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Disruption from the ‘highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack’, first reported around Easter weekend, continues.

British retailer Marks & Spencer estimates that a cyberattack that stopped it from processing online orders and left store shelves empty will cost it about 300 million pounds ($403m).

The company said in a business update (PDF) on Wednesday that disruption from the “highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack,” which was first reported around the Easter weekend, is expected to continue until July.

Online sales of food, home and beauty products have been “heavily impacted” because the company, popularly known as M&S, had to pause online shopping.

The attack on one of the biggest names on the United Kingdom high street forced M&S to resort to pen and paper to move billions of pounds of fresh food, drinks and clothing after it switched off its automated stock systems.

That led to bare food shelves and frustrated customers, denting profits.

A month on, M&S’s large online clothing service remains offline, and the attack has wiped more than a billion pounds off its stock market value.

Chairman Archie Norman said the timing of the attack was unfortunate as M&S, which has been implementing a comprehensive turnaround plan since 2022, had been starting to show its full potential.

“But in business life, just as you think you’re onto a good streak, events have a way of putting you on your backside,” he said.

M&S, which has 65,000 staff and 565 stores, said the hack would cost about 300 million pounds ($403m) in lost operating profit in its year to March 2026, although it hopes to halve that impact through insurance, cost control and other actions.

Chief executive Stuart Machin said the company is focused on recovery and restoring its systems and operations.

“This incident is a bump in the road, and we will come out of this in better shape,” Machin said. He did not provide any details on the attack or who might be behind it.

Earlier this month, the company said customer personal data, which could have included names, emails, addresses and dates of birth, was taken by hackers in the attack.

Two other British retailers, luxury London department store Harrods and supermarket chain Co-op, have also been targeted by cyberattacks at around the same time.

A ‘comprehensive review’ of the US’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 has also been ordered.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States is reviewing whether to designate Afghanistan’s rulers, the Taliban, as a “foreign terrorist organization”.

Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday, “I believe that classification is now, once again, under review.”

The response came a day after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a “comprehensive review” of the United States’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, an evacuation operation in which 13 US service members and 150 Afghans were killed at Kabul’s airport in an ISIL (ISIS) bombing.

Hegseth said in a memo on Tuesday that after three months of assessing the withdrawal, a comprehensive review was needed to ensure accountability for this event.

“This remains an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform, and is prudent based on the number of casualties and equipment lost during the execution of this withdrawal operation,” Hegseth wrote.

Former President Joe Biden’s administration, which oversaw the pull-out, mostly blamed the resulting chaos on a lack of planning and reductions in troops by the first Donald Trump administration, following its deal with the Taliban to accelerate the withdrawal of US forces.

Trump had signed the deal with the Taliban in Doha in February 2020 aimed at ending its 18-year war in Afghanistan, beginning with the withdrawal of about 4,000 troops “within months”.

The then-Trump administration had agreed it would withdraw from the country by May 2021 if the Taliban negotiated a peace agreement with the Afghan government and promised to prevent internationally designated terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and ISIL, from gaining a foothold in the country.

After assuming office in January 2021, Biden said he had to respect the agreement or risk new conflicts with the Taliban, which could have required additional troops in Afghanistan.

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump frequently criticised Biden and his administration for the withdrawal, saying that the manner in which it was done “was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life.” Trump said that the withdrawal should have been done with “dignity, with strength, with power.”

Senior US military officials, including then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the then-top US general, Mark Milley, have already appeared before lawmakers to give their testimonies regarding the withdrawal.

The war in Afghanistan from 2001-2021 was the US’s longest war, surpassing Vietnam.

It remains unclear how Hegseth’s review would differ from the many previous reviews carried out by the US military, Department of State and Trump’s fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives.

US Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, has also carried out an investigation into the ISIL attack on Kabul during the last few days of the withdrawal.

May 21 (UPI) — Education Secretary Linda McMahon, testifying before a House subcommittee on Wednesday, defended a 15.3% leaner budget from last year as part of the department’s “final mission.”

President Donald Trump‘s budget request would cut funding to the Education Department by about $12 billion to wind down the agency. The House bill allocated $30.9 billion and the Senate version $31.9 billion.

She said her top priorities are support for charter schools, which would receive a $60 million funding increase, as well as improving literacy rates and returning education to states. Charters schools are the only ones with a budget funding rise.

“The fiscal year ’26 budget will take a significant step toward that goal,” McMahon told legislators on the House Committee on Appropriations’ education subcommittee. “We seek to shrink federal bureaucracy, save taxpayer money and empower states who best know their local needs to manage education in this country.”

As Republicans supported her plans, Democrats blasted her.

“By recklessly incapacitating the department you lead, you are usurping Congress’ authority and infringing on Congress’ power of the purse,” Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, said.

She decried cuts for higher education.

“Your visions for students aspiring to access and pay for college is particularly grim,” DeLauro said. “Some families do not need financial assistance to go to college, but that’s not true for the rest.”

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, of New Jersey, also blasted states gaining greater authority.

“I’m asking you, do you realize that to send authority back to the states, to eliminate your oversight, to eliminate your accountability, to eliminate your determination as to resources going to schools that are teaching public schools that are teaching underserved communities, this will result in the very reason that we had to get the involvement of our government in this, and that’s a yes or no,” she said.

“It isn’t a yes or no, but I will not respond to any questions based on the theory that this administration doesn’t care anything about the law and operates outside it,” McMahon responded.

Coleman said: “From the president of the United States conducting himself in a corrupt manner to his family enriching him and himself corruptly … I’m telling you, the Department of Education is one of the most important departments in this country and you should feel shameful [to] be engaged with an administration that doesn’t give a damn.”

McMahon said she is not trying to remove 8% to 10% that goes to states, and instead moving programs to other departments.

She described her agency as a federal funding “pass-through mechanism” and other agencies could take over the job of distributing allocations from Congress.

“Whether the channels of that funding are through HHS [Health and Human Services], or whether they’re funneled through the DOJ (Department of Jusrtice], or whether they’re funneled through the Treasury or SBA [Smal Business Administration] or other departments, the work is going to continue to get done,” McMahon said.

Plans are to move the student loan programs to the SBA, which McMahon was the administrator during the first Trump administration.

The reductions include eliminating two federal programs designed at improving college access for disadvantaged, TRIO, and low-income students, Gear Up, at a cost of $1.6 billion. Also, the federal Work-Study Program would shift responsibility to states, and funding would be eliminated for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants to undergraduate students.

And funding would be reduced 35%, or about $49 million, for the already-scaled back Office for Civil Rights, which investigates harassment and discrimination on college campuses and in K-12 schools.

The budget shifts funding from programs supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

She said full funding would remain for Title I-A, which allocates funds to schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families, and those with the Disabilities Education Act for free public education and support services for children with disabilities.

“Here we are today with a Department of Education that was really stood up in 1980 by President Carter,” McMahon said. “We’ve spent over $3 trillion during that time, and every year we have seen our scores continue to either stagnate or fall. It is clear that we are not doing something right.”

On March 20,, Trump signed an executive order directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”

Six days earlier, the agency announced a workforce reduction that would cut nearly 50% of employees, 1,315.

The department, already the smallest Cabinet-level agency before the recent layoffs, distributed roughly $242 billion to students, K-12 schools and universities in the 2024 fiscal year. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

South Sudan relies on oil for more than 90 percent of its government revenues, and the country depends entirely on Sudan to export the precious resource.

But this month, Sudan’s army-backed government said it was preparing to shut down the facilities that its southern neighbour uses to export its oil, according to an official government letter seen by Al Jazeera.

That decision could collapse South Sudan’s economy and drag it directly into Sudan’s intractable civil war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), experts warned.

The announcement was made on May 9 after the RSF launched suicide drones for six consecutive days at Port Sudan, the army’s wartime capital on the strategic Red Sea coast.

The strikes destroyed a fuel depot and damaged electricity grids, shattering the sense of security in the city, which lies far from the country’s front lines.

Sudan’s army claims the damage now hampers it from exporting South Sudan’s oil.

“The announcement read like a desperate plea [to South Sudan] for help to stop these [RSF] attacks,” said Alan Boswell, an expert on the Horn of Africa with the International Crisis Group.

“But I think doing so overestimates the leverage that South Sudan has … over the RSF,” he added.

Predatory economics

Since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, the former has relied on the latter to export its oil via Port Sudan.

In return, Sudan has collected fees from Juba as part of their 2005 peace agreement, which ended the 22-year north-south civil war and ultimately led to the secession of South Sudan from Sudan.

When Sudan erupted into another civil war between the army and RSF in 2023, the former continued collecting the fees from Juba.

“[Sudan and South Sudan] are tied at the hip financially due to the oil export infrastructure,” Boswell told Al Jazeera.

Local media have recently reported that high-level officials from South Sudan and Sudan are engaged in talks to avert a shutdown of oil exports.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to Port Sudan’s energy and petroleum minister, Mohieddein Naiem Mohamed, asking if the army is negotiating higher rent fees from South Sudan before resuming oil exports, which some experts suspected to be a likely scenario.

Naiem Mohamed did not respond before publication.

According to the International Crisis Group, Juba also pays off the RSF to not damage oil pipelines that run through territory under its control.

In addition, South Sudan has allowed the RSF to operate in villages along the Sudan-South Sudan border.

The RSF has increased its presence along the sprawling, porous border after forming a strategic alliance with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) in February.

The SPLM-N fought alongside secessionist forces against Sudan’s army. It controls swaths of territory in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions and has historically close ties with Juba.

South Sudan’s relationship with the SPLM-N and RSF has increasingly frustrated Sudan’s army, said Edmund Yakani, a South Sudanese civil society leader and commentator.

“[Sudan’s army] is suspicious that Juba is helping RSF in its military capability and political space to manoeuvre its struggle against Sudan’s army,” Yakani told Al Jazeera.

House of cards

According to a report by the International Crisis Group from 2021, about 60 percent of South Sudan’s oil profits go to the multinational companies producing the oil.

The report explained that most of the remaining 40 percent goes to paying off outstanding loans and to South Sudan’s ruling elites in the bloated security sector and bureaucracy.

South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, will likely not be able to keep his patronage network together without a quick resumption in oil revenue.

His fragile government – a coalition of longtime loyalists and coopted opponents – could collapse like a house of cards, experts warned.

Al Jazeera emailed written questions to South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to ask if the country has any contingency plan in case oil exports stop indefinitely. The ministry did not respond before publication.

Experts warned that South Sudan has no alternative to oil.

Security personnel and civil servants are already owed months of back pay, and they may turn against Kiir – and each other – if they have no incentive to uphold the fragile peace agreement that ended South Sudan’s own five-year civil war in 2018.

“Kiir is on extremely fragile footing, and there is no backup plan for when the oil runs out,” said Matthew Benson, a scholar on Sudan and South Sudan at the London School of Economics.

A halt in oil revenue would also drive up inflation, exacerbating the daily struggles of millions of civilians.

The World Food Programme estimated that about 60 percent of the population is experiencing acute food shortages while the World Bank found that nearly 80 percent live below the poverty line.

The hardship and pervasive corruption have given way to a predatory economy in which armed groups erect checkpoints to shake down civilians for bribes and taxes.

Civilians will likely be unable to cough up any more money if the oil revenue dries up.

“I’m not sure people can be squeezed more than they already are,” Benson said.

Proxy war?

Some commentators and activists also fear that Sudan’s army is deliberately turning off the oil to force South Sudan to cut off all contact with the RSF and SPLM-N.

This speculation is fuelling some resentment among civilians in South Sudan, according to Yakani.

Meanwhile, some supporters of Sudan’s army argued that South Sudan should not benefit from oil as long as it provides any degree of support to the RSF, which they view as a militia waging a rebellion against the state.

Both the RSF and army have recruited South Sudanese mercenaries to fight on their behalf, Al Jazeera previously reported.

“What Port Sudan [the army] wants is for Juba to absolutely distance itself from aiding the RSF in any way, and that is the complication that the government of [Kiir] is in now,” Yakani told Al Jazeera.

“The majority of citizens of South Sudan – including myself – believe that South Sudan is becoming a land of proxy wars for Sudan’s warring parties and their [regional] allies,” he added.

Sudan’s army also believes that South Sudan’s government is relying increasingly on the RSF’s regional backers to buttress its own security.

Sudan’s army leaders were particularly spooked when Uganda, which it views as supporting the RSF, deployed troops to prop up Kiir in March, according to Boswell.

In addition, Sudan’s army has repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of arming the RSF.

The UAE has repeatedly denied these allegations, which United Nations experts and Amnesty International have also made.

“The UAE has already made absolutely clear that it is not providing any support or supplies to either of two belligerent warring parties in Sudan,” the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously told Al Jazeera in an email.

Despite tensions between Sudan’s army and the UAE, analysts said Juba may request a large loan from the UAE to keep its patronage intact if Sudan’s army does not promptly resume oil exports.

“[Sudan’s army] has been worrying and watching closely over whether the UAE might loan South Sudan a significant amount of money,” Boswell said.

“I think a massive UAE loan to South Sudan would be … a red line for Sudan’s army”, he added.

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump welcomed the University of Florida’s men’s basketball team to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate its 2025 NCAA championship season, praising the Gators’ teamwork, grit and determination.

Standing alongside head coach Todd Golden, Trump called Florida’s run “one for the history books” and noted the program’s place in history as the only NCAA Division I school to win three national titles in both basketball (2006, 2007, 2025) and football (1996, 2006, 2008).

The Gators finished a dominant 36-4 season with a 65-63 victory over Houston in what Trump described as “one of the most exciting games and championships” he had seen.

“You refused to let up when the odds were against you,” Trump told the team. “Lesser teams would have crumbled.”

Trump highlighted stellar performances throughout the season, including that by senior guard Walter Clayton Jr., who scored a career-high 34 points in the Final Four against Auburn and became the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to score 30 points or more in both the Elite Eight and Final Four.

“He’s unbelievably special,” Trump said. “He’s going to be a very early draft pick if they’re smart.”

University of Florida Interim President Kent Fuchs, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former Florida senator, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who served at Florida attorney general.

Golden thanked Trump for the invitation and drew a comparison between the team’s culture and the country’s ideals.

“Mr. President, I’d like to think of our program similarly to how you think of the United States. We’re a meritocracy,” Golden said. “We work really, really hard. No matter what you look like, where you come from, if you put the team first and win, we’re going to play you.”

He then presented the president with a signed Gators jersey featuring the number 47, referencing Trump’s status as the 47th president.

Trump accepted the gift and invited the team to the Oval Office for commemorative coins and photos alongside members of his administration and several lawmakers.

“Go Gators,” he said. “We love you.”

May 21 (UPI) — Microsoft, the Department of Justice and others have thwarted the use of the Lumma Stealer malware that globally has infected nearly 400,000 computers.

The tech giant’s Digital Crimes Unit seized and helped take down, suspend and block about 2,300 “malicious domains” that were the backbone of Lumma’s infrastructure, said Steven Masada, assistant general counsel for Microsoft’s DCU.

Microsoft on May 13 filed a federal lawsuit against Lumma Stealer in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia, itnews reported.

Microsoft says Lumma Stealer is a “malware as a service” that can steal data from browsers, cryptocurrency wallets and other applications by installing malware.

The tech firm from March 15 through Friday identified more than 394,000 Windows computers around the world that were infected with the Lumma malware.

The Department of Justice on Wednesday unsealed two warrants authorizing the seizure of five Internet domains used by cybercriminals to operate the Lumma malware service, which also is called “LummaC2.”

The Lumma malware “is deployed to steal sensitive information, such as user login credentials from millions of victims in order to facilitate a host of crimes,” said Matthew Galeotti, leader of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, in a news release.

Those crimes include fraudulent bank transfers and cryptocurrency theft, Galeotti said.

“The Justice Department is resolved to use court-ordered disruptions like this one to protect the public from the theft of their personal information and their assets,” he added.

The DOJ’s affidavit seeking the two seizure warrants accuses the administrators of LummaC2 of using the seized websites to distribute the malware to their affiliates and other cyber criminals.

Browser data, autofill info, login credentials for email and banking services, and cryptocurrency seed phrases that open crypto wallets were common targets affected by the malware, according to the DOJ.

FBI investigators also identified at least 1.7 million instances in which the malware enabled cybercriminals to steal such information.

The DOJ on Monday seized two online domains used to distribute the malware, which caused the Lumma operators to direct users to three new domains on Tuesday.

The DOJ seized the three new domains on Wednesday.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Center and Japan’s Cybercrime Control Center enabled the takedown of Lumma infrastructure within their respective jurisdictions, Microsoft officials said.

Johannesburg, South Africa – When the millionaire mining magnate-turned-president of South Africa landed in Washington to meet the billionaire real estate tycoon-turned-president of the United States, it was with a deal in mind.

Tensions have been escalating between the US and its African trade ally since Donald Trump took office this year, cut off aid to South Africa, repeated false accusations that a “white genocide” is taking place there and began welcoming Afrikaners as refugees.

At the meeting between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House on Wednesday, the South African president began by focusing heavily on trade and investments, highlighting the two countries’ years of cooperation, in keeping with statements made by South Africa’s presidency that Ramaphosa would present a trade deal to the US.

But Trump responded with a well-prepared redirect that South African media and analysts described as an “ambush” and a move that “blindsided” Ramaphosa.

Ready with printouts of news articles about alleged white victims of killings in South Africa and a video of firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema singing Kill the Boer, Trump insisted that white farmers were being targeted and murdered – an assertion Ramaphosa politely yet firmly denied, saying criminality was a problem for all South Africans regardless of race.

The team Ramaphosa assembled to join him on his working visit – which included four white South Africans: two golf legends, the wealthiest man in the country and the agriculture minister – all reaffirmed Ramaphosa’s facts that while violence was widespread, white people were not specifically being targeted.

“We have a real safety problem in South Africa, and I don’t think anyone wants to candy-coat that,” said John Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister and a member of the Democratic Alliance party, which is part of South Africa’s governing coalition.

“Certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work,” the minister, who is himself an Afrikaner, said. Trump claimed that “thousands” of white farmers were fleeing South Africa.

Steenhuisen added that the people in the video Trump showed were leaders of opposition minority parties and his party had joined forces with Ramaphosa “precisely to keep those people out of power”.

‘The lion’s den’

The meeting began cordially where Trump complimented South African golfers, including well-known Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who were part of the delegation. They both implored Trump for enhanced trade to uplift South Africa’s economy.

Also in the delegation was South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert, a luxury-goods mogul and an Afrikaner. He countered claims of racial persecution against the white minority, saying that while criminality was rife, Black people were more often the victims.

“We have too many deaths, but it’s across the board. It is not only white farmers,” Rupert said to Trump.

Ramaphosa kept his cool, local media and observers said, noting that the South African president chose to remain calm, patient and light-hearted even in light of Trump’s attack.

He steered talks back to trade, saying South Africa needed economic investment from its allies, and mostly sat expressionless while the video was played, occasionally stretching his neck to look at it.

Ramaphosa went into “the lion’s den” and was met with an ambush but he remained calm, South African political analyst Sanusha Naidu said.

“Ramaphosa and the delegation did not allow themselves to be baited into an emotional response. That’s critical. They made Trump feel like he had the upper hand in the meeting,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that given the narrative from Trump before Ramaphosa’s arrival, it “could have gone worse”.

When asked by a reporter whether he wanted the impasse between the US and South Africa resolved, Trump said he was open to it.

“I hope it has to be resolved. It should be resolved,” he said, adding that if it were not resolved, it would be “the end of the country”.

‘Reset’ relations

Before the two leaders met on Wednesday, Ramaphosa’s office said the aim was to “reset” relations, especially as the US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner after China.

“Whether we like it or not, we are joined at the hip, and we need to be talking to them,” the South African president said before his trip.

Christopher Isike, a political scientist at the University of Pretoria, told Al Jazeera that direct engagement between the leaders was important, given the tense relations between their countries.

“This is an opportunity for South Africa to correct misinformation peddled by President Trump and try to reset trade relations between the two countries,” he said.

Isike noted that both presidents’ backgrounds as businesspeople could provide common ground for discussing mutually advantageous deals.

“Rich friends of Ramaphosa are also rich friends of Trump, and that may have helped facilitate the meeting,” Isike added.

Common ground and level heads would be useful as the leaders continued private talks away from the media on Wednesday, observers said.

Before the visit, Ramaphosa maintained that while Trump was a dealmaker, he too was adept at making deals and even joked about the possibility of playing a round of golf with his US counterpart.

Washington, however, has criticised Pretoria for a host of matters since Trump took office. This continued in the meeting on Wednesday.

Trump focused on the white farmers, particularly Afrikaners – the descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who instituted apartheid. He alleged they are being killed because of their race despite evidence showing that attacks and killings are common across all groups in the country.

Trump also mentioned South Africa’s land reform law that allows land in the public interest to be taken without compensation in exceptional circumstances in an effort to redress apartheid injustices. Pretoria said no white land has been taken, but the US said the law unfairly targets minority white South Africans who are the majority landholders.

Despite Pretoria consistently seeking to rectify false assertions, the Trump administration has pushed ahead with a plan to take in Afrikaners as refugees. The first group arrived last week. He has also cut aid, including vital support for life-saving HIV programmes, to South Africa.

Additionally, there are worries that Trump may not attend the Group of 20 summit being held in South Africa in November and his government may not renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), key US trade legislation that assists economies in sub-Saharan Africa. It expires in September.

Trade and investments

Before Wednesday’s meetings, Ramaphosa said strengthening trade relations between the two countries was his primary motivation for travelling to Washington, DC.

“We want to come out of the United States with a really good trade deal, investment promotion. We invest in the United States, and they invest in us. We want to strengthen those relations. We want to consolidate relations between the two countries,” he said.

This week, South Africa’s ministers of trade and agriculture, Parks Tau and Steenhuisen, met with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to present the first draft of a trade deal.

In 2024, total goods trade between the US and South Africa amounted to $20.5bn. This included $5.8bn in US exports to South Africa and $14.7bn in South African exports to the US.

However, some observers said that at the heart of the potential trade deal is what South Africa could offer billionaire and close Trump ally, Elon Musk, given his ongoing claims about obstacles he allegedly faces in operating Starlink, his satellite internet company, in the country where he was born due to its transformation laws.

These laws seek to redress past injustices that kept Black people destitute and require businesses over a certain size to have a 30 percent equity stake held by members of previously disadvantaged groups.

Speaking at the Doha Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk reiterated his assertions about laws he claimed were biased against white people despite experts explaining that most of those only seek to promote racial justice.

“All races must be on equal footing in South Africa. That is the right thing to do. Do not replace one set of racist laws with another set of racist laws, which is utterly wrong and improper,” Musk said.

“I am in an absurd situation where I was born in South Africa but cannot get a licence to operate Starlink because I am not Black,” he claimed.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, a White House official told the Reuters news agency Trump is likely to tell Ramaphosa that all US companies in South Africa should be exempt from “racial requirements”.

Opposition figure Malema’s party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), threatened legal action after news that the government was considering offering regulatory assurances to Musk’s Starlink. The EFF said the move would be unconstitutional and shows Ramaphosa is willing to compromise the country’s sovereignty to “massage the inflated ego of Musk and Trump”.

Isike said that while trade concessions would be discussed, he doubted the South African government would give up its laws to appease Musk.

“I will be surprised if Starlink gets its way by refusing to follow South African transformation laws, which require 30 percent Black ownership of a foreign company,” he said.

‘Genocide’ claims

Meanwhile, in private talks, Ramaphosa and Trump were also expected to discuss foreign policy issues, including peace prospects between Russia and Ukraine and South Africa’s support for Palestine and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Some political observers said Pretoria is in the US crosshairs partly because of its actions against the key Washington ally.

Patrick Bond, a sociology professor at the University of Johannesburg, predicted before the talks that the US might offer to retract claims of “white genocide” in exchange for South Africa dropping its case at the ICJ.

South Africa is seeking to hold Israel accountable for its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The US is Israel’s strongest ally and arms supplier.

“We are very rational when it comes to discussing global and geopolitical matters. We will put South African positions first, and our foreign policy positions will be clarified,” Ramaphosa said before the meeting.

As the Gaza genocide case against Israel continues in The Hague, US allegations of a widely discredited “white genocide” in South Africa continue to follow the country’s leadership.

Before Trump and Ramaphosa retreated to private meetings on Wednesday, a reporter asked the US president if he had decided whether genocide was being committed in South Africa. “I haven’t made up my mind,” he replied.

The unfounded claim of white genocide has “taken on a life of its own”, analyst Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.

It will be difficult for Ramaphosa and Trump to rebound after the Oval Office “ambush”, he said.

“We know that Elon Musk certainly fanned this story [about a white genocide], and he’s probably not the only one,” von Schirach said. “It’s going to be hard for Trump to say, ‘Oh, so sorry. I was misinformed.’”

May 21 (UPI) — An ex-New York state police officer on Wednesday pleaded guilty to shooting himself in the leg as part of a fake crime scene in what prosecutors said was a plan to gain sympathy.

Former trooper Thomas Mascia, 27, admitted in court that he staged the supposed crime scene on October 30 after he claimed to have been injured by an unknown shooter near exit 17 of New York’s Southern State Parkway while checking on a disabled vehicle.

The West Hempstead resident pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence, falsely reporting a police incident and for official misconduct.

He is expected to serve six months in prison, five years of probation and must undergo continued mental health treatment and pay more than $289,500 in restitution.

Mascia admitted that he spread shells at the alleged scene, then drove in his state vehicle to nearby Hempstead Lake State Park, where he then shot himself with the same caliber rifle loaded with the same shells left on the highway. It is there where he returned and called in the staged incident.

“You weren’t shot by someone else?” asked the assistant Nassau County district attorney, to which Mascia replied: “Yes.”

His actions had set off a statewide manhunt for the suspected vehicle Mascia described until investigators discovered the gunshot was self-inflicted.

Mascia attorney Jeffrey Lichtman stated Mascia also lied about getting hit by a car during an alleged 2022 hit-and-run incident upstate, adding that state police officials missed the signs of mental distress which, according to Lichtman, was what led to October’s staged event.

The former state trooper saw a delayed plea deal earlier this month after Mascia inadvertently expressed that he was not in good mental health.

On Wednesday, he said “yes” after the judge inquired if he was in a good mental state.

Additionally, Mascia’s parents were charged with criminal possession of a firearm.

Thomas Mascia Sr., a former NYPD officer until his conviction in the 1990s for his role in a cocaine ring, was charged after a search of the home related to the incident uncovered an illegal assault-style weapon along with about $80,000 in cash.

Meanwhile, Mascia is expected to be sentenced on August 20.

Israel is facing condemnation from some of its strongest allies over its increasing aggression in Gaza.

The UK is cancelling new trade talks and the EU is reviewing old agreements, while both are imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The two powers say they cannot stand by while Israel expands military operations, increases air strikes and starves Palestinians in Gaza with its total blockade.

But critics are asking why they did not step in before.

Will the new measures be imposed?

And most importantly: Will any of this change the reality on the ground for the Palestinians?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

James Moran – Former EU ambassador to Egypt and Jordan

Yossi Mekelberg – Senior consulting fellow at Chatham House

Zaid Belbagi – Managing partner of Hardcastle Advisory and political commentator

May 21 (UPI) — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to block proceedings on a case looking to get information on the Department of Government Efficiency.

In an application to stay the orders of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking documents about DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act, Solicitor General John Sauer wrote that DOGE is exempt from such requests.

“The U.S. DOGE Service is a presidential advisory body within the Executive Office of the President. The President, in various executive orders, has tasked USDS with providing recommendations to him and to federal agencies on policy matters that the President has deemed important to his agenda,” Sauer wrote. “Given those advisory functions, USDS is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.”

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit against DOGE in February, which described DOGE as “a cadre of largely unidentified actors, whose status as government employees is unclear, controlling major government functions with no oversight.”

The CREW suit asked for DOGE to comply with its FOIA requests “and promptly disclose the requested records.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. ordered in May that DOGE must provide the requested information.

CREW responded to the request from Sauer to the Supreme Court with a statement Wednesday that said “While DOGE continues to attempt to fight transparency at every level of justice, we look forward to making our case that the Supreme Court should join the District Court and Court of Appeals in allowing discovery to go forward.”

Israeli soldiers were captured on video firing towards a group of foreign diplomats on a visit to Jenin in the occupied West Bank, forcing them to run to their vehicles and flee the area. The military claims the group deviated from an “approved route” and the shots were only a “warning.”

Armenia has long relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan.

Russia’s top diplomat has blamed the war in Ukraine for affecting the supply of arms to Armenia, and has expressed concern that Moscow’s longstanding ally would now look to the West for military support instead.

Speaking in Yerevan on the second day of a two-day visit to Armenia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that some of Russia’s weapons contracts with the former Soviet republic had been delayed or reassigned due to the pressures created by the war in Ukraine.

Armenia has long relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan, against whom it has fought a series of conflicts since the late 1980s.

“We are currently in a situation where, as has happened throughout history, we are forced to fight all of Europe,” Lavrov said, in a barbed reference to European support for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.

“Our Armenian friends understand that in such conditions, we cannot fulfil all our obligations on time.”

As Russia has failed to deliver on weapons contracts paid for by Armenia, Yerevan has increasingly turned to countries like France and India for military supplies.

Lavrov said that Russia would not oppose these growing ties, but said that they raised concerns about its traditional ally’s strategic intentions.

“When an ally turns to a country like France, which leads the hostile camp and whose president and ministers speak openly with hatred toward Russia, it does raise questions,” he said.

Armenia has strengthened its ties with the West amid recent ongoing tensions with Azerbaijan, fallout from the last major eruption of conflict and Russia’s role in that.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist enclave in Azerbaijan with a mostly ethnic Armenian population that had broken away from Baku with Armenian support amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Armenia accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect the more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled the region, fuelled by decades of distrust, wars, mutual hatred and violence, after Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover.

Yerevan also suspended its involvement in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a Russian-led security umbrella of ex-Soviet countries, last year, saying it would not participate or fund the alliance.

May 21 (UPI) — Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, or Farms Taki Eto resigned Wednesday after his comments over the price of rice led to a national backlash.

Eto wrote on his website that he submitted his resignation to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who accepted.

“My remarks were extremely inappropriate at a time when the public is suffering greatly from the rising prices of rice, and for that I offer my sincere apologies,” Eto.

Eto made the comments Sunday a weekend fundraising event, where during a speech he said he had never bought rice, as he receives so much from his supporters.

“I have enough rice at home I could open up a store and sell it,” he said.

He later said the comment was made in jest, but retracted it and admitted that the joke was “too far.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service reported in March that rice “prices have continued to spike and are almost 80% higher in January 2025 than one year ago.”

The Farm Ministry responded to the price of rice with the release of 300,000 tons of reserved rice through July. The government had already released 321,000 tons of rice between March and April as rice prices have risen dramatically in 2025.

Ishiba reportedly chastised Eto on Monday, but on Tuesday the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan made an agreement with four other opposition parties to insist Eto resign, and to together submit a no-confidence motion against him.

Representative Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the CDP, said Wednesday that Eto’s comments “showed no consideration for the people’s lives, who are suffering as rice prices soar, and they rubbed the public the wrong way,” and that Eto in his opinion “shows no sense of crisis about the current situation,” and is “not fit to be a minister.”

At least 52 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera, as pressure mounts on Tel Aviv to allow significant humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave to avert a looming famine.

Israeli air strikes and tank fire continued to pound the besieged territory on Wednesday. Among those killed were at least eight people in Gaza City, two people in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp and two people in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza.

The attacks come after Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.

Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom to Israelis, in southern Gaza.

Israel announced that 93 aid trucks had entered Gaza from Israel following an 11-week blockade.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum explained that most of those trucks had only received military clearance to enter the Palestinian side of the crossing.

“They are still stuck at the border crossing. Only five trucks have made it in,” Abu Azzoum said, adding, “This could be another sign of the systematic obstruction of aid in Gaza.”

Aid groups have said that the amount of aid that Israel is allowing is not nearly enough, calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts a “smokescreen to pretend the siege is over”.

“The Israeli authorities’ decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while, in fact, keeping them barely surviving,” said Pascale Coissard, the emergency coordinator in Khan Younis for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF.

The Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks were entering Gaza on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would be able to continue deeper into Gaza for distribution.

A few dozen Israeli activists opposed to Israel’s decision to allow aid into Gaza while Hamas still holds Israeli captives attempted to block the trucks carrying the aid on Wednesday morning, but were kept back by Israeli police.

Israel is facing growing international pressure over its renewed offensive on Gaza.

The United Kingdom has suspended talks with Israel on a free trade deal, and the European Union said it will review a pact on political and economic ties over the “catastrophic situation” in Gaza. Britain, France and Canada have threatened “concrete actions” if Israel continues its offensive.

Pope Leo on Wednesday also appealed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

“I renew my fervent appeal to allow for the entry of fair humanitarian help and to bring to an end the hostilities, the devastating price of which is paid by children, the elderly and the sick,” the pope said during his weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday urged world leaders to take immediate action to end Israel’s siege on Gaza, issuing the appeal in a written statement during a visit to Beirut, where he is expected to discuss the disarmament of Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

“I call on world leaders to take urgent and decisive measures to break the siege on our people in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid, an end to the Israeli offensive, the release of detainees and a full withdrawal from Gaza.

“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said.

Since the war began in October 2023 following the Hamas attack that killed 1,139 people in southern Israel, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed 53,573 people and wounded 121,688 others.

May 21 (UPI) — The United Nations said no aid has reached people in Gaza in dire need of food and medical supplies, including baby food, despite dozens of trucks crossing from Israel into the strip after Israel ended its 11-week blockade.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a press briefing in New York on Tuesday afternoon that none of the trucks Israel said had been allowed in during the day had gotten beyond a staging area on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing at the southeastern corner of the strip as Israeli authorities had not permitted U.N. staff on the ground to collect the aid.

He said U.N. humanitarian teams were sending in baby food, flour, medicines and nutrition supplies and other basic items through the Israeli border fence to the Palestinian side that needed to be distributed as a matter of urgency, “as we need much, much more to cross.”

“The Israeli authorities are requiring us to offload supplies on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom crossing and reload them separately once they secure our teams’ access from inside the Gaza Strip. Only then are we able to bring any supplies closer to where people in need are sheltering,” Dujarric said.

He said one U.N. team had to wait “several hours” for Israel to clear access to the Kerem Shalom area for nutrition supplies to be collected, but they weren’t able to bring them back to their warehouse.

“They were able to get into the area, but given the lateness of the hour, they were not able to bring the trucks out,” Dujarric said, explaining all movement needed clearance from Israel Defense Forces, routes needed to be agreed, and U.N. staff needed to ensure the general area was safe and contend with perilous, congested roads.

“We’re obviously thankful that some aid is getting in, but there are a lot of hurdles to cross and we haven’t been able to cross. Our colleagues have not been able to cross all those hurdles to get aid to where it’s actually needed,” said Dujarric.

He said even if the aid got through, it was “only a drop in the ocean” of what was required for the massive scale of the operation to meet humanitarian needs.

“The deprivation we are seeing in Gaza is the result of ongoing bombardments and blockade and recurrent displacement,” said Dujarric.

Israeli Prime Minister announced Sunday the aid blockade would be lifted immediately after coming under intense pressure from the international community amid warnings of an imminent famine, with Israel saying 93 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, up from five on Monday.

However, Netanyahu’s insistence Israel would allow only “a basic amount of food” to reach the population of Gaza prompted Britain on Tuesday to suspend negotiations with Israel on a trade agreement, slap new sanctions on West Bank settlers and Foreign Minister David Lammy to summon the Israeli ambassador to the Home Office.

“Humanitarian aid needs to get in at pace,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Parliament.

“We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel. We repeat our demand for a cease-fire as the only way to free the hostages. We repeat our opposition to settlements in the West Bank, and we repeat our demand to massively scale up humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” he said.

Israel hit back, saying the trade talks were already moribund and that Starmer’s administration was only hurting Britain with its actions and reminded Britain it was no longer in charge.

“The agreement would serve the mutual benefit of both countries. If, due to anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations, the British government is willing to harm the British economy — that is its own prerogative,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote in a post on X.

He called the sanctions against West Bank settlers “unjustified and regrettable,” especially in the light of a deadly attack on a pregnant woman that had left her unborn child fighting for its life.

“The British Mandate ended exactly 77 years ago. External pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction,” Marmorstein said.

The Mandate for Palestine was authorization granted to Britain in 1920 by the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, to administer then-Palestine in the wake of World War 1, which lasted until May 1948 when Israelis declared independence and the creation of the State of Israel.

The measures from London came a day after Britain, Canada and France on Monday issued a strongly worded rebuke warning Israel of “concrete actions” if it did not halt a major new military offensive in Gaza and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the strip.

They also called on Hamas to “release immediately the remaining hostages they have so cruelly held since October 7, 2023.”

May 21 (UPI) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet with President Donald Trump Wednesday to talk about relations, both trade and diplomatic.

“The trade relations between South Africa and the United States will be the focus of my working visit,” wrote South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to his X account Tuesday, “We aim to strengthen and consolidate relations between our two countries.”

South African Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen said via social media Tuesday that he had a “constructive meeting” with U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Greer in Washington.

“Trade is essential between our two countries and we are determined to ensure that access for agricultural products remains open in a mutually beneficial way. Trade means jobs and a growing economy,” Steenhuisen said.

However, it is also likely that the two will discuss the relationship between the two nations in general, as the Trump administration has cut off aid to South Africa and publicly leveled accusations that the South African government has backed violence against the Afrikaners, the White South Africans, whom the United States has begun to accept as refugees, despite the fact that Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on the first day of his second term.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier in May that Afrikaners fleeing persecution are welcome in the United States.

“The South African government has treated these people terribly — threatening to steal their private land and subjected them to vile racial discrimination. The Trump Administration is proud to offer them refuge in our great country.”

“We all know as South Africans both Black and White is that there is no genocide here,” Ramaphosa said Friday. “We are not genociders. We are not committing any act of hatred, act of retribution or violence against anyone,” Ramaphosa said.

White South Africans maintain control of a majority of the land and much of the county’s wealth after apartheid ended in 1994.

“The false narratives about a genocide are not a reflection of who we are as a nation,” Ramaphosa further stated Friday, “and during our working visit to the U.S. we will be advancing a proudly South African message.”

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Andriy Portnov was previously a senior aide to removed former President Viktor Yanukovych and had been the subject of US sanctions.

A Ukrainian former politician has been shot dead by an unknown assailant outside a school in Madrid, Spain, authorities said.

The man was identified by Spain’s Ministry of Interior as Andriy Portnov, who was previously a senior aide to Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych.

The attack on Wednesday morning took place outside the gates of the American School in the Spanish capital’s upscale neighbourhood of Pozuelo de Alarcon.

Police were called at about 9:15am (07:15 GMT) and notified that a man had been shot in the street.

Witnesses quoted by the police said he was shot “several times” in the head and body by more than one assailant. The attackers fled on foot, police said.

Radio station Cadena SER reported that Portnov was taking his children to school when he was attacked.

Portnov had been closely tied to Ukraine’s pro-Russian former leader Yanukovych, having served as deputy head of the presidential office from 2010 to 2014.

During Yanukovych’s time in power, Portnov was involved in drafting legislation aimed at persecuting participants of the 2014 revolution in Ukraine. He was later placed on several sanctions lists, including by the US Treasury in 2021.

This is a developing story. More to come…

May 21 (UPI) — Activists, officials and defectors highlighted North Korean human rights violations at a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, with many directly tying Pyongyang’s systemic abuses to its growing nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The meeting on the North’s human rights violations, the first of its kind held at the General Assembly, featured testimonies by two escapees who shared harrowing stories of oppression and implored the world to hold North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accountable.

“Silence is complicity,” said Kim Eun-joo, who was 11 years old when she fled with her mother and sister in 1999 to escape starvation in rural North Korea.

After crossing the Tumen River into China, Kim and her family faced years of human trafficking before finally making it to South Korea.

She pointed to North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia, particularly its deployment of troops to aid Moscow in its war against Ukraine, as a “new kind of modern-day slavery.”

“[The soldiers] have no idea where they are, whom they are fighting against or why,” she said. “Their lives have become a means for the Kim Jong Un regime to make money.”

Pyongyang has deployed around 15,000 troops to Russia, Seoul’s spy agency said last month. Some 600 of the soldiers have been killed and another 4,100 injured, the National Intelligence Service told lawmakers in a briefing.

Seoul and Washington also accused North Korea of supplying artillery and missiles to Russia. In exchange, Pyongyang is believed to be receiving much-needed financial support and advanced military technology for its own weapons programs.

Participants in the U.N. meeting highlighted the close link between North Korea’s human rights abuses and the regime’s growing arsenal.

“The regime preserves itself through producing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,” Greg Scarlatoiu, president and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said.

“North Korea is no longer just a Korean Peninsula threat. The DPRK is no longer just a Northeast Asian threat,” Scarlatoiu said.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

“The DPRK is exporting instability to the Middle East and to Europe,” Scarlatoiu said. “And the root cause of this is the human rights violations that the DPRK perpetrates.”

North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song condemned the meeting, calling it a “burlesque of intrigue and fabrication” staged by “hostile forces” including the United States.

Kim also slammed the invitation of the North Korean escapees, calling them “the scum of the earth who don’t even care about their parents and families.”

Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, told the General Assembly that North Korea has diverted resources toward militarization at the expense of human rights and basic necessities such as food, healthcare and sanitation.

“As the DPRK expands its extreme militarization policies, it exacerbates the extensive reliance on forced labor and quota systems, showing how peace, security and human rights are strongly interrelated,” Salmon said.

She added that North Korea’s border closures at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020 worsened its human rights situation, as Pyongyang used the isolation to enact brutal new laws restricting access to information from the outside world.

A 2014 landmark U.N. Commission of Inquiry report documented North Korean crimes against humanity, including torture, rape, execution, deliberate starvation and forced labor, that were “without parallel in the contemporary world.”

South Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Hwang Joon-kook echoed calls to more closely tie North Korea’s human rights violations to its nuclear ambitions, which he said were “deeply interconnected.”

“For far too long the DPRK’s human rights violations have been overshadowed by its nuclear threats,” he said. “Their nuclear program is sustained by systemic repression, forced labor, diverted national resources and total control of its people.”

Hwang called North Korea “a real-life version of George Orwell‘s novel 1984.”

“However, the DPRK’s horrendous crimes do not stop at the border,” he said. “If human rights violations are stopped, nuclear weapons development will also stop.”

Led by 31 points by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder rally in second half to beat Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander overcame a slow start to score 31 points to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 114-88 home win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

It was Gilgeous-Alexander’s fourth consecutive game with 30 or more points and his eighth in 12 playoff games this season. He also added a game-high nine assists on Tuesday.

With seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander iced the game with a spectacular play. The All-Star guard drove towards the basket and began falling, but not before flipping the ball toward the hoop as he went down.

The ball rolled around the rim briefly before dropping through, and Jaden McDaniels was called for the foul.

Gilgeous-Alexander finished off the three-point play to put the Thunder up by 14. He finished 10-of-27 from the floor and 0-of-4 from 3-point range, but he made 11-of-14 from the free-throw line.

Early on, the Timberwolves’ defence gave Gilgeous-Alexander fits, holding him to just 2-of-13 shooting in the first half.

Oklahoma City trailed by nine with a little more than a minute remaining in the first half before the Thunder closed on a 6-1 run to cut the deficit to four.

In the second half, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault moved Gilgeous-Alexander off the ball, and it helped the 1.98 metre (Six feet, six inch) guard find a rhythm.

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 12 points in the third quarter as Oklahoma City outscored Minnesota 32-18.

While Gilgeous-Alexander turned up the pressure on offence, it was the Thunder’s defence that played the biggest role in the victory.

Overall, Oklahoma City scored 31 points on 19 Timberwolves’ turnovers. Minnesota managed only 10 points off the Thunder’s 15 giveaways.

Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams produced 19 points and eight rebounds, while Chet Holmgren added 15 points and seven boards.

The Thunder shot 50 percent from the field and 11-of-21 (52.4 percent) from beyond the arc while holding Minnesota to just 34.9 percent from the floor and 15-of-51 (29.4 percent) from 3-point range.

Julius Randle led Minnesota with 28 points, scoring 20 in the first half. After going 5-for-6 in the first half on 3-point tries, Randle didn’t attempt a shot from beyond the arc in the second half.

Timberwolves All-Star guard Anthony Edwards wound up with 18 points and nine rebounds. He attempted just one shot, a miss, while playing seven minutes in the fourth quarter.

May 21 (UPI) — A U.S. Air Force veteran detained in Venezuela has been released, according to his family and Trump administration officials.

Joseph St. Clair was freed Tuesday, according to Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump‘s special presidential envoy for special missions and the newly appointed president of the Kennedy Center.

On his X account, Grenell posted pictures of himself and St. Clair boarding a small airplane.

“Joe St. Clair is back in America,” he said.

Grenell on Tuesday met with Venezuelan officials in an unidentified “neutral country to “negotiate an America First Strategy” he said.

Scott and Patti St. Clair, Joseph St. Clair’s parents, confirmed their son’s release from Venezuelan detention in a statement.

“This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it — but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” they said.

Details about St. Clair’s release were not immediately clear.

According to the James Foley Foundation, St. Clair was working in the food services industry in South America when his family lost contact with him in November. In February, the U.S. State Department told his family — who had not heard from him in months — that he had been wrongly detained by Venezuela, the foundation, which advocates for U.S. hostage prevention and release, said.

St. Clair’s release comes after Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from Washington, called on Trump earlier this month to become personally involved in pressing for the release of the Air Force veteran.

“Each day he is held, it prolongs his suffering, and the suffering of his friends and family,” they said in the letter.

In February, the Trump administration secured the release of six Americans who had been wrongly detained in Venezuela for several months.