Will Yamal, Salah and Ekitike miss the World Cup 2026 due to injury?
Mohamed Salah has become the latest player to sustain an injury weeks ahead of the World Cup, adding to his team’s and supporters’ woes as Egypt return to the tournament after missing out on the previous edition. Salah suffered a hamstring injury during Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace in the English Premier League on Saturday, with a top Egyptian football official confirming the forward will miss the rest of his club’s season. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The Egyptian talisman is not the only player to have suffered a blow ahead of the global tournament, and joins an increasing list of major players spending the rest of the club football season on the sidelines. With the World Cup kicking off in less than two months in Canada, Mexico and the United States, several players find themselves in a race against time to overcome injuries and prove their fitness. Title contenders and former champions Spain, Brazil and Germany will be among those hoping some of their key players recover in time for the tournament, which begins on June 11. Here are some of the big names who have sustained injuries ahead of the World Cup: Mohamed Salah: Egypt The Egyptian and Liverpool forward was in pain as he limped off the field and held his hamstring after being substituted in the league game. While his club manager Arne Slot refused to say whether Salah would miss the rest of Liverpool’s season, his national team’s director confirmed that the 33-year-old will be out for four weeks. “We have to wait and see how his injury is and if he is able to return to play,” Slot told reporters after the match. Advertisement “What I do know about Mo is that throughout all of these years, he has taken such good care of his body that he will have the minimum time required to recover from an injury,” he added. However, Egyptian football official Ibrahim Hassan confirmed that Salah’s club season was over. “He has suffered a hamstring tear and will require four weeks of treatment,” Hassan told the Reuters news agency. Hassan said Salah would be fit for the World Cup, where Egypt face Belgium, New Zealand and Iran in Group G. Salah is no stranger to pre-World Cup blows, having injured his shoulder before the 2018 edition in the Champions League final. He missed the Pharaohs’ opening game, but recovered for the remaining two group matches and scored two goals in a campaign that ended at the group stage. Egypt at World Cup 2026: Belgium (June 15), New Zealand (June 21), Iran (June 26) Lamine Yamal: Spain All eyes will be on the award-winning football prodigy, but his World Cup debut has been thrown into doubt after a hamstring injury in his left leg (biceps femoris muscle). Barcelona announced that Lamine Yamal’s domestic season in Spain is over, but the international forward should be fit to represent Spain at this summer’s World Cup. The 18-year-old’s participation is still doubtful since it could take four to six weeks to recover as he follows a “conservative treatment plan”. Yamal was an integral part of the Spain side that lifted the Euro 2024 title with their 2-1 win against England. Then just 16 years of age, he showed speed and guile on the ball that marked him as one of the hottest properties in global football. Spain at World Cup 2026: Cape Verde (June 15), Saudi Arabia (June 21), Uruguay (June 27) Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Serge Gnabry: Germany The 33-year-old first-choice goalkeeper for Germany has spent more time recovering than playing this year after a severe hamstring injury in February sent him into rehabilitation. German national team coach Julian Nagelsmann told Marc-Andre ter Stegen in March that his chances of playing for the national side were “very slim” and that he had to speed up his recovery to be fit for the tournament in June. The four-time champions could rely on Oliver Baumann in Stegen’s absence. Meanwhile, Germany’s Serge Gnabry took to social media this week to announce he would be “supporting the boys from home”. The 30-year-old suffered a torn adductor muscle in his right thigh that also ruled him out of Bayern Munich’s remaining Bundesliga season. Germany at World Cup 2026: Curacao (June 14), Ivory Coast (June 20), Ecuador (June 25) [Al Jazeera] Estevao, Rodrygo and Eder Militao: Brazil Brazil and Chelsea forward Estevao has also been ruled out of the remaining Premier League season after suffering a hamstring injury that left the teen in tears as he was taken off the pitch. Advertisement Chelsea’s interim coach Calum McFarlane expressed his hope for the 19-year-old to make it to the Brazilian squad, though he cautioned there was no guarantee yet. Estevao joined Chelsea from Palmeiras last year and has scored eight goals this season. He was expected to be part of Carlo Ancelotti’s squad for the World Cup after scoring five times in his last six international appearances. Unlike Estevao, Brazil forward Rodrygo has been decisively ruled out of the World Cup squad due to a torn meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee. “One of the worst days of my life, how much I always feared this injury,” the 25-year-old wrote in a social media post after the setback in March. Rodrygo made five appearances for Brazil at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Yet another blow to Brazil comes from a hamstring injury sustained by Eder Militao during Real Madrid’s 2–1 win over Deportivo Alaves. The 28-year-old defender is set to undergo surgery, and according to reports, will not be available for Brazil’s World Cup campaign as previously expected. Brazil at World Cup 2026: Morocco (June 13), Haiti (June 19), Scotland (June 24) Hugo Ekitike: France France striker Hugo Ekitike has also been ruled out of the World Cup entirely after tearing his Achilles tendon in April during the Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. He recently underwent surgery, which Liverpool
‘State of war’: Why Israel has escalated attacks in Gaza
Israel has escalated its attacks on the Gaza Strip in the past week, with at least four Palestinians killed across the devastated enclave, including a 40-year-old woman in Khan Younis, in the past 24 hours amid daily violations of the October “ceasefire”. Medics and local health officials report more than 25 Palestinians have been killed in the past week alone, taking the number of people killed since the ceasefire to more than 800. The enclave has been devastated by more than two years of genocidal war, which killed more than 72,500 Palestinians. The rising attacks come as the new United States-backed governance structures seem to have been sidelined. Chaos and the ‘yellow line’ On the ground, the Israeli military has intensified its targeting of Palestinian police officers, recently acknowledging the killing of six officers it claimed were involved in planning imminent strikes. It provided no proof that they were planning to attack. However, Palestinian analysts argue the targeted strikes are part of a broader strategy to maintain a state of war and undermine the US-brokered agreement. Ahmed al-Tanani, a political analyst in Gaza, said Israel is targeting police forces to eradicate any possibility of restoring stability and to push the enclave into internal chaos. “It wants to make it an unlivable environment, forcing residents to seek displacement, which serves the strategic goal of this war,” al-Tanani said. Simultaneously, Israeli forces are advancing further into western Gaza and expanding the “yellow line” delineating areas under Israeli military control. Al-Tanani noted that Israel has added 37km (23 miles) to this eastern zone, meaning it now controls approximately 60 percent of the enclave, effectively partitioning Palestinian territory and severely restricting freedom of movement. Advertisement Under the “ceasefire” agreement, Israel was expected to withdraw its troops from Gaza by the end of phase one, but it has refused to do so despite the truce entering its second phase. (Al Jazeera) An ’emptied’ technocratic committee The military escalation coincides with the effective paralysis of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a body of Palestinian technocrats established under US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace“. While Washington framed the 12-member NCAG as a roadmap for “reconstruction and prosperity”, Iyad al-Qarra, a political analyst, argued that the committee has been “emptied of its role” and isolated in Cairo by Israel to prevent it from functioning on the ground. “It is difficult to separate the committee’s work from providing services to citizens, and it is hard to separate serving citizens from the security apparatus and the presence of the occupation,” al-Qarra explained. He added that a real transition requires an Israeli withdrawal from the areas it controls, which has not happened. Academic and Israeli affairs expert Mohanad Mustafa noted that the ceasefire agreement was initially forced upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the US. Now, Mustafa argued, Israel is deliberately blocking the entry of the NCAG to prevent the return of any political or civil life to Gaza, aiming to maintain a status quo of indefinite military occupation. Al Jazeera repeatedly reached out to the NCAG for comment on these developments, but the body declined to speak to the media. Disarmament and the US umbrella The “Board of Peace” is chaired by Trump and features pro-Israel US figures like Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio, who have the power to decide Gaza’s future. Adolfo Franco, a Republican strategic analyst in Washington, defended the Israeli military’s actions, stating that Israel has paused its implementation of the ceasefire because Hamas refuses to disarm. “President Trump said two things: Hamas will be disarmed either the easy way or the hard way, and the hard way will be Israel taking over the disarmament if Hamas refuses to do it itself,” Franco said. Hamas has said it would not disarm until Israeli forces are no longer occupying Palestinian territory. Palestinians maintain that Israel has manipulated the agreement since day one. While the ceasefire originally stipulated the entry of 600 aid trucks daily, current figures show only 150 to 190 trucks are crossing. Al-Qarra noted that the amount of aid entering does not exceed 20 percent of what was agreed upon, with essential equipment for clearing rubble and repairing hospitals remaining entirely blocked. Advertisement Al-Qarra argued that Israel has successfully used Trump’s overarching peace narrative as a cover to continue its military operations while demanding “disarmament” – a condition he described as “a vague and unrealistic excuse”. “Israel is now successfully taking this banner and legitimacy from the US, trading everything for the issue of disarmament,” al-Qarra said. Meanwhile, al-Tanani revealed that Nickolay Mladenov, the representative linking the NCAG to the Board of Peace, privately acknowledges Israel’s daily violations and manipulation of aid during meetings with Palestinian factions, despite publicly adhering to the US and Israeli narratives. A ‘sovereignty-minus’ reality Critics have previously described the overarching US-led structure as a “corporate takeover” that reduces Palestinians to municipal workers with zero political agency. With Israeli militias allegedly operating on the ground and international stabilisation forces failing to deploy as planned, confidence in the newly established administrative councils has evaporated among the Palestinian public. As Israeli forces maintain their grip on the territory and continue their targeted killings, the prospect of an independent, functional administration in Gaza appears increasingly remote. “We have returned back to square one, unfortunately,” al-Qarra concluded. Adblock test (Why?)
New footage shows moment of deadly bus bombing in Colombia
NewsFeed Newly released dashcam video shows the moment that a bomb-laden bus exploded in Colombia, killing at least 13 people on the Pan-American Highway. The country’s president says that dissidents from the FARC movement are responsible. Published On 26 Apr 202626 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Deporting soldiers? Why immigrant veterans fear removal from the US
Seeking citizenship from a warzone Hernandez has spent most of his life in the US. He was brought across the border by his mother as a baby. He now has three children, all US citizens. As of 2022, nearly 731,000 military veterans like Hernandez were immigrants. They comprise roughly 4.5 percent of the US’s veteran population. For decades, faced with declining enlistment numbers, the US military has depended on immigrants to serve alongside its US-born citizens. Most have citizenship, too — but an estimated 118,000 immigrant veterans do not. Hernandez is one of them. Like many other veterans struggling to reintegrate into society after their military service, Hernandez struggled to find his place in the civilian world. He was jailed on illegal gun charges shortly after returning from his deployment. When he was released a few weeks later, he found he had been evicted from his apartment, and all his possessions, including military memorabilia, had been confiscated. “I came out with nothing,” he told Al Jazeera. With few options left, he became involved in selling drugs, which led him to be in and out of prison on multiple convictions. Without US citizenship — and especially with convictions on his record — the threat of deportation now hangs over him. His experience is not an outlier. Roughly a third of veterans are arrested at least once in their lifetimes, and surveys estimate that as many as 181,500 are imprisoned each year. Many veterans struggle with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorders and substance abuse issues, which can lead them to commit criminal offences. Hernandez was among those who enlisted after the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. In the military frenzy afterwards, a recruiter at his California high school convinced him to sign up. Hernandez was just 18, and the structure, ambition and steady income of military service appealed to him. “I was trying to make a difference, trying to defend the land that was supposed to be my country — that adopted me,” he said. Hernandez was deployed when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and then deployed two more times after that. He worked on the USS Kearsarge LHD-3, an amphibious assault group in the US Navy. “They said I was going to get to see the world,” he said. “I didn’t. It was nothing but sea.” During his first deployment on the ship, he filed his application for citizenship. The process was supposed to take only about six months. Then-President George W Bush had pledged to expedite naturalisation applications for active-duty service members who served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in an effort to boost recruitment. But like other immigrant soldiers at the time, Hernandez’s naturalisation was delayed. The US immigration system has been chronically overwhelmed, and after the September 11 attacks, stricter background checks led to even slower service. By the time Hernandez was finally called for his citizenship interview in 2006, two years had passed since his return from his final deployment. He already had a criminal conviction for drug possession. As he was no longer in the military, Hernandez’s expedited naturalisation case was denied. Adblock test (Why?)
African governments need to take urgent action on fertiliser shortages
Food security in Africa could face major disruptions due to continuing uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran is disrupting global fertiliser trade flows – and this stands to leave millions of African farmers without the ammonia, urea, phosphate, sulphur and other fertiliser inputs vital to growing more food in sub-Saharan Africa. Fertiliser shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz account, for example, for roughly one-quarter of global ammonia trade and more than a third of seaborne urea. Even the slightest perceived risk can drive up fertiliser prices, stall shipments and cause a seismic shift in food price inflation. This food insecurity scenario is not new: COVID-19 pandemic disruptions and the war in Ukraine drove fertiliser prices to record highs, exposing how dependent we have become on a handful of export hubs and bottlenecked transport routes. About 80 percent of fertiliser used across sub-Saharan Africa is imported, often at prices much higher than in Europe due to freight, financing and logistics. When global supply falters, Africa’s farmers often feel the economic shocks the hardest. For many governments, fertiliser security is tied to food security, which, in turn, is linked to economic and social stability. Africa’s smallholder farmers are at the forefront of this crisis. They produce nearly 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s food, and unlike large commercial farms which have the cash to secure a supply earlier, smallholder farmers often have limited fertiliser options or face steep price hikes. Advertisement According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, even a 10 percent reduction in fertiliser availability could result in up to 25 percent less maize, rice and wheat grown in sub-Saharan Africa. This could trigger food inflation of up to 8 percent on the continent. In 2022, the African Development Bank Group launched the $1.5bn African Emergency Food Production Facility to help countries respond to supply disruptions amid the war in Ukraine. The initiative has supported nearly 16 million smallholder farmers in 35 countries with climate-smart seeds and fertiliser, helping generate 46 million tonnes of food worth about $19bn, with nearly $323m in cofinancing from international partners. Having delivered 3.5 million metric tonnes of fertiliser to date, the facility is rolling out a second phase that supports a shift from immediate emergency relief to consolidating, scaling up and institutionalising long-term national food sovereignty. This African-created solution has a role in helping African countries mitigate fertiliser flow uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz. But African policymakers, partners and allies also need to act to cushion the Iran conflict’s immediate risks and build long-term resilience. They should move across five fronts. First, they need to strengthen market intelligence. Real‑time tracking of trade flows, shipping routes, and price trends helps policymakers anticipate disruptions. UN Trade and Development’s Strait of Hormuz ship traffic monitoring demonstrates how trade data can guide decisions before shortages escalate. Data sharing between regional institutions like those led by the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership would allow countries to assess exposure and coordinate action. Second, African governments and regional organisations need to coordinate regional procurement and buffer stocks. By pooling fertiliser demand, they can negotiate better prices and reduce the risk of export bans or freight spikes. Shared, commercial channel reserves can stabilise markets during shortages. Partnerships with Africa’s major fertiliser producers like Morocco and Nigeria could help stabilise markets and limit panic buying. Third, African states need to urgently expand domestic and regional production. Countries such as Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia are building fertiliser manufacturing and blending capacity, but the scale remains limited relative to demand. Public-private partnerships should invest in upgrading blending plants, ports and railways while promoting organic fertilisers and soil‑specific nutrient management. Advertisement Fourth, African governments need to protect smallholder farmers from price spikes. Well-targeted subsidies, digital voucher systems and expanded access to seasonal credit can help reduce the burden of global volatility falling on those least able to absorb it. Finally, we must support the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Initiative. Adopted during the African Union-hosted Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit in 2024, the initiative’s 10-year action plan is designed to reverse Africa’s soil degradation, boost agricultural productivity, triple fertiliser use, restore almost a third of degraded soil and double cereal yields. As the 2026 planting season advances, Africa’s ability to navigate fertiliser supply risks will depend on how quickly governments, regional organisations and private sector partners work together and with a wide reach. The World Bank’s AgriConnect programme, launched in late 2025 in collaboration with the African Development Bank Group and other organisations, shows what this partnership approach can look like. By combining digital farming advice, facilitating access to credit and climate-smart farming, AgriConnect can help farmers get fertiliser and other inputs they need, show farmers how to use them more efficiently and equip farmers to be more resilient to global market swings. Tensions in the Gulf are a reminder that a disruption in a distant shipping lane can translate into higher food prices in African households thousands of kilometres away. Multilateral banks, regional agencies and other development partners need to align funding with fertiliser security priorities. When we act quickly, these partnerships could transform today’s crisis into an opportunity that builds Africa’s long‑term food and economic sovereignty. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
After years of avoidance, Trump to attend first White House press dinner
Washington, DC – Donald Trump — whose political career has been built, in part, on deriding the United States press — is set to attend his first White House Correspondents’ Dinner as president. Saturday’s event continues a decades-long tradition, dating back to 1921. Still, the black-tie gala held in Washington, DC, remains a divisive event. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list For years, detractors have argued its chummy approach to the presidency risks blurring the independence of the press corps. Trump himself is one of the dinner’s critics. Until this year, Trump had refused to attend, appearing poised to defy a tradition of sitting presidents dining at least once with the press corps during the annual event. Since he launched his first presidential campaign, Trump has taken a bellicose approach towards the media, issuing both personal attacks on journalists and lawsuits against news organisations for coverage he deems unfair. His presence at Saturday’s dinner has only heightened questions about the event’s role in the modern era. Trump has previously declined five previous invitations to attend, across his first and second terms. His inaugural visit on Saturday has been accompanied by changes to the dinner’s format: Most notably, the longstanding practice of having a comedian perform has been nixed. Journalist organisations and rights groups, meanwhile, have called on the event’s host, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), to send a “forthright message” to the president about protecting the freedom of the press. Advertisement “We also urge the WHCA to reaffirm, without equivocation, that freedom of the press is not a partisan issue,” a coalition of groups, including the Society of Professional Journalists, wrote in an open letter. A return for Trump? Saturday is set to be the first time Trump attends the correspondents’ dinner as president, but it is not his first time attending the event. He was present as a private citizen at the 2011 dinner, years before launching his first successful presidential campaign. At the time, Trump had begun his foray into national politics, pushing the so-called “birtherism” theory: the racist claim that then-President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and had faked his US birth certificate. It is tradition for the sitting president to speak at the event, and Obama seized the moment to lob barbs at Trump’s conspiracy theories and his nascent political career. In one instance, Obama poked fun at Trump’s work hosting the reality television show The Apprentice. Referring to Trump’s “firing” of actor Gary Busey, Obama mockingly praised his decision-making. “These are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night,” he quipped. “Well played, sir.” Obama also envisioned what a future Trump presidency would look like, displaying a mock-up of a “Trump White House Resort and Casino”. Comedian Seth Meyers, who hosted the night’s event, also took aim at Trump’s birtherism claims and political ambitions. “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican,” he quipped at one point, “which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.” Trump sat stone-faced in the audience, with several confidants later crediting the night as a major motivator for his 2016 presidential bid. The White House Correspondents’ Association was launched in 1914, as a response to threats by then-President Woodrow Wilson to do away with presidential news conferences. The organisation has worked to expand White House access for reporters. Comedians became mainstays of the annual dinner in the early 1980s, with both presidents and journalists often the subject of their pointed jokes. Defenders of the event have argued that the presence of comedians helps to celebrate free speech and ground the black-tie proceedings, underscoring that no attendee is above ridicule. But since President Trump first declined to attend the event after taking office in 2017, that norm has shifted. Michelle Wolf’s no-holds-barred performance in 2018 is often seen as a breaking point. Advertisement In her jokes, she seized upon Trump’s past statements appearing to praise sexual assault, and she charged that Trump did not have a “big enough spine to attend” the event. She also mocked the mainstream media’s coverage of the president. While praised by fellow comedians and some members of the press, her performance divided the White House press corps. Trump and his top officials took particular issue with the material, with the president decrying Wolf as “filthy”. The following year, the association instead invited historian Ron Chernow to speak at the event. The dinner did not have another comedian until 2022, during the administration of US President Joe Biden. Last year, during Trump’s first term back in office, the association abruptly cancelled a planned performance by comedian Amber Ruffin, with the board’s then-President Eugene Daniels saying it wanted to avoid “politics of division”. This year, a mentalist, Oz Pearlman, is set to perform instead of a comedian. Calls for press freedom The Society of Professional Journalists, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and The National Association of Black Journalists are among the organisations and hundreds of individual journalists urging their colleagues to use the event to make a statement. In an open letter, it said the actions by the Trump administration “represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president”. The organisation pointed to a series of hostile actions the Trump administration has taken against journalists. They include limiting the White House and Pentagon press pools, threats by the Federal Communications Commission against broadcasters, immigration enforcement actions against non-citizen journalists, and an FBI raid of a Washington Post reporter’s home. The letter also pointed to the White House’s launching of a “hall of shame” page on its website, which highlights news organisations accused of biased coverage, as well as Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on reporters. But the Trump administration has rejected allegations that it treats journalists unfairly or that it has prevented public access to information. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, for example, has regularly touted Trump as the “most transparent” president
LIVE: Real Betis vs Real Madrid – La Liga
blinking-dotLive MatchLive Match, Follow our live build-up, with full team news coverage, before our text commentary stream as Real chase Barcelona. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Five games to go: The Premier League’s unpredictable season turns again
This was supposed to be Arsenal’s title. For 200 days, it looked like it would be. But Wednesday night, Erling Haaland scored his 35th goal of the season after five minutes at Turf Moor, and Manchester City went top of the Premier League for the first time since October. Arsenal’s 200-day lead was gone, just like that, to a team that three weeks ago looked like they had run out of steam. I am a Manchester United supporter. I have no dog in this fight. So honestly, watching this title race from the outside has been one of the most entertaining things the Premier League has produced in years. Not because the football has always been brilliant. Because it really has not. But because absolutely nothing has gone the way anyone expected. Arsenal were supposed to win this! The title felt done. Football journalists were already writing the “Arsenal end the wait” pieces and filing them for publication on whatever Sunday it became official. Then Bournemouth beat them at home. Then they lost at the Etihad to goals from Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland. Then last night, City beat Burnley, and Arsenal’s 200-day stint at the top was over. Now they have no tie-breaker advantage. If the two clubs finish level on points, goal difference and goals scored, City win the title because they have won more points in the head-to-head matches this season. Arsenal hold none of the cards. It’s a case of who blinks first, and I think Arsenal will blink. Mikel Arteta has taken Arsenal close, and he deserves some credit for that. But his performative coaching on the sideline, his cringeworthy “tricks” in training, they point to a man feeling the pressure. He’s so worked up, I think it’s translating to the pitch. Advertisement The Chelsea disaster … While the title race has been the main event, Chelsea have been providing the most genuinely extraordinary sideshow in Premier League history. Three managers in 16 months. Some 2 billion pounds ($2.7bn) spent on players. Seventh in the table. And my personal favourite stat of the entire season: five consecutive league games without scoring, the first time that has happened to Chelsea since 1912. Their most recent manager, Liam Rosenior, was sacked this week. He had been in the job for 106 days on a six-and-a-half-year contract. He is perhaps best remembered for a news conference in January where he explained that the word “manage”, split into two, gives you “man” and “age” and that, therefore, management means “ageing men”. He aged extremely quickly. He is now 41 and unemployed. The week he was sacked, Chelsea’s parent company published accounts showing operating losses of 689 million pounds ($930m) over three years. That is a loss of 629,000 pounds ($850,000) every single day. For three years. At a football club that cannot beat Brighton. There is a serious point buried in the Chelsea comedy. Spending money without a coherent plan is not a strategy. The clubs who disrupted the established order this season, Bournemouth above all, did it through organisation and intelligence. Bournemouth sold their five best players for a combined 250 million pounds ($338m) in 18 months. Their manager, Andoni Iraola, adapted, rebuilt and is still on course to finish in the top half while playing some of the most attractive football in the country. Bournemouth beat Arsenal at the Emirates. They beat Liverpool at Anfield. Chelsea spent many times their budget and could finish below them. When did it turn? If I had to pick one result that changed everything, it would be Southampton beating Arsenal in the FA Cup quarterfinal. Southampton were relegated the previous season. It did not cost Arsenal the title by itself. But it was the first moment where you looked at Arsenal and thought: Something is not quite right here. The composure, the belief, the ability to handle big moments and it wobbled. Once that wobble is visible, every subsequent result gets filtered through it. The Bournemouth home loss felt worse because of Southampton. The City defeat felt worse because of Bournemouth. And now with five games left and City top on goal difference, the whole thing looks like a slow unravelling that started on that day. Five to go! City have Everton away, Brentford at home, Bournemouth away, Crystal Palace at home and Villa at home on the final day. Arsenal have Newcastle at home, Fulham at home, West Ham away, Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away on the final day when they will face a club whose best player, Eberechi Eze, left for Arsenal in the summer and will be returning to the stadium where his career was made. Advertisement Arsenal also have the Champions League semifinal against Atletico Madrid to get through. City have no European football. They are rested, they are focused and Haaland has 35 goals this season with five games still to play. I said at the start of this that Arsenal were going to bottle it. I said it in February when they were nine points clear, and people were not particularly happy about it. I stand by it. The momentum, the tiebreakers, the fixture congestion and I think the mentality – all of it points towards City. But I have been watching this league for 30 years, and I have learned one thing above everything else: The Premier League will find a way to surprise you. The season that looked decided in December is never decided in December. The team that looks unbeatable in April sometimes loses to Bournemouth on a wet Tuesday night and never quite recovers. It happened to Arsenal. Maybe it happens to City too. Five games. Everything to play for. Come back and tell me I was wrong. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
Chornobyl at 40: Settlers and horses survive Russian drones, contamination
Oslyak had just finished a night shift at ChNPP on April 25, and had returned to Pripyat and their cosy apartment, with its wall rugs and soft lighting typical of functional Soviet style. He slipped into bed next to Nikitina and fell into a deep sleep. At 1:23am, explosions rang out across the night sky. The city stirred in the night, and some residents woke to the blasts and an unfamiliar light on the horizon, but Nikitina and her husband remained asleep. In the plant, molten fuel burned through layers of concrete and steel towards water beneath the reactor, threatening an even greater explosion. Firefighters and workers responded, unaware of the danger, climbing onto the roof and into the wreckage as radiation surged beyond levels that humans can handle. Two Chornobyl plant workers died that night as a result of the initial explosion, and a further 28 personnel and emergency workers called to the site would die in the following weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning. But in Pripyat, as Nikitina woke on the morning of April 26, everything seemed normal. It was Saturday, and while many plant workers were off, shops were open, and, as was the norm in the Soviet Union, children went to school. Neither she nor her husband was scheduled to work that day, but as they left the apartment for a stroll, they noticed multiple sealed vehicles loaded with heavy equipment moving through the city towards the ChNPP. They thought back to their university classes, where they had been taught what would happen if a reactor were damaged. It had been presented as such an unlikely scenario that, at the time, she said it felt almost like an old wives’ tale. Yet, they agreed that these signs had all the hallmarks of a major incident, so the couple and their child hunkered down in their apartment and made sure all the windows were tightly closed as a precaution. The morning of April 27, they woke to temporary evacuation orders blaring from loudspeakers mounted on trucks and police cars. Residents were told to gather at collection points near their buildings as there had been an incident at the ChNPP, while municipal services began distributing iodine tablets to the inhabitants of Pripyat to protect their thyroids from radiation exposure. The authorities did not tell them how severe the incident was, and they were advised to pack enough food and clothes for just three days. Before they were about to leave their apartment for evacuation, her husband received a call from the local authorities: He was needed at the plant and was told to stay behind. Nikitina recalls the moment she stood on the warm spring day, waiting with her son to board a bus. She said, although the roughly 49,000 residents of the city were evacuated in an orderly manner, she has realised in hindsight the extreme dangers they were exposed to, standing in dresses, shorts and light clothing, unaware they were immersed in a radioactive plume filled with radionuclides and aerosols. Nikitina and her son were first evacuated to Ivankiv, a town roughly 50km (30 miles) south of Pripyat and about 90km (56 miles) north of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. After Soviet authorities admitted on April 28 that a disaster had occurred, news of its severity spread among the evacuees. A panicked Nikitina began desperately washing her and her son’s clothes in their temporary lodging provided by the authorities, trying to remove any contamination. As she laid them out to dry on a balcony, a dosimetrist visited her, only to discover that they contained dangerous levels of radiation and ordered them to be immediately removed and destroyed. Adblock test (Why?)
Iran war live: Lebanon truce extended; Trump says time not on Tehran’s side
blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, Death toll from Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza has reached 72,568 with 172,338 injured: Gaza’s Health Ministry. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)