President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that he wants real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France. Mr Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, calling Charles Kushner “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker”. Mr Kushner is the founder of Kushner Companies, a real estate firm. Jared Kushner is a former senior Trump adviser who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka. The elder Mr Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations. Prosecutors alleged that after Charles Kushner discovered his brother-in-law was co-operating with federal authorities in an investigation, he hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation. Mr Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife, prosecutors said. Mr Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering. He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison – the most he could receive under a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, the US attorney for New Jersey at the time and later governor and Republican presidential candidate, had sought. Mr Christie has blamed Jared Kushner for his firing from Mr Trump’s transition team in 2016, and has called Charles Kushner’s offences “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was US attorney”. Mr Trump and the elder Mr Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.
Solar D banks on robotic panel installerA year after losing power to the Congress in Telangana, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), is going all out to regain its lost ground in the state and rebuild its image among people. The BRS, which ruled Telangana for two successive terms since the formation of the new state in June 2014, faced a humiliating defeat in the assembly elections held on November 30, 2023 by winning just 39 seats in the 119-member state assembly. The Congress, which had just five MLAs in the last assembly, came to power by winning 64 seats. Its strength went up to 75, by winning one more seat in the by-elections to Secunderabad Cantonment seat, besides defection of 10 more MLAs from the BRS. Effectively, the BRS strength has been reduced to 28 seats now. What is worse, the party suffered further humiliation in the Lok Sabha elections held in May 2024, during which the party drew a blank — it could not win even a single Lok Sabha seat out of the 17 seats in Telangana. For KCR, who was reigning supreme in the state for nearly 10 years, it was a big setback. At one stage, he was projecting himself as a national leader by stitching up a coalition of regional parties across the country and even rechristened his party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), as BRS. He even established the party network in different states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and was hoping to make it a national party as an effective alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. But all his hopes have been shattered with the defeat of the BRS in the state assembly elections and despite his whirlwind campaign across the state, his party could not win even a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections. In the last one year, the BRS has lost several important leaders, including veteran Rajya Sabha member K Kesava Rao, apart from MLAs, who defected to the Congress. KCR has virtually gone into a cocoon, confining himself to his farmhouse. It has been nearly six months since he has made a public appearance. Several scams that allegedly took place during the BRS regime in the last 10 years have come to light in the past one year, severely denting the image of the BRS. They include alleged large-scale land dealings by the party leaders using Dharani portal, telephone tapping of several politicians and even judges, grave engineering lapses in the construction of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, irregularities in power purchase agreement with Chhattisgarh and financial irregularities in awarding maintenance contract to Outer Ring Road and payments in Formula-E racing in Hyderabad. The Congress government, led by chief minister A Revanth Reddy, has ordered inquiries into all these alleged scams and the investigation has been in progress for the last few months. Adding to all these woes, KCR suffered yet another shock with the arrest of his daughter and MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha in the Delhi liquor policy case in March and was released on bail on August 26, after intense lobbying by the party leadership in Delhi. In spite of receiving such a massive drubbing in the elections and facing inquiries into the various acts of omissions and commissions, the BRS leadership has not lost its fighting spirit. For the last few months, the BRS has been taking up several agitations, highlighting the failures of the Revanth Reddy government. While KCR is confined to the farmhouse, his son K T Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao have been relentlessly targeting the Congress government and organising one programme or the other to keep the party visible in public. Political analyst Ramakrishna Sangem said that there was no option for the BRS but to come back to the people and win their confidence. “They have been pushed to the wall and they need to bounce back, if they have to survive till the next elections,” he said. He pointed out that the BRS has been trying to whip up anti-incumbency among the people by organising public protests over various issues, including non-implementation of guarantees promised to people, half-hearted implementation of crop loan waiver scheme, police crackdown on farmers at Lagacharla village against pharma city, demolition of houses along Musi riverbank, a series of food poisoning incidents in welfare hostels and schools and suicide cases of weavers and debt-ridden farmers. Another political analyst Md Zakir said that the BRS leadership has still been under the illusion that the people had made a big mistake by voting the party out in the last assembly elections. “The party leaders, particularly KTR, has been telling the cadre that the people are waiting with vengeance to pull down Revanth Reddy and bring back KCR as the chief minister again, forgetting the fact that there is still four years’ time for the next elections,” he said. Secondly, according to Zakir, the biggest disadvantage for the BRS is that it doesn’t have any organisational structure, unlike the Congress or the BJP. The BRS is completely a family-oriented party and unless KCR or his family members decide, no activity is taken up at any level, he added. “It appears that the BRS is banking on a negative vote against the Congress, rather than its own strength. That is why, the BRS leaders are trying to create troubles for the Congress government and hoping that their party would benefit from the mistakes of the government,” Zakir said.
(Note to subs: amends byline error) The world stands at the dawn of a “third nuclear age” in which Britain is threatened by multiple dilemmas, the head of the armed forces has warned. But alongside his stark warning of the threats facing Britain and its allies, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said there would be only a “remote chance” Russia would directly attack or invade the UK if the two countries were at war. The Chief of the Defence Staff laid out the landscape of British defence in a wide-ranging speech, after a minister warned the Army would be wiped out in as little as six months if forced to fight a war on the scale of the Ukraine conflict. The admiral cast doubt on the possibility as he gave a speech at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) defence think tank in London. He told the audience Britain needed to be “clear-eyed in our assessment” of the threats it faces, adding: “That includes recognising that there is only a remote chance of a significant direct attack or invasion by Russia on the United Kingdom, and that’s the same for the whole of Nato.” Moscow “knows the response will be overwhelming”, he added, but warned the nuclear deterrent needed to be “kept strong and strengthened”. Sir Tony added: “We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age, which is altogether more complex. It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.” The first nuclear age was the Cold War, while the second was “governed by disarmament efforts and counter proliferation”, the armed forces chief said. He listed the “wild threats of tactical nuclear use” by Russia, China building up its weapon stocks, Iran’s failure to co-operate with a nuclear deal, and North Korea’s “erratic behaviour” among the threats faced by the West. But Sir Tony said the UK’s nuclear arsenal is “the one part of our inventory of which Russia is most aware and has more impact on (President Vladimir) Putin than anything else”. Successive British governments had invested “substantial sums of money” in renewing nuclear submarines and warheads because of this, he added. The admiral described the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers on Ukraine’s border alongside Russian forces as the year’s “most extraordinary development”. He also signalled further deployments were possible, speaking of “tens of thousands more to follow as part of a new security pact with Russia”. Defence minister Alistair Carns earlier said a rate of casualties similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would lead to the army being “expended” within six to 12 months. He said it illustrated the need to “generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis”. In comments reported by Sky News, Mr Carns, a former Royal Marines colonel, said Russia was suffering losses of around 1,500 soldiers killed or injured a day. “In a war of scale – not a limited intervention, but one similar to Ukraine – our Army for example, on the current casualty rates, would be expended – as part of a broader multinational coalition – in six months to a year,” Mr Carns said in a speech at Rusi. He added: “That doesn’t mean we need a bigger Army, but it does mean you need to generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis.” Official figures show the Army had 109,245 personnel on October 1, including 25,814 volunteer reservists. Mr Carns, the minister for veterans and people, said the UK needed to “catch up with Nato allies” to place greater emphasis on the reserves. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Defence Secretary John Healey had previously spoken about “the state of the armed forces that were inherited from the previous government”. The spokesman said: “It’s why the Budget invested billions of pounds into defence, it’s why we’re undertaking a strategic defence review to ensure that we have the capabilities and the investment needed to defend this country.”
Were there really rhinos, baboons and sharks in the Colosseum? A professor explains ‘Gladiator II’ scenes
Ruesha Littlejohn conceded that the Republic of Ireland players were “devastated” after their Euro 2025 dream ended in defeat to Wales. The Girls in Green went down 3-2 on aggregate in their play-off at the Aviva Stadium in front of 25,832 spectators on Tuesday evening. “We’re devastated. The team is devastated. We’re shellshocked tonight,” said the London City Lionesses player. “Credit to Wales. They took their chances. I thought we played well in the half. “We had a few good moments. But you need to score in the big games, or you get punished. We got punished.” The 34-year-old played down the VAR decision which saw the visitors awarded a penalty early in the second half to make it 1-0 on the night. “Honestly, it’s not coming into your head. You’re not thinking about those moments. But when you see it back. Honestly, it’s dreadful. “Patsy [Anna Patten] goes to head the ball. It came down and hit her arm. I don’t know how they judge these things, when you jump. I don’t know if there needs to be a new rule, that you can’t jump with your arms by your side. It’s so hard to do when you are in the moment in the game. “That’s a tough one for us to take. They’ve just built on it. We still had chances. But we just didn’t do enough.” Littlejohn went on to remark: “We gave it our all to get another one back after making it 2-1 [on the night]. If I’m being honest, their first goal rattled us a bit. None of us saw [the penalty] coming. “It took us a wee time to get back to the game plan.” With Megan Connolly lofting long throws into the box to try to find the vital equaliser, the Glasgow-born midfielder admitted: “If I’m being honest, in Irish football, we really need to go to grassroots here. We need to change our game, change our style, to compete with the best teams. “They’re all so comfortable on the football. They want the football; they want to play — everyone in the team. “That’s the journey we’re on now. It’s got to start with the young ones coming through. Get them on the football. Get to know it.” “Yes, we know we have heart, we can be resilient. We put our bodies on the line. “We’ve got Megan’s throw, we’ve got big girls that can win headers. We need to do more if we are to consistently go to these tournaments.” With no trip to Switzerland to look forward to next summer, Littlejohn stated: “Honestly, we all thought that we were going there. We gave it our all. It wasn’t good enough. We’re only going to watch it now.” With 76 caps under her belt, the midfielder conceded she may consider her own international future. “I’ll have to go away and think about it. It’s not something not to rush into yet. “I’d love to still play for Ireland. I’ll take a while and see what the future looks like.”RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Jaden Green and Geoffrey Jamiel scored on long plays in the fourth quarter and unseeded Lehigh rallied to defeat No. 9 Richmond 20-16 on Saturday in a first-round game of the FCS playoffs. Lehigh advances to a second-round game at eighth-seeded Idaho on Dec. 7. The Mountain Hawks trailed 16-7 early in the fourth quarter after Richmond’s Sean Clarke scored on a 7-yard pass from Camden Coleman. Green dashed 65 yards for a touchdown on the next play from scrimmage and Lehigh trailed 16-14 with 10 1/2 minutes remaining. The Mountain Hawks (9-3) forced a three-and-out, then Jamiel and Hayden Johnson connected on a 56-yard pass play for the go-ahead touchdown. The Spiders were stopped short of midfield on their final drive but nearly came up with a huge play when Lehigh’s Quanye Veney muffed the punt at his own 14-yard line. Ignatious Williams recovered the loose ball for Lehigh to preserve the win. Johnson completed 14 of 18 passes for 199 yards. Jamiel caught 10 for 137 yards. Coleman was 24-of-37 passing for 199 yards. Zach Palmer-Smith had 107 yards rushing for Richmond (10-3). Richmond had 249 yards of total offense in the first half but managed only three short field goals by Sean O’Haire. The scoring drives were 76, 70 and 64 yards and Richmond controlled the ball for nearly 21 minutes in the first half. Lehigh took a 7-6 lead on Johnson’s 7-yard TD pass to Logan Galletta, but the Spiders answered with O’Haire’s third field goal for a 9-7 halftime lead. This is 13-time Patriot League champion Lehigh’s first playoff appearance since 2017. Lehigh and Richmond will have a rematch in the 2025 season opener at Lehigh. It will be Richmond’s debut as a member of the Patriot League. __ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college football: and
French President Emmanuel Macron will appoint a new prime minister in the coming days whose top priority will be getting a 2025 budget adopted by parliament, he said on Thursday after the government was toppled by lawmakers. Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative, became the shortest-serving prime minister in modern French history when he resigned on Thursday after parliament voted him out over his fiscal plans, barely three months after he was appointed. In a televised address to the nation, Macron said he would name a successor to Barnier “in the coming days.” “The priority will be the budget,” Macron said. A special law to roll over the 2024 budget and avoid any gap will be put forward by mid-December. Then the new government will prepare a full budget early next year, in particular to account for inflation, for a vote by parliament. Macron, whose ill-fated decision to call a snap ballot in June delivered a much-divided parliament, denied he was responsible for the political crisis. The president, who represents a centrist party, said the far-right and left-wing parties united in an “anti-republican front” to create “a mess” by ousting Barnier. Macron has been weakened by the crisis but resisted calls by some in the opposition for him to resign. He reaffirmed that he will stay in office until his term ends in May 2027. “The mandate you have given me is for five years and I will fulfil it until the very end,” he said. In a 10-minute speech, he added that the new government should represent a variety of parties willing to take part in it or at least agree not to censure it. He did not say which ones. Meanwhile, Macron has asked Barnier and his government to stay in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed. FISCAL DEFICIT, DIVIDED PARLIAMENT It was unclear if a new government will be in place before a ceremony on Saturday to reopen Notre-Dame Cathedral, which has been renovated after a devastating fire. World leaders including U.S. President-elect Donald Trump are expected to attend. Macron cited the rebuilding of the Gothic cathedral and successful Paris Olympics over the summer as evidence that France can deliver. “They are proof that we can do great things. We can do the impossible,” he said. “The world admires us for that.” Macron had lunch on Thursday with Francois Bayrou, whose name has been cited by French media as a possible successor to Barnier, Le Parisien newspaper reported. An aide to Bayrou did not respond to a request for comment. Any new prime minister will face the same challenge of dealing with a fractured parliament that Barnier did, notably passing a budget at a time when France needs to rein in its public finances. French bonds and stocks rallied on Thursday on what some traders said was profit-taking following the widely expected outcome of parliament’s no-confidence vote that ousted Barnier. But the relief rally is unlikely to last, given the scale of political uncertainty. “Until potential new elections, ongoing political uncertainty is likely to keep the risk premium on French assets elevated,” SocGen analysts said in a note. The earliest possible date for a parliamentary election would be in July. The fall of France’s government leaves the country without a clear path towards reducing its fiscal deficit, and the most likely outcome is less belt-tightening than previously planned, credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s said.
Kimberley hosts U18 BC Curling ChampionshipsPresident-elect Trump wants to again rename North America’s tallest peakKimberley hosts U18 BC Curling Championships