Partick Thistle’s Wyre Stadium at Firhill has been chosen to host the KDM Evolution Trophy final between Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Raith Rovers.
The match will be broadcast live on BBC Alba on Sunday, 5 April, with a 16:10 BST kick-off.
Both finalists are looking to lift the Challenge Cup, for Scottish Professional Football League clubs below the Premiership, for a fourth time.
But it is the inaugural final under the current format, which started with a Champions League-style league phase, and the new sponsor.
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Caley Thistle, who are looking to lift the trophy for the first time since they shared it with Rovers when the season was cut short by the Covid pandemic in 2020, topped the league phase with a 100% record.
Scott Kellacher’s current League 1 leaders then defeated Dumbarton 9-0, League 1 promotion rivals Stenhousemuir and two Championship sides – Thistle and Ayr United – away from home.
Championship side Rovers are in their third final in five seasons, last winning the trophy in 2022.
With second-tier clubs having byes from the league phase, the Kirkcaldy side, now with Dougie Imrie in charge, defeated League 1 duo Hamilton Academical and Queen of the South before knocking out Championship rivals Queen’s Park and Airdrieonians.
About 100,000 Palestinian worshippers have prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for the second Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite Israel imposing severe restrictions on access to the holy site.
Worshippers were subjected to thorough security screening on Friday as they made their way through the Qalandiya checkpoint in the occupied West Bank north of Jerusalem to pray, an Al Jazeera team reported, amid a heavy deployment of Israeli forces around the city.
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Israeli authorities imposed rules at the start of Ramadan to limit entry for Friday prayers to just 10,000 Palestinian worshippers with daily permits – a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands who would attend in normal years.
Under the Israeli rules, only men over 55, women 50 years or older, and children under 12, accompanied by a relative, are permitted to enter.
Visitors are also required to complete digital verification procedures at crossings when returning to the West Bank.
Muslim worshippers make their way to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to attend the second Friday noon prayers of the holy month of Ramadan [Hazem Bader/AFP]
Bans on individuals
As well as the restrictions, Israeli authorities recently announced bans on 280 Jerusalem residents, including religious figures, journalists, and released prisoners, from attending prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The push to limit Palestinians’ access to the holy site during Ramadan is widely seen as part of an effort to pressure Palestinian communities and erase the Palestinian cultural identity of occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future state.
The restrictions have further increased since the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Muslims perform Friday noon prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
Turned away despite permits
Despite the restrictions, attendance at the mosque was considerably higher than the supposed cap of 10,000 visitors, as it was the previous week, when Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, the religious authority that administers the compound, said 80,000 people attended the first Friday prayers of Ramadan.
Yet many Palestinians who attempted to attend, including some who said they had the necessary permits, found themselves turned away by Israeli authorities.
Najati Oweida, who travelled from Hebron, told Anadolu that Israeli soldiers turned him back despite presenting a permit.
“The occupation claims it has provided facilitation, but the procedures are strict,” he said. “I only want to pray at Al-Aqsa. Why am I being prevented?”
Another man, Ali Nawas, 58, told the news agency that he and his wife had travelled for more than an hour from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, only for his wife to be turned back at the Qalandiya checkpoint, despite her having a permit.
Real Madrid and Manchester City will face off in a Champions League knockout tie for the fifth season running after being drawn Friday to play each other in the last 16, while reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain will take on Chelsea.
The Spanish giants, record 15-time European champions, will host City in the first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu next month before travelling to England for the return the following week.
The clubs have already played each other this season, with Pep Guardiola’s City winning 2-1 in Madrid in December during the league phase, in which the Premier League club finished eighth and Real ninth.
That allowed City, Champions League winners in 2023, to advance straight to the last 16 while Madrid had to come through the knockout phase play-offs, in which they beat Benfica 3-1 on aggregate.
This is the eighth season in which the teams have played each other since 2012. Real beat City in the knockout phase play-offs last season, and in the quarter-finals on the way to winning the trophy in 2024. They also emerged victorious in the semi-finals in 2022 with City winning at the same stage the following year.
READ ALSO: Aston Villa Meet Lille Again In Europa League Last 16
PSG will be at home to Chelsea in the first leg after qualifying for this stage with a 5-4 aggregate win over Ligue 1 rivals Monaco in the play-offs. Chelsea progressed straight to the last 16 after finishing sixth in the league phase.
The sides played each other in the knockout stages in three consecutive years from 2014 to 2016, with Chelsea winning the first of those confrontations in the quarter-finals and PSG triumphing in the last 16 in the following two.
Their last encounter came in July’s Club World Cup final in the United States, when Chelsea won 3-0 against last season’s European champions.
“The draw is fascinating, as usual,” said PSG coach Luis Enrique. “It will be fascinating to play against one of the best English teams, who we know well, but it will not be about revenge. These are two different competitions.”
Chelsea have been coached since January by Liam Rosenior, who had previously come up against PSG in Ligue 1 as coach of Strasbourg.
Arsenal face Leverkusen, Newcastle play Barcelona
There is a record total of six English clubs in the last 16. None will play each other in the last 16 but there are two potential all-English quarter-finals.
Liverpool will have a last-16 rematch against Galatasaray, the Turkish giants having defeated the Anfield club 1-0 in September in the league phase.
The winner of that tie will play either PSG or Chelsea in the quarter-finals, meaning there is a chance Liverpool will get the opportunity to avenge their defeat by the Parisians on penalties a year ago.
Meanwhile, Newcastle United will take on Barcelona with the first leg at St James’ Park — the Spanish side won 2-1 there during the league phase in September.
Barcelona’s only other possible opponents were holders PSG, but their coach Hansi Flick insisted: “We are not celebrating not getting PSG. We must respect our opponents. Everyone wants to reach the final and Newcastle will also be eager to win the Champions League.”
Tottenham Hotspur were drawn to play Atletico Madrid, with the winners of that tie then facing Newcastle or Barcelona in the last eight.
Arsenal, who finished first in the league phase, will come up against Bayer Leverkusen and if they win that would then be huge favourites in a quarter-final against Bodo/Glimt or Sporting of Portugal.
The last-16 meeting with Sporting is the Norwegian upstarts’ reward for knocking out last season’s beaten finalists Inter Milan in the play-offs.
German champions Bayern Munich will play Atalanta, the sole Italian club left in the competition.
The first legs will take place on March 10 and 11, with the second legs a week later. The teams who qualified directly for this stage after finishing in the top eight in the league phase will all be at home in the return matches.
This season’s Champions League final will take place at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on May 30.
Israeli settlers violently attacked a 71-year-old foreign woman and 51-year-old foreign man in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra. Video showed the two “solidarity activists” lying bloodied on the ground before being taken to hospital.
The United States military used a laser to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone, members of Congress said, and the Federal Aviation Administration responded by closing more airspace near El Paso, Texas.
It is not clear why the laser was deployed, but it is the second time in two weeks that one has been fired in the area. The military is required to formally notify the FAA anytime it takes any counter-drone action inside US airspace.
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The earlier laser firing did not hit a target. It was carried out by the CBP near Fort Bliss, about 80km (50 miles) to the northwest, prompting the FAA to shut down air traffic at El Paso airport and the surrounding area. This time, the closure was smaller and commercial flights were not affected.
US Representative Rick Larsen and two other top Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security committees said they were stunned when they were officially notified.
“Our heads are exploding over the news,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. They criticised the Trump administration for “sidestepping” a bipartisan bill to train drone operators and improve communication among the Pentagon, FAA and Department of Homeland Security.
“Now, we’re seeing the result of its incompetence,” they said.
Government defends use of anti-drone laser
The Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Customs and Border Protection issued a statement saying the military used a “counter-unmanned aircraft system … to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace”.
The statement added that the incident “took place far away from populated areas and there were no commercial aircraft in the vicinity. These agencies will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organisations at the US-Mexico Border,” the statement said. “The bottom line is the Trump Administration is doing more to secure the border and crack down on cartels than any administration in history.”
Second Texas airspace shut down this month
The El Paso shutdown two weeks ago lasted only a few hours, but it raised alarm and led to several flight cancellations in the city of nearly 700,000 people not far from the Mexican border.
In that case, CBP deployed an anti-drone laser near Fort Bliss without coordinating with the FAA, which then decided to close El Paso airspace to ensure commercial air safety, according to sources familiar with what happened who were not authorised to discuss it.
Afterwards, members of Congress said it appeared to be another example of government dysfunction, with different agencies failing to coordinate.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he was planning to brief members of Congress sometime this week about what happened. He said at an unrelated news conference last Friday that it was not a mistake for the FAA to close the airspace over El Paso and that he does not think a communication issue caused the problems.
Lawmaker demands an investigation
Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, said this incident demands independent investigations.
“The Trump administration’s incompetence continues to cause chaos in our skies,” Duckworth said.
The investigation into last year’s midair collision near Washington, DC, between an airliner and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people highlighted how the FAA and Pentagon were not always working well together.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Posters advertising “The Azov school of landscape design” can be seen inside subway cars and on billboards in Kyiv.
But instead of a smiling gardener surrounded by blossoming trees and flowers, the poster depicts a bearded, smiling soldier with the Azov Corps walking away from a howitzer that spews out a shell to “design” the landscape on the Russian side.
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As Ukrainian soldiers keep getting killed and wounded along the crescent-shaped, 1,250-kilometre (777-mile) long front line, Kyiv faces a dire shortage of servicemen.
Individual military units compete for potential recruits and lure them with catchy slogans, witty campaigns, text messages and social media posts that promise thorough training that reduces the risk of getting killed or jobs behind the front line.
Many Ukrainian men of fighting age – 25 to 60 – who cannot refuse the draft choose to join them. Otherwise, they could be rounded up by “conscription patrols” and undergo perfunctory training to end up as storm-troopers – a role which comes with a high risk of death.
“There’s zero training. They don’t care that I won’t survive the very first attack,” Tymofey, a 36-year-old office worker who was forcibly conscripted last year but broke out of two training centres, told Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of thousands of men dodge the draft, pay bribes to flee abroad or illegally cross into European nations amid corruption and coercion on the part of conscription officers, as documented by government officials, media and rights groups.
In the first year after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, men of all ages volunteered in droves, standing for hours outside conscription offices and even travelling to other parts of Ukraine to find a less crowded conscription office that would enlist them.
“The first wave very massive, they were motivated,” a senior serviceman told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
But volunteers are rare these days. The average age of conscripts has risen to above 40, and their fitness levels have dropped.
“We get what is left of what is left,” he said of the new recruits in his military unit – adding that infantrymen are “hardest to recruit”.
“They can and will be trained, but there’s a matter of condition. A man in his 50s with a white-collar job and several chronic diseases is not exactly fit,” he said.
Azov’s hiring spree
While recruitment campaigns are very visible, the hiring process is largely non-transparent.
Most of the applications should be filled online, and only prospective candidates are invited to recruitment offices whose locations are not disclosed because Russia targets them with drones, missiles or attacks by people recruited via messaging apps or the dark web.
And when it comes to picking the cream of the crop, Azov, now known as the First National Guard Corps, and its offshoot, The Third Storm Brigade, reign supreme.
Apart from the “school of landscape design,” Azov has billboards and online advertisements offering sarcastically named “courses” in “content making,” “event management” and “cross-fit”.
A billboard with the slogan ‘Forged In Combat’ advertises the 225 Special Brigade in central Kyiv [Mansur Mirovalev/Al Jazeera]
Azov has, for years, been one of Ukraine’s most outspoken military units, and its servicemen were dubbed “300 Spartans” for their months-long defence of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early 2022 that ended only when top brass ordered them to surrender.
Some 700 of Azov fighters are still behind bars in Russia, facing torture and starvation, according to swapped servicemen and Ukrainian officials.
They have become the bogeymen of the Kremlin propaganda machine that calls them “neo-Nazis” and claims they “terrorise” civilians and stage their killings to blame Russian “liberators”.
Azov had far-right origins, but the current leadership claims to have cleaned up the brigade, denying any links with “extremist” groups. Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify these claims.
The publicity and halo of martyrdom have raised Azov’s domestic profile.
And what its recruiters offer is a “soldier-centred” approach that takes into account each potential serviceman’s background, shape, medical history and military experience – or lack thereof.
“We are building a system centred around a soldier, because a soldier is not a resource, it’s the basis of the whole system,” a senior Azov recruiter who identified himself by his call sign, Tara, told Al Jazeera in one of Azov’s open spaces in central Kyiv.
The open space is a far cry from average Ukrainian conscription centres usually located in gloom, claustrophobic Soviet-era buildings with drafty corridors and creaky floors.
It has a cafeteria with a menu most hipsters would find palatable, and a shop with trendy T-shirts, hoodies and souvenirs.
“A nation that doesn’t stand up for its heroes kneels before the enemy,” a handwritten sign on a wall reads.
Tara said that aspiring Azov servicemen undergo tests and interviews – and choose a job “with the highest efficiency
“We, for our part, guarantee that [the recruits] will serve in the exact position for which they have been approved.”
All of Azov’s recruiters are battle-tested servicemen, said Tara, who volunteered to join nascent Azov in 2014.
With a tidy moustache and at the towering height of six feet, five inches (1.95 metres) tall, he took part in Azov’s transformation from ragtag volunteer crews of football fans and nationalists who were instrumental in repelling the onslaught of Russia-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine, into a primary military unit.
Meanwhile, smaller, less outspoken units can barely find enough recruits to replenish their losses.
“We ask around, we tell friends, we say that we can make sure they get trained properly, but it’s never enough,” Oleh, a senior officer with a military unit stationed in eastern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.
And some are adamant that Ukraine should introduce a system of compulsory and universal military service.
