Two US Navy aircraft go down 30 minutes apart in South China Sea
Two U.S. Navy aircraft have gone down in the South China Sea in separate incidents within 30 minutes of each other, according to the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
President Donald Trump described the back-to-back crashes as “very unusual” and suggested a possible fuel issue while speaking to reporters on board Air Force One Monday, during his flight from Malaysia to Japan. “They think it might be bad fuel. We’re gonna find out. Nothing to hide, sir,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question.
The two aircraft were conducting routine operations over disputed waters, which China claims to own. Five crew members were involved, all of whom have been safely rescued. Both aircraft were deployed from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
The U.S. Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter went down in the waters of the South China Sea at around 2:45 p.m. local time Sunday. All three crew members were recovered safely.
Just 30 minutes later, at 3:15 p.m., a $60m F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet also crashed while conducting routine operations from the USS Nimitz. Two crew members ejected from the plane and were later recovered.
The Sea Hawk is assigned to the “Battle Cats” in Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73. The Super Hornet was part of the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron 22.
China’s foreign ministry said Beijing would be willing to assist in any rescue and recovery operations.
Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a Monday press conference that China “will provide necessary aid from a humanitarian perspective if the U.S. asks.”
He also took the opportunity to criticize U.S. operations in the region, accusing Washington of carrying out regular displays of military force in the South China Sea, increasing the risk to maritime activity, and undermining regional peace.
“All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition,” the Pacific Fleet, the world’s largest fleet command, said in a statement. They added that an investigation had been launched into both incidents.
This is the fourth F/A-18 that the navy has lost this year.
At the time of the incident, the USS Nimitz was returning to its home port in Naval Base Kitsap in Washington after being deployed to the Middle East for most of the summer as part of the U.S. response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial shipping. The carrier was on its final deployment before being decommissioned.
First commissioned in 1975, the Nimitz is the U.S. Navy’s oldest serving aircraft carrier, and is slated for retirement in 2026.
Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are the biggest ships in the navy, measuring almost 1,100 feet from bow to stern. They can operate continuously for 20 years without refueling because they are nuclear powered.
The incidents occurred amid Trump’s tour of Asia, during which he is expected to meet a host of Asian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China.
China has been ramping up efforts to bolster its territorial claims in the South China Sea amid ongoing disputes over numerous islands and waterways with other Southeast Asian nations. Beijing has been asserting its ownership over almost all of the strategic waterway.
U.S. forces maintain a presence in the region to support regional allies and push back on Chinese sovereignty claims.
How Lily Allen broke the last break-up taboo for women
One track into West End Girl, Lily Allen’s new tour de force of a divorce album, and I’m already hooked. Three tracks in, I’m messaging with several friends about it simultaneously, liveblogging my every thought and reaction to each searing lyric. Five tracks in, my jaw is on the floor and may never recover its former position. Who the f*** is Madeline indeed?!
Any album spilling this much supposed tea was always going to grab our attention (though Allen or, more likely, Allen’s lawyers, have made very clear that the singer’s marriage to and subsequent breakup with Stranger Things actor David Harbour merely serves as “inspiration” and that fact mingles with fiction throughout the 14 tracks). For whom among us can resist the lure of a celebrity scandal? Despite the fact that we will likely never know what is real and what is fantasy, Allen’s stream-of-consciousness storytelling on West End Girl feels as though we’re reading the messiest bits of someone else’s diary, complete with West Village p***y palaces and the now infamous Duane Reade bag stuffed full of sex toys, butt plugs and lube.
But by my sixth (or is it seventh?) listen, I finally realise that the reason this album has grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go is far more complex than a love of trashy gossip. It’s not even indicative of a morbid fascination with pain, that ghoulish bit of human nature that causes us to slow down and gawp when driving past a car accident. No, the real reason I couldn’t stop listening, aside from Allen’s winning combination of achingly raw vulnerability and well-crafted songwriting, was the fact that she has unapologetically and comprehensively broken a break-up taboo I hadn’t even realised existed.
For as long as I can remember, I have somehow absorbed one crucial idea about break-ups: if you’re the woman in a heterosexual relationship, you must hang onto your dignity at all costs. Whatever the circumstances, you should handle heartbreak “gracefully”, remaining as demure as a royal dignitary throughout. That’s the way you win, you see – by showing the man in question how incredibly poised and, crucially, un-mad you are. You can be sad, of course – a beautiful, tragic figure, gently weeping without ever tipping over into ugly crying – but never, ever angry. Because there’s nothing more unattractive than an angry woman, is there? And the whole point is to be so reasonable that he forever wonders whether he mightn’t have made the biggest mistake of his life in letting you go. Call it weaponised niceness, if you like.
Looking back, I think I’ve done this with pretty much every relationship I’ve ever had, ranging from those that constituted a handful of dates to the ones that lasted years. When a guy I’d had an intense holiday romance with, which continued for months afterwards, told me he’d “never been looking for a relationship in the first place”, I said it was fine (it wasn’t). When an older man I’d worked for aggressively love-bombed me, won me over, then promptly stopped answering my calls the minute things got serious, I said I understood (I didn’t). I’d never once experienced the catharsis of telling someone who’d wronged me that I was, in no uncertain terms, livid. I’d never exposed the writhing mass of vengeful snakes that constituted my insides after someone did me dirty. Heck, I’d never even yelled the word “Bastard!” dramatically in a bar, let alone chucked a drink on someone. At the time, protecting my image as some sort of paragon of womanly virtue seemed more important. But why, I wonder?
Popular culture has a lot to answer for. The very fact that the term “bunny boiler” made its way firmly into common parlance after the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction shows just how powerful and pervasive the paranoia around the “angry women” archetype is. No one wanted to be labelled that kind of girl: unhinged, insane, hysterical. It’s astonishing how many men I’ve heard refer to their ex as “crazy” – terminology you will rarely hear issuing from a woman’s mouth under the same circumstances. Well-meaning women, meanwhile, will still compliment female peers on how well they’ve “handled” themselves during a relationship breakdown – which usually equates to keeping a lid on the boiling vat of rage inside.
But in her new album, Allen has point-blank refused to play that game anymore. She is devastated, confused, and, yes, mad as hell – and she will not pretend otherwise to make herself seem more palatable or the world feel more comfortable. She may have started off down that well-trodden path, singing on “Let You W/In”: “I’m protecting you from your secrets/Don’t tell the children, the truth would be brutal/Your reputation’s unstained.” But this particular scorned woman will be quiet no more. She drips with disdain and fury across countless blistering lyrics, eviscerating her unnamed tormenter with lines like “You’re so f***ing broken” and “What a sad, sad man/It’s giving 4chan Stan.”
Listening as a woman who has never let a man see her true wrath lest it make her look unattractive, I felt set free by those songs. They give permission to unleash the wild, ugly parts of ourselves in a world that has forced us to stifle them. We don’t always have to be nice. We don’t always have to be pretty. We don’t always have to be, ugh, dignified.
For the longest time, we’ve been fed the line that living well is the best revenge. But sometimes maybe the best revenge is, well, revenge.
Frail Liverpool need a reset but more punishment might be on the way
Arne Slot used to be swathed in the right sort of statistics. He was the head coach who only lost one of his first 30 Premier League games, who won far more of his first 50 games in charge than any previous Liverpool manager. When the final whistle blew at Brentford on Saturday, Liverpool had five consecutive defeats in England. For the first time since 1970, they have lost five straight league games in London. And, as Liverpool prepare for a third meeting of a campaign that seems to be going off the rails with one of their conquerors, in one respect their capital record is still worse than that.
Include the Carabao Cup final and the Community Shield, factor in a penalty shootout, and they have had seven straight setbacks in London. There is a pertinence to each: without Alexander Isak’s Wembley goal in March, would Liverpool have been so desperate to sign him? The Community Shield, meanwhile, was both evidence that Marc Guehi would not go on strike to force a move to Merseyside and that, actually, Liverpool required his services more.
Guehi will instead arrive at Anfield with Crystal Palace on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup. Palace were the first – in anything resembling an official fixture – to highlight the frailties of the revamped Liverpool, coming from 2-0 down to draw within 90 minutes in August’s Community Shield. It was easy to attribute it to teething troubles, and not unfair either. Rather, it was a sign of things to come.
Liverpool have lost four 2-0 leads this season now. If it isn’t more, it is because they have conceded the opener in six games in a row. They are four of eight games when Liverpool have conceded at least twice; last season, in contrast, they were breached twice in a match for the eighth time at the end of January, with a weakened team Slot selected because they had already won the Champions League’s initial phase. They conceded as many goals at Brentford as Arsenal have conceded all season. Only five clubs have let in more goals in the Premier League.
Liverpool’s openness in the Community Shield was a warning. At times this season, they have been defending with, in effect, two outfield players: Virgil van Dijk and the distinctly erratic Ibrahima Konate. Liverpool ended up playing something approximating to 4-1-5 against Manchester United. Slot, who had a balanced side last season, has a wildly imbalanced one now.
Which is a greater issue when Liverpool should be on a quest for solidity. They have scored in 43 consecutive Premier League games. The logical path back to victory should be based on clean sheets, but Liverpool’s recruitment has left them less equipped to keep them.
They are weaker in both full-back positions; Slot’s lack of trust in Jeremie Frimpong as a right-back was apparent even before his fellow Dutchman was sidelined for a second time. Milos Kerkez has been individually susceptible and lacks Van Dijk’s understanding with Andy Robertson.
Liverpool are unfortunate that their Carabao Cup campaign has cost them the services of summer signing Giovanni Leoni for the season. But Slot has looked reluctant to pick Joe Gomez, with the consequence that Konate, unpredictable as some of his performances have been, has been ever-present in the Premier and Champions Leagues. Liverpool could have done with the calming head of Guehi, whose deadline-day move to Anfield broke down; that nonetheless prompted questions why it was not prioritised earlier.
Those centre-backs have been exposed. They have often lacked midfield protection. Alexis Mac Allister has rarely looked fully fit all season, Ryan Gravenberch has been out, Curtis Jones is now absent and Dominik Szoboszlai, far from being dropped after Florian Wirtz’s signing, now feels a first choice in about three roles. He has not missed a minute, apart from in the Carabao Cup.
But, once again, it highlights Liverpool’s choices in the transfer market. Since Martin Zubimendi’s 2024 U-turn, when he stayed at Real Sociedad for another year, Gravenberch has been reinvented, but it is nevertheless surprising Liverpool have not attempted to buy anyone who could be classed as a defensive midfielder. Saturday suggested that the 35-year-old Jordan Henderson could be of use to them now, two years after Jurgen Klopp moved on from his captain. There are growing reasons to believe the £125m committed to Isak should instead have been split between a centre-back and a central midfielder.
With Wataru Endo’s season amounting to 39 minutes in the Premier League and none in the Champions League, it is apparent Slot scarcely even considers the Japanese midfielder an option. The Dutchman operated with a core of around 14 players at Feyenoord and again last season; but after £450m of spending, with his own signings, without players he often overlooked, such as Harvey Elliott and Jarell Quansah, there was scope to perm from a bigger squad.
Instead, he is yet to emulate Klopp, who showed a mastery of rotation in his final season, aided by his capacity to praise fringe figures. Results contribute: it can seem harder to rotate a losing team when changes feel more like an attempt to return to winning ways. It may be contradictory, too, to say that selection needs to be more of a meritocracy. But some – Isak, Kerkez, Mac Allister, Konate – appear to have been afforded preferential treatment this season when others – Hugo Ekitike, Federico Chiesa, Robertson, Jones, Gomez – could be entitled to feel they should have started instead.
And so Liverpool look in need of a reset. Their season began against Palace and, seven weeks later, their first defeat, shootouts apart, came to Palace. It has been a false start to a season. And after five defeats in six games, a month in which they have not even drawn in England, let alone won, they face the prospect of more capital punishment.
Trial begins for 10 people accused of online harassment of Brigitte Macron
Ten people will face court for allegedly harassing France’s first lady Brigitte Macron by falsely claiming she is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.
On Monday, eight men and two women aged from 41 to 60 will be tried in a criminal court in Paris over allegations of online harassment, which carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
Separately, a US civil defamation lawsuit was filed in July by Ms Macron and her husband, the French president Emmanuel Macron, against far-right American podcaster Candace Owens, who has repeatedly amplified online the false claim that Ms Macron was born a man.
Tom Clare, a lawyer acting for the Macrons, said the couple are ready to prove “generally and specifically” that Ms Owens’ allegations that Ms Macron was born male are false. Their evidence would include scientific proof that she is a woman, he said.
The French trial relates to a complaint filed by Ms Macron in 2024, which accuses all 10 defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, of allegedly making malicious comments about her gender and sexuality. Arrests were made in December 2024 and February 2025.
Several of those set for trial shared posts made by Ms Owens.
Prosecutors argue that the comments were as extreme as equating the age difference between the Macrons with “paedophilia”.
One of the defendants is Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist who uses the name “Zoe Sagan” on social media and has been linked to circles that propound conspiracy theories.
Another defendant is Delphine J, 51, who is already the subject of a defamation complaint filed by Ms Macron in 2022.
In 2021, Delphine J, who goes by the pseudonym Amandine Roy, posted a four-hour interview with a self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey, alleging that Ms Macron had once been a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux.
The civil lawsuit is currently being appealed by the two women after they were ordered to pay damages to Ms Macron and her brother in 2024.
Ms Macron is 24 years older than her husband, and first met him when she was a teacher at his Jesuit secondary school in Amiens, directing him in a school play.
The lawsuit filed in the US states: “Through the school’s theatre programme, President Macron and Mrs Macron formed a deeper intellectual connection,” adding: “At all times the teacher-student relationship between Mrs Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law.”
Ms Macron has three children from her first marriage. She divorced in 2006 and married Emmanuel Macron the following year, when he was 30.
British journalist ‘abducted’ by ICE agents at San Francisco airport
Sami Hamdi, a British journalist and activist and outspoken critic of the Israeli war in Gaza, was arrested by U.S. immigration agents Sunday at San Francisco International Airport.
“Earlier this morning, ICE agents abducted British Muslim journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco Airport, apparently in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during his ongoing speaking tour,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations civil rights group wrote on X.
Hamdi had spoken at a gala for the group on Saturday in California and was heading to Florida for another event prior to his arrest.
“We can confirm that Mr. Hamdi has not been deported and remains in custody,” CAIR added. “Our attorneys and partners are working to address this injustice.”
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Hamdi’s arrest.
“Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X. “It’s commonsense.”
The official cited a report from the advocacy group RAIR about Hamdi in the post announcing the arrest.
RAIR, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has previously described as an anti-Muslim hate group, accused Hamdi of endorsing terrorism and operating alongside foreign terror networks through his various speaking engagements.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe” and influential outside advisor to the Trump administration, also took credit for the arrest.
“I demanded that federal authorities inside the Trump administration treat Hamdi as the major National security threat that he is and I reported Sami Hamdi to federal immigration authorities over his documented support for Islamic terrorism,” she wrote on X.
Hamdi, who founded the outlet The International Interest and appears as a commentator on various mainstream news networks, has been a vocal critic of the Israeli war effort in Gaza, joining the scores of international observers who have deemed it a genocide.
He also celebrated the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as an important moment in the cause for Palestinian self-determination, and wrote in May post on X he stood against “racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, genocide, and war crimes.”
In August, the Trump administration vowed to review the status of all 55 million foreign nationals in the U.S. with a valid travel visa to root out “security threats” and anyone “supporting terrorists,” designations the White House has often applied to activists criticizing Israel.
The Trump administration has arrested and attempted to deport a variety of non-citizen critics of Israel, accusing them of supporting terrorism for actions ranging from leading student protests to writing op-eds critical of the U.S. ally.
Last month, a federal judge found that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem illegally chilled protected speech of pro-Palestinian students and faculty by threatening to revoke their visas and then arresting, detaining and deporting them — what the judge called a “full-throated assault on the First Amendment across the board under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition” of antisemitism.
Enriching escapes: find your perfect luxury break
Man arrested over racially aggravated rape in Walsall
A man has been arrested after a woman was raped in Walsall in what police are treating as a racially motivated attack.
West Midlands Police said they arrested a 32-year-old man before 7am on Monday in the Perry Barr area. He is now being questioned over the rape of a woman in her twenties who was attacked in the Park Hall area of Walsall on Saturday night.
The force said they were continuing to support the woman involved, who was updated of the arrest and is receiving full support from specially trained officers.
Det Supt Ronan Tyrer, from our Public Protection Unit, said: “This is a significant development in our investigation, and I’d like to thank everyone who has come forward with information following our appeal last night.
“Our investigation will progress today, and, as always our priority is the woman who was the subject of this attack.
“She has been updated this morning and will continue to receive full support from specially trained officers.”
Police are continuing their appeal for anyone with information to get in touch via 101, quoting log 4027 relating to 25 October.
Reeves gives biggest hint yet of tax rises in Budget
Tax rises are on the table ahead of next month’s Budget, Rachel Reeves has indicated, amid mounting speculation about how the chancellor will fill a black hole of up to £50bn.
Sending a strong signal that some form of tax hike could be on the table, the chancellor suggested that the government needs to ensure there is “sufficient headroom” above its spending plans, and that its fiscal rules are met.
The chancellor has previously insisted that Labour’s manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT still “stands”, when questioned about how she will bridge the fiscal black hole in November.
But asked just last week about claims that the Treasury was considering an income tax hike, Ms Reeves reportedly said she would “continue to support working people by keeping their taxes as low as possible”, but that she was still “going through the process” of putting together the Budget.
She is widely expected to use the Budget to increase taxes once again, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating that she needs to find £22bn via tax rises or spending cuts to meet her self-imposed fiscal rule.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has suggested that the black hole could be as big as £50bn, as a result of sluggish productivity, government U-turns, and higher-than-expected interest payments.
Speaking at Fortune magazine’s global forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, Ms Reeves did not rule out the possibility of tax rises when asked if they were being considered as part of the Budget.
“The underpinning for economic growth is stability, and I’m not going to break the fiscal rules that we’ve set,” the chancellor replied.
She added: “We are going to reduce that primary deficit, we are going to see debt starting to fall as a share of GDP, because we need more sustainable public finances, especially in the uncertain world in which we live today.
“So growth will be a big part of that Budget story, in a way that, frankly, I think growth has been neglected as a tool of fiscal policy in the last few years.
“But we are looking, of course, at tax and spending to ensure that we both have resilience against future shocks, by ensuring we’ve got sufficient headroom, and also just ensuring that those fiscal rules are adhered to.”
Asked if she was considering imposing higher taxes on the wealthy in the Budget, Ms Reeves insisted: “There is another way to improve the fiscal position: growing the economy.”
Ms Reevesis understood to be seriously considering imposing a mansion tax in the Budget, which would mean owners of properties worth at least £2m facing an annual charge of 1 per cent of the amount by which their property exceeds that value.
But the chancellor defended the government’s approach to wealth when she was asked why some of Britain’s richest people are leaving the UK for other countries.
“Everybody knows that countries around the world are having to spend more on defence; that we need to rebuild our public finances and our public services; and everyone who makes Britain their home should contribute to that,” the chancellor said.
She added: “We don’t want to drive anyone out of the UK, but we do want to make sure that we tax people fairly, people who make Britain their home, whichever country they or their parents are originally from.”
The chancellor is leading a UK delegation to Saudi Arabia in her pursuit of economic growth, with less than a month to go before the potentially difficult Budget.
During the visit, Ms Reeves also suggested she was “confident” that a trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) could be finalised – a deal that the Treasury hopes could add £1.6bn to the UK economy and contribute an additional £600m to UK workers’ annual wages in the long term.
The chancellor acknowledged she had arrived “a little bit late” for her event at the Fortune conference, telling the audience it was a result of “really good meetings” about the deal.
Ms Reeves said she hoped that conference attendees “will agree that’s worth it, if we can get that GCC deal over the line”, and later added: “And yes, I am confident that we can get that deal over the line.”