Tag: News – Al Jazeera

United States Senator Chris Murphy and House Representative Greg Casar are set to introduce legislation to rein in prediction markets after bettors cashed in on geopolitical conflicts, including the joint strikes the US and Israel launched against Iran and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

On Tuesday, the two lawmakers announced their intent to introduce the Banning Event Trading on Sensitive Operations and Federal Functions (BETS OFF) Act, which would prohibit wagers on “government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome”.

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“Our legislation is pretty simple. It simply says that these markets cannot allow people to make bets on government decision-making and frankly on other instances where there is one single individual who controls and knows the outcome of a market,” Murphy told reporters.

The bill comes amid a slate of legislation to put guardrails on prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow users to wager money on the outcomes of real-life events.

Already, bets on the platforms have been placed on US military strikes and monetary policy.

“What happens to us spiritually when every moral question in this country becomes a market? Don’t we lose something? Don’t we rot a little bit inside when the question of famine in Gaza isn’t a question of what is right and what is wrong, but whether you can make money or lose money?” Murphy added.

“I think it’s really important that there are certain matters that are not monetised by prediction markets.”

Making a profit on war?

Critics have pointed to the trends on the online betting platforms that suggest links between upcoming government actions and increases in the number of bets made.

For example, in the hours leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February, 150 new accounts appeared on Polymarket and made wagers on the then-looming strikes.

Of those accounts, 109 made more than $10,000, and one made more than half a million dollars, according to Casar and Murphy.

As Al Jazeera previously reported, one Polymarket user, known as Magamyman, made more than $500,000 with a wager that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be out of power. That bet was placed only hours before the February 28 strike.

That echoes what happened in the lead-up to the January 3 attack to topple Maduro.

A trader profited from the attack by predicting Maduro’s ousting only hours before US forces abducted him. The payout, in that case, was $400,000.

On Polymarket, in particular, users can wager anonymously, raising questions about whether government officials might be profiting from insider knowledge.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Murphy alleged that the recent bets on the Iran war and the Venezuela attack must have come either from the White House or someone close to the administration.

“It seems pretty clear what happened. People inside the White House — or those close to the White House with knowledge of the attack that was imminent — cashed in,” the Connecticut senator said.

Casar, who represents parts of San Antonio and Austin, Texas, suggested that the prospect of profiting from online bets could even influence government decisions.

“We shouldn’t be living in a country where someone is sitting in the situation room, making decisions on whether to invade or to bomb, decisions about war and peace, life and death — that those decisions could be driven by the fact that they have hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on the decision,” Casar added.

Al Jazeera followed up with Murphy’s office to ask if the lawmakers had proof that the White House or someone close to the White House made the bets, but the office has yet to respond.

The White House, meanwhile, pushed back on allegations that President Donald Trump or his officials were involved in the high-stakes bets.

“The only special interest guiding the Trump Administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Al Jazeera in a statement.

The president’s son is actively involved in the prediction markets, however.

In August 2025, Donald Trump Jr joined Polymarket’s board. The venture capital firm 1789 Capital, which lists Trump Jr as a partner, backed Polymarket only a month after the Department of Justice dropped its investigation into the platform.

Trump Jr is also a strategic adviser to Kalshi. He joined in January 2025, only months before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission withdrew an appeal to block a federal court decision allowing Kalshi to offer bets on US elections.

A wave of legislation

Concerns about prediction markets extend far beyond bets on government actions, though.

The legislation Murphy and Casar have proposed would also ban bets on outcomes that can be controlled, including the results of award shows.

“The people who benefit in these markets are always the powerful,” Murphy said. “The people who know who know who is going to perform at the Super Bowl, the people who know what words the president is going to use in a speech are very powerful people.”

Casar added that he is not opposed to gambling in general, but that he and Murphy are simply trying to ensure a level playing field.

“I think we should have the ability for folks to go to a casino and play a poker game or play a game of roulette, but we have rules that say the house cannot rig the poker game,” Casar said.

“When people get on their phone and see these prediction markets, they expect that there are rules to make sure the game isn’t rigged against them.”

Their legislation is part of a slate of bills and regulatory pushes to increase oversight across the entire prediction market industry.

Just this month, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced legislation that would establish federal consumer protections for the prediction market industry, including through age verification for usage and a ban on advertisements targeting underage users.

Senators Jeff Merkley and Amy Klobuchar, both Democrats, also put forward legislation that would bar elected officials from profiting from prediction markets.

And lawmakers in Minnesota are pushing to ban prediction markets altogether, as a violation of state gambling laws. Arizona, meanwhile, filed criminal charges against Kalshi on Tuesday, citing similar reasons.

“I hope we take a comprehensive look at the way that prediction markets are rigging our entire economy and government actions,” Murphy said.

Neither Kalshi nor Polymarket, the two largest prediction market platforms, responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The civil trial centres on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which was renamed X.

Closing arguments are set to begin in a trial in the United States pitting Elon Musk against shareholders of Twitter, now known as X, who say the world’s richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behaviour that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44bn deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.

The arguments are set for Tuesday.

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The civil trial in San Francisco centres on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which he later renamed, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44bn, or $54.20 per share. The price represents a fraction of the Tesla CEO’s fortune, now estimated at $839bn.

Much of the trial focused on Musk’s claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Musk testified, as he has long contended, that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5 percent it disclosed in regulatory filings. He used what he called Twitter’s misrepresentation of the number of fake accounts on its service as a reason to retreat from the purchase.

After Musk tried to back out, Twitter went to court in Delaware to force him to honour his original deal. Just before that case was scheduled to go to trial, Musk reversed course again and agreed to pay what he had originally promised.

Bots and fake accounts

The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter was not new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5m in 2021 to settle claims that it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for years while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.

But Musk claimed the number was much higher, at least 20 percent according to some analysts. Saying the bot number was at least this high was like “saying the grass is green or the sky is blue”, Musk said.

Twitter’s former CFO Ned Segal disputed this claim and said on the witness stand that the number was actually closer to 1 percent.

Asked if Twitter ever filed false filings to the SEC that misstated its spam numbers, Segal said it did not. But he mentioned that the company once restated its finances after it became aware of a mistake in its calculation of daily users. In 2017, Twitter said it had been overstating its monthly user numbers by mistake because it was including users of a third-party app it should not have.

On Monday, the two sides met to go over instructions to the jury. Judge Charles R Breyer noted that many in the jury pool had negative views on Musk. But, he added, a person who is “not universally liked” still deserves a fair trial, and should not be treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way.

Beneath the labyrinthine salt caves and emerald mangrove forests of Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a different kind of architecture lies buried.

While tourists once flocked to this “open-air geological museum” to get a glimpse of its surreal rock formations, the world’s gaze is now fixed on what lies beneath the coral: Iran’s “underground missile cities”.

As the US-Israel war on Iran erupted, Qeshm has transitioned from a free-trade and tourist paradise to a front-line fortress – and the ultimate strategic prize for US Marines currently being deployed to the strait.

Its sheer size – approximately 1,445sq km (558sq miles) – allows it to physically dominate the entrance to the strait from the Gulf, acting as a cork in the world’s most vital energy transit passage.

These days, the island’s 148,000 residents – primarily Sunni Muslims who speak the unique Bandari dialect – live at the intersection of this ancient natural beauty and modern military tensions. Their lives are still dictated by the sea, which is celebrated every year during the Nowruz Sayyadi, Fisherman’s New Year, when all fishing stops to honour the ocean’s bounty.

But on March 7 – one week into the war – US air strikes targeted a critical desalination plant on the island. The strike, which Tehran branded a “flagrant crime” against civilians, cut off freshwater supplies to 30 surrounding villages.

In a swift retaliatory move, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched strikes against US forces at the Juffair base in Bahrain, alleging the attack on Qeshm had been launched from a neighbouring Gulf state.

Here is what we know about the strategic importance and history of the island.

‘Missile cities’ – the fortress in the strait

Today, the island’s modern industrial facade, bolstered by its status as a free trade-industrial zone since 1989, is overshadowed by its role as Iran’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.

Located just 22km (14 miles) south of the port city of Bandar Abbas, Qeshm dominates the Clarence Strait, also known as Kuran, and acts as the primary platform for Iran’s “asymmetric” naval power, say analysts.

While exact figures regarding the number of Iranian fast-attack boats and coastal batteries hidden within the island’s subterranean labyrinths remain heavily classified, their strategic intent is clear. Retired Lebanese Brigadier-General Hassan Jouni, a military and strategic expert, told Al Jazeera that Qeshm houses “striking Iranian capabilities” within what is described as an underground “missile city”. These vast networks, Jouni said, are designed for one primary purpose: to effectively control or close the Strait of Hormuz.

This, they have successfully done. Shipping traffic through the strait was effectively halted last week when Iran threatened to strike ships attempting to pass.

Now, only a handful of ships carrying vital oil and gas supplies to the rest of the world are being allowed through, as countries scramble to negotiate deals with Iran for their own tankers and as the administration of United States President Donald Trump attempts to assemble a naval convoy of warships to forcibly open the waterway.

As Qeshm becomes the focal point of a 21st-century energy war, however, its silent salt caves and ancient shrines serve as a reminder that while past empires and military coalitions like those of the Portuguese and British have eventually faded, the geological fortress of the strait remains anchored in the turbulent tides of history.

An island of many names

Known in Arabic as Jazira-al-Ṭawila (the Long Island), Qeshm’s identity was forged by a succession of empires.

According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Greek explorer Nearchus referred to it as Oaracta and saw the legendary tomb of Erythras, the namesake of the Erythraean Sea, there. By the ninth century, Islamic geographers were referring to it as Abarkawan, a name later folk-etymologised as Jazira-ye Gavan or “Cow Island”.

The island was deemed so strategically important that the rulers of Hormuz moved their entire court there in 1301 to escape Tartar attacks. For centuries, it served as the “water barrel” of the region, providing vital drinking water to the arid Kingdom of Hormuz on the eastern side of the Gulf.

The island’s wealth was so legendary that in 1552, Ottoman commander Piri Reis raided it, seizing what contemporary accounts described as “the richest prize that could be found in all the world”.

The island’s colonial history is equally turbulent.

The Portuguese built a massive stone fort on Qeshm in 1621. And a year later, a combined Persian and English force expelled the Portuguese from that fort in a battle that claimed the life of Britain’s famed Arctic navigator William Baffin.

By the 19th century, the British had established a naval base at Basidu (Bassadore), which remained a hub for the British Indian Navy until 1863. It was not until 1935 that the British coaling station was finally abandoned at the request of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the then-shah of Iran.

A museum under fire

Beyond the military watchtowers and the IRGC’s underground silos, Qeshm remains one of the most ecologically diverse locations in the Middle East. It is home to the Hara mangrove forest, a vital breeding ground for migratory birds, and the Qeshm Geopark – the first of its kind in the region to be recognised by UNESCO, an honour it attained in 2006.

The island’s landscape includes:

• The Valley of Stars: A complex network of canyons and rock pillars carved by millennia of erosion. Local legends claim the valley was formed by a falling star that shattered the earth.

• Namakdan Salt Cave: One of the world’s longest salt caves, stretching for more than 6km (3.7 miles). Its crystalline formations are hundreds of millions of years old, containing some of the purest salt in the Gulf.
• Chahkooh Canyon: A deep, narrow corridor of limestone and salt, where vertical walls create a natural cathedral of stone.

Jeffrey Epstein urged Canadian-American media and real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman to relinquish control of his financial affairs over what he claimed was the magnate’s “potentially dangerous” cognitive impairment, according to files released by the United States Department of Justice.

While Epstein’s business ties with Zuckerman, now 88 years old, have been a matter of public record for over two decades, the files suggest that the late sex offender also served as a confidant with access to the most intimate details of the billionaire mogul’s personal life.

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After a meeting with Zuckerman and the Norwegian diplomat Terje Rod-Larsen in October 2015, Epstein wrote an email urging the tycoon to enter a guardianship or conservatorship for his own protection.

Epstein told Zuckerman, the owner and publisher of US News & World Report, that the mogul had requested his help during their meeting several days earlier, but that he “might not remember”.

“Your friends including me are very concerned that your cognitive impairment has now reached a serious and potentially dangerous level. There is serious concern for your financail, emotional physical and psychological safety,” Epstein wrote, using his typically idiosyncratic approach to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Epstein suggested that Zuckerman grant Rod-Larsen, Zuckerman’s nephews, and “anyone else you trust” authority to manage his affairs, warning that his “remarkable abilities” were no longer enough to protect him.

“I am aware that your condition makes you prone to suspicion but that being said, the future predictable decline will be an ever increasing danger,” Epstein wrote.

“Admittting you have a problem will take courage and determination.”

Zuckerman, who previously owned The Atlantic and the New York Daily News, appeared to take Epstein’s advice seriously, thanking him for his “thoughtfulness and friendship” and asking for recommendations for a lawyer with “experience in such matters”.

Zuckerman suggested the two men meet after he returned from an upcoming trip to San Francisco, but Epstein advised him to cancel the trip and said the mogul had told him about his travel plans on four separate occasions.

“I know you dont remember each time. . MORT , you need a Guardian,” Epstein wrote. “you should choose one now, while your judgment peeks through the haze. waiting too long. will mean most likely a court imposed solution. NOT FUN.”

Epstein also discussed Zuckerman’s health with his nephew, Eric Gertler, advising the relative to oversee the sale of the businessman’s stocks, art collection, helicopter and plane.

“my expertise is the financial . take any other suggestion as merely transmitting from others skilled in this terrible situation,” Epstein wrote to Gertler, who is the current executive chairman of US News & World Report, in one email.

It is not clear if Zuckerman followed Epstein’s advice to pass over control of his affairs.

Zuckerman announced that he would step down as chairman of Boston Properties, one of the largest real estate investment trusts in the US, about six months after his correspondence with Epstein.

Zuckerman did not cite any health concerns at the time and kept the title of chairman emeritus at the company, which he cofounded in 1970.

His philanthropic organisations – the Zuckerman Institute and Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program – and Gertler did not reply to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

Zuckerman’s relationship with Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, occasionally made headlines during the early 2000s, before Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

In 2003, Zuckerman partnered with Epstein and several other prominent businessmen, including the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, in an unsuccessful bid to buy New York Magazine.

The two men teamed up again the following year to invest $25m in the short-lived relaunch of the entertainment and gossip magazine Radar.

Investigative files released by the US Department of Justice in January showed that the late financier viewed Zuckerman as a client and close associate, as well as a business partner.

In 2013, Epstein drew up a $21m proposal to provide Zuckerman with “analysing, evaluating, planning and other services” related to the passing on of his estate, according to emails in the files.

It is unclear whether Zuckerman accepted Epstein’s proposal or otherwise employed him to manage his estate planning.

Epstein also pressured Zuckerman to alter coverage of his alleged sexual abuse of girls in the New York Daily News, suggesting a “proposed answer” to questions put to him by the newspaper in 2009. Zuckerman owned the New York Daily News at the time.

The US president delays March 31-April 2 trip to China to focus on the escalating war against Iran.

United States President Donald Trump says he is seeking to delay a highly anticipated trip to China in early April by about a month because of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“We’ve requested that we delay it a month ⁠or so,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

“There’s no tricks to it either,” he added. “It’s very simple. We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here.”

China’s embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s requested delay in his scheduled March 31-April 2 trip to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping underscores how the Iran war has upended his foreign policy agenda.

It also risks magnifying tensions ⁠between Washington and Beijing, as the war on Iran has joined trade and Taiwan as among the spectrum of issues separating the world’s two biggest economies.

“The president looks forward to visiting China,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“The dates may be moved. As commander-in-chief, it’s his number-one priority right now to ensure the continued success of this Operation Epic Fury. So we’ll keep you posted on the dates as soon as we can.”

Tensions in the Middle East have escalated since the US and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran on February 28, killing more than 1,200 people, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Sunday, Trump told The Financial Times he might postpone the meeting if China does not help unblock the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran says is closed to US and Israeli-linked vessels.

Trump has called on numerous nations, including China, to help ships safely cross the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil usually transits. Trump’s request has been largely rebuffed so far. China, which imported about 12 million barrels of oil per day in the first two months of 2026, the most in the world, has not directly responded to his request.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said earlier on Monday that Trump may need to delay the trip due to coordinating the war effort, not because of China’s unresponsiveness to Trump’s request or because ⁠of any trade disagreements.

“The president wants to remain in DC to coordinate the war effort,” Bessent said. “Traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”

Bessent made the comments from Paris, where he had travelled for trade negotiations with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.

In the talks, which began on Sunday, the Chinese showed openness to potential additional purchases of US agricultural goods, including poultry, beef and non-soya bean row crops, one source said before ‌the second day of meetings.

They also discussed the flow of rare earth minerals, largely controlled by China, and new approaches to managing trade and investment between the countries.

Sometimes, journalists indulge in myths and delusions they claim to decry.

This grating inclination has been on almost giddy display in the still evolving aftermath of United States President Donald Trump’s rash decision to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in launching a war with Iran.

Like falling dominoes, a “narrative” gathered momentum among the America’s “progressive” commentariat, insisting that Trump’s order to go to war offended large swaths of the MAGA movement and set off a seismic split in his ardent base.

It is a silly myth and a seductive delusion.

Sure, a handful of familiar MAGA personalities have grumbled that another Middle East conflict betrays the “America First” pledge that helped propel Trump back to the White House.

Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly has questioned whether the US is drifting, yet again, into an endless war without purpose or meaning. Podcaster Joe Rogan has talked about the conflict’s disastrous, unintended consequences. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has warned that the unprovoked attack could trigger chaos across an already volatile region.

Trump, of course, parried the backlash with trademark coarseness. He lashed out. He dismissed the naysayers. He mocked allies who briefly turned detractors.

Headlines blared that a domestic quarrel threatened to engulf his MAGA disciples in a “civil war.”

The idea that MAGA has fractured is fantasy. Disquiet is not rupture. Dissent is not rebellion.

The MAGA “movement” is not a conventional coalition held together by consensus around a coherent, considered set of principles or policies.

MAGA remains what it has always been: a political phenomenon built to burnish one man’s ego and narcissism. As long as that man is Trump, the “movement” bends to his designs and whims. It adjusts; and, inevitably, snaps back into loyal line.

That loyalty remains the movement’s signature force.

For nearly a decade, Trump has tested its limits. He has weathered scandals that would have devoured most politicians. Two impeachments. Criminal convictions. A litany of controversies, including his close and lengthy friendship with the architect of a worldwide sex trafficking ring, the notorious paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Through it all, MAGA has, if anything, tightened its loving embrace of Trump.

The notion that a fraternal dispute over foreign policy would shatter the vice-like bond is absurd. That bond is emotion. It is visceral.

For his embittered supporters, Trump is the embodiment of grievance-fuelled defiance. He is a charismatic champion against enemies in Washington — the gilded establishment, the media, the global order who treats them with derision and contempt.

Within that parochial framework, Trump’s actions at home and abroad are filtered through the prism of fidelity. When Trump unleashes a war that he once opposed, his devout followers accept his shifting rationales — however obtuse or contradictory. They believe he sees threats others ignore. They believe he acts when others hesitate.

Indeed, polls confirm their steadfast confidence in Trump’s judgement and his enduring appeal.

The Republican Party has always harboured different instincts. Some supporters lean towards isolationism. Others favour aggressive displays of the America’s unparalleled power.

While there may be hints of unease among Republicans about the prospect of a long, costly war with Iran, that unease has not led, and likely will not lead, to a broad revolt anytime soon.

Trump’s standing within the Republican Party remains strong. His approval among Republican voters remains high. They trust him.

That trust trumps the simmering doubts raised by a small, albeit prominent, slice of MAGA fawning pundits and a few recalcitrant members of Congress.

Kelly knows it. Rogan knows it. Carlson knows it.

The trio understands that they operate inside a MAGA universe fashioned and controlled by Trump. Their popularity and influence depend on staying there. They know the defining rule of Trump’s gravitational pull: stray too far and you will be cast out.

Predictably, Carlson avoided escalation.

Instead, he declared his allegiance. He made plain that he still “loves” Trump. He reminded listeners that Trump had reshaped American politics.

Kelly and Rogan may question the risks and dangers of war, but neither would wage a sustained attack on the president. Neither would dare tell Trump’s loyalists to abandon him.

A fleeting disagreement over Trump’s reckless adventure in Iran will not translate into a lasting break.

Even the most high-profile MAGA hucksters recognise that confronting Trump invites retribution and disaster. Their audiences overlap. Their reach thrives in the same ideological ecosystem.

Picking an ultimately losing fight with the ecosystem’s vengeful anchor is rarely good business.

So, MAGA is, at the moment, experiencing a touch of turbulence. It will pass.

Which is why the constant search by establishment media for a dramatic MAGA schism keeps producing the standard result.

Nothing much changes.

Every time Trump sparks outrage, the same prediction appears. This time, the base will rebel. This time, the coalition will splinter.

This forecast is a tired ritual. It ignores the fundamental nature of the MAGA compact. That connection is not rooted in briefs or blueprints. It is a secular religion where the leader is never wrong.

Myopic scribes mistake a fracas for a collapse. They see tension and hope for a divorce. The believers are not preoccupied with the logistics of war or the mercurial logic of “America First”. They care about the man who gave them a voice.

Once the friction fades, the sceptics will retreat. They have nowhere else to go. The undeniable magnetism of Trump’s celebrity and command of MAGA reels most reluctant strays back.

To leave that agreeable orbit permanently is to vanish into irrelevance — a bleak fate for provocateurs who have forged lucrative careers amplifying Trump’s ignorance, intolerance, and fury.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

World number one’s triumph against Elena Rybakina avenges her loss to the Kazakh in the 2026 Australian Open final.

World number ‌one Aryna Sabalenka finally conquered her Indian Wells demons on Sunday, defeating Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, ⁠7-6(6) in a breathless ⁠final to claim the desert title for the first time and secure her 23rd career crown.

The victory was sweet redemption for the Belarusian, who had lost her previous two Indian ⁠Wells finals, including to Rybakina herself in 2023, and had begun the year with a defeat to the Kazakh 26-year-old in the Australian Open final in January.

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A two-time Grand Slam champion, Rybakina dominated the opening exchanges ⁠of the first set, breaking Sabalenka to surge into a 4-2 lead and exploiting the Belarusian’s backhand to close it out. It was the first time Sabalenka had dropped a set in the tournament.

The second set began no more comfortably, with Sabalenka letting out an audible yell as Rybakina broke her in the opening game. But the four-time ‌Belarusian Grand Slam champion dug deep, responding with a love hold to level at 1-1, and gradually turned the tide.

A second break in the fourth game gave Sabalenka a commanding 4-1 lead, and although Rybakina pressed, the Belarusian’s intensity proved too much as she took the set with four aces and conceded nine unforced errors to Rybakina’s 13.

The decider was a match in itself. Sabalenka broke early to lead 3-1, only for Rybakina to claw back, level at 5-5 and take the lead for the first time ⁠in the set. Sabalenka responded immediately to force a tiebreak, where the score ⁠reached 6-6, before she pulled clear to seal it at 8-6.

With that final point, Sabalenka dropped to her knees – the relief of a champion who had waited three years and endured three finals to finally get her hands on the trophy.

“I want to congratulate Elena. I ⁠know we’ll face each other many more times,” Sabalenka said before receiving the trophy. “Thanks to everyone who made this tournament possible. It is truly a tennis ⁠paradise. I’m always happy to come here every year and thank God ⁠I got this trophy.”

The win caps an extraordinary week for the 27-year-old, who arrived in the Coachella Valley having recently got engaged to her Brazilian fiancée, Georgios Frangulis.

“This is a dream come true. I want to thank my team for always being there, and my ‌fiancée – what a week! Getting a puppy, getting engaged, and winning a title. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life,” she added.

With their rivalry set to define the women’s game for years to come, ‌Sabalenka ‌now has the edge with a 9-7 head-to-head lead. Both players are separated by one ranking place – Rybakina’s run to the final will lift her to number two in next week’s rankings.

As anticipated, it ended up being One Battle After Another’s night at the 98th annual Academy Awards, with the political thriller carting away six Oscars out of a total of 13 nominations.

But while Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnum opus continued its march towards awards-season domination, there were moments of genuine surprise and subversion in Sunday’s ceremony.

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Some of those moments had to do with the current political climate in the United States.

Host Conan O’Brien and his fellow presenters deftly avoided mentioning President Donald Trump by name, but their barbs took direct aim at his policies since returning to office.

Other surprises came from within the filmmaking community itself. For only the seventh time in Oscar history, a tie was announced: two films had gotten an equal number of votes for Best Live Action Short.

As a result, both the surrealist thriller Two People Exchanging Saliva and the moody bar-room drama The Singers shared the Academy Award.

Here are six key takeaways from the night.

A two-horse race between Sinners and One Battle

The vampire film Sinners came into Sunday night’s ceremony with a record 16 Oscar nominations. But the big question of the night was: how many nods could it actually convert into wins?

Its biggest competition was, of course, Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which had the second-highest tally of nominations.

Sinners director Ryan Coogler and Anderson were in direct competition in several top categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.

In both cases, Anderson came out ahead, though he acknowledged how fickle such awards can be.

“ I just want to say that, in 1975, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville and Barry Lyndon,” the four-time Best Director nominee said, listing films now considered to be Hollywood classics.

“There is no best among them. There is just what the mood might be that day.”

In the categories for Best Supporting Actor and Best Film Editing, One Battle After Another also triumphed, as well as for the inaugural award for Best Casting.

But in a sign of how well matched their two films were, both Coogler and Anderson emerged from the night with writing Oscars.

Anderson picked up the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his use of the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, while Coogler made off with the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Sinners, a work inspired by his uncle’s love of the blues.

Jordan dunks on Chalamet in Best Actor race

Sinners, which won four Academy Awards overall, earned some of the most emotional, nail-biting victories of the night.

In the Best Cinematography category, for instance, Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to top the field.

It was her first nomination and first win, with Arkapaw besting veteran cinematographers like Marty Supreme’s Darius Khondji and Frankenstein’s Dan Laustsen, both multiple nominees.

Another big win for Sinners came in the form of Michael B Jordan, the actor whom Coogler has cast in every film since his directorial breakout in 2013’s Fruitvale Station.

Jordan, 39, was in a tight race for Best Actor with another young performer, 30-year-old Timothee Chalamet of the ping-pong drama Marty Supreme.

But Chalamet’s aggressive campaigning may have ultimately sabotaged his prospects. Multiple cracks were taken throughout the night at Chalamet’s recent comments disparaging opera and ballet.

“Nobody cares any more” about either art form, Chalamet said in an interview last month.

“We can change society through art, through creativity, through theatre and ballet and also cinema,” director Alexandre Singh said pointedly during his acceptance speech for Best Live Action Short.

O’Brien, meanwhile, acknowledged the backlash with a joke about heightened security at the night’s Oscar ceremony.

“I’m told there are concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities,” O’Brien said, before turning to Chalamet. “They’re just mad you left out jazz.”

A conga line of snubs

Given the dominant performances from Sinners and One Battle After Another, plenty of critically acclaimed films left empty-handed, or nearly so.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, as expected, earned three wins in technical categories, including Best Production Design, Best Costumes and Best Hairstyling and Makeup.

Netflix’s smash hit KPop Demon Hunters, meanwhile, also fulfilled expectations that it would dominate in its categories, Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

But then there were former frontrunners like Hamnet that failed to generate much traction, including for director Chloe Zhao, a past Oscar winner. Out of eight nominations total, it came away with only one win: a Best Actress trophy for Irish performer Jessie Buckley.

Marty Supreme and the Brazilian film The Secret Agent fared worse, however. Despite having nine nominations and being considered an early shoo-in for Best Actor, Marty Supreme scored no wins.

The Secret Agent, which swept the Best Actor and Best Director categories at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, also earned nothing at this year’s Oscars.

The same was true for the quirky kidnapping drama Bugonia, from Oscar darling Yorgos Lanthimos.

Fears about artificial intelligence

The ceremony, however, did occasionally veer away from the competition to discuss issues facing the film industry and the country as a whole.

Among those concerns was the creeping growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creative sector.

In the weeks leading up to the 98th Oscars, an AI-generated video clip went viral, appearing to show Hollywood icons Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in a rooftop brawl worthy of a James Bond movie.

The clip was generated through AI software developed by the Chinese firm ByteDance, and Hollywood leaders quickly denounced it as a threat to their livelihoods, not to mention a copyright infringement.

Those concerns reverberated on the Oscar stage on Sunday, with O’Brien and others addressing the growing use of AI.

“Tonight we are celebrating people, not AI, because animation – it’s more than a prompt,” actor Will Arnett said emphatically as he introduced the animation awards.

O’Brien, meanwhile, joked that, by next year, his hosting gig would be taken by “a Waymo in a tux”.

Trump skewered for threatening free speech

Another concern looming over the night’s Oscar ceremony came in the form of President Donald Trump, who has courted controversy by launching deadly military attacks in Venezuela and Iran, as well as leading a violent immigration crackdown in the US.

At no point was Trump mentioned by name. But his leadership was alluded to throughout the night.

O’Brien, the host, set the tone early on with his oblique jabs at the Republican president in his opening monologue.

“When I hosted last year, Los Angeles was on fire,” the two-time Oscar emcee said in remarks dripping with sarcasm. “But this year, everything’s going great.”

Fellow comedian Jimmy Kimmel was even more direct. Last September, his show was briefly suspended after Trump criticised the comedian.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump appointee, subsequently threatened the broadcasting licence of the TV channel on which Kimmel performs.

“There are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS,” Kimmel quipped, referring to another channel that cancelled a fellow late-night comedy show.

Several filmmakers honoured at the Oscars likewise waded into the controversies surrounding Trump.

Best Documentary winner David Borenstein, for instance, implied a parallel between his film — an exploration of authoritarianism in Russia — and what is currently happening in the US.

“Mr Nobody against Putin is about how you lose your country,” Borenstein explained.

“What we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small, little acts of complicity: when we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything, when oligarchs take over the media.”

Political speeches avoid mention of Iran war

The Oscars come roughly seven months before the pivotal midterm elections in the US, which could see Trump’s Republican Party lose its majorities in Congress.

But while several filmmakers did hint at their anti-Trump stances, few explicitly denounced his policies.

For example, Norway’s Joachim Trier, the winner of the Best International Feature category, veiled his criticism in a James Baldwin quote about the duty to protect children.

“Let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously into account,” Trier said.

No artist specifically referenced the US and Israeli war against Iran either, though its effects were felt among the participants of this year’s Oscar crop.

Writer-director Jafar Panahi, whose work was up for two Oscars on Sunday, has already said he plans to return to his native Iran after the awards season concludes.

Meanwhile, Iranian politician Sara Shahverdi — the subject of a nominee in the Best Documentary Short category — was prevented from attending the Oscars at all due to Trump’s ban on visas for 39 countries.

Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees, star of the Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab, likewise told media outlets he could not be present due to the travel ban.

Most acknowledgements of the US-led and US-backed conflicts in the world were brief.

When Spanish actor Javier Bardem took the Oscar stage to present an award, he offered up six words, “No to war, and free Palestine!”

Russian filmmaker and former school teacher Pavel Talankin made a similar appeal to the audience. “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now,” he said.

But by and large, the Oscar winners and presenters kept their remarks vague, emphasising global unity over political criticism.

“If I can be serious for just a moment, everyone watching right now around the world is all too aware that these are very chaotic, frightening times,” O’Brien told the audience at the outset of the night.

“It is at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant. Check it out. Thirty-one countries across six continents are represented this evening, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages.”

Cinema, he and others argued, transcends borders. The talent on stage was not the US’s alone.

Pressure grows on the US president’s administration as war costs spiral and the mission’s endgame remains unclear.

The United States has spent $12bn on its war against Iran since launching joint strikes on the country with Israel on February 28, Trump’s top economic adviser said, as domestic concerns grow over the Middle East conflict’s burgeoning economic impacts.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, gave the figure on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday saying it is the latest he’s been briefed on so far.

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He was forced to clarify mid-interview after initially appearing to present it as a projected total for the entire war. CBS anchor Margaret Brennan noted more than $5bn in munitions alone was spent in the first week, a challenge Hassett did not directly address.

Hassett was nonetheless dismissive of the war’s economic threat to the US. Financial markets pricing future energy contracts, he said, were already anticipating a swift resolution and sharply lower energy prices, contradicting consumer alarm in the US over rising fuel costs at petrol stations.

Markets remain jittery after Iranian threats to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies traverse.

Any disruption to Gulf shipping, he argued, would hurt countries dependent on the region’s oil far more than the US.

“America is not going to have its economy harmed by what the Iranians are doing,” he said, adding that unlike the 1970s, the US is now a major producer. “We have lots and lots of oil.”

‘Mission creep’

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, warned that the bombardment of Iran is “about to surge dramatically”, suggesting the bill is heading in one direction only.

The cost confusion sits alongside the deepening uncertainty about the war’s purpose.

The Trump administration’s statements on the goals of the war have shifted from dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, to degrading its missiles, to now threatening its oil infrastructure over Strait of Hormuz shipping.

After a classified Senate briefing in early March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was “truly worried about mission creep”, calling the session “very unsatisfying” and saying that the administration gave “different answers every day” on why the strikes were ordered.

Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen told Al Jazeera that the US had taken “the lid off Pandora’s box without any idea where this will land”.

At least 1,444 people have been killed in Iran since strikes began on February 28. Thirteen US soldiers have been killed, and more than 140 have been wounded. The fighting has also spread to Lebanon, and Gulf countries continue to face repeated drone and strikes by Iran.

Some countries, such as India, have begun bypassing Washington to negotiate directly with Tehran on securing safe passage for its tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has found himself at the centre of a political firestorm over his wife’s past illustration work related to Palestine.

The imbroglio began last week, when several right-wing news outlets reported on New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji’s past work connected to Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa and several incendiary comments Abulhawa has made.

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But the response from Mamdani, who has since decried Abulhawa’s past statements as “abhorrent”, has sparked blowback from some of his own supporters, who say he risks reinforcing harmful narratives that conflate support for Palestinians with anti-Jewish sentiment.

Some critics also say the situation underscores a broader double standard in the US, one in which the first Muslim mayor of the country’s largest city faces heightened scrutiny, even as high-profile elected lawmakers launch blatantly Islamophobic attacks with little recourse.

Here’s what to know:

What was the work in question?

Duwaji’s ties to Abulhawa were first reported by the conservative news site the Washington Free Beacon last week.

It said that 28-year-old Duwaji, a freelance illustrator, had provided an illustration for an “essay” compiled by Abulhawa as part of a collection from writers in Gaza titled “Every Moment is a Life” published online by “Everything is Political”.

Abulhawa later clarified that the piece was actually a short story written by a resident of Gaza displaced during Israel’s genocidal war. Titled “A Trail of Soap”, it detailed the difficulties and indignities of using a public, makeshift restroom in the war-torn enclave.

Mamdani said Duwaji had been commissioned by a third party and had never “engaged with or met with” Abulhawa, a claim Abulhawa later confirmed.

The Free Beacon report, as well as subsequent reports by the New York Post and Jewish Insider, highlighted past comments made by Abulhawa.

Some critics have maintained that a handful of Abulhawa’s posts appear to reference all Jewish people, a position that Abulhawa has rejected.

She has maintained that the statements are a reflection of the pain she felt as a Palestinian who has twice travelled to Gaza for aid work during Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians since October 2023.

In one article published on The Electronic Intifada website, Abulhawa described the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Palestinian fighters as a “spectacular moment that shocked the world”.

On social media, Abulhawa decried what she called “Jewish supremacist slaughter” in Gaza, writing, “these sons of satan will taste what they meted to us”.

She has condemned Israeli foreign influence, describing “Jewish supremacist ghouls” and “vampires” and, in one instance, calling a commentator a “Jewish supremacist cockroach”.

How did Mamdani respond?

At a news conference last week, Mamdani said that beyond Duwaji having never met Abulhawa, she had also not seen the social media posts in question.

“And we stand in our administration, and I can tell you, our administration –  which is separate from the first lady, she doesn’t have a role within it – is against bigotry of all forms … unflinchingly,” he told reporters.

“I think that that rhetoric is patently unacceptable. I think it’s reprehensible,” he added, in reference to Abulhawa’s posts.

What has Abulhawa said?

In a lengthy video statement released on Saturday, Abulhawa said she hoped to clear things up for “Mr Mamdani, for his supporters and detractors alike, for the reporters, for my readers, for my own friends, and for the public in general”.

She rejected that her comments represented either anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish racism, saying she was responding to a Zionist power structure and its proponents from the perspective of a Palestinian who has experienced the ravages of that system.

“Israel and by extension, Israelis – since, as we’re constantly told, they’re the only democracy in the region – have destroyed, shattered and robbed my family of everything,” she said.

“They have committed the genocide in full view of the world, the wholeness of its blood and gore, its apocalyptic horror, its generational injury and its moral harm to all of humanity,” she said.

Abulhawa further described “the feelings [Palestinians] have of pain, rage, contempt or hatred, coupled with the impotence to make the suffering stop”.

She added she would continue to use the “privilege of having a voice … to speak forcefully for those who are defenceless against hateful colonial state violence”.

Why has Mamdani been criticised?

Several commentators who have in the past supported Mamdani questioned the mayor’s decision to engage with the reports, arguing that it only fed disingenuous narratives.

Activist Shaiel Ben-Ephraim described Mamdani as “stupid for apologising and explaining”.

“Nothing will ever be enough for Zionists anyway,” he wrote. “Stand tall.”

Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd pointed to Mamdani’s own account of being motivated to enter politics by the issue of Palestinian rights, writing that it was “fair to hold him to his word”.

Craig Mokhiber, a former United Nations human rights official, also urged Mamdani to take a stand, adding he should “forget what your aides are telling you”.

“Fear is not a sound basis for politics at this moment in history,” he said in a post on X.

For her part, Abulhawa said she was not personally “mad” at Mamdani, but that the situation should be a learning experience.

“You succumbed to forces that seek to pick away at you, at your talented, beautiful wife, and [are] clawing harder with each apology or concession you make,” she said.

“If you are not careful, they will siphon your soul before you even realise it.”

What’s the wider context?

Mamdani faced a wave of Islamophobia during his meteoric political victory last year. He has regularly been accused of anti-Jewish sentiment for condemning Israel’s policies and for describing its actions in Gaza as a “genocide”. He has repeatedly said he is a leader for “all New Yorkers”.

Mamdani has also alienated some supporters by saying during the campaign that he would “discourage” the term “globalise the intifada”, in what some saw as a capitulation to those making unfounded claims against him.

Some critics have decried a double standard in the intense scrutiny Mamdani has faced for his political views and his family’s peripheral connections.

That recently included answering questions over his wife’s “liking” of social media posts that praised Palestinian resistance in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks.

In turn, several lawmakers have seen little recourse for blatantly Islamophobic posts about Mamdani.

Republican US Senator Tommy Tuberville, for instance, has faced little rebuke from his own party for repeatedly attacking Mamdani’s faith.

In a post on X last week, Tuberville responded to a photo showing Mamdani celebrating iftar next to a photo of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

“The enemy is inside the gates,” Tuberville wrote.