After nearly five years of tireless work, the animation team at Kugali Media is finally seeing its comic book series “Iwájú” come to life in a big way – and now audiences around the world can join in.

The animated series is a coming-of-age story set in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. The show was picked up by Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2020, which called it a “first-of-its-kind collaboration” with the pan-African entertainment company. All six episodes are now available to stream on Disney+.

Hamid Ibrahim, CEO of Kugali, co-founded the company in 2017 with two friends, Tolu Olowofoyeku and Olufikayo “Ziki” Adeola. He says the team began working on “Iwájú” two years later as part of the company’s mission to share “high quality African stories with the world.”

Embracing the “soul of Lagos”

Ibrahim says Africa is at the heart of every story Kugali tells. But with so many countries and cultures, they strive be intentional with their storytelling.

“We’re telling an African story, but a lot of viewers do not understand African culture,” he said. “Hopefully (by watching) they get to understand it better.”

“Iwájú” is brought to life through Nigerian voice actors Simisola Gbadamosi and Siji Soetan, who play Tola and her best friend Kole. Other characters from the show include voice acting by Dayo Okeniyi, Femi Branch and Weruche Opia.

To accurately depict the “soul of Lagos,” Ibrahim says they relied on Olowofoyeku to be the team’s cultural consultant since he is the only Kugali Media executive based in Lagos full-time.

“I was there to make sure that everything felt authentic and grounded,” Olowofoyeku said. “The fact that the language, the way the characters talk is 100% Nigerian … I’m very happy about that because there is no scene where you will feel it doesn’t really feel Nigerian.”

“It’s not about showing the good side or the bad side, it’s about showing the real thing about it,” Ibrahim said, adding they tried to capture “all the little details” of the city to help audiences better understand the nuances. “It also allows us to teach people about the culture. And the more we teach about the culture, the more some things become normal.”

Pushing the African story forward

While the show premiered on February 28 on Disney+, the streaming service is not yet available in Africa. Instead, “Iwájú” will be airing on the Disney Channel across the continent at specific times, beginning on April 22, according to the company.

As audiences tune in to watch “Iwájú,” Ibrahim says he hopes the family show will speak to viewers of all ages.

“I want (the kids) to pick up the heart. To approach something which seems impossibly difficult and be able to persevere through it and know that there’s going to be setbacks, ups and downs … but to keep pushing through, and you’ll hopefully discover something better,” he said.

“For us at Disney, great storytelling is at the heart of everything that we do … It’s telling authentic stories where our audiences can see themselves and their worlds reflected,” she said at the Lagos premiere, adding Disney felt the Kugali team shared that same philosophy.

Along with the six-episode series, the soundtrack featuring music by Nigerian composer Ré Olunuga and a game called “Disney Iwájú: Rising Chef” are also being released. The game will allow players to “explore authentic African delicacies through (a) fast-paced and accessible cooking game,” according to Disney, “that celebrates the culture and cuisine of Nigeria.”

With “Iwájú” on air, Ibrahim says the Kugali Media team is ready start working on showcasing the next African story.

“This is a first step to creating more and more things,” he said. “I want to see one of our stories told and funded completely (within) Africa and then we bring that to the West.”

Iran is scrambling to boost turnout ahead of legislative elections on March 1, but calls on voters to show up to the polls may be falling on deaf ears as Iranians grapple with an ailing economy, growing political distrust and a quashed protest movement.

Some 15,000 candidates are competing for the 290-seat parliamentary election, and 144 are running for the 88 seats of the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to appoint the Supreme Leader, the highest political authority in Iran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is more than 84 years old, and so this incoming Assembly will select his successor if he dies during the body’s eight-year term.

Voter turnout is expected to be at record lows, however, with candidates opposed to the current hardline government disqualified amid a widespread crackdown on dissent, which rights groups say only intensified after the 2022 protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Authorities are nonetheless eager to bring people to the polls, trying to inspire a sense of duty and resistance among Iranians amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

Khamenei this month called on Iranians to show up to polling stations, writing on X that “elections are the main pillar of the Islamic Republic.” He warned Iranians that their enemy would seek to discourage them from voting, and so casting one’s ballot was their responsibility and a form of resistance.

“Everyone should note that fulfilling these duties and responsibilities is an act of jihad in confronting the enemy, because they do not want these duties to be fulfilled,” Khamenei was reported as saying in the Tehran Times.

Other officials have directly cited the Gaza war to rally voters ahead of the polling day.

In a speech this month, Hamidreza Moghadamfar, an adviser to the chief commander of the IRGC, said that the “biggest supporters of the massacre of tens of thousands of women and children in Gaza are the same ones who are opposed to the people of Iran voting and are the enemies of democracy.”

The rhetoric from officials is “a desperate attempt to bring people out,” said Alex Vatanka, founding director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, adding that this is “typical” of Khamenei’s time.

Foad Izadi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran’s faculty of World Studies, said that it is not difficult to encourage voting by appealing to national unity against the US and Israel, as most Iranians are outraged by the images of bloodshed pouring out of the Israel-Hamas war.

“A good percentage of these people, the people who don’t like the current government in Iran, when they hear an American government official talking about human rights in Iran, they don’t accept (it),” Izadi said, adding that they see the West as having lost the right to speak about human rights after letting the carnage in Gaza go on for months.

Israel’s war in the enclave, while strongly opposed by many Iranians, may not however sufficiently sway all voters to polling stations.

‘Passivity is itself a choice’

More than 61 million of Iran’s 87 million people are eligible to vote next month, according to Iran’s Election Supervisory Board.

While few opinion polls have been publicly released ahead of this year’s election, the results of those that were made public predict a record low turnout. In a December interview with Iranian state news agency ISNA, Hassan Moslemi Naeini, the head of the state-run Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research, said only 27.9% of respondents in his latest survey said they “will definitely participate in the elections.” Meanwhile 36% said there is “no way they will participate in the elections.”

Voter turnout has been on the decline in Iran, largely on the back of diminishing trust in the regime, some experts say. While older Iranian generations have given the idea of “reform through the ballot box” a chance, said Vatanka of the Middle East Institute, Iranians today see the elections as “simply for show.”

Iran’s last presidential election in 2021, which brought hardliner Ebrahim Raisi to power, saw a turnout of 48.8%, down from 85% in 2009.

This year’s legislative election “is anticipated to have the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history,” said Holly Dagres, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, attributing this to “systemic corruption, mismanagement, and repression” by the state and “just how illegitimate the clerical establishment is in the eyes of the people of Iran.”

“This passivity is itself a choice and a vote of dissatisfaction with the ruling regime,” said another young woman in Tehran, adding the regime has stripped the words “election” and “republic” of their true meanings.

This week’s elections are taking place more than a year after mass protests rocked the country in 2022, in opposition to the hijab law and other social issues. The movement was quashed by authorities, and Iran’s parliament passed draconian new legislation imposing much harsher penalties on women who breach hijab rules.

A group of UN experts in September said that Iran “could have learned important lessons from the tragic death of Jina Mahsa Amini” – the 22-year-old woman who died in 2022 after being detained by the regime’s infamous morality police, allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

“But its response to the demonstrations that have led to the deaths of hundreds of protestors since September 2022 shows that authorities have chosen not to,” the UN experts said.

International watchdogs have also repeatedly slammed Iran for holding elections that are neither free nor fair, marked by a vetting process that restricts the types of candidates permitted to run.

This year, Iran’s Guardian Council – a powerful 12-member council charged with overseeing elections and legislation – has disqualified over 12,000 candidates from running for parliamentary seats and barred former moderate President Hassan Rouhani from running for the Assembly of Experts.

Authorities have also made clear that boycotts will not be tolerated.

A Norway-based group focused on Kurdish rights, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, reported this month that a Kurdish resident in Sanandaj province was arrested by Iranian security forces after calling for an election boycott.

His detention came after he released a video of himself saying, “The very act of voting is equivalent to endorsing all the malpractices and corruption,” Hengaw said.

‘We don’t get anywhere’

Crippled by Western sanctions since 1979, the Islamic Republic continues to be cut off from much of the world. Inflation is still high at more than 32% as of 2024, with millions falling below the poverty line.

Adding to Iranians’ economic peril are the waves of attacks exchanged between the US and regional militias backed by Tehran.

In the wake of the drone attack in Jordan that killed three US Army soldiers and injured more than 30 other service members, Iran’s currency fell from nearly 500,000 rials against the US dollar in early January, to more than 580,000 by January 29. Iranian media attributed the sharp drop in the value of the rial to the escalation of regional conflicts.

“Three Americans were killed yesterday. Today, 80 million Iranians became poorer,” wrote Iranian businessman Pedram Soltani on X.

One Iranian man, 27, who also asked to be quoted anonymously, cited economic hardships when asked why he would not be casting his vote on March 1.

Thomas Kingston, the financier husband of Lady Gabriella Kingston, has died suddenly at the age of 45, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.

Kingston married into Britain’s most famous family in 2019, tying the knot with Lady Gabriella in a lavish ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Lady Gabriella, 42, who is 56th in line to the British throne and the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, paid tribute to her “beloved husband” in a family statement on Tuesday, saying he was “an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him.”

She added that “his death has come as a great shock to the whole family.”

Buckingham Palace said that King Charles III and Queen Camilla had been informed of the financier’s death “and join Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and all those who knew him in grieving a much-loved member of the family.”

“In particular, Their Majesties send their most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to Gabriella and to all the Kingston family,” a palace spokesperson said.

Kingston was found dead at a property in Gloucestershire on Sunday, with emergency services called to the scene shortly after 6 p.m. (1 p.m. ET).

Lady Gabriella, who is the King’s second cousin, is not a working member of the royal family.

Her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, had attended a memorial service for the late King Constantine II of Greece with other members of the British royal family earlier Tuesday, before the announcement of Kingston’s death.

Constantine, who died in January last year, was Lady Gabriella’s godfather, according to the UK’s PA Media news agency.

Prince William, who was also a godchild of the late Greek monarch, did not attend the remembrance event at St. George’s at the last minute due to a personal matter. However, it is understood that the Prince of Wales’ absence was not connected to the news of Kingston’s death.

Prince Harry has lost a court challenge against a British government decision to strip him of taxpayer-funded protection after he quit royal duties.

Harry took legal action against the Home Office after it decided in February 2020 he would no longer be given the “same degree” of protection when in the country.

During a hearing in December, lawyers for Harry argued the decision meant he was “singled out” and treated “less favourably,” British news agency PA Media reported.

According to the news agency, his lawyers also cited a failure to consider the impact on the UK’s reputation of a “successful attack” on Harry, who has lived with his wife Meghan in California since July 2020.

But the court ruled that the decision was justified and “not marred by procedural unfairness.”

The Duke of Sussex has been vocal about the security of his family, often drawing comparisons between his wife’s treatment to that faced by his mother, Diana. The late Princess of Wales died in 1997 after suffering internal injuries resulting from a high-speed car crash in Paris.

This legal case was one of several lawsuits that Prince Harry has undertaken in the UK. In January, he dropped a separate libel claim he brought against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday.

Prince Harry sued ANL for libel over a February 2022 story about the Duke’s High Court case against the UK’s Home Office concerning security arrangements when he and his family visit the country.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

When NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft intentionally slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022, the impact may have caused “global deformation” of the space rock, according to new research.

The goal of the DART mission was to carry out a full-scale test of asteroid deflection technology on behalf of planetary defense and to see whether a kinetic impact — like crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid at 13,645 miles per hour (6.1 kilometers per second) — would be enough to change the motion of a celestial object in space.

Dimorphos is a moonlet asteroid that orbits a larger parent asteroid known as Didymos. Neither pose a threat to Earth, but the double-asteroid system was a perfect target to test deflection technology because Dimorphos’ size is comparable to asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.

Since the day of impact, astronomers have used data from ground-based telescopes to determine that the DART spacecraft did change Dimorphos’ orbital period — or how long it takes to make a single revolution around Didymos — by about 32 to 33 minutes. But another crucial piece of information needed to understand how to deflect asteroids that may be on a potential collision course with Earth in the future is the composition of space rocks.

Different types of asteroids that pose a threat — whether hard, stony asteroids or rubble piles, which are effectively loose piles of rock held together by gravity — would require different deflection techniques.

The DART mission ended upon impact, but prior to colliding with Dimorphos, the spacecraft transmitted an incredibly detailed view of the little asteroid’s boulder-covered surface that is helping researchers learn more about how the space rock formed.

Astronomers were also able to carry out follow-up observations with ground- and space-based telescopes, and with the Italian LICIACube satellite that briefly followed the DART mission and imaged the aftermath for 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

The observations revealed that the impact unleashed a giant debris plume of material into space.

Now, researchers have taken the investigation a step further by putting all this data into software to help answer key remaining questions, such as determining how the asteroid reacted to the collision and what kind of crater was left behind.

Rather than forming a simple crater on Dimorphos, the DART impact reshaped the entire asteroid, the results have suggested. A study describing the findings appeared Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The findings could prepare astronomers for what they will find when future missions fly by Dimorphos to better understand the effects of asteroid deflection technology.

Recreating the DART impact

A team of researchers modeled the impact using the Bern smoothed-particle hydrodynamics shock physics code to achieve their results.

It’s “a computational tool designed to simulate impact events. Shock-physics codes in general are essential in the study of collisions and impact processes. They incorporate various models, including material models and porosity models, to accurately represent the physical conditions during hypervelocity impact events, such as high pressures and temperatures,” said lead study author Dr. Sabina Raducan, postdoctoral researcher at the department of space research and planetary sciences at the University of Bern’s Physics Institute in Switzerland.

The software has been validated by replicating other impacts, including when Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft punched a small copper impactor into the Ryugu asteroid in 2019.

The team ran 250 simulations to recreate the first two hours following the DART impact based on the data they did have while varying the factors they didn’t know, “such as the closeness of packing of boulders, their density, the porosity of material and its overall cohesion. We also made some reasonable assumptions based on the physical properties of meteorites resembling Dimorphos,” Raducan said.

After running their simulations, the team focused on the one that most closely matched the original DART data.

The results indicated that Dimorphos is a rubble pile made of rocky material shed from the Didymos asteroid, held together by weak gravity.

“On Earth the force of gravity is such that cratering occurs briefly, producing a typical cratering cone angle of around 90 degrees,” said study coauthor Dr. Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern’s Physics Institute, who is also cochair of the Hera Impact Physics Working Group, in a statement. “What we saw with DART’s impact of Dimorphos was a much wider ejecta cone angle extending by up to 160 degrees, influenced mainly by the curved shape of the asteroid’s surface. And the crater kept on expanding, because both the gravity and material cohesion is so low.”

As a result, the crater basically grew to encompass all of Dimorphos, completely transforming the asteroid’s shape.

The Hera mission

Raducan and Jutzi are part of the investigation team participating in the European Space Agency’s Hera mission, which will launch a spacecraft in October on a journey to observe the aftermath of the DART impact, arriving near the end of 2026. Together with a pair of CubeSats, the mission will study the composition and mass of Dimorphos and how it was transformed by the impact and determine how much momentum was transferred from the spacecraft to the asteroid.

“Our simulations suggest that Dimorphos has had its initial flying saucer shape blunted on its impact side: if you think of Dimorphos as starting out as resembling a chocolate M&M, now it would look like it has had a bite taken out of it!” Raducan said.

Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Sir Brian May, along with his collaborator, chemical engineer and material researcher Claudia Manzoni, also shared stereoscopic images to help the team determine more about the reshaping event.

The team believes that 1% of Dimorphos’ entire mass was kicked out into space due to the impact, while 8% of the asteroid’s mass was shifted around.

“Hera will probably not be able to find any crater left by DART,” Raducan said. “What it will discover instead will be a very different body.”

The longest sled dog race in the eastern United States is canceled this year due to insufficient snow coverage, which organizers say could make trail conditions dangerous for participants.

The annual Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races, which were slated to begin March 2, are held in Fort Kent, Maine, more than 300 miles north of Portland near the US-Canadian border. For 250 miles, the race course runs deep into the vast Allagash Wilderness with multiple viewing points for the thousands of spectators the event attracts.

But the Fort Kent area has had roughly 4 feet of snow since October 2023 — around 2 feet below average through February, according to the National Weather Service. The region, like much of the northern tier of the US, is experiencing its warmest winter on record, with high temperatures averaging around 6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

Organizers said a heavy rainstorm is in the forecast that, coupled with a period of unseasonably warm weather, could rapidly deteriorate the trails even further.

Can-Am President Dennis Cyr said in a statement the decision to cancel the winter sport tradition this year was made “with heavy hearts but necessary caution.”

“The health and safety of our participants, both the dedicated mushers and their incredible dogs, are our top priorities,” Cyr said. “The unique challenges presented by the lack of snow have led us to conclude that moving forward with this year’s race could compromise the well-being of all involved.”

It’s not the first time the event has been called off or altered. Since the race first started in 1992, organizers have had to occasionally reroute due to treacherous weather. In 1994, thinning ice ended the race early, while a severe cold snap in 2017 forced organizers to make last-minute changes to the usual route, including limiting a number of downhill slopes. The 2021 races were also canceled during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Scientists say the climate crisis will significantly impact snow conditions across the Northeast. Decreasing snowfall and a shorter snow season are expected due to warmer temperatures that will cause more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow.

Less snowpack carries a remarkable toll for places like Fort Kent that rely on winter recreational activities, including skiing and snowboarding, as key economic drivers. Many ski resorts in the Northern Hemisphere have already been facing such challenges.

The Can-Am organizers remain hopeful that the much-anticipated event will be back in 2025.

“This race is not just an event; it’s a tradition that celebrates the remarkable bond between mushers and their sled dogs, as well as the rugged beauty of Maine’s winter landscape,” Can-Am Vice President Sarah Brooks said in a statement. “However, we must put the safety of our participants first.”

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has banned gender-inclusive language in all official documents and public administration, the presidential spokesperson said Tuesday, as the far-right libertarian continues to implement his socially conservative agenda.

The ban, effective immediately, will prohibit “inclusive language and everything related to the gender perspective throughout the national public administration,” Manuel Adornis, spokesperson for the Casa Rosada, said in his daily press conference.

Spanish is a gender-defined language where most nouns are given a masculine “o” ending or a feminine “a” ending. In an effort to create gender-inclusive language in Spanish-speaking countries, there has been a push to use “x,” “e,” or “@” to create general-neutral nouns instead of using “o” or “a.” For example, the gender-neutral term “Latinx” as opposed to the masculine “Latino” or feminine “Latina.”

Going forward, “it will not be possible to use the letter ‘e,’ ​​the ‘@’ sign, the ‘x’,” Adornis said, adding that people should also “avoid the unnecessary use of the feminine in all public administration documents.”

Adornis rejected the argument that gender-inclusive language covers all demographics of society, saying, “the language that covers all sectors is the one we use; it is the Castilian language, it is Spanish,” he said.

“Gender perspectives” have been used as a political tool, the spokesperson said.

This announcement comes after gender-inclusive language was banned in the military following a resolution by the country’s defense ministry.

The debate around gender-neutral language has become a lightning rod in the culture wars in the Americas, with Milei previously railing against “gender ideology” – a term that has gained prominence in recent years among social conservatives who oppose LGBTQ rights.

The change comes after Argentina became the first country in Latin America to allow a different option in the “gender” field of identity documents. In 2021, the government of former President Alberto Fernández announced a new National Identity Document (DNI) for nonbinary people that establishes the terminology “x” in the field of gender for amended DNI and passports.

Fernández also used inclusive language during his speeches, in stark contrast to Milei, a social conservative with ties to the American right, who opposes abortion rights and has called climate change a “lie of socialism.”

Since coming to power last year, Milei has pursued conservative culture war issues. Last week, his government announced the closure of its anti-discrimination agency, saying the Ministry of Justice would absorb its functions.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

Biden said Monday during an appearance at an ice cream shop in New York City that he hoped there would be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” as the death toll in Gaza approaches 30,000.

“I don’t know on what basis he said it,” the Israeli official said Tuesday, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject. The official said Israel was ready to make a deal under the right terms.

“Israel will be ready to release [Palestinian] prisoners even today if conditions are met,” the official said.

Qatar, which along with the US is a key mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, added further caution on Tuesday and hinted at a different timeline than that suggested by Biden.

“If there was an agreement you would see me more in a cheered attitude,” Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatar Foreign Ministry, said Tuesday. “But until now we don’t have an agreement and we’re still working on negotiations on all fronts.”

“We have seen a positive trajectory by the sheer fact that the meetings are taking place, but we have yet to reach a final agreement, where we can hopefully announce before the beginning of Ramadan a humanitarian pause that will ease the tension and would allow us to bring in more aid into Gaza and would allow us to deescalate.”

Ramadan is set to begin as early as the evening of March 10, a week after the date Biden said he hoped to see a resolution.

Ansari said disagreements remain over “numbers, ratios and troop movements,” without elaborating further. He is likely referring to the number of hostages released for Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from parts of Gaza.

“Certainly, we’d welcome getting one by this weekend,” Miller said.

Reuters and Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that Hamas was reviewing a draft proposal for an initial ceasefire lasting roughly six weeks, during which 40 Israeli hostages would be exchanged for 400 Palestinian prisoners.

Teams from the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar met in Paris on Friday and then in Qatar Monday.

Those involved in the discussions have previously said an agreement would likely be implemented in multiple phases and once an initial deal is made it could lead to a truce lasting for as long as six weeks with a group of Israeli hostages released including women, children, the elderly and sick in exchange for a smaller number of Palestinian prisoners than Hamas had initially demanded.

During a truce, negotiations would take place over more sensitive topics like the release of male Israeli soldiers who are hostages, Palestinian prisoners serving longer sentences, the withdrawal of IDF forces and bringing a permanent end to the war alongside the so-called “day after” issues.

On Tuesday, US National Security spokesman John Kirby said there was hope that a temporary ceasefire could lead to a “better approach to end the conflict writ large.”

Referencing the previous week-long pause in fighting that took place at the end of November, Kirby said, “What we’re hoping for is much more aggressive than that. And as we’ve said before, we also hope that if we can get that in place, and both sides can abide by it for the course of several weeks, maybe up to six, that maybe that could lead to something more in terms of a better approach to end the conflict writ large.”

Kirby said he believes “we are getting closer in a negotiation” and hopeful it could “happen in coming days” but did not make any guarantees about that happening before Ramadan.

“It’s not about trying to beat the clock to Ramadan. It’s about trying to get these two sides to come to closure on a deal that again, would get all those hostages out and get them to get the fighting stopped,” he said.

Almost 30,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel waged war on Hamas on October 7, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

At least 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced, according to the UN. More than 1.3 million people have sought refuge in crammed shelters in the southern city of Rafah, where a looming Israeli ground assault has stirred panic among civilians – many of whom fled from fighting in the north.

An Australian photographer has filed a police complaint against Taylor Swift’s father, Scott Swift, for allegedly punching him as the superstar left a concert afterparty in Sydney in the early hours of Tuesday.

He claimed when Swift got off the boat, a security guard forced an umbrella into his face and camera, before he was punched by the star’s 71-year-old father.

Swift’s entourage was “aggressive and unprofessional,” he claimed.

“Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water,” the statement said.

New South Wales Police said they are investigating an alleged assault involving a 51-year-old man and a 71-year-old man at Neutral Bay Wharf at 2:30 a.m. local time.

Neither man required medical treatment, police said in a statement.

Swift performed in Sydney and Melbourne for the Australia leg of her global “Eras Tour,” continuing her string of concerts across the Asia-Pacific region; earlier in February, she performed in Tokyo, and is set to perform in Singapore in March.

Australian police have found two bodies in the search for a missing couple allegedly killed by a police officer.

New South Wales Senior Constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, 28, was charged last week with the murders of his former boyfriend Jesse Baird, 26, and Luke Davies, 29.

“We’re very confident that we have located Luke and Jesse,” NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb told a news conference on Tuesday.

Lamarre-Condon had provided information to help locate the bodies, Webb added.

The bodies, which have yet to be examined, were discovered in two surf bags covered in debris on a property in the NSW town of Bungonia, Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty said.

Crime scene detectives were at the location investigating, Webb said.

“Each day, each hour was an agonizing wait, so I’m relieved for the families,” she said.

Davies, a flight attendant, and Baird, a former television presenter, were last seen at Baird’s home in the eastern Sydney suburb of Paddington on February 19. Fears for their safety rose after their bloodied belongings were found in a skip container in Cronulla, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) away.

Police previously said that a search of Baird’s home found blood, a “projectile” and a fired cartridge case that was matched to Lamarre-Condon’s firearm.

Lamarre-Condon appeared in court Friday charged with two counts of murder. He did not apply for bail.