtenay gives a marvelous performance suffused with simmering rage: To Martin’s way of thinking, it was Amanda’s foolish overreaction to seeing them have sex that led to all these problems. That feeling of betrayal resides on his face for the rest of “Queen at Sea,” even as he and his stepdaughter negotiate a wobbly truce concerning Leslie’s future, which includes an unexpectedly fraught trip to a care home.

Hammer has not made a film since 2008’s “Ballast,” another spare drama about brittle lives. Eighteen years later, his formal command remains formidable. Eventually, Hammer starts cutting away from the central narrative to focus on Sarah as she hangs out with friends and spends time with a cute boy, James (Cody Molko). At first, these carefree interludes seem to be a welcome respite from “Queen at Sea’s” choking anxiety. But as Leslie’s situation grows increasingly complicated, Sarah’s emerging love story proves to be a bittersweet, ironic counterpoint. Maybe Sarah will find love and great sex — like her parents and grandparents before her — but the shadow of despair that has descended on her family will someday come for her. She’s still too young to know how impossible aging can be.

While running for California governor in 2018, Gavin Newsom declared that he would rather be bold and fail than retreat to the safety of mediocrity.

The two-term governor known for taking big political risks once again made good on that vow Thursday when he moved to offer clemency to every inmate sentenced to death in California.

Amid a hum of speculation about how the mass commutation could help or hurt his presidential prospects in 2028, the Democratic politician sent a clear, defining message to Americans about where he stands and the type of leader they could expect.

“If my job is just to read the polls, you can have an AI chatbot as governor,” Newsom said in an interview Friday. “I was hired for my judgment, and like it or hate it, that was why I think I was given this privilege, and that’s the responsibility of a leader. My job’s leadership, not stewardship. It’s not management. It’s to lead.

“I’m here to change polls, change minds.”

The sweeping decision comes more than 20 years after Newsom emerged in the national consciousness when, as mayor of San Francisco, he defied federal law and allowed same-sex marriages in the City by the Bay.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at the “Stop the Power Grab rally” at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2026.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Bold moves that test the limits of his power, such as a controversial, first-in-the-nation stay-at-home order during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and spearheading Proposition 50 last year to redraw California’s congressional districts to offset Republican attempts to gerrymander red states, have defined his leadership, for good or bad.

The Democratic governor said those kinds of decisions are “sort of embedded in my DNA.” About a decade ago he said he was pushed to describe his core motivation. Though he admits it sounds trite, the governor said: “It’s to stand up for ideals and strike out against injustice.”

The death penalty, he said, is not handed out equally. He quoted Bryan Stevenson, the founder of Equal Justice Initiative, who said you’re better off being rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

“I couldn’t not have done this,” Newsom said. “There was an easy out, but … I would the rest of my life felt, you know, ashamed of myself.”

Commuting the death sentences of all 548 state prisoners awaiting execution pushes the bounds of his authority once again. California voters have twice rejected ballot measures to abolish the death penalty, first in 2012 and again in 2016, and Newsom’s decision overrides the will of the courts and state laws that permit capital punishment.

Under the state Constitution, Newsom has the power to commute about 40% of the death sentences on his own. The rest of the cases, which involve prisoners who had a felony conviction on their record prior to receiving a death sentence, or racked up additional crimes while awaiting execution, require approval from the California Supreme Court — a constitutional check to ensure the governor’s actions are not an abuse of power.

The court rejected 10 commutations handed out by Gov. Jerry Brown in his last full month in office — all of which involved people convicted of multiple felonies — and did not provide an explanation for the action.

Despite Newsom’s push to commute all death sentences, capital punishment remains legal in California and prosecutors can continue seeking that punishment.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman speaks during a news conference at the Hall of Justice last month.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said until the law is changed, his office “will continue to evaluate every death penalty-eligible case with the rigor, care and restraint these decisions demand.”

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper urged Newsom to reconsider the commutations.

He said he remembers watching Luis Bracamontes, who was sentenced to death for killing Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Davis Jr. in 2014, “laugh in court while their families, including Danny’s two young daughters, had to sit and watch.

“Deputy Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis Jr. should be alive today, enjoying long and healthy lives with their families,” Cooper said in a statement. “Instead, the man who murdered them has now escaped his sentence.”

Others accused the governor of reducing the death penalty sentences to seek an advantage in the 2028 presidential election.

“The people of California deserve leaders who put politics and personal ambition aside and pursue truth, accountability, and justice with courage, integrity, and transparency,” said Michael Hestrin, Riverside County district attorney, in a statement. “Instead they have been presented with a decision that demonstrates a profound disregard for the victims, their families, and the prosecutors who dedicated themselves to seeking justice on their behalf.”

Luis Bracamontes looks up in Sacramento Superior Court in 2018 as the verdict is read in the killing of two law enforcement officers. Bracamontes was found guilty.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

A poll conducted in August by the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of voters nationally favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder.

Political analysts suggest that reducing the sentences adds to Newsom’s credentials as a progressive leader and aligns him with Democratic primary voters on the issue if he runs for president. Republicans, however, could take advantage of Newsom’s action and cast him as a soft-on-crime liberal who is out of touch with most Americans, which risks turning away moderate voters.

But others cautioned that national political elections are hard to predict.

Gar Culbert, chair of the political science department at Cal State Los Angeles, said it would be politically advantageous for Newsom to try to appeal to the Democratic Party’s base as he considers a run for president. Culbert said he doesn’t believe the death penalty will be a substantial issue in a general election when, if Newsom becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, his Republican challenger would attack his record as California governor regardless.

“It’s possible he’s not being strategic,” Culbert said. “Maybe he doesn’t have to be strategic because he just might think it’s the right thing to do.”

The governor first issued a moratorium on executions about two months after he took office in 2019, saying capital punishment is discriminatory and unjust. Without the moratorium, 45 people would be subject to execution now, according to his office.

Daniel Zingale worked for Newsom as a senior advisor in the governor’s office at the start of his first term. Part of Zingale’s job at the time was to consider how the governor’s actions would be received by the public.

“The only piece of data he was not interested in in that process were the polls,” Zingale said. “His view, and I agree with this, is this is not an issue that you can leverage politically.”

Newsom’s decision to commute the sentences won’t have much practical effect in a state that has not executed a prisoner since 2006. At Newsom’s command, the death chamber was dismantled at San Quentin State Prison, now San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, after he issued his moratorium.

His successor, Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, has also said he will continue the pause on executions.

There was no immediate need to offer commutations to save the lives of the inmates.

Taking no action would have been the safe bet, Newsom said in an interview about his decision a day after he made the announcement. Many people around him, he said, advised him to do nothing.

He also understands that commuting the sentences could make him vulnerable if he runs for president.

“I’m not an idiot. The ads write themselves,” Newsom said. “But I just also would be fake. I wouldn’t be myself and if I’m going to be up there and not be myself, I couldn’t do that.”

With the clock ticking on his time in office, the governor said he also doesn’t want to leave with regrets.

“I don’t want to be one of the elders on some panel talking about what I would have, could have, should have done,” Newsom said. “I’ve spent my life trying not to be that person. I’ve been willing to take risks. I’ve been willing to go first on so many issues.

“If others aren’t willing to do it, you know what? I’ll raise my hand, and I’m happy, honestly, to take the hits.”

Talk about strange beginnings at Friday’s City Section Division I football playoff opener between Sun Valley Poly and host Marshall.

After the opening kickoff went into the end zone for a touchback, Poly coach Boo Williams immediately called a timeout when he saw his double-wing offense lining up with 12 players. After a discussion, the next play was an illegal procedure penalty on the Parrots.

Looking confused, the Parrots deserved an Academy Award for their acting skills, because on their third play, quarterback King Exusdus took the snap from shotgun formation and sprinted 82 yards for a touchdown.

Marshall, seeded No. 5 after its first 10-0 regular season in school history, never figured out how to slow down the Parrots’ run-oriented attack and couldn’t overcome a sore shoulder that limited quarterback Nathaniel Cadet’s ability to pass in a 20-0 loss to 12th-seeded Poly (10-1).

“Who says Poly can’t win a Division I playoff game?” Williams said.

With each short pass in pregame warmups, Cadet grabbed his right shoulder as if he were in pain — and he was. On Saturday, he couldn’t move his arm because of a contusion and sprain to his AC shoulder joint suffered in the regular-season finale last week against Eagle Rock.

All week, Cadet alternated between applying ice and heat to his shoulder. He looked at Instagram and found a shoulder sleeve designed to provide support. He took four Advil tablets. The Barristers badly needed him. He came in with 1,570 yards passing and 24 touchdowns, but on his second pass of the game, he came to the sideline in severe pain revealing the challenge he was facing. He ended up passing for just 55 yards and was intercepted twice.

For Poly — the East Valley League champions under Williams in his first year as coach — the turnaround from a football program with little history of success to competing in City Division I has been meteoric. After problems at the start of the game and a few illegal procedure penalties, the Parrots ran the double wing to perfection, with 290-pound lineman Diego Rodriguez clearing a path like he was knocking down pins with a bowling ball.

Exusdus, usually a receiver, finished with 174 yards rushing in 13 carries. Justice Brown rushed for 86 yards and caught Poly’s only pass, a 26-yard touchdown on fourth down from quarterback Alijah Ochoa.

“One pass, one touchdown, baby,” former Sylmar All-City quarterback Clarence Williams said. He’s the quarterback coach at Poly.

On defense, linebacker Stephon Boyd was all over the field making tackles. Exusdus and Boyd used to attend Birmingham before arriving at Poly this season.

Exusdus is grateful just to be out on the field. He missed all last season attending a continuation school as he tried to improve a grade-point average that he said was once below 1.0. Playing football in his senior year made him start showing up on time to practices and making progress in the classroom.

King Exusdus of Sun Valley Poly takes off on an 82-yard touchdown run.

(Craig Weston / For The Times)

“I had to get everything right,” he said. “It motivated me. Seeing friends go Division I fueled me.”

It was a difficult ending for a Marshall team that won the Northern League title and had not won a Division I playoff game since 2000. Poly moves on to the quarterfinals and will face either Chatsworth or Banning.

In September, a poll found that 70 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported limiting the construction of new data centres in the United States.

But that opposition was tested in Tuesday’s midterm election, with analysts examining key races to see if the public backlash would translate into votes.

It did. There were 41 ballot measures related to data centres in Tuesday’s midterms, spread across the country.

According to Data Centers on the Ballot, an election-monitoring project run by Redbud Consulting, voters are on track to reject data centre development in all but one of the contests.

Two of the races continue to be counted but are expected to result in majorities to reject or limit data centres.

Only Harwood, North Dakota, a small town with a population of fewer than 800 people, voted to oppose such limits. The measure it defeated would have required independent reviews of large industrial projects like data centres before they could be built in the area.

Experts say Tuesday’s midterm elections indicate that the debate around data centres has become a bipartisan issue, intertwined with cost-of-living concerns and fears over job stability.

A construction boom

As of April, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were already 3,000 data centres in the country, with more than 1,500 others in progress.

The construction boom has been driven in large part by the growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. That industry, experts say, has fed concerns about a shifting economic landscape.

“The unchecked acceleration of AI development has been causing concern across the board,” Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University, told Al Jazeera.

“People worry about their jobs and what it might mean from a broader economic perspective. But closer to home, people could see the physical manifestations of AI in data centres being built in their back yards, or they were hearing about it from others.”

Not only are voters afraid that AI might replace human work, but they also fear the downstream costs of data centres, according to Chakravorti.

Data centres consume large amounts of water and energy, which critics say can drive up electricity costs for nearby communities.

“Whether higher energy costs were driven by broader factors, such as the Iran war or tariffs, AI competing for space on the electricity grid was certainly part of its unpopularity,” Chakravorti said.

Voters, he added, were seeing the results “in their energy bills”.

A 2026 working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated that, as of last year, wholesale electricity prices had risen by 6.9 percent as a result of data centres.

James Mercer, founder of Metro Colo Advisory, an independent data centre advisory firm, told Al Jazeera that those anticipated costs mobilised voters in many areas.

“What they push back on is a building down the road that needs as much power as a small city, when they suspect their own electric bill will cover it,” Mercer said.

“That’s why local resistance has grown so fast: counties pausing new projects, zoning fights and data centres turning into a ballot issue.”

An election-season talking point

That popular resistance led several candidates in high-profile races to make AI and data-centre development central to their campaigns.

Among them is Democrat Sherrod Brown, who flipped a key Senate seat in Ohio, the state that accounted for the largest share of data-centre ballot initiatives this year.

Some 21 votes were taken on data centres in the state, out of a total of 47 referendums and measures that took place across the country in 2026.

Brown, a former senator, made Republican incumbent Jon Husted’s support for data-centre development a key point of attack.

“One guy has led the charge on these. That guy’s responsible, and that’s Jon Husted,” Brown told NBC News earlier this year.

In Texas, meanwhile, Democrat Gina Hinojosa called for a moratorium on new data-centre approvals until stronger protections for local communities were put in place.

Though her position worried tech investors keen on expansion in the Lone Star State, Hinojosa ultimately defeated incumbent Greg Abbott in the governor’s race.

“While Abbott had a moratorium on data centres in Texas currently, the overriding view is this would end once he got re-elected,” Dan Ives, managing director at the bank Yorkville Ives, said in an analyst note.

“Hinojosa is a known anti-data center politician and negative on the AI buildout, which makes worries around the future of the data center buildout in Texas a real issue for tech investors.”

Another successful Democratic candidate, Senator-elect James Talarico, also flipped a Republican-held seat with a pledge to increase data centre regulation.

Texas has been at the centre of growing concerns over the water demands of AI infrastructure.

The city of Corpus Christi, for example, has faced severe drought conditions, with its reservoir falling to just 8 percent of its total capacity earlier this year.

The city has been described as at risk of running out of drinking water. Talarico proposed adopting closed-loop water systems to reduce data centre consumption. He also advocated for data centre operators to fund local infrastructure improvements.

He won Corpus Christi by a 12-percentage-point margin.

In another key Senate race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed called for the creation of a federal agency to oversee the AI industry. He bested his Republican opponent with more than 52 percent of the vote.

Looming pressures

With Democrats poised to control both chambers of Congress, the AI industry is likely to face increased scrutiny from lawmakers.

“[We are] more likely to get real regulation and oversight,” Alex Turner, a former researcher who resigned from Google DeepMind, told Al Jazeera.

“I look forward to advising any congressperson who wants to get serious about the risks from AI, no matter their party affiliation.”

Congressional leaders are increasingly treating AI as a national security and public safety threat, after a string of alarming security failures over the past six months.

In one incident, OpenAI autonomous agents escaped a controlled testing environment and infiltrated the tech start-up Hugging Face. In another, AI agents accessed bank accounts without authorisation, according to reporting from the publication Axios.

In late October, Anthropic’s Claude AI model also accessed voter data in Georgia.

Once the 120th Congress is sworn in on January 3, Democrats are expected to use the legislature’s oversight committees to conduct investigations into AI malfeasance.

On Tuesday night, as it became clear that Democrats would win majorities in Congress, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts pledged that new probes were on the way.

“They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” the Democrat wrote on the social media platform X.

Another congressmember, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, posted on social media her support for more restrictions on AI growth.

“Top of the Democratic agenda on day one needs to be a pause on advanced AI development, regulation of this out-of-control industry, and a ban on artificial superintelligence,” Ansari said.

Tech companies themselves have responded to the midterm results with proposals for alleviating voter concerns.

After the election, OpenAI published a framework titled Setting a New Standard for Responsible AI Infrastructure. In it, the company pledged to “prioritize closed-loop or low-water cooling” and to “pay our own way on energy and infrastructure”.

Days before Tuesday’s contest, OpenAI also sought to rebrand its data centres as “compute campuses”.

The political shift is also hitting Wall Street. Investors increasingly see tighter oversight of AI on the horizon, and some of the sector’s biggest growth stocks have stumbled.

On Thursday, for example, chipmaker Nvidia lost $450bn in market value in a single trading day.

Despite Thursday’s losses, Nvidia rebounded on Friday, gaining 4 percent in early trading, although it remained down 6.8 percent over the previous five days.

Data-centre operators such as CoreWeave tumbled on Thursday before climbing 6.6 percent on Friday. The company remained down 16 percent over the previous five days.

Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña has been impeached and placed under house arrest after the collapse of a digital bank with links to his private business interests.

Peña was arrested on Friday minutes after lawmakers, including from his own party, unanimously voted to remove him from office due to a widening crisis triggered by the collapse of Ueno Bank earlier this week.

He had offered to step down on Thursday. Rather than accept his resignation, senators impeached Peña and charged him with misconduct, meaning he has been stripped of the immunity usually granted to ex-presidents.

Peña, who until last year held shares in the company that owned the bank, has denied any wrongdoing.

The demise of the digital bank has left more than half of Paraguay’s population without access to their savings after it was seized by Paraguay’s central bank.

An estimated three million depositors remain unable to access their savings and pensions prompting widespread protests particularly in the capital, Asunción.

The impeachment charges that led to Peña’s removal alleged he had conflicts of interest, manipulated regulatory oversight, diverted pension funds, and participated in an institutional cover-up involving the central bank.

Peña is due to be questioned on Saturday over allegations of breach of trust, influence peddling, and misappropriation of funds, prosecutor Silvia Margarita Gonzalez Vester said.

Peña’s impeachment passed with 44 out of 45 senators voting in favour of it. One lawmaker was absent.

Afterwards, senate president Basilio Núñez said Peña was found guilty of “dereliction of duty”.

Paraguay’s Vice-President Pedro Alliana was then sworn in as interim President.

“Compatriots who are now going through a difficult time as a result of the financial collapse will be fully compensated,” said Alliana, who will serve as President until 2028.

We’re past due for dystopian storytelling to train its lens on a creature in the here and now, one whose very survival speaks to consequential global change. Take the ice-dependent polar bear, rapidly losing its food-sustaining habitat and having to perilously adapt by nudging further and further into human spaces. And yet, as the moody, starkly beautiful documentary “Nuisance Bear” reveals, following just one wandering ursus maritimus in search of food will still ultimately tell you as much about the two-legged mammals who created its plight.

Broadening and deepening their acclaimed, same-titled short from 2022, directors Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden have made a nature film turned on its head. They camped out in Churchill, Manitoba, along the Hudson Bay, where hundreds of polar bears migrate each winter, to capture their increasing encroachment into human communities. There’s an ironic disconnect when a town calls itself “Polar Bear Capital of the World” — it’s not like these creatures, who existed long before us, get to be in charge of anything. Their food source becomes town dumps, plus, in the interests of “conservation,” they get treated either like a roaming photo-op for tourists or, if too aggressive and needing to be reminded of their place, like a drunk vagrant consigned to a night in the clink. (There’s a holding facility for polar bears before they’re let loose again.)

Weisman and Vanden oversaw a crew of six cinematographers (including themselves) and built their visuals primarily around the perspective of one isolated, scavenging bear as it endures busloads of sightseeing visitors, brief incarceration from a patrol operation and, after an airlift, an even more conflict-ridden journey north toward the Inuit town Arviat, just in time for that hamlet’s annual hunt. With attacks on the rise, the people of Arviat harbor no delusion that polar bears are endangered.

Their experience with avinnaarjuk, an Inuit term for roaming bears without fear of humans, is the movie’s other carefully considered viewpoint, since the Inuit, too, have suffered under a system of control. Colonialism herded these Indigenous communities directly in the path of the bears’ ancient migration, and now hunting regulations hamper their ability to manage the population. “Nuisance Bear” is partly narrated by one such affected elder, Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons. His weary voice, describing with sympathy what this solitary, hungry rover is going through, details a broken relationship between human and beast, but more keenly and traumatically, between humans and humans. It’s as if we’re privy not only to hard-earned wisdom but something poignant and therapeutic about loss and change.

The bear, meanwhile, gets our empathy, as any creature would. Whether gazed upon in close-up (an intimacy made possible when it’s dosed with tranquilizers) or viewed from a distance as it’s chased across a landscape increasingly marked by human settlement — trash, fences, machinery, buildings — our ursine antihero is like some lost spirit, scrambling for purchase where claws no longer reliably grip. The steady, gliding images, part surveillance, part concern, suggest a de-evolution. When Cristóbal Tapia de Veer’s ethereal score is playing, “Nuisance Bear” evokes a sacred domain where the cosmic hymn that’s always undergirded it has begun to lose its melody.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on Friday that he has been discharged from the hospital after suffering a stroke last weekend and will miss “several weeks” of votes in the Senate as he recovers in a rehabilitation facility.

Murphy, 53, said in a statement that doctors are “very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far” and that the stay at the rehabilitation center will get him back to work on the quickest timeline possible.

Murphy said doctors diagnosed him with a small hemorrhagic stroke, which is a bleed in the brain. He said he called 911 on Oct. 31 out of an abundance of caution after feeling that “something was not right” with his body.

“This has been a scary experience for me and my family, and I appreciate the continued respect for our privacy,” he said.

The press release updating Murphy’s condition included a statement from Dr. Jose Suarez, chief of neurosciences critical care at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Suarez said the senator has shown tremendous progress and “we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation.”

In the Senate, Murphy serves on the Appropriations Committee and is a leading voice on immigration and gun policy. He is considered a contender for more senior leadership positions in the Senate and among the many Democrats seen as potential 2028 candidates for the White House.

Murphy said he has been staying engaged with his team and colleagues remotely and that his staff ensures the work of his office continues uninterrupted.

“I want to extend my deepest thanks to the excellent doctors and staff at Johns Hopkins who have treated me and cared for my family,” Murphy said.

Murphy had been traveling the country in support of House and Senate candidates as his party raced for majority control, which it secured in Tuesday’s midterm elections. A day before the stroke, he posted that he had been campaigning in his home state for Gov. Ned Lamont. The week before, he posted from Minnesota campaigning with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee for the Senate.

Lamont won reelection Tuesday, and Flanagan won her race, becoming the first Native American female U.S. senator.

The final sprint before election day capped Murphy’s whirlwind trip to the Middle East at the start of October for meetings with several leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In early September, Murphy completed his annual “walk across Connecticut,” covering about 70 miles over four days, talking with residents about their concerns along the way.

Three other Senate Democrats had strokes in recent years. Sens. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland had strokes in 2022 and have recovered. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman had a stroke while campaigning for his seat that year and now uses adaptive technology in the Senate, including live captioning on a phone or tablet that transcribes words as people speak to him and helps him process the conversation.

Fetterman said on social media the day after Murphy’s stroke that his family was “rooting for Chris and his family for a full and speedy recovery.”

Freking writes for the Associated Press.