We know from statements issued by the 2015 National Assembly Delegated Commission, the 2026 National Assembly, and the State Department that August 1 was set as the launching date of a roadmap leading to a political transition in Venezuela.

The incentives for the various actors to accelerate or delay this political negotiation process are clear. The Venezuelan interim government (as the State Department statement refers to it) will have an interest in delaying the process as much as possible to prolong its time in power and preserve the current state of affairs. For the 2015 National Assembly Delegated Commission, it offers a window of opportunity to gain relevance and demonstrate its ability to accelerate the agenda that Dinorah Figuera announced before any other actor. The Trump administration will want this process to proceed at a pace that does not jeopardize its control of the country until the elections (and perhaps even after). It is in María Corina Machado’s best interest for the situation to develop in a way that allows her to gain control and create the conditions for her to be the opposition candidate in the upcoming presidential elections.

Other, less prominent actors will try to influence the process. We have already seen AD leader Henry Ramos Allup trying to position himself, for example, to defend Machado’s participation, as did Henrique Capriles, and other voices will surely emerge along those lines in the coming days. Those aspiring to a new National Assembly and new elections for governorships and mayoralties will certainly also try to influence the process.

But let’s turn to the most relevant conversation, with just under two weeks until August 1: what could be the institutional path to achieving this political transition through free elections?

A new National Electoral Council (CNE)

Since the elections are administered by the National Electoral Council, it would seem that the first step should be, precisely, to elect a new CNE board.

Choosing a reliable one could be the first challenge. What has been offered previously is insufficient: a majority of three or four people close to or allied with the government and one or two “independents” or those close to the opposition. A board is needed that complies with Article 296 of the Constitution, composed of “five people not affiliated with political organizations.”

This CNE must begin with an essential task: the purging and updating of the Permanent Electoral Registry. It is crucial that Venezuelans abroad be allowed to vote and that the necessary logistical and diplomatic conditions be established to make this possible.

A new Supreme Court

Under the Venezuelan constitutional system, the decisions of the CNE can be subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). Directly by the Electoral Chamber. Indirectly by the Constitutional Chamber.

Therefore, the appointment of new justices to both the Electoral Chamber and the Constitutional Chamber is necessary at the outset of this process. Article 263 of the Constitution clearly outlines the requirements for becoming a Supreme Court Justice. In May of this year, the Supreme Court Law was amended to increase the number of justices from 20 to 32. The Constitutional Chamber (the most important chamber) is composed of seven justices. This increase means that 12 new justices must be elected. Furthermore, a significant number of the current 20 justices are of retirement age.

This, as with the CNE, is debated and decided in the National Assembly, whose majority is controlled by Jorge Rodríguez. It would have to be a decision by chavismo, or the result of a political rupture, for the political rights of the non-government-controlled population to be considered both when electing CNE board members and when appointing Supreme Court justices. This relates to the next point.

Restoring civil and political rights

For several years, Venezuela’s main political parties and actors were subjected to confiscation and persecution through various administrative measures, such as those issued by the Comptroller General of the Republic to disqualify candidates, and even judicial measures to replace the boards of directors of opposition parties like COPEI, Primero Justicia, and Acción Democrática. It is essential to compile a report detailing all these measures and establish an action plan to reverse them, allowing political parties and leaders to operate and return to Venezuela.

Then, reforms must be made to those laws and administrative regulations that, long before January 3rd, restricted freedom of expression and the conditions for holding elections, such as the Constitutional Law Against Hatred, the Simón Bolívar Law, and the Law of the Comptroller General of the Republic. The same must be done with respect to the resolutions of the CNE that have restricted political and civic participation in the electoral processes. Furthermore, cases where it has been argued that the 2026 Amnesty Law is inapplicable, such as that of María Corina Machado, must be reviewed.

Given that the incentives of the actors in this process are not and will not be aligned, as shown above, it is crucial to immediately establish timelines for the phases of the process, beginning August 1. This will allow us to gauge the level of commitment among the parties to move forward with the transition.

There are certainly conditions attached to this process that are not public, and that will shape its phases and pace. However, we must begin a public conversation about ideas for addressing this crucial phase of political life starting August 1.

Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper who earned plaudits for his World Cup performances, is set to join Chilean side Colo Colo.

The 40-year-old headed to the World Cup without a club after his contract with Portuguese second division side Chaves expired, but he became an overnight sensation by starring in a goalless draw against eventual champions Spain.

He has now found a new club, according to Colo Colo president Anibal Mosa.

“Vozinha will be a Colo Colo player,” said Mosa.

“In the coming days he will travel to Chile, undergo the usual medical examinations and then be presented here at the Estadio Monumental.”

Mosa said Vozinha’s World Cup displays showed he deserved the move, acknowledging the signing also carried marketing appeal for Colo Colo.

The club, based in the Chilean capital of Santiago, sit top of Liga de Primera – the country’s top division.

Media freedom organisations and opposition lawmakers have criticised sweeping media reforms pushed through by Israel’s right-wing coalition as part of a legislative blitz before the parliament’s dissolution in advance of elections later this year.

The parliament, or Knesset, last week approved the bill that could give the government a far greater say in Israel’s news and broadcast sectors. The controversial measure strips away traditional oversight safeguards, eliminates requirements for minimum journalism standards and lifts longstanding limits on cross-ownership, among others.

Following the July 17 vote, watchdog groups, including the Union of Journalists in Israel, along with opposition parties, successfully petitioned the High Court of Justice to freeze parts of the legislation. They warned that some provisions that were set to take effect immediately, including the removal of limits on ownership of multiple media outlets and the stripping away of newsroom standards, could permanently distort the media landscape before the October 27 election, potentially influencing its outcome.

The government has until Sunday to respond, after which the court will decide whether to keep the freeze, widen it, or allow the provisions to take effect. Other, less contentious and immediate sections of the law were left to stand.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not vote on the measure. He is currently bound by a 2020 conflict-of-interest agreement that bars him from participating in government decisions that could affect his ongoing corruption trial, where, among other charges, he stands accused of using his position to unduly influence media coverage of his administration.

Nevertheless, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi thanked Netanyahu directly, saying: “Mr prime minister, I want to thank you and tell you that the mission you gave me four years ago – to deliver right-wing reform of the media – was today successfully completed.”

Israeli media reported that such a directive by Netanyahu could be a violation of his agreement. Neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the Communications Ministry responded to Al Jazeera’s queries over whether Netanyahu’s role in the legislation’s passage represented a conflict of interest. However, Karhi subsequently claimed that he had secured a legal opinion determining that the prime minister was not in breach of the conflict-of-interest agreement.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi have proven repeatedly that they are enemies of independent journalism in Israel,” Martin Roux, of the Reporters Without Borders media monitor, told Al Jazeera.

“This means they’re attacking every Israeli citizen’s right to reliable information from diverse sources. This has been true for years, and it is becoming more obvious every day as the legislative elections, set for the end of October, approach. It’s all about controlling the narrative,” he said.

In a social media post, Karhi claimed the new legislation would bring “more right-wing coverage and less regulation”.

“After a determined struggle against every possible element from the deep state, tycoons, attorneys, officials and fearmongering networks – we managed to pass the right-wing media reform.”

‘Boosting propaganda channels’

However, for many observers, there was little new in overhauling media that had grown used to toeing the government line, with critical coverage of the multiple wars that Israel has engaged in and the international outrage that many have caused typically relegated to the sidelines of the national conversation.

“The reforms are part of Netanyahu’s ongoing media overhaul – undermining the remains of critical reporting and journalistic independence in the country, while boosting Netanyahu’s propaganda channels,” London-based Israeli academic and media analyst Ayala Panievsky told Al Jazeera.

She cited the far-right Channel 14, which she said emboldened Israel’s war crimes and offered unflagging support to what she described as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

“In 2020, they amplified ‘the Big Lie’ in the US elections, claiming Trump won the election – they might therefore act similarly following the Israeli general elections in October, if Netanyahu’s coalition indeed loses,” said Panievsky, echoing similar concerns among academics and legal analysts sparked by accusations from lawmakers within Netanyahu’s Likud party that the acting head of the Central Elections Committee, Dean Livne, was “clearly politically biased”.

Analysts and observers from across Israel have long pointed to the strongly nationalist undertone of much of Israel’s current affairs coverage and the absence of space given to Palestinians and Palestinian suffering.

When the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, Israel’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the findings as “distorted and false“, a framing echoed across domestic outlets rather than scrutinised.

A subsequent Molad report found only 3 percent of Channel 12’s early war coverage referenced Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, with just two of 206 visuals showing Palestinian civilian casualties. Elsewhere, allegations of Israeli war crimes, including sexual abuse, are either omitted or given pro-government framing, observers told Al Jazeera.

“The Israeli media just doesn’t feature Gaza. It’s not there,” political analyst Ori Goldberg said from outside Tel Aviv. “There’s no sense of solidarity with the journalists killed there, or those they don’t let in. They’re just not mentioned.”

Similarly, discussion panels on the various wars that the Netanyahu administration had embarked upon were typically staffed by ex-generals, who had no question with the need for war, only differences over its prosecution, said Goldberg.

However, even this relative compliance was not enough for a prime minister fighting an election that had come to rely on the appearance of forward momentum and paper enemies to sustain his political project.

“Netanyahu always needs to be seen to be pushing the envelope,” Goldberg added. “He needs a media that will give barely critical coverage of his every word, but one that he can still present as the enemy within.”

Nairobi, Kenya – The death toll from the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surged above 1,309, an extraordinary rise of more than 40 percent in just five days, government figures show, as a leading public health consultant says the virus is “spreading like a wildfire”.

Updated data released by the government on Saturday showed that as of Thursday, the total number of confirmed cases, including deaths, had climbed to 2,973. This was a 27 percent rise from the figure last Saturday.

The unprecedented rate at which cases are increasing and deaths are mounting has made the DRC epidemic the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak ever documented.

Compounding the danger, the virus spreading in the DRC is Bundibugyo, which is the rarest of the four variants of Ebola known to affect humans and currently has no approved vaccines or treatments.

Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Union’s public health agency, told Al Jazeera the lack of a proven vaccine meant the virus was “spreading like a wildfire.”

Nasidi said the epidemic was unfolding in an area of active hostilities, compounding the shortage of public health resources common to African governments confronting outbreaks.

Scientists are racing to find a way to slow the epidemic, and the University of Oxford’s Oxford Vaccine Group said a volunteer had received the first dose of a rapidly developed experimental vaccine on Friday.

“This is an important milestone for the trial, and marks the next phase in our multinational collaborative journey to develop a Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine,” said the Oxford team’s chief investigator, Katrina Pollock.

The largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history killed more than 11,000 people out of at least 28,000 cases between 2013 and 2016, primarily in West Africa across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

That outbreak took about eight months to reach the first 1,000 deaths. The latest epidemic in the DRC has done so in less than 10 weeks.

“We must act now,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya wrote in a post on X last week. “If we do not stop it today, this will become the worst outbreak the world has ever documented.”

Al Jazeera’s Alain Uaykani, reporting from the DRC city of Goma, said the government’s response had lacked coordination and urgency, leaving medical personnel overstretched and working in poor conditions.

He said the death toll among health workers continued to climb on Saturday, with a doctor and a health worker among the latest victims.

More than 100 health workers have been infected since the outbreak was declared in May, and around 35 have died, a toll compounded by shortages of protective equipment and, in some communities, hostility from residents who question whether the disease is real.

An increasing number of healthcare workers at several medical facilities in the northeastern province of Ituri, the epicentre of the outbreak, have gone on strike over unpaid wages and unsafe working conditions.

Last week, dozens of workers at Rwampara General Hospital near Bunia went on strike. The hospital operates a major Ebola treatment centre, parts of which were set ablaze in May by angry residents who also chased after health workers fleeing in trucks.

The latest strike began on Saturday at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Centre in the provincial capital of Bunia. Activities were largely paralysed as doctors, nurses and security staff stopped work.

Approximately 100 workers held a protest outside the centre, saying unpaid bonuses were undermining morale and disrupting patient care.

“We need to be paid, because in the meantime the disease is spreading at the treatment centre,” Martin Bolombi, one of the striking workers, told The Associated Press. “I’ve already had five people die who are still inside there. A solution must be found for us,”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that the true number of cases could be more than double the official count, as insecurity continues to restrict access to affected communities.

Contact tracing now reaches roughly 80 percent of known contacts, he said, but response teams still cannot reach every village or deploy where they are needed most.

The United States and Canada have both restricted entry for travellers who have recently been in the DRC, measures that run counter to the WHO’s own guidance issued in May, when it declared the outbreak a global health emergency.

Tedros has called for a ceasefire in the conflict gripping eastern DRC, arguing that medical resources alone are not enough to tackle the crisis, and political action is needed to open up access for responders before the virus takes hold in provinces not yet affected.

JENNIFER Lopez’s first husband squared up to Sean “Diddy” Combs in a blazing row after the rapper had an affair with his wife, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.

In a world-exclusive interview, Ojani Noa — the original Mr J-Lo — claims he confronted the disgraced star in a terrifying Hollywood bust-up.

A defiant Ojani reveals: “She cheated on me with Diddy.

“I confronted him and told him I wasn’t scared of him.”

Ojani also tells for the first time how Diddy threatened superstar Jennifer — now 57 — and verbally abused the singer at her own home, leaving her “in fear for her life”.

Cuban-born Ojani married J-Lo in 1997, a little over a year after a passionate whirlwind meeting but they split 11 months later as Jennifer’s hunger for global fame took over.

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Jennifer then started officially dating Diddy, now 56, in 1999 but the toxic couple finished their tumultuous relationship in 2001.

Now her relationship with Diddy has come into the spotlight again after he was accused of running a sex-trafficking ring and convicted last year of engaging in two counts of transportation of prostitution.

Ojani, a 52-year-old personal trainer living in Florida, today discloses for the first time the explosive moment he stepped in to protect his ex-wife from the Bad Boy Records founder.

He recalls: “It was the year she dumped him.

“We were still friends and we had decided to start over again.

“Everyone makes mistakes and deserves to be forgiven once.

“She had tried to dump Diddy before and he had threatened her and her family.

“He turned up to her assistant’s birthday party in Los Angeles — which Jennifer had thrown for her — and everyone was shocked.

“I went over to him and told him to leave and he told me to back off. He asked me who I was, to which I replied, ‘F*** you’. I told him he had slept with my wife.

“Jennifer got in between us. She said he would leave but he didn’t.

“I got upset with her and at the end of the night she got in his car and left.”

The dramatic showdown at the party was only the beginning of a terrifying campaign of intimidation.

Ojani says that a few weeks later Jennifer — who has always remained notoriously tight-lipped in public about her dark history with Diddy — called him, “terrified” after the rapper turned up at her Los Angeles home and began screaming her name.

He reveals: “She said she was scared and afraid so I instantly left work and came over.

“When I got there it was pitch black and I couldn’t see anyone, so he must have been hiding. As I drove in he started shouting and telling her he knew I was inside.

“That’s when I fronted him up. Jennifer was on the balcony and told me not to as she was worried.

“She told me he had guns but I told him that I would f* him up.

“She said she was going to call the cops but a neighbour must have called them as they turned up and Diddy ran away.

“She had said to me before that he could do bad things. But I told him to his face that he was a coward.

“That’s why he was always with bodyguards with guns because anyone could take him one on one.”

Ojani arrived in the US illegally aged 15, after making the perilous 90-mile trip from his home in Cuba to Florida with six friends on a homemade raft.

Washing dishes at Latin pop singer Gloria Estefan’s Miami restaurant, Larios On The Beach, the ambitious 22-year-old worked his way up to become head waiter.

It was there that he first locked eyes with Jennifer, then 27. The pair hit it off immediately and Ojani packed up his life to move to Los Angeles to be with her.

He famously asked her to marry him with a diamond ring during the crowded wrap party for her breakout film Selena.

Lucrative offers came flooding in from every corner of the entertainment industry, including a multi-million-dollar record deal from Sony music mogul Tommy Mottola.

But that meteoric rise to the top was the moment things started to unravel between the newlyweds.

Ojani says: “Everything was great and we were so in love.

“I was in charge of launching a nightclub in LA called The Conga Room which was part-owned by Jen, while she went off to make her debut album — On The 6 — in New York and Miami. That was when Diddy was drafted in to help produce several tracks.

“They knew each other way before the media reported they did.

“She started hanging out with Diddy more and more, and I started seeing her less and less.

“Then the rumours started. I still had a lot of friends working in Miami hotels who would call to say they had seen them hanging out and leaving together.

“She would tell me it was just work. But then a picture appeared in the US magazines of her sitting on Diddy’s lap at the pool of Miami Beach Hotel. We started to fight really badly as I knew she was cheating on me.”

Desperate for answers, Ojani took a six-hour flight from Los Angeles to Miami to sneak past security into Jennifer’s luxury hotel suite.

He waited for hours to challenge her face-to-face.

“She was on her own,” he said.

“But she was shocked I was there.

“I told her again she was cheating and we got into a massive fight.

“The next morning she went to the studio and I went back to Los Angeles. She rang me and said I couldn’t do that again.”

As the marriage crumbled, Jennifer’s public relations machine was working overtime to present a picture of domestic bliss to the world.

Ojani says an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where a beaming J-Lo told millions of viewers that she was “happily married”, was the final straw.

“We went to the Oscars and she was using me so she could pretend to everyone that everything was OK. It wasn’t. So we got divorced.”

It was the first of her four divorces. She went on to marry dancer Cris Judd, music icon Marc Anthony, and actor Ben Affleck.

• Tomorrow: Read the truth about her marriage to Ben Affleck.

Additional copy: Graeme Culliford.

President Trump’s $1.4-billion crypto windfall has become the biggest obstacle to passing his sweeping digital-asset legislation as Democrats demand tougher language to prevent the president from profiting off an industry his administration regulates.

Senate Republicans released a proposal this week intended to break a months-long impasse over the bill, known as the Clarity Act. But Democrats and consumer watchdog groups dismissed the terms almost immediately, complaining the bill would not stop Trump or his family from continuing to profit from his meme coin and other crypto ventures.

Trump needs the support of at least seven Senate Democrats to pass the legislation, which would set rules for digital assets. Ethics has emerged as the biggest, though not the only, sticking point.

“It’s the linchpin,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat and key negotiator who has been supportive of the crypto industry.

A spokesperson for the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House has consistently asserted Trump is not involved in managing the family’s crypto ventures and has denied conflicts of interest.

Democrats have specifically taken issue with a provision that would leave Trump’s Justice Department as the primary enforcer of the new ethics regulations, preventing state attorneys general from acting as an independent check.

Another Democratic negotiator, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said they’re working on a compromise ethics proposal to send to the White House but didn’t provide details.

Senators in both parties said they see the negotiations in the coming week as key to whether a bill reaches Trump’s desk this year. But after the chilly initial reception to the latest White House offer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.C.) said he didn’t think the Clarity Act would pass the chamber before the month-long August recess.

“We’ll see where the votes are,” Thune said.

Alsobrooks, Gallego and other crypto-friendly Democrats are demanding changes to other pieces of the massive bill, including consumer protection and illicit finance measures.

The bill has other issues, including opposition from banks intent on tightening restrictions on stablecoin rewards. Tillis and several other Republicans said they are considering backing changes to reflect banks’ concerns that their deposits could shift to stablecoin accounts, crimping their profits and customers’ access to credit.

Tillis has floated adding “circuit-breaker” language empowering the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or other regulators to step in if bank deposits drop — an idea opposed by GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, the crypto industry’s biggest backer in the chamber.

Porous provisions

Critics said the draft’s ethics protections are porous. It would let Trump divest a large stake in his crypto venture or move it into a blind trust for the rest of his term, but stops short of requiring him to sell.

“It’s going to allow him to keep making money the way he has in the past,” said Scott Greytak, deputy executive director of Transparency International US, an anti-corruption advocacy group.

The restrictions also hinge on whether an official has a “direct interest” in a crypto asset — a threshold that may not apply to Trump.

The president is a significant owner of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, through an entity called DT Marks DEFI LLC, which holds about a 38% stake. Whether that counts as a direct interest “isn’t clear,” said Zach Everson, research director for Public Citizen’s Trump Accountability Project. “Does direct interest describe how he holds the crypto?”

Because the bill wouldn’t apply to the children of government officials, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could continue their own crypto business interests. And much of the family’s fortune has already been made: Trump and his affiliates have earned a huge windfall from meme coin and token ventures, income the legislation would not claw back.

Critics also decried a provision that would sunset the ethics requirements on Jan. 20, 2029, the day Trump’s successor would be inaugurated. That could prevent the next administration from holding Trump accountable.

The White House and Republicans argued that Trump had gone further in backing ethics restrictions in law than any previous president.

“History will remember this as the moment a president chose a higher standard of ethics than the law required of him,” Lummis, a key architect of the bill, said on X.

Democrats were skeptical even before the language was released. “Any meaningful ethics provision would be shot down by the White House,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.

The politics of crypto have long divided Democrats, and a bipartisan deal on the legislation risks provoking a backlash from progressives. Failure to reach a deal, however, could make the party the target of a torrent of crypto campaign cash.

Crypto group Fairshake and its two affiliated super PACs have raised $164 million for the midterm elections, Federal Election Commission filings show, and have spent $66.6 million so far.

It’s the kind of political arsenal that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York can ill afford to have aimed at his candidates as the party seeks to regain Senate control.

But others, like Murphy, have warned that blessing Trump’s big crypto bill would undermine Democrats’ midterm message.

A potential presidential candidate, Murphy said Wednesday while addressing the left-leaning Center for American Progress that the bill is before the Senate “because the industry paid for it” and urged Democrats to instead turn fighting crypto corruption into a potent campaign issue this fall.

Markets have grown less convinced a deal gets done. On Polymarket, the odds of the Clarity Act passing this year fell to about 1 chance in 3 earlier this week after Republicans released the new draft.

That’s about half the odds the prediction market gave passage after the Senate Banking Committee backed an earlier version of the bill on May 14.

Dennis and Patterson write for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Yash Roy, Lydia Beyoud, Aidan Williams, Bill Allison and Olga Kharif contributed to this report.

Welsh Fire put on a dominant display in Cardiff to make light work of MI London, as captain Sophie Devine’s excellent all-round performance leads her side to a 60-run victory. The result leaves the visitors winless in their opening two matches of The Hundred.

MATCH REPORT: Devine inspires Fire to dominant win over MI London

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July 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s ready to continue talks with Iran or escalate fighting, but an Iranian general said it’s ready to fight.

Trump met with top advisors and cabinet members on Friday to make a decision on whether to escalate attacks on Iran, The New York Times reported. Friday night, no attacks on Iran from the United States or on U.S. military sites were reported after 13 straight nights of fighting.

The White House hasn’t said if the president decided what to do, but Trump said the military is ready for a heavier attack if Iran doesn’t want to resume talks.”Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point. Maybe they will cry uncle, or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide.”

He told reporters that Iran is getting more serious about talks to end the fighting.

“We are talking to them. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason, but we are talking to them right now,” Trump said Friday.

He said that Iran would “love to make a deal” but he didn’t “think they’re ready to.”

But an Iranian general pushed back Saturday, even suggesting that Tehran welcomed a ground invasion by American troops.

“Our war with the enemy is a war of attrition, one that will not end,” the official whom Iranian media named General Asadi said Saturday, CNN reported. “We ask God that the ground forces of the aggressor American army find themselves in a position where we can engage them on the ground.”

In an interview with Axios on Thursday, Trump said he was considering a “massive attack” on Iran.

“Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” he said. But he said that decision would have consequences, and he hadn’t decided on it yet.

He told Axios that the Iranians “want to negotiate” but aren’t ready to make a deal.

“They haven’t received enough pain yet,” he said.

Two regional sources with knowledge of mediation efforts told Axios that Iranian leadership hasn’t accepted the latest proposal.

One of the sources said, “We are trying, but the Iranians are not being helpful.”

Tehran, Iran – A public rift has emerged between Iran’s government and state television over how to portray the state of war and negotiations with the United States, as mediators try to nudge both countries towards diplomacy.

The Government Information Council on Friday accused state broadcaster IRIB of “censorship” after parts of a speech by President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the week were not shown to the public.

The broadcaster, whose head is appointed by the supreme leader, issued a response on Saturday rejecting the government’s “accusations and improper attributions”, and emphasised that it has a duty to prevent “an incorrect and unreal suggestion of duality in the country’s leadership pillars”.

In his speech, Pezeshkian had pointed out that after last year’s 12-day war with Israel, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly said there would be no negotiations with Washington – but privately had given his approval.

“We went to the dear leader, explained the situation, and asked him what to do since he had said the ‘no war, no peace’ conditions are bad for the country,” the president said. “He ordered us to go negotiate. We started the talks based on his order.”

The government said in its statement the move to cut that section of the speech was part of a series of “unusual actions” taken by state television concerning recent comments made by the heads of the government, parliament and judiciary.

It pointed out that earlier this month, a part of the parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s interview with state television dealing with negotiations had also been cut. The government council added that a part of a speech earlier this week by judiciary head Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei was not aired either, in which he expressed backing for the president.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also separately criticised IRIB, saying during an interview with a state-linked outlet released on Saturday that he “fought with a sword” in wartime interviews with US media such as Fox, CNN and others. The chief diplomat said he expected state television to show how Iran’s case was being strongly presented to US audiences and policymakers, but only one or two subtitles from the interviews ended up going on air.

Araghchi also rejected a notion raised by hardliners that the now-suspended memorandum of understanding signed with the US last month was “imposed” on new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, as some hardliners have claimed. He characterised it as the best possible agreement under the circumstances.

In its own statement, the government blamed the actions on “a political faction within” state television, in an apparent reference to the Paydari Front of ultrahardliners, and said their actions could serve to undermine national security and social cohesion.

IRIB, in a statement published by its public relations department, countered that broadcasting the president’s segment would have propagated an appearance of division.

Both sides accused each other of undermining the decree issued last week by Mojtaba Khamenei to reach a “sacred unity” in face of military, economic and diplomatic pressure by the US.

Mohammad Mirzaei, a member of parliament and spokesperson of a committee tasked with exerting oversight on IRIB, said on Saturday that directors of the state broadcaster have been warned about the necessity to display different viewpoints and to act as a “sign of national unity”.

Conservative journalist Mohammad Mohajeri told local media that the broadcaster is now at its most expensive and least effective. Reformist activist Mohammad-Sadegh Javadi-Hesar described the deeper problem as “one government being installed and another government called IRIB operating against it”.

Reformist Entekhab news outlet reported, citing an unnamed source, that Pezeshkian sharply reprimanded IRIB chief Peyman Jebeli at a cabinet meeting after the row over the negotiations. Jebeli, who was appointed by Ali Khamenei in 2021, was media deputy at the Supreme National Security Council when Saeed Jalili, the only council member said to have voted against an interim deal with the US last month, was its secretary.

Hardline lawmaker Meysam Zohourian said the president has threatened to cut state television’s budget, but the administration has not confirmed this.

As the public sparring unfolded, mediators from Oman were in Tehran on Friday to discuss the management of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway whose control has become a central point of contention between the US and Iran.

US President Donald Trump argued on Friday the war was going “extremely well” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington in the coming days.

He said the two sides continued to talk through mediators, but that he did not expect any agreement soon.

The US president also refused to answer whether realising his threat of systematically attacking power plants and bridges in Iran in case of a war escalation would constitute war crimes.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday responded by saying missile and drone launches across the region will continue “until the full surrender of the enemy” and avenging the blood of civilians killed during the war.

Tech scion David Ellison for months projected confidence that his blockbuster Hollywood merger was on a glide path to completion.

His media company Paramount Skydance’s pitch early this year was that its proposed $111-billion acquisition of rival Warner Bros. Discovery could easily clear regulatory hurdles — unlike Netflix’s competing bid.

Ellison has heavyweights in his corner: his billionaire father Larry Ellison, co-founder of software giant Oracle, is bankrolling the deal, and President Trump is eager for the Ellison family to own CNN and other Warner assets, including HBO and the Burbank film and TV studios behind “Batman,” Harry Potter, Wile E. Coyote, and “The Pitt.”

“We could technically close [the deal] tomorrow,” Ellison told business new channel CNBC during a March interview. “There is nothing in this transaction that trips anything that would create cause for concern.”

But Paramount made a dramatic retreat Friday after two weeks of legal setbacks. The firm had been aiming to close the deal by September but agreed to table its takeover — perhaps until next spring — to allow a fiercer than expected challenge from California Atty. General Rob Bonta and 11 other Democrat state attorneys general to advance to trial before an Oakland-based federal judge.

The state prosecutors allege Paramount’s proposed merger with Warner Bros. violates a century-old antitrust law by giving the combined company too much heft in theatrical movie distribution and cable television.

The delay could saddle Paramount, the smallest of the major media companies, with substantial legal fees and hundreds of millions of dollars in added deal costs. In February, Paramount offered Warner investors a sweetener, so-called “ticking fees,” to win the auction.

Those fees, which begin accruing in October, will cost Paramount an extra $7 million a day — until the purchase is finalized. And if Paramount fails to close the merger, it would owe Warner Bros. Discovery a $7-billion breakup fee.

“Anyone who thinks they know how this deal ends should think again,” Forrester Research analyst Mike Proulx said in a statement. “This deal may still close or it may not. … The path to either outcome just got longer, messier, and likely more expensive.”

Paramount now must strengthen its case for a high-stakes trial while fortifying Paramount’s existing businesses and holding together a coalition of financiers, which includes the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar which jointly agreed to contribute $24 billion for equity stakes in the combined company.

Paramount reversed course after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín dealt the company a blow on Monday when she temporarily blocked Paramount from finalizing the acquisition until mid-August. Looming was a key Aug. 3 hearing for the judge to determine whether the moratorium should be extended.

Paramount was concerned the judge would block the deal for the foreseeable future.

“They saw the writing on the wall,” Bonta said in an interview.

Columbia Law School business professor Eric Talley added: “This doesn’t constitute Paramount Skydance coming out and waving a big white flag — but it is a small white flag of surrender.”

Paramount, in a statement, said heading straight to trial would prove advantageous.

“This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators,” Paramount said. “We look forward to proving our case at trial.”

Last week, the Writers Guild of America separately filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the merger, alleging that writers would encounter less work and lower pay should Paramount buy Warner Bros.

Now the merger won’t close until after a resolution in the litigation or by June 1, 2027, whichever date comes first.

“This is what we’ve been asking for from the start,” Bonta said. “We just wanted the court to have sufficient time to review our case without the threat of the companies merging.”

Ellison, through a Paramount spokesperson, declined an interview request.

The delay brings a different set of challenges, Talley said, including pushing the date of the takeover until after November’s pivotal mid-term elections when control of Congress might change hands.

“That itself could be disruptive,” Talley said. “Suppose we get a flip of the House of Representatives or the Senate, then we may see testimony in Congress.”

Prominent Democrats, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) have expressed alarm over the potential consolidation, which would shrink the number of legacy film studios and bring CNN in addition to CBS News under Ellison control.

Attempts to get Ellison to testify in Congress have fallen short. The Paramount chief declined an invitation to appear before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights in February, as well as a subsequent request from Booker to appear during an April spotlight hearing.

“To what extent was the rush to get the deal done related to the midterms, and what press coverage was going to look like in the upcoming election season?” Talley asked. “CNN is not a huge money-making asset but it is a prominent asset of Warner Brothers Discovery.”

On Friday night, Trump extolled his friendship with the Ellison family during the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner while also criticizing prominent CNN anchors.

David Ellison is “going to make, I think, fantastic changes and keep some of the great stuff going,” Trump said.

CBS News has been roiled since shortly after the Ellisons acquired Paramount in August, and installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News. She has overseen a series of controversial moves, including shaking up the evening news and sacking several “60 Minutes” correspondents.

Paramount scored one victory: the European Commission gave its blessing for the merger to go forward in the European countries it represents. The company now has gained clearances from more than 60 jurisdictions, including from the U.S. Justice Department, which found the merger would likely boost competition — not harm it.

Now, Paramount’s biggest obstacle is winning the case against Bonta and the other state attorneys general.

The states plan to request a trial in 2027, after the two sides conduct months of discovery to prepare their cases.

“We want to take depositions of employees. We want to take depositions of customers and competitors in these marketplaces that are impacted [and] we want documents,” Bonta said.

“We want to depose their experts and probe and test their experts’ opinions,” he said. “That all takes time.”

Bonta and the other state attorneys sidestepped the political landscape in making their lawsuit arguments.

“This is just a straight-up meat-and-potatoes antitrust case,” Bonta said. “The main point here is that antitrust enforcement is important because monopolies that lessen competition hurt everyday people.

“Once we have a trial, we’re going to win,” Bonta said. “So we think and we hope there will never be a merger.”

BANGOR, Maine — Former state lawmaker and logger Troy Jackson secured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine on Saturday and will face longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November in a race that could decide which party controls the Senate.

Jackson replaces Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary in June but withdrew from the race this month following an allegation of sexual assault that Platner has denied. Maine Democrats met Saturday to choose a new nominee to face Collins.

Support coalesced around Jackson, a former Maine Senate president and fifth-generation logger from rural northern Maine who campaigned alongside Platner during a failed bid for governor and was a favorite among progressives to replace him.

“When the people in power refuse to listen, you have to organize, you have to stand in solidarity, together. And you have to make them listen,” Jackson said during a speech at a last-minute nominating convention held Saturday.

The Maine Democratic Party has been scrambling to choose a new nominee after Platner, who sailed to victory in the Democratic primary in June, was accused by a former girlfriend of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner denies the allegation, but quit the race after key supporters called on him to withdraw.

Democrats have seen Maine as the party’s best opportunity to flip a Senate seat this year because it is a competitive Senate race in a state that Donald Trump lost in 2024. But defeating Collins won’t be easy. The five-term incumbent holds a fundraising advantage, while the new Democratic nominee will have less than four months to sell himself to voters.

Maine law gave the state party authority to choose a replacement and required a new nominee to be named by Monday — 99 days before the Nov. 3 election.

Maine Democrats’ never-before-used process of voting on a new nominee involved hundreds of Democratic delegates gathering in Bangor, about 130 miles north of Portland. The delegates were elected at county party meetings last weekend. The nominating convention began Saturday morning and wrapped by noon.

Jackson’s victory was largely expected after his campaign touted that more than 480 delegates selected to go to the convention had promised to vote for him, a progressive who supports Medicare for all and dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He ended up winning 566 of 571 delegates who cast votes.

Jackson first ran for office as a Republican in 2000 when he sought a seat in Maine’s House of Representatives. He lost, but won two years later when he ran as an independent. He switched to the Democratic Party in 2004 and eventually became the Maine Senate president before leaving the statehouse in 2024.

He came in third while running for governor in this year’s Democratic primary election, but had the backing of Platner, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution, the political organization founded by the Vermont independent.

Other top candidates dropped out

Once Platner dropped out July 10, Jackson and a flood of other former gubernatorial candidates and others jumped in to try to take Platner’s place. But by July 19, most had abandoned their bids, with Jackson emerging as the clear favorite.

Jackson received early support from progressives who had backed Platner before he dropped out. Our Revolution initially backed Jackson for governor and Platner for Senate. When Platner left the race, the group rallied behind Jackson.

Jackson previously ran Maine operations for Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. This election cycle, Sanders endorsed Jackson for governor and Platner for Senate, though he withdrew his support for Platner after the sexual assault allegation. He said he didn’t plan to weigh in on which Democrat should replace Platner.

Just one other candidate remained in the race for the Senate nomination — women’s health company Chief Executive Saundra Pelletier. She faced long odds against Jackson, who has been a fixture in Maine politics for more than a decade.

Jackson has supported progressive positions such as Medicare for all. He also has called for the abolition of ICE, whose presence in Maine has been hotly debated since an agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national, near his home in Biddeford, Maine.

Maine key to Democrats’ Senate path

Democrats have a narrow path to take back the Senate in November, and it’s unlikely they can do it without a win in Maine. In addition, they need victories in most other competitive races — including in North Carolina, Alaska, Ohio and Texas — and they need to hang on to the seats they already have. That includes open Senate seats in Michigan and Minnesota, where Democratic incumbents are retiring.

Maine’s Democratic primary was one of the early contests where progressives took on establishment-backed Democrats. While Platner faced several controversies during his campaign, he easily outlasted Gov. Janet Mills, who was backed by Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York but dropped out before the June 9 primary.

Platner had backing from Sanders as well as Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. That support disintegrated after the sexual assault allegation surfaced this month.

Midterm messages

Jackson will need to convince the state’s large independent voting bloc that it’s time to replace Collins. Republicans have called Jackson too extreme for Maine voters, and Collins said this week that she knows Jackson well and that his positions are “clearly” in line with socialism.

She noted that Jackson ran democratic socialist Sanders’ first presidential campaign in Maine, adding, “He’s a Bernie Bro.”

Jackson also needs to scramble to make up a fundraising gulf against Collins, who has been raising money for months.

Federal filings show she has raised more than $16 million so far. Jackson’s campaign this week said he raised more than $1 million since jumping into the Senate race.

Jackson said Saturday he believed his team is up to the task.

“We’re not from the left, we’re not from the right. We’re from the bottom, and we are rising,” he said during a speech.

Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. AP journalist Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed to this report.

The Hundred women’s competition, Sophia Gardens

Welsh Fire 177-4 (100 balls): Devine 52 (29); Matthews 2-52

MI London 117 (92 balls): Henry 30 (23); Potts 3-24

Welsh Fire won by 60 runs

Scorecard. Table

An impressive Welsh Fire earned their first win of the women’s Hundred with a 60-run thrashing of MI London in Cardiff.

Fire suffered a poor defeat by Southern Brave in their opener but bounced back to post 177-4, comfortably the highest total of this year’s tournament and the third-highest in the tournament’s history.

After openers Ella McCaughan and Georgia Voll added 49, captain Sophie Devine and all-rounder Georgia Wareham added 79 from just 35 balls for the fourth wicket as MI London’s bowlers wilted.

Devine was stumped from the penultimate ball for 52 from just 29 balls including four sixes, one of which was smacked out of the ground, while Wareham finished unbeaten on 43 from 20.

To conclude the entertaining innings, Em Arlott came out with one ball to face and launched it for six, as Fire’s performance provided some much-needed entertainment for the women’s tournament where the previous-highest team total so far was just 126.

In reply, MI London – despite a batting line-up stacked with international quality – crumbled to 117 all out and suffered their second successive defeat.

Fire seamer Grace Potts dominated the powerplay with figures of 3-24 as MI London crumbled under the run-rate pressure. Potts accounted for MI London’s powerful top three of Hayley Matthews for 10, Danni Wyatt-Hodge for 12 and Kira Chathli for two.

Devine backed up her knock with figures of 2-15, including the wicket of Chinelle Henry who was MI London’s top-scorer with 30, while Welsh left-arm spinner Sophia Smale chipped in with 2-17.

MI London will take on unbeaten Southern Brave on Monday as they search for their first win, while Fire face Trent Rockets on Wednesday.

July 25 (UPI) — The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen announced Saturday that they had attacked Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones in retaliation for Saudi attacks on Hodeida, Yemen.

Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the group’s spokesperson, posted on X that the Houthis launched two military operations “in response to this blatant and criminal aggression” from Saudi Arabia.

“The first targeted sensitive Aramco-affiliated facilities in Jizan with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” he said. “And the second operation targeted sensitive Aramco-affiliated facilities in Yanbu with a number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones.”

Aramco is the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil company.

“Both operations successfully achieved their objectives thanks to Allah Almighty, with accurate and direct strikes,” Saree said.

But the Saudis claim that the attacks were intercepted by air defense systems operated by Greek military units.

It’s the latest escalation between the two countries. On Wednesday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for two attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea with missiles and drones. They have said they have blocked the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That strait is on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the gateway between the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, and blockades of both straits would cut off Saudi Arabian ships entirely.

The Saudis and the Houthis have been in an effective cease-fire since 2022. But tensions recently flared when the Houthis accused the Saudis of striking the airport in Yemen’s capital Sanaa. The spat came from a dispute when an Iranian plane had tried to land at the airport.

Saudi Arabia on Friday hit the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida with strikes, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said. The attacks were in response to the Houthi hits on oil tankers.

“The Saudi enemy’s targeting of civilian facilities in Hodeida and Kamaran Island constitutes a dangerous escalation,” the Houthis’ Ansarollah media posted on Telegram.

“We affirm that these recent crimes will not go unanswered,” the post said.

Al Masirah television, which is run by the Houthis, said Saturday that the strikes from Saudi Arabia targeted facilities that belong to the state telecommunications corporation and Kamaran Island. It said one worker in Hodeida was injured, and a woman was injured on the island, Deutsche Welle reported.

The Saudis said they would do whatever is necessary to protect their ships. They warned the Houthis that if they continued “hostile acts, then there will be no hesitation in responding.”

On Thursday, President Donald Trump said his administration would “hold Iran responsible” for any Houthi attacks on ships, The Hill reported.

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves, who I am very disappointed with in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Norris said: “Very happy to be back on top, especially at a track where you certainly want to be on pole.

“I had confidence the whole of today. My laps in Q3 were not the best, even the one at the end, so pleasantly surprised to be on top.”

Hamilton was a second slower on his second run than on his first, was unhappy he had been sent out for it first, and he also faces an investigation for impeding McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at Turn One after he finished his final lap.

“I had a clean out-lap, and when I started my lap, already into Turn One I had a snap and I was already 0.15secs down,” Hamilton said. “It just cascaded from there.

“So, the last lap was the worst lap of all, and all the other laps were really good. We clearly had the car to be on pole today, and I just didn’t deliver. So that’s tough to swallow.”

On the impeding scenario, Hamilton said he had not been warned of Piastri’s approach by the team: “I was told literally when he was at the apex behind me, so I had no idea he was coming. I thought everyone was on an out-lap.

“Everyone came out behind me. I was the first out, so I thought everyone had finished their lap. Charles, I think, was the car that was behind me when I left the pit lane, as far as I was aware. So, yeah, crazy, because it had been clean, and obviously it wasn’t intentional.”

Antonelli is another driver off to the stewards, in his case for an alleged yellow-flag infringement.

Verstappen, who railed about the unpredictable handling of the Red Bull over the radio after his spin, managed to take sixth, ahead of Russell and the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad and Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg.

The Owen family are back on screens today as a repeat episode of Our Farm Next Door airs

Amanda Owen reflected on the future at Anty John’s after making a morbid discovery.

Amanda, who has described owning Anty John’s “as a dream come true”, has captivated viewers for years with her rugged rural life on the North Yorkshire Moors.

The farmer, author and TV personality rose to fame through the Channel 5 series Our Yorkshire Farm, which followed her life at Ravenseat Farm alongside her nine children — Raven, Reuben, Miles, Edith, Violet, Sidney, Annas, Clemmie and Nancy — and her then-husband Clive Owen.

Since her split from Clive in 2022, Amanda has embarked on a new chapter, taking on Anty Johns, a historic property that has become the subject of her latest Channel 5 series, Our Farm Next Door.

The show follows Amanda and her children as they restore and settle into their new home, and during a repeat airing on Sunday, it took a distinctly “morbid” turn.

Taking advantage of a day off from the demanding farm work that keeps her and her nine children busy, Amanda paid a visit to Derek at the County Records Office. There, the historian uncovered the diary of Anty Johns’ former owner, revealing that the man had breathed his last breath within the very walls of the property.

Eager to unearth the secrets of her new home’s past, Amanda made her wishes clear to the historian: “I guess what I am wanting to find out is who in this extensive family tree was actually residing in my house at Anty Johns.”

Turning his attention to Anthony Clarkson’s ancestry, Derek guided Amanda through the Clarksons’ family history, concluding with John, the last of the bloodline to live at Anty Johns, who died in 1900.

Fascinated by the records, including details of John Clarkson’s inquest, Amanda read aloud from the document: “The body of the man, aged about 81, is lying dead at Smithy Home (Anty Johns).”

She discovered John’s final moments: “Time of death 6am, 5th December 1900. At about 9am on Tuesday, the housekeeper, Anne, proposed to send for the doctor, but the deceased would not hear of it.”

Amanda went on, quoting: “And said, ‘I shall soon be better and about’. I know it’s kind of morbid, but it sort of humanises people when you hear about it.”

Recounting the history, she added: “So basically, we know in 1900, the last Clarkson died upstairs in a bedroom at Smithy Home.”

Searching for further family stories, Derek highlighted that Anthony’s marriage records would prove crucial. Anthony wed his first wife in 1818, and shortly after their marriage they welcomed four children and made Smithy Home their residence.

Anthony’s second wife’s death was recorded as Angina, a touching detail discovered amongst the documents. A diary penned by one of Anthony’s children, James, also provides glimpses into his father’s passing.

Our Farm Next Door: Amanda, Clive and Kids is available to watch on Channel 4.

Industrial stocks grabbed the spotlight this week as Wall Street digested earnings reports from companies including Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT), 3M Company (MMM), RTX (RTX), and Honeywell Technologies (HON).

The industrial sector (XLI) has gained over 17.8% so far this

Some 270,000 people have been forced to evacuate parts of Western France and central Spain – while a major incident has been declared in the Cairngorms National Park

British holidaymakers have described running for their lives just yards from a raging wildfire.

The terrifying scenes come as 270,000 people have been forced to flee as blazes continue to rip through parts of Southern Europe. Fire crews on Saturday were braced to drop fire-busting chemicals from a cargo plane in the Gironde region in Western France, where an inferno has been roaring since Wednesday.

And with the wind direction shifting, officials fear the flames are moving dangerously close to the nearby city of Bordeaux. Authorities have ordered people between the fire and the city to evacuate, including from parts of western suburbs and other towns and villages.

The French military have been drafted in to help and the Spanish government has declared a national emergency. Among those caught up was Brit David Morton and his family, who came within 500 yards of the main fire in Cap Ferret peninsula.

He said: “The flames were higher than full-size forest pine trees, so five or six storeys high, and it was clear this was a fire that was out of control at that point. Our phones were all flashing and bleeping; there was a message saying we had to evacuate immediately and drive on the one road out of the [Cap Ferret] peninsula. We literally threw everything into our suitcases and within 15 minutes were in the hire car.”

Zac Morrison, 21, described similarly dramatic scenes. We had the gendarmerie [French military] going door to door – it was something like out of a movie – we had to take everything,” said Zac, from London. “Other people have been sleeping in schools and warehouses and the beaches have had people just waiting for the go ahead – there’s people on the beach here with their suitcases. I’ve heard about houses burning in just an hour, it’s scary but sadly people here are getting used to it.”

Other Brits have moved to different areas in France to continue their hols. Mark Dorey, from Leeds, decided to drive to the Dordogne with his wife and three children after being evacuated from a campsite near Parentis-en-Born. He said: “You wouldn’t believe it, but me and my two boys were watching a Queen tribute act at the campsite bar – straight after a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody someone stopped them to say we were being evacuated at about 10pm.

While the wildfires show no sign of slowing, the Foreign Office last night chose not to impose warings against travel to France or Spain. France’s minister for international partnerships Éléonore Caroit told tourists: “You have entire areas that are fine, you’re seeing similar phenomena in Spain and other countries.

“I’m in Paris and nothing is happening, and most other regions are OK, so do please come to France and do not cancel your travel plans. But wherever you are, please do be advised as to what might be happening.”

In Madrid the fires are in the wider region far outside the city centre – and authorities are battling to stop different fires merging. But the flames have already shut down a facility for US space agency Nasa 37 miles west of the Spanish capital. The city’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso said it was the “worst fire in the history of the region.”

Successive heat waves with record-shattering temperatures have turned forests and scrublands into tinderboxes. Fires have burned 130,000 hectares of forest already this year in Spain, an area the size of Rome.

Other European nations are stepping into help, with Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia already providing water-dumping planes and helicopters to the Spanish and French fire fronts.

Things are burning closer to home too, as emergency services continue to battle a blaze in the Cairngorms National Park. The fire has now been declared a major incident, and smoke could be seen 59 miles away in Aberdeen.

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney said it is “essential people avoid the affected areas,” adding: “The wind has changed direction overnight, which means the track of the fire has altered once again and the threat to Nethy Bridge has reduced, for the moment at least. Ground and helicopter resources are being focused on the current path of the fire and new fire breaks constructed.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

There’s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members.

But we analyzed three basic elements — meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted — to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to.

Meeting attendance

As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council considered reducing the number of council meetings from three per week to just one.

The proposal failed earlier this month after receiving stiff pushback from at least one councilmember, Monica Rodriguez.

“Meeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the wrong message. Particularly when you have the best-paid council in the country,” said Rodriguez in an interview on Fox 11 earlier this year (each councilmember makes an annual salary of more than $244,000). “This idea that we would be meeting less I believe runs contrary to what the public is demanding form their council.”

Yet Rodriguez isn’t a stickler for showing up to meetings herself, ranking near the bottom of her colleagues for attendance. Since the start of 2025, Rodriguez has attended about 86% of meetings, missing 25 out of 177 meetings, according to a Times analysis.

Gabriel Avalos, a spokesperson for Rodriguez, implied that other work-related matters kept her from the meetings.

“There’s no distinction for absences related to city business, but she certainly wasn’t absent due to dishes and laundry,” Avalos said.

Only two other councilmembers missed more meetings than Rodriguez — mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who missed 30 meetings, and Curren Price, who missed 34 while dealing with illnesses.

On the other end of the spectrum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, missed the fewest — just four of the 177 meetings from January 2025 until this month.

Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado each attended 169 meetings, or about 96%.

Stella Stahl, a spokesperson for Raman, said that most of the councilmember’s absences were due to her position as the city’s representative on the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The remaining absences, Stahl said in a statement, “were tied to a small number of previously scheduled conferences and speaking engagements relevant to her committee work and district priorities, along with occasional sick days and travel for a funeral.”

Committee assignments

Council members are appointed to committees by the council president. They can sit on additional committees if the president lets them.

These small groups of council members are responsible for reviewing the first drafts of legislation. Committee chairs have the power to move legislation forward — or stall it — by either putting it on the agenda, or not.

The busiest councilmembers are Hugo Soto-Martínez and Adrin Nazarian, who each sit on nine committees, including some temporary “ad-hoc” ones. Councilmember Tim McOsker follows with seven committee assignments.

But the number of committee assignments isn’t necessarily the clearest indication of power. Katy Yaroslavsky serves on only five committees, but she chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, which edits and approves the mayor’s proposed budget before sending it to the full council for one of its most important annual votes.

At the bottom of the list is Price again, who sits on four committees, including as chair of the Committee on Economic Development.

Legislation

Another easy marker is the amount of legislation a council member authors.

At each meeting, dozens of pieces of legislation go before the council — some high-profile, others just to keep the lights on at City Hall (literally).

Rodriguez, despite her relatively low attendance, was at the top of the legislative list over the last year and a half, drafting 199 motions.

A good chunk were motions on whether to support or oppose bills at the state and federal level. Rodriguez also had the most ceremonial street namings of any council member, with 13.

Rodriguez pointed to more significant legislation, like an ordinance banning city workers from taking on additional gigs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as her proudest achievements.

After Rodriguez, McOsker was the second-most prolific author, with 178 pieces of legislation, followed by Traci Park with 163.

At the bottom were Price with 84 and Harris-Dawson with 90.

State of play

— HOMELESSNESS RISING: Homelessness, including those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, went up by 3.4% across the city compared with 2025. Unsheltered homelessness — those living outdoors or in their vehicles — was up 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, dealing a fresh blow to Mayor Karen Bass as she runs for reelection.

— DISAPPEARING ACT: Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.

— PLAY BALL: In 1936, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk. Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield wants to cut the obscure law from the books.

— THE ICE EFFECT: A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute found that businesses within half a mile of nine ICE enforcement sites had 46,000 fewer customer visits and an estimated $3.16 million in accumulated revenue losses during the two weeks after enforcement activity.

— NEW HONCHO: Los Angeles schools Supt. Andrés E. Chait made a calm official entry into his new job Tuesday, emphasizing rising test scores and “a sense of belonging” that binds school communities.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program was at San Pedro Street Elementary School in Ysabel Jurado’s district, bringing 34 people indoors.
• On the docket next week: The Los Angeles City Council remains on recess next week.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Sunrisers Leeds fall from 111-0 to 112-3 as Adil Rashid takes three wickets in five balls to bring his Southern Brave side right back in the match in the men’s Hundred.

WATCH MORE: ‘That is some brutal hitting’ – Marsh hits six sixes in huge innings

Available to UK users only.

Lawyers for the ICC’s ousted Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan say he is the victim of a political witchhunt, motivated by his decision to go after Israeli leaders for war crimes. Khan was removed from office over sexual assault allegations. Soraya Lennie explains.