LeBron James has broken the record for most NBA seasons after appearing for the Los Angeles Lakers in his 23rd season after missing almost the first full month of the campaign due to sciatica.
The 40-year-old superstar, a four-time NBA champion and four-time NBA Most Valuable Player, missed the Lakers’ first 14 games before taking the court at home against Utah Jazz on Tuesday.
The Lakers rallied for a 140-126 victory over the visiting Jazz.
James, the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, practised with the Lakers on Monday and had no pain or soreness after his first game-style workout with the club since last season’s playoffs.
That set the stage for him to start against the Jazz, breaking a tie with Vince Carter for the most career seasons in NBA history.
The home crowd cheered as James was introduced and moments later, James made history when the game tipped off.
👑 SEASON 23 FOR THE KING 👑 pic. twitter. com/SF09U3pZxe
Meanwhile, the Detroit Pistons stretched their longest winning streak since 2008 to 11 games with a 120-112 victory in Atlanta, snapping the Hawks’ five-game winning streak.
The Pistons, who lead the Eastern Conference at 13-2, got 25 points and 10 assists from Cade Cunningham and 24 points with eight rebounds from Jalen Duren.
Jalen Johnson sparked Atlanta (9-6) with 25 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
At Brooklyn, Jaylen Brown scored 29 points and Payton Pritchard added 22 and 10 rebounds to spark the Boston Celtics in a 113-99 victory over the Nets.
Desmond Bane scored 23 points and reserve Anthony Black added 21 to lead the Orlando Magic over the visiting Golden State Warriors 121-113.
Stephen Curry led the Warriors (9-7) with 34 points while Jimmy Butler added 33 in a losing cause.
Stephen Curry’s 34 points were not enough to lead Golden State Warriors to a win over Orlando Magic in Orlando [John Raoux/AP]
At San Antonio, De’Aaron Fox scored 20 of his 26 points in the second half and Harrison Barnes added 23 to spark the host Spurs over Memphis 111-101.
The Spurs (10-4) were without star big man Victor Wembanyama due to a left calf strain and guard Stephon Castle with a left hip flexor strain while Memphis star guard Ja Morant was sidelined by a right calf strain.
“We are trying to do this as a collective. Vic cannot be replaced, Barnes asserts. We’re just trying to win, share the ball, move the ball, and do that in a way that’s how we go. ”
In a 11-0 run to end the game, Barnes scored the final seven points.
Throughout this, Harrison Barnes supported us. That’s exactly what a vet does, Fox claimed. With all the players we had out, it felt fantastic to win the game.
Following the targeting of a railway line from Warsaw to Ukraine, Poland has announced it will close its last Russian consulate in Gdansk, Poland’s northern city. Moscow is to blame for the incident.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told journalists on Wednesday, “I have decided to withdraw my consent for the operation of the Russian consulate in Gdansk.”
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According to Polish news agency PAP, Sikorski claimed to have repeatedly warned Russia that if it did not put an end to its hostility toward Poland, its diplomatic and consular presence would be further diminished.
The embassy in Warsaw will be the only Russian diplomatic base in Poland as a result of this decision.
Second-right, November 17, 2025, Premier Donald Tusk visits the site of rail line sabotage in Mika, Poland. [KPRM via AP]
The Kremlin blasted Poland for “Russophobia” in response to the claim.
“Polish relations have completely deteriorated. When asked about the consulate closure, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “The Polish authorities’ desire to reduce any possibility of consular or diplomatic relations are probably at the forefront of this deterioration.”
“This has nothing to do with common sense,” one might say, “but one can only express regret here.”
Russians’ Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was later quoted by Russian state news agency TASS as saying that Moscow would reduce Poland’s diplomatic and consular presence in Russia.
Unprecedented sabotage
The weekend explosion on a line connecting Warsaw and the Ukraine border was described as an “unprecedented act of sabotage,” according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk revealed to the Polish parliament on Tuesday that the two suspects had long-standing ties to the Russian intelligence.
We now know that two Ukrainians were hired by the Russian Secret Service to carry out the blast of the Polish railroad. The perpetrators’ identities are also known, and they eluded Poland and made way for Belarus.
He claimed that the pair had already left Poland and had already entered Belarus, but that their identities were not known and that the investigation was still pending.
According to data gathered by The Associated Press news agency, Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of organizing numerous attacks and other incidents in Europe since the country’s invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.
At least 13 people were killed when Israel launched an airstrike on the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Hamas claims that Israel targeted a Hamas training facility, but the organization denies that it has any military presence. The most deadly attack since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in November 2024.
A straightforward, unanimous vote on Tuesday would have prevented the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s case files, both from Democrats and Republicans. However, Louisiana’s Republican Representative Clay Higgins did not agree with the consensus.
His lone dissent demonstrated his past propensity to take positions at the Republican Party’s extreme.
The measure received a 427-plus vote, including 216 Republicans, in the US House. The Senate then approved the bill, allowing for President Donald Trump’s signature to be sent there.
What we know is as follows:
Clay Higgins, who is he?
Since 2017, Higgins has represented the third congressional district of Louisiana. He frequently occupies positions that are not traditionally held by Republicans and is regarded as one of the House’s most extreme members. He is a vocal supporter of Trump.
Higgins has a history of controversy-generating media attention. He worked in law enforcement before joining the Congressional delegation, where he was the subject of numerous misconduct complaints. He later gained notoriety online for his obscene, tough-talking Crime Stoppers videos, which helped him launch his political career.
In Washington, he has continued to speak out loudly. He threatened the use of force against armed protesters in a message posted on Facebook in 2020, along with a picture of Black demonstrators carrying lengthy guns. You won’t leave if we recognize threat, he wrote. The post was later removed from Facebook.
Higgins claimed that the Chinese Communist Party had developed and manipulated the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic and was openly skeptical of it.
Higgins claimed that the US Capitol’s “ghost buses” on January 6th, 2021, were intended to elicit the violence. He claimed they carried “prosecutors” and other covert agents. A mob of Trump supporters seized the Capitol on January 6 to halt the 2020 election’s certification. The Higgins claim has never been supported by any evidence.
[File: Edmund D. Fountain/Reuters] US Representative Clay Higgins speaking at a conference in 2018.
In response to Trump’s remarks about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, including the president’s unsubstantiated claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets, Higgins once more drew backlash in 2024.
According to Higgins, Haiti is “the Western Hemisphere’s nastiest nation.” He was confronted by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who later deleted a post about Haitians eating pets and claimed he was speaking about gang members, not all of Haitians.
Before joining Congress , Higgins was well-versed in the criticism of the media. After receiving criticism for one of his hardline anticrime videos, he left the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in 2016.
The seventh of eight children, Higgins. When he was six, his family moved to Covington, Louisiana, where he was born.
He claimed in 2017 that his workdays ranged from 16 to 18 hours and that he occasionally slept on an air mattress in his Washington, DC, office.
Higgins has four wives. With his fourth wife, Becca, he currently resides in Port Barre, Louisiana.
What made Higgins opposed?
As the committee’s lead investigator, Higgins had previously indicated his support for the investigation.
However, Higgins stated in a post on X that he had been against making the documents public and that he had been against making the documents public. He claimed that he had been opposed to making the documents public.
“I have always voted NO” on this bill. What the bill’s shortcomings three months ago are still present today. It ends 250 years of American criminal justice system. According to Higgins, this bill exposes and injures thousands of innocent people, including those who provided alibis, relatives, and others. This type of broad release of criminal investigative files, which was made available to a rabid media, will absolutely cause harm to innocent people, if passed in its current form. Not by my vote.
His concerns echoed those of House Speaker Mike Johnson and other legislators. Supporters of the bill rebuffed their claims, saying that safeguards had already been put in place to stop the release of any sensitive information.
The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation, which has already resulted in the release of more than 60 000 pages of Epstein case documents. That effort will continue in a way that guarantees innocent Americans all the due protections. When the bill returns to the House, he said, “I will vote for it if the Senate amends it to properly address] the] privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated.”
In reality, the release of the files does, however, include redactions of portions that would otherwise reveal witnesses, victims, their families, and whistleblowers.
Just before the vote ended, Higgins made an appearance by raising his phone and taking a picture of the House voting board, which contained his dissention.
I have always voted NO on this bill from the beginning. What the bill’s shortcomings three months ago are still present today. It ends 250 years of American criminal justice system. This bill, as it is written, exposes and injures thousands of innocent witnesses, …
Until August 2024, she was the most powerful leader in Bangladesh’s history, after 15 years of iron-fisted rule. On Monday, the 78-year-old former prime minister was handed a death sentence in absentia over the brutal crackdown by her security forces on last year’s student-led protests. More than 1,400 people were killed, many of them execution-style.
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Hasina, who had fled to neighbouring India after she was forced out of power, has over the past year remained combative and unrepentant. On Monday, she responded to the verdict by the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) by acknowledging the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, but refused to take responsibility.
“I mourn all of the deaths that occurred in July and August of last year, on both sides of the political divide,” she said in a statement. “But neither I nor other political leaders ordered the killing of protesters.”
Hasina also called the verdict by the ICT “biased and politically motivated”.
For millions of Bangladeshis, the death sentence awarded to Hasina represents justice, even though India’s likely refusal to extradite the former prime minister means that grieving families that lost loved ones to excesses under her rule will have to wait for closure.
Targeting of political opponents
But for Bangladesh as a country, the verdict could serve as a moment for an even deeper shift if it chooses to now close the loop on the abuse of security forces, courts and other institutions of the state to target opponents and critics – practices that Hasina perpetuated and came to represent.
Hasina’s claims that she is the victim of political persecution mirror the allegations that her government faced during the decade-and-a-half of its rule.
The ICT was established by Hasina herself in 2010 to prosecute Bangladeshis accused of collaborating with Pakistan in carrying out atrocities during the 1971 liberation war.
Now the same tribunal has convicted her.
For years, human rights groups have accused her of using the tribunal together with government institutions, including courts and the security establishment, to punish her political opponents.
Her main political rival – Khaleda Zia, who was Bangladesh’s first female head of government – was jailed under corruption charges while the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, was barred from contesting elections and subsequently banned under an “anti-terror” law.
Zia was released only after the interim government of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus came to power last year, following Hasina’s ouster.
Yunus himself was convicted in January 2024 on charges of labour law violations that many say were politically motivated. He was sentenced to six years in prison, but got bail. The economist had been in Hasina’s crosshairs after he floated the idea of launching a political party in 2007. Grameen Bank, established by Yunus, pioneered the concept of microloans, which helped empower millions of rural women.
Hasina and her Awami League party have long worn the badge of secularism. But during her rule between 2009 and 2024, they were accused of weaponising secularism to justify targeting Islamist parties and dissenters. An entire generation of Jamaat leaders was executed based on convictions issued by the ICT.
Writing in the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star on Monday, analyst Arman Ahmed said that the Awami League “transformed secularism from an ideal of freedom into a rhetoric of control”.
“It came to be associated with censorship, patronage, and the systematic weakening of any political opposition. When power became synonymous with a single party, the moral authority of its secular project collapsed,” he wrote.
Hasina’s autocratic rule was particularly marked by grave human rights violations. Between 2009 and 2022, at least 2,597 people were killed by the security forces extrajudicially, according to human rights groups.
In 2021, the United States imposed sanctions against the police counterterrorism unit, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), accused of involvement in hundreds of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Odhikar, a prominent rights group, was also targeted after it criticised the government for granting impunity to security forces for human rights violations. In 2023, two of its founders were jailed.
Famed Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam was jailed in 2018 after he criticised Hasina’s government for widespread “extrajudicial killings”, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
When the protests against government job quotas erupted last July, Hasina deployed riot police instead of engaging in talks with the stakeholders.
She ordered the security forces to use drones, helicopters and lethal weapons to suppress the protests, according to Bangladeshi media.
But the brutal crackdown, including the arrest of thousands, galvanised a mass movement against her government, triggering her downfall.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) is sworn in as the chief adviser of the new interim government of Bangladesh in Dhaka on August 8, 2024 [Munir Uz Zaman/AFP]
Hasina’s legacy – and why Bangladesh must break with it
Now, Hasina’s political future in Bangladesh is over.
What remains is her legacy.
To be sure, she led a decade-long struggle to revive democracy in the 1980s, teaming up with rival Zia to force the country’s then-military ruler, President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, to relinquish power. Zia’s BNP won the 1991 election. Hasina then defeated Zia in the 1996 elections to become prime minister for the first time, as their political rivalry turned increasingly bitter.
After Hasina returned to power in 2009, she addressed the country’s security challenges, cracking down on armed groups and providing stability.
She also led an economic resurgence. In a country that former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once described as a “basket case”, millions were lifted out of poverty under Hasina. Bangladesh’s per capita income surpassed neighbouring India, while its gross domestic product (GDP) of $430bn is bigger than Pakistan’s – the country it broke away from 54 years ago. Today, Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter, after China.
But critics point out that growth under Hasina was not equitable, with the country’s wealthy class benefitting from her economic policies. She was also accused of favouring an Indian businessman over the interests of Bangladesh.
And the economic strides that Bangladesh took were accompanied by human rights violations, arbitrary arrests, muzzling of the press, silencing of the opposition and the hollowing out of the country’s democratic institutions.
The BNP, the main opposition party, boycotted the 2014 elections after Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker government to conduct the vote.
Hasina won the next election held in 2018, garnering 96 percent of the votes. Ahead of the elections, Zia was barred from contesting over her convictions, while dozens of BNP candidates were arrested, drawing serious questions about the credibility of the vote.
An analyst at the time described Hasina’s rule as “development minus democracy”.
Hasina’s government repeated that pattern ahead of the 2024 election: opposition parties were attacked, and leaders were arrested ahead of the polls. The BNP boycotted as a result, turning the election into a no-contest.
After the victory, Hasina hardened her position, calling the BNP a ‘terrorist’ organisation.
But the tables turned – in October 2024, two months after she fled to India, the interim government banned Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League, describing it as a “terrorist organisation”.
Now, as Bangladesh prepares for its first post-Hasina election on February 2026, it faces a test. In May, the Yunus government banned the Awami League from all political activity, and as things stand, Hasina’s party will not be able to compete in the upcoming election.
That is a major setback for the democratic rights of millions of Bangladeshis, who still support the Awami League.
The step emulates the mistakes of previous governments, which chose retribution over reconciliation.
Meanwhile, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances – a feature of Hasina’s rule – continue under the new government.
Emotions ran high on a night of historic wins and last-gasp goals as the last eight of the 43 automatic qualification spots for the FIFA World Cup 2026 were sealed across Europe (UEFA), Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF).
With less than seven months to go until the expanded 48-team tournament co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, European heavyweights Spain and the tiny Caribbean nation Curacao were among those to book a spot amid tears of joy and wild celebrations late on Tuesday.
Curacao became the smallest country ever – with a population of just 156,000 – to qualify for the World Cup on November 18 as Haiti booked their return to the tournament for the first time in 52 years, along with Panama.
It was also a week of heartbreak and shock for some of the biggest names in football, including former European champions Greece and African powerhouse Nigeria, as they were knocked out of contention for the most popular sports tournament in the world.
Meanwhile, four-time world champions Italy find themselves in the European playoffs along with 15 other teams in a fight for four slots, and four-time Arab champions Iraq booked a place in the intercontinental playoffs.
Here’s what you need to know about the qualified teams, the playoffs and the biggest names to miss out on the FIFA World Cup 2026:
Which countries have qualified for the World Cup 2026?
Following the last round of direct qualification, here’s a continental breakdown of the qualified teams:
Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Curacao, Panama, Haiti
Scotland’s midfielder Kenny McLean celebrates on the pitch after his team’s qualification in the FIFA World Cup was confirmed with two dramatic stoppage-time goals against 10-man Denmark [Andy Buchanan/AFP]
When will all the teams for the FIFA World Cup 2026 be confirmed?
As late as March 31, 2026. With the European qualification rounds stretching to March and the intercontinental playoff final also scheduled for the same month, we will not know our final 48 teams for the World Cup until less than three months before the tournament.
Which teams are in the World Cup 2026 playoffs?
The playoffs are divided into two parts: European and intercontinental.
The European leg will seal the last four UEFA spots in the World Cup, while the intercontinental playoff will see representatives of all other continental groups contest for the last two berths.
European playoff teams: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechia, Denmark, Italy, Kosovo, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Turkiye, Ukraine, Wales, Romania, Sweden, Northern Ireland, North Macedonia
Intercontinental playoff teams: Bolivia, DR Congo, Iraq, Jamaica, New Caledonia and Suriname
How do the European playoffs for the FIFA World Cup 2026 work?
After eight months of group-stage qualifying matches, 12 of the 16 European teams – the most for any continent – at the World Cup were sealed when the 12 group winners were confirmed, with former champions Spain among them.
The last four places will be determined in the playoffs, which will be contested by 16 teams – 12 group runners-up from the regular qualifying round and the best four UEFA Nations League group winners – in March.
The teams will be divided into four playoff paths and four pots of four teams each, with the 12 group runners-up in three pots and the four other teams in the fourth pot.
Each of the four paths will comprise two single-leg semifinals and one single-leg final. The teams for the paths will be drawn later on Wednesday.
The winners of the four finals will grab the last remaining UEFA spots for the World Cup.
The semifinals will be played on March 26 and the finals on March 31.
Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup as table toppers and will have to fight for a spot in the European playoffs [Alberto Pizzoli/AFP]
What are the intercontinental playoffs for the World Cup 2026 and how do they work?
The intercontinental playoffs determine the last two non-European finalists for the World Cup, with six teams from the other four continental football bodies.
Asia will be represented by Iraq, Africa by DR Congo, CONCACAF by Jamaica and Suriname, Oceania by New Caledonia and South America by Bolivia.
The top two seeded teams – Iraq and DR Congo – have earned direct qualification for the two finals, while the other two finalists will be determined via two semifinals played between the four remaining teams.
The schedule for the intercontinental playoffs has not been confirmed.
Which major teams have been eliminated from qualification?
Nigeria were among the latest big names to be eliminated from the qualification process, following on from Chile, who were third-place finishers in 1962.
While China are not considered among the football powerhouses in Asia, their focus on building the game at home and seeing themselves in another World Cup, following their 2002 appearance, was crushed on June 5.
Some of the other shock omissions: Cameroon, Mali, Costa Rica, Greece and Serbia.
Nigeria’s was one of the biggest shock eliminations from the World Cup 2026 following their loss to DR Congo [Abdelmjid Rizkou/Reuters]
When and where is the draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026?
US President Donald Trump confirmed, in August, that the draw for the World Cup will take place on December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, and didn’t rule out that he himself might oversee the event.
The draw will begin at noon local time (17:00 GMT).
Will Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi play in the FIFA World Cup 2026?
Earlier this month, Ronaldo confirmed the tournament will be his swansong on football’s biggest stage.
“Definitely, yes, because I will be 41 years old [at the World Cup],” said the Portuguese superstar, who is also the top scorer in history with 143 international goals.
“I gave everything for football. I’ve been in the game for the last 25 years. I did everything. I have many records in the different scenarios in the clubs and also in the national teams. I’m really proud. So let’s enjoy the moment, live the moment.”
Cristiano Ronaldo was shown a red card during Portugal’s World Cup 2026 qualifying match against Ireland but will likely lead his team at the World Cup 2026 [Peter Morrison/AP]
Meanwhile, Messi has also expressed hope that he will lead Argentina’s title defence in North America but acknowledged that his age and fitness will dictate his role.
Speaking to NBC News in October, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner said he will take time next year to assess his physical condition before deciding whether to play in the tournament.
“It’s something extraordinary to be able to be in a World Cup, and I would love to,” the Argentinian captain said.
“I would like to be there, to be well, and be an important part of helping my team, if I am there. I’m going to assess that on a day-to-day basis when I start pre-season next year with Inter, and see if I can really be 100 percent, if I can be useful, and then make a decision.
“I’m really eager because it’s a World Cup. We’re coming off winning the last one, and being able to defend it on the field again is spectacular, because it’s always a dream to play with the national team.”
Argentina’s Lionel Messi won his first FIFA World Cup at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, on December 18, 2022 [File: Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera]
When is the FIFA World Cup 2026 scheduled?
The tournament begins on June 11 and ends on July 19.
