BONO gets emotional when he thinks about his bittersweet duet with Dolly Parton.

If like me, you adored the country icon and everything she stood for, you’ll also find it hard not to be deeply moved.

Their tender ballad Torn is the last track on U2’s new album, Carnaval De Luz, the Spanish for “carnival of light”.

It is also Dolly’s poignant final recording, her swansong if you like, in a career stretching back to childhood performances at the Grand Ole Opry in the Fifties.

“What a gift she gave us and what a blessing it felt like,” Bono tells me of his chance to work with her. “And I’m like you, Simon, I can hardly listen to that voice now.”

Completed in June, little more than two months before Dolly died aged 80, Torn is a tale of our times about a family divided by opposing political views.

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“Torn apart these loving hearts that beat and break the same,” she and Bono sing with voices intertwined, Dolly’s displaying a noticeable fragility.

And if Carnaval De Luz as a whole is a vibrant, punchy, forward-facing celebration of rock and roll, this song is an entirely fitting way for it to end.

“Dolly is the Queen of the Carnival. She’s the definition of it,” says Bono of the star noted for her billowing blonde wigs, physical enhancements and sequin-spangled outfits.

“She came from a one-room cabin on Locust Ridge Road (in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee) and real poverty, and she reminded us all that where you come from MUST not decide where you’re going in life.

“If you come from a tough neighbourhood or a broken family, you can still go all the way.”

I’m speaking to all four members of U2 as they celebrate 50 years since Larry Mullen Jr pinned up a handwritten note at Mount Temple School, Dublin: “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”

Here they are before me, this seemingly unbreakable quartet of Sixtysomethings reclining on a sofa, from left to right, The Edge, Bono, Larry and Adam Clayton.

Even by their standards, this is a momentous year for U2, marked by their 16th studio album, two EPs themed around global turmoil and spirituality respectively, the big 5-0 anniversary and the announcement of next year’s mammoth world tour.

But first, let’s hear more of what Bono has to say about the incomparable Dolly Parton.

“I think what we loved about her was the lack of self-pity,” he says. “Years after she wrote about Jolene running off with her man, somebody asked her, ‘How do you feel about that song now?’

“She said, ‘When I look over and I see my man sleeping and catching flies out there on the porch, I think, ‘Come back Jolene and take him away!’

“There was always humour with Dolly and all our favourite people have that, don’t they? There’s no time for whining rockstars. Especially us, as we’ve been given so much.”

LARRY

Having not been around for a while because of injury, I’ve had a lot of time for reflection.

It was not a decision but a situation imposed on me. I couldn’t do my job and it was difficult to make my way through that. So it was good to have the opportunity to come back – because I missed everything!

And when I put my head in the studio again and started to play with these ideas, I felt, “Oh, this is where I’m meant to be. This is what I had hoped for”.

In our 50th year, it’s a great thing to celebrate the past and what we’ve done. But there’s nothing like looking at your 50 years and realise that there’s a future to be proud of, to be engaged with.

To still be moving forward, to have this record to take around the world, is exciting for us.

So how did U2’s collaboration with her come about? I ask.

“We wrote loads of songs that we tried to sell her,” says Bono

“But she said, ‘Well, I have a song I started that you may want to take in a different direction and it’s called Torn.’”

Dolly’s original concept followed a traditional country theme — a woman torn between two lovers — but now it focuses on a familiar U2 subject, how political divisions can destroy families.

Bono says: “Dolly stayed away from politics but she had two brothers that don’t speak to each other.

“They’re fighting about politics — and that doesn’t just happen in the red and blue states of America. It happens in the UK, it happens in Ireland, it happens all over the world, where families are at each other’s throats about the right way to go.”

He believes it’s time we give people with differing views to our own “a bit of slack” and listen to what they have to say and takes inspiration from Dolly’s approach.

“She always wanted anyone to be welcome at her show, whatever condition they arrived in,” he says, “And that’s the way it has to be for us on next year’s tour.”

ADAM

As teenagers in 1976/77, there was a lot of anger in the air. That was our go-to position, where we came from, our music. And the best way for a band to succeed was desperation. To have no plan B.

You had no choice but to keep going forward because your life depended on it.

Fifty years on, this band has allowed me to go from a position of great ignorance and arrogance – thinking I knew everything and could do anything – to realising that my relationship with these three other guys means I’ve been able to achieve way more than I could ever have expected.

The by-product is great humility and gratitude. I feel that we still have a lot to give . No matter where our lives have led us, the constant is mucking about in a studio, creating music together.

As for the sound of Torn, which bears the merest hint of country twang, Bono adds: “We did something similar with Johnny Cash. If you think about Larry’s drum part, it’s more of a sci-fi country landscape.

“I think he did her a favour by not doing the obvious but it was risky. If she didn’t run with it — and she’d have no problem telling you — then we’d have lost her.

“But she liked the direction we took it and her camp has a more traditional country version, which they’re going to put out.

“Hearing her voice in the context of Carnaval De Luz is a bit of a shock and a welcome one.”

Now it’s time to take a deep dive into the rest of the album, a freewheeling tour de force punctuated by The Edge’s most direct, driving riffs in years and blessed by an engine room — Adam on bass and Larry on drums — at the top of its game.

Bono is still finding an incredible vocal range, particularly noticeable through his falsetto on The Mirror Maker (Rosalia) and Superficiality.

As it’s U2, a number of words beginning with U spring to mind about the album — upbeat, urgent, unfettered, uncompromising.

The album begins with the pulsing adrenalin rush of Go (Carnaval De Luz) which segues in the glam-rock stomp of La Reina, which in this context means the carnival queen.

THE EDGE

I feel intense gratitude that I’m still able to make music with these guys, who are my friends as well as my creative partners.

That combination of trust and mutual respect and belief in one another, which is necessary for a band, is also incredibly hard to maintain.

The fact that we’re still here and still enjoying working together and still making great work is kind of mind-blowing.

For us, it’s about being exacting and going after it in an uncompromising way. The music will lead you on really circuitous routes before you get to the final version, but it’s important to never give up – that really comes above everything else, that’s the lesson.

I think it’s always the case with U2 that the music is the boss and the songs are the boss.

Of U2’s rekindled vigour, Adam says: “I suppose we’ve caught up with ourselves.

“Just as we were getting ready to go back to work after Covid, Larry couldn’t perform and had to have medical treatment.

“Now that he’s back in the band full-time, it’s full steam ahead. You can hear it on the record — it’s in the grooves.”

Larry says “it was a real thrill” to get back behind his drum kit in the studio.

“You never know what’s going to happen when you go into a room — it’s complicated,” he continues.

“But we captured a mood and what’s great about this record is that the mood continued.”

He believes that U2’s two EPs, the gritty Days Of Ash and the reflective Easter Lily, released earlier in the year, helped “us get something out of our system”.

“Something is stirring,” agrees Bono. “A disturbance in the force and we’re having fun with it.

BONO

Chemistry . . . there’s some humiliation involved in getting older and still your drug of choice is the perfect song or performance. It means you can be unhappy a lot of the time, because it’s just out of reach.

Further humbling comes, but it’s actually a gift, when you accept you can only achieve them with these three other people (he gestures to his bandmates).

You can’t become yourself without them – and I’ve tried.

I’ve been in other bands, as an anti-poverty activist and all that, but it’s something to realise you really need THESE people to be yourself. And, of course, Western – and Southern, Eastern, Northern – civilisation depends on us.

What would happen if we put out a shite U2 album? The whole thing would   collapse!

“We may have arrived with the right music at the right time — though that’s not necessarily a given. But Carnaval de Luz seems to have struck people the right way,” he adds, before acknowledging the U2 naysayers, “I’m sure there are plenty of people out there for whom it will not strike a chord.

“But for us, it is the sound of relief — and exuberance.”

As for The Edge, his blazing guitar is at the front and centre of the record and must be a source of satisfaction.

“It was a bit of a throw down because guitar hadn’t been at the forefront of contemporary music for a while,” he says.

“But now we’re seeing Fontaines D.C., Geese, The Lambrini Girls — all with fantastic sonics — and that’s what we need.

“It’s what I was searching for on this record. By the same token, it has to be in keeping with what Adam, Larry and Bono are doing.

“You can’t just play guitar for the sake of it. Riffs have to sit in the perfect context to make them great.”

One of the new songs, The Mirror Maker (Rosalia), is a sultry shout-out to shape-shifting Spanish singer Rosalia, who mixes flamenco with pop and hip-hop.

Her album Lux topped many 2025 end-of-year lists.

So I’m keen to find out what she thought of U2 singing about her.

“It was an awkward moment because she became so famous,” says Bono. “My daughter had seen her Motomami tour and I knew her music — but normally you have to be in jail or dead before we write a song about you.

“It was nice to find this incredible artist and celebrate her — but what if she wasn’t into it?

“I can tell you she’s been very kind and generous in our direction. Somebody asked the other day, ‘Would you have taken it off, if she thought it was s**t?’

“It was Edge who said, ‘No, we’d say it was about Saint Rosalia who lived in a cave in 12th Century Italy — at Monte Pellegrino, the same spelling as the sparkling water.’”

Edge says: “Rosalia has a healthy disrespect for staying in your lane, something that (Brian) Eno brought to our band early on.”

Moving on, I ask U2 about the flamboyant carnival concept behind their album.

“People forget that carnival was originally a religious festival,” says Bono. “And it came before BEFORE Lent, the period when people ask hard questions of themselves.

“Then Easter is supposed to arrive with the promise of transcendence — and we love a good rock and roll song with a bit of transcendence, you know Bruce Springsteen, Arcade Fire.

“That’s who we are and that’s what we love about music.

“But we got the protest songs and Easter Lily out of the way first and now it’s the carnival bit.”

This is the cue for Edge to implore people not to lose hope in straitened times. He says: “If you allow doomscrolling to dictate your mood, you’re never going to move forward.

“Without being in denial of the challenges facing us, the carnival is what we want to cling onto. It’s an act of defiance to hold onto joy and positivity in the face of everything that’s going on.”

He points to Donald Trump’s disastrous mid-term elections and alludes to authoritarian leaders being thrown out in places like Hungary and Serbia.

“Everyone was in shock at the number of authoritarian regimes springing up and now they seem to be on the back foot,” he says. “I think carnival is the right mood for this moment.”

Bono picks up the thread by adding: “Sometimes, dancing is the most revolutionary thing you can do.

“Think about it — people go to festivals, they want to dance, they want to move their bodies and they’ve got the freedom to do so.

“We’re not giving up that freedom. That’s what rock and roll is, and this is a moment to fight back by not letting somebody rob you of joy.”

That thought prompts him to consider next year’s The Greatest Show On Earth world tour, named after a Carnaval De Luz joint effort with long-time collaborator Eno.

“We want to go out and make it the best night of anyone’s life — and of our own lives.”

He stops in his tracks and adds with self-deprecating humour: “That sounds completely insincere and a sales job.

“I warn you I am also a salesman, but I’m not being insincere. U2 have to go on stage and believe each night can be the one.

“In these times, it had better be the one. People are paying for tickets, coming with their mates and families — and we are very proud to say that Wolf Alice are joining us.”

U2 are no strangers to carnival atmosphere and remember being taken by Quincy Jones to the Brazilian state of Bahia, the spiritual home of carnival.

“We also went to the Rio carnival and we’ve been to samba schools,” continues Bono. “There’s a reason South Americans are good at football — they’ve got rhythm and they’re better at being in their bodies than Irish people.” Edge and Bono riff off each other and the former says: “They say the Irish have a Latin sensibility but we didn’t get carnival when we were growing up. We got — as in the UK — pancakes.

“So when we discovered what was going on in Spain, South America and Mexico, it made a lot of sense to us.”

This brings us to barnstorming La Reina, on the surface a tribute to a carnival queen but also serving as a reminder that coming together is an antidote to loneliness.

Its mention prompts Bono to make a plea: “When we come to the UK next summer, people can tell us who they want for Carnival Queen and we’ll put them on a float.

“Usually, they came from a small town and weren’t posh but became queen for a day. I love the idea of finding our queen. They don’t have to be U2 fans, just someone U2 fans admire.

“We all have saints and angels walking around us. One works in the pub, one in the emergency room — and no doubt the odd hairy bloke dressed in a crown.

“La Reina is going to be a fun moment and great to hear Edge swagger it out on glam-rock guitar.”

I leave you with a lyric from stripped-back ballad If The World Is At War We Better Not Be. “I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for you to happen to me,” intones Bono.

In this case, “you” means meeting the three people who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him for 50 years — and they called themselves U2.

U2

Carnaval De Luz

★★★★★

Nov. 12, 2026 7:06 PM PT

MINNEAPOLIS — Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and deported more people during the last fiscal year than at any time in its 23-year history, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday, as President Trump followed through on promises of mass deportations that helped win back the White House but also fueled the political blowback that led to Democrats’ overwhelming victory in last week’s midterm elections.

ICE said it deported 483,200 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the highest number since 2014, when 405,090 people were deported under then-President Obama, and some activists labeled him the “deporter in chief.”

The 2026 numbers were up 9% from its previous high of 442,640 in the same period a year earlier and up 78% from 271,480 in 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

ICE had not released such counts since Trump returned to the White House, including for 2025.

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, ICE has been unleashed to target and remove illegal aliens so that we can save American lives,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Yet much remained unsaid in the Homeland Security news release, including how many deportees had criminal histories and a detailed breakdown of the statistics. In addition, deportation numbers can be notoriously fuzzy, with totals counted in different ways in different years.

“It is accurate that ICE is making record numbers of arrests,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, a visiting fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a former top official overseeing statistics at the Department of Homeland Security. “They have record resources. They’ve doubled their staffing. They’re getting a lot of support from other law enforcement agencies.”

But the sparse data in Wednesday’s announcement means “we can’t really see what’s going on in any kind of detailed way.”

Trump had campaigned on ridding America of criminal migrants, saying he’d be targeting the “worst of the worst.”

But that is rarely the case. In July, for instance, only roughly one-quarter of deportees had criminal convictions, according to the Deportation Data Project. More than half weren’t even facing charges.

The numbers released Wednesday also fell well short of the White House goal of 1 million deportations annually, a promise it made when it received billions in additional funding from Congress, supercharging the government’s immigration bureaucracy.

Trump returned to power last year promising to end illegal crossings at the southern border. His administration has pushed through restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and sped up deportations. Immigration crackdown operations are often purposefully high-profile, in part to frighten migrants into leaving of their own accord.

But the crackdown hasn’t always gone as planned.

The biggest shift came this year in Minneapolis, when more than 2,000 federal officers were deployed to the city and thousands of protesters turned out to confront masked and often heavily armed agents spilling from convoys of unmarked vehicles.

Two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 — were killed in confrontations with agents, and the administration quickly backed away from high-profile operations.

Although arrests dropped after the killings, they quickly returned to record numbers, albeit in quieter immigration sweeps.

By last week’s elections the White House’s immigration message had splintered, with even some deeply Republican rural areas voting Democratic after people saw longtime migrant neighbors, many of them key workers on farms, ranches and meat-processing facilities, taken in arrests.

The highest recorded number of deportations came during President Eisenhower’s crackdown on illegal immigrants from Mexico. The often-chaotic policy saw deportation numbers spike dramatically in the early 1950s, cresting at 1.1 million in 1954.

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press.

LAS VEGAS — When the Dodgers and Cubs met at the beginning of August, it was notable that Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong was even challenging Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani for National League most valuable player.

Ohtani was on a streak of three straight MVP seasons and working to return to the mound after what was expected to be a temporary shutdown around the All-Star break. So even as Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong traded leadoff home runs, it felt like a peak in a race that could tilt in Ohtani’s favor in the final months of the season.

Tilt it did — the other way.

Ohtani never did return to the mound, and his offense suffered as injuries mounted down the stretch. Crow-Armstrong never cooled off and ran away with the MVP, officially claiming the award Thursday in a unanimous vote. He was the 11th unanimous NL MVP in the history of the award. Ohtani finished second.

Ohtani’s two-way skill set is so unique that any time he pitches and hits for an entire season, he’s practically guaranteed the MVP — he won the award twice with the Angels in 2021 and 2023 before winning two with the Dodgers in 2024 and 2025. But the Dodgers’ first attempt at guiding him though a full two-way season crashed and burned in the wake of a lingering left knee injury and recurring right biceps issue.

Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs.

(Isaac Wasserman / Getty Images)

The Dodgers are set on having Ohtani return to two-way duties in 2027. But now they’re left to diagnose what went wrong this year and figure out how to avoid the same pitfalls moving forward.

“The good thing is, it’s going to be a normal offseason,” general manager Brandon Gomes said, referring to Ohtani’s health status. “And as we get deeper into the offseason, understanding what our roster looks like, and then having those conversations of, ‘How do we best lay this out to set everybody up to be as good as they can come October?’

“And that’s always the goal. I know it’s so boring and we pound it into the ground. But I think for Sho in particular, it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s get back to feeling 100%, have the normal offseason, like you’re going to have, and then have that conversation based on what our team looks like and rotation and all of that.”

The Dodgers have made clear that plotting Ohtani’s pitching plan will be a collaborative effort that will involve conversations throughout the year. But they have plenty of options for how they could manage his workload.

They could pull him from the batting order on days he pitches, and/or build in more full recovery days after his starts on the mound. They add more days in between his pitching starts. They could have him lighten his pitching load midseason and then ramp up again for the postseason. They could delay his return to the mound.

“I think Shohei’s open to putting the team in the best position to win,” Gomes said. “And I think that is the number one thing that he’s shown over and over again, is that he cares deeply about the Dodgers winning and puts that at the forefront. So I think that’s why these conversations are really important.”

The Dodgers are missing one major piece of information that will affect their path forward: the length of the 2027 season.

Privately, baseball agents and executives’ estimates span a wide range of possibilities, from a sub-100-game season, to a late start but no games lost. It will remain ambiguous well into the lockout, which owners are expected to impose when the current collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1.

So, pitchers across MLB will have the unenviable task of planning their offseason buildup without the clarity of an opening-day target.

In that kind of environment, it could be in Ohtani’s best interest to put off a pitching ramp-up at least until the lockout ends and the season schedule is set. But he and the Dodgers have a little over two weeks to talk through those decisions. Once the lockout begins, teams will be restricted from communicating with the players on their 40-man rosters.

Said Gomes: “I feel strongly that Sho will have himself prepared in the way that he feels is best to go out and dominate next year.”

Saying it’s ‘a failed nation’, the US president considers military intervention in Cuba before he leaves office.

US President Donald Trump has said he would “certainly consider” using military force against Cuba, adding that he wants to “get Cuba done” before he leaves office in 2029.

In a phone interview on Thursday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, of Salem News Channel, Trump was asked whether he was considering “freeing Cuba” through a military intervention.

“I want to get Cuba done before I leave,” he said, adding that the administration was “watching it very closely”.

Trump called the island “essentially a failed … place, nation, whatever you wanna call it”.

Politico reported that it was the first time Trump had put a timeline on a possible operation.

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba, “would love to do it”.

“I’d love to be able to do it for the people, for the Cubans that came and were treated really badly, and they came to America,” Trump said. He added that he won the Cuban vote in Florida by a wide margin.

Pressure campaign

Trump has repeatedly threatened to topple authorities in Cuba.

On Monday, he said Cuba “will fall fairly soon” and that the US would help it “on a humanitarian basis”.

In March, he said he believed he would have “the honour of taking Cuba”, making the remarks as the island’s power grid collapsed.

Trump put Cuba under a de facto oil blockade in January, after the US seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and cut off Venezuelan oil to the island.

He signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US and threatened tariffs on any country that supplied it with fuel.

The blockade has caused repeated nationwide blackouts, fuel and food shortages, and a humanitarian crisis.

Cuban officials have called it “collective punishment”.

Washington has added sanctions, including on Cuba’s state oil company, President Miguel Diaz-Canel and relatives of former President Raul Castro, and announced a new round this month targeting 10 people and entities tied to the government, military and oil industry.

The US has also issued an arrest warrant for Castro. Officials from both sides have held talks on the blockade, but Cuba’s foreign minister said in June there had been “no progress”.

In March, the head of US Southern Command told senators that US troops were not rehearsing for an invasion of Cuba.

Cuban officials said the island was ready for any attack.

The U.S. Air Force unveiled its newest aircraft today by flying them over the Air Force Academy, where they will be used to train a future generation of pilots and serve as the basis for a new aerial demonstration team. The goal is to give cadets a chance to experience high g-force flying while also providing a new recruiting tool to boost the flagging ranks of Air Force pilots.

Dubbed the T-19A Kestrel, the aircraft are two-seat, single-engine GB1 Gamebird all-carbon-fiber aerial performance planes. They were made by Game Aerospace Composites, a Bentonville, Arkansas, company that describes these planes as “the ultimate aerobatic aircraft for pilots seeking an exhilarating flying experience.”

The Air Force has received four of these planes.

A Boost For Pilot Training

The flight over the Cadet Wing’s noon meal formation “marks the formal arrival of the Academy’s first powered aerobatic aircraft, which recently completed its final military certification flights,” the Air Force noted in a release Thursday afternoon.

The T-19As “will enhance the Academy’s elite airmanship program,” the Air Force added. “By partnering with world-class civilian aerobatic pilots and curriculum developers, the Academy aims to field a nationally competitive aerobatic and demonstration team.”

The Air Force’s top general called the T-19A program “historic.”

“Going from an idea to four aircraft built and delivered in 10 months is unprecedented and a testament to the vision, dedication, and teamwork of everyone who made this possible,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach. “These aircraft will give cadets an opportunity to further develop their airmanship and will ultimately establish a competitive flying team to inspire future Airmen.”

The T-19A “enables cadets to build more flight time and aerobatic aviation experience prior to entering the Air Force or Undergraduate Pilot Training,” the general added.

“From inception to delivery, these aircraft reflect the speed and innovation that strengthens the Department of the Air Force,” said Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink. “As the Kestrel program matures at USAFA, cadets will eventually take on a greater role in training and demonstrations — better preparing them for active-duty pilot training after graduation.”

The program’s long-term goal is to “build a premier capability that evolves to include greater cadet involvement in training, demonstrations and program operations,” the Air Force further explained.

You can see this type of aircraft in action in the following video of GB1 Gamebirds flying and being built.

The GB1

Unique Procurement Path

Unlike other new aircraft the Air Force has fielded, such as the T-7A Red Hawk jet trainer, the T-19As did not require a lengthy, expensive development and procurement process. They were delivered in under a year and paid for through “a gift from corporate and civilian donations and the Air Force,” an Air Force official told us.

“The acquisition of the four T-19A aircraft was made possible entirely through these donations, requiring no initial procurement funding from the Air Force,” the official added. “The gift is worth $3 million.”

The Air Force “invested approximately $400,000 to supplement the gift of initial spares, and the procurement of necessary support equipment and aircrew flight equipment for the initial cadre and future cadets,” the official noted.

Funding for operations and maintenance “will be programmed through standard Air Force budget processes,” the official explained. “The annual amount to sustain the aircraft is just over $1 million and will be funded through the weapon system sustainment accounts. The annual costs will cover operations and support to manage/sustain the T-19A fleet, and temporary duty travel to national collegiate aerobatic competitions.”

A Flying Recruitment Tool

“The arrival of the T-19A marks an exciting new chapter in airmanship training here at the Academy,” said Lt. Gen. Paul D. Moga, Academy superintendent. “This aircraft will provide an opportunity to train our cadets in ways that were previously not possible. We will strengthen their aviation skills and develop the confidence, discipline and leadership required of future Air Force officers.”

The T-19A is fully cleared for Academy operations, Moga added. The superintendent “selected six active-duty military pilots from the Academy staff and its 306th Flying Training Group to serve as the initial cadre responsible for developing and executing an aerobatic training curriculum,” according to the service. “They will methodically and deliberately integrate the aircraft into the institution’s airmanship program, ultimately establishing a national demonstration and competition team.”

Initially, the active-duty pilots will serve as the primary pilots for the demonstration team, where they will perform at “high-profile recruiting events and air shows nationwide,” the service stated. “In the future, the team will manage a competitive division, participating in International Aerobatic Club and equivalent competitions.”

As noted earlier in this story, all this is taking place as the Air Force is having a hard time finding and keeping pilots.

In Fiscal Year 2024, “the then-Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General James C. Slife stated that USAF was 1,900 pilots short of the 19,136 pilots that the service identified as needed for global requirements,” according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report released in September. “USAF has a goal of producing approximately 1,500 pilots annually through the Undergraduate Pilot Training program. A House Armed Services Committee report (H.Rept. 119-231) accompanying the committee-reported version of an FY2026 NDAA (H.R. 3838) noted that the service had not met the target.”

What’s In A Name?

The T-19A earned the Kestrel moniker thanks to a group of cadets who came together to recommend the name.

They chose it “because kestrels are falcons known for their agility, acceleration, razor-sharp vision and ability to strike with precision — all traits the aircraft will bring to the Academy’s flight programs,” the Air Force touted.

All T-19A operations will be based out of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Davis Airfield. “Because safety is the foundational block of the program, operations will utilize a robust Safety Management System tailored specifically for low-altitude, high-performance aerobatics,” according to the Air Force. “All flight and ground operations will follow the more restrictive requirements of Federal Aviation Administration regulations and/or U.S. Air Force safety instructions.”

We asked the Air Force when the cadets will begin training and when the new Kestrel demonstration team will start flying. There are plenty of folks at the Academy waiting to find out the answers to both of those questions.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The series attracted millions of viewers as well as a number of complaints after its thrilling conclusion aired – the corporation has now responded to those

The BBC has responded after a number of complaints were made to the corporation over the charities the Celebrity Traitors victors donated their winnings to.

Last month comedian Romesh Ranganathan, 48, and actor Sebastian Croft, 24, were crowned the winners of the of the second series of the Celebrity Traitors. They won £83,000 between them for their chosen charities, with Croft donating his £41,500 share to the charity Choose Love and Ranganathan sending his cash to the Refugee Council.

However, the BBC said it has received complaints about the charities the prize money has been donated to. Posting an update on its complaints page, the corporation said it had “received complaints about the charities chosen by the winners of The Celebrity Traitors”.

Responding to the complaint, it said: “We recognise that some audience members were unhappy with the charities chosen by the winning celebrities. This feedback has been shared with the relevant parties.”

Last week Ranganathan and Croft hit back against the complaints that had been shared on social media in the wake of their win. Appearing on Croft’s Sunday Scaries podcast, Ranganathan said: “Look, people have different opinions, but I feel like (refugees are) a distraction tactic, and people are being pointed in that direction for something to blame, is my personal opinion.”

The comedian said he decided to support the charity after becoming “so fed up with the rhetoric against refugees”. Ranganathan then said he had received comments calling his choice of charity a “disgrace”.

However, he added: “The people kicking off about it has kind of galvanised the people that really think it’s a lovely thing. I think that discussion, that back and forth, has actually been really positive.”

Croft’s winnings went to Choose Love, a global humanitarian organisation and movement, formerly known as Help Refugees, which supports refugees and displaced people around the world through emergency aid and long-term support. The Heartstopper actor said: “It felt like such a nice moment at the time, but then to see the response, what it made me realise is that’s people’s response to a game show donating money to people who are really vulnerable. Imagine how difficult it is for those people navigating that system.”

Ranganathan also added that it was pure “coincidence” they had both decided to support refugee organisations.

Following Croft’s win, Choose Love’s acting chief executive Emma Stevenson said: “We are absolutely thrilled and deeply grateful to Bash (Croft) for choosing Choose Love as his designated charity following his incredible win on Celebrity Traitors. Bash has been a long-time friend and dedicated supporter of our work, and we could not be prouder of him.

“This vital funding will quite literally change and save lives. It allows us to extend critical support to refugees and displaced people, especially LGBTQ+ individuals who face displacement, violence and persecution simply for who they are. We can’t thank Bash enough, it means the world.”

The Refugee Council supports people who have fled war, violence and persecution to find safety and rebuild their lives in Britain. Its chief executive Katie Ghose said: “We have loved every minute of watching Romesh and cheering him along from the sidelines. To see him win is the icing on the cake.

“Romesh continues to be a brilliant champion for our cause. As we saw in the castle, he has a unique combination of huge public appeal, warmth and humanity, at the same time as being a gifted comedic legend.

“Romesh’s support will help us continue to provide vital frontline services to refugees and people in the asylum system who come to Britain in search of safety and the chance to rebuild their lives.”

WASHINGTON — Andy Soma, 24, doesn’t identify with either political party, and he’s been skipping elections since he became old enough to vote. But this year, disappointed with the economy and President Trump’s war with Iran, he cast his midterm ballot for Roy Cooper, the North Carolina Democrat now headed to the Senate.

“I would describe it as the first time that I’ve truly felt the need to vote,” said Soma, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at North Carolina State University. He said he wanted to “kind of take a stand, if you will.”

Young voters overwhelmingly turned their backs on Republicans on Tuesday, erasing the gains Trump had made in the 2024 presidential election. Voters under age 30 moved left by double digits in nearly all the major Senate races compared with two years earlier.

It was a similar story in House campaigns across the country. The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters, showed that about three-quarters of voters under 30 supported their local Democratic candidate, while about one-quarter voted for the Republican.

The support for Democrats outpaces even 2018, when Trump’s Republican Party suffered midterm losses during his first term, and is a dramatic shift from 2024, when young voters were roughly split between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters that year.

For Soma, the tipping point was Trump’s broken pledge that he would keep the U.S. out of Middle East conflicts, a sentiment that student after student echoed in interviews on the university’s Raleigh campus the day after the election.

Other young voters who broke for Democrats this year said their choices were motivated by personal experiences, including working multiple jobs to get by and watching artificial intelligence data center projects advance into their communities.

“I’m trying to save money and buy a house and all that, but it’s difficult right now,” said Corey Herzog, 28, an independent-turned-Democrat in the traditionally conservative town of Celina, Ohio. Herzog works at Walmart during the day and bartends at night, all while building out a small side business selling house plants.

John Della Volpe, a pollster who regularly surveys U.S. youth for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, said the whiplash over the past two elections suggests that young voters aren’t a generation of Democrats or Republicans.

“They’re up for grabs,” he said. “Especially given the state of the economy and their concerns about the future.”

In 2024, Trump won over young men. This year, many sat out or backed Democrats

To win back the presidency two years ago, Trump courted young men who felt disillusioned by economic stagnation, interventionist foreign policy and the government’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. He attended football games and UFC matches and appeared on podcasts with comedians who rebuffed “cancel culture.”

More than half of male voters under 30 supported him in 2024, according to AP VoteCast.

But once in office, Trump started the war with Iran and rammed through tariff policies that continued to drive up inflation. He also resisted releasing documents about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and launched an immigration crackdown that faced widespread criticism.

“This was the perfect cocktail for disaster,” said Charlie Sabgir, director of the Washington-based Young Men Research Project.

Young voters’ unhappiness on every major issue in the midterm election was palpable. Voters under 30 were more likely than older age groups to say the cost of living was crucial for their vote for Congress, and to say the U.S. was wrong to take military action against Iran.

About half of young voters said they were angry about the way things were going in the U.S. today, compared with only about one-third of voters 65 and older.

The anti-Trump backlash was particularly strong among young voters

Even in a year when anti-Trump backlash was one of the major themes, young voters stood out.

Only about one-quarter of voters under 30 said Trump is a strong leader or has the mental capacity to serve effectively as president, according to The AP Voter Poll. That’s a sharp contrast with 2024, when about half of voters under 30 felt Trump was a strong leader and mentally fit. The decline was larger than in any other age group.

“This cultural coalition and cultural cache that Trump had behind him going into 2024 — they’ve clearly soured on him,” Sabgir said.

About 6 in 10 voters under 30 said one reason for their House vote was to express opposition to Trump.

A national consortium of college Republican groups put out a statement making their dissatisfaction clear, writing that young Republicans “were not given what they were promised.”

“In the wake of last night’s election results, the College Republican Patriot Coalition unequivocally lays the blame for the greatest Republican defeat by Democrats since 1974 at the feet of the Trump administration and the Republican Party,” the group said in a statement.

Kidus Girma, campaigns director for the left-leaning Sunrise Movement, said that while he was knocking on doors in Michigan, he met young men who may not typically turn out in a midterm election but did this time because they were disappointed by Trump.

He recalled one person who complained that he was struggling to find a job even though Trump was insisting the economy is going great.

“It’s like this deep disillusionment with the statements the president makes versus the material impacts people are facing in their everyday lives,” Girma said.

Gen Z voters get their ‘millennial optimism’ moment. But to keep them, Democrats must deliver

Sarah Stull, an 18-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin, thought it was funny that so many of her classmates spent Halloween dressed up as “millennial optimism,” wearing skinny jeans and infinity scarves with grins on their faces to satirize the elder generation for being unabashedly hopeful.

Stull got the joke. Like others her age, she described herself as “very sarcastic, very jaded — and do sometimes expect the worst.”

But Tuesday night, sitting in a dorm room with friends watching election results stream in, that all went out the window.

“We were freaking out, all of us were crying,” said the young Democrat, who voted for James Talarico for Senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor. “I just felt this sense of community that I had never felt before.”

She posted a video of herself and friends on TikTok, literally jumping for joy outside the Texas Capitol, captioning it “millennial optimism cause texas went blue.”

Young adults like Stull — who was 7 when Trump rode down the escalator in New York’s Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his first presidential campaign — have only ever known “the Trumpification of politics,” said Katherine Haenschen, a political science and communication professor at Northeastern University. Now that era seems to be coming to a close, bringing hope for the first time to left-leaning young people.

But it’s a fragile moment.

Dakota Hall, executive director of the progressive youth political organization Alliance for Youth Action, said he thinks young voters could shift to the right again if Democrats leading Congress don’t do enough to lower the cost of living, regulate AI and address government corruption.

“Young people have a very short leash,” Hall said. “If you do not deliver, ’28 will be a rough road ahead.”

Swenson, Rankin and Thomson-Deveaux write for the Associated Press. Rankin reported from Raleigh, N.C.

The Rams on Thursday placed Puka Nacua on injured reserve, meaning the star receiver must sit out at least four games.

Nacua was injured last Sunday on the Rams’ final play of their 20-13 victory over the Washington Commanders. Nacua, who had 14 receptions for 150 yards and a touchdown, was hit while carrying the ball on a jet sweep.

The Rams have experienced a flurry of injuries, and NFL rules limit teams from activating more than eight players a year from injured reserve.

On Wednesday, McVay said Nacua would not be placed on injured reserve because of “semantics with the roster and things like that,” but that he “still is going to be out for an extended period of time.”

Last week, the Rams activated running back Ronnie Rivers and edge rusher Myles Garrett from injured reserve. The Rams also opened the 21-day window for tight end Terrance Ferguson to return from an ankle injury, and then Ferguson suffered a hamstring injury.

Defensive lineman Kobie Turner could return before the Rams play the Green Bay Packers the night before Thanksgiving, and receiver Davante Adams might return after the Rams play the Packers, McVay has said.

Nacua will be sidelined for Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals, and games against the Packers, Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. He will not be eligible to return until the Rams Dec. 20 game against the Dallas Cowboys at SoFi Stadium.

The Rams elevated receiver Brennan Presley to the roster from the practice squad and signed receiver Tyler Scott to the practice squad.

Konata Mumpfield, Tutu Atwell, Xavier Smith and rookie CJ Daniels are other receivers in the roster.

The report seeks to address concerns about the Trump administration’s handling of revenue held in trust for Venezuela.

The United States Department of State has released a report detailing what it says the US has done with more than $12bn in revenue from Venezuelan oil and mineral resources, nearly a year after it abducted the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.

The disclosure is part of an effort to “promote transparency and accountability in the management of these funds”, says the 53-page report, released on Thursday.

In January, US forces conducted a raid on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, capturing Maduro and his wife and bringing them to New York City, where they are currently facing charges related to drug trafficking and torture.

Venezuela’s then-vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, took over after Maduro’s abduction and has since made agreements with Washington that saw the US take a direct stake in profits earned from the export of oil and other mineral resources from the South American country.

Since removing Maduro from power, the Trump administration has sought to directly control who buys natural resources from Venezuela and who earns profits from those sales.

US President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January establishing special bank accounts that would hold revenue from those transactions, to be eventually distributed back to Venezuela in a controlled manner.

Trump has made Venezuela a central part of his political narrative, touting the revenue he said the US would receive from sales of the country’s oil during election campaigning in the run-up to the midterm elections that were held earlier this month. Venezuelan rights activists have expressed concern that Washington may give outsized importance to oil revenues and take little interest in backing democratic reforms after the removal of Maduro.

The report released on Thursday covers flows into and out of US-controlled accounts between January 3, 2026 and September 30, 2026. The State Department has also contracted private Washington, DC-based auditing firm KPMG to examine the transactions.

The US took in more than $12.26bn from “verified and approved entities engaging in authorized activities” in Venezuela during that time, according to the report. Most of that flow came from crude oil and petroleum-based revenue, but it also included deposits stemming from transactions involving gold, minerals, and fertilisers.

More than $12bn of that revenue has been disbursed as of September 30, with some $169m remaining in the account, according to the report.

The US initially set up an account in the Qatar National Bank in January to take in funds from entities looking to buy authorised oil and other minerals from Venezuela. Approximately $500m was initially deposited into that account, with almost all of it distributed back to Venezuelan entities by late January, when a separate, dedicated US Treasury-controlled account was set up to handle future transactions.

The current account, controlled directly by the US Department of the Treasury, has taken in more than $12bn in funds, from about 20 depositors, whose identities are redacted in the State Department’s report. Approximately 99 percent of those funds were related to the purchase of oil, according to the report.

By the end of September, the State Department report says, nearly all of those funds had been distributed to a set of Venezuelan banks, to be used in foreign exchange interventions, transactions where banks sell those dollars to reduce the amount of local currency floating around and prop up the currency’s value, in this case the Venezuelan bolivar.

The report is heavily redacted and does not provide details about the final recipients of the more than $12bn in funds that was distributed in Venezuela, although it does note that approximately $9.4bn went to “legal entities” and $2.9bn to “individuals”.

Emmerdale star Will Ash has hinted Caleb Miligan’s betrayal with Sadie King could be revealed to Ruby at Christmas in dramatic scenes, amid Joe Tate’s revenge plan

Christmas could see a shocking betrayal exposed on Emmerdale.

Will Ash, who plays Caleb Miligan, has teased festive scenes could see a ticking time bomb explode. Caleb has cheated on his wife Ruby Miligan with Sadie King, who seduced him amid teaming up with Joe Tate.

Joe wants revenge on Caleb and Ruby, and has set out to ruin their loves after blaming them for his partner Dawn Taylor’s death this summer. Sadie and Caleb are so far keeping their fling a secret, despite Joe setting out to prove they have slept together.

Caleb actor Will has warned Joe won’t be leaving his uncle alone any time soon, and will continue with his plan. It’s been massively hinted this will continue into Christmas, and this could be when the secret eventually comes out.

Asked if it was going to be an exciting Christmas on the show, Will said: “It is definitely. You’ve got this secret that’s kind of [a ticking time bomb]. He’s working overtime between now and forever to kind of keep it under wraps.

“It’s inevitable that it’s going to get out, but because he’s naive and he’s working really hard, he thinks he’s going to be able to stop it.” On Joe’s continued antics not dying down any time soon, Will added: “So not yet, he’s circling.

“He’s always kind of in for Caleb, you know what I mean, and all the Tate stuff, all the stuff that happened with Dawn. He’s circling like a shark.” Will warned there might be no going back for Ruby and Caleb once she finds out the truth about Caleb sleeping with Sadie.

He explained: “I think it’s like the betrayal is so much greater now this time. Their relationship became so strong after everything that happened with Anthony, and with Steph and all that kind of stuff, they’ve overcome so much.

“He’s always been a bit of a philanderer. Ruby and certainly Caleb as well thought they’d put all that behind them. So for something like this for Ruby, on the surface how it looks, that he’s just slept with her, you know what I mean.

It depends how Ruby sees it I think, but I think she’d definitely kick him out. I don’t think there’s any coming back from that.” So it could all come out at Christmas, while Sadie’s exit from the show is meant to be airing around January or February time, as actress Patsy Kensit is filming until December.

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok, Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he will induct former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, retired San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, the musician Joni Mitchell, the band Metallica and actors Edward Asner and Robin Williams to the California Hall of Fame next month.

The list includes a total of 18 Californians selected by the governor and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, for their contributions to film, viticulture, sports, dining, art, literature, music, education, politics and business.

“This historic class reflects the very best of California and what’s possible when people have the courage to think big and make a difference,” Newsom said in a statement. “Their legacy will inspire the next generation to keep pushing boundaries and showing the world what Californians can do.”

The California Hall of Fame began in 2006 under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over 180 inductees, who are required to live in California for at least five years, have been recognized over the last 20 years.

This year’s inductees include:

• The late Edward Asner, the first actor to win Emmys for playing the same role, Lou Grant, in both a comedy and a drama and a former president of the Screen Actors Guild.
• Andy Beckstoffer, a vineyard owner and leader in American viticulture, whom the governor is honoring for “pioneering precision farming technologies and advancing farm worker equity, he helped reshape vineyard stewardship and the industry’s economics.”

  

  Barry Bonds attends the 2025 BBWAA Dinner at New York Hilton Midtown.

  (Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)

• Barry Bonds, the left fielder who played 15 seasons with the San Francisco Giants. Bonds holds MLB records for career and single season home runs, and the most National League MVP Awards, among other baseball accolades.
• The late Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time National Park Service ranger who retired at age 100 and “inspired generations by bringing history to life through her own experiences of segregation and resilience.”
• Dominique Crenn, the celebrated chef and co-owner of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco and the first woman chef in the United States to earn three Michelin stars.
• Guillermo del Toro, the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
• Shepard Fairey, the street and graphic artist best known for his 2008 portrait of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
• Maxine Hong Kingston, an author and the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award, National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts.
• The late Diane Ladd, a three-time Academy Award nominated actress, the mother of actor Laura Dern and a 30-year member of the SAG-AFTRA National Board.

  

  Rock star Huey Lewis.

  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

• Huey Lewis, the musican and frontman of the Grammy Award-winning band Huey Lewis and the News.
• The late Felicitas Méndez, an advocate for public education who challenged Mexican American student segregation.
• Metallica, the San Francisco rock band that has sold 125 million albums worldwide and is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• Joni Mitchell, the acclaimed singer and songwriter and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

  

  Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks to the media Tuesday in Washington.

  (Aaron Schwartz / Getty Images)

• Nancy Pelosi, the Bay Area politician who served nearly four decades in Congress and became the first woman elected speaker of the House.
• Bonnie Raitt, the 13-time Grammy Award winner and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• The late Rob and Michele Reiner, who the governor’s office said “built careers in entertainment while collaborating on public education and civil rights initiatives in California.”
• Susie Tompkins Buell, the co-founder of the brands Esprit and the North Face, who is being recognized for her work that “challenged the notion that business success and social responsibility were separate pursuits, pairing extraordinary growth with progressive workplace practices and socially conscious marketing.”
• Robin Williams, the late actor, comedian, Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy winner.

One scene features Ayesha and Daddario sharing a five-second kiss. Naturally, folks on social media had some very mature reactions, such as “I’ve never seen her look at Steph like this,” and “can’t believe my goat Steph gotta go through this” and “grounds for a divorce.”

Ayesha even jumped into one of the threads. “It’s not even real,” she wrote, adding a laughing emoji, “you guys are annoying.”

The kiss also became a topic on several podcasts. Arenas and Young discussed it Sunday on their “We Said What We Said” podcast, with Arenas doing most of the talking and Young, who played with Stephen on the Warriors during the 2017-2018 season, mainly expressing agreement.

Former Wizards player Gilbert Arenas is honored during a 2022 halftime ceremony in Washington, D.C.

(Nick Wass / Associated Press)

“When you’re talking about an American family, [Stephen] is the definition of what everybody sees as a father,” Arenas said. “Got the best kids. The only blemish in the family is the wife in a sense ‘cause she doesn’t act like the other superstars’ wives.

“We don’t want to hear you,” Arenas said of the public’s feelings on star athletes’ significant others. “We just want to know you’re there, you’re fine, you are taking the pictures. But we don’t want to know you.”

In another video, posted Tuesday, Arenas tried explaining that he had been talking about Ayesha‘s behavior only in comparison with that of her husband.

“She’s not doing anything wrong as for just women themselves. She’s not,” Arenas said. “But you’ve got to remember, he’s 100% clean. … Like he’s, he is the pope in a sense, right? You make one mistake, you are the worst out of the two, is basically what I’m saying.”

In an episode of the “Speakeasy” podcast titled “VIDEO: Steph Curry’s Wife KISSES ANOTHER MAN!” the unmarried Acho states he wouldn’t be OK with a significant other kissing someone else in a movie.

“It wouldn’t be me and it couldn’t be me,” Acho said. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think people were meant genetically, physically, anatomically, spiritually designed to watch their partner kiss another person, whether it’s done in the name of acting or not. I just do not think that we were like physically and emotionally designed for that.”

Saudi-led coalition intercepts flurry of suspected Houthi missiles, drones targeting oil, military infrastructure.

Saudi-led coalition forces have said they intercepted suspected Houthi drones over Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh region and Eastern Province, as the UN Security Council agreed to extend sanctions on the Iran-allied group.

Major General Turki al-Maliki, the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, announced the interceptions of suspected Houthi drones on Thursday, in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group had targeted oil infrastructure and military assets in the kingdom, including a pumping station on the East-West Pipeline with a drone as well as the Yanbu oil facility on the Red Sea.

Riyadh says it has rerouted about 4 million barrels of crude per day via its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, equivalent to about 4 percent of global supply.

Saree further claimed a military cargo plane at Sharurah airport close to Yemen’s border was targeted with a drone, while a ballistic missile launched towards Khamis Mushait airbase “scored a direct hit”.

The Houthi spokesperson added that their forces had targeted the Saudi Aramco headquarters in the capital, Riyadh, but rejected as a “grave falsehood” a Saudi assertion that the group had targeted the kingdom’s Mecca region on Wednesday.

Saudi-backed coalition forces fighting on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognised government say they continue to confront the Houthis across all frontlines, targeting leaders, vehicles, reinforcements, weapons and positions.

Yemen’s Defence Ministry, citing the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, said the battle against the Houthis was moving towards its “desired objectives”, according to Yemen’s official pro-government Saba news agency.

A meeting convened by the Defence Ministry was held in the Marib governorate to discuss the ongoing operations against the Houthis, where ways to enhance coordination and integration between various military units that are part of the Dawn of Yemen offensive were also discussed.

Security Council extends sanctions

On Thursday, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously voted in favour of extending sanctions related to Yemen for one more year, including freezing assets and enforcing travel bans, while demanding an end to Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The mandate for the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen, which made the recommendations, was also extended.

UNSC members called on “all parties to refrain from escalatory actions and to resolve differences and disputes through negotiation”, while also backing the territorial integrity of both Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

“The resolution condemns the military escalation by the Houthis, their maritime and cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia, and their threats to commercial shipping vessels,” the UNSC statement said.

The resolution emphasised that measures taken for the purpose of maintaining sanctions “shall not apply to humanitarian assistance or supplies for basic needs of civilians, without negatively affecting legitimate trade activities”.

“The council sanctions are merely a means, not an end in themselves,” said Ambassador Fu Cong, China’s envoy to the UN, who hoped that “the situation in Yemen will de-escalate as soon as possible”.

333,000 displaced

On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 333,000 people have been displaced in Yemen since the beginning of August, including more than 24,000 displaced in the past week.

Civilians “continue to pay a heavy price as violence damages health facilities, forces families from their homes, and hinders the work of humanitarians”, OCHA said.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is pressing the European Union to adopt an EU Parliament resolution to designate the Ansar Allah Houthi movement as a “terrorist organisation”, according to the Reuters news agency, citing sources familiar with the drive.

But European officials told Reuters the bloc is concerned this could undermine a future peace process.

EU foreign policy spokesperson Anouar El-Anouni said the bloc was in regular contact with Riyadh on regional developments, but declined to comment on any specific discussions under way, according to Reuters.

Speaking at the White House, Trump says Gulf countries asked him to hold off on further attacks against Iran.

The cause of death for comedian Anthony Clark has been revealed as pneumonia-related complications.

The “Yes, Dear,” and “Boston Common,” actor died Tuesday according to his former co-star Mike O’Malley, who announced the news on social media. The stand-up and actor died from complications related to pneumonia according to Deadline. Clark was 62.

“Anthony Clark died yesterday,” O’Malley wrote. “He was a hilarious guy. When my wife Lisa and I were dating back in the mid-nineties, Anthony was already famous in Boston, regularly selling out comedy shows.

“The first time we saw him at The Comedy Connection we laughed and laughed and laughed,” O’Malley continued. “He was so unique—one of those comics who is laughing along with you at the absurdity of his stories and observations. I was a fan before I was a friend. We spoke on the phone three weeks ago. He had us laughing loudly once again.”

Clark was a fixture in the L.A. stand-up scene through the ’90s. In 1995, he was featured in an HBO young comedians special alongside Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K., hosted by Garry Shandling. He made his foray into acting in the early 1990s. Clark made his feature film debut in the 1991 drama “Dogfight,” according to IMDb, but he’s perhaps best known for starring as Gregory “Greg” Warner in the hit CBS sitcom “Yes, Dear” alongside O’Malley across six seasons and 122 episodes in the early aughts.

Clark also held lead roles in TV shows including NBC’s “Boston Common” and CBS’ “Soul Man” and acted in films “The Rock” and “My Uncle Rafael.” He also hosted the fourth season of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and appeared in shows including “Ellen” and, most recently, “West of Liberty.”

Backlog exceeds current production capacity, prompting active hiring, substantial CapEx, and expansion of the Orlando plant, with a new facility also under consideration. Management is pursuing acquisitions and strategic investments and is trying to announce one RF-product deal before year-end.

NEW YORK — Two Democratic senators are launching an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress about his reason for a 2019 trip to Samoa after the Associated Press and the Guardian published documents in August refuting his testimony.

The new inquiry is one of a vast array of investigations planned into the Trump administration after Democrats regained control of the House and the Senate from Republicans in the midterm elections.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said in a letter Wednesday to Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group known for anti-vaccine activism that was formerly chaired by Kennedy, that they were starting an investigation.

The lawmakers asked the group for a broad range of documents related to Kennedy’s Samoa travel, his 2024 presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process. The letter also requested all communications between the group and federal government officials since President Trump’s second term began in January 2025. The senators gave the group a deadline of Dec. 4 to comply.

AP and Guardian reporting in August showed that while Kennedy repeatedly told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation last year that his visit to Samoa before a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines,” a letter he sent to the Samoan prime minister ahead of the trip on Children’s Health Defense letterhead showed otherwise. In the letter, Kennedy used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

“We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children,” Wyden and Alsobrooks wrote in their letter. “We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the Senate’s ability to fulfill its constitutional duties.”

The Department of Health and Human Services has maintained that the Samoa visit “was unrelated to vaccines.” In response to an AP inquiry in August, it said “any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”

Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing. Knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence regardless of whether a person is under oath, though it is rarely prosecuted.

Spokespeople for Children’s Health Defense and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Wyden is expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee, which has oversight into Kennedy’s health department, when Democrats retake Congress in January. Alsobrooks serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which also oversees the department.

The same senators on Wednesday announced a separate investigation into hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts reportedly given last year to Kennedy by a donor and former employee.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

Australia captain Pat Cummins has hit back at former team-mate Usman Khawaja’s claims over the sandpaper scandal, calling them “100% wrong” and “utter nonsense”.

In 2018, Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were punished for a plot to tamper with the ball using sandpaper in Australia’s Test against South Africa in Cape Town.

Khawaja has published his autobiography this week and the former batter has said the entire Australia team, which included Cummins, knew about the sandpaper scheme and should have taken responsibility.

But in an extraordinary address to the media in Sydney, Cummins countered and said: “When he says we all knew, if by that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he’s 100% wrong.

“I said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening.

“He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense.”

Cummins and Khawaja played 56 Tests together until Khawaja retired from international cricket in January.

Khawaja was in the Australia XI when Cummins made his Test debut in 2011 and the pair were also once team-mates in domestic cricket with New South Wales.

“Usman is a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations,” said Cummins.

“In his book he’s been casual with my life and the lives of many others – and, I think, Australian cricket.

“I support him to tell his story, 100%, I’m glad he feels like he can, but we have to be accountable for the things that we say and do.”

More to follow.