Caracas, October 6, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The US Justice Department has urged New York District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to reject Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores’ sovereign immunity claims amid their ongoing legal case.

In a court filing submitted on October 2, prosecutors told the court that Maduro and Flores’ motions to dismiss their indictments “should be denied.”

The Venezuelan president and first lady, who is also a legislator, were kidnapped in Caracas by US forces on January 3. They were charged with drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons possession, with Maduro additionally facing a “narco-terrorism” accusation.

The pair’s defense teams filed motions to dismiss the case in September, arguing that their respective positions in the Venezuelan government should make them immune to criminal prosecution in a third country.

In response, the Justice Department stated that the recognition of a foreign head of state is the exclusive competency of the executive branch, and that Washington has not recognized Maduro since 2019. Historically, US courts have deferred to the White House and State Department on foreign policy matters.

However, in the ongoing case, Justice Department officials sought to bolster their argument by stating that the Venezuelan government, led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, has declined to invoke immunity for Maduro and Flores.

“If Venezuela wished to assert its view that the defendants were entitled to immunity in this, it could have,“ the submitted document read. “The defendants’ attempt to claim the contrary is an admission that such silence is devastating to their claims.”

The prosecutors pointed to an ongoing civil lawsuit in Florida against Maduro, Rodríguez, and other defendants, where the Venezuelan government, through its US embassy, requested that the Trump administration communicate to the respective court that the acting president should “enjoy absolute immunity from judicial proceedings in foreign domestic courts.”

The State Department sent a letter in June calling on the Florida district court to “promptly dismiss the proceedings.” The White House likewise communicated to the court that all claims against Rodríguez should be “dismissed without prejudice.”

In August 2025, three US nationals who were imprisoned in Venezuela sued Maduro, Rodríguez, and several other current and former state officials. The plaintiffs claimed to have suffered “torture” and to have been used in “hostage diplomacy.” The judge issued a default ruling after Maduro and other defendants failed to show and awarded $314 million in damages to the plaintiffs.

“Venezuela did not request immunity in this case, despite every opportunity to do so. Indeed, there is no doubt that the current Venezuelan government knows how to request immunity,” the Justice Department’s recent filing continued.

Prosecutors went on to claim that the Trump administration’s foreign policy views, coupled with the Venezuelan government not explicitly invoking immunity, should outweigh the defense’s assertion that the United Nations recognized Maduro’s presidency.

Hellerstein is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the pre-trial motions to dismiss on November 17 before issuing a ruling. If the trial goes forward, it will begin on June 1, 2027.

Caracas has not commented on the latest developments in Maduro and Flores’ legal case. In recent months, Venezuelan officials have occasionally expressed hope that the two will eventually return to the country but without demanding their immediate release.

Rodríguez made no mention of Maduro and Flores’ kidnapping and prosecution during her recent trip to New York for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. In a July interview, she claimed that Maduro has the right to “demonstrate the truth” before the US Justice system but did not call for his liberation.

The Venezuelan government is covering the pair’s legal defense costs after the US Treasury Department lifted restrictions blocking it.

In his UN speech on September 22, Trump celebrated the military operation that led to the abduction of Maduro, whom he called an “outlaw dictator.” Trump and Rodríguez met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, with the Venezuelan leader thanking the US president for supporting “Venezuela’s reinsertion into multilateral spaces.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

STRICTLY star Aston Merrygold has shared an emotional tribute following the death of his beloved mother-in-law Carole.

The JLS singer, 38, thanked wife Sarah’s mum for welcoming him into her family and being a devoted grandmother to their three children.

Sharing his heartbreak on Instagram, Aston wrote: “I still can’t believe this but thank you.”

He remembered meeting Carole for the first time, thanking her “for accepting me into your family with open arms and an amazing smile”.

Aston also praised her “for being the most loving thoughtful and HAPPY nanny to Grayson Macaulay & Riley”.

In the moving post, the singer recalled Carole telling him how much she wanted him to marry her daughter.

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He wrote: “You telling me at Sarah’s 30th after a few Tia Marias you can’t wait for me to marry your daughter (I did sh*t myself abit)”.

Aston also remembered her helping him organise a move with now wife, dancer Sarah Lou, and giving him her blessing ahead of their marriage.

Among his most treasured memories was a cuddle with Carole shortly before eldest son Grayson was born.

The sweet post also paid tribute to the bond she shared with her grandchildren, saying: “We all absolutely adore you and we always will”.

The heartbroken star said journeys to see the family would now feel different without her.

“It wont ever be the same going over that bridge but every time i do i’ll be looking out for the little rainbow and also give a wave to Nanny’s house,” he wrote.

He ended his tribute: “Until we get to have Nanny’s biscuits and a tea again..

“The mother of my bride, Our super Nanny, we love you and will always miss you.. Thank you Razzle”.

Family has long been at the heart of Aston’s life, with the singer sharing sons Grayson, eight, and Macaulay, six, and daughter Riley, two, with Sarah Lou.

And eldest son Grayson is already showing signs of following in his famous dad’s footsteps.

In August, the tween joined Aston on stage at Colchester Castle Park to sing Jessie J’s Price Tag.

The proud singer danced alongside his son before lifting him onto his shoulders, later commenting on a clip: “My star boy.”

Aston previously described his sons as “mini showmen”, revealing they had picked up their love of performing from watching their parents sing and dance at home.

Speaking to PA, he previously said: “We haven’t pushed them in any way to do it.”

NEW YORK — The Russian oligarch who helped bankroll Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebration says the president’s eldest son has paid back the money.

“Yes, he did,” Umar Kremlev told an International Boxing Association press conference in Istanbul on Tuesday. “He did repay the money I spent on the present.” Still, he said he felt the repayment was unnecessary.

“Frankly speaking, I do not understand why he decided to do so,” he went on. “There are all kinds of events organized by all kinds of people. It is as if I invite you to come and visit my country house. Would you expect me to issue an invoice to them afterward?” Speaking through an interpreter, he said that would be “ridiculous.”

ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative website, reported last month that Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses” when Trump Jr. married socialite Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas in May. That included paying to rent one of two private islands where the three-day party was held.

In a subsequent post on her Instagram page signed by the couple, Bettina Trump wrote that they had been married “surrounded ONLY by our family,” but that Kremlev, head of the boxing association, was a “dear friend” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding.”

President Trump, who did not attend the nuptials, previously defended the arrangement but told reporters that the money would be paid back.

“It’s totally allowed,” he said. “But, as I understand it, he paid them back.”

“That’s very common,” he added, “I’ve given wedding parties to numerous people.”

Kremlev, who was recently honored with the Order of Friendship by Putin, also played down the significance, saying the celebration was “a shared event” and “people blew it out of proportion.”

“I mean, why can’t we be friends? We are just friends,” he went on. “We are simply friends and what unites us is love for sports.”

The focus on Kremlev comes as Russia remains at war with Ukraine following its invasion in 2022 and as Trump has failed to broker a promised peace deal between the nations.

Trump Jr. has previously been scrutinized over his ties to Russia. During the 2016 campaign, his meeting with a Russian attorney in Trump Tower to discuss potentially incriminating information about his father’s then-Democratic opponent was a critical element of investigations into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to meddle in the election to help Trump win.

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.

In 2018, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas – two of the three youngest players on Furyk’s team – starred as they won three out of four points as a foursomes and fourballs pairing.

With 21-year-old Jackson Koivun having impressed during an unbeaten Presidents Cup debut in last month’s comeback victory over the Internationals in Chicago, Furyk says he is excited to inject more youth into the US side.

“I really love the guys who have played for us in the past few years,” the 56-year-old, who played in nine consecutive Ryder Cups between 1997 and 2014, told the BBC.

“We have tough, gritty veterans who have been around the block, and I’m excited, we have a lot of great, young talent who have yet to play in this cup and I’d bet two or three of them will be at Adare.”

During the news conference, Furyk said he will ask his team to “do more than any American team has in the past” to seal an elusive away win and vowed to address his side’s dismal recent record in foursomes.

The US won just three points from a possible 16 in the alternate-shot format over the past two Ryder Cups.

“I know those numbers very well. I’ve lived them the last four,” said Furyk.

“It’s not an anomaly. There’s some issues. We understand that. Not something I’m very happy with. I plan on making some changes.

“As captains we need to do a better job – not only putting the folks into good pairings in good positions, but I don’t think we are preparing for those matches in a proper way.”

The 2027 Ryder Cup – the second to be staged in Ireland after the K Club in 2006 – will take place on 17-19 September.

Kosovo faces the risk of turmoil as protests against the convictions of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders coincide with a midnight deadline to elect a president.

Demonstrators have called for changes to the law governing the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers, including measures affecting prison terms and where convicted people serve their sentences. The protests follow the September 16 convictions of former KLA leaders, including former President Hashim Thaci.

The protesters’ demands have become entangled with negotiations over the presidency, raising the prospect of new elections if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement. November 15 has emerged as a likely date for a new vote.

“New elections do not, in themselves, promise anything particularly positive,” political analyst Artan Muhaxhiri told Al Jazeera. “The chances of a radical political change are slim.”

He said that if a president is not elected by midnight, a new vote will take place in a tense political climate.

Anger over the verdicts will become a central campaign issue, he said, “overshadowing fundamental questions of socioeconomic development, and deepening the country’s downward spiral of systemic instability”.

How did Kosovo get here?

In 2015, the Specialist Chambers were established under Kosovo law following international investigations into alleged war crimes committed by KLA members during and after the 1998-99 conflict. Although formally part of Kosovo’s judicial system, the court sits in The Hague. It remains contentious in Kosovo because the KLA is widely revered for having fought against Serbian rule.

In September, protests erupted after the court sentenced Thaci to 25 years in prison.

Later, the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) – formerly led by Thaci – proposed amendments aimed at curbing the tribunal. The plan included capping prison sentences at 15 years, allowing convicts to serve their sentences in Kosovo, enabling appeals before Kosovo’s Supreme Court, granting presidential pardons and narrowing the court’s temporal jurisdiction.

On October 2, 2026, Prime Minister Albi Kurti’s government concluded that there were no legal obstacles to the PDK initiative and forwarded its assessment to the parliament, the Assembly of Kosovo. Days later, Kosovo’s parliament approved the initiative at first reading with 91 votes in favour, although it has not been finally adopted.

Meanwhile, Kosovo has been mired in a political impasse after the expiration of President Vjosa Osmani’s term in April, as the National Assembly has been unable to select a new president.

Now, internal power struggles within the PDK following the September sentencing have left the party fragmented, rendering the largest opposition party incapable of negotiating a cross-party presidential compromise, according to Nexhmedin Spahiu, a Pristina-based professor of political science.

On Monday, as lawmakers failed to secure a quorum to elect a president, police deployed tear gas and water cannon outside the Assembly, following confrontations involving fireworks and bottles. The use of force prompted criticism from observers.

Tensions rise

Pristina-based journalist Gezim Baxhaku believes special police units overstepped their legal authority.

“There was an overuse of force,” Baxhaku told Al Jazeera. He said that while protesters threw firecrackers, police “exceeded their legal powers and acted entirely contrary to the situation on the ground”.

Among the hundreds of protesters were KLA veterans.

Pristina had witnessed nearly three weeks of largely peaceful gatherings before Monday’s escalation.

“Citizens were routinely bringing food, water, and coffee to the officers on duty,” Baxhaku said. “There was absolutely no reason for this to happen. For the first time since the late 2000s, police acted in such an uncalled-for manner – reacting upon orders to escalate a situation.”

Spahiu, the political science professor, said the protests should not be understood as a sign that people in Kosovo broadly reject the verdicts.

“A large majority of citizens in Kosovo are satisfied with the decision of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague,” said Spahiu.

He told Al Jazeera that the court’s rejection of Serbian claims of systematic crimes against humanity by the KLA “validated the liberation struggle”.

“Furthermore, people are relieved that individuals are finally being held accountable for crimes committed against political rivals within the Albanian community itself,” he said.

The political deadlock and Kurti’s ‘transactional’ approach

The Assembly remains deadlocked over the election of a head of state, as the PDK and other opposition parties boycott the voting session, denying the legislature its constitutionally required 80-MP quorum.

Muhaxhiri blamed Kurti for the crisis, criticising his decision to link the presidential vote to the Hague court amendments.

“Tensions escalated further when Kurti presented a plan based on a transactional approach to two fundamentally distinct issues: linking the draft law amending the Law on the Specialist Chambers to the election of the new president,” said Muhaxhiri.

“In effect, this amounted to a quid pro quo. By doing so, he appeared to be placing the historical, national, and identity-related significance of the liberation war on the same political bargaining table as the immediate objective of electing a president who would serve his political interests.”

As part of its overall effort to boost America’s flagging shipbuilding capacity, the Trump administration on Tuesday announced that Anduril is building a new two-million-square-foot facility in Baltimore designed to help speed up the production of Virginia class nuclear-powered attack submarines. The plant, dubbed Arsenal-2, will eventually produce components like torpedo tubes and spherical air flasks, which will then be sent to the two shipyards that build nuclear submarines, General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding. Anduril’s plan to build complex submarine components is a huge leap for a company with a shipbuilding portfolio consisting of a limited number of smaller craft.

The submarine component plant announcement was made as the Navy is struggling to keep up with its goal of producing two of these boats per year amid a wider issue of construction and delivery delays across the service. However, it will be years before the first Anduril-produced components are placed on a submarine, with no specific timelines for that effort yet established, an industry official told us. We will discuss that in greater detail later in this story.

“Today’s $6.6 billion investment represents the president’s commitment to restoring American maritime dominance by constructing new vessels in communities like Baltimore and across the country,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told a group of reporters, including from TWZ, at a Tuesday morning press conference.

Those funds include a $3.7 billion investment from Anduril to build and staff the new facility and a contract worth up to $2.9 billion awarded to Anduril by the Navy to produce the components.

“The Virginia class submarine program is one of the most critical warfighting capabilities that our nation has that guarantees deterrence every single day,” Anduril President and Chief Strategy Officer Chris Brose stated. “It is also a program that has been challenged in terms of the ability to meet the Navy’s requirements. So we’re, as a nation, not necessarily where we need to be, and that’s not because of our shipyard workers.”

The Navy currently has 26 Virginia class boats, with two more expected to be commissioned next spring, a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday. Another 31 vessels are still needed to meet the Navy’s overall plan to have 59 Virginia class boats.

However, while the Navy has been buying them at a rate of two per year from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal Year 2024, “the actual Virginia class production rate has never reached 2.0 boats per year, and since 2022 has been limited by shipyard and supplier firm workforce and supply chain challenges to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built,” according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published in January. “Key drivers of the drop in production include workforce challenges, first-time quality, material and supplier delays, and lead ship issues associated with the Virginia Payload Module [VPM] variant. The Navy is working closely with the shipbuilders to drive improvement throughout the Virginia enterprise.”

The VPM is an 84-foot hull extension that contains four additional large vertical tubes designed to launch Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missiles, and other payloads. You can read more about the Navy’s VPM plans in our story here.

Adding to the strain on production and delivery, Australia is set to get one new-build Virginia class boat and two from the U.S. Navy’s fleet under the 2021 trilateral AUKUS nuclear submarine acquisition deal with the United States and the United Kingdom.

In May, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told Congress that the service would meet its two-boat-a-year delivery rate by 2032.

During Tuesday’s press conference, officials laid out claims that the new Anduril plant will address several of the issues that have slowed down the construction and delivery of these submarines.

“If you look at this in terms of capacity, the potential based on the area and what Anduril plans to do is to add about 9 million hours of labor a year at this facility,” stated a senior administration official, who, like others on Tuesday spoke on condition of anonymity. “That would be the equivalent of about a 15% increase, and so that would be directly translatable to Virginia class submarine production. So having those torpedo tubes earlier would let us move production of current Virginia submarines under construction faster.”

In addition, Anduril plans to draw on a huge potential workforce to staff the plant.

“If you basically draw like a one-hour radius around the Baltimore County area, there are millions and millions of people who could potentially contribute and work at this shipyard, and that is a huge selling point for us,” an industry official suggested.

Beyond producing components like torpedo tubes, Anduril aspires to eventually build “full ship sections, bows, sterns, etc.” at Arsenal-2, the industry official added.

Anduril said Arsenal-2 will be “purpose-built” for the “high-volume, high-precision production of undersea naval capabilities.”

“The shipyard’s layout is optimized for production,” the company stated in a media release. “Reduced distances between fabrication, assembly, testing, and integration areas eliminate the staging bottlenecks that slow conventional yards.”

“A functional 1,200-foot graving dock and multimodal road and rail access support large-scale component movement,” Anduril added. “High-bay assembly halls, adjacent fabrication areas, and reconfigurable production lines allow the yard to shift rapidly as Navy requirements evolve.”

ArsenalOS, Anduril’s industrial software platform, “will provide the digital backbone for the yard and its production systems,” the company further pointed out. “It will connect fabrication workflows, outfitting sequences, material movement, inspection protocols, and documentation requirements in a single system, giving workers and managers real-time visibility into the state of production. Digital work instructions, embedded quality controls, modern sensing, and automation will support the expertise of welders, pipefitters, electricians, shipfitters, inspectors, and other skilled trades.”

ArsenalOS™: The Digital Backbone of Modern Defense Manufacturing

Anduril claims the project “will create 3,100 direct jobs and support more than 11,000 indirect jobs. The site will drive $2 billion in annual economic output, including an estimated $312 million in wages each year.”

Before Arsenal-2 is up and running, Anduril said it plans to “manufacture critical Virginia class submarine components at a new 160,000-square-foot facility in Orange County, California, purpose-built to support key submarine construction processes and SUBSAFE-qualified production qualification [efforts].”

The Orange County facility will give Anduril “a two-year operational head start to develop and validate manufacturing methods, production workflows, and quality systems before  Arsenal-2 comes online,” the company noted. “It will support prototyping and production of Virginia-class test assets and critical maritime components, including torpedo tubes, while allowing Anduril to recruit and train the early workforce on the systems and standards that will ultimately scale at Arsenal-2. Once Arsenal-2 comes online, the Orange County facility will continue supporting broader maritime manufacturing efforts across Anduril’s industrial network.”

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As we noted earlier in this piece, it will be years before anything produced by Anduril winds up on a sub. In addition to recruiting and training a workforce to build the components and ensuring the production system can meet goals, the parts then have to be tested to ensure they are safe enough to place on boats.

The industry official told TWZ that there is no schedule yet for when that will happen.

“We are starting this work now,” the industry official said. “We’re going to be working quickly. There’s a lot we’re going to have to do to prove the ability to produce the initial components – the torpedo tubes. We’re going to have to work with our partners in industry and partners in government on the certification. So it’s really not possible to put a time stamp on it as much as I’d like to.”

“I think our goal, and I know this is shared by the administration, is to go as fast as possible while keeping the bar of safety as high as it needs to be, and try to get these systems certified so that they go into the production of boats… and solve the critical limiting factor currently in our supply chain, and help our industry partners produce more submarines.”

Arsenal-2 follows the development of Anduril’s Arsenal-1 plant in Ohio, first announced two years ago. That five-million-square-foot facility, once fully up and running, will be able to “produce tens of thousands of autonomous weapons systems addressing the urgent needs of the United States and our allies,” the company said at the time.

Arsenal-1, however, remains a work in progress, with more construction work yet to be done. Still, Anduril’s first product from that plant, the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) known as the YFQ-44A Fury, rolled off the assembly line there in July. That milestone met the company’s initial production schedule announced in January 2025, according to JobsOhio, the state’s business development arm.

Anduril, which also produces systems like the Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle (in partnership with Australia), the Roadrunner reusable missile-like air vehicle, the Iris family of passive infrared sensors, and a wide range of other items, is playing a growing role in the Trump administration’s weapons development efforts.

Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, who made a name for himself and his fortune in the virtual reality space with Meta, will help lead a new program dubbed Project Meridian. The goal, according to a Pentagon memo, is to “map the trajectory of future warfare, identify critical capability gaps, and propose actionable solutions in furtherance of the identified goals in the 2026 National Security Science and Technology Strategy.”

The Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael, has been directed to set up this project. SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich are other key members.

From our story about Project Meridian and the Pentagon’s overall effort to boost its autonomous warfare capabilities:

“The inclusion of Musk and Luckey does raise ethical questions, as they both lead companies with major U.S. government contracts already, and which could be in line to see more opportunities based on Project Meridian’s findings. What guardrails might be put in place to prevent conflicts of interest is unclear.”

Regardless of any such concerns, today’s shipyard announcement is a clear indication that the Trump administration and the Pentagon see Anduril as a major player across its weapons manufacturing industrial base. It’s also a reminder of just how challenging it is to actually expand America’s ability to build fighting vessels.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

LEGENDARY R&B singer Freddie Jackson has died at 70 as family and friends mourn the icon’s passing online.

The singer, known for his hit song Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake), passed away on Monday, just days after his milestone birthday.

Freddie’s family announced the sad news on his Instagram on Tuesday.

“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we share the passing of our beloved Freddie Jackson, who went home to rest last night,” the post read alongside a photo of the iconic vocalist.

“Freddie was more than a legendary voice. He was a kind, generous soul who loved his fans, his family, his friends, and his music with everything he had.

“For decades he gave us the songs that became the soundtrack to our love stories, our celebrations, and our most treasured memories. That gift will live on forever,” the caption continued.

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“To everyone who ever sang along, danced, or felt something when Freddie took the stage: thank you. You were family to him, and he carried your love with him always.

“Please keep his family, friends, and loved ones in your prayers during this difficult time. Details regarding arrangements and how to honor his legacy will be shared in the coming days.”

The family concluded the post, writing, “Rest in peace, Freddie. Your legacy and your voice will live on forever.”

They did not reveal the artist’s cause of death.

Fans shared their grief and condolences to Freddie’s loved ones in the comments.

“Another Legend Gone…Another Legacy left behind. This sucks! Grateful for the gift he shared with an unforgiving world,” professional wrestler Elijah Burke (Da Pope), wrote.

“Oh man Freddie one of. The true greats!!!! I had the pleasure of working on a song duet with him and Natalie Cole! Superb!” singer Narada Michael Walden added.

“Three days after his birthday. Rest well and Thank you for all the wonderful songs throughout the years here with us on earth,” a fan said.

“Awww man. Such a cool brother. So talented too ! One of the Greats,” chimed in a fourth.

“Heartbreaking news!!! Rest in Paradise Freddie,” a fifth echoed.

Freddie’s music career took off in the 1980s, with his chart-topping hits, You Are My Lady, Have You Ever Loved Somebody, and Jam Tonight.

The New York native kept performing until his death, singing his old hits and songs from his newest album, My First Love, released in May 2023.

He hit the stage in June for a performance at a winery in Philadelphia and was among the headliners at an 80s Night Concert in Fort Worth, Texas, in April, per his recent Instagram posts.

In one of Freddie’s latest posts, he thanked fans “for all the love” on his birthday and shared a photo of himself in a white suit.

India batter Harmanpreet Kaur has left her role as national team captain across all three formats of international cricket.

Harmanpreet led India in five Tests, 51 one-day internationals and 155 T20 internationals and took her country to their first global title, winning the 50-over World Cup last year.

The 37-year old last captained her country on 22 September, when she helped secure a second successive Asian Games title against Sri Lanka.

She will be replaced by opener Smriti Mandhana, who has already skippered the side in limited-overs games.

In a post on Instagram, external, Harmanpreet said she was leaving the India side in a “good place” and that she’s now “ready to play for the love of the game again”.

“This is not an easy decision,” Harmanpreet wrote. “It carries years of memories, emotions, sacrifices, and moments that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

“I have given everything I had to this team and to Indian women’s cricket – my blood, my sweat, my time, and many times, a part of my own game and personal ambitions.

“There were moments when I had to put my individual performance, my own growth, and what I wanted for myself aside, because I believed the team had to come first.

“As a captain, I have had to make difficult decisions. Decisions that were not always understood, not always easy, and sometimes came at a personal cost. But every decision I made was with one intention – to make this TEAM better and to give other players the opportunity to grow, believe in themselves and become the best versions of themselves.”

Harmanpreet, who first captained India in 2012, led her side to victory in the one-off Test against England at Lord’s in July.

However India exited the T20 World Cup in the group stage earlier in the month, failing to reach the semi-finals for the second successive edition of the tournament.

Mandhana, 30, has previously captained India in 18 T20s and four ODIs.

She has also captained Royal Challengers Bengaluru to two Women’s Premier League titles.

She said: “To be given the responsibility of leading India is a very special honour, and the opportunity to lead the team is something I will value deeply.”

India are set to welcome Zimbabwe for three T20s and three ODIs from 16 October.

It’s an annual fall tradition that Disneyland increase its prices — and stealthily in the night. Starting Tuesday, guests will pay more to experience the Happiest Place on Earth.

But the increases are relatively light. For the eighth year in a row, Disneyland did not raise the cost of the lowest-priced ticket, which is $104. And its highest-priced ticket, which is $224, also did not change. The increases were felt primarily on mid-level tiers for single-day, single-park tickets, and were limited to $5 apiece.

Other prices also remain unchanged. The cost of Disneyland’s popular annual pass program, the Magic Key, did not increase. The top-tiered Magic Keys have been subject to hefty yearly spikes over the last decade. Parking remains fixed at $40, and multiday tickets have not been affected.

Collectively, this is one of the smallest overall increases made by the Disneyland Resort in recent history, as last year, its highest-priced single-day ticket jumped in cost $18. At a time when leisure costs are rising and forcing Americans to stay home, it comes as somewhat of a relief that Disneyland is not asking its fans to pony up substantially more cash to get through the gates.

While the Walt Disney Co. provided no official statement on the increases, Disneyland Resort officials noted in an email that it is aware guests are more closely watching their wallets in 2026. Thomas Mazloum, chairman of Disney Experiences, in a comment given to CNN, said, “Our goal is to put guests at the center of our decision making, and that starts by listening to them. That matters more now when families are watching every dollar, and we see it in the choices they make every day — in how they plan, in how far ahead.”

It’s also an indication that, at least for the time being, the Disneyland Resort has pushed its prices as far as they can go. Disneyland is blessed with an in-demand product, but every commodity has its limits.

In May, the Walt Disney Co. reported a 1% decline in attendance at its U.S.-based parks compared with the prior year, which the company attributed to “continued softness” in international visitors. In August, however, Disney bounced back, and noted, especially at Florida’s Walt Disney World, that attendance had perked up. Overall, visitation at its U.S.-based theme parks was 3% higher than in the previous year’s third quarter, the company said. This boost was largely attributed to a variety of summer deals.

As someone who is at Disneyland nearly every week, I can report that summer crowds were relatively manageable. There have been some asterisks, such as the World Cup and high heat, both likely keeping guests away, but anecdotally, Disneyland crowding hasn’t been nearly as extreme this year. I simply believe that people do not currently have the excess funds that they once had.

And Disney seems to be responding to the economic climate, especially in making it easier for its biggest fans to visit the resort. In conjunction with the price increases, Disneyland President Jill Estorino announced Tuesday that the company would be removing its no-show penalty on annual passholders. Additionally, passholders can now cancel their reservations up to 11:59 p.m. on the day of their reservations.

These are welcome changes, as previously guests were allowed three no-show penalties before their ability to make reservations was restricted, and had to cancel the night before. But plans change, and the reservation system restrictions, initially put in place to manage crowding during the COVID-19 pandemic, had increasingly felt like an impediment. While reservations are still required, which Disneyland has stated helps the resort plan its crowd-forecasting and staffing, the system is more lax and user-friendly than it has been.

Digging deeper into Disneyland’s pricing, there have been some small changes elsewhere. The cost of the line-skipping feature Lightning Lane, which can fluctuate based on crowding levels, now has a top price of $38, an increase of $1. And the park-hopper add-on for single-day tickets, which can also fluctuate, increased $5-$10, depending on the day. And earlier this year Disneyland did increase its prices on a number of food items.

The Disneyland Resort, to be sure, is not cheap. In the world of entertainment, it remains a luxury good on par with postseason Dodgers tickets (albeit with cheaper parking than Dodger Stadium). But I credit the Disneyland Resort for reading the cultural room. Pulling the plug on its recent steady and hefty price increases, especially on annual passes, shows the company can occasionally listen to its audience as much as it does Wall Street. Sure, a price decrease would be nice, but we don’t live in a fantasyland.

This week in SoCal theme parks

The Disneyland Resort has added new collectible pin trading vending machines.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

• Attention Disneyland pin traders! The Disneyland Resort has added a new pin line available in select vending machines throughout the property— look for them in San Fransokyo Square and Pixar Pier in Disney California Adventure and at the Star Wars Trading Post in Downtown Disney. Each pin is $18, and one buy gets you one egg-like orb with a mystery pin. There are 15 in the set — I got Simba, as seen above — and offerings include park staples such as the Hatbox Ghost as well as classic characters such as Princess Aurora and Dumbo. Some are marked limited edition — “chasers,” in Disney pin trading speak — so be on the lookout. Thanks to Mr. Daps for the heads-up.
• A Disneyland ticket deal. With life constantly getting more expensive (see above), it’s a good time to hunt for a deal. If you’re a Costco member, reports are that there’s a pretty good one happening right now. Valid through Dec. 18, Costco is said to be selling a two-day Disneyland park hopper ticket with the line-skipping feature Lightning Lane already added in for $329.99. The offer includes a $60 dining card, and works out to a savings of a couple hundred. Disney Tourist Blog has more details on the limited deal.
• An applaudable energy project. Six Flags Magic Mountain has announced the completion of its solar carport project, the largest solar carport in California. Covering 4,315 parking spaces, the project was designed to offset 100% of the energy consumption of Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor (while also providing some shade and sun protection for its parked cars). The project is interconnected with the Southern California Edison grid, meaning excess energy may be exported as well as allowing the parks to draw energy from the project when needed. The carport also offers 109 electric vehicle charging stations.
• A pause at Castle Park. Riverside’s long-standing Castle Park is beginning the creation of what it says is a“reimagined experience.” As such, on Nov. 1 its Ride Park will halt operations for the foreseeable future. “We’re taking the time to plan the right rebuild and will share updates as plans take shape,” the company says in an FAQ on its site. Its mini golf and arcade areas will continue to welcome guests.

More on the noise issues around the ‘Fast & Furious’ coaster

Riders on Universal’s new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

There will be no shortage of updates and news on Universal’s new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift coaster in the coming weeks, months and maybe even years, especially as the attraction continues todraw the ire of the park’s neighbors in Toluca Lake. Universal Studios Hollywood held a meeting with nearby residents on its studio lot last Wednesday. The session was closed to the media but was said to attract more than 350 neighbors. I spoke with a number of residents, as well as Universal, after the session, and indications are that the two sides still haven’t settled on a compromise. The issue, of course, stems from the sound of rider screams from the coaster drifting into the residential area.

Universal has promised, through the end of the year, to not begin operating the coaster before 9 a.m., and has also, in response to community feedback, installed a new sound barrier featuring an additional 1,900 square feet of sound absorbing material. The new barrier includes a sail that’s about 63 feet tall and 31 feet wide. But residents I spoke to feel it’s not yet enough. I’ve heard many stories from neighbors in recent weeks regarding the disruption caused to their lives. They range in extremes. A neighbor without air conditioning says they can no longer open their windows. A resident who offers meditation services from their home says their business is now potentially forever impacted. A teen was unable to complete a SAT prep test due to the incessant screaming. Many report insomnia from the rise in anxiety levels. There’s plenty more.

The meeting was said to grow contentious near its end. Residents provided data on how the effects of noise, specifically screams, can cause stress-related responses. Universal is said to have discussed the challenges in further mitigating the sound. County supervisor Kathryn Barger was in attendance and is calling for additional communication between the two sides. “The meeting’s dialogue made clear that the lives of surrounding residents are being impacted and disrupted,” Barger said via a statement. “I respect Universal’s decision to host this forum and listen to the concerns being raised. I encourage all stakeholders to maintain an ongoing honest dialogue.”

Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.

Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.

Ride on,

Todd Martens

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Novac Djokovic won 102nd match of his career, while ATP 500 tournament victory was Carlos Alcaraz’s third of the year.

Novak Djokovic won the China Open after his opponent Alex de Minaur retired from the final with injury, while Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz retained his Japan Open crown to continue his resurgence after a lengthy wrist injury layoff.

The 39-year-old Serbian won the first set in the tie-break 7-6 (7-3) and was down a game in the second set when the Australian ended the match with retirement on Tuesday.

Djokovic extended an astonishing unbeaten streak in Beijing and winning the 102nd title of his career.

De Minaur left the court for a medical timeout after losing the first-set tie break but played on with his left thigh heavily bandaged. However, he had to stop after winning the first game of the second set, leaving him trailing 7-6(3) 0-1.

“I don’t feel great … I want to say sorry to all the amazing fans,” de Minaur said at the trophy presentation.

“I didn’t want to finish like this … hopefully see you next year,” added the 27-year-old fifth seed.

Alcaraz retains Japan Open crown

Alcaraz made another slow start before cruising past unseeded Czech Jiri Lehecka 7-6(4) 6-4 in the Japan Open final on Tuesday.

The ATP 500 tournament victory is Alcaraz’s third of the year after the Australian Open and Qatar Open, before the 23-year-old was sidelined by an injury for nearly five months and returned at the US Open in late August.

“I’m really happy to be able to lift a trophy again,” Alcaraz said. “It’s been a while and obviously it’s extra special after my injury and my comeback, in the second tournament that I’m playing.

“It was a really tough week and I didn’t play my best tennis and my best level but I did find good solutions and that’s what matters in the end.”

Alcaraz became the first man to go back-to-back in Tokyo since American Pete Sampras won the men’s title in both 1993 and 1994.

The world number three started shakily, dropping serve in the first game, but soon recovered and dialled up the intensity to break world number 19 Lehecka’s serve with a scorching backhand to level at 3-3.

More uncharacteristic errors from Alcaraz gave Lehecka hope in the tiebreak, but the Spaniard unleashed a sublime drop-shot en route to clinching the opening set to lay the platform for his 27th title overall.

Alcaraz says he ‘trusted’ himself

The seven-time Grand Slam champion took control midway through the second set, breaking to claim a 4-3 lead before sealing victory by forcing an error on match point and then celebrating wildly with his team courtside.

Alcaraz said his triumph helped erase the doubts that he faced during his injury break.

“A lot of negative thoughts come to your mind,” Alcaraz added: “If you’re going to come back healthy, if you’re going to come back the same as you were before, if I will be able to hit the ball normally without pain. I trusted myself and it worked out.”

Alcaraz will return to action at the Shanghai Masters where he will take on Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cerundolo or a qualifier first. The main draw of the ATP 1000 event begins on Wednesday.

Several years ago, DreamWorks Animation veterans Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado pitched the studio an original story centered on friendship and steeped in Filipino culture.

That draft became the animated film “Forgotten Island,” which opened in late September and counts singer H.E.R., Liza Soberano and Dave Franco among its voice cast. The movie focuses on best friends Raissa and Jo, who will soon be separated when Raissa goes to college in the U.S., and the final adventure they take to the fantastical island of Nakali.

The movie opened to a softer $13 million in the U.S. and Canada and has so far made $23.6 million at the domestic box office over two weekends. Globally, “Forgotten Island” has brought in $38.5 million on an $80-million production budget.

That opening haul is lower than the average for original animated films from a major studio, which is about $14.6 million, according to the FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter. But the studio is hoping the movie — which has garnered a strong 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — will pick up steam and benefit from the relative lack of animated competition at the box office until the early November debut of “The Cat in the Hat,” developed by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.

“Forgotten Island” is a big bet for Glendale-based DreamWorks Animation, which like many studios, has largely depended on sequels to drive box office success.

Original animated stories — or original movies at all — have become rarer gambles in Hollywood these days, when sequels and reboots feel like safer options. But Crawford and Mercado knew they wanted to develop a new story together.

The pair, who wrote and directed the film, have been friends for nearly two decades after they met at DreamWorks Animation as storyboard artists. Together, they’ve worked on 2011’s “Kung Fu Panda 2,” 2013’s “The Croods” and 2022’s “Puss in Boots: The Final Wish.” The two bonded over their similar sense of humor and their love for movies, and their longtime friendship was apparent in their easy banter during a joint interview shortly after the “Forgotten Island” premiere last month.

Early on, Crawford and Mercado knew they wanted to tell a story set in the Philippines that celebrated Filipino culture. Mercado is Filipino American and Crawford’s wife is Filipino, so a movie that authentically represented Filipino culture was important to them. In the film, the island of Nakali has many creatures inspired by Filipino folklore, and the characters casually use Tagalog words alongside English.

“There’s a sophistication in terms of respecting that the audience is smart, and doing our part as filmmakers to make sure that the visual storytelling and the context gives everything the audience needs to know,” Mercado told me.

Audiences, too, are more comfortable with content in other languages these days, as I wrote last week about Neon’s Korean-language thriller “Hope.” After all, kids will sing Korean lyrics in K-pop songs, and even “Puss in Boots: The Final Wish” interspersed Spanglish into the story.

“It feels timely to update the way we tell stories, to not treat the audience like, ‘They won’t understand this,’ but really treat them with respect,” Crawford said. “It just felt right to chase authenticity and let go of expectations, especially of what an animated movie should be and has been, and really do something fresh because it’s just coming from who we are.”

In the last few years, animation has been a powerhouse at the box office. Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” and Universal Pictures, Nintendo and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” have each crossed $1 billion at the global box office, two of only five movies to do so this year. In 2024, Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” was the highest grossing movie in the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Original stories have been tougher. Pixar has recently struggled to match the theatrical success of its prior original films and the slower start for “Forgotten Island” may be a sign of similar hurdles for new stories. But culturally accurate storytelling has paid recent dividends — just look at the success of Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters,” which won two Oscars, broke streaming records and sold out theatrical singalongs.

“We believe that there is a platform and space for everyone’s story, for people to feel seen and to know they matter,” Mercado said. “Even when they see a story that is specifically Filipino, if we’ve done our job right, we’ve shown you that you could connect to the story, whether or not you have this experience with the Filipino community or the culture.”

With “Forgotten Island,” Mercado and Crawford also want to push the boundaries of animation beyond its perception as films just for kids. Later this year, films such as Laika’s PG-13 rated “Wildwood” and Brad Bird’s noir film “Ray Gunn” will test the audience appetite for more adult animated and original fare.

“We’re in a time of massive sequels,” Crawford said of stories today. “When you expand where you’re telling them and who is telling them, you naturally get originality. This year has been really exciting for original stories in both animation and live action. You are taking a chance on originality, but it pays off.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Tom Cruise-led “Digger” tanked at the box office last weekend with a domestic debut of $8 million, good enough for fifth place.

The Warner Bros. film was plagued by very mixed reviews from critics, as well as a challenging marketing campaign. The film stars Cruise as an aging oil tycoon whose drilling operations trigger a catastrophic climate change disaster. Worldwide, the film brought in $20 million on a production budget of $125 million.

It’s been a tough theatrical year for Warner Bros., which has seen a string of disappointments before “Digger.” Beyond the cinema, the company is now in the process of being absorbed by Paramount Skydance, with the merger set to finalize Tuesday.

What I’m watching

It’s been yet another busy week, so about the only thing I was able to watch was a few WNBA playoff games. Since the Sparks were left out of the playoff picture again, I’ve sort of adopted the Golden State Valkyries as the next best California team to root for, and what a wild game that was over the weekend against the Las Vegas Aces.

WASHINGTON — Political advertising warns about Democratic plots to defund the police. Campaign events feature law enforcement unions and tough talk about law and order. Stump speeches boast about record low levels of violent crime.

From coast to coast, Republicans are focusing on public disorder, illegal immigration and violent crime in midterm campaigns as voters sour on their party’s handling of the cost of living and the war with Iran.

Democrats have tried to counter the attacks by recruiting candidates with law enforcement backgrounds and emphasizing their own anti-crime plans, but Republicans believe it’s a rare opportunity to go on the offensive in an otherwise challenging year.

“Do you know that right now we have the lowest violent crime rate in 126 years in America right now? Because we emphasize the rule of law,” House Speaker Mike Johnson recently told an audience at Louisiana State University. Crime rates have generally trended down since the 1990s with a brief spike during the COVID pandemic. “We have the most secure border we have had in the past half century.”

President Trump returned to the topic Monday night in Nebraska, warning about how the country used to be before he returned to the White House.

“We had a border with people pouring in, crime like nobody’s ever seen,” he said.

Republicans say Democrats will ‘defund the police’

In Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin, Republican candidates for governor have attacked their Democratic rivals as weak on crime or warned they could cut police funding. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for instance, has lambasted Democratic nominee and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa for not supporting legislation that would require judges to deny bail to illegal immigrants charged with a violent crime.

Hinojosa has campaigned on her tenure as a civil rights lawyer and criticized Abbott’s crime policies as violating civil liberties.

Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive running in Georgia, has repeatedly attacked Democratic opponent Keisha Lance Bottoms over her tenure as Atlanta mayor.

“I grew up in the type of neighborhood Keisha Lance Bottoms abandoned,” Jackson said at a summer campaign rally. “I know who gets hurt when politicians defund the police.”

In an interview with Atlanta station 11Alive, Bottoms emphasized that her administration gave pay raises to police and firefighters, and said she called for increased federal funding for public safety during her time as mayor.

Crime warnings pervade congressional races

It’s a similar story in U.S. House races.

In Virginia’s first congressional district, Rep. Rob Wittman has attacked his Democratic opponent, prosecutor Shannon Taylor, over her allegedly “soft on crime” record in office. In Michigan’s 10th district, Republican Michael Bouchard is running on his service as a Bronze Star Army captain and son of a longtime local sheriff. He’s claimed his Democratic opponent, former prosecutor Christina Hines, supports “woke, soft on crime, socialist policies.”

In Colorado’s eighth district, Rep. Gabe Evans touts his time as a police officer against Democratic challenger Manny Rutinel. And in Wisconsin’s third district, Rep. Derrick Van Orden hopes to win a third race against Democratic nominee Rebecca Cooke by painting her as a communist who wants to defund the police.

Republicans hope that by reprising warnings of crime and disorder the party can reenergize their disillusioned base and win back skeptical moderate voters who have drifted over concerns like affordability.

Democratic rivals have responded in kind. Taylor aired an ad featuring 13 local sheriffs who endorsed her campaign. Rutinel aired ads with local police and rolled out a safety plan that called for greater police funding and drug prevention programs. Hines said she’ll continue to prioritize public safety and prosecute corruption in Washington. Cooke has vowed to fully fund police departments in Congress.

Not all Republicans see crime as a winning issue

It’s yet to be seen if the strategy will prove effective.

“We’ve got to talk about it. I think that in many ways, we are the victim of our own success because it’s off the headlines a little bit more,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican and former state attorney general. “Having a completely secure border now, no one even talks about it. But that’s a huge accomplishment from where we were at before.”

An AP-NORC poll conducted in September found that border security — which Trump and Republicans often link to crime — was a relative strength for the Republican president, with 48% of U.S. adults saying they approved of his performance on the issue. But that was still a decline from a year ago, when his approval on border security was at 55%.

Not everyone in the party is sold on Republicans rehashing the crime message.

“I don’t see that bubbling up as a major issue for the voters,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who chose not to seek reelection this year. Aiming to make the race to succeed Tillis a referendum on crime, Republicans have run ads claiming that Democratic nominee Roy Cooper went easy on convicts during his two terms in the governor’s mansion.

Black political leaders have criticized the ads as racist and reminiscent of past Republican campaigns that used dog whistles to appeal to suburban white voters. Trump made the message explicit when he invoked the infamous 1988 “Willie Horton” ad and displayed dozens of mugshots of men of color on a jumbotron during a rally stumping for Michael Whatley, Cooper’s Republican rival.

In contrast to his party’s messaging, Tillis noted his state’s safety in recent years.

“Frankly, when I hear somebody talking about crime in Charlotte, I live 25 minutes from downtown. I’m not worried about walking through Charlotte at night,” said Tillis.

Democrats accuse Trump of corruption

National Democrats contend that Republicans’ message on violent crime is undercut by the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement actions, which resulted in the killing of two American protesters in January and the fatal shootings of multiple undocumented people. They accuse Trump of corruption and have hammered Republicans for alleged complicity in the president’s self-dealing.

“This is the biggest criminal organization that we’ve ever seen,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, of the current White House.

He added that, “Democrats should be pushing back with the fact that, if not for the fact that he was president, this guy would be leading some type of mafia right now.”

Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said “extreme Democrats are trying to deflect from their radical soft on crime agenda.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

A number of Premier League clubs want Manchester City to be hit with both “retrospective punishments” and sanctions for the future for their mass financial rule-breaking, sources have told BBC Sport.

An independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons.

City have appealed against the verdict.

However, there is said to be a consensus among a group of top-flight club executives that if City’s appeal is unsuccessful, the sanctions should make reparations for the period when they broke the rules, while also limiting their powers in future.

There is also a feeling from at least four Premier League boardrooms that a “one-hit” points deduction resulting in relegation to the Championship would be an insufficient punishment given the severity of City’s wrongdoing.

There is understood to be nuance in exactly what clubs consider a fitting penalty for the eight-time Premier League champions, who were found guilty of all serious financial rule breaches in a damning verdict by an independent commission.

One senior club source said City should be stripped of their titles, and added there was “no great rush” among clubs to push for the redistribution of trophies, but rather to take honours away and leave them vacant.

The source warned the credibility of the Premier League would be lost if City were allowed to keep the eight major trophies they won during the period they have been found guilty.

However, in a sign of a range of opinions across the league, BBC Sport was previously told there was little appetite among other clubs for City to be stripped of titles.

Regarding the timescale for sanctions in the future, there is a concern among club executives that a sanction applied just to one season would merely provide City with a “bump in the road” given the likelihood of them returning to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

A number of Premier League figures therefore believe any points deduction should be split over multiple seasons, while there is also a sense that transfer bans that stretch over a number of windows would also significantly hinder City’s ability to regain their top-flight status as quickly as possible.

Embattled FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been accused of a potential abuse of power and conflict of interest after the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) filed formal complaints to two FIFA committees.

Infantino’s aborted plan to open up the World Cup to private investors, the lifting of US forward Folarin Balogun’s suspension at the 2026 World Cup following an intervention by United States President Donald Trump, and FIFA’s awarding of a so-called Peace Prize to Trump form the basis of the filings.

The first filing made on Tuesday “asks the Ethics Committee to examine the conduct of FIFA President Gianni Infantino and any other individuals identified through the investigation for potential breaches of FIFA’s Code of Ethics”.

The second filing is aimed at FIFA’s Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee (GACC) and “asks whether FIFA’s governance, financial oversight, internal controls and decision-making processes [have] worked as intended”.

Lise Klaveness, the NFF’s straight-talking president and longtime critic of Infantino, told British media that Trump was the common thread in all three issues.

The venture capital firm of Josh Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared, was to be the chief investor in the ill-fated FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan.

Infantino’s plan, launched just after this year’s hugely successful World Cup cohosted by Canada, Mexico and the US in July, would have allowed private investors to acquire stakes in a company created under the FFE initiative.

The backlash that followed led to Infantino making a humiliating climbdown within days.

“FIFA Forward Enterprise is a governance issue, but it’s connected to the two other cases because [of] conflict of interest and abuse of position, potentially,” Klaveness said in her interview with a British newspaper.

“There is a line between all these three cases, and it’s the same political regime.”

Klaveness, a former international footballer, said Infantino had some serious questions to answer over a lack of transparency.

Balogun’s red card in the last-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina during the World Cup resulted in an automatic suspension for the match with Belgium.

But FIFA stepped in and suspended his ban, leading to widespread condemnation, especially when it emerged that Trump had intervened by phoning Infantino.

The FIFA Peace Prize award that Infantino presented to Trump in December has also been widely criticised.

“These are three very different factual cases, but they all have something in common that we want examined,” said Klaveness.

“Is it an abuse of power, an abuse of position? Is it a breach of political neutrality?

“Is it in accordance with the rules of governance, as the FIFA Council should be the strategic body, and the president shouldn’t really have any unilateral power?”

‘Misinformation campaign’

Klaveness, 45, had, in August, called upon Infantino to resign and forgo his bid to be elected to a fourth and final term as president.

The 56-year-old Swiss has insisted he will seek re-election in Rabat next March, and as yet no other candidate has declared themself.

Infantino, who was first elected in 2016, must secure a majority of the 211 votes from the organisation’s members in order to be re-elected.

The deadline to declare a candidacy is November 18.

Klaveness has said she will not be a candidate — despite some observers, including Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter, believing she would be a good fit as FIFA chief.

Aleksander Ceferin, president of European football’s governing body UEFA, has said he is not interested.

UEFA have been unsparing in their verbal assaults on Infantino and FIFA, dismissing the FFE plan as “a shady and opaque backroom deal”.

The likeliest rival is thought to be Canadian Victor Montagliani, president of CONCACAF, whose body, along with UEFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), has formed an anti-Infantino alliance.

However, while a swath of UEFA’s members have publicly withdrawn their support for the 56-year-old Swiss, some of the AFC’s associations, such as 2034 World Cup hosts Saudi Arabia and 2022 hosts Qatar, have pledged their loyalty to him.

African football’s governing body CAF and South America’s CONMEBOL are also supportive.

UEFA has also gone to a court in Florida in an attempt to access documents related to Infantino’s failed plan, hoping to gather evidence for a potential criminal complaint in Switzerland, where UEFA and FIFA are based.

The latter responded by accusing UEFA of a “misinformation campaign” and saying it was attempting to “influence” the election.

After Israeli soldiers stormed Birzeit University near Ramallah to demolish a stone memorial dedicated to dead students, Rania Washaha, 47, felt the pain of bereavement again.

Her brother, Fadi, 34, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier near the northern entrance to el-Bireh in the central West Bank in May 2021.

His name was among the 38 students from the university killed by Israel and listed on the stone pillar known as the Martyrs’ Monument.

Israeli soldiers raided the university campus at dawn on Monday, accompanied by 10 military vehicles. A bulldozer demolished the pillar, and soldiers took away the marble stone. In its place, the Israelis left a planter containing a fig sapling, bearing the inscription: “Water it twice.”

Targeting the University

This raid marks the fifth Israeli incursion into the campus since the beginning of 2026 and the 28th since 2002.

Birzeit University’s administration condemned the recent raid, describing the destruction of the Martyrs’ Monument as a violation of international law and an attack on education and national memory.

“Bulldozers won’t erase the memory of the martyrs, military vehicles won’t extinguish the light of knowledge, and these assaults won’t break the university’s resolve to pursue its academic and national mission,” a statement by the university pledged.

It came 10 days after another incursion by Israeli forces during the daytime, a day before the start of the new fall semester.

Nardeen al-Memi, the university’s public relations and media officer, told Al Jazeera in the brief minutes of their incursion, Israeli soldiers approached the monument for the first time and photographed it.

The Martyrs’ Monument was erected between 1994 and 1996, bearing the names of students and alumni at Birzeit killed by Israeli forces. The list starts with Sharaf al-Tayyibi, who was shot dead by Israeli forces on the campus in 1984. The names of other students and alumni were added during the years that followed.

“The last name inscribed on the monument was that of student Omar al-Naasan, whom soldiers killed in al-Mughayyir east of Ramallah on September 2 while he was confronting settler incursions,” said Nardeen. “Days after his death, his father came and personally wrote his son’s name on the monument.”

University students organised a protest at the site of the destroyed memorial on Tuesday afternoon, most viewing it as an Israeli attempt to intimidate them.

Sami Adel, a Birzeit student who wanted to use a pseudonym due to his fear of being detained, told Al Jazeera the memorial holds a place in the heart of everyone who has attended the university since the 1990s.

In recent years, Israel has tried to suppress any student activity dedicated to commemorating the martyrs, he said.

“Soldiers detained me for several hours three weeks ago and threatened that if I participated in any political student activity on campus, I would face a long and harsh detention,” he added.

Erasing memory

The removal of the memorial is part of a broader Israeli policy targeting memorials dedicated to Palestinians killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli far-right has made the issue part of its campaign to erase markers of Palestinian identity.

Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Knesset from the Religious Zionism Party, destroyed one such memorial in the village of Madama, south of Nablus, with a sledgehammer in August. The Israeli military later said that it routinely removes “symbols of incitement”.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich submitted a list of approximately 40 Palestinian memorials, proposing their destruction, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There has been a wider targeting of civic and cultural symbols across the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, by Israeli authorities.

“Jenin Horse”, a monument constructed from the wreckage left behind by an Israeli incursion into the city, was removed. A memorial dedicated to Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin was also targeted in 2023.

A cemetery containing the bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed during the 1948 war, also located in Jenin, has been raided by Israelis from illegal settlements.

Other landmarks embedded in the city’s collective memory, including the “Watermelon Roundabout”, have also been targeted.

Crushing resistance

Israel’s targeting of Palestine’s collective memory has coincided with a wider campaign of suppression in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian universities have been a particular target in this pressure campaign, with campuses raided, students detained, and strict restrictions on activities and events within university grounds.

Israeli authorities are likely focusing on Palestinian universities because they hold a special significance for Palestinian resistance. They historically served as spaces for anti-occupation activism and have been an integral part of the Palestinian political landscape for decades.

Political analyst Mohammed al-Qeeq, who served as president of the Birzeit University Student Council between 2006 and 2007, told Al Jazeera that Israel has targeted writers, influencers, and activists, along with students, to deter any resistance to the occupation.

Universities have historically served as a “fundamental pillar” of Palestinian resilience and identity.

“Israel had also sought to weaken Palestinian political and social cohesion inside universities by deepening divisions between factions and creating chaos”, he said.

Remembering Fadi

For Rania, the memorial served to cement the names of the martyred students in the minds of the next generation of Berzeit students, including her brother’s.

“I cannot deny that I felt a pang of anguish when the memorial was demolished,” she told Al Jazeera. “I realised the goal wasn’t simply to uproot a physical object; I felt the suppressed violence Israel inflicts upon us.”

The memorial, constructed in 1996, stood on the campus when Fadi studied at Birzeit University. He had been arrested multiple times, spending a total of eight years in detention, and Israel denied Fadi the chance to wear a graduation gown.

“He didn’t even complete two years of study due to repeated arrests and injuries from soldiers’ gunfire,” Rania said. “Yet, he loved Birzeit University dearly and would stand by the memorial, contemplating the names of the student martyrs, never knowing that his own name would one day be added to theirs.”

This year, Rania’s son enrolled at Birzeit University as a first-year student. Shortly before classes started last September, an Israeli officer phoned him, threatening him if he participated in any student activities on campus. “Remember what we did to your uncle,” they warned him.

On the set of CBS’ legacy soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” at the Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Hollywood, two actors were caught in a fiery exchange.

“Do you want to know where Jack was last night?” actor Skyla Lynne asked with a sly grin. “He was with me.”

From behind a monitor displaying a vertically oriented feed, the director interjected: “Could you pause a bit more in between those lines? We might want to do an episode break there.”

The scene wasn’t for an episode of the famous soap opera. It was part of the 40-episode second season of “Hollywood Starlet,” a new microdrama series from “The Bold and the Beautiful” head writer Bradley Bell and his son Oliver.

“I’ve been doing soap operas my whole life, and it felt like there’s been a buzz about microdramas, and it really felt like a natural extension to the stories that we do,” Bradley Bell said. “[On soap operas] we build two cliffhangers usually on Fridays to keep the viewers over the weekend. Here, you do it every couple of minutes. It’s like speeding up the dance routine, but it’s really right in our lane of soap operas.”

Microdramas are the scrollable, cliffhanger-heavy stories built for phone screens. They are giving audiences a new way into the kind of stories that once belonged to traditional soap operas and telenovelas. The so-called vertical format originated in China a few years ago and has drawn a growing global audience thanks to its short, addictive nature. Hollywood names, including Issa Rae and Kevin Hart, are joining in.

Now, Bell is moving into the space. The 16-time Emmy winner and his son Oliver recently launched a production company called Red Flair Entertainment to capitalize on the format.

“Hollywood Starlet,” their first production, premiered Sept. 3 on aTwist, a new vertical series app founded by industry veterans Jana Winograde, former president of Showtime; Susan Rovner, former president of Warner Bros. Television; and Lloyd Braun, former chairman of WME.

Oliver Bell, founder of Red Flair Entertainment, is producing the micro series, “Hollywood Starlet,” being filmed at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Bradley Bell says it was Oliver who hatched the idea.

“I saw this unique format and was fascinated by it,” Oliver Bell said. “I noticed some areas that we could quite easily improve on.”

Microdramas first came across Oliver’s social media feed around a year and a half ago when he was still in college. The 24-year-old said he quickly “fell down a rabbit hole” and became so obsessed with the format that he wrote his dissertation at the University of St Andrews in Scotland on soap operas and microdramas.

After he graduated in December, he and his father founded Red Flair Entertainment and started to develop “Hollywood Starlet,” with Oliver serving as an executive producer and his father as a producer.

The series — which costs about $175,000 to $220,000 a season to produce — is being financed by aTwist. Red Flair has a backend deal, allowing it to share in subscription revenue the show generates for the platform.

After filming two seasons of “Hollywood Starlet,” Red Flair plans several more vertical series across many different genres, like horror and romance, the Bells said.

Oliver grew up visiting sets and eavesdropping on writing meetings from under his father’s desk. The family’s storytelling line runs back to his grandparents, William Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, who created “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Oliver says he’s carrying on that legacy in a very Gen Z way.

“In a way, microdramas are just the natural evolution of the soap opera,” Oliver Bell said. “You could kind of trace the legacy through that and the modernization of serialized TV.”

His father, who was working on episode 9,911 of “The Bold and the Beautiful” while speaking with The Times, said the short-form stories can reach younger viewers who might be daunted by the soap’s decades of history.

“It’s like cracking open a book, and it’s hard for people to get into it to learn the history,” he said. “So having smaller, bite-sized pieces is appealing to us.”

“The Bold and the Beautiful” has aired continuously for 39 years, but it’s now one of American TV’s last soap operas. Until the 1980s, 10 to 12 soaps typically aired at once, said Elana Levine, a media professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who studies the genre. Today, five remain: four on broadcast TV and one, “Days of Our Lives,” is on streaming only.

“It makes sense to take this storytelling form that has been super popular and enduring in the U.S. and find a way to translate that into the mobile devices that we carry around us all of the time,” Levine said.

While soap operas historically targeted a mostly female audience, microdramas reach a much broader audience, said Michael Berry, director of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies, who has studied the rise of vertical series.

“It gives us essentially the main beats that we would get from a soap opera format, but it’s happening in a much more compact and addictive way,” he added.

Cameramen prepare for a scene on the set of the micro series, “Hollywood Starlet,” being filmed at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Lou Trabbie, the soap’s production designer, had never heard of a microdrama before working on “Hollywood Starlet.”

“It’s all going in a different direction. You just adapt and move forward, and that’s what we see here,” Trabbie, who’s worked in the industry for 38 years, explained. “It’s really great to see how these are done with smaller crews. I feel like this is where the business is going.”

“Hollywood Starlet” shoots on the same Sunset Las Palmas soundstage as “The Bold and the Beautiful,” filming during the soap’s monthly dark week.

The first season, 45 short episodes, was shot in six days at the start of summer with a non-union cast and crew of 45. Less than a week after its release, much of the same crew was back to start working on season two.

Oliver Bell said the series used non-union crew due to “budgetary restrictions.”

At a time when major film and TV shoots are leaving the state, microdramas are one of the few areas of production that are growing locally.

Excluding China, vertical video is expected to generate $150 billion globally in revenue this year, according to consulting firm Owl & Co. Most of that comes from TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

Sunset Las Palmas Studios, where “La La Land” and the first two seasons of “I Love Lucy” were filmed, dedicated an entire sound stage in June to standing sets for vertical series. The sets include a courtroom, a bar/restaurant, an apartment, an office and a hospital.

Paxton Fuller, left, executive producer of “Hollywood Starlet,” walks with Sean Griffin, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, for Las Palmas Studios, through a courtroom set on the stage meant specifically for microdramas.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Still, the Bells don’t think microdramas will replace soap operas. The two formats, they argue, can “coexist.”

“Coming into someone’s living room or bedroom, soap operas were almost like an extension of their family that they can count on for years and decades with the same actors. The same families that have watched since day one,” Bradley Bell said. “It’s a different type of viewer for microdramas.”

Oliver Bell added: “We’re trying to grab the scroller’s attention, not necessarily ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ viewer … Microdramas are unavoidable through social media. [It’s] conditioning our brains and how we process media.”

NOT a lot beats the feeling of having that first pint on holiday – but it would taste even better if it was a fraction of the cost too.

Jet2 has found the cheapest holiday destinations for a beer where the average pint costs less than £3.

At the very top of the list for cheapest pints is Tunisia, which comes in at £1.27 – this is £3.74 less than that of the UK where an average pint stands at £5.01.

From the UK, Tunisia is around three hours away and it’s a great autumn and winter sun option for Brits too as in October temperatures can reach 25C.

In November, temperatures in Tunisia can be as high as 20C and even in December it can be 16C – at that time in UK, highs only reach 8C.

Return flights in December can be as cheap as £48 too.

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The most popular spots in Tunisia include Hammamet which is known for its long sandy shores and Sousse, a lively resort town.

On a recent trip to Tunisia, Head of Sun Travel Lisa Minot explored the island off the coast called Djerba.

Lisa said: “Relatively undiscovered by us Brits, Djerba is a great-value option for those looking to explore beyond the Med favourites.

“Sizzling in summer, temperatures remain high all the way through to November and rarely dip below the 20Cs, even in the depths of winter, making it ideal for out-of-season sunshine.”

Jet2Holidays has a break to the 3-star Les Orangers Beach Resort which is seven-nights all-inclusive departing from Manchester on May 25 2027 from £839pp.

The resort has an outdoor pool with lots of activities and it’s close to a sandy beach and Hammamet’s Old Town.

The next spot is shared by Bulgaria and the Czech Republic which both have an average beer cost of £1.74.

Bulgaria has everything you need for a great holiday from vibrant cities like Sofia to coastal resorts like Sunny Beach, Golden Sands and Albena.

One-way flights to Sofia can be as little as £14 – and returns can cost under £30.

Czech Republic is the perfect city break for Brits thanks to being two hours away and it has one-way flights from £17.

The city’s capital of Prague is filled with history with a huge Cathedral , old town squares and beer culture – which is easier to get involved with when pints cost less than £2.

3-star Comfort Hotel Prague City East, 3 nights bed and breakfast departing from Leeds Bradford on November 2, 2026 from £497pp.

The American-style hotel has a huge lobby and restaurant area – and the nearest tram shops is right outside the entrance.

Other top spots include Hungary which has an average beer price of £2.08.

The capital, Budapest, is also known for having lots of thermal baths – it has 123 natural hot springs and 50 thermal bathhouses.

Coming in fifth on the list is Portugal where beer is an average of £2.14 per pint.

Brits can easily head to the Algarve, known for its beautiful beaches, or the Silver Coast which is much less crowded but still has an incredible coastline.

David Hills, Chief Customer Officer at Jet2, said: “We know that value matters to our customers, and that doesn’t just mean getting a great deal when booking their holiday. It’s about how far their spending money goes once they arrive too.

“With destinations including Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Croatia offering beers for considerably less than the UK average, there are plenty of places where customers can enjoy some sunshine or a city break and make their holiday money stretch that little bit further.”

Here are the 10 destinations where your beer money goes further…

1. Tunisia – average beer £1.27

2. Bulgaria – average beer £1.74

3. Czech Republic – average beer £1.74

4. Hungary – average beer £2.08

5. Portugal – average beer £2.14

6. Montenegro – average beer £2.39

7. Spain – average beer £2.56

8. Turkey – average beer £2.77

9. Poland – average beer £2.92

10. Croatia – average beer £2.99

Who will be the next president of the largest Latin American economy? We’ll know for sure with the run-off on October 25, but after the first-round results in Brazil’s general election, it seems it won’t be Lula da Silva. The 80-year-old socialist who was close friends with Hugo Chávez and failed to pressure Nicolás Maduro after he stole the 2024 election would need a miracle to stop Flávio Bolsonaro. The ultra-conservative populism of the candidate’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro —currently in jail for the coup attempt of 2023—, surpassed Lula in the presidential vote and grabbed the majority of states and seats in Congress.

Unless the Workers Party has a secret weapon against Bolsonaro and recruits enough voters in extremis, Lula will end his career defeated by a family closely associated with attacks to democracy, misinformation, open dismissal of environmental concerns, militarism, and sexism. 

We’ll see what millions of Brazilian voters, who are fed up with inflation and crime, will decide. But from a Venezuelan point of view, the idea of having Flávio Bolsonaro ruling over our big neighbor to the south sounds like bad news for chavismo, especially if the rest of Venezuela’s land borders touch Guyana, a rising oil producer closely protected by the US, and Colombia, where Abelardo de la Espriella, a leader who resembles Bolsonaro, is already president.

Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan. He’s not fighting socialism and trying to spread capitalist democracy.

If we add that Panama, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have conservative presidents who declared a new war on drugs and are even joining the Trump administration’s Shield of the Americas initiative, we’ll see a map turning dark-blue hostile to the heirs of 21st-century socialism. No more silence about chavismo’s abuse. No more anti-imperialist performance in global arenas. Finally, the pendulum swung away from chavismo’s old circle. This right-wing storm on the continent is bad for Delcy Rodríguez and good for María Corina Machado. Right?

Not necessarily.

Before and after Trump

Before Trump, things were simpler. Conservative governments in Latin America were like Álvaro Uribe’s in Colombia or Felipe Calderón’s in Mexico: they tried to get along with Chávez but ended up as enemies, cutting commercial and diplomatic ties, fighting chavista diplomats in the UN and accusing their local adversaries of trying to export chavismo. Predicting a vote involving Venezuela in the OAS was easy: you just had to count how many representatives were on the right and how many on the left or the Chávez payroll, like Petrocaribe’s members. 

After Trump, on the contrary, those old categories no longer matter. Ideology is not important. Not even cultural wars, which are so good for social media and for recruiting powerful allies like evangelical churches; a government can allow abortion and same sex marriage and be considered a friend by Trump, as long as this government connects with the priorities of the president’s political and corporate circles.

Hugo Chávez would be worried about the Bolsonaros’ apparent return to Brasília. Delcy Rodríguez, not so much.

Trump’s foreign relations favor those governments who are in sync with the specific matters his administration is about, like pushing China out of the region, securing markets for American companies, and, more particularly, supporting Trump’s narratives. If you lose an election, as he did with Biden, you blame socialism and try to reverse the results; if Trump says fentanyl and cocaine are coming from your country, you help the Americans to attack boats and produce viral clips on social media; if Trump says your migrants are poisoning his country, you help him to stop them before they approach the US, and even accept that your own citizens are sent to prisons in third, remote countries.

Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan. He’s not fighting socialism and spreading capitalist democracy. He’s not even treating China as a geopolitical adversary, but a corporate competitor with a CEO you can visit and have at home, as Trump just did with Xi Jinping. Trump is in worse terms with a fully democratic, pro-market government like Mark Carney’s in Canada, which did not bend to his demands, than with President Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, a hardcore leftist, who is more cooperative with the White House. And, in fact, Trump is allowing the existence of three socialist autocracies on the continent: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

Trump can coexist with socialists, as long as they do what he wants. In practice, this means that our old premises about the impact of having left- or right-leaning governments around are not as valid as they were when Chávez was alive.

New friendz n the hood

We Venezuelans can easily see how things changed in the region’s geopolitical play, and how ideology lost relevance, in the evidently comfortable relationship between Donald Trump and Delcy Rodríguez, or in the aftermath of the earthquakes in June. Many governments sent help to La Guaira, but one of the first and most spectacular rescue missions came from El Salvador, where the government is a very public enemy of chavismo. The Salvadorans’ equipment and efforts in the rubble were highlighted on President Nayib Bukele’s social media. El Salvador’s fast response helped the dictatorship to manage the disaster, not the Venezuelan opposition, which is currently led by a pro-market politician, Machado, who courted the Republican Party for years.

We have also seen how Paraguay, Argentina and Chile, all of them with right-wing leaders very close to Trump, started to restore relationships with Miraflores Palace, even if it is still in the hands of the people who perpetrated the 2024 fraud and besieged the Argentine embassy in Caracas. 

Hugo Chávez would be worried about the Bolsonaros’ apparent return to Brasília. Delcy Rodríguez, not so much. She can invite big Brazilian companies in energy, retail and agribusiness, which would get deregulation and diplomatic support in a Bolsonaro government, to join the investment frenzy in the Caracas Marriott. Yes, Machado and Bolsonaro met in Chile, during Kast’s inauguration in March, and she congratulated him on social media last Sunday, but Venezuela’s democratic renewal is not an urgent priority for Flávio Bolsonaro.

A critical difference between Abelardo and Flávio is that the new Colombian government needs to put pressure on Colombian guerrillas in Venezuela.

A good proxy to estimate how Bolsonaro Jr. would behave with chavismo and Machado is Abelardo de la Espriella. The Colombian president, who used a similar mix of conspiracy theories and a macho persona to defeat the Pacto Histórico leftist coalition, has so far been as passive about Venezuela’s suspension of democratic rights as Gustavo Petro. De la Espriella has been pushing Venezuelan migrants to go home, like Trump. As experts see it from Colombia, he is just following Trump’s lead regarding his neighbor. One critical difference between De la Espriella and Bolsonaro is that the new Colombian government needs to put pressure on Colombian guerrillas in Venezuela (with American support and, probably, even Delcy’s help), a variable absent in the Brazilian case.  

I’m not saying that the Bolsonaros and the rest of the Trumpian Right will support Delcy forever. My point is that we can’t see their spread over South America as a force meant to crush socialists. We must observe what Trump and their allies do, instead of just believing what they say. Trump said a lot of things about Maduro and chavismo, but at the time of writing, Venezuelan citizens remain deprived of influence, just like when Maduro stole their votes, and Maduro’s former vice president is having the time of her life.

Fred Claire was an unorthodox choice for general manager, a former sportswriter and public relations man who didn’t play baseball beyond the junior varsity level in high school, and his 1987 promotion to head the Dodgers’ front office was met with skepticism around the game.

A year and a half later, after his shrewd moves helped turn the Dodgers into World Series champions in 1988, Claire was named Major League Baseball’s executive of the year by the Sporting News.

Claire, who spent 30 years in the Dodgers’ front office, died Monday on his 91st birthday. The news was shared on social media by former Dodger broadcaster Ross Porter.

An avid runner and golfer fit and trim enough to pass for a man a decade younger, the silver-haired Claire was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in 2015 when what looked like a harmless spot on his lip turned out to be cancerous.

The growth was surgically removed, but the cancer returned in August 2016, and spread into the left side of his face. Claire underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatments to kill the malignant cells in his body, but the cancer returned again in 2017.

An immunotherapy clinical trial saved his life, according to a story in Pasadenanow.com, but then an infection forced him to undergo even more extensive facial reconstruction surgery at City of Hope in Duarte, replacing his jawbone with a bone from his leg.

Claire was so impressed with his treatment at City of Hope that he teamed with author Tim Madigan in 2021 to publish a book chronicling his career and capturing the hospital’s history as well the stories of patients and doctors. The book, “Extra Innings,” can be purchased at Amazon, with all net proceeds donated to City of Hope.

“The main thing that I liked and appreciated about the book was people buying it because of their interest in baseball,” Claire told the Desert Sun in 2021, “then to discover what a great place [City of Hope] is after reading it.”

Claire was also active in helping fund research — he and his wife, Sheryl, set up a scholarship fund with the USC Keck School of Medicine for research in head and neck cancer.

Claire was born Oct. 5, 1935, in Jamestown, Ohio. His parents moved the family — Claire had a brother and a sister — to Torrance when Claire was a teenager. After graduating from Torrance High, Claire earned a degree in journalism from San José State in 1957 before taking his first newspaper job.

“I graduated on a Sunday afternoon,” Claire told The Times in 1997, “and by Monday morning, I had a job at the Whittier Daily News.”

For 30 years, Dodger Stadium was Fred Claire’s home. “Honestly, in my heart and soul, it was a thrill and honor to have the opportunity to walk into Dodger Stadium every day and go to work,” Claire told the Times in 2017.

(Jack Harris / Los Angeles Times)

Claire spent 11 years as a sportswriter and was covering the Dodgers for the Long Beach Press-Telegram in the spring of 1969 when a position opened in the team’s public relations department.

Claire, who always longed to be involved in baseball, expressed interest in the job and was hired as a public relations assistant, remaining in the position until 1975, when he was promoted to vice president of public relations.

He was instrumental in creating the branding that came to be known as “Dodger Blue” and was directing the team’s marketing efforts when the Dodgers passed the 3-million mark in attendance for the first time. He also hired Ross Porter, a Dodgers broadcaster from 1977 to 2004.

In April 1987, then-Dodgers general manager Al Campanis was fired after making controversial and what many said were racist remarks about Black Americans on “Nightline,” during which he told the show’s host, Ted Koppel, that Black people may lack “some of the necessities” to be the field manager or GM of a major league baseball team.

Claire was then-Dodgers President Peter O’Malley’s surprise choice to replace Campanis, and his hiring raised the eyebrows of his new peers, who saw Claire as an outsider with no background as a player, coach, manager or scout.

“I knew some people might say, what does this guy know about baseball, he covered it from behind a typewriter?” O’Malley said in 2017. “But I knew Fred could do it. And he did it. He deserves a lot of credit for stepping in quickly, without advance notice, and doing a great job.”

The Dodgers suffered their second straight losing season in 1987, but Claire made several off-season moves — acquiring outfielders Kirk Gibson and Mike Davis, shortstop Alfredo Griffin and pitchers Jay Howell and Jesse Orosco — that fortified the club.

The Dodgers, led by National League Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Orel Hershiser and most valuable player Gibson, won the National League West in 1988 and upset the 100-win New York Mets in the NL championship series.

The gimpy Gibson hit his memorable pinch-hit, walk-off homer off Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the World Series to push the Dodgers toward their fifth championship since moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958.

Kirk Gibson reacts to his game-winning two-run homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

(John Swart / Associated Press)

Claire dealt a smallish and seemingly fragile pitcher named Pedro Martínez to Montreal for second baseman Delino DeShields in what turned out to be one of the game’s most-lopsided trades. DeShields hit .241 in three years in Los Angeles, while Martinez went on to have a dominant 17-year career that earned him a 2015 Hall of Fame induction.

But during Claire’s 11-year tenure as GM, the Dodgers won a World Series, two division titles, a wild-card berth and a first-place finish in the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Claire also changed the culture in the front office, hiring an analytics expert, holding regular conference calls with coaches and scouts and canvassing the clubhouse to talk with players about everything from their families to their on-field performance.

“Fred gave us that first edge of being progressive and aggressive,” Hershiser told the Times in 2017. Added former Dodgers utility man Mickey Hatcher: “Fred Claire was amazing. For a guy who was suddenly put into the limelight, he asked all the right questions, listened to everyone and believed in all of us.”

Claire was fired along with then-Manager Bill Russell on June 21, 1998, five weeks after executives from Fox News Corp., which purchased the Dodgers earlier that year, engineered a blockbuster trade — deflating to many fans — of All-Star catcher Mike Piazza to the Florida Marlins without Claire’s involvement.

Claire, a man of “integrity and dignity,” as former Times baseball columnist Ross Newhan wrote, walked away with no harsh words or public regrets.

“Honestly, in my heart and soul, it was a thrill and honor to have the opportunity to walk into Dodger Stadium every day and go to work,” Claire told the Times in 2017. “This is truly enough for me.”

After his departure from the Dodgers, Claire worked as a columnist and analyst for MLB.com, a radio show host, an instructor at USC and a consultant to companies involved with sports. He co-authored an autobiography, released in 2004, titled “Fred Claire: My 30 Years in Dodger Blue.”

His response during an interview with Business Renaissance Quarterly in 2007 shed some light on Claire’s philosophy. The question: What do you want to be remembered for?

“I was once in the presence of the late Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley when he was asked this question by a reporter from United Press International,” Claire said. “Mr. O’Malley spun his ever-present cigar, paused for just a second and replied, ‘I want to be remembered for planting a tree.’

“Walter O’Malley’s answer, in my mind, overshadowed the great question. He wanted to be remembered for helping things grow, and in my mind, that meant his family, his friendships, the good causes he was involved in.

“I have seldom planted a tree, but I would proudly borrow Mr. O’Malley’s answer to this question.”

Claire is survived by his wife, Sheryl, and their three children, Jen, Jeff and Kim.