Saudi Arabia’s ancient Red Sea port city Jeddah, stewing in the steamy heat of the world’s hottest summer on record, is not the obvious pick to cool the world’s fiercest conflict, currently raging in Ukraine.

Yet, the desert kingdom’s king-in-waiting, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – MBS for short – thinks he can help. Last fall he had a role in the release of Western mercenaries captured by Russian forces while fighting in Ukraine. Now he is hosting a summit to discuss peace in the country.

Ukrainian officials say the venue is a boon for them “that completely destroys the narrative of Russia” that Ukraine is only supported by “countries of the collective West.” They expect as many as 40 nations to be represented, including the US and India.

In the days ahead of the summit, the Ukrainians set out their intent. “Our goal in Saudi Arabia is to develop a unified vision of the formula and to work out the possibilities of holding the future Global Peace Summit,” they said, referring to Ukraine’s peace plan.

That Moscow will only “monitor” and not attend risks the summit becoming a desert snowflake, momentarily awesome and inspiring, but blink and it’s gone.

Even so Ukrainian officials are pinning their hopes on it, “to unite the world around Ukraine.” The White House is sending National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

US State Department officials are billing it as “Ukraine in the driver’s seat,” an opportunity to find a “potential diplomatic resolution to the war” and for nations who might otherwise not hear directly from Kyiv to talk face-to-face with Ukrainian officials.

The first session of this series was quietly hosted by the Danes in June, and gathered 15 nations, many from the global south whom to varying degrees are sympathetic to Putin’s argument the war was “necessary,” that NATO forced him to invade Ukraine.

That summit produced no major headlines, nor a discernable drift to Ukraine’s prerequisite for peace that Russian troops exit Ukraine. So what is different this time?

For one, Saudi Arabia, unlike Denmark, has not overtly taken a side in the war. More significantly MBS has leverage. Like the roads that led to Rome in its day, Saudi Arabia is increasingly at the confluence of competing global interests.

President Biden came in July last year, China’s President Xi visited a few months later. Both had business with MBS.

Biden was able to build on their shared diplomatic achievement, a peace deal in Yemen a few months earlier. Xi talked business, and signed memorandums of understanding worth billions of dollars, but unbeknownst to most they were only a few months away from a seismic diplomatic breakthrough.

In spring this year, Saudi Arabia and China announced a confidence-building peace plan with Iran to repair their hostile relationship. So far it has worked. Iran’s proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, have stopped attacking Saudi with Iranian-made ballistic missiles.

The two nations have reopened diplomatic missions in their respective capitals and come fall will likely extend their newfound cooperation into commerce.

What MBS wants most is a stable oil market and stronger trade relations throughout the Gulf. Disagreements in the region alone are dangerous. The war – between oil-rich, nuclear-armed Russia and Ukraine – could be catastrophic.

If he can tame that tiger, he can better plan how to deliver his otherworldly and insanely expensive visions of a future Saudi Arabia diversifying from oil yet employing the country’s huge young population.

His ambition is what drives him every day. In his ideal world, Saudi Arabia would be a dominant geopolitical player.

Part of Biden’s pitch to MBS when they met last year was: Don’t cut oil production, it hurts my citizens at the gas pumps at home, and by the way, helps Russia fund its war in Ukraine by driving up oil prices.

So what did MBS do a few months later? Cut oil production. Saudi officials say they are reading the oil markets correctly and only changed production to suit their own “national interests.”

That point didn’t go down so well in Washington. Yet today the cardinal law of diplomacy would say MBS has potential leverage over Russia. If the Saudi potentate can raise oil prices he could also lower them. Not to say that he will, but he could, and Putin will know that too.

The sort of diplomacy MBS is involved in is reimagining the role of Gulf Arabs. Stakeholders with real clout, not the rivals at each other’s throats of yesteryear.

It’s a work in progress, but he sees where he wants to go and part of that involves one of the Middle East’s thorniest issues: Saudi’s rapprochement with Israel.

On that, Saudi negotiations with the US are underway, and reportedly include domestic energy nuclear power plants, F-35 fighter aircraft and security guarantees for the desert kingdom.

The US wants compromises from the Saudis, and vice versa.

All of this of course is way outside the scope of the Jeddah peace summit and Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine. Yet it shows where there are a lot of pieces in flux, a cornucopia of potential quid pro quos, and growing possibilities of what can be achieved.

Not least, as Ukraine’s biggest backer, US appreciation that Saudi stepped off the diplomatic sidelines to help Zelensky.

There are other areas beyond Iran where China and Saudi interests align, not least their mutual concerns about the risks to their economies of an untamed war escalating out of control on the edge of one of their biggest markets, Europe.

Without China’s economic support, Russia’s economy and its ability to wage war in Ukraine could crumble. To a lesser extent some of the global south nations who may be around the table in Jeddah also help prop up Putin’s war by buying gas, oil and other commodities he can no longer sell in Europe.

It is exactly these countries the Ukrainians most want to impress with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-point peace initiative in Jeddah. Although it was published in December last year they think it has been rubbished by Russian propaganda and hope to reverse the damage.

Only last week Putin ignored his own illegal invasion and blamed Ukraine for a lack of peace when African Union representatives at a Kremlin-sponsored Africa conference in St Petersburg pressed him to seek a ceasefire.

In a typical Kremlinesque inversion of logic and reality, he told them that “in order to start the process an agreement is needed from both sides,” that “a ceasefire is hard to implement when the Ukrainian army is on the offensive.”

Countering Putin’s revisionist lies will likely keep Ukraine’s representatives in Jeddah extremely busy, with officials saying they plan to meet individually and collectively with other delegates about “each point of the [10-point] Peace Formula.”

Colombia reached the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals for the first time in the country’s history after a nervy 1-0 victory over Jamaica in Melbourne on Tuesday, while France confidently knocked out Morocco to reach the last eight.

Catalina Usme brilliantly scored the winner for Colombia and, in the process, became the first player at this tournament to break Jamaica’s stubborn defense.

The Colombians’ reward is a last eight tie against reigning European champion and world No.4 England in Sydney on Saturday, a match the South American team has the talent to win despite there being 21 places between the two sides in the world rankings.

France’s 4-0 victory over Morocco, a team which had reached the last 16 in its first foray in the competition, earns Les Bleues a last eight tie against co-host Australia on Saturday.

Colombia, Morocco and Jamaica’s unlikely journeys to the knockout stages will be a major reason why this tournament will be regarded as a success. After all, what is sporting romance if it isn’t the traditional powerhouses faltering and the underdogs thriving against the odds?

But Morocco struggled against one of the tournament favorites France, going 3-0 down within 23 minutes, while Colombia and Jamaica both appeared to be hindered by the consequence of defeat.

But in doing just enough to beat Jamaica, Colombia became the first South American country to reach the last eight since Brazil in 2011.

After the match, Colombia coach Nelson Abadía told FIFA it was a “unique” moment for women’s soccer in Colombia and South America.

“This is the triumph of a human group that has worked hard to achieve consistency, to have a trade, character, personality … and today we played and won well,” he said.

Impossible to ignore

Some of Jamaica’s players were in tears after the final whistle. But the country’s presence in the round-of-16 is particularly remarkable.

Not only did the Reggae Girlz progress from a group which contained favorites France and Brazil, but they did so having had to release a statement before the tournament expressing their “utmost disappointment” with the country’s soccer federation.

The team had missed several friendlies, the statement said, due to “extreme disorganization” and that they had “showed up repeatedly without receiving contractually agreed upon compensation.”

In a statement on its website, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) acknowledged that “things have not been done perfectly” but that it was “working assiduously to resolve” players’ concerns.

The question now is what will be the response to the team’s success, and that of other lesser-funded countries?

While about $49 million of the record $110 million World Cup prize money will go directly to individual players, the rest of the pot will be split between participating federations who will decide what share of this money to allocate to teams and players – if any at all.

Even though Jamaica’s participation in this tournament ended in Melbourne, the players have sparkled on the world stage and made themselves, you would hope, impossible to ignore.

“You made us all proud,” posted Usain Bolt, Jamaica’s track and field great, after the match on social media.

Jamaica keeps Caicedo quiet

The day’s first match started as if it were to end in penalties. Jamaica relied on the defense that hadn’t conceded a goal in the group stages and, like France and Brazil before them, Colombia struggled to puncture a well-organized backline.

Having scored just once in the tournament prior to this tie, Jamaica’s coach Lorne Donaldson had challenged his team to find the net, but the team managed just two shots on target and didn’t enjoy enough possession to put sustained pressure on Colombia.

There were flashes from Linda Caicedo, Colombia’s talented 18-year-old, but the teenager was largely kept quiet in a match in which defense got the better of attack, other than for Usme’s moment of magic.

In the 51st minute, the Colombia captain delicately controlled Ana Guzman’s incredible pass and placed the ball beyond Jamaica’s Rebecca Spencer. Fittingly, it was the goal that would make history.

Jamaica nearly leveled soon after when Colombia’s Catalina Perez fumbled the ball on her goalline, but the South American side counterattacked quickly and troubled Jamaica once again only for Caicedo to be called offside.

The longer the game progressed, the more freedom Caicedo enjoyed on the left flank, but Jamaica defended the threat posed by the Real Madrid player who has lit up this tournament with her wonderful skill on the ball.

Jamaica had an opportunity to level late in the game, but Drew Spence headed inches wide. Colombia’s Leicy Santos then hit the post in the final few minutes as the match came to life in the latter stages with Jamaica going in search of an equalizer.

But despite a late flourish, Jamaica’s prosaic approach ultimately proved to be its downfall.

Ruthless France

Later in the day in Adelaide, France quickly went 3-0 ahead to effectively end the match as a contest in the first half and further illustrate why the team is regarded as a favorite to win the competition.

Two lovely team goals put Les Bleues in command. Kadidiatou Diani headed home after nice build-up play by her teammates on the left flank. Diani then turned provider when she found Kenza Dali, who arrowed home her shot to leave Morocco with a mountain to climb.

Sloppy defending then made Morocco’s task of a comeback almost impossible as Eugénie Le Sommer scored her 91st international goal, finding the far post as France produced its ruthless best.

Morocco was more competitive in the second half but in the 70th minute Le Sommer headed home at the back post for her second of the match.

It was a straightforward win for France but even in defeat Morocco has contributed much to a competition in which it made history.

Nearly 200,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark Tuesday afternoon after ferocious storms pummeled much of the Eastern US – leaving two people dead, homes without roofs and drivers stranded for hours.

A 28-year-old man died Monday after he was struck by lightning in a parking lot in Florence, Alabama, police said. Authorities have not identified him.

In South Carolina, 15-year-old Evan Christopher Kinley was killed when a falling tree struck him outside his grandparents’ home in Anderson County, the county coroner’s office said.

In Westminster, Maryland, dozens of people were trapped in cars for up to five and a half-hours Monday after severe weather toppled power lines onto the vehicles on Route 140, state police said.

Drivers waited for hours while crews worked to de-energize the power lines to get them out.

Jeffrey Campbell was on his way home from work when a utility pole came down on vehicles in front of him, trapping him for hours with live wires on the ground on either side of his truck, he said. The wire to his right took out his exterior mirror, he said.

“It’s just poles coming down one after the other,” he said.

Eventually, 33 adults and 14 children were rescued. No injuries were reported, police said.

Another round of storms Tuesday

The storms that hammered Philadelphia all the way down to Atlanta on Monday are long gone. But, when considering all levels of risk, 40 million people in the Plains, the Southeast and New England are now at risk for severe weather Tuesday.

Very large hail, strong winds and a tornado are possible in the confined area of greatest risk in the central High Plains. Areas of the Southeast not affected by Monday’s storms, including southern portions of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, will also face a damaging wind threat Tuesday.

About 10 million people in New England were under flood watches Tuesday. Eastern Massachusetts, including Boston was deluged with intense rain Tuesday morning when 1 to 3 inches fell in just a few hours. Some storms in the area turned severe, producing damaging wind gusts and at least one tornado, the National Weather Service office in Boston confirmed Tuesday.

Farther north, parts of Maine are under a Level 3 of 4 risk for excessive rainfall and flash flooding.

Widespread damage and no power

The fierce storms Monday left neighborhoods littered with debris and hundreds of thousands of people in the dark.

As of Tuesday afternoon, just under 200,000 homes and businesses remained without power across 12 Eastern states but the majority of outages were confined to Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, according to PowerOutage.us. For a time Monday evening, more than 1 million customers were without power as a result of damaging storms.

And large, dangerous hail pummeled parts of Virginia. In Caroline County, hail the size of a grapefruit (4.75 inches) was reported, the Storm Prediction Center said. That’s the largest hail reported in the state of Virginia since 2002, according to the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia.

The storms also disrupted travel Monday. More than 8,600 flights within, into or out of the US were delayed Monday and more than 1,700 were canceled, according to FlightAware.com. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 300 flights had been canceled and more than 2,900 delayed.

A storm ‘pretty much tore up this little town’

Brutal storms also hit the Midwest on Monday, including Indiana – where EF-1 tornado damage was found in Dubois and Orange counties, the National Weather Service office in nearby Louisville said.

It’s not clear whether the damage was caused by one longer tornado or multiple tornadoes, the weather service said.

It could take several days to restore power in Paoli, officials said.

“Just a lot of heartbreak for local Paoli,” he said.

As dozens of Italian towns sell off old houses on the cheap, foreigners who rush to grab one are often in search of a year-round sunshine spot, a vacation retreat, or just to live their Italian dream.

But one American family has done it to start a new life far from the United States.

In 2019, the Dawkins family – Nadine, 59, her husband, Kim, 61, and their children Lorenzo, 29, and DeNae, 27 – bought a charming home in the town of Latronico. In the southern region of Basilicata, the town of 4,000 inhabitants is located within the pristine Pollino National Park and surrounded by hot springs.

Reading the article at her home in El Paso, Texas, Nadine Dawkins, a retired former soldier and businesswoman, felt the pull of her ancestry.

Her great-great-grandfather was Italian and came to America in the 19th century.

“As a soldier stationed in the region many years later, I vowed to return. Years more, my husband and I brought our children over to see where they hailed from.”

Her Italian ancestor took on an American name when he landed in the States: Clint Jeffrey. Nadine doesn’t know much about her great-great-grandmother, Lucinda, who was an enslaved woman on an Arkansas plantation when Jeffrey bought her, and “lived out the rest of his days with her,” she says.

“Unfortunately, I have no additional information about Lucinda. All I know is that she was a slave, and he purchased her. My grandmother and great-grandmother never told me anything else about her. I believe it was because of such atrocities that slavery, and the memories of it had on them; because of course being born in the 1800s and early 1900s was a hard time for all Black people in America.”

The family decided they wanted to leave the US in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd.

“[It] showed the world how we as Black people in America have been treated for centuries,” says Nadine.

“All the racism, all the divisiveness, all the hate that the last administration brought to the forefront” has caused an “exodus” from America of Black people who have the means to do so, she says.

“Basically, police brutality towards Black people, mass shootings from domestic terrorists, and just the overall hate in this country is why we are leaving the USA.”

Their move follows Nadine’s 30-year career in the military, while Kim Dawkins works for the US government.

The family will be shortly moving to Panama before taking the final leap across the Atlantic to Latronico.

Nadine doesn’t know where exactly her ancestor hailed from, but snapping up one of Latronico’s cheap homes seemed like a good way to reconnect with her roots.

“We didn’t expect it – he contacted us the very next day. We set up a video call, he sent us a video of our selected home. That sealed our fate: We bought the house sight unseen, without going to Italy,” she recalls.

‘When something’s right, it’s right’

The Dawkins are grateful they found a dream team in Latronico – Castellano and his assistant Mariangela Tortorella – who helped them navigate the sales process, and found local firms to restyle and furnish their home.

In fact, they trusted Castellano – who launched the housing scheme – so much that they handed him power of attorney for all technical issues, as well as the translation of the purchase deed into English.

Their house in Latronico’s historic quarter required little renovation to fit their needs, although the exterior got a fresh coat of paint.

The three-story home belonged to an “upper crust” villager, as Nadine describes the woman, who had elegantly decorated it with pieces of antique furniture.

The former owner left two beds, a wardrobe and “trinkets” including porcelain cups.

The family added two bathrooms, since all old houses in Latronico just have one. There are two bedrooms, a kitchen which they enlarged into a huge dining room, and an underground cellar.

Bug screens were added to all the windows, and the panoramic balconies overlooking the main church were spruced up to better enjoy morning espresso and evening aperitivo.

“We picked it immediately and started the paperwork – when something is right it’s right. No hiccups,” says Nadine.

The property deeds were signed in 2021, and the total final cost for the house was 42,000 euros ($46,700).

“Vincenzo’s team made the whole process very easy. I trust them with my life and call them ‘my nephews.’ If there’s any issue, I can rely on them,” she says. The family has hired Castellano as their property manager.

Doing it all alone would have been tough.

“On my own I could see the issues I would have run into – for instance, the language barrier. They acted as spearheads.”

Nadine wants to boost language exchange by teaching English to local youths once she moves to Latronico, and aims to help put the village more on the map.

“We love the people,” she says. “We’ve never met one single mean person, everyone offers coffee. One day we met a villager in a store and became like best friends – he took us to his house for espresso, even though I don’t even drink coffee.”

Building a new life

During visits, the Dawkins have appreciated the slower-paced lifestyle, sitting at the front door and watching people stroll by or listening to cats fighting in the otherwise silent alleys.

For now, they plan to spend six months a year in Italy (using the “90 days in every 180 days” rule that non-EU citizens must abide by) then apply for a permanent “elective residency” visa which requires a certain annual amount of passive income. The rest of their time will be spent in Panama.

Ultimately they want to acquire Italian citizenship.

Once in Italy, Nadine hopes to be able to start tracking down the real identity and origins of her Italian ancestor. She has no clue where exactly in Italy he came from but keeps an old photo of him in a thick wooden frame.

Of Lucinda – whose last name must have been the name of the plantation she was enslaved at, Nadine believes – she says that “Black American history has been lost” or eradicated from American culture.

“We need to get out of America, so we leave. The US is a divided and a very divisive country, voting rights are being rolled back and Black history is undone. I’m tired,” says Nadine.

Kim, meanwhile, says that the only challenge in Latronico was overcoming language barriers, and getting used to the isolation.

“People are patient for me to use my translator each time, and the village is remote so you really need a vehicle to move around beyond the places within walking distance,” he says.

“But the great thing is that even at night you can leave the keys in the door. It’s a quiet, safe place that gives peace of mind.”

Some unruly airline passengers get so unruly that the FBI gets involved.

Nearly two dozen more passengers – some accused of physical or sexual assault on fellow flyers and flight crew members – now might face potential criminal charges, bringing the number of passengers facing charges so far in 2023 to just over three dozen.

On Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that in the second quarter of this year, it sent 22 new cases of unruly passenger incidents on board commercial flights to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “criminal prosecution review.” Since the start of the year, 39 cases have been referred to the FBI.

Notably, the referrals include a passenger who allegedly airdropped a bomb threat to other passengers in October of last year.

In another case dating back to July 2022, the FAA says a passenger “sexually/physically assaulted an unaccompanied minor.”

The FAA says a passenger in April of this year “yelled, cursed, threw objects at passengers and had to be restrained in cuffs.”

The FAA can only assess civil fines against passengers for violating its zero-tolerance policy for unruly behavior on board flights, regularly referring the most egregious cases to the Justice Department for possible charges. The policy went into effect on January 13, 2021, to address an increase in unruly passenger incidents. The policy skips warnings or counseling and goes directly to penalties, which can include heavy fines and jail time.

Cases that make it to the FBI

In 2021, as air travel ramped up from historic lows prompted by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 6,000 incidents of unruly behavior were reported to the FAA, compared with 1,161 before the pandemic in 2019.

In 2022, reports dropped to 2,455. So far this year, 1,177 incidents have been reported.

A fraction of reported incidents are investigated, and a smaller number prompt enforcement action, often in the form of fines. A small number of cases make it to the FBI for possible criminal prosecution. More than 270 cases have been referred to the FBI since 2021, according to the FAA.

Last year, a man charged with groping a flight attendant was sentenced to six months in prison and another unruly passenger received a four-month prison sentence.

The number of unruly passenger incidents has gone down “80 percent,” the FAA says, since hitting a peak in 2021, “but unacceptable behavior continues to occur.”

Here is a look at the life of Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda since 1986.

Personal

Birth date: August 15,1944

Birth place: Ntungamo, Uganda

Birth name: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

Father: Amos Kaguta, a cattle keeper

Mother: Esteri Kokundeka

Marriage: Janet (Kataaha) Museveni (August 1973-present)

Children: one son, three daughters

Education: Dar Es Salaam University (Tanzania), B.A., Economics, 1970

Religion: Christian

Timeline

1970 – Returns to Uganda after college and works for Prime Minister Milton Obote.

January 25, 1971 – Goes into exile in Tanzania when Obote is overthrown by Idi Amin. While in Tanzania, forms the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) with the purpose of overthrowing Amin.

April 1979 – FRONASA overthrows Amin and Museveni takes a position on the Military Commission, the newly formed government of Uganda.

1979-1980 – Minister of Defense, Uganda.

1981-1986 – Guerilla leader (National Resistance Army) in Uganda.

January 26, 1986 – Becomes president of Uganda after ousting the military regime of General Tito Okello. Is sworn in January 29.

May 1996 – Is elected president of Uganda with 74.2% of the vote in the first direct presidential election in Uganda since independence from Britain in 1962.

March 24, 1998 – US President Bill Clinton meets with Museveni in Uganda.

March 2001 – Is reelected president of Uganda with 69.3% of the vote.

May 6, 2002 – Meets with US President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss ways to get more Ugandan products into the US market.

July 11, 2003 – Bush meets with Museveni in Entebbe, Uganda, to speak about AIDS.

August 2005 – Uganda’s parliament removes presidential term limits.

February 25, 2006 – Museveni is declared the winner of Uganda’s first multi-party presidential election. It is his third term in office.

August 2006 – The Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army sign a truce aimed at ending 20 years of civil war in the country. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced two million people.

October 30, 2007 – Museveni meets with Bush at the White House.

November 2010 – Museveni releases a song and accompanying music video, “U Want Another Rap?” as part of his reelection campaign.

November 29, 2010 – Museveni takes a surprise trip to Somalia, making him the first head of state to visit in almost 20 years, according to the African Union Mission for Somalia.

February 20, 2011 – Uganda’s electoral commission declares Museveni the president with 68% of the vote. It is his fourth term in office.

February 24, 2014 – Museveni signs into law a controversial bill that toughens penalties against gay people and makes some homosexual acts crimes punishable by life in prison. During the bill signing, he declares that he will not allow the West to impose its values on Uganda.

July 31, 2015 – Museveni says he will seek his fifth term as president in 2016 elections, 30 years after assuming the office for the first time.

February 20, 2016 – Uganda’s election commission declares Museveni the winner, with nearly twice as many votes for president as his closest competitor, opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Besigye was put under “preventative arrest” on February 19 at his home in Kampala, along with six officials from his party. Besigye’s party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) rejects the results and demands an independent audit of the elections.

May 12, 2016 – Museveni is sworn in for his fifth term as president.

July 11, 2016 – Facebook photos of Museveni sitting in a lawn chair by the roadside making a phone call in Kyeirumba Village, Uganda, go viral, inspiring an online meme.

July 27, 2018 – A Ugandan constitutional court ruling upholds a December 2017 constitutional amendment to remove the presidential age limit, likely allowing Museveni to rule for life. The article limited anyone from serving as president past the age of 75.

July 24, 2019 – Bobi Wine, a 37-year-old Ugandan pop star, announces he is running against Museveni, who has been in power for 33 years.

August 26, 2019 – A Harvard student sues Museveni for blocking him on Twitter arguing that being blocked has prevented him from giving feedback to the official’s account about government policies on Twitter.

April 9, 2020 – Museveni releases a home workout video in order to encourage Ugandans to stay home during the country’s Covid-19 lockdown.

May 20, 2020 – The High Court in Kampala rules that Museveni and other officials have a right to block people on their private Twitter handles.

January 16, 2021 – Uganda’s election commission declares Museveni the winner of the presidential election. It is his sixth term in office.

May 12, 2021 – Museveni is sworn in for his sixth term as president.

May 29, 2023 – Signs into law one of the world’s strictest anti-gay bills amid Uganda’s intensifying crackdown on LGBTQ people. Museveni had sent the bill back to parliament for revisions in April.

June 8, 2023 – Museveni says on Twitter that he is taking “forced leave” after testing positive for Covid-19 and is experiencing “mild symptoms.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Lebanon on Friday to mark the third anniversary of a devastating explosion that ripped through a port in Beirut, demanding accountability from officials over a disaster that remains shrouded in mystery.

Footage from Lebanese media showed demonstrators taking to the streets during a nationwide three-day mourning period and chanting slogans against politicians they accused of obstructing the investigation into the blast, which killed at least 200 people and injured 6,000 on August 4, 2020.

The incident at the Port of Beirut in the country’s capital was one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions.

The blast sent up a huge mushroom cloud-shaped shockwave, flipping cars and leveling buildings.

It registered as a 3.3 magnitude earthquake and was felt hundreds of miles away, as far as Cyprus.

Investigators attributed the blast to approximately 2,750 tons of seized ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a port warehouse since 2014.

But three years on and what caused the ammonium nitrate to ignite remains a mystery.

An investigation aimed at prosecuting several top politicians for criminal neglect has come to a standstill, with activists and legal experts urging the United Nations to initiate a fact-finding mission to uncover the truth.

Earlier this week, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared the anniversary of the blast a nationwide holiday.

He also launched a nationwide three-day mourning period for those affected by the blast.

“Public institutions and municipalities should close on Friday, August 4, 2023 in memory of the tragedy of the port explosion as a show of solidarity with the families of the innocent martyrs and the injured and their families,” he said.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged support for the former French colony.

In a tweet Friday, Macron recalled his visit to Lebanon days after the explosion, saying he was “at the side” of the Lebanese people.

“Lebanon was not alone. It still isn’t. You can count on France, our solidarity, our friendship,” the French leader said.

Last month, Macron appointed his former foreign minister, Jean Yves Le Drian, to the role of special envoy to Lebanon as part of France’s effort to end the political deadlock in the country.

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, the Belarusian sprinter who defected at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, has been cleared by World Athletics to compete for Poland after it waived the normal three-year waiting period for nationality changes.

Tsimanouskaya refused to board a flight back home from Tokyo when she was removed from the Olympics against her will after publicly complaining about national team coaches’ decision to enter her in the 4×400 meters relay, which was not her customary distance.

She defected to Poland, saying she feared for her safety if she returned to Belarus. Poland granted her citizenship last year.

A letter by the World Athletics Nationality Review Panel seen by Reuters on Monday said that Tsimanouskaya could represent Poland starting August 6, 2023.

“The National Review Panel agreed to waive the 3-year waiting period starting from the date of application (12.06.23) on the basis the athlete last represented BLR on 30 July 2021, at the Olympic Games, Tokyo (JPN) and that the athlete has not competed in national representative competitions for two years,” the letter said.

World Athletics referred questions to the Polish Athletic Association (PZLA), saying it was a confidential application process.

The PZLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I’m extremely happy but I’m experiencing strange emotions because everything has happened so fast and suddenly,” Tsimanouskaya, 26, wrote on Instagram.

“There is a chance that I will go to the world championships in Budapest,” she added, referring to the competition starting on August 19.

Tsimanouskaya told Reuters last year she wanted another chance to compete at the Olympics. She hoped to race in the 200m at next year’s Paris Games, the event she had been set to run in Tokyo the day after Belarus removed her from the team.

Belarusians and Russians are currently barred from competing at international athletics meets because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for which Belarus is a staging area of what Moscow calls a “special military operation”.

She might recently have surpassed the legendary Michael Phelps for the most career individual world swimming titles, but Katie Ledecky says the thrill of winning remains as powerful as ever.

Ledecky eclipsed Phelps’ tally of 15 world swimming titles at the 2023 World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in July. The 26-year-old finished first in the 800-meter freestyle, an event she was won an incredible six times in a row.

With 23 Olympic gold medals to his name, Phelps is considered by many to be one of the greatest athletes of all time. For this reason, overtaking such a great of the sport was something that Ledecky hadn’t spent any time contemplating.

“Michael [Phelps] is someone that I’ve known for a long time now and to break that record was cool. I didn’t really know that I was going to achieve it until a lot of people started telling me that that was a possibility,” Ledecky explained.

The 2024 Paris Olympics are now also less than a year away and Ledecky, who has been training at the University of Florida, is looking better than ever as she looks to add to her impressive medal collection.

“I’m continuing to train really hard,” Ledecky said. “It’s just a great place to be [the University of Florida]. It’s where I’m thriving and I’m loving every day. I have a smile on my face every day when I go to practice and I’m around people that have similar goals.”

Ledecky says that being in an environment with other world champions and Olympic medalists helps those training to push each other ahead of Paris 2024.

Despite her success, Ledecky said her swimming career had throw up plenty of challenges.

After completing a degree at the University of Stanford, Ledecky says she was able to learn about time management and life outside of the pool. Alongside the support team around her, the 10-time Olympic medalist tries to always remind herself of why she took up the sport in the first place.

“I started swimming just for the fun of it and that’s something that I never lose sight of even at the international stage.”

With the 2024 Olympic Games fast approaching, Ledecky knows the next 12 months are important, but acknowledges that the nerves that come with these big moments still shows she cares for the sport.

“I know at the end of the day I’m just going to smile and have a lot of fun while I’m doing it and that’ll take care of the nerves and I’ll give my best effort that’s for sure,” Ledecky concluded.

With Simone Biles making a triumphant return to gymnastics last weekend after a two-year hiatus, Ledecky was asked about how she deals with mental health and the pressure that comes with being a highly successful athlete.

“I’ve been competing on this stage since I was 15 years old. I’m 26 now and each year I think I’ve always strived to find my balance,” Ledecky said. “Find balance between school and swimming. I completed my degree a couple years ago at Stanford and through that all I think I really a lot. I learned a lot about time management. I learned a lot about doing things outside of the pool.”

“I have really great family and friends, teammates, coaches around me. I’ve had that my whole career and I feel very lucky to have that and to continue to be motivated every day, to continue to have fun as I said at practice every day. I started swimming just for the fun of it and that’s something that I never lose sight of even at the international stage.

On getting nervous even as she approaches her fourth career Olympics, Ledecky said that she prefers to get nervous because it means that she cares.

“I still get nervous. I’m not nervous right now because I just came off the big meet but I know that I have a big year ahead of me. A lot of hard work that I need to put in if I want to achieve the goals that I have for myself, so I know that I want to be nervous when I get behind the blocks in Paris because that means I care about what I’m doing.

“But I know at the end of the day I’m just going to smile and have a lot of fun while I’m doing it and that’ll take care of the nerves and I’ll give my best effort that’s for sure.”

Colombia reached the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals for the first time in the country’s history after a nervy 1-0 victory over Jamaica in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Catalina Usme brilliantly scored the winner and, in the process, became the first player at this tournament to break Jamaica’s stubborn defense.

The Colombians’ reward is a last eight tie against reigning European champion and world No.4 England in Sydney on Saturday, a match the South American team has the talent to win despite there being 21 places between the two sides in the world rankings.

Colombia and Jamaica’s unlikely journeys to the knockout stages will be a major reason why this tournament will be regarded as a success. After all, what is sporting romance if it isn’t the traditional powerhouses faltering and the underdogs thriving against the odds?

With these two teams having been accustomed to largely playing against countries expected to beat them in the group stages, both struggled to take the initiative in this tie and, consequently, there were few chances.

But in doing just enough to beat Jamaica, Colombia becomes the first South American country to reach the last eight since Brazil in 2011.

After the match, Colombia coach Nelson Abadía told FIFA: “I believe this moment is unique for Colombian women’s football history, for south America … Equally, this is the triumph of a human group that has worked hard to achieve consistency, to have a trade, character, personality … and today we played and won well.”

Jamaica had an opportunity to level the score late in the game, but Drew Spence headed inches wide. Colombia’s Leicy Santos then hit the post in the final few minutes as the match came to life in the latter stages with Jamaica going in search of an equalizer.

Impossible to ignore

Some of Jamaica’s players were in tears after the final whistle. But the country’s presence in the round-of-16 is particularly remarkable.

Not only did the Reggae Girlz progress from a group which contained favorites France and Brazil, but they did so having had to release a statement before the tournament expressing their “utmost disappointment” with the country’s soccer federation.

The team had missed several friendlies, the statement said, due to “extreme disorganization” and that they had “showed up repeatedly without receiving contractually agreed upon compensation.”

In a statement on its website, the JFF acknowledged that “things have not been done perfectly” but that it was “working assiduously to resolve” players’ concerns.

The question now is what will be the response to the team’s success, and that of other lesser-funded countries?

While about $49 million of the record $110 million World Cup prize money will go directly to individual players, the rest of the pot will be split between participating federations who will decide what share of this money to allocate to teams and players – if any at all.

Even though Jamaica’s participation in this tournament ended in Melbourne, the players have sparkled on the world stage and made themselves, you would hope, impossible to ignore.

Jamaica keeps Caicedo quiet

The match started as if it were to end in penalties. Jamaica relied on the defense that hadn’t conceded a goal in the group stages and, like France and Brazil before them, Colombia struggled to puncture a well-organized backline.

Having scored just once in the tournament prior to this tie, Jamaica’s coach Lorne Donaldson had challenged his team to find the net, but the team managed just two shots on target and didn’t enjoy enough possession to put sustained pressure on Colombia.

There were flashes from Linda Caicedo, Colombia’s talented 18-year-old, but the teenager was largely kept quiet in a match in which defense got the better of attack, other than for Usme’s moment of magic.

In the 51st minute, the Colombia captain delicately controlled Ana Guzman’s incredible pass and placed the ball beyond Jamaica’s Rebecca Spencer. Fittingly, it was the goal that would make history.

Jamaica nearly leveled soon after when Colombia’s Catalina Perez fumbled the ball on her goalline, but the South American side counterattacked quickly and troubled the Caribbean side once again only for Caicedo to be called offside.

The longer the game progressed, the more freedom Caicedo enjoyed on the left flank, but Jamaica defended the threat posted by the Real Madrid player who has lit up this tournament with her wonderful skill on the ball.

But Jamaica needed to also score and despite a late flourish, the team’s prosaic approach ultimately proved to be its downfall.