Lamine Yamal, a teenage sensation in Spain, has agreed to a new six-year deal with Barcelona, according to the Catalan football team.
The 17-year-old helped Spain win the Euro 2024 title and was a key player in Barcelona’s domestic treble-winning campaign.
This season, Barca won La Liga, the Spanish Super Cup, and the Copa del Rey, beating their fierce rivals in the finals of both the competitions in the process.
Yamal, a member of the club’s renowned La Masia academy, has quickly gained notoriety for his dribbling, playmaking, and goalscoring.
In a 2-0 victory over crosstown rival Espanyol in mid-May, the Barca-born forward scored the difference goal that earned his side’s 28th Spanish league title.
Lamine Yamal will only be 23 when she retires in 2031. 😳 pic. twitter.com/TPNgRloGaH
Hansi Flick’s former German national team coach, Hansi Flick, led Barca to the Champions League semifinals, where they were then defeated by Inter Milan after extra time.
Yamal had a record-setting season with 18 goals and 13 assists, which is best in the Spanish top flight.
The winger, who can play either flank, was key to Spain’s 2-1 victory over England in the summertime European Championship final. In the 2-1 victory over France in the semifinal, he also scored.
Yamal made his Barcelona debut in April 2023, and he has already made 106 appearances.
Lamine Yamal, who joined his hometown club at the age of 7, will only be 23 in a statement posted on social media platform X that detailed how far the player has come.
[Albert Gea/Reuters] Marc-Andre ter Stegen, left, and Lamine Yamal lift the trophy after winning La Liga.
According to an internal memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the administration of United States President Donald Trump is temporarily suspending the processing of visas for foreign students.
The cable prompted the US media to ban “any additional student or exchange visa appointment capacity… until further guidance is issued” in the Tuesday cable.
The State Department “plans to issue guidance on expanded social media vetting for all such applications,” the statement continued.
The Trump administration’s continued pressure on universities and students is the latest blow to foreign nationals looking to study in the US.
In a wider conflict over Harvard University’s response to pro-Palestine protests and its diversity initiatives, the administration last week revoked the university’s consent to admitting international students. The move has been temporarily stalled by a federal judge.
Rubio has also requested that the processing pause be done in response to his attempts to revoke hundreds of visas for foreign students, citing minor legal blunders or pro-Palestine advocacy.
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday, saying in general that “we take very seriously the process of vetting who enters the country.” She did not directly respond to the cable.
According to the president and secretary Rubio, the goal is to ensure that those present understand what the law is, that they don’t have any criminal intentions, that they will contribute to the experience here, no matter how brief or long their status may be, she said.
Bruce further stated that while applying for student visas, applicants should expect more in-depth scrutiny.
Follow the usual procedures, the usual procedures, and [anticipate being looked at,” she said.
Rubio’s cable did not provide a suspension schedule, but instead advised diplomatic staff to follow through with the “coming days” plan.
ongoing difficulties
Concerning academic freedom and the rights of people living in the US on temporary visas, the Trump administration’s actions toward higher education have raised contentious constitutional issues.
A full accounting of the revoked visas that Trump had requested from lawmakers in the US Senate last week was not made public.
Rubio has relied on a mysterious law that the administration maintains grants broad authority to deport foreigners who violate US foreign policy objectives.
Lawyers for several students who have been targeted by Rubio for pro-Palestine views have argued that their clients’ freedom of speech is being violated. They include Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri.
Harvard University has also claimed that the Trump administration is violating its rights by cutting funding and preventing foreign students from enrolling in Harvard University.
In the war-torn nation, the Sudanese Ministry of Health reported a rise in cholera cases, with 2,700 infections and 172 deaths in the past week.
The ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that 90% of cases had been reported in Khartoum state, where drone strikes have caused severe disruption to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the army since April 2023.
In the south, center, and north of the nation, cases were also reported.
Sudan has a long history of cholera, but outbreaks have gotten worse and worse since the war started, wrecking already fragile sanitation and healthcare infrastructure.
Out of more than 2,300 reported cases over the past three weeks, 91 percent of them in Khartoum state, the ministry reported last Tuesday that 51 people had died from cholera.
Before being completely pushed out of their final holdout positions in the capital last week, the RSF launched drone strikes across Khartoum this month, including on three power stations.
Water treatment facilities no longer in operation
According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the strikes caused residents to turn to unsafe water sources and eventually put the local water network out of service.
According to Slaymen Ammar, MSF’s medical coordinator in Khartoum, “Waste treatment stations no longer have electricity and can’t provide clean water from the Nile.”
If left untreated, cholera, an acute diarrhoeal condition brought on by consuming contaminated food or water, can spread within hours. However, it can be prevented and treated with prompt medical care, sanitation, and clean water.
The World Health Organization claims that the conflict has brought the country’s already fragile healthcare system to its “breaking point.”
According to the doctors’ union, up to 90% of the nation’s hospitals have been forced to close at some point as a result of the fighting, with regularly targeted looting, bombing, and storming facilities.
The second-largest state in the country is at the center of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott signing a bill into law that requires Apple and Alphabet to verify the age of users of their app stores.
On Tuesday, the bill was passed into law.
Users under 18 must have parental consent before apps can be downloaded or purchased in-app, according to the law, which goes into effect on January 1. The first US state to pass a similar law this year was Utah, and US lawmakers have also introduced a federal law.
A second Texas bill, which was approved in the state’s House of Representatives and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, would impose age restrictions on social media apps.
Wide support
One of the few areas where there is widespread consensus in the US is regarding age restrictions and parental consent for social media apps. In a Pew Research poll conducted in 2023, 81% of Americans supported requiring parental consent for children to create social media accounts, and 71% supported age verification before using social media.
Social media’s impact on children’s mental health is a growing global issue. The US surgeon general has issued an advisory on child safeguards, and dozens of US states have sued Meta Platforms. Social media for children under the age of 16 was banned in Australia last year, while Norway and other nations are considering new regulations.
How age restrictions are implemented has created a conflict between Apple and Google, the two main US app stores, and Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook.
The bill’s passage was applauded by Meta and the social media platforms Snap and X.
Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant them permission to download apps in a privacy-preserving manner. More than one-third of US states have passed laws that acknowledge the crucial role that app stores play, according to the companies, and the app store is the best place for it.
The Texas law is likely to face legal challenges due to First Amendment issues, according to Kathleen Farley, vice president of litigation for the Chamber of Progress, an organization supported by Apple and Alphabet.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency on Tuesday, Farley claimed that “adult speech is burdened in attempting to regulate children’s speech.” There are arguments, according to “I’d say, that this is a content-based regulation that excludes digital communication.”
Parents can only have effective control over their children’s use of technology, according to online safety organizations that supported the Texas bill.
The issue is that the digital marketplace has failed to self-regulate apps, which place the safety and rights of children and families first, according to Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance.
The Texas bill, according to Apple and Google, imposes blanket requirements for sharing age data with all apps, even those that aren’t controversial.
App stores will be required to collect and maintain sensitive personal information for every Texasan who wants to download an app, even if it’s just an update on the weather or sports scores, according to Apple in a statement.
Google and Apple each have a different proposal that only requires sharing age range data with app developers, rather than all of them.
According to Kareem Ghanem, senior director of government affairs and public policy at Google, “we see a role for legislation here.”
In its legal fight against the administration of US President Donald Trump, which had threatened to withhold federal funding from New York state unless the city implemented a congestion pricing program, New York City received a temporary relief.
As the administration and state-level officials battle the future of congestion pricing, United States District Judge Lewis Liman held the hearing on the matter on Tuesday and issued a temporary restraining order.
Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation for the US, stated a day earlier that he thought the state would withhold state government approvals, which would result in the state’s highway and transit projects being delayed.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which operates New York City’s mass transit system as a state-level agency, “showed a likelihood of success,” according to the judge, despite the federal administration’s objections.
According to the New York Times newspaper, the courts alleged that this was because state, local, and federal agencies had already reviewed the plan.
Congestion relief has been thoroughly checked and is completely legal. The Riders Alliance, a transportation advocacy organization, has been inundated with plausible arguments against the program, and now the increasingly bizarre theories are also failing, according to Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for the organization.
Governor of New York Kathy Hochul referred to the judge’s ruling as “a massive victory” for commuters in New York.
Congestion pricing is legal, it’s effective, and we’re keeping the cameras on, the governor’s office said in a statement. However, a court has blocked the Trump Administration from retaliating against New York for reducing traffic and investing in transit.
“It’s really upsetting that it even started at this.” According to Alexa Sledge, communications director for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, the federal government is trying to enact its own policy and trying to blackmail New York state when it doesn’t follow their [the US Department of Transportation’s] lead.
The program was first introduced in January in New York. Driving during high traffic hours in some parts of Manhattan costs $ 9 per day. The state created the program in an effort to reduce traffic in the state’s most populous city and raise money for NYC’s mass transit system.
“New York State should be able to have their own streets and make their own laws. And so, he said, “I hope this can be the end of this.”
achieving its objectives
Many of its objectives have been met since the program started earlier this year. Subway and bus ridership increased by 9% and by 6% within a month of congestion pricing. 11 percent decreased traffic.
Congestion pricing predicted in March that the system would generate $500 million in revenue, which would fund a number of new transit-system projects, including station upgrades and zero-emissions buses. A Siena College poll at the time found that 35% of New Yorkers wanted to end the program, while 42% of New Yorkers wanted to keep it.
According to a new report, Israel is using many of the strategies it used during its offensive against Gaza to seize and control territory in the West Bank during Operation Iron Wall.
The operation was first launched by Israel in January. The Israeli military argued that its goal was to maintain its “freedom of action” within the Palestinian territory as it continued to rip up roads, destroy infrastructure, and subvert water and electricity lines, in response to what the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) described as “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada in the 2000s.”
According to the report from the British research firm Forensic Architecture, Israel has implemented what researchers refer to as a “spatial control” system, which entails a number of mechanisms that allow it to freely deploy military vehicles across Palestinian territory.
The refugee camps of Jenin and Fara in northern West Bank and Nur Shams and Tulkarem in northern west bank were the subjects of the report’s focus. Witnesses, satellite imagery, and hundreds of videos were analyzed and interviewed by researchers to demonstrate a coordinated plan of Israeli action to establish a network of military controls in West Bank camps similar to those in Gaza.
Palestinians are the target of a fierce Israeli military campaign in several West Bank refugee camps, reports Al Jazeera.
Existing roads have been made wider while adjacent properties, private gardens, and homes have been destroyed to facilitate the quick deployment of Israeli military vehicles.
According to the report’s authors, “This network of military routes is clearly visible in the Jenin refugee camp,” and evidence suggests that the same tactic is being used again in the Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps at the time of publication.
More than 54, 000 Palestinians were killed and the majority of the buildings were damaged or destroyed in the West Bank as a result of Israeli ministers’ earlier statements that they intended to use the same techniques as those used in the Gaza Strip.
Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, stated in January that Israel would use the “lesson” of repeated raids on the Jenin refugee camp. Bezalel Smotrich, the West Bank’s finance minister, boasted that “Tulkarem and Jenin will look like Jabalia and Shujayea.” Nablus and Ramallah will resemble Rafah and Khan Younis, making comparisons between Gaza’s West Bank refugee camps and those whose areas have been the victim of Israeli bombing and ground incursions.
According to Smotrich, “They will also be transformed into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to flee and seek a new life abroad.”
The British first used these tactics during their rule over historic Palestine, which predated Israel’s establishment in 1948, according to Hamze Attar, a defense analyst based in Luxembourg.
He claimed that “it’s a part of the” counterinsurgency “strategy.” “Bigger roads mean] easier access to forces; bigger roads mean less congestion in combat, bigger roads mean less fighters can escape from house to house.
displaced people by displacement
The refugee camps for Palestinians in Jenin, Nur Shams, Far’a, and Tulkarem have a population of about 75 000. When roughly 750, 000 Palestinians were forced from their homes by Zionist forces between 1947 and 1949 as part of the creation of Israel, they were either displaced themselves or descended from those who were displaced during the Nakba (which means “catastrophe).
According to the United Nations, at least 40, 000 people who reside in the West Bank refugee camps have been displaced as a result of Operation Iron Wall.
Similar to Gaza, many of these people were forced to leave their homes at the hands of the Israeli military, which according to experts described as “weaponized” against the local population.
According to the report, an area that had been cleared of its buildings and roads becomes a kill zone for the Israeli military, which can then reshape and build whatever it wants without provoking residents’ disapproval.
According to the report, “This engineered mass displacement has allowed the Israeli military to reshape these built environments unhampered,” adding that when Palestinian residents attempted to return to their homes after Israeli military action, they were frequently obstructed by the troops’ continued presence.
Infrastructure destruction
According to researchers studying forensic architecture, Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza have also spread to the West Bank.
According to the report, Israel’s attacks on medical infrastructure in the West Bank included placing hospitals under siege, blocking ambulance travel to areas with injured civilians, attacking medical personnel, and using at least one hospital as a detention and interrogation center.
According to researchers, the Israeli military surrounded several hospitals during Israel’s initial attacks on the Jenin refugee camp on January 21. These included Jenin Government Hospital, al-Amal Hospital, and al-Razi Hospital.
The following day, hospital staff and civilians reported that newly constructed berms, or land barriers, blocked access to the hospital and that the main road leading to Jenin Government Hospital had been destroyed by Israeli military bulldozers.
According to reports from Jenin on February 4, the Israeli military reportedly prevented injured people from getting to the hospital.
An early February UNRWA report claimed that the Israeli military had forcibly chosen one of the health facilities at the UNRWA-run Arroub camp near Jerusalem as a detention and interrogation facility, which also had unmistakable echoes of Gaza.
According to the Forensic Architecture report, the attacks on healthcare facilities were part of a larger effort to deteriorate the West Bank’s civilian infrastructure through controlled demolitions, airstrikes, and armoured bulldozers.
More than 200 instances of Israeli soldiers purposefully destroying buildings and street networks in all four refugee camps were found to have been uncovered by investigators, including more than 200 instances of them using armored bulldozers to erode civilian roads through barely passable piles of exposed earth and rubble.
During Israeli military operations, civilian property, such as parked cars, food carts, and agricultural buildings, including greenhouses, were also destroyed, according to them.
