The US military says it has struck a boat “engaged in narco-trafficking operations”, killing three men.

The vessel “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations”, the US Southern Command said on X.

The military has not provided evidence that the boat or the men on board were involved in drug trafficking.

Footage of the strike on Friday shows the small boat floating in the Pacific before an explosion, causing it to burst into flames.

President Donald Trump previously said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America.

US strikes on alleged drug boats have killed at least 148 people in at least 43 attacks in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September, including 11 people earlier this week.

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Mr Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

But critics have questioned the legality and effectiveness of the strikes, as the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is smuggled into the US via land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

In January, the US launched a direct military attack on Venezuela, extraditing Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them both to New York to face narcoterrorism and other charges, which both deny.

Located on the Northumberland Line, Northumberland Park station will welcome passengers for the first time on Sunday, February 22, with the opening service scheduled to arrive at 8.10am.

It is the fifth new station on the line, which reopened in December 2024, for the first time in 60 years.

Alex Hornby, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “We’ve been working hard to prepare for the opening of Northumberland Park and are looking forward to welcoming customers on board this weekend.

“The Northumberland Line is having a really positive impact on the region, and this new station will allow even more people to benefit from quick, convenient and affordable train travel that opens up a range of new opportunities.”

The Northumberland Line has already recorded more than one million journeys since reopening.

Glen Sanderson, leader of Northumberland County Council, said: “We’re so looking forward to this next station re-opening, marking the latest milestone in this hugely ambitious project which is exceeding all expectations.

“We’re looking forward to meeting passengers at the new station from Sunday.”

Martin Gannon, deputy mayor of the North East Combined Authority and cabinet member for transport, said the station’s completion follows a £10.9 million investment by the mayor.

He said: “This follows the mayor’s £10.9m investment to get Northumberland Park station completed so that passengers can now enjoy a simple, affordable journeys on the Northumberland Line and Metro alongside easy access to local bus and ferry services.

“We know how transformative good transport links are for local people, and we’ll continue to invest in regional schemes that deliver positive outcomes and opportunities for residents.”

The final stop on the line, Bedlington, is expected to open on March 29.

Residents are asked to keep windows and doors closed

Emergency services are in attendance at a fire in Co Armagh on Saturday morning.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has been tackling the blaze at a commerical building in Milford since before 4am on February 21.

50 firefighters have been tasked to the scene and local residents are asked to keep their windows and doors closed until the fire has been dealt with.

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A Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) spokesperson said: “Crews are currently attending a fire at commercial premises at Ballyards Road, Milford, Armagh.

“The initial call was received at 0345hrs, Saturday 21st February 2026.

“Currently over 50 Firefighters from stations in Armagh, Keady, Portadown, Banbridge, Dungannon, Newtownhamilton, Lisburn, and a water tanker from Pomeroy are currently working to bring the incident under control.

“Local residents are advised to keep windows and doors closed, and members of the public are asked to avoid the area to support firefighting operations.

“We would like to thank the public for their patience whilst we dealt with the incident.”

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The sinkhole is between number 11 and number 13 Chassen Road, Bolton, has been in place since February 2025, and despite barriers being erected around the damage, it is still not fixed.

Now, a pipe has been re-damaged by United Utilities during an investigation into the source of a nearby leak, according to Bolton Council.

Chassen Road sinkhole (Image: Anonymous)

A spokesperson for Bolton Council said: “Whilst recent investigations regarding leaks in the vicinity were carried out by United Utilities found no issues, their recent works resulted in damage to a council drainage pipe.

“Discussions are ongoing with United Utilities to rectify the issue.”

Residents have complained that the pothole and barriers have been making it difficult to get in and out of their drives, and are have been blowing into their gardens.

United Utilities workers visited the site last week to assess the problem and assess what they labelled a ‘complex issue’.

A nearby manhole was checked and found to be flowing as usual and the sewer water was clear with no signs of blockage.

At this point, the work was passed back over to the Bolton Council highways team.

An email was erroneously sent to one resident that stated the work would not be completed until November 12, 2026, though this should have read February 12, 2026.

Chassen Road sinkhole (Image: Anonymous)

Cllr Andy Morgan said: “The site is currently safe and secure but still awaits full repair.

“However, speaking to residents the excavation has made it difficult for some to enter and exit their driveways.

“I appreciate how disruptive this is and understand the frustration it is causing.

“I will be contacting the highways department to press for the site to be repaired and made fully safe as soon as possible.”

United Utilities have been contacted for comment.

As Elaine, an artist in her 80s, stood at her window in north Manchester, she noticed new apartment blocks dominating the nighttime skyline: “The moon is no longer in view; I have to crane my neck out of the window in order to see it. Or to see the reflection of the moon.”

I have been meeting with the Many Hands Craft Collective – a group of older artists, knitters and poets – most Tuesdays for almost a year. The group has been gathering at the community room in Victoria Square, Manchester, for over a decade.

They have been reflecting on Manchester’s massive building boom as Victoria North – Britain’s largest regeneration project – transforms their neighbourhood with 15,000 new homes. City centre construction is also reshaping skylines they’ve known for decades.

Together, we have created a film tracking how urban regeneration transforms their world. The film explores their relationship with the elements through shifting light, redirected wind and changing rain.

People who have lived here for decades – reading wind patterns, tracking seasonal light, noticing atmospheric shifts – hold memories that city planners cannot see. Residents’ observations also reveal how wildlife experience urban change – birds, insects and nocturnal animals are all affected by altered light and wind.

Construction alters wind, blocks views of the moon and stars, and changes the subtle conditions residents have learned to read over lifetimes. Observations from these artists show that heritage is not just about preserved buildings or recorded rivers, but about the knowledge people carry.

As a film-maker and sound artist, I study the connections between people and the natural world. In 2008, when Manchester City Council rehoused my 82-year-old grandmother after she had lived in the same house for 60 years, she wrote poetry to process her loss.

“Bodies, not walls, carry memories,” she wrote. Her words inspired The Flowering (2020), my first poetic documentary exploring urban regeneration through the memories the body holds. This influenced my research into how cities transform.

In Manchester, the River Irk flows through Victoria North. New riverside properties rise while the river itself needs care. For two centuries it powered mills, was contaminated by dye works, then was eventually culverted (channelled into underground pipes, hidden from view). Yet the river flows on, and so does the memory it carries.

The artists at Many Hands carry intergenerational knowledge about how this urban environment has changed. Our conversations about riverside properties blocking sunlight led the group to reflect on how construction changes light in their own streets. Views of the moon disappeared, high-rise buildings shifted wind and rain, and the sound of water tapping against windows stopped.

My PhD project analysed atmospheric transformations alongside the river itself: how these numerous new buildings and developments change homes as well as waterways.

As climate change forces cities to adapt, observations accumulated over decades – how rain moves through streets, how wind patterns shift, how rivers sound differently with the seasons – could inform climate-responsive urban design. Yet regeneration often displaces the very people who carry this knowledge before it is even recognised.

Materials and memory

To retrace the Irk’s history, we worked with clay and natural materials from the river – silt, stones, industrial brick fragments. An artist called Dot recalled seeing blue pigeons from old dye works, with feathers stained from chemical colours.

As the clay stiffened as it dried, conversations turned to how cities are built. Victorian brick from the 1890s still stands solid, while new apartment exteriors are designed for 20-year lifespans.

Poetry emerged from the conversations: “Sand, soil, silt, leaves, clay, decaying plants, coal and dust, ash chemical waste” and “human hearts holding on to heritage, ours. Made of natural materials, hands, rain, wind, sunlight”. Different perspectives recognise people and rivers as bodies carrying memory through change.

Sound and poetry

As a group, we reconstructed waterwheels to explore how the Irk powered mills. One artist, Jean, suggested recording with hydrophones (special microphones that work underwater) in kitchen sinks. Water through household pipes connected us directly to the river, flowing through our fingertips. Playing hydrophone recordings for the first time, Jean said it sounded like being deaf – without her hearing aids, it was like being underwater.

This revealed a crucial insight: listening is shaped by our bodies. Jean’s deafness meant she heard the river differently, noticing frequencies and vibrations others might miss. Kitchen sink hydrophones create access where it did not exist, bringing culverted, fenced or distant rivers into homes through soundwaves in domestic pipes.

These conversations evolved into Two Worlds, a sound installation created with composer and sound artist Simon Knighton. This piece of sound design informs the film score and explores how people coexist with the environment. The Irk pulsates different rhythms depending on where you listen. Harsh urban concrete or gentler upstream flows are heard differently by each set of ears.

As we wrote poetry together after discussing how some long-forgotten waterways have been buried beneath streets, Rose asked: “What happens to a river when it becomes a road?”

Rose’s question lies at the heart of my research: when cities develop, what environmental knowledge disappears?

Manchester has lost multiple rivers to culverting, development and roads. Older residents carry knowledge younger generations never knew existed. As climate change requires us to expose or “daylight” culverted rivers for flood management, these memories could guide restoration.

Many Hands’ Material River, a collection of films and poetry printed onto fabric, is on display within the River Stories exhibition until March 23 2026 in Manchester Histories Hub at Manchester Central Library.

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Sitting among green rolling hills, studded with olive groves, most homes in al-Mughayir are in an area where Israel’s military controls security, but the internationally backed Palestinian Authority (PA) should provide basic services. Increasingly though, it cannot – it is mired in a deep economic crisis.

Developers behind an ’employment park’ next to the A14 in Cambridgeshire have released updated proposals. A public consultation has since opened on revised plans for Cambridge 25, which is proposed on land next to Junction 25 of the A14 between Bar Hill and Northstowe.

Lolworth Developments Limited (LDL) invited views from the community and stakeholders to inform an initial proposal in autumn last year for around 123,000 square metres of new employment space. The wider Cambridge 25 site received a draft allocation in the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan (GCLP) as a major new employment site for around 240,000 square metres of floor space.

Graeme Cosgrove, Development Director at Lolworth Developments, said: “Cambridge 25 represents an exciting opportunity to deliver a modern, high-quality landscape led employment park in the best location possible in Greater Cambridge.

“It was an important and significant decision to allocate the whole of our site in the emerging new Greater Cambridge Local Plan, and we are naturally delighted to see the councils’ evidence-led approach recognising the suitability of the site. As a consequence of this draft allocation, we are now bringing forward a revised and more extensive masterplan which includes development on both sides of the bridleway.“

LDL is now inviting local residents to ‘have their say’ on its updated wider site masterplan that aligns more closely to the aspirations and objectives in the draft Local Plan. The latest masterplan also reflects feedback received from the autumn 2025 consultation, with additional features of the 2026 plans including:

• More structural landscaping and tree planting;
• Community ‘hub’ facilities in the amenity block;
• Providing public WC facilities in the nature park;
• Better walking and cycling connections;
• Providing large HGV yards with significant HGV parking bays;
• Large interconnecting ponds with enhanced capacity.

Mr Cosgrove added: “This new masterplan is informed by the valuable insights gained from talking to people last year and listening to their comments and priorities. We are incredibly grateful for this feedback which has helped us to shape our wider site proposals – from even more landscaping to more extensive walking and cycling routes through the site and connections with the nature park.

“We would now welcome feedback on these revised proposals and are encouraging the local community to share their views before we submit a planning application this spring.”

The public consultation on the revised masterplan runs from February 17 to March 10, including two online webinars with a consultation website. You can find more information on the Cambridge 25 website.

Is the fear of losing, or drawing, turning up the pressure valve on players who will know this season represents their best chance of winning the title to such an extent they are now struggling to close out victories?

It is a highly pressurised environment. This season there are no excuses. It may just be now or never.

Arteta invariably cuts an agitated figure on the sidelines. He recently urged Arsenal‘s fans to “jump on the fun boat”, but does not look as if he is having fun at the moment, even though he is leading a team top of the table and insists “the present is beautiful”.

He says he will be “keeping calm, keeping my eyes open, my ears open, and understanding what the players need to give their best”.

Arteta added: “We have to live the present. What we did in the past is great, but we have to live the present, and the present is beautiful.

“We are exactly where we want to be in every competition. We need to earn it, like we’ve done in the last seven or eight months.”

Getting to this position, and it is a healthy one, is another factor in the equation. Are the physical demands starting to take their toll on players?

Martin Zubimendi, outstanding since his summer move from Real Sociedad, is one such example.

He has seen more Premier League action than any other Arsenal outfield player, figuring in all 27 games with 26 starts, playing 2,270 minutes in his first season in the English top flight.

Eberechi Eze has almost been a bystander in comparison, despite the fanfare that greeted his £60m arrival from Crystal Palace in August, stolen away from Spurs at the 11th hour.

Since scoring a hat-trick in the 4-1 win against Spurs in November, Eze has featured in all 15 of Arsenal‘s league games but has made only four starts and played 360 minutes.

The wider questions, however, surround Arsenal‘s temperament to withstand the pressure that is suddenly closing in on them, an ominous reminder of previous failings.

Arsenal are still in a superb position in every competition – positions they would have instantly signed up for in August. And their cause could be helped the return of key duo Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz.

If the Gunners win at Spurs, doubts will be eased, but one thing is beyond question.

This north London derby is now a completely different proposition from a fortnight ago.

WARSAW (AP) — Five European nations have announced a new program to produce low-cost air defense systems and autonomous drones using Ukrainian expertise hard-won over the past four years of war against Russia.

Friday’s initiative of the E5 nations — France, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy — comes as one of many European efforts to bolster defense along their borders, like a “ drone wall ” with Russia and Ukraine to better detect, track and intercept drones violating Europe’s airspace.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have cutting-edge drone warfare capabilities forged in the grim laboratory of war where battlefield innovations have rewritten modern battle tactics. Poland is already working with Ukraine on drone technology in joint military training programs and manufacturing projects.

Those efforts were sparked by a spate of incidents in which Europe’s borders and airports have been tested by rogue drones. Russia has been blamed for some of them but denies that anything was done on purpose or that it played a role.

“The UK and our E5 partners are stepping up — investing together in the next generation of air defense and autonomous systems to strengthen NATO’s shield,” said Luke Pollard, Britain’s minister for defense readiness and industry.

“We have some of the best kit on the entire planet for shooting down air threats. The problem is to be effective at shooting down relatively low-cost missiles, drones, and other threats facing us,” he said. “We need to make sure that we’re matching the cost of the threats with the cost of defense.”

Poland’s defense minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said the group of countries signed an agreement to jointly invest in the production and procurement of drone-based strike capabilities as well as cheap drone defense systems in a program called called Low-Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms, or LEAP.

“Combat technologies and techniques are changing rapidly — we must respond quickly and appropriately,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said. “We also signed a crucial commitment regarding the joint development of drone-based strike capabilities, low-cost joint production, and joint procurement of drone effectors, i.e, combat payloads, using artificial intelligence.”

When Russian drones entered Polish airspace in September 2025, Warsaw and its NATO allies used multimillion-dollar jets to respond to drones that cost thousands and that ended up crashing into the Polish countryside. Low-cost kinetic or electronic effectors would allow the detection and destruction of drones at a fraction of the price.

Europe has scrambled to arm itself in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s deep criticism of NATO, European defense spending and once iron-clad alliances. The EU has ramped up spending and is openly questioning even deeper military projects.

“Europe’s security is more uncertain than it has been in decades,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, citing Russian aggression, instability in the Middle East, China and a “redefined” alliance with the U.S. She said that the low-cost interceptor program exemplifies the European commitment to its own security.

“If we want to keep our country safe, we must strengthen our hard power. The good news is that we are already investing record sums in defense. Europe is stepping up. but it’s not about competing with NATO. It’s about making Europe stronger within NATO. A stronger Europe makes the alliance also stronger.”

Yet the 32-nation military alliance has been shaken by Trump’s second administration. Most recently, his repeated threats to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and disparaging remarks about his NATO allies’ troops in Afghanistan drew another outcry.

While tensions over Greenland have subsided for now, the infighting has seriously undercut the ability of the world’s biggest security alliance to deter adversaries.

——

McNeil reported from Brussels.

The small talk of a taxi ride is the beating heart of British chit-chat – a soundtrack to thousands of journeys across London and beyond.

On Sunday, a passenger might glance at the driver in the rear view mirror and ask the usual: “Good weekend, mate? Get up to much?”

For 37-year-old Bilal Fawaz, the answer could be a little different than the usual traffic complaints or remarks about the drizzle.

“I became a British champion. And then I drove this Uber,” he plans to say, using the same casual tone he might use to discuss a bottleneck on the North Circular.

But for that conversation to happen, Fawaz must first handle business this Saturday in Nottingham, where he challenges Ishmael Davis for the prestigious British light-middleweight title.

In boxing, the story of the “working-class hero” – the athlete who still clocks in for a nine-to-five – is a great marketing hook. But for Fawaz, there is no romanticism in the grind.

“I’m an Uber driver. I’m a personal trainer. I’m a fitness instructor. And I’m a professional boxer. That’s four jobs,” he tells BBC Sport in fight week.

“I was doing Uber the day I came here. I trained clients before I left London. I pay for the car on a subscription every week and if I don’t work, money goes out and nothing comes in.

“So on Sunday after the fight, when the kids are asleep, I’ll jump in the car, make £70 or £80, park it, sleep, drop them to nursery and train clients again.”

Fawaz is articulate and thoughtful, with a hint of theatrical flair that reflects his time at acting school.

But beneath that poise lie challenges far heavier than night shifts or 10-round fights. His fight began long before Nottingham – a childhood marked by abuse, years in the care system and a life spent proving he belongs.

BBC Sport first told Fawaz’s story in 2018, revisited it in 2022, and yet he remains in limbo as an English champion still without a passport.