Stocks from the United States to Japan have risen sharply amid hopes that an end to the longest US government shutdown in history is imminent.
US lawmakers on Sunday moved to end a five-week impasse over government funding, a boost for investors unnerved by signs of growing weakness in the US economy and the sky-high evaluations of firms involved in artificial intelligence.
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After a group of centrist Democrats broke with party leaders to join Republicans, the US Senate voted 60-40 to advance a bill that would fund government operations through the end of January.
The funding package still needs to win final approval in the Senate and then pass the US House of Representatives, after which it would go to US President Donald Trump for his signature – a process expected to take days.
Stock markets in the Asia Pacific made large gains on Monday, while futures in the US also rose in advance of stock exchanges reopening.
South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI led the gains, rising about 3 percent as of 4pm local time (07:00 GMT).
Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also rose sharply, advancing about 1.3 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
Taiwan’s Taiex rose about 0.8 percent, while Australia’s ASX 200 gained about 0.75 percent.
Futures for the US’s benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq-100, which are traded outside of regular market hours, were up about 0.75 and 1.3 percent, respectively.
The reprieve comes as investors are concerned that AI-linked stocks may be wildly overvalued and that Trump’s sweeping tariffs could be doing more damage to the US economy than has been captured in headline data so far.
Nvidia, whose graphics processing units are integral to the development of AI, last month became the first company in history to reach a market valuation of $5 trillion, a day after tech giant Apple surpassed $4 trillion in market value.
While the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official jobs report has been suspended since August due to the government shutdown, several other analyses have pointed to a rise in layoffs in October.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm, said in a report last week that layoffs surged 183 percent last month, making it the worst October for jobs since 2003.
Dynasty icon Betty Harford has died. The actress died “peacefully with family at her side,” earlier this month her close friend has announced.
Her friend, Wendy Mitchell said on Facebook: “Betty’s son contacted me this morning and Betty Harford Naszody passed away peacefully with family at her side, noon on November 2, 2025, she was 98.” Just one day prior, she announced: “Betty is 98 and was living in Carpinteria, and the last I heard from her was two months ago, she had been recovering from the flu.
“However, I went by to see her and she did not answer. She’s not answering her phone anymore, so I’m afraid that she might’ve passed on.”
Betty was 98 at the time of her death, on November 2, in Santa Barbara, California. The actress was best known for her role in the ABC soap opera as cook Hilda Gunnerson, appearing throughout its nine-year run. She later returned for Dynasty: The Reunion in 1991.
Betty played cook Hilda Gunnerson in the ABC soap opera Dynasty ( Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
As well as her role in Dynasty, Betty is also best known for playing Mrs Nottingham, the secretary of Professor Charles Kingsfield, in the CBS legal drama, The Paper Chase, between 1978 and 1979, as well as its revival on Showtime in 1983.
Over the course of her career, which spanned four decades, she appeared in various huge shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone and The Big Valley.
She also appeared as Mrs Forbes in the 1959 movie, The Wild and the Innocent, before going on to make appearances in Adventures in Paradise, The Law and Mr. Jones. Betty also appeared in the 1979 movie, The China Syndrome, which was nominated for four Oscars just one year later.
Betty also played the older sister to Natalie Wood’s title character in the 1965 drama, Inside Daisy Cooper, which was directed by Robert Mulligan.
Betty was also best known for her role in the legal drama The Paper Chase ( Alamy Stock Photo)
She was born in New York on January 28, 1927. And started her acting career in her 20s, securing her first job on the radio, Gunsmoke and docu-drama series, Crime Classics. However, her last role saw her voice Gumba in the 1994 video, Fun with Gumby.
She married California sculptor Oliver Andrews before the pair welcomed their son Chris in 1952. However, she and Andrews split in the 1970s. She went on to marry Hungarian actor Alex de Naszody, who tragically died aged 81 in 1996.
Betty is survived by her son, Chris, and her grandchildren. Fans have taken to social media to offer their condolences, with one writing: “Mrs. Gunnerson was always running around making food and being sane while the rest of Dynasty….were part of the ridiculousness. Rest in Peace, Betty!”
A second added: “My sincere condolences to her family. May she rest in peace.” “Such sad news I remember watching her on Dynasty,” said a third.
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Crowds have demonstrated in New Delhi calling for action as the Indian capital faces another winter engulfed in smog.
Pollution levels in New Delhi surged again on Monday morning as the city was immersed in a thick smog. The annual degradation of air quality in the capital to harmful levels has led to rare protests.
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On Sunday, demonstrators mounted a rally at the city’s India Gate monument to demand action over the lethal pollution that envelops the area each year.
Crowds held up banners and chanted slogans while some disrupted traffic. Police officers detained some of the protesters by putting them on buses and dispersed others.
By Monday morning, the city’s air pollution index had surpassed 350, squarely landing in the range classified as “very poor” by India’s Central Pollution Control Board.
Anything below 100 is considered good or satisfactory, while an index of more than 400 is classified as “severe”.
Some areas of the Indian capital experienced an index of more than 400 early on Monday morning as a thick blanket of smog was trapped over the city amid falling temperatures.
The right to clean air is a basic human right.
The right to peaceful protest is guaranteed by our Constitution.
Why are citizens who have been peacefully demanding clean air being treated like criminals?
Air pollution is affecting crores of Indians, harming our children and… https://t.co/ViPZiO16lT
India has six of the 10 most polluted cities globally and 13 of the top 20. New Delhi is the most polluted capital city in the world, according to the Switzerland-based air quality monitor IQAir.
Air quality dramatically deteriorates in the city every year as the cold season approaches.
The smoke created by farmers burning crop residue in nearby states blows into the capital and is trapped by the cooler temperatures.
As it mixes with vehicle and industrial emissions, the resulting smog causes respiratory illnesses and has become a key factor in thousands of deaths each year.
Efforts to prevent the annual envelopment have struggled to have a significant effect.
The authorities have launched a tiered emergency system that restricts construction, bans diesel generators, and limits vehicle entry when pollution hits severe levels.
The government has also introduced crop-burning control subsidies with limited success.
A cloud seeding effort last month failed to trigger artificial rain and cut pollution levels.
“The right to clean air is a basic human right,” Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, wrote in a post on X, criticising how the protesters were treated.
Indonesia has named former president Soeharto a national hero, despite accusations of human rights abuses carried out by his regime.
Soeharto was named among 10 honorees given the title of national hero on Monday. The award, decided by President Prabowo Subianto, Soeharto’s former son-in-law, has stirred criticism among activists and academics who cite the deceased military leader’s record of mass human rights violations, corruption and nepotism during his three-decade rule.
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The award at the National Hero Day ceremony means that Soeharto shares the honour with a list of more than 200 people, including Sukarno, leader of Indonesia’s independence movement and the country’s first democratically elected president.
“A prominent figure from Central Java province, a hero of the struggle for independence, General Soeharto stood out since the independence era,” said the presidential military secretary, as Prabowo handed the award to Soeharto’s daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, and son, Bambang Trihatmodjo.
Every year, the title of national hero is awarded to Indonesians who have contributed significantly to the Southeast Asian archipelago’s development.
Soeharto, who died in 2008 aged 86, ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades after seizing control from Sukarno in 1967 following a failed military coup.
Indonesia gained independence in 1945 from the then-colonial powers, the Netherlands and Japan.
A large portrait of the late President Soeharto hangs on the wall of the State Palace during a ceremony awarding national hero title to 10 figures, including the former strongman, in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 10, 2025 (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
The former soldier used the military to dominate civilian affairs and crush dissent. He was also accused of huge corruption and nepotism, benefitting his family and cronies.
He steered Indonesia through a long period of rapid economic growth and stability, only to see much of his work unravel as the country was plunged into chaos during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.
No charges were ever proven against Soeharto, who escaped going on trial due to his failing health.
Betrayal
Last week, about 500 civil society members, activists and academics published a letter sent to Prabowo, requesting he not proceed with the hero designation.
The letter called the award a betrayal of Soeharto’s victims and of democratic values, and said it constituted a dangerous distortion of history.
The move is also viewed as a red flag regarding the current regime, which activists say is composed of people favoured by Soeharto.
Prabowo, who was a special forces commander under Soeharto and was married to the former president’s daughter, has rebuffed accusations of human rights violations in East Timor.
He has also faced a series of violent protests since sweeping to electoral victory last year, mainly prompted by discontent over economic inequality and lavish perks for lawmakers.
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has been accused of abuse and recently faced protests [File: EPA]
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), a local rights group, said designating Soeharto a national hero was immoral and helped to normalise impunity.
“Soeharto, as someone suspected of being involved in human rights violations, state violence and various offences related to human rights abuses, does not deserve to be awarded the title of national hero,” KontraS coordinator Dimas Bagus Arya told the AFP news agency.
State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi defended the government’s decision.
“It is part of how we honour our predecessors, especially our leaders, who undoubtedly have made extraordinary contributions to the nation and the country,” he told reporters.
Taylor Swift admits her ‘hobbies could be categorised as hobbies you could have had in the 1700s’ in rare insight into her life at home with her fiancé Travis Kelce
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Taylor and Travis give an insight into some of the ‘weird’ things they do at home(Image: Getty Images)
Taylor’s love story with Travis was certainly unexpected – and it could almost have been a plot taken straight from Hollywood. “It was like a fairytale,” says Annie Zaleski, author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind The Songs. “We saw Taylor being wooed by this handsome football player, as if we were watching a movie unfold in front of us. There was something so irresistible about it, and it felt like she had been manifesting the relationship through her songs for years.”
It all began on 8 July 2023, when Travis attended one of her Eras Tour shows at Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. Keen to get acquainted, he tried to fix up a backstage meeting so he could give Taylor one of her hugely popular friendship bracelets bearing his phone number. However, his efforts failed, which he later admitted left him “butthurt”.
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He said, “She doesn’t meet anybody, or at least she didn’t want to meet me, so I took it personal.” But admitting he was “mesmerised” and “captivated” by her Eras performance, Travis then declared his interest in her on his and brother Jason’s podcast New Heights two weeks later.
Two years on, Taylor appeared on the same podcast with Travis and Jason, claiming Travis had thrown a “man tantrum” when he “didn’t get a meet and greet”. In the episode this August, which broke a Guinness World Record as 1.3 million people tuned in, she compared his pursuit of her to “an 1980s John Hughes movie”, and added, “He was just like standing outside my window with a boom box just being like ‘I wanna date you!’”.
Joking that Travis used his podcast as “his personal dating app”, she called it “such a wild, romantic gesture”, and said, “I’m glad it worked.” She also told how it was “sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.”
Following Travis’s podcast confession, he and Taylor did meet. “We started hanging out right after that,” she revealed. “We actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other.” One of their first dates took place in the Big Apple, with Travis later saying, “When I met her in New York, we had already kind of been talking, so I knew we could have a nice dinner and, like, a conversation, and what goes from there will go from there.”
In September 2023, Taylor was seen at a Kansas City Chiefs match with Travis’s mum, Donna, which many falsely assumed was their first date. “By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” Taylor later said. “I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game… We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” As Annie says, “They were able to take the time to get to know each other in private, and I think that was so important. They realised they had a lot in common and that there was something really special there.”
The pair bonded over a love of cooking and watching movies, and Annie points out, “Both Taylor and Travis are very grounded and very family-oriented. They share such similar values.” Travis himself hails from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he and Jason were brought up by Donna and Ed Kelce. Although their parents are no longer together, Donna has said, “We’re very, very small. We’re tight-knit. We stay together and try to help each other as much as we can.”
Travis has drawn parallels between Donna and Taylor, highlighting their “kindness, their genuineness, their ability to say hello to everyone in the room”, and that they “show love and support, no matter what”. He also let slip one of the main things that drew him to Taylor, saying, “Why I really started to fall for her was how genuine she was around friends and family.”
Dad Ed believes his sons have never lost sight of who they are, either. “My boys know where they’re from,” he said last year. “Have fun while you’ve got it, but that doesn’t make you a better man. They fully understand that how you treat people is what’s important in this world.”
As boys, Travis and Jason, who is two years older, were both highly athletic. Jason played NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles for 13 years until he retired in 2024, while Travis joined the Chiefs in 2013, playing the position of tight end. He has also dabbled in TV, hosting the 2024 game show Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity? , as well as the 2016 dating series Catching Kelce , in which he dated women from each of America’s states. “The fact Travis knew the workings of fame meant he understood Taylor’s world,” says PR expert Lynn Carratt, director of E20 Communications. “They could treat each other as equals in that sense.”
As Taylor and Travis’s relationship gathered pace, she was regularly seen watching Chiefs games, often with her parents, Andrea and Scott, as well as her oldest friends and celeb pals. As you might expect, Taylor’s game-day outfits were on point from the get-go, and she made an art form of jazzing up a Chiefs sweater, T-shirt or jacket with her matching signature red lips. By the end of 2023, it was clear that Taylor and Travis were the real deal, and they were seen smooching at a party in Kansas City as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Then, at the Super Bowl in February 2024, photos of them kissing at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas after the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers went down a storm. “That was the turning point in their relationship, I think,” says Lynn. “It looked spontaneous and warm, and it changed the narrative for anyone who had thought it was just a showmance.”
Meanwhile, Travis became a regular attendee at Taylor’s Eras shows, and he was spotted in the audience at least 14 times in various cities, from Buenos Aires to Sydney. As the ultimate Swiftie, he called Taylor “an absolute machine”, saying of her three-hour set, “It was something I could admire watching, and I think about it all the time.”
He also told how keeping the romance below the radar took great effort, saying in the US podcast Bussin’ With The Boys, “It’s like you want to keep things private, but at the same time I’m not here to hide anything, like, that’s my girl, that’s my lady, so I’m proud of that.”
Despite their work commitments, the pair spent as much time together as possible, splitting their time between their luxurious properties in New York, Kansas and Rhode Island. It’s an arrangement that still works today, and the couple appear to have settled into a life of domestic bliss. “My hobbies could be categorised as hobbies you could have had in the 1700s,” Taylor recently said. That includes sewing, painting, cooking and a passion for baking.
Admitting being “very deep in a sourdough obsession”, she said, “I’m really talking about bread 60 per cent of the time.” Travis has also referred to their unstarry life behind closed doors, saying, “Whenever I’m with her, it feels like we’re just regular people. When there is not a camera on us, we’re just two people that are in love.”
Annie believes their non-showy behaviour is one thing that draws fans in. “Despite all their fame, they’ve kept a sense of the everyday, doing things that normal couples do. It’s very sweet, and makes them so much more relatable.”
Popular YouTuber Nick Yardy revealed he was having two kids — with a mom, 44, as well as her daughter, 22 — yet that wasn’t the most shocking part of his announcement.
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A popular YouTuber has shocked the world with his news(Image: Instagram/ @nickyardy)
In February this year, YouTuber Nick Yardy, whose real name is Nicholas Hunter, made waves with a seemingly unbelievable announcement.
The 29-year-old internet sensation took to his social media platforms to announce what’s usually considered to be the best news in a person’s life. The public’s reaction? Utter disgust. So, what was the announcement which made people’s toes curl, as droves of social media users took to the internet to make note of their out-and-out repulsion? Nick announced he was going to become a father. To two children. At the same time. With a 22-year-old content creator. And her mother.
You read that right. The YouTuber revealed to millions of his fans that he had impregnated 22-year-old OnlyFans model Jade, as well as her 44-year-old mother Dani. The reaction to his news was as you’d expect. Curiosity and disgust. Famous for his antics on social media, this announcement was a little too much even for his die-hard fans to swallow.
Scores of ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ and ‘oh my god this is disgusting’ comments infiltrated Nick’s social media and in true Nick Yardy fashion, the YouTuber doubled down and shared a gender reveal video on March 8 the following month. At the ‘gender reveal party’, which was seemingly attended by Nick, Jade, and Dani’s family and friends, the ‘throuple’ (three-person couple) announced that they were having a girl and a boy.
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The news spread like wildfire with media outlets picking up the outrageous story. And then Nick did the most shocking thing of all – he told the truth. In a tell-all interview with the Daily Mail, the YouTuber confessed: “There are no babies. It’s just, like, a skit. It’s not actually real.”
He added: “People that follow me, they’re just looking for entertainment and I don’t think they really [believe it].” Although he revealed the larger farce, Nick remains adamant about one thing – his relationship with Jade and her mother Dani is real.
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The content creator, who has 3.54 million subscribers on YouTube and a following of 2.4 million and 1.2 million on Instagram and TikTok respectively, frequently uploads different skits starring women on his socials. However, the South Floridian claims he’s been in a relationship with his live-in lovers, Jade and Dani, for nearly two years.
