Michigan State University intends to fire head football coach Mel Tucker after the coach was accused of sexual harassment, the university announced Monday.

“I, with the support of administration and board, have provided Mel Tucker with written notice of intent to terminate his contract for cause,” the school’s vice president and director of athletics Alan Haller said in a news release. “This notification process is required as part of his existing contract. The notice provides Tucker with seven calendar days to respond and present reasons to me and the interim president as to why he should not be terminated for cause.”

The move comes just over a week after USA Today reported Tucker was under investigation for alleged sexual harassment, leading the university to suspend him without pay.

In a statement Tuesday, Tucker said the university knew since at least March about the information it relied on to end his contract. He said the move to terminate him only came after the allegation was leaked to the press.

“The investigation is designed to determine if I violated policy. I did not. But regardless, basic fairness requires that process play out before any sanction(s) are determined,” he wrote.

Tucker also said the notice came after he emailed Haller to request medical leave “for a serious health condition.”

When asked about Tucker’s statement, Michigan State University said it had no additional comment beyond the notice of intent and statement sent Monday.

According to the USA Today report, Tucker is alleged to have made sexual comments and masturbated while on a phone call with Brenda Tracy, an advocate and rape survivor.

Tracy reported her call with Tucker to the university’s Title IX office, USA Today reported. “The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Tracy told USA Today. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”

The investigation into the coach’s conduct began in December 2022, Haller said at a news conference earlier this month.

Tucker, a defensive coach in college and the NFL over the past two decades, became Michigan State’s head coach in 2020. In his second season, the team went a sterling 11-2, and he signed a massive 10-year, $95 million contract that made him one of the highest paid coaches in college football. Last year, though, the team finished a disappointing 5-7, including blowout losses to rivals Michigan and Ohio State.

University says Tucker violated policy

The university released a copy of the notice they sent Tucker, along with a copy of his employment agreement signed in 2021 – which they claim he violated and admitted to violating during the investigation.

The notice says Tucker “made unwelcome sexual advances towards” an activist contracted by the university to provide sexual misconduct education to the school’s football team. Tucker “masturbated on a phone call without her consent,” the document says.

“While the formal grievance process proceeds, the above-described undisputed facts provide multiple grounds for termination under the Agreement’s Early Termination Provision,” the notice to Tucker reads.

The notice claims Tucker admitted to making comments about the activist’s body, made flirtatious comments, masturbated and made “sexually explicit comments” about himself and her while on a phone call with the activist.

The coach’s behavior “constitutes a material breach” of his duties, “demonstrates ‘conduct which constitutes moral turpitude,’” and “has brought ‘public disrespect, contempt, or ridicule upon the University,” all of which are grounds for his firing, according to the document.

“The unprofessional and unethical behavior is particularly egregious given that the Vendor at issue was contracted by the University for the sole purpose of educating student-athletes on, and preventing instances of, inappropriate sexual conduct,” the document reads.

The school is conducting an investigation into the incident in accordance with its “Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct” policy and Title IX.

An attorney for Tracy, Karen Truszkowski, said no police report was filed. She issued a statement on behalf of her client last week.

“Brenda Tracy had no intention of publicly disclosing her identity,” the statement read. “She was and continues to be committed to complying with and concluding the MSU internal investigative process. She respected the process and chose not to go to the media to preserve the integrity of the process.

“After the investigation process was completed, we would have determined, what, if any further steps to take. Instead, her identity was disclosed without her knowledge or consent, warranting express actions to protect her. Her choice to allow this process to proceed privately was taken away.”

University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders on Tuesday condemned death threats reportedly made against a Colorado State University player who was involved in a play that injured a Colorado star over the weekend.

Sanders, speaking at a scheduled news conference ahead of the Colorado Buffaloes’ upcoming game at Oregon, said he himself receives weekly death threats but “a kid” should never be exposed to this type of intimidation.

Sanders was referring to Colorado State Rams safety Henry Blackburn, who was penalized for unnecessary roughness after he made a late hit Saturday on Buffaloes player Travis Hunter in Colorado’s 43-35 double-overtime win over Colorado State. Hunter, a standout wide receiver and cornerback, was hospitalized following the blow to his midsection.

“Henry Blackburn is a good player who played a phenomenal game. He made a tremendous hit on Travis on the sideline,” Sanders said. “You could call it dirty, you could call it, ‘He was just playing the game of football,’ but whatever it was, it does not constitute that he should be receiving death threats.”

On Monday, Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell said Blackburn and Blackburn’s family had been receiving threats since the hit on Hunter. The university and police are supporting Blackburn, Norvell said.

Sanders said he is “saddened if there’s any of our fans that’s on the other side of those threats.”

“I would hope and pray not. That kid was just playing the best of his ability and he made a mistake,” Sanders said.

Hunter and the Colorado team had forgiven Blackburn, Sanders said. Hunter was released from the hospital on Monday, the coach said.

“It’s football at the end of the day. Stuff like that (the late hit) is going to happen,” Hunter said while speaking during a livestream on Monday. “He (Blackburn) did what he was supposed to do. It’s football. Something bad is going to happen on the field sooner or later. You just got to get up and fight again. That’s what I try to do.”

Sanders, who also answered questions about the Buffaloes’ victory and their upcoming game against Oregon, ended his news conference with another condemnation of the threats against Blackburn.

“Let’s pray for that kid. That is absurd for people to be threatening him. I don’t mind getting death threats. I get them every week,” he said. “But a kid, it’s not good.”

Fort Collins police are “fully committed to the safety and security of individuals in our community and take all threats against anyone’s life seriously,” Fort Collins police Lt. Sara Lynd said.

For most of us, the prospect of a long-haul flight is exciting, mixed with a few nerves. We’re off somewhere different – perhaps a vacation, maybe to catch up with friends or family. Even work can be more interesting when you’re in a new location.

Of course, you want to arrive fully rested and ready to go. But by its very definition, a long-haul flight involves travelling for a long period of time, often more than 12 hours. If you’re on a flight from New York to Singapore, it can be close to 19 hours.

All that time you’re confined in a seat that’s supposed to recline but feels like it hardly moves, while the seat in front seems to recline ten times lower than yours.

So, what can you do to get a a decent rest?

Accept the situation

The first tip for sleep in this setting is to relax your expectations a little.

Humans are just not well designed to sleep in an almost upright position. Unless you’re lucky to fly in a class with a lie-flat seat, you’re very unlikely to step off a long-haul flight having had a solid eight hours of sleep.

Research by colleagues and myself has shown pilots – who get a bunk to sleep in during their in-flight rest breaks – have light and fragmented sleep. Despite not having great quality sleep, you can be assured our research also shows pilots remain very good at their job throughout a long-haul flight. This, plus findings from many other lab-based studies, tells us that even a short amount of light sleep has benefits.

So, even if you can’t get your usual eight hours during the flight, any sleep you do get will help you feel and function better at your destination.

Also, we’re not great at judging how much sleep we’ve had, particularly if our sleep is light and broken. So you’re likely to have slept more than you think.

Time your sleep and drinks

The timing of your flight, and consumption of alcohol and caffeine will directly impact your ability to sleep on an aircraft.

Assuming you’re adjusted to the time zone the flight departs from, daytime flights will make sleep on board much harder, whereas nighttime flights make sleep easier.

All humans have a circadian (24-hour) time-keeping system, which programs us for sleep at night and wakefulness during the day. Sleeping (or waking) against this biological time-keeping system poses significant challenges.

We do have a natural decrease of alertness in the middle of the afternoon, which makes this a good time to try for sleep on a daytime flight. On nighttime flights it will be easier to sleep once the dinner service is finished, otherwise you will be battling noise, light and the movement of people around you.

As a stimulant, caffeine helps us stay alert. Even if you’re a regular coffee drinker and can fall asleep after drinking caffeine, your sleep will be lighter and you’ll be more easily woken.

On the other hand, alcohol makes us feel sleepy, but it interferes with our brains’ ability to have REM sleep (also known as dreaming sleep). Although you may fall asleep more easily after consuming alcohol, your sleep will be more disturbed once your body metabolizes the alcohol and attempts to catch up on the REM sleep it’s missed out on.

What about taking melatonin or other drugs?

Some people find taking a sleeping tablet or melatonin can help on a plane. This is a very personal choice.

Before taking sleeping medication or melatonin you should see your doctor, and only take what’s prescribed for you. Many sleeping medications do not allow perfectly normal sleep to occur and can make you feel groggy and drowsy after waking.

Importantly, melatonin is a hormone our brains use to tell us it’s nighttime. Melatonin can assist with sleep, but depending on when and how much you take, it can also shift your circadian clock. This could shift you further away from being aligned with the destination time zone.

Taking melatonin in your biological afternoon and evening will shift your circadian time-keeping system east (or earlier) and taking it toward the end of your biological night and in your biological morning will shift the circadian time-keeping system west (or later). It gets complicated very quickly!

Prepare your clothes and accessories

Be prepared so you can create the best possible sleep situation within the constraints of an aircraft seat.

Wear comfy layers, so you can take things off if you get too hot or put things on when you cool down, and hang on to that blanket instead of losing it under your seat.

Light and noise disturb sleep, so pack eye shades and earplugs (or a noise cancelling headset) to block these out. Practice with eye shades and earplugs at home, as it can take a few sleeps to get used to them.

A normal and necessary part of the falling asleep process is relaxation, including our neck muscles. When sitting up, this means our heavy heads will no longer be well supported, resulting in that horrible head-dropping experience most of us have had. Try supporting your head with a neck pillow or, if you have a window seat, against the aircraft wall. (Unless you know the person in the next seat well, they are probably not a good option to prop you up.)

Don’t try to force it

Finally, if you wake up and are struggling to go back to sleep, don’t fight it.

Take advantage of the in-flight entertainment. This is one of the few times sleep scientists will tell you it’s okay to turn on the technology – watch a movie, binge-watch a TV series, or if you prefer, listen to music or read a good book.

When you feel sleepy, you can try going back to sleep, but don’t get stressed or worried about getting enough sleep. Our brains are very good at sleeping – trust that your body will catch you up when it can.

Leigh Signal is Professor in Fatigue Management and Sleep Health/Associate Dean, Research at Massey University.

New “treasures and secrets” have been revealed at the site of a sunken temple off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) announced in a news release Tuesday.

An underwater archaeological team, led by French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio, has made further discoveries at the site of a temple to god Amun in the ancient port city of Thonis-Heracleion in the Bay of Aboukir, the institute said.

The team investigated the city’s south canal, where huge blocks of stone from the ancient temple collapsed “during a cataclysmic event dated to the mid-second century BC,” the institute said.

The temple to god Amun was where pharaohs came “to receive the titles of their power as universal kings from the supreme god of the ancient Egyptian pantheon,” it said.

“Precious objects belonging to the temple treasury have been unearthed, such as silver ritual instruments, gold jewelry and fragile alabaster containers for perfumes or unguents,” IEASM said. “They bear witness to the wealth of this sanctuary and the piety of the former inhabitants of the port city.”

The archaeological excavations, conducted jointly by Goddio’s team and the Department of Underwater Archaeology of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt, revealed underground structures “supported by very well-preserved wooden posts and beams dating from the 5th century BC,” the institute said.

“It is extremely moving to discover such delicate objects, which survived intact despite the violence and magnitude of the cataclysm,” said Goddio, who is president of IEASM and director of excavations.

The discoveries were made possible thanks to the development and use of new geophysical prospecting technologies that can detect cavities and objects “buried under layers of clay several meters thick,” the institute said.

Relics from Greek presence, too

East of the Amun temple, a Greek sanctuary devoted to Aphrodite was discovered containing bronze and ceramic objects.

“This illustrates that Greeks who were allowed to trade and settle in the city during the time of the Pharaohs of the Saïte dynasty (664 – 525 BC) had their sanctuaries to their own gods,” the institute said.

The discoveries of Greek weapons also reveal the presence of Greek mercenaries in the area, IEASM said. “They were defending the access to the Kingdom at the mouth of the Canopic Branch of the Nile. This branch was the largest and the best navigable one in antiquity.”

The remains of Thonis-Heracleion are now located under the sea, 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the present coast of Egypt, IEASM said. The city was for centuries Egypt’s largest port on the Mediterranean before the founding of Alexandria by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.

“Rising sea levels and earthquakes followed by tidal waves triggering land liquefaction events, caused a 110 square kilometer portion of the Nile delta to totally disappear under the sea, taking with it the city of Thonis-Heracleion,” the institute said.

The city was discovered by the IEASM in 2000.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has been extradited from Mexico to the United States, the US Department of Justice has announced.

The extradition was a “result of United States and Mexico law enforcement cooperation,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement Friday that referred to Guzman as a “leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.”

“This action is the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations,” Garland added.

An initial court appearance hasn’t been set, but the US Attorney’s office expects it to happen on Monday, he said.

Guzman was arrested by Mexican authorities in January of this year following a dramatic operation in the northern state of Sinaloa that led to 29 deaths and has been in custody since then. The US has been seeking his extradition for drug trafficking.

Following his arrest in Culiacán, chaos erupted in the city with authorities asking citizens to shelter at home as law enforcement clashed with cartel members in various parts of the city.

At least 19 suspected gang members and 10 military personnel died during those clashes. No civilian deaths or injuries were reported.

Guzman had previously been arrested in October 2019, but was released on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to avoid bloodshed, and subsequently went into hiding until his arrest in 2023.

His extradition follows the release from a US prison of Emma Coronel Aispuro, El Chapo’s wife, on Wednesday. She had served nearly two years for drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

The state of Sinaloa, where Culiacán is located, is home to one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel, of which “El Chapo” was the leader.

The US State Department believes that Guzman and his brother, Joaquín Guzman-Lopez, “inherited a great deal of the narcotics proceeds” following the death of another brother, Edgar Guzman-Lopez.

It alleges they “began investing large amounts of the cash into the purchasing of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia.”

“They also began purchasing large amounts of ephedrine from Argentina and arranged for the smuggling of the product into Mexico as they began to experiment with methamphetamine production,” the State Department said.

The brothers are also alleged to oversee an estimated 11 “methamphetamine labs in the state of Sinaloa,” according to the State Department.

In his statement following the extradition, Attorney General Garland paid tribute to the law enforcement officials involved.

“The fight against the cartels has involved incredible courage by United States law enforcement and Mexican law enforcement and military service members, many of whom have given their lives in the pursuit of justice,” Garland said.

“I am grateful to them and to the department’s prosecutors for their work and their sacrifice. I am also grateful to our Mexican government counterparts for this extradition. The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.”

Guzman’s father, “El Chapo,” famously escaped from Altiplano prison on July 11, 2015, through a mile-long tunnel that featured a motorcycle on tracks.

He was later captured and convicted in the US four years later of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking and firearms charges.

He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture.

Two women who were arrested while attending a Sarah Everard vigil in London in 2021 have been paid damages and received an apology from the Metropolitan Police.

A lawyer’s statement on Thursday confirmed that the London police force had apologized and agreed to pay “substantial” damages to the women, Patsy Stevenson and Dania Al-Obeid.

The vigil took place in Clapham Common, London, in memory of Everard, a 33-year old who was murdered by a serving Met officer while walking home in early March 2021. Strict Covid restrictions were in place at the time.

The police force was criticized by women’s rights activists for its heavy handling of protesters towards the end of the event.

Officers forcibly removed women from the bandstand and some, including Stevenson, were pinned down to the ground.

“Together with making payments of substantial damages to Dania Al-Obeid and Patsy Stevenson, the MPS has issued an apology,” the statement by law firm Bindmans LLP reads.

According to the law firm, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) “acknowledge that women wanted to attend the vigil because they were ‘understandably’ feeling ‘badly let down by the Met’, that the purpose of the vigil was to facilitate public expression of grief and anger, and that people’s presence at it was protected by the fundamental right to protest.”

“The MPS has expressed regret that Patsy and Dania’s opportunity to express grief and anger was ‘curtailed by [their] arrest and removal’ and that these legal proceedings have been necessary,” the firm added.

‘Tiring and difficult’ process

In a statement published by Bindmans LLP, Patsy Stevenson said the process had been a “tiring and difficult” one.

“It has taken over two years to reach this conclusion, it’s been a really tiring and difficult process but it has felt important to push for some form of accountability and justice for myself and all women who attended the vigil to express our anger and grief over the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer,” Stevenson said.

“I’m glad that the police have recognised that we had a fundamental right to protest but since then this right has been further eroded and undermined by the Public Order Act. It is our politicians who have rewarded the Met with greater police powers despite the murder of Sarah Everard and the policing of the vigil, which has exposed deeply embedded misogyny within the Met Police internationally,” she added.

Stevenson said she was “relieved this chapter is over,” and she will “continue to stand in solidarity with all those fighting for truth, justice and accountability arising from racist, misogynistic or homophobic policing.”

Dania Al-Obeid said she found the journey “incredibly difficult but very important as a survivor of domestic violence and someone who has been failed by the police in that context.”

Al-Obeid said she has felt “empowered holding the police to account for how they have treated me and other women who attended the vigil.”

She added; “I have found my voice through this process and I finally feel heard. I appreciate that the Met Police have acknowledged our motivations for attending it but ‘badly let down’ is an understatement. I have felt abused, abandoned by the police prior to, during and post the vigil – I do not feel protected or safe with any police force.”

A spokesperson for the Met Police said in a press release Thursday that the Clapham Common vigil “took place in extraordinary circumstances, in the midst of a pandemic where restrictions on gatherings were in force for very valid public health reasons and in the days immediately following the most appalling murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer.”

“We tried to achieve a balance that recognised the rights of the public to protest and to express their grief and sadness, while also continuing to enforce the relevant Covid legislation,” the spokesperson continued.

“We are working every day to make London a city where women and girls can feel and be safe and where communities can have trust and confidence in their police service.”

Elahe Tavakolian’s shooter was so close, she could see him pointing his gun at her.

“He was maybe 30 or 40 meters (100 to 130 feet) away,” she recalls. “He was a police officer. And everybody knew him.”

Around her, she says, protesters were chanting “death to the dictator,” as two men tore down a billboard bearing the face of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

When gunshots interrupted the celebrations, Tavakolian moved to shield her 10-year-old twins and younger sister, who had accompanied her to the demonstration.

It was the evening of September 21, 2022, days after the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini in the custody of Iran’s notorious morality police. Flares of dissent were slowly lighting up cities and small towns like Esfarayen in the northeast of the country, where Tavakolian was shot.

In the face of a brutal crackdown by the regime, protests spread like wildfire in the following weeks.

“It was like a fire hidden under the ashes,” Tavakolian says of the protests.

“I had lots of discontent even before what happened to Mahsa. The corruption, the compulsory hijab, the dictatorship. There are a lot of problems in Iran. I personally was always a dissident. The poverty is unbearable. People can’t afford to live,” says the one-time PhD student who also worked in a factory, explaining what prompted her to join the protests.

Like her motives, her gunshot injury too would soon become a familiar story in Iran.

In a video a fellow protester later sent to her of the moments after her injury, she appears with a bloodied face, screaming in pain. Protesters rush to her aid, pouring water on her right eye.

But Tavakolian says she struggled to get to a hospital for the urgent medical treatment she needed.

She wells up with tears as she remembers the “bitterest” night in her life. Strands of hair conceal the right side of her face.

Frantic search for help

Taxi drivers, afraid of the police, didn’t stop to help. Tavakolian says a woman, driving her car, looked at her bleeding, locked the doors and drove away, she says. A man tried to steer her to an ambulance, but protesters pulled her away, saying he was a plain-clothed security agent, she says.

Finally, a couple in a car were brave enough to transport her to the hospital, she recalls, but it would take hours before she received the help she needed.

In the emergency room, medics washed and patched her eye, but the doctor refused to treat her, she says. “I clearly heard him saying, ‘I want nothing to do with those who are shot.’ I was left alone for two hours,” she says.

In a video taken of her that night, she appears in a blue gown in a hospital bed, her voice barely audible: “I’m in pain. It burns. I’m dying. I don’t want to be blind.”

It was only when she was moved to a hospital in a different city that she got proper medical treatment, she says. After the first surgery, doctors instructed her to stay in a dark room for almost a month to prevent further damage to her eye. The pellet that injured her was still lodged in her eye.

‘Deliberate’ targeting of eyes

In the confines of a dark room in November, she recalls hearing gunshots ringing out in the streets. Meanwhile, the demonstrations were growing bigger, as were the number of protesters with serious eye injuries. Tavakolian felt like her fight wasn’t over. By the time she went back to the streets to protest in November, the number of eye injuries among protesters was in the hundreds, according to Amnesty International.

More than 300 people were also killed in months-long protests, including more than 40 children, the UN said in November last year. US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in January placed the number of dead at more than 500, including 70 children. Thousands were arrested across the country, the UN said in a report in June, citing research released last year by their Human Rights Committee.

“I felt like I must continue. I felt like my fight is not over yet. I must finish the path I stepped into. Blood that should not have been shed, had been shed.

“Referring to the death of Mahsa Amini, Tavakolian says, “A young woman who should not have been killed, had been killed. I felt it is my responsibility to go.”

Initially, she says, it would break her heart to look in the mirror and see a patch covering her right eye, but she soon began publicly posting about her experience on her Instagram page.

A photo with a white heart covering her injured eye became a symbol for protesters with similar injuries.

Rights defenders and activists allege that the targeting of eyes was part of an intentional government plan to punish protesters.

“The attackers have therefore been executing a deliberate and systematic plan to blind protesters by shooting at their eyes,” activist media group IranWire wrote in a report that documented at least 580 cases, with injuries resulting from being hit by pellets, teargas canisters, paintball bullets or other projectiles.

At the time, more than 100 Iranian ophthalmologists sent a public letter to the government noting the surge in cases and “warning about the irreparable consequences of such severe eye injuries.”

Iranian authorities have previously rejected such accusations. A billboard photographed in Iran at the time depicted people claiming they were injured in the eye as liars.

‘They cannot stop the spring’

Still hopeful her eye could be saved, Tavakolian was due to have a third surgery in Iran in November, but says she was refused treatment due to her social media activism. She also says she received a summons from the intelligence ministry accusing her of leading riots and damaging public property.

Her eye eventually became infected. Fearing she would lose sight in that eye permanently and concerned for her safety, Tavakolian left the country in March without her family, who were unable to leave with her. She was able to seek treatment in Milan with the help of Italian journalist Roberta Rei, who had covered her story and facilitated her trip. When doctors at the city’s San Raffaele Hospital discovered that the pellet had moved, they decided to remove her right eye to save her left one.

“I endured all that hardship so that I can get my eye back. But suddenly, they told me that my eye and the pellet must be removed together,” she recalls, in tears.

Now fitted with a prosthetic eye in Italy, Tavakolian is coming to terms with her new reality. Her biggest concern is whether she will ever see her children again.

“My situation is very tough. I came here injured, alone with nothing, and I have to start over. I really hope that my life can get back on track and peace comes back to my life,” she says. She has applied for asylum and is taking Italian language classes.

She dreams of going back to Iran one day, but until then, she says, she’s determined to be a voice for those inside the country. In the face of a deadly regime crackdown, protests died down in Iran earlier this year. But traces of a movement that started with some women burning their headscarves are still visible. Women can be seen walking through some streets and markets in Iran without their heads covered, despite a renewed government campaign to penalize them for this.

Iran’s morality police resumed headscarf patrols in July and Iranian authorities are considering a draconian new bill on hijab-wearing that experts say would enshrine unprecedentedly harsh punitive measures in law.

“So many say this revolution is over. But it is not over,” Tavakolian says. “Across the country women are now going out without hijab. Because they are no longer afraid of them. This is our method of civil resistance.”

Walking through the busy streets of Milan, she raises her hands, flashing a victory sign. She sits down and removes her big sunglasses, pushing her hair back, revealing the prosthetic eye and a big smile.

“They shot my eye and they shot others, but the struggle is going on. No matter how many they kill, they cannot stop the spring from coming; they cannot keep the freedom from returning to us,” she says.

Tunisian leader Kais Saied has claimed that the “Zionist movement” was behind the naming of Storm Daniel, which brought on massive floods that killed thousands of people in Libya last week, prompting outrage and accusations of antisemitism.

“Has no one questioned why it was called so? Who is Daniel? He is a Hebrew prophet,” said the 65-year-old president in a nearly hour-long monologue at a cabinet meeting on Monday. “Why did they name the storm Daniel? Because the Zionist movement has penetrated, has made it to the core of the mind and thinking… From Abraham to Daniel, it is clear.”

Swaths of the Mediterranean region have been lashed by Storm Daniel this month. The storm was the result of a very strong low-pressure system that became a “medicane” – a relatively rare type of storm with similar characteristics to hurricanes and typhoons which can bring dangerous rainfall and flooding.

The storm was named Daniel by the national meteorological services in southeast Europe, and formed on September 5, affecting Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and finally Libya – which witnessed the worst devastation and highest death toll.

Storm names are picked from a list compiled by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization committee. The names are often arranged alphabetically, and they vary by region as they are meant to be familiar to the people in each impacted area.

The president’s comments sparked outrage on social media. Some dismissed his speech as a misinformed rant, noting that the biblical figure Daniel is also revered as a prophet by Muslims.

Others denounced Saied’s comments as antisemitic.

Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi who focuses on Tunisia, said that Saied’s comments were part of a pattern of “scapegoating and victimizing” different groups, including Black migrants and members of the opposition.

In the cabinet meeting, Saied said that his “issue is not with Jews” but with the “international Zionist movement.”

Tunisia is home to between 1,500 and 2,000 Jews, down from nearly 100,000 in the 1940s, according to Minority Rights Group International. Around one third of Tunisian Jews live in the capital Tunis, while the remainder are in Djerba, an island off the coast of the country.

A deadly attack at the synagogue on Djerba island earlier this year led Saied to pledge safety for all Jews in the country.

The president is no stranger to controversy and has been accused of peddling racism in the past. This year, Saied decried the incompatibility of Black African “values” with those of Tunisians, saying his grandfather “used to buy and sell them.” He also said that Black migration to the country was a plot to change the racial makeup of the country.

Saied embarked on a major power grab in 2021, ousting the government, dissolving parliament, and deciding to rule by decree. Last year, he pushed through a new constitution that only cemented his one-man rule.

In his speech, Saied also denied being racist against Africans, saying “we are proud of being African.” He attributed accusations of racism against him as “part of the international Zionist movement.”

He also attacked other Arab countries’ normalization deals with Israel, calling them “high treason.”

Marks said that Tunisia’s dwindling Jewish community is alarmed by Saied’s conspiratorial rhetoric, which she says represents an “extreme Arab nationalist minority.” His comments, she said, sharpen the antisemitic discourse “in new and dangerous ways.”

More than 200 people were arrested at the alleged wedding party in the southern Delta State on August 28 – one of Nigeria’s biggest mass arrests in recent years targeting the country’s LGBTQ community.

Sixty-nine of them were prosecuted for “allegedly conducting and attending a same-sex wedding ceremony,” their lawyer and police said.

Same-sex relationships are criminalized in Nigeria, and its penal code approves lengthy prison sentences of up to 10 and 14 years respectively for people who are convicted of witnessing or entering into a same-sex civil union.

“They have been granted bail officially by the court under very reasonable terms,” he said.

“All of them should be out this week. They need a surety who will show evidence of income and must be resident within the judicial division. The surety should be able to earn at least one million naira ($1,290) in a year,” he added.

The suspects, aged between 16 and 40 years, were not present in court for the bail hearing, according to Ohimor, who also said the court will reconvene at a later date for a further hearing on the matter.

Their bail request was granted by the Delta State High Court.

The suspects were first paraded to the media by police before being charged to court.

A police official described the alleged gay wedding as evil, adding “we cannot copy the western world… we are Nigeria, and we must follow the culture of this country.”

“I have been scandalized,” he added. “Some say I’m a gay lawyer that’s why I’m defending them. People look at me with disgust for standing for them.”

American golfer Gary Woodland has undergone surgery to remove a tumor on his brain, an update posted to his social media accounts said.

The former US Open champion underwent a “long” operation on Monday that removed the majority of the lesion, a diagnosis he revealed in a post on August 30.

Discovered a few months prior, the Kansas-born 39-year-old said he had attempted to treat the symptoms with medication before the decision for surgery was taken.

Woodland, whose last competitive appearance came at North Carolina’s Wyndham Championship in early August, will now undergo a period of rest.

“At this time, the family requests space and privacy to be together,” Monday’s post added.

“Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers as he gets started on the road to recovery.”

A four-time winner on the PGA Tour, the highlight of Woodland’s 16-year professional career came at Pebble Beach in 2019 when he beat compatriot Brooks Koepka by three shots to lift the US Open, his first major title.

That marks his most recent win on the PGA Tour, though he has finished twice inside the top-10 this season and ranked 74th in the world after his tied-27th finish at the Wyndham Championship.