A drone attack caused an explosion near Russia’s military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don on Thursday, as Kyiv continues a campaign of strategic aerial strikes in Russian territory.

An “emergency mode” was enacted around the crash site and nearly 100 residents were offered alternative temporary accommodation, Golubev said. Kyiv did not make any immediate comment.

Rostov-on-Don is in southern Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was briefly occupied by Wagner troops during the private military group’s brief rebellion against the Kremlin earlier this year.

The strike was one of several to hit Russia overnight. Russian air defense systems separately intercepted a drone attack near Moscow, the capital’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in a post on Telegram on Thursday.

“Tonight, in the Ramensky urban district, air defense forces thwarted a drone attack on Moscow. There is no damage or casualties at the site of the fall of the wreckage. Emergency services are on site,” Sobyanin said in the post.

Ukraine is showing increasing willingness to launch targeted strikes across the border, in an apparent attempt to slowly wear down domestic Russian support for the war and degrade Russian infrastructure.

The attacks have come amid the continued assault of Ukrainian cities by Moscow, whose attacks regularly target civilian areas.

On Wednesday, at least 17 people including a child were killed after a Russian missile struck a market in a town in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, officials said. It was one of the worst attacks in months.

“Russian troops are terrorists who will not be forgiven and will not be left in peace,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Telegram. “There will be a just retribution for everything.”

In addition to the attacks on Russian territory, Kyiv has continued to also hit Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.

Russian-appointed officials in occupied Zaporizhzhia say there was another Ukrainian drone attack on Enerhodar, the city adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, early on Thursday.

Ukraine is meanwhile “slowly gaining ground” in its counteroffensive despite weeks of difficult fighting, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

“The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground,” he told the European Parliament. “This is heavy fighting, difficult fighting but they have been able to breach the defensive lines of the Russian forces. And they are moving forward.”

His remarks come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent out a strong message last week regarding Ukraine’s progress, tweeting: “No matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are on the move.”

As Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) grows ever popular, the country’s once dominant Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party finds itself at a crossroads.

The center-right CDU was in power for much of Germany’s post-war era and oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany. It remains the country’s most popular party but now sits in opposition – an unaccustomed position – while the center-left Social Democrats govern in coalition with the Green Party and Free Democrats (FDP).

With polls showing the AfD gaining on the CDU, state elections approaching in the fall and a European Parliament election next year, the party formerly led by ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing a dilemma over how to move forward.

The CDU has long shunned the AfD because of its anti-democratic stance and fringe ideologies, which include an openly anti-migrant, euroskeptic, Islamophobic and anti-feminist agenda. As a result, CDU leader Friedrich Merz caused shockwaves in July when he left open the possibility of collaboration with the party on the local and municipal level.

In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, Merz said it was “natural” to look at ways to continue to work cooperatively if an AfD mayor or district administrator was voted in.

Merz backpedaled later that month, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter: “To clarify it once again, and I never said it differently: the CDU resolution is valid. There will be no CDU cooperation on the local level with the AfD.”

Still, his comments were enough to spark an outcry – not least from members of his own party – and raise concerns that the party’s resolve could be weakening.

Berlin’s CDU mayor, Kai Wegner, took to X to write: “What cooperation is there to be had?

“The CDU cannot, does not want to and won’t work with a party whose business model is hatred, division and exclusion.”

Meanwhile, members of the AfD believe that shunning their party will soon be a luxury the CDU can’t afford.

Unlike many of its Western allies, coalition governments are a natural part of German politics. An electoral system established after World War II makes it almost impossible for a single party to win power, meaning multiple parties are expected to band together to form a majority.

The AfD has found particular resonance with voters in Germany’s former communist states. A poll conducted by INSA (Institute for New Social Answers) and published last Thursday found that the AfD had eclipsed the CDU in popularity in the eastern state of Saxony. There, the AfD is now polling at 35% – a significant 6 percentage points above the CDU at 29%.

The new figures have thrown into question how long Saxony’s current state governing coalition of the CDU, SPD, and the Greens can last.

A Deutschlandtrend poll conducted by public broadcaster ARD in early August found that the majority of Germans – 64% – continue to support the CDU’s decision to reject cooperation with the AfD, although this opinion has become less popular since March 2020.

There are also clear differences between West and East Germany, with just under half of East Germans – 47% – agreeing with the CDU’s refusal to cooperate with the AfD, compared with 68% of West Germans.

In March 2021, the AfD was formally placed under surveillance by Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence service on suspicion of trying to undermine Germany’s democratic constitution – making it the first party to be monitored in this way since the Nazi era crumbled in 1945. And in April this year, the BfV labeled the party’s youth wing as “extremist,” a finding it rejected.

Voter appeal

But speaking on condition of anonymity, a former CDU voter who switched allegiance to the AfD had one overarching complaint: the CDU no longer represents the middle ground.

The voter, from Saxony Anhalt state, said that he believed the CDU had “slid very far to the left,” adding that many of his friends and colleagues “think the same way.”

“The CDU used to have conservative policies for mainstream society. This is no longer the case today and many feel they are no longer represented here,” he said.

Kühne, who also serves as the religious spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group in Saxony, echoed this sentiment.

The Saxony Anhalt voter cited migration and energy costs as well as “internal security” as the main issues that were driving voters away from the CDU and towards the AfD.

“Many people who have not received asylum should actually leave the country. However, they are tolerated and receive social assistance,” he said, adding that he believes that illegal immigrants are carrying out “extreme acts of violence almost every day” in Germany.

Data from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office does not support this, with a report finding that the rate of crimes committed by migrants sank for a third year in a row in 2022, with one in 14 criminal offenses in Germany committed by immigrants. The same data showed a rise in attacks against migrants.

Kühne gave similar explanations for why some German voters were turning to the far-right.

”Migration is, of course, an important issue. And we need to say it: it’s getting too ‘crowded’ here. The municipalities are only just coping… We will see a tipping point. At some point, our society will no longer be able to cope.”

Speaking specifically about refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, he said: “Our heart is wide and open, but everything has its limits.

“We have an influx of 12,000 people in the city of Leipzig alone. These are official figures for just Ukrainians.”

Data from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, shows that Germany had taken in over one million Ukrainian refugees to date – a figure higher than other European countries including neighbouring Poland.

During the 2015 European migrant crisis, then-chancellor Merkel adopted an “open-door” policy which saw hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in Syria and beyond arrive in Germany – a decision which attracted both praise and criticism.

“But it’s not just migration,” Kühne added. “Our economy is stagnating, and this is backfiring.

“People can’t even fill up their cars at the gas station anymore,” he sadi, citing the scenario of a mother of “a young family with two small children” who is forced to cancel a weekend trip away with her family so that she can afford to fill her car with petrol.

The AfD appears to be capitalizing on societal grievances and learning to speak the language of the mainstream to great effect, while not abandoning its more extremist positions.

The party has begun to talk more seriously about economic policy and argues that the government’s commitment to climate policies and supporting Ukraine’s war effort are placing overly burdensome costs on the German taxpayer.

Populist parties as ‘lightning rods’

The CDU’s Michael Kretschmer, state premier of Saxony, believes a shift in policy is the best approach for democratic parties to stop the rise of the far-right.

He has been vocal about how a surge in illegal immigration is contributing to support for the AfD.

Opinion polls in his state, one of the five that make up Germany’s former east, put the AfD in the lead; Saxony has long been a stronghold for the far-right party.

Still, Kretschmer rules out any kind of collaboration. “Of course, one cannot work together with anyone who is a danger for democracy.”

He also cites a lack of trust in the current SPD-led government as the reason for a surge in support for the AfD.

“In the past, we have seen time and again that people choose populist parties as lightning rods when trust in the government’s abilities and in democratic structures wanes,” he said.

“Trust has fallen because the federal government is too hesitant and is not tackling and solving the problems in our country that are visible to everyone.

“Citizens as well as businesses rightly expect that the federal government will finally tackle the important issues; high energy prices and inflation, a stagnating economy and growing illegal migration.”

As the AfD continues its rise, it is clear that all of Germany’s democratic parties will have to adapt to the new political landscape; although none more so than the CDU, which may have a fight on its hands to maintain its status as the country’s most popular right-of center party.

When Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made an official visit to the crime-ridden Neapolitan suburb of Caivano last week, she promised a “radical reclamation” of a territory she admitted “the state had failed.”

Meloni, the country’s first female prime minister, was there to draw attention to an alleged systematic gang rape of pre-teen cousins by a group of delinquents.

The alleged repeated rapes of the two girls – aged 10 and 12 at the time and now in protective custody out of fear their families can’t protect them – capped a summer of headlines about sexual violence and gender-related killings of women and girls.

Neither of these issues has so far been a focus of Meloni’s “Italy-first” traditional family agenda, which has focused on removing same sex parents from birth certificates, clamping down on inheritance rights for gay couples, and seeking to criminalize surrogacy with prison terms even if it is carried out abroad.

Her trip to Caivano was overshadowed by comments made by her partner, Andrea Giambruno, an Italian journalist with whom she shares a daughter but to whom she is not married, who suggested some of the sexual violence over the summer was the fault of the victims.

“If you go dancing you are fully entitled to get drunk,” he said on his television program. “But if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, perhaps you’d also avoid getting into trouble, because then you’ll find the wolf.”

His comments came while discussing the case of a 19-year-old woman who was allegedly gang-raped by seven men at a party near the Sicilian city of Palermo in August.

When questioned by a guest on the program, Giambruno tried to defend his words by digging in deeper: “(A man) might say to his daughter, ‘Look, don’t get in a car with a stranger. Because it is very true that you should not be raped because it is an abominable thing. But if you avoid getting into the car with a stranger, maybe you won’t run into that danger,’” he said by way of clarification, failing to blame the young men who allegedly committed the crime.

“Perhaps we should start passing this message across and be a little more protective, in terms of vocabulary and language,” he added.

He might have been thinking of his own 7-year-old daughter, Ginevra, who is Meloni’s constant companion, traveling with her to the United States to meet President Joe Biden as well as tagging along when Meloni met Pope Francis earlier this year.

“I do everything possible to take my daughter to when I can, and to go home in the evening to put her to bed, as I have always tried to do,” Meloni, who often talks about what being a mother means to her, told “Donna Moderna” (Modern Woman) magazine earlier this year.

She defended Giambruno’s victim-blaming comments during a press conference Thursday, saying they had been misunderstood.

“I think that Andrea Giambruno hastily and assertively said something different from what most people interpreted,” she said.

“I don’t read in those words ‘if you walk around in a miniskirt they’ll rape you’ but something similar to what my mother told me: ‘eyes open and head on your shoulders.’ Rapists exist and we must not let our guard down,” she said at the press conference.

“My mother always told me that. We must always be aware, do our best not to put ourselves in a position to allow these animals to do what they would like to do. I think it is advice that many parents would give to their children, this does not give any justification to rapists.”

Gang-related violence

Meloni has focused on coming down hard on organized criminality in areas where offenses are taking place.

However, she has barely mentioned a documented rise in reported gender-related violence in Italy this summer, which included the killing of a 52-year-old nurse in Rome this week.

The mother of two daughters was stabbed 20 times in the foyer of her apartment building in the capital, allegedly by a man who had just this summer vandalized her car with red spray paint with which he wrote, “I love you a lot,” according to Rome city police who published a photo of her car. Lawyers for the suspect declined to comment on the case.

According to the Telefono Rosa hotline for domestic violence, there has been a 25% increase in gang-related gender-based violence in 2023 in Italy compared to the same period last year. The organization notes that the increase is primarily by younger offenders – sometimes, as in the case of the alleged gang rape in Palermo, of which footage was published on social media, including young men under the age of 18.

This Sunday, the women of the opposition Democratic party, led by Elly Shlein, are meeting to form a response to what they say is the systematic punishment of women in the first year of Meloni’s premiership.

“Atavistic impulses are re-emerging in society and, above all, regulatory proposals are emerging that erase women’s laborious achievements of self-determination: from the right to health, to education, to work without a modern and dynamic welfare system, to abortion, but also to maternity and parenthood, despite proclamations about birth rates; among the new generations we are witnessing an explosion of violence towards young women, and we could continue. This is why we need to put our analytical and proposal-making thinking back at the center.”

Nepotism concerns

Meloni has yet to comment on the killing of the nurse in Rome, which was the 78th gender-related killing of a woman this year, according to the Differenza Donna association. It estimates that one woman is murdered by someone she knows every three days in Italy.

Instead, Meloni has focused on her own family, which is increasingly prominent in party politics. During her August holiday, she was photographed at a lunch with relatives holding a plate of cooked blue crabs, currently the chief enemy to Italian mussel and clam fishermen after destroying millions of euros’ worth of shellfish.

The photo was taken by her brother-in-law Francesco Lollobridgida, Italy’s minister of agriculture, who is married to her sister Arianna, who in August was promoted to lead Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party’s membership arm and political secretariat division – a move that raised eyebrows within the party ranks.

Brothers of Italy member Massimo Milani called for a special congress within the party to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, Meloni posted a selfie on Instagram smiling among party faithful at a dinner that drew more comments about nepotism than about the cohesion of her party, from opposition party members and the general public alike.

But in Rome’s Garbatella neighborhood, where Meloni grew up with a single mother, she is lauded. “She has proven herself to be a stateswoman, she has made us proud,” said Giovanni Montuori, who runs a local favorite restaurant, Da Giovanni. “Her mother still lives here, she is raising her own daughter in spite of challenges. She’s the real thing.”

When asked about her partner’s comments on the gang rape, the restaurateur said simply, “There is truth to it, simply put.”

The Brothers of Italy have also retained their popularity. Meloni’s party won the September 22 elections last year with nearly 26% of the vote. As of late July, her party had surpassed 29% support in opinion polling, dropping about a point by late August, according to a SWG poll for La7 television.

Despite her success, Meloni’s first year in office has been challenging. She has faced record-breaking arrivals of irregular migrants and the loss of Silvio Berlusconi, a key coalition partner.

But the steady drumbeat of opposition to perceived nepotism and her reluctance to push gender issues is likely to dominate her tenure in office, however long it may last.

Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite systems are being used by Ukrainian forces on all front lines in the war with Russia, the country’s spy chief has said.

“They have proven themselves on the front lines. You can say what you want about whether [Starlink systems] are good or bad, but facts are facts. Absolutely all front lines are using them,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate, said Saturday, according to Interfax Ukraine.

Budanov was speaking at the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

The spy chief also gave a positive account of the difference Starlink is making in the war.

“They have played and continue to play a significant role, because so many systems use the antennas, use the Starlink systems themselves, for communications, for drone transmissions, especially in terms of a remote command post and so on.”

Budanov also said Starlink coverage “did not work for some time” in Russian-occupied Crimea, without elaborating.

“I can absolutely confirm that Starlink systems did not work for a certain period of time near Crimea. We immediately realized that there was simply no coverage there. That’s probably all I can tell you,” Budanov said.

The spy chief’s speech follows revelations about the satellite system’s use in the war made in a new biography of Starlink’s owner, written by Walter Isaacson and titled simply “Elon Musk.”

According to an excerpt from the book, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.

“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk posted on X. Sevastopol is a port city in Crimea.

“The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal came off the substitutes’ bench against Georgia on Friday to make history twice.

The forward was introduced in the 44th minute to become, aged 16 years and 57 days, Spain’s youngest men’s player, breaking the record previously held by Gavi who had made his international debut in 2021, aged 17 years and 62 days.

The teenager then completed the scoring for Spain in the 74th minute for a 7-1 Euro 2024 qualifying win, becoming his country’s youngest scorer and breaking another record which was held by Barcelona teammate Gavi.

In August, Yamal made his full debut for Barcelona to become the youngest player to start a La Liga match in the 21st century, and he was named the league’s U23 player for that month.

When he made his debut for Barcelona in April aged 15, he became the club’s youngest player in more than a century.

Álvaro Morata scored a hat trick for Spain, while an own goal from Solomon Kverkveila and goals from Dani Olmo and Nico Williams secured a thumping win for the Spaniards.

Spain is second in Group A, nine points behind Scotland with the Scots having played two games more.

Michelle Yeoh could soon become a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the Oscar winner was among eight candidates nominated by the organization’s executive board.

Her proposed membership is set to be ratified at an IOC session in Mumbai, India, next month.

In March, Yeoh won best actress at the 95th Academy Awards for her acclaimed performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” becoming the first woman of Asian descent to win the award. She was also the first Malaysian-born performer to be honored with a best actress Oscar.

Yeoh, 61, is a former Malaysian junior squash champion and joins Israel’s first Olympic medallist Yael Arad, Hungarian businessman Balázs Furjes, Peruvian politician and former Olympian Cecilia Roxana Tait Villacorta and German sports entrepreneur Michael Mronz as the five proposed individual members.

In a statement, IOC President Thomas Bach said: “These candidates bring added value to the work of the IOC because of their experience and diverse expertise in different walks of life.

“What they all have in common is their love of sport and their strong belief in the Olympic values and what the IOC stands for.”

Movie credits for Yeoh, who is widely considered an icon of martial arts cinema, also include Marvel Studio’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021), “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018), “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” (2008), “Memoirs Of A Geisha” (2005) and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000).

She made her name in Hong Kong action movies of the 1980s and 90s, before her breakthrough international role in 1997 opposite Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies.”

Moldovan soccer player Violeta Mitul has died aged 26 in a “tragic accident,” European soccer’s governing body UEFA announced on Friday.

“The 26-year-old defender was involved in a tragic accident while on a mountain hike with club-mates,” UEFA said in a statement.

During her career, the defender became one of Moldova’s leading players, UEFA said, winning 40 caps for her country and playing soccer for clubs across Europe.

Mitul joined Icelandic club Einherji earlier this year but had previously played for clubs in Spain, Italy, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Earlier in her career, she also won the Moldovan and Romanian Cups while playing for Alga Tiraspol and Vasas Femina respectively.

Moldova did not qualify for this year’s Women’s World Cup but Mitul played in all 10 of her country’s qualifying matches.

Coco Gauff, the world No. 10 women’s singles player, has defeated 2nd-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, with a dramatic comeback in the women’s US Open final.

The star-studded crowd erupted with applause after Gauff’s home-turf victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens. The win is 19-year-old Gauff’s first career grand slam and makes her the first American teenager to win the US Open since 23-time major champion Serena Williams took the title in 1999.

“I feel like I’m in shock at this moment,” said an emotional Gauff after her win. “God puts you through tribulations and trials, and that makes this moment sweeter than I would have imagined.”

She thanked her family, her team, and “the people who didn’t believe in me.”

Bidding for her second major title of the year, the soon-to-be women’s world No. 1 Sabalenka made quick work in the first set, breaking Gauff’s serve three times to win 6-2 in dominant fashion.

However, with the packed crowd chanting “Let’s go Coco,” Gauff raised her level in the second set, going up a break before eventually taking it 6-3 to force a deciding third set.

A locked-in Gauff took control in the third set, going up a double break to inch ever closer to her maiden grand slam title. Although Sabalenka took the next two games, Gauff closed out the match to become the 12th teenager in US Open history to win the title.

“I don’t know, I just knew that if I didn’t give it my all, I had no shot at winning,” Gauff said on how she found the strength to rally after dropping the first set.

In her run to the final, the athlete twice lost the first set of a match, once in the first round against Laura Siegemund and again in the third round against Elise Mertens.

With the victory, Gauff becomes the third American teenager to win the US Open title, joining Williams and Tracy Austin. She is set to move up to No. 3 in the WTA singles rankings, and co-No. 1 in doubles along with compatriot Jessica Pegula.

After clinching the victory, Gauff dropped to the ground before getting up to hug Sabalenka. Afterward, Gauff was overcome with emotion and knelt down to take in the moment.

Gauff poked fun at her father after the match as she thanked her family. “Thank you first to my parents,” she said. “Today was the first time I’ve ever seen my dad cry. He doesn’t want me to tell y’all that, but he got caught in 4K!”

Meanwhile, despite the loss, the Belarusian star will move to No. 1 in the WTA singles rankings on Monday, ending Iga Świątek’s 75-consecutive week reign.

Sabenka congratulated her competitor, saying, “I hope we play in many more finals” and calling Gauff “amazing.”

The American in turn congratulated Sabenka on her rise to the No. 1 position. “Aryna is an incredible player,” she said. “Congratulations on the no. 1 ranking, it’s well deserved.”

At a news conference after the match, Sabalenka said the loss was a “lesson” for her and she had started “overthinking” during the second set.

“It’s me against me,” she said. Gauff “was moving really and defending better than anybody else.”

“I was playing against the crowd,” she added.

A first grand slam for Gauff

The last time Gauff and Sabalenka met was in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells in March, with the Belarusian winning comfortably, 6-4 6-0. Saturday’s final was an altogether different contest, however, with Gauff improving rapidly in the six months that have passed since that defeat.

The 19-year-old has won three WTA titles this season, including the biggest of her career in Cincinnati just before the US Open, and has won 17 of her last 18 matches. She is the youngest American woman to reach the US Open final since a 17-year-old Serena Williams did so in 1999.

“Serena is Serena. She’s the GOAT. I hope to do half of what she did,” Gauff said, per the WTA.

The competition was the second grand slam final of Gauff’s career after reaching the French Open final in 2022, where she was swiftly defeated by Iga Świątek.

But following her 6-4 7-5 semifinal win over Karolína Muchová, Gauff spoke about the improvement in her mentality, going from somebody blighted by imposter syndrome to now believing she is capable of contending with the best players in the world.

“I think it’s [imposter syndrome] still a part of me,” she said. “It’s something I’m doing better with, definitely. Even after [winning Washington] DC, I still was like: ‘Well, I beat some good people, but maybe I caught them on off days.’

“It’s still definitely a part of me, but I do think I’m giving myself more credit more and speaking things into existence is real. I’ve been trying to speak more positively of myself and actually telling myself that I’m a great player.”

The sixth seed told reporters that after her first-round Wimbledon loss she was “preparing for next year,” before adding she was “really proud of myself” for the way she has performed at Flushing Meadows.

“I have been focusing more on myself and my expectations of myself,” said Gauff, per Reuters. “I really believe that now I have the maturity and ability to do it.”

‘Just keep fighting’

Until her semifinal against Madison Keys, Sabalenka had been dominant in New York – not dropping a set and never losing more than five games in a match.

However, she was pushed all the way by the American on Thursday and had to bounce back from a brutal 6-0 first-set loss, eventually winning 0-6 7-6 (7-1) 7-6 (10-5).after two-and-a-half hours of grueling tennis.

Such was the likelihood of a Keys victory late in the second set, Gauff was even asked about the prospect of facing her fellow American in her post-match press conference.

Sabalenka’s run to the final of the US Open caps off a remarkable year in which she won three titles – including her first grand slam at the Australian Open and her sixth Masters 1000 title in Madrid.

Despite winning the last time they met, Sabalenka heralded Gauff’s development this season and says she is a “much better” player now than she was six months ago.

“She’s improved a lot,” Sabalenka told reporters after her semifinal. “So it’s a different player – we don’t really like thinking about that match.

“Going into this final, I think I just have to focus on myself and prepare myself for another fight. No matter what, just keep fighting and keep playing my best and do my best.

“You know, there is nothing much you can, what else can you do? You just have to be there and you have to fight for it.”

Sabalenka will no doubt have to play before a partisan crowd in Saturday’s final, but having already overcome an intense atmosphere against Keys on Thursday, she said she felt confident of handling the occasion.

“Of course, I would prefer [to] have someone else or [the] crowd be a little bit the same to both players, but today’s match I think is gonna help me in the final because I’ll be fine with this support. I’ll be all right,” she said.

“I’m still hoping that probably some of them will be supporting me – just a little bit. Just sometimes, please. Please,” she laughed.

Category 3 Hurricane Lee remains hundreds of miles east of the Caribbean on Saturday morning, yet forecasters say the storm’s effects may have an impact on the US Atlantic seaboard as early as this weekend.

Lee was just shy of 350 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands as of 11 a.m. ET Saturday, whipping up maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The major hurricane, which earlier reached Category 5 status, is expected to maintain its strength Saturday but is forecast to restrengthen over the weekend.

It’s still too early to determine whether the core of the storm will directly impact the US mainland, but Lee is expected to rip currents and large waves to most of the East Coast of the United States on Sunday and Monday and worsen through the week, the hurricane center said.

“Lee is moving toward the west-northwest near 12 mph (19 km/h), and this motion is expected to continue through early next week with a significant decrease in forward speed beginning later today and Sunday,” the hurricane center said in its 11 a.m. ET advisory. “Hazardous beach conditions expected to develop around the western Atlantic through next week.”

Caribbean islands will be similarly impacted by the storm as it moves slowly west-northwest through the Atlantic. Lee is expected to pass “well to the north” of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, forecasters said.

“Swells generated by Lee are affecting portions of the Lesser Antilles,” the hurricane center warned Friday night. The British and US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda will also face swells this weekend that can bring life-threatening surf and rip conditions.

The National Weather Service office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, said waves breaking at 6 to 10 feet were forecast for Sunday. Larger waves were expected next week along east- and north-facing beaches.

“Beach erosion and coastal flooding is possible,” the office posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Lee enters rare company

Lee hit a rare strength that few storms have ever achieved. Only 2% of storms in the Atlantic reach Category 5 strength, according to NOAA’s hurricane database. Including Lee, only 40 Category 5 hurricanes have roamed the Atlantic since 1924.

Lee, which was a Category 1 storm Thursday, intensified with exceptional speed in warm ocean waters, more than doubling its wind speeds to 165 mph in just a day.

The storm’s winds increased by 85 mph in a 24-hour period, which tied it with Hurricane Matthew for the third-fastest rapid intensification in the Atlantic, according to NOAA research meteorologist John Kaplan. The monstrous hurricane struck Haiti in 2016, killing hundreds in the Caribbean nation while also wreaking havoc on parts of the US Southeast.

Category 5 is the highest level on the hurricane wind speed scale and has no maximum point. Hurricanes hit this level when their sustained winds reach 157 mph or higher. A 165-mph storm like Lee is in the same category as Hurricane Allen, the Atlantic’s strongest hurricane on record, which topped out at 190 mph in 1980.

Hurricanes need the perfect mixture of warm water, moist air and light upper-level winds to intensify enough to reach Category 5 strength. Lee had all of these, especially warm water amid the warmest summer on record.

Sea-surface temperatures across the portion of the Atlantic Ocean that Lee is tracking through are a staggering 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal after rising to “far above record levels” this summer, according to David Zierden, Florida’s state climatologist.

Reaching Category 5 strength has become more common over the last decade. Lee is the 8th Category 5 since 2016, meaning 20% of these exceptionally powerful hurricanes on record in NOAA’s hurricane database have come in the last seven years.

The Atlantic is not the only ocean to have spawned a monster storm in 2023. All seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones can form have had a storm reach Category 5 strength so far this year, including Hurricane Jova, which reached Category 5 status in the eastern Pacific earlier this week.

How close will Hurricane Lee get to the US?

Computer model trends for Lee have shown the hurricane taking a turn to the north early next week. But exactly when that turn occurs and how far west Lee will manage to track by then will play a huge role in how close it gets to the US.

Several steering factors at the surface and upper levels of the atmosphere will determine how close Lee will get to the East Coast.

An area of high pressure over the Atlantic, known as the Bermuda High, will have a major influence on how quickly Lee turns. The Bermuda High is expected to remain very strong into the weekend, which will keep Lee on its current west-northwestward track and slow it down a bit.

As the high pressure weakens next week it will allow Lee to start moving northward.

Once that turn to the north occurs, the position of the jet stream – strong upper-level winds that can change the direction of a hurricane’s path – will influence how closely Lee is steered to the US.

Scenario: Out to Sea

Lee could make a quick turn to the north early next week if high pressure weakens significantly.

If the jet stream sets up along the East Coast, it will act as a barrier that prevents Lee from approaching the coast. This scenario would keep Lee farther away from the US coast but could bring the storm closer to Bermuda.

Scenario: Close to East Coast

Lee could make a slower turn to the north because the high pressure remains robust, and the jet stream sets up farther inland over the Eastern US. This scenario would leave portions of the East Coast, mainly north of the Carolinas, vulnerable to a much closer approach from Lee.

All these factors have yet to come into focus, and the hurricane is still at least seven days from being a threat to the East Coast. Any potential US impact will become more clear as the Lee moves west in the coming days.

San Francisco is undeniably having a moment.

Over the past year, headlines claiming the city is caught in a spiraling “doom loop” have become so prominent that a city commissioner decided to cash in on downtown San Francisco’s storefront vacancies, homelessness and opioid issues by anonymously advertising an hour-and-a-half long tour showcasing “doom and squalor.” For $30 a person, you could see the city’s “open-air drug markets” and “abandoned tech offices” first-hand.

However, just before it was scheduled to take place, the tour was canceled (and the commissioner ultimately resigned). Instead a more “positive” walk organized by a local nonprofit guided participants through the city’s Tenderloin, highlighting a neighborhood that’s long been a poster child for the city’s hardships.

While people sleeping on sidewalks and drug use were still visible, it focused on the community’s more positive attributes, including a rich history, art and a career center that’s working to get struggling San Franciscans back on their feet.

Still, for many would-be visitors, it’s San Francisco’s more discernible difficulties that are the real deterrents.

“My clients who’ve recently been to San Francisco have never said they felt unsafe,” says Alana Scalise Livingston, owner of Wander Spokane tours in Spokane, Washington (and a former San Francisco resident). “They just say it’s not as nice as it used to be, and there are many homeless people flooding the streets.”

Joshua Hirsch, owner of Sidewalk Food Tours SF, has received much of the same feedback. “According to our tour participants, the homeless people in cities like San Francisco and New York seemed to have become more brazen and outspoken since the pandemic,” he says. “They think it’s their neighborhood, and you don’t even have the right to be walking on the sidewalk.”

Additionally, there’s the city’s so-called “death spiral” or “doom loop” touted by news outlets (including the city’s own) – in which remote work leads to empty real estate, resulting in less foot traffic and then shuttered restaurants and reduced public services. This in turn leads to more overt drug activity as well as unhoused individuals congregating in front of unoccupied spaces.

It’s not that the tales of downtown retail stores closing in bulk and vacant office buildings are untrue, nor are the stories of drugstore chains such as Walgreens locking up most everything in the store behind see-through cabinets, though the latter is occurring in other big cities nationwide.

San Francisco has also been experiencing a rash of car break-ins, including this SF Whole Foods garage break-in video that went viral in Indonesia, that many fear could have long-lasting effects on the city’s tourism.

This past June, the investment firm behind the Hilton San Francisco Union Square (at 1,921 rooms, it’s the city’s largest hotel) and the nearby Parc 55 hotels announced that it is stopping payments on a $725 million loan and surrendering the remaining debt to its lender. Tech companies such as Red Hat and the SF Bay Area’s own Meta have decided to cancel their 2024 conferences in San Francisco as well, citing ongoing concerns over safety and the cleanliness of downtown streets.

‘It felt vibrant and alive’

It seems like everywhere you turn, the news about San Francisco just keeps getting worse. Or is it just the news we’re reading?

“We definitely feel like there is a significant misconception of what is really happening on the ground,” says Dina Belon, chief operating officer at Staypineapple Hotels, which has a property in San Francisco’s Union Square district.

Yuki Hayashi, a Toronto-based marketing writer and editor who visited San Francisco in late July for the city’s annual marathon, agrees. “Based on what we saw on Reddit, my family and I thought the city had turned into some post-apocalyptic hell zone,” she says. “But instead it felt vibrant and alive.”

The San Francisco hoteliers and restaurateurs interviewed for this article acknowledge that a drop in the city’s tourism this summer has been evident. That’s the result of a combination of factors, they say. They include the negative headlines and fewer full-time office workers, “which has significantly reduced our business and corporate travel,” says Belon. There’s also the absence of Chinese tourists — which pre-pandemic was one of the city’s top international markets — because of Covid and flight restrictions.

But they also agree that many of the gloomy headlines have been misleading.

“Yes, there are parts of San Francisco that need work,” says Marc Zimmerman, owner and executive chef at Gozu, a modern Japanese eatery located in the city’s East Cut neighborhood. “I don’t think we should pretend that the city doesn’t have issues. But the whole idea that, you know, everybody’s just laying around every SF street with needles hanging out of their arms is definitely a stretch.”

Ben Parks, board chair for San Francisco City Guides, feels similarly.

“It’s like, if the negative media coverage is all you pay attention to,” he says, “you just really miss out on everything the city has to offer.”

His all-volunteer organization has been leading free walking tours citywide for nearly five decades and currently has 79 offerings. Parks says that these days, their attendance has actually been increasing, with what the organization suspects are more local residents interested in learning about the city’s neighborhoods, which in many cases are where San Francisco continues to impress.

“There are so many good things happening in many of our neighborhoods and communities,” Grace Horikiri, executive director of San Francisco’s Japantown Community Benefit District, “and it often gets overshadowed by all the non-positive news.”

Within the past year, Japantown has welcomed new restaurants such as Copra and Fermentation Lab, saw the opening of the Kimpton Hotel Enso in its former Buchanan Hotel space and watched the growth of its popular monthly Mini Art Market in the community’s Japantown mall.

New businesses, new life

The city is also seeing new life in some of its major tourism hubs.

This August, IKEA bucked the trend of major retailers moving out of downtown and opened a San Francisco store focusing on small-space living along Market Street (between Sixth and Fifth streets), while more than 15 local small businesses, including Devil’s Teeth bakery, Holy Stitch! apparel and The Mellow, are setting up pop-up shops in vacant downtown storefronts, beginning mid-September.

Over in Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco’s iconic Ghirardelli Chocolate Company hosted the grand reopening of its Original Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop in July after a six-month renovation. The city’s LUMA hotel, which opened in 2022 adjacent to the city’s Chase Center sports and entertainment area, even won Tripadvisor’s 2023 Travelers’ Choice Best of the Best award, despite San Francisco’s negative narrative.

Chinatown, a neighborhood especially hard-hit by the pandemic, is hosting a series of new festivals, including a Halloween Festival on October 28. In January, the community also saw the long-awaited opening of its Rose Pak Muni metro station, providing Muni light-rail riders direct access to the heart of Chinatown’s streets.

Whether it’s Golden Gate Park’s 1.5-mile stretch known as JFK Promenade, with its Adirondack chairs; street art and playable pianos, which became permanently vehicle-free during the pandemic; or city stalwarts such as Amoeba Records in the Haight-Ashbury (which Santa Cruz bookseller Liz Pollock says is still filled with people “flipping through LPs” every time she visits), the city is in many ways just going about its business.

‘We needed a kick, and we got it’

Homelessness has been an ongoing issue in San Francisco, with thousands of homeless people sleeping on the streets on any given night, and the effects of the pandemic have brought it even more to the city’s forefront. “The challenges that San Francisco has always had are just more visible,” says Belon.

However, when it comes to violent crimes in US cities, San Francisco’s numbers are comparatively low. Larceny, such as car thefts and break-ins, is what really drives up crimes figures in the city and at the same time drives away visitors.

“We can’t just act like nothing is wrong,” says Zimmerman, “but for whatever reason, that’s the direction we went. But I feel like we needed a kick, and we got it. This is a great and resilient city, and now we’re seeing a big push to bring it all back.”

To help curb auto break-ins, the San Francisco Police Department is beginning to deploy bait cars that can help identity and arrest thieves, notably in tourist areas such as the Palace of Fine Arts, Alamo Square and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Getting homeless people off the streets and into places where they can get viable help (mental and physical) isn’t so easy, but that’s not to say efforts aren’t being made. In December 2022, a federal judge effectively barred the city from breaking up or sweeping tent encampments until there are more shelter beds than individuals, but the issue isn’t so cut and dry.

While the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team works collaboratively with the Department of Public Health’s Street Medicine team to address the medical and behavioral health needs of many of the city’s homeless residents and also to offer them volunteer overnight shelter, many would rather stay on the streets for reasons such as feeling unsafe in shelter and the inability to keep their belongings with them.

Still, says Zimmerman, “It’s a different experience for those of us who walk around San Francisco every day. Yes, there are parts of the city that need work. But just in the neighborhood of Gozu, you’ve got Salesforce Park that is beautiful. The ballpark is beautiful. This is the perfect opportunistic position for San Francisco to bounce back.”

While raising capital for his newest venture, Yokai, a new hi-fi listening bar with cocktails and food that’s scheduled to open just a short walk from Gozu in mid-September, Zimmerman first heard a term that he’s since adopted as his own: “SF long,” which investors and other long-term San Francisco residents have been using to show their commitment to the city.

“It means, ‘we’re weathering this out together, and we’re not going anywhere. We’re in it for the long haul,’ ” Zimmerman said.

For all of San Francisco’s perceived and more evident troubles, the city still has a lot going for it.

“We have the geography,” says Zimmerman, “the location — with both Napa and Sonoma both an hour north — the restaurant scene, some great museums, and this awesome cultural melting pot of people. The whole thing is very unique.” 

Others such as Belon, Pollock and Livingston feel the same. “It’s the whole experience of it,” says Pollock, “and you can’t find it anywhere except San Francisco.”

Laura Kiniry is a freelance journalist and 28-year resident of San Francisco. She lives in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.