Casemiro is set to become a free agent when his Manchester United contract expires at the end of the season, after a decision was made not to trigger a one-year option

Major League Soccer (MLS) has emerged as a potential next destination for Manchester United midfielder Casemiro when his contract expires and he leaves Old Trafford at the end of the season.

United confirmed last month that Casemiro, 34, will depart the Reds this summer after four years at the club. During his time in Manchester to date, the Brazilian has made 150 appearances, scoring 22 goals.

While there was talk that United might extend Casemiro’s contract due to his up-turn his form across the last 12 months, the Reds have opted not to trigger the one-year option they have on his current deal.

It does mean, however, that Casemiro is set to become a free agent and there is significant interest in the five-time Champions League winner. Indeed, according to The Telegraph, MLS clubs are eyeing up a move for Casemiro, who is said to be drawn to the prospect of playing football in the United States.

Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Beckham are among the high-profile players that have moved out to the MLS in recent years, and Casemiro, who was recently on holiday in Miami, could be the next.

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But, despite the interest from the MLS, United interim head coach Michael Carrick believes Casemiro can still play at the highest level, which could open the door for him to play against the Reds next season.

Carrick has been impressed by Casemiro since his appointed as United’s head coach, with the ex-Middlesbrough boss crediting the veteran for raising the level in training and setting an example to his team-mates.

“I’m sure he can, he’s playing as good a level as he’s played at for some time at the moment, and it’s great to see in so many ways,” Carrick said, when speaking about Casemiro still playing at the highest level.

“The experience, technically, game understanding, just composure in certain moments, he’s in a really good place.

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“I’ve got to say, Cas has been fantastic since I came really, on and off the pitch. Experience is a great thing if you use it in the right way, and again, I think over time being a senior player here is almost the responsibility of the example, and helping the younger players, helping the rest of the boys, and passing on your experiences in a positive way. He’s been top since I came, in so many ways, and he’s been a pleasure to work with.”

Casemiro has started in each of Carrick’s first five matches since returning to the United dugout. The ex-Real Madrid man has scored once and grabbed one assist in that time, with both coming in the 3-2 win against Fulham.

United head to Everton on Monday night looking to extend their unbeaten run to 10 matches in the Premier League. The Reds last tasted defeat in the top flight back on Sunday, December 21 in a 2-1 loss at Aston Villa.

They sit fifth in the Premier League table, level on points with fourth-place Chelsea and Liverpool in sixth. But the Reds will open up a three-point gap on their Champions League rivals with a crucial win at Everton.

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The teenage boy was attacked by a group in the early hours of Sunday morning

A teenage boy has sustained facial injuries including a broken nose following an assault in Co Derry over the weekend.

The assault happened in the early hours of the morning on Sunday, February 22, in the vicinity of Shipquay Place near Guildhall Square in Derry city centre.

Deputy Mayor Niree McMorris was contacted by the teenager’s mum about the incident, and said “his only crime was that he was a Protestant.” Police said they are treating the assault as a sectarian-motivated hate crime.

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“I have just been contacted by a distraught mum whose son was attacked in the town by approximately 20 youths. His only crime was that he was a Protestant,” Ms McMorris said.

“The young guy who was only 16 received severe facial injuries and has had to get medical attention in hospital. All too often we hear of these mindless attacks happening and it concerns me that someday these attacks will lead to a fatality.

“No one should be attacked because of their religion or for any other reason. I have spoken to the PSNI who will be investigating this attack and hopefully they will identify the attackers on the CCTV cameras, as these attacks need to STOP. If anyone has any information, please get in touch or speak directly to the police.”

A PSNI spokesperson said: “Police in Derry/Londonderry, investigating a report of an assault on a boy in the city centre area during the early hours of Sunday, 22 February, are appealing for witnesses and information.

“The assault is reported to have occurred at around 2.35am in the vicinity of Shipquay Place area, and a number of people are reported to have been present at the time.

“The victim, aged in his teens, is reported to have sustained injuries including a broken nose as a result of the assault, which is being investigated as a sectarian-motivated hate crime.

“Police are working to establish the circumstances and appeal to anyone that can assist their enquiries to call 101, quoting reference number 1068 of 22/02/25, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

“A report can also be made online via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/ or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org/.”

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A court in Hong Kong has upheld the convictions and sentences of pro-democracy activists in the biggest case brought under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

The appeals were part of the so-called “Hong Kong 47” case, in which many leading pro-democracy activists and politicians were arrested in early 2021 and charged with conspiracy to commit subversion.

Hong Kong‘s government said the court’s decision showed that anyone endangering national security would be punished in accordance with the law.

The case centred on an unofficial primary election organised by pro-democracy campaigners in mid-2020 to select the strongest candidates for a council election.

The prosecution alleged they were conspiring to win a majority in order to paralyse the government by blocking the city’s annual budget, in a bid to force Hong Kong’s leader to resign.

The mass prosecution of 47 activists crushed much of the city’s once-thriving pro-democracy movement, which saw massive anti-government protests in 2019.

Forty-five of the defendants were sentenced to between four and 10 years in 2024, drawing criticism from foreign governments and rights groups.

Eleven activists who appealed their convictions lost their bids.

They included former politicians Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Raymond Chan and Helena Wong.

All appeals over their sentences, brought by 10 of them and another activist, were also dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Lawrence Lau, a pro-democracy former district councillor, was one of two activists acquitted in the case.

Judges upheld his acquittal following an appeal from the prosecution.

After hearing the result, the defendants appeared calm and waved to their families and supporters.

Some people had waited outside since Saturday to secure a seat in the courtroom.

After the ruling, Chan Po-ying, the wife of activist Leung Kwok-hung, said: “What crimes have they committed?”

So far, 18 of the 45 convicted democrats have been released after serving their jail terms, including former district councillors Jimmy Sham and Lester Shum.

Officials in Hong Kong and Beijing insist that they received a fair trial, and say the national security law in 2020 helped restore order following the mass pro-democracy protests.

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But a spokesperson for Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas said the court “missed a critical opportunity to correct this mass injustice”, adding that “peaceful opposition to a government is not a crime”.

The Australian government’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, also expressed concern that its citizen, Gordon Ng, had lost the appeal over his conviction.

I could hear the takeoff detonation being filmed live and broadcast around the world in my earpiece along with my TV colleague’s on the ground report of the Russian attack – on the morning Vladimir Putin ordered a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Standing in the pre-dawn freeze on a terrace overlooking Kharkiv’s Freedom Square four years ago, it took less a minute before I was reporting on those rockets when they exploded on impact.

The skyline bulged orange, then came the concussive thump, then the cracks of the rockets exploding. They’d been fired from inside Russia into Ukraine’s second biggest city.

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The BM-30 Smerch were among the worst. They scattered cluster bombs, spattering the city with deadly golden balls. BM-212 Grads, the old-fashioned Stalin’s Organ multiple rocket launchers, were terrifying too.

They screeched from the sky in swarms like spears upon residential areas, killing and burning ahead of advancing Russian infantry.

Over the next couple of days, Russian troops stormed north from Crimea towards Kherson and soon beyond. They blasted out of Donetsk, and turned up on the streets of Kharkiv.

I could hear the sounds of firefights, machine guns screaming like chainsaws and the crash of rocket propelled grenades. The assumption was that the Russians would capture this city, and the capital, in a few days.

That assumption got a lot of Russians killed.

We heard of a reconnaissance group that had wandered closer to Freedom Square and been ambushed by local police with RPGs and rifles. A Russian soldier fell from his vehicle on fire. A group of babushkas (grannies), almost certainly Russian speakers, rushed up to the burning man.

They beat him to death with broom sticks.

That was a metaphor for Ukraine’s defence of itself.

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First invaded by Putin in 2014, Crimea was captured. Back then, Ukraine’s allies reneged on security guarantees to the young democracy and many, like the UK and the US, banned Kyiv from buying lethal weapons.

British and US intelligence knew that the Kremlin’s ambitions were for the conquest of all of Ukraine in 2022. They warned Volodymyr Zelensky that the Russians were coming in 2022. He didn’t seem to listen and his armed forces were very relaxed on the border just north of Kharkiv.

“I don’t see many preparations to defend against an invasion,” I said to a colonel I met two days before the Russians launched into Ukraine.

“You’re not supposed to,” he replied. But there were no signs of defences being raised at all. Because there were none.

Ukraine was sent reeling. But its population recovered their country’s balance.

Some military units scrambled to put up fights that western advisers thought incredible – such as the punishing defence of Hostomel air base against a mass airborne attacks by paratroops and Spetznatz forces just north west of Kyiv.

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Elsewhere, young veterans from the earlier years of combat reformed themselves into small teams in pick-up trucks, organised their own families inside occupied territory to spy on the invaders, and took on Russia’s mass columns of armour and infantry.

Around the world, footage of the ambushes on these columns emerged and gave small signs that tiny amounts of British and American military aid were having staggering effects. American Javelin and British NLAW anti-tank missiles slammed into armoured columns and crippled their advance.

Kharkiv, Sumy, and Kyiv were saved by swashbuckling units in Second World War SAS-style raids, which had far more strategic significance than any operations carried out by Britain’s nascent special forces in their early years.

In the south, villages organised their own counter attacks and Ukraine harnessed the horrors of Moscow’s mass starvation of their people in the early 1930s into an “over my dead body” rage that held them together.

By the summer of 2022, the national forces had regrouped, launched a counter offensive, and recovered vast tracts of land in lightning operations.

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Since then Ukraine has settled into a near stalemate of grinding horror – followed by the nerve-jangling new dimensions of drone conflict in which both sides have been reinventing the modern form of war.

Throughout all this, Ukraine has been defending Europe’s eastern flank against Russia on the ground.

In the political realm, though, Ukrainians have been dying in large numbers in a war to stop the idea that “might is right” dead in its tank tracks.

No one here had any idea that Donald Trump would so enthusiastically support the Darwinian doctrine of the Kremlin. But he has. He likes to back a winner. He appears to have chosen one.

Without question, Trump’s administration caused more deaths in Ukraine by ending American military aid for the country and set back its ability to defend itself than if he had continued to support Kyiv.

Meanwhile the rest of the west has been slow to comprehend the strategic danger Putin’s land grab poses – and the political horror that the Putin-Trump doctrine can lead the world towards.

First, Ukraine’s allies were slow to agree to send any kind of weapons, but when the anti-tank missiles arrived they were put to good an immediate use.

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Men like “Grumpty” a former software engineer taught himself how to drive a Russian T-82 tank from looking at Youtube videos. Along with “Achilles”, who was killed in the summer of 2022, and a small band of men, Grumpty destroyed 14 Russian armoured personnel carriers and tanks in one night not far from Sumy.

The Russians were found by the wife of one of the team, Achilles spotted the targets and called in coordinates to Grumpty who fired over and over again on the invaders.

This kind of act captured the public imagination. But did not deliver Ukraine the weapons it needed to win – barely enough to survive.

While Russia pounded Kyiv’s forces with hundreds of artillery pieces, it took months for small donations of ancient guns to come from the democratic west.

Long range rockets were restricted in how they could be used.

In Bakhmut, Ukrainians and foreign volunteers fought waves of Russian prisoners and conscripts forced into “meat attacks”. One American volunteer, Kevin, described with disgust how, for a week, he reckoned he killed “20-40 a day”.

But Russia hit Ukrainians with bombs from aircraft and long range missiles fired from Russian soil that were out of bounds to Ukrainians using any foreign equipment.

Forced to adapt or die, Ukraine is now the world leader in drone warfare and controls the Black Sea without having a navy made up of old-fashioned ships and sailors.

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With losses at around 1.2 million casualties, Putin’s war has been a disaster for Moscow. And Nato is now bigger as Finland and Sweden have joined the alliance.

Europe has covered the loss of America’s military support with €250 billion pledged compared to the US total spent of $115 billion. Much of this money goes on air defences.

Putin has switched his strategy to hitting civilians, blasting Ukraine’s energy systems and trying to break the will of its people.

Outside Ukraine he has managed to shape much of the debate over diplomacy – creating a narrative that Ukraine cannot win, should sue for peace, and give up at least 20 per cent of its territory.

Travelling from Nikopol to to Kharkiv through the fortress belt now demanded by Russia in return for thinking about a ceasefire, it is clear that most Ukrainians now want peace.

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But not one of them said that Ukraine’s security is worth the trade for peace.

Zelensky, and his European allies, insist that Ukraine needs security guarantees to ensure that Russia never attacks again, never returns to Putin’s public intention to re-colonise the country.

They claim that the only way to do that is to get America to be Ukraine’s protector.

But there’s no chance that the US could be relied on to keep watch over Ukraine, let alone send troops to fight if it got reinvaded.

That has to be the job of Ukraine’s European neighbours and wider allies in the West. Ukraine has shown what it can do with very little. Imagine what it could do with a little more help from its friends.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican army killed the country’s most powerful cartel leader and one of the United States’ most wanted fugitives on Sunday, notching a major victory while cartel members responded with a wave violence across the country.

The killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes during an attempt to capture him in Jalisco state was the highest-profile blow against cartels since the recapture of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán a decade ago.

Following Oseguera Cervantes’ death, gunmen unleashed violence across the country. Cars burned out by cartel members blocked roads in 20 Mexican states and left smoke billowing into the air. People locked themselves in their homes in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and Jalisco’s capital, and school was canceled Monday in several states as security forces were placed on alert all over the country. Even Guatemala reinforced security on its border with Mexico.

The killing could give the government a leg up in its dealings with the U.S. Trump administration, which has been threatening tariffs or unilateral military action if Mexico does not show results in the fight against the cartels.

But the long-term effect on Mexico’s security landscape remains unclear.

Here’s what to know:

‘El Mencho’ was the leader of a fast-growing criminal group

Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho,” was 59 years old and originally from the western state of Michoacan. His ties to organized crime went back at least three decades.

In 1994, he was tried for trafficking heroin in the U.S. and sent to prison for three years. Upon returning to Mexico, he quickly rose through Mexico’s drug trafficking underworld.

Around 2009, he founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which became Mexico’s fastest-growing criminal organization, moving cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl and migrants to the United States, and innovating in violence with the use of drones and improvised explosive devices.

The cartel earned a reputation for brazen attacks on Mexican security forces, including downing a military helicopter in Jalisco in 2015 and attempting a spectacular, but unsuccessful, assassination of Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch, who is now Mexico’s federal security secretary.

It recruited aggressively, experimenting with new ways to reach potential members online, and generated revenue through fuel theft, extortion and timeshare fraud, among other activities.

Oseguera Cervantes died in a battle with troops sent to capture him

Oseguera Cervantes was killed during an attempt to capture him, as his followers attempted to fight off Mexican troops.

Mexico’s Defense Department said in a statement that the army launched an operation in the southern part of Jalisco state to capture Oseguera Cervantes, involving the Mexican Air Force and special forces.

The cartel counterattacked, and in the ensuing confrontation, federal forces killed four members of the criminal group, and wounded three others, including its leader, who died later during transfer by air to Mexico City, according to the statement.

Three soldiers were injured and two people were detained in the action. Rocket launchers capable of shooting down aircraft and destroying armored vehicles were seized at the scene.

Mexico is keen to show Trump results in the fight against cartels

Oseguera Cervantes’ will help Mexico’s government show results to the U.S., which is pressuring its neighbor to pursue drug cartels more aggressively. Both countries said intelligence collaboration helped lead to Sunday’s operation.

Oseguera Cervantes was facing multiple indictments in the United States and the U.S. State Department had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest. The Trump administration designated his cartel and others foreign terrorist organizations a year ago.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was U.S. ambassador to Mexico during the first Trump administration, applauded the operation via X, writing “The good guys are stronger than the bad guys. Congratulations to the forces of law and order in the great Mexican nation.”

Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA, said Mexico had sent a “a strong message to Donald Trump’s administration that they are fighting aggressively and effectively” against the most powerful cartels. He added that “the majority of the information came from the Mexican armed forces and all credit goes to Mexico.”

Cartel leader’s death leaves a power vacuum

It’s not clear who will succeed Oseguera Cervantes, or if any one person can.

The Jalisco cartel has a presence in at least 21 of Mexico’s 32 states and is active in almost all of the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. But it is also a global organization and the loss of its leader could be felt well beyond Mexico.

“El Mencho controlled everything, he was like a country’s dictator,” Vigil said.

His absence could slow the cartel’s rapid growth and expansion and leave it initially weakened against the Sinaloa cartel on several fronts where they or their proxies are fighting. The Sinaloa is locked in its own internal power struggle, however, between the sons of “El Chapo” and the faction loyal to Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is in U.S. custody.

Vigil said Mexico should seize the moment to launch “an effective frontal assault based on intelligence.”

“This is a big opportunity for Mexico and the United States if they work together,” he said.

Security analyst David Saucedo said that if relatives of Oseguera Cervantes take control of the cartel, the violence seen Sunday could continue. If others take power, they could be more willing to turn the page and continue operations.

The greatest fear would be that the cartel turns to indiscriminate violence. They could decide to “launch narcoterrorism attacks … and generate a scenario similar to what Colombia lived in the 1990s,” a full on attack against the government “car bombs, assassinations and attacks on aircraft.”

At least 19 people have been killed, including a British national, after a packed bus drove off a mountain road in Nepal.

Some 25 people were also injured when the vehicle, travelling from Pokhara to Kathmandu, came off the Prithvi highway at around midnight on Monday (6.15pm on Sunday in the UK), police said.

Nepalese officials said the bus rolled down a mountain slope and landed on the banks of the Trishuli River, near Benighat, about 50 miles from the capital.

So far, only nine bodies of the victims have been identified.

But one of them was a 24-year-old from the UK, according to the Dhading district police office.

A Chinese national and a 27-year-old woman from New Zealand were among the injured.

Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

Government official Mohan Prasad Neupane said that rescuers reached the site soon after it happened.

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Bus crashes in Nepal are common, mostly due to the country’s poorly maintained roads and vehicles.

Much of the Himalayan countryside is covered by mountains and connected only by narrow roads.

In July 2024, two buses with 65 people on board fell into the same river and were lost.

Many of the passengers died.

Kenyan smallholders are celebrating healthier soils and soaring harvests following a regenerative agriculture drive led by Farm Africa.

The charity’s STRAK project – Strengthening Regenerative Agriculture in Kenya – aims to boost rural livelihoods and improve climate resilience, and has supported 60,000 farmers since 2017.

The initiative upskills local farmers in regenerative techniques. They are then tasked with sharing their newfound knowledge within their communities.

More than 70% of participating farmers in Kenya’s Embu and Tharaka Nithi counties have adopted methods such as intercropping, agro-forestry, crop rotation and use of farmyard manure. They’re reporting up to 81% higher yields and 92% improvement in water retention. Meanwhile crop failure, soil erosion and dependence on chemicals have sharply reduced.

Outcomes have been validated by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, which analysed samples from 2,000 project sites and reported massive improvements in soil health and microbial diversity.

“These results clearly demonstrate that regenerative agriculture is not just an environmental intervention, it is an economic one,” said Farm Africa’s country director, Mary Nyale.

“By equipping smallholder farmers with the tools, knowledge and market linkages to farm regeneratively, we are seeing sustainable improvements in yields, soil fertility and incomes. This evidence shows that regenerative agriculture can work at scale and deliver measurable impact for both people and the planet.”

Main image: Godfrey Kirimi displays tomotoes from his farm in Tharaka Nithi. Photography by Bertha Lutome 

Over 50 walkers went along on the latest outing.

East Kilbride Hiking Club headed east to explore the gentle hills and glens of the Pentlands, south of Edinburgh on their recent outing.

After a brief comfort stop at the Abington services on the M74 the coach travelled via Biggar to drop off 27 high level hikers at Carlops to start their 13km trail taking in five summits, the highest being 573m Scaid Law.

Meanwhile, 26 low level hikers started their hike a couple of kilometres farther along the A702 at Nine Mile Burn and passed alongside Loganlee and Glencorse reservoirs, on their 14km undulating walk, meeting up with the others at the Flotterstone Inn, Penicuik for a social hour.

The weather could have been better but the members are used to the occasional ‘dreich’ day so were totally unfazed by a bit of rain and mist.

The club website normally shows you where the next walk will be but not this time – the next outing is a mystery walk with a meal to finish and is fully booked already.

Check the website to see where the next available hike is headed, at www.ekhikingclub.co.uk

The club secretary May is looking forward to providing you with all the information you need to join this friendly group on the hills. Just phone or message her on 07981 307803.

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Firefighters were called to the scene at the Angelzarke Reservoir between Horwich and Chorley just before 9pm on Sunday February 22.

They say that a rope rescue unit was used as part of the operation.

A Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “At 20:57 on Sunday February 22 2026, two fire engines from Chorley and Horwich, from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, fire stations, along with the Rope Rescue Unit from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, attended a road traffic collision on Knowsley Lane in Heath Charnock, Chorley.

“Firefighters assisted in extricating one casualty from a vehicle and worked to make the scene safe.

“Crews were on scene for 55 minutes.”

A member of the public reported seeing the incident at the reservoir off Knowsley Lane on Sunday evening.

He said that it looked like a VW Golf had gone off the bridge.

Images and videos from the scene appear to show emergency services going about their work and helping to get someone to safety.

Members of the public have been encouraged to always call 999 in the event of an emergency as soon as it is safe to do so.