Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder joined aid workers on a boat as they delivered food and important medical supplies to people who have lost everything as Pakistan’s flood-ravaged Punjab province braces for even more heavy rain over the next two days.
SpaceX will buy wireless spectrum licences from EchoStar for its Starlink satellite network for about $17bn, a major deal crucial to expanding Starlink’s nascent 5G connectivity business.
The Elon Musk-owned aerospace company announced the purchase on Monday.
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The companies also agreed to a deal that will enable EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers to access Starlink direct-to-cell service to extend satellite service to areas without service.
The spectrum purchase allows SpaceX to start building and deploying upgraded, laser-connected satellites that the company said will expand the cell network’s capacity by “more than 100 times”.
Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX, said the deal will help the company “end mobile dead zones around the world … With exclusive spectrum, SpaceX will develop next-generation Starlink Direct to Cell satellites, which will have a step change in performance and enable us to enhance coverage for customers wherever they are in the world.”
The push comes amid fast-rising wireless usage. In 2024, Americans used a record 132 trillion megabytes of mobile data, up 35 percent over the prior all-time record, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) said on Monday.
SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites since 2020, building a distributed network in low-Earth orbit which has seen demand from militaries, transportation firms and consumers in rural areas.
Roughly 600 of those satellites – which SpaceX calls “cell towers in space” – have been launched since January 2024 for the company’s direct-to-cell network, orbiting closer to Earth than the rest of the constellation.
Crucial to those larger satellites’ deployment is Starship, SpaceX’s giant next-generation rocket that has been under development for roughly a decade. Increasingly complex test launches have drawn the rocket closer to its first operational Starlink missions, expected early next year.
The deal comes months after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) questioned EchoStar’s use of its mobile-satellite service spectrum and raised concerns about whether it was meeting its obligations to deploy 5G in the country.
EchoStar said it anticipates that the transaction with SpaceX and the AT&T deal will resolve the FCC’s inquiries.
An FCC spokesperson said the “deals that EchoStar reached with AT&T and Starlink hold the potential to supercharge competition, extend innovative new services to millions of Americans, and boost US leadership in next-gen connectivity”.
The company in August sold some nationwide wireless spectrum licences to AT&T for $23bn. AT&T agreed to acquire 50 MHz of nationwide mid-band and low-band spectrum.
US President Donald Trump previously prodded EchoStar and FCC Chair Brendan Carr to reach an amicable deal for the company’s wireless spectrum licences.
SpaceX will pay up to $8.5bn in cash and issue up to $8.5bn in stock. SpaceX has also agreed to cover roughly $2bn in interest payments on EchoStar’s debt obligations through late 2027.
After the sale, EchoStar will continue operating its satellite television service Dish TV, streaming TV platform Sling, internet service Hughesnet and its Boost Mobile brand.
SpaceX had aggressively pressed the FCC to reallocate underused airwaves for satellite-to-phone service after alleging EchoStar failed to meet certain obligations.
In a letter to the FCC in April, SpaceX said EchoStar’s spectrum in the 2 gigahertz band “remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems” and that the company has left “valuable mid-band spectrum chronically underused”.
The deal with EchoStar will allow SpaceX to operate Starlink direct-to-cell services on frequencies it owns, rather than relying solely on those leased from mobile carriers like T-Mobile.
In May, the FCC approved Verizon’s $20bn deal to acquire fibre-optic internet provider Frontier Communications. Verizon spent $5bn to acquire and clear key spectrum in 2021.
The news sent shares of EchoStar surging 14.7 percent as of 1pm in New York (17:00 GMT). Shares of US wireless carriers are trending downwards. AT&T is 1.6 percent lower and T-Mobile is down by 2.2 percent. Verizon as well is down 1.8 percent.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the administration of President Donald Trump can resume sweeping immigration raids in the city of Los Angeles, casting aside concerns over potential civil liberties violations.
In a 6-3 decision, the conservative-majority court rolled back restrictions on the administration’s aggressive approach to immigration raids, allowing agents to target people based on factors such as language and ethnicity.
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Writing a dissent for the liberal minority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the ruling “has all but declared that all Latinos, US citizens or not, who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction”.
The highest US court has rarely placed limits on the Trump administration’s assertions of executive authority. Monday’s ruling invalidates previous restrictions imposed by District Judge Maame Frimpong, who said there was a “mountain of evidence” that immigration agents were violating the constitutional rights of residents in Los Angeles.
The Supreme Court offered little explanation of the reasoning behind the decision, continuing what critics say is a trend of the nation’s highest court annuling the arguments of lower courts without grappling with their content.
“The Supreme Court’s order is outrageous because it includes no reasoning itself but puts on hold the well-reasoned opinions of the lower federal courts,” Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US watchdog group, said in a press statement.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a social media post following the ruling that it would continue to ‘FLOOD THE ZONE” in Los Angeles, where the majority of people arrested in immigration raids have had no criminal history.
Frimpong had previously ruled that immigration agents could not target people based on factors such as what language they were speaking or their ethnicity, type of job, or location. The Trump administration had argued that the ruling wrongly restrained immigration enforcement efforts, which have sometimes swept up and detained US citizens as well as people in the US without legal status.
“Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from,” a lawsuit brought against the government by immigrant rights groups stated.
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda has often been driven by depictions – without evidence – of immigrants as an “invading” force. Government agencies and officials have adopted language previously restricted to hard-right anti-immigrant groups.
EastEnders: Jay ties up Lexi’s shoes
EastEnders fans have reacted to the apparent final scenes of the character Jay Brown. It comes following the news over the weekend that actor Jamie Borthwick, who’s been in the role for 19 years, has beeen ‘axed’ from the show.
Jamie, 31, has played Jay on the BBC show since he joined the cast in 2006. He was suspended earlier this year for using an offensive term whilst on Strictly Come Dancing last year, but he was rumoured to be returning this month.
The Mirror however revealed on Saturday that Jamie won’t be returning to EastEnders. BBC Studios, which makes the long-running show, confirmed his departure in a statement.
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The RadioTimes has since suggested that his final scenes have already aired on the show. It’s thought that they were broadcast on August 19, with EastEnders fans having been reacting to the prospect in posts on social media.
That episode saw Jay and step-daughter Lexi Pearce (played by Isabella Brown) turn up outside the café. They joined her grandfather Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) and Nigel Bates (Paul Bradley) who were already in a conversation there.
Jay was seen talking about chickens brought onto Albert Square by Nigel’s wife Julie Bates (Karen Henthorn) upon her arrival. The character was then seen tying one of Lexi’s shoelaces as Nicola Mitchell (Laura Doddington) watched.
Speaking about the chickens, Jay said: “Are they gonna be permanent? Only that cockerel’s a bit …” Phil replied: “Listen, chickens come with Nigel’s wife, so they stay here as long as she does.” Moments later, Jay is heard saying: “Lex, your lace is undone.” He then helps tie her lace up on the street.
It’s believed to be the final scene featuring Jay. Some fans have reacted, with one writing alongside a video of the shoelace scene, which had the show’s credits added to the end, on X: “The fact this is Jay’s last scene after 19 years.” Someone replied: “Unbelievable.” Another said: “It can’t be.”
Over a video of the chicken conversation and the shoelace scene, someone wrote: “This best not have been Jay’s last scene. I’m sure he’s filmed more scenes but he deserves an exit.” The TikTok user who shared it added: “I’ll cry.” Another account shared a version with a teary-eyed emoji over it.
Jamie’s departure was confirmed by BBC Studios recently. In a statement to the Mirror, it said last week: “We can confirm that Jamie Borthwick will not be returning to EastEnders. We do not comment on individual matters.”
It comes after he was suspended in June for using an offensive term for people with disabilities to describe residents of Blackpool whilst filming Strictly. The BBC said at the time that his language, reportedly caught in a video on a phone, was “entirely unacceptable and in no way reflects the values or standards we hold and expect”.
Jamie apologised after making the slur, saying in a statement shared by the Sun at the time: “I want to apologise sincerely and wholeheartedly for the words I used in the video showing my reaction to making it through Blackpool week on Strictly. I am deeply sorry for any offence and upset my words and actions have caused. It is no excuse, but I did not fully understand the derogatory term I used and its meaning. That is on me completely. Now I am aware, I am deeply embarrassed to have used the term and directed it in the way I did. It was wrong.”
He added: “When I made the video, I was excited and caught up in the moment. Again, that is no excuse. But my regrettable actions are not a true reflection of my views, or who I am. I enjoyed every minute of my time in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom and the town itself. The people of Blackpool have always been amazing with the Strictly crew, dancers and cast members. I know they will be again for this year’s show and those in years to come. I am truly sorry.”
He sparked criticism over the situation, including from the disability charity Scope. It said on X, following the news of his suspension: “Attitudes and language like this are never acceptable. We’re pleased to see that the team at the BBC have taken this incident so seriously. We hope Mr Borthwick takes this opportunity to get to know the reality of disabled people’s lives.”
American democracy is arguably in more peril than at any moment in recent history. Not only are United States President Donald Trump and his Republican allies seeking to guarantee that Americans never again participate in a truly free and fair election, but public officials and Trump-aligned figures in the media industry are also manipulating the information environment at an unprecedented scale. The point isn’t that information disappears; rather, it’s that those in power curate, delay, and redirect it.
Consider the so-called Epstein files related to the investigation into child sex trafficking by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump administration has worked hard to bury it.
In early February, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised transparency on Fox News, claiming that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on [her] desk right now”.
Weeks later, however, Bondi and the US Justice Department she oversees executed a sharp about-face: she released “phase 1” of the Epstein files, but the release turned out to be little more than “a whole lot of heavily-redacted nothing”. In July, she shut the door on the client list altogether, with officials saying no additional Epstein files would be released to the public.
Many have reasonably concluded that Bondi is seeking to protect Trump, whom she reportedly briefed in May about repeated references to him in the files.
That suspicion was only reinforced by House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to adjourn Congress to prevent a vote on the release of the Epstein files, and his desperate attempt to recast Trump as an FBI “informant” working to bring Epstein down. Taken together, all this looks less like transparency and more like one of the more consequential government cover-ups in US history.
This pattern fits a larger authoritarian playbook: Trump has also heavily consolidated executive power, militarised the immigration system, and repeatedly used emergency powers, among other actions that have undermined the US Constitution.
The same authoritarian instincts show up in efforts to police dissent and narrow the boundaries of acceptable speech.
The media – the so-called “fourth pillar of democracy” – have, at times, pushed back against some of Trump’s overreaches. But too often, they have buckled under pressure from the White House. In December 2024, even before Trump took office, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with him for $15m.
Seven months later, Paramount, CBS News’s parent company, also settled a lawsuit that many experts thought it could easily win; it paid Trump $16m. Anchors and talk show hosts who have been too critical have been quietly removed, as newsrooms have shifted right to try not to antagonise the US president.
Paramount was perhaps the most explicit in this shift. While pursuing a merger with Skydance Media to create a massive conglomerate, it promised to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from its policies. The new company is acquiring The Free Press and elevating its conservative founder, Bari Weiss, to a major editorial role; it has also pledged to address “bias”.
Apart from caving in to pressure from the White House, American journalism has also done little to address threats against speech protected by the First Amendment — especially Israel-related speech. It has been weak in the face of Israel’s war on journalism, which has banned international journalists from entering Gaza and killed more than 270 media workers.
After Israel killed several Palestinian journalists at a Gaza hospital late last month, American journalist Jeremy Scahill lambasted mainstream American and other Western news outlets: “I have never been more ashamed of our profession… The blood is on the hands of western news organizations that [have] systematically dehumanised Palestinians… and [served] as the conveyer belts for the lies of [the] Israeli regime…Shame on our profession.”
Rather than protest Israel’s ban on journalists or its systematic killing of Palestinian media workers, mainstream American media outlets have largely continued to dehumanise Palestinians and prop up Israeli narratives. Multiple studies have documented persistent reporting asymmetries that heavily favour Israel, particularly with respect to sourcing, victim humanisation, and framing.
None of this should surprise close observers.
Scholars have long argued that the American political system is inconsistent with any real notion of democracy, and that US media are not fully independent, but embedded firmly within the state-corporate power structure.
As media scholar J Herbert Altschull once put it, “the powerful have never been comfortable with the idea of a free press.” Social scientist and scholar Robert Entman was even more direct when he said, “Government sources and journalists join in an intimacy that renders any notion of a genuinely ‘free’ press inaccurate.”
In a sense, then, the Trump years are more of an acceleration than an aberration. The administration and its allies are more aggressive and explicit than their predecessors in their efforts to control information, punish dissenting speech, and reshape corporate media.
American democracy itself has always been more illusion than reality. Free and fair elections, meaningful checks and balances, and a truly independent press have been fragile, more myth than practice. What is different now is the speed and bluntness with which these myths are unravelling. The manipulation of information, criminalisation of dissent, and accommodation of corporate media are not incidental; they are mechanisms through which democracy further erodes.
Unless the Trump administration is reined in — and unless American journalism lives up to its professed values — Americans will be left not with a democracy in crisis, but with the shell of one.
England’s deadly dull World Cup qualifying victory against Andorra had a Groundhog Day feel for long-time followers of this particular bandwagon.
Routine win. Comfortable qualifying. And then this formality is often followed by disappointment when the serious business starts at a major tournament.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have covered England for almost a quarter of a century.
OK, first of all some context and stats.
England have only lost four World Cup qualifiers in the past 30 years.
They are currently unbeaten in these matches since 2009.
To compare, in Europe only Spain (one) and Germany (three) have lost fewer during that period.
Adding European Championships, since qualifying for Euro 2004 England have played 108 qualifiers, winning 84 and losing only six. They have scored 292 goals and conceded just 51.
That is a points-per-game ratio of 2.5. In other words, if it was a Premier League season over 38 games, that would yield 95 points, enough to win the title in all but three seasons.
So you would think there would be lots of good memories – but qualifiers rarely produce raw excitement. They are usually the means to an end. In England’s case an unfulfilled struggle to win the World Cup which has eluded the men’s team since 1966.
England’s first international at Villa Park for 20 years, a 2-0 win on Saturday, ended in front of thousands of empty seats as Andorra mounted a damage limitation exercise in the face of inevitable defeat.
There are outliers, such as captain David Beckham’s sensational last-minute free-kick against Greece at Old Trafford in October 2001 that gave England a 2-2 draw and sent them to the following summer’s World Cup in Japan.
And in April 2003 when a stunning full debut from the 17-year-old Wayne Rooney helped England beat Turkey 2-0 in a Euro 2004 qualifier at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.
One searing memory is the ill-fated Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia at Wembley in November 2007 when Steve McClaren’s England, needing only a draw, lost 3-2 to a nation who had nothing to play for having already qualified.
It was the night McClaren left out goalkeeper Paul Robinson for Scott Carson, the replacement fumbling Niko Kranjcar’s early shot to gift Croatia the lead.
This writer, contributing to an early iteration of BBC Sport’s live text commentaries, offered up these words when watching Carson warm up in a Wembley deluge before kick-off.
“As he [Carson] looks dubiously at the penalty areas, he may just be thinking these are nightmare conditions for any keeper.”
And indeed they were.
On so many other occasions, it has been a case of watching England knock off inferior opposition, a scene observed with more regularity as the number of countries qualifying increased to 32 in 1998, then to 45 teams that will join hosts Canada, Mexico and the United States at next summer’s World Cup.
And the stats are illuminating as to why this perhaps has not been as entertaining as it could be.
They show that, over the past 16 years, England’s possession has increased in World Cup qualifiers.
But the shots have not increased in turn, and the average margin of victory this campaign is among the lowest seen.
Is this a sign of how widespread the low block – when teams sit deep in large numbers in a compact defensive shape – has become in these matches, or of how football has moved to being more possession based?
The truth is probably a bit of both, with England often working to break through a packed defence, using a patient approach to find space and opportunities.
Former England striker Wayne Rooney told his BBC Sounds podcast this week that these games were “horrible” to play in and could feel “pointless”.
“I think it’s exactly what you’d expect. Andorra come to try and upset,” he said.
“England – a professional performance to win the game: 2-0, no problem.
“And it’s just the games are poor. You don’t enjoy it.
As dull as England qualifiers may be, it is Thomas Tuchel’s job to reach tournaments and only McClaren has failed to do so, for Euro 2008, since Graham Taylor’s side missed out on the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
This, however, has translated into two quarter-finals at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the last 16 at the 2010 World Cup, the quarter-finals at Euro 2012, out at the group stage at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, losing to Iceland in the last 16 at Euro 2016, the World Cup semi-final in 2018 in Russia, the last two Euros finals and the quarter-final at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In other words, qualifying is the easy bit.
Even England’s fans grew bored of Saturday’s dull stroll past Andorra and there is certainly a growing sense that qualifiers are almost like a contractual obligation before the real stuff next summer.
Those of us who have watched England for so long hope to be at the scene of sporting spectaculars, but the truth is these games, especially in a group containing Albania, Andorra and Latvia, are largely devoid of jeopardy.